Giving the Players what they want: Solo Incarnate Content

Yes of course its a matter of opinion. I am not able to post on anything other than my opinion, and neither are you. It is your opinion that there is enough content. It is also your opinion that the shard system used for the Alpha slot were a weaker system than the threads used for the other slots. I disagree. In my opinion, the Alpha slot was much better, because it didn't truncate the system down into 3, soon-ish to be 4, specific missions.

It's meaningless to say something like "enough content for you" because every player has to make that determination for themselves. Do you also think it is unfair of me to have a low opinion of the game that rhymes with cow because in my opinion the quest system is grindy? 12 million people disagree with me but its irrelevant because my opinion is what determines whether I play and how much. I can understand not wanting to hear my opinion, but this development team does have a history of listening to its player base.

Book it!

You mentioned, multiple times, that they dropped development for everything except the "broken" Incarnate content. Which has been out... for the last 3 months, since Issue 20 launched. I guess if you want to complain about the Tin Mage and Apex content from i19, then it's been less than 8 months total. Prior to that was an entire expansion with tons of new zones and mission content, which came out less than a year ago.

You have perhaps also failed to take into account that the issue currently in beta has completely redone the first few levels of the game and changed a lot over the first 20 levels. Oh, and that this has been in the works for the last year.

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

Actually, I do make statements that aren't based solely on personal preference. If I were to say that a game had a content gap at launch and that was poor design, I'm saying something objective: something I could prove with facts not subject to personal preference. When I say a game launches content which I don't personally like, I normally don't say that content is poorly designed because that is primarily an objective statement not a subjective one. Design has a subjective component to it, but its not purely subject to personal preference only.

Most importantly though, I never say that the devs have an actual obligation to satisfy my personal preferences. Someone who does isn't just expressing a preference, they are expressing the position that their preferences should rule the design decisions of the game.

There are some people who believe that everyone states this, whether they are willing to admit it or not. But I don't. In fact I often advocate for things that run counter to my own personal preference, because I'm capable of keeping distinct what's objectively good for the game with what will satisfy my personal preferences.

To put it more directly, I don't suffer the limitations you believe are unavoidable.

I'm not sure we're actually getting much less regular content. As far as I can see we've got:

Three Incarnate Trials.
Two Systems (Alpha and post-alpha)
Two Incarnate Task Forces

For non incarnate-content:
Three new zones. (Praetoria) with a ton of contacts.
Two new taskforces (Admiral Sutter and Mortimer Kal)
The entire morality/side switching system.
Four new story arcs. (I think that's four... Or is it six? Can't remember if the clone stuff was pre-GR or not)

I21 is slated to give us:
A new trial.
A new zone.
(and the new low-level sewer trial)

Seems pretty balanced to me, and in line with the content we've gotten from most issues.

Technically, with the total graphical revamp of Atlas, the partial graphical revamp of Mercy, and the totally new conent in both of them, I21 is giving us 2.5 new zones - plus the new tutorial and further training missions in the 5-19 range

That's not even remotely close to being true. Its only true when people start redefining things to make it true. Are things like Sutter "Incarnate content?" Well, they are far below the level where incarnate powers even work, don't generate incarnate rewards (any more than all standard content drops shards) and don't even use the incarnate raid mechanics. On the other hand, they mention Incarnates somewhere, so people say that counts as incarnate content. Ditto the Cooling and Ross arcs.

The zone events in Praetoria are apparently incarnate content because they take place in Praetoria. So ditto the added missions in Praetoria.

QoL changes and power customization don't count, because they aren't playable content. Map updates for task forces and Calvin Scott in general don't count because that's just updating old content, not making new content.

What we're eventually left with is not that almost everything since incarnates arrived has been incarnate content, but rather all instanced content since incarnates have arrived has either been incarnate content, mentioned incarnates, existed in Praetoria, or is an update of previously existing content.

