The Incarnate system: trivializing Archtypes

[Generator]

Why so people think restrictions _add_ value is just beyond me.

 

Because the alternative is an undifferentiated duplication of the same two or three builds endlessly.  Here's an analogy I like to use to explain the concept ludologically.  Another analogy is "If you like sushi, and you like chocolate, and you like beer, and you like pizza, you don't get the best food by putting all those things in a blender and drinking what comes out."

 

Hell, isn't that why they put ATs into the game in the first place?  I always heard that back in the game's Alpha development, chargen was all open, and eventually the One True Build emerged and it was all anyone played (funnily enough, my recollection of the OTB is that it was what we're now calling the Sentinel).

[jack_nomind]

Hell, isn't that why they put ATs into the game in the first place?  I always heard that back in the game's Alpha development, chargen was all open, and eventually the One True Build emerged and it was all anyone played (funnily enough, my recollection of the OTB is that it was what we're now calling the Sentinel).

 

Not only did it happen when Cryptic was testing the CoH alpha, but they did it again with Champions Online and the same thing happened.

 

And yes, it was a tanky ranged build for CoH alpha (and basically similar for Champions), but the reason for that has less to do with Sentinels/Strikers being categorically OP and more to do with a dilemma about altruism.  Without inherent AT powers, a team of eight Sentinel-type builds is ~eight times as good as a solo Sentinel, while a team with seven Sentinels and a Controller-type is ~twenty times as good as a solo Sentinel; but a solo Controller is way worse than a solo Sentinel.

[Rumors]

Basically what Jack said about restrictions and stuff.  Right now, the "optimal" way is to build and play is to slot your character for soft-cap defenses and then use Incarnates to buff everyone on the team to immortality, rolling nuke with Judgements, and then use a few powers to clean up the leftovers.  When everyone's near unkillable and throwing out tons of damage, most of the variety of tactics falls to the wayside.

 

Again, it's not a problem in content designed to account for this sort of stuff, but there's not much Incarnate content and there's even less that accounts for fully slotted Incarnates.  EG:  About half the trials, both TFs, and DA all only require you to have an Alpha slotted.  Having everything at like T3 trivializes even them.

 

 

 

There's also what I'm going to call the "Special Snowflake" effect.  Without Incarnates, if you join a team with nobody matching your AT and powersets, then what you bring to that team is more or less unique.  Chances are you'll have someone similar, like if you're a Blaster and there's another Blaster, but you still do things differently and have both advantages and disadvantages over each other.  Assuming equal skill levels, slotting, and levels, you're gonna feel like you're bringing something to the team that the others can't perfectly replicate.  And even if you run into the same AT + powerset combo on the team, you two might have build very differently.  You might be an in-your-face Fire/EM Blapper while the other Fire/EM might be a Hover Blaster.

 

Incarnates though?  There's so few of them (except Lore), very little customization to them, and everyone gets them.  So, it doesn't feel special.  What you're doing could easily be interchanged with one or more people on the team and they'll do it at the exact same or near identical effectiveness.  You can't skip Interfaces to take extra Hybrids.  You can't slot your Radial Destiny to be more effective in some areas and less than others.  You can't slot your Judgement for secondary effects or more up time over damage or anything.  Heck, you can't even pick a Defender to get a stronger Destiny at the cost of a weaker Judgement.  Everyone's about the same and you start to feel like you don't bring anything new or interesting to the table.

 

Solo's a bit of a different story, as I've said before.  You're alone, so you're the special snowflake no matter what you do.  Incarnates are fine then since you have perfect control over when and where they are, and are not, used. 

 

 

...honestly, it's kind of the same problem Warframe has, now that I think about it.  Get into a team there with everyone running optimal builds and just screen nuking high level enemies the moment they spawn and stuff and it becomes not very fun, even if you're playing something capable of doing the same thing yourself.  And its even less fun when you can't do that and therefore feel like you're being dead weight carried through the mission.

