Schismatrix

The Hollows.
Cimerora.
The RWZ. (Edit: Especially the RWZ.)
The arc changes and new arcs in i18.
The new arcs in i19.
While the Devs have explicitly stated that they are working on more large group content similar to the CoP, the Hamidon raid, and Mothership raid, they have in the past revised, expanded, and added content accessible to soloists in addition to content that is gated to require groups. The most recent and directly relevant are the high level hero and villain arcs added to Cimerora, and Cimerora isn't even directly part of the main game storyline. There are also the Praetorian related arcs added last issue. While i don't know if there will be explicitly Incarnate-gated soloable arcs added, i am pretty confident based on past content by the Devs that they will be adding more late game/50+ storyline content that does not require a team to experience.

Perhaps my confidence is misplaced, but i have some faith that it isn't. i'll have to wait until more about issues 20 and 21 are revealed before i know whether i was wrong. If it turns out i was i'll admit as much.

i suspect the current management would give us an "Ultimate Inanity on Earths in Crisis to Infinity!" (And beyond.)

"In this crisis everybody dies!" (And comes back with even less coherent backstories.)

"Like nothing you've ever seen before!" (Assuming you've been blind since birth.)

"Five years in the making!" (In terms of man-hours. We had 150 staffers arguing with each other for over two weeks before we decided to throw out everything they suggested and wing it.)

Which it can't for a variety of reasons.

i'm still not clear how one would make a 'natural' control set that wouldn't be similar to what we already have. Suggestions involving gadgets actually make it more of a technological set, and most of the sets already work pretty well with the "my gadgets cause this effect" approach.

Actually, there is reason to believe things along those lines are coming, and that's not one of your useless platitudes. It's called looking at the history of the game's development and the stated intent of the Devs regarding the new content and inferring from there.

They are spheres of death regardless of where they are spawned. Of course when spawned at ground level they are effectively hemispheres of death as far as the players are concerned.

Well, as i've mentioned in a few places, the majority of my TFs are wholly or in part PuGs. That ranges from "bring whatever you want" to "one or two support would be good if anyone wants to bring one." i've been on several ITFs with Masterminds, but none of mine have gotten high enough level to run one. Honestly, i see more Stalkers on ITF teams than Masterminds, but i've never seen an ITF with a Mastermind fail.

It does help that most of the people i team with frequently tend to play support/force multiplier ATs like Controllers, Masterminds, Defenders, and Corruptors; so it's unusual for us to have no support ATs on the team unless we're specifically building for it.

Then again on one occasion i managed to lead a PuG ITF to victory after the leader and half the team (including the Tanker) quit after the leader's directions repeatedly got the team wiped against Rommy and the Kooshies. And he'd worked so hard at building the team to his specs and trying to micromanage everything everyone did. To be fair, i did summon a Shivan and an HVAS as substitutes for the four who had quit, and it did take a while, but we finished it.

Well, i do agree with your premise that there should be more solo-oriented Incarnate storyline material. So far they have added some lead-in material relating to the upcoming battles with the new arcs and the Tina story update, and Ramiel's arc does a decent job of getting you started. (Not going to argue the Trapdoor bit. i think he should be tough, but i also think it would be nice to cap his difficulty a bit. If doable i would suggest either limiting the number of Bifurcations that can be spawned at one time, or limiting their duration.) Anyway, i suspect the Devs will be adding solo friendly Incarnate content in the form of new story arcs. Much like how Cimerora had the arcs added in a later issue. (Except i am hoping for a bit more than Cimerora in terms of story arcs since Incarnates are actually intended as a major part of the late game story progression.)

FWIW, i'm not making fun of Johnny because it's the hip thing to do. i really do think, and have thought so for years, that his demands are unreasonable and unbalanced in varying proportions depending on which demand we're currently being presented.

i actually feel stronger even as the enemies get tougher. Partially because i've fought them while sidekicked and found it to be brutal facing them with lower level slotting and abilities. And partially because i notice the greater array of abilities they bring to bear when fighting me. Even if the fight is tougher i actually feel like i must be more powerful when my foes are using robots loaded with energy cannons and missile racks, psychic attacks that cut through most defenses, superpowered agents with suites powers similar to regular heroes and villains backed up by squads, bioengineered horrors, etcetera. The only group that goes somewhat against that feeling to me is the Cimerorans. If they had made more use of mythological/mystical lore/weapons and monsters i would find them more satisfying.

Edit: FWIW the TFs do not make me feel like a gnat when taking on the War Walkers or the Praetorian military. The War Walkers really do work as imposing menaces even though they're actually not as dangerous as they appear. Again, though, i notice the sort of powers and forces the enemy brings to bear when trying to stop me. If they were a real threat with just the occasional pistol or shotgun round then i would agree that i was being made to feel weaker.

i think he's referring to the narrative about a major, world-threatening evil that only the most powerful beings can resist being stuck behind TFs.

