Testing Shards to Incarnate Progression
By
Ahab001,
Posted on: 2011-06-29 21:41 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Not 'bad' as such. Just irritating. Incarnate abilities have made the challenge of level 50 TFs trivial. Where something used to be a challenge to even level 50s, a team of Incarnates can just waltz through it now. |
Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
Is there a reason why incarnaes beig able to use their abilities in all normal content is bad?
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And sure, you can just jack the difficulty up but not many teams I've been on want to do that. They'd rather just whizz through, get their shards and be done. And that's kind of a pity.
I'd welcome either seeing all Incarnate abilities locked out of regular content (although Geko does counter this very well above) or, far better, an Incarnate setting with appropriate difficulty challenges for suitable Incarnate rewards.
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
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Why does incarnate content has to be incarnate trials?|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
No - I'd prefer them to do what they're going to do - add tougher and tougher Trials, until we're challenged even with 10 slots open
 Incarnates leave the current 50 content behind, just like 50s leave the level 40 stuff behind. |
So far, the only answer I've heard is "because the devs like them".
Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
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Because in just about every other MMO, the "end game" is team-based raiding and despite the developers claiming otherwise when Incarnates were first announced, they just did what everyone else does in their end game.|
Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
Why does incarnate content has to be incarnate trials?
So far, the only answer I've heard is "because the devs like them". |
So much for innovation.
I guess in their minds, calling it a trial instead of a raid makes it completely different.
.
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Awesome idea. Simple, expansive, inclusive, the content is already there and the scaling tech already exists. |
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Which is why I suggested that some of the level 50 content get an Incarnate mode where every mob can scale to 54, and come with new tricks if necessary. Level shifts anyone?
Boom, there's you additional Incarnate content. EDIT: Yes I know that mode will take some time to created. |
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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You're forgetting that the content (yes, including the trials) is ALREADY currently "easier for the scrapper".|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
So easier for the Scrapper then?
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Still, tossing you into a group of +4x8 isn't exactly what anyone, even a kitted out scrapper would call "easy".
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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This sounds splendid to me, assuming the idea is that threads have a chance of dropping. I don't know if it should be specific high-end arcs, or as an additional difficulty option you can set at a Fateweaver, but this is the beginnings of a good idea.|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Which is why I suggested that some of the level 50 content get an Incarnate mode where every mob can scale to 54, and come with new tricks if necessary. Level shifts anyone?
Boom, there's you additional Incarnate content. EDIT: Yes I know that mode will take some time to created. |
On another note, it sounds like the children in this thread need to sit in the naughty corner or grow up. Some of the attitude in this thread stinks.
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New question, how many people are going to avoid giving an answer they dont want by asking another question?|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Why would the devs introduce near-gamebreaking powerlevels in a way that all you had to do was farm two trials for a few hours a night over the course of less than two weeks?
That's a good question. Of course the followup questions is why would they do so in a way that ONLY farming those two trials gets you there? That's a better question. |
Answer, you would have to cave in and admit someone else jsut made a really good counter agrument against your campaign.
Why do the devs previously make you run ship raids over and over and farm them to get vangard merits?
See I can do that to.
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Its easy to call it a grind after others have perfected the easiest grind path. Wasnt guarding the escapees the thing people would cry about being such a terrible thing, or defeating 2 av's in a sycronized manner? Its easy to mock now but I dont remember the organizationad breezing through quite the cake walk the first week for everyone. Your condecending tone of making it out to be the current itf is mostly based now on the fact that ppl have now made thier characters + 3 for the most part and or have run the current content hundreds of times. Difficulty of a task is relative to the means that you have to complete it in this game. As of right now, we have a globally recognized way of running it now with little instruction and an army of characters more than capable of running it at any size or strength or composition. PPl think keyes is too long now. Give it a week and then you can brag to everyone when other people figure out how to make it easy how cool and rugged you were to form your own (which i find it har to believe that you the epic solo'r went out of your way to form one of these) and breeze through it with little direction given.
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Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
I have already lead 3 lambdas and a BAF. It wasn't an effort any more than logging into the game. It was a nuisance.
