Dromio

Originally Posted by Dante

Many a true word is spoken in jest.

Originally Posted by Crystal_Smoke

I hope this is on-topic enough not to hijack the OP's thread, but the discussion brings up several questions in my mind. I haven't played my brute in a BAF yet (nor my tank, who is not yet 50) and I'm not sure I fully understand how I should deal with the sequestering on them. It sounds like some of you are saying that taunting aggro to yourself when you see another player get warned is recommended, but then what? Is it best to simply continue attacking and lay off taunting, and always to move away when the 2nd warning pops? Advice is appreciated. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Santa_Laws

I did find it humorous that you employ the same tactic for stealthing that I do.

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect

Tony makes a good point here. Any solo Incarnate content will be designed in such a way that it will not take away from the Trials, unless the devs want to have busted their butts for the past year only to have no one ever play the stuff they were busting their butts on.

It will take significantly longer, and will probably be more or less mutually exclusive. Probably having the same timer on Empyrean Merits to stop people from running whatever solo content and then a trial in order to progress twice as fast.

The devs would have to be idiots to spend this much time on something only to turn around and make it completely redundant by adding easily farmable solo content.

So, in essence, yes, we will almost definitely be getting SOME kind of solo Incarnate content. But it's not going to be as easy as people are wanting it to be. Remember how hard Trapdoor was before people figured out how to beat him easily? Yeah, imagine stuff like that, but geared toward characters who are already Incarnates.

Originally Posted by TonyV

That's precisely what offering this stuff for sale would do. As it is, when you see someone kitted out with Incarnate stuff, you know they've put a lot of time and effort into their character. Offer it for sale, and let's be honest. Everyone and their brother is going to buy the stuff because it's just so damn easy to fork out some cash instead. Hell, I'd buy 'em, and I do like the trials.

This completely throws the concept of Incarnate shinies in the trash, and it would become just another Booster Pack. What people keep missing and/or ignoring is that these are intended to be long-term rewards. It's also intended to be completely optional. I'm pretty sure the devs are smart enough to not make it a matter of, "Shell out $10 and this reward that we designed to take months will only take you the 30 seconds your computer requires to log in." This whole thread is moot.

I swear, first people complain about how the Incarnate trials gate their character progression. "I HAVE to have fully level-shifted 50s!!! Waaah, unfair!" Okay, so here's some stuff that has diddly to do with your character progression, it's completely cosmetic. "You can't even gate non-gameplay stuff!!! Waaah, unfair!" Let's just get to the point, why don't we? You don't like Incarnate trials, thus you want absolutely nothing gated behind them. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Because no matter what long-term reward it is that they put back there, someone's been slapped in the face, someone's getting ignored (god forbid anyone has to tolerate doing anything they don't want to do!), someone's going to whine and moan.

Even more generally, I don't even think it's the Incarnate trials that have people all astir. It's the whole concept of any long-term rewards, period. I've seen these same arguments break out every single time the devs add something to the game that takes more than two or three weeks to achieve. Every. Single. Time. It's been going on ever since launch, when people were complaining that it took too long to get to level 40 (soon after changed to 50). People complained about the number of Hamidon trials they had to run to trick out their 50s. People complained that some of the badges "required" farming to get. People complained that it's "impossible" to get purple IOs on their characters. And so on, ad nauseum.

Here, we have long-term rewards with a bonus. Once you unlock them, you're done. You don't ever have to unlock them again for any of your characters, ever. Instead of thinking, though, "Hey, that's awesome, a LOT better than the old way of having to run these things on every character!", no, we're all so tunnel-vision focused on how awful it is to have any long-term rewards, we sit here and wallow in misery, posting a constant litany of complaints in every thread. We want everything there is to have in the game, and damn it, we want it NOW!

Most of the time, the devs put the stuff in the game anyway. Then within a few weeks, farmers start earning it. Within a few weeks after that, avid players start earning it. Within a few months, average players start earning it. Within a year or two, damn near everyone has it. And you know what? Somewhere around the few months mark, it just doesn't seem like a big deal any more. "You don't have it? Well, I have it, so it must not be so impossible to get it after all. All you have to do is work a bit on it, and you can have it, too." The day will come, I promise, when people who are just casually doing Incarnate trials now will be decked out in their Incarnate armor shinies. Of course, by then, we'll probably have other long-term shinies to earn, and we'll have to go through this same damn exercise in forum frustration yet again.

