Things I don't like about Alpha Strike

I'm going to have to jump in here and agree that running the same TF over and over again isn't very fun.

I currently have 5 level 50s. Only one of them has anything beyond the common alpha. Doing the same thing over and over again really breaks the immersion for me. If I run a TF once I can think to myself "Yay, I saved the world" but then if I go and run it again, and again, and again, it just feels like grinding. It quickly stops being fun.

I ran the Kahn TF three times, and that was already far too much. I wanted to run a Barrracuda to balance it out, but nobody wanted to do that because it's harder and takes longer.

I didn't run a single LGTF this week. I wanted nothing to do with it.

I'll probably run a couple SP/SM TFs this week, because some of my characters don't have the badges, but I certainly won't be running several of them.

Also, out of curiosity, has anybody stopped to notice that the villain TFs will be getting a lot more action than the Hero TFs? There's a whole lot more Hero TFs to choose from. Fifteen Hero TFs, Four cooperative TFs, and just SIX villain TFs. There are 2.5 times more hero TFs than villain TFs.

I assume a lot of the hero TFs will never be the weekly strike target. They'll probably restrict it to coop TFs and the six that have direct hero/villain equivalents in terms of level range.

We'll just pretend the shard TFs don't exist

Personally, I'd much rather do speed runs of most of the weekly strike targets.

Of the TFs offered so far, I've done every one of them at least 30 times in the past. Most of them I did 5-10 additional times while they were the WST. The point being that they're not new and interesting any more. Sure, they're fun or I wouldn't do them, but part of the fun for me at least is in doing speed runs and seeing how fast we can pull them off.

However, if I'm leading a team, I always make it clear to everyone involved before we start that we'll be doing a speed run so there's no confusion. I also ask if everyone is familiar with the speed running tactics for that particular TF.

And if I'm not leading, I make sure to ask the leader if we're doing a speedrun before I join.

This tends to get rid of most of the problems, though I still run into some, like the guy last week who agreed to join a speed LGTF and told me he knew what to do, but continued to fight the mobs killing infernia and glacia even after repeated requests to let them die.

The Incarnate system did exactly what the Devs wanted it to do... Play on teams more.

Typically when a new TF comes out, there's a big swarm to see what it's all about, then if you can't catch that initial wave, you're out of luck. Outside of "profitable" TF prior to the Alpha slots, they were difficult to find. At least now, you can feel pretty confident if you want to run the TF of the week, you can.

The talk about speed runs vs normal play is kinda moot. It's easy to find a team doing one or the other. With shards still being in somewhat rare supply to the common player base, there are always those willing to just go with the flow in hopes of getting shards. In the same regard, you almost always have some team doing the TF for the fifth time that day who just wants to get it done. All it takes is asking the leader (or being the leader) what pace the TF is going to go at.

I would love to see some stats on how many teams and TF have been formed in the last month as compared to the last, oh, three years. I bet it's up 500% at least.

For the record, I greatly enjoy the Incarnate system so far. It has people in my Super Group excited to do and experience new things. Everyone has chosen a character or two they want to make more powerful and we make time to run the TF of the week together.