Arilou
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Yes it was. You just choose to ignore those rewards.Originally Posted by Eleven
This game was not like this before when it came to rewards and is still running 6 years later.
Why change to this now? -
Quote:That's weird, we usually have a ton of chatter (IC and OOC) in league chat.Originally Posted by Twisted Toon
Agreed. I have yet to talk to anyone, but the person forming the league for a trial, while "participating" in the trial "experience".*
*the trial experience includes the wait for the trial to start after the league is formed. -
Quote:Honestly, I suspect the ideawiht the auras and such is to pay fr what you want, and not jut buy everything. They'e relativey cheap if you think of it that way.Originally Posted by Necrotron
Trials can be fun in moderation, and moderation is exactly what I intend to take them in. I did two Lambs, one Beef, and one Key Lime Pie a couple of days ago, I did the weekly strike target yesterday, and I may do some more today if the mood takes me. Or, I may go play another game and charge up to people so I can smash grenades into their faces. While drunk. As long as it's fun, I'll play; I absolutely, resolutely refuse to grind.
With all of the rewards combined from the above trialling (inf-to-IXP, shards-to-threads, notice-to-threads, merits, salvage tables) I have managed to get myself a tier two Interface, a tier one Judgement, enough IXP to unlock both slots and still end up with more influence than I started with. That's perfect. The solo rewards path is most certainly broken as all hell, and I feel for people who dislike teaming.
I don't like how expensive the Ascension Armor is, but I accept that it's very much an Incarnate reward. On principle, tying costumes to end-game rewards of that magnitude is not something I am a fan of, but the costumes have been designed to be Incarnate-related from the start.
Now, having said all that, gating the auras and emotes behind Astral merits is absurd. In my "take it as it comes" pace, I cannot spare so many merits on things so trivial, and yet they are genuinely good costume pieces that I may want. I spend as much time inside the tailor as the next man, but I won't spend ten Astrals on any generic aura, costume piece or emote.
The thinking of the developers is clear as day to me. They had these new path auras and emotes, were in the middle of finishing Freedom, and wanted to bulk up I20.5 a bit, so they added them into the Astral and Empyrean vendors while they were there. I'd much rather put some Paragon Points towards the auras, but until Freedom launches, there is no effective way of selling them to us without putting them into a Super Booster. I feel their pain, as small Boosters (like the Party Pack) are derided, while Super Boosters carry the expectations of costume change emotes, auras and a special themed power.
I won't spend merits on the new path auras and emotes, but when Freedom launches, I have faith that Paragon will make them available there. -
May I say how strange the question is? One-handed sword is a concept totally distinct from two-handed sword. There's no reason at all to switch them up.
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My DB/WP scrapper? No. The rapiers was the entire reason and a Titan-sized rapier would look odd to say the least.
Lictor Jones is an Axe/Shield brute so again, no.
Depending on what kind fo weapons are there I might make a new one, but really, no character needs a titan weapon. -
Quote:Yes, those who say that are jerks.Originally Posted by JKCarrier
By this logic, all the people saying "We want more trials, you solo players can suck it" are likewise being dismissive and combative, correct?
Luckily, the devs are splitting there attention and providing both types of content. -
Yes. It makes a huge difference, both in your damage output, the need to summon pets, and how often you run out of end.
Great changes all in all. -
I'm not very interested in Titan Weapons myself (I really don't like the final-fantasy style megaswords, although railroad crossing sign? That's WIN) but I do like that they're making one for those who like that kind of thing.
Power Gauntlet... I don't get that. It's one of those sets that can easily be duplicated just with energy melee or energy blast.
EDIT: I'd actually be more interested in a one-handed light-blade set, more towards the fencing style. (We already have Dual Blades of course but...)
Alternatively give us a couple of custom animations for BS
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Quote:No it isn't. It's borderline too easy/fast. I'm pretty much done kitting out my level 50's already, and I haven't exactly played intensively, and I've bought about half of the costume pieces too.
And don't worry about it being 'too easy' to level incarnates in trials, because one, its a long way away from being 'too easy/fast'
It's not too easy, I'd say it's on the lower end of "fine", but you really can't make it much easier without making it completely trivial. -
*sigh* I wish they'd just make a couple of official threads on the subject, so we didn't have to keep track of eleven different threads on the same bloody subject...
