Future plans to add to horizontal progression

[hardicon]

Hello are there any future plans to add to our horizontal progression like the incarnate abilites and stuff.

[Psyonico]

The devs never tell us what they’re working on, so we have no idea.  (Ok, the people in Closed Beta know things, but they won’t say anything because that means they’d lose Closed Beta access).

 

i personally hope nothing is done to make level 50s stronger than they already are.  The existing Incarnates already trivialize everything but advanced mode, which only requires a bit of coordination to trivialize.

[hardicon]

i can see that but growing your power is a fundamental aspect of mmo games.

[Hopeling]

Do you mean vertical progression then? Horizontal progression is the kind of progression that does not grow your power.

[twozerofoxtrot]

And in fact HC has implemented a lot of Horizontal Progression via new badges, non-combat summons/weapons, and the Prismatic Aether costumes.

 

I imagine that they'll continue to do so with future releases since they've been generally quite popular. 

[Snarky]

10 hours ago, hardicon said:

Hello are there any future plans to add to our horizontal progression like the incarnate abilites and stuff.

 

5 hours ago, hardicon said:

i can see that but growing your power is a fundamental aspect of mmo games.

There is a top in every game.  go check.  I will wait.

 

See?  i told you.  

 

City of Villains.. and heroes...  has a top level of 50 plus incarnates.  That has not changed in a very long time.  Yet it still matches EVERY other game.  It has a pinnacle.  Adding further powers and abilities without content to challenge those players who get them is actually a disservice to the game and community.  writing a lot of content that is significantly above where incarnate content is now would require serious amount of time and effort from many people.  the HC staff is all volunteer.

[Lunar Ronin]

7 hours ago, hardicon said:

i can see that but growing your power is a fundamental aspect of mmo games.

 

I mean... no?  It's a fundamental aspect of World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft clones, but believe it or not, MMOGs existed before World of Warcraft!

 

There is also no power growing in Guild Wars 2, and in Elder Scrolls Online from what I hear.

[twozerofoxtrot]

1 hour ago, Lunar Ronin said:

There is also no power growing in Guild Wars 2, and in Elder Scrolls Online from what I hear.

 

What they say in GW2 (only half jokingly) is that fashion is the true endgame. 

[KaizenSoze]

Until the dev balance content against the current incarnates. I don't want any new ones.

Edited Monday at 04:22 PM by KaizenSoze

[tidge]

There is no need for more Incarnate powers IMO.

 

The Incarnate system was one game tacked onto another game, with (on Live) extra grind for subscribers.

 

In terms of "Game Lore"... I don't love the Incarnate add-ons, mostly because the Live dev team essentially broke the 'evergreen' nature of the CoX content. Dark Astoria was reworked... I'm still not a fan, but I can't argue that it was (next to Terra Volta) probably the least engaging of the Hazard zones. Praetoria was canonically destroyed... this is far more upsetting, since the First Ward story demonstrated just how to make an 'evergreen' zone. Let's not talk about Galaxy City. All signs were pointing to the Live dev team growing both bored and desperate, which was a deadly combination for a narrative game.

[FupDup]

Entirely new incarnate slots would pose balance problems, but new options within the existing slots would have fairly little chance of disruption. Stuff like a cold damage interface, Malta or Dev Earth lores, a damage boosting destiny, a toxic judgement, etc. 

[Scarlet Shocker]

I have found that as I've aged my vertical progression has largely become static whilst my horizontal progression seems to increase exponentially.

[Andreah]

I'd like to see a bunch more accolades with small, permanent stat boosts on them. Tie them into substantial sets of badges you get along the way and at end-game, especially those that encourage running content.

[Forager]

Dangit... I was hoping you were talking about waist and hip sliders.

[Scarlet Shocker]

4 hours ago, Forager said:

Dangit... I was hoping you were talking about waist and hip sliders.

