So Solo Friendly Incarnate Path=Team?

The people complaining *now* are complaining that the game requires teaming to progress at an acceptable rate to progress in the end game system and claiming its a complete change from the past. It is and it isn't. Its true that teaming is far more important in the end game system than it has been for the most part in the past. On the other hand, its not the first time people have claimed the game changed completely from what they perceived it to be in the past. Until I9 you didn't need substantial influence to slot your characters's final build. Then you did: a total about face. Now you could choose to stop at SOs if you wanted to, but if you wanted to continue to progress in the only way the game allowed you had to find some way to acquire high end inventions, and that usually amounted to influence earning. The vast majority of players are not rich: 5 billion inf for a build is not much for some of us, but for others its farther away than trying to slot incarnate powers with shards.

But that's not the first time that happened either. Until February 2005 SOs really were the best the vast majority of players could generally hope for. Then open Hami raids became available and you could generate vastly superior performance: end game progress became a matter of participating in Hami raids. Lots of them. That remained true from February 2005 until about November 2005 when ED took effect in Issue 6 and reduced, but didn't eliminate, the benefits of having lots of HOs.

And there were *many* complaints about that situation as well; people were complaining that end game "advancement" was gated behind Hamidon.

Every situation is unique, so every situation is the first time this game has confronted that situation. Confronting a unique change to the game is itself not unique. Claiming end game progress is gated behind trials or teamed content is not unique. Claiming the game penalizes some portion of the playerbase who do not want to participate in a particular gameplay is not unique. But this game was not something completely different for seven years and then suddenly changed direction. What the end game does, the development has seen fit to do several times in the past and will do again in the future. The change is the same change that happens when a ship sails over the equator and "suddenly" is in the southern hemisphere. The ship itself didn't change course, speed, or destination. Its an artificial line on a map some people find very significant, and other people fail to notice.

Here's the problem I have with *that* analogy.

No content is gated behind having IOs, slotted or not - or even invented. No content is gated behind having to posess HOs (or Titan/Hydra-Os.) No auras are. No costume pieces are. (Admittedly. there are costume *recipes,* but you don't need to have, say, five full IO sets before you can even look at them. Slightly different.)

The closest example would perhaps be respec trials - but only three (total) respecs are locked behind them, and there are so many other ways to respec (from dual/triple builds to recipes to freespecs) that it's a non-issue.

Now, we do have content locked behind teaming requirements - TFs/SFs. However, you can still get your character from 1-50, gaining slots, levels and powers without ever running them.

... until you hit iTrials. The alpha slot is already soloable, and I mean fully soloable - you can unlock it, then go out and do missions, street sweep, whatever and get the shards to fill that slot. Slower if you do that? Sure. But doable. After that, however - the Incarnate system is *locked* to you. That means the current trials (which, admittedly, if you're soloing you're not looking at) and - and this is what worries me somewhat - any future content they may have that requires those powers. Will we see another Tin mage where you walk into a zone with unfilled Alpha (or any other slot) and find yourself sitting at -4 or with some other penalty? Or, for that matter, be allowed in?

Now, they HAVE somewhat mentioned "other incarnate content." If these are arcs/contacts/etc - well, I'm sure several would like clarification on that, but if so, then there are some decent chips in the wall. We'd have to see what progression is really *like,* of course, but it'd be something. But at this point, there is a definite wall to character progression (meaning gaining and improving powers, much like you do 1-50) outside of teaming.

To kind of put it another way - IOs and the like make your character "wider," but don't move it forward (progress.) New powers, new slots - including the Incarnate ones - make your character "taller." Without teaming, there's a limit to how tall you can get. And that certainly *is* a change. (But again - they've talked about actually being able to get solo content for it, so file under "coming soon (tm)" for something other than the rather silly Alpha unlock voucher.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

Its not an analogy. I'm stating the fact that people have made the claim the game has made about-face changes that undermined all of its prior existence. That statement does not require qualification: its unambiguously true. I'm also stating the fact that gates of all kinds - including teaming - have been stated to be blocking progress. That statement also doesn't require qualification: it is unambiguously true.

