Friggin_Taser

It's very easy to stand out on a LAMBDA trial with only 16 people/2 Teams and even on a BAF trial with 24.

Stand out by showing the initiative to speak up and offer advice in L-Chat. Stand out as a buffer by keeping a tank alive while he's trying to tank one of the AVs. Stand out as a tank/brute/meleers by saving the squishies' behinds from said AV.

A lot of people here have their blinders on because they hate the very premise of large scale trials/raids. Every year there are at least 4-5 crossovers that consist of 16 or more superheroes. Right now we have Age of X going and then we have Fear Itself with Marvel alone. Hell, Matt Fraction's Uncanny X-Men has a cast of about 30 X-Men in it. Does that make Emma Frost or Cyclops or Namor less "super" because they are in it?

Any crossover will have a handful of heroes who are there that just blend into the background due to apathy or the laziness of the writer. Any raid/trial will have a handful of players who are there that just blend into the background due to apathy of the laziness of the player.

By your own failed logic, I guess that the ITF is the most fun task force every put in this game because of how many times it's run.

I'm not assuming, I already know you have absolutely no clue what the playerbase as a whole cares about or finds fun. You and a few others (hi, Venture!) are abusing the empirical "we" and continue to cast YOUR opinions off as the opinions of a mysterious amount of playerbase to try to puff up your own feedback's worth.

To combat your complaints, let me say that some people scoff at your attitude and we all think your feelings against this content are short sighted at best.

Your server really doesn't have one or two supergroups that still gloat about being able to take down Hami as they host weekly Hamidon raids where everyone succeeds?

If that's reality, then I guess no one ever managed to take down Hamidon.

I would hate to play any MMO you design. In fact, I'd hate it so much that I wouldn't stand for it.

Yes, let's make the end game content just like levels 1-50, because as we all know there was a big rush to do Ice Mistral SFs (without being a strike target) or rub Indigo's story arcs before, right? You couldn't swing a dead cat around without being being able to amass a full team to run the Croatoa arcs.

What's that? You couldn't find a full team because most people have already done it once or twice and had no interest in ever doing it again?

So yes, I guess you are right: the devs should have listened to you and made the end game content easily defeated by even the most broken of random teams.

You say you aren't a LFG Leech player, but yet you want the devs to make the game into City of Loot Leeching instead of actually being able a challenge that takes more than a 1-2 failures at.

But I guess you just wouldn't stand for actually having to keep trying at something to defeat it. I'm sure in 2-3 weeks when servers are full of fully slotted players and these trials are cake walks you wouldn't feel like an idiot at all, right?

I've been here before. I've died on that sword before. I complained about the RSF for days even after competing it, protesting that it's too hard or the game required us to cheat to beat it. Turns out it was actually programmed with IO's in mind and when those were released and people used them it turned into just another strike force. I've lead people through that strike force since the buffs were implemented and again with the alpha slot. I realize how wrong I was and I realized how dumb it was for me to rage against a perceived machine that was out to get me.

If you want to repeat my mistake here, by all means. I'll hobble off the sword and you can take your stand on it.

So where do we draw this line? How much dumbing down of the content would you like before the game turns into a superhero version of Progress Quest?

You don't even have to do anything with your alts right now. Wait a week and most servers will have dozens of slotted up players running leagues in RWZ and looking for more. Their bonuses will make up for your defiant kicking and screaming into the end game and eventually you can leech off their success enough that you'd realize you have been making progress all along and this stupid "I WILL NOT STAND FOR ADDITIONAL CONTENT, GRRRRRRRR" act was a waste of your, and the forum's, time.

I'd suggest you send in a /petition because you appear to be the only person playing issue 20 that doesn't gain Incarnate XP during these trials based on your feedback. I assume when you die or when your team finally gives up because you keep dying, you get a message that the game is erasing all progress you are making towards Incarnate abilities, right?

It doesn't take a non-stop farm to unlock the abilities that will make this easier for everyone. It takes 3-4 runs, even unsuccessful ones.

That and, if they were easy, you'd see people less likely to keep running them like you do on a normal night around Tin Mage or Apex if neither is the Strike Target.

Compare and contrast: Yesterday I did both the new Task Force and Strike Force. I have to do them one more time each to help my supergroup mates get the badge... then I'm pretty much done with them unless they are strike targets.

