We are Incarnate, but are we having more fun?

I purposefully only slot my alpha power while doing Incarnate content. I purposefully don't use more than one Incarnate ability per Incarnate character during regular content. I like the fact that I cannot just stand/hover there and shoot people, that I have to use active defense, that I may get knocked back onto my butt every now and again.

So I will agree, the QoL stuff is what increases my enjoyment long-term.

I'm having plenty of fun in the game. Of course, I'm also ignoring Incarnates and everything related to them, which probably has something to do with it.

I like the Incarnate powers conceptually, though I'd prefer if they'd been tailored to the different ATs. I dislike the inconvenient (it wouldn't be quite as inconvenient if the queue system got used as a queue system rather than a menu-based TF contact) and rather dull method of gaining them that currently exists, though. Seems to me like it would have made more sense to develop a more conventional path first. And I dislike the fact that costume pieces are locked behind a BS currency in the incarnate system.

Am I having more fun? I've only managed to craft a couple of Incarnate abilities on one of my level 50s - a Blaster - and I enjoy the Judgement zap, though it makes me feel like 'Nukes' could use some work. So, yes I think it's increased my fun a little bit, and I feel that if I could manage to outfit a character fully with Incarnate abilities, I'd enjoy it even more.

I am having more fun. I started in issue 3.. left in issue 7.
I came back in Issue 9..left around issue 14/15.
Came back recently and love all the trials (TPN, MOM, LAM, and BAF..not a fan of Keyes). Love making my toons even more powerful than before and am very excited about the DA revamp

My problem is... None of my friends..and I mean NONE of my friends play any more. So I join random PUGs etc..no one really talks much and in the 2 months I have been back I have made exactly zero friends LOL. The social part of the game seems to have changed for me. I used to have 15-20 close global friends...now.. none :P

I swear I am a good player...polite..funny...and even generous (gave some random person 50 candy canes today cuz he was trying to get things in the chalet).

But in general... yes having more fun

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

I can see that Toast. It is quite rare you get a 'friendly' league team, at least on Freedom. Often its random chat between a few members that are friends in any case. I am not sure if thats an issue though..not many trials, maybe BAF? really have periods where you can just take it easy and chat.

Seems to me that even incarnate system shunners should be pretty happy these days, with new powersets pelting us like sexy hail. I like the incarnate content and I haven't bothered with it in a few months because there just isn't any time for that when I could be leveling up a street justice brute, a beam blaster, a titan weapon scrapper... Goodness me, dark control is just around the corner. I believe I'm getting the vapors.

Ill answer it with this.

The things I enjoyed doing over and over when I was not an incarnate, I no longer enjoy doing.

I am having a lot more fun. I can barely stop playing my incarnate brute.

And when I do play another character I am having more fun with many of the non-incarnate enhancements to the game.

So I think it was great because it gave me something to do with my 50s so when I play my non-50s I don't think "well, this is great. In X levels this one will hit 50, then what?"

The most fun I've had playing the game was when the incarnate Alpha slot and WSTs came out. I dusted off my (appx) gazillion 50's that I never played (I only played them UP to 50, then started a new one), and jumped into all sorts of task forces. Teaming was way up, Task Forces were no longer for the 12 people who knew them inside and out, because everyone else was intimidated by the perceived elitist attitude of those 12. Suddenly, TF's were for everyone, and team leaders were patient with noobs, and everyone laughed a lot, and didn't take any of it too terribly seriously. It was just FUN! And the rewards were great, too. It took a lot of TF's, but you could balance out unbalanced powersets, or min/max to your heart's content. Those Dark Armor toons got ... playable! Holy CRAP!

It was a GLORIOUS!

The next wave of incarnate stuff, the trials, changed that for me. I tried out the trials,
and came to realize that the more trials I did, the alienated I felt. I realized Trials didn't have the same camaraderie I loved, that the smaller-sized TF's do. I'm sure they're full of the same nice people I did TF's with, but it was too big, too depersonalized. I found them to be just a grind - and the reason I never played 50's pre-incarnate, was because I despise grinding.

When I realized why I was getting depressed playing, I stopped doing trials. I don't do them very often now. Maybe once every couple weeks. I do not own a character who even has all the original, post-alpha 4 slots unlocked (when I was doing them, the slots were much harder to unlock. I have a whole slew of characters with 8% of this and that unlocked). This makes me a weaker player, since I'm only +1, and now feel I'm a bit of liability to trial teams. I don't know if I turn right, or turn left to get the acids or the grenades. This on top of my not really enjoying them much.

Double whammy.

I like the Alpha slot stuff a whole lot. I only have 2 more 50's who need a combined total of 5 shards to get their 4th tier Alpha, out of twenty-some 50's.

