Getting tired of Incarnates

To be quite honest, Incarnate powers are a big reason I stopped playing so much. that and the rate which new stuff is churned out. Way too fast for a casual player like me.

why do I say way to fast, well, it seems that if I don't "Keep Up with the Joneses" (get all the new stuff) I stand around high level missions or TFs and do nothing. I sit there bored, and wondering why I even bother.

On the other side, it has made me focus on playing some lower level Characters a bit more, but even then they eventually will get into the boring zone.

The idea of actually building a character is gone also, because the Incarnate stuff makes ATs obsolete. Strategy? Fuggetabouit. Actually feeling like a hero defeating impossible odds? No longer.

City of Heroes appealed to me because it was a different game, one not about the grind. Now that feeling is gone. Rush to 50 and rush to get your incarnate stuff.

Yep. Nothing can make any of the Incarnate powers recharge faster, not even other Incarnate powers.

Thre's not much about Incarnates I actually like. The trouble is, it's the bulk of the content that's being run so if you want to do something other than DFB or solo it's that or yetanother*yawn*ITF

Edit to add I'm with Dante on the fact it effectively junks the existing good content.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

I don't really see this problem much, but then I'm generally assiduous about not teaming with Incarnates and/or 50s, for exactly the reasons the OP gives.

I did a Citadel the other night with one 50 and seven others of us who were appropriate level for the TF, and the difference was blatant. He was constantly scooting ahead to take on new spawns while the rest of us were still working on cleaning up the last one, and it got very tiresome very quickly.

Despite it's flaws, I do like the Incarnate system as it gave me a reason to dust-off my 50's and actually play them again. On the flip side, I do understand what the OP is getting at.

Like what other people have suggested, I think the best way of fixing this would be to introduce a few new options for existing high-level TF's. This is what's floating in my head:

• No Incarnate Abilities Allowed: Exactly as stated, all Incarnate Abilities are disallowed.
• Alpha Slot Allowed: Players can still benefit from their Alpha slot, but no others.
• Furious Mode: The Well of the Furies has tampered with the trial and greatly increased the difficulty of all enemies in the trial. Shards still drop in the trial, but the reward tables at the end will allow the choice to "roll" on the Justice/Destiny/Lore/Interface Component table instead of the regular rewards.

I like the Alpha Slot.

I liked the other slots when incarnate powers beyond Alpha were rumored to only work in incarnate content.

Since they do work in non-incarnate content, I still like the Alpha slot, the rest however can go die in an orgy of Judgement spam (Ion being the judgement of choice so no fire was available).

Like the "Earth for Humans" billboards we need "Content for Non-incarnates";

To the OP: Yes.

I have found solace in creating a themed SG (going public very soon) that is focused on the 1-50 game. Sure, Incarnates will be allowed, but the theme of the SG does not exactly encourage them, so I am betting most members will pick up maybe one Incarnate power on any one toon, which would specifically relate to that toon's abilities. However, thanks to the annoyingly rigid lore of the Incarnate System (another issue entirely) I don't know how true that is...

My advice is to find a group of players that share your mindset (like me or some other people in this thread) and play with them. No need to play less than you would like, just need to find the right players.

It is as I warned - Incarnates are quickly outpacing the difficulty that the base game (which is not designed with Incarnate powers in mind) can provide. It was a nice pacifier to send people to replay old content for a while, but the development team walked right into the very problem they cited as a reason to not up the level cap back in the day: People can play through new content faster than the team can make it. Sooner or later, Incarnates will be too strong for legacy content. What are they going to do then?

The answer, it seems, is "a handful of new Trials over and over again" when the answer should have been "a new expansion's worth of non-repeating content." But, of course, Incarnates weren't designed as a new level range. They were designed to be raid grind, and as such their content is practically nil, but for the same repetitive handful of tasks. The spin was that they could just play old content, but that's just too easy at this point, and it's only going to get easier.

Incarnates should have been given their own body of content so they don't feel compelled to go back and re-run old missions, now much easier than before. At least, no more compelled than level 50 characters going back to street-hunt in Brickstown.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.