Weekly Discussion 78: Incarnate Powers - a review of ultimate power!

[GM ColdSpark]

Happy Sunday everyone! Last week we had a good old chin-wag about the concepts that could be used for a Praetorian Epic Archetype. Loads of great ideas both in the Discord and the Forums - Writeup is here.

 

This week it's time to get into some serious power - lets get INCARNATE.

 

Weekly discussion 78 Week 22nd Nov till 28th Nov 2020

YOU VOTED: Let's talk about - Incarnate Powers

 

Things to think about:

• What you like
• What don't you like
• Balance of the sets
• The crafting system
• Where you'd like to see them go

 

Remember if you have suggestions for future topics to go into the next vote pool, pop me a direct message and I'll add it to the list. People who offer up a suggestion that is subsequently chosen will receive an in game title for the character of their choice - this week's topic was suggested by Take One - thank you!

 

Also - I've been asked to add a discussion on the AH into the mix so that's coming .... soon^(tm) 

 

And with that - lets chat! 🙂

Edited November 29, 2020 by GM ColdSpark

[Carnifax]

Hideously unbalanced, especially Destiny and Judgement. Recharge time on them should be doubled.

 

Half of Judgements damage should be moved to DoT over 15 seconds.

 

Crafting system is fine, interface isn't amazing but it's tolerable. 

[Lunchmoney]

Even though I have a toon at 50+4 I've no idea what I've done with the incarnate stuff. I'm sure there's stuff to teach players about it in game but I must have missed it. 

Is it obvious what to do? 

[Lusiphur Malache]

I have made every mistake there is to make with the incarnate system and I think I might be close to having a grasp after 10 50s.  I don't really give it much thought at this point.  I'm either trying to make what I do well, better, or what I suck at, decent.

 

Personally, I'd like either the crafting, leveling, or gathering to be easier.  Regularly I forget which toon I'm working on and by the time I get to where I want to be I've forgotten what the plan is.  I know this is my fault, but if one system was easier it would be a big help to me and probably others.

 

Let me pick which power I want to unlock after Alpha.  Maybe require me to only unlock 2 or 3 powers between Judgement, Lore, Interface, Hybrid before I can unlock Omega powers.

 

The 5011 choices for Lore is too damn many.  Cut it down to 10-15.  I understand there aren't bad choices, but I've gotten paralysis by analysis too many times.

[tidge]

The one aspect of the Incarnate system that annoys me the most is the UI. I am non-plussed by these aspects:

1. The UI window cannot be 'permanently' re-sized. I manually resize the window every time so that the recipes (including description) are all visible.
2. The window tab for choosing the types of incarnates does not allow you to 'click to close'; instead you have to pick a different incarnate ability. This is particularly tough with the Lore pets, as there are so many options that it swamps the window (which is always at a default size, see point 1)

I would appreciate being able to set certain mission arcs (SF, TF, Ouro) such that Incarnate powers are disabled. Presumably the Incarnate-level content has been designed to 'require' Incarnates, but the more classic non-incarnate content becomes easy-mode with full incarnates.

[The_Warpact]

When creating a new power say in alpha when you choose the tier power it should automatically mark which items you need to create for that recipe in the salvage windows.

 

Example, you want to do Agility Super Duper, in thread recipe it says you need Bio Goo, Arcane Canaria, and Cytoplasm Isotope.

The first 2 should be marked in the common salvage, and the second in the rare salvage.

That way you don't have to bounce back and forth, write it down, or get super memorize powers. (I get easy side tracked).

 

 

[Snarky]

I think I will not be the last vote for finishing out the Incarnate system plan.  The promise of MOAH POWAH was right there lol.

 

Sideways to the Incarnate system I would love if there was a way at End Game to earn a few extra enhancer slots (even one or two) after a LOT of work. Accolade style, but way harder. Similarly adding a Travel power set at 50-incarnate on top of existing, or more specific extra travel powers in a set you already have 1-2 powers in.

 

These are my big wishes for extreme late game madness

[Voltor]

To the comments about incarnate powers being overamped, yes they are, but more end game content including the Battalion was coming before the lights went out,

 

Also if you are playing the L50 content including ITF, Liberty/Statesman TF, Recluse SF, Khan TF, Cuda TF, you could just unslot the incarnate powers and go old school.  The TF/SF's were able to won long before incarnates were brought in.

