ShadowsBetween

I can't speak for anyone else. But if someone I don't know sends me a /tell asking if I want a team, I'm unlikely to reply. If I *do* reply, it'll be to ask how they found my character when I've been in a mission for half an hour and I *thought* all my characters were hidden from searches. Simply put, if I actually *want* to join a group, I'll have sought one out or formed one myself. I've had enough unpleasant experiences in general that I'm really not interested in joining a group with someone that I don't already know.

I also don't use global channels, because frankly most of the time it's exactly like listening to Broadcast in Atlas - there might be a few people in a span of hours actually trying to do something useful or interesting, and everyone else is just competing for a spot in my /Ignore list.

Right. If you watched the old Star Trek series, Tyrant started out as the Mirror universe Evil Kirk, from the reality where all good people in the "real" world are evil and walk around with goatees and mustaches. It's a little more complicated than that now, but it's simplest to think of Tyrant and Reichsman as Evil Clones. Some other big differences between the two settings are that many of the other factions from the original game are either missing or have a different alignment. Circle of Thorns, Hellions and Skulls don't seem to exist, and the Kheldians either don't exist, were wiped out in the Hamidon War, or are doing a very good job of keeping out of sight. The 5th Column and Arachnos were both presumably wiped out in the Hamidon War, or got eaten by Devouring Earth monsters after Tyrant locked them out of his little utopia.

If the devs wanted to get really crazy, they could add quite a few more worlds just by playing around with the "What If..." machine. Like a version of Earth where Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx went on the suicide mission, and Hero 1 is the leader of the surviving Supers on Earth. Or an "Apocalypse Earth" where Lord Recluse is the leader of the last surviving group of humans fighting against something so evil that it makes him look like a good guy.

Swinglines that only attach to real objects are, realistically, probably the worst travel power imaginable. You can only use them if there happens to be a tall enough object, within range of whatever you have for a launcher, and IN THE DIRECTION you want to go. Plus, it has to be made out of something your Unobtanium grappling hook can actually stick to *and* be strong enough to bear your weight. Concrete buildings would deflect anything less than rocket-driven pitons, and half the buildings of any great height in the Rogue Isles are actually covered in smooth metal. Cinder block is very brittle, and I've shattered bricks just by dropping them when I've been helping my aunt with her garden. (She dry stacks red bricks to define the edges of the flowerbeds.) And that's not counting the possibility of accidentally hitting a window.

Frankly, "super science" and "Magi-tech" hooks that can apparently attach to nothing almost make more sense. I can think of several that are "serious" enough to at least compete with the Bat Grappling Hook, and that make as much sense as anything else in a setting where grown men run around in tights with their briefs on the outside of their clothes.

Stupid Science Skyhook 1: The hero discovers a way to generate stable portals, from any location, but other end is always in his lab, next to the machine that actually generates the effect. They're also limited to about two feet across. Aside from being useful for yelling through to get his shop assistant to hand him his lunch (which he forgot,) the inventor can't think of much this would be good for. Until it occurs to him to put something very large and very, very heavy next to the portal, and then invent a device capable of attaching and detaching to this object on command.

Ta-da! Every time he fires the skyhook, it activates the portal generator. The grappling hook hits the anchor block which is immediately on the other end of the portal, providing a stable anchor to an object which is both too large and too heavy to pull through the opening. (And is also close enough to the opening to keep the bad guys from crawling through into his lab. Although this does have the disadvantage of preventing his assistant from being able to use the portal to hand him his lunch. Which the hero has forgotten. Again.)

Stupid Science Skyhook 2: The inventor has discovered a way to generate a totally impenetrable force field, and to do so with a very very small device. The force field has several disadvantages though. First, it's totally immovable, relative to the surface of the most massive nearby object. (Which would normally be the surface of the planet.) Second, the forcefield is smaller than the device that projects it, or in this case about the size of a large marble. As a defensive item or a weapon, it's totally useless, but it makes a lovely pivot point for a skyhook.

Magic Skyhook: It's *magic.* Which mean, pretty much by definition, that it works despite any rational reason to the contrary.

As far as "looks stupid," that's an entirely subjective thing, and can be applied to many of the animations we've already got in the game. Masterminds are big offenders here, with "mundane" minions that appear out of thin air and soldiers that rappel down out of nothing. And robots that pop up out of the floor, and that take off on rocket boots from inside caves.

Oh please. I can't claim to be a fan of the game, but of the things that could be killing it, I doubt "swinglines work everywhere" would even be in the top 100. If you hate the power, that's fine, but claiming that it's actually killing an entire game is... well, sort of a PP thing to do, frankly.

There's a few though, like Uwe Boll, who turn anything they touch into composting guano though.

Because it's simpler to combine the two. Instead of making a story arc and a TF for each slot, just make a TF that assumes everyone taking part has ALL the Incarnate slots up to that point. So, the next TF is balanced around having the alpha, and rewards Judgment. The one after that assumes Judgment, and rewards the next slot, and so on. In fact, the very next TF could be balanced around having Alpha + the next slot with a common boost in each, even though the next slot is the reward. After all, by the time it comes out the hardcore elite will have Uncommon Alpha boosts for at least one flavor, and probably have enough parts saved up to jump straight up to Rare or Very Rare.

In "that other" MMO, the minimum gear needed to do a dungeon is usually the gear that *drops* from that dungeon. The first people to finish it get bragging rights for doing it the hard way, and then get to pick and choose which of their "less worthy" friends gets the pity slot to come along and get twinked up so they can actually contribute.

