Am I alone in this...

All the devs have to do is to come out with some new powersets, and people will be making new Alts again. Its just, the stuff they need to do to be fun for people that like to play their 50s is mutually exclusive, for the most part, from the stuff that has driven the core of this game, the new powersets and new costumes, and player imagination tools, like base building.

I think the comments being made about the developers have made a 180 degree shift in their thinking is just wrong. Its all your perception. If you're not having fun grinding for Shards, then don't do it.

Go do what was fun, there is nothing stopping you, but you.

My feelings on this are ambivalent.

On the positive side it gave me a reason to play my 50s again. Enough so that I spent many hours and billions of INF giving the older, neglected ones updated builds in the same class as my later, richer characters have.

On the down side, even though I've kept up fairly well with just the Alpha (17 of 23 50s slotted, 8 level shifted), I feel an occasional sense of dejection when I contemplate the coming Incarnate slots and how many of my 50s are soon to be relegated to second class status.

I have to admit, me & Mamma are finding this whole "shard grind" annoying. We ran 18 missions/tips as a pair the other night, while actively chatting in channels for TF's, etc. At the end of our night - no TF and NOT ONE SHARD at all. set to x2+2. The "shard grind" is killing the fun for us. Ragequit ? Nah, we still love the pre-shard content. Just a shame the people we know are over all the old stuff.

**Damien**

I don't think anyone in the thread said they didn't like the devs addressing the "endgame" issue CoH supposedly lacked. What people don't like is that in order to prolong the duration of the "endgame" they came up with a handy little hierarchy-tree with some droprates. With numbers like 1shard per 10-15minutes(or 2 in 10seconds in 30 minutes, it averages sometimes) on a standard level50 8man TF, with 30-40+ required for the levelshift give or take which type of alpha you're going for and which TFs/Events you do/don't play. Then about 100+ if you want the character to have a tier4.....keeping in mind they drop 1-2/15ish minutes.

Now that it's been addressed so much I can really see, the high numbers were a cheap trick to drag out the usage of one type of incarnate ability. They were so worried about preventing the "Ok I'm lv51 and bored" threads they raised the stakes of the content to create exactly the opposite; like this one.

I know there are tons of people who could say they like it this way. But at least if it was the other way around (easy to get, then tiring) the answer would be "if you're bored already then make another 50 an incarnate". Basically the answer everyone has in this thread for people saying it's a grind or takes too long for too many alts is......"play less characters"(make less characters incarnates, whatever )???.

10 50's To Date! Check out Titan Sentinel; it got my CoH presence synced online

In a way, I am kind of glad that the new stuff has gone into the game for these very reasons, it kinda forced me to focus more on a few characters that I wanted to "excel", while curbing my tendency to level up every crazy idea that came to mind :P

I don't think the current alpha slot requirements are too steep at all really, but then I probably play more than the average casual gamer so I can understand and appreciate the frustration.

What does annoy me though are the enforced timers and the rumors that the items will be convertible, but then for obscene amounts of grinding. If I or someone else wants to grind grind grind and get to Tier 4 in one day, we should be afforded the opportunity to do so. Just like alignment tips and Hero/Villain merits. I cannot stand the artificially imposed time restrictions for many reasons, perhaps I have the time to do it now or this week, but not the next few weeks at all? Maybe I have all the money and merits to convert 30 hero merits and don't want to wait nearly a month to do so? Perhaps I decided to change my main do to a nerf of a powerset or a power proliferation and leveled up to 50, but now have to wait 2 weeks and 1 day to get my T4 enhancement, even though I have all the shards and TFs needed? If you are going to add in a grind factor, don't add in a secondary factor to slow things down arbitrarily.

I do think the new systems are a drastic change in the direction of the game, but not in quite the way some people think or have stated, the casual play and support for alts is still there and they keep adding sub 50 content to support it, only now they are giving you something to do with your 50s that can have tangible improvement and you have to choose what to focus on in how you spend your in game time. Make new alts, play an assortment of characters all across the spectrum, just as was always possible before, or start to narrow your focus on upper level advancement and what it takes to get there. Of course for the hard core grinders, this is no different anyway, simply another stage beyond level/IOs/etc.

