Anchor

Then how about a punch preceded by a Rock-like spit-in-the-outstretched-hand maneuver? It's more mitten-friendly.

Swap out Electro for the Shocker. They were both in "Sinister" line-ups, but Electro was in the original Six.

(Looks at your start date. Looks at my start date.)

My I is just fine, thanks.

Yes, there has always been inconsequential endgame teaming content for people who wanted something to do with their 50s. Most of it was very easy to ignore because there was no real endgame system in place and the auction and invention systems eventually provided an alternative if you really wanted to tweak yourself silly. If you wanted Vanguard costume pieces, merits could be acquired at a slower rate through doing regular missions so you didn't need to raid the mothership.

However, the actual first 50 levels of this supposedly multiplayer game do not require teams. If anything, with the addition of systems like:

- police scanner/newspaper/tip missions to fill any gaps between contact-given story mission content (no random street-hunting for mobs, no teaming to run other player's missions for XP, etc.),
- the Ouroboros system to let you experience older content without looking for another player with the low-level missions you want to run,
- the ability to autocomplete or abandon missions you might otherwise have to scrape together a team to complete (Psychic Clockwork King mission that sat in my queue for six months, I'm talking to you),
- difficulty sliders so you don't have to pad your team to achieve the desired difficulty and reward for your effort, and
- the auction house and invention systems letting you buy materials for and craft IO sets that diminished the need for things like Hamidon raids for precious Hami-Os.

...the game is easily ten times more solo-friendly today than it was at launch. But expecting that solo-friendly nature to continue further is now unreasonable, childish, and demanding. I just don't buy that.

Honestly, I think 75-80% of the grousing about the Incarnate system would evaporate if Paragon would just say, "The aura to fart rainbows and other non-Incarnate auras and emotes currently tied to the Incarnate system will be available on the in-game store when it goes live." Incarnaters get it for free and a few months ahead of non-Incarnaters, but other players, players who might resent being forced into participating in the Incarnate system they would otherwise ignore, can eventually pay for it in Paragon Points. Everyone goes on their merry way farting rainbows.

If COH is a multiplayer game, and that's what everyone has been doing and should expect to be doing for high-level advancement from now on - and anyone asking for something non-multiplayer to do is being unreasonable and childish (unreasonable after playing a teaming-optional game for the better part of seven years) - why is one of the repeated concerns voiced about including a solo-friendly progression path that the number of people who would run the multiplayer Incarnate options would drop-off significantly if the playerbase was given the option to do something more soloable?

Then you are welcome to quit bumping these multiple threads as you do your self-appointed forum defender schtick.

I hadn't read your posts prior to making my posts and certainly wasn't responding directly to anything you said, even went out of my way to use the same language of the people to whom I was referring, but, yeah, it's all about you. (Insert eye-rolling smiley here.)

That might explain giving the items to characters on the same server, but can you not also uplift/take under your wing/send global mails to a character on a different server on which your Incarnate has never existed?

Did you say:

"One of the cool things about it is that not everyone has one."

"Maybe someday you'll be able to buy a nictus shield and broadsword with cash or reward points or whatever. I kind of hope not. But until that day comes, I'll feel cool walking around with mine on display, and I'll feel cool every time I draw my rularuu katana."

Then I wasn't talking about you.

Solo first was this game's bread and butter until 2011. If it was all that bad for a couple of years prior to that (years that I didn't think required any amends), why didn't you take your own advice and go somewhere else instead of hanging around waiting for things to change?

So you follow up being patronizing with being nonsensical.

Now back to patronizing.

See, I think envy is what people who want things locked up want. They want to be envied. They want to be cool. They want someone to look at them and think they're a special little snowflake.

Other than occasionally seeing someone who came up with a brilliant name that I wish I'd thought of, I've never been envious of a single player in this game. I am probably too arrogant for that. What could you possibly have that I want? I've got strong ideas and a decent eye for visual design. If one character concept doesn't work, I can come up with something else just fine. I don't sit around thinking about you and your widgets. In fact, other than making sure I'm not blocking anyone's view at the Auction House, I don't really give a thought to what anyone but me is doing in the game itself when I'm playing. Much like in the real world, I'm too busy to waste time on envy.