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Quote:You'd need to get both Thermal and Fire Blast ported to defenders in that caseOriginally Posted by Benchpresser
FF definitely seems to be the real winner with this change- I'm even toying with the idea of making one.
Time Manip I admit.. I WANTZ IT NAO!!! (might be the fact that I'm a rabid Whovian and anything time related I love) But my 1st love is still Thermal. I was running through the arcs in Imperial City last night and happened accross a small group- 4 players, 1 being a bot MM. I dropped into the middle of the group.. hit 2 buttons and Viola! everything shielded! I LOVED it!
Now if only Thermal would get ported to Defenders so I can make a thermal/Fire Blast Defender!! (Better living through Immolation!! muhahaha.. sorry, got carried away)
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Quote:Yep. Fixing PVP shouldn't be *that* time-consuming (well, depends on what level you want it to, if you want it fixed to Starcraft levels of competitiveness, it's probably beyond Paragon Studios' budget) but they've got better things to do.Originally Posted by Tokyo
So what you're saying is that if the development team wanted to take the time to repair PvP the developers could and it isn't simply a matter of development time or insufficient work force. Rather it's a question of whether developers feel it is worth allocating development time and labor to?
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Mind, given Samuel_Tow's proclivities I suspect by non-incarnate content he means free costume pieces, and everything else counts as incarnate content.
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Quote:I was doing that arc undercover as a loyalist, and Marchand's reaction is pretty interesting.Originally Posted by Winterminal
For bringing out the rage in me, "The Evil Countess Crey" from Janet Kellum takes the cake. Seeing the false corporate face of Crey throughout the entire arc makes me really engaged in taking her down at the end.
Lady Grey's Task Force really gets me when the Honoree returns. When they reveal the warped, twisted version of Hero 1, and then you have to fight him... oh man, gets me right in the chest.
Finally, "The Savage Man" from Aaron Walker, especially because of the times where you have to choose what to tell Noble Savage about his family and friends. What a mind job... -
Quote:I'm not sure we're actually getting much less regular content. As far as I can see we've got:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
By virtue of that being almost exclusively what we've gotten since Incarnates came to the scene. If Matt Miller's explanation had held water, we'd have seen at least a comparable amount of non-Incarnate content being developed, but this hasn't happened. Now, again, this may be a case of most of the studio working on Freedom content so there being few people left, but we were promised the game wouldn't focus on end game all of a sudden, and it has.
This isn't about patience or preference or accusations. It's about the simple fact that one of the developer-stated problems and reasons they didn't want to do end game content to begin with has happened exactly as Jack Emmert and Matt Miller predicted it back in 2004, and Matt Miller's promised solution to that problem hasn't worked.
Also, the mere fact that they delayed Going Rogue, then launched it without End Game and had to wait a whole other Issue to so much as add it, and then wait a half-issue to add to it tells me that there's a hell of a lot more work involved with Incarnate than anyone cares to admit and, quite possibly, than anyone expected. They've blown several soft deadlines already, and the first couple of months after Going Rogue release were spent with people demanding their end game that they paid money for.
I'm more than positive that Paragon Studios bit off more than they could chew, and the small amount of content that gives Incarnate rewards is proof positive of that.
Three Incarnate Trials.
Two Systems (Alpha and post-alpha)
Two Incarnate Task Forces
For non incarnate-content:
Three new zones. (Praetoria) with a ton of contacts.
Two new taskforces (Admiral Sutter and Mortimer Kal)
The entire morality/side switching system.
Four new story arcs. (I think that's four... Or is it six? Can't remember if the clone stuff was pre-GR or not)
I21 is slated to give us:
A new trial.
A new zone.
(and the new low-level sewer trial)
Seems pretty balanced to me, and in line with the content we've gotten from most issues. -
Quote:Actually yeah, we did. Not you, but lots of people kept going on and on and on about it.
After all, when BABs said that power customization would take several Issues over the span of a year and a half to two years during which time the art team would be unable to do NOTHING else, you didn't see fans of power customization (myself among them) come down from the hills to insist "Doesn't matter! Do it anyway!" -
Those above are good.