Here's lambda. Repeat call to global and broadcast that trial is forming. As players join, place in appropriate group. Equalize ATs. Once desired league size is attained, queue it up. Run lap. Clear courtyard. Clear guns. Split up. Blow items up. Give all grenades to appropriate player. Close doors with acid. Keep Marauder pacified. Repeat. Yea, it's SOOO very difficult. No wait, it isn't. It's annoying. Especially that part where I'm standing around doing nothing but clicking invite to league/move to team X. I could be killin stuff instead if only there were some other viable way to get the shinies. |
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indeed
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Originally Posted by AquaJAWS
Nothing bothers me about requesting things. What irks me is people's expectations of the time frame that things are going to get done. It takes a significant amount of time to produce good content that could be used to accomplish this. Since they've announced what is going to be in issue 21 already, at this point they probably aren't going to squeeze any more into it if its not there already. It may be already, we don't know. They are probably well into issue 22 development as well currently and at least planning 23 and maybe even 24 at this point.
21, unless its already in there or planned for, probably won't see any changes toward a solo path. 22 is possible, as is further into the future. Just make sure your expectations on the speed of the reaction from the devs is intact. |
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No, but it's becoming City of Melee.
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
This is NOT "City of Scrappers".
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I tried to read through this thread but after a while all the bickering got to me so I mostly just skimmed through, so I apologize if something similar has been brought up in an earlier post.
I can see both sides of this argument, both have legitimate points to make. Soloing for Incarnate abilities is extremely slow, but if you can (stand to) team for the iTrials it goes pretty quick. A middle ground is always difficult to find and we as players really don't know everything the devs have planned.
The devs have been working on the Incarnate system for a while. They have also said that they have been working on CoH: Freedom for about a year. They have also said that the Incarnate system is locked out to anyone who is not a VIP once Freedom is live.
It could be that somewhere down the road, perhaps even before Freedom goes live, their stance may change and they allow the purchase of the Incarnate system. They might at the very least allow the purchase of the Alpha Slot but end up keeping the rest of the Incarnate abilities locked to VIP's as a way to give F2P'ers a taste of the Incarnate system without giving it all away. If this is their plan, it may be easier to keep the Shard/Thread separation.
Perhaps one thing could be done to help out the solo player and that would be to somehow make the Shard drop rate increase as the player increases their Incarnate powers.
Unlocking the Alpha slot allows Shards to drop at their current rate.
Slotting a common Alpha ability increases the Shard drop rate by X%, and each subsequent advancement (uncommon, rare, very rare) would give a substantial percentage increase to the Shard drop rate.
I won't claim to know what would be a good drop rate to make solo players happy, but I'd think any increase to them would be welcome. And it leaves the Shards and Threads separate if the devs do indeed have plans for both kinds of Incarnate salvage in the future.
I will say though, if there are no plans for Shards past the Alpha slot, I'll throw my vote in with the "get rid of Shards" crowd.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
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its been suggested before using incarnate difficulty auto setting everything at 54 and dropping threads instead of shards, but i havent heard anything from the devs if they are working on something similar|
Originally Posted by Dante
Not 'bad' as such. Just irritating. Incarnate abilities have made the challenge of level 50 TFs trivial. Where something used to be a challenge to even level 50s, a team of Incarnates can just waltz through it now.
And sure, you can just jack the difficulty up but not many teams I've been on want to do that. They'd rather just whizz through, get their shards and be done. And that's kind of a pity. I'd welcome either seeing all Incarnate abilities locked out of regular content (although Geko does counter this very well above) or, far better, an Incarnate setting with appropriate difficulty challenges for suitable Incarnate rewards. |
as to the tf difficulty stuff, on victory me and a friend like to run challenging tfs, if we run in larger team we will set to +4 or we will duo it on x8. we are usually pretty open if poeple want to join in, so if your around on victory server can join us when we get one of those kind of tfs going, can always contact me to schedule something too my global is @Necrotech Master
In reading through this I have a question for Arcanaville:
If you think we should keep shards as they are then why can we achieve Alpha faster and easier with threads? If it was to separate the Incarnate Alpha then why can you get it easier doing trials?
Trying to follow your logic.