It's a good narrative, and i've enjoyed what i've seen so far, but unfortunately it comes with enemies and challenges that are above average in difficulty. See, world-threatening events on a level far greater than anything seen before shouldn't be all that tough. They should be about as dangerous as anything else you face, except, obviously, even less so since you gain greater power to fight them with, so they'll actually end up being less threatening than leveling up through the old content since your new powers make everything less challenging.

Which, probably unintentionally, does speak to the Johnny Butane school of late game challenge: "If we're expected to take on a menace that threatens entire worlds I should become so much more powerful when facing it that it's even easier to crush than everything I faced on the way to 50. That way I can feel truly powerful as, even solo, entire pantheons fall before me."

i've actually used that one. Mind you i was hoping they wouldn't believe me. After all it was a lie. It was the dog that was on fire.

It's an old-timey way of saying Borders and Barnes & Noble.

Do it!

No problem. Have fun. i'd usually suggest that you stop punching yourself in the groin, but i've heard that for some people that *is* fun.

At the level it's available players can buy temp power jet packs on the market that give at least as much speed as Group Energy Flight without all the downsides. Or they run a Mayhem/Safeguard mission between levels 5 and 10 for a temp power jet pack. Or travel to Grandville or Firebase Zulu and buy a temp jet pack for a few thousand inf. Or run the second part of the Positron Task Force and get a temp jet pack automatically. There are many options open to lower level characters from level 1 on to get flight powers that are not nearly as bad as Group Flight.

This is speaking as someone who had taken it on both a PB and a Defender back before the temp powers were as easily available. Group Flight is not a good power for any practical usage, but it is fun for goofing around with teammates. If you so insist on using it it's best to designate a teammate with the least flight speed bonuses as the one for the rest of the team to follow. That way they won't eventually get left behind and drop out of the air.

Look in the badges tab/list under the nav/compass bar. Set it to Veteran Rewards. There'll be a list of the rewards and you claim them by clicking on the buttons in the list.

Not if you're massacring them for a good cause.

Besides, they obviously deserve it, otherwise they'd magically know that the Resistance are the good guys no matter how they may look and act, and would welcome dying at their hands for the greater good. Remember, evil actions are only evil when performed by evil people. If it's the good people performing the atrocities it's an acceptable necessity for the greater good and thus not really evil. Or something like that. Never quite caught the hang of reverse-logic the way GG has, so i might not be doing it right.

You've been secretly traveling to Praetoria to stock up on it for years, haven't you?

i'll pass on that offer, thanks. One of the side effects seems to be compulsively using the wink emote as punctuation, while the other side effects are worse. And that's not even as bad as the intended effects.

So glad i wasn't drinking anything when i saw this.

Eh, it's really not that much work. You can make any component you need from shards anyway. Almost any of the late game TFs that gives a component will give you more shards than you need to craft the rest of the boost while running it. Just decide what boost you want to start with, pick a TF that rewards you with one of its components, and find a team to do that TF. Just running content with 50+ enemies will eventually give you all the shards you need, but it's much faster to join teams or run a TF.

Hami raids are also a good source of shards. i unlocked an alt's Incarnate slot just before a Hami raid and by the time i was done raiding i crafted my basic boost.

To be fair, it obviously started a few years ago, so after all this time they don't realize it anymore. After all, the sort of content that tends to cause this sort of attitude started with the Lord Recluse Strike Force.

Although i do think that you're probably inferring attitudes that aren't there in many cases. Unless your railing (gun) is just hitting the wrong targets occasionally. i'm having a hard time finding many posts that actually do say that some people "don't 'deserve' to participate" which is "the very attitude I've been railing against in these recent threads."

Mostly they're just saying that they welcome content that is designed to be challenging without handicapping and deliberately weakening yourself. Like the LRSF, STF, ITF, LGTF and Mothership raids, the Incarnate content is designed to be harder than ordinary content. Initially the LRSF was seen as requiring min/maxed high end teams with certain powersets and ATs required to succeed, but players became familiar with the challenges and developed effective strategies. Now almost any somewhat balanced team can beat the LRSF as long as a few of the members have some idea what they're doing. The ITF was the same way initially as well. People "knew" that you needed certain debuffing and buffing sets to succeed with very carefully coordinated strategies. Now... not so much. Instead of having two taunters to separate Rommy and the Nictus and all sorts of other requirements most teams now just rush him, and it's not because Rommy has gotten weaker.

Yup, just like i have alts that had run every single TF before merits were added to the game and i didn't retroactively receive merits for every TF i'd ever run when the merits went live.

...
*snrk*

(i know, i know... rigid, narrow-minded thinking is still technically thinking. Deciding the truth in advance and then selectively acknowledging and ignoring facts depending on whether they match your pre-chosen conclusions does require some thought.)

But which one of you is the goatee Hickman?

i think it's possible to have an NPC's pets on a timer so that they despawn after a set time. If his bifurcations had a lifespan of four minutes he'd be a bit less annoying while still being difficult to defeat. On the plus side going to the hospital wouldn't have the potential to make resetting the mission a necessity.