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

Depends on your perspective. For a new player with no funds, that doesn't read the forum to learn the secrets of earning (not uncommon for players to not read the forum), then a fully IO'ed out dream build will appear to be every bit or more daunting than getting shards solo. For that player it IS the next evolution of their character, and often in enormously game changing ways.

There's too much exaggeration in this thread and not enough perspective.

Gear has always been a progression metric in MMOs. Incarnates are more of an alternate advancement system than leveling. So far the Alpha slot doesn't have near as much effect on a character than a decent IO build.

Level shifts are not levels.

Evidence that this is true:

-When you are set to +0 while level shifted, enemies still spawn at level 50.
-A lower level character SKed to you is level 49, not level 50.
-You don't gain new slots or powers.

A level shift acts like you are SKed to a level 52 character, and is not a real level in and of itself.

So, what do you suggest? We get this stuff just for asking for it, and they crank out new stuff to do every week?

No matter HOW much stuff they give us to do, at some point it will ALL become repetitive. If the "end game" consisted of a couple task forces, and a few story arcs, and we didn't have to do much of anything to become Incarnates, people would be getting pissed about the fact that they blew through all of it in a couple months and didn't have anything left to do.

How long does it take for new content to lose it's mass appeal? Not very long in my experience. It is the "in" thing to do for a couple months, and then it becomes more of the same old same old just like everything else.

The people you say are being ignored are the percentage of the playerbase that just plain REFUSES to team, AT ALL , for ANY reason, EVER. I can't imagine the percentage of players that flat out refuse to ever team at all is all that big. Hell, I spend most of the time soloing myself, and even I team with people to do stuff occasionally.

You act like the devs are absolutely required to treat this game like a single player game, and give the people who refuse to play with other people just as much to do, and the means to acquire everything just as easily, as those who team.

It's a multiplayer game, and it is perfectly reasonable for the developers of it to focus on the multiplayer aspect of it, because that has been proven to be what the majority of their players want. I'd be willing to bet a LOT more people did the initial Incarnate stuff and ran the new TFs than ran the new story arcs. It only makes sens to focus on the part of the game the most people will utilize first, and catch up with the other stuff later.

Yes, I believe they should add stuff for soloers to do, but I also believe that the multiplayer stuff should come first, because that's the part of the game that draws the most people in. A new task force attracts a lot more attention than a new story arc. When i19 was released, Apex and Tin Mage drew attention, while most people I talked to didn't even realize there WERE new story arcs.

And here's some irony for you: A bunch of people that refuse to work with others banding together on the forums to shout down anyone who thinks they are blowing things out of proportion.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

IOs were absolutely the next evolution of my charaters, and those characters absolutely gained in power in ways comparable to leveling up. IOs were explicitly described by the devs as an "alternate progression" method at the time of their introduction, especially for level 50 characters. They just happened to be something you could start progressing on before actually hitting level 50.

Actually, that's exactly what some are asking for.

In lieu of that, they're asking that the not-set-in-stone figures of crafting be reduced.

To me, #5 is the one that really showcases the problem. There is a tendency to balance around the high end. The same with reward merits being balanced around what a speed run generates rather than a casual run.

The other big aspect [I believe you mentioned it, I dunno, I'm just waking up] I think, is that there is a difference between solo and casual. There is a some overlap, yes, but it is a different matter. It looks like we're getting closer to the point of contention being casual soloists. Which is still a legitimate concern [and hopefully provides to be a less charged term than 'anti-teamer'].

There is another bit of trouble with balancing a grind solution with this metric, since a team's rate of generation scales (roughly, I think it's closer to geometric than a special logarithmic, but it's far too varied from party structure to party structure I imagine ) geometrically to the team size. And again, there is a tendency to balance towards the high end.

Balancing around the low end, still results in the high end achieving it at the same disproportionate rate faster. The imbalance still exists.

As a sidenote, I have a suspicion [that will most likely be proven wrong], that the Incarnate Trials will simply award a bucket of Incarnate Shards, weighted by your contribution ranking.

Pretty much. I can ignore a lot of game faults if the story behind the game were good enough. I'd never have been able to play through the complete mess of gameplay that is the original Mass Effect if it weren't for the amazing storyline.

If the storyline cannot be decent, however, then the gameplay shouldn't turn me off, because then I have nothing left to cling to.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

They aren't. They're balanced around median completion times. There's a difference in balancing around speed runs and actually accounting for the fact that they exist. When you list a piece of content's completion times and sort them in descending order, and enough people are running fast times that they displace the slow times down to the bottom half of the list, the devs feel that enough people are running the content fast enough to warrant the reward being lower. I think they could use different methods to calculate this, but the principle is sound.

Whether they balanced the Shard cost of Notices around the high end or not is unclear at this time. Those numbers may simply be a S.W.A.G., given that they represent pre-open-beta values.

Median? Hmm, ah CoP was the odd ball, that pretty much you either finish fast, or you don't finish. Ah, I think I was misinterpreting the issue with LGTF. Not positive, but regardless I was wrong . Thank you.

That or I didn't really pay too much attention to Castle's defending the merit awards for TF. Both quite likely . Median does make sense though, especially if accounting for the reality that as time increases, the likelihood of completion decreases, so it would skew slightly towards the faster rate, but not likely at anything that matters.

