Discussion: PC Gamer Incarnate Trial interview with Nate Birkholz

gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Well, granted, I know that I myself, as well as more than a few others, have mentioned numerous times that just having to grind the two raids over and over again is a problem. However, I think that feedback may have been skewed a little...

Haven't done many BAFs yet have you?

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

I have done a grand total of ONE. On the Beta server during one of the sneak peeks. That was it.

Michelle
aka
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which I find beyond hype. I think it is absolutely false.

I am terribly disappointed. If you don't want more people "pulling a Venture" I suggest you address this issue here on the forums and stop the heavy handed moderation.

Several of their bios indicate far more complex personal lives than that.

Bi-curious catgirls then?

You two must be hanging with the wrong crowd then

You can also convert Shards to Threads and then to IXP, and SHrds will drop during all normal game activities once you open the Alpha slot - plus, Incarnate components can be broken down into Shards too.

Third party websites are not the place to discuss what's wrong with a game, outside of the "what would you do differently?" question that usually gets asked. You were setting yourself up to be disappointed.

Nightshadelegree:
You won't find frank discussions in any third party article while the game is active. Skim the Dev Digest and the Community Digest. You'll see that the Devs are well aware of the feedback (if you take Community Reps at their word, which I'd hope you would, or otherwise, what's the point of reading the forums?). When they get time away from working, they'll come in here and discuss more.

Um, why?

I am aware.

Arcana, my numbers are off, still going to be around 150 runs.

... no, it means that there's a good-odds chance that one (or more) of HIS alts is a lesbian catgirl.

Yeah, I personally think that tying incarnate advancement almost solely to the 2 new trials was a horrible idea. I think the two new trials are good, but having to do them 100's of times for any character you want to advance in the new incarnate powers, is going to wear people out fast. It would have been better to spread it out among all the level 50 tf's, or at least with the tin mage and apex, to allow for more variety. And when they determined how much would be necessary to advance toons, I think they forgot that this game focuses heavily on altitis...

Not everyone is predisposed toward charitable humor regarding the trials and/or their rewards.

You can also walk on your hands across Texas. Similarly, you could kayak from the shores of California to Japan.

It's amazing how broad the context becomes when technical ability is confused for a well-structured alternative.

My point here being, Golden Girl, that shard/thread conversions are not a realistic alternate path by which to do anything. Got some inf to spare and some elsewise useless shards cluttering up your Incarnate salvage page? Go ahead, convert them into some threads; you won't get a lot and what you do get sure won't be taking you very far, but it's something else to do with shards beyond craft yet more Alphas you're probably beyond caring too much about, right?

Presenting it as an alternative route to unlocking the i20 slots and securing enough threads to craft anything, however, is tantamount to my above also-truths.

Walking on your hands is a neat trick. Converting shards into threads extends the usefulness of shards a little bit; gives you more of a perception of choice than anything that actually amounts to much, and it's still a nice little perk, but nothing more than that; a nice little perk.

So please, stop presenting it as some kind've alternative to the present inexorable and unavoidable need to grind the unholy snot out of BAF and Lamda. It just ain't so.

What is so is that there are two very obviously meant-for-repetition trials that pretty much encompass the entirety of everything relevant to the i20 slots and powers. I have no doubt that, with i21, i22 and perhaps well beyond, there'll be a lot of new ways to get the shinies, and if indications serve, a lot of backwards-compatibility in whatever new currencies might roll down the pipe (You can craft everything for your Alpha slot with threads and Trial loot as well as shards, as my reference for speculation).

Right now is what I'd call a time of growing pains. New system, not everything is in place yet, the infrastructure of the bottom half is just newly implemented, and there are indeed issues; valid issues; that people bring to the table about the scale of the grind as well as the unknown degree of impact that 'the participation effect' has on the RNG for loot tables.

Don't marginalize these issues. Instead of telling people that they can functionally walk on their hands across Texas, point out the like of what I just set in text above.

Try encouraging people to some perspective if you can. Handwaving real issues with a painfully obvious non-option as an 'alternative' to grinding BAF and Lamda until their sanity is gone if they want to incarnate slot the stables of 50's many of us rock around with isn't very helpful.

Thank you for your time, those of you that bothered to read this.

For the tl;dr crowd...eh. Reading won't hurt you, I promise.

While not discounting what you are saying is correct (there is no viable alternative to running the trials), GG is correct that using threads/shards (I would also add Astral and Empy Merits) do greatly reduce the number of trials that are needed to be run to unlock and slot.

Ah but, it is. Instead of running 150 trials as Quatermain is suggesting, I was able to slot all 4 with tier 3s using shards/threads in approximately 20 runs. Was it still grindy? Oh yes. But, it was no near the level that would be required to do so purely by running the trials and waiting for drops and the right rewards table.

Addressing the bold par:. IMO, she did do that and you call it handwaving. She is simply saying there is a way to reduce the grind. I don't see any harm in suggesting that course of action.

--Rad

Then they're taking things way too seriously

It seems to me that there have been a (not insignificant) number of discussions that have been... questioning... of various aspects of I20. So, "overwhelmingly positive"?

I haven't been so amused at something on the forums here in a while. Thank you.

It is a puff piece, I agree. It is nice to get the news out that vaunted end game is in CoX now, but I'm kinda with Bill about glossing over issues, the happiness of the Giddy Gang aside. I would have been happier to hear "We are happy with the initial release, and we are listening to players and working to improve the foundation to make it even better."

I want more trials. *shrug*

Well, up until a month ago, they sure couldn't make convincing seagulls.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!