February Producer's Letter: Incarnates

But I assume you can pre-assemble a team if you want to? I can foresee a lot of gripes about "Ugh, the Trial failed because the Turnstile threw me together with a bunch of idiots!"

Thank you, this satisfies me as a customer. I invest too much time and effort to be called
a "casual" player, but as a "task force hating" player, solo-small team options to advance
are important to me. Getting shards when exemplared is an especially nice bonus to this
news, as it adds variety to the number of things everybody can run to get those
shards.

Somehow, I see an ocean of orange names

Sweet. That's all I wanted.

Now please, devs, make the inf cost more than just a token amount. We need more inf sinks in this game. 50s can earn inf hand over fist these days, and we have very little to actually spend it on.

Uhhh I kinda assumed that they did not have any specific soloable Incarnate content lined up anytime soon when Black Scorpion basically said the DIDN'T.

I was always confused by folks who thought him saying "we are investigating it" meant that the content was created and on it's way. LOL.

Maybe a screenshake for each step you make when using [Walk], and War Walkers do the NPC panic run animation whenever you're in their line of sight?

This will inevitably cause people to complain they are forced, FORCED I TELL YOU, to resort to RMT to get their Incarnate powers.

Not saying it shouldn't be done, just pointing out the obvious.

what?

So? There are tons of ways to make inf in the game, including killing stuff, which you'll need to do to get your shards anyway. It's a stupid argument and I'll be happy to point anyone who makes it in the direction of the market forum where they will be torn to shreds by people who can refute that argument in their sleep. I don't expect the inf amount to be so high that only the most dedicated marketeers will be able to afford it. I just want it to be significant. More like A-merits, less like temp powers.

I think the intention is more of an active queue, similar to how the actual game login queue works. We'll know more as the annoucements come in! I'm actually almost giddy at the thought of mass carnage with my fellow Unionites of this nature! It seems now that CoP's are just going to be a warmup!!!

This is not new. I at least have been saying all along that my friends are a comparatively small SG on a low-pop server. We tend to avoid TFs that require a full 8-man team of 45+ players already, because it is a major hassle, reduction in flexibility, and reduction in accessibility from other available content. We *have* tried the new Apex and Tin Mage TFs, and the vast majority of players were of the opinion that it was a major hassle and LESS FUN.

Things that we do NOT want:

* Completely arbitrary rules that make it harder to assemble a team based on who we have and who they want to play tonight. One of the greatest strengths of CoH is that a level 35 and a level 50 can play together on, say, an ITF... they are both contributing, both earning rewards, and both having fun. Every time you limit the range of people who can play together on content, you REDUCE THE FUN.

It's bad enough now that we're having to say "We need to do the WST, and therefore you can't play with us tonight" to folks, or to not have 8 people on with high-level characters available and be forbidden to even *attempt* the WST. (Having Dr. Kahn this week is a lot better than last week, and we've got people looking forward to the end of the month when the WST will allow a far greater number of folks to enjoy playing together.)

Given that the general theory seems to be not wanting more than a factor of two in size... we would want a lot of content for 4-8 players, some for 6-12 players, a little for 1-2 players, and possibly a smidgen for 8-16.

* Content that enforces specific ATs, powersets, or small subsets. No content should *require* a tanker, a healer, a debuffer, or anything else; there should be a wide variety of approaches to a problem. The X-Men do not handle problems the same way the Superfriends do, or the Hellfire Squad. Strength in diversity, fun in repeat play value that is different each time.

* Content that has hardcoded time limits. Most of our meta-SG are adults; they have jobs, kids, elderly relatives, and/or a wide variety of other obligations. If we need to take a 10-minute pause because someone's kid has woken up and is being fussy, or needs help with their homework, or their server has emailed them with an overtemp alarm they need to check out, none of us have a problem with that... we don't want a game system that will artificially penalize us for having real lives.

* Content that harshly limits people dropping in and out, or unduly penalizes people with bad connections. One of the big problems with TFs is that you cannot rearrange once it's underway; if someone has to work late, either the entire rest of the TF has to sit around and wait for them to get home, or they miss out completely, because they can't join it in progress. We also have various people that don't have perfect computers or connections; if CoH crashes they need to be able to reboot and get back in without having penalized the team on time or being locked out.

* Content that places a strong focus on player reflexes and low-latency connections. We're playing a MMORPG (where your dodge chance is supposed to be based on the powers, abilities, and gear on your character sheet, not the player's twitch reflexes and net connection) on purpose. There are plenty of RTSs and FPSs out there for those that want that sort of thing.

* Content that gates the *story* of the game behind increasingly difficult *gameplay*. The last time the Earth was invaded, part of the whole *point* was that everyone mattered; whatever level or powers you had, there was something useful you could be doing. To this day, the Riki raids are a great opportunity for folks from all walks and levels to have a good time together. This time, the devs seem to have gone to an enormous amount of effort to develop entirely new technology for the specific purpose of throwing one of CoH's greatest strengths out the window and limiting the number of people who can enjoy the story to the smallest amount possible; this continues to baffle me.

Absolutely false, and you're a better person than to use such a lame strawman. In our case, the average team size on a non-preplanned event night would be 3-5, and on a preplanned event night 6-8. One of the reasons we're playing CoH and not other games is that CoH is the industry leader in scaling content to the size and desired difficulty of a variable small to medium sized group; and it is really looking like the devs are chucking that out the window.

Like here? http://www.hulu.com/watch/213314/sat...ews-commercial

You also need to segregate out those who play solo for good reason.

Like myself. When I'm at work, I can still manage to get on and beat the occasional face in. However, I get called away to do "stuff" at irregular intervals.

As such, it's patently not fair for me to join teams or TFs. I hate being forced to AFK in a mission (that isn't just me soloing) like poison. Moreover, while the company owners don't mind me pulling on the spandex at work, they WOULD object (and rightfully so) if I let it interfere with my job.

While I don't begrudge others AFK'ing in my missions on occasion, it CAN be problematic when we're held up because the mission is complete and the person is AFK for half an hour after.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

I just hope they've learned from the mistake of the CoP and don't make the raids an all or nothing affair the way the CoP is.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

One of the Trias can be started with just 8 people - they really can't make them any smaller than that

"Have" to?

I think we'll be getting some of that - it's quite likely that one or more of the Trials will have a countdown on it, or that stages of the Trial will have a timer.

Any timers on a Trial will mean that there'll be a risk of that happening.

The Battle Maiden bomb mechanic will make a return in some form or another in one or more of the Trials - it's too interesting and exciting to only be a one-off

But then that makes the Incarnate powers pointless - if we're getting mroe powerful, and fighting more powerful enemeis, then there's going to come a point where low level avatars simply would be effective at all - a Rikti or zombie invasion is fine, as the enemies are not excessively challenging for lower level avatars - but the kind of things we'e going up againsta sIncarnates are simply too powerful for non-Incarnates to handle.

Care to point out the recent changes to To-hit, Accuracy, and Defense?

You keep saying "need" but there is no need. Incarnate content is completely optional to enjoy everything you've been doing together up to now. WSTs are even completely optional, once I20 comes out, to gain Notices.

How you play, and who you chose to play with, is entirely a player decision. If you wanted more people to play with, you'd be playing on a higher pop server. If you wanted to team with people that could run TFs with less than a full team and still enjoy themselves, you'd go find them. If the end game content hems you in, it's only because you chose to let it do so.


There is no "one path to enlightenment" in this game, and Second Measure has gone out of his way with this letter to further prove that point. There will be more than one way to do what you want to do.