Fiery_Redeemer

I decided to try it again post Issue 21. The star stayed after I finished the arc. So, it's fixed, at least on Vigilante side, though likely Heroside too.

Thank you Maniac_Raid and AquaJAWS. I can't believe I checked only on chest... sigh. Sorry to have bothered everyone but I do appreciate all your help.

Yes. Level 50. My only 50 in fact. I tried to claim in on my Main… L50 Tanker, Fiery Redeemer, All Incarnate slots unlocked and filled if that matters. Claiming the ticket went through just fine. To test, I did try to claim on a sub-50 alt, and the claim stays in the e-mail box. Redeemer’s processed, but… no costume. Thanks for the thought, though. I was hoping it was my screw up. But not so far. Thanks again for the reply.

No prebuilt costume either. Thank you for suggesting it. I'm really hoping I'm being dense, but it's looking like it "ate" the merits, and didn't give me anything for it. Must have done SOMETHING though. The costume tab is gone on the vendors, so it's not like I went "Suuuuure, I paid" kinda deal...

Thanks everyone for your suggestions so far though. It's appreciated.

Yes. All certificates are claimed. I even got the big bright yellow "Costume Part" graphic. So when I went to my least liked costume slot to change it... no new incarnate costume options.

I would make more sense to me if NOTHING had gone through, but I can do the auras, etc... at the tailor just fine. Just not the new armor. What category is it supposed to be under? I assume Armor? Though I checked Tight, Baggy, Unique... just in case.

I bought full sets of the Astral and Empyrean Incarnate costumes, but I can’t seem to find them anywhere. I tried every Category (Tight, Armor, etc…) and option, and no joy. Tried all three heroside Tailors… Nothing. I don’t even have the option to rebuy because the Ouroboros contacts show me as having all costume slots taken i.e. there’s nothing to buy there anymore.

I already petitioned, but just to be sure I’m not making a total noob mistake, under which Category and Sub-Category are the Astral and Empyrean costumes under? Side note = the Chest Symbols, Auras, Emotes, all worked fine. Just not the costume set.

I hope it is a glitch and not me being stupid, but any help to confirm either theory would be great.

FlyingCodeMonkey, your points are very logical and consistent, which is a big thing with me, but I couldn’t disagree with you more, at least as far as what I enjoy personally.

I’ve played a few MMOs other than CoH, and there is one thing in common with almost all of them = When you level up / gear up / or otherwise power up, old content becomes grey, easy and obsolete. If you need a drop from what used to be a tough 72 person L60 EverQuest Velious Ring War (EQ players will know what I mean by that), if you still want that ring later, a team of 6 L75 players can do it.

There’s no scaling down of players. No powering down. You kill the crap out of grey mobs that have no hope of hitting you. The steps you had to take to avoid the AoEs or ambushes or whatever, are completely ignored, because, they are so scaled down by the +15 levels that you just can’t be bothered.

It becomes obsolete, easy, and there you go.

I honestly don’t see why CoH has kept to that mentality that everything has to stay par, and players scale down, and nothing goes grey in missions / TF. I really don’t. Outside of missions, if you want to hit Judgement on L1 Hellions in Atlas, you can. But you hit a mission flashback or Task force, and unlike pretty much every other MMO out there, CoH scales you down.

Personally, I thought it was about time that I could bring an Incarnate L50 to an ITF, blow the you-know-what out of it, and call it a day. In fact, I’m still not happy about the “level shift in incarnate trials” unlike a pure +1 level, that you get, almost everywhere else, MMO wise.

Now the conclusion I get from this way of doing things, isn’t very positive at all, but I hope it’s logical. See if you agree that it’s logical or not.

In another MMO, say, EverQuest, they release an expansion for, say, +5 levels. They also give you 5 levels worth of content, which includes solo, team and raid play. The devs there totally expect that 5 levels of old zones will become grey and easy. If you still want the old items, either because there’s a hole in your armor progression at that slot, or you like the click power, or you just feel nostalgic, you can. It’s easy. It’s trivial. It’s obsolete. But you’ve got 5 more levels of stuff to do with new zones, raids, etc…

Why do you suppose CoH is (my words) “terrified” of seeing a grey STF or LRSF? Why are they giving us +1 level “only in new content”? instead of the +1 level period, of most games?

For me, it’s because there isn’t that much content. Sure, you can add “yet”, and that’s fair, but most MMOs release levels, and content, in a fairly inclusive manner. Here? We get Alpha, and 2 TF. Then, we get 4 more slots, and 2 trials. They can’t afford to make the old stuff obsolete because they just don’t have enough things to DO as an Incarnate if STF, LRSF, and all that becomes grey.