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I'm not sure I understand the question. The reason shards exist is to give players a way to earn at least one slot relatively quickly with standard content. There's no specific reason why Alpha has to be earnable *faster* in standard content than in incarnate content. Even so, its debatable that Alpha is earnable faster with threads than shards. First of all, one of the shard-based components is purchasable with Vanguard merits (Grai Matter). Second, the rare component for Alpha is the Notice of the Well which has a guaranteed path to earning it in the WSTs. In one high level task force you can earn one Alpha component and enough shards to make another. That's comparable to the drop at the end of an incarnate trial and the approximate amount of threads you earn from direct thread drops and astral merits.|
Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades
In reading through this I have a question for Arcanaville:
If you think we should keep shards as they are then why can we achieve Alpha faster and easier with threads? If it was to separate the Incarnate Alpha then why can you get it easier doing trials? Trying to follow your logic. |
I believe the intent was that you earn shards slower than threads, but it takes less shards than threads to make Alpha, so it roughly evens out, but *only* for Alpha. After Alpha, the only way for shards to help with the other slots is by converting to threads. There are no shard recipes for the other slots. So that slower shard earning rate now translates into a much slower earning rate for incarnate powers past Alpha.
That's actually why you need two different currencies. You want one for incarnate content, and another one for standard content that is awarded slower *but* allows for reasonably quick earning of Alpha. If you give players threads everywhere, there's no way to give players two independent paths to Alpha, one balanced for standard content and one balanced for running trials.
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I wouldn't. That ends up converting 88 shards into 40 threads starting from scratch. Even if you could somehow get the uncommon components quickly, the absolute best you can do is 40 shards into the Notice and then 40 threads out. You would generally do better using the 10->5 conversion most of the time. And unless you can earn more than 10 shards a day every day, you really should just use the 10->10 conversion daily, even if you have a big pile of shards to start with. Impatience is penalized heavily.|
Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
now if you have the inf to spend on making shards into notice of the wells (since there is a way to do that now), would it be worth crafting up to a notice then converting to threads?
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Incidentally, I don't know if the devs were thinking this particular thought at the time, but I sure was. When the incarnate merit vendors were introduced, many players asked why you could only use astral and empyrean merits to transfer threads from one character to another. And my very first thought was this exploit: wait for Freedom, make seven freebee alts, run WSTs every week padded with them, convert their Notices into threads, email them to my main. Of course, I couldn't say that at the time.
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OK, I see now where you are coming from but could you not just have threads drop at rate 1 for x content and rate 2 for y content?|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm not sure I understand the question. The reason shards exist is to give players a way to earn at least one slot relatively quickly with standard content. There's no specific reason why Alpha has to be earnable *faster* in standard content than in incarnate content. Even so, its debatable that Alpha is earnable faster with threads than shards. First of all, one of the shard-based components is purchasable with Vanguard merits (Grai Matter). Second, the rare component for Alpha is the Notice of the Well which has a guaranteed path to earning it in the WSTs. In one high level task force you can earn one Alpha component and enough shards to make another. That's comparable to the drop at the end of an incarnate trial and the approximate amount of threads you earn from direct thread drops and astral merits.
I believe the intent was that you earn shards slower than threads, but it takes less shards than threads to make Alpha, so it roughly evens out, but *only* for Alpha. After Alpha, the only way for shards to help with the other slots is by converting to threads. There are no shard recipes for the other slots. So that slower shard earning rate now translates into a much slower earning rate for incarnate powers past Alpha. That's actually why you need two different currencies. You want one for incarnate content, and another one for standard content that is awarded slower *but* allows for reasonably quick earning of Alpha. If you give players threads everywhere, there's no way to give players two independent paths to Alpha, one balanced for standard content and one balanced for running trials. |
I mean this is what we do for the WST - we drop Notice, merit bonus and shards. The next week when it is not on schedule it returns to normal. So you have rate 1 for x content and rate 2 for y content.
Edit: my other point was it is ridiculously faster doing a single trial to get an Alpha slot. I don't see again why a separate currency and an additional clunky conversion.
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Except that 50s don't get rewards from level 40 mobs.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
No - I'd prefer them to do what they're going to do - add tougher and tougher Trials, until we're challenged even with 10 slots open
Incarnates leave the current 50 content behind, just like 50s leave the level 40 stuff behind. |
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Sure, but please understand where that leads. We already have that to a degree where if you exemplar below 45 you lose your incarnate abilities. This gives the developers breathing room to make content for all playstyles. Also, the Incarnate shifts are specifically gated to the trials.