In every case, people found ways to state their position in a way that emphasized some detail that made that particular situation binarily different from all previous decisions. This situation is no exception. People have found a new way to state the situation in a way that makes it different. That will *always* be possible.

But is this happening in a way that makes the distinction being highlighted fundamentally more important in an objective way? Not so far as I can see. The distinction is important to the people who find it important for no reason other than personal preference, which was also true for every other case prior. If your perspective is significant, its only as significant as everyone else's has been every other time. Which means this game has fundamentally altered itself many times.

Now, if you want to make an argument that doesn't just state why this particular change is singularly important and all previous people who asserted the same thing were wrong then if you're convincing I might come to believe this really is a unique event. But if you cannot explain to me why the thing you find important now should be considered more important than all the other things other players found equally important to them, my position is still that this has happened before, and will happen again.

You say that inventions make your character "wider" instead of the incarnate system which makes it "taller." But I don't see them that way, and I doubt the devs see it that way. They certainly were not designed that way. So that's a matter of personal perspective. Just like the people who had similar personal perspectives in the past in other situations.

Its not that I think your personal perspective isn't valid. Rather, the validity I'm granting it is no more and no less than everyone else who has made this claim in similar situations, which means I don't find your perspective and the people who share it uniquely valid. Whatever else you want to say about the changes and whether they improve or degrade the game, the specific point I don't think you have a leg to stand on is that this problem is unique. To say this is a unique break from the past is to say everyone else who said there was a unique break from the past was wrong. I don't believe you can make that case convincingly, because the primary leverage you have to make your own case is perspective, and you can't deny everyone else theirs if you do.

To make the case this problem is unique, you will have to leave the comfort of personal perspective, and make the case objectively in a way that this change judged objectively is fundamentally different from all previous ones, and that therefore all those other people were wrong in a way you aren't now. Its the same playing field I place myself in when I state my opinion of whether or not a game system is correct or incorrect in the literal sense: whether I like them or not, do they function as they should to satisfy the mandates of the game design. And in that sense, I believe I can make the case unambiguously that this game has never in its past made the design promise not to gate character progression behind teamed content. The devs remove gates, and they add gates. They never specifically do anything that would lead someone to believe they opposed gates. They have always stated their intent to be solo-friendly, but not solo-specific.

The reason why you always had a solo path to leveling is due to a completely different rule: core standard content must be soloable. This means things like story arcs. Because story arcs award XP and influence, theoretically speaking so long as you can run story arcs and other core mission content, you can always level and earn influence.

However, there is a separate rule that says enhanced or higher end content does not have to be soloable. Task forces, trials, even content with archvillains within it do not promise the players they can solo them. You might, but if you can't that's working as intended.

Being able to always progress and always achieve virtually all the rewards was a consequence of the first rule in the absence of a conflict with the second rule. But the end game falls under the auspices of the latter rule not the former rule, and there's no design rule that has ever existed in the game to give the former rule preeminence over the latter rule.

There's no historical basis for claiming such a rule, so there's no historical basis for saying all progressionally-related rewards must have a standard content outlet. To the extent that was ever true, and it wasn't always true, it has been a coincidence born of simply not having very much end game rewards to gate.

True, people can rationalize anything into anything else. This time around though, the element of time might be skewing people's perception of the devs' vision for the game's future.

When inventions came about, yes i've seen those threads saying the game has changed...though technically it has seen changes if at the least from player behavior. But then the time gap between i9 and i10 was less than 2 months.

And though there were other things from i18 on that weren't incarnate related, the subsequent issues were predominantly so and from i18 to possibly i21 when we "might" get an issue for the rest of the players to enjoy...the time gap so far is 9.5 months that could go to 12.

A year can be a long time if you feel you're not getting anything "new" that's enjoyable for you.

If people only look at issue numbers then yes it's only been 2 well 3 if you add the 2 mid-issues. But if you also factor in that the typical dev release schedule for 2-3 issues is a year, i think that might be why this time is different.

That i'm sure is an over-simplification of the situation though.

I've often thought how lucky it is I have a job to keep me from doing that... (blink)

Naw, just proof of something I've always suspected. Arcanaville is a strange visitor from another planet. (wink)

Ah! The mysterious Arcana-Time. I See.

