Multi-group content is not the way.

It's a matter of personal preference. The stories in the game are interesting but at this point I've read them all, either from doing the arc or simply reading the story on the wiki (and for me at least the two methods are equally enjoyable methods of enjoying story). Therefore at this point the story is pretty much irrelevant to me playing and enjoying the game. I like to know it's there but repeating 1 story 20 times isn't really any different from repeating 10 stories 2 times each.

Ok...then YOU make a suggestion then.

I get really steamed when players gripe about something but have NO input as to how to fix it. I don't mean technically, most of us aren't programmers, but with overall theme.

We have several different mechanics with trying to defeat two AVs within seconds of each other. We have Lts who cannot be mezzed and escapees who don't attack at all. Adds who grow stronger if not defeated is very new AFAIK. The Grenade mechanics behind Lamda are pretty challenging too.

There are only so many ways to play checkers. The more complex the game the more ways there are to play. Someone posted a 'Dev for a Day' thread elsewhere on the Forum with some cool ideas on it.

So if you dislike the new Trials so much what would YOU do given the opportunity?

This. It's important that there is a story, but you can't hang your "all new endgame" on *just* the story and not throw some new gameplay at people. No matter how amazing your story is, once it's written, that's it. It's there, and done, and unchanging. The gameplay, however, has a chance of being a different experience everytime you attempt it...if only because (in this case) there's more people using different builds and strategies.

No thanks. I see no reason why I need to do the work of developers when I'm not being paid to be a developer. Instead, I will continue to provide feedback about a game I pay to play. Cool?

By the way, I never stated the Tank and Spank(s) were bad, and I've stated dozens of times that I really enjoy the trials. I just clarified the "Kill two Avs within 10s of each" mechanic is not some grand innovation but just another form of Tank and Spank. And there's nothing wrong with that.

All defeat objectives can be characterized that way: take their damage and deal damage to kill them.

Except in this case, the objective is not to defeat them as quickly as possible but to synchronize your efforts with another team.

Also, the term "tank and spank" has connotations, particularly that both tasks are trivial and achievable through brute force. If you attempt to blindly tank Siege while 9CUs keep coming inbound, hoping random AoE damage will just vaporize them automatically, you'll discover its impossible to tank that encounter in that fashion. Siege will get you, or the 9CUs will get you, no matter how strong you are, if you let them have a free shot at you. In the standard content, people generally focus on the AV knowing they can bring it down fast and knowing any reinforcements the AV calls will pale in comparison and be no threat: if you can tank the AV, its minions are usually not significant. Not in BAF.

Also: sequestration.

Combat is combat: kill them before they kill you. But if you reduce all of combat to those terms and claim its all the same, you've eliminated the possibility for discussing MMOs in an interesting fashion, or at least all combat in MMOs.

The question is the intended level of innovation. An innovative sauce on a steak is still a steak dinner. But that might have been the intent. A steak salad is a different kind of innovative way to serve a steak, and its definitely no longer the normal steak dinner. But its still recognizable steak. Turning it into a granulated powder and mixed into ice cream is a radical innovation in steak dining, in that there's no obvious recognizable steak anymore. But its still just meat on a plate.

So when you say "I wouldn't wave this sort of thing around as evidence of some new or innovative mechanic" I would. For this game these encounters are new and innovative game play mechanics. Sure, they aren't innovative in the sense that the combat is no longer even recognizable as MMO combat any more, but neither the devs nor I think most of the players wanted an unrecognizable encounter. They wanted innovation within the framework of the recognizable game and within that framework we can judge whether something is new and innovative or reused, and to what degree - because innovation is usually a matter of degrees, not absolutes.

Well, in keeping with the name of the thread, a trial with a MAX 4 group size might be a nice change - something where the "throw more bodies at it" strategy doesn't work. Plenty of things you could do to spice that one up without giving anyone 100% s/l resists.

Problem with that (as has been noted here and in other threads) is balancing it such that it is do-able by any combination of ATs and powersets. Late-game enemies have so many tricks/cheats/abilities that it's not a trivial task to find that line between "challenging for any 4 random ATs/powersets" and "impossible without resorting to mandatory AT/Powerset"

I disagree. Trials still attempt to beat them as quickly as possible but with one catch, kill them within 10s of each other. The speed is still there for sure.