 

 

As I said, the ship on getting a sufficient amount of Incarnate content that sufficiently challenges maxed Incarnates has most likely sailed, so sadly the only thing we can do without ticking off the player base is more nocarnate teams and stuff.  Or see if the devs will allow options for team leads to disable that stuff in a more convenient fashion.

[jubakumbi]

So you are all just focused on the fact that if there is one true build, everyone will just flock to that, so we have to prevent people from doing that?

Really?

You are that worried about what others play, or that the herd mentality will somehow override the hundreds of subtle combinations this game has into 2 builds, really?

 

Seriously, you are trying to compare this to pizza and beer in a blender?

 

So this is just another attempt to make sure the min maxers don't feel bad about each others builds or something?

Not all poeple that play this game do it as a DPS/MinMax Meter.

 

All of the arguments I see here either based on the fear of picking the wrong build as a MinMaxer, or just don't like the overall power-fantasy at end-game where we are all gods.

 

That's what this game _is_, a power fantasy, so where is the problem other than not enjoying the power fantasy?

[Legree]

So you are all just focused on the fact that if there is one true build, everyone will just flock to that, so we have to prevent people from doing that?

 

I think it's rather more complex than that.  The issue isn't what other people play, not as such.  The issue is that if the idea of 'one true build' takes hold in CoH - at it has done in other MMOs in endgame content - then anyone who doesn't follow that build slavishly will find themselves locked out of said endgame.  This isn't speculation - it's already happening with the demands for specific ATs, specific builds of ATs, specific levels of Incarnate power that you can see in LFG daily. 

 

That's what this game _is_, a power fantasy, so where is the problem other than not enjoying the power fantasy?

 

Because it's boring.

 

If I want to smack around helpless mobs and never run the risk of defeat or even challenge I'll go and play... well I won't name names but any number of MMOs have flattened the challenge of content into the ground and there's a reason I'm here playing CoH rather than there playing them.  Reducing everything to a rolling Incarnate DPS-fest is boring, and as for upping the challenge by choice that's not going to fly with the XP/per second crowd who are already running speed ITFs (min 50+ must be alpha slotted), and so the pool of potential players for team content shrinks further and further... and noone wants that.

 

Let me put it another way.  I'm not concerned that down the line I won't be able to run Incarnate content because I'm not optimal.  I'm concerned that I won't be able to run non-Incarnate content like ITF, LRSF, STF etc unless I'm 50+3 and fully IO'd out.

 

 

[Coyote]

That's what this game _is_, a power fantasy, so where is the problem other than not enjoying the power fantasy?

 

Your entire argument is based on a single premise, and it is a fallacy to assume that your premise is reality rather than just opinion.

 

Not everyone thinks that this game IS just a power fantasy... consider that players dial up the difficulty as high as it will go. If all they wanted was to smash mobs like superheroes beating up gun-toting mobsters, they would run it at -1/x8 to have more bodies falling to the floor, faster.

 

Psychological tests show, actually, that tasks that have no difficulty and no challenge, soon become boring.

[jack_nomind]

Seriously, you are trying to compare this to pizza and beer in a blender?

 

Yep.  Pizza and beer are both great mixes of ingredients.  They're even good in close succession to one another.  But if you throw them in a blender, the taste and texture is ruined.  Good food is more than just ingredients; it's preparation, presentation, organization -- structure.  Good games, maybe good anything, are similar.

 

That's what this game _is_, a power fantasy, so where is the problem other than not enjoying the power fantasy?

 

Maybe nothing, but I bet you don't really believe that.  There's a mission at the beginning of the alpha slot unlock arc that gives you an "intangibility" power and amps up all your stats immensely.  You spend the whole mission beating on AVs and GMs that can't do a damn thing about it.  If you're sincere that all that matters it the power fantasy and all the "minmaxing" bits are irrelevant, I imagine you spend 100% of your time in that mission.  Is that so?  I'd bet not.

