UberGuy

DDR should not be debuffed. They are two separate attributes, and the attributes are not mathematically interconnected. (Your DDR is not a function of how much +defense you have.) Critters that apply -defense debuffs to date only apply -defense, not -DDR. So there's no reason DDR should decrease.

I haven't posted in this thread before, because I don't really have a strong stake in this. I'm OK with how it all works in CoH:F, but I can see people not liking how it works.

However, your quote above smacks of a presumptuous attitude that you have enlightened everyone else with the One Truth. That irritates me, because your post does no such thing.

This requires assuming that "including ... expansions" applies because Incarnate content was bundled with Going Rogue. Yet the debate over whether that's the case is what the whole thread's argument is about, and your "/thread" did nothing to shed greater light on it. You can't declare that argument won by fiat.

In my opinion, the weight of evidence about what is "promised" with respect to Going Rogue including Incarnate access is on the side of folks saying it was not bundled. Only one official info source anyone has dug up for GR references Incarnate powers, and that's the presence of an Incarnate info page appearing under the GR heading. Incarnate powers are not listed on the game boxes, not in the (US) online store page, etc.

In my opinion, that only leaves open to debate the argument about whether unambiguous mechanical gate linking running iTrials to owning GR shows that Incarnate content is "bundled" with GR. Gating is not the same thing as "included with", but gating clearly shows a link. In my opinion, that is a situation vague enough that either side's argument can be said to be weakly valid. If either side's argument can apply, then the devs get to apply the one they want. Some people may gripe about the dev's choice, but we can't fairly say for sure that the devs were being disingenuous or "screwing" anyone out of anything, because the situation is vague.

When arguing about the interpretation of something vague, nobody gets to whip out "/thread" without looking like they're just full of themselves.

Clearly, picking Incarnate powers is not the same as making our powerset power choices. It's similar, but not the same. That is a design choice, and it certainly didn't have to be designed the way it has been, but I do believe it is a reasonable design choice, and I think its a choice with far-reaching balance implications for the whole Incarnate system.

There are vastly fewer of Incarnate powers than there are powerset powers, Incarnate powers are incredibly potent, and any given Incarnate power functions the same on any character. By assigning their availability in a fixed order, the devs can more easily build iTrial content which assumes that availability.

Following that line of thinking, I believe that mapping the more-or-less linear progression through the slots map to iTrial challenges is directly related to the seemingly outrageous strength of some of the Incarnate powers. The first half of most of the Destiny abilities provide as much or more core benefit of some whole powersets. Judgement powers compare favorably with the most powerful attacks in ranged blast sets. While they last, Lore pets are frequently more damaging than many top-flight builds on damage-oriented ATs. I believe that such immense power was given to us explicitly so that the devs could be allowed to make assumptions in Incarnate content that we actually have these incredible powers available when facing later challenges. By this logic, the BAF and Lambda are the easiest, fastest iTrials to run because they may assume leagues have no Incarnate powers available.

Now, you alluded to all the above, but I don't think you covered that this mapping needs to works in reverse, as well. Indeed, considering how the reverse mapping of later Incarnate powers to earlier iTrials may be critical to understanding how the whole system fits together. Consider that we don't yet know publicly what future Incarnate slots will offer us. Genesis may offer something that makes, say, the BAF even easier than it is now. If we can use the BAF to earn iXP towards Genesis straight away, and all iXP is equal for unlocking all slots, then once we unlock Genesis we can use a Genesis-fueled BAF rampage to unlock other slots we want without facing challenges that were designed to assume access to Genesis.

Now, pehaps all iXP is not equal, and only certain iTrials unlock certain slots. In that case we need to go back and look at the forward mapping. If only certain trials provide iXP that unlocks Genesis, and if that content assumes we have and Lore and Destiny unlocked (either through hard-coded gates or content design), then the iTrials themselves are enforcing the linear slot progression on us even if the Incarnate system itself does not. On the other hand, if the content to unlock Genesis does not assume Lore or Destiny, we're back to asking why they are so strong.

I agree that there's no strict imperative that slot-to-iTrial mapping be enshrined in the progress map. The devs could let us free-form our progression, and then leave it to us to realize we perhaps need to revert back to running easier/older trials to grab some now-pivotal Incarnate power we skipper earlier because a new trial calls for it. However, I think then the iTrials we use to earn them should then be much more generic in terms of its assumptions about the Incarnate powers we are bringing to them, especially when running earlier trials to unlock later slots, which I think then translates into the strength of these powers being much less significant, because they aren't expected to be able to individually propel a league over massive mechanical challenges in later iTrials.

