Incarnate Strikes - A proposed solo/small team path
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-03-03 15:56 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Sounds good to me. We need more "efficient" way to get new incarnate stuff without camping at Pocket D.
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
OK, you all know about the controversy so I'm going to skip that and get right to the idea. This is an idea for a solo/small team path which I believe is reasonable, not grindy and includes some of the same time gates that exist in the strike pack. It's based on the daily missions that most MMOs use to allow soloists and small team folks to participate in earning endgame gear.
THE STORY The Lady Grey, Leader of Vanguard is impressed with the efforts against the Praetorians, but has a concern with the current strategies by Earth's defenders. All too often, our efforts include major flashy strikes against major targets in Praetoria. This is fine for what it is, but it does not endear us to the Enriche addled masses of Praetoria. If hearts and minds there see their unjust attack as illegitimate it might break morale among the people. For that reason the Lady Grey has created a new division to coordinate small targeted missions into Praetoria. THE VANGUARD HAMMER! As a weapon, hammers (like other blunt heavy weapons) are intended to be able to cause damage to even heavily armored foes. So shall it be with the nearly impenetrable Praetorian society. THE MECHANICS The Vanguard Hammer will have a NPC leader who will give ONE mission a day to a player. No matter how many Incarnate Strikes you've attempted in the last 20 hours, just as with Alignment tips, you can only get credit for a limited number. In this case exactly ONE per day. These missions would take on two flavors: One would involve rescuing a Praetorian from the excesses of the Cole regime. The other would be clandestine sabotage intended to show the true colors of various Praetorian heroes (Maurader, et. al.). The first type of missions would reward an Incarnate Salvage bonus (see below) (plus whatever drops) and psychic incarnate exp. The second type would reward an Incarnate salvage bonus plus physical incarnate exp. Just like with Alignment tips, you have to do ten before you get a big mission. This mission could be done either on the same day as the tenth tip (like alignment tips) or if you wanted more time gating making the person wait till the next day. This mission like Alignment changing missions would be longer and more involved. It would reward either: A Notice of the Well (Rare Alpha); OR a reward for the upper Incarnate abilities on the same terms as completing a trial. Incarnate Strike missions would obey the character's difficulty slider, but a boss would be mandatory, no Lt. downgrades. The rewards for doing the mission would be based on the difficulty selected. -1 - No Incarnate salvage bonus +0 - One Incarnate Shard +1 - One Incarnate Thread +2 - Two Incarnate Threads +3 - Three Incarnate Threads +4 - Four Incarnate Threads THOUGHTS? |
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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Using the trials to unlock alpha is a waste of time and threads. It's faster to do the Ramiel arc, then do some trials. You will have alpha open and slotted.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
If all you're talking about is unlocking the Alpha, sure, Ramiel's arc is faster. If you are talking about unlocking and actually slotting your Alpha, then the trials win by a wide margin.
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I wouldn't recommend to anyone to use the trials to unlock alpha.
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I'd like them to have a solo options - as long as it's no so good as to keep people from doing the trials. :-)
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Nothing in my post mentions difficulty.|
Originally Posted by docbuzzard
Sure, let's make incarnate advancement available through the easiest possible means, without even a modicum of difficulty.
Heck, why don't we just hand out the powers to anyone who logs in? Since we're on that note, we should have everyone auto advance to 50 when they make a new alt as well. Why waste their time with all that 'work' of leveling up? |
I suggested players get rewarded to play......as THEY like......not grind a tiny portion of CoH content deemed by the Devs as the sacred playstyle.
By the by; since you seem to have a false impression of my playstyle...I have played since Dec 2004....I have dozens of toons at every level.......multiple 50s......two 50s that are using the incarnate system as it is built....I very rarely TF for the usual reasons...participate in the current two trials enough to equip the two incarnates as far as I want (strongly disliking the repetition to get as far as I have)....and I have never NEVER power leveled a toon.