As a longtime player, I probably have access to pieces that others do not. Does this make me special? Marketing hooey aside, no. I have no problem with the forthcoming in-game store giving anyone access to what I have. Why not? It doesn't harm me or anybody else. I certainly don't desire to be envied or admired for all of this junk.

And you keep on fighting for your right to be arbitrarily deprived of content for the sake of what are ultimately meaningless achievements that disappear when the computer gets turned off.

I'm sorry some players would rather deprive other players from having a bit of code - code that thousands of other players definitely already have - because it would make them feel a little less "cool" in a video game, while having zero impact on the actual gameplay experience.

There's plenty of things to look forward to in this game - new powers, enhancements, new zones, missions, badges, etc. Finally being able to give your character the visual look you've always wanted but couldn't because you had to play 25-30 levels of the game to unlock a particular item isn't one of those things for me.

I start out with a concept when I make characters and work to make the visuals match the concept from the beginning. If the character creator fails to match my vision, the character idea is going to die on the vine. The Flaming Head would be less satisfying if his head didn't actually flame until level 30 when he unlocked auras. He'd be incomplete until then.

I believe more options = more creativity = stronger characters = stronger attachment to characters = better chance people stick around to enjoy this game = more playmates for everyone and more cash to keep this game alive.

Now that they've started, the system will only continue to work the way they want it to is if they keep adding to it. Otherwise, players can get bored.

For those who aren't bored, they will also periodically move the goalposts further away and diminish the value of previous achievements and levels of power in order to give players things to do to keep them from realizing no part of the game except the Incarnate System itself really requires for them to be doing what they're doing over and over and over again.

"I/we want an endgame system, you make me/us one" (or some other paraphrase) isn't a selfish request?

I've never seen a single request from the playerbase for an addition to this game that didn't seem to start with someone asking for something that clearly appealed to himself and his own personal use. It's just where a lot of ideas come from, and pitching an idea for something not for yourself doesn't make for a very compelling pitch. That it might appeal to someone else ends up as the flimsy camouflage of the self-serving nature of the request.

Given that you weren't here when the requests for an endgame system started in year one and got louder as more players hit level 40 (then 50) and had nothing to do but Hami raids and run the same TFs until they were blue in the face, I'm not sure how you can vouch for the civility of the initial requests.

And there's your cooky assumptions again. You think that if business has already been earned, someone cannot complain (has endgamer business not also already been earned over the last seven years, too?). Well, despite your assumptions to the contrary, not everyone in this game was catered to and pleased as punch up until April 2011. I suspect if anyone was 100% happy with this game before April 2011, they are probably 100% happy now, too, and NOT the people at whom you are still inexplicably cheesed off.

Maybe the concerns are long term, and not the the last two months (which is your personal development milestone and is irrelevant), which is why we've now got developers talking a bit about things coming down the road, like confirming new powerset development. Personally, what first got my dander up last week was about content in an issue that isn't even out yet.

There's also long list of unfulfilled hopes for this game that players are still sitting on when the endgamers have received their long-awaited due. For some, the Incarnate focus is the straw that broke the camel's back, not the first grievance they've ever had with the game. It just isn't as simple as you would like to make it out to be.

I think you're confusing two different things.

First is the concern about the development, which, as I have said is long term and immediate satisfaction is impossible. It could, however, be discouraging and worrisome to people looking down the road because endgame systems can change the nature of a game. It can be a guild/SG-imploding, playerbase-thinning headache. It remains to be seen how CoH will pan out, but we'd like to know what else is in the pipe. There is no short-term fix but more info, and the devs seem to agree and are starting to work on this part.

