Discussion: Issue 20: Incarnates Ascend is now live!

Did the Keys SF/TF what ever it is for the first time tonight. I am just still so stunned I do not know what to say. I know not everything can be a big hit but WOW!!!

Disapointed or let down, just are not strong enough words. I really dont know a word to discribe how displeased I am with it.

Please take it back to the drawing board for a total redesign.

The reason for the 1 Astral for 1 Reward Merit conversion is that there are some recipes you CANNOT purchase with Astrals (any recipe that modifies 3 values on a power and a few of the special procs). So, when you're stuffed full of Astrals (as a lot of folks have said they are), the best way to get those particular recipes is to covert Astrals to Merits. From there you can either spend those merits, or convert them to Hero/Villain Merits.

As for Keyes, people complain about difficulty, but it's fun. It just requires actual coordination and teamwork, rather than flailing and spamming powers until everything in sight drops. And it makes healing classes quite respectable now, since it's the best way to keep the party of dropping. Also, tieing in the strength of the pulse to Anti-Matter's health was ingenious, since it punishes those folks who just want to beat on everything.

People think Keyes is tough because it require you to actually THINK about what you're doing. I like the touch where Stalkers can sneak into the back room of the bunkers and snag 4 power cells and avoid the main door. A good way to make Stalkers feel useful in a game where they seem to not see much love.

I don't understand this distaste for Keyes. Yes, it's infinitely more difficult than either Lambda or the BAF. But it's a far cry from impossible, and quite manageable IF you can listen to instructions.

A friend of mine was doing a marathon of BAF and Keyes runs and was flabergasted when folks would not get out of the Obliteration Beam reticle (likely assuming their soft/hardcapped defense/resists would save them) or would go running INTO it.

It took about 3 weeks for the playerbase to resign itself to the fact that Battle Maiden's blue patches of death weren't going away and they were the ones that had to change.

Two days ago in Union I did my first Keyes trial.
Its was in a row of Incarnate trials, we started with Lambda as warm up, succesful. Then a Baf, succesful and Mo...
Then Keyes. Was a fun time, the teams was awesome and we were told what to do in every moment. I think is a bit harderd and longer than Lambda and Baf, but is still cool anyways.
I got the normal version of the Ascension armor, so now I have to unlock the Radiance version and the CC emotes too.
Loving the new auras as well. Red feathers fits too well for my Phoenix ninja.
I think I20.5 is made of win.

As far as a "lore respec" .... noone forced anyone to take a t4 when they knew new ones were coming out. However... to quiet the impatient people down maybe the option to turn any t3 or t4 lore power into ONE rare incarnate salvage could be fair for them (but mainly so we stop having to hear it over and over)... since that was all that you needed for the level shift. Demanding more than that is akin to players demanding infl from the devs for infl they spent on pvp IO's before the incoming price drop.

As far as difficulty... I wish it was a 16 person rather than a 24 person task. With 16 you need less filler people who just don't get instructions.. which help a lot on this trial.

I personally ... as much as I scare the dog swearing because of it... like the pulse damage... and higher to-hit in general. Softcap defenses should not equal godmode... specially in content that's intended to PUSH incarnate level characters. It makes you think and be ready... and rewards the type of grouping you'd think people would get by this point (stay near your darn defenders... you may be a walking god but this content is there to challenge a walking god). As is my def based character has little problems outside of the pulse... I can eat a purple if I'm swarmed by the regular mobs.... the AV never missing me makes me cringe but I can deal with that. Remember teams can add so much defense with just maneuvers and such that it's easy to turn the regular softcap into the "new" softcap"... by just... being with your team. Makes defenders actually mean something.


But speaking of rewards... I do think Keye's considering it's difficulty should be bumped up a notch on its random reward.... doing all that for a common gets old really fast.

w

I personally didn't find the Keyes trial either interesting or hard. I found it easier to do than the BAF. I was rather unimpressed with it. We just had a PUG and stomped it. I barely did anything on it, just some killing and had 2 of the salvage to use. I felt there was just no imagination or thought of making this difficult at all. I'm guessing the damage aura kinda was annoying, but that really was it. The AV was pretty much a joke to kill, the healing he did just made it a bit longer to give him the thrashing he deserved for annoying us. I even got a rare salvage out of it. My hope in the future is that more ITrials have some sort of actual difficulty in them, not just being an annoyance.
I enjoy a lot of the incarnate stuff, just thought this was kind of a joke.

@Sir Giles

I don't mind running Keyes once I'm better equipped for it (or if using a toon that's better equipped for it).

I'm thinking there's a method to the madness when speaking on the utilization of Incarnate abilities vs. the diversity of game challenges. I'm beginning to believe the intent was to afford players the ability to more quickly adapt to different situations without having to resort to full-bore respecs. First there was the access to multiple builds (limitations being the cost to slot each build and the 15 minute timer); now, its the Incarnate Trees (cooldown time on swaps).

I'm glad I wasn't one of the people that had to have a Tier 4s in every slot ASAP and wasn't under much pressure to have T3s either. In most cases; T2s were good enough for me to be able to get more than one Lore or Judgement set to fulfill both optimization and concept needs and T1s are enough to get me multiple Destiny and Interface abilities to be flexible enough for most any kind of mission. And getting any T1 you may need is cake (once you can score a League, that is).