Balanced

Especially Sands, naturally.

Hipster Tiger is wearing it ironically. Just look at that ****-eating grin.

There seems to have been some swift editing of that post, though the replies sort of give away what was removed.

You'll just have to wait for the Atlantis Pack.

I don't know, "Animal Pack" seems meaningful enough in context. Think in terms of pack hunters, like a wolf pack.

I'm just going to gently point out that you're posting on an internet forum.

About a video game.

Based on comic books.

I posted my teasing "It's in the mid-70s here" post earlier in the thread in anticipation of just such a whiplash. Saturday afternoon, it was 76F when I got everything loaded in the truck. Right now, it's about 15F, and there are sheets of ice on the roads everywhere they haven't been ground away by the (understandably light, but undeniably idiotic) traffic.

It could certainly be worse, though--my sympathies to those laboring under truly frigid temps, and especially to those at risk of getting snowed in. Stay warm and safe.

"That's Per-VECT!"

Well, that doesn't sound dirty at all....

That was my empath's doing, not long after the end of the Civil War.

They say, "Our bad. Sorry for the confusion."

I wouldn't expect it, but given my "personal journey" take on Incarnation and the fact that the tech for solo-only missions exists, I wanted to address the possibility.

Agreed, though I would be dubious about making them solo-only. I would likely solo them on all my Incarnates, if only because I tend to think of Incarnation in roleplay terms as a personal journey. I wouldn't want anyone who only wants to team to be locked out of them, though--there are Incarnate concepts that would fit that mold as well.

Debuffaloed.

Sigh. No one listens to me....

The powers in the screenies aren't powers your character will get from the Lore slot, they're powers for the Lore pets (note the references to Lore allies, offensive allies, and support allies). That is not inconsistent with what we saw before.

We've gleaned a few details from things that have shown up in-game. I believe it has been shown that the Lore slot will allow you to summon two pets, which may be based on existing factions--I think one Lore we found allowed you to summon Praetorian Clockwork allies, but I don't recall for certain. These pets may be either offensive or support types, and you can mix and match (one of each type or two of either type). The support pets don't attack at all, but they're also indestructible, as the Lore Protection power shows.

The Interface slot appeared to allow you to add a secondary effect to your attack powers. I think there was a screenshot of an altered enhancement screen that had an extra slot connected to the powers, but I can't find it now. Does anyone else remember it?

Of course, it's entirely possible this stuff is wrong, or that it will change before it's released, since it's based on leaks of things that are a long way from release.

An SG-mate of mine said something like this in Pocket D once. Following an abrupt, pointy death, she found a golden title over her head that said, "Pwned by TA".

Just sayin'.

I'll join you. I'm very, very happy with the arc. The story isn't exactly what I envisioned when we were asking for more fluff during the GR beta (though in a few bits, it comes about as close as it could short of using my example dialog verbatim). It definitely hits the mark on the "feel" I was looking for, though--a distinctive, challenging, but soloable, arc that showcases the existing Incarnates while still distinguishing your character from them. It no longer feels like you're buying your apotheosis from a vending machine.

Now, so long as they continue to make a solo path available for all the Incarnate material, for the sake of those characters for whom Incarnation is a personal journey, I will stay very happy with it.

Part of the problem, I think, is that it's split between actual origin and bureaucratic "Origin".

The actual origin is what plays into your backstory, enhancements, and some mission dialog--it's where the character's powers really come from.

Bureaucratic "Origin", on the other hand, is just a pigeonhole. Like most other bacteria, bureaucracies fission when they get big enough. The FBSA, for example, split into the "Origin" departments, and now some paper-pusher has the job of shoehorning each new super into one department or another--no matter how much lube is required. They probably just go by keywords; a regular guy with an ax gets the Natural form to fill out in triplicate, but a regular guy with a magic ax gets the Magic form, even if he can't spell "spell".

The problem is that only the bureaucratic Origin can be used as a trigger in the game, so when you base in-game stuff on it, you sometimes get conflicts. Not every Magic character can talk to lightning elementals, for example--and just how many of Iron-Crutch Li's earrings can one person wear at a time, anyway*?

You can usually handwave your way around these things, fortunately, but the devs need to be very careful when adding Origin-specific material. The bureaucratic Origins are just too broad to be reliably used as story hooks.

*(Seriously, that's a big hoop.)

1) Because "any two Rares" means you can combine any of the four Rares to make either of the Very Rares. The in-game chart may be more aligned with the crafting requirements, while the chart on the website may be more aligned with the effects. As a result, all of the things that can be used to make a Very Rare run together in the in-game chart before splitting back out to the final boosts.

2) Perhaps because it affords the player more flexibility in the boosts they have available during the (potentially quite long) process of assembling the parts for their Very Rare. There seems to be little point in having both a Cardiac Total Core Revamp and a Cardiac Boost or Cardiac Core Boost. On the other hand, having a Cardiac Total Core Revamp and a Musculature Radial Boost could provide a useful degree of flexibility--you might use the Cardiac to cover your endurance while running solo, and switch to the Musculature when you team up with an Empath or Kin who can provide you with unlimited endurance. Most people might not bother to switch, but having the option beats having a useless lesser boost sitting there while you gather bits for the next upgrade.

3) We don't even know that there will be rare components, though it's certainly possible. However, the ability cost is specifically listed as "Any 2 Rare", not "Any 2 Rare, plus some other stuff". Moreover, it's listed that way in a chart that doesn't include components at all, but which does contain boosts labeled as "Rare". Granting that this is all speculation, it makes more sense to ground our speculation on things that are actually included in the chart rather than hypothetical things that may be added later.

Again, it's all guesswork. We don't know what the Rare boosts will cost--they might require rare components, for example--so any estimates of the total cost of a Very Rare are quite shaky. The numbers and reasoning I offered are simply what I used to set a goal for my main; hopefully, it will at least put me within striking distance of my Very Rare boost when the rest of the Alpha Slot goes live.