The Incarnate system: trivializing Archtypes

[jack_nomind]

I think IOs, despite being as strong or arguably stronger than Incarnates, are more acceptable [because] . . . you're not gonna notice the Blaster wading into the group of enemies while they all whiff on him nor are you going to notice the Spines/Dark Brute with 10 toggles having effectively unlimited endurance. 

 

I like your points and how you make them, but I'm not going to cede the "Destiny, specifically, is too stronk in a way IOs are not" point because each of those things -- as you point out, end goals an entire IO slotting strategies -- are accomplished with single Destiny powers for the entire team at once.

[omegaboost]

IO's are objectively stronger than incarnate powers. It's not even close lol. Incarnates are useful and help plug up some weaknesses but your char is still mortal. I can't think of any incarnate abilities that will allow a blaster, the "glass cannon" of coh,  to efficiently solo +4x8 missions without breaking a sweat.

 

Who needs the judgement nuke when inferno is up every 35sec, or Rain of Arrows every 15sec.

Who needs barrier (which degrades over time) , when S/L/E and range defenses are already capped at 45%?

 

I'm not complaining though, these kinds of builds took heavy time investment and well over a billion inf to achieve back when the game was live and I'm personally enjoying myself more than I ever did back then. Nobody knows how long the Homecoming servers are going to last so being able to log in and play 98% of the content without having to worry about the Holy Trinity team setup is great. It absolutely trivializes other builds/roles but it's fun for a game that's essentially on borrowed time.

[Obitus]

I think IOs, despite being as strong or arguably stronger than Incarnates, are more acceptable [because] . . . you're not gonna notice the Blaster wading into the group of enemies while they all whiff on him nor are you going to notice the Spines/Dark Brute with 10 toggles having effectively unlimited endurance. 

 

I like your points and how you make them, but I'm not going to cede the "Destiny, specifically, is too stronk in a way IOs are not" point because each of those things -- as you point out, end goals an entire IO slotting strategies -- are accomplished with single Destiny powers for the entire team at once.

 

I'm not sure I quite understand your phrasing here, but I'll lend support to Rumors' point:  Incarnate powers (specifically Destiny, Judgment, and Lore) scale in team content in a way that IO bonuses typically don't.  IOs vastly increase solo capability, generally more so than Incarnate powers do - and this increase in solo capability does translate to team content, but not to anywhere near the same extent that 8 nukes on the team will, or 8 copies of the force multiplying buffs from Destiny, or eight Lore pets that are individually capable of putting out DPS comparable to the best pre-Incarnate Scrapper builds.

 

CoH is absolutely famous for its broken buff/debuff stacking.  I daresay that a team of SO-only debuff Defenders is still more effective than a hodge-podge-AT team, even IO'd to the gills.  It's harder to argue the same thing about a hodge-podge team of full Incarnates, even without IOs.  So I think the major takeaway with regard to IOs' effect in team play is that IOs allow players to make lemons into lemonade much more easily, to carry bad or marginal teams, to take any build that wants to join without worrying overmuch about the balance of the team's strengths and weaknesses.

 

As to the solo game, I think you made an interesting point about everyone turning into Superman.  I don't entirely disagree, though it is worth noting that even the solo context is fairly complicated.  By itself, soft-capped DEF isn't quite as uber as many people seem to think; for a lot of builds, it's the starting point before you can start to solo at a high level.  Traditionally squishy ATs like Blasters still have to keep their heads on a swivel, even with soft-capped DEF, which is usually limited to one position or 2-3 types (S/L/E).  One of the biggest threats to such builds is mez.  And the only comprehensive solution to mez for most traditionally squishy builds is, you guessed it, an Incarnate power.

 

Other builds simply don't have the damage output to make soloing at the highest difficulty levels practical.  IOs can help with that, but there's only so much they can do if you start at a low baseline.

 

In any case, no one's soloing the whole of the game's content, indiscriminately, at +4/x8, or if they are they're not doing it fast or easily.  There are a multitude of different enemy factions in this game.  It's always been true that every build has a weakness, an enemy type or situation that plays to the build's disadvantage.  And that remains substantially true, post-IOs, and even in many cases post Incarnates.  Take an SR (or any other build relying on soft-cap DEF) against Rularuu, for example.  Others have pointed out how gold-side content really ramps up the buffs/debuffs/controls.  Some people like it; others hate it, but it remains an option for players in search of a more robust challenge.