Personally, though, that’s a huge problem. I’m not sure why CoH doesn’t have the capability that other MMOs have. EQ, WoW, lots of other games don’t go with the “+1-2 levels in this spot right here.” They give you 5-10 levels, 5-10 levels worth of content, and that’s that. I love CoH, don’t get me wrong, but it does seem a little nickel and dime operation in contrast, when you have to curtail levels, because there isn’t the content to match it.

So yes, I was looking forward to blowing through ITF with my incarnate stuff. I was hoping each incarnate slot was a “real” level shift i.e. that I’d be doing LRSF as a L55. And more importantly, I was hoping that with a L55 Incarnate, I’d be getting another tier of Solo, Team and Raid for “L51-55” that matched in quality and amount what we got when we went from 45 to 46, and got all the new 46-50 content.

Now, you can easily say, “We’re not EQ / WoW” and that’s fair. But I personally look at what’s out there, and it is fairly transparent to me, that there just isn’t the resource (at this moment) to give us L51-55 in content. I just don’t think that artificially stripping away incarnate powers for old content is the answer. For me, the answer is, instead of 2 trials, have 5-10 arcs (sounds about right, 1-2 arcs per origin for every 5 levels) of solo, 5 new TF and 5 new Trials per group of 5 levels added. And I’d put my money where my mouth is and shell out some nice cash to make that happen.

Because, otherwise, as it stands, it feels like in 3 years, I’ll be getting a bunch of new powers, incarnate and otherwise, sure, BUT they’ll only or mostly work in the new content, and I’ll STILL be struggling in a pickup group in LRSF instead of blowing away 5+ Year Old content, as I would in any other game. Especially if they implement things the way you've described. RIGHT NOW, I can use Judgement in ITF, but if I understand your post well, you think it shouldn't. Or did I misunderstand? And I'm afraid devs might go that route.

Now, I’m not at all saying you’re wrong. Your points are actually quite consistent and accurate in how to preserve old content. I’m just saying it’s time (for me, and I think others) to wave goodbye to it, like in most games and look forward to the new, and not artificially preserve the old. Because some negative feedback about "why isn't it a level shift instead of an incarnate shift" seems to support that.

Now, just because another game does it, doesn’t make it right. But it doesn’t make it wrong either. I’m looking forward to a ridiculously easy TO ME (emphasis mine) grey LRSF / STF. I just hope I’ll see it someday.

Just did the arc yesterday 02/28/2011. No Gold star. Sent the /bug.

I don’t want to sound like I have multiple personality disorder. I’m ecstatic about the solo option. I actually don’t care how many shards it takes, unless it’s like Tier 6 Epic Badge level; i.e. if I can solo a L1 to 4 tier of Incarnate under half a year, I’m happy.

I am, however, concerned, about shards while examplared. I am actually on the dev end of things on this one and I’m worried about the potential exploits on this. A L1 Minion is much easier to solo as a L1 then to solo a L50 minion as a L50. For example, I can one-shot any L1 minion with my distance vet power. My L50 does some nice damage to a L50 minion, but no-where near one-shot.

I don’t want to see devs have to scramble to adjust shard drops rates if they overlook, well, not the above, the devs surely know this more than me, but the AMOUNT of work some will do to min-max the shard drop rate. I’m sure someone will post that (making this up) the “Fight Dr Vazhilok” arc has the best shard drop rate on all levels, and everyone jumps on the one exemplared arc. I’m sure the devs would adjust then and there, but we all know that’ll stem a 100+ page nerf thread, and I’d like to avoid the unnecessary bad feelings by thinking a little ahead. The devs know some players will min-max, but they are routinely surprised by how FAR some will go (cough, MA, cough).

Personally, I’d put exemplared shards only on the WSTs that are under 50, or whatever similar new mechanisms come up rather than blank statements of “exemplar gives shards.” I’m probably a worry-wart, I just feel the dark cloud of misuse around the corner. I hope I’m wrong.

I do hope I also didn’t cause any heart attacks on readers that know me, with my taking the devs side and wanting brakes on solo-ing. I just wanted a solo path. I have it. Now I have to take off my “Solo Hat” and put on my “Fairness Hat” to make sure Teams and Raids get their fair share too. All the while, doing this with minimal exploits and/or bad feelings. Rollbacks are often necessary, but rarely well received.

As a 99% solo player, I am VERY happy about this announcement. When my wife and daughter are out of town, or asleep and my insomnia hits, I can do the odd TF. For the rest of the time, I can solo my way up the Incarnate path at my leisure.

I am curious as to what gating there will be for TF using the other 10 slots. If it’s like Alpha “Just have the alpha open”, it should be fine.

