Do we really have to grind these same 2 zones over and over?

[sarcasm]Yeah, that is really weird that an Issue named Incarnates would actually be about Incarnates. What were the devs thinking![/sarcasm]

Prays Issue 20.5 or Issue 21 brings us something a TEAM can do. I am not into this league thing whatsoever. As of today 17 attempts at the new trials (10 BAF and 7 Lambda)...all failed. Sigh.

(just had a crazily saddening thought.... what if the next slots have yet ANOTHER currency so those who "hoard" threads can't jump into the 6,7,8,9, and 10th incarnate abilities)...oy!

My mistake, I thought it was part of this issue.

To your point B., I'm pretty sure Buttcapes weren't really an intrinsic part of the issue in which they were released either...

(Oh, I thought you meant trenchcoats. If you were talking trenchcoats, my statements stand with that in mind; if it's about 'buttcapes', as Rosanna RosannaDanna would say, neeevermiiiind.)

Also, I'm not sure, but I believe SexyJay is in charge of Art, which contains costumes as a subset, right? Based on his general history of interaction, I'll guess that rather than lazing around doing Nothing, he's probably been working his 'buttcape' off getting ready for this issue. I'll gladly take whatever he offers us in Costumes, whenever he and his team are able to do so.

And BTW, based on the speed with which we can now reach level 20, I would say hat TFs designed for L20-40 characters are most certainly low to mid level content. Anyone who thinks that L30 is high level content, well, I disagree with them.

It bugs me that so many people don't like what this issue has to offer, but I'll continue to enjoy it myself, and hope that people are able to find something to like in it as well.

I certainly expect there will be more options to get threads and non-Alpha incarnate drops in i21. If there are none, I'll consider that an epic fail.

I19 & 19.5 were great. Not only was Alpha introduced, they gave us the WST system and a fairly diverse way of earning (still grinding to some) your way to the top. Numerous TFs, MSR raids (150 v-merits = 1 G'rai matter = 1 shard), every 50+ mob dropping shards, WSTs dropping Notices, etc. You might get sick of a specific WST TF, but you only had to wait a week for a new one, or just run another ITF, KTF, LG, STF/LRSF, or CoP, or just sweep 50+ mobs and you were working towards your incarnate goal.

W/I20, the only realistic way of progressing towards your non-Alpha goals are to run 2 trials. Yes, you can convert shards to threads, but at a ridiculous exchange rate which makes most Alpha rewards practically useless once you've hit T4 (unless you're going for multiple trees). I'm sure we're going to get very good at both new trials, and we'll be able to fly through both and get our rewards in decent order, but I know I'll be bored out of my mind within a month.

During I19, I got 3 toons their T4 Alphas, another 9 T3, all sitting close to T4 and a few more sitting at T1~2. I was able to do that by alternating toons bet. WTSs and the various high end TFs, so I never got too bored. Running the same 2 trials over and over again for all my 50s, and for 4 different slots now, are going to really test my tolerance for grinding. And it's pretty high, esp for high rewards, but I'm predicting I'll be off doing something else by May and waiting on the sidelines for I21, or just working on my lowbies w/WST bonus XP.

I'm not really bitter or complaining about I20, mind you. I was expecting NCSoft to release each Incarnate slot 1 at a time over a period of 2 years or so, so really we got bonus goodies anyway, so waiting another few months to get the progression curves smoothed out doesn't bother me all that much. Plus I18 & 19 (and 19.5) were absolute home runs as far as I'm concerned, so I don't mind a sac bunt for I20. I will be keeping a critical eye out for I21.

i can t belive some of you guys, i ve tried the new trails maybe 40 times and fail 2 times. i was 4/4 before my 1st failed and one with too meny melee ATs that couldn t stop the escape phase on baf. i have two t3 and two t1 on 2 character and so much uncommon on ea and few other alts,i don t even pick uncommon i take the super inspirations on the alts i have 4 of ea uncommons already.the quit bug is horrable but other than that i ve have so much fun on the trails in under 16 hours of game play(not all on the new stuff either).and the way i see it if u don t have the time to to run it over and over, in a week if u run one alt on ea trial per day you get 14 empyrean,... 14 random picks at common uncommon or rare plus threads & astrals,... and would only take 2-3 hours per day.thats should give u t3 on all 4 new slot.

freedom server 24 50s @hunted spirit,.....get @ me if fail too meny time i wouldn t mind helping
virtue 10 50s not to active
justice 8 50s inactive
infintiy 4 50s inactive

The grind is bad, yes. And it would have been avoided if the Devs weren't so hell-bent on introducing a new collectable resource every god damn patch.

First it was Inf. Your basic cash.

Then Salvage. Okay, this makes it feel more like you're acctually getting items like in other games. Cool.

Then Merits. Not too bad, it's basically just a differant way of doing reward rolls and gives people more options. I can live with it.

Then Incarnate Shards/Components. Well...I guess we do need a good way of seperating endgame content from the other content, so yeah, I guess this is fair...

Now Incarnate Threads/Components. Okay...Isn't this what Shards were for? Did we really need an entire friggin' new category of salvage for the next four slots? Is this what I have to look forward to for the slots following those? WTF do you want me to do with the now-worthless Shards I'll no doubt be getting, since I can't transfer them to my other characters?

Finally Astral/Empyrean Merits. Okay. Enough is enough. WHAT THE HELL IS THE PURPOSE OF THESE? There is none. There is absolutely no reason at all for these items to exist. You simply needed something arbitrary to throw in to make our prior efforts useless and force us to grind your new content. You have successfully created the game Jack Emmert wanted. And I'd put money on it happening again next patch. We'll end up with MacGuffin Merits and Incarnate T-Shirts to collect, and they can only be found in the shiney new mission you have to jump through flaming hoops while reciting Shakspeare from memory to complete. Oh, and don't forget about the 999999999999 adds that spawn while you're doing this.

