February Producer's Letter: Incarnates

Can you clarify if this includes the upper tiers of each incarnate level or does it mean you can climb up the incarnate levels but only have the lower tiers of each? It doesn't mention notices, only shards that people can already earn without the incarnate content.

@Radmind - Justice Server
ClintarCOH - Twitter

I was about to post about that too - "climbing the Incarnate tree" can mean solo access to all Tiers of every slot, but it can also mean just solo access to one or two Tiers, like we have with the Alpha slot right now.

As someone has mentioned right before me it's not clear if you'll need notices to advance. I assume the more you participate in the raids (which involves other players) the higher the reward you get, up to and including Notices of the Well (and whatever else will be needed for the Judgement slot abilities).

Granted, the exemping giving you shards is great for the entire population, not just 50s, and IS a solo option. However unless you can craft ALL parts of the Incarnate abilities (from common to very rare) with just shards (which so far YOU CAN'T, no telling how Judgement abilities will be formed) the concerns still stand.

For once GG said something better than I just did.

Just to go off on a tangent ...

Prior to Incarnates, I had rarely done TFs (outside of the occasional RO ITF run) because getting together a team was something of a PITA. I don't generally have enough time for doing the TF AND waiting for a team come together.

Post Incarnates? I've done a bunch of TFs ... because it's straight-forward to get a team going simply because there's a critical mass of people looking for TFs. I've even done a PuG STF on my fire dom -- a toon that outside of RO teams receives requests for PLing ... but precious few invites to team. And that PuG STF? Set up in about 5 minutes, finished in about 70. A damn near perfect gaming session. Same thing with Kahn yesterday -- quick to set up, a nice 45 minute run through.

From someone who likes teaming, but generally doesn't, the Incarnate system is a work of genius.

Edit: for some time, I had been despairing that CoX was on the road of becoming a solo grind-fest. And now it isn't. And that makes me happy.

That's all well and good, but first I'd like the devs to look into why those powers go unclicked.

For example, my Unstoppable gathers dust not because there haven't been situations that may call for a Tier 9, but because I think it's a poor power, is designed in such a way that makes people not want to use it and is a joke compared to One with the Shield and Strength of Will. It's a 3 minute delayed suicide button on a long recharge that doesn't help cover the holes in the set it belongs to and frankly is more trouble than its worth.

Another example: I don't use Hand Clap because it's completely counter-intuitive to damage dealing, surviving or tanking. It serves no useful purpose and creating an artificial need for such a power would only anger and annoy me, rather than make me want to use it.



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They also haven't mentioned any non-Trial/raid Incarnate content - they've repeated what Positron first said when the Incarnate system was announeced last year - that Incarnate cotnent consists of the Trials/Raid and abilities.

I agree with your general point but not with this paragraph. At all.

A lot of us, evidently, didn't want just a "Raid System". And if that's all that it's going to be, I find it somewhat less impressive than what the hype over the many months had led towards.

However, I'm encouraged they've apparently at least made the decision to allow soloers the option to just continue to collect shards from older content to access the higher tiers of the incarnate slots. At least, I think that's what they said, and considering the storms in the forums over this, I think they should just say it: "you can eventually access all the tiers of all the incarnate slots by slowly collecting shards alone, if that's how you prefer to play." One extra-clear sentence now could halt a lot of confusion.

I have to agree, and hope this will make it easier for people who're not skilled at finding traditional teams to get into these new raids.

I'm looking forward to it, and I think the developers have been seeing the feedback from both sides of these issues and responding to it as best they can at this late hour in the end-game system's design. I just wish it were more than Raids.

Seeing as how most of the epic content is either Raids or Tfs, I'm not surprised as the direction this is taken. Other than tips/radios and storyarcs what other type of COH content is there?

I would like to see them add some Incarnate advancement variables to the lvl 50 STORYARCs though.

Right. Because stating concerns about anything is "whining." And I've mentioned small-teams from the beginning. Glad you can so casually dismiss anyone who doesn't share precisely YOUR likes and POV as "whiners."

You are, again, incorrect. I tended to make it a point to say "Solo and small team" when posting in the soloability/end game threads, which I've walked out of precisely because of attitudes like yours here. So, no, it's not those who "absolutely refuse to play in teams." I prefer a team that sits at 3-5 people, and have argued from the point of small team as well as solo players.

That said,
This, I'm glad to hear as a definite statement instead of the wishy-washy, no-real-meaning "investigating" line. As long as I can get to the same tiers, I don't care if it takes me longer doing what *I* want instead of random-team large-raid stuff.

I've done raids, both COH-raids and in other games. I don't tend to *like* raids. I don't care to be stuck in the middle of a ton of other people, trying to spot the leader again, finding out what we're actually supposed to be attacking/protecting/doing in a mass of other people who may or may not be paying attention. And given game performance (not system, I'm talking things like recharging of powers not syncing between client and server and NPCs not drawing in because there's "too much" going on, such as in Rikti and Zombie invasions) it's not something I'm not really primed to jump up and down about. It's been a longstanding issue with COH.

I'll probably pop into a raid or two for the heck of it, but don't see myself joining particularly often from the description of what's in store.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Not a complaint that Tankers aren't powerful enough, but it's a complaint about Tankers nonetheless.

*Takes a drink*

I'm really not sure why some people consider it unreasonable for other players to expect the end game - the "stuff to do with your level 50 characters" - to resemble the rest of the game. Seriously, why is this unreasonable?

This isn't like just adding a few TFs and giving team players things to do on the side. This is shifting a 99% solo game into a 100% team game just because it's "end game".

They mentioned using it for the Hamidon raid, so I think it's posisble they're planning to add it for all the exisiting raids too.

A point which Arcanaville first made is something I agree with and helps explain the current direction: A new alternate 'leveling up' system, such as the Incarnate System has to first and foremost be balanced against large scale raids. This is an MMORPG, there is no reason why it shouldn't have Raids for those who enjoy them, and it is a bit of an embarrassment that they don't have more Raids. But how will having 48 people in a Raid with these new powers work? That question has to be figured out first before providing Incarnate-level content for soloists.

Balancing for the overlap of 48 Incarnate level players is much harder than balancing PvE content for a soloist. Therefore, Raids first. Solo Incarnate content later.

In the meantime, it seems that there will be a way, though a longer way, for soloists to power up in the Incarnate System. Actual new Incarnate solo content will, I'm sure, eventually follow.

And as the Production letter mentions, new Issues will not be just Incarnate content.

They specifically mentioned using Leagues for Hami raids, but not the "Turnstile," LFG system. However, I do hope that they can/will implement a way to use both new systems for Hami, CoP, and maybe even Task/Strike Forces.

I think though that new non-Trial/raid content will more likely be sub-50, as they're still looking to expand the Praetorian setting, and possibly continue to tie in the escape from Praetoria at 20 to the 20+ blue and red side content.

So, there's now a route for Incarnate powering up that's solo, which is essentially turning all content a level 50 does, solo or teamed, level 50 or exemplared, into a chance to advance Incarnately.

And, there will be other content besides Raids, which, presumably, like 99% of the game, is soloable.

And there's a good probability that sometime later there will be soloable Incarnate-specific content (like Ramiel's arc is).

Is this sufficient?