What are you expecting for a solo Incarnate path?
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2011-11-17 20:47 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Quote:
Uh. No. That might work if you could actually buy components with Astrals or upgrade a bunch of Astrals to an Empyrean.|
Originally Posted by Chyll
an astral for arc completion. Leave eMerits for the trials.
|
You can't.
And the cost of constructing rares and VRs from threads compared to trading in Emps is ridiculous.
Remember: Emps break down into 20 threads.
Cost to create a Rare:
100 Threads and 4 Uncommons plus 25 million Inf.
Cost to create an uncommon? 60 Threads.
(60x4)+100 = 340 Threads
Cost to create a Rare:
8 Empyreans (Equivallent to 160 threads)
Cost to create a Very Rare:
4 Rares and 100 million Inf.
((60x4)+100)x4 1360 threads (plus 200 million Inf)
Cost to create a Very Rare:
30 Empyreans (Equivallent to 600 threads)
Now think about T4's. Where you need 2 Rares and a Very Rare for every one.
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well, as far as expectations, i expect people to complain loudly, regardless of its quality. Its just the community these days.
what i'd like to see would be to see but would be impractical except in a long term, but would love to see would be to see various specific arcs, maybe 5-6 missions long where characters fight existing but underutilized giant powers from the lore. mot the sleeper, leviathan, ,merluna, the boss of the envoy of shadow, higher leaders of malta and the council, the unseelie court, hequat, the lead demon thats sitting on the cot. the current beings in the lore who have significant power invested in them, it would make good thematic sense to have character grow stronger by running small campaigns against them and "breaking off" some of their power to take as their own.
i reiterate, i do not expect this in the short or medium run, but over time this would be something that I would really enjoy.
Quote:
As near as I can tell from the context of those earlier posts|
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
I think any distinction between a solo Incarnate path and solo Incarnate content is... well, something I need explained to me.
You can already become an Incarnate (open the Alpha Slot) solo. To me a solo Incarnate path just means a way to open the other slots and acquire the salvage needed to craft the abilities: threads and Astral Merits. Which technically we already have. |
Path assumes you are still unlocking and crafting.
Content assumes you have some or all incarnate powers available to you.
Path assumes a 50+0 will be doing it alone with a possibly gimpy build.
Content assumes a challenge for a 50+3.
for example, Olympians in the underground have a mag 30 stun. That pretty much assumes someone on the league has clarion because that will stun tankers.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
Quote:
A path lets you start with either nothing or the alpha open and then open and equip the other slots at a reasonable rate.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
I think any distinction between a solo Incarnate path and solo Incarnate content is... well, something I need explained to me.
You can already become an Incarnate (open the Alpha Slot) solo. To me a solo Incarnate path just means a way to open the other slots and acquire the salvage needed to craft the abilities: threads and Astral Merits. Which technically we already have. |
Content is something that is at a difficulty level where having the slots equipped would be helpful and you would likely get the benefits of having them - for instance, all of the level shifts would work.
Optimally, the two would be combined. You can start it with effectively nothing, advance at a reasonable rate, and be challenged enough to actually appreciate the progress that opening the new abilities would provide.
Currently we have none of that for solo/small group players (post alpha).
I expect there to be very little content, that you will have to farm heavily in order to progress.
I expect said content to be heavily scripted and have unique maps, which will be used as an excuse for why there is so little of it. I expect many of the scripted encounters to be poorly tested and prone to bugs.
I expect it to be based in the evil goatee universe and involve the Puddle of Annoyance. I expect there to be plot holes, idiot balls, and character hijacking, which someone will point out and we'll argue about it for pages on the forums. Someone will call me names, and several people will post in a thread that is clearly about lore to proclaim that they don't care about lore, only shinies.
I expect typos and spelling and grammatical errors. These will be /bugged in beta but will go live anyway and remain until the servers shut down.
I expect someone to immediately complain that they can't solo the content with their SOd FF/Elec Defender or Blaster with no defense who doesn't bother with inspirations. Suggestions to use temp powers or inspirations will be met with "but I shouldn't have to, the game is balanced around SOs." I expect the solo Incarnate path to be balanced around IOs, but no dev to actually say so.