Just focusing a bit on this.

First, is incarnate content "core" content? What are we using to determine if it is? What are we using to determine if *other* content is "core" content or not?

Are we putting Incarnate content in with task forces? Why? Are task forces "core" content? Why?

I'll also point out that, in instances where content (and I'm looking at story arcs, as opposed to task forces which require a team to even start - but don't, of course, block character progression) required a team - specifically "multiple glowie" missions - those were generally reworked. I think there are one or two left (the Nemesis ... whatever it is in Founders, with three or four devices to click simultaneously and... hmm.... I think that's the only one left, only one that comes to mind at least) and we as players were asked to /bug them so those blocks could be removed.

We've also had difficulty and boss/eb selectors put in, which directly affects "higher end" content such as the Hero's Hero arc and its soloability. Which, to me, weakens the argument that "higher end content does not have to be soloable." Even in a situation such as the Kronos Titan spawn, it's soloable. Meet it in mission, it must be defeated to proceed, but it's weaker. Get the world GM spawn and you can completely bypass it - it's optional. You don't need to do anything special to keep progressing solo.

Now, "Enhanced" content. Given I can only work with your terms and I don't believe you've gone so far as to give unambiguous descriptions of them - which, just like my descriptions, would really be subject to POV - I can only lump what I think you mean by it.

When I'm thinking "enhanced" content, I'm thinking mothership raids and items like the Statesman or Lord Recluse task forces. Again, it's purely optional. It exists alongside the regular content, the tourist trap alongside the highway essentially where you can go and hang out and be entertained for a while along your path, but if you ignore it, it really doesn't matter.

Now we come to Incarnate content. What is it, "enhanced" or "core?" All we have is that it's "endgame." Which is nothing but a term describing placement, really. Does its status as "endgame" content preclude it from being "core?"

Well, what's the overall goal? All the content we have that we can label "Incarnate" content is this:
- Five power unlocks
- Levels (tiers) within those unlocks
- Two (soon three) trials
- One soloable (sometimes with difficulty, but it is soloable without extreme builds) arc.

We get definite "levels" if we use a comparison to the 1-50 game. We gain XP to unlock an ability (with a chance to speed that by spending salvage and INF, as opposed to 1-50 using day job "help" to do so.) We select powers to fill those slots. Some even shift the "actual" level, inside or outside incarnate content.

By the sound of it, this matches the sort of character (or, if you want to strip away the RP aspect, possibly "avatar") progression. It's easily measurable - which we do in terms of XP, slots unlocked and the like.

Even looking at decided non-core activities - badging or marketeering, for instance - we have these ways of measuring progress, from simple counts (badging) to unlocks (market slots, salvage slots and the like) - but those I don't think anyone would argue are "core character progress." Personal goal progress? Sure. Core character progress? Not so much. Using them to argue about "perspective on what defines progress" really just obscures the issue.

Now, I'm going to make an assumption here, but I believe it's a pretty good one - if you collected, say, 100 people in the game and asked them, individually, "Has this character made progress?" giving them a set of examples of, oh, "Got more badges," "Unlocked marketing slots," "Went from level 30 to 31," "Hit 500 PVP rep," the only one you'd universally get an unqualified "yes" from is the one about getting from 30-31. Others might get some yesses, or qualified ("well, they got more badges, which is what they want" - but that "they" would be the *player,* not the character, after all.)

Now if you add "Unlocked Lore" and "Built/slotted for War Works" in there, I'm fairly certain you'd get a universal, unambiguous acknowledgement of that - at the very least of the unlock, as getting tiers or variants of a power is more a personal goal - as progress.

*To me,* that makes it a core system. Yes, tacked on as the label "endgame," but it's doing much the same thing as the 1-50 without adding more direct levels (level shifts aside.) The core system itself depends on content (arcs, paper missions, task forces, iTrials) to allow the character to progress.

Would you say that's fair? That that *is* different from IOs, task forces, badges, costumes and the other bits you mentioned? Again, I don't require IOs to make that - again using the borrowed term - *core* progress. I need XP which unlocks abilities and slots... into which I can *put* those IOs, admittedly, but the IOs are a bonus, not "core" progress. I can use task/strike forces to gain XP, but I don't need to.

