Fritzy

While installing on a new computer yesterday, I experienced this for the first time. On a fast machine with Fiber Optic broadband, it took over 3 hours to load all four stages. Like was said previously, start it going and go do something else for a long while. I know this is a pain when you are so ready to play but what can you do?

(Speaking strictly from the PoV of a 100% Solo player - no iTrials or teams ever.)

I really do not understand the dissing of the T1 powers. With absolutely no regret, for one character, I've slotted T1 in both Lore and Judgement. The addition of those two powers substantially improved my play and made me feel much more powerful.

On another character, I went for the T3 level shift at the expense of opening up multiple powers and I must say, that character feels much less powerful than the previous one.

Really, for the soloist, a level shift or two is useful only for easier fighting against some bosses/EB/AV mobs. If your never going to play an itrial with level shift requirements, slotting multiple T1 and T2 powers will also make such fights easier even without a level shift.

IMO, the T3 level shift is highly overrated for the solo player and by going for it at the expense of slotting a variety of T1 and T2 powers, they are robbing themselves of the pleasure and fun of having a noticeably improved Incarnate character sooner rather than later.

So far, I've been lucky. In 3 days of playing one character has received over a hundred threads (drops and converted components and merits) and was able to open Lore and Destiny and slot a T1 pet into Lore. There will be good drop days and bad drop days, and the past few days were exceptionally good.

My expectations are low for Tier 3 slotting - I really don't care if it happens or not. From this point on, I'll just be a collector of threads, components, merits and see what happens down the road. I'm certainly not going to get into a snit about it - it's simply not that important to my enjoyment of the game.

S.I.C. = Solo Incarnate Content

Impressions are formed by results. And the results for my characters exceed expectations. For the past two days, I've focused on a DM/WP/Ice Brute which started the zone with:
Alpha (T1 slotted) and
Judgement (T1 slotted) and
Interface (empty) unlocked.
Lore and Destiny each had about 10% progress.
3 Astral merits, 20 threads and 6 (useless) shards were banked.

After 7 hours with that character in the zone, running Heather (3x) and Mu'V (2x) arcs; approx. 15 Repeatable arcs; and about 2 hours or so street hunting, that character has made the following progress:

Lore and Destiny completely unlocked.
20 threads, 1 Rare component and 1 Emp merit banked < and all these came today since I had used everything else yesterday to unlock the two slots and began the day with nothing banked.

I would say that is acceptable progress for a 100% solo player who is not anywhere close to being a Min/Maxer.

Oh and the kicker is, I was playing everything with the 4x settings at:

-1/x0, no bosses

That right, in the new DA, size doesn't matter. This is a very good thing for the casual, average, normal, non-Min/Max player. No mob spawns at less than level 50 and higher level mobs have the same chance to drop threads as lower level ones. Increasing mob sizes in all these very short arcs only slightly improves one's chances of getting Thread drops. There is simply no practical reason to run at ++++/xxxxxxx unless you just want to brag about being able to do it.

The only thing that is really important is getting to the reward tables at the end of arcs (or missions) as quickly as possible and the fastest way to do that is with minimal settings. With minimal settings, the Heather arc can be run 4x in a couple of hours to obtain all the available rewards for that day.

Rinse and repeat 20 hours later, and you have a good daily plan for acceptable Solo Incarnate progress that does NOT feel like a stressful grind.

Agent White summed it up quite nicely except...

...You will not be introduced to any of the new Incarnate contacts until the Alpha slot is opened. Kinda of a bummer because the new DA is not setup to give a quick opening to the Alpha. You can street hunt (or team with someone who can get the missions), but it will take an awfully long time to get the 1,000,000 incarnate exp needed to unlock it. Get the Alpha slot unlocked before exploring DA and then everything is cool.

(BTW: we could not test this on VIP Beta since every 50 had the Alpha automatically unlocked by default.)

Otherwise, I concur with Agent White's analysis.

+ Cows and cow tipping on the farms in Croatoa.

Som-freakin-breros is a fun idea.

...but know you never will.
The devs are working hard today preparing for tomorrows launch of I22 and the inevitable bucket list of complaints and bugs.

So, today, let's give them a bit of a break and have some fun posting about silly, wacky things you would like to see in CoH but know you never will.

My top 10 list is as follows:

+ VERBAL ASSAULT Melee power set
+ Walking citizens stopping to watch street fights
+ Paragon City tours on the blimp above Atlas Park
+ Swim from IP to Rogue Isles
+ Breeching Whales in the waters around Talos
+ Fishermen on all the beaches
+ OBNOXIOUS ODORS defense set
+ Sewer workers in the sewers
+ Bird mobs that attack from the air
+ Wandering NPC's that give special quests when found

Fairly lame, I know, so help me out here....!

