Incarnate Alpha slot exemplaring.

I heard a rumour that the devs were thinking of expanding incarnate content/abilities into other pre-50 areas of the game so I thought a little about how the Alpha incarnate ability could work during SSK without going way over the top at low levels.

While it would be cool to get that +1 incarnate shift from rares and beyond, it might disrupt the difficulty of regular story arcs and missions, not to mention making rewards awkward for the player since everybody would be -1 of normal. And raising the difficulty would make it harder for the low-level non-incarnates to be effective in their own missions. Might have to keep the incarnate shifts either for +45 content or maybe just for special content like task-forces or other flaggable arcs.

But the actual enhancement portion could be something that works in the low level game by treating it like normal enhancements. SSKs below Lv22 give special diminished values to reflect a smooth curve of TOs, DOs and SOs without favouring any specific level of SSK. So if the Alpha slot enhancements scale down like the rest of your enhancements, you'll be able to play low-level content but still retain that little bit more power than you would without the alpha slot entirely!

Summary:
Let Alpha boost work any level, incarnate shift only works for Lv45+ as normal, however enhancement values stay on, being diminished at Lv22- as normal enhancements do.

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It sounds simple to me, but how does it sound to you? Good, bad, mixed?

I don't deal in rumors.

It's how things start going around that begin with "The devs said they were going to ..... " when they've said nothing of the sort.

I have heard no such rumor...

The OP might be referring to this statement from the Ustream thread.

I've been wondering, ever since that was announced at the Player Summit (and I was in the room for it), how they would manage to accomplish anything even approximately like this ... where you could have Incarnate Slots operating at levels below 45+5=50.

So far the only (simple) answer I've been able to come up with is to make the various Incarnate Tiers operate as if they had Levels assigned to them. Something like this (for illustration purposes):

• Tier 4 = Level 50 ... so only accessible/operational at Levels 45+
• Tier 3 = Level 45 ... so only accessible/operational at Levels 40+
• Tier 2 = Level 40 ... so only accessible/operational at Levels 35+
• Tier 1 = Level 35 ... so only accessible/operational at Levels 30+

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Yeah I rather got the impression that he was kind of referring to future Incarnate powers doing something that would extend to the lower levels, I didn't really get that they were thinking of making current incarnate stuff exemp down.

Which is more likely:
- having the 5 remaining slots affect all levels (1-50), which seems a bit odd considering they can only be unlocked at 50;
- adding/revamping more zones for levels 45+, which means you can use all of your Incarnate powers in stuff other than trials (again, odd since it only unlocks at 50);
- opening that great can of worms that is the raising of the level cap, going from 50 to 60 (warning: mere speculation, no proof or rumour whatsoever about this).

The OP idea would be fun. Just remove the +1 if exemplared to LVL 49 or lower and have the effect suffer a diminishing return (like he stated). It wouldn't be OP, because it doesn't enhance beyond the powers you already have at that point (level). If anything ... Oro missions would allow you to still have the (non- combat) incarnate ... alpha/interface because you are your present self pretending to be an older you. Alpha/interface aren't a noticable difference to enemies. If you're exemplaring, you shouldn't loose any of your powers ... just the affectiveness of the powers you wouldn't have at that LVL.