Assuming (making this number up) that 95% of 50s (that are interested in the system, of course) will have their Alpha’s open, and meaning 95% can do Apex / Tin mage; then if the same mechanism occurs for the others, say, Judgement needs to be open to do J-Trials, and 95 % of Judgement will be open, and so on, then math says 95%^10 = 59.87%. That’s 60% of people will have all 10 Incarnate slots open, and participate in the OMG Omega Super Are You Kidding Me TF. That’s not bad at all, considering the craziness that TF will have to be a summit level TF.

Math-ies out there can quote how that L10 Incarnate population percent goes up a LOT, if we adjust the number up to 96%, let alone 97%.

Ergo, very happy about this Incarnate path. My wife will never see it (3+ years, and her top character is L41), but I might just put my toe in the Well of Furies Omega Very Rare Incarnate before the game folds.

And that’s good news, at least for me. Thanks to the devs for the good news, and to the board people for their reassurance and explanations on the other threads.

As per my other posts, and in life, you can see I’m about as negative and anti-establishment as it gets. Even so, I have to take the devs’ side on this. They have gotten tons of “Why are we getting only half of Alpha?” “Why was this content not in Going Rogue?” “Why are we waiting so long for GR?”. So, admittedly, they rushed things. A lot, but really, due to pressure from the playerbase and the competition.

Now it’s “Why is it so buggy?”. Personally, I’m of the “Wait until it’s ok, like Blizzard does” despite the generational wait between their games, but that’s not what the devs thought was best. So they rushed. Rush means mistakes. Then they get criticized for the mistake. Rock and a hard place… I just hope the people complaining about how long they had to wait are NOT the same people that complain about the bugs.

I would have preferred Going Rogue been delayed an extra year and half, have 1-50 Praetorian Content, have Alpha through Omega Incarnates, and yes, I’d have shelled out an extra 20-50 bucks for that. Sadly, the accountants dealing with CoH didn’t see that as viable, and, not being an accountant, I have to defer to their expertise. I prefer an early release and buggy GR+, than waiting 1.5 years to find there’s no point because people left due to stagnation and the game is down. Obviously, a full 1-50 Praetoria and L1-10 Incarnate all at once would be more popular, but that wasn’t feasible without waiting a lot longer, or so I suspect.

So, as negative as I am, I file the bugs under “oh well” rather than OMG but that’s just me.

Well, the way I see it, or I should say, the way I play it, (having 1 main and 23 alts, and that’s just Infinity), Incarnate is for my one main, the end. Just like all the badges, temp powers, etc… is main only. Maybe if I actually get another character to L50 I’ll consider a common or uncommon, but, really, especially with 10 slots of incarnates, each to Very Rare, plus whatever comes after incarnates… I’m saying… I have ONE superman. Everyone else is a Robin type. But that’s just me.

Now, an anecdote… I do not, Not, NOT like to group. But, I wanted the +1 shift, so I sucked it up and did a LRSF. 1 was a warm body that joined only so we could have 8, then dropped. So that’s 7 people. 3 Tankers. 1 Brute. 1 Scrapper. 1 Defender. 1 Controller. (And yes, if it wasn’t for the Brute, it was almost an “all hero archetype” LRSF, which I found funny a little).

First few missions, we went all our separate ways, being tank heavy, doing our own thing, taking out objectives. Deaths for the 2 squishier people were common, but they actually didn’t mind as they went “exploring”. Many had never done this SF before, so we didn’t mind waiting for them to rez. Hey, it’s their game too.

I did comment that when that Malta talked about “varmints” I was like “Who are we fighting? Elmer Fudd?” and the Bugs Bunny jokes came fast.

We messed up the pull and got all the Vindicators at once. I think the scrapper died once and the squishies died, like, 4+ times each, but we pulled through. Then came the final mission against the Phalanx itself. No sleep. No confuse. Peg one off, they all came and killed us.

But, by the time we regrouped, Numina still had some damage on her. So we did it again. And died. And again. And died. But her Hp was slowly dwindling. By the time she was at half, a kind soul in the group dropped all 3 nukes, a Shivan, and a Vanguard Heavy, killing her before we wiped.

That was the snowball effect. Next pass? Killed another. Next pass? Another. Soon, we were able to take the last 3 at once, killed all but Statesman. Our group then did their respective battle cries, and I went “Well, as the Malta would say, KILL THE WABBIT.” A few people didn’t attack for a while, which they said they were laughing their head off, sort of in a “you had to be there” and, we were all REALLY tired because it was almost a 4 hour SF for us. But Statesman dropped. And nothing. We panicked, knowing about the glitch for Rare Slots (someone had one and didn’t remove it, saying he’d never had a problem). Then we noticed one lone longbow. “Someone kill that [Expletive Deleted due to board rules]” Kill. Dead. Ding. Notice of the well.

I know LRSF vets are likely rolling their eyes at the zerg tactics, but hey, we do what we can with what little SF skills / exp I've got, and, it got done. No finesse, but done.