I am seeking to play the full gamut of CoH content, when and how I choose, and be rewarded in a way that allows progression of a level 50 toon. I am not seeking exploits, easy leveling, someone else to do the effort of progressing a toon. I am definately NOT asking to eliminate the trials, I think they are fun enough to do a few times, and some people love to farm them...if that is your playstyle...have a happy. I just want the rest of CoH to count too. The old game of CoH is being ignored for the sake of grinding a very small amount of new content...I find that to be a sad state of affairs.
Your post is a strawman that misses the point.
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In spite of you evidently not realizing it, it does. You explicitly state you want incarnate rewards handed out for all content at a reasonable pace. If the players get to pick the content, they will pick the easiest content and blaze through it. Whether or not you in particular will do that is irrelevant. It is how the majority will behave. |
Originally Posted by Tally
Nothing in my post mentions difficulty.
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Your post is a strawman that misses the point. |
Too many alts to list.
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I disagree; what you say is indeed possible, but I don't see it as an automatic result of permitting any multiple paths to incarnate powers. People will tend to the path of least resistance, but there's a lot of wiggle room on just what is considered resistance and how sharp that tendency is.|
Originally Posted by docbuzzard
In spite of you evidently not realizing it, it does. You explicitly state you want incarnate rewards handed out for all content at a reasonable pace. If the players get to pick the content, they will pick the easiest content and blaze through it. Whether or not you in particular will do that is irrelevant. It is how the majority will behave.
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For example, if the devs eliminated iShards and made normal content drop iThreads instead, the trials would probably still be run. But that would go a long way toward making the system more accessible and far less repetitive.
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Originally Posted by docbuzzard
In spite of you evidently not realizing it, it does. You explicitly state you want incarnate rewards handed out for all content at a reasonable pace. If the players get to pick the content, they will pick the easiest content and blaze through it. Whether or not you in particular will do that is irrelevant. It is how the majority will behave.
Nope. You just don't understand the dynamics of how people play MMOs and the inherent implications of your suggestions. |
You are actually suggesting player/subscribers are inherently too stupid and lazy to pick the RIGHT content....and the Dev's are obligated to steer the stupid masses to the proper path.
I completely disagree.
I believe the Dev's responsibility is to encourage players to experience to full breadth and depth of the game of CoH, to encourage the players to pick what is fun for THEM from many options, to create and grow a game with many branches of character progression to allow for the vastly different playstyles and circumstances that each individual player/subscriber brings to the game.
If some players have more fun progressing their incarnate running solo missions, and others love TFs, and still others want to be in something huge and epic like a trial; who are you to say they are wrong?
Your narrow vision of what is worthy content will only appeal to an equally narrow percentage of the player/subscriber base.
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What a truly bizarre distortion of my point. |
Originally Posted by Tally
You are actually suggesting player/subscribers are inherently too stupid and lazy to pick the RIGHT content....and the Dev's are obligated to steer the stupid masses to the proper path.
I completely disagree. |
My point was that people would be smart, and pick the easiest path. Doing extra work is not smart. Doing more difficult or tedious tasks when then is an alternative is not smart.
If you want to make attaining something an actual accomplishment, you can't make the easiest path just as efficient as a harder one. This isn't exactly rocket science, though I suspect managing to convince you of it may require such.
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| I believe the Dev's responsibility is to encourage players to experience to full breadth and depth of the game of CoH, to encourage the players to pick what is fun for THEM from many options, to create and grow a game with many branches of character progression to allow for the vastly different playstyles and circumstances that each individual player/subscriber brings to the game. |
It is not a crime against gaming to make different paths have different rewards. If I want to collect purple IOs, my best path is to solo missions set at x8. If I want to collect merits, my best bet is speed runs of TFs or Oro arcs. Hami Os obviously call for Hami raids, STFs or LRSFs. If I want shards, I will do TFs on big teams. These activities all have their independent rewards. There is nothing wrong with that.
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| If some players have more fun progressing their incarnate running solo missions, and others love TFs, and still others want to be in something huge and epic like a trial; who are you to say they are wrong? |
I have no objection to there being solo incarnate content, or incarnate TFs (Tin Mage and Apex should give more incarnate rewards IMO). However something as stupidly easy as an ITF should not give out top tier rewards. That incarnate content will have to be specifically hard, and allow for a measured pace of acquiring the powers.