If I could turn that around, why shouldn't he/she have to? I don't see a strict analog between the Incarnate slots/trees and choosing primary/secondary powers. Progressing up the trees is like a multidimensional level progression path. Looking at just one dimension for a moment, just as level 49 precedes level 50, so to does Judgement precede Lore. Picking Incarnate powers obviously has some similarity to picking our powers in the 1-50 game, but it's not the same.

I grant its totally fair that you would like it to be the same, but I don't think it's inherently better, and I'm not sure that "flattening" the progress choices necessarily results in the same power balance (such as it is) that we have now.

Absolutely. Yes, there were folks that complained about the random nature of Task Force drops. I promise that they were folks who weren't running Katie Hannon into the ground. For the folks that were running Katies and Edens non-stop, the switch to a point-based system was a noticeable nerf in net reward rates.

Was it a good thing to do? Let's say I don't think it's optimally healthy for a game for one activity to be far-and-away the most rewarding per time invested, and the Reward Merit system levels the reward rate "playing field" for most content.

Be that as it may, I don't think many people equate greater access to respecification with ease of play to the degree that you do. Greater access to respecification is a QoL improvement many people might appreciate, but I don't suspect it drives away a meaningful number of players.

Because that's not correct. The deterministic path serves to ensure that the random path cannot screw someone too badly due to bad luck. It's a escape hatch. A deterministic path needs no such safeguard.

Since the patch where they stated it would be "easier to get incarnate components", I have heard of no one getting 10 Threads. That includes some people that arguably should have.

So do I. I'm not saying I prefer a random progression. I'm saying that given the design choice to create a random progression, including with that random progress a parallel deterministic progression that actually provides faster progress than random progression actually negates the choice to have a random progression.

I'm not disagreeing with your preference - I actually share it. My manifestation of that though would be not to include random progress at all.

That seems an odd assertion. It's not one I agree with, because it makes the random progression basically pointless. The point of a deterministic path combined with a random one is to provide a means to short-circuit long runs of bad luck. It puts an upper bound on how delayed your progress will be due to low-yield rolls. If that upper bound is lower than any reasonable result from random rolls, then random rolls really just ought to be removed all together.

Now, I don't like that there are random rolls, and therefore I would be OK if, with some other changes to go with it, the random rolls were indeed removed. But I have no illusions that the deterministic path would be faster than the random path we have now.* The devs have a vested interest in making this be a slog of some sort.

* And since I have had rather fantastic luck, my progress would probably be a lot slower under a purely deterministic system.

How is my pointing out that Tactics is actually a fairly ubiquitous power an indication that the game is becoming more WoW-like? I'm pointing out that i's actually quite likely that some of the people people assembled for a PuG are going to have a beneficial power for overcoming probably the trial's biggest mechanical challenge. The numbers given were meant to be evidence of that usefulness, not some min/maxing exercise.

Case in point, I have Scrappers and Brutes with Tactics.

I'm not seeing how "it's very common to find people with this helpful power without even trying" equates to "WoW-like". Contrast this with Keyes' "need people with a healing/regen power of some kind".

The devs care. No, really, it matters to them. They're creating new content. They have a vested interest in providing people a motive to play that content. If the content is escalating in difficulty, which I think is necessary because playing the content escalates our characters' power, then letting us bank progress by playing easier content invalidates the entire notion of giving us greater abilities with which to overcome greater challenges.

I'm not a fan of the random salvage mechanic. Not a fan at all. Edit: And it's been very kind to me, I might add.

There is a balance issue with this, however. Let's say you don't bother getting your Lore and Destiny slots. Your character is going to be significantly less powerful than someone who does have those, at least on a conditional basis. If they balance the later trials on the assumption that you don't have those powers, the later trials will be much easier for people who do have them.

Now, I understand there being a distaste for this. Until now, the sidekick system has mitigated this effect to a significant degree. There's currently no such thing as "incarnate sidekicks". But I'm specifically addressing letting us apply our iXP where we want to the extent that we get to skip slots. That creates a potential spread in power for characters in the trials that I am not sure is manageable.

