Restrict Judgment powers during regular play.

[Obus Form]

Just now, Rathulfr said:

This is the way.

This is the way

[Apparition]

Just now, Obus Form said:

For Clarity and Posterity:

 

Spamming judgement is all we are doing on this forum, not using any other communication tools.  This is true.

 

Not entirely true.  There's some Black Hole spam as well. 

[Rathulfr]

1 minute ago, Obus Form said:

Don't be a dickhead.  Add it to your list plz.

You're so judgmental.

 

[Coyotedancer]

3 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

Since HC has a reasonably large and fairly stable playerbase, perhaps it's time to return to the original system of Incarnate xp and salvage dropping only in Incarnate content.

 

There aren't enough /jrangers in the world to express my opinion on that idea. 

 

Endlessly grinding iTrials until our eyes bled was never fun, and the so-called Solo Path they reluctantly added in DA was, to put it kindly, a complete joke with its ridiculous timers.

 

Removing all of that crap was one of the BEST things HC has done.

[Obus Form]

 

1 minute ago, Apparition said:

 

Not entirely true.  There's some Black Hole spam as well. 

You mean... Void spam?

[Obus Form]

3 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

You're so judgmental.

 

Cryon me more.

 

How Pyronic, my own Judgement chained back to me.

 

Edit:

You and your vorpal tongue. Keeping an Ion you.

Edited March 26, 2020 by Obus Form
Vorpal, Ion

[Rathulfr]

3 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

There aren't enough /jrangers in the world to express my opinion on that idea. 

 

Endlessly grinding iTrials until our eyes bled was never fun, and the so-called Solo Path they reluctantly added in DA was, to put it kindly, a complete joke with its ridiculous timers.

 

Removing all of that crap was one of the BEST things HC has done.

I could kiss you for this.  But, with social distancing rules in place, the best I can do is this:

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Coyotedancer]

3 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

I could kiss you for this.  But, with social distancing rules in place, the best I can do is this:

 

 

Mr.Coyote would have given you the evil eye anyway. XD

[Haijinx]

3 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

There is nothing wrong with incarnates being powerful.  The problem is there is little to no content specifically designed for incarnates.  To me, the answer is the game needs much, much more difficult content designed expressly for incarnate teams, not nerfing them into uselessness.

Both can be true. 

 

 

[Galaxy Brain]

Nobody is "only casting Judgement powers", but with 8 people it is cast often enough alongside normal powers to shift the way the content was going, on top of Lore Pets, on top of Destiny, on top of the other slots.

 

I do agree that more incarnate content should be added, but that requires leagues more work than altering existing incarnate content (Abilities, or hell even the current Incarnate Trials) to be better balanced. I am also not asking that Incarnate powers be nerfed to nothingness, nobody is actually asking for this including the OP of this thread. Rather the issue we see now is that:

1. Incarnate Abilities are trivial to acquire in HC. This is overall a GOOD THING! However, the reality is that more people than ever have incarnate abilities due to this
2. This in turn leads to more and more teams having Incarnate, or fully incarnate characters running about outside of "Incarnate" content, which in turn makes anything from 45-50 "Incarnate Content"
3. We can add more stuff to the end game as it were to try and corral incarnates away from "normal" gameplay, but we'd need some serious incentives to do so and it doesn't prevent Incarnates from popping into random teams. TBH nothing will, and we should not prevent Incarnates from being in normal gameplay, but having it be essentially be common to have them in normal content has in fact changed the end game experience more than in live.

 

So, what are our options if we see Incarnate Endgame in need of a change, realistically?