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| Your narrow vision of what is worthy content will only appeal to an equally narrow percentage of the player/subscriber base. |
Too many alts to list.
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Actually I probably wouldn't find a problem in that. Moving up the food chains with threads past uncommons takes a heck of a lot of threads, so gating again with the shard->conversion limitation was rather silly. I considered it an error to add another form of currency when it was convertible 1:1.|
Originally Posted by Darkonne
I disagree; what you say is indeed possible, but I don't see it as an automatic result of permitting any multiple paths to incarnate powers. People will tend to the path of least resistance, but there's a lot of wiggle room on just what is considered resistance and how sharp that tendency is.
For example, if the devs eliminated iShards and made normal content drop iThreads instead, the trials would probably still be run. But that would go a long way toward making the system more accessible and far less repetitive. -D |
I guess there was some valid concern about people who had stockpiled immense quantities of shards, and they were dealing with that. However I should think it wouldn't be a problem to remove the restriction on conversion now.
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I am suggesting people pick what is fun and challenging for themselves. I am suggesting variety. I am suggesting repeating the same trials over and over and over and over....is neither challenging nor fun.|
Originally Posted by docbuzzard
What a truly bizarre distortion of my point.
My point was that people would be smart, and pick the easiest path. Doing extra work is not smart. Doing more difficult or tedious tasks when then is an alternative is not smart. If you want to make attaining something an actual accomplishment, you can't make the easiest path just as efficient as a harder one. This isn't exactly rocket science, though I suspect managing to convince you of it may require such. Yes, and you are suggesting making it so that people can tunnel themselves into their comfortable paths no matter how trivial and easy they may be and still get every shiny without seeing the whole breadth and depth of the game. It is not a crime against gaming to make different paths have different rewards. If I want to collect purple IOs, my best path is to solo missions set at x8. If I want to collect merits, my best bet is speed runs of TFs or Oro arcs. Hami Os obviously call for Hami raids, STFs or LRSFs. If I want shards, I will do TFs on big teams. These activities all have their independent rewards. There is nothing wrong with that. If the goal is to make something a challenge, that the notion of becoming incarnate is something more difficult than falling off a log, there has to be specific content for it. It should be hard content, not the trivially easy content that fills the rest of the game. The content which, as you add incarnate powers, becomes laughable easy. I have no objection to there being solo incarnate content, or incarnate TFs (Tin Mage and Apex should give more incarnate rewards IMO). However something as stupidly easy as an ITF should not give out top tier rewards. That incarnate content will have to be specifically hard, and allow for a measured pace of acquiring the powers. Your entitlement mentality does appeal to plenty of people, but that's just a sad state of affairs. |
The only challenge in a BAF or a Lambda trial.....is waiting for the league to form...the actual events are fast, easy, and BORING after the first few times. Personally, I find the current two trials some of the least challenging events in the game, and your definition of challenge a farce.
To suggest that players being given a choice of how to progress their characters is an entitlement mentality is another of your irrelevant strawmen, and not suprisingly again misses the point.
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Originally Posted by Tally
I am suggesting people pick what is fun and challenging for themselves. I am suggesting variety. I am suggesting repeating the same trials over and over and over and over....is neither challenging nor fun.
The only challenge in a BAF or a Lambda trial.....is waiting for the league to form...the actual events are fast, easy, and BORING after the first few times. Personally, I find the current two trials some of the least challenging events in the game, and your definition of challenge a farce. To suggest that players being given a choice of how to progress their characters is an entitlement mentality is another of your irrelevant strawmen, and not suprisingly again misses the point. |
OK, I'm done. Talking to a brick wall would be more productive. You just can't grasp that people take the path of least resistance, and part of game design is to avoid making that possible.
You don't even have the first clue of what a real strawman would be, so this is going to go nowhere. Anything you can't actually refute you label a strawman, which is hardly a means of debate.