 

However hip you think you are, it would be a waste to encourage that kind of thinking

[El D]

11 hours ago, tidge said:

In terms of "Game Lore"... I don't love the Incarnate add-ons, mostly because the Live dev team essentially broke the 'evergreen' nature of the CoX content. Dark Astoria was reworked... I'm still not a fan, but I can't argue that it was (next to Terra Volta) probably the least engaging of the Hazard zones. Praetoria was canonically destroyed... this is far more upsetting, since the First Ward story demonstrated just how to make an 'evergreen' zone. Let's not talk about Galaxy City. All signs were pointing to the Live dev team growing both bored and desperate, which was a deadly combination for a narrative game.

 

Yes, the evergreen nature of early CoH content, containing such amaranthine concepts as the timely context of Operation: World Wide Red, the repeated use of 'ex-Soviet Union' mad scientists, and Freakshow l33tsp34k. Or references to gang leader NPCs like Frostfire and Tub Ci having been active in the 70s and 80s or Back Alley Brawler spearheading the Regulators in the perennial War on Drugs. The game wasn't even 'evergreen' through the first year of it being live, much less over its entire original lifetime. Every new event, zone, story arc, and task force after launch progressed the timeline when they were added. Also, First Ward was literally a lead-in to the finale of the Praetorian War storyline. It was put in the game in the middle of the then on-going Incarnate content and introduced concepts and plot points that directly linked into subsequent Incarnate trials and arcs that capped off Praetoria.

 

Regarding OP's post - if I understand the gist right, I agree. More options for the existing Incarnate powers to fill concept gaps (more Judgements types, Lore pet options, etc.) would be fine additions. Higher tiers of powers or more level shifts though, no.

Edited Tuesday at 12:46 AM by El D

[Clave Dark 5]

21 hours ago, hardicon said:

i can see that but growing your power is a fundamental aspect of mmo games.

 

[Ukase]

22 hours ago, Andreah said:

I'd like to see a bunch more accolades with small, permanent stat boosts on them. Tie them into substantial sets of badges you get along the way and at end-game, especially those that encourage running content.

As much as I'd like it...I wouldn't like it. And I'll tell you why. I've got a ton of alts. I barely have the desire to get the 4 passive accolades on each character I make. Now, what might be interesting is different pathways to the same stats. Like instead of doing the katie hannon TF and the defeat requirements for geas accolade - just complete all 4 arcs and the tf. 
Or, if on red-side (and I have no idea why Croatoa isn't co-op) set up something like do all of X and Y's story arcs, and get an accolade. The whole Defeat X and grab these plaques gets pretty dull after a few hundred alts. 

[Andreah]

On 7/8/2025 at 10:53 AM, Ukase said:

As much as I'd like it...I wouldn't like it. And I'll tell you why. I've got a ton of alts. I barely have the desire to get the 4 passive accolades on each character I make. Now, what might be interesting is different pathways to the same stats. Like instead of doing the katie hannon TF and the defeat requirements for geas accolade - just complete all 4 arcs and the tf. 
Or, if on red-side (and I have no idea why Croatoa isn't co-op) set up something like do all of X and Y's story arcs, and get an accolade. The whole Defeat X and grab these plaques gets pretty dull after a few hundred alts. 

I've been cooking the idea for these new stat accolades in the back of my mind as a form of horizontal progression for a long time.

 

I get that some people have a lot of alts they feel are "complete" or "need to have complete", but to me, full horizontal progression is something we do for mains, or at least main-badgers. It sucks if one is a obsessive completionist, but that's how the world would work with new, extensive, horizontal progression of any kind.

 

However, my idea is itself limited to nine or so new accolades. These would grant the individual stat bonuses which today can be purchased from START via the three kinds of temporary amplifiers. These are desirable, yet limited, and have been in the game since Live. However, the stats gained from these new accolades would be fully permanent and set-up to not stack with the existing amplifiers. So, for example, if you got a +to-hit stat bonus from a new horizontal progression badge, the to-hit from the Offense Amplifier badge wouldn't apply to you. These new badges would be arranged roughly in order of the desirability of these stats, and require a veteran badge suitably far along with a variety of other game-content related badges to earn it. The intent is that, once one has been granted all of these badges, it would be from having done a considerable variety and breadth of the content of the game.