The argument here is one of content. That we don't have those paths. Content hangs off that core system. Content is what allows us to make that progress. Whether "enhanced" content (and I'm lumping task forces and the like in there) or basic (missions, story arcs, etc.) it all allows us to progress along that basic ladder dragging us from 1-50 (or along the Incarnate trees.)

If you want to claim this is *not* a unique situation - in this case, where content that is team-only is the only way to make that basic progress, in this case in the "levels that are not levels" Incarnate framework - I'd like for you to point out where, from 1-50, we've ever *had* to team in the past, with no other option, to attain a further level (the gain of XP which allows an unlock of a power or set of slots with, from 1-50, a numerical designator.)

Now, I haven't been here since launch - *only* since issue 3 - but I don't recall that ever happening, or in the instances *inside a mission arc* where it happens, it hasn't been changed (as pointed out previously.)

I can point out other barriers that have come up, yes, but these - if you will - have been on "branches," as opposed to the leveling "trunk." Such as having to do a Patron arc to unlock Patron power pools, versus the earlier format of "Hit 41, have APP become available." Those were changed (insofar as having APPs available and being able to respec your patron) and that experiment is sitting off to the side, seeming rather forgotten - but that's the closest example I can think of to having something block progress (and that only from the requirement of running a specific arc to unlock a pool, not being unsoloable.)

Incarnate content, other than Alpha, *is* in a unique position - and I'd argue that Alpha, by means of being unlockable with IXP (via teaming) *as well as* the Mender Ramiel (soloable) arc, has been brought in line with the rest of the game. And with the mention - aside from this still rather head-scratching "alpha voucher" - of future content which *will* be soloable, the uniqueness comes more to the fact that there's a lag between the release of both paths, with the team *only* component coming first.

See my Guides and Tutorials

You forgot the Apex and Tin Mage TFs - they're even more "Incanrate-ish" than the Trials, as they require the Alpha slot, while the Trials can be played by non-Incarnates

/spit take

*glares at Arcanaville while cleaning Coca-Cola residue from the keyboard, mouse, razer sphex gaming pad, monitor and desk*

You know I love ya but you gotta stop making me laugh so hard when I'm trying to relax and browse the forumz.

I was wondering why you had a four year old graphics card in that beast of a system.

I've never noticed lag in the BAF myself, not sure why you think something being fixed hampers everyone just because a developer said it's being fixed.

Cause it's a server side issue which affects everyone connecting to that server?

I don't even know where to start with this.

Are you calling the dev a liar or what?

*shrug* Was this bug recently added?

Relevancy?

A DEV stated there was an issue. I'm thinking they know more about what they created than we do.

*shrug*

The lag in the BAF is server side. The only way it's possible that you haven't noticed it is that you never played a BAF with a league of more than around 12-16 players. A full league previously had incredibly obvious time dilation (power/button lag), of the sort experienced at high-attendance Ship Raids, things like the Freedom Invasion event, or old-school (pre-I9) Hamidon Raids.

The lag at BAFs is significantly better now, even for full-size, 24-man leagues, but it is still present. I find it extremely noticeable, especially when chasing Mindwashed LTs, because I stand around for several seconds after each attack. Fortunately, the mobs also move slowly, so it's mostly just (very) annoying. I never have any idea what power is ready to use in a large BAF league until I try to activate on the power to find out.

When was the patch because I experienced the time dilation lag on two BAFs last night.

That's good to hear. Now can we get a fix for the Lambda warehouse? Especially for people running on low settings, who get to lag and go blind?

I ran a Lambda last night and our team was in charge of weapon crates. I cringed because I was using my POS laptop which lags all the time in the warehouse map in the Lambda.

However, the lag last night was very minimal. Nothing out of the ordinary for me when running just a normal 8 man team.

So, I still experience the time dilation (a lot)in the BAF still but no additional lag from the warehouse (like I use to). Who knows.

I'm not sure what's going on there, Eva, as I can't say that I've experienced any problems either in the warehouse for crates or the lab for cannisters and I'm usually leading the way or at least racing the leader through either side.