New Archtype: The Incarnate

[magicjtv]

The Incarnate

The Incarnate unlocks at veteran level 100.

 

Inherent Ability

Undiminished: The Incarnate does not suffer from Diminishing Returns in IOs.

Secondary Inherent Ability: The Incarnate gains the native inherent ability of its Primary power set.

 

Primary Power Set

The Incarnate may select any primary power set as its primary power set. The primary will determine the character's secondary inherit ability, hit points, threat level, and so on.

 

Secondary Power Set

The Incarnate may select any secondary power set as its secondary power set.

 

Using a respec allows the player to re-select which primary and secondary sets he wishes to use.

 

Examples

• Battle Axe (Scrapper)/Empathy (Controller). Inherent Abilities: Undiminished and Critical Hit
• Battle Axe (Brute)/Empathy (Controller). Inherent Abilities: Undiminished and Fury
• Mind Control (Controller)/Battle Axe (Tanker). Inherent Abilities: Undiminished, Containment, and Overpower
• Mind Control (Dominator)/Battle Axe (Tanker). Inherent Abilities: Undiminished, Domination
• Mind Control (Dominator)/Fiery Assault (Dominator). Inherent Abilities: Undiminished, Domination
• Fire Blast (Blaster)/Fire Blast (Corruptor). Inherent Abilities: Undiminished, Defiance

 

 

Edited October 11, 2019 by magicjtv

[Razor Cure]

This..seems stupidly awesome. In a bad way. Really bad. While things like your BA/EMP troller would be fun..it would also be super hard to play. Maybe paired with a set like Time it would be good, and basically a melee tank mage.

But that inherent sounds WAY OP. I mean, what is to stop me making an Incarnate with a dom primary and secondary, as in your example, and get DOmination AND no DR? That is all kinda broken. Nevermind that DR exists for a reason..balance. A 'scrapper' type Incarnate could reach insane levels of damage/rech and defences, just by skipping some attacks and slotting others heavily.

Basically..that inherent is busted.

Letting them respect entire power sets is an awful idea too..because why would you need any alts, if you can pick any combo and whatever inherent you want?

 

In short..w=hy do we need an Incarnate AT, when technically, everyone at 50 is already an incarnate? This just seems like an excuse to ditch DR (again, bad idea..WHY would anyone make a non 'incarnate' AT?) and to cheery pick inherents (fury, crits and dom would be the most selected I am sure).

[EmmySky]

10 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

This..seems stupidly awesome. In a bad way. Really bad.

I concur.  On one hand I like the idea, on the other hand I foresee the Empathy (defender) / Empathy (controller) toon whining about 'how do I defeat enemies'.  Can you imagine the implications for a Fire (tank) / Fire (brute) on AE farming?  LOL. And that's not even touching on inherents and powerset respects.  This seems like it could go very bad very fast.

Edited October 11, 2019 by EmmySky

[magicjtv]

53 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

This..seems stupidly awesome. In a bad way. Really bad. While things like your BA/EMP troller would be fun..it would also be super hard to play. Maybe paired with a set like Time it would be good, and basically a melee tank mage.

But that inherent sounds WAY OP. I mean, what is to stop me making an Incarnate with a dom primary and secondary, as in your example, and get DOmination AND no DR? That is all kinda broken. Nevermind that DR exists for a reason..balance. A 'scrapper' type Incarnate could reach insane levels of damage/rech and defences, just by skipping some attacks and slotting others heavily.

Basically..that inherent is busted.

Letting them respect entire power sets is an awful idea too..because why would you need any alts, if you can pick any combo and whatever inherent you want?

 

In short..w=hy do we need an Incarnate AT, when technically, everyone at 50 is already an incarnate? This just seems like an excuse to ditch DR (again, bad idea..WHY would anyone make a non 'incarnate' AT?) and to cheery pick inherents (fury, crits and dom would be the most selected I am sure).

44 minutes ago, EmmySky said:

I concur.  On one hand I like the idea, on the other hand I foresee the Empathy (defender) / Empathy (controller) toon whining about 'how do I defeat enemies'.  Can you imagine the implications for a Fire (tank) / Fire (brute) on AE farming?  LOL. And that's not even touching on inherents and powerset respects.  This seems like it could go very bad very fast.

 

Thx for the feedback. Here are my thoughts.

 

Respecing Entire Powersets and Alts

Another game, Champions Online, allows you to repec entire powersets. I had lots of alts in that game. So did most people. Also, a respec isn't going to give you IOs for your new powers.