Luckily for the game, the devs will have the sense to ignore nonsense such as you suggest.
Too many alts to list.
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The devs' responsibility is to make an engaging game. The problem is that some people find consequential content - content that has unique rewards and results - to be more engaging that content that generates the same results as all other content. That's mutually exclusive to the desire to have the freedom to pick any avenue of gameplay without altering the options for rewards and results. So every game must balance the two in some way, either by catering to one group or the other exclusively, or by having a mix of content with different reward dependencies.|
Originally Posted by Tally
I believe the Dev's responsibility is to encourage players to experience to full breadth and depth of the game of CoH, to encourage the players to pick what is fun for THEM from many options, to create and grow a game with many branches of character progression to allow for the vastly different playstyles and circumstances that each individual player/subscriber brings to the game.
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Its easy to draft this situation as every player has a gameplay preference, and all we have to do is create options for every gameplay preference and have all of them generate the same rewards, and everyone will be happy. In point of fact, in the long run a majority of players will not be happy and leave. That's because players exist on a continuum of different balance points between "content is 100% optional relative to reward" and "cotent determines reward exclusively." The vast majority of players do not sit on any one particular point, so any game that devotes all its content to just one balance point will exclude just about everyone except the tiny minority at that point - regardless of which point you pick.
Including a variety of content with different dependencies means everyone will have some content which is at or near their preference point, and other content that is not. Who we get to keep are the players willing to play the parts of the game they find acceptable and ignore the parts they don't. Who we lose are players that decide what to play based on what they can't do, not on what they can do. The presumption is that the former group of players is higher than any narrow group of players with any specific reward dependence mentality.
Its a presumption I personally share. Its how I would do it if I was in charge.
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You don't have to look further back than the weeks right after AE hit to understand what 'gamers' will do for rewards when allowed.
Even those opposed to PLing found themselves caught up in the feeding frenzy.
If they Dev's were to make all content reward Incarnate shinies I'm sorry to say it would be AE 2.0.
I can hear the broadcasts now. "Frostfire +4x8 incarnate farm forming now! 4 back to back runs for 10 million!!!"
"Incarnate Sewer team forming, when we reach the end we'll turn around!!"
So yeah, while on the outside it would seem like a good idea to let us decide what we want to play and still get rewarded. In reality it would fall to pieces very quickly.
I personally would expect a solo option to be half as fast as trials. Would take maybe 2 extra months solo as opposed to teaming. That way nobody would be running solo unless it was the only way they could/ what they wanted to do yet the soloers would still be able to make progress.
Who knows, a few of the holdouts might get a taste of the power and give in to the darksi... give in to the trials.
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That sounds all well and good, but it doesn't sound much like the Incarnate system as it's currently outlined. What does the person who enjoys raid content forgo?|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Its easy to draft this situation as every player has a gameplay preference, and all we have to do is create options for every gameplay preference and have all of them generate the same rewards, and everyone will be happy. In point of fact, in the long run a majority of players will not be happy and leave. That's because players exist on a continuum of different balance points between "content is 100% optional relative to reward" and "cotent determines reward exclusively." The vast majority of players do not sit on any one particular point, so any game that devotes all its content to just one balance point will exclude just about everyone except the tiny minority at that point - regardless of which point you pick.
Including a variety of content with different dependencies means everyone will have some content which is at or near their preference point, and other content that is not. Who we get to keep are the players willing to play the parts of the game they find acceptable and ignore the parts they don't. Who we lose are players that decide what to play based on what they can't do, not on what they can do. The presumption is that the former group of players is higher than any narrow group of players with any specific reward dependence mentality. Its a presumption I personally share. Its how I would do it if I was in charge. |
-D
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So the call "BAF forming..send tell to XWZ".....repeatedly......over and over......again.......still...."we are gonna do at least 5 runs tonight peeps!"....those calls are valid and valuable? |
Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
You don't have to look further back than the weeks right after AE hit to understand what 'gamers' will do for rewards when allowed.
