The backwards nature of "progression" in this game
That's because the threats "level" with you. So at level 1, yeah you're just fighting Hellions and Skulls, but by level 50+ you're fighting insane demigods and archvillains who are drawing upon the same power source as you, only they're better at focusing it.
You see this in comic books too. You might have Spider-Man and Captain America team up to fight a group like HYDRA, but when Thanos has gotten his hand on the Infinity Gauntlet (again), you've got every hero in the Marvel Universe in the fight. Even the Silver Surfer with his Power Cosmic can't handle that alone (hell, even Galactus fell to the power of the Gauntlet).
Go back and fight the Council with your Incarnate powers. You are more powerful, you're just not the most powerful.
"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
Seems more like the threats "outlevel" you.
Look, some threats make sense to need a team. I get needing a team to go against all of Recluse's minions/the Phalanx. I'd get needing one if we faced Ruularu. However, that shouldn't be the be-all, end-all of the game.
I, frankly, agree that it's silly we now get godlike powers... but have nothing to do with them on our own. We have two choices - be overpowered and run a 5 minute ITF, or be underpowered and need 20 others to run a trial.
Then again, I've been asking for solo and small team Incarnate missions since the system was announced. And we've been told... what... they'll consider having a discussion about possibly thinking about maybe talking over the water cooler about scheduling a meeting to discuss considering maybe having a focus group debate a possible option sometime in the hazy future.
I, frankly, agree that it's silly we now get godlike powers... but have nothing to do with them on our own. We have two choices - be overpowered and run a 5 minute ITF, or be underpowered and need 20 others to run a trial.
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--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
I don't like the entirely raid-based focus of the endgame either, but one thing:
It has been this way ever since I first joined this game way back in i1 or i2 (i forget which). The low level TFs like Positron only required a handful of players. The higher you got in level, and the more you "progressed" the more people were needed for each TF. All of the high level TFs required 8 people if I recall correctly. When City of Villians came out it continued this trend.
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Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
Then again, I've been asking for solo and small team Incarnate missions since the system was announced. And we've been told... what... they'll consider having a discussion about possibly thinking about maybe talking over the water cooler about scheduling a meeting to discuss considering maybe having a focus group debate a possible option sometime in the hazy future.
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... no, not cynical at all.
Lol, nope, not you Bill. I'm looking forward to it as well. It is crazy to me that my third most incarnated toon has done it using just shard conversions and has never stepped into a trial. All slots are unlocked, and have all the first tier's slotted, but it has been just about a year now.
It is not a viable solo incarnate path.
Welcome to MMO's in general. It's the nature of the beast.
"I accidently killed Synapse, do we need to restart the mission?" - The Oldest One on Lord Recluses Strike Force
We will have concrete news about the Incarnate Solo Path at the Player Summit.
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If there's anything more specific than that, I will shave my beard.
Seems more like the threats "outlevel" you.
Look, some threats make sense to need a team. I get needing a team to go against all of Recluse's minions/the Phalanx. I'd get needing one if we faced Ruularu. However, that shouldn't be the be-all, end-all of the game. |
Contrary to what Dragon Ball Z might teach us, the feeling of power is not expressed in "power levels." Your power level may be over nine thousand, causing Vegeta to crush his scouter, but fat lot of good that does you when Freeza's power level starts at 500 000? I don't need to see big numbers float around to tell me I'm awesome. I need to see myself doing awesome things like being big threats by myself and being independent. By seeing myself be significant.
The bigger the number of people a task requires, the bigger the difference is between the sum of their powers and what the task actually requires, thus the more insignificant I, as a cog in the machine, feel in the grand scheme of this. It's pretty much a proven fact that modern warfare brought about the death of the epic hero. When armies of millions oppose armies of millions and generals command without seeing battle, there is very little room for one man to make a big difference. You don't have your Achilles, you don't have your Hercules. You couldn't. There's no room for "heroes" when modern warfare requires obedience, cooperation and a large functioning infrastructure.
