The Drawing Board: Incarnates

[Lich]

Howdy folks. This is part 2 of a series of very high level reworks and revamps and refreshes to the game's core ideas.

 

Caveat: These ideas are big picture, the biggest possible picture available. Therefore, I have no real expectation that these are picked up and implemented by the Homecoming Team. This is a thought experiment, not a list of demands. With that in mind, please try to keep an open mind. These threads will be full of radical ideas and I'd love for you to go down the rabbit hole about them with me.

 

Other (future) Drawing Board Threads:

• Power Pools

Previous Drawing Board Threads:

• Enhancement System

 

With that out of the way, on with the show!

 

The Incarnate System

A lot of ink has been spilled on the efficacy and fun of the current Incarnate System and if you'll indulge me I'd love to throw my own several cents into the ring. In my opinion, the current Incarnate System is quite clunky. There are a multitude of UI problems (being unable to see what recipes require while you're grabbing their ingredients, the progress bars being offcenter and then they just kinda extend outwards into nothingness, a lack of good information displayed in a constructive way) but what I want to focus on moreso is the actual play experience.

 

My biggest gripe with the system is that it's not really a challenge to completely finish out. Compared to the amount of gameplay hours doing missions and fighting enemies to get influence and build the enhancements and build of your character, completing a character's incarnate abilities takes a very short amount of time and contains very little interesting and compelling choice. I've seen people go back and forth over mids builds, arguing sets vs procs vs power choices vs level order, and there doesn't seem to be any of that for the current Incarnate system. If you need damage, take the damage Alpha, if you need defense, take Defense. Pick whichever Judgement seems cool to you. Choose the Lore pets that have the best debuffs or the best flavor that matches your costume. As we get further into the system we get further removed from active choice based on flavor and even more into just raw stats. Hybrid choices are the most linear out of all of them - compared to the breadth and depth of the choices available while leveling, the entire system sticks out considerably to me. That isn't to say there is no choice within the system, but its a far cry from the freeform nature of the 1-50 experience.

 

Another big chunk of why I feel like the system needs improvement is that your choices in the incarnate system have very little to do with the choices made before arriving at level 50. The system has to appeal to every single build, which means that the building blocks are quite generic compared to how unique and specific some of the previous systems offer you choice. Getting more damage, more accuracy, more defense - these are compelling choices to make on a systemic level. But they are choices that have little to do with what your character does from an aesthetic perspective. It feels quite hard to build a character who can make use of the Incarnate system in a flavorful way compared to the absolute delight that the 1-50 game can offer you. And again, not to say that there is no flavor at all, but compared to the abilities and customizations available beforehand, its quite shallow. 

 

There are other minor usability and UX complains beyond the UI as well - I dislike that everything you earn in the Incarnate system can't really be taken out of it, so once you've done a few BAFs and have earned pretty much everything you need you'll end up with materials that don't really do anything for you. And not to mention the obtrusive nature in which they are earned. I know saying this out loud to you all might be a mistake, but I genuinely do appreciate the fun cutscenes in our awesome game, and I find that the incarnate ones tend to be interrupted consistently with Incarnate Thread Bonded! Astral Merit Obtained! The system itself feels obtrusive and separate from the previous sections and not in a way that makes it feel special. Even leveling up to gain Incarnate XP adds 1-2 extra lines of text to your Rewards chat panel until you've earned the relatively small amount of XP necessary to unlock your slots. And don't even get me started on the now completely redundant Incarnate Shard portion of the system.

 

Speaking of relatively small amount of XP necessary, I did math it out, and it takes exactly 11.875 million incarnate XP to finish unlocking the current system. That may seem like a lot at first blush, but it's actually only a bit over 2 Veteran Levels (which are about 5 million xp each). And I know that advocating for a longer tail on the system seems like a losing battle (no one likes more meaningless grind, not even me!) but I find there's a lot of room for improvement on how long it should take to finish a character and how satisfying it should be to do so.

 

A final huge piece of the puzzle is actually back to the UI discussion a bit - and it has to do with how players view their own builds. I love how City of Heroes does its builds - I love that the building blocks look like DNA twined together. I love looking at a finished build in my own enhancement screen, or a planned build in Mids. But Incarnates aren't viewable in-game in the same place that the rest of your build is. To me this is another reason why the Incarnate system as it currently stands feels very separate from the progress and power of your character. You have to go to a specific place to see what it's doing, a different place, and that to me feels very bad.

 

So, with those thoughts in mind, let's get into it.

 

Part 1: The Clean-Out:

Any good Drawing Board idea starts with the clean out. This is where we get rid of things we no longer need. So, here's what's on the cutting room floor:

 

• Pretty much everything

 

Hmm, off to a strong start! Now, you might be wondering, "everything? like, the whole thing?" And to that the answer is pretty much just "yep. the whole thing." Later on we might grab a few things out of the old Incarnate System (for example, Astral Merits will still be a part of the new flow), but their usage will be so different that I think putting them up here would just be really confusing. 

