AquaJAWS

There is absolutely no way every single player is going to be pleased with every single addition to the game.

They have never said they will never introduce solo/small team content that allows you to progress toward enhancing your incarnate power. They have never said they won't ever put lower level league trials that aren't level 50.

For YEARS the forums were crawling with suggestions about adding end game content or upping the level cap to above 50. People have been wanting new and different ways to advance further, so they come up with the incarnate system.

Then after 2 trials come out everyone cries about wanting more rewards for doing them, which they just gave us and now everyone is complaining about wanting those particular rewards for free. If every thing in the game worth having was free, the game would get dull pretty fast? Sometimes you have to work to earn things.

Also, gating purely cosmetic things behind completing tasks in the game is not new (roman costumes, vanguard until recently, numerous other costume pieces, emotes, etc). The only possible new concept they are introducing with this is that the accention pieces that are level 50 only, but the roman costumes and vanguard costumes, without the 7 year pack of course, are level 35 and up, which is really the same concept, just a lower level. The new pieces even unlock account wide instead of per character like nearly all of the gated things before.

They also aren't going to announce any future content until they are SURE that it is definitely going to come out in the somewhat near future. No matter how well you plan, in software design it only takes one thing to spin that completely off course and then suddenly everyone is complaining that something specific is not here when they said it would be.

Whether the content is a league trial, a normal task force, a story arc, whatever, it ALL takes time to develop. We've had level 50 task forces for years. We've had level 50 story arcs. They chose to develop and expand something different that we didn't have before giving us more of the stuff we had to grind from level 1 to 50 in. They are putting more of them in so there's some variety in that realm rather than just only having the 2-3 trials to grind that everyone seems to keep complaining about. BUT it takes time to develop if its going to be any good.

As far as the incarnates are overshadowing the non...don't form ITFs with them, which you can do. Also, any of the incarnates can very easily unslot their incarnate powers and be right back down to 50, and I'm sure some would looking for a challenge. All...no...but some will. Others, well obviously aren't looking to do the same as you. It would be like teaming with a speed run team then complaining that they aren't killing everything.

Do I personally wish all of the new costume pieces were free and not gated, of course, who doesn't want new stuff for free! But I completely get why they aren't and am fine with spending my time earning them, especially since they are account wide unlocks once you do (after claiming the certification, which I don't like, but that's another issue). There's still the millions of other non-gated possible costume combos out there to use.

I want more trials. One or more per issue would be GREAT! More new challenging content coming every few months makes me want to subscribe to the game more. But I also want to see solo stuff. More tip missions. New high level task forces. New mid level league trials. New story arcs. And they likely will if you give them time. We've had 2 issues who had a big focus of the end game content, but we also got a couple new mid level task forces and many many other things that aren't incarnate specific. To say they are ONLY focusing on the incarnate stuff is unfair. We know we're getting monthly signature story arcs soon, a new level 20ish zone that looks quite cool, a new powerset (maybe more), new costumes, new trail auras, new begin-game content, PLUS a new trial. This is all announced and being worked on, plus a ton of stuff we haven't heard of yet.

From what I've heard, I thought it was implied that there would be 2 ways to start now, Primal and Praetorans.

Praetorians would either enter the tutorial, Precinct 5, complete that, choose Loyalist or Resistance, then enter Nova Praetoria, just like now.

Primals would have the choice of entering the new destroyed Galaxy City as a new tutorial zone regardless of the archetype, and through the events there, they would choose either Hero or Villain, except for epics which stick to their side (Blue for Kheldians, Red for Soldiers of Arachnos); Heroes exit the tutorial to Atlas Park, Villains exit to a new spot in Mercy Island, both redone to different degrees.

No idea if Galaxy City will still be a normally accessible zone and damaged now or what, but I'd assume it'll be damaged if you can, and more like a hazard zone, similar to the Hollows and not good for starting. Besides, most players take Atlas anyways.

