The I20 Incarnates Grind: Am I Missing the Point of Resurrecting My 50?

Only person throwing insults is you.

The key parts of both are also timed which maintains a maximum commitment unless people are screwing around on the untimed parts.


No because it's not relevant, especially now. Right now you can get on trials so quickly that it actually hurts your point.


Again only person throwing insults is you. The bit about cybering was in jest. It wasn't directed at anyone. You're directing things at me. You are not giving feedback. You are complaining incessantly. That's not an insult. That's what you're doing. If you don't like the trials. Oh well. I do. Post what you want, I'll post what I want.

If you want MMORPGs to stop being MMORPGs and want to keep belittling and insulting people who are having fun then put me on ignore like Sam Tow. Then you can complain to your hearts content that a MMORPG is adding things that MMORPGs tend to add.

If that were your only issue then you wouldn't have felt the need to argue the point above.

Biggest problem with Incarnate content is that its end game is designed like other end games. The Paragon Studios team has said they wanted to avoid the traditional end game, but they apparently have it in spades:

*Grinding a limited amount of end game instances to obtain gear/currency to make the encounter easier to farm. Farming is officially encouraged now unlike the past. AE farming was killed off rather quickly.

*Alternative methods are not reasonable any longer, which reinforces the point above. Alternative methods were viable with the Alpha slot.

*The addition of more level shifts means that you have to enter the Incarnate system to see the story from this point forward. 20-40 TF don't fill in the gaps enough in my opinion.

*Addition of new currencies to counteract hording, which leads to more confusion

*Gear reset. It doesn't matter if you have SO's or IO's you will face plant the same in the trials at some point. Thus you are forced to feel weak, and are supposed to have the temptation to grind the trials to become whole, normal, or strong again. E.D. was hated because of the tearing down of the super feeling of the game, and this isn't any different. Like E.D. it may have long term logical reasons as to why it is done from a game balance stand point, but it clearly isn't being communicated to well that is the case.

Really? Please provide those insults because I have been doing a very good job at being civil and attempting to keep the threads civil.

The trials are not completely timed. Please stop skewing the facts to suit your argument. Example, Lambda Trial. You can clear all the mobs and Turrets, or not. Doing so will take much more time then only clearing what you have to.

Yesterday, the 1 trial I had time for took 20 minutes to setup. I was the second person to join. The entire trial and setup took just under an hour. I thought that was awesome and I have no issues with the time.

I have provided lots of feedback and provided zero insults. You seem to have an inability to differentiate I WANT NAO from actual feedback like...More options please. Did you miss the part where I gave feedback about liking the trials? I bet not.

Where have I belittled or insulted anyone? I think you are confusing me with others. I have not complained about the Trials. I really wish you would actually read my posts other than resorting to knee-jerk responses.

I responded to your post because you are going out of your way to be insulting, aggressive and all around belligerent to anyone that has an opposing viewpoint. It's not very conducive to a discussion.

I'm starting to think you are merely attempting to bait me into a flamewar. Good luck Mr. Geko. I enjoy talking to people like you.

No flamewar here considering I haven't insulted anyone or been belligerent. Unless you use a definition of those terms not connected with the English language.

I love arguing about this stuff too, so keep it coming. In a few weeks the specious and hyperbolic nature of these complaints will be obvious to all (see e.g. Issue 19, Issue 19 Strike Pack for recent examples).

Or, you know, you could learn how to maximize your effectiveness in a trial. I ran my non-softcapped defender in an 8-man Lambda PUG yesterday, faceplanted a few times, and we still kicked Marauder to the curb with time to spare. Now I know more going into her next one what and what not to do. I never felt weak. I felt that I could learn how to do more. But I won't call it 'l2p' 'cause it seems I've always found new tricks and tips as I leveled along.

There is no 'City of Warcraft' doooooooooooooom beyond what you want to see.

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

I have made no hyperbolic complaints.