 

There's no sense in being pointlessly reductive about this.  There's room for this to be a power fantasy most of the time and a good game most of the time.  Just like you don't need to run around literally invincible all the time to feel powerful, we can have constraints that enhance the fun and feeling of success, rather than diminish them for many people.

[justicebeliever]

That's what this game _is_, a power fantasy, so where is the problem other than not enjoying the power fantasy?

 

Your entire argument is based on a single premise, and it is a fallacy to assume that your premise is reality rather than just opinion.

 

Not everyone thinks that this game IS just a power fantasy... consider that players dial up the difficulty as high as it will go. If all they wanted was to smash mobs like superheroes beating up gun-toting mobsters, they would run it at -1/x8 to have more bodies falling to the floor, faster.

 

Psychological tests show, actually, that tasks that have no difficulty and no challenge, soon become boring.

 

This is why a lot of video games fail in fact.  Once the challenge is conquered, people become bored and leave.  And then people will leave the game...One of the great strengths about CoH is that it's design is still relatively unchanged (game mechanics-wise) since Issue 0, and despite graphics that show their age, and an antique Combat engine, is that people still love the game.  Homecoming, by all accounts, should not be this big...Change those core principles that have kept people here for literally decades, and we risk losing the MM in the MMORPG.

 

[Machariel]

Not everyone thinks that this game IS just a power fantasy... consider that players dial up the difficulty as high as it will go. If all they wanted was to smash mobs like superheroes beating up gun-toting mobsters, they would run it at -1/x8 to have more bodies falling to the floor, faster.

I really don't think that's true at all because even if you take the game to be a pure power fantasy (whatever that means, but it's is definitely part of the game), you feel stronger crushing on +4x8 than you do on -1/x8.  I think it's pretty obvious that crushing +4x8 endgame content makes you feel stronger than going into Atlas with the same character and street sweeping level 1 hellions.

[justicebeliever]

Not everyone thinks that this game IS just a power fantasy... consider that players dial up the difficulty as high as it will go. If all they wanted was to smash mobs like superheroes beating up gun-toting mobsters, they would run it at -1/x8 to have more bodies falling to the floor, faster.

I really don't think that's true at all because even if you take the game to be a pure power fantasy (whatever that means, but it's is definitely part of the game), you feel stronger crushing on +4x8 than you do on -1/x8.  I think it's pretty obvious that crushing +4x8 endgame content makes you feel stronger than going into Atlas with the same character and street sweeping level 1 hellions.

 

I think your answer speaks to Coyote's point quite well however (I know tone is lost on the Internet, so please know I am not being sarcastic, nor condescending).

 

If your fun was just wanting to feel powerful, than you do what every power hungry person does, and conquer the weaker around you.  You set the game to -1/x8 and blast away.  You go wipe out Hellions in AP by the dozens in a single blast.

 

If your fun is wanting to feel strong by beating a challenge, then the game needs to have mechanics in place to challenge you.  Fighting +4 or soloing AV's is fun because it's so damn hard (or should be), and it's the mechanics that make that so.

 

I think most people mistake powerful for challenged, and they really want challenged...

[Xaeon]

People generally want compelling but not particularly challenging fights in my experience of game design. Hard enough to give resistance but not hard enough to beat them more often than not once they figure out what's what.

[Shinobu]

People generally want compelling but not particularly challenging fights in my experience of game design. Hard enough to give resistance but not hard enough to beat them more often than not once they figure out what's what.

 

I agree.  There's a lot of talk here about people will leave if they get bored, but not enough talk about people will leave if they get frustrated (because a game is too hard).  Both of those are true.  ^_^

 

I think a lot of people gravitate towards games they can play on their phone or ipad or computer that are not so easy as to be no challenge at all, but not terribly difficult.  My mom plays a form of spider solitaire every day, and sets it to two suites only because that's pretty easy but not as simplistic as one suite.  I know because I've done exactly the same thing.  You can win most of the time with those settings, but lose once in a while so it's not a cakewalk.  And I think that's fairly comparable to the people who run the same farm mission every single day, or always run an ITF every evening, or organize six MSR's in a row, or six Hami Raids, or whatever.  Challenging, but not really difficult.  That's what many people want or like.