 

As to what to do: give us the OMEGA slot.  Make it a bookend to the Alpha slot in that it can take the same things Alpha does, but you cannot have the same thing in both slots.  Example: if you musculature core or radial in Alpha then you cannot have musculature in your Omega.

 

But you could have for example: cardiac in alpha and agility in Omega. 

 

Also set Omega to only function in the incarnate trials.

[CrudeVileTerror]

About the only thing I could say regarding Incarnate Powers is for the Devs to take it slow.  Take time to be really careful, because the existing Incarnate stuff is a mess.  In an ideal world, there would be a dedicated team to untangle the Incarnate content in every aspect it touches, but in the absence of that, time and care will need to be kept in ample supply.

 

An alternative to Incarnates would also be wonderful.  Whether it takes the form of the previously proposed Anti-Incarnate content, or just entirely new and original content which provides players an opportunity to engage with the game with long-term goals (ideally both!), then I think the Devs will be heading down the best path for sustainability and inclusion.

[ScarySai]

Thing with the incarnate system is the game kinda died before we got harder mobs that would really start kicking our godly asses via the Battalion. Personally, I'd like to see the stuff we never got be added without caveats.

 

As for adding to what we already have, I'd love it if we could get Statesman/Tyrant's lightning smash attack as a judgement power.

[Moonlighter]

Initial Thoughts:

 

~ I really didn't have an issue figuring out the system since I had two slots unlocked just from doing regular content so that was a good change. I can work into trials later without feeling that I have given up progress when finishing up high level content at 50.

 

~ Normalize the components to have any commons/uncommons/rare work. I know for flavor it looks good to have different ones, but when the rewards panel comes up we need to spend time cross referencing which component we will need in 3 incarnate levels on this character. As an example, if the whole system was simplified to "Minor Incarnate Boon" "Major Incarnate Boon" and 'Epic Incarnate Boon" then the system would work exactly the same, take exactly as long to grind, but the rewards choice dialog would be a thousand times easier because I could just bank stuff for later without having to bring up a spreadsheet or combing through the crafting window again.

 

This is particularly relevant when someone is running a series of incarnate trials.

 

Another simpler to implement option? Just make the swap crafting interaction allow us to swap components with no extra cost; a minor for a minor, a rare for a rare, etc. Then I can just grab Hamidon Goo (or whatever) and swap it to what I want later.

 

~ The level shift makes it too hard to find really tough content outside the AE; I'd like the difficulty slider to go up to +5 to compensate.

 

Edit: Alpha is good enough without even needing a level shift; just remove the level shift for content outside incarnate?

 

~ I'd like some meaningful content where Incarnate stuff just doesn't work.
 

~ I know this is probably out of scope in terms of development, I honestly wish the system let us boost specific powers instead of global bonuses to the system made us make choices that worked into the build meta instead of superseding it. If the alpha boost was specific to a power, and I could make 3 of them total, I'd have to consider my build a lot more.

 

Like if the Omega slot let us do an alpha slot for one specific power. Do I want to boost my blaster nuke? So I need more defense from Scorpion Shield? Do I want my highest DPA attack cycling faster for better single target? That's not an obvious or easy decision.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2020 by Moonlighter

[Lunchmoney]

Also, can we give a virtual slap to anyone using the term "itrial" ? They are not Apple products 😉

[SentaiLavender]

It worries me a little when people talk about adding more Incarnate powers. Any such addition would need to be accompanied by a reassessment of the game's difficulty. The overpowered nature of Incarnates was somewhat justified back when they required a ludicrous amount of grinding in specific events, guaranteeing that only a portion of 50s would actually possess all the Incarnate powers. Nowadays, on Homecoming, with Veteran Level rewards and Incarnate XP/drops from normal content, anyone can become a literal god in a few extra days of playtime. The average level 50 team is already an automatic faceroll; more Incarnate powers will only worsen that.

