Samuel_Tow

Actually, what Sam said is rather less absolute if you quote Sam's entire sentence, which read more like:

Stripping the "I fully believe" part does indeed make it sound like an absolute statement, just like stripping the "in my opinion" part does to almost anything that features it. I still fully believe that all players should expect to partake in the system with all of their 50s without being laughed at. Just in the same way as I can expect to get all of my characters to 50. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not for years, but I'm getting there, and so far no-one has ever told me I can't or I shouldn't try.

If the game is designed right now to disallow that, then I believe it should be changed, and I will remain convinced of this, because to me, that makes for a better game. I have no problem with picking who to explore the Incarnate system with FIRST. I have a very serious problem with picking who to NEVER explore the Incarnate system first because Amerikatt says I can't.

Thus insinuating that I'm the kind of brainless oaf which follows "flavour of the mnth lemmingty" and completely discounting by intentional omission that I may actually have reasons to want to make more than one character an Incarnate that don't speak to low intelligence and weakness of character. And I say "intentional omission" because you build an argument on the assumption that your interpretation of the system is the only one valid and so the system is justified in excluding people like me.

You put together a top-heavy fallacy because you used an obvious straw man as the basis for your entire thesis. Giving characters individuality is in no way hampered by the number of characters one wants to give individuality to. Some of us are easily capable of managing loads and loads of characters while still keeping them unique, distinct and personable. Some choose not to, obviously, and that is well within their right.

However, what you have no right to claim is that because YOU chose to focus on only some of your characters, we are somehow wrong on wanting to focus on them all. Your argument fails because you CAN want to have multiple Incarnates and still be very much concerned about the personalities, stories and concepts of your characters.

In fact, I find it odd to claim otherwise, unless you specifically and intentionally make garbage characters with the full understanding that you care nothing for them. I, however, don't. Every character I make and keep I do so because I care about that character's concept and want to see that concept fulfilled. If I didn't care, I wouldn't have made the character, or deleted him within a few levels. I have not a single character without a bio written that ran into the space limit in the text field, so to insinuate I don't care about my character is frankly insulting to me. Especially since you clearly don't know me.

No, but you've repeatedly insulted the intelligence and dismissed the writing of people who don't do what you feel they "should" do. You don't have to tell a person he can't do something if you tell him he CAN do it, but he's stupid for wanting to.

*edit*
And again, there's the game's general policy of altoholism. No other MMO that I'm aware of gives players this many character slots to use, and most other games have systems devised around people only ever playing one or two characters that they can never "finish." As players have shown already, you very much CAN finish this game, even with Incarnates included. What you do thereafter is make more alts and do it all again. That's what the developers have told us, that's what the game's systems are built on, that's why you can outlevel content. This is how the game is designed. To suddenly U-turn on that philosophy is unreasonable.

That would jive with them being critters with a power they cycle. The next question is - are these portals holdable? I've never actually tried, myself. Good a place as any to use Detention Field or Black Hole, eh?

To expand a bit on this, some of us (that is to say, I and at least a few people I know) are just suckers for "grand scale" characters, and tend to make more than one of those. I have, in no particular order:

1. An alien princess who inherited the very power of creation.

2. An alien usurper who stole the very power of destruction.

3. An archdemon who emigrated to Earth because he was dissatisfied with the dilapidation of hell.

4. An immensely powerful psychic with godlike powers who has an ancient demon sealed inside her.

5. An ancient who is completely and entirely unkillable and older than he can remember.

6. A dictator with all the power of the planet if he really put his back into it.

7. The de-facto goddess of an alien world with power enough to rule it all just by herself.

And that's without really thinking about it too hard, or really mentioning many of my ACTUAL signature characters. That's just how I and a few others like designing our concepts. In the current system, these characters are still limited to being top-level but unremarkable supers when they were meant to be godlike. The Incarnate system will allow them to be as godlike as I wrote them to be without actually developing Mary Sues with informed abilities but being much weaker than they should be in actual gameplay.

To me, a concept isn't interesting unless it has the potential to be godlike of its own making and on its own devices, hence why I have not a single character for whom Incarnate powers wouldn't make sense.

"Some people" need to stop using straw men, because "some people" are constructing a top-heavy fallacy. Because "most people" are fully capable of caring about ALL of their characters and not just some but not other characters. If "some people" prefer to design some characters they respect and other characters they don't care about, that's "some people's" prerogative. "Most people" don't face that dilemma, because "most people" are capable of running and caring about multiple characters.

Unless you're Golden Girl.

Again, says who? You keep making those absolute assertions like you're making the rules and designing the systems, but you're not. You don't have a development studio backing you up, so please stop acting like you do. In not a single official statement have any of the developers so much as hinted at this system being only for some characters on an account, but not for all. This is something you made up for yourself, and while you're free to believe this, it is neither your place nor your right to dictate how people play or what they campaign for. At no time were we told that only our "mains" would be applicable for the Incarnate system, so to claim people should have known better is both arrogant and insulting.

No offence, but I dare say the fact that it doesn't "make sense" to earn Incarnate status for more than one character is your own failing of either narrative or imagination, from where I'm standing. You are certainly free to be a one-character player, but to suggest that we should all be in a game that was built from the ground up, advertised, marketed and praised as a game that is friendly to making multiple characters and "altoholism" is out right absurdity. In fact, Positron himself has been caught as suggesting that people make more characters when they reach 50, that their design strategy is to support alts and that they have expressely NOT introduced systems (such as AT respecs) for no reason other than because they devalue the act of making and playing alts.

You have no ground to claim this. Either back up your completely baseless claims with something tangible or stop pretending they're provable fact.