 

As an aside, this blank slate isn't to say that the current system is completely worthless or terrible, of course. I'm definitely not here just to dunk on the hard work of people I admire. And plenty of people like the system as-is. It just means that the new system I've put together can glean very little systemically from the old. So just picture a blank slate. An empty whiteboard. Full of possibilities. Going forward we're going to uncharted waters, far far away from the Incarnate system we all know today. 

 

Part 2: The Name Game:

This section is similarly brief, but similarly important. Its where we clean up what things are named in this new flow. Names are important, they set expectations, they compare and contrast. The goal with these changes is to clean up some of the name cruft that's been building up.

 

• Veteran Levels are now called Incarnate Levels

 

Now, I might have tipped my hand here a bit, but structure is structure and rules are rules. From now on in this post, I'm going to be calling Veteran Levels by their new name, Incarnate Levels. 

 

Part 3: The Big Changes:

Here's where we start making moves that significantly change the flow of the system. Don't worry, I'll explain my reasonings later, but for right now, we've just got to get them up here so things later on can make sense:

 

1. Once you reach level 50, earning XP on your character earns you progress towards Incarnate Levels.
   • These levels on their own do not do anything statistically (same as right now).
   • Every 3 Incarnate levels will grant you a badge (just as they do right now).
   • Just like right now, every bit of XP counts - so even if you are exemplared down, you'll still be earning progress towards your Incarnate levels. You just need to be earning XP!
2. You may talk to any Trainer to level up with those Incarnate Levels after reaching level 50.
   • Reaching level 50 will also prompt you to speak to Mender Ramiel and complete his story-arc. This is a perfect place to house an in-lore tutorial so that players have an in-game place to go if they need help understanding the incarnate system.
3. An Incarnate Level-Up adds a special, "7th Slot" called an Incarnate Slot to your eligible powers.
   • This slot doesn't have to be the actual 7th slot - one can be added to any power, even if you have 0 slots in it at all. But if you have a power with 6 slots, it functions as the 7th.
   • This slot glows teal so you know it's got something to do with the Incarnate System.
   • Eligible powers are anything in your primary, secondary, tertiary, or pool powers that can take slots themselves.
     • This excludes the block of powers with Rest, Sprint, etc. but not the Inherent Fitness pool.
   • Each power may only have one Incarnate Slot added to it.
4. These Incarnate Slots hold special new Enhancements with a minimum level of 50 called Incarnate Enhancements.
   1. These Enhancements are powerful and unique and can do significant things to change how your character is played.
   2. In addition to their main effects, just slotting an Incarnate Enhancement provides a boost to every enhanceable aspect of the power it is slotted into. These bonuses are unaffected by diminishing returns.
   3. These Enhancements' effects and their slotting bonus are only active while you are at level 50. Exemplaring down will disable them temporarily.
   4. The big goal of these enhancements is to break the rules of the 1-50 game. This means we want to mess with how the powers work, what they do, and what they feel like.
   5. Examples of potential Incarnate Enhancements: (note that this is not an exhaustive list by any means, but more a starting point for new ideas)
      1. Anti-Matter's Reactive Beam: Adds a high amount of Energy damage to this attack, as well as a -DEF proc. All other attacks gain a lesser version of these procs with a lower magnitude and activation rate. Fits into any Attack power.
      2. Desdemona's Enlightenment: This power no longer has an activation or upkeep cost. Fits into any power that costs HP or END to activate or keep activated.
      3. Sight Beyond Sight: This power may now be activated even if you are under the effects of CC. This also grants you a moderate increase to your perception. Fits into any Attack power.
      4. Siege's Bulwark: You gain mag-1 CC resistance. Fits into any Resistance power.
      5. Jade Spider Swarm: Your attacks each have a small chance of summoning a miniature Arachnos Toxic Tarantula to aid you for a few minutes. These Toxic Tarantulas don't do a lot of damage but have access to a variety of powerful debuffs, and a swarm would be deadly. They gain bonuses from the enhancements of the power they are slotted into. Fits into any Pet summoning power.
      6. Schism Slice: This power now hits everything in front of you in a 180 degree cone and applies a moderate amount of extra Negative Energy damage. Fits into any power with a cone below 180 degrees. 
      7. Reach beyond Reality: This power now has a moderate range and deals a large amount of additional Psi damage. Fits into any melee single-target attack.
5. Incarnate Enhancements are crafted from Incarnate Recipes.
   1. These recipes are found rarely within Incarnate Trials or by doing endgame incarnate mission arcs. 
   2. You can also purchase the recipe you want for Astral Merits from Luna, the Incarnate Trader in Ouroboros. 
      1. Astral Merits are earned similarly to how they are now - by completing Incarnate-tier content. They are one of the few things that survived the Cutting Room Floor.
   3. These recipes are also tradable on the Auction House. (provides an Influence drain)
   4. These recipes require a large amount of both Invention Salvage and Influence to create. (provides an Influence drain)
   5. These recipes also require rare Incarnate Salvage (found rarely while defeating Incarnate level foes) that is also now tradable on the Auction House. (provides an Influence drain)
6. There is a maximum to the amount of Incarnate Level-Ups, but not to Incarnate levels.
   1. This means that you can keep earning incarnate levels forever just for fun and badges, but will only get a moderate amount of incarnate slots.
   2. It also means that builds with more enhancable powers (aka Kheldians) aren't at an automatic major advantage to builds with less (such as Dual Pistols, as Swap Ammo doesn't allow slotting it also won't allow for Incarnate Slotting)

 

And that's about it for the bullet points! 