 

 

[Xaeon]

Losing while figuring things out is fine for the player (as long as they feel like they *can* figure it out) but once they figure out the strategy/sequence to win they tend to feel like the enemy is cheating when they still lose more often than not. Even Dwarf Fortress, a game whose mantra is losing is fun; becomes significantly less difficult once you finally figure out its systems. Also failure in Dwarf Fortress is a cascade of outlandish and hilarious unfortunate events that's a delightful series of over the top dominoes falling. CoX cannot ever hope to manage something like that.

[Machariel]

I think your answer speaks to Coyote's point quite well however (I know tone is lost on the Internet, so please know I am not being sarcastic, nor condescending).

Yeah, I misread what they wrote - you are correct :)

 

My point was that- not everyone plays the game as a pure power fantasy.  I think everyone agrees on that.  But, IF - hypothetically - everyone DID, I still don't think you'd see people setting it to -1x8 or street sweeping hellions; therefore the fact that you don't generally see -1x8 is not evidence for or against being a "power fantasy".  Minor quibble.

[justicebeliever]

I agree.  There's a lot of talk here about people will leave if they get bored, but not enough talk about people will leave if they get frustrated (because a game is too hard).  Both of those are true.  ^_^

 

I think a lot of people gravitate towards games they can play on their phone or ipad or computer that are not so easy as to be no challenge at all, but not terribly difficult.  My mom plays a form of spider solitaire every day, and sets it to two suites only because that's pretty easy but not as simplistic as one suite.  I know because I've done exactly the same thing.  You can win most of the time with those settings, but lose once in a while so it's not a cakewalk.  And I think that's fairly comparable to the people who run the same farm mission every single day, or always run an ITF every evening, or organize six MSR's in a row, or six Hami Raids, or whatever.  Challenging, but not really difficult.  That's what many people want or like.

 

You are right (as always) Shinobu.  However I haven't heard talk about the game being "too hard" in...a really long time...Even the last time I heard it was during ED and GDN in Issue 5/6.  And even then the outcry wasn't that the game wasn't too hard, just not as easy.  And despite the outcry that it would absolutely ruin the game, it still persists, against all odds today.  So I don't think we are at risk with the game becoming impossibly hard.  That's what the difficulty slider is for...

 

It is exactly like playing spider solitaire - you gravitate toward the setting that gives you just enough challenge to win.  There is a reason that people who can win on 2 suits don't play 1 suit - it's not challenging, it's too easy, and therefore it's not fun.

[Zolgar]

 

I agree.  There's a lot of talk here about people will leave if they get bored, but not enough talk about people will leave if they get frustrated (because a game is too hard).  Both of those are true.  ^_^

 

 

To be fair, it is more about boredom than frustration.

 

Take a classic platformer as an example:

If I hit a certain level that I cannot pass, if I seem to be unable to even make progress on it, it will eventually hit a point where I am just mindlessly going through the motions until the point I continually fail. Not only am I frustrated at it, but I am not even engaged anymore- make people fail constantly while keeping them engaged, and they will constantly come back for more though.

[DocRadio]

I don't see a problem. Doesn't achieving incarnate status involve a massive amount of resources and time? You could get your toon to 50, then stop. Like we did in the old days pre IO's. Hit 50.... and you're done. Now you get to keep reaching, keep improving to meet new challenges. Sounds like fun shit to me. Can't wait until I have the INF needed to mack my main out.

[srmalloy]

So you are all just focused on the fact that if there is one true build, everyone will just flock to that, so we have to prevent people from doing that?