What I'm suggesting still works for toe-bombing... Of sorts. You don't actually lay the mine down at your enemies' feet, you toss it at your enemies. Same effect, but with more range and less chance to be interrupted. I have a hard time EVER seeing Devices as overpowered.

We used to be able to do that, yes. In fact, I did that once upon a time. ED put an end to that practice, however, both because Targeting Drone couldn't offer enough to-hit and because you couldn't slot your attacks for more than three damage anyway.

If anything happens to the power, I want it to be a damage boost. That's on a Blaster, after all.

Turning Smoke Grenade into Smoke Flash actually sounds like a very nifty idea. It would certainly give the power more use than just basic unnecessary utility, so I'm all for that.

No I won't run them 40 times because I don't have 40 50s. I will run them about 10 times, however, because I have about 10 50s. What I said in no way indicated that I believe there are 50s who SHOULDN'T partake in the system, merely that people don't tend to have as many 50s as they've had characters at level 10.

I fully believe that all players should expect to engage all of their 50s in the incarnate system. I just don't think people have as many 50s as they have alts, but this changes nothing either.

*edit*
Says you. I happen to disagree.

Because "people" are looking for a solo (read: not forced teaming) option, and "get a team" is incompatible with that. This has nothing at all to do with whether the mission is or is not soloable, just that the "teaming recommendation" isn't always desirable.

I disagree. All of what you mentioned are cosmetic items, and I agree with how silly it is to gate them. The Incarnate system IS NOT cosmetic, and should not be treated as such. The Incarnate system is wholly and entirely a gameplay system. It will need gameplay to unlock and explore. To wish otherwise is missing the point.

You CAN still compare this to the arc needed to unlock the Midnight club or the arcs to unlock the Recluse SF or the Caverns of Transcendence or the Ernesto Hess TF. Those constitute gameplay locked behind other gameplay, and are more appropriate comparisons. Hazard Zone levels used to be, but they no longer exist, except on Cimerora, Ouroboros, The Hive, The Abyss and all four PvP zones.

You call it hypocritical. I call it loyalty. I respect and admire the people I like (which is why I like them) and I'm prepared to cut them far more slack and reason with them than I am with complete strangers. I don't see any reason to try and justify that - the kind of absolute neutralism that sees you treating your friends and family like strangers and enemies is alien to me.

You'll also note that I'm just as happy to back off and be reasonable with people who respond reasonably, which is how I became friends with my friends to begin with. If people blow up in my face and flip their top, as it often happens, then I don't feel bad about treating them harshly.

One thing I want to point out - and this may make me sound like a dick - but you were wrong. Completely. The character I described above got Stamina yesterday and managed to slot it soon thereafter. I have not run out since, and that is without doing ANYTHING else to my build. Anything at all. In fact, I got Stamina for free, dropped a yellow End Mod SO in it and the character was transformed from having to rest every other fight and always running the risk of sucking wind to pretty much never having to rest at all unless I forgot endurance existed and just charged on regardless.

Matter of fact, the entire duality between health and endurance just flipped on its head. Before, I almost never, EVER had to stop and rest for health, outside the cases where I had to rest for health AND ENDURANCE. With Stamina, the scant few times I have actually rested have been for low health. Endurance is no longer the bottleneck. Survivability is, as it should be. THAT is a change I can appreciate in a very big way.

In fact, now that I finally have Stamina 3-slotted with level 40 Commons and I've replaced all my SOs (to the tune of 25 million Inf, thank you monkeys), I'm actually planning to REDUCE my endurance slotting as I can lay more of my expenditure on the almost 50% added recovery from Stamina. More specifically, I'm looking to get rid of the endurance reducer in my Deflection toggle, to replace it with resistance. As the power grants both defence and resistance and I want to three-slot both of those aspects, that leaves no room for endurance slotting. Before, I'd have plain had no room. Now I will, and I'll still be better off.

You were wrong, dude. Stamina solved all my endurance problems, and I didn't have to budge a muscle or a brain cell for it.

Precisely. If you want to be a vigilante, there are plenty of opportunities to be a jerkass in Paragon City. You don't need to leave town for that.

I like the idea, but the system is a bit... Unfair.

For one, Tub Chi seems to be recognised as "Tub Ci Tan," when I'm pretty sure he's listed as Tub Chi in NPC dialogue and "Tub Chi Tan" in that one Praetoria arc.

The Family's leader is listed as Emil Marcone, when that's the leader of the Marcone Family in the Rogue Isles. The leader of the Paragon City Family and the Family overall is cited as Sebastian Frost in that one mission where you have to rescue his nephew who squealed on him.

The leader of the Circle of Thorns is listed as Baron Zoria, when Zoria is actually just a man who found Oranbega and was possessed by the Circle, as evidenced by either the Library of Souls or Mu'Drakhan's arc where you find his soul locked in a crystal. According to Akharist, the Circle of Thorns itself is the ruling council of Oranbega, so I think they should be cited as the leaders.

The Malta leadership is cited as "The Council of Leaders" and that's the first of heard of that. Crimson cites their leadership as "The Directors" in his World Wide Red arc, which eventually has you face off against one of their leaders, Director 17 (I think it was 17).

I'm not saying all of these are "wrong" but they should probably be accepted answers.

*edit*
By the way, the entry for the leader of the Council accepts "Center" but does not accept "Centre"

*rimshot*

Blazing Bolt, correct? This one is just BAAAD! I see no reason why it couldn't charge like the others. Amusingly, though, Blazing Bolt is probably the only one which actually needed a one-hand animation, being that it's naturally two-handed. All the other went from one-handed to... One-handed...

Because of the Thick Hide?

This truly is bizarro land when I can agree with Shubbie, but... I agree with Shubbie.