 

Part 4: Why?

This section is fun because its where we talk about the reasons behind these changes. And for this set of Drawing Board ideas, the big reasons are twofold: Simplicity and Diversity.

 

Now, avid followers of my previous thread might have perked their ears up at this section already, since those are the same two reasons I gave before. The reason these two are here again is pretty simple - they're the two major pillars of systems design for games. You want choice to matter, you want effort to feel worthwhile, you want players to feel rewarded and challenged, and you want the system to be easy to understand but hard to master.

 

So where does the Incarnate System fit into those goals? As far as simplicity goes, this method is a lot closer to the regular enhancement system in usability. Rather than its own separate UI, players can take a look at what's there and what's potentially earnable in the same places they do for the 1-50 experience. The entire system fits within the enhancement window's full screen view - meaning a player can get their build at a glance without having to go to multiple places for it. The recipes fit in their existing recipes window, the salvage fits in their existing salvage window, and the XP earned comes from the same place that other XP is earned from. And they level up with the same UI at the same trainers that they did before.

 

That being said, the system is so different that there's almost an infinite amount to talk about for the other half - diversity. The current system's fatal flaw is that while there are variations within the separate abilities, the abilities themselves offer only relatively superficial choices. No matter what, each character gets a summon, a big attack, a support ability, a proc. It doesn't matter if they're ranged or melee, support or tank - they get the same basic building block tools as everyone else and are only afforded the option to choose which flavor from amongst those pools. Which means that characters as they age into the old system get closer and closer together to one another in terms of usability. Every character gets to buff others, every character gets a huge AOE attack, every character gets to bring summons to difficult boss fights or wave battles. 

 

As a contrast, the new system's building blocks depend quite literally on your choices in powers from 1-50. If you do not have defensive powers, you can not slot defensive incarnate abilities. If you do not have enough attacks to support all of the procs you want to slot in from the incarnate system, you must choose from the ones that are the most important. And because the system is tied to your power choices, you might even change your build 1-50 to support a different incarnate layout in the same way that a player would currently change their build to make sure they have a better time exemplaring down to the lower levels. 

 

The new system can also support significantly more options compared to what's available right now - especially given that pretty much every current incarnate ability can be relatively easily condensed into an incarnate enhancement. Since each enhancement by default applies some portion of what an Alpha slot grants you, and transferring the bonuses from Interface and Hybrid are relatively straightforward as they are passives, our starting pool of options is quite wide before we even have to flex our creativity muscles. And when those muscles are being flexed, the possibilities are endless.

 

The new abilities are also much more grounded within the lore expectations of a player as they set foot in higher level content. Why does being an Incarnate maybe give you force fields? Who knows. But understanding that training hard even beyond level 50 allows you to elevate your existing powers beyond their current abilities? That's a much easier to follow narrative thread. 

 

Finally, this new flow adds additional drain on the salvage system and your influence totals. The goal here is for things to be priced such that an enterprising player can purchase their incarnate materials outright for a high upfront cost, versus a more frugal or first-timer approach that involves simply playing post-50 content and stockpiling rewards. Either way, we want players to view the Incarnate system as a part of the larger whole and not as its own separate piece of the puzzle.

 

Part 5: Finishing Touches

I'll be the first to admit there's a lot missing here - even some pretty basic stuff, like "what's the maximum functional incarnate level?" But I wanted to get it all down on paper because that's an important step in getting designs ironed out. Just like the previous thread, I'd like to reiterate that this thread (and the others I have cooking up) are more about the theory than the feasibility or realism. I am offering them more as a hypothetical discussion topic instead of a serious suggestion that I genuinely expect to be implemented. Although I certainly prefer this streamlined system, you may not, and that's totally okay.

 

Well, hopefully that was a fun read! I certainly had fun writing this up and noodling on the details. And if you have any feedback at all on this kind of overhaul or have additional questions or suggestions, feel free to let me know down below. And with that, it's time for me to get back to playing! Happy New Year, Paragon City!

Edited January 9, 2023 by Lich

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Lich said:

I genuinely do appreciate the fun cutscenes in our awesome game, and I find that the incarnate ones tend to be interrupted consistently with Incarnate Thread Bonded! Astral Merit Obtained!