That's what I'd like to hope for. As I said previously, I'm not too upset about the number of shards, but the additional inf* expense rubs me the wrong way. First, because there isn't an inf* cost anywhere else in what's been revealed of the Incarnate system, so this one stands out as deliberately tacked on with the intention of adding another gate to slow players down, and not very well thought out; and second, because the player on the WST is quite likely to be generating inf* at a faster rate than the solo player, plus getting an additional Notice of the Well for "free", so the solo player is not only progressing along the Incarnate path more slowly by default, he/she is also being slowed down even more by an inf* tax. High shard/component cost or high inf* cost, one or the other. Both is unnecessary and overly restrictive.

No, I understand the point quite well.

Something was introduced to the game as a reward for doing something specific: The Incarnate Trials.

What people want is to get the same reward, while not doing the specific thing that the reward is for. And it was given to them, but at an extremely elevated cost. And there was much complaining about it.

It's no different than people wanting PvP IOs, but not wanting to PvP to get them. That was given to them as well, also at an extremely elevated cost. The complaining about that seems to have died down in the face of this new "outrage".

What the WST is, is a method of obtaining the reward earlier than we would otherwise have. I presume it is because the Rare and Very Rare Alpha slots were ready, but the intended method of obtaining them was not, so they gave us a way to get them early.

Now, you can call me a dev fanboy if you want for defending their design decision, but it's more of a case of me being realistic.

Unlike some of the people posting in this thread (and others), I am not laboring under the delusion that my $15/month gives me the right to dictate game design. That $15 gives me the privilege of playing the game, nothing more. The only decision that is mine to make regarding the game is whether or not I play it.

I am accepting of the fact that if I want something that is rewarded for a specific task, then I need to do that specific task. If the developers choose to give me an alternate method of obtaining that reward, fine, but I realize they are in no way obligated to do so. I also realize that I have no right whatsoever to demand that I be able to obtain that reward in a manner of MY choosing.

I have no more right to dictate how the developers design this game than I have to dictate how next year's Ford Focus is going to look. I can only choose to play or not play, much as I can choose to buy their car or not buy it. And the same is true of every player in the game. Your $15 is as valuable as my $15. No more, no less. If my $15 doesn't confer to me the right to dictate design decisions, neither does yours.

Another analogy would be a magazine subscription. Just because you subscribe to a magazine doesn't mean you get to tell them what to write about.

And as far as my earlier comment about blowing things out of proportion. A lot of people here are doing exactly that. A lot of people seem to think that any design decision they don't like is an attempt by the devs at destroying their way of life. Repeat after me: It's only a video game and I shouldn't take it so seriously.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

^This

If people never voiced their concerns or displeasure on the forums, well we might as well go back to the days of Jack Emmert.

I think the core problem here is failing to see a middle ground. Some people are railing against any notion that there be a significant difference between doing things solo or running a WST. Some people are rejecting any concern about the screen captured crafting costs as groundless. People with strong feelings are focusing heavily on the posts that are most extremely opposed to their own view, and sometimes posting hyperbolic complaints in response. As usual, the best target is probably going to be somewhere in the no-man's land in between those views. It's human nature to try and argue for the appeal of making that target land as close as possible to one's own preferences.

Damn, that's quite an in-depth and accurate analysis.

While that's true, enough furore can and does end up pissing off said middle ground, involving that in the flame war and reducing rationality even more. While I take the Hatchet approach to calm reasoning, the fact remains that the more players try to police opposing viewpoints, the more radicalised those viewpoints become, helping no-one at all.

A generally agreeable, amicable person who might be willing to see reason and accept arguments may well turn into a stubborn ******* when he is insulted to the face enough times and told to go to hell and find another game even just once. Said person will then respond to NO U and all possible discussion will have gone swirling down the drain before it could even begin.

Discussion, especially on controversial subjects, should be welcomed and encouraged. People should WANT to come to the forums and share their opinions, not - as people I know have told me - be apprehensive of dealing with "that mess" for fear of flame wars. Certainly, disagreements and arguments will happen, but those must be kept to matters of the game, not matters who has the right to want what. Customers rarely feel like they own the business and can single-handedly force changes through, but when they are told - by other customers, no less - that they do not have a voice and should not have a voice, they tend to take the opposite approach and insist that they have a greater voice than any customer deserves.

Not attacking each other, as it were, is what makes for a good discussion. Pity it doesn't work out that way.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

While I doubt that this is an exhaustive list:
-Combining Titans (as indicated by Arcanaville)
-Redcap LT upgrades to boss
-Elite Boss doesn't downgrade to Lt, assumed to have Boss-like drop schedule.
-Calystix the Shaper summons bosses (I think?)
-Lord Recluse Boss summon

I'm pretty sure Lord Recluse summons Lieutenants if you have your difficulty turned down, or at least the one in Silos' TF did for me. I could be wrong on that regard, however.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

There was a time they did downgrade to bosses in the Architect if you had the "no bosses" option enabled. Scratch that, if you were playing on Heroic/Villainous. I don't know if that's still the case, but I doubt it.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

That I can testify never happened. I checked. It was Architect exclusive, and to the best of my knowledge isn't in effect even there. I'm not sure what the logic behind it was, but I don't think it lasted, and it's certainly not true in the non-Architect game.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Any team size larger than solo will spawn bosses regardless of settings.

Beyond that, no, CoT Portals do not spawn bosses for solo players with bosses disabled. Behemoth Masters do occasionally spawn, but they spawn as lieutenants.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.