Masterminds and Controllers were determined to be the most performance impacting archetypes of the 10 basics, which is why they were limited to help reduce some server load from the additional free players without them paying some money. I'd imagine some Dominators and some specific Defender power-set combos COULD potentially be as or more intensive than some specific Controllers, especially Dominators.

I'll bet the decided to gate the Masterminds, then in an effort to head off the 'Devs Hate Villains' posts that would inevitably come up they gated the heaviest blue-side archetype, Controllers, for parity.

Either way, while I would love to have everything in the game for free, we're not losing anything that we get now for the same cost as we're paying now, but instead getting a bit more. Some new stuff in the future may have a cost aspect, but I doubt we're going to get around that one. We also get 36 more levels of playing on 8 ATs that are still just as good as before for paying nothing.

My gut reaction when they first announced Freedom was 'uh oh' but after reading the details, it sounds like they are implementing it well, or at least intend to as of now (the actual implementation is yet to be seen fully). I'm not seeing a downside to the changes yet personally. New players and trial players can come in and play for free, which is good. Returning people can come back for free and play most of what they could before, good. Paying players can pay as little or much as they want for what they want without a sub, or pay the same fee as of now now and get more, good.

One question I'm concerned about with the easier access for people to create new accounts and new characters...how are free'ing up unused names going to be handled after this?

With anyone being able to create an unlimited number of accounts technically, create a couple new characters and taking up names, 'good' names could be taken up much more quickly and sat on.

I would assume VIPs won't ever get their names taken away. But will the free and premium players be able to create a character with a popular name, play for a month, then leave indefinitely and always hold that name away from the VIP players that may also what them.

Yes I know the term 'good name' is subjective and there are options for making misspellings or adding spaces or x's or whatever, but I don't see how it would be fair for paying VIP players, or currently active players free or VIP or premium, that they want the a name that's being used by a free player that played for a month and left never to return.

As a suggestion, maybe make it so characters on free accounts that haven't been accessed (the character, not the account) for 90 days, (and maybe premium for 180 days/ or a year), that name becomes available to be claimed by someone else. It doesn't immediately get generic-ed, but if someone else creates a character wanting that name, their's gets generic-ed at that point. So free player creates toon 'Super Cool Name'. They disappear or play another toon for over 90 days. 'Super Cool Name' is available to be claimed by anyone else. If no one does and they come back at 140 days, they still have 'Super Cool Name'. If another player (free, premium or VIP, whatever), though, comes in at 95 days, they can use Super Cool Name' and the free player's toon then gets a generic name.

Yes it will probably require more work for dev and its only a small issue now, however if we do get a large influx of new players or a large turnover for these new players, the name sitting could get really bad and unfair.

WAY too early to be too worried about stuff like this.

They've said multiple times on the forums and in the U-Streams that much more info is coming specifically about the Paragon Market and the Paragon Rewards (which are two different things). They've also said they are going to great lengths to ensure that they don't remove anything for subscribing (VIP) players, and if anything want to ensure VIPs get more than they are now.

If I had to guess at this point, I would guess the badge itself and future badges will either continue to be rewarded just as they are now...you'll get a new badge when you log in for the first time past the date you're supposed to earn it. What'll change is instead of you specifically getting a respec, costume change, power, or something specific, you'll get some quantity of Paragon Reward Points (which are different from the Paragon Market Points) that you'll use to 'purchase' from various rewards, most likely what we have now through the vet rewards plus more. Like every month lets say you get 100 reward points. You'll go in to the reward point store and you'll have an option of a costume change token, or a respec, or a costume set, or the sands of mu power, or the nemesis staff, or a pet, or the TuT, or the Reveal power, and so on. You then pick the one (or more depending on the cost).

Maybe a slight variation where instead of automatically awarding a badge, the badge will become available at the reward store for little or zero cost and you pick up the ones you want.

No it shouldn't be able to be customized as far as I know. The only interface proc that I'm aware of that has a visible effect that would normally be able to be customized is the reactive DOT. Others might have one of the generic icons float around them, like the purple or red shields and downward arrows when their defense or resistance is reduced, but those are standard effects.

