Silver Gale

It seems like if you "RP by level", and translate game accomplishments directly into character abilities, then consistency would demand that you accept the claims of godhood of a character with 10 fully slotted out Incarnate powers. But we're not nearly there yet.

Even with several (swappable) Uncommon Boosts, the most a character can claim is "I've unlocked a bit of additional power, not much, but it goes beyond what was previously thought to be the zenith, so that's remarkable in and of itself." The Rares and Ultra Rares will probably be more interesting, since they get into into "my powers go up to 11" territory with the Level Shift.

This is all, of course, assuming you draw a direct line from game level to IC power level. If you don't, then nothing really changes - you'll still be accepting people's claims of godhood based on how well you RP together.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one, Sam.

Some background: Our SG is made up of RPing alt-itis sufferers, some of whom are powergamers. We regularly mow through missions set at +2 or +3 not because we only do one thing that works best, but because every player knows how to play the game and every character has been fine-tuned for optimal performance within their RP concept.

I quite enjoyed both the Apex and Tin Mage TFs. The battles took longer than usual. The +4 enemies weren't melting in front of us like spawns usually do. The new boss fights required us to push our skills to the maximum and further, learning completely new tactics on the fly. We died a lot more than we're used to. In the Battle Maiden fight, we had several complete wipes, which hadn't happened in a long time.

And it worked. On an OOC level, it felt like a new thing, a new challenge. We all came together to overcome it, and it really gave me the warm fuzzies to once again be reminded that I could always count on my SGmates. We brought our A-game, we didn't let failure get us down, and we overcame it.

On an IC level, it was like one of those "massive world-shattering events" that the comics have whenever sales slip or they reach a milestone issue or there's a new executive director who decides to shake things up. The enemies were tougher, the stakes were higher, and it really felt like our small band of heroes was the last best hope for Primal Earth. Sure, the actual mechanics used to accomplish the toughness weren't that sophisticated, but the effect was to increase the dramatic tension.

Yeah, so it didn't make much internal sense to have the same enemies give us more trouble, but that's a limitation of the medium. They couldn't exactly justify the expense of making entirely new models for the tougher Malta units that only appear in one mission of one TF. Maybe they're super-elite units that they've been holding in reserve, maybe they have bullets especially developed to hurt your character, you can handwave it however you want. On a story level, they need to be more powerful, your characters *need* to be struggling with them, because anything less would be anti-climatic. On a gameplay level, this is supposed to be content that challenges the best of players, which by necessity will leave the not-as-good of players in the dust.

You could argue whether or not such content is necessary. For my part, I think challenging the best players is a goal worth striving for, and these two new TFs fulfill that goal admirably.

With inherent Fitness, my lowbies are once again fun to play. The ones pre-20 no longer run out of Endurance all the time, and then ones in the low 20s no longer have to put off fun powers to get Stamina. My level 25 Ice/Storm Corruptor is awesome to play.

I finally got around to giving some of my 50s a respec that they needed, but I couldn't be bothered to do. I also unlocked the Alpha slot on all of them, and every time I play them they usually get at least one shard, so that makes me happy.

Everyone's running TFs all the time and they're not speed TFs either. They are easy to PuG and fun to play.

And finally, there is over a hundred new badges for my badge hunters, and nothing makes me happier than badges.

This is a good story and you should feel good.

Wait, wait, isn't Steelclaw the one who gets to post lists? Or did Marcian cut off his head and absorb the resulting surge of List-Making Energy?

I remember trying to find that one from the Nova Praetoria side. I swam up and down, left and right, nothing worked. I gave up, turned on Fly to go to the next one, and as I flew upwards the bar suddenly ticked up. Perhaps the "marker" is higher up in this one particular case?

I'll probably end up unlocking the Alpha slot on every one of my 50s. Plenty of time to do so and no downside. Beyond that, it depends on how difficult it will be to open and fill the other 9 slots, and how much time I'll have inbetween releases.