 

On the other hand, if you play a powerset to mid or high levels only to be unhappy with it, this gives you the chance to try something else without having to start all over again. This also lets you easily recover from a bad combination like the Empathy/Empathy toon, or the Fire/Fire toon (which would be killed quickly in a farm).

 

Balance and DR

Throwing out the limitations of DR for players who've reach vet level 100 is intentional. It's a reward. And in terms of actual game play rather than stats, what exactly would toons without DR accomplish that toons with DR can't? Teams already steamroll through content without breaking a sweat.

 

Edit:

Here's an example of what I'm talking about: How to Get a Level 50 in City of Heroes in 2 Hours (Spines/Fire Brute Powerleveling Guide)

 

Will removing DR for players who've reach vet level 100 allow this person to roll another Spines/Fire Brute and get to 50 in 1.5 hours? If so, so what. Will it allow them to roll an Empath and get to 50 in 2 hours?  Probably not.

 

 

Edited October 11, 2019 by magicjtv

[Murcielago]

 

This would work for the planned content on Live that was supposed to be stupidly difficult but for the current content this would be so broken. 

[magicjtv]

2 minutes ago, Murcielago said:

 

This would work for the planned content on Live that was supposed to be stupidly difficult but for the current content this would be so broken. 

Love the meme! But it's more power, not unlimited power. Like many others,  I played the game before DR came along. We died back then too.

 

But I agree that new content to support the new AT would be nice.

[Steampunkette]

2 hours ago, magicjtv said:

The Incarnate

The Incarnate unlocks at veteran level 100.

Cool. We can probably make a Badge for that and have the badge create an account-wide unlock. No sweat.

2 hours ago, magicjtv said:

Inherent Ability

Undiminished: The Incarnate does not suffer from Diminishing Returns in IOs.

Secondary Inherent Ability: The Incarnate gains the native inherent ability of its Primary power set.

Cannot be done. Diminishing Returns are a function of Enhancements, not character stats. Either everyone gets diminishing returns or no one does. The Secondary Inherent is not plausible. Inherents are tied to the archetype, not a powerset choice. Do make it "Tied to the Powerset" they'd need to make a new copy of every single powerset and cause the first 2 powers in that powerset to give mutually exclusive autopowers mimicing the inherent of a different archetype. (And for Controllers, Scrappers, and Stalkers that means hard-coding the 'crit chance' into every power in the powerset)

 

And you could not do Fury or Domination. Both of those inherents are actually something like 5-6 different "Powers" working in conjunction behind the scenes.

2 hours ago, magicjtv said:

Primary Power Set

The Incarnate may select any primary power set as its primary power set. The primary will determine the character's secondary inherit ability, hit points, threat level, and so on.

 

Secondary Power Set

The Incarnate may select any secondary power set as its secondary power set.

Cannot be done. You could create an archetype which functionally has access to any powersets in it's primary or secondary, and even cause some of them to be mutually exclusive (No Bio Armor/Shield Defense Incarnates, for example). But HP, Inherents, Threat Mods, Damage Caps, Damage Scalars, and everything else are functions of Archetypes, not powersets.

 

To even attempt it you'd need to rewrite how the game understands character templates, inherents, and powersets. At that point you'd just be making a new game.

2 hours ago, magicjtv said:

Using a respec allows the player to re-select which primary and secondary sets he wishes to use.

Cannot be done. Respecs don't work that way. To make them work that way would require an amount of work similar to rewriting how the game understands character templates.

 

It's too late to /jranger 'cause I spent all this time writing why it wouldn't work... but I still feel pretty /jranger in my heart of hearts!

[magicjtv]

19 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

It's too late to /jranger 'cause I spent all this time writing why it wouldn't work... but I still feel pretty /jranger in my heart of hearts!

Well, I appreciate you taking to the time to explain how inflexible the game is.

[The General]

It was written in 2003, my dude.  What did you expect?  That you could just snap several core game mechanics and balancing factors over your knee like a cheap twig and the game code would just be totally cool with it?

Edited October 11, 2019 by The General

[Steampunkette]

1 minute ago, magicjtv said:

Well, I appreciate you taking to the time to explain how inflexible the game is.

I don't think the -concept- is bad. I need to stress that.

 

It's just the implementation that doesn't work well, through no specific fault of your own.

 

Having an AT that can select any powerset as it's primary and any powerset as it's secondary with exclusivity in play -could- be done. My suggestion would be to give it a scale of "1" on all of it's AT Scalars. From Hit Points and Threat Levels to Defensive Values and Damage Scalars. Even Control Durations.

