WST -- Ill-conceived.

And in the cases I cited, they were not personal attacks or hypocrisy. They were factually correct statements to which you responded caustically.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

Except with an ACTUAL level you would have the purple patch effect AND the real effect.

This is true, and it's a strong feature to make level shifts desirable. It also helps demonstrate it's not a level.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

This is starting to become a tautology.

How so? Level shifts do not do some things normal levels do, and they also do some things normal levels do not do. There is one point of commonality.

I wonder how much of this argument would be happening had the devs called them "power boosts" from the start instead of "level shifts".

There would have been about five minutes less of it, because that's how long it would have taken Arcanaville to figure out what the "power boosts" were doing and make a post about how they just shifted your level on the purple patch table.

... Seriously?

Citing an actual PROVABLE DIFFERENCE between actually gaining a level and the effect of a level shift causes you to dismiss the statement as a tautology?

You're the one going "It's a level because it's a level, it just is" when there's a stack of FACTS demonstrating it is something else.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

You: A level does this and this and this and this.
Me: So does a level shift, just in a slightly modified manner.
You: See?! That PROVES it's not a level!

It doesn't increase base numbers - you won't see any new effects on your character sheet, your info boxes, or your Mids build. But you'll see all the same effects in actual game play that you would if you actually levelled up.

I didn't accept "spreadsheet only" arguments from Arcanaville; why would I accept them from anyone else?

Because summarizing conversations worked so well for BigFish earlier.

I hope you'd admit I'm slightly less vitriolic.

... Uh. Wait. What? That's... not how this conversation just happened.

No. No you would not see the same effects. You see ONE SUBSET of the effects. Just because you throw out facts doesn't make the facts not there.

"Spreadsheet only" arguments? We're talking about what the game actually does. Seriously. Open up 'real numbers', pick a power, look at the difference between 49 an 50. It's there. Trying to say it isn't there is just ignoring a fundamental truth.

Fight a level 50 enemy as 49, look at your rewards. Fight a level 50 enemy as 50, look at your rewards. There's a difference, and you've even acknowledged this one, but refuse to acknowledge it as one item of several that distinguishes a level shift from actually gaining a level.

Once again: A level shift is a SUBSET of gaining a level. It provides ONE FACET that gaining a level ALSO provides, but omits the REST if the facets of gaining a level.

Seriously, it's like you're arguing that red is the same thing as purple, because red gives you all the redness that purple does.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

Yes, I can admit that. I'm thrilled to admit that. You definitely have comported yourself with far more composure than BigFish or even me.

Unfortunately it's not vitriol that's the problem so much as one's connection to reality and the tenuousness thereof.

I picked "Tough". I didn't see a difference. Drat.

I picked "Weave". Wait, no difference there!

Manoeuvres? Nope, didn't change.

Okay, maybe it's just pool powers.

"Charged Armour". No, no difference. Conductive Shield? Nothing. Static Shield? Power Sink? Power Surge?! No, nothing.

Lots of powers don't have effects tied to level.

The only place a level shift doesn't look like a level is on a spreadsheet, when you compare "level-shifted 49" to "actual level 50" (there's no actual level 51, so you can't make that comparison.) In the actual game, however, the level-shifted 49 and the actual level 50 aren't going to operate with any immediately noticeable difference. They're both going to be fighting 50s, with approximately the same ability to defeat them.

In the same respect, the level-shifted 50 will either be fighting level 50s, revelling in the ability to curb-stop enemies that are now substantially easier, or start seeking out level 51s, as they would were they levelled to level 51.

The level shift not being a "real" level only appears "on spreadsheets". It only appears that way if your head is buried in the numbers. In the effect it has on how one actually plays the game, it is a level.

Selective quoting for the fail.

If you don't understand that the incarnate process is a new level cap process then you're probably willfully not wanting to acknowldge it, and there's no point dicussing it.