1. Create more Incarnate-Only areas / missions / arcs.
   1. This is the option that requires the most work, objectively. It will take much longer to implement than other options.
   2. This also has the overall best outcome as more content tends to make the most people happy!
   3. The new areas / etc would need to be attractive to incarnated out folks to keep them busy and exercise their powers in a setting meant for them.
2. Adjust existing lvl 45-50+ content to account for Incarnates.
   1. The next best thing is to find a way to adjust existing content in this range to be applicable to Incarnates. 
   2. There a ton of options, but one I liked was the existence of Incarnate-lvl threats popping up in missions if there is an incarnate on the team, much like what we see with Void Hunters. If we adapt this tech and multiply it say, by Incarnate on the team and even by Incarnate tier this could spice things up a bit. It'd even be optional as you could unequip your incarnate powers to negate this!
   3. Simply doing a pass at some of these arcs could also be done, or a new difficulty setting for Incarnate Specific Arcs that are unlocked with higher incarnate tiers? (Tin Mage + if you have above Alpha, etc)
3. Adjust Incarnate Powers in some way.
   1. The alternate route is to adjust the actual abilities that make somebody an incarnate to in turn adjust incarnate content. 
   2. Making certain picks mutually exclusive, adjusting the power values, and so on have been put on the table. I want to make it clear though that I would not like to see these "straight up nerfed" but rather the values "shifted". 
      1. For Example, lets say Lore/Destiny/Judgement are now mutually exclusive but each choice is more potent (Lore pets last longer, judgement secondary effects are stronger, w/e)
   3. This is probably the most controversial option, as it affects player characters, but in theory it is the simplest to implement.

 

This all hinges on if these are warranted to be looked at in the first place as well. Hell, I think there are some incarnate options that could probably use a BUFF since they are unpopular from what I can tell! In my personal opinion, I think that with how common incarnates are now and how they permeate into the "normal" content as a result with the combination of ease / lack of other things for incarnates to do, there needs to be some shift.

 

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

Both can be true.

 

As has been suggested already, you can easily solve the "problem" by setting up teams and specify no incarnate abilities are to be used.  Zero programming effort required.

[ZacKing]

34 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

but that requires leagues more work than altering existing incarnate content

You've zero idea what is involved with any of it.  Form your own groups and don't use incarnates.  Problem solved.

[Galaxy Brain]

Just now, ZacKing said:

You've zero idea what is involved with any of it.  Form your own groups and don't use incarnates.  Problem solved.

Writing Dialogue
Forming a story

Creating contacts

Creating a string of missions

Assigning Maps

Making goals for missions

Adjusting and choosing enemy groups and bosses

Making New NPCs:

1. Modeling
2. Texturing
3. VFX
4. Powers
5. Lore
6. x this per new enemy in the group / mission

Possibly creating whole new zones, which is all of the above multiplied by X

Testing all of the above extensively

 

I could go on

 

[ShardWarrior]

4 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Writing Dialogue
Forming a story

Creating contacts

Creating a string of missions

Assigning Maps

Making goals for missions

Adjusting and choosing enemy groups and bosses

Making New NPCs:

1. Modeling
2. Texturing
3. VFX
4. Powers
5. Lore
6. x this per new enemy in the group / mission

Possibly creating whole new zones, which is all of the above multiplied by X

Testing all of the above extensively

 

I could go on

 

To be fair, if you have no familiarity with a given code base, assuming something is easy tends to come back and bite you.  I cannot tell you how many times I have come across something that looks like a simple fix only to find later it is a massive amount of work.  Best not to assume either way.

 

[Chris24601]

One thing that bears considering in terms of future development for Homecoming is just what sort of content we're expecting to see. A small volunteer team can't release nearly as much as a full-time paid development team.

 

At the same time, because this is not a for profit venture they also don't have to be beholden to the toxic grind aspects that were working their way into CoH near the end of its life (the ever increasing power of the Incarnate system that took massive amounts of grinding to complete being the primary example). They don't need to keep scaling the power and could easily just declare than on Homecoming Earth incarnate power tops out with Hybrid.

 

Frankly, the best use of their resources for content would be things that are as broadly accessible as possible. Content using enemy groups that span many levels.

 

For example, other than a specific design decision to set the missions mostly in Brickstown, there's no reason the New Praetorians arcs had to be limited to 35-50 (I believe the top end was less than 50 back when it was on the test server in 2012). It could have just as easily been 15-50 since the Council stretches the whole band and Council war walkers go all the way down to level 15 in their use in Boomtown.

 

The point is... writing new content that can be experienced at virtually any time will see more use than content that's gated behind incarnate access. The effort of building a new Incarnate trial could probably also produce a Steel Canyon (10-50) or Talos Island (20-50) story arc or two. They could do their own version of the Coming Storm where the Battalion are just another alien invader and the break point in the original timeline was that half a dozen other threats (each of a scale that the HC team could produce) also broke out at once.

 

Keeping in the usual 1-54 band for content difficulty is where HC will get the most return on its time investment. New incarnate content would be decidedly niche.