Even those opposed to PLing found themselves caught up in the feeding frenzy. If they Dev's were to make all content reward Incarnate shinies I'm sorry to say it would be AE 2.0. I can hear the broadcasts now. "Frostfire +4x8 incarnate farm forming now! 4 back to back runs for 10 million!!!" "Incarnate Sewer team forming, when we reach the end we'll turn around!!" So yeah, while on the outside it would seem like a good idea to let us decide what we want to play and still get rewarded. In reality it would fall to pieces very quickly. I personally would expect a solo option to be half as fast as trials. Would take maybe 2 extra months solo as opposed to teaming. That way nobody would be running solo unless it was the only way they could/ what they wanted to do yet the soloers would still be able to make progress. Who knows, a few of the holdouts might get a taste of the power and give in to the darksi... give in to the trials. |
The rewards are different, you are progressing a level 50 toon; but the game experience is the same...blaaa blaaa blaaa farm forming-send tell.
The only unique challenge in doing your 30'th or 50'th or 100'th BAF, is the ability of a brain shut out the bordom and repetition and just grind it again.
I LIKE the trials, I have done them, I have repeated them, I know there are more trials coming....but the incarnate system...the content you have to REPEAT........to get the available rewards....is a boring system.
I am not asking for anyone to level mah toon, I am not screaming that trials broke the game DOOOOOM, I am not looking for the path of least resistance.
I am just suggesting greater variety, options, player choice in what WE find challenging, while still progressing our level 50 toons, would be a good thing.
So far the Dev's disagree with my point of view on the incarnate system. They have purpose built a grind fest as the only method to progress a level 50 toon. They get paid the moderate bucks to make these design decisions....so be it.......grind away.
I am a paying subscriber and have been for a long time, I am paying small bucks for the fun of CoH; and it is my right to say...as for me...the incarnate system is boring and lacks variety.
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Not really sure about that categorization. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Who we get to keep are the players willing to play the parts of the game they find acceptable and ignore the parts they don't. Who we lose are players that decide what to play based on what they can't do, not on what they can do.
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I would think the typical expectation of a long standing customer of a subscription based mmorpg is that new content is regularly introduced that will appeal to that customer. If that gap between those likes is too long, then you start losing them or at the least, decrease their level of interest in logging in.
There are players who liked a certain part of the game (trials in this context) but don't like the excessive repetition of said content. People have varying tolerances for repetition. Once it exceeds that tolerance, the term "grind" gets thrown around.
Repetition is inherent in many games not just videogames. Basketball, football, tennis...take a ball from one end to the other while the opposition prevents...repeat. What keeps people entertained is everything else about the experience that mask, placate or minimize the repetition. In this game the devs are responsible for that but didn't really do enough this time.
Yes, the devs are not selling item counters (inf, xp, merits etc), nor are they selling RNG coding or participation algorithms. They are selling fun to as many people as they can hold on to. It is in their interest to make that "fun" take form in as varied as they can make it.
It's fine to narrow their focus once in a while to a specific area as long as it doesn't alienate the other segments of the customer base for too much and too long. Customer dissatisfaction can accumulate over time and can manifest as burnout or resentment towards the game as a whole (last straw effect) if not adequately managed.
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All this is true, but what I'm talking about is specifically the dichotomy between players who say "I want this" and players who say "I will not accept this." That's an independent mindset from the general one you mention above.
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Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
Not really sure about that categorization.