Or the players positioning themselves dancing or whatever next to Marauder risking him jumping out of the area when the cut scene ends? Sorry, cut scenes are fine, but I'm disinclined to be worried about transient messages during the cut scene when there are more intrusive interruptions. So, not something I'm worried about.

 

1 hour ago, Lich said:

Every post-50 does this set of Missions

Big assumption. Also wrong. I can guarantee there are players that don't do the Mender Ramiel arc or don't do the arc until they have incarnate powers or don't do the arc until they are looking for something to do that they haven't done yet. How can I guarantee that? I'm one of them. So are some of my friends.

 

1 hour ago, Lich said:

These Incarnate Slots hold special new Enhancements with a minimum level of 50 called Incarnate Enhancements.

1. These Enhancements are powerful and unique and can do significant things to change how your character is played.
2. In addition to their main effects, just slotting an Incarnate Enhancement provides a boost to every enhanceable aspect of the power it is slotted into. These bonuses are unaffected by diminishing returns.
3. These Enhancements' effects and their slotting bonus are only active while you are at level 50. Exemplaring down will disable them temporarily.
4. The big goal of these enhancements is to break the rules of the 1-50 game. This means we want to mess with how the powers work, what they do, and what they feel like.
5. Examples of potential Incarnate Enhancements: (note that this is not an exhaustive list by any means, but more a starting point for new ideas)
   1. Anti-Matter's Reactive Beam: Adds a high amount of Energy damage to this attack, as well as a -DEF proc. All other attacks gain a lesser version of these procs with a lower magnitude and activation rate. Fits into any Attack power.
   2. Desdemona's Enlightenment: This power no longer has an activation or upkeep cost. Fits into any power that costs HP or END to activate or keep activated.
   3. Sight Beyond Sight: This power may now be activated even if you are under the effects of CC. This also grants you a moderate increase to your perception. Fits into any Attack power.
   4. Siege's Bulwark: You gain mag-1 CC resistance. Fits into any Resistance power.
   5. Jade Spider Swarm: Your attacks each have a small chance of summoning a miniature Arachnos Toxic Tarantula to aid you for a few minutes. These Toxic Tarantulas don't do a lot of damage but have access to a variety of powerful debuffs, and a swarm would be deadly. They gain bonuses from the enhancements of the power they are slotted into. Fits into any Pet summoning power.
   6. Schism Slice: This power now hits everything in front of you in a 180 degree cone and applies a moderate amount of extra Negative Energy damage. Fits into any power with a cone below 180 degrees. 
   7. Reach beyond Reality: This power now has a moderate range and deals a large amount of additional Psi damage. Fits into any melee single-target attack.

The incarnate system is already OP for the game. This would be galactic levels of OP beyond even that.

 

One of the things you seem to ignore in your post about changing the incarnate system to an incarnate enhancement system is that acquiring incarnate powers falls in line with the level 1-50 progression of acquiring powers. There is build diversity in the current incarnate system. Players may or may not be utilizing that diversity as they pursue min-max efficiency, but those players are already doing that with the level 1-50 power selections and enhancement slotting.

 

Edit: About the only thing I liked in the OP is the incarnate system shuts off if you exemplar below 50.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Rudra

[Luminara]

No.

[Greycat]

16 minutes ago, Luminara said:

No.

 

Dang, Lum. You really expect someone to sit down and read *all that?*

 

😉

 

As far as the OP? A few thoughts.

 

The system currently feels tacked on, because frankly it is. COH had a habit of growing "wider" instead of "taller," like other MMOs. COH, then COV, was released with a cap of 40, with the last 10 levels released an issue later. And it stayed at 50, instead of following so many OTHER MMOs which just kept raising that cap, spreading things out and making it feel like someone coming in in (say) issue 10 would never catch up to an issue 0-1-2 vet.

 

The system really seemed (to me) geared towards "Hey, we're going 'freemium' now... how do we get people to keep paying? Oh! Whole new system that you have to be a *paid* subscriber for!" (We were also initially told "no, there's no solo/small team path, GRIND THOSE BAFS!" and had the two "sides" of the tree getting their two types of Incarnate XP from different activities... it's the only time I walked away from the game (for a few months.)

 

Also, Hybrid was supposed to be the "root" of the next set of powers - the only one that got fleshed out (and had its *own* IXP  - Advanced IXP) - of the rest, only one (Genesis) even has a description (creates patches of .. buffs/debuffs.) Mind, Omega, Vitae, we don't know what they were doing. We'd be using those to fight the Battalion. Then the *next* tree, we'd be using to fight the Ascended (IIRC) like Prometheus, and so forth and so on. It's clunky and tacked on feeling because it was - it was meant to introduce a grind.

 

Other thoughts:

- No, I don't think the whole thing needs to be scrapped.

- Yes, Shards should be done away with. Part of the above mentioned grind design.

- IIRC, a 7th slot causes problems with the game. Blame the spaghetti.