 

Also worth noting at this point is that, because of the way the Incarnate grind on live was designed, it was NOT intended that incarnate powered characters would be running roughshod over non-incarnate content as much as they do on Homecoming. Because the only way to improve your incarnate powers was to grind the incarnate content and because the original plan on live was to keep adding new Incarnate slots every six-months so you'd have to keep grinding Incarnate content to earn those... and because you had to pay to access the incarnate content... live incarnates weren't expected to be doing much of the non-incarnate at all. If you wanted the next incarnate tier for your current slot or the new one that had been released you were going to need to grind the next iteration of Incarnate XP, get the next type of Incarnate salvage, etc. and you could only get those grinding the Incarnate content, not running 45-50 radio missions against the Council in PI.

 

As such, I don't think its unreasonable to look at the effect Incarnate powers have on the normal 45-50 content and take steps to reign it in a bit. Perhaps with Emperor Cole's defeat, the power of the Well pulls back a bit to conserve its power for true threats to itself; limiting how much can be drawn from it at once.

 

Because of all of the above, I am surprisingly okay with the idea of more limited access to Incarnate Slots.

 

You still get to be over and above the typical level 50 potency, but in a more signature way; which is I think the main thing that the universal nature of the Incarnate slots took away from characters. None of the existing incarnates (or incarnate adjacent) in the game seem to have more than one signature trick (ex. Statesman calling down the lightning or Ms. Liberty using the Liberty Belt) in normal content.

 

Perhaps though, as with Incarnate shifts (vs. alpha's level shift) this could be a limitation that applies ONLY in non-incarnate areas. Say you add a mutually exclusive checkbox to every incarnate power slot on that tab. You check off one and when not in incarnate content, only the Alpha and the chosen ability would be active.

 

If you gave it the same five minute cool down that slotting an Incarnate ability has; you could still have the flexibility of the multiple slots, just not all at once (soloing an AV on a squishier class? Check the Destiny box for your Barrier before entering the mission. Going up against hordes of weaker foes? Check Judgement before entering the mission. Need semi-independent damage dealers to keep runners in check? Check the Lore box. Just running general missions? Check Interface or Hybrid.

 

Or stay with one because it fits a particular concept.

 

For example, my all-natural archer would probably use Interface (-resistance) all the time as their whole natural shtick is that they're not an incarnate, but they've lined their body armor with incarnate threads and use arrows tipped with pieces of incarnate shards to penetrate tougher incarnate targets). I had to really stretch to say they hooked into a Vanguard Orbital Ion Cannon to explain them even HAVING Judgement.

 

By contrast, the great-granddaughter of Statesman from Elysian Earth (because Rularru, the Rikti and Praetorians never reached their Earth) managed to forge her own Incarnate connection to the power of Zeus and so would always keep Ionic Judgement slotted just because that fits her theme (along with the Mu Mastery powers I snagged playing her "evil twin").

 

TL;DR Development time for new mission content from the HC team would be most effectively employed in the general population rather than incarnate exclusive content, so limiting the potency of incarnate power in non-incarnate content where it was never intended to be widely employed is something that should at least be considered.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 minute ago, ShardWarrior said:

To be fair, if you have no familiarity with a given code base, assuming something is easy tends to come back and bite you.  I cannot tell you how many times I have come across something that looks like a simple fix only to find later it is a massive amount of work.  Best not to assume either way.

 

Oh for sure, but even in the messiest of code: Creating entirely new Assets VS Adjust existing variables of a power... one of those is way less complex than the other on the sheer value that it is already something that is made and can be altered. We have seen that power values can be altered much more simply given the rapid developments in Beta Testing, so we do have precedence for that option being simpler than going through and creating brand new content of the assumed scale of something like an incarnate story arc or trial.

[Haijinx]

41 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

As has been suggested already, you can easily solve the "problem" by setting up teams and specify no incarnate abilities are to be used.  Zero programming effort required.

I'm in the camp that its too late now. 

 

But realistically that could be said about a lot of balance issues.   Game is old and established, not a beta. 

 

But it doesn't mean that Incarnate powers were not badly designed.  

[ShardWarrior]

3 minutes ago, Chris24601 said:

TL;DR Development time for new mission content from the HC team would be most effectively employed in the general population rather than incarnate exclusive content, so limiting the potency of incarnate power in non-incarnate content where it was never intended to be widely employed is something that should at least be considered.

