WST -- Ill-conceived.

Play a villain, do mayhems. I think if you switch to hero you get the epaulettes as well.

Did you miss the introduction of respec recipes?

Most of them are possible to solo, and I'd be all in favor of removing the minimum team size requirement.

You can form your own supergroup of one and build a pretty base.
I hear that other game is going F2P.

Go. Hunt. Kill Rikti.

Run Nemesis missions with a team or on a high difficulty. I have characters who have done this and earned the Unveiler badge with no "farming."

Why do you need a portable workbench if you don't like to craft?

Some major sarcasm fail right here.

I am opposed to the rampant dismissive, inflammatory insistence that there WILL be a way to do it in i20 despite the complete and utter lack of developer confirmation. Nothing they have said indicates a solo way is coming anytime soon.

Heroes are supposed to fight drugs, not use them

Why would anyone need Incarnate powers if they don't like Incarnate content?

Good thing that there's a separate "end-game" dev team then, eh?

I like it when they sell me their stuff, it saves me from having to get it all myself.

but where's the fun in that!

=P

They all regenerate to prevent them from being zerged in missions. Of course, STF kinda goes against that slightly.

They have near immunity to most debuffs because if they weren't immune to those debuffs, they wouldn't be a challenge/fun encounter [specifically there, the purple Triangles come to mind].

It's frustrating and annoying, but that's also baggage because the game has until fairly recently only utilized tank and spank encounters instead of the more 'gimmicky' options used to create difficulty.

I honestly don't buy that the dev team is separate.

So what do we call it when you change levels and get bonus slotted enhancements?

The speculation that the devs will give us solo content is no more valid than my opinion that they will not, and will continue to make content that requires higher and higher teirs of incarnate ability.

They might make the all the slots and the 1st and 2nd Tiers for them be like the Alpha slot, but then have Tier 3 and 4 be more team focused.
So there might be a normal arc to unlock the Judgement slot in I20, but the salvage for Tier 3 and 4 of it would be gotten from the Incarnate trials.

My speculation is, at least, consistent with what the devs have stated as design intent, and is also consistent with the majority of the incarnate system thus far, and with the terminology we know the Judgement slot will have (Ion Final Core/Radial Judgement or something like that). Given that they have a working system and that any development team will want to reuse tech where they can it makes sense to not abandon either the interface or the tree when looking at the other slots. We even know in the Judgement slot that there's going to be four trees.

And while all of it is speculation it's also extrapolation. What you, Toony, specifically have done is ignore much of what has been stated by the Dev team as a whole on this matter, and have chosen to latch on to a singular thing that Black Scorpion has said, which was some content in an MMO will be team oriented. While that is an important thing to latch onto, I would direct you to what he said prior to that (or perhaps after that) which was while he wanted the incarnate content to be highly difficult, he also wanted it to be inclusive for most gamers. If we add it all up, I can only assume that, at this point, the non-level shifted incarnate stuff is going to be open and relatively easy to get for everyone. the level shifted stuff, in the future, MIGHT stay behind a forced teaming wall.

Now some people have been rude to you and the "soloist" camp as a whole, and you and that camp have tended to speak in terms of hyperbole. You have just told me that I should not speculate, yet that's the only thing that's been happening because, frankly, there's been a dearth of information from the devs on the topic, which I can only take to mean they're hard at work on planning a solo way to get notices of the well.

To those people who would tell you to sit down and shut up, I would join you and call them stupid. However, the opposite reaction - what has largely been your reaction - is to claim that the devs have abandoned you and the game is no longer playable because you've been abandoned by the endgame mechanisms - and endgame that, according to your rules you probably woudln't play anyway because, right now, it's TF content.

Given that the developers have always made content causal and solo friendly, and given that they've said that their design intent for the Incarnate system is to make it inclusive instead of exclusive, I can only assume that the near future will have arcs and the like for a wider playerbase to make use of.

Speculation is, in of itself, not a bad thing. Speculation without support or evidence is. None of my speculation is without evidence in the form of a great deal of history, and the devs own words about their design intent. So while my speculation is just that, it is also a logical extrapolation of the facts as we know them to this date. All of which is far more helpful to your position of eventually gaining Casual friendly incarnate content than the rampant hyperbole which has been fueling the "casual" player's rage (mostly claims that the devs don't care about you, which is pretty much false, aggravating, and patently annoying).

Time will tell whether the WSF is an ill-conceived notion. But in these first few days, at least, the evidence is against you. It's the first week so we won't know anything yet. We'll know more next week when it moves on to Kahn - a TF, by the way, that is far more casual player friendly because of it's short duration and relatively straightforward tactics (Reichs, save for some stuff atht he beginning, is completely tank and spank) (granted villains have a complaint because BSF is significantly harder than KTF).

Not really. The WST really only applys to 6 TFs. the Same 6 TFs that people would be doing to get the alpha boosts before the rare tier opened. the Same 6 TFs that were being run since I15, since that's the newest of the TFs involved.

Statesman And Lord Recluse.
Barracuda and Dr Kahn.
Imperious
Lady Gray.

That's all there is. Unless they include the two new TFs, Tin Mage and Apex. then there will be 8 in the cycle. But that's not a lot of variety even still, though it would be nice if the two newer TFs were in the rotation, it's the same stuff, again. Alpha boost is just a re-hash of old content for the most part.

It's a legitimate complaint, but one the Devs will apparently be addressing in future updates.

