Darkonne

I disagree; what you say is indeed possible, but I don't see it as an automatic result of permitting any multiple paths to incarnate powers. People will tend to the path of least resistance, but there's a lot of wiggle room on just what is considered resistance and how sharp that tendency is.

For example, if the devs eliminated iShards and made normal content drop iThreads instead, the trials would probably still be run. But that would go a long way toward making the system more accessible and far less repetitive.

-D

I didn't run a Hami raid until well after ED, but weren't Hami-Os always tradeable? Granted, trading was a lot harder back then, but it was possible to progress an endgame character without doing Hami yourself.

-D

I logged a level 1 newbie in Blue side, joined a team of fellow Pinnaclers, and headed off to Founder's Falls.

The lag was horrific, but I managed to walk up to a Trooper and hit it with my sword. Then the game hung completely and I eventually had to manually terminate it.

But clearly, my blow was crucial. :-)

-D

I agree it's weird. But since you're here, Arcanaville, I'll ask you in earnest the question I asked rhetorically earlier: what else could be used to buy the vouchers that would be reasonable? Moreover, if it's acceptable to use things other than iMerits to buy them, why limit the vouchers to characters* that have run an iTrial at least once?

In another thread you mentioned that the whole point of the Incarnate system was to reward the character being played, hence why the components are bound to the character. I felt the same way. Yet the only point I can see in this new system is to let you progress one character by playing another. So I really don't understand what the thought process is here. Can you make any sense of it?

-D

* EDIT: On second reading, it sounds more like players.

Obviously, we won't know until it hits test. But I'm basing my interpretation largely on the fact the voucher vendors are called "Astral Christy and Empyrean Michael." :-/

Still, what else could you use to buy them? The options are (AFAICT) Inf, Reward Merits, Alignment Merits, iShards, iTrial Merits, or actual money. And I'm ready to dismiss real life money out of hand.

Reward Merits and Inf might work (though the costs would probably be a major issue), but it seems like the whole purpose of introducing these new currencies was to avoid relying on the old ones. So I doubt it would be those. Alignment Meirts have a time gate that probably makes them attractive (though it would be a serious lolRogues move), but in that case why bother with the Voucher system? Why not just let the would be soloer convert his/her own aMerits directly?

As I said, I really don't understand what this system is trying to do. If the goal is to have an alternate means to access Incarnate material, why gate the alternate path with the exact same content? And what does any of this have to do with helping soloists? To quote Miss Piggy: "I don't understand any of this."


I understand your concern, but the whole Incarnate system reminds me of when you couldn't earn XP while Exemplared. It made doing lower level content feel like a waste of time (YMMV, obviously).

I'd really prefer if the devs would allow us to progress our Incarnates in some manner no matter what content we're pursuing (PvE, that is). I'm fine with very slow progress on non-iContent, but I want to progress my character in some way no matter how I play.

-D

That doesn't seem to be the implication. What are you going to use to buy these vouchers? I'm guessing Astral and Empyrean Merits. Which means you'll need to keep running the group content in order to help the solo characters.

Frankly, I have no idea what this feature is trying to achieve.

-D

I really have to agree with this. I've tried using the LFG Queue a few times on Pinnacle, but it's invariably been faster to go to the RWZ, and ask (in broadcast and Global channels) if anything is forming. Since I'm going to be stuck twiddling my thumbs either way, I might as well use the method that provides more feedback, less waiting, and is less likely to autodrop me if I'm afk at the moment the call comes in.

I'm sure the devs were up against a lot of technical hurdles and I hate to bash their hard work, but the LFG queue is so non-functional that I cannot understand why it was released as is. It's embarrassingly limited in scope to begin with, but it's so opaque and cumbersome that even its basic value is undermined because the more knowledgeable players bypass it. In my view, it functions mostly as a rookie trap. :-(

-D

I don't think lifetime subscriptions are going to happen at this late date. Certainly not unless they overhaul the game to a free to play, micro-transaction model, and I for one would not look forward to that.

I think a better alternative would be to revamp the VR system so that each time someone gets a veteran reward, they can choose which reward they want to get. Long term vets will always have more total rewards than newbies, but no one would have to wait more than 3 months to get any particular shiny.

-D

I doubt that was a big issue. Based on what I saw of the game at Origins, it was already quite different mechanically. For example, it had a precursor to Inspiration combining long before the MMO did. :-)

Seemed like fun system, but I didn't really see enough of it to judge it fairly. Too bad.

-D

That sounds like an excellent interface.