I get what you are saying however your suggestion seems to ignore there would still be the problem of limited incarnate content.  There is little to no point in getting incarnate abilities if there is nearly no content to make full use of it. 

[ShardWarrior]

2 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Oh for sure, but even in the messiest of code: Creating entirely new Assets VS Adjust existing variables of a power... one of those is way less complex than the other on the sheer value that it is already something that is made and can be altered. We have seen that power values can be altered much more simply given the rapid developments in Beta Testing, so we do have precedence for that option being simpler than going through and creating brand new content of the assumed scale of something like an incarnate story arc or trial.

You do not really know whether it is easier to start over or just change a few variables here and there.  Given what we know with regard to how spaghettified the code is, I would not even begin to want to guess what is easier to do. 

[Galaxy Brain]

13 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

You do not really know whether it is easier to start over or just change a few variables here and there.  Given what we know with regard to how spaghettified the code is, I would not even begin to want to guess what is easier to do. 

I would bet actual money that it's easier to go in and change the recharge of Incarnate click powers than it would be to create a new Incarnate story arc in terms of actual man hours.

[ZacKing]

10 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I would bet actual money that it's easier to go in and change the recharge of Incarnate click powers than it would be to create a new Incarnate story arc in terms of actual man hours.

I have an uncle who is a King in Somalia that would love to hear from you.

[ShardWarrior]

14 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I would bet actual money that it's easier to go in and change the recharge of Incarnate click powers than it would be to create a new Incarnate story arc in terms of actual man hours.

It very well could be.  Then again, it may not.  I only speak for myself, but we tend to see a lot of people unfamiliar with programming and working with complex legacy code guessing at what is or is not feasible or easy to do.   We just do not know and I personally would rather hear from someone who knows what they are doing.

 

At least to me, if the game is to survive and prosper going forward, new content will be needed to keep people interested and playing.  There is a substantial amount of pre-50, pre-incarnate level content in the game.  Post 50 incarnate level is where content is lacking. 

Edited March 26, 2020 by ShardWarrior

[Blackfeather]

The discussion about 'whether or not this is hard or not' is probably going to be just a back and forth of 'yes' and 'no' unless a dev chimes in, and so by its nature isn't really going to go anywhere.

[Chris24601]

5 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

I get what you are saying however your suggestion seems to ignore there would still be the problem of limited incarnate content.  There is little to no point in getting incarnate abilities if there is nearly no content to make full use of it. 

Rule 101 of any development work is "don't keep throwing good time and money after bad."

 

At the end of the day, Incarnate powers were always a bad idea. Knowing what we know now of the situation c. 2011-2012, its clear they were added for the express purpose of adding a grind-focused endgame to City of Heroes, most likely at the specific behest of NCSoft who wanted to monetize that grind. They weren't as concerned about how this would unbalance the earlier parts of the game because those were ultimately just the free teaser to induce as many players as possible to buy a sub and start grinding for incarnate powers.

 

Ultimately, Incarnate power was never designed to be sustainable or healthy for the overall game. It was designed to make the game as profitable as possible to keep the lights on for another day. Hell, even Positron said by the time they'd hit the Omega slot they'd probably have to start over with a City of Heroes 2.

 

Just like we've not had a new PVP zone added since I6(?), Incarnates are a thing that breaks more than it fixes because it was never designed to fix a gameplay issue... it was designed to fix a real world cash flow issue.

 

What the Incarnate system really needs is a hard look at how to balance it out with the rest of the game so that as much of the already completed work as possible can be employed without disrupting the core 1-50 part of the game that makes up 99% of the content.

 

Since those powers are generally needed for the actual eight existing incarnate trials (which had the good fortune to have an obvious conclusion in the Magisterium Trial) I'd NOT want to see them nerfed for that content.

 

That's why I feel a "Alpha + pick one" type check-off option for non-incarnate content would be the least disruptive.

 

- It limits each character to, at-most, one incarnate click power so you're not having full teams cycling through 8 Judgements AND 8 Lores AND 8 Destinies.

 

- Because you can check different incarnate slots between missions, it is still worth pursuing those powers for the added flexibility it gives.

 

- It keeps the full suite of powers available for the Incarnate trials content where it is actually needed.

[ShardWarrior]

Just now, Chris24601 said:

At the end of the day, Incarnate powers were always a bad idea.

I disagree entirely.