- I really kind of don't like the idea of seeing the system turned into "Invention system 1.7."

- That said, as far as special enhancements that have some special effect on their own, not part of any set? That I've wanted for a while. Make them rare/very rare, doesn't need to be part of this system, add some flavor and variety that way. But just as part of the regular invention system.

- Adjustments I'd make? Alpha should be available regardless of exemped level once you've earned it and filled it. The others should be toned down in non-Incarnate content.  (Or maybe "non Hard mode +whatever content," since that's a thing.)

- Not everyone runs the arcs, as mentioned. I'm still baffled how people have trouble with it - though, frequently self inflicted. Granted, I rush through Ramiel's arc to get it done quickly, since i see any iXP earned there as wasted given the auto-unlock of Alpha at the end. But I've also gotten the unlocks and components just by hanging around in MSRs or running other stuff, so...

- I'd be more interested in more Incarnate-level (and interesting, not Mot or Praetoria) content, if *anything's* looked at re: Incarnates.

[twozerofoxtrot]

I feel like brevity is undervalued in these forums sometimes. 

 

 

2 hours ago, Lich said:

My biggest gripe with the system is that it's not really a challenge to completely finish out.

 

 

There's a solid reason for this and if you prefer experience the old way, minus having to pay for premium options, it's available elsewhere. 

 

Tacking more power creep into a system designed to incentivize account subscriptions does not strike me as a wisely considered venture.

[Luminara]

38 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Dang, Lum. You really expect someone to sit down and read *all that?*

 

I'm allowed to be concise and direct once or twice a year.  Ask the mods!

[golstat2003]

7 hours ago, Rudra said:

Or the players positioning themselves dancing or whatever next to Marauder risking him jumping out of the area when the cut scene ends? Sorry, cut scenes are fine, but I'm disinclined to be worried about transient messages during the cut scene when there are more intrusive interruptions. So, not something I'm worried about.

 

Big assumption. Also wrong. I can guarantee there are players that don't do the Mender Ramiel arc or don't do the arc until they have incarnate powers or don't do the arc until they are looking for something to do that they haven't done yet. How can I guarantee that? I'm one of them. So are some of my friends.

 

The incarnate system is already OP for the game. This would be galactic levels of OP beyond even that.

 

One of the things you seem to ignore in your post about changing the incarnate system to an incarnate enhancement system is that acquiring incarnate powers falls in line with the level 1-50 progression of acquiring powers. There is build diversity in the current incarnate system. Players may or may not be utilizing that diversity as they pursue min-max efficiency, but those players are already doing that with the level 1-50 power selections and enhancement slotting.

 

Edit: About the only thing I liked in the OP is the incarnate system shuts off if you exemplar below 50.

 

Nope to all of it. And it already shuts off you go below 45. That's enough of a penalty for exemping.

[Rudra]

26 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

 

Nope to all of it. And it already shuts off you go below 45. That's enough of a penalty for exemping.

So you're in favor of the OP then? What part(s) of it in particular? (Edit: Also, saying nope to all of my post means you are saying I am a liar about people not doing Mender Ramiel's arc. And considering we can get all of our incarnate abilities without doing any trials or the Mender Ramiel arc, that is a very bold claim.)

Edited January 8, 2023 by Rudra

[Zect]

On 1/8/2023 at 6:04 AM, Lich said:

My biggest gripe with the system is that it's not really a challenge to completely finish out.

 

This dates you as someone who never played CoH on live (or probably did so rather late, say circa 2012), lmao. Incarnates were a titanic grind to finish when they first released. i-xp was the least of your worries. You'd need to run khan, ITF, STF/LRSF, and LGTF just for components to make the starting alpha slot power because i-shards were rarer than empaths with a working brain slotted, and you were expected to run the entire gamut of i-trials every day to collect all the empyreans they dropped because getting actual drops from the reward table was like hoping for an SSSR character in a shitty, money-grubbing Korean gacha game.

 

I have nothing in principle against long, epic grinds. However, making a grind that's fun is a skill neither Cryptic nor Paragon studios ever learned. This is a very well-studied topic in game design so I'll spare you the details, but briefly, 1) the game does not dispense dopamine in a frequent and reliable enough way, 2) there's not enough variety to make the grind engaging, and 3) there is no real sense of progression (kill enemies > get loot > kill bigger enemies > get more loot etc.). Till this day, the incarnate grind meta is to baf till you barf. So any revamp of the incarnate system needs to address these three failures in mind and answer the question of how to make a fun grind before deciding to make a long one.

 

It's a pity you're getting so much backlash, because I do in fact agree with plenty of the gripes you and others have with incarnates (if not your proposed solutions). What's not to hate about this terrible system? The horrible UI, the atrocious balance, the awful power creep it brought that destroyed the "old" endgame, the scummy P2W elements (the only reason the Alpha slot has a universal level shift is to sell expacs), etc etc. Not to mention that they went with the LFR/alliance raid approach of "dozens and dozens of players" when coh plays horribly with that many people on the field. Or the whole thorny issue of tacking vertical progression onto an MMO that had been solidly rooted in horizontal progression for over 6 years by then. This last swerve in direction came so far out of left field that till this day, I suspect the idea did not originate from within Paragon Studios itself, but was forced upon them by Nexon's NCsoft's executive meddling.