I had 10 or so 50's on my account, I unlocked the Alpha slot on 7 of them, got most of those to T2 and then when the WST came out I pared that down to my 4 favorites who now get the majority of my game "playing" time. I still spend a ton of time RPing and just goofing off in game, but when I decide to run missions or what not, those 4 characters get priority. For me this was good because it made me sit back and look at all my characters and decide which ones I really liked playing the most, and I went with them. It really hasn't slowed the playing of my lower level characters or really my other 50s much though, because I mainly play the characters I enjoy RPing with, and I am more likely to come up with an RP concept that I like on a character I enjoy playing, so I am really just logging on the same few characters most of the time anyway. :P

I never understood the abilities of people to maintain 10+ 50s for so long anyhow. I always thought that if I made too many toons that 'mattered' it would wind up owning me, since there is a 'collector's habit' that I had to curb.

Now that the incarnate system is out, and teaming (TFs) is the only real effective way to get it, I'm glad I made the choice to not care so much about which toon needs to be slotted out or has which badge.

I only have 2 toons that are going through the incarnate cycle, and the rest are doing it to help friends or just for something to do.

Unfortunately, although the end game is a welcome relief from my point of view, but I am concerned that the way it is being rolled (doled) out is forcing everyone to be TF grind monkeys. This is not an explicit design choice by the devs, but by happenstance and culture (within this game).

The culture of wanting things now, getting all the new shinies and fear that non-current things fall off by the side of the road encourages/forces everyone to get it done now or be stuck in the slow lane because no one else will want to help you get going once it is no longer the content of the moment.

I hope that some of this changes once i20 launches, since shards can be obtained by doing non-50 activities, and enough shards can be awarded during normal play to allay these concerns. However, I think that the shard monkey grind fear will simply be replaced by thread monkey grinding once i20 launches.

Something occurred to me that amused me greatly.

Remember not so long ago when every so often someone who prefers to focus on a few select characters would post bemoaning the fact that there was nothing further for them to do once they hit level 50?

I do.

I also remember that, invariably, a number of people would post in their thread essentially telling them to stop complaining and make more characters like everyone else.

The funny part? A lot of the people that were telling them to stop complaining are now the ones complaining that Incarnate content is too time consuming to run all their dozens of characters through.

Basically what happened is the people who were telling the people who wanted end game to suck it up and roll more alts have found that suddenly there is something in the game that doesn't cater to their preferred playstyle. In fact, it caters more to the people who like to play a few characters instead of dozens.

So, to the people this concerns:

For 6 1/2 years now, the game catered to YOUR preferred playstyle, and you got to tell people to stop complaining. The game was providing what you wanted and all was good.

Now, the game is catering to someone ELSE'S playstyle, and you're being told in turn to stop complaining because the game is just now providing what THEY'VE wanted for 6 1/2 years.

How's it feel?

A number of you are finally getting a taste of what you've been dishing out to others for the entire life of the game.

Isn't karma fun?

I don't think tier 4 or whatever in the game takes to long to get, I just don't like how much it sets those that have it apart from those that don't.*

And I don't mind that it is 'gating' some content, as that could be seen as a story campaign that you have to start at the start. I mind that it just makes you a lot better and getting better rewards at everything.

I was hoping it'd be a neat little thing, or something that comes with an up but also a down side. A cool option. But instead it's a powerful win-win-win must-have.


*(And that this game was different from other games in that you could reach max level rather smoothly and even raise team members to your level -1, so it was wonderfully easy to be a good help to a team led by a seasoned max level character.
Now they add level 50+, then 50++, 50+++ and so on? that are a lot more powerful than level 50, let alone someone sidekicked by them as they will still be 49. So it becomes a lot harder to contribute to teams of maxed out chars.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect And that is your choice. You have every right to make that choice, I will never say you don't.

I keep seeing this a lot. "But you can just opt to not do it and suck."
Maybe I am alone with that, but I don't particularly want to suck and get less rewards for higher risk and harder defeats.

For me the shard hunting left me burned out after getting the alpha slots slotted on all the toons I wanted to be incarnates. I haven't been playing much the last 2 weeks. Which is entirely my fault, but I'm really, really not looking forward to the next issue since there is going to be four new slots to unlock. I know which toon I want to unlock the new stuff for first, but will I want to do it again is a question I'll answer later. 4 Slots is alot, and with my ADD mentality every slots needs to be top tier.