 

Make it's inherents things that everyone benefits from, regardless of powerset choices, like a 15% Recharge Rate increase, baseline. 

 

And then the whole "Let's create a new AT" thread caravan might go out the window outside of archetypes built around things that don't exist (Like the Duo AT with it's new powerset type).

[magicjtv]

13 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

I don't think the -concept- is bad. I need to stress that.

 

It's just the implementation that doesn't work well, through no specific fault of your own.

 

Having an AT that can select any powerset as it's primary and any powerset as it's secondary with exclusivity in play -could- be done. My suggestion would be to give it a scale of "1" on all of it's AT Scalars. From Hit Points and Threat Levels to Defensive Values and Damage Scalars. Even Control Durations.

 

Make it's inherents things that everyone benefits from, regardless of powerset choices, like a 15% Recharge Rate increase, baseline. 

 

And then the whole "Let's create a new AT" thread caravan might go out the window outside of archetypes built around things that don't exist (Like the Duo AT with it's new powerset type).

Boiled down to its key concept, this AT is meant as a reward for hitting vet lvl 100. I suppose an AT that can combine any primary with any secondary would be reward enough, and just toss the no-DR idea, as it's unworkable.

[Steampunkette]

1 minute ago, magicjtv said:

Boiled down to its key concept, this AT is meant as a reward for hitting vet lvl 100. I suppose an AT that can combine any primary with any secondary would be reward enough, and just toss the no-DR idea, as it's unworkable.

Oh, absolutely. I get the "Vet level 100" angle, totally.

 

Personally I'd play the everloving stuffing out of an "Incarnate" AT which is just "Pick any primary and secondary and have scale 1 damage"

 

I'd immediately make an Assault/Sentinel Defense character and be nigh-orgasmically happy. Grab an EPP with some more melee or ranged attacks in it, possibly some support...

 

Sure I wouldn't have a Nuke or big Burst damage from Aim and Build Up, together, but I'd be able to fight in melee and at ranged without issue. And thanks to the new Power Build Up changes... hoooo boy!

[Murcielago]

1 hour ago, magicjtv said:

Love the meme! But it's more power, not unlimited power. Like many others,  I played the game before DR came along. We died back then too.

 

But I agree that new content to support the new AT would be nice.

I played pre-ED as well but the issue is IOs. IOs in a way circumvent ED and already make very strong and in rare instances OP'd toons e.g. TW/Bio Scrappers. To remove ED would make already strong characters go to over 9000. There has to be content difficult enough to support having a ridiculously powerful universe entity-tier character and it is currently not in the game yet. The battalion was supposed to be that enemy group/content to kickstart us into the next tier of incarnates but that never came unfortunately. Maybe once/if our new devs eventually create that we will see something like this happen along the same mechanics as the level shift but I don't see this as being beneficial in today's game. 

[Haijinx]

/jranger

[magicjtv]

17 minutes ago, Murcielago said:

I played pre-ED as well but the issue is IOs. IOs in a way circumvent ED and already make very strong and in rare instances OP'd toons e.g. TW/Bio Scrappers. To remove ED would make already strong characters go to over 9000. There has to be content difficult enough to support having a ridiculously powerful universe entity-tier character and it is currently not in the game yet. The battalion was supposed to be that enemy group/content to kickstart us into the next tier of incarnates but that never came unfortunately. Maybe once/if our new devs eventually create that we will see something like this happen along the same mechanics as the level shift but I don't see this as being beneficial in today's game. 

Well, I'm not convinced by balance arguments because the game is already unbalanced. Really unbalanced.

 

But if the game engine can't support removing DR for one archetype, that's the end of the idea. So we've dropped the "no DR" idea and now we're talking about an AT that can have any primary and any secondary.

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, magicjtv said:

Well, I'm not convinced by balance arguments because the game is already unbalanced. Really unbalanced.

 

But if the game engine can't support removing DR for one archetype, that's the end of the idea. So we've dropped the "no DR" idea and now we're talking about an AT that can have any primary and any secondary.

So it would basically be the CoH version of CoL freeform?

[Lines]

If the game is unbalanced, this doesn't really seem like a solution.

I wouldn't want to team with one of these. Min/Maxers make me feel redundant enough as it is.

[Megajoule]

6 hours ago, magicjtv said:

Boiled down to its key concept, this AT is meant as a reward for farming your way to vet lvl 100.