But I'm curious about how is the League Leader chosen. If no one on the queue is in a League, is someone promoted at random? If multiple Leagues join a queue, are they "combined" into a single league behind the scenes, or will they in effect form two separate queues?

Thanks for the answers, Posi!

-D

I really like these abilities, but I really think they should be given to all players, not just those who have been playing the game for nearly two presidential administrations.

I understand that people enjoy the veteran perks, but I don't like restricting quality of life improvements to long term vets. Seven years is an exceedingly long time to expect a new player to wait. Unless the devs want to retrofit the system to let us pick items in any order, I sincerely hope these will be the final rewards in the system.

-D

Now that's an interesting possibility: redesign the Carnival of Light to have *female* Strongmen (err, Strongwomen). That way, the giant helmet would serve the purpose of hiding their partially dismantled cybernetics. Sadly, that would require new art assets, so it probably won't happen.

-D

Yeah, I'm really not looking forward to all that respeccing. :-(

That said, I am a little unhappy at the thought of getting Hurdle on all my characters. I've always avoided it in the past, because the constant changes in my character's speed when they down stairs really annoys me. Hopefully, it won't be too bad, because it's the one dark lining to an otherwise silver cloud.

But if the devs found a way to let us disable auto powers, I'd be happy to use it on Hurdle.

-D

I've had occasional problems with Bosses showing up in Tip missions set to "No Bosses.". I try to bug them when they appear, but I haven't found any pattern behind it yet.

This problem seems to be pretty widespread: successive ambushes will spawn one after the other very rapidly. It happens all the time in Praetoria, and it's happened every time I've tried to save Black Panther. Given that every wave seems to have a Sapper in it, it's a serious impediment to the playability of that mission.

On another note, though, I think the biggest problem with the difficult of the Tip missions has to do with the frequency with which we fight enemies with "our" power sets. Between our mysterious duplicates and the Rogues Gallery (Blast Furnace, the Silent Blade et al), we fight a lot of people with devastating attacks and/or god-mode powers. It's gotten to be really annoying for me.

-D

I really, really disagree with this.

First and foremost, I don't agree with your basic premise. While immersion is a very important aspect of MMOs, so is playability. Indeed, I think playability is actually the more important factor, given that we're going to spend a lot of time *playing* the game. For example, from a story perspective, Praetorian characters shouldn't be able to access global chat channels at all. They have no contact with the Primal world, after all. But that would be a real pain, so the problem is handwaved away for playability.

In my view, allowing characters to move between dimensions should have been handwaved as well. Sequestering the playerbase into different camps was one of the biggest mistakes they made when the created CoV. I can't believe that they've decided to repeat it.

But beyond that, I don't think immersion is a very convincing excuse for isolating Praetoria. The devs created the new Praetoria entirely out of wholecloth; it bears no resemblance to the original one. The only reason it's hard (story wise) for characters to move between dimensions is because the devs specifically made it that way. In my view, that was a mistake.

Even within the context of the new Praetorian lore, the rationale for why we're forcibly isolated for 20 levels, then forcibly integrated for the rest, is pretty poor. Tyrant thinks he can successfully invade our dimension despite his minuscule industrial capacity and inferior technological base? Marchand, Cole's head of security, is actively working against this invasion yet he hasn't been killed/disappeared/removed? Moreover, he thinks the best way to stop this invasion is to send people to our world explaining that the soon-to-be invaders are nice guys and just want to be loved? Then he spends the time and money to build a *second* portal just so people who aren't nice guys can run rampant in our world anyway?

Seriously, none of that even pretends to make sense. Combine it with the depressingly inconsistent execution of the "big goodbye" scenes, and I think immersion has no business so much as coughing near playability in this case.

-D

I neutral rep this post!

-D

Much better!

Thanks Castle, I knew those Praetorians couldn't keep you locked up forever! ;-)

-D

You could drop the protection to 0 and it would still be more difficult than it was when the Greens held themselves. Magnitude 50 is so far off the charts I have a hard time believing this is for real.

Have you been replaced by your Praetorian counterpart as part of a guerrilla promo for Going Rogue?

-D

I think so Biidi, but how would we balance the hippopotamus on top?


Hey, if they're letting BAB venture into the outside world it means Going Rogue must be coming along well! At any rate, cool story. :-)

-D

Hold on, if you're buddy cops I'm pretty sure that means that only one of you "doesn't play by the rules." That can't be right...

Maybe you're more like two lab mice bent on conquering the Architect system?

But whatever the simile, this seems like a good pairing. It makes sense to have a "powers guy" on hand to tweak the vast number of powers the AE system uses. I look forward to your unorthodox yet brilliantly effective antics!

-D