Ok, listen, this is starting to get to a critical mass

Thank you for the support! I especially like the last part.

Funny as how teams are already steamrolling through Keyes. I was just on three back to back ones.

You wait for the next round of non trial stuff. Just like people who like big group raids/trials had to wait for years for something they liked.

Acting like everything from now on forever and ever is gonna be related to this feature and locked behind a wall you're unwilling to climb is shortsighted at best, moronic at worst.

I'd rather not wait years for a workable solo incarnate path, thanks.

You are right, no one was asking for quicker rewards. Then you move five posts later, and we have one of those people.

I really appreciate that you are trying to see the big picture, as it were. So in your opinion, what is the most important thing we are learning here, and if it's a problem, how can we fix it?

Or take a break from COH for a bit, or drop to Freemium when the choice comes.

I would argue the perfect solution already existed with the way the alpha slot worked.

Very nicely put in terms of realizing that this is a game, and games have to have revenue in order to stay afloat. If the devs were trying to please everyone all the time, we'd be out of players in a month of two.

Sorry to disagree, but this is a contrived explanation Pacur. The new stuff is tied to the new trials because they're the assets they completed and decided to add to this system. That's all, and it's not any more involved than that.

However they did concede the kind of mistake they made with Vanguard and the RWZ and they made most of these new shinies unlock account wide so that people would only have to do the trials enough times to get the credits once, instead of once for each character.

It's simple. The devs come up with a theme park event system they want people to play, and they tie shinies to it. In this case though they've learned from their mistakes and don't expect people to jump the hurdle in perpetuity.

Ultimately we agree that new assets should be tied to new content. However there doesn't need to be a mumbo jumbo explanation that doesn't satisfy most people. It's a matter of economics, and not much more than that.

This is an explanation I except.

No, it actually works like this: "I have a barcode on my chest. And I can swoon. That means that one of my characters have grinded Incarnate content. I has bragging rights!!! Fear me!!!"

I addressed this in my original post. Only in the last year have the trials been rolled out, mainly, I suspect because people have been asking for them.

People are being catered for. People asked for "elder game content" as Positron put it, and now we have trials. Like I said earlier, this game just turned 7 years old. For six years, we had 1-team content, basically. People wanted a change, and the developers catered to it.

And I wasn't particularly happy waiting years for more raid type things, but I didn't break out the pitchforks and torches all over the forums about it. Sorry it bugs you more than me.

Bill you and I have talked enough that I know you know that development can be glacial at times. I still like you and respect you even though we disagree on what that means for the Incarnate system. But I think this is gonna be one of those times where waiting is the only option. At least until we see what the Paragon Market has in store.

Hey, c'mon, I already admitted that my use of the word "exclusively" was inaccurate (page 2 or 3, I think, Pacur quoted it only a few posts up from this one). I suppose I should go back and edit the post considering few people will read the entire thread at this point. I also tried to be clear in both places that, indeed, there are many other things being run. To paraphrase myself from earlier: there was a time when the AE building was also packed, and people cried out that the rest of the game would never be played again. Since you and I are both on Pinnacle, I think we can both agree that nowadays, even the Atlas Park AE building is quite quiet, yes?

With that hopefully cleared up, I have to say I enjoyed following you on the Keyes trial on Tuesday night. You kept it tight and ran it successfully, so I hope a poor choice of words on my part does not deter you from taking me on as a teammate in the future.

First, bless you for keeping this a civilized debate. *Looks at other posts* It isn't easy, haha. And I now see what you meant with that last sentence. What I said about sharing the server was very tongue in cheek. There was no affront seen, nor offense taken on this end.

Agreed. For many people, myself included to a lesser extent, shifts like this in the player population location are viewed at a higher magnitude than they actually occur at. In-game, if a person is used to putting together an 8-man team for an older piece of content in (say) 5 minutes, then that time increases (probably only by 5-10 minutes) due to many players playing the "new" thing, in which said original player is probably uninterested, that feels like a lot more time than it actually is. (DISCLAIMER: the above numbers are arbitrary estimates, and there is no need to prove me wrong, as I now admit they may be wrong. If someone reads this and disagrees, I invite them over to Pinnacle, and we can run some other content together, lol)

I believe this is a big point, and so I will say yes, many would find it more reasonable. It has already been confirmed by development that the Ascension costume was created specifically for Incarnates. Anyone can (but shouldn't) complain about those pieces all they want, but that's Dev-confirmed fact right there. And there is other stuff amongst the rewards that feels rather Incarnate-esque, like the Ultimate Power emote, naturally the Incarnate power chest emblems, and possibly a couple of the Costume Change emotes like Nuke or Pure Energy (though I cannot confirm how "Incarnate" those look as I have not yet seen them).

For everything else, what we see is that we can change costumes with a fiery evil laugh at level 1, but have to wait until we are Incarnate to change with an ice block. An alien can be on your chest at level 1, but a bar code requires Incarnate status. You can be surrounded by a fiery aura at level 30, but if you want to have boils popping all over your body you will need to be an Incarnate. You see where I'm going, and I don't mean to shove it down your throat, simply give multiple pieces of evidence. By all means, if all the rewards were a step up from the pre-level 50 non-booster-pack items (<--important), then I would have absolutely no complaints.

Thank you for that. I really hope someone on either the dev or GM team will read this and pass this on.

One question though, how would scrappers use pistols?

Pacur people have been requesting those things for a year+. Some way more.

I'd be shocked if the devs and GMs aren't already aware of those things.

Astrals are available through TFs. E-merits are available only through trails, for reasons I listed before. These particular costumes show increase in power. Again, see above.

Just wanted to say, I agree, especially with the point that people have been asking for it.

An increase in which particular powers?

It never would. I don't take the forums personally except in the most extreme cases of personal attack, and this definitely doesn't qualify.

That, and you're not a Forcefield MM who goes AFK right on the ambush spawn point in a BAF with Force Bubble on. Those people get 1 starred and can die in a fire.

We asked for Endgame, not necessarily trials. There's a difference.

The trials would still be run if it weren't for the Lore expansion.

I never even tried to solo any TF. Just wanted to state that for the record.

Thanks for making my point.

And I understand that End Game means different things to different people, and not just trials. However there's a tendency among game developers (not just our's) to go after low hanging fruit. In this case that has meant they're making some raiding/trial content because it's one of the biggest holes in remaining in what this game has to offer.

The lack of it has actually driven away quite a few players over the years. People who like that sort of thing have tended to head to greener pastures. I'm happy to say I've seen a few of them come back lately.

It's a good thing to have a well rounded game, even if it takes a while to get to it. I'm not opposed to a robust endgame system for all types of players. It's the demanding insistence that it all be delivered now, and on a stick, with glitter, that gets unreasonable.

On the first point, I don't see people who run same character over and over getting the most reward. I fact, they get less, because you can earn E-merits only once every 20 hours.

On the second point, when you say your characters get incarnated in a couple of days, what exactly do you mean? Can you clarify please?

Oh I agree. I just wanted to make it clear that endgame can also mean pvp, more tfs like apex/tin mage, more IOs. etc.

That example is of course, extreme. But look at the top post of the page.