I would think the typical expectation of a long standing customer of a subscription based mmorpg is that new content is regularly introduced that will appeal to that customer. If that gap between those likes is too long, then you start losing them or at the least, decrease their level of interest in logging in. There are players who liked a certain part of the game (trials in this context) but don't like the excessive repetition of said content. People have varying tolerances for repetition. Once it exceeds that tolerance, the term "grind" gets thrown around. Repetition is inherent in many games not just videogames. Basketball, football, tennis...take a ball from one end to the other while the opposition prevents...repeat. What keeps people entertained is everything else about the experience that mask, placate or minimize the repetition. In this game the devs are responsible for that but didn't really do enough this time. Yes, the devs are not selling item counters (inf, xp, merits etc), nor are they selling RNG coding or participation algorithms. They are selling fun to as many people as they can hold on to. It is in their interest to make that "fun" take form in as varied as they can make it. It's fine to narrow their focus once in a while to a specific area as long as it doesn't alienate the other segments of the customer base for too much and too long. Customer dissatisfaction can accumulate over time and can manifest as burnout or resentment towards the game as a whole (last straw effect) if not adequately managed. |
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Not sure what you mean. For everything the devs add, there will be a segment of the player population that want precisely that. They don't have to compromise anything at that moment in time. But its a certainty that some fraction of those people won't like what's coming next, and will have to decide if that's acceptable just like the people who don't like the incarnate system now have to decide if that is acceptable.
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Originally Posted by Darkonne
That sounds all well and good, but it doesn't sound much like the Incarnate system as it's currently outlined. What does the person who enjoys raid content forgo?
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Well, I do want to make a point that BAF and to some degree Lam are EASIER only because of larger team and more level shifts. |
Originally Posted by Tally
The only challenge in a BAF or a Lambda trial.....is waiting for the league to form...the actual events are fast, easy, and BORING after the first few times. Personally, I find the current two trials some of the least challenging events in the game, and your definition of challenge a farce. |
When I first ran it with just 10 people, it was quite hard. Part of it is that we didn't have any level shift and we didn't know what was going on and we only had 9-10 people. Now that's a challenge we can accept.
But when you have a 16-24 player league, the trials become a lot easier. So is the difficulty in "high end content" lies in having just MORE PLAYERS? If so, I can see why some people (who normally don't like to PUG) are not interested in doing trials (especially not interested in being forced to camp in Pocket D). Mind you, I am not one of those people. I am very flexible. :P
The dev can make some solo/small team (4 people) trials challenging and rewarding. Of course some people can say "well, who is stopping you from doing BAF/Lam with just 4 people?". Well, we tried to do Lam with just 8 people and we locked the team, but the game still added more people to League.
And I think it's more healthy for the game to spread out the population. It's unhealthy to have many players camp at one location, while ignoring other events.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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Yes, and it sounded like you were tying player mentality with retention from the part i quoted prior. I just had a different take on that. I'm sure how a player views the game has a role, but it's more than just that they won't accept parts of the game. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
All this is true, but what I'm talking about is specifically the dichotomy between players who say "I want this" and players who say "I will not accept this." That's an independent mindset from the general one you mention above.
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Unless we're talking about new players, but in the context of end game i would think you were referring to more long-standing subscribers. Those customers, however their personality type happen to be, are here...and have been here awhile, so if suddenly they're unwilling to accept the game anymore, there's usually more involved. I just call it last-straw effect for simplicity's sake.
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The vision is narrow because it includes only those for whom playing is just getting the incarnate stuff the fastest. It rules out that those aren't the only people in the game, and rules out that they will still need a variety of things to do once they have their toons fully "incarnated" or they will get bored. It rules out that there are people who play for more than just a virtual reward, and actually want to have fun in the process, not just the result, or that there needs to be a variety of missions, trials and other events where said reward is even applicable and worth using for it to even have value. It is indeed very narrow. It views the incarnate powers as the sole point and purpose, without acknowledging that the rewards themselves mean nothing without the circumstances that gives them value. |
Originally Posted by Tally
You are actually suggesting player/subscribers are inherently too stupid and lazy to pick the RIGHT content....and the Dev's are obligated to steer the stupid masses to the proper path.
I completely disagree. I believe the Dev's responsibility is to encourage players to experience to full breadth and depth of the game of CoH, to encourage the players to pick what is fun for THEM from many options, to create and grow a game with many branches of character progression to allow for the vastly different playstyles and circumstances that each individual player/subscriber brings to the game. If some players have more fun progressing their incarnate running solo missions, and others love TFs, and still others want to be in something huge and epic like a trial; who are you to say they are wrong? Your narrow vision of what is worthy content will only appeal to an equally narrow percentage of the player/subscriber base. |
There needs to be more incarnate content and places and paths because those are the only circumstances in the game where those rewards are really worthy and needed (especially incarnate shifts). Similarly those paths and places need to offer incarnate rewards because that is what will be needed to succeed and those are the end game at present. Lastly, all of it needs to be varied and interesting thus producing FUN because that is why people play games at all and what will keep them subscribed.
