Samuel_Tow

That's really my biggest fear. The Shard drop rate, as it is now, isn't TOO bad, if a bit punishing, but I can imagine how exponential the cost increase will be, and THAT scares me. Granted, we don't know if it will be, but that's the most likely outcome. After a certain point, we'll NEED some kind of Incarnate-specific content, both to use our powers on and to gain better Shard numbers out of, and if that's just raid after raid, I will be very upset. Not surprised, mind you, but upset.

And again - if I'm proven, I will gladly eat crow, make apologies and admit to my stupidity. I'd rather be stupid and wrong in this case, anyway. If they do indeed add a decent number of Incarnate story arcs, someone be sure to remind me to eat my hat. I mean it.

No, none that I'm aware of. I suppose my provider may be using one, but I've no way of knowing. I know I don't have any proxy settings set up in either browser, though my network goes through a router (they called it a modem when they installed it, but it's a router if ever I saw one) which does tend to block some of my ports (and to which I lost the access information O.o), but this hasn't been anywhere near as bad as it is today. Ever.

I remember a lot of people from the old days who aren't here any more. Most of the time, however, I don't remember I knew about them until their names come up. Seeing your name reminds me that I remember you, though I can't quite remember what for.

The game FORCES me to play with other people, so yes, the community is an important part. If I need information or want to discuss something, I come to the community, and it helps when I don't feel like every wrong word I say could get me chewed out, which is how it's felt here lately.

And then people start telling me about how I'm wrong to not want to team and socialise with other people and how I have the wrong game and how I'm wrong and all that, and OF COURSE I can't do this or that by myself because this is an MMO, and don't you know what M.M.O. stands for?

Believe me, if I could play by myself, I would, but then what business I have even attempting to participate in the Incarnate system, our long-awaited level cap raise?

Projecting what? If you're saying that I'm imagining this shift in attitude, then you are free to believe what you will. I won't claim the attitude hasn't always been present, but the way it's been since I19 launched is worse. Far, far worse.

If you're saying that I'm somehow angry at the game and I want to claim people are at fault, you are just wrong. I'm not actually angry at the game. I tried the Incarnate stuff, I hate the TFs with a passion, I hate the need to team more than the pain of death, so I simply don't do them. I'm focusing on lower-level characters, just like I always have. The game doesn't bug me. It's PEOPLE that bug me because they ruin even what little I can enjoy of the new system for me by belittling my concerns and assuming to know what I think and how I feel.

And, yes, I remember you.

I'll rescind my other posts and go with "pretty much this." Incarnate story arcs assuming Incarnate power and depicting the use of Incarnate power specifically is what would shut me up. I still don't believe that'll ever happen, I'd prefer to be proven wrong.

No, the community very much is changing. Granted, I'm probably not seeing as much of it as other people, but that kind of change is precisely why I don't. You know, whenever I bring up problems with a powerset or an AT and explain how it doesn't compare to others, there's always someone telling me "Well I don't care about these things. I just play to have fun." I want to play to have fun, but apparently "the same people" are all too eager to tell me that it's all different now and that I should be playing differently and that if I don't want to break out of my comfort zone I shouldn't be playing.

This was not always the case. In fact, once upon a time, before we had loot and raids and all of that, people tended to be a lot more lenient to... Everything, really. When there's no imperative to GO GO GO, then there's really no downside to anyone's particular playstyle. "You want to solo all the time. OK, I guess. It's boring, though." "You want to PUG all the time? Go ahead, but I don't like playing with strangers." "You only ever want to play Scrappers for some bizarre reason? Sure, if you can stand them."

I don't get that vibe any more. I haven't gotten that vibe for quite some time now, but at least before there was no real imperative to do content that "sorts the men from the boys," as it were. But now all we've done is we turned what was a largely cooperative game into a competitive game where people are driven to excel even when that shouldn't be strictly necessary. This changes the entire dynamic of the game and makes it friendly for an entirely different type of player.

I personally picked City of Heroes back in 2004 because it WASN'T like other MMOs, because it didn't have much of any "elite" content, because it didn't FORCE me to socialise, because there was such a thing as "good enough." Because it wasn't a serious, difficult game. With every step they take to make it more like all the others, the game changes and the community changes. Historically, they've left "outs" for those of us who still cling to the old ways. But with the Incarnate system, they seem to be trying to add a system that simply abolishes the old practices, all with the excuse that "Well, you don't have to participate in it."

I'll say one thing - I have never, ever seen so many people say "lrn2ply" to so many others, and I have not seen this kind of animosity between players since ED. And that's never a good thing.

It's just as irrelevant as the colour their names written in. My "Mission Failed" flash text comes out red despite failing missions not being more than very rare, just as an idle pointless comparison.