Raiding is essentially modern warfare. It's organised, tiered warfare where no one man is as important as keeping the war machine active, where no one man's contribution is vital, because it requires the contribution of many. It requires finding satisfaction in fulfilling your given role, which is a kind of satisfaction that is completely alien to me.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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If there's anything more specific than that, I will shave my beard.
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Edit: Wish I had something clever or insightful to add. I'm thoroughly enjoying the endgame, and understand the reasoning behind needing 50 heroes to wage war against Praetoria. Some things might not make complete sense story-wise, but you're going to get that with any game, let alone an MMORPG.
The Paladin
Steel Canyon, Virtue
Exalted
@Paladin
The internets will remember your casual vow, Samuel Tow.
Edit: Wish I had something clever or insightful to add. I'm thoroughly enjoying the endgame, and understand the reasoning behind needing 50 heroes to wage war against Praetoria. Some things might not make complete sense story-wise, but you're going to get that with any game, let alone an MMORPG. |
I want a trial to face off against a Ruularu that stretches down into the shard as far as I can see, and as high into sky as I can swivel, moving toward Firebase Zulu and we have to stop him. Each body part (hand, forearm, upper arm, left/right chest, neck, and head are all 'seperate entities' that move in unison, have different effects and have to be elimiated while fighting off hoards of ruularu attending to him. Once you defeat certain parts you have to defeat a beefed up known Aspect of Rularu (Completion of the Right Arm: Ruladak the Strong, Completion of the Left Arm: Chularn the Slave Lord, Completion of the both Chests: Faathim the Kind- his heart awwww..., and _right_ before you defeat the Head, you must face off against a howling Lanaru the Mad before you can then finish it off). Everyone gets a jet pack that works like the Buoyant Membrane when fighting the Seed of Hamidon during the event. The big tactical decision would be which arm to destroy first. The right does massive damage, the left summons more and more minions to assist...
Anyway...
Now THAT sounds like an epic trial that I wouldn't mind feeling weaker against. This is at least part of the reason some of the Incarnate trials don't seem as 'epic' as they should, in my opinion. I enjoy them for what they are, but no, they don't make me feel powerful, and most of my SG mates pass on them alltogether because of the difficulty over fun (this includes Lambdas and BAF's for them). The Underground is the closest I've felt to a truly 'epic' fight in any of them so far, and that's because of the story involved and what we were fighting. A starting Incarnate trial should have us beating Emperor Cole down with the Well backing him. Everything so far should have been on par with Tin Mage or Apex, if I were working the storyline and how to implement it.
Just my 2 cents.
"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.
I'm trying to give the story tellers in this game a break. Here's how I think they see it -
You're a hero/villain. You've risen up from the gutter and carved your name on the world and there's not much that can withstand you. The world is yours for the taking and all the accolades you can imagine are yours. You really are that powerful that only an insane idiot would mess with you. Oh wait.. we found one. Ok we can produce a real ******* of a villain that doesn't cost much to develop and makes the players feel challenged by forcing them to team up with each other to win. Cheap, cost effective, and the accountants will be pacified. |
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Thelonious Monk
Because I have a sneaking suspicion that news will be "We have heard your requests and now realise you want this. We will look into ways to provide this to you. For real this time.
If there's anything more specific than that, I will shave my beard. |
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Speak for yourself. On my most recently-fiftied character, I was constantly having to turn up the difficulty as I leveled to stay challenged.
Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.
![](http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b393/shigmiya64/forumsignewcopy.png)
Speak for yourself. On my most recently-fiftied character, I was constantly having to turn up the difficulty as I leveled to stay challenged.
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![Cool](images/smilies/cool.gif)
Of course i have to acknowledge that a fair bit of that is abuse of procs. i've had Poison Trap one-shot minions, and unslotted it does no damage at all.
![Embarrassment](images/smilies/redface.gif)
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
I have long disliked how the more you progress in this game the more you need to team up with others to accomplish your goals. The more powerful I'm told I am, the weaker I feel.
