Rubberlad

A grind is any mission or system that requires the player to repeat the same instance of content in order to progress to a higher level of virtual existence.

A grind is inherently bad if/when it stops being fun.



Having grinded many an ITF, I can say I never noticed because ITF is fun. It's dynamic content that switches up team mechanics, level of solo interaction, and mission map visuals over the course of several missions.

The new I20 trials... you pretty much get the same result every time and truth be told, there are many opportunities to stand still and wait or click "follow" on someone else and let them do the hard work for you. I've done it twice now on Lambda and it worked like a charm. The trials just don't create opportunities for EVERYONE to feel meaningful and personally involved in the content. Again, its much like the "follow the leader" Hamidon content that Castle, BABs and other pushed back on years ago.

Sadly, the new trials are what they are. Milk it while you can or just ignore it. I'm 99.9% convinced these powers are nice to have but there's nothing in-game right now that requires them (especially if you already have the Alpha Slot pumped to Tier 4).

Now that's a really bad spin on things. Anyone can level to 40 without help. Not everyone can get their I20 Incarnate slots without constant teaming. As others have already said, there's a real concern that the volume of readily available players required for I20 trials going on currently will dry up in a month or two once most folks who want those slots have them.

I'm sure the Devs will remedy this situation but not anytime soon. Kinda surprised they've said very little next to nothing on this "Rush to Grind" anxiety after a week of concerns being raised through multiple threads. I miss the days when the original Dev team was more forthcoming with info and conversations. But I digress.

There's an all-new Praetorian zone in the works. I doubt it'll be exclusive to Incarnates however I suspect it'll have crossover with other mainstream content to be sure.

Good to know.

No. No, it isn't. Its exactly the right amount of time for a casual player to settle in, run a mish, then decide if they want to stick around for another run or do something else. I like the 30 minute trial - I like it a lot, actually - and just so we're clear, I (the OP) did not mean to suggest that 30 minutes is a largely unreasonable amount of time to spend running a trial/mission of any kind (regardless of how many times one chooses to run it).


What I *would* like to know is - just how many times (theoretically speaking) does a player have to run the Incarnate Trials to achieve Tier 4 on all the available slots (which assumes what it takes to get the cash, the salvage and whatever else is need to actually craft those powers all the way to Tier 4)?

100 times per slot on one toon? 500 times? 1000 times? More?

I know there's a theoretical "magic number" projection of just how many times the Devs expect folks to recycle this content to achieve Incarnate nirvana. I'd like to know what that magic number really is (and I'm sure there's a low/high range involved but let's try to talk the *average* number of runs expected to achieve tier 4 in all the available Incarnate slots right now). I think that magic number/range would frighten/intrigue folks (assuming there is an expectation of how many runs it would take versus how long the Devs *think* it will take players to reach the max).

Does anyone really know?

Hush, lol.

Two points:

1) Its not just the shard/thread conversion costs which are a problem. Its the expectation that while you're spending money on that, you're limited supply of money is also competing with what's required to buy anything in Fort Trident or The Crucible (at least where purple recipes and whatever other high-end items are concerned).

The game's logic assumes *everyone* has the same amount of many that a fraction of the "professional farming/trading" player base has because they're always recycling content. Someone in this very thread mentioned the idiot-proof reliance on using the auction house to make money - but they forget that the entire trading system was meant to be an optional gameplay system. Not everyone uses it - and not everyone makes money off it. And not everyone knows that the damn market is borked to hell and back (and they inevitably lose big money on it because they bought an overpriced item that might well have gotten cheaper if they'd just checked the base rack or run a couple missions to get the drop for free).



2) The introduction of Incarnate XP and these constant +1 bumps that are a level game but yet aren't a level are the product of rushed game design. iXP and having to earn percentages of a slot says, contrary to everything Positron and anyone else has said in years past, that this game could easily have raised the level cap to 55 or 60.