Incarnate Shards are the only part of the Incarnate system which drops, and their drop rate is almost the lowest drop rate of anything which actually drops, hence why they deserve a unique colour and a unique notification. Whether this notification has to be red, purple, orange or pink is irrelevant, because they need something unique to themselves. I'm partial to red with white polka dot, myself, but that's besides the point.

Shards need their own colour. Ideally something the system doesn't use at the moment, at least for drops, which would be green, blue, cyan, magenta and black, just off the top of my head.

*edit*
And "where they sit in the Incarnate system" is also completely irrelevant, since there's no stated rule that a drop's flash text should reflect its rarity. This was done as a cue to help people tell what it is they got, not as a hard and fast rule that cannot be broken. So if your idea is to help Shards be easier to tell when they drop, giving them a unique colour is the simplest way to go.

See, this is the crux of my problem. I don't actually mind the TFs, or indeed making encounters harder with the expectation that I'll have Incarnate buffs slotted. After all, getting Incarnate buffs is the point of the system.

However, what I do mind is this apparent trend in end game not just here but in all MMOs to be where the "real game" starts, where "real game" tends to mean raids. Nothing wrong with raids as long as there are alternatives, and alternatives there aren't. We do get new story arcs, but they're neither in the right level range nor for the right thing. It's a lot like the good old times when people ran out of content at around level 38 and their only recourse was to either street hunt or endlessly repeat the Numia TF.

Given the rate at which Shard rates drop solo, I expect to be done with ALL the level 45-50 content just by the time I'm done with the Alpha slot, which begs the question... So what for the other nine? Task Forces? Re-grinding the same old arcs in Ouro? What?

Even if the developers are trying not to treat it like that, the Incarnate system is a level cap increase, but without content to its name. It's like if I1 brought us Peregrine Island and just one TF, but no missions. Or, to be more accurate, it's like if I2 brought is the Shadow Shard with no content save for four TFs. And yet somehow we all seem to agree that the Shadow Shard was mishandled, and that perhaps story arcs should be added to it. And it strikes ME as the perfect place to put Incarnate content with special Incarnate-only Soldiers of Rularuu enemies, especially considering the reflections we fight in the Ramiel arc are most likely Shadow Shard Reflections of some kind.

I'm not asking for Incarnate content to be more of the same entirely, but I do want at least part of it to be... Kind of like the other content, in that I can still play it without the need for constant help.

You and I must be reading different forums, then. You know why these threads get so long every time they come up? When people say they can't beat Trapdoor, they get told to learn to play. When people say they can't beat the Honoree, they get told to learn to play. When people say the Tin Mage TF is hard they get told they're exaggerating and they need to learn to play.

I don't take shame in this. It's other people talking down to me like I should be ashamed of it. It's other people regarding me like I'm trying to steal their game when I suggest that maybe things are too hard, or that maybe I'd like to have some solo content, too. Oh, no, this is an MMO. If I want to play solo, I should go play Halo or Counter-Strike or GTA or whatever the popular game at the time.

There have been people giving genuine advise. A fair few, I might add. There have been plenty of people acting like they're giving advise, but not thinking twice about verbally backhanding you if you say you can't or don't want to do that. And there have been even a fair few people believing that only they and a few other "elite" players actually "deserve" to be Incarnates and that all the rest of us are stealing their shards and stealing their honour and ruining their game by making it cater to the "lowest common denominator," which seems to be the buzz word these days.

I welcome guides and the generous people who make them. What I DON'T welcome is insisting that an encounter isn't hard enough because one person could beat it easily on a few characters. And woe betide you if you say you don't want to "frankenslot."

Positron already talks about adding more "trials" to I20 and has not even mentioned the word "story arc" in relation to the system, not that I have seen.

But let's go one further. I will make you a bet that we WILL NOT get a single Incarnate story arc that is not a slot unlock in all of 2011. If I'm wrong, then I will gladly eat crow and apologise. But I will not be wrong. Because the developers have been more than clear up to this point as to what the Incarnate system will be, and after two Issues of bouncing that system around and a third coming, I have no faith left that it will be anything but that. Ever.

Yeah, and how long do you think that'll last? How many level shifts before the old game no longer applies? How many Incarnate powers before it's trivial? Or, to be much more realistic, how long until you've done all the level 50 content? Because when all new content is TFs and Trials and Raids, that's all we'll have left, and that doesn't last forever. Hell, it doesn't last long enough to get an Uncommon out of it by yourself if you're unlucky.

Yes, go ahead and belittle people's opinions. That's a sure way to make me see how people just want to help me and welcome me. Surely with this kind of attitude I have no leg to stand on to complain about how people keep telling me the game is not for me all of a sudden.

You know what? The game was perfect for me in 2004, and it's been perfect for me ever since. So forgive me if I don't take lightly to being told it's suddenly completely not for me and I should go play something else. "Shape up or ship out." or "Go play WoW." or "This game is all of a sudden no longer for you." does not work in a seven-year-old game with an established playerbase with such a high percentage of veteran players. I'm by far not the oldest player here. I wasn't even in CoH beta. But suddenly turning around and making the game into something completely different - and considering many of us bought City of Heroes because it didn't have raid grind - is not a good idea.