 

As far as how to rebalance the difficulty, adding in an actual Battalion storyline with new, super-tough enemies sounds great, but that's a lot to ask of a volunteer development team. Conversely, nerfing the existing Incarnate abilities would just piss people off. I'd like to see something like an extended difficulty slider, additional abilities for existing high-level enemies, increased rewards for non-steamroller content at 50, or other ideas that address the game's ever-lowering difficulty without giving the devs too much work or taking existing bonuses away from players.

 

I'd also like if the devs balanced the existing Incarnate power choices before adding more powers or Incarnate Slots. Judgment and Lore are the only slots that give me any sense of deliberation ("Which one of these powers best fits my character's concept?"). All the other slots have one or two really OP selections I end up choosing every time.

[Andreah]

I love the promise of more power too, but I think it should be modest, and there should be some gentle scaling of normal content (esp at 50+3, or +4, x8 levels) to go along with it.

 

In fact, add a +5 and x12 setting for normal content. Then add another +1 difficulty level for each new incarnate slot.

Edited November 22, 2020 by Andreah

[Purrfekshawn]

Dark Ion Judgement - fixed so its chaining gets visible (its chains have no VFX/SFX atm).

 

Also two new judgements for respective themes -

 

Gatling Gun Judgement

Lethal Damage

Core: significantly decreases Lethal Resistance when it deals damage (resist debuff is unresistible).

Radial: inflicts Terrorize.

 

Orbital Cannon Judgement

Energy Damage

Core: creates area that deals DoT

Radial: debuffs enemy's perception

[Normal Thomas]

Alpha Slot

This is the one I have the most experience with. I have four level 50s and all them have atleast some level of Alpha slotted. I generally pick either Agility or Cardiac but I'd say that most of the choices for Alpha slot can be pretty compelling and it really depends on the character you're rolling with. I like the Alpha slot a lot, the level shift might be kind of overpowered but I do like that too.

 

Judgement Slot

I have Judgement on three character and its pretty stupid overpowered. If there was some end game content that justified this I'd be OK with but it basically gives my Controllers a nuke and my Corruptor a second nuke. A strong signature attack is definitely something I had in mind when they first started talking about an Incarnate System (especially because of Statesmen's Lightning Powers) but here it seems we've given everyone a nuke and and pretty much all the secondary effects are kind of moot cause you killed everything with it anyway. I'm totally for everyone getting a strong AoE attack but this one definitely needs to be looked at!!

 

Interface Slot

The effects here are cool but I feel like between Judgement, IO sets etc. it feels like you never really get to see them in action all that long because everyone does so much damage anyway it doesn't really matter what Interface procs you trigger on opponents because they'll be dead really quickly anyway.

 

Lore Slot

I only have one character with Lore and I definitely echo the sentiment earlier in the thread that there's too many choices and in my own opinion too many of them are too specific in a conceptual sense (I got a Tsoo posse now? I got a Nemesis posse now? idk idk). There's also a very solved meta here that pretty much gravitates towards everyone having the Banished Pantheon Ravager. I ended up going for a Storm Elemental for my main and will probably pick out the more neutral choices like that, the Robotic Drones and the Phantoms (which I believe are just like the Illusion Control Phantom Army pets?) for the rest of my characters (min/maxing be damned!). Also geez these are the most powerful things in the world. If you're not already demolishing mobs with Judgement, even in Incarnate trials, you're turning them into a fine fine paste with your Banished Pantheon Ravager. While I do like a good 4 minute Hami raid or a quick Incarnate trial this one definitely needs to get looked at.

 

EDIT: I just got a low level Phantom for a character's lore slot and they don't have the option to be customized like phantom army? That has to be fixed.

 

Destiny Slot

I only have one character with a low level Destiny slot ability so while I can't speak on this one from personal experience I will say that on higher level Incarnate content or on teams with people who even just have one or two of these the effects get pretty strong pretty quick. Very much a case of "when everyone is super no one is". Most of my level 50s are support classes (Controllers and Corruptors respectively) and honestly the existence of Destiny makes me feel pretty overshadowed in a way? And I have some very highly valued support sets! (Time Manipulation, Traps and Kinetics) I think there needs to be re evaluation of Destiny so that using it feels useful without making endgame content focused around melee classes equipped with huge buffs they can trigger themselves.