[jack_nomind]

I daresay that a team of SO-only debuff Defenders is still more effective than a hodge-podge-AT team ... of full Incarnates

 

effective at what?  speed clearing content, or keeping the team alive in difficult fights?

 

in the first case, you're making the argument that you think 8 SO-only Defenders can clear content as quickly as 8x Judgment and Lore with 8 mixed ATs behind them (very likely including some corrs and trollers among them).  if you're saying that organization clears content faster, i might bite.  but what you seem to be saying, somewhat inadvertently, is that defenders do -- i realize your intended point is about force multiplication but when you try and hard-separate out all force multipliers from 'incarnate content' we're no longer discussing CoH.  even scrappers do -regen these days.

 

(or, jumping to a totally different way of framing the issue, let's pretend there's a defender who does -50% tohit on enemies all the time.  that's great.  now let's pretend that someone has an imaginary incarnate power that makes it so everyone on the team does a stacking -10% tohit on enemies.  the defender at that point is still 'better,' but they aren't adding anything; the small force multiplication that everyone else is doing has swallowed the defender's effect to the point of irrelevance because they've already done more of that effect than will almost ever matter.  this is obviously abstracted greatly, but perhaps illustrative.  perhaps not so parenthesized.)

 

in the second case, i really don't think incarnate characters regularly struggle to stay up.  players who faceplant often tend to go with rebirth, barrier, melee hybrid, etc and bring up the rest of the team's survivability along with gapfilling their own.

[Obitus]

I daresay that a team of SO-only debuff Defenders is still more effective than a hodge-podge-AT team ... of full Incarnates

 

effective at what?  speed clearing content, or keeping the team alive in difficult fights?

 

in the first case, you're making the argument that you think 8 SO-only Defenders can clear content as quickly as 8x Judgment and Lore with 8 mixed ATs behind them (very likely including some corrs and trollers among them).  if you're saying that organization clears content faster, i might bite.  but what you seem to be saying, somewhat inadvertently, is that defenders do -- i realize your intended point is about force multiplication but when you try and hard-separate out all force multipliers from 'incarnate content' we're no longer discussing CoH.  even scrappers do -regen these days.

 

Actually, my point was to separate force multiplication from IO set bonuses.  I explicitly said that I think Incarnates do trivialize group content in a similar way that stacked buff/debuff do.  IOs do much more for each character's solo capability, generally speaking, but their benefits don't scale in team settings to the same degree.

 

Your ellipsis changes the whole post's meaning.  I probably could have phrased it a little better.

 

And by effective, I meant the whole shebang.  You mentioned Superman earlier; let's use his CoH analogue:  A team full of Statesman (INV/SS) will be less effective than a team full of Positrons (Rad/Rad, IIRC).  This remains true even if you give Statesman IOs to boost his DPS by (e.g.) 50%, or to make him even more unkillable. 

 

(A 50% DPS boost from IOs is probably a little generous too, btw; there are cases where IOs can dramatically increase practical kill speed, for example by reducing the recharge on blaster nukes, but by and large IOs' contribution to offense is far more subtle - tightening up attack chains to increase DPA, shoring up endurance so as to facilitate a faster pace, etc.  Everyone's into DEF slotting not just because DEF is powerful, but rather also because IOs don't offer a whole lot in terms of practical offensive boosts once you've passed a certain threshold of +recharge.)

[jack_nomind]

I think Incarnates do trivialize group content in a similar way that stacked buff/debuff do.  IOs do much more for each character's solo capability, generally speaking, but their benefits don't scale in team settings to the same degree.

 

oh.  well that was a silly non-argument.

 

c'est das leben.

 

(i still think destiny slot is sufficient to replace ios for an entire build.)

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

IO set bonuses have done far more to homogenise archetypes than Incarnates ever have

It's a compounded effect. As I stated before, Archetype homogenisation is a similar effect to power creep. Remember, set bonuses happened many Issues (content patches) before incarnate powers.

This is no way contradicts what I said.

 

Maybe... but only if what you said was irrelevant.  If we pretend the argument is about big numbers, then the argument you're objecting to is something like, "100 x 100 is too large a number," with you responding, "well, 100 is a big number, too."  We're concerned with the ten thousand here; so you might not be wrong if the point you're making is just that it has factors, but it's also not responsive to the point.

