Want a Notice of the Well solo? That'll be...

I team maybe once a week. I hate teaming with randoms, and I don't have much time to play as it is. Once I run a TF, I get so burned out, I have to take a break from teaming, maybe even playing, for the rest of the night. What little time I do have, I spend either leveling alts or running tips. I have only a single level 50, none of my other characters are even over level 30, most of them aren't even over level 10--I have only four characters over level 20, and two of them are from Double XP Weekend. My main is the only one with a SG, and most of its members are gone.

I got my one level 50 outfitted with his Alpha Slot, and got his level shift last week because I decided to do something that made me uncomfortable: I formed three whole Task Forces over the course of three months. One task force a freaking month. Those TFs, in addition to what I got soloing and teaming with my 3 friends in my SG (the latter of which I can only do once a week at best, if I choose to level my main), gave me enough shards to craft both my Common and Uncommon, and since one of the TFs I ran was a WST, I got my Notice, and converted the shards I got from the TF into components for my Rare. Literally as soon as the SF was over, I crafted my Rare.

I think your attitude is the wrong one. Instead of seeing the generous compromise that has in fact been laid out in front of us, you won't take anything less than a total single player experience capable of giving you a Rare in the same amount of time as it takes a team player, when Incarnate content was initially supposed to be a Team-only experience. They met us halfway, let's try to show some appreciation and meet them halfway right back.

Christ, people, if I can do it playing 1-2 hours a night 0-3 times a week, being an introvert just like a lot of other soloists claim to be, you have no excuses. If they make the conversion requirements too easy, it'll be trivial for people who DO run TFs and farm shards all night to just convert shards. I got 10 shards the last time I ran just one Strike Force that took a little over 1hr 30mins. They have to take that into account too, you know. Don't forget that Incarnate content is supposed to take forever. Right now, it takes a minimum of 3 weeks to go from an Uncommon to a Very Rare if you do a WST every week. Even hardcore farmers can't get them any faster than that. How fast did you really expect it to be if all you did was solo?

The other group has been being serviced for seven years.

We've said it before in this thread. Run 10 tip missions and you can create something that will sell for around 100M inf. Run 20 tip missions and you can create something you can sell for around 200M inf.

I prefer not to run Task Forces. Quick frankly, I don't need any other excuses. It doesn't matter why I prefer not to run Task Forces. I am allowed to prefer not to run Task Forces, and I'm allowed to oppose content that tries to force or encourage me to run Task Forces.

I have never asked for people that enjoy or tolerate Task Forces to be denied the ability to do so, or the ability to gain rewards from doing so.

When, in seven years, has my group been given an entirely new system solely for our own use?

Exactly. I have three purples in my one level 50 right now because of tip missions. Add to the fact that Tips tend to be solo content unless you have friends, and you have the soloist's answer to farming. That's ingenious and is the very reason I started playing CoH again. Everything they've done for incarnates, from Weekly Strike Target being the road to Rares, to conversions, has left me optimistic.

I AM a soloist, but I can't get behind the other soloists' positions if all they do is act as if their game is under attack and they have no avenues for success at all, when in reality they're ignoring the ones right in front of their faces.

+The Difficulty Slider
+No-Bosses while Solo option
+No-AVs option
+A-Merits
+Single-player-ONLY Morality Missions

You want me to go on? Praetoria alone is a huge one. If you want to have a full experience of its story content, you have to solo it or you will outlevel your contacts.

This is the only one on your list you can actually claim is "only" for Soloists. And once Turnstile is in the game, it's completely outmatched.

The no bosses while solo option isn't for soloists? Gee that's funny, I didn't realize the option to solo x8 spawns with downgraded bosses was for teams, especially since it goes away the minute a single person joins you.

What does Turnstile have to do with anything?

Well then, with the current system you also prefer not to gain the incarnate slots as quickly. Do I think "casual" players should get it more quickly? Yes. Do I think a good reason for that is "I prefer not to run TF's"? No.

Praetorian morality missions?

The way I see it, if you refuse to run TFs even once, you get exactly what you deserve. If you won't compromise, the devs shouldn't be expected to either.

It's a system designed solely for teamers. Just like Task Forces, Trials, and Raids.

Also: I have run every single Strike Force and co-op Task Force in the game. I'm choosing not to run them again, because I've been there, done that, and didn't have much fun.

I would like to point out that the morality system is a great way for solo can casual players to generate high end rewards in a highly deterministic fashion - and that the rewards are no higher on a team than they would be solo. There you go, a casual player specific system.

So you can run each new team activity once, and save yourself loads of Shard farming time

And what does it have to do with anything? Does it take anything away from us soloists? It's a system that makes getting huge teams together easier, if not making it possible where it was impossible if you don't normally have the means to do so.

You are an incredibly selfish person if you're angry that we're getting something and the only reason you won't be using it is because you're too damned stubborn to join a team. The Turnstile is a system for people like me, ones without dozens of connections, to actually have a shot at experiencing the meat of the incarnate content. It's for soloists as much as it is for huge SGs.

Seriously! 1-2 hours of your time gets you a Notice and potentially enough shards to convert the rest of the materials. That's worth joining one freaking SF.

Not for the martyrs - and this threads martyr rating is already over 9,000

There's no WAY that can be right! Can it!?

My forum interaction implies a level of desire to engage in Incarnate content that is not actually the case. Until I see evidence that the developers are not dead-set on making the system of teams, for teams, by teams, I'm really not that interested in it any more. (And no, the mere existence of a conversion recipe for a Notice is not evidence of this.)

They are free to choose to take the game in a direction explicitly away from my desires. But I don't have to pay for it.

No, it doesn't.

If I don't get off work until 2 AM (which has happened) and I decide, sure, give the WTF a try, where are all these "powergamers who know every trick?" Probably in bed.

Attempting to play the WTF ensures nothing but that you're attempting to play it. You may not even get an available team (because, well, you got in between two rushes and everyone interested at that point either just did it and is ready to take a break, or is already on it.... my case this morning, in fact. No, not the 2 AM time.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

cherry pick all you want, but the new difficulty system is geared a lot more towards soloists imo and offers only a little bit towards teams.

Obligatory: can I have your stuff? :P

I think that's a misleading way to frame that question, for two reasons. The first is that, whether or not you had it to themselves, soloists have gotten systems that they can use. The second reason is that, by their very nature those solo-compatible systems cannot be end-game raid-like content or even compelling reasons to play as a large team. What you want is mutually exclusive with what people are getting now. If you can do it solo, there's no reason to do it on a large team. People who actively wanted raid-like content really only had Hamidon for the longest time, with the RWZ and, very recently, the CoP as much later additions.

With the possible exception of Hamidon, which can be viewed as giving very large rewards compared to the other two raids, none of the existing raid-like content is attached to terribly compelling reasons to get the general population to do them. People do them if they think they're fun, which is good, but it means some servers do them regularly and some don't, depending primarily on whether there's a critical mass of people on any given server who like doing them. If you want to raid but everyone else thinks there's something easier to do, you're out of luck. One very dependable way to avoid that is to attach clear progress to those raid-like activities. That's one way to view what the devs are doing now.

No. My expensive IOs are staying on my characters to rot.

Precisely. You put to words the very reason I'm so disgusted with the solo-only martyrs claiming to speak for soloists everywhere, acting like team-oriented players get everything and solo players get nothing. It's not just unreasonable, it's selfish, and wrong. It's like Eiko won't be happy unless team-centered raid content never comes to City of Heroes.