I think it is way past time for VERBAL ASSAULT primary powers for melee characters to be added to the game.

Each attack is an increasingly bad insult about the opponent's character or heritage.

There is an old adage: "never ask a question you don't already know the answer to."

Likewise, I never run a mission that I don't know in advance I will successfully complete.

Should it be that way? Some players do like suspenseful situations where the outcome is in doubt. That closely resembles how it is in real life.

But for me CoH is escape from real life and if I can play it to never fail, then that is what I will do.

Nah, not anytime soon. They still need to put in a realistic solo incarnate path & that does not appear to be imminent.

CoH: a game for Introverts, too

I have an Introverted personality. There is nothing wrong with that. It is okay to not be socially outgoing, vivacious, gregarious, assertive or have terabytes of friends cached on 150 servers.

Historically, CoH is a friendly game to play for people like me. It offers scores of activities that do not require one to have lots of friends or any friends at all. Most missions are setup to allow for the slow, thoughtful, analytical play style that many introverts prefer. We can take our time, enjoy the scenery and not be hassled for doing so.

Because we tend to be quieter and less assertive in expressing our opinions, it is commonly assumed that there are not that many of us playing MMO's. If a survey were taken, I'd bet we constitute a large % of the MMO population.

The release of I19 and the Incarnate system, rightly or wrongly, sent a strong signal to Introverts that our play style and personality types were not being recognized as determining factors for future expansions. When the developers listen to their players, it is usually the Extroverts who are expressing their opinions and, thusly, having more content developed that match their personalities.

The extroverts want high action, adrenaline pumping, massive group oriented activities. This is want interests them most and gets their juices (so to speak) flowing. But, in order to maintain this group's loyalty to the game, ever more exiting, adrenaline pumping, challenging content must be developed. If the 'next great thing' is not fast enough in coming to match their short-term goals, they get bored and quickly move on to something else.

The exact opposite holds true for me and probably most other introverts. We don't become bored with activities as fast as our counterparts. Far from it, we stick with the tried and true until we have explored it from every possible angle. We like to take our time with the game and explore it from many different perspectives. We set long term goals for ourselves/characters and let them play out over many weeks, months or even years. Our loyalty is not nearly as volatile as that of the currently being courted extrovert group.

The coming Issue 22 has the potential to become a turning point in the game for the introverted personality IF (and that's a big IF), the developers recognize our not insignificant contributions to the stability and success of CoH and use the revamped DA to cater to our more sensitive playing style. Even though we do not typically like the rush, rush feel of most trials and TF's, preferring instead the more deliberate pace we set for ourselves, neither we do want to be encumbered with content that permits advancement along the progress path at a pace slower than sloths.

Please understand, we don't all avoid trials/TF's because we simply don't like or approve of them. Instead, those type playing environments are a real hindrance to our thinking processes and our functionality within them is less efficient than it is in situations with smaller teams or solo where, when given the chance, we flourish and excel. A high stimulus environment stifles our thinking while a low stimulus one revs it up.

We are not bad. We are not handicapped. We are not wrong. We are not lacking. We are simply different in a world where the extrovert may be over-valued.

We are the exceptions in a culture where the extroversion is taught and encouraged and assumed to be the trait to have most in order to succeed. Research has shown those assumptions to not be entirely valid as many of most successful and innovative people in the world are introverts and many of the more notorious flame outs were extroverts. Think Bill Gates and Stephen Wozniak who succeeded by eschewing the team environment in favor of a more individual approach to innovation.

Anyhow, that's all I have to write on the subject right now. I hope the developers take these factors into consideration when designing future content. Creating content that is suitable and playable for all personality types is a tough problem to resolve, for sure, but it can be done given the proper insight and motivation. I just hope they don't undervalue our contributions and support of the game just because we are not as noisy and assertive as our counterparts.

thanks

What makes it so good is even when there's nothing to do, there's something to do.

RNG is a cruel Santa, generously gifting some while heinously denying others.

I create a LOT of alts. Got so freaking tired of the old contact BS and constant zone changing and traveling to have a mission objective quote one line of dialogue, that I switched to doing the first 22 levels in AE. I go straight from AP to KR at level 1. Created some quickie Boss/Lt missions that cut the leveling time by more than 2/3 and yield 1000's in valuable AE tickets.

I know a lot of folks frown on early stage "power leveling" but I feel better and getting my characters to the fun levels much, much quicker is a real stress relief.