makerian

Or maybe the Devs did something weird with Leagues (which also presumably affect Hami Leagues which sounds like you were in on)...

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...52#post3619452

One observation is that in the beginning, players ran trials differently. They were lower level (50-51, instead of 50-53), didn't have slots unlocked and slotted. They also probably fought together instead of people running way in front of the rest of the league.

It's been my observation that my fort, who has 9 VRs and 31 Rs in under 100 runs, earned most of her VRs in the early days of trials. Back then, for 1+ weeks, I was only running 1 Lam and 1 BAF per day, because I figure'd why do more if I'm missing on e-merits. Since then, I do a lot more, but have hardly received any VRs, still a decent amount of rares, though.

I'm guessing it should be around 1-10%, depending on weighting, but probably around 2.5% or 5%, so that's between 10-100 trials for a VR drop, on average, and maybe more like 20-40, on average. I do feel like there are weights added to increase chances of higher drops, including VRs, but I have no way to prove that from looking outside the black box.

If you've done 100 trials with identical leagues with identical league success, you should probably have at least 1 by now, ymmv.

They're also now on the email I received for the 7 years, too many guest appearances for me. Are these maybe some of the Omega Team?

When using the NCSoft installer, there is a new picture for "Celebrating 7 years of super!" with a picture of Atlas Park and some familiar faces, like Statesman, Back Alley Brawler, Manticore, Positron, Numina.

Who are the other characters?

I ran several BAFs last night. Pre 25th patch, I would lag during the escapee phase and get recharging messages even though powers seemed to be recharged. For me, this lag is similar to Rikti Mothership Raids, Hami Raids, and active zone invasions.

However, on at least one BAF, we had very bad lag at the end.

Here's what was going on, as far as I can tell:
We pulled to the reinforcement point
We fought Siege and Nightstar at the same location, including the boss reinforcements
We failed to time the defeats correctly several times. By the 3rd or 4th time, the lag was almost unbearable.

Please investigate this and address it. Seems to affect lots of players, although maybe not everyone. I've heard one person on Freedom channel chat claim that they did not experience lag (although this was also before the most recent patch).

FYI, I disabled Team buffs before the patch, but when I looked at teams 1, 2, and 3 separately in League window, I did not see any buffs on them.

I think it would be interesting to not only have Hero and Villain AVs spawning in zones, but it would be interesting to see some Praetorian AVs, like Mother Mayhem, spawning as well.

I'm looking forward to the events.

Sorry I couldn't make it grats to those that did and got the badges. This holiday weekend had me out of the house Sunday and didn't get back in until around 9:30pm EST.

I know I personally don't get upset. My last experience was that this would be a pretty smooth affair, but we have to watch a few sticky spots and we'll be golden. I'll add you to the list, and start sending tells about 1 hour in advance to prep people. I'll send preform global requests about 15-30 mins in advance to fill out the team.

Tsumi, awesome pic, thanks
Ultrawatt, here are some suggestions:

"Do not attack anything but the objectives."

Attacking more than the minimum could be useful for iXP and threads. It also could result in better team survivability, since squishies are more likely to survive if areas are more effectively cleared before moving on. Finally, it may affect Individual/Team/League participation scores. Once people have become familiar with the locations, it's not really a race against time. Most Lambdas I've done in the last week have been fine on time at the end.

"Choose who will be the designated acid mule (all Molecular Acid will be give the them in stage 3.5) and the grenade mule (all Pacification Grenades will be given to them)."

A few comments. One, passing acids takes time and it also means that one person has to hit all 10 locations before ambushes. Two, if either mule disconnects, you could be hosed. What's worse is if you pass to someone who doesn't understand what's happening OR the person griefs the League.

There is a chance that you could waste two pacis or two acids by having two players click the powers at the same target very close in time. So you could suggest people look before using acids and call out nades in advance.

Another helpful leader tip I've found is to ask the League to call out "x acids y nades" in League. If you find some say nothing, then those are the ones a leader might wanna send a tell to, use /b, /l, /req, team chat, whatever to get them to pay attention.

I think at Stage 4.2, my observation is that he normally jumps at 20% HP intervals, although sometimes he doesn't and it throws off the interval.

