Great, the incarnate system requires completing a mission arc

I see where my man OP is coming from. Doing the exact same thing over and over and over, even with different characters, gets tiresome. Before they modified it, I came to hate doing the cape mission (don't even ask me about the aura mission). I'm not saying the alpha slot arc should be removed, but I can understand homeboy not wanting to bother with it ad nauseum.

I can see where the OP is coming from. I've got several characters that I want to unlock Incarnate abilities on, and that means doing that same arc over and over and over. Still, I'm glad there's an arc in the first place, one that does a good job (I think) of conveying what an Incarnate is and what makes your path different from the path taken by Statesman and Recluse.

I agree with the OP up to a point.

Doing the same cape mission at 20 on every one of my many alts is monotonous. Same with doing the midnighter access missions. Unlike the OP, I do the missions anyway, but it isn't fun like regular missions, it is a chore. I don't think that I can explain it any better.

I like doing missions, I just don't like doing those missions. They don't feel fun. I think the problem is that I'm not immersed in those missions. I'm not just playing for fun, and having rewards drop as an incidental. I'm playing for the specific rewards. I feel constrained.

If I want to unlock Oroborous, I have choices. I can do Doc Delilah's arc, or I can do the Ubelmann arc, or I can ask someone to open a portal when I turn 25.

To the OP: Start the arc, then autocomplete the missions, one every third day. The first one and the second don't require any fighting, they are just dialog. (Stuff will try to hit you in the first, but you are untouchable, just ignore them and go straight to the goal.)

While the OP is overreacting a bit, I do agree that I prefer content not to be exclusively mission-locked -- or, if it really has to be, that unlocking it once on any character unlocks it for all characters on that side on that account.

I /distinctly/ remember nearly burning out on the game while putting more than half a dozen characters through the Midnight Squad arcs in succession to be able to access Cimerora.

I think this is an attempt to cause stupid by posting something so stupid that the only way to attempt to understand without killing yourself is to become stupid.


This thread should just be renamed "Awesome ways to express disbelief at stupid posts" or something shorter.

I think I understand the OP, actually, and in some ways I agree.

This is in the same category (IMO) as not wanting to have to wait until 35 and run an ITF to unlock Roman costume bits on a new character who really should have them from level 1, when you've already done dozens of ITFs on others; or wait until 35, do the Vanguard intro arc (to unlock merit drops) and then get on a saucer raid just to get the nice sword/bow/axe/rifle/whatever; or find a way to get to the Shadow Shard for the Rularuu bits; or yeah, capes. Which still require jumping through hoops to honor someone who's already come back at the head of a Rikti invasion force, at the same level that we're now getting EATs unlocked just by dinging.

It's padding, filler, makework. Tedium for the sake of tedium, because "that's what all MMOs do." Go through this fifteen-part attunement questline or you can't come on the raid. Grind a hundred Overseers because we say so. Did you collect all of the plot coupons for Castanella and save the Lost? Well go do it again, or no ITF for you! Doing this stuff once I can understand, or on the characters for whom it should be explicitly part of their story, but on every single one? Why, because Jack said so back in 2005?

This particular example doesn't bother me personally so much because for RP reasons, I won't be touching the Incarnate system with most of my characters; only a few of them "should" have access to that kind of power. But if I did want to make full use of the new feature, and had to do the same arc more than a couple of times just to set a flag, then yeah, I can see myself getting a little tired of it. Much like I already am of the Midnighters, or the level 40-50 hero arcs from Issue 1, including the very aptly named "Eternal Nemesis" - epic, yes, but one hell of a slog.