That's so many qualifiers the statement ceases to say anything interesting. And we now have a better idea of what is coming in Issue 21, and Issue 21 is not in any way shape or form focused solely or primarily on Incarnates.

So I consider this oft repeated statement that the end game has sucked up all the oxygen from the development team to be objectively false. It isn't even close enough to require careful counting.

So what you're saying is that if the development team wanted to take the time to repair PvP the developers could and it isn't simply a matter of development time or insufficient work force. Rather it's a question of whether developers feel it is worth allocating development time and labor to?

Yep. Fixing PVP shouldn't be *that* time-consuming (well, depends on what level you want it to, if you want it fixed to Starcraft levels of competitiveness, it's probably beyond Paragon Studios' budget) but they've got better things to do.

Sam is right, since Incarnates came on to the scene in Issue 19 we've hardly gotten anything else, I mean seriously, all we've gotten is:

Issue 19 - Inherent Stamina, New solo story arcs in Sharkhead and Talos, repeatable missions for Resistance and Loyalists in Praetoria, Zone Event Missions in Praetoria, Alternate Blast animations for most blast sets, New Warehouse and Praetorian lab maps, Inspiration stores (Nurses) in hospitals, and hospitals in Hazard and Trial zones, Transit Merge, Tons of QoL improvements

Issue 20 - Player Help System, Admiral Sutter TF, Mortimer Kal SF, improvements to buff powers, Null the Gull


Wait.....

Yeah like he said, almost nothing..... wait timeout (which would be a cool emote by the way) thats only 15 things... I bet you can't name 16! HA!

He forgot to mention leagues, which also work for raids and zone events.

Well, I didn't actually say that, but that's a truism for all things, not just PvP.

More specifically, its always the case that for the devs to do something, something else has to get not done. Finite resources and unlimited wish list means its not just about priority, but about balancing priorities among everything that is vying for attention.

And hypothetically speaking, while I'm not speaking for the devs here, I can only imagine that one barrier to working on anything would be if there was the very obvious knowledge that the primary result of working on it would be a bunch of players telling you what an incredible moron you are for not doing it their way.

You forgot the large number of primal earth tip missions in issue 19.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

and the aqueducts...

Don't labor the point.

(The Life of Brian, I assume, in case someone don't get it, and in case Doctor_Gemini doesn't remember that part of "What have the Romans ever done for us?" and thinks I'm being hostile or something.)

As a tangent - I would like them if they were real, authentic and contemporary Hawaiian shirts. Not the stuff made for colorblind tourists

But Primal Earth is being invaded by Praetoria, which is the focus for the first stage of the Incarnate system - so technically, those Tips are all Incarnate content too.

Please.........that is not what what he is suggesting, and I suspect you know that and are just egging an ugly response from him.

Colorblind tourist shirts plz. kthxbye.

Yeah, but here's the thing: When you have a reasonable alternative option that will please more people, that's the one that should be taken.

Some people like team content. Fine. Providing four Trials catered to them, exclusively.

Two trials + a soloable Incarnate path would have catered to them and the people who want to solo. The fact of the matter is, with few exceptions, all soloable content can also be done by teams.

Instead of giving both groups some of what they want, they excluded the people who want to solo. Again. Because they had already excluded them from the start by not planning a soloable Incarnate tract from Day 1.

That is why people are getting more than a little miffed. It's completely justified because eight months after the Alpha dropped and the complaints started, they continue to be overlooked while the trials keep on getting cranked out.



.

So what you're saying is when you post its "for the good of the game." I'm sorry I can't live up to that standard.


PS I have to wonder what goes on Beta. Do people actually post their opinions about systems and whether the system works for them, or do they get shouted down by the self-appointed forum guardians? I ask this only because if people do speak their minds, it seems incredibly hypocritical to say that those of us not in Beta should never have an opinion counter to what gets delivered. Some of you have an opportuniity to provide feedback that others of us don't. Hopefully you use it.

Only if we get Minbari skull pieces as well.