I expect it to be exclusively heroic in tone. Someone will complain. Someone else will imply that players who play villains are villains in real life 
I expect cut scenes.
I expect it to be significantly slower than trial progression, even for a strong soloist.
In each thread that discusses the announced content, I expect a statement along the lines of "if you don't like to team why are you playing an MMO" on the first page.
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
Quote:
Path being gaining and working up in power at a more meaningful speed than the current rare shard no thread rate, but reasonable less than trial speed.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
I think any distinction between a solo Incarnate path and solo Incarnate content is... well, something I need explained to me.
|
Content being something that is there for incarnates (fully tier 4, or only alpha opened, or whatever) to do besides the trials and feel it is incarnate worthy (gain all level shifts, story focused on being more than an average arc).
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
In that case, your expectations will be met |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
My expectation is that such progress is still going to be pretty slow, but I think I would personally be OK with that if it was not as slow as the shard-only option that exist now.
|
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
Well, that's kinda what Tyrant is becoming |
Originally Posted by Nihilii
A bunch of goatee guys just can't compare with a dimension-devouring god.
|
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
I am expecting the level 50 version of what happened to my level 19 'troller in Praetoria. There she was, at level 19 facing Elite Boss Vanessa DeVore and about nine FauxNessa pets. |
Originally Posted by Agent White
Title really sums it up. In a few days we'll have the Pummit and one of the expected announcements/reveals is the solo path for Incarnates, so players won't have to rely solely on iTrials to unlock slots beyond the Alpha and (hopefully) a way to earn incarnate salvage to craft abilities.
So, what are you guys expecting it to be? |
In short, I am not expecting it to be pleasant. If it were pleasant we wouldn't be teaming, and they want us teaming sooooooo......
Quote:
Trying to become. Honestly he kind of sucks at the task.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Well, that's kinda what Tyrant is becoming
|
My scrapper has been to over a dozen parallel earths, and defeated the most powerful beings in some of them. Requiem from Wolf-world nearly tore apart more than a dozen alternate universes and he wasn't even an incarnate. Tyrant can't even conquer and destroy what's left of that world after I beat-down Requiem for him?
Or how about the paragon protector world? Or Axis America who have crap technology (don't even have mech men or hoverbots or teleporters or longbow chasers etc) and virtually no supers? Or the Pacifist CoT world. A bunch of angry girlscouts could conquer that world! I mean, seriously, there are a LOT of wimpy alternate earths out there and Tyrant hasn't managed to take out any yet.
In part of the lore battle maiden conquered "warrior earth" so she did more than tyrant so far. And nightstar has her shadow world.
I fail to be impressed with Tyrant's achievements to date.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
Quote:
I base my theory that the new design philosophy of the game is "shiny stuff and one-off purchases to draw in new players; large-group raids to build and ensure customer loyalty" on several things:|
Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
Not sure what you can base these comments on, considering that the majority of the new content that has been put into the game has not been Incarnate (Trials). Just because they've chosen to include content that differs from previous content doesn't mean there's a fundamental shift in what they want the game to do.
You don't like massive teaming...fine. Try not to insert that bias in your analysis of the Devs' intentions. |
1) First, as you note, a variety of new content has been added recently, but the most notable parts have been at the introductory (new Atlas Park/Mercy Island) or even pre-introductory (new costumes and powersets) stages or as an entirely new endgame (all the Incarnate content). To me, that suggests two different target audiences.
2) The only part of the game that requires a subscription is the endgame content. To me, that implies that to the developers, "long-term player commitment=hardcore player=primary interest is large endgame raids." Other new content is accessible piece-by-piece through the market, suggesting to me that the devs view it as "for casual players." (Here, "casual" means "likes the game but doesn't feel the need to play a monthly fee to play.") Basically, the switch from a pure subscription to a subscription/minitransaction model enabled the devs to craft sets of content for different segments of the player population.
3) Other MMO's are characterized by "raiding guilds" and other highly-organized, player-created groups. It isn't hard for me to imagine marketing studies that have determined that such player-created communities make for stronger player commitment to a game in general. As a corollary, the devs are making a new effort to capture the achiever demographic and to build a similar raid community here in hero-land.