 

I think it's rather more complex than that.  The issue isn't what other people play, not as such.  The issue is that if the idea of 'one true build' takes hold in CoH - at it has done in other MMOs in endgame content - then anyone who doesn't follow that build slavishly will find themselves locked out of said endgame.  This isn't speculation - it's already happening with the demands for specific ATs, specific builds of ATs, specific levels of Incarnate power that you can see in LFG daily.

 

I don't know of any way to obtain the information you would need to do the analysis, but I have to wonder whether the majority of people doing this are old CoH players, or imports from other MMOs where having the right twinked-out gear was a necessity for completing most of the endgame content.

[MunkiLord]

 

Psychological tests show, actually, that tasks that have no difficulty and no challenge, soon become boring.

 

This is why a friend and I are discussing and planning on how we can use two Scrappers and duo a Master of Ms Libterty Task Force. Normal content isn't quite boring to me yet, but it's not as fun as trying crazy stuff to push our builds and challenge ourselves.

[Rumors]

I don't see a problem. Doesn't achieving incarnate status involve a massive amount of resources and time? You could get your toon to 50, then stop. Like we did in the old days pre IO's. Hit 50.... and you're done. Now you get to keep reaching, keep improving to meet new challenges. Sounds like fun shit to me. Can't wait until I have the INF needed to mack my main out.

 

Not really.  Veteran levels on their own will get you exactly everything you need to T4 everything.  Hence you can get T4 everything just doing Council Radio missions endlessly.  Doing any sort of Incarnate content on top of that will speed up the process dramatically or let you take extra powers as options for the character.  Basically everything will be handed to you eventually with some patience, similar to basic leveling up.

 

 

On Live, the only reasonable way to obtain the new slots and materials beyond the Alpha slot was do incarnate content.  You straight up could not unlock Incarnate slots beyond Alpha without doing Incarnate content and veteran levels simply didn't exist.  And even if you got the slots unlocked, you still needed to do the iTrials, Apex/Tin Mage, and Dark Astoria to reliably get the materials at far, far lower drop rates.  I wasn't around much after the Alpha slot days, but I recall it was grindy enough that people were getting pretty burned out on the trials and stuff.

 

Also on Live, only subscribers could have, use, and earn Incarnate powers or do Incarnate content, so only a portion of the player base had access to that level of power to begin with.

[Zolgar]

On Live, the only reasonable way to obtain the new slots and materials beyond the Alpha slot was do incarnate content.  You straight up could not unlock Incarnate slots beyond Alpha without doing Incarnate content and veteran levels simply didn't exist.  And even if you got the slots unlocked, you still needed to do the iTrials, Apex/Tin Mage, and Dark Astoria to reliably get the materials at far, far lower drop rates.  I wasn't around much after the Alpha slot days, but I recall it was grindy enough that people were getting pretty burned out on the trials and stuff.

 

Especially because there were what.. 7 itrials? Pre-Dark Astoria, the only option for getting past Alpha was running those trials CONSTANTLY. Run BAF and Lambda enough to unlock Judgement and Interface, and you were lucky if you had enough resources to tier 1 both of them, and the higher level ones were built as 'gear checks', some of which if a large portion of the team wasn't at least +2 in trials you basically couldn't finish it.

 

It's nice here on Homecoming the itrials being a thing because people WANT to do them, not because they (feel like they) NEED to do them.

[DocRadio]

I'll admit, that I don't fully understand the Incarnate system. I left the game shortly after it was implemented. Is there some kind of guide to understanding it?

[THEDarkTyger]

Incarnate content is harder, it doesn't change the fact that more damage is always better, and every character can now do everything. Why bring a controller when you can spawn pets and add debuffs to your attacks as DPS/tank.

 

OH NO! You're not locked down to requiring specific ATs on your teams? WHAT A DRASTIC CHANGE FR-

 

 

...wait, the whole game is and always has been like that....

[Coyotedancer]

Guys... Seriously.

Stop trying to nerf the crap out of everything you don't like.