He tends to Enrage at least one time per 20%. He tends to do it within the first 5-15 seconds of a jump. Someone with a paci spamming it can usually result in a pacification immediately upon enraging. Spamming a paci only works against enraged Marauder, so it won't be wasted by the player accidentally, unless two people do it. Even then, I think it's pretty safe from what I understand. That is, I've never heard two people claim they pacified at the same time when it was instantaneous like that.

My experience is that he attempts to Unstoppable around 25%. He doesn't always do this, and sometimes he does it twice (I think it's rare, but I believe I saw this on a Lambda that ended with 0 seconds remaining, so he had time to recharge).

Some have suggested using Seer Lore pets around that point. With teams where I notice a good amount of DPS in the first 20-40%, I recommend dropping Lores around 50% in so you get some before and after Unstoppable DMG from pets.

I added another to the list. If anyone's interested and they read this, I will probably be broadcasting in the following places:

IP
Freedom TF, RF2009, and TfsMissionsRaids (or whatever it's called)
maybe PD to siphon off some people who want a break from BAF/Lambda

I will attempt multiple runs, although I don't think it will be necessary.

What is the earliest date someone is receiving this if they were continuously subscribed?
Or, what is the earliest date someone should be receiving this?

According to my account, I should receive on the 29th.

According to Baronyx's new post, deviant behavior DOES NOT result in better rewards. Participation is just the threshold to get into the reward tables.

Read for yourself:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=258774



Sorry for larger size, but this thread is going off the rails on a crazy train. Check his post and digest it.

Have you ever seen a 0 escaped on a exit camping trial? I haven't yet, but also haven't tried.

Also, I think the lag is due more to the league mates sending each player buff information. It's not (as I understand) a server side issue. I think I can remember one time doing a small PUG BAF during peak hours and the runners were moving normal, we were all thinking it was sorta weird. It was probably because, with fewer members, there was less information being passed to the client.

Resident, a few problems with covering exits.

1. Lag. They skip to the exits and it can be deceptive how much time you have to stop them
2. Recharge. Powers sometimes look up when they're not, meaning you might waste a couple seconds queuing powers that do nothing.
3. They enter before the disappear, so sometimes you still have them targeted, but they disappear.
4. They have a decent amount of HP, takes several hits or more usually unless you're doing a head splitter crit or something.

This is very much like the Croatoa pumpkin runners mission. If you camp the exit, even with ice patches and rains to slow and get them popping, some will still get in. Even camping about 15 yds is probably not enough time.

My favorite strategy is to have 2-3 per door, and the rest strung out along the N and S roads for picking em off. All runners have to go through the sidewalks. And having bodies on the path cause them sometimes to zig zag to avoid, giving you a little more time (at least it seems like it).

One of the big problems I've seen is that you get someone good at AOEs running the path to follow a couple LTs, leaving the door empty, causing a chain reaction. With a few along the path, those door campers can stay busy and not spend time chasing.

You can also summon Lore attacking pets in this phase, which is timed at 5mins, just right.

Finally, you can drop all non-combat toggles and turn on travels. That might save end, you don't need Def, etc, normally, although you leaguemates can be confused and attack you if they're too close to door, but it's pretty rare to see these days.

And, except for some recent deviant behavior, most people take trapping prisoners seriously. A lot of my trials past week have been more successful now that there are more 50+2 and 50+3s and people in general understand the task and the exit paths.

One anecdote about BAF. The more control you have on the team, it seems the more LTs spawn. If you have few control ATs, it seems to reduce the LTs. My recollection is that BAF scales down well, too. So, for example, a BAF with the minimum number of players would have significantly fewer prisoners trying to escape. Just food for thought. I frequently run max BAF trials, but sometimes it's mez heavy and sometimes not, just depends on who's PUGging at the time.

I also have a T3 (soon T4) Seer, so I will be bringing that for Marauder.

Also, a suggestion. Not sure what they cost, but people could try to get some level up inspirations. I might look into the demand, but it's probably not worth it. Just a thought.

I only have 3 incarnates, so I will be getting numerous T3s before working on T4s for most of them. As it is, I have a bunch of T3/4 Alphas and working on multiple T3s for other slots.

As you mentioned, it's always nice to have a pocket Clarion for a squishy with no mez protection. It was first priority for my Blaster and Corruptor. I figure it would be great on MSRs, solo, and when the team can't help me. If I know in advance, I can switch out. I figure Barrier is gonna be very common, so it's not too important for me, because there's diminishing returns as I recall.