Again, since you seem insistent on ignoring my feedback, my only complaint with the system as implemented is the inability to obtain threads using current content other than the trials, and the current Shard -> Thread conversion is not reasonable in anyway.

Feel free to continue side stepping if you cannot directly respond to my points. I also am awaiting your apology for your insinuating I was insulting and belittling others when you obviously found out I was not.

You can't really maximize your success in the trials unless you start to unlock the Incarnate powers, and thus this viscious circle is in full swing.

Again: 8-man PUG beat Lambda easily, with a non-softcapped rad^2 defender with nothing more than a T3 alpha tagging along. I'd say we maximized our success pretty well.

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

With Incarnate powers you can farm it now to maximize your success rate of completion even faster.

... So? How did we get from where you were claiming 'gear reset' and 'feeling weak' to this?

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

That is how end games traditionally work as that is the progression. Farming is now officially accepted in CoX.

If that's your definition of farming, then farming has been officially accepted since 'Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls.' First it was inf, then salvage 'n recipes, now the 51 varieties of incarnate rewards. Same dance, different tunes.

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

I never laid out what I define as farming. But the repeating of the same two trials falls into some definition of it, which was previously looked down upon because of AE.

Is farming the same two task forces constantly really any different than grinding the same two AE maps?

One is dev created, and another is player created.

Farming as sprinting your way to a fully slotted 50 in a matter of hours/days? That's bad.
Farming as gradually leveling your way along while taking in the content? That's good.

Apples and oranges may both be the same by some definition, but there is a difference. Its my impression the devs don't care if you do the same two AE missions over and over as long as you're playing by their pace. That's the difference.

EDIT: Or what Dr. Mechano said.

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

As we speak that is happening with Incarnate content, so how is that any different?

The point of a putting in a new currency, influence sinks, timer cool downs, uneven drop rates, is to slow down farming of Incarnate content. And yet there are people already sporting high tier Incarnate powers meanwhile those barriers remain which are punishing for those that "take" their time to do the content.

Because the point of it is to slow it down, not eliminate it entirely. If you're not doing high-end farming you're not even going to notice the cooldown thing (I certainly am not)

The Dreck mission was exploitative? Wolves were exploitative? Katie Hannon was....well ok, that one was exploited, but I believe the "fail the Mary mission" loophole was closed before merits were introduced, wasn't it?

Those people are still spending a lot more time doing the trials than everyone else. Some people will spread 18 hours of play throughout a week or however long, while some others may spend 18 hours playing in one day. See the difference?

Yes at the time they were deemed exploitative though I admit since times have changed most of them could do with being removed from being a timed mission and simply back to normal missions.

The wolves change actually predates another change made to them, the mission was made timed before the wolves were given a ranged attack, which meant any hovering blaster could clear the map out with zero threat.

The Dreck mission I'm assuming was back when rather than just tweaking the XP gain on mobs as they do now, they decided just slapping a timer on it was a more viable solution, remember Freakshow got their XP nerfed pretty recently for the same reason the mission got a timer put on it.

Ah, I did not know that. And yet, the timer remains.

And yet, Unai's story arc contains at least two Freakshow missions on the exact same map, neither of which got a timer. They can be farmed just as easily as Dreck, but they weren't being farmed like Dreck was, so they didn't get a timer.

Why would that be a bad thing? Once you're 50, a good 95% of the villains are trivial to overcome. Once you're a fully kitted out 50 with decent IO sets, that goes up to 98%. Purples get you over 99%.

At 50, we should really be bringing the superheroic awesome to the table. It's time to stop being hard on the furniture and start being hard on the freakin' landscape. Going one on one, mano a mano with a building-sized monster is just the thing for that. City of HEROES should let us do things no other MMO does, like letting us power up with Incarnate abilities and smacking down GMs that normally take a team. Tell me that deep down you wouldn't love to do things like the following, and I will know that you are dead inside:


From here.





I know I want to do that. It looks insanely fun.

I wouldn't exactly call a few hours a day casual. That's playing a lot.