Spatch

It has always struck me as a silly mechanic, that should a league drop below the minimum threshold (due to a d/c, a quit, a kick, or whatever), that the trial would cease to function. TFs don't work this way, so I wonder why the devs structured the trials in such a manner.


I heard that the Oblit beam can target even in the hospital. I was skeptical of the claim, since the hospital strategy appears to be one that has been succesfully employed.

Troll much?

I mean seriously, this has been an entirely uncontentious thready until you showed up.

Amen. I'm stuck at 14/16 on the Dreamwalker badge. I've seen nightmares duplicated now several times over, but have yet to see Jurassik or Deathsurge. I see nothing "master" about what's little more than a Random Number Generator, and getting luck of the draw. I had the same idea as you, make it six, 10, or 12 out of 16. But all 16? Makes for a bunch of cranky badgers.

A creative approach, one that our team leader pondered briefly as I recall, but we didn't give it a go, for whatever reason.

If in your account management screen it says the following, you're golden:

Subscription: 12 Month + 2 Free Months ($)

Avoids the Green Stuff is arguably the most difficult badge to get in the game. As a dedicated badger, it certainly was the badge that gave me the most difficulty. A group of us, over a period of four months, tried every Sunday for the Keyes badges, Green Stuff in particular. We started late September. Finally got Green Stuff the Sunday before Christmas. I'd estimate we did about 40 runs of Keyes (having done 2-3 Keyes per week).

We were a team of people whose goal was dedicated to acquiring this badge, and it still took us ~40 attempts. There's almost no chance to get the badge on a regular Keyes runs. When I do Keyes now, I just laugh when I see Green Stuff fail, inevitably, usually on the first beam.

Since the transition to an F2P model, I've been simply gobsmacked at the amount of content being added to the game. It's been a veritable flurry of new content, including new power sets, new trials, new story arcs, signature story arcs, etc.

Hyperbole alert.

If you're going to try and make a point, it's best to ensure your statements are factual. Based on my experience:

1. I have NEVER seen players vetted for the number of purples they have slotted.

2. BAF, Lambda, Keyes, and UG can be done unshifted, and I've never seen players vetted for their shifted status. I'm sure it's happened sometime on some server, to but suggest it happens regularly is a patent exaggeration. Perhaps your server sees a lot of this, but on Champion, iTrial formations are extremely PuG friendly. MoM and TPN have shifted AVs, and were designed for shifted players. As such it's not unreasonable to vet players to ensure they're going to be able to contribute in a meaningful way (an unshifted 50 will be completely useless against a 54+2 AV).

Yes, I picked up the New Year Pack last night (around midnight). I was worried it would be priced the same as the Winter Pack, which would have made me balk at purchasing it. I was hoping it would be priced at 200 pp, so when I saw it at 160 pp, it was a no brainer.

Merry Christmas!

Interesting, I didn't realize that either. Although, that explains why my incarnate salvage was mysteriously increasing in the last week. In this past week, I've banged out MoKeyes, MoTPN, and three badges towards MoMoM.

Heh, they've come down in price. I've only ever seen them sold for $2B.

Quite right. It probably wasn't widely known that the Titan Weapons Pack was available for free as a stand-alone purchase (my initial impression was that it was free only with the purchase of the weapon set). The OP probably wasn't aware, but one could have acquired the freebie pack, and purchased the actual Titan Weapon set at a future date. This is what I did. I caved a few days later and bought the weapon set, but that's a different story.

Fixed that for you.

This happened to me a few weeks back on my beam rifle corruptor, who was level 37 at the time. I put in a ticket at support.cityofheroes.com and my problem was fixed in short order.

I suspect your issues stem from your server, Exalted. I'm speculating, mind you, since I have not played there.

Speaking from my own experience, on my home server, Champion, it isn't particularly difficult to put together a badge run. There has been a number of us who scheduled weekly (Sunday) badge Keyes runs. We started back in September going every week without fail, and finally nailed Green Stuff just this past Sunday (early Christmas present ). The leader has suggested that since we finally wrapped up MoKeyes, he may keep the weekly thing going in the new year, and focus on other trial badge runs.

Badge runs are generally also advertised in the Champion server forum. I always make a point to pop in there from time to time, to see if someone's scheduling a badge run. I've gotten a few Mo badges this way, joining ad hoc groups that advertised on the forums (MoSTF, MoLRSF, and MoCuda, IIRC).

I've found the badges on the new trials, MoM and TPN, to be much more player-friendly (UG too, Preservation Specialist excepted). With the exception of the nightmare badge (what's so "Master" about an RNG?), I've gotten all of the new badges by simply being on well-coordinated teams. We weren't even making any special effort to get the badges. So it appears the devs are moving away from ridiculously difficult badge requirements (I'm looking at you Green Stuff), to challenges that most teams can make a reasonable crack at without the need to resort to 'deviant' behavior. (I think the new badges are probably a bit too easy, but that's only my subjective assessment -- YMMV).

From its inception, I have wondered why the TuT was not a cross-server mechanic.

You're correct on this point. I got this badge on my first UG trial which was pretty much unbridled chaos during the final fight. We weren't even thinking about badges, and we barely finished the final fight. I'd recommend simply running the trial a couple times, and see if you can get the badge "by accident."

Really, three of the four 'master' badges for the UG trial can be attained relatively easily by simply running with a solid team. Only Preservation Specialist (the bomb badge) requires careful planning and execution.

Heh, I believe I also partook in a fist pump or two.

Hardest: MoKeyes, bar none. Finally got Green Stuff (and the master badge) today after four months of trying.

Easiest: MoKahn. Got it on a 41 minute run, a PUG, first try.