Multi-group content is not the way.

Plus, if anyone is from liberty, just send me a tell @arbegla, and if I'm online i will invite you to my league, and run Lambdas and Bafs until your eyes bleed, cuz i have 12 50s i want t3 or higher boosts on (plus i want the Master Lambda badge on my MM) So really, saying your on a low pop server and that makes the trials hard, is like saying because you never see your neighbors, your living in a deserted city....

Alright, then. It's been a while since I20 hit and I've done my best to experience the content as it's been designed. I can honestly say that I've given the trial experience the old college try, and it's panned out pretty much how I assumed that it would.

The trials can be fun, but in my opinion, they stop being fun and start being work long before you can accumulate enough loot to get to kit out one character with T3s. I still think that the endgame system is a massive grind as it currently exists.

I play on two servers (Pinnacle and Virtue), and I've been splitting my time between two different characters so that I can have one Incarnate on either of these servers. My aim here was to have one on each of my homes so that if and when more Incarnate TFs, story arcs, and/or zones appear, I can play with my friends on either of them. My goals were, I think, modest ones - I wanted to get to T3 on Judgment, Interface, and Destiny for those two characters. I was content to leave Lore empty, because I didn't care for the boost and don't want to spend the threads just to get another Incarnate shifts for trials yet.

Anyway, I won't deny that I had fun on a few of these. They can be a blast. The Sabotage phase of the Lambda Sector trial is just the right amount of frantic fun, especially if you're on a team of smart people whose builds can just barely handle it. Unfortunately, the third phase - the 'beg your team to turn their brains on and use the Molecular Acids' phase - is almost always frustrating in a league populated with strangers. The BAF was fun at the beginning of the issue, but as it is the easier of the two trials and can only be run with a large league, it has since become entirely automated. Probably around three quarters of the trial runs I've performed have been BAFs because it's much easier to get on teams for them. For the last five days, they have all gone off like clockwork - everyone gets in, pulls the AV to the tennis court, splits for the doors when she goes down, pulls the other AV to the courts, then mows down the pair of them for the win. Profit. Rinse and repeat for as many times as you can stand it - for me, this is usually around two or three times. In each BAF run, the vast majority of participants (myself included) never says a word in league chat. From now on, I have no doubt that BAF runs where I actually have to think about what I'm doing will be the exception and not the rule.

This was bound to happen. The incentives to run these into the ground are powerful, and the functional strategies were both consistent and simple to grasp. As predicted, failures have become far less frequent as time has passed. Indeed, I'd say that on the BAF, they're now downright rare. But running these became an absolute chore.

This weekend, I finally finished. I got to T3 on those three boosts on both of my characters, and I rejoiced. "I did it!" I said. "Oh, thank Hequat, it's over! At last, I have all of my food pellets and can get off the hamster wheel. I can finally stop farming these. I don't have to run any more of these trials! Hooray!" It then struck me that this was not a particularly good thing for me to be feeling as far as the endgame system is concerned. Frankly, I have no idea how some players were able to run enough of these to reach the fourth tier boost on all four of the new slots. I simply don't have the patience or endurance to grind any more of these for at least another month. If I never have to run another BAF again, I'll be happy - though if my friends ask, I might be convinced to queue up for a Lambda, because that one can be done with a team of eight and is more consistently active and entertaining.

::ahem::

Okay, I'm exaggerating. I probably will end up running more of these if and when the siren's song of the Incarnate slots starts calling to some of my other characters. But I'm hoping that when that happens, there are either other trials to run, or ways to earn threads outside the trials at a rate that isn't absolutely horrible. I'm pretty disappointed in the way the rewards system is currently structured.

I just want some variety in the tasks I have to perform in order to participate in the Incarnate system. The trials are fun enough for me to want to repeat them a few times per character, but my experience was that the fun ran out long before I'd even unlocked all my slots on the two characters I was participating with. They really need to add more ways to earn threads - options are good things and it'd be great if we had more of them. I don't know why the developers suddenly decided that these two new trials should be the only viable ways to progress in the system, especially when they already have so many quality gameplay options for level 50 characters in the game. Is there some reason why trials have to be the only viable path to Judgment, Interface, Lore, and Destiny?

Yes, I know they're adding new trials. I can't comment on those because they don't exist yet. I can only offer feedback on what's playable now. Still, I doubt that they will do much to alleviate the Skinner Box feel of the rewards system.

Again, I feel that this is a disappointing step for the game. I pretty much hate the rewards system as it currently exists, and I hope trial-grinding for shinies is not the sole method for earning future slots. I don't think I'm alone in my opinion and I have confidence that future issues will compromise on this.

(I'm sorry that this post is only partly related to this discussion thread. But there are already a million of these threads on this forum and I didn't want to add another one just for my feedback.)