Memphis_Bill

So what's stopping you from taking that core of friends and creating "Chapter Two" on another server? It doesn't take long to get a SG base underway and get prestige going. You get to start playing with a base again as a blank slate, trying a whole new design without losing your old. (And with some of the temp powers out there, you'll probably earn prestige faster.)

... possibly tied to the "We killed our gods, we killed off magic" of the Rikti.

I don't know, with what he says (paraphrasing, "Even I probably killed a few who wanted to convert before we merged and my host mellowed me out,") I've pretty much taken that as a given. Assumption on my part, of course, but it feels like a fairly strong implication.

However... buried in other descriptions of the Galaxy soldiers, they talk about a 40% or so "full conversion rate," and a longing for space. The galaxy troops are made, essentially, with "pieces" of dying/weakened Nictus - which would be the weak Nictus/strong host situation. The Nictus gets stronger after it's implanted and, instead of just directly taking over (not strong enough,) starts "whispering in the ear" of its host as it were.

The "fragment" (not to be confused with N-fragmet) is sort of a virus. It gets stronger, taking over more and more, making the environment (its host) more suitable for itself - assuming it was strong enough to be more than a battery for purple blast-y powers in the first place.

Of course, I'd also speculate that galaxies are rather a special case to begin with - not only would they be getting 24/7 "suggestions" from the Nictus fragment, if strong enough, but in a paramilitary organization like the council, they're getting force-fed it while awake (and are probably fairly fanatical to begin with - though there are plenty of in-game examples of unwilling recruits, too. See Moonfire TF - "They wanted to implant me with a Nictus! What's a Nictus?")

Can't get answers, or even speculation, if you don't ask!

This one's farther back. I'd *suspect* the nictus in Cimerora did the time travelling bit, as they know about States and Recluse. However, Shadowstar's been around since at least ancient Egypt, well predating that.

We don't have an actual date of arrival.

As for "meant to arrive in the future," follow my sig to the Kheld Backstory arc. They've been manipulating the Path of the Dark, they've been driving the Council, and their plans include wiping out the Peacebringers, taking over world leaders, and making the Earth a new Nictus homeworld... something you do get a glimpse of, by the way, in Unai Keenan's arc.

(We also don't, come to think of it, know if Shadowstar arrived as a Nictus or a Warshade.)

A weak host tends to be preferred. If the host's will is stronger, they can drive out the Nictus. However....

I had to dig and find what you were looking for - The Final darkness, clue:
The way it reads, at least to me, is that the (rather weak but power hungry) Ridolfo Uzanno merged with Dirge of Entropy - itself far more powerful than Arakhn planned for him. Basically, Udolpho's ambition and Dirge's power have combined to make Requiem power hungry.

Host and Nictus (or Kheldian, or Warshade) do have influence on each other. How much, I'd imagine, varies by the individual personalities. Though, given the bit with the N-fragments, I think it's fair to say if the Nictus can't win over by force, it'll try trickery and subtlety.

This... is purely up to the player. There's no pact - think of it this way. We have traitors and spies in human nations today in the real world. There was no ancient spy-pact made. Becoming a Warshade is the nictus's change of heart - possibly due to the influence of a host, much like Sunstorm's intro talks about for him. The most notable difference is that instead of taking a host by force, the host is willing.

You can play it any way you want.
Lars Mendleson's bond was forcibly broken by the Circle. It wasn't willing.

... you'll find it's fairly easy to get that back. >.>

... of course, the issue with this (especially mentioning 2004) is that the game is *vastly* different now, with aggro caps, target caps, enhancement diversification, the GDN, inherent fitness, removal of some prerequisites, power adjustments...

I do, however, think people should play and learn how to build solid characters on SOs without leaning on IOs.

THey're actually working on COH 4 right now, to be followed by 2.5, then possibly 6, but they'll find they have to put 6 out in half the time and so they'll rename it 3.

The login screen will be Mender Silos holding his head and sobbing.

In other words,

/this. Seem to recall, for instance, Lusca being soloed on SOs. Did it take a while? Sure. But not just because of the SOs, the game itself was different at the time.

Also, I seem to recall many complaints by people with IO'd builds about Ramiel's arc ... which I've walked through on SOs/common IOs.

*shrug*

If anything, I feel bad for people going the other way, who say they literally *cannot play* without their IO'd out builds.

It's nto a question of reward/time. It's a question of focus. You can go 1-50 without ever teaming, if you so choose. Or, you can go most of the way on task/strike forces and raids with few if any repeats, for the most part.

Your story is yours, the path you choose is yours.

And then you hit Incarnates, where in all honesty you *don't have a choice.* Yes, you have DA, at an insanely slow pace, with just that exact same content to repeat if you want to drive yourself to utter boredom as you try to iLevel up. Or you grind the same few trials over and over, where your contribution is pretty much lost in the crowd.

That's appropriate for *some* things, yes. For everything... not so much.

See "burnout" if you want a solo/small team path.

