Are they gonna raise the level cap

You can't "call it a day" on something that has no end

I think we might get Incarnate enemies and one or more Incanrate-only zones eventually - for example, the Shadow Shard could be revamped to be an Incarnate-only area, with the Rularuu enemies buffed up to match players with one or more Incarnate level shifts.

Not really. The reasons given were two-fold:

1. Any content they make for the new 10 levels will be played through within the week. That's content which will take them months if not a year to design. It's a battle that they cannot win.

2. Players already have too many powers. Giving them even more powers and, more than anything, more slots, makes the entire build system irrelevant, as it removes any semblance of choice when you can have everything and slot it to full.

Their solution to the former appears to he "Oh, well!" and their solution to the latter appears to be to give players more eccentric rewards than just new powers and new slots and more hit points..

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

That doesn't sound like anything I've ever seen them say. They've always said it was about the time invested in something like that to create something people would burn past in a matter of days.

What you're describing sounds more like why they said they wouldn't increase the fly speed cap, not the level cap.

These are more characteristic of what i've heard the Devs say. Maybe i don't listen to the right Devs.

The way they are doing it now, means they dont have to create different powers for every AT. Instead of having to design the tier 10 for will power, then Robots, then mind control you unlock judgement etc etc.

It may have been mentioned, because they said the same thing about coloring powers.

Actually it also appeals to people like me: those who just enjoy the trial style gameplay. A group of people acting in a planned and coordinated manner to achieve their goals. They could've ditched the whole Incarnate slots thing and just have given us the trials as they are, add a handfull of reward merits or something at the end (I don't really care, but there probably should be something), and I would still run them as often as I do now, (currently 2-4 a day) just because I enjoy the actual gameplay. The whole loot thing only serves as a means to character progression for me and even that I just consider a nice bonus, not the meat of it.

The most fun I've had so far in I20, was a succesfull (mostly) PuG MoBAF run. It was a mixed team with new and experienced players plucked from the global channels, everyone just bringing their preferred character. There was a clear plan, there was great leadership to relay that plan, and there was a flawless exection by all 24 participants. Everyone just did what they had to do, no hiccups, no big mistakes. It was beautiful.

Which, honestly, is a bit of a disappointment to me. And that's coming from the guy who likes to play tank-mages, so that's saying something. When every character has a nuke, a large-scale support power and a pet, ATs start meaning less and less and less, and that's not necessarily a good thing. When all characters irrespective of AT have access to the same four powers, it's that much less interesting. Diversity and class balance are a big part of any self-respecting MMO.

Yes, I realise this saves them work. It could not have been more obvious that this saves them work if they'd put a "We did this because it cost less!" banner in your objectives screen on every Trial. But that's always been my argument against end game systems - they end up screwing players over exactly BECAUSE they can't be made with enough content, and you can usually see all the rounded edges where they cut corners.

Adding more Trials, but with conventional rewards, would not have bothered me in the slightest. I'd have treated them like the STF and the RSF - content for some people's tastes that I just don't like, and probably a faster way towards the same rewards I could reasonably get from elsewhere. Not a complaint in sight. It's when they tied exclusive progress in an entirely new game system to said content that I started to grumble.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

They did not. What BABs said way back when was that powers called an FX script when they activated, and power colours were hard-written into that script. Changing these scripts to read off a user-definable variable colour was always an option, but it would require recreating practically every sprite and 3D effect that existed in the entire game, at least for players, which constituted several Issues' worth of work for the entire team, during which time we would not get new NPCs, new costumes, new powers or new environments.

The argument against power customization wasn't one of impossibility, but one of cost of investment.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Level shifts are the perfect rat race, however. Instead of giving us actual powers that apply to core systems in general, they give us power modifiers, and they are then free to give NPCs power modifiers to negate ours. By restricting level shifts only to specific content which will assume said level shifts, you can tell people that they're progressing while at the same time exposing them to the same relative level of enemy power by having enemies counter their level shifts.

It's conceivable for the developers to give us 100 level shifts, making ups 50(+100), and they can still negate that absurd level difference by facing us against enemies who are themselves level 54(+100). Again, it's the perfect hamster wheel, because your rise in power can be directly countered with an enemy rise in power by a simple variable. Since level shifts don't alter hit points, damage levels and other power values, they don't introduce cascading power creep in much the same way.

And it's far easier than constantly giving people more resistance and defence, say, because both of those are hard-capped, and they start behaving erratically with high stat values. The example I like giving is that if player resistance went up by 90% to the Tanker cap, then enemy damage would have to go up by 900%, or NINE TIMES to compensate, and enemy damage nine times the normal would shred anyone without 90% damage resistance. That seems to be why WoW has gone to "ratings" for everything - because a player's final strength is the relative difference between his rating and his enemy's rating only THEN translated into percentages.

Again, I'd rather they'd just raised the level cap. They've failed to avoid any of the problems associated with raising it as it stands, so they might as well.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Besides, just add a level zone with higher level mobs.... and level shifted heroes can party without a level cap change.

That reminds me, it's been a while since i went hunting in the Storm Palace.

Which I call "the Dragonball Z Factor".

In case I forgot to mention it before, yes, this is indeed the Dragon Ball Z effect, where characters' objective strength is largely irrelevant, because their enemies always seem to scale up with them. The only instances where objective strength becomes relevant is when they talk about destroying the planet and in relation to how much of an explosion their power-up is going to make.

As I said before, level shifts are an easy way to keep increasing our numbers without necessarily increasing our strength.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

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SUPPORT - IT'S NOT JUST A GROUPING OF ATs
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More Than a Game
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Well then enlighten us with all your inside knowledge. Or are you just talking to hear the sound of your voice?

That was a trick question, right?

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.