It has been this way ever since I first joined this game way back in i1 or i2 (i forget which). The low level TFs like Positron only required a handful of players. The higher you got in level, and the more you "progressed" the more people were needed for each TF. All of the high level TFs required 8 people if I recall correctly. When City of Villians came out it continued this trend. Now that Incarnate stuff has come out it magnified this even more so. I am told that I have drawn uber power from the well of furies and I'm some kind of super super super hero now, and yet to accomplish anything important, like beating up that Maelstrom guy I beat already a number of times since level 20, I need the help of a bunch of other super heroes. And when I say a bunch, I just don't mean teaming up with a handful of others, I mean a whole lot of them. The more I progress in level and power, and the more Powerful the game tells me I am, the weaker I feel. I wind up feeling like a useless cog in a giant machine, instead of somebody truly remarkable. This is so backwards. |
The one exception to that rule has been blasters. As they level, the game tended to get harder due to the increased level of threat, including mez. However, the incarnate system has totally reversed that. My blaster has rapidly accelerated in strength since becoming an incarnate, even compared to the new content. She does better in Lambda than she used to do in the STF pre-incarnate. She's certainly stronger in every bit of standard content outside the incarnate trials than she was before.
If you define "meaningful" to be "the very highest degree of difficulty content" then of course to do anything "meaningful" as you get more powerful will require doing content with ever increasingly higher difficulty. And there are limits to being able to make genuinely challenging content for a single player across all the archetypes. Still, I can flashback to content with AVs in it and wipe the floor with them on an energy blaster that doesn't even have capped defenses. I am very much stronger and I can in fact do very significant things with that strength. Including soloing task forces that would have been much more challenging prior to incarnates.
And with Freedom and free to play accounts, anyone can attempt to solo any task force with free fillers if they don't want to ask for fillers. You can test your new strength against challenging content without having to actually team with anyone else if you choose.
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Agreed, it is silly.
What's even more immersion breaking to me is seeing *other* players, because, let's be honest, content that you run over and over solely for power is likely to attract bad apples, and this often gets worse in trials where anonymity finds strength in numbers... Looking at a teammate slowly walking to a mob, using one power, then waiting 5 seconds, slowly turning down to face a second mob, using another power, then standing still for a few seconds after the group is defeated... Looking at another teammate running forward in melee on a squishie obviously not build to withstand that, getting killed over and over and whining about it... Those are incarnates? Those are my peers? Does the Well chose pretty much anyone?
I'm using worst case scenarios as examples, of course, and there's plenty of people playing decently ; but here's the thing: in a 16-24 players activity, you're bound to end up with at least one person acting silly, and often, it's more than a single person.
I just treat the incarnate trials as some kind of fourth wall breaking part of the game, a dev approved farm, and it can be somewhat fun that way.
In the end, how I see things is that it's an MMORPG.
That's massively multi-player online role playing game. If you could solo your way through the entire thing, why not just play a console game?
Though I will agree, having less of a pure focus on huge multi-player interaction and more paths the soloer can take would be nice. (especially for those times when you can't for whatever reason find a party to do something worthwhile)
Some villains just don't like playing with others, and mine are no exception. I've not run any of the iTrials with most of them as it just doesn't feel right (I've run 5 or 6 iTrials on just one character, just to get the damn emotes). They'd want something sneaky and solo to do whilst everyone else is occupied doing a BAF, Lambda or other iTrial.
![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
So... fingers crossed!
... think of the stalkers!
![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
![](http://avatars.cohtitan.com/signatures/cgt/u11275.png)
Help Dirk Knightly the freelance detective solve a case in Arc ID:368097
In the end, how I see things is that it's an MMORPG.
That's massively multi-player online role playing game. If you could solo your way through the entire thing, why not just play a console game? Though I will agree, having less of a pure focus on huge multi-player interaction and more paths the soloer can take would be nice. (especially for those times when you can't for whatever reason find a party to do something worthwhile) |
Even when I'm playing this game solo, I'm still talking to people on the global channels I'm in, chatting on tells, listening out for any teaming that interests me, or chances for roleplaying.
