ShadowsBetween

For the first question, I don't do it to any great degree. I have one character who has costumes with and without wings. If I'm thinking about it, sometimes I'll switch to the winged costume to fly a long distance, but largely I don't worry about it.

For the second question, I can honestly say I don't personally have any interest or desire to see such a feature. In fact, I'd be strongly opposed to such a feature unless it was entirely optional. To be honest, I have similar feelings about "secret identities" and other such roleplaying gimmicks. I don't think there needs to be game mechanics to enforce rulesets that really only appeal to hardcore roleplayers. Especially if such rules end up restricting normal play, or imposing arbitrary disadvantages. "I'm sorry, you picked the Vegetarian trait at character creation, you're going to be doing 10% less damage during this mission. It's in the rules."

You're in luck then. According to the screen shots from the sneak peak, the new Incarnate slots need three new currencies. Incarnate Threads, and two kinds of "incarnate Merits." There might also be a form of "Incarnate XP" required to even unlock the slots in the first place, but I'm not certain about this (and honestly no longer care.)

That would be true, if the Incarnate powers only functioned at all in Incarnate trials. Indications are though, that the pets and AoE and buffs will work in any mission, as long as you're currently fighting at level fifty. Are you seriously trying to claim that even just the Alpha boost has no value to a solo player doing level 50 missions?

Except the alternative isn't even attempting to be reasonable. Right now, with the Weekly Strike Target and just the Alpha, a Raid happy player can unlock the Very Rare in three weeks, I think. (Three runs for the Notices of the Well, and all the other Task Forces and Ship Raids will almost certainly give you enough shards and components to finish it.) I've been playing my level 50 solo about as much as ever, and I've gotten five shards in the last MONTH solo. At that rate, it'll take me over a year to do what they're allowing Raid players to do in less than a month. That's not a "solo option," that's an insult. It would be better for everyone if they weren't even pretending to allow solo players to participate - at least then there wouldn't be any way to argue about it.

I don't WANT to run the Task Force missions. I DO NOT LIKE THEM. It's not a question of not having time, or being unable to find a team. I don't enjoy them. At all. And yet if I want to make my character stronger, to progress in power or storyline, I'm being FORCED to do something I specifically don't enjoy. Because the "solo alternative" will take so long it's not even a realistic consideration. And that's *before* they add four more slots, which apparently use an entirely different form of currency, AND a "special" XP that *ONLY* drops naturally from the new Raids.

Really, and this point I'd rather the devs had just said flat out that solo players can't participate. It's what they're implementing anyway. And for the record, I played that big MMO that *does* lock solo players out. Want to guess why I quit and came here? Because, at the time, this game *didn't* do that. Now I'm starting to think that NCSoft doesn't want me here anymore, either. Because they certainly aren't giving me any new reasons to stay.

No, they get it. They know exactly which slots are being discussed. Their point, such as it is, amounts to "just shut up and run the raids. Problem solved." The fact that some people don't *want* to run them because they can't, or simply don't enjoy that kind of gameplay at all, is what is getting ignored.

But whatever. My current subscription ends just around June, I think. If the devs want me to continue giving them money, they need to come up with something more compelling than Issue 20.

I think a dev actually mentioned this recently. There's some kind of zone-wide AoE in Ouroboros. It's harmless, it does something that it needs to do, but it also triggers the "there is a hostile NPC aiming a gun at your head" code. So the engine treats it as though you're in combat, and you can't switch the Incarnate Boosts in combat. It's a known issue. The only current workaround is to just zone to somewhere else - the effect is specific to Ouroboros.

And there we go. Precisely what I was expecting. Further Incarnate progress locked behind an Incarnate Trial, and only achievable via forced teaming. Raid grind, here we go. And I won't be surprised if any costume parts they do add turn out to be rewards for finishing the trial, like the Roman parts and the ITF.

I don't have to. I'm the one who is stating that mutants SHOULD NOT be more vulnerable to a given kind of a attack *just* because they're mutants. You claim they should be. So, prove to me how Wolverine could be disabled more effectively by lifting him off the ground with magic instead of a force beam or telekinesis. My point was that Wolverine would be completely neutralized if he's stuck in midair, where Cyclops might only be inconvenienced and Nightcrawler would simply escape. It's the effect (lifting him off the ground so that he can't fight) that disables him, not the power source. He's vulnerable to it because of his specific fighting style, not because he's a mutant.

You are claiming that adding an extra word to the description of a power should somehow make it stronger against a given target. You want to claim that "divine" magic is somehow stronger against Rikti. Now you have to define, and therefore LIMIT, what "divine" means. You are proposing a system that would effectively REDUCE customization, not increase it. Because for a given AT, or powerset, or enemy, there would be a "best" Origin. People would have to care about Origin, especially in the endgame, for the same reason that some players care a great deal that you chose to skip Hasten on a given character. They don't CARE what your backstory is, or your origin, or your history. They care that Mids shows that if you add Hasten to *this* build, it'll improve your DPS by five percent. And they will kick you for being stupid and not having it, because you're "holding back" the team.

In the end though, the devs have already implemented their "vision" of the correct solution to the "origin" problem. Origin is a fluff stat that players can choose to base their character backstory around. And one that has no game mechanics at all. Because if I want to make a vampire themed character, I should be free to choose ANY origin at all, without having to worry that I'll be crippling my character against enemy X or in one Task Force or another. And let's be clear - if the Origin Boost you want isn't large enough that it's clearly "Best" in a given situation or for a given AT, then we're right back at the start and it can be safely ignored.

Only if I decide that's part of their character. Just like I can make any origin work for a vampire, I can think of reasons why almost any set of powers and weaknesses could apply as well. Again, it's strictly an RP factor. And I would object *strongly* to every character being given, essentially, their own form of Kryptonite. What was Batman's weakness again? Oh, yes, he chooses not to use guns on living people. How about Wolverine, what was his fatal flaw? Right, he doesn't have one.

Spiderman's only real weakness is that the writers love to mess with him, and have a nasty habit of undoing anything that could lead to a "Happily Ever After" for Peter Parker. Their favorite is that many of his villains started out as his friends, or end up killing people he cares about. As a character, he doesn't need a special weakness to Magic, for example, because he's not immune to much anything else either. A mook with a machine gun is actually a threat to Spiderman.

For Superman, they had to decide that magic was a special exception to his invulnerability, because the audience looses interest if *nothing* can threaten the hero. I'd also note that for the animated version at least, that two of his major enemies are both probably Science origin. Parasite and Livewire. For that storyline, the writers decided that Superman is also vulnerable to electricity, at least the the extent that Livewire can actually hurt him and even stun him unconscious. I could also make the case that Livewire could be either Mutant or Natural, as well. And *her* major weaknesses are her own massive ego and that water catastrophically short circuits her powers.

*Lots* of supers don't have any special weakness. You only need to add an exception if the hero is overpowered to begin with, as with Superman. In CoH, they added Void Hunters as the Kheldian Kryptonite. And later greatly weakened them once it became apparent that Khelds are basically "balanced enough" without needing a foe that has the ability to auto-kill them whenever it turns up. By the time the got around to VEATs, it was clear that VEAT kryptonite was A) not necessary, and B) wildly unpopular with players. Which is at least part of why VEATs don't *have* a Kryptonite.

Why should it? If you aren't roleplaying, the origin is a totally arbitrary point on your character sheet. Like specifying in you bio that you have green eyes. Plus, it doesn't really map very well to some concepts. For example, some people make vampires, and declare them Magic origin. If I made a vampire or demon, I'd call them Natural - whatever powers they have are as likely to be a natural feature for their race as learned skills. The 5th Column vampires are pretty likely to be Science origin. I know of at least one variation on the Living Vampire from the Spiderman comics that strongly suggested he was either a flat out mutant, or a science induced/accelerated mutant like Beast. And I can think of at least three decent backstories that would allow for Technological origin vampires. For example, a suit of power armor that depends on technology stolen or copied from the Nictus, that either allows the wearer to drain the life force of others, or actually even requires it to function.

It's also done for the same reason that armies in RTS games are often exactly the same, only with different color coding - it's a lot easier to figure out. The Joker is a dark reflection of Batman, just replacing the dedication and honor with pure crazy. It's really hard to come up with a story where the Joker can go head to head with Superman or Wonderwoman and not simply get pasted. It requires that the writers spend time actually *thinking* about how a nutcase with no superpowers (and without Batman's insane level of training and knowledge) could actually threaten them. So it doesn't happen much. Instead, Superman gets to fight Bizarro and Darkseid, not because they're "tied to his origin," but because it's easy to come up with situations where Superman could have a hard time dealing with someone as powerful as he is, but with all the "good" stripped out.

I find this to simply be a bad idea, especially if "winning" the event somehow requires people from a certain origin. The existing zone events are often hard enough to find anyone willing to help without the added frustration of requiring someone to log in on another character simply because he's the only one who can press the Great MacGuffin Button and win the event. Heck, on my server I've never even seen anyone participate in the Banner event after the first Halloween, and that just requires coordinating a large number of people.

The game has these already, they're called Single Origin Enhancements. They only work for one origin, and many of them have incomprehensible names that make it impossible to tell what they actually enhance without checking the info. Between, Training, Dual, Single, Invention, and Set enhancements, the system is already complicated enough without adding even more.

Again, already in the game, in the form of Billy Heck's Demon Box. For a Magic character, it summons a Wailer Demon. For everyone else, it's a decent but not great debuff. Trouble is, Billy Heck has a specific storyline that is required to get the box, and a lot of people don't want their villain to have to work for the Family just to get the box.

I would *strongly* oppose this, for the reason I stated at the beginning: I can think of a rational for almost any kind of hero to fit in any origin. (Batman might be Natural, but I can imagine any number of ways that a Martial Artist hero could be Magic (power granted by an amulet or spell,) Science (artificially enhanced reflexes and agility,) Technology (cyborg,) or Mutant (enhanced reflexes again, but due to mutant genetics rather than scientific enhancements.)

In fact, there is a recent game that actually does tie specific looks to a specific origin, and it frustrates a lot more people than it pleases. See, other than a few specific (and fairly obvious) costumes, the game doesn't tell you in advance which set is tied to which origin. And if you had a specific theme in mind and discover that the parts you want are in a different origin? Delete and reroll, cause you can't get there from here. And that's not even addressing the fact that some people would like to be able to mix and match the looks from different costumes, and can't. Because they're tied to specific origins.