Second, when new rewards are tied to the Incarnate System, it is being perceived as unfair because the rewards are not necessarily Incarnate-related, it's a greater quantity of non-booster pack rewards of this type than have been released since last fall, and it's stuff everyone could potentially use because it's part of the game's strongest, most appealing element: the character creator. It has little to do with endgamers getting their due, as much as now that they have their due and its own set of gated rewards, where and when does stuff stop being arbitrarily dumped behind more gates in favor of content releases for everybody, including endgamers? You've finally got your endgame, and you can play it all you want, but it doesn't mean everyone wants to have to play it to access what are essentially basic cosmetic rewards.

Exactly.

Self-serving as I am, I want content that everyone can use and not have to buy a booster pack or grind the same thing to get it. I don't think this game needs more barriers to entry. On the other hand, champion of the long-oppressed that you are, you have a system of determining the deserving and undeserving based on wild assumptions and your own time-based criteria that nobody else is obligated to use.

If someone wanted to pay for existing costume bits that might be locked for their use, I have no problem with a microtransaction system for it. Not sure the NCsoft store could handle it, but at this point in the game, I don't see any incentive to standing in the way of access to costume pieces that might otherwise be locked up behind a badge or some other requirement. I'd hope the more solid the toon the player can make, the more attachment the player might have to that toon and the longer the player might stick around and help pay for the rest of the game. If someone wants to wait until they unlock the pieces the old-fashioned way, they have the option to do that, too.

I don't think anyone should have to pay for access to default capes or auras, though. They have been level-locked for silly lore reasons for long enough. If EAT level requirements can drop, so can requirements for capes and auras.

There is no shell game. Issue 19, the beginning of the Incarnate push - not all of the actual mechanics and trials, but the lore, the Ramiel arc, the first related task forces, the first related new mobs, the first incarnate power slots and loot for crafting enhancements for those slots - came out in November. This is where the push began. The focus continued in Issue 20 when the two trials went live with the remainder of the incarnate slots and other tweaks, and is going to keep going through 20.5 with another trial, more rewards (grumble, grumble), and grouping tweaks for trials. The content before that was Going Rogue.

I'm not sure why it's hard to understand how Issue 19 could be seen as the beginning of the Incarnate focus of the game. You seemed to get this point in your previous post when you tried to point out all of the non-Incarnate stuff that dropped around GR. If you wish to divide the push into phases of release, that's your call. I don't tie the Incarnate push to the trials going live because, to me (and I'm going to guess a few other people), it began last year.

See above.

And did I say when and what things became "compulsory?"

I have said in this thread that I don't like endgame systems in general and that the Incarnate System was completely ignorable prior to last week when I believe the rewards tied to the system began to outpace similar, non-gated "free" content released since last fall. Three auras and no costume sets is demonstrably, provably less than seven auras and 1 costume set. Might have been why you never heard of me before last week.

What sticks out at me is that we need to whack Black Pebble for being a PR bottleneck.

Putting aside the fact that this letter you're quoting was released after I made my post, the only alarmism I've had for Issue 21 is that it will come pretty late in the year. Nothing in the press release changes that belief. Nothing in the press release is new info, either, but at least they're reaching out. Clearly, someone is reading player concerns (maybe not mine), and might even think they're valid, and isn't just trying to dismiss everything out of hand.

And if you don't do it, Mr. Webster, your level 50s stagnate for A COUPLE MORE YEARS (which I can pretty much live with as the content doesn't require you to power up - yet), if you don't team the progress will be incredibly slow and expensive (again, I can live without it), and non-participation *now* starts to lock you out of more free character creation options than you've seen this year (which I think is an unfortunate decision on Paragon's part and hope does not continue in future development).

Can't say that I see how anything in this whole argument should cheese you off, frankly. Didn't you get what you wanted? Is your enjoyment diminished by less than universal love for the Incarnate System?

So, long-suffering players holding out in the delusional hope of an endgame system are more entitled now than gamers who weren't? Did those stubborn endgame cravers deprive themselves of all other new gameplay experiences that have been added to CoH in the intervening years? Surely they had to level up through some kind of content so they'd be ready for the endgame whenever, wherever it was going to arrive. I hope they tried not to enjoy it.