 

re other points, set bonuses specifically distorted three areas disproportionately: recharge, endurance, and Defense.  there's a reason why there is less mez protection available from sets than from pool powers.  and yes, people have and still do suggest those three things should be managed/mitigated/nerfed.  i personally think the game can absorb the 'broken' endurance and Defense just fine.  recharge is... a bigger discussion.

 

Those using build guides are forevera t best that tier because someone using a guide will never even be a peer to the one that created that guide. . . .

 

my character of the same name as my handle here was a blaster that would not falter or fail . . . Id lead Lady Greys and ITFs daily and no matter the AT used some players just could not keep up. I had everything from scrappers to brutes to full on tanks complain about how gimp the power sets or combos they had taken were . . . among the returnees as I have only encountered a single brute played that ineptly. . . .However I have met those that also do not wield their incarnate abilities very effectively in large part because they are new to them as they hadnt been playing during the last  year of live.

 

Look, all the anecdotes are great but that's not really what the balance discussion is about.  I've made or revised builds for plenty of players better than myself, and cheered for everyone pushing the limits of what any AT can do.  I'm thrilled when possibilities open up because of new mechanics or interactions.  The concern isn't that X build is too strong, or that an AT can perform a slightly different role than it was designed for.  Instead, it's a problem with and for content, more like the "superman problem."  Bear with me for a sec.

 

Writing a good Superman story is hard because he's canonically only worried about three things: kryptonite, his friends/family, and the literal end of the world (which ties into 2).  (Canonically, magic also hurts him but this comes up rarely.)  There are no other challenges that phase him, so basically every superman story is one of: Lex Luthor gets ahold of some Kryptonite; Lois Lane (or Ma Kent or etc) gets kidnapped; Braniac (or Darkseid or etc) threatens the world.

 

It's almost hard to say at this point which is the worse Superman story: Superman shows up and beats up the bad guys because nothing was a threat; or Lois Lane gets kidnapped.  They are dull to the point of tears.  In order to solve this, the writers either write Superman out of his own stories (off saving the galaxy, gets sick, red kryptonite, etc etc); or they nerf him directly or relatively (e.g., "What if there's a monster so tough even SUPERMAN can't punch it hard enough!" -- despite "can punch hard enough" being one of the core Superman powers until it suddenly isn't); or they make the problem complex enough that being fast and punching just isn't the solution (and for the last one, you have to remember that e.g., global thermonuclear war is solvable by being fast enough and punching hard enough); or they make Superman the villain.  (Edit: I realized after writing this that Batman v Superman literally rapid-fires all of these problems.  Geez that was a terrible story.  Pretty dream sequence though.)

 

The point we're... at, really, or anyway right up next to... in City of Heroes is "everyone's Superman."  And that's great until you realize that it means new missions all have to be Superman stories.  Either they're all on timers, or all of the sudden Incarnate powers don't work (or they hit like wet noodles against these specific bad guys for some reason), or they work but don't affect the actual mission (there's no 'find all the clickies which were deliberately hidden in obnoxious corners' Incarnate power).  Or, somehow, they're evil or something... I'm sure there's a way for that to work.  But for a long time, the best Superman stories have been Justice League stories; stories about big, complex problems Superman can't solve as a blunt force.  And this thread is literally about not being able to do that anymore in CoH.

 

This is why I don't understand folks defending the 'it's fine everyone's Superman' position.  It is, I mean we can all have a blast with that for a few hours, but it's deadly to the story.  Even the cool high concept stuff like Battalion becomes "8-40 Supermans get in a fight with bad guys and then win."  All of the planned Incarnate content was based around the idea of making Incarnate powers functionally irrelevant to the Incarnate story -- we were literally never supposed to be powerful enough to fight Battalion on our own -- and that just seems...

 

small.

 

Not everyone.just every META gamer. and we should never care about how those types abuse content and defile the game, or it will lead to ruin like how AE got hurt because those sick twisted self centered types couldnt keep their grubby fingers off the one MMO that had a good RP community and content that clearly was made for their creative minds.

 

Role Players tend to only take characters that fit being incarnates to incarnate status, just as we dont make every character a fully IOd out demi god while leveling.

 

You think I make my batman esque character an incarnate? Nope dont need to, I dont do every bit of content with every character. Some just are not meant to walk that path.

