50+10? Abandoned or still planned?

Only in a completely inappropriate sense. When you team with someone higher than you, do you think of yourself as having temporarily "leveling" many levels?

Leveling is about progress, and it is in that sense the devs refer to incarnate slots as pseudo-levels: they are tiers of character progress beyond base level 50.

Conning a higher combat level differential is a function of the purple patch, and it has nothing directly to do with character progress. Giant Monsters ignore combat modifiers and thus the purple patch, and thus also ignore your level: no matter how many combat levels you gain, you gain no leverage on them at all.

Except in one area, which level shifts don't provide. As you increase in combat and security level, your attribute modifiers increase for those that scale with combat level. Level shifts do not affect those in any way.

Level shifts are just a specific kind of buff, and it would be a shame if they had to be implemented in such a way so as to eliminate their direct connection to the purple patch just because people continue to incorrectly perceive them. But its mathematically possible to do so, just with a lot of extra work.

The fact that level shifts can be manipulated - a fact known when they were first released; Castle stated that such manipulation would very likely eventually occur in trials - is the definitive tip off. If level shift was a "level" and not just a buff, it wouldn't be buffable or revokable. That's not how progress works in this game.

Soliciting feedback would, in this specific instance, likely serve no purpose. You're still asserting that shifts are levels even when they are not, which means soliciting feedback would only demonstrate that some people are committed to not viewing the system in the intended way regardless of information to the contrary. Knowing that does not help a designer in any way.

Actually, I think it would have been beneficial for the developers to solicit feedback on using the term level. Why? It is because players have established what a level does. By changing it to a "buff" it was bound to cause confusion as to what the developers meant, what the players expected from "levels", and what they do in practice.

It would be like me telling a client that I'm improving navigation on their website by completely changing the interface with each web page within the site. It would be like a software developer assigning Control+C to anything BUT copy. In other words, they wanted to appear to give players more levels without actually giving players more levels.

Getting feedback early could have prevented the communication breakdown between developer thought and player practice.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Well I am on the other boat actually. If there was no level shift integrated to those three I wouldn't get lore at all. I would go T4 with Alpha and interface first than I would got judgement I wouldn't touch destiny until I had enough to make it a T4 for perma bonus and wouldn't touch to lore at all and directly jump to hybrid for more passive bonus though admitedly after judgement I would take my time with destiny and hybrid. However this is only because I only have 4 50 characters, 2 scrapper, 1 WS and 1 MM only time I would get destiny and lore after alpha and interface would be on my MM which I don't play much and only got to 50 to unlock VEATs.

On the topic: I think Omega slot will grant two level shift one normal and one incarnate (probably one at T3 and both at T4 and again probably T3 ones will be divided into two, one set giving only incarnate level shift with better bonuses while other giving normal level shift with less) which will bring total to 50+5 for incarnate and 50+2 for normal content. Also I think after omega slot we will see a PvP haul. After handling all problems players will start hunting other incarnates to increase their own power to ascend (wishful thinking doesn't kill :P)

And what does a change in level do, according to the players? What does it mean when Giant Monsters "ignore level?" What does it mean when you are sidekicked "up a level?" What does it mean when you are exemplared "down a level?"

Is there a difference between being sidekicked up to level 35, and earning enough experience to achieve level 35, or does the word "level" mean the same thing in all cases? Because what the devs were talking about, in language clear enough to be semantically unambiguous, was progress not combat modifiers.

*Blink*

Surely you're not trolling...

A level shift will make a yellow con as white and your powers and theirs will be affected accordingly. You know, like a level does.

A 90-second boost to Recovery for you and everyone around you, that does no such thing. Yellows are still yellows. As though no boost in level occurs.

Therefore, Incarnate Slots with level shifts are more like levels than whatever else the slots bring to the table.

A level also gives you:

• More max HP
• More damage per attack
• More mez duration on mezzes
• More healing delivered per heal (this usually tracks max HP)
• A power or either 2 or 3 enhancement slots
• Higher reward per even-level foe defeated in terms of Inf and XP (unless you're 50 for the XP part)
• Possibly higher buff caps, depending on the attribute in question

That's a partial list.

There's also a lot of non-attribute stuff that might be unlocked by your security and combat levels, such as access to contacts, titles, storage increases, ability to slot specific enhancements, etc. None of those can be tied to level shifts, because level shifts are transient. They are a buff that's applied to you, rather than an attribute of your character.

What a level shift gives you is analogous to one part of a long list of things you get when you level.

Ergo, a level shift is not a level.

I don't believe this was ever the subject of debate.

Lots of things do that. The "ignore combat modifiers" flag also does that. Sidekicking also does that. Exemplar also does that. Are those all examples of progressional leveling?