It's not so much the story arc, but no moment in this game has the third mission in the ITF the first time beat. The way you just come over a hill expecting some fantasy/golem things and BOOM! 5th Column! It's like "WHEEE!!!??"
"To our Health" the final morality mission for Dark Watcher in Praetoria. And one of the honestly most difficult. Kill thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of innocents or free them from the numbing effects of Enriche?
Praetor Keyes' arc for the Loyalists is also good.
In general all the "contact arcs" when you start encountering Primal Earth forces (Arachnos, Longbow) in Praetoria are great. -
Honestly I'm not sure the devs are ever going to give you a SOLO path that's even close to being competiive. (That is, I expect a solo path to take at least between 15 and 100 times as long as doing the trials)
I *do* think you might get a small-team path though. That seems infinitely more likely. -
^ Keyes unlocks both of the slots. So it might actually be better to grind than Lam then BAF
That said:
I think the devs have kind of schemed it up into:
-Solo path. Which is insanely long and only a complete whacko would do it that way entirely, but then again, only a complete whacko would refuse to team.
-Non-trial path, which includes Apex/Tin Mage and TF's (WST especially) still long, but actually doable. (it would probably take you a couple of months at least, but you'd get there eventually)
-Trial Path, which can get you kitted out in a couple of days. -
Quote:BAF is the worst to me, but then again, I had synch-kill mechanics.Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Baf is the best for me. Keyes is just okay.
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Quote:And 99% of them are badOriginally Posted by Aura_Familia
The best companies take the best mix of customer ideas while still keeping a strong focus on what their goals are.
Paragon Studios thus far has been good about that.
We've made suggestions on how to expand the Incarnate system without needing to put epic amounts of man hours creating a solo or small themes path.
They're all over the forums since GR was released.
hint: take a look at the alpha slot, Notice of the Well being able to be converted to threads, and the difficulty slider.
The few that aren't will probably get implemented at some point.
Yeah, the devs do take a look at good ideas (and occasionally bad ideas) from the playerbase, but they ignore the vast majority of them because well... They're kind of crappy. -
* Incarnate trials. Especially Keyes' Island. Not the most efficient if you want the rewards, and the "stuck in geometry" bug is horrible, but otherwise really fun.
* The newer Story Arcs. Praetoria especially, but also the hero/villainside ones.
* TF's, ITF (although I've run it so muhc it gets abit stale) Admiral Sutter, LGTF, STF & LRSF, Posi, Apex & Tin Mage, Mortimer Kal... Even Ice Mistral can be pretty fun.
* Alignment/Morality missions. Although we need more of those.
* a lot of misc stuff, badging, designing costumes, etc. etc. -
Quote:I don't think it is. Keyes'... Voice is too different from his contact incarnation. (Which is odd because MM is exactly the same)Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
I dunno, story writing wise I'd say Keyes is cool. Plus I gotta give Keyes props for being man enough to take on up to eighteen PCs on his own when all the others need to keep calling in backup.
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Quote:Specifically, they wanted people who liked running trials and liked new costume pieces a way to earn costume pieces by running trials.Originally Posted by Winterminal
4 people, on one page, asking the same question pretty much independently of one another. At this point, I don't think we are even asking Pacur specifically (though, if you read this Pacur, I am still genuinely curious). It would be great to see an explanation from a red name for the reasoning behind this, preferably something other than, "We needed to give Astral Christy and Empyrean Michael more to sell than just the Ascension costume pieces and Incarnate power chest emblems." Because, while I'm sure that's part of it, that alone (without any other reasoning) sounds like the "easy way out" and so far, this MMO has been more innovative than that and I would hate to see that innovation decrease.
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Quote:Honestly, considering how repetitive this game is, I can't imagine how you'd stand it.Originally Posted by Clave_Dark_5
Yes, only three times!
I feel the same way about movies I really like - 3rd time in, I'm starting to know the film, to have it memorized - thus it's getting dull to re-watch it.
This game has always been fun for me due to alting and the plethora of content all over the place. When I do end up replaying some of it ("Defeat Tindelos and guards!"), at least it's coming at pretty spaced out intervals (like 2 months at a time) and it's over in ten minutes or so. This "end- game content", not so much.