If I wanted to farm, I'd be outside in a straw hat driving a tractor. So, really, saying "But people farmed" isn't much of an argument for me. I'm *not after the rewards.* The rewards are... well, icing. Well, a bit more than icing, true, they are a goal, but the rest of the game is the *journey.*

If you're concentrating on the rewards aspect, which your reply sounds like, you've pretty much missed the entire point of my reply.

See, here's the thing. Aside from DA - which isn't particularly replayable, to be honest - the only thing to do is "Get 12-600000000 of your friends together and grind the trials."

Y'know what? ... let me quote Adeon, since part of what I'll say is related:

Here's the thing with incarnate content that ties to this. We're more powerful. We're tapping into a source of power that makes us godlike, right?

So why are we getting saddled with content that says "You CANNOT do this alone, you need more than a team's worth of other people?" OK, sure, some threats might require that... but the whole feel of "You're powerful" is turned on its head. You fight from 1-50 with only SOME (task forces) things requiring you to team up. YOU are "the star," as it were.

Then you hit incarnates, and guess what? You're more powerful, but you're a wuss. you can't handle this alone. You need a league of some size to wipe your nose, you're so incompetent and underpowered. We're not sure how a Hellion with Brawl hasn't embarrassed you now.

That's *wrong.* That's almost insulting. And what made my jaw drop is having the devs basically say, after trial after trial after trial was released, "Oh, solo/small team content? We didn't know you'd want it. Why would you want that?" and getting DA months later.

I mean, I *get* wanting to add an "end game." Great. I even get more raid/trial size things - we don't have many of those, or didn't before incarnates. But this focus on nothing-but-trials? Then we finally get DA... and next up, a *whole new* trial, with a *whole new* type of iXP... and absolutely nothing to do solo/small team to gain it. Back to square one.

Yes, I want *my* character to face challenges. I want *my* character,or *my* character (and a small team) to undertake a special strike mission inot enemy territory... I don't want to be "Player #987598 in Trial # 87549876." If we're doing that, why the *hell* are we bothering with more power anyway?

The trials make me lose interest *quickly.* Which is why so few of my characters get very far in the system. Give me something where I'm getting stronger because *I* have to face this stuff on my own, and I'll have more characters running it... at my pace, when I have the time to.

... and I wouldn't call it a problem at all. *shrug*

Honestly, the only things that have annoyed me that much are Illusion and VEATs (mostly banes/widows.) Only reason my illusion got to 50 was an overall project of "one of each 9at the time) control set to 50." The bane? One of each AT.

No, I'm saying it shouldn't really be a prerequisite for an entire storyline like the Battallion. Parts of it, sure, just like you shouldn't be complaining your level 22 that just finished Sutter can't run a Mag trial.

What I find... let's say *interesting* is that the devs went from level-locking zones (hazard zones, Croatoa, RWZ) into opening them for everyone.... and have just started locking things again (Mag requiring Lore/Destiny unlocks.)

That said, there's a difference between requiring unlocks and requiring something to be "maxed out." Of COURSE they know some people have got to have the biggest numbers to wave around and feel good about themselves. But they give us something ELSE to challenge those people - difficulty settings. They should *not* require you to be T4 anything to simply run the content. Some people are going to access it at lower difficulty simply to see it at their own pace (as opposed to "run run rush rush gottakilleverythignandgettothenextmissionNAO!",) some people are going to run it without stuff slotted for a different sort of challenge. All of these can be accommodated.

If they did make said content locked behind requiring a T4? I'd be one (likely of many) arguing with the devs during its beta not to do it. And if it still made it live, i'd ignore it other than to join in discussion with others about how well it collects dust.

/disagree. COH has been designed as being very alt-friendly. Players should not be penalized for taking advantage of that. Speaking for myself, that design decision has kept me subscribing to the game for the past seven years.

Those who want to "trick out" their characters already have an option for more challenge - namely, the multiple difficulty settings, and (in some instances) making gameplay choices - such as in Max's arc in DA - which make a task easier or harder.

Those races aren't extinct.

As for the rest, it depends on your definition of alien. Are you including other dimensional humans?

We have:
Kheldians (Nictus/Warshades can either be considered a subspecies or their own, given the number of changes.)
Rikti - extradimensional, but mutated far enough from base human to count as "Alien" in any case.
Shivans (all flavors.)
Mefnanim/Hulmanim. (Light/Dark novas)
Kurukt/Ruktur (Light/Dark Dwarf.)
Merulina (deceased) - don't know her "race," addressed as a goddess, but came from outer space, so fitting her here.
Battallion (one or more races)
Whatever Dillo is.
Whatever Grym is. (Not sure if he's "alien" or not - call him a maybe.)
And whatever the players have come up with.

I think he means the "other good" you - the one that doesn't wear reversed-color versions of your outfit. The one you initially fight.

Alpha had it just right. You've unlocked it, let what you need drop during regular content. You're not penalized in Incarnate advancement because you want to join friends for an ITF, to help someone out with an arc, or to join a SG TF event.

This lets the devs take more time to write Incarnate-specific solo content, and gives those that don't want to/can't sit around for the "We need 500 for this raid!" content a way to advance.

As far as "When do we stop?" They barely started. It's a fairly silly question to even put forward. Balance solo/small team and raids. That's what (aside from some outliers) has been asked for.