4) The devs have stated on these fora a number of times that they want to make sure that they don't create disincentives for players to run trial Leagues.
5) I've said this dozens of times before, yet it still doesn't register with forumites: The devs are game mechanics engineers in their professional identities and "gamers" in their hobby ones. They are not, for the most part, artists, roleplayers, writers, etc. For the most part, the story is there as window dressing for mechanics, not the other way around. This issue has always been present, but it has accelerated over the life of the game, particularly with the changeover from Jack Emmert as lead developer (he had a completely different set of hangups and problems) to the more powergaming, twitch-reflexes, button-mashing, raid-oriented Matt Miller as lead developer. This is a strong, strong impression that I get every time I see Matt Miller speak; if others don't see it, I'm not sure why not.
I'm not sure how to make it any clearer. But the overwhelming impression I get from the redesign of the game over the past several issues is that someone in the development pipeline decided, "The only way to keep a subscriber base and thus keep the game community going is to create a community based on raiding guilds, like other MMO's." That doesn't meant that plenty of other kinds of content haven't been and won't be created. It just indicates to me that the developers believe that the only people who stay with an MMO for the long term are people interested in endgame raiding.
I'm not even saying that endgame raiding is bad (though there are other kinds of content I vastly prefer, personally). I'm simply saying that (1) circumstances have convinced me that the devs believe it's the primary way to sustain a static player community (as opposed to the transient pay-per-content-item Premium players) and that (2) personally, I think that endgame raiding is only one way to build a long-term, static player segment.
"Bombarding the CoH/V fora with verbosity since January, 2006"
Djinniman, level 50 inv/fire tanker, on Victory
-and 40 others on various servers
A CoH Comic: Kid Eros in "One Light"
Quote:
Both the devs and the players have become quite predictable now, haven't we?|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
I expect there to be very little content, that you will have to farm heavily in order to progress.
I expect said content to be heavily scripted and have unique maps, which will be used as an excuse for why there is so little of it. I expect many of the scripted encounters to be poorly tested and prone to bugs. I expect it to be based in the evil goatee universe and involve the Puddle of Annoyance. I expect there to be plot holes, idiot balls, and character hijacking, which someone will point out and we'll argue about it for pages on the forums. Someone will call me names, and several people will post in a thread that is clearly about lore to proclaim that they don't care about lore, only shinies. I expect typos and spelling and grammatical errors. These will be /bugged in beta but will go live anyway and remain until the servers shut down. I expect someone to immediately complain that they can't solo the content with their SOd FF/Elec Defender or Blaster with no defense who doesn't bother with inspirations. Suggestions to use temp powers or inspirations will be met with "but I shouldn't have to, the game is balanced around SOs." I expect the solo Incarnate path to be balanced around IOs, but no dev to actually say so. I expect it to be exclusively heroic in tone. Someone will complain. Someone else will imply that players who play villains are villains in real life I expect cut scenes. I expect it to be significantly slower than trial progression, even for a strong soloist. In each thread that discusses the announced content, I expect a statement along the lines of "if you don't like to team why are you playing an MMO" on the first page. |
I have to agree with you, though. I'm willing to bet this is exactly how it will turn out.
i expect my ignore list to grow by about 3-4 and for some who i have been giving a chance to going right back on. and to get auto logged out so often that it doesnt help.
Until I read this thread, I was honestly hoping for a fair shake.
Something not as fast as teaming, but faster than what we have now..something structured, like the tip missions we now do.
But reading what everyone has to say...I am now doubtful of us getting anything good.
Which is ok as I have lots of alts, and lots of ideas for even more alts 
As long as they supply us with new content we can solo, I am content.
Lisa-Wistful for could have been
So don't wait for heroes, do it yourself
You've got the power
winners are losers
who got up and gave it just one more try
***Dennis DeYoung
Quote:
Which is exactly what you're going to get |
Originally Posted by McCharraigin
Something not as fast as teaming, but faster than what we have now
|
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Expecting? Something like the tip missions
Hoping for?
Something like what EvilGeko had as a 'solo path option' a few months ago in a closed beta forum (I think it was a closed beta at the time).