 

Should the incarnate system be burned to the ground? Absolutely! It's an objectively bad system, and I think the only thing stopping people from saying yes is munchkinism. Can't lose my +1 level shift and my degenerative procs. However, building something to replace it that's not only a legitimate improvement, but would be politically acceptable to the homecoming playerbase at this point, is impossible. Frankly, I'd rather look forward to a new, superior endgame in HM trials and abandon incarnates to the dust of the ages.

 

Edit: NCSoft, not nexon. I got my shady coporate overlords mixed up.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Zect

[Lich]

5 hours ago, Zect said:

 

This dates you as someone who never played CoH on live (or probably did so rather late, say circa 2012), lmao. Incarnates were a titanic grind to finish when they first released. i-xp was the least of your worries. You'd need to run khan, ITF, STF/LRSF, and LGTF just for components to make the starting alpha slot power because i-shards were rarer than empaths with a working brain slotted, and you were expected to run the entire gamut of i-trials every day to collect all the empyreans they dropped because getting actual drops from the reward table was like hoping for an SSSR character in a shitty, money-grubbing Korean gacha game.

 

I have nothing in principle against long, epic grinds. However, making a grind that's fun is a skill neither Cryptic nor Paragon studios ever learned. This is a very well-studied topic in game design so I'll spare you the details, but briefly, 1) the game does not dispense dopamine in a frequent and reliable enough way, 2) there's not enough variety to make the grind engaging, and 3) there is no real sense of progression (kill enemies > get loot > kill bigger enemies > get more loot etc.). Till this day, the incarnate grind meta is to baf till you barf. So any revamp of the incarnate system needs to address these three failures in mind and answer the question of how to make a fun grind before deciding to make a long one.

 

It's a pity you're getting so much backlash, because I do in fact agree with plenty of the gripes you and others have with incarnates (if not your proposed solutions). What's not to hate about this terrible system? The horrible UI, the atrocious balance, the awful power creep it brought that destroyed the "old" endgame, the scummy P2W elements (the only reason the Alpha slot has a universal level shift is to sell expacs), etc etc. Not to mention that they went with the LFR/alliance raid approach of "dozens and dozens of players" when coh plays horribly with that many people on the field. Or the whole thorny issue of tacking vertical progression onto an MMO that had been solidly rooted in horizontal progression for over 6 years by then. This last swerve in direction came so far out of left field that till this day, I suspect the idea did not originate from within Paragon Studios itself, but was forced upon them by Nexon's executive meddling.

 

Should the incarnate system be burned to the ground? Absolutely! It's an objectively bad system, and I think the only thing stopping people from saying yes is munchkinism. Can't lose my +1 level shift and my degenerative procs. However, building something to replace it that's not only a legitimate improvement, but would be politically acceptable to the homecoming playerbase at this point, is impossible. Frankly, I'd rather look forward to a new, superior endgame in HM trials and abandon incarnates to the dust of the ages.

 

I appreciate the kind words! I assume a lot of the backlash is because the average players see "big overhaul that deletes everything" and rightfully think "but what about my effort!!" and then that's kind of where the feedback stops. And not for nothing - the big picture changes I long for would probably only work in some fabled City of Heroes 2 where everyone by definition starts at ground 0. But building sequels to MMOs is not really for the current MMO audience (aka the people reading these forums) its for the people who bounced off the first game or did a slow fade due to mechanical friction. So although the current player base wants the current system because the current system represents effort they don't want to have to let go of, it's still a system that I see as a flawed one, so here we are! 😛

 

I truly hate pulling cards like this as I think they're pretty irrelevant to the caliber of an idea but if it really does matter, I played the game diligently from the release of COV until shutdown. So yes, I've played with the original incarnates post-alpha pre-everything else (although that shouldn't really matter since I am proposing deleting the CURRENT system :P), and I wish more than anything that the old system never shines its light upon the game again. I think the shard stuff is pretty much the worst - its the old-old system just hanging out like a ghoul behind the current one, and its not like the current one is doing us any favors.

 

Anyway, in conclusion, I am glad that someone else views the system as it stands in a comparable light. If you have any additional thoughts about my proposed new version feel free to let me know!

Edited January 8, 2023 by Lich

[Lich]

16 hours ago, Rudra said:

Big assumption. Also wrong. I can guarantee there are players that don't do the Mender Ramiel arc or don't do the arc until they have incarnate powers or don't do the arc until they are looking for something to do that they haven't done yet. How can I guarantee that? I'm one of them. So are some of my friends.

