Discussion: Introducing The Release Of Issue 19: Alpha Strike!

I have respeced and tried 4 of my characters and have to say well done. Making the fitness poll inherent was great , it opened up more power choices quicker and made my character more super.

Got to play for a bit last night before bed.

I respec'd my Energy/Dark Brute which went as expected. Thanks to the IO system and how it gives an extra bang for the buck I was able to go without a slot on all my attacks so I could then slot my new powers. I also went through and took out some IO's that I got just to have some small additional, but not substantial, bonuses. Those went on the market. As such, yeah, the respec was quite successful!

Oh - I took one purple, listed it for 100 million, and someone bought it for 475 million. While its nice to have the influence, I will say I was trying to get someone a deal

Went from there to get my Alpha Slot. This go round was more enjoyable than the first time on Beta as Trapdoor wasn't a silly pushover! Very good! I also got an Armageddon: Chance for Fire Damage IO which, rather coincidentally, was slottable in one of my new powers! I was very happy! Anyhow - getting the slot was fun and I'm glad to have it.

Rolled an alt, went through Breakout, and had some fun there. Then went to a recent alt in Praetoria who was now enjoying inherent Fitness. Took him through the Nova zone event which was a lot more fun teamed than when I did it solo'd on test.

Switched to another 50, changed the animation for Power Bolt, added the new Fireflies aura, and called it a night.

Yes, I'm liking i19 so far

I noticed some animation bugs dealing with various "portals" and was wondering if anyone else has seen them. First is the door on the ship for Striga/Talos/IP, click on it and the door opens, but takes a LONG time for anything else to happen. My last count was 15 seconds before I clicked on the door again and finally went through. Second is SG Base Portal. When you click on it instead of the energy aura and then zoning, you start walking and fade away. Lastly, is the man-holes/pits. Click on them and instead of jumping in, you start walking and fade away just like the Base Portals.

I know, these are all minor and all, just wondering if anyone is seeing them too.

Introducing News of the Announcement of the Release of Issue 19: Alpha Strike, Which Has Just Launched!

Not sure if your alluding to something and if you are I never saids the devs hate us. Or are people only allowed hate or unconditional love?

Ouch. I can't believe I almost forgot about this and lost my chance to respec and keep a respec.

OK, I got thinking about this over the last couple of days and I have to say it's starting to bug me. They released the first half of the Alpha Slot (enhancement wise) with Issue 19 and tell us the rest will come with Issue 20. I really hope that doesn't mean we will only be getting half of a slot with each Issue. If so that means it would take more than 6 years to get all 10 Incarnate slots (assuming 3 Issues per year that is). Then I got thinking about it some more and realized that if they release only one slot per issue, then that still means we would have to wait over 3 years for the full Incarnate system. I hope I am wrong in how they plan to implement this because, having played for more than 6 years now, I am not willing to wait for this game to be more than 9 or 12 years old before the full "End Game Content" is implemented.

Quit while you are ahead.

It’s true that with 10 slots, at ½ a slot per issue, that’s 20 issues, that’s long time. Not to count that just by playing normally, players will have a boatload of shards by the time a new incarnate ability appears. This means that day-1, many will fill the new tier in the first 5 minutes after the arc to unlock it.

As a real example, playing 1-3 hours a day, VERY casually doing a Strike force once, every 2-3 days, I have the Uncommon Alpha slotted, and 60+ shards in the bank. And we’re 2 weeks into Alpha. Granted, I only have the 1 Level 50 but still.

Makes me scared that when they pull out Judgement, all “Incarnate Shards” will become “Alpha Shards” and new “Judgement Shards” will start to drop. In all fairness, it’s kind of rock and hard place for the devs. If all slots can use generic shards, if you play moderate to heavy, you max out the new ability day 1 and you’ve got bored players. If each slot needs “new” shards, then you have a boatload of useless shards in your inventory and you've got frustrated players. Personally, I’m hoping they’ll do a conversion thing, kind of like now, you can turn 4 shards to a Common, then you can turn 4 Alpha shards into Judgement shards.

Or, they keep Shards = Shards throughout the system, and sucks to be me that I have all powers 5 minutes into the new release because I have (say) 200+ shards banked by then.

As far as the release schedule = Please note that I am totally making the following schedule up. The only reason I mention it this way is because that’s how it looks on the graph… Alpha… then 2 at a time… then Omega (if you look at the incarnates tab)

So, I’d do the following unsubstantiated wild guess…

I19 = Alpha (C-U)
I20 = Alpha (R-VR), Judgement+Interface (C-U)
I21 = Judgement+Interface (R-VR), Lore+Destiny (C-U)
I22 = Lore+Destiny (R-VR), Hybrid+Genesis (C-U)
I23 = Hybrid+Genesis (R-VR), Mind+Vitae (C-U)
I24 = Mind+Vitae (R-VR), Omega (C-U)
I25 = Omega (R-VR)

Even so, it’s just a little over 2 years at 3 issues a year. Then again, at the end of Omega, I’m assuming you can possibly solo GM and standard TF regardless of slotting, build or strategy, ergo, for me at least, 2 years sounds about right.

Not that my post has anything to do about facts.

I will let this statement mull in the minds of those wanting the progression sooner. Lets pretend they released half the Incarnate slots with Going Rogue (i.e. Alpha to Destiny) and the other half (Hybrid to Omega) with I19… wouldn’t people be going “Sooo… what’s next?” by now? Regardless of when Omega arrives, the devs, and players have got to ask themselves what to do with the game after that. So, again, I’m in no rush to get to that point.

As it stands, I’m more than a little worried what comes in the game AFTER you get your Very Rare into Omega. Super-Duper-Incarnates? Or a big “You win!” sign… your character becomes an NPC in the game in the “hall of awesomeness” and you restart a new alt?... heh.

Anyhow, I’d suggest just enjoying the ride. Conjecture is fun, but the devs have shown (to me at least) they’ve managed to keep the game fun for me for 3 years, and they seem to have a good grasp of the direction of the game. We just have to wait to get there and not be in any hurry to make the game obsolete for ourselves. But that’s just me.

What are your devs thinking?? Sorry... first let me say great idea to come up with a way for the higher toons to play some new stuff... HOWEVER... virtually the whole incarnate system requires you to play with teams!!!
Considering the massive drop in COH subscriptions that makes this whole new system extremely hard and useless for the people that like to play solo. You should have setup different options for solo players and teams (like solo taking longer than teams for example.)
This is a disappointment and after this month I am just canceling coh. There is just nothing a higher solo toon can really do!

I'm going to post here because it seems the most likely to get seen. The thread in the Dev's Corner is kind of overrun at the moment.

What if we run a task force over several days and stradle the Weekly Strike Target change? Does it count what day we start, or what day we finish, or possibly both?

Our supergroup runs TF's once a week and with a few exceptions never finish in a single night so this is kind of an important question for us.

I'm going to guess it counts what day you finish which is fine. Hopefully a twist of fate will allow us to collect the extra reward sooner or later. If it has to start and stop within the week then I'm a sad puppy.