The devs have taken the wise view to allow people who have went down the Incarnate path be overpowered in non-Incarnate content. If you take away the abilities, then folks will demand that ALL content be scaled to the power level of incarnates. Which creates, in fact, the very treadmill that people are imposing on themselves now. Right now you really don't have to do the Incarnate trials. Incarnate power is fun, but certainly not necessary. I've seen what happens when the point you make is taken to its logical conclusion. I suspect many others here have as well, because many have expressed fears that the Incarnate powers would be necessary to "keep up" with new content. I have seen no significant evidence that the devs intend for that to happen. But it will happen should Incarnate powers be locked away as you suggest. Only it will be the players demanding it. |
As I see it, either post-Alpha powers need to restricted to raids only, thereby wrenching balance a little closer towards sanity and making what seems designed to be a closed system actually closed, or a more solo-friendly option is required if you're going to allow any level 50 AT to trivialize content. Right now that privilege is only open to those who raid.
In short, what I'm asking is, why are you allowed to break the game, and rather quickly and easily at that, as long as you raid? Either shut it down entirely or open it up to the remaining few.
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There is content currently being created that would work great for this IMO. Please see my Suggestions thread (and make suggestions if you like the premise).|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Which is why I suggested that some of the level 50 content get an Incarnate mode where every mob can scale to 54, and come with new tricks if necessary. Level shifts anyone?
Boom, there's you additional Incarnate content. EDIT: Yes I know that mode will take some time to created. |
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=3721497
Thanks!
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If we changed standard content so it dropped threads instead of shards, if we also converted the shard recipes into thread recipes people who actually did the trials could completely fill Alpha in the blink of an eye, because they earn threads faster. If we don't and we force those players to use the normal thread recipes their ability to earn Alpha would drop dramatically, because those recipes require more threads than the shard recipes require shards.|
Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades
OK, I see now where you are coming from but could you not just have threads drop at rate 1 for x content and rate 2 for y content?
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To put it another way, if we drop threads everywhere, then either standard content people earn threads way slower than trial players in which case they will be stuck earning Alpha much slower than trial players, or standard content players will earn Alpha about as fast as trial players, and that will mean they can also earn everything else equally fast, since threads are the single currency.
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Well, there are certainly more ways now to get threads from (non-trial) content which is good.
I will say one thing, the game has too many types of currency and i21 gives us, er more currency. 
I'd rather they go down to 1 type of incarnate currency. At this point after I unlock the alpha slot with the arc I just go on trials now.
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
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Just throwing the following baseline out as a suggestion:|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
So which one should the solo Incanrate arc be designed for? The Defender or the Scrapper?
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Given a mission designed for soloing (ie you can start it and get credit for all objectives while you are not teamed with any other character), the mission should be feasible to complete with any AT at +0/x1.
"Feasible", in this case, would mean you can go in with SOs and maybe a handful of generic IOs and not find yourself pitted against spawns you are mathematically unable to take down without dying or chugging multiple inspirations.
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That's a lower level of difficulty than even standard content at 50 (insps are intended to be used liberally). Certainly not going to pass muster as a baseline for what is intended as the solo method to gain Incarnate progress.
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Originally Posted by Black Zot
Just throwing the following baseline out as a suggestion:
Given a mission designed for soloing (ie you can start it and get credit for all objectives while you are not teamed with any other character), the mission should be feasible to complete with any AT at +0/x1. "Feasible", in this case, would mean you can go in with SOs and maybe a handful of generic IOs and not find yourself pitted against spawns you are mathematically unable to take down without dying or chugging multiple inspirations. |
Furio--Lvl 50+3 Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster, Virtue
Megadeth--Lvl 50+3 Necro/DM/Soul MM, Virtue
Veriandros--Lvl 50+3 Crab Soldier, Virtue
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Really? Then why do they drop at a fraction of the rate you claim we're meant to use them?|
Originally Posted by Furio
(insps are intended to be used liberally).
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EDIT: It's an honest question. I really can't see any logic to handing something out with an eyedropper when you expect it to be used by the pint.
I would expect any Solo(ish) Path Incarnate Arcs to be set for a minimum of +4/x1 With Bosses, With AVs.
I would not expect incarnate shifts to apply in these arcs, similar to Apex and Tin Mage.
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Erm... they are handed out by the pint.
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Originally Posted by Black Zot
Really? Then why do they drop at a fraction of the rate you claim we're meant to use them?
EDIT: It's an honest question. I really can't see any logic to handing something out with an eyedropper when you expect it to be used by the pint. |
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Basically.
Truthfully, I look at rewards merits as just a way to buy more alignment merits.
In case you haven't tried the wiki (you probably have, but newer players may not know...)
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Alignment_Merit