 

Some are, and they are not what they are because of incarnate powers but are complimented by them.

 

Keep in mind in lore, Galaxy Girl a non incarnate accomplished more by basically using a super form of self destruct during the rikti invasion then any incarnate class being like States did.

 

And powerful foes have powerful counters. In the dark Knight Returns, Batman uses every trick and tactic to weaken, and distract superman to get a piece of K close enough. And that is a mere human. If a being had bats brains and doomsdays powers Supes would despite all his godly power be royally frelled.

 

So had the Battalion content been made and had they been given the means to peirce through defenses and wreck us like Qs wreck kheldians I for one would of thought it perfectly logical.

[Blastit]

Not everyone.just every META gamer. and we should never care about how those types abuse content and defile the game, or it will lead to ruin like how AE got hurt because those sick twisted self centered types couldnt keep their grubby fingers off the one MMO that had a good RP community and content that clearly was made for their creative minds.

 

People who use IO sets and Incarnate powers aren't "defiling the game", they're playing the game as it exists and as the developers intended. Those two systems are both explicitly meant to surpass previous limitations in capability. The AE system only lost rewards because it was so good for farming that its sheer resource use overloaded the servers. If you want to role play as you run interesting story arcs then nothing has changed.

[jubakumbi]

Not everyone.just every META gamer. and we should never care about how those types abuse content and defile the game, or it will lead to ruin like how AE got hurt because those sick twisted self centered types couldnt keep their grubby fingers off the one MMO that had a good RP community and content that clearly was made for their creative minds.

 

Huh.

 

Unlike the 'sick twisted self centered types' that cannot allow other people to enjoy what they enjoy, but instead think they can force thier own narrow view of the world on everyone else, like the Busy Bodies and Hall Monitors of CoH just love to do?

 

You can take your ideas to oppress creativity and expression to your own private server, IMO, and then judge everyone from there, where none of the nasty sickness will harm you.

You have the power to have your own little tower of power no one can harm, so go use it and leave the rest of of 'sick' people have fun.

[Moka]

Incarnates just exist to either fill in the holes of inherent problems with your archetype or powerset, such as endurance issues or a lack of damage, or exist to make you better at what you already do. You hardly trivialize any content, especially not long term rewarding content. You may be able to solo +4/x8 Council or something easier in a radio mission, but it still takes a proper build to do something like solo an ITF. A proper IO build without incarnates will always outdo someone on standard IOs but fully incarnated. They're a minor boost, if anything.

 

I still want a brute or tanker for Statesman/Miss Liberty Task force, as well as LRSF. They're still a near necessity for Hamidon raids. All this doomsday talk does is hold back game development and forward progression.

[johua]

The incarnate system, to a lesser degree, fulfills a similar function to IO sets.

 

Certain aspects of it are slightly more extreme, some are less. And the system does not patch every single hole. All it really does is allow greater freedom when building a character, because you aren't as restricted by the need to patch whatever faults your powersets may have in your build itself.

 

Does it make the more powerful sets even better? Yeah. Who cares?

 

It's a superhero game. It's about being super. Anything that makes my characters more super is a good thing.

 

It also makes some of the generally bad sets more playable.

 

Also, destiny isn't trivializing anything, unless what you're really getting at is that people aren't being forced to wait around for you to apply buffs to them. Judgment does way more to trivialize content, what with nukes flying around every which way, and I still wouldn't say that it trivializes anything.

[chigiabelo]

 

People like to play god.

 

If you check out the suggestions part of the forum, there are quite a few posts from people who still don't feel godlike enough.

 

I have a friend who last night was telling me about a server called Unity where they apparently allow you six slots for every single power and you can have multiple snipes.  So I would guess people there didn't feel godlike enough either.  ::)

 

Everyone has a different definition of fun, that's all.

This, also where can I find more info about unity?

 

If God mode is what you want, then run your own server. If you have GM privileges then typing /maxslots will grant every power you have six slots and /omnipotent will give you every power in your class so, for example, you can have all the powers of every powerset in your primary and secondary. Imagine a blaster with all the nukes and snipes from the blaster AT.

 

[THEDarkTyger]

Furthermore, there was something very satisfying about "finishing" a character, which is not really possible any more.  But here we are.

 

On the contrary, there is something very satisfying about my character never truly being finished.  8)

 

Yeah, I agree. Keeps me from just shelving a character when there's still more to do with them.