Bright

Sunday, 1/15

1. 60 threads: Yes
2. Bomb badge: No
3. Avatar Assassin: No
4. Role: DB/WP Stalker; Melee damage
5. Rewards: Rare
6. Duration: As usual
7. Other: 4 deaths, Lichen duty, Bomb team

'Love the phoenix wings and tail... They're pretty much perfect for my ninja Mastermind's "Fire Clan princess" costume. Her oni approves.

1. 60 threads: Yes
2. Bomb badge: Yes
3. Avatar Assassin: No (*shakes tiny fist at Des*)
4. Role: Ninja/FF Mastermind; mostly damage this time
5. Rewards: Rare
6. Duration: As usual
7. Other: 3 deaths (*grumbles about stupid Olympian Guards*), Lichen duty

I'm still missing one badge or another on many of the "regulars" I bring to Underground, but as I've said before... It's not a big deal. My only real badge collector is Palrah, the tank that I refuse to bring anywhere near the thing. He doesn't have his Master Of- and never will. It doesn't matter very much if any of the others do. It's only useful for the bit-drop opportunity.

Re: TPN... again, it's not one I'm likely to take my tank on, so the badges don't really matter to me one way or the other. What I *would* like to have is the gun recipe for my DP blaster, Rose. So, I'd be up for joining them with her just to try for that. Even if I end up buying her the recipe from the Oro vendor, she'll still have to have finished a successful trial to use it.

I can't say I've seen many role players around on Exalted...

The general culture/social tone of the place doesn't seem like it would be hostile to them, exactly, but I doubt it would really be supportive, either.

It's a chick thing.

'Could call it "Stabby Saturday" or something and bring both the Scraps *and* the Stalkers... But then, I'm biased. I'm a big fan of both.

Hey now... Dis not the ninja.

Han's guys have done terrible, terrible things to those escaping prisoners.

But, yeah. All kidding aside, it really does come down to everyone covering each other and playing attention to getting the job done.

Chokes can work... But ONLY if everyone is paying attention and you have a few people who can break ranks and quickly take out any strays that get past the two main groups.

The fact of the matter is that there are almost always going to be prisoners that make it through the AoE storm, even on a heavily-shifted league with multiple Masterminds. To-hit rolls are what they are, and a few goons are simply going to get lucky. That's just the nature of the beast... But those still have to be taken out. With the whole league bunched up, you can't just let them run by under the assumption that somebody, somehow is going to handle them farther down the path.

That's one of the frustrations I have personally with the choke-point method. Either people *don't* pay attention to the strays and so don't notice them getting through, or they do notice and don't go after them... Assuming, I guess, that someone else will do it or that they'll get in some kind of trouble if they leave their little assigned area.

The former is just human nature. I don't think there's much we can do about that. The latter, though, might be an easier fix... If, instead of just reminding everyone to pack in close and stay in their places, league leaders were to specificly remind heavy damage types to keep an eye out for strays and to give them the specific go-ahead to chase them down if they have to (Even if that means leaving the pack to do so-), it could help.

As it is, I know that some of us will take "chaser" duty anyway if we have to, but that's not always the most efficient use of available ATs. Those of us willing to defy the mantra of "Stay together!" to chase aren't always going to be on characters well suited for that task... That BAF I took Chanter on the other day is a perfect example. I'm a chaser, but a completely unshifted Dark corruptor was far from the best choice for taking out strays. I did it anyway, because I was apparently the only player on my team willing to go after the prisoners that were getting past the group, but there's no way I could kill them fast enough. We'd already lost four or five to my low damage output by the time anyone else decided to help.

'Not exactly an ideal situation, especially when a quick "Hey, damage people... Mangle any strays that manage to avoid the group beat-down" suggestion from the leader could have brought some attention to the issue before it became a problem. Yes, I do realize that going on and on in league chat about people staying together is necessary, but when it comes to taking out strays, I think making an exception is reasonable, and it ought to be mentioned.