Incorrect. Four days ago Avatea posted the upcoming list of WSTs. Note the fourth entry, Sister Psyche/Silver Mantis. They are not limiting the WST to level 50-only TFs.

It's not insanity. It's good game design to allow people the same opportunities for soloers as team players. Up until now, team play would definitely bring you serious advantages over soloing in terms of greater rewards for shorter time, but soloing would still get you there. Also, isn't it a bit anti-social to call people crazy just because they're anti-social?

Soloing isn't antithetical to an MMO. At least not one that wants to cater to a wide audience.

There again, this doesn't match current COH experience, only your very limited interpretation. Just because you WANT this genre to require teaming, it hasn't, for the most part.

I'd suggest venturing out of your comfort zone and wrapping your head around the idea that soloing is a viable playstyle option for a superhero MMO, no matter what color you make the MM part

I find it more than a little ironic that you, who are in favor of forced teaming, rather than those dirty soloers, come across as so horribly obnoxious. "Suck it up?" People who say things like that must love forced teaming, because otherwise, no one would want anything to do with them. I prefer to team for fun, and not because I have to "suck it up" or "take one for the team" or "go outside my comfort zone" or any of the other silly catch phrases people use to describe being forced to do something you dislike. Please understand--NO ONE IS SAYING THEY WANT THE TF OPTION REMOVED. THEY ARE JUST ASKING FOR ANOTHER ROUTE. That's it. That's all.

I think I speak for a great number of soloers when I say--I have absolutely no intention of quitting over this. All I'll do is just ask the devs for more options, and pray they come through the way they did for earlier content, including pre-i19.5 Alpha. This game is wonderful, and even if they never add an alternate path, the game is great. However, if you choose to ridicule people for asking for that option, or tell them to "suck it up", I think that says a lot more about your intolerance than their supposed lack of genre understanding

Well **** I never saw that. My bad.

It's a totally understandable assumption. It's weird to tie Incarnate content to low-level TFs. But having the Notice attached to existing TFs is really just a stopgap while they work on true Incarnate stuff for I20.

I'd contend there have been other forms of character advancement in this game that have required teaming, however, I will also concede that they didn't present themselves as thoroughly as a 'level'. There is a difference in perception there for most, I know .

Soloing is certainly not against the premise of a MMO, in fact, it has become a lynchpin. Especially in games with 'end-game' content that is raid/team based. You need a way to get to the end-level and be able to enter the end-game as a new character. Leveling specifically is very important for that. So it does remain to be seen how the level shift actually applies in that context. I do feel that an EQ style AA-gate [Mistmoore, forgot the expansion] would not be a good fit for this game, but will remain to see how it presents itself.

One comment I would like to make though, kind of the opposite of the 'quit if you don't like it'. This is a bald assertion, and I have no metrics to support it, just personal experience. A lot of players quit due to the lack of an end game. I don't think this is quite 'there' yet [frankly, more varied content than just tank + spank is needed imo]. But it is an attempt to address that concern. Not saying it'll work or not, but it did get me back to subscribing.

I think it's good game design to spread the opportunities out to all play styles. Allowing a player to get everything by just doing one thing over and over causes players to get into a rut and leave. I know that a lot of people disagree with this notion, but sometimes the devs know what's better for the long-term health of their game than the players themselves.

Only soloing is antithetical to an MMO. I solo just like everyone else does. It's no big deal. But for someone who only solos, they can just as easily play a single-player game. Given at this is an MMO, I expect the devs to include activities that require multiple people sometimes.

I don't take exception to people who want soloable content in the game. Something like 98% of the game is soloable. What I take exception to is people expecting literally 100% of the game--mathematically no less--to be soloable. To me, in an MMO, that is an unreasonable expectation. Indeed, since I think it's important to encourage teaming in an MMO to highlight what sets the genre apart from single-player competitors, I consider the whole "Give us options" request a step backwards, not forwards.

Actually, it has for several rewards already, and I have seen this argument crop up for a lot of them at some point. I know some people will use it to say, "See? The players really want this!" I contend that it's just a small minority of players who do, which is evidenced by the number of threads talking about how cool these features are and the number of players I see clamoring for the rewards, and by how well the game is continuing to do with these rewards in place as they are. In short, I'd think that datamining what people are actually doing versus what they are saying in this lonely thread would give a much more accurate picture of how they feel.

Yup, suck it up. Like I said, no one promised you that you will be ecstatic 100% of the time while playing the game. I readily admit that I'm not. There are things that I don't like about it, things that a lot of people disagree with me about. You know what I do about it? I don't come here asking to change something most people are thrilled with to suit my whim. I suck it up, do it if I want the reward for it, and move on to some other part of the 97% of the game that I like.

It's not obnoxious, it's not arrogant, it's not a double standard. It's called life. The things I am 100% happy with are very few and far between. I don't dwell on what I hate, or else I'd stay pissed off all the time. I suck it up and dwell on the stuff I like.

Which, to me, boils down to asking for the reward for something without having to do the something.

Good, because that is what does get under my skin, and why I replied in this thread to begin with. "Rage quits," for any reason, are the height of stupidity to me. "This will destroy the game!" posts are almost as silly, especially over this, especially when people are jammed up into the zones to participate in this activity. I'm not trying to squelch reasonable discourse, but I don't consider "I'm quitting!" to be reasonable discourse. I'd just as soon those people do go quietly away.