Incarnate Trials: Failure/Success!?

About 6-7 BAFs. All success.

about 8 or so Lambdas. Two failures. One PuG, who the LFG thingy was so kind as to only give us ONE team when Lambda clearly needs two, and the other a premade.

All the successes were premades. I think it's safe to say that they're hard enough that only premades can really do them. No, that's not a good thing, especially when the LFG widget doesn't work properly for the trials. (Yeah, I'm sure if you were super coordinated one team could do lambda. But are you honestly expecting a PuG which could be full of people who never ran it before to do it with one team? Honestly I think the LFG thing should fill up to the maximum number allowed, just to give the randoms who use it a chance)

BAF:
- Total/Successes: 9/6
- Premade/LFG: 9/0
- Aborted: 0
- Escapee Shut-Outs: 3
- Experience diminished by Butthead(s): 4

I'd say the league size matters. I'd recommend getting close to or hitting the cap. The 3 failures I experienced were all due to prisoner escapes. There just weren't enough people to stay on top of all the runners.

LAMBDA:
- Total/Successes: 3/0
- Premade/LFG: 2/1
- Aborted: 3
- Experience diminished by Butthead(s): 0

Again, I'd say numbers are critical. In time, it won't matter as much, but right now it's important. If you care about success rate, I don't recommend trying this with a LFG-formed PUG team until another week or two. By then, the pool of people who know what's going on should be much higher (and you absolutely need people who know what's going on).

However, that's assuming they'll be available...

It seems pretty clear to me that BAF is, by leaps and bounds, the more popular raid. I've made repeated attempts to get into an LFG Lambda, and I've usually met with failure. Either I end up waiting too long, the launch of the league doesn't gel, or I get into the instance and it's immediately obvious it isn't going to work out (hence the aborted runs). Even when I tried to form a run myself, I could only grab a few people (outside my starting group) who were interested. Overall, I've had the distinct impression that most everyone prefers running BAF.

I can't say this surprises me, because so do I. It's not that Lambda is more challenging... It's just much more frustrating. I don't find that its design meshes all that well with its role as "casual friendly raid content".

For example, you're put in a position where you have to provide detailed instruction to people not in the know... yet, while you're doing this, you're on a timer, and when the time runs out, you've failed. So you're kinda pressured not to stop and explain things. You also have to coordinate temp powers, and there's no visual indicator for who has what. People end up poking through their power lists and shuffling things around. All while the clock is ticking. And if that weren't bad enough, the timed lock on the hospital doors is just annoying and pointless. All it does is add to the anxiety.

I suspect, in time, Lambda will be blown through in ridiculously fast speed runs. But I also suspect it'll become increasingly difficult to get on a PUG for it, because, honestly, it's a griefer's paradise.

In the future, I'll put together my own leagues for Lambda. I think it'll be fun then. As PUG content, I don't find it fun at all. BAF, on the other hand, I've enjoyed.

Finally, I think the LFG queue is just kinda sad. I hope some work is going to go into it in the coming months. At the very least, LFG-formed raids should not be launched with just the minimum requirement.

I've been running BAF and Lambda for the past three days and I'm now at:

BAF (Total/Won): 18/18

Lambda: 8/5

My winning runs were when I lead. Otherwise, the three times I lost were due to lack of members, lack of the coordination, and just sometimes the usual idiot.

I've gotten a lot of people their Master of BAF, to some degree. The no reinforcement badge is eluding my runs for the time being :P

As an update, my recent BAF runs have been nothing but success. Wicked bad lag during the escape sequence has made it impossible to get the badge, kinda ticked off about that because it's obviously a serverside issue. The fact that so many people are getting their new powers is helping immensely. Nothing like a series of Judgements to tell a crowd of 9CUs to eff off. Got my Lore finally.

I'm still really, really not wanting to do Lambda. It is the first mission that I can truely say I hate. There are just too many ways for it to go wrong and far too easy for them to happen. I'm almost tempted to forgo my Destiny slot until other means are added to unlock it.

Lambda is actually easier with 8 than with 16. I've won about 5 Lambdas, 1 where someone else lead and the other 4 when I lead. When it's only 8 people in the league, I can safely solo the warehouse (having both incarnate shifts help) and send the other 7 for the acids. I've had the most success with this, by the time they've gotten all 10, we still have 4-5 minutes left on the clock and they come clean out the pacification grenades with me. Everytime I do it this way, it's 20 for 20 temp powers. Once more people have the shifts and know what to do, it'll be enough for 2(or 3-4 in a full 16 Lambda) people each to go collect the items while the rest farm for threads.

What I'm wondering is the Master of Lambda, it requires that you collect all the grenades and then not to use them. How will Marauder get hurt? It'll require massive, massive stacking of -res, severely limiting the ATs and power sets welcomed on Master of runs.

Some of my characters

Was on my first Lambda last night. I did not do Beta so it was all fresh to me. We had just a sliver of life left on Marauder when we failed. It was disappointing but not nearly as bad as the behavior of half of the teams.

I find it funny that people who are SO caught up in success and failure of the TF cannot wait 10, 20, or 30 seconds to give those who have never done it before... some direction, guidance, tips AND then spend the next 10-20 minutes hurling insults at people. Or just wait 20 seconds to regroup before charging off into the two directions.

At one point, one of those throwing insults said "What do you expect, this is an MMO" insinuating that some people are idiots......and I was thinking the same thing...about them. LOL.

This stuff is no big deal but what really bothered me is that the game crashed while exitting.......before I could "make notes" and add some people to ignore going forward.

Just a reminder this is a thread for success and failure w/ the thoughts on the matter - not to discuss other crap...

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So an update from me for launch week:

I dared to try the LFG queue again, this time on a B.A.F.. 12 or less ppls and we got to Siege and failed due to being overrun by the OVERPOWERED 9cu. We were pretty proactive about trying to pull him, but in the mean time the reinforcements built up out of control. Capped defense and resistance only bought you a -few- seconds before you face-planted.

Besides that no other failures on either of the trials.

I've done countless Lambda and B.A.F. all via preform, all near if not the max people. Most of the time it is via private channels, a mix of friends and random, or just me and a bunch of random folks.

By far the most irritating and annoying thing I've encountered is the trials crashing at any point, or the zone we form in just giving out. So it is like: DC, login, reform -- over and over. If the trial DOES start, it was liable to crash!!!

As far as badges go, I've manged to pick up 2 MoLambda and a BAF.

PS: Always go for 3/4ish of the badges in BAF == mucho astral merits

Aside from completely random (ie: not pre-assembled) runs I've steadied out at an acceptable "always succeed" on the iT's now. Took about a week but they're pretty standard now.