Fixed.

Also, /jranger.

[Razor Cure]

Agree with Mega..it would end up with like 95% of the VEtlvl100 toons having been farmed. I think I have only seen maybe..3 toons over that, and under 10 even close. The speed if which you could farm to 100, as opposed to 'play' to 100..

[Steampunkette]

I mean... does it really matter?

 

HEATs and VEATs were both based on hitting 50, right? You could get PLed to 50 pretty damned fast back in i4. 

 

Who cares how people reach the hoop they've gotta jump through when any hoop we create is going to be entirely arbitrary, anyway? 

[magicjtv]

5 hours ago, Lines said:

If the game is unbalanced, this doesn't really seem like a solution.

I wouldn't want to team with one of these. Min/Maxers make me feel redundant enough as it is.

It's not a balance solution. The game is wildly unbalanced. It's always been wildly unbalanced. It will always be wildly unbalanced. So what.

 

The AT is a reward for hitting vet 100, a milestone my main is about to hit (with zero farming, btw).

[Razor Cure]

11 minutes ago, magicjtv said:

The AT is a reward for hitting vet 100, a milestone my main is about to hit (with zero farming, btw).

How convenient! Although, well done for getting there without farming. I am sure you would not mind one bit if someone farmed their was to 100 a a tenth of the time, just to make this AT.

[magicjtv]

2 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

How convenient! Although, well done for getting there without farming. I am sure you would not mind one bit if someone farmed their was to 100 a a tenth of the time, just to make this AT.

I wouldn't mind a t all, so long as they have fun playing their new Battle Axe (Scrapper)/Empathy (Controller) toon.

[Cooltastic]

10 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

I don't think the -concept- is bad. I need to stress that.

 

It's just the implementation that doesn't work well, through no specific fault of your own.

 

Having an AT that can select any powerset as it's primary and any powerset as it's secondary with exclusivity in play -could- be done. My suggestion would be to give it a scale of "1" on all of it's AT Scalars. From Hit Points and Threat Levels to Defensive Values and Damage Scalars. Even Control Durations.

 

Make it's inherents things that everyone benefits from, regardless of powerset choices, like a 15% Recharge Rate increase, baseline. 

 

And then the whole "Let's create a new AT" thread caravan might go out the window outside of archetypes built around things that don't exist (Like the Duo AT with it's new powerset type).

I'm going to feed off of Steamy a bit and agree that the concept is a good one. I also like it as a Vet 100 reward, brings back some of that flair the game had on live, now that Khelds and VEATs are free from the get go.(Which was a damn good choice I might add, as I got to recreate my main right away.) 

 

We just have to come together and figure out the best way to implement it. So here's my thoughts.

 

     First we can't have people running around with Fire Armor/Fire Armor(Burn baby Burn!) To fix this, when choosing a Primary, certain secondaries become locked. If you choose and an Armor Primary, all Armor Secondaries are locked. If you choose Support Primary, all Support Secondaries are locked. But if you want to go Damage/Damage I don't see a huge problem with it other than gimping your survivability for the chance at unique concept builds(Like Dual Blades/Dual Pistols.)

 

     Secondly, I'd like to submit another idea for The Incarnate's(Might need a diff name) Inherent Ability. What if the Inherent gave the player 4 toggles at start. You could only have 1 of these toggles active at any time. The First would be The Titan(toggling this on increases your HP, Regen, DamRes, Def, and offers you Good Mez Prot/Mez Res.) The Second would be The Destroyer(toggling this on increases your Acc, Dam, Recharge, and offers MINIMAL Mez Prot/Mez Res.) The Third would be The Savior(toggling this on increases your Healing, Buffing and Debuffing Str, grants a constant regen aura that effects yourself and teammates, and offers MINIMAL Mez Res only.) The Fourth would be The Subjugator(toggling this on increases the duration of all control abilities, grants a 50% chance to Crit Mez'd enemies above 50% Health and a 100% chance to Crit Mez'd enemies under 50% Health, and offers MINIMAL Mez Res only.)

 

Now you we have a rewarding Archetype that offers better customization and get's the ability to fill any role they desire. 

 

Edited: Just realized we would probably need some sort of pet mastermind toggle also. So 5 toggles to choose from. 

Edited October 11, 2019 by Cooltastic

[Haijinx]

7 hours ago, Infinitum said:

So it would basically be the CoH version of CoL freeform?

Only if the COL freeforms ALSO got double the max benefit from all slotted items.