The Incarnate Trials would be the same for many players if they were easily beaten by a team of random players first go.

No, Incarnate Content are trials that aren't likely to be beaten first time out by random teams and that's messing with everyone's head.

Every issue people have with the enemies were programmed that way to take future Incarnate abilities, one's that we can unlock since yesterday, into consideration. The fact that so many teams failed yesterday mixed with the "casual" players on this forum who were going to hate the trials based entirely on them existing have created a mini-panic of hyperbole and dread.

Meanwhile, people who understood the design of the trials already have their Interface or Destiny slots unlocked.

Eiko, I really do hope you don't consider yourself a "casual" player. That'd be like a millionaire politician running a campaign about how he's just like regular middle class common folk.

It's disingenuous at best and outright detrimental to forum discourse at worse.

No, you don't "have" to do anything.

You don't "have" to run incarnate trials. You don't "have" to post threads like this that make you sound like an overly entitled 3 year old. You don't even "have" to play this game or any game for that matter.

Are you like this in game? If you die randomly during one of the trials, do you then spend the next 10-15 minutes complaining about it in team chat? Do you just wait to die once so you can complain and make sure everyone's attention is on your negativity during the trial? Or do you take a minute or two before the raid starts to ask the raid leader to pair you with a thermal or a sonic or any other support build that might be able to help you?

Of course, you've already proven that it takes less skill at playing this game to fail miserably at it and then complain viciously about it over numerous threads than it is to figure out why you failed and ask teammates, which you have in mass numbers, to lend a hand.

Yes, because adding an issue of content that doesn't personally excite you 100% is totally the same as a guy who replaced carburetors with live Cambodian babies just for a laugh.

That's right, I counteracted your hyperbole about resurrecting with resurrected hyperbole.

Some things: don't boast or think too highly of yourself in team chat no matter how well things are going. People tend to gravitate towards someone who is a bit self-deprecating and certainly someone who is humble and thanks his or her teammates for their assistance.

Also: if you have to issue commands, try to do it without caps or without NOW being thrown about. Remember this is a game and people tend to get turned away from leaders who try to make it seem like work.

Before you start, try to look over your team (if you don't know the players) or issue commands based on players you are familiar with's strengths. If I know the regen scrapper I always team with can handle aggro better than the fire tank I randomly picked up because he was standing in front of Tin Mage, I tend to follow her after the alpha shots and keep her buffered better.

If you are doing a Task Force or a mission you've done before and have a specific way you've done it that you know you're comfortable with and will lead to less death, by all means speak up about it before you start. Tin Mage I will use as an example again: When it was the WTF the other week, the first 2-3 times I led one we noticed a lot of people dying because we were only killing the WarWalkers and leaving the rest of their mob, which were still aggro'd and firing on squishies. So from that point forward I started each Tin Mage by saying "Please kill entire WarWalker mobs before moving to next one." I never had an issue with people not following that.

While teaming, try to keep the conversation fun and casual. I team with a lot of people who like to randomly quote song lyrics, so if we hit a tense spot I usually try to chime in and start doing that to relax people and myself. If you have a new player you never teamed with before on your team, make that player feel welcome and see if you might have a new global friend out of it.

I think what they did avoided that. Put what they consider the "last patch" onto test. Then wait 2-3 weeks. Then make the announcement that the upcoming issue hits next week. If a bug shows up after that 2-3 week window, it certainly wouldn't be showstopping or gamebreaking.

Keep the announcement pretty close to when they think it'll hit and it should be no problem. Positron's issue, I believe, was announced FAR too much in advance.

I want to reinforce good behavior with compliments here:

This straight forward, "Give The Customers A Date When Asked" pre-announced issue release is a great thing and should be a part of any future issue publish. It beats the tar out of the old school procedure of being overtly... cryptic... about the whole ordeal and giving customers the run around.

Good work, Zwill, and here's hoping everything goes off without a hitch and we see a similar treatment done to issue 21.

Edit: As for the Mac Client, let's put it into prospective. I was a Mac man long before I bought a PC for CoH and other games. I remember back in the dying days of OS 9 waiting and waiting for the most basic of ports of top tier PC games. In fact, I'm still waiting for that port of Blood which never ever came.

I don't want to turn this into a "You Kids Today Don't Know How Good You Have It," but not having a pre-download for an issue isn't the end of the world for Mac Gaming.

The April Fool's Badge?