Session 59
We worked on the TF some more. Initially, missing the Kin/Rad fender and Ice/Rad troller ... fighting mostly L50 mobs. Highlight of the evening was stumbling into a L50 Mother Mayhem accidentally. Five L47s and one L45 took her down without any -regen powers.
Session 60
So, Lanaru the Mad ... must've particularly angry last night.
Everyone on the team has done this TF multiple times. Personally, this was my fourth or fifth. (I'm not proud, or tired.) I've never seen Lanaru put up such a fight, though I'm not sure how he conned in those attempts. Probably only even-con. For this TF, the team was 2 48's, 5 47's, 1 46 against a L50 Lanaru.
"Only L50? Weak." Perhaps that angered him.
So, we zerged him. Pwnt. Well, not exactly. We did put up a reasonable fight. Both rezzers went down underneath him, so I took a moment to pull them out so they could pop wakens. Til they got back in the fight, two more went down. We slugged it out a little longer, but without support the tank eventually went down and the rest of us pulled out.
"Humbling", said the Earth/Sonic.
For the next shot, we decided to save the combat rezzes for the tank. The rest of us would recall to the base if necessary. Without his normal spawn surrounding him, it started out pretty good. I went into blapper mode, but once he lit up Freezing Rain I had to back out. We put a good dent in his health, taking it down to maybe 20%. Lightning Storm was wreaking havoc on those of us without kb protection, and by the time he summoned a bunch of bosses we were a bit scattered. We made an uncoordinated effort to take down the bosses, which succeeded but was ultimately a mistake. By the time we finished, the AV was back to about 50% and the tank had taken a pounding since support had been directed at those of us on the bosses. We should've pulled them over to the tank instead. Attrition got the upper hand and in the course of regrouping, Lanaru de-aggrod. That round sent me on my first trip through the base, so I picked up some greens and BFs.
Third round we used a couple Amy's. I was using TP to stay out of the Freezing Rain. We had good sustained damage down to 50%, but lost the tank somehow or another. In the process, some bosses spawned and we had to back off and lose aggro. Using Boost Range, I attempted to pull a boss. Told the team to let me die if it failed. Oddly, the only thing that came was Lanaru. He moves so slow, lol. I did laps around one of the pillars keeping out of sight and the two of us went round and round about 8 times while the team engaged the bosses. I could've done it indefinitely, but messed up trying to toss Rain of Fire and he took me out.
In the meantime, the tank's PC blue screened. While waiting for him to reboot and verify, two of us made a run to the Arena run for Luck insps. Pocket D TP, Base porters, Boost Range ftw, lol. We were back before the tank. The Lucks trivialized the fight, even despite any -def that FR might applied. The final run was no defeats, and about a 3 minute takedown. It was a little anti-climactic, but overall it was indeed a legitimate challenge.
Task Force complete.
I can't wait to get a character to the upper levels so that I can experience some of this content. Until then, Overboard, i'm living vicariously through you.... 
Currently Playing:
Frozen Kat - Ice/Ice Blaster (Triumph)
Flaming Kat - Fire/Fire Blaster (Triumph)
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I'll say it again, Invincible is not difficult enough. We continue to find it necessary to use 'gimmicks' to increase difficulty that could be addressed by the mission difficulty slider.
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I've found your experiment to be interesting, if a bit unrealistic when applied to the regular workaday game. Managing to get a solid team to work together for so long is exceedingly rare, and most impressive.
I think one thing that would help in such situations is to put in the equivalent of Voids for each origin or AT. Just one or two per mission set at whatever is the next bump up from Invincible (I've always advocated "Insane") would really level the playing field and increase the degree of difficulty.
That feature would definitely have to be limited to the Insane difficulty. With my usual PuG experience, I'd hate to see the Void-equivalents show up with any regularity. Things that can two- or three-shot a L32 Tank or Scrapper would likely make people quit the game for WoW in droves. It should be reserved for the truly talented or totally crazy.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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I've found your experiment to be interesting, if a bit unrealistic when applied to the regular workaday game. Managing to get a solid team to work together for so long is exceedingly rare, and most impressive.
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I think its just a result of the 'birds of a feather' thing. We're just a bunch of people that have been in the same SG since year one. The SG tends to attract people of similar interests, goals, skill, and play schedule. This is actually the second team we've done. The first we called 'Fresh Start', I think only four from the current team participated in that. It was just a 'roll whatever' for Issue3 and we'll run missions upto L50.
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I think one thing that would help in such situations is to put in the equivalent of Voids for each origin or AT. Just one or two per mission set at whatever is the next bump up from Invincible (I've always advocated "Insane") would really level the playing field and increase the degree of difficulty.