Keep in mind that if you read everything I said about the subject, I said that while level shifting had some analogous properties to leveling in terms of combat modifiers, it has none in terms of leveling as character progress of which combat modifiers is only a small part, and other game mechanics affects independently. Its obvious that there is "leveling" as in "altering combat level" and "leveling" as character progress, and level shifts only have some similarities to the former and not the later. But when talking about the incarnate system as "leveling" its obvious, or should be obvious, that what is meant is leveling in the second sense: as progress, not incrementing a combat modifier table index.

If you think pointing this out is trolling, you're not talking about the same thing I am, or you are simply not understanding what I'm saying. I'm not attempting to instigate any sort of reaction: the above assertion is a matter of fact statement about the game design. There is no controversial aspect of it that is not manufactured.

A stupid question is the one never asked...or the one asked a second time after being answered once.

You brought up a point that I'm sure others were confused about as well. The way I understood it, however, was that the incarnate system was created as a method to get 50's on par with top level bosses, but not in such a way that made them stay that way. IE: some of the shifts work only in trials where bosses are more ubber (if I'm remembering this right). If I'm also remembering the new sidekick tech correctly, then a max effective power shift would be on the order of +4/+5 for others on the team. That's not quite written properly, but hopefully it made enough sense to someone that can help smooth out the thought.

So we're doing this again, are we?

*Ahem*

What you're saying, then, is that objectively, level shifts are by no means more like levels than a global healing boost to all applicable powers or a couple of pets you can spawn every once in a while:

That is... Objectively, you're just pointing out that someone's point of view is completely inappropriate. As a matter of fact. Because of attributes and progression and Giant Monsters and crap.

Not really, no. There's no point in making assertions that will be quoted without being read.

Who eats Chicken McNuggets while reading Twilight with Coldplay on a continuous loop is no one's business but their own.

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

Not with Chicken McNuggets all over the place and Coldplay on the stereo.

Only thing that really comes to mind is the Alpha-slot mission, which is a very different beast [Radial FREEEM!] than what we should be getting.

Then I think one or more of the following is true, in varying degrees.

• You are applying the English language, common phrases and idioms, and common game terminology in a way that would confuse or mislead many posters.
• You are attempting to be so clever in your argument that it is actually heavily obscured.
• You have actually "moved the goalposts" of your argument several times.

Based on that mission I was under the impression we were going to reach 50+6 - AVs naturally con as +7, and since they were +1...

Also, who knows? Maybe one of the slots really WILL give us something like [Limitless Radial FREEEM]... for 20 seconds with a 5 minute recharge.

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.

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

Unfortunately, it's a consequence of how some folks like argue. For example. party A says something, then party B rebuts it. Then party A argues a fine point or meaning of the rebuttal which is slightly tangential to the point. Party B then needs to clarify the tangential nature of that if they don't want their point undercut by it. Then party A argues a fine point of the clarification. After just a few passes, the debate is basically unrecognizable, even though each exchange was tied in some way to the one before it.

Naturally, that approach does little to actually defend party A's position. But if they're good at it, and party B doesn't catch on, it can look that way.

...So it's an unholy fusion of "NO U" and the game Telephone?

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.

• Foe cons differently
• More damage per attack
• More mez duration on mezzes
• More healing delivered per heal (this usually tracks max HP)
• Possibly higher buff caps, depending on the attribute in question

As to GMs specifically, what it means is that if you are over the Monster's real level, your attacks are capped. However if you are lower than the Monster's real level, it does't match characters whose level is greater than the monster's real level.

So 2 Rad defenders: one level 40 and one level 15, both using the same attack slotted the same attacking a level 30 GM. The level 15 can have its attacks buffed, but the level 40's damage is capped out at the equivalent of level 30. The Halloween GMs proved that.

Actually, you're wrong about that. Apex & Tin Mage are good examples of providing access to content based on incarnate slotting. Speaking of which, there is no coding reason why the other things you describe can't be tied to level shifts.

And that is the problem with the Incarnate slots/system. It is a half-baked idea that didn't actually meet a lot of player's expectations.

And that doesn't meet a lot of players expectations as to "level shift". That is why they needed to get feedback.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

I'm not sure what tests you're referring to, but that's not how the GM code works. The GM code neutralizes combat modifiers. Its the critter equivalent to the IgnoresCombatModifiers switch for attribmods. If you saw anything other than a disabling of combat modifiers, I would /bug it. If the Halloween GMs actually work in the way you describe, that would require completely new mechanics just for them, unless the zone imposed a level 30 level on all the players. There's just no way for an enemy to treat an attacker that way that I'm aware of.