Maybe he gets hit on the head by a Praetorian civilian with a rock.

(Okay, okay. He's tougher than that. It might take as many as TWO rocks. )

Friday 12/30:

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Rad Defender- Some ranged damage, mostly healing and debuff
5. Rare (plus salvage for badges and MO)
6. No AFKs, about average trial time
7. Four deaths, leading Des for the spore tunnels/avatar segments

Saturday 12/31:

1. Yes
2. No
3. Yes
4. DB/WP Scrap- Melee Damage
5. Rare (plus rare salvage bit from MO)
6. No AFKs, about average trial time
7. Five deaths (Ash is fearless XD), lead Des briefly

I'm one of those MMs who has bad luck with drops... You saw what I had to do to get the four Rares for Han's T3s.

Would you believe that even after so many UG runs, I still don't have the Master Of- on anyone? Sola, Mist, K and Han are all still missing one or more of the badges, and my actual badge-collector is the tank that I refuse to take anywhere near the thingl! It's been a lot of fun doing them, though, and as always thanks for cat-herding.

Re: MoM... I'm not a fan of that trial, I'm afraid, so I'll just wish you good luck on those, and pass on joining them myself.

Thursday 12/29 (PM)
1. Did the league get the 60 thread bonus?
- No

2. Did the bomb badge effort succeed?
- Yes

3. Was the Avatar beaten while the seedling was spawned?
- No

4. What AT role were you playing ? Melee, ranged, support, debuff.
- Ninja/FF Mastermind. Mixed role.

5. What reward did you get?
- Very Rare

6. About how long did the trial last and how often did you go afk for more than a minute or two?
- About average, No AFK

*Other details that might be useful: Two personal deaths, "lichen duty" on regen WW, fairly conservative play-style since I had Dez for the middle third of the trial.

Wednesday 12/28
1. Did the league get the 60 thread bonus?
- No

2. Did the bomb badge effort succeed?
- No

3. Was the Avatar beaten while the seedling was spawned?
- No

4. What AT role were you playing ? Melee, ranged, support, debuff.
- Ninja/FF Mastermind. Mixed role.

5. What reward did you get?
- Rare

6. About how long did the trial last and how often did you go afk for more than a minute or two?
- About average, No AFK

*Other details that might be useful: One personal death, "lichen duty" on regen WW, fairly aggressive play-style.

Once I get past a certain level I usually do... What that level is varies depending on who I'm playing, though. It was fairly late for my Peacebringers, for instance, but tends to be earlier on for my scraps and brutes.

I usually turn them off for everyone when I'm speed-running Tip missions.

I'm sort-of somewhere in the middle, I think...

I have about 50 characters all together (That's counting the active ones, as well as the retired ones, the abandoned ones and the "joke builds"-), which sounds like the collection of an alt-addict, but I don't tend to play them the way most altitis sufferers do. I pick two or three to focus on at a time, until I get them all to some level. Then I move to the next two or three, getting them to that level... and so on, down my list. Once all of the characters of a particular "generation" are at the same point, I go back to the first group and advance them to Level Y, staring the whole cycle again.

That's how I've ended up with more than twenty at 50 (all but two of which are +3 full Incarnates now- o_O), five characters sitting at 47, and a whole horde between 35 and 45. I don't think I have anyone who isn't a "placeholder" below 20 on my main account at this point, and only one sub-20 on my secondary.

Would I play them? Absolutely! I'd play the heck out of something like that...

Even though I'm one of those weird people who honestly enjoys the existing league-scale trials, duo/trio and "small team" are still my favorite ways to play this game. I liked the Halloween trial a lot, and have even had some good fun on random four and five player DfB runs.

Would they completely replace the trials for me, if they existed? No. Like I said, I actually enjoy those too, and would continue to play them... But having other options is a Good Thing. There are some nights and times we can't even get enough people together for a Lambda. That's when having small-team iContent would be nice. It would give us something to do with our "in progress" Incarnates that wasn't dependant on having quite so many of the Usual Suspects on-line.