Going to have to disagree here as well. I've been on numerous BAFs where we only focus on the AVs and the ambushes are ignored, only to be fodder for the AoEs. I will admit that all but 2 of these BAF examples have come in the past few days. I assume this is due to more players earning their level shifts, judgment and lore abilities.

I agree with the underlying principal about innovation, and, to be honest, I had forgotten about the sequestration mechanic. So, you are right in that this trial, BAF, offers more than the traditional Tank and Spank.

Sooooo, Tank and Spank 3.0?

I don't see how that isn't already true of the current incarnate content. The only difference is that it's statistically less likely not to have all your requirements filled with 16 people than with 4, but there are certain things you need in the content already.

If I attempted to defeat the AV I was shooting at as fast as possible in almost every BAF I was on that would cause a respawn. Of course the entire league attempts to finish the trial as quickly as possible, but that's not the same thing as saying that everyone attempts to defeat each AV as quickly as possible. Or rather, if this was just a tank and spank, the objective would be to dump as much damage on your target as possible to defeat it as quickly as possible. That doesn't work in the final stage of BAF.


There has to be more going on than that on your BAFs, because 9CUs are programmed to fire from range: they are not melee-preferred. You have to pull the AVs onto the spawn point for random AoEs to take them out without specific targeting.

I don't think its a coincidence which AV gets which reinforcements.


Lambda has acids and pacification grenades, in the Marauder fight, but more importantly has the actual collection phase where the league has to split up and is rewarded if both teams stay at least roughly at the same pace (with extra minutes of time).

Marauder's leaping also has a tactical manipulative element. If you can deal enough damage to him fast enough so he keeps leaping around, he will actually keep running away from his own reinforcements. On the other hand if you deal damage to him very slowly, even if you have plenty of time and grenades you will find yourself having to deal with more of his reinforcements as they arrive. That's a little different than your typical AV fight.

Exactly my point. It's easier to design lategame content with a large minimum number because it's more likely that the ATs/powersets in any given attempt will be diverse enough to handle any thing you throw at them.

You put a small max participant count on an encounter and you have a *much* harder task of balancing it without resorting to the mmo holy trinity, or whatever that would translate to here.

Obviously, you are mischaracterizing this. People in your league are dealing with the adds, they are just doing so more efficiently than in the past. The adds do not just run into melee with the AVs, even when taunted and therefore in order to kill them you have to specifically stop targeting the AV and target the adds. Either you are unaware of people doing this for your league or you are overlooking that fact.

Which is why I'm a fan of the "pull the av's to the add spawn spot" method when not doing badge runs. AV's die fairly even (and it's easy to switch is need be) and the adds spawn right in the middle of AoE hell, and everyone ends up getting kill credits for everything

I am surprised no one really mentioned this...Maybe because you are right...Or maybe you responded to an accessability issue. Which of course means investment of time.

However simplicity attracts...and so...oddly enough, this post is much more important than many would think...even if just being a jestful barb.

I like when people tell me what I experience.

We ignore the adds. They pulled both AVs to the courts, the adds followed and are mopped up accordingly. Got it?

If you say so.

The vickies tend to get within melee range, so they'd be hit by the AoE's. The 9cus tend to stay to far out for PBAoE's to hit them (unless they aggro on someone on the FAR SIDE of the group and wade into the mob to get closer... but that usually takes someone taking the time to target and attack them, something you swear isn't happening).

I know from my past experience, MANY of the people (particularly the tanks and melee archetypes) were more-or-less oblivious of the actions others were taking at the periphery. They may never notice the squishies at range getting hammered by those NPC's, or apparently realize that many of these higher-damage AT's are spending their valuable attacks on the NPC's to make up for the lack of situational awareness of the low-dps tankers.

It doesn't take MANY people to manage these NPC mobs, when done right. A tank's taunt (or squishie aoe attack-and-prayer/rez), then pull back to the opposite side of the AV. The NPCs will persue-- crossing into the PBAOE space of everyone fighting the AV's. That's how they meet that fate. Maybe you just weren't aware it was going on?

I play a Dark/Sonic Defender. I pay attention to green bars...mainly so I can see them hit red and get vengeance and my rez off.

Could it be that a few of your tanks were doing a better job than mine at drawing the baddies into the AOE fields of everyone else?