The only reason it wasn't done that way was because they couldn't spit out enough solo content fast enough to justify keeping the leveling wheel that currently guides us all from lvl 1 to 50 for another 5-10 levels. If the Devs had been a bit more forward-thinking with their design goals, they would've kept the leveling wheel system and put the content emphasis back on Ourborous where folks could justifiably recycle content from years past but on on higher difficulty settings (ie, rather than exemping down, the game would recognize you were an Incarnate and load the instance with Incarnate-worthy NPC upgrades worthy of making you or a team sweat like mad just to get your Incarnate salvage).

Instead, the Devs tagged on a whole and completely separate "COH mini game" to a game system they've had for years and the two systems are working to drive the player base apart rather thank keep it together. THAT'S the biggest design flaw this game has seen in 7 years - outside of any complaints about the two new Incarnate trials we see in I20.




If playing COH has taught me anything after 7 years, its that creating and leveling a toon is a very organic and player-intimate process. There was no need to create a separate "End Game" system for post-50 incarnates when there's tons of pre-50 content (Zones, Missions, Contacts) sitting cold and idle because everyone and their mother can now get a toon from 1 - 50 in a matter of days and is bypassing everything that's come before like mad (and new players who've recently leveled a toon to 50 without ever setting foot in Eden, Dark Astoria or Crey's Folly will know *exactly* what I mean - and who wouldn't want to farm Incarnate content in a hazard zone if that were possible?!!).

Devs, I beg you: please reconsider your current Incarnate design plan to include the long-idle assets you already have at your finger tips - they're called Ouroborous and Hazard Zones and they're waiting to be retooled for Incarnates...

Good luck!

*cough*

Sorry, but as one of "The Vocals" who introduced a thread speaking to point #3, I do want to point out that I didn't begrudge the Lambda Sector event itself. In fact, I quite enjoyed the overall fight sequence, the underground maze, and the complicated mechanics as a whole. I don't even mind the awards system itself - its the inf conversion values and this silly "Dungeon Master" expectation that requires casual players to have the same farming abilities, cash coffers, and the ultimate "timesink" schedule as other "RENOWNED PLAYERS" just to get all this crap done in a very short amount of time.

I say this because two months ago it was very easy to get on an Alpha slot team and work a diverse set of TFs to get what you needed; now that "Everyone" has their Tier 4 slots (myself included) its a little harder to pull a team together who will help you cycle TF content for what you need. I suspect that while this I20 content will get easier to run, there'll also be a lot less people running it once they've gotten all their slots. And where does that leave everyone else who didn't jump on the Incarnate bandwagon the first week I20 was out, let alone the first month?


No sir, I don't disagree with you. This is visually stunning endgame content and certainly fun to play regardless of repetitive death pangs, no question - but it also has its fair share of design flaws and reward/cost-to-wealth imbalance issues that need to be rectified quickly.

Good point.

Are there any devs left to change it?

More and more its looking like there's a new maintenance crew of Devs moving to center stage while Posi, War Witch and others start moving out of the limelight - possibly forever. Kinda sad to see everybody go after 7 years of playing but I have absolutely no idea who all these NEW red names are that are taking over for them or how they're roles now work together to keep the game moving forward. I don't even know which of them you'd ask to update Hasten - and would they?

Geez, I'm such a Year One geezer, lol.

I mean *certain* powers with certain powerset trees are borked. They won't play the right animation in the tailor window however you'll end up with the right animation once you go back to live mode.

trying to toggle both day and night modes in the costume or animation selection window is also a headache. Its either one or the other but not both. Day mode when building a praetorian blinds the **** out of my color scheme and toon presentation window.

No, dear. That was the old peer pressure. This is the new peer pressure.

I agree to a point. I sorta expected I20 to be BIGGER in terms of general QoL improvements. For instance, didn't War Witch elude to bases getting some loving a while back? I thought that was for I20 but have those improvements been pushed back in the release schedule or shelved indefinitely?

(Sorry if I seem ungrateful! The new trials sound exciting!).

Ok that's a fair answer. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something more obvious.

Thanks.

Go where and do what?

What's the value add to the player if the top three tiers of the a slots aren't necessary to succeed on the current Incarnate Tfs?

In other words, why should I bother when what I've got is already sufficient?