I was just posting in a VEAT incarnate thread about my Fort/Widow slots, which are all different from each other. I'm sure as people get more knowledgeable, it will be nice to cooperate by mixing and matching your incarnate slots to maximize team effectiveness. It probably won't be necessary, but it could result in significant team effectiveness if done properly.

My Fort/Widow has a number of the Incarnate powers.

Fort:
A: Cardiac
I: Reactive
D: Rebirth
J: Ion
L: Seers

I like the additional end/res/rng, -res/dot, hp/regen, ranged/hold, and complements psi.

Widow:
A: Nerve
I: Diamagnetic
D: Barrier
J: Void
L: Warworks

I like the acc/def, thdb, res/def, pbaoe/-dmg, more melee.

Note, I tend to select powers whether they are uber or not. I think these are nice complements to my Fort and Widow builds, but I def play my Fort more right now. I've always preferred range.

I haven't even started work on my Crab/Bane, but I probably should. I'm not sure of getting anything beyond alpha on that character.

YMMV

I saw someone mention demorecording it. I suppose that'd be one way to visually determine. Anyone know if a demorecord would also record it in the file? I presume it does, but it's been years since I looked in a demorecord.

Yeah Clouded, you said "I can't say one way or another but I have no reason to believe they are anything but random at this point. I will gladly revise my view based on any submitted evidence." Maybe you meant, I will only revise my opinion if you show me the source code and prove it's in the currently published build on my client.

I think that very recent Dev post, intending to clear up confusion "without giving away the keys to the castle", is pretty clear that the rewards are influenced by participation. Whether it's a formula "exclusively" based on participation is unlikely. Even if it was, there are 11-23 other moving variables that will affect the outcome, giving an appearance of randomness, making it hard to tell without looking at the innards.

My anecdotal evidence is that I've been afk a few times (for several minutes at a time, never the whole trial) because of RL issues and never got good drops, and have received the 10 threads/Super insps table 2 out of the 3 times. I've read of one person getting a rare despite being AFK the entire time, not sure [edit] whether it's credible.

I've also received VR/Rs while being the League leader, moving people who get dropped into empty teams, sending league, team, private tells, coalition, and help chat, and still using my powers. In other words, not actively 'participating'. Of course, I would also participate in combat, but I was spending significant time typing instead of button mashing.

I thought perhaps it had to do with buffing teammates/league as well as attacking. My widow has 4 leadership toggles, I pop Vengeance when I see the chance, Mind Link, and the Hero alignment power. I also have about 9 pbaoe and aoes which I use frequently. Nevertheless, I also use single target attacks on LT runners in BAF and the AVs, because I will run out of end otherwise. I also use Ninja Run, so I'm not racing from mob to mob before the team gets there; in fact, I'm often trailing a little bit because my long activations have me rooted a lot.

Thanks for adding me in there, looking forward to it. BTW, the global is @makerian, but the local name is Arbiter Makerian. Probably better to use the global.

Let me add two thoughts:
1. I've (presumably) collected 10 Acids and 10 Grenades, only used grenades, and not received the Acid badge. I think if you use any of those temps, you can't get any of the badges.
2. You should add an instruction NOT to get containers/crates (weapons shipments) when outside either. Baronyx states that the league "should not make use of the shipments", but that is ambiguous enough for me to mean, as a choice, we should not destroy shipment containers/crates outside, just in case.


From the Baronyx post (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...03#post3592303)

Badges
There have been a few questions about the Well-Stocked, Antacid and Lambda Looter badges and how they are acquired. ... here's a quick guide on how these badges are intended to work so you can be prepared when the bug is fixed:

• If your league is working on the Lambda Looter Badge, the objectives are:
  • The league gathers all powers during the Sabotage phase (all 10 Acids and all 10 Grenades).
  • After the Sabotage phase, the league does not use any of the gathered powers.
  • Also, during the final battle, the league does not make use of the Shipments to acquire any powers.
  • More succinctly: the league gathers all the powers in one area within 15 minutes and then completes the event without using any of the gathered powers.

Added you to the list Astralion.

Is there a Combat or System, etc chat where you could see who used a temp power in the Lambda Trial? If not, there should be some message the entire League can see that is recorded in the chat logs.

Also, messages like Nova Fist and Warwalkers, the new Fusionette, those messages I think should be recorded in your chats as well, but not sure if they are.