Issue 19: Incarnates

Well, there we have it.

NERF Incarnates!

I have a feeling people might be misunderstanding just how the incarnate levels are gained. Only time will tell, but I'm going to reserve judgment until I get more information.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

New option in the difficulty screen: "Disable Incarnate Abilities". Required for the Mo* badge.

Problem solved.

Doesn't solve the problem of Incarnate Defenders solo the 5 final AVs at once

Do you even read the post you are replying to? How can Incarnate Defenders solo anything if their Incarnate lvls and powers are disabled for an MoSTF.

Wait.. it was GG... nvm.. stop feeding trolls Rad.

@Radmind - Justice Server
ClintarCOH - Twitter

Strangely, every single team doesn't do every single STF run on the Mo setting.
Turning off Incarnate powers for an Mo run doesn't solve the problem of 5 level 50 AVs vs a full team of Incarnates.
The same goes for the ITF - people have run that in under 20 minutes with current IO'ed 50s - what sort of runs would a team of full Incarnates be capable of?
If Incarnate levels boost your powers, would a buffing Incarnate on your team mean that even 54s wouldn't be able to hit you?
Right now, the difficulty scaling is designed towards non-IO'ed avatars, with IOs giving a nice boost.

So, to repeat what I said, something else I'm wondering about is how will the curent content remain a challenge for Incarnates? Like won't something like the STF need some sort of extra level of difficulty, otherwise it'd be come just too easy?

I think you are grossly exaggerating how powerful Incarnate players will be. I can see a few buffs, or a new power or two, but I don't think it's going to make Defenders Solo several AVs at once.

lvl 50 characters with SO's or even Common IO's won't have too much difficulty with most TFs unless they are +3s or +4s.
I've been on as many 20 min ITFs with SO'd toons as I have with my Soft capped Elec/Shield Scrapper. It's all a matter of who you play with.

I'm willing to bet a team of 8 Incarnates with idiots playing them will have as much trouble with any TF/SF as any other team.




Also.... holy crap GG actually explained a post...

@Radmind - Justice Server
ClintarCOH - Twitter

Even though I believe that Matt Miller and the rest of the developers have made some questionable design choices in the past, I seriously doubt that any incarnate levels/powers would be any more powerful than purpling (I can't believe that actually makes sense as a word) out a character.

Sure Incarnate levels/powers will add extra abilities, but I doubt that they will be so overpowered as people think they will be.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

But then what would be the point of 10 extra Incarnate levels? What would be the incentive for 50s to unlock all the new endgame content?
By default, any boost for 50s is going to make high-end challenges easier - and 10 incrante levels doesn't really sound like a slight boost.

Well, normally, I think my posts are pretty easy to understand - but if they're not clear to everyone, then it's only fair to explain them

I find it really hard to believe that the much-requested endgame system will be basically a way to save money on purples at WW.

Actually, I find it rather easy to see it as exactly that.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Do you really have that little faith in the devs?

Also, if it's just a few buffs and stuff, then why exactly did the system first push back the GR release date, then require the system to be only fully completed in I19 instead, and get Positron and a number of other devs to form a special "task force" just for creating the endgame system.
Wouldn't putting a price cap on purples have been way simpler, and saved lots of time and resources that could be used on something more substantial?

I'm with Snow Globe, the Devs are more than smart enough to not break the game with Incarnates. For me it will be the Journey to get my Incarnate lvls that I will enjoy rather than the rewards. (Depends on what the rewards are...)

@Radmind - Justice Server
ClintarCOH - Twitter

I think BOTH positions are right. I can easily see a setting that makes TFs harder for Incarnates, an automatic thing that happens that boosts the difficulty for a team with Incarnates, and more NEW HARDER content that Incarnates can do.

I don't think the system will be too limited in increasing power for 50s, nor do I think they will be able to solo 5 AVs by themselves at once.

There is a middle ground here.

And it has the exact same problems as raising the level cap: HOs will go red and become useless, all the existing level 50 content will have to either be rebalanced for level 60s or it will "gray out" and level 60s will have no more incentive to run it, it will create a situation where only the latest 10 levels have any content added to them and anything before them is just a long stretch of time-wasting until you get to the "real game"...

...oh wait, no it doesn't. Could this mean... people who were against a level cap raise were actually worried about those problems surfacing, and not just opposing bigger numbers next to character names on general principle? No, impossible. That would mean that instead of being giant hypocrites and Dev fanbois, they are actually just cautiously optimistic about a system that *appears* so far to avoid most of the possible pitfalls.

Unless we start seeing AVs and other enemies with "level 60" beside their names, then this isn't a levl cap raise

What I think they might be going to do is to eventually give us 50 Incarnate levels - so the system would allow you to sort of double up on your levels - like once you hit 50, you can access the new endgame system and then go over your whole build with another 1-50 of incarnate levels.

This. I believe this will be like that.

I also believe that there will be no new slots or "traditional" powers. So no, this won't be like the original 1-50 leveling system.

No, I fully believe that they wouldn't be stupid enough to make a new system that overpowers the game enough to force a global re-balance of the rest of the game because it is introduced. If it were overpowered to the extreme you and others are talking about, it would force years of work to re-balance the game.

Because, like Leandro noted, It would be a wise move to test with a single incarnate level and see what happens. It would limit the complaints. Just take a look at the Blessing of the Zephyr threads for a reason why they wouldn't want to get too far into the system before being able to see how the players will abuse it.

Go talk to the market forums to find out why that wouldn't work. While I don't agree 100% with the players that live on the markets, I do agree that price caps are not the answer. Making the demand on purples less, curiously enough, would solve a lot of problems.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

I thought I was putting forth the middle ground. While I certainly don't think that any Incarnate will be able to solo 5 AVs at once, I do see that Incarnates will be more powerful. Just not to the extent that they would overpower the game.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

But don't forget that these 10 levels are the start of the Incarnate system - as more levels are added, there's going to come a point when Incarnate players are either going to stop using the system because it's giving such tiny, pointless boosts, or they're going to become too powerful for the current highest difficulty setting.