Edit: And you know what's particularly frustrating to me? The fact that there's a firmly established precedent for the stuff people are bemoaning to be made easier eventually. Remember experience smoothing, which made getting to level 50 a lot faster? Remember the Statesman Task Force, which made it relatively easy to earn Hamidon Enhancements? Remember Reward Merits being added, which gave you a guaranteed path to the purple IOs you want? There's no doubt in my mind that at some point, it will be much easier to get Incarnate shinies once the newness has worn off and other long-term rewards are added to the game, but make no mistake; there is no compromise on that NOW! part.

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex

Hasten: yes, remove the graphic (and sound!) immediately. If we ever get pool customization, it can be restored by the few people who want that look. It would be more suitable if all Fire were orange, but it often isn't.

Fiery Aura: That pulsing Fire effect is a real eyesore. It's hard to say what I dislike about it exactly. It just looks like less of an animation and more of a pulsing banner to me.

Everything else: I'm fine with for the most part. I don't get the sense at all that the effects are designed to be the only ones on the screen. I get the sense that the game was built to look chaotic, which is something it achieves. The Ice shields are unattractive though. I wouldn't mind Ice shields that looked more like a swirling icy mist.

Originally Posted by docbuzzard

However the devs are not in some sort of insidious plot to make you play the way they want. They are trying to control valid means of advancement. They consider the trials challenging content, and this provide the most expedient path to advancement. Other paths exist but are going to be slower as they do not constitute the same level of challenge.

Originally Posted by reiella

This will sound odd since it runs counter to what I just said .

But, I just disagree with you, iTrials are significantly shorter than most content that's come out in this game.

About the only time I'd see differently if you are talking about individual missions. Speed TF/SFs do run pretty fast, but many of those are only really getting that fast thanks to Incarnate abilities now. STF and Kahn come to mind really. As hyperbole, it feels like the fight with Reichsman in Kahn lasts as long as the freaking BAF does.

Unless you're contrasting against individual missions. Which I guess I can understand, but would simply pose that individual missions haven't really been a focus imo.

Originally Posted by Xenophage

Originally Posted by Dispari

True story: A dev told me in beta they were afraid people wouldn't run the trials they put so much work into if there was an alternative (even if the alternative was slower).

Instead of just making sure the trials are fun and stand on their own merits, they decided to force play of them by making them the only way to advance.

Originally Posted by Zombie Man

Actually, I wish that was the case. But even with one character, the GFX is too much when you see power aura layered over power aura layered over buff auras layered over the character's own costume aura.

Each aura is designed as if it were going to be the only aura running on screen without a care of not only what other players were going to be running, but without caring what else may be running on the same character.

I can sympathize with all the GFX artists who want each GFX they create to be a *wow* moment. But you can't have a single toon running around with ten *wow* auras at the same time. IT LOOKS UGLY. UGLY. UGLY. That's the one thing I know artists don't want to hear, but you can't layer a Michelangelo over a Monet over a Van Gogh over a Picasso and think it's only going to get prettier with each overlay. In the end, it will be a grey and brown washed-out mess.

GFX effects need a big splash when enabled, and then they need to fade away, even when the toggle or buff is still running, otherwise it will always be GFX overload.

Originally Posted by Lazarillo

Sometimes, the AVs just wanna kill ya. Back off, move to ranged attacks or fight the ambushes. If no one in the League is making an effort to support you, then that can be their problem.

Originally Posted by DMystic

Well why are you tanking the both of them at once?

BAF requires a minimum of 16 people, of the other 15 that are there your telling me not a single one of them is a Brute or a Tanker?

Letting a secondary tank grab the agro of the other AV will easily solve your problem.

Also saying Held after you do get sequestered will let the rest of the League know what happened so they can act accordingly.