...Mainly a Kinetics controller here. I kinda stay focused on the AV's since that's where the melee guys are clustered near enough to the enemy (for the enemy-targeted heals and buff). I've tried to come to the rescue of the outliers when they get NPC aggro, but they're never close enough to their target to get a heal off em... and then my pets agrro on those NPCs... and then my pets die and they aggro on ME... and then I'm running to the other side of the AV's, hoping to draw the baddies into the middle before I faceplant and become vengeance-bait for others. There were a few times that I felt that "Vengeance" was the most valuable buff I contributed to the team. ;P

I would not be at all surprised if this happens in the not-too-distant future. Sure, many forum residents have requested this, but I don't think that will be the main reason. The fact is that, currently, the trials are the "new toy" and there is a surplus of 50s out there that have yet to become Incarnates or are in the process of becoming so. Naturally, the powers-that-be want to encourage the playing of the new content, so they have limited the acquisition of Threads nearly exclusively to the two trials. But within a few months, players will have most likely filled out their 50s to whatever levels of Incarnate power they choose, thus depleting the number of normal 50s interested in becoming Incarnates. Once that happens, it will become more difficult for players to find a large enough group of people who (a) happen to have a new 50, yet to be an Incarnate, (b) actually want to make that 50 an Incarnate, and (c) have the time/energy/desire to run the necessary amount of trials to get the powers they want. At that point, I bet the Devs will make Threads available as random drops (at a decent rate) from most/all level 50 content, rather than listen to the slew of complaints from people on lower population servers that they cannot find enough players to form a Trial league.

First off, I have given plenty of suggestions in Beta. I don't see why i should repeat them eveyrthime I post on the subject.

Secondly, I don't think they need new mechanics, just that someone said the main attraction of them was all the new interesting mechanics and i wondered which ones they meant. The escapees bit are from that fir bolg mission, we already have several 'get the special temp power to hurt the boss/take down his shield' ones (not to mention the destroy the portals to , we have had super attacks with warnings since Proaten (or maybe Reichsman), co-ordinations of teams from the Deadly Apocalypse/Cathedral of Pain/Hollows Trial, Defeating enemies within a certain time of each other harks back to the Thorn Tree respec trial. Badguys who get more powerful the longer they are alive is new, but I don't think its particularly interesting as it can lead you into an unwinable situation. You forgot to mention the new mechanic of auto-failing if you lead Marauder out of the courtyard. Because that one is great!

But, I'm not saying any of that is a bad thing. I like CoH and a nice big mashup of the best bits of other missions into one big multi-team trial sounds pretty good.

My problem with the trials is that they are repeatable content that isn't designed to be repeatable content. I'm making the distinction between contant that can be repeated multiple times on the same character and contant that is specifically designed to be completed multiple times on the same character. The storylines for both Trials make no sense from the point of view of something that one hero or villain would have to do over and over. Compared to the story of Hamidon or the Mothership raid, where we are fighting back threats that will return. We can't stop them but we are preventing them from becoming more of a threat. (Note: not saying the storys are great, just that they attempt to be suitable for that kind of content)

Instead the iTrials story is in a weird twilight zone of too specific (They try that same 'brainwashed resistance plot' every night? with the same length cutscenes to boot) but not continuing or progressing any story or even of being very epic. To me, in terms of storyline they feel like they should be the last mission in a story arc or TF.

So, since you asked, how would I improve the trials? I'd fix the stories so they made sense for someone to do over and over. i.e. Instead of attacking the Lambda Sector, you attack one of many military bases (all can have the same design, since hey, its the military) Cole has set up. If you win, you cripple it but who knows how many he as out there in the multiverse? So, go destroy another one and another and another.

Secondly, I'd add some randomness to them. Maybe this time the guard loadout is a little different, its not Warworks its Seers. Maybe a different AV comes to help stop the problem, maybe different reinforcements are called in, Maybe the experimental serum Marauder takes has a different effect this time. A few aspects of each trial that have a few different variations would mean that each run feels slightly different. Would be more work and harder to balance probably, but make for more engaging repeatable content, in my opinion.

Which is why I specifically said the only way that tactic would work is if you pulled both AVs near or onto the spawn point. But that makes this fight not a typical "tank and spank" in yet another significant way, especially because pulling them forgoes a specific set of rewards. Or if you want to look at it this way, there's a strong pulling penalty.

"Gee, Mother, what are we going to do tonight?"
"The same thing we do every night, my dears..."