And you might not be begrudging (after all, how can you resent people for the content they don't have?), but, boy, are some of you guys really defensive about a little bit of code. You yourself bopped in here to drop insinuations about me making demands for immediate satisfaction, when I've done no such thing, and that I think changing *anything* is a bad thing, which I've never said. I've also got TonyV alternating between being patronizing and coming up with vivid mental pictures of what kind of power leveler I must be to not like the built-in grind of the endgame system. It's like after seven years of CoH, I've suddenly become impatient.

So, yes, it's all been sunshine and puppies since I opened my mouth. Is it any wonder I don't want a system that forces me to share a map with some of you in order to make my character a wee bit more powerful?

I don't see how calmly asking to be given info about future development is throwing a fit.

Once upon a time, somebody had to ask for an endgame system, right? Was that selfish? How about PVP? Or the flashback/Ouroboros system to visit content you missed? Or wolf head costume pieces? There's a lot of content in this game that was driven by player requests.

Questioning the future of the game based on its present direction is not an accusation of an unforgivable crime. Expressing concerns based on experience with games that took a similar route is not an accusation of an unforgivable crime. Asking for reassurance and info on future content is not an accusation of an unforgivable crime.

I find your comment above really goofy - and begrudging (which you said wasn't happening just a little bit ago). It assumes that I've been "catered to" by the gameplay as opposed to "not been hindered by." It assumes that I'm in love with everything that's happened in the game the last seven years even though it includes things like more TFs I'll never run. It also assumes that I've always received what I wanted, despite things like the gutting of the scrapper invulnerability set back in the day that had me put my poor scrapper on the shelf for almost two years out of disgust. Finally, it assumes that I haven't been waiting just as long as, if not longer than, some of the endgamers for something to do with my 50s.

You're 0-4.

I *am* dealing with it, probably in the exact same way those poor endgamers did many years ago when they said "hey, what about us?" I'm just not going to sit around and wait for six more years in a game that doesn't have six years left in it. You deal with my dealing with it.

And I guess I'm not alone. LOOK! The devs started to throw us some bones yesterday. We've got the reassuring producer's letter up on the game website and Positron did jump into another thread that was heading in a similar direction to confirm new powerset development. Good news everyone can use.

For the record, it appears your definition is skewed by who you think actually deserves something and who does not, Mr. Webster.

Anyhoo, I'm tired of carrying on three conversations at once.

Thanks for the confirmation.

You want to split hairs that fine, you go right ahead. I'm not. We all decide for ourselves which issues are worth it and which are not.

It is possible to dislike the Incarnate System without disliking all things goatee universe. I really like Praetoria. Ive been making Praetorian-themed counterparts for my heroes for years now.

That endgame trial lore is wrapped up in Praetoria does seem a bit contrived. Incarnate wannabes will be leaving their world, Primal Earth, with its higher quantity of known Incarnates to knock heads with non-Incarnate mobs in Praetoria who will have 30 levels or so on any mob a native Praetorian would ever see while running around their three-zone city with its level cap of 20 or so? One day, the developers will release the trial that will let you fight Tyrant instead of his non-Incarnate goons. That some of you might have kicked his tail solo or in a small team in missions in the past (and have the Statesman's Pal badge to prove it!) will be irrelevant when he hands Incarnates their rainbow-farting backsides.

Again, the Well of Furies works in mysterious ways...

I'll stick to my timetable. Issue 21 is in the pipe, but it's still unannounced vaporware.

November is when Issue 19 came out, and that's when the Incarnate push began. The additions before that were in August, when Going Rogue came out, and that was not free. I've been here seven years and I think I've got a handle on the pace at which Paragon works. Issue 20.5 might be out by this August, but Issue 21 and whatever it holds will not be done and released in two months, too. If we're lucky, maybe October-November. That means it will probably be at a year or more between releases of free non-Incarnate-focused content.

Again, I don't see anybody in any of these threads demanding anything immediately. Rather, they are trying to see where the game is headed and the long-term view is extremely unclear. A year with low amounts of free content for them late in a game's lifecycle is worrisome. The silence from Paragon is killer. They would like some reassurance of something coming down the road. You can do that without dropping content on to live servers. A press release and a couple of screencaps, just as they sent me over the edge from longtime passive observer to pissed-off customer last week, will also work wonders for morale.