 

I get where you're coming from. I do. I remember when there was still the very real possibility of actually failing to finish an STF. I was on more than a few teams that did... Yes, that rarely happens anymore, largely thanks to Incarnates, and some of you seem to hate that. But it really *is* a pretty simple problem to get around if you want to.

 

It starts with ACTUALLY TALKING TO YOUR TEAM.

 

Put up a recruiting post that says "Hey! Let's live dangerously! No iPowers challenge STF/ITF/Whatever LFM! Come die with us!"

Gather like-minded individuals who all agree that debt is only another badge.

Get everyone to open that Incarnate Powers interface.

Click exactly six times each to unslot those iToys…

… and let slip the Old School non-Incarnates of War.

 

That's really all it takes. Some communication and co-operation among us, as players.

You can have the whole game back the way it was pre-Incarnates *right now* if you put together a team with that goal in mind.

 

Of course, that takes some effort, and I also get that it's easier to shake a fist at the proverbial heavens and demand that Judgement be turned into just-another-wiffy-attack and that Destiny be torn out by the roots so that no one has to do the actual work of putting together a challenge team...

 

But, you know, the option is there. <_<

[QuiJon]

Guys... Seriously.

Stop trying to nerf the crap out of everything you don't like.

 

I get where you're coming from. I do. I remember when there was still the very real possibility of actually failing to finish an STF. I was on more than a few teams that did... Yes, that rarely happens anymore, largely thanks to Incarnates, and some of you seem to hate that. But it really *is* a pretty simple problem to get around if you want to.

 

It starts with ACTUALLY TALKING TO YOUR TEAM.

 

Put up a recruiting post that says "Hey! Let's live dangerously! No iPowers challenge STF/ITF/Whatever LFM! Come die with us!"

Gather like-minded individuals who all agree that debt is only another badge.

Get everyone to open that Incarnate Powers interface.

Click exactly six times each to unslot those iToys…

… and let slip the Old School non-Incarnates of War.

 

That's really all it takes. Some communication and co-operation among us, as players.

You can have the whole game back the way it was pre-Incarnates *right now* if you put together a team with that goal in mind.

 

Of course, that takes some effort, and I also get that it's easier to shake a fist at the proverbial heavens and demand that Judgement be turned into just-another-wiffy-attack and that Destiny be torn out by the roots so that no one has to do the actual work of putting together a challenge team...

 

But, you know, the option is there. <_<

 

I have not read every post in the thread I am sure some people are wanting nerfs ot the powers or whatever. But I think more so the OPer and others are concerned that the powers have given things to ATs that breaks their concept and trivializes other ATs usefulness to the game. And I can not say they are wrong. My spines/fire brute now for farming can have a pet (which inever use) but a recharge bonus for powers almost as effective as speed boost, a damage buff that requires no enemies, no to hit roll, no aura to infect other enemies etc, and every two minutes max out all resistances and defense and evry two minutes drop an alpha strike as powerful as any blaster that has twice the range and hits over twice the targets.

 

Now when they decided to add epic power pools it was done with thought. Thought to not only themes to fit with power pools available like fire or cold but thought as to filling the gap in existing needs for the AT. Controllers and tankers got some blasts, def and blasters some resistances etc. But the incarnate are blanket powers to all ATs and as much as I might be willing to concede it is nice having some means of mez protection on my blaster everytime I click judgement on my brute I think "how could the devs have given me this"

 

Now I don't want them to be nerfed but I do wonder if perhaps having them scale to content would be a bad thing. For example if you are playing incarnate content they they are full powered but if you are not maby they cap out at leve tier 3 or 2. So you still benefit but not quite as much. But mainly I think most people want to be challenged. So my first thing would be I would like to see more incarnate level content put into the game. Give us more to do with the powers then a few trials and farming the same zone over and over.

 

As far as the ease of getting salvage and slotting them I am fine with it on homecoming. Frankly I found it to be to grindy back 8 years ago when my life had more time for games. I am glad now that I don't have the time to playlike I used to I can still make progress.