 

Hybrid Slot

OK I only have the first tier Control ability on my Controller but I gotta say I think this is pretty cool and definitely something I had in mind when I was thinking about an Incarnate System. I haven't really gotten much chance to take full advantage of the effects but I really like this one. Feels like it should come earlier too considering how strong Destiny, Judgement and Lore are. Also can we get the Control Hybrid definition of a Controlled Opponent for Controller's Containment?

 

Overall

I think the Incarnate System is cool and I like powers like Alpha, Interface and Hybrid when it comes incarnate abilities. The other ones are way too strong for the game we have now and unless there's something that takes advantage of that they definitely need to be looked at. I certainly believe Incarnate abilities should be strong but there should be a high difficulty that can be chosen that means something at level 45+

 

I am also of the opinion no new Incarnate abilities should be added, yet. Especially since we can't really create new game assets and especially especially since what we have now has made endgame content a lil too easy. Only after those particular problems are dealt with, then we can make Genesis, Omega etc.

Edited November 22, 2020 by Normal Thomas

[Lockpick]

 

Components:

• I would suggest extending the vet level incarnate thread rewards for a few more levels.  I think people may end up wasting threads in the early stages unless they have really planned their build, so getting additional threads through vet level progression might help.

 

Powers:

• Current
  • Alpha:
    • These seem fine to me
  • Judgement:
    • I wouldn't mind some other options.  Mighty and Vorpal are the only ones that look like natural, but might be nice to have another option where it looks like you are throwing a weapon of some sort (maybe like Exploding Shurikens)
  • Interface:
    • These seem fine to me
  • Lore:
    • The Lore pets are not balanced.  I would suggest a balancing pass on these pets.
  • Destiny:
    • Seem fine to me
  • Hybrid
    • Seem fine to me
• Future
  • I would suggest not adding new incarnate powers until the ability for players to create hard mode content is functional and reward rationalization is complete (see below)
    • Genesis
    • Stance
    • Vitae
    • Omega

UI:

• Seems fine to me.  In theory, you are not using this UI very much, so not sure the effort to make it much better would be a good use of time.

 

Other:

 

I would suggest not nerfing the incarnate powers.  You will likely get a lot of suggestions to nerf these powers, but they are intended for incarnate / hard mode content.  The real solution is allowing the player base to create hard mode content that will make use of the incarnate powers.

 

I would suggesting focusing on:

• Adding challenge criteria to TFs to disallow incarnate powers (separate selections for All, Alpha, Judgement, etc.)
• Adding additional options for notoriety, so content can be made harder
• Focusing on making adjustments to AE, so hard mode content can be created
• Focusing on reward rationalization, so risk / time / reward are aligned based on the parameters set

 

[Sakura Tenshi]

• What you like

To be blunt? I like my characters feeling overpowered as hell and forget everyone who wants to have the power to shut off everyone else's Incarnate powers "because the game is too easy" or wants the present powers to be nerfed. This goes a bit into the next section, but part of the problem with incarnate powers is not the system itself so much as that the Live Devs hadn't finished much of what they had planned, this means we are in need of new content, and the level 45-50 leveling experience was in need of review (even before incarnates became a thing) with mob upgrades. Notice the Banished Pantheon's incarnate versions show up in the level 50 mission from Unai Kamen making it a lot more challenging, so it could be presumed some other level 50 mobs could gain the benefit of their incarnated upgrades. Those are the kinds of things we need to consider instead of just 'nerf/remove incarnates', and while it's a much harder route I think it would be worth it with a bigger pay off so we're not fighting entire mobs who only are a threat because of a single gimmick and possibly not even then.

• What don't you like

Thematics are my biggest issue with Incarnate stuff, even if I'm playing a character as a legit incarnate (I don't know if I ever have) there's still a lot of options I wish we had but we do not, mostly this is an issue I have with Interface (which I feel could stand to be just a bit stronger/split up into two so we can use endurance drain and energy damage to have lightning weapons, etc.), Judgement (which could use a straight toxic attack, also 'weapon based casts', though that's understandably a difficult thing to ask), and Lore (which could just always use more pet options). Oh, I also feel like Support hybrid is ridiculously weak both in magnitude of it's buffs for pets or players as well as it's limited range.