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Well said. For me, the process is more important than the reward and they current Incarnate content is sorely lacking in the process department. Previously, I described the current system as having the Penthouse built first before the other floors and the foundation. Since I view CoV as a longterm investment, Fun is immensely more important than anything else. |
Originally Posted by Dominemesis
The vision is narrow because it includes only those for whom playing is just getting the incarnate stuff the fastest. It rules out that those aren't the only people in the game, and rules out that they will still need a variety of things to do once they have their toons fully "incarnated" or they will get bored. It rules out that there are people who play for more than just a virtual reward, and actually want to have fun in the process, not just the result, or that there needs to be a variety of missions, trials and other events where said reward is even applicable and worth using for it to even have value. It is indeed very narrow. It views the incarnate powers as the sole point and purpose, without acknowledging that the rewards themselves mean nothing without the circumstances that gives them value.
There needs to be more incarnate content and places and paths because those are the only circumstances in the game where those rewards are really worthy and needed (especially incarnate shifts). Similarly those paths and places need to offer incarnate rewards because that is what will be needed to succeed and those are the end game at present. Lastly, all of it needs to be varied and interesting thus producing FUN because that is why people play games at all and what will keep them subscribed. |
And since "getting to 50" content is far more casual fun than post-50 content (Incarnate Trials and TF's cannot possibly be called 'casual fun'), I'll just stick to playing lower level characters until they do create a fun environment for all my 50's to solo in.
I like the idea much better now than when I first read it and didn't understand the reward progression you intended. I'm glad I took the time to read your explanations & the responses others have made in this thread. Getting to this point took me a while & it's late now so I'm sure that has me misunderstanding plenty.
However, one thing I'd like to see included is a non-trial way to acquire Astral's & Empyreans so that the trials aren't the only way to acquire the ability to unlock those rewards. I'm not sure there is a good or reasonable way to incorporate that into Incarnate Strikes, but if you could figure out a way I think that would be nifty.
I disagree with the posters that feel the solo/small team path needs to be longer and more arduous than the trial path. I also disagree that it must not be possible to do along with the trial path. I think deliberately locking people out of content is a poor choice. Having it be unpalatable is fine, but I think it's essential a player be able to make the choice not to run content rather than have a game mechanic make that choice for them. I agree the solo/small team path cannot be preferable/more desirable to run than the trial content. I think the solo/small team content needs to be designed with the understanding that it will likely be used as a supplement to trial content. I quite like the idea that if trials don't seem to be happening, one has a means of making some kind of progress to one's incarnate goals, but then if a trial opportunity presents itself, one has both the ability & desire to go participate in the trial for more appealing progress.
In all cases the path one takes should have some effort made for it to be fun & engaging.
One of the things I like about using the tip mission template is that a limited amount of content could be released at introduction, but that it allows for the addition of more content later & I think interesting & engaging missions are easier to produce than interesting & engaging trials. I also think it helps that it's a familiar existing technology that people would more readily warm up to than something new, "scary" & unknown.
Well... it's later now than it was before & I'm only going to get more incoherent, so I'm going to stop here!
Personally, I'd just like a new contact that has 10+ unique but repeatable hit-and-run missions into Praetoria along with at least one good long single-run story arc. All of the missions would reward iXP and random threads for killing enemies.
The end of the story arc(s) would be a component of some sort. Preferrably there would be 8 arcs, two for each slot where the first drops an uncommon component and the second dropped a rare (so chance for 4 uncommons and 4 rares).
I would even be ok if they had a new currency for these so they can't combine with the iTrials... that wouldn't be ideal but I'd understand it.