 

We could even break some of these granted stats from the amplifiers up into pieces to create more, but more incremental, stat badges. We could also create new veteran level badges (e.g., at levels 150, 200, 300, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, and 1000), and use these as the veteran badge requirements for these new stat accolades. Those levels are achievable without farming for players dedicated to their characters as mains.

 

We'd have to confront the real issue with any new horizontal progression -- it'll introduce power creep. I've largely dealt with that here by making this a way to acquire bonuses that are already in the game, but which are expensive and temporary. Still, it would be wise to have a more general way to counter player power-creep from wide horizontal progression with NPC power creep, too. Maybe look at new "enemies buffed" challenge settings (with , or situational combat AI improvements, special ambush spawns, and so forth. That's a subject for another thread though.

 

Maybe sometime I'll get an AI to sketch out a complete plan for new accolades to get an idea of what it might look like, but I doubt there'd be enough support or dev interest to actually do this -- in fact, I expect more than a few of you to hate it. :D 

 

Edited yesterday at 01:16 PM by Andreah

[Ukase]

12 minutes ago, Andreah said:

We could also create new veteran level badges (e.g., at levels 150, 200, 300, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, and 1000)

Um...no thanks. One of the biggest strengths CoH has is the ability to alt and alt some more. For a while, I'd had my XP turned off on my "main", because there was no motivation to go beyond 99, and at the time, if you had xp turned off, you got 2x inf. 

Now, I enjoy playing my main ice/ice blaster. But if you're telling me there would be new badges to get, and I'd have to go through 900 or so more levels to get all the badges...I'm going to be predictably pissed. Yeah, I can hear it. "Nobody says you have to get those badges."  Um, yeah, I do. So, even though I've tried to delete my stable of hundreds of characters, trying very hard to whittle them down to just 50, I've still got another 100 to clean out before I can delete them. And then I can cycle through the ones I've been playing instead of taking up room and resources (and names) with the ones that just sit idle. But that's just me. I can't imagine how someone like Voltor would feel having to put 25 characters to vet level 1000. 

A very easy No thanks from me on that front. 

[Andreah]

4 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Um...no thanks. One of the biggest strengths CoH has is the ability to alt and alt some more. For a while, I'd had my XP turned off on my "main", because there was no motivation to go beyond 99, and at the time, if you had xp turned off, you got 2x inf. 

We'd just do a one-time reset of everyone back to vet level 99 when this would go in. That'd be popular, too! :D 

[lemming]

Some of the new accolades are nice such as Mark and Recall, Sheer Willpower.  Handy to have without being overpowered.  And just enough of a PITA to not get them on every char.

[golstat2003]

Seeing as how some have said they feel the EXISTING incarnate powers need a nerf, I don't think anyone can justify even stronger incarnate powers.

 

Adding more variants sure, but higher tiers, no.

Edited yesterday at 03:08 PM by golstat2003

[Andreah]

43 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

Seeing as how some have said they feel the EXISTING incarnate powers need a nerf, I don't think anyone can justify even stronger incarnate powers.

 

Adding more variants sure, but higher tiers, no.

Much as I'd love to see them added, too much power would come from it. IMO, they'd have to be useable inside specific new incarnate content designed for them and I don't like that idea even more. I already think we limit too many things to special circumstances and it makes little sense to me, other than as a mechanical haks in-place because we couldn't fix the underlaying design problem.

[OmegaOne]

Horizontal progression would be more like adding new power sets, pool powers and enhancement sets, which they are already doing. I could also see them adding additional TYPES of Incarnate powers for certain categories like Lore or Judgement to fill out different character concepts, but unless they have a means to make content even more challenging I'm not sure they will be adding the higher tier Incarnate powers past Hybrid.