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I would really like to see the some kind of option for increased difficulty. Obviously, based on the reaction of the community to AV/GM increases, or the boss increases in the past ... any kind of across the board increase in difficulty either by nerfing the players or buffing all mobs is very unpopular. But at the same time, there are veteran players who are largely unchallenged.
Seems to me that an easy solution would be allow more options and push that difficulty slider upto +5 cons in missions. There's a lot of entertaining content in the story arcs, but its simply not difficult enough for some teams. Thats a cheap fix. Something like you've suggested would be more appealing. (I'm still kicking myself for not having a Kheldian on the team.) Introduce an elite class of foes that are optional. But they need to be creative, along the lines of the Voids or the debuffs of Lanaru ... not just more hp and damage. Imagine if a post L30 boss had more than a dozen powers to chose from ...
Session 61
Got the full team of eight together to finish the Portal Corp AVs for the Ice blaster. Mostly L48's against L50 AVs, and only a few, very few, L51 mobs. Eight AVs, in under 2 hours for 1.1M xp/hr without rushing. Effortless.
We needed a bub or two to get someone to L49, so we cleared and completed the Dreck map. That nudged the rate to 1.25M xp/hr according to Herostats. Finished the night with 4 L49's, 3 L48.8's, and L48.2 and we have the Hero's Hero arc queued up and ready to go.
I'm gonna ding 50 with a killshot on Tyrant.
Great read. I've been on many superteams of this sort, but none of them have lasted because of people dropping out. Best attempt only made it to the mid-20s before we were down to 2 people. Fun to read about someone who made it work.
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61 sessions...excellent job guys!!!
@CrimsonOriole
Thanks guys, glad its been entertaining. It's been fun to do, too. I'm sure thats the opinion of the team as well.
Judging by the comments as a whole, it seems the most noteworthy aspect of this project is that we've had 8 guys/gals commit to the entire run from 1-50. I'll be honest, when I started this thread I hadn't expected that would be the focus. My motivation had been to demonstrate the games inability to consistently generate a challenge for a team of veterans. Since that hasn't really been mentioned, I can only surmise that what we've put together is statistically irrelevant among the playerbase -or- engaging +3 to +5's is common but players aren't concerned about generating them in regular missions. Whatever the reason, it doesnt seem to be an issue for people.
Session 62
Seven of us for a little over an hour. We did the first three missions of the Hero's Hero arc. I believe all but two of us are L49. Half of my hancers went red, but I'll leave them that way. Been running exclusively in SG mode for prestige, and too lazy to transfer influence. I've got about 20 L53 hancers in storage from all the AV's, plus another 10 or so by the time the arcs over. I'll do all of L49 with just half empty and half yellow slots, then I'll slot those 53's at 50. Team buffs are plenty for fighting +2's.
Session 63
All eight of us ran 10 of the Hero's Hero arc missions. Lag was pretty bad for all of us, and we had a few crashes. Mission spawns were strange, too. They would range anywhere from L49 to L52 in the same mission. All eight were L49 and I think all were set for Invincible. The AV's were all L51. At least half of us are running no, red, or yellow enhancers and we're breezing through +2's and the few +3's we saw. Might have been able to get slightly higher out of one of the Shard TF's, but they're just too repetitive. The Hero's Hero arc was a nice change of pace and the frequency of the AV's and their rewards is far more interesting.
Three missions to go and we're L49.5 to L49.9
Just stunning! I started reading cuz I clicked the link in your sig, and instently got hooked! I have been reading this from start to finish over the past couple hours, I have listened to about 5-6 cd's the whole time, and you had to go and leave me on a cliff hanger right before lvl 50! but it was very entertaining to read, if anything else the log of everything you have done is as great as an accomplisment as everything you are about to achieve when you ding to 50.
from 1 - 50 on invincible nothing less then...(well I'm at a loss for effective adjectives), you should all get special badges for it. I look forward to your trip through villains 
may I ask what server you guys do this on, I could figure it out but that would take effort and time, and I just spent several hours reading this when I could have been playing, and I also need a smoke real bad
I'm deffinatly subscribing to the rest and I will to your next adventure as well!
Home: Virtue
Moonlyte Shadow lvl 50 dm/regen scrapper
Snowdaze lvl 50 ice/energy blaster
Lord Veovis lvl 50 bot/bub MM
Boy Molar lvl 50 SS/invuln tank
Dusk Serpent lvl 50 spines/dark scrapper
Freedom server. Monday we'll all ding 50 and Tuesday is the beginning of our COV 1-50 relentless trek. Amazing that all 8 of us will be doing this once more.
To be honest, I'm looking forward to the CoV run because I feel it may be more of a challenge than heroes and require even tighter teamwork.