 

 

Ah, to be clear, this wasn't an assumption, it was a direction towards the new flow. 

 

So not "everyone does this already" but, within the above context, "by making sure that every post-50 MUST do this mission arc, we can put necessary in-universe tutorials within its dialogue and mission text, therefore making it a much more streamlined informational flow." It's important to funnel players towards information that they might need in a way that can engage them, yanno? I don't want any system within the game relegated to a wiki and only a wiki. 

 

In any case, you aren't the only one who gleaned the wrong info from the OP, so I've edited it for clarity to prevent further misinterpretation 🙂

Edited January 8, 2023 by Lich

[Rudra]

Except the Mender Ramiel arc does not teach you anything about the incarnate system. The first mission has you more or less invincible with no END cost for powers and I think ultra-buffed damage. With powers you cannot acquire except as granted to you for the duration of that mission. (It is your character as fully empowered god untouchable by anything. I'd argue even the other gods in the game since you can defeat them well before you become an incarnate. Example: Hequat and Lamashtu.) The rest of the missions don't explain how you gain incarnate slots, how you craft incarnate powers, or give anything else that could be construed as instructive for the purposes of claiming the arc is a tutorial. It gives background/story information on how incarnates exist, and that's it. And that information is also available outside the Mender Ramiel arc. It is scattered in the Dark Astoria incarnate arcs for instance. So no, the Mender Ramiel arc is not a tutorial to which players should be funneled. Though it *is* background story players can read in game.

 

Edit: If your reasoning for funneling players into the arc was because you thought it made sense as an incarnate system launch point, we wouldn't be debating this particular point in the OP. Your argument is that it is a tutorial though, which it most definitely is not.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Rudra
Edited to correct "Astoria". Edited again to correct "your".

[Lich]

51 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Except the Mender Ramiel arc does not teach you anything about the incarnate system. The first mission has you more or less invincible with no END cost for powers and I think ultra-buffed damage. With powers you cannot acquire except as granted to you for the duration of that mission. (It is your character as fully empowered god untouchable by anything. I'd argue even the other gods in the game since you can defeat them well before you become an incarnate. Example: Hequat and Lamashtu.) The rest of the missions don't explain how you gain incarnate slots, how you craft incarnate powers, or give anything else that could be construed as instructive for the purposes of claiming the arc is a tutorial. It gives background/story information on how incarnates exist, and that's it. And that information is also available outside the Mender Ramiel arc. It is scattered in the Dark Astoria incarnate arcs for instance. So no, the Mender Ramiel arc is not a tutorial to which players should be funneled. Though it *is* background story players can read in game.

 

Edit: If you're reasoning for funneling players into the arc was because you thought it made sense as an incarnate system launch point, we wouldn't be debating this particular point in the OP. Your argument is that it is a tutorial though, which it most definitely is not.

 

I am saying it's the right place to put a tutorial, not that it currently is a tutorial 🙂 hope that clears things up a bit more! 

[Ruin Mage]

You'd be better served making your own server and doing this. The idea of HC adapting any smidgen of this is...not what I see happening.

[Lich]

35 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

You'd be better served making your own server and doing this. The idea of HC adapting any smidgen of this is...not what I see happening.

 

Yes, that's why in both the opening preamble and closing thoughts I added lengthy caveats saying exactly as such. It's about the theorycrafting and design work, not about the feasibility therein 🙂 If you have any feedback on the design itself let me know! I'd be thrilled to hear your thoughts.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Lich

[Luminara]

4 hours ago, Lich said:

making sure that every post-50 MUST do this mission arc

That kind of design doesn't belong in this game.  And if your redesign is so complicated that it mandates players undergo a hand-holding session to untangle it, it's not simple.

[Lich]

15 minutes ago, Luminara said:

That kind of design doesn't belong in this game.  And if your redesign is so complicated that it mandates players undergo a hand-holding session to untangle it, it's not simple.

 

Do you think that the redesign is complicated? I find it personally a lot easier to untangle than the current system. Get to level 50, earn some XP, get salvage and recipes from Incarnate content or buy them on the AH, craft things (or buy the crafted enhancement on the AH), slot them in the new slots - all of the flow is building off of the same flow that players are at this point used to well before level 50 🙂

 

Compared to what we have it feels like a far more streamlined flow - at least to me 🙂 but if you think otherwise that's good feedback to have! 

[Rudra]

Pretty sure @Luminara is referencing the fact that no mission in the game is mandatory for players to do so making one mandatory to make use of the incarnate system goes against the game's design in the first point. The point in the second comment is that if a tutorial is needed to make use of an end game system, then the (proposed) system is too complicated.

 

Edit: Though I would be remiss in not mentioning that on Live, players had to run the iTrials to get their incarnate slots so that could count as mandatory missions for incarnate system access. However, that was changed prior to shut down with the addition of the incarnate Dark Astoria and the addition of Mender Ramiel.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Rudra

[Lich]

18 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Pretty sure @Luminara is referencing the fact that no mission in the game is mandatory for players to do so making one mandatory to make use of the incarnate system goes against the game's design in the first point. The point in the second comment is that if a tutorial is needed to make use of an end game system, then the (proposed) system is too complicated.