Solo and Small Team Incarnate Content also means something else. Stuff happens and I need to get called AFK sometimes, and sometimes quite quickly. In large team of strangers I don't feel comfortable doing so. With friends I can. If solo, I can simply move myself somewhere and dash off to do whatever.
I'm still playing with other people. I'm just not with them at the time when soloing. I'm chatting, being social, and helping if any questions come up.
The following are all examples of times already in the game which can make you feel like the strongest in the world.
- Solo a giant monster. Nothing beats going head to head with a giant monster to save the day.
- Fight regular class monsters such as the zeus titan that spawns inside a mission [somewhere between 35 - 45 i think?].
- Solo Mender Silos arc. The final mission in this arc effectively makes you the leader of the rescued heroes as they follow you and you defeat all of Recluse men/women. Of course the jade spider battle is epic by itself.
- Run an 8man team incarnate mothership raid. It is easily possible with far less but try it out with 8 men first.
- The level 45 - 50 arcs. Some of them are pretty good and have you going head to head, one on one with some of the meanest bad guys around to show that you are indeed the strongest.
- Monster Island. Test your strength against these monsters and show that you deserve the title of incarnate!
- Statesman Taskforce. Not only does Recluse have to find ways to gain more powers to have a chance against you, but you now also have the chance to show that no amount of power increase will save him from the beating you'll give him.
- The signature story arcs. At first they show you as being nothing more than a random hero trying to save the day who happened to past through, as they are progressing we are shown more respect in that we are perhaps a greater threat than they first thought.
- The First Ward Arcs. We are no longer people who are out on random missions for the leaders of the zone, we are heroes/villains out there doing the missions that only we can be trusted to. Not even their most powerful subjects were handed the trust that we were given in the zone.
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
Its not backwards. The more powerful you get, the higher the threat itself has to be to be challenging. But its obvious that as we get more powerful, what we can do tends to increase at equivalent levels of difficulty.
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It doesn't matter if I'm impervious to bullets and strong enough stop a train if my enemy punches like a howitzer and can stop an ocean liner with his teeth.
That's massively multi-player online role playing game. If you could solo your way through the entire thing, why not just play a console game?
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Oh, wait, no. I see what you mean. Why not play a single player game, right? Of course, how stupid of me, I'll go do just that right now!
*edit*
Wait, where do I buy the single player version of City of Heroes, again? I couldn't find it in the PlayNC store.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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In the end, how I see things is that it's an MMORPG.
That's massively multi-player online role playing game. If you could solo your way through the entire thing, why not just play a console game? Though I will agree, having less of a pure focus on huge multi-player interaction and more paths the soloer can take would be nice. (especially for those times when you can't for whatever reason find a party to do something worthwhile) |
Because of my work schedule I have weird playtimes, so I've never gotten into the "40 people raid = good" mindset of other MMO's I've played and I don't see the point of including it in here.
Yes, I get that the whole Marvel universe needs to band together to take out Thanos, though if Marvel remembered their own character's abilities, it should just take Longshot to take him out, (what's more pure of heart than saving the universe, after all?)
Just my 2 Influence!
![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
I have long disliked how the more you progress in this game the more you need to team up with others to accomplish your goals. The more powerful I'm told I am, the weaker I feel.
It has been this way ever since I first joined this game way back in i1 or i2 (i forget which). The low level TFs like Positron only required a handful of players. The higher you got in level, and the more you "progressed" the more people were needed for each TF. All of the high level TFs required 8 people if I recall correctly. When City of Villians came out it continued this trend.
Now that Incarnate stuff has come out it magnified this even more so. I am told that I have drawn uber power from the well of furies and I'm some kind of super super super hero now, and yet to accomplish anything important, like beating up that Maelstrom guy I beat already a number of times since level 20, I need the help of a bunch of other super heroes. And when I say a bunch, I just don't mean teaming up with a handful of others, I mean a whole lot of them.
The more I progress in level and power, and the more Powerful the game tells me I am, the weaker I feel. I wind up feeling like a useless cog in a giant machine, instead of somebody truly remarkable.
This is so backwards.