Session 64
Last night, the eight members of Team Invince all dinged L50 within an hour of each other. The first two were during the Infernal/Diabolique mission. The next two occured in the Dominatrix/Marauder mission. Three more came in the beginning of the Tyrant mission. Finally, by pure luck, the last ding was on the defeat of Tyrant. All the AV's were +2 to the team. At least three of us, had nearly all red enhancers for the Tyrant fight after making L50. Didn't have any impact.
Summary
So, it was quite a run. L1-50 on the highest possible foes we could find in missions. We completed every Task Force, except two Shard TF's, The Legend of Ruladak and The Saga of Faathim. We completed all the trials including Cathedral of Pain, but skipped Cavern of Transcendence. Outside the team some of us PvP'd, and others badged. Over seven months, we had two roster changes but ended with seven of the original eight. The final eight toons had an average login time of 180 hours. Actual playtime as a team was about 130-160 hours. Roughly 2.0-2.5 hours in each of 64 sessions.
I don't have the exact stats yet, but it looks like most of us received the second and third debt badges, Unyielding and Unbroken. Damage badges came in around the third, Adament. The Defenders earned Doctor, the third tier heal. Most of the team did not receive the first mezzed badge, though the Empath did. The highest prestige earner was in SG mode for all levels, and totalled 565k prestige. The other seven earned anywhere from 350k to 500k. Obviously, the influence badges were inconsequential.
Lastly, the fun was immeasurable. To run the game at extreme perfection was enjoyable. Though, I still maintain that the game needs to provide a broader range of challenge. Anything less than +4 was effortless, which effectively rendered much of the games content unappealing. I'll even wager that we could have handled the +2's of typical missions with no enhancements whatsoever. Hopefully, the limitations of the villain ATs will allow +2's to present a challenge to tonight's inaugural run of Team Relentless. Looking forward to the comparison.
From all of us in the business of SuperTeams, I want to offer a hearty congrads to all of you and what you have accomplished.
You mentioned it earlier in the thread, but yes, to most of us the "big deal" here is the fact that you all coordinated and scheduled this with the 8 of you over such an extended period of time. That, from 0-50, is something I have personally never done and rarely seen accomplished.
Playing effectively, crushing invincible missions. Everyone does that, and the team make-up is nearly irrelevant when you have a group of skilled players. But doing it with one consistent group is the stuff of legend.
You may want to post a quick link to this thread in one of the SuperTeam threads in my signature, so that everyone who hasn't noticed this thread will have a view of how SuperTeaming is truly done.
Best of luck on the CoV run, and please keep us updated with the progress.
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Playing effectively, crushing invincible missions. Everyone does that, and the team make-up is nearly irrelevant when you have a group of skilled players.
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Yeh, post mid-game (roughly 30ish) rolling invincible missions is no big deal. The two things that surprised us: 1) Needing greater than invincible for challenge in the pre SO levels, and 2) Running smack into the purple patch in the 30's. In other words, for a while there was a zone between invincible missions (+2's) and the purple patch (+6's) where we could get some good fights. But as we filled out powers and enhancements the range narrowed drastically, to the point of just +5's being 'interesting'. By the late 30's, there's fewer opportunities (TFs) to generate +5's. The resulting frustration is what prompted us to start this thread. But in hearing comments such as yours, I have to say I have a new found appreciation for the dedication these guys on the team have had.
I think you're all a bunch of n00bs.
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I think you're all a bunch of n00bs.
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Lol, Brain. Three hours, and that was the best you came up with? :P
Hey, I was doing other things too.
Cookies anyone?
so wheres ur notes on the first night of team relentless
lecs has ours on his myspace page
Yet no link to see it 
Screenshots
For the totally bored and/or curious...
Team Invince - Pwnt by timer
Team Invince - Sewer Trial victory
Team Invince - Cathedral of Pain victory
Team Invince - Finale 1
Team Invince - Finale 2
CoP pics include another eight members of the SG that formed the second team. Finale pics aren't all that interesting since we punched out of the Tyrant map before I could snap any good ones. Plus, they're in the dark and we weren't going to wait for daylight. Note, the 12 fps. I normally run at 40-50 fps, but since Issue8 it drops to 12 after running a mission or two.
I just wanted to drop a reply in here regarding earlier discussions in the thread about "special enemies" as a method of increasing challenge optionally for vets who could handle (indeed, who need) extra-hard tasks...
There is speculation that a villain group will exist post-I9 who must be killed with inventions. Mobs such as this, who require special effort and knowledge to be able to defeat, would at least challenge most vets for awhile. Perhaps if all of their creatures had full powersets as players do, they would provide a decent difficulty?
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Team Invince - Sewer Trial victory
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W-T-F Mate! What is that short pink/green/blue/yellow/black thing on the right?
Just read the whole thread in one go, great read.