I care about the Alpha slot. It really makes the character be what it was meant to become. The other slots just give us big, whammy "stuff". Not things that enhance the actual character, but disparate "stuff" to add on top of the character. More endurance for my DA characters makes sense. More pets than a MM on that DA is just "more stuff". (Clarion excepted. It makes total sense to me that a top-notch character should NOT be brought down by a minion with a tier 1 mez).

So, no. Am not enjoying the game nearly as much now. I miss getting to know all of you, and sharing laughs, and getting that excitement of a mission accomplished, yelling out "YAY! We DID IT!", rather than "Ok, gj. Who's up for a Keys?".

I am really hoping that the devs make more actual content for 50's, rather than yet MORE trials, which are just an extra long, glorified fight scene to me.

If I wanted to grind out trials to get gear, I'd play WoW.

Yuck.

If you enjoy the trials, more power to you. Honestly. These are only my feelings, not a judgement on what anyone else enjoys, or how they envision their characters, in any way shape or form. They are not a criticism of the devs who made these things available for everyone, either. Am just answering the OP's question: No, I am not having more fun. I am finding stuff to do until the "more fun" comes along. 'Cause after 5+ years, if there is one thing I have learned, thru all the dull times, the AE exploit times, the where-did-everyone-go times, the "more fun" really does come around again (and again, and again!).

Last time I checked, the incarnate issue release didn't say:

Incarnates: Now you'll have 20% more fun!

You like it, or you don't. You use it, or you don't. It's just more content.

I'd have to say 'no, I'm not having more fun as an Incarnate'. First of all, I don't choose to treat myself as one. There's a built-in conceit in the writing of the Trials that you are claiming this power as some sort of divine right, regardless of your orientation or indeed, actual character. Plus, you're herded into it by Prometheus (the irony being is that he is easily as if not more bombastic than Statesman by a long measure).

I also don't enjoy raiding. At its worst, it encourages the worst attitudes and behaviors in players and at best, is a grinding exercise to gain temporary levels of power that are superceded by...other levels of temporary power. If I want to be on a treadmill, I'll go to a gym. Some people get great satisfaction in figuring out the 'puzzle' that is the best way to 'beat' the Trial, and more power to them. If I do a Trial, I hope to be on a team with an experienced leader so I don't have to try and figure it out for myself. I'll be honest about that.

But I think the sheer fact that Dark Astoria, a whole zone is being converted basically as a response to dislike for the system as it stands should speak volumes. Whether it was considered before Trials were implemented or after, it still strikes me as telling that this is the alternative. Without anything other than anecdotal evidence to go on, I'd say that this may become a preferred path for many.

City of Heroes isn't about trying to emulate other games. 'It's not the destination, it's the journey' that's been the motto of this game for years, and we've all appreciated the various paths that have been chosen. I hope in some ways the solo path is one both players and developers realise is just as valid as the much-vaunted Trial system.


S.

I'm no fan of grinding either, but what choice do we have if we want to keep playing a lvl 50 toon that still "progresses" in some fashion?

As a comparatively casual player who only does, on average, one iTrial run per weeknight game session, the tedium of "the grind" has gotten forestalled a little, but just a little. I am very curious about the upcoming solo Incarnate content because BAF, Lambda, and Keyes are now nothing but a grind for me. UG, TPN, and Mom not so much, but it won't take long before they're in grind territory too.

I sometimes wonder if some of this might not have been alleviated considerably had they provided a PvP game that I liked. PvP has the potential to add a whole other dimension to the game that can occupy one's playing time, taking pressure off the PvE content to be everything for players. But PvP has yet to deliver on that potential, IMO. And just to be clear, I don't think PvP is flawed only in COH; I've played numerous other MMOs and I have not yet met a single PvP system I've liked.

I've always felt that the most effective way to have continuous content delivery is to have the content created by the players themselves. And I don't mean player-generated PvE, though that can be cool too, but content in the sense that the missions we do are the direct result of what other players do in the game world. "World PvP", if you will, but designed in such a way that it appears to be PvE content, but is generated as a consequence of other player actions. Think about how Rikti incursions can occur, "spontaneously", in a random zone because some group of players finished the LGTF. I think we need more of that kind of thing, especially when blueside real-time "events" are tied to the actions of redside play, and vice versa.

I've pretty much sworn off the Incarnate system. Alpha Slot was good, the rest of the slots are one big "WTF?" to me. They take a character and make them into something they're not, instead of making them better at what they are. The Alpha Slot is the sole exception to that. That the iTrials are just a collection of cheat mechanics, and feel like a completely different game certainly doesn't help matters.

I think for the sake of 45-50 standard content, all non-Alpha Incarnate powers should be restricted to iTrials and other iContent. Way too late for that to ever happen, though.

WARNING: I bold names.