And for the most part, I don't play AT/set combos that I know don't solo well. I have zero Defenders, and no Tankers. (Yes, I know, both can solo. But a Brute or Corruptor has access to most of the same powers and are orders of magnitude easier for me to use.) It's also the reason why my only Force Field character is a Mastermind - that set is very nearly useless solo, even compared to the other defense-buff sets. (Or at least it seems that way to me. I'm sure someone will helpfully explain how I'm wrong and it's totally awesome.)

That particular character is an exception, in that I had a concept that I felt required an Earth/Storm controller. IE, the character I wanted to make, didn't seem to make any sense to me with any other powers.

In any case, some people are claiming that any character can solo Trapdoor, and that any case where someone can't is a failure on the part of the player, not the design of the encounter. So I put that forth as an example of a character that I know *can* solo, and for whom I suspect the difficulty won't be trivial. If Holds actually stop him from duplicating, then the Animated Stone can probably deal with Trapdoor. If it can't, or if one slips through, then dealing with the clone while keeping him from making any more could be a problem.

Which brings us right back around. I don't want to team up. Not for this mission, not for most missions. I *do* occaisionally do so, but it isn't something that happens often. I don't know a large number of people that I want to do missions with, and PUGs, even from the Global channels that I lurk on, mostly just end up feeding my Ignore list. Spending time on my Earth/Storm solo is still less aggravating to me than spending time around players that I don't know.

He doesn't need to spawn an infinite number of clones, and he doesn't need to be spawning new ones every whatever seconds if he's not taking damage. Especially if there's no one even in the mission at the moment. As I said, my Mastermind beat him without luring him out of the room, but only because the damn clones eventually stopped spawning. IE, I had to fight it as a war of attrition, and he eventually ran out of pets before I did. That will no longer happen. Maybe my experience was unusual, but my zombies wasted an incredible amount of time in that room trying to find their way around when I sent them after a clone. By the time they'd reached it and killed it, he'd spawned the next one, every single time.

The opposite of what?

I'm not ranting. I'm simply tired of attempting to explain my point of view to people who will ignore most of what I say. And it's hardly a baseless assumption that would be how future Incarnate slots are going to work. Aside from a recent mention of "Incarnate trials" in one of the dev posts or announcements, it's how pretty much every other MMO does it.

We got very little non-Incarnate content in this issue. A handful of Tips missions, several of which bug out on me quite often. And Inherent Fitness. And a handful of buggy Zone Events in Praetoria, I suppose, although I don't have any characters for whom those are relevant at this point. I'd be willing to bet that Issue 20 has even less, and that if it includes new costumes at all, they'll be TF unlocks for the new Incarnate trials. I'm not expecting any content that any of my characters can actually use until at least Issue 22 at this point.

If people like the new TFs and want even harder ones, fine. Have fun. I don't care. What I DO care about is being excluded from new powers and content entirely. The rest of the game doesn't cease to exist, but from my point of view, any content that requires an Incarnate TF to unlock is irrelevant. So in Issue 20, I expect to have exactly nothing to look forward to at this point. I'll most likely never get any of the interesting new powers that it looks like the later Incarnate slots will offer, like special AoEs and pets and whatever else, so I can't even enjoy playing around with them in normal missions.

Some Masterminds are decent at normal content. Tankerminds might even be good at it, although I wouldn't know. I hate the playstyle required to make a Tankermind work, so I don't have any. Masterminds don't steamroll EBs though, especially not melee EBs that can wipe out the entire Tier 1 with a single AoE attack. In any case, I'm clearly not as awesome as you, so I should just uninstall the game right now, right?

It's not you. He does it a lot. He doesn't seem to get it out of his system until *after* he's been Darth Vader for a while.

Why do people constantly think that "MMO" means "YOU MUST TEAM!" Or that people that don't want to team up are somehow anti-social trogs?

I personally don't like to team up, *especially* with PUGs. I've tried it, it's not fun. Aside from my nearly supernatural ability to join groups lead by Build Nazis, I have a very low tolerance for juvenile behaivior. Player X may think that "off color" comment or that macro that makes their character look like they're air-humping are funny. I think they're usually a good reason to use /ignore.

In any case, if the devs wanted to FORCE people to get a team for this arc, it should have been a TF. Since it isn't, people have the expectation that it should be possible to solo it. I haven't run this mission since the last patch that changed it. The two times I have run it, I had to use both of the tactics the devs apparently decided were "not working as intended." IE, pulling him out of sight of the clones, or focusing on killing clones until they simply stopped spawning, *THEN* dealing with Trapdoor. Neither of my characters that has ran this mission appears to be capable of killing clones faster than they can spawn, so attacking Trapdoor directly proved pretty pointless both times. And for my zombie Mastermind, trying to get him into the lava would have been counterproductive - zombies are a lot more flammable than Trapdoor is.

It doesn't matter though. I don't intend to try running the mission again. It's clear that the devs don't want "players like me" to participate in the Incarnate system. The Alpha slot is only barely possible to do solo in any case. I'm sure that they will follow the same bad example as "that other game," and that future Incarnate slots will flatly *require* a TF to unlock. (And quite probably that each one will require all the Incarnate slots that have been released up to that point to even attempt.) I already quit another more popular game, precisely *because* that's how the entire endgame worked.

I find it mildly ironic that the one thing that looks likely to cause me to quit playing CoH is the "new endgame" content that is supposedly meant to give "veteran" players more to do.