Other things catch mobs on fire that can be customized, like Pyronic Judgement, nearly any fire based power. It was most likely it was from one of those powers that did it and not their reactive interface proc.

I'll bet they'll have a 21.5 with another trial, and 22 will have another trial and the next slots. There could be more trees for the current slots coming in there as well.

Currently one of the biggest gripes is that there isn't enough content to use to unlock the current slots we have. There's more than enough to unlock coming with 20.5 to keep us busy with that for a good while. I'd rather then introduce more content to use and unlock the incarnate stuff with before getting more abilities.

I'm hoping that First Ward is a high level coop zone, maybe even higher than Cim and RWZ. And in addition to pre-incarnate stuff, there's some incarnate story arcs and maybe those repeatable incarnate missions they mentioned a bit ago in there so there's a bit more than just trials to use the stuff in.

I think trials dropping shards is a bug. I've seen it happen myself, but everything I personally have seen from the devs has indicated that this is a bug.

To 'farm' shards, as others have said, just run stuff that you get a lot of kills, preferably of LTs and higher, like an ITF or LGTF. The shard/thread drop mechanism isn't the same as other drops like recipes and enhancements. For shards, each kill gives every character on the team a chance to receive a shard. For other stuff, each kill gives one person on the team a chance to receive it. This actually makes having a large team better to get shards because you should be able to kill things faster thus giving you more chances in less time to get one. The drop rate isn't great though. I'd say maybe 4-6 shards average on an ITF, though i've gotten over 10 one time, another time only 2, so YMMV.

In my experience, after you've actually unlocked your alpha slot and can actually receive shards, the best approach is to choose which tree you want to get, then run the specific task forces/trials/activities to get the specific components you need instead of relying only on shards if you can. Also run the WST to get your weekly notice. Focus on getting the components and notices, and use your shards to do the necessary upgrade conversions for the various steps. Once you know you have the necessary shards to fulfill your upgrades then start using shards for crafting individual components.

As of issue 20, there's also a thread-based path, which I haven't personally tried to go through much, that depending on how well you can complete the incarnate trials, this may be faster, however it will be more difficult to successfully get through them without your alpha boosts. However on the plus side, you're also working on your other slots with iXP at the same time so. You can also do one power with shard-based components and the next with thread-based, so whichever you enjoy more at the time may be the way to go.

Also, remember the incarnate advancement isn't meant to be something you get in a day. Its intended to be something you have to put forth some work to earn. Casually playing a few hours a few nights a week (maybe running one TF, maybe a few tip missions a session) i'd say it took me a month or so for the alpha slot, before issue 20. The next 4 slots, I started playing for few hours a night usually running trials almost exclusively, and I got at least one tree per slot to T3 or higher in a week or so, but then to get all to T4s, I'd say it took about a month. But also YMMV depending on your play habits.

Now that Null the Gull is enabled on beta, could it be feasible to copy the character in question to the beta server, go to Null, check and see who's left of the AVs using him, then continue on your main server?

As others have said, PC based games like MMOs that rely on the ability to use a keyboard and other complex controls have issues with going to consoles, major tv-based ones as well as portable, largely because the controllers don't have enough buttons to control a character as effectively as a keyboard and mouse can.

That being said, Nintendo's new Wii U looks like it could have some potential for improvement on that front. With the touch screens on the controllers, the controller can adapt to provide some of the more finely tuned controls while the main game-play stays on the TV. I'm thinking something like have the ability to assign the hard buttons to certain powers, then have an equivalent of power trays on the screen part. Could be and interesting experiment.

There's a Issue 20.5 beta forum section that would be more appropriate for this posting. This is for issues on the Test server, not beta.

If your forum bookmark is going to the English section, it can be found by clicking, in the tree up top where it says "City of Heroes Forums", just before "English". The beta forums should be at the top:

Main Beta Forums:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/forumdisplay.php?f=748

Bug Report Section:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/forumdisplay.php?f=751

Thread specifically for new Lore Pet Bugs:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=261663