 

Edit: Though I would be remiss in not mentioning that on Live, players had to run the iTrials to get their incarnate slots so that could count as mandatory missions for incarnate system access. However, that was changed prior to shut down with the addition of the incarnate Dark Astoria and the addition of Mender Ramiel.

 

Oh, I see what you mean. Well, in that case, poof, tutorial no longer mandatory 😉 I'll edit the OP!

[Arc-Mage]

I seem to remember the Incarnate System was left over from development of CO. This is why Incarnate Powers feel tacked on. CoH was designed in such a way that it ultimately required a lot of math (balance) whenever something new was introduced to the game. 
 

CO was designed to specifically get away from that. Making CO easier to program.
 

Thus the CoH Incarnate system is balanced out the door and does not require the same “attention” as the lvl 1-50 part of the game.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Arc-Mage

[golstat2003]

20 hours ago, Rudra said:

So you're in favor of the OP then? What part(s) of it in particular? (Edit: Also, saying nope to all of my post means you are saying I am a liar about people not doing Mender Ramiel's arc. And considering we can get all of our incarnate abilities without doing any trials or the Mender Ramiel arc, that is a very bold claim.)

I meant nope to all of the OP. lol

 

Also the existing penalty for incarnate powers not working below 45 is enough.

 

EDIT: OP = Original Post

Edited January 9, 2023 by golstat2003

[TheZag]

Was an incarnate tutorial in the suggestion somewhere?  I played on live but i was free to play during the incarnate stuff.  I was actually considering subscribing again a few days before the announcement but i waited and ended up locked into non subscribed mode for the remainder of the retail run.  After finding homecoming,  the incarnate system was the most confusing part.  From it being in a sub-menu from the powers tab to not knowing what i needed and then not knowing where to get the items.  There are plenty of resources outside of the game if you know where to look - which i didnt at the time.

 

My first character had hybrid unlocked before i ever figured out what to do.  And when i finally started crafting incarnate powers,  i had enough stuff to get T3 in alpha and lore.  Of course each persons situation is different,  but for me it took awhile to touch the incarnate system even though i had ran quite a few iTrials - and earned the reputation of being quite the face planter in the process.  Some sort of ingame 'here is how you craft and equip an incarnate ability'  is all i really think the system needs.  It could use some polish but it doesnt really need major changes.

 

[Lich]

21 hours ago, TheZag said:

Was an incarnate tutorial in the suggestion somewhere?  I played on live but i was free to play during the incarnate stuff.  I was actually considering subscribing again a few days before the announcement but i waited and ended up locked into non subscribed mode for the remainder of the retail run.  After finding homecoming,  the incarnate system was the most confusing part.  From it being in a sub-menu from the powers tab to not knowing what i needed and then not knowing where to get the items.  There are plenty of resources outside of the game if you know where to look - which i didnt at the time.

 

My first character had hybrid unlocked before i ever figured out what to do.  And when i finally started crafting incarnate powers,  i had enough stuff to get T3 in alpha and lore.  Of course each persons situation is different,  but for me it took awhile to touch the incarnate system even though i had ran quite a few iTrials - and earned the reputation of being quite the face planter in the process.  Some sort of ingame 'here is how you craft and equip an incarnate ability'  is all i really think the system needs.  It could use some polish but it doesnt really need major changes.

 

 

I feel like your experience is both typical of the average player (because yes, the system is not integrated with the other parts of your character at all, and that makes it hard to even find in the UI) and a strong indicator that the system as a whole needs to change.

[Arbegla]

Having ran multiple characters through the old system back on live, I can say that I really enjoy the faster unlocks that Homecoming gives to the incarnate system. I don't agree with adding a 7th slot as the power creep for IOs themselves is pretty massive.

 

Back on Live, the ATOs, Winter IOs, and other 'high end' enhancements were rarer than rare to get a hold of, and thus made progression slow down a lot. Homecoming opened up the flood gates, and allowed many different avenues to achieve power. Refactoring the incarnate system, while I will argue is needed, doing it the way you're proposing forces a lot of people to start from scratch, even if 'scratch' will be over soon, as you're making levels easier to gain.

 

I think slight tweaks here and there, like adding the incarnate powers to the enhancement menu, and making the salvage easier to manage (and removing shards and anything that deals with shards..) would be a good first start, without really changing the overall system, just making it more streamlined.

 

I also feel like there needs to be a real tutorial, like we have for the Invention system, where you literally get a free recipe, free salvage, and told to craft something yourself. Even if its a T1 power, and optional, its still a good thing to have the ability to get walked through how the system works. The university contacts, even on V side, do a great job of explaining the Invention System, but there is nothing at all like that for the Incarnate System.