Now, I tend to be VERY negative on the boards, and in life, but I had to share the above because, I surprised myself by enjoying myself tonight, instead of it being a slog. Would it have been different if we failed? Hate to say probably. But I thought I’d share a success story from a (mostly) soloer. And here’s to +1 level, Blue 50s, and a good night’s sleep. Night all.

For me, the reasons rewards are now factoring into things is that, non-rewards wise, I’m basically done the game.

Fiery Redeemer, my main, has done all hero arcs, turned villain, did all those arcs, and therefore, I’m done the story. I’ve read almost all of them. Heck, I even did almost half the Task Forces, just to get the badge and read the story itself on wiki.cohtitan.com since the TF people go too fast for me to read the actual text live.

So, now, I keep playing because of the rewards. I’ve done all the content, and the new content of each issue is done 1-7 days, on average, after the publish. That’s not meant as a criticism, that’s life.

As someone said here and on IMDB “It takes Hollywood 3 years to make a movie. It takes me 2 hours to see it, 30 min to drive home, and 5 min to log on to the official board and ask ‘When is the sequel?’ In movies and in games, the makers can’t catch up. It’s not possible.”

For all the good stuff I’m expecting of “The Old Republic”, 8 full arcs, fully voiced, etc… you can bet that when you hit L50 or whatever the cap is, you have to grind your butt off to get that “Lightsaber +1” or whatever the top end gear is… or people will /quit soon as they’re done their arcs. And companies of MMOs want you stay subscribed for a long time.

It’s all a matter of quantities. A theoretical MMO could have a super long term plan of rewards, so that, after 3 months, you upgrade from bare fists to a bent, half broken bone dagger, and it takes you a year to get to a stone dagger, let alone the 2 years for a bronze one… but realistically, very very few players would stay for that kind of curve. But, if players did, that’d be the ultimate money maker. “Play 20 RL Years for your Steel Weapon”. That’s a long subscription.

So that’s why there’s always a carrot really far off. It’s just HOW far that’s the trick.

Also, the other thing is that an MMO does, despite complaints (sometimes even by me) to the contrary, listen to its player base and adjust, fairly. RL does, but much slower. Personal example…

There’s a high end restaurant we go to every year a treat. There was no such thing as a reservation to that specific restaurant (we’re not in the USA). You show up, and however much money you give to the Greeter determines if/when you are seated. It’s worth it, hence why we go, but that’s how that restaurant works. After 12 years, finally, due to a combination of complaints to the owners, competition, and city by-laws, it takes reservations, but that took a while to come about. Until then, it was “This is how it works or here’s the door.”

With an MMO, we know it’s a game, a program. It can change really fast. The devs want to increase or decrease a drop rate? It’s likely just a change in 1 number. Change the difficulty? Adjust the damage / defence. Probably takes an hour at most. What takes a long time is figuring out *IF* they should do the change, and what impact it can have. And that’s based on finances, market research, etc… As a real CoH example = You can’t do anything about the hour in traffic you spend, each day, to get to and/or from RL work. But CoH can and did make travel easier by merging the train lines.

It’s a much more malleable world, hence why feedback is done more often.

And, about the complaint of not liking the activity vs the reward, there’s a personal line we all have. Would you do TF or Arc –A for 10 min to get the badge? Maybe / Maybe not. Most probably would. Make it a 30 min arc… you lose some, but most will likely stay. 2 hours? Ok. You’ve lost a lot of people. 6-10 hours? Yeah, only the most dedicated will stay. We all have our line in the sand, and that’s different with each person and task pair.

Free time does have something to do with it, at least for me. When my wife and daughter were on a trip for 2 weeks, and I was home and unemployed at the time, I did x8 missions with my main, levelled up a Villain on the second account so I could 2-box the Villain Newspaper missions, etc… Now that things are back to normal, I log in every night to do my 5 Tip missions with my main, and other than that, I play once a week an actual “session”. I got tons of shards and purples during that 2 weeks. Barely saw 1 of each in the months since.

My choice. Situational granted, but that’s why.

But, since you said you had trouble understanding the behaviour, just think of it like a spectrum. And don’t forget that there’s the venting aspect of things. When my friends get together with me for drinks and they complain about their bosses, chances are their bosses aren’t THAT bad, but, it’s venting time, there’s vodka, they are my friends, so I smile and nod. I’m sure that for some, not all, but for some, the venting here is more than what they feel. I know *I* do it some times when I complain on a bad day.

But, right now, I’m in no mood for TF during my once a week “real” session, so I’m content with no shards / purples. When the time allows, and the need rises, say, Rare/Very Rare Alpha, I’ll do a few TF, get the goody, till the annoyance passes the need, and I’ll go back to Tip missions.

Hope that helps ClawsandEffect.