• Balance of the sets
• The crafting system

Don't have too much to say on these two points, as balancing goes, I do wish Interface was a bit stronger (like, damage and debuff procs could be 100% chance, though I wouldn't mind Reactive's kind of pitiful -10% res debuff cap brought up to at least -15% for reasons), broken into two parts (the damage and debuff proc effects, maybe make the damage portion just a single burst instead of DoT?) to open up concepts, but most of all: interface (can you tell this is my overall favorite?) feels like something that would have been nice as part of the base game. A way to top off customizing your powers. But that's all another issue. My other wish would, if nothing else, allow us to window individual incarnate tabs so we can keep track of what components we need to craft than hop back and forward. Resizing the windows would also be nice.

• Where you'd like to see them go?

Well, as mentioned I think first we need to focus on updating the level 45-50 end content to help maintain challenge as well as expand actual incarnate content. My own proposal was a 'Incarnate Croatoa Zone version' since Celtic myth is ripe with OMGOPPLZNERF powered figures or even more simply dive into Norse Myth with Odin opening up Valhalla to us so we could battle legendary heroes and villains of the game's lore and mythological lore. But I feel like we've done a lot of magic themed content so Battalion it is, but as a strictly science and tech based alien group and not a 'magitech' group like the live devs planned.

 

But for the actual system, I'd like to see lore pet and judgement options expanded and some things adjusted. I think we could make debuff/controls on judgements and interface far more appealing if they were made to be irresistable giving more value to them. Hit tower buffed Recluse with ion? He's locked down for about ten seconds. Period. Reichsman hit with radial void judgement? He deals 30% less damage. Period. Reactive resistance debuff? debuffs 10% of an enemy's resistance at max stacks. Period. In this game, damage is often king because stronger enemies have inherit resistances and can even ignore our controls and debuffs makes options that sacrifice damage for debuffing are going to be passed over. But if those debuffs were legitimately strong to being able to change a fight's course over a longer term than the burst damage, it might seem like a better choice.

 

for developing new abilities, while black scoripion had mentioned what was roughly planned in a post mortem AMA, I was honestly not impressed, though my own ideas are both far more unnecessarily complex and far less fleshed out. And actually only cover Genesis and Omega powers as I don't have ideas for Vitae and Stance. The most complex idea was Genesis being something unique based on your AT, only two options: radial and core, but being AT specific they were meant to assist core aspects of your archetype either adding to their inherent power (an idea was for scrapper Radial to increase your chance to crit while core would increase crit damage or something like that, Stalker radial path would turn their ST placate into a targeted ranged AoE effect or core making their Assassin's strike crits deal irresistable damage). My idea for Omega was that it was meant to augment one of your previous Incarnate choices and bring it to new levels, the radial path allowing that Incarnate slot to gain the full benefit of both radial and core paths of the same level (so, yes, this means omega lore augment would involve summoning three pets) or chosing the core path would basically boost the effectiveness of your chosen power by an undecided amount. (like maybe fore Interface proc it doubles the duration of the effect and doubles the amount of stacks you can place on an enemy)

 

And that's about all I have for now, I will mind you I am not terribly great at balancing concepts and a lot of these ideas were brought together independently and might massively unbalance things if done together.

[Heraclea]

My suggestions would be to:

 

 - Get rid of the Shards path entirely.  The shards are currently only used for Alpha components, all of which can be crafted by the Threads path at well.  Offering the incarnate rewards for TF completion could also be gotten rid of; those things are treacherous, traps for the new 50, who may not be aware of how limited their usefulness is.  If something like that is still offered, I'd just offer a reward of empyrean merits instead, with an empyrean bonus reward for the weekly strike force target.

 

 - Make the tokens more transferrable by allowing threads to be converted to empyrean merits at the established rate of 20:1, similar to the convertability of astral merits.  This preserves the motivation to play characters with full t4 incarnates.  The threads and other geemies that they drop can be converted into merits that can be passed to other characters.  Right now the chief use of threads to them is to buy inspirations in Ouro.