You say the recent changes have brought more life into the game. Praetoria, maybe, but in my eyes the "recent changes" have done nothing more than start the destruction of the soul of the game. It's been barely a month since the release of I19, and already the community is turning into something I really, really, really don't like.

Considering that's what I've been asking for since day 1, I have to disagree.

What does that have to do with me? I don't play support ATs and I don't remember ever alluding to it.

If you think this is hyperbole, then you're ignoring mountains of context. Every time someone has complained about the difficulty of ANYTHING, the response has been to bring shivans, or to use tactics, or to use inspirations, or to think before acting, or to bring a team, or make a better build, or to buy better Inventions or whatever the current slogan is at the time. These days it seems like it's SHAMEFUL to say that something is hard because you will immediately be beset with people who had an easy time of it and are all too happy to explain how you suck in fine detail. While this is not a new factor, it has never been as popular as it has been since I19.

As far as the TFs go, what I can say for a fact is that they are difficult, complicated, intentionally stacked against the players with the mandatory +4 enemies and locked to 8 people to start them. These are unquestionable facts, and they are the root of the problem - this is the very definition of an elite end-game encounter. I have no problem with these per se. The Statesman and Recluse TFs have been in the game for a long time now, and not even once have I complained about them. They're the hard stuff people do at the end of the game, if that's what they choose to do.

What I HAVE complained about is that all of the new content that's coming out seems to be designed to be at least as difficult as those, and potentially even more so as we gain level shifts and Incarnate powers. There are no story arcs that count as such which came with I19, and none have been announced with I20, either. None to do with Incarnate content, at the very least. Yes, there are the two new ones - Roy Cooling and Vincent Ross - but they are 20-30 arcs, and not Incarnate content.

You say you're surprised if Incarnate story arcs aren't added in the future. I, on the other hand, would be AMAZED if they are, discounting the possibility of that odd short arc to unlock the next slot which isn't designed to be soloable anyway. But there's really no place to use our Incarnate powers other on on 8-man abnormally difficult TFs which have the effect of making those powers feel significantly lesser by virtue of the hideously increased difficulty.

The I19 TFs are hard. They're designed to be hard. That's their point. And while I don't mind the existence of hard TFs, that's usually because I have other content to do in addition to them. No such "other" content exists for Incarnates, and it doesn't look like it will ever exist given the way they are marketing this system.

I'm posting from Eastern Europe and doing nothing else with my connection. And while my speed and connection quality have only gone up over the years, the quality of my connection to this forum has gone down, down, down and never up.

Though, on the plus side, the forums did let me post this right away with no wait time.

"Then come up with ideas?"

1. Obviously, I'm talking about story arcs written with an Incarnate in mind, such as the arc to unlock the Alpha slot, only more of that.

2. I ALREADY HAVE suggested this, back in GR Beta, back in I19 Beta, and have been suggesting that since the Issue went Live.

3. Designing the game is not my job that I get paid for, and no-one listens to me either way.

The solution to this "problem" is obvious and clear as day, and it's something many people have been asking for: Give us story arcs IN ADDITION to these TFs. But I get the idea that some people's view of "entire concept of it" is tantamount to typical EQ-style raid grind and that anything which isn't punishingly difficult and requiring time commitment, min-maxing, research, preparation, building and the ability to multitask isn't worthy, which is the central problem I have with both the system and the people who insist that brutal difficulty and forced teaming is the only way to go.

From everything I've seen of the Incarnate system, it already does that, and I've already started crying foul. The only thing we've seen is two 8-man-only TFs that are capped at the top of the difficulty scale and nothing else. We have one story arc, yes, but it's an unlock, and I refuse to count that until I see a more proper story arc that provides content, rather than a gate.

I think the implication was that not many people play Sonic Blast long enough to get it

I agree with this. I have my qualms with Full Auto taking as long as it does for what is probably the least damage of the three, but all three powers constitute strong tools in a Blaster's arsenal. So far, I've been able to play around with Inferno, Nova and Blizzard, and while all three are positively devastating, their use is far, far more limited.

The thing is, other than being killed or accidentally turning the power off, there is no way for Hide to drop, so there's no reason for it to be balanced by recharge. The only thing this does is punish me if I push the wrong button.

I agree with this completely. We need a No Pulse or Fade option for all Hide powers, especially if the specific concept requires that the Stalker be able to actually, you know, hide, not turn invisible. It hurts no-one and it just helps Stalker players actually have costumes, rather than be constant silhouettes with no shadow.

Cloak of Darkness in all versions of Dark Armour that have it already has a No Pulse or Fade option, so I see no reason why its identical double energy Cloak can't have that, or indeed all Stealth powers can't get that option.