Uninformed players

My question is....with all the advertising, announcements, and talk about the incarnate system. Why does most of the people in game knows nothing about the alpha slot.

And those that do, don't know that you have to slot it. They all try to start an APEX tf, without putting a power in the alpha slot and have no idea how to do that.

Not much of a question, more of a comment or complaint. Been trying to get an apex tf going all day, but noone seems to know about slotting the alpha slot.

Well, not every player actively reads the forums, where much of the information on the Alpha slot has been discussed in great detail. Not everyone wants to (or can) install the test server client, and some people just want to be surprised when the issue launches. The patch notes make everything pretty clear, but some people automatically think "tl;dr".

Things will improve over time. Much like the invention system was initially this esoteric, mind-boggling labyrinth of math and economics, it's now generally well understood by a good portion of the playerbase (well, except for the economics part).

There also wasn't much of a GMOTD when I19 dropped. Usually there's a little more extensive info directly on the message screen. This time, it was a rather small, 2 paragraph thing as I recall, pretty much only directing you to visit the site. Rather unlike them, since I know most prior releases have had WAY more info right on the message than this.

Once you complete the Arc to unlock the Alpha Slot, Raimiel (or whatever his name is) has a list of talk options that explains The Alpha Slot.
But then I guess that would require people to, ya know, read in-game text.

Personally, I'd just like to see the TF require the players to have their slot, or an on screen warning to all players at the beginning of the task force that they will be debuffed.

I've had to tell multiple players on Live, "Hey, you know you're going to be level 46 during this Task Force without your Alpha slotted. I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm going to run with you."

As to the OP, I know how annoying it is to hear the same question 15 times an hour. GR Had a GREAT FAQ (player created not the devs) with pictures and I linked that into chat everytime I saw a question about it. Eventually I admit that I did get fed up because instead of reading people just continued to want the info spoon fed. So I closed the chat tabs; unfortunately if you do that with this issue you miss a lot of the TFs you WANT to join.

Although I don't read the beta forums much or play on beta/test servers, I DO read the forum and the GR website and I admit that I feel a little underwhelmed by the information about Incarnates and how it works.

Somehow I got to this page which tells me the bonuses and also which TF drops which named shard. The in-game screen is very good with one exception; that page should be read top-down while the in-game screen reads bottom-up. However, the rest of it (4 shards to one named) seems pretty lacking in information.

With all the effort going into the Issues it would be nice if a bit more attention was paid to the information presentation.

As regards the info from Mender; I agree that Oro is like a circus. I actually gave up trying to unlock the incarnate slot on one char because I wanted to read the story and it was impossible with people hanging around, rocking the auras and randomly buffing or jumping up and down like maniacs.

I visit and read the forums daily, check all the announcements, and heck, I even go to CoH panels at multiple conventions every year, and I still don't know how the Incarnate system works because I haven't played with it yet.

I know it exists and I know there's special salvage you have to collect to craft special enhancements and you somehow slot those enhancements into new or existing powers, but so far that's all I know.

There's no "owner's manual" for this game and its impractical to write one since the game would change before it was ever published, but it sure would be nice to have a handy reference guide to look stuff up when you get confused. I know we have the forums and Paragonwiki for that, but I'm still more a paper and ink guy when it comes to instruction manuals.

Atlas Park last night:

"LOOKING RFO MONKEY FARRRM!!"
"MONKEY FARARM LOOKING FR MORE!!!!!"
"AE TEAM NEEDS STTHREEE TANKS FOR MUNKIEEE FRFAMM"

You can't beat these sort of people. So don't bother trying. They probably won't even notice the change in XP.

It took me all of five minutes to figure out: What salvage I needed for an alpha slot boost. How to convert/get those salvages, and how to finally make and slot the boost.

Considering my only experiences in beta were how to do the arc to unlock the slot, I think I can safely say that you don't need to read the forums and visit the main page and read up and each and every little bit of information to figure things out.

I'm casual, I scan the forums a little, I got the slot on my "main" I have an idea of what's next, but I'll need to take some time and research exactly what I need to collect and where to get them... the info in game is not crystal clear "Mr. Obvious" type stuff. It's easy to understand how people don't know what to do. I think this has all been pretty sloppy, lazy, and poorly thought out by the game designers.

I unlocked the Alpha slot last night, nice and easy, but I still have *no idea* how to make anything.

I have one shard, and don't have time to run task forces (real life stuff with a wife and two kids dontcha know?) So unless there is another way to obtain the salvage, I'm just out of luck.

I didn't get a chance to read through all the dialog options with Rammiel (sp?), but hopefully he can help me figure this stuff out.

Thanks Amygdala I am looking forward to figuring it out tonight.

Kinrad - You can buy the G'rai Matter component with 150 Vanguard Merits. It is fairly commonly used in the Alpha boosts and can be purchased in the Vanguard base once every 18 hours. Next fight level 50 and above mobs in particular Bosses and LTs for best shard drop rates.