[Saikochoro]

I’m generally fine with incarnates as they are. Yes, they are powerful, but that is the whole point. So I disagree with making them less powerful or nerfing them in some way.

 

I would like incarnate components or threads to be transferable on account instead of being bound to character.  I agree with the above that it would actually encourage playing toons that are already fully incarnated. 
 

I would like to see more harder mobs in end game content. This could include more trials, but also task forces and strike forces. I wouldn’t mind new mob factions that are much more powerful as well to combat the power level of incarnates.

I would also like more notoriety options for ALL content (not just trials and TFs). I would like up to +7 levels and +10 mob count.  I would also like a bosses only notoriety option.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Eva Destruction]

I'm also on team no new Incarnate powers, also because they make existing content too easy.  Disabling them outside of Incarnate content makes them kinds pointless, since there isn't much Incarnate content and there won't be much, if any,  added any time in the foreseeable future.   And, honestly, even the trials are too easy.  When you have 24 players all stacking Destinys and Judgements and pulling their Lore pets out at once, enemies just evaporate.  I'd be in favor of limiting Destiny to team only, or reducing the range, or the target cap, or something to prevent the crazy stacking, cutting the target cap and/or damage of Judgement, and nerfing the damage of the Lore pets.

 

More Judgement options would be nice; psi and "generic" energy at least, maybe an earth one too although Mighty kinda fits with earth/stone powers thematically.

[Moonscribe]

I agree that before adding new incarnate powers, especially new tiers of incarnate powers, we should really have some more content for existing Incarnates to do to be able to challenge themselves. I also like the idea of having new difficulty settings, perhaps some that spawn elite bosses as normal mobs for x9 and higher, to give more levers to pull for incarnates who are finding everything too easy. (I don't team much so I don't have this experience, but I'm sure I would use such settings solo anyway for added challenge.)

 

I'm also in favor of new Incarnate-powered storylines, Coming Storm-related or otherwise, to give us more to do with our godlike abilities, but it seems like new difficulty settings might be an easier way to tide over those with no worlds left to conquer, though with the spaghetti code, who knows if that's true or not. If there are new storylines, I hope they will include more soloable Incarnate content like Dark Astoria in addition to iTrials and TFs.

 

I see no reason not to have extra difficulty settings on Ouroboros arcs, TFs, and the like to turn off incarnate powers - there are settings to turn off enhancements, after all! Anyone who wants to use their incarnate powers can just join a team that allows them, and surely many, probably most, teams will continue to do so if such an option is added? And of course then there can be new badges, for doing high-level arcs without Incarnate powers... "Mortal", perhaps?

 

But I don't see a reason to nerf incarnate powers in general, even outside of official Incarnate Content (TM); I'm never going to be interested in joining a team of 8 incarnates and murdering gobs of Council that I could probably solo, but if others prefer to do that, it doesn't really affect me, and besides, I like being able to solo all the Shadow Shard TFs. 😛 It might be good to make sure doing the harder content comes with appropriate rewards, though... more XP, better drops, perhaps a small chance to get actual incarnate components rather than just threads? That way, picking the easiest possible missions to do won't automatically be the most efficient choice.

 

I strongly dislike the idea of consolidating Lore pets. I like the ability to pick thematically appropriate pets for each of my characters, and it's the slot I most look forward to unlocking for that reason. Indeed, I would be in favor of adding more Lore pet options to the game - Freakshow, Crey, Family, Council/5th Column (maybe as a single option with power customization to determine their faction), the Night Ward factions, Awakened, the new Freakloks coming in i27, etc. Whatever balancing, nerfing, and/or standardizing is necessary to accomplish that is fine with me, but just getting rid of Lore pet options seems to me to be against the spirit of this game in the same way that getting rid of powersets would be.

[Chris24601]

I'd like to see a general assessment of how feasible adding new Incarnate content actually is given the size of the development team. I feel there's a reason they've been mostly creating new mid-level story content and that reason is that its the most robust part of the game... no Incarnate Powers and a lot of the good IO sets can't even be slotted until level 27.