Again, you can blame Paragon for spoiling us. Bad, bad, Paragon.

This may come as a shock, but some people don't see the need for an endgame in MMOs at all. Personally, I think it's kind of absurd to demand that kind of resolution in an open-ended game. Players will grind through it, get to the "end," the developers will create more endgame content, and then knock players down a few pegs with some kind of contrived story about an even *greater* threat than the last (at least, that's how they do it in that really popular fantasy MMORPG). So, back to the grind again.

As there was no compelling reason presented by the game content to pursue the Incarnate level of power, and no moronic lore reason to explain running anything multiple times, it was very easy to ignore the Incarnate System and its forced teaming until last week, when further rewards got arbitrarily tied up in the system. What's the reasoning behind Incarnates being the only ones who can fart rainbows when they fly and run with lightning shooting out of their toes? The Well of Furies manifests itself in mysterious ways...

Second, to borrow your AC/DC analogy, I think if I wanted to hear Black Sabbath, I wouldn't hope for seven years that AC/DC would start sounding like Black Sabbath and would instead go listen to Black Sabbath. How important was high-end game progression in this game prior to late 2010? As of June 2011, the level cap will have been raised one time, seven years ago with Issue 1. The rest of CoH's endgame is about six years late. If you really wanted a raiding-style endgame, just as if you really wanted PVP, CoH wasn't the place to find it and you might have been better off moving on years ago. There were plenty of other games that would fit your needs with fleshed-out systems that would have you praying that nobody ninja'ed your hard-earned loot years before CoH had the Incarnate System. (I thought the loot-less, non-raiding environment of CoH was actually a really nice change of pace for several years.)

Finally, it's not about resisting new gameplay experiences. The game has seen plenty of gameplay changes over the years, all of which were wonderfully voluntary, so you could take them or leave them. It's when the voluntary starts to become compulsory that problems arise.

Unless you are paying for my sub, I'm not sure where you get off you telling me or anyone else how to play the game and what we should find to be fun. You don't even pay enough attention to what other people post to know what "suits Anchor" or what I've wished for. I know what suits TonyV, though: Running the same missions on the same map against the same mobs with the same toon and the same powers over and over and over again and over again for shinies. And he doesn't want anyone to have those shinies who didn't do the same thing he did. It's a super attitude for a dwindling clubhouse of a video game. Given that I probably wouldn't team with someone with your attitude unless I was being forced, I can see how the Incarnate System has an appeal for you.

And I haven't asked them to churn out anything. In fact, nobody in any of the threads on this subject have asked them to churn out anything. Nobody has asked for anything to be handed to them without effort, either. Moreover, nobody has asked for the Incarnate System to be dismantled to make way for something else because they seem to acknowledge that some people do like it while they themselves do not. Maybe the fact the current endgame system ignores them is because they didn't speak up enough before because they thought something was in the pipe for them. Now, they're not so sure.

When all of the announced new content since November is being funneled into either the Incarnate System or paid booster packs, people are absolutely entitled to wonder what is in it for them. Paragon has to earn their business, too. Development is clearly happening, but the focus is not on the things that were the reason they stuck by CoH for years. Why continue to invest in the game? Here's a hint: It's not for the opportunity to run costume contests in Atlas Park. People don't play a game for seven years for that. They play it for new powersets, costume pieces, archetypes, missions, zones, mob groups, new stories, zone revamps -- that all-inclusive content that players, old and new, can enjoy on their own terms and that CoH has provided largely without restrictions. We expect CoH to give us the same standard of what it gave us for the last seven years and that now makes us sound entitled? Or our years-old playstyle is now "weird?" Or that we're in a "tiny minority" for not being pleased with the state of affairs? Shame on Paragon Studios for setting such a high standard and shame on us for holding them to it.

If the endgame exists only to support TonyV running BAF 40 times on the same toon, TonyV will be paying to keep the lights on himself.