I find myself somewhere between the extreme ends o both sides of this. And, I agree with a good chunk of the things those taking a more middling road have already said. But, I have to say

Quote:

Originally Posted by AkuTenshiiZero MacGuffin Merits

made me laugh so hard, I had to submit this as an all time great line. I almost hope we *do* end up with them.




That having been said, I think I can see the reason for all the new salvage, currencies, etc.. Since each one has a limited use, and can be gained only in certain ways, if you tire of content 'X' and try something else, you'll earn the 'wrong' type of reward, and thus will need to convert it, for a price (in Inf).

I think this is a way to control Inf inflation, as it seems intended to bleed a lot of Inf off from the lvl 50s, without affecting the lvl1-49s, thus acting as a money sink, without having that sink hurt lowbies, chronic alters, or the RP focused.

I'm not saying if I think it'll be effective or not, or if it'll be appreciated, just that I think this may be the motivation behind the appearance of all of the limited-use new 'salvage/cash' types, and the each having a conversion option, most of which require INF in addition.

Since yesterday was my day off, I was able to play through both new missions multiple times, in multiple fashions.

My first impressions were similar to some, that doing these over and over were going to suck. But as I played through more and learned more, I realized I liked the missions. What I didn't like was people coming in using the LFG tab and thinking all they had to do was smash things and they'd win. Some players would listen, others wouldn't and they'd quit when things looked like it might take longer than a speed ITF. Especially with the Lamdba Sector trial. Then late last night, I got in a league on the BAF trial and we did really well on one of the three runs I was in. The others were lost during the prisoner escape phase. Some people got angry, but the trials only been out 2 days and everybody is learning what they need to do in these missions. But the one time we won, it was one of the best feelings I've had playing CoH since I started 4 years ago.

The one thing I kept thinking as I played them more and more was, these things are going to be very easy once we unlock the new Inarnate slots. 16 to 24 players all with Judgement will eat through all the reinforcements in that come in during these trials. The Lore pets will will be like there are double the number of players on the field. The Destiny and Interface powers will be like everybody having buffs and debuffs to pile on the enemies. It makes me wonder, what kind of challenges will the next trials have once a player has the 5 current incarnate slots filled up?

Was I the only one that read the story line about incarnates when i go it in Ouro? I'm pretty sure the whole thing of it that slowly gaining power via the well of furies was teh safest way to do it since you wouldnt be overtaken by the well.

you get to keep your sould basically and have free will... But it will take time

you go too fast and you lose your own free will and become beholden to the well... (or the grind if you will)

I am addicted to sharding, but in no way does it feel grindy at all. and ive got work to do levelsing alts, getting my otehr 50s to catch up with my main character, base editing, helping SG mates, doing flashback mission arcs, runnign TFs with new players, Ship raids, hami raids, tip missions so i can get villains into heros...

seriously, theres jsut too much crap to do to be stuck in a grind.

if its grindy ur doin it wrong

My issue isn't with the grind. I'm a grinder. Back in the day you simply were grinding for levels and accolades. Your reward, you had lots of different characters you could play with 20% more HP 10% more end, and Archmage/Geas came in handy.

Then came IO's. You could grind out TF's to get Pool C drops, play regular content for A/B, run trials for D? (Something like that, you get the picture) You played all of the content and were rewarded for it.

Then came purples, they were rare, you got them for playing at the level cap.

Then came merits, you got them for playing any and all content. Letting you buy or roll for IO's. Again, the grinding wasn't bad.

Then came Alignment Merits, you could get them from A. Doing everything you did to get merits, plus throwing some influence at them. Or running a set of tip missions.

Then came incarnate shards. You had to grind out level 50 TF's for them, then do 1 special TF that changes weekly to get a "notice" Perfect example of grinding that was fun. You had all of the level 50 content over the past 6 or 7 years to grind out getting what you wanted.

Then came issue 20. A whole new system of threads, Merits, Salvage all crammed into two trials. No other place in the game can you get them, no other content, no where. Just two instances that you have to run over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. For the Alpha slot you had dozens of TF's, Arcs, Trials, ETC to help you earn what you need. For the next FOUR slots you are crammed into running two trials over and over again. The worst part, given how much you are required to do to get these 4 slots unlocked, slotted, then leveled. The "Alt play" that made this game so much fun is essentially going down the drain.

Point of the rant? You had it right with i19 and i19.5 with the alpha slot. It took effort, it took time, but you had variety and the ability to play alts and get meaningful progress on them. With i20 I find myself asking "Which character do I really want to play these trials every day for for the next several months, just so I can finish his build." The best part being, the 7 years worth of content is pretty much ignored and I am left to only grind out two trials over and over again.

Im sorry, but I havent run ANY new trial stuff, and I have 20 threads based off of covnerting shards. so you dont really have to grind htese two. you can gain new drops for the incarnate stuff grinding out shards and converting them to what you need...

Thats what i understood... am i wrong?

i20! 'Set your players to WHINE!'

I play durring the day when server load is light, sometimes almost nonexsitent on some servers it seems. I usually run solo but i do team when i have to,this seems to be a more of a "have to". And yes i have 81 months,so its not like i'm in a rush. would be nice for those of us who either solo or are not on at peak times to have a better shard to thread conversion. Solo i get maybe 1 shard a day,2 if im lucky. so according to what ive seen posted so far it will take me a while