 

And if the answer is that the likelihood of new Incarnate content is extremely limited then I'd like the devs to consider making the harder choice than just leaving it as is, and, like PVP, consider the incarnate tree complete (as in sufficient to complete all existing incarnate content) and then curtail its effects on other areas of the game; particularly the 45-50 game where you basically can't build mission content now without accounting for all the incarnate powers that be thrown around to trivialize it.

 

If I had my druthers, I'd have Incarnate Powers only function in Incarnate specific content AND level 50 missions/TFs with the difficulty set to at least +1 (putting it on par with the Alpha Slot level shift). Alternately make it a toggle on the difficulty system where you get some sort of bonus rewards if incarnate powers are turned off (and are running content at a level you could normally use them... nothing extra for toggling it on for a Posi for example).

 

Alternately, if I wanted SOME incarnate use outside of those areas I'd want to look at something like only being able to use one incarnate power at a time; say a check box with a five minute timer or similar so if you wanted Judgement, you could have it, but you'd need five minutes before you could swap it and use Lore or Destiny, etc. This wouldn't apply inside Incarnate Content, but would when you're say, running Peregrine Island radio missions against the Council.

 

Another option would be to use the old "Kheldian Detector" tech and add some incarnate tier enemies to each of the level 45+ groups who would spawn on missions where slotted incarnate powers are detected (basically whatever the trigger is that level shifts you down for Apex if you don't have Incarnate powers slotted).

 

For example; The New Praetorians arc involved the Council teaming up with Scott's faction and getting access to several bits of Praetorian tech... so if the Incarnate detection is triggered you start getting Council re-colored IDF units mixed into the Council Forces (I'd honestly like to see that pushed to the level 51+ Council in general... re-colored IDF troops replace the infantry, Orbs replace the hoverbots, WarWorks replace the bots, Nictus Dwarves and Novas replace the Galaxies... phase out the war wolves and vampyri to reflect the defections back to the 5th Column).

[Greycat]

Incarnates. Hmm.

 

First, dump the shards and make everything threads. Having one otherwise useless class of salvage for one power is annoying to me.

 

Personally, I think I would have made Alpha the only... for lack of a better word, "universal" power. I'd be perfectly happy with that, and that alone, exemping all the way down to level 1 as a reward and an expression of "You made it." Everything else should either only be active, or only be active at full strength, in Incarnate content.

 

We were already begining to trivialize high level content with IOs, capped defense, self-perma-ing things and the like. Making nukes irrelevant because everyone gets 30+ target Judgement, and so can just roll over everything, for instance? A bit much. If it had been, say, a 5 target limit in non-Incarnate content, 45-50, it'd be different. But as it is, the old content is like... a racetrack with cars from 1910 or so. IOs? Dropping in cars from the 40s. Then we bring in Incarnate content and it's like modern supercars just blowing everything else away without a care in the world while that 1910 Olds of content is sitting on its side, wheels spinning.

 

*That* said, and yes I know the "coming storm" was... er... coming, more Incarnate content was needed - and would be needed before any expansion of the powers upward. Having it tied to Praetoria was ... eh, ok, that needed to be finished off anyway, and DA at least gave us somewhere appropriate we didn't need a league for, but the otherwise lack of content I think is part of what leaves this feeling unfinished.

 

Basically, having more Incarnate-level content on the one hand, and having it be where to use things full power on the other (lowering the impact on standard content,) would have been nice. (Though obviously all of that was taken out of the original devs hands with the shutdown.) I can't say I was excited by the ideas for the coming storm we were told about, but... eh.

 

Edit: Ahh. Nearly forgot.

The UI for Lore could be ... better. Yes, it tells you what you get, and mentions "this pet can buff and do damage" (or not,) but it doesn't really *tell* you anything about the pets, so picking is ... kind of blind. Additional information there would be nice.

Edited November 22, 2020 by Greycat

[MTeague]

I do not like Incarnates. At all. Period. Full stop. 

 

I accept that they are not going away. But so long as they remain, I oppose any kind of "let everything scale up to lvl 50", because if that ever happens, I'll basically never find another team I actually want to join, ever again. Because EVERYONE will be lvl 50 and incarnated out the wazoo trivializing everything even during flashbacks.

 

And I really hope for at least 1/3 to 1/2 of all new content be designed for levels 1-44.