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SSBB FC: 2062-8881-3944
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Personally I'm expecting the Spanish Inquisition.
More seriously I expect the solo option will be one of two things. Either a tip style system which has a good rewards/time ratio but includes strong real time gating or an Incarnate difficulty setting that has worse rewards:time but no gating.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
I expect there to be very little content, that you will have to farm heavily in order to progress.
I expect said content to be heavily scripted and have unique maps, which will be used as an excuse for why there is so little of it. I expect many of the scripted encounters to be poorly tested and prone to bugs. I expect it to be based in the evil goatee universe and involve the Puddle of Annoyance. I expect there to be plot holes, idiot balls, and character hijacking, which someone will point out and we'll argue about it for pages on the forums. Someone will call me names, and several people will post in a thread that is clearly about lore to proclaim that they don't care about lore, only shinies. I expect typos and spelling and grammatical errors. These will be /bugged in beta but will go live anyway and remain until the servers shut down. I expect someone to immediately complain that they can't solo the content with their SOd FF/Elec Defender or Blaster with no defense who doesn't bother with inspirations. Suggestions to use temp powers or inspirations will be met with "but I shouldn't have to, the game is balanced around SOs." I expect the solo Incarnate path to be balanced around IOs, but no dev to actually say so. I expect it to be exclusively heroic in tone. Someone will complain. Someone else will imply that players who play villains are villains in real life I expect cut scenes. I expect it to be significantly slower than trial progression, even for a strong soloist. In each thread that discusses the announced content, I expect a statement along the lines of "if you don't like to team why are you playing an MMO" on the first page. |
I expect that to happen for sure.
People will expect to have all t4s after 1-2 runs of the solo incarnate path which of course won't happen and then there will be DOOOM-crying all around.
But if I call you names now Eva, do I get bonus points for being preemptive about it?
Leader of The LEGION/Fallen LEGION on the Liberty server!
SSBB FC: 2062-8881-3944
MKW FC: 4167-4891-5991
Oh yes, I also expect that the most efficient progression through the system will involve either stealth or lots of AoE. There will continue to be no point in playing a strong single-target specialist unless there are unscaleable AVs, which I honestly hope doesn't happen, and probably won't because the outcry will be HUGE (and rightly so, IMO), and they will be replaced with EBs with 90% S/L resistance. I expect huge amounts of S/L resistance either way.
Quote:
You're cheating.|
Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
i expect my ignore list to grow by about 3-4 and for some who i have been giving a chance to going right back on. and to get auto logged out so often that it doesnt help.
|
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Energizing_Ion
But if I call you names now Eva, do I get bonus points for being preemptive about it?
|
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
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
I expect there to be very little content, that you will have to farm heavily in order to progress.
I expect said content to be heavily scripted and have unique maps, which will be used as an excuse for why there is so little of it. I expect many of the scripted encounters to be poorly tested and prone to bugs. I expect it to be based in the evil goatee universe and involve the Puddle of Annoyance. I expect there to be plot holes, idiot balls, and character hijacking, which someone will point out and we'll argue about it for pages on the forums. Someone will call me names, and several people will post in a thread that is clearly about lore to proclaim that they don't care about lore, only shinies. I expect typos and spelling and grammatical errors. These will be /bugged in beta but will go live anyway and remain until the servers shut down. I expect someone to immediately complain that they can't solo the content with their SOd FF/Elec Defender or Blaster with no defense who doesn't bother with inspirations. Suggestions to use temp powers or inspirations will be met with "but I shouldn't have to, the game is balanced around SOs." I expect the solo Incarnate path to be balanced around IOs, but no dev to actually say so. I expect it to be exclusively heroic in tone. Someone will complain. Someone else will imply that players who play villains are villains in real life I expect cut scenes. I expect it to be significantly slower than trial progression, even for a strong soloist. In each thread that discusses the announced content, I expect a statement along the lines of "if you don't like to team why are you playing an MMO" on the first page. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Olantern
I base my theory that the new design philosophy of the game is "shiny stuff and one-off purchases to draw in new players; large-group raids to build and ensure customer loyalty" on several things:
1) First, as you note, a variety of new content has been added recently, but the most notable parts have been at the introductory (new Atlas Park/Mercy Island) or even pre-introductory (new costumes and powersets) stages or as an entirely new endgame (all the Incarnate content). To me, that suggests two different target audiences. 2) The only part of the game that requires a subscription is the endgame content. To me, that implies that to the developers, "long-term player commitment=hardcore player=primary interest is large endgame raids." Other new content is accessible piece-by-piece through the market, suggesting to me that the devs view it as "for casual players." (Here, "casual" means "likes the game but doesn't feel the need to play a monthly fee to play.") Basically, the switch from a pure subscription to a subscription/minitransaction model enabled the devs to craft sets of content for different segments of the player population. 3) Other MMO's are characterized by "raiding guilds" and other highly-organized, player-created groups. It isn't hard for me to imagine marketing studies that have determined that such player-created communities make for stronger player commitment to a game in general. As a corollary, the devs are making a new effort to capture the achiever demographic and to build a similar raid community here in hero-land. 4) The devs have stated on these fora a number of times that they want to make sure that they don't create disincentives for players to run trial Leagues. 5) I've said this dozens of times before, yet it still doesn't register with forumites: The devs are game mechanics engineers in their professional identities and "gamers" in their hobby ones. They are not, for the most part, artists, roleplayers, writers, etc. For the most part, the story is there as window dressing for mechanics, not the other way around. This issue has always been present, but it has accelerated over the life of the game, particularly with the changeover from Jack Emmert as lead developer (he had a completely different set of hangups and problems) to the more powergaming, twitch-reflexes, button-mashing, raid-oriented Matt Miller as lead developer. This is a strong, strong impression that I get every time I see Matt Miller speak; if others don't see it, I'm not sure why not. I'm not sure how to make it any clearer. But the overwhelming impression I get from the redesign of the game over the past several issues is that someone in the development pipeline decided, "The only way to keep a subscriber base and thus keep the game community going is to create a community based on raiding guilds, like other MMO's." That doesn't meant that plenty of other kinds of content haven't been and won't be created. It just indicates to me that the developers believe that the only people who stay with an MMO for the long term are people interested in endgame raiding. I'm not even saying that endgame raiding is bad (though there are other kinds of content I vastly prefer, personally). I'm simply saying that (1) circumstances have convinced me that the devs believe it's the primary way to sustain a static player community (as opposed to the transient pay-per-content-item Premium players) and that (2) personally, I think that endgame raiding is only one way to build a long-term, static player segment. |
I will continue to play alts, and play with the semi static TF/SF teams on Infinity. I haven't lost anything to the new raid focus, except hope.
Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
...
First we have to argue for a while. |
No we don't, you care-bear you!
Too soon?
Leader of The LEGION/Fallen LEGION on the Liberty server!
SSBB FC: 2062-8881-3944
MKW FC: 4167-4891-5991
Quote:
Absolutely! - but only if he gives missions instead of trying to do them. ;-)
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Originally Posted by peterpeter
With an Incarnate bicycle repair man?
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Quote:
Agreed.|
Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan
Which will mean everyone will end up having to min/max their builds, which is counter to what the devs have tried to get us to us in the past.
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Also wil lforce some folks to just go join the group leauges anyway if you cant downgrade to an EB. You tell me the defender who isn't rad/kin/dark coupled with anything that isn't sonic blast that giggles at AV's let alone EB's if they havent got the controls to pema mez said AV while painfully slowly whittlin it down to defeated status. You can't perma mez till mercifully dead anything that that has the triangle, and that even if you pick the right epic to stck with whatver you may or may not have for mezes from prim/sec powersets.
Honestly Floating man, my friend... I think some of these other folks think these kind of things should be made nail-biting challenging for melee and perfect powerset combos as a default.
Please NO Dev's.
Always remember you have left some Primary/Secondary combos even when combined with some epic sets as horribly under par no matter how they are slotted/enhnaced/enhance bonused-fied. Such solo missions must be doable by something that takes 5-10 min to slowley whittle away an EB's health bar let alone tackle an AV solo.
I'm not sure it's a good idea overall, but I would enjoy it personally.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA