In Lambda Trial, please let us know who has the temps!

I just got off what was probably the most frustrating Lambda Sector trial I've ever been on.

We absolutely destroyed the Sabotage part. We cleaned up all the Grenades, and the Acids hit ten out of ten just seconds later. We had a full five minutes left on the clock when Marauder showed up. We were doing great!

"Awesome," I say to myself. "We have this in the bag. We can start fighting Marauder right away, and we'll have this thing wrapped up within ten minutes."

When we all get outside, the League Leader gives the order to close those reinforcement gates. The people on our teams zip about and start closing the gates.

Five of them go down. Five are still up.

"Okay, guys, check your temp powers. Who has the last Molecular Acid?" asks the League Leader. Silence in the channel.

That's right. We scored ten acids in the Sabotage run, and at least one of our teammates refused to use them. Five of them. They were smart enough to run around using their powers and helping out, but for whatever reason, they were unwilling or unable to check their temps and see if they had a Molecular Acid. Maybe they didn't know they had the acids to use. Maybe they couldn't read English and didn't know what we were begging them to do in the channel. Maybe they were actively griefing the team, chuckling the whole time as they watched the mobs pile up around Marauder. I don't know.

We managed to pull Defeat from the jaws of Victory and fail the trial, despite going ten for ten on both collection tasks in the second phase.

But the thing is, this isn't the first time this has happened to me, though it is the first time it's affected the outcome of the run so dramatically. I almost expect it whenever I run a Lambda, because I have yet to be on one where we don't have at least one Acid Holdout.

Is there any reason why we can't have some indicator on the league menu to tell us - or, at the very least, the League Leader - who has the mission-critical temporary powers? This trial would be so much better and less frustrating if we knew who was hoarding the Molecular Acid temps. Maybe they would wake up if we could have addressed them by name in the chat window. At the very least, it would let me know who to put on my ignore list for future events.

Pretty please?

having played a lambda trial for the first time myself today, I can say this is a fair and reasonable suggestion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

I've had this happen a couple of times. We solved it by whacking on the chamber that spawns out in the courtyard to grab another Acid. Or crate if we need another grenade, that spawns on the other side of the courtyard.

Agreed. There needs to be a dummy buff power on anyone who gets an Acid or a Grenade labelled "Acid/Grenade Bearer" which expires on use of the temp power(s).

Nice lurid colour on the dummy buff too so it's easy to spot!

Maybe a bright aura like when you collect meteor pieces for a Shivan shard would help?

I think something needs to be done, as it