Originally Posted by Rodion

There is a solution of sorts for players that can't stand the graphics certain buffs have. Create a bind load file and put these lines in it:

CTRL+O "suppressCloseFxDist 300"
SHIFT+O "suppressCloseFxDist 4"

Then load that file with all your characters.

When you get buffed with something you can't stand, press CTRL+O. Most of the graphics on your character will be suppressed. You can turn it back on with SHIFT+O.

This won't solve the problem of ongoing area buffs like the big sonic bubble or the big force field, or graphics on other characters, but it will prevent the display of regular bubbles on your character. I used it because at one point my Dark/Dark scrapper's graphics effects caused ridiculous lag on the graphics card I had at the time.

Originally Posted by JD_Gumby

Other than not being able to buff your entire League, and probably being poison to your Participation score just keeping up with your own team, I'd've thought the extra 30% or so Def it brings would be quite welcome (at least by the melees) with the softcap being around 60% in the Trials...

Originally Posted by Taterrex

Well my fire blaster I just finished lvling got an entire 1 day to have fun with this, time to delete him now, I hate how much the devs make radical changes in this game, they could have at least let reactive proc once every 10 seconds in rains but that is far too much to ask. I can't wait until SWTOR comes out.

Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill

I think if they let you put it on anyone, they'd definitely remove the "depends on level" anyway.

Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill

Just as a side note - comparing range is rather pointless there. It doesn't affect the power's effectiveness. Just how close someone has to be to have it applied to it. And since t's set to be applied to pets... *shrug*

Also, it looks like you're ignoring what Noxious Gas actually does:
-Defense - in an AOE around the pet. So EVERYONE has a better chance to hit.
-Resistance - So, not only does everyone have a better chance to hit, they hit harder.
-Damage - so if that pet gets hit, they're hit for less.
-Tohit - so there's *less* of a chance they'll get hit.
Chance for hold - and being a "vomit" animation, well...

Recharge isn't as useful for a pet. Noxious Gas does quite a bit, and does it in a Pet-based AOE.

Versus Painbringer:
+Recharge - again, not as useful for a pet.
+Damage - Are we looking at a single target or a pet that uses AOE? And this doesn't help the REST of the pets, and the rest of the TEAM, hit harder (as the AOE -Resist (all) does.)
+Regen - meh.

About the only thing that could really be said is "Let me put NG on anyone."

Originally Posted by JayboH

Again, I want to stress how wrong I find it to have auras nerfed with Interface. Psuedo pets/rains/caltrops nerf make sense, auras do not.

Originally Posted by StratoNexus

I am sure this is a change to Interface as a whole. I only tested Reactive and Diamagnetic, but I see no reason why the others would be excluded.

Reactive was simply the most visible problem. I am sure it was never the intent for people to be able to cast one power and then saturate all targets in an AoE with the debuffs. Pressing Freezing Rain, debuffing every target's to-hit by 20% and regen by 60% after just a second is not as immediately ridiculous as killing them all like Reactive was doing, but still way more than I would ever expect from Interface with one power activation.

Originally Posted by Scientist

Thats the challenge for that kind of thing; you pick up some survivability that way, but lose most of what you just gained if you don't do ANOTHER IO build. That said, I added DN to my IOed out tank build because when you need that last bit of survivability is generally on hard, high end content protecting a team. I'm willing to let the team handle the damage in such a case, if I want to solo on a tank I can do it on SOs and survive fine, or even switch to a scrapper or MM.

Darkest Night is indeed quite effective on things like hard hitting AVs, as was said earlier -damage is one of the few debuffs AVs don't resist, and unlike defenders and such who run toggles you have mezz protect so it won't get turned off. Warning; it is a bit End intensive to run, so be cautious using a lot of AoEs while its going. I also went with Void for the -damage, I want to be darned sure I don't drop when team tanking. Finally, for Barrier I went with the large area Rebirth (60' radius), as its not unusual on a good tank to be in fine shape while all your support around you is dying because they are mezzed, or getting hit with AoEs or something. Scirrocco on the STF is notorious for this. If you want the fight over fast, you want those defenders and blasters to stay on their feet and debuffing and shooting stuff. And -damage helps there as well, by the way, those AoEs are doing less damage to the squishies.