The UGT doesn't require much more league-wide coordination than the BAF or Lambda do. Probably the most complex, multi-role activity in the whole trial is the "trap" room. Most other problems require mostly that the league be able to pump out high levels of effective DPS, and that individual players do reasonable things in response to big red warnings. The only real league-wide requirement is that there is enough Confuse protection/resistance.

My feeling is that a league of players with strong characters can largely brute through the UGT acting as soloists with a common goal, where they have to depend more heavily on one another in Keyes. I think getting that coordination is much harder in a PuG. I think that creates a negative feedback - some people who might be good at it don't want to run it because they don't trust a PuG to succeed, meaning those who do try it are denied those people who might help them succeed.

Um, what? That seriously doesn't make any sense at all. You can progress through what's available now, and then stop. That progress will not be wasted.

This of course has nothing to do with whether you like or want to progress through what's available now. I'm addressing the idea that time spent doing so would be wasted.

Edit: Reading more posts, I'm guessing you're actually talking about running iTrials beyond what you need to get where you wanted... why would anyone do that? Why are you making a point to complain about doing something that it doesn't make sense for anyone to do?*

* Bear in mind that there are other reasons to play iTrials than Incarnate progress, now. Astrals and Empyreans can buy stuff. Again, setting aside whether any given individual is (still) willing to run the trials, and just observing that something can be gained from doing so, even if all of a person's characters are "done" with Incarnate stuff from them.

They already have tech to exclude power customization effects from PvP. They're live and in use today. They shouldn't need to have any impact the devs don't want to have.

Edit: Heh, are you serious? That's like pointing out that someone else's girlfriend is prettier specifically because she doesn't have a freckle on her shoulder. Maybe it's a big deal to you, but I seriously doubt that's on many people's list of hot reasons to play some other game.

With careful AT/powerset construction of the League, and skilled/attentive players, I would say yes. It's not something I would remotely recommend for a PuG.

Every instance of Tactics is between around 3.6 to 6.5 points of confuse protection, depending on the AT of the user. Even just a few on a team can provide a base that will help a team need fewer of other, larger confuse protections, like Clarion. But perhaps most importantly, each Tactics is also between around 43% to 76% Confuse resistance, meaning a few people with it on your team dramatically reduces the duration of Confuse effects.

Now, that resistance benefit is subject to a kind of compound failure, in the sense that if the Tactics user themselves becomes confused, they stop providing that resistance and protection to their allies. That makes for a complex interaction, where the Tactics users recover more quickly than their allies, then start providing resistance to their allies again once they recover. But it can be a pretty big deal nonetheless, because it can mean any given pulse of the confuse (which lasts 5 seconds) doesn't actually affect the team for the whole duration.

Of course, not everyone has Tactics. However, I find it's actually very common among people who have respecced their characters to account for I19's Inherent Fitness.

For what it's worth, I have yet to be confused in the fight with the Avatar, and the only character I've been taking on the trial is a Regen Scrapper.

Yeah, and to get from new player to the tier 8 rewards is still a pretty epic outlay of cash. It's not going to be very common, if it happens ever.

I was not logged into the game and someone IM'd me about being mapserved out, then being unable to log back in. I tried logging in, and could not, receiving the message that the game couldn't talk to the login server.

It passed a few minutes later.

While I don't know that I posted in your original thread, let alone flamed you, I have never been a big fan of letting people buy what used to be "Vet Rewards", but I have no problem with it now.

Why? Because the whole system has changed. Before, CoH was almost purely a subscription game, with only occasional expansions and things like costume packs. Vet Rewards were couched specifically as a reward for longevity in subscription time.

Now, two things have changed fairly dramatically. CoH is no longer basically only about what a subscription will buy. It has far more a-la-carte features now. So from that perspective, everything is up for grabs. Secondly, and as the red names themselves have described as their motivation for the new Paragon Rewards program, the Vet Rewards paradigm of rewarding longevity specifically doesn't make as much sense. They could have left it in place, but they recognized that this was as good a time as any to add it (to a degree) to the a-la-carte system.

But they didn't really add it to the a-la-carte system. They attached progress in the new system to spending the equivalent of $15 dollars in the store. So if someone is really buying their way far up the progress track of vet rewards, they're paying a lot of money to NCSoft to do so. That's them throwing funding at a game I like playing. That works for me. At the same time, it's not trivial money, so I am pretty sure not everyone is going to run out and max out their Paragon Rewards (not if they weren't close already).