Doctor_Gemini

Try doing that after midnight PST and see how far you get...

Yeah, no free costume pieces since Freedom...


...except for Defense


...and Olympian Guard


...So only two free costume sets out of three issues! I guess those are the "rare exceptions" since we got, oh I don't know, how many free costumes in the three issues before Freedom? Dozens? A few? One?

He's always level 1. The game doesn't have the resources to run him at level 2.

I just checked it out on live and basically on one of my characters I monitor about a dozen things. I was left with the big window and only 2 of my attributes still showed. After a minute or two the combat monitor window shrunk down to a 2 attribute size and I could re-add everything without problems.

We'll have to see what happens when I log in next though.

You could say that about every single niche activity in the game, and, unfortunately, redside is just a niche activity. I don't believe new content will change that because most people didn't give up on redside, they either never played it or never got much past the first zone. The devs killed redside when they made the decision to create an evil, corrupt, villain-run island chain as the setting. Not much fun, or point, playing a villain when most of your schemes are against other bad guys.

This is why the heroes won't get a win. Crises means co-op content. Giving the heroes a win means either coming up with an equivalent villain-side change. Since there's not enough redside players to justify a great deal of redside content, it's easier to do crises and listen to the storm of "villains are being forced to be heroes" than the cries of "it's not fair blueside gets something new and we don't".

We all know it's your alternate account. Just look at the way both of you type the word "at"...it looks exactly the same!! Just fess up both of you, you'll feel better for it.

As usual, you're throwing out results without context. One of the beta testers hit +2, by the minimum requirements to do so. In contrast, another beta tester hit +3 AND gained T4 in nearly every incarnate slot, in 7 days through trials. That's an order of magnitude difference that simply comparing level shifts does not address.

It sounds like you are using the negative argument that best suits you, however. Just as large of group have said "no incarnate content should be available solo" as have said "no content that requires teaming is allowed to contain a reward that isn't offered in non-soloable content". Both are in the minority, as well.

While your philosophy may work well for your game, the problem is we're dealing with this game. Seven years into your game, the long-term players will be used to team-only rewards. Seven years into this game, it is the exact opposite of what this game has always been.

While there have always been some rewards locked behind team content, as well as a few rewards locked behind specific activities. The incarnate system is not one that has a reward locked behind it. It's a system with numerous rewards locked behind it. Multiple powers, buffs, pets, lesser rewards such as costumes, emotes, and, prior to the Paragon Market, requested since day 1 QoL features.

Aside from the normal group that complains about anything they don't want, your hypothetical game would not whip up a firestorm over this level of reward for certain content because the players would be used to it. They were not in this one, and because of this, while I think the devs were right to create endgame trials to appeal to a wider group of players, I also think they alienated a lot of their players without bringing out some form of solo path, especially to the flashier powers and the Astral market, at the same time.

Yes, very reasonable...IF, of course, one does not compare it to trial progress.

So I'll just keep waiting for the devs to actually make their promised solo path as this is simply "giving trialers something to do while waiting for a trial to form" content.