Samuel_Tow

This would actually be a big boon to me, as well, and might just edge me over into "eh, might as well" territory. Right now, iTrials are organised events. People broadcast, people gather, people wait, and it's a hassle. If I could drop my name into a box and reserve the right to be yanked out of ANYTHING I'm doing at the time to join a Trial... I just might. Eliminate the hassle of setting them up and you eliminate much of my problem.

Of course, this assumes that there is SOMETHING for me to do while waiting for one, which for Incarnates there really isn't at the moment, aside from "All that crap's grey to me. No XP."

You know what's depressing to me? When 50 runs of ANYTHING is considered a best case scenario lucky eventuality. I don't think I've done any one single piece of content over level 20 fifty times, and that's spread across coming on 50 characters. And now I'm told I'd be lucky to progress with "just" 50 reruns EACH? Yikes!

This is B. F. Skinner at his finest. The theory goes that if you give people a definite goal with defined requirements, say "run 50 Trials," then people will not be motivate towards the beginning, because they'll know the first or second or third Trial will not give them the reward. They'll become very motivated and increase their playtime when they're near the goal, say on Trials 47, 48 and 49, but then once they have that reward and they're looking at the next one another, say, 50 Trials away, they'll pause because they'll be satiated with the reward and disincentivised by knowing that the next one is far away.

Heartless game developers fear these pauses, because YOU MAY NOT COME BACK!!! So they don't want you to stop playing ever ever, for which they need a different design, one which gives you incentive to try hard ALL the time. Enter random drops. With a random drop, players are motivated to try hard ALL the time, because you don't know when the next drop will happen. It might well be on this very Trial, even if it's the first one you do. It won't be, of course, but it won't stop players thinking that, who knows? It might drop on the second one. And so on and so forth.

At least that's the expected reaction. As someone told me earlier in the thread "[I'm] not responding." And I'm not, because when I look at this kind of random drop system, my thought isn't "Holy addiction, Batman! I might get my reward on this very run!" but rather "I have to run how many of this thing? And I may still get bupkis at the end? Sod this, I have better things to do with my life."

Unfortunately, you're completely correct. I tried the "long" skirt and while it's wider... It's still just too short. I may not like how hugging the Pencil skirt is, but at least it's knee length. This really is one character for whom I'd easily use a full-length skirt.

And I SERIOUSLY do not like the long "dress" from the Vanguard back. It looks like two lengths of scarf and nothing at all like an actual dress. If it were at least closed at the back, I could deal with it, but I have no use for a "coat tail skirt."

Yeah, I'm not worried about my friends. I have a rather erratic on-off status, especially when I'm solo, since I tend to sometimes post on the forums while playing, walk away to have dinner or swivel my chair to watch TV, and quite often, too. I rarely need justifications with friends.

I'm more concerned with large teams with strangers, especially on larger commitments. I recall starting a TF years ago just 15 minutes before Van Helsing started on free TV. I couldn't well bail on the guys, but I wanted to watch the movie, so I spent my time with attention split about half-and-half. I did pretty well in terms of performance, but I managed to enjoy neither the TF nor the movie. That's kind of what I mean.

I think I know why the Pencil Skirt bugs me. Every time I do a Google search for a Victorian dress, what I get is large, wide dresses, sometimes including hoop skirts, like what you'd see on a Carnie Illusionist. The Pencil Skirt is the exact opposite of that, being tight to the knees and kind of restricting, the infinite stretch of video game fabrics notwithstanding. I know we can't get floor-length skirts, but something wider may be in order, because my design right now reminds me too much of an office lady uniform.

Also, I'd use the leather boots, but I kind of like the matte gloves and the thigh-high stilettos don't have any customization options. Will investigate.

Heh, could you share a pic of her? I can use some help with the skirt and boots. I HATE what I have in that department. The Pencil Skirt bugs me.

The problem is that real life trumps a Trial only when the real-life activity in question is important. Yesterday, I had to bail on a friend of mine not because I had work in the morning or because I was late for dinner or anything even remotely justifiable, but because I wanted to watch the new episode of IRT Deadliest Roads. The History Channel only really show this once in the time slot that's comfortable for me, and if I miss it I need to wait for next Monday. If I miss it THEN, I don't get to see it at all.

How many people do you believe will show understanding if I bailed on a Trial with that excuse?

Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of having them level-50-only though? That's kind of what I was getting at. And if it seems I'm talking off-topic, it's mostly because I fail to imagine any kind of costume or look which could be so inherent to Incarnates as to be unthinkable without them.

If we're going to have Incarnate costumes... Those ain't it. Not the current ones, not the suggested ones. Sure, they're GOOD, but I don't see them as inherently any more special than, say, a pair of wings or metallic skin.

Which it's high time they did. The game is already fully capable of attributing four colours per costume piece, and in fact does just that to every piece on every costume. Look at your costume files and you'll see what I mean. It's just a matter of making pieces use those extra colours and updating the UI to customize them in a less cumbersome way.

Easy example: The Wedding Pack Tuxedo uses four colours - two for the outside and two for the inside. However, the game gives you no control over the inside colours whatsoever. The only way to change them is to "link colours" and pick something, which by extension changes the third and fourth colours on the piece, then unlink colours and redo your costume.

Also, "skin colour" is an entirely separate variable which shows up at the beginning of the costume file and never takes up a colour from the four attributed to each costume piece. Sooner or later, we really should talk about updating the costume colouring rig a little bit.

They had the same effect on me. Not only was I struggling against the normal enemies, but then facing one of these ******** just felt like adding insult to injury.

I agree with the Techbot here. The Steampunk faces are HORRIBLE. Not only do they not look any better than the old faces thanks to their unnecessarily low-resolution textures, but the hard shadows and loss of texture detail that comes with Normal mapping make them look even WORSE.

Better faces are not the result of more fancy effects or shaders. They're the result of having honest-to-god high-resolution textures. And while normal mapping may serve to "fake" a higher-polygon mesh, this is only true if the normal map itself is high-resolution, which the ones on the Steampunk faces simply aren't.

The faces themselves are pretty bad, too. They just don't look like attractive people.

This gives me an idea - why not disappear ALL contacts in the game unless you've been introduced to them, or they can be interacted with directly. That way, I don't have to see zillions of people I don't know standing around with circles around their feet, and should make for a more immersive environment. It would also make it feel less like they spend their entire lives with their shoes nailed to that one particular spot.

I can. Non-scaling AVs and the intention to have bosses impossible to solo, leading to the infamous I4 Boss Buff which got rolled back within a week of hitting Live. Then there's also the "if you build it, they will come" approach to designing Hazard Zones, and conversely the "not worth your time" design for missions. Jack's continued arguments against real numbers and the ability to exemplar. The notion of mutually-exclusive armours. The whole game's balance when it went Live was just a mess, and a lot of those problems persist even to this day.

There was nothing unintentional about putting AVs at the end of story arcs, thus making them impossible for the vast majority of people to defeat solo. The only reason that decision was overturned is because people like me never accepted it and kept calling for an alternative, which came in the form of AVs scaling down to EBs. And I still consider that to be probably by far the best change to happen to the game in its entire history.

Only it isn't. The best way to make money off us is to get us addicted to an unhealthy degree. That's what the Incarnate system is designed to do, and that is what I find insulting. I'm just getting a little weary of Skinner box design games.

I still don't agree, in that I don't see Incarnates as deserving of good story telling any more so than any other point in the game. If you want to postulate that THE ENTIRE GAME needs better writing, then I would agree with you wholeheartedly. But to pick on one specific system and level range and present it as having a greater need for good writing, that I cannot agree with.

Incarnate stories are like every other story in the game - they're as good as the writer making them. Yes, they're in a different theme and ideally you want someone who can work with absurd and exaggerated storylines while still keeping them grounded enough to be relatable, but that's "better" storytelling as much as it's just a different kind.

Yeah, Incarnate story arcs would bomb if the writing sucked, but that's true for any story arc in the game. Yes, I'm sure lots of people like the mechanics of the I19 20-30 story arcs if they ignore the actual writing, but you'll find few people who actually enjoy reading their text boxes. Yet apparently not having a writer on staff at that particular time didn't seem to stop the development team from cranking out Roy Cooling's arc.

Better writing is always a good thing, but lack of it shouldn't be used as an excuse for lack of content. Not indefinitely.

There's also another fact to consider: There's a non-zero group of people who will not run the trials regardless of what you hide behind them. I know this group consists of at least one person - me - because I would not bother with that crap if you paid me real money. Well... Possibly if you paid me enough money, I might consent or.

To me, this demonstrates a profound disrespect for the players' intelligence, and I sincerely hope that this is not the official development team position. I don't pay a subscription fee to be treated like a child.

It's possible that this is what's been keeping them from making more backpacks for SEVEN YEARS... Sorry, Caps Lock...

It's possible that this is precisely the problem with backpacks, that they don't align with the character's back very well. Having played with them a little big, it seems like the boiler backpack is anchored pretty low on the character's back, somewhere just above the bottom of the rib cage. What that means is that when the character slouches - and the Huge model kind of always is - it leaves a large gap between the upper back and the pack itself.

What's worse is that because the Huge model runs like an upright gorilla, all hunched over and crooked, the back is essentially curved forward, making a straight-surface pack stick out big-time. Also, because the character is so hunched-over, it shifts the pack really high up above the shoulders.

Personally, I'd like to see that backpack sunk at least half-way into the Huge model's back. There shouldn't be any danger of it sticking out the front, and that way when the character bends forward, there's always more backpack to emerge from the back, making it look like it's still flush.

This really isn't a question of precise, minute detailing, either. I can live with some clipping and inaccuracy that you have to zoom in all the way to see. But this problem is blatantly obvious from a distance and on the character's very silhouette. To me, it looks like the Steampunk boiler pack is is mounted to the character's back on a VERY offset brace, and that just looks... Awkward. If we ever get backpacks, I'd like to see them rendered much more flush against the character's back, and preferably anchored at the upper shoulders, rather than the lower back.

Ah, the shonen anime flashback powerup, I like it! You're hurt, you're about to go down, you've lost all hope, but all of a sudden you find new strength and get back up, transformed and even more powerful. Love it!

Extra Credit talked about the differences between "writing" and "narrative" in their Video Games and Bad Writing video. In large part, they point out that a game's narrative can be carried by more than just its writing, more than just text on the screen or voice-over exposition. And in large part, I agree. A great many aspects of gameplay can carry that distinction, as well.

City of Heroes has a rather... Messed-up difficulty curve, but it inadvertently serves to create a very good narrative about player strength. You start the game with only a couple of powers, no utility and very crappy stats. And though you have a whole host of "beginner's buffs" to help you along and most low-level enemies (outside of Praetoria) are pretty weak, we still start out at a disadvantage and being barely able to do much of anything. As the game progresses, the enemies get harder, but through our powers and our knowledge, we get to move quite a bit ahead of the curve. At level 1, I shudder to fight more than three enemies at a time. At level 50, I cackle like a madman as I leap amid a mob of 15 enemies, confident of my victory.

Incarnates don't really need any special writing to speak of (though DECENT writing, for a change, can't hurt) so much as they need special narrative. The Incarnate powers themselves deliver this, in quite a few instances, such as how much stronger they make us than ordinary, old-content NPCs. A good way to deliver the narrative of our power is through the use of comparative strength. Say the content to unlock Incarnate status includes a certain one enemy who shows up as an elite boss and is incredibly strong. Now say I'm 10 Incarnate levels later, and I'm fighting dozens of that same enemy with about the same disinterest as I fight a common minion, while much more fearsome enemies have taken on the role of lieutenants, bosses and up.

For bonus points, keep throwing old-content NPCs at incarnates from time to time. Not buffed up and 4 levels higher than the player, not cheating and as part of cheap scripted sequences. Just as regular enemies. Yes, they would be very easy, but that's kind of the point - to remind the player that "Hey, remember these guys that gave you trouble? Well not any more, ha ha!"

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Think of something like, say, Crey, and how they progress through the levels. When you first face them in the 30s, you're fighting roughneck security guards and basic unarmed scientists. There are the occasional agents, but they're very dangerous lieutenants. There are also scientists armed with actual sciency weapons, but they're dangerous, too. And then you have the scuba diver dudes, the Crey Protectors. They're the only people you see in power armour, and they're STRONG!

Then a few levels pass, and all of a sudden you're fighting agents left and right, and scientists with freeze cannons and flamethrowers are now just cannon fodder. The dudes in power armours are lieutenants - still tough, but fairly common. And you're starting to see better, more advanced power armour, too. Sometimes REAL tough power armour, like Power Tanks. But the true big bads are the Paragon Protectors. Those guys are NASTY!

Then some levels later you stop meeting unarmoured people at all. It's all Tanks in advanced power armour. The old boss-level Power Tanks are now mere lieutenants. They're just not tough enough any more. The only thing left that can challenge you are the Paragon Protectors, but the aren't the same ones as before. Crey have improved them, and you're now fighting Paragon Protector ELITES!

This kind of enemy class downgrading as the levels go up is a far, far, FAR better way to demonstrate apparent power than any length of text telling you in words how awesome you are.

As was mentioned earlier in the thread (or its previous life, anyway), Maelstrom already has functioning holsters. His guns show in his holsters when he's not using them and disappear when he's holding them. As I mentioned before, if weapons can be made to swap between visible and invisible depending on your activation sequence (or "mode") then holsters/sheaths/scabbards can be made to toggle between full and empty. It's more a question of implementation and less so of animation. Time, money, return and all that.

We'll probably have to pay through the nose for any sort of major addition to customization at this point with how priorities have shifted to more numbers, less graphics lately.

I'd postulate that we'd get a single "holster" per weapon, unique to that weapon's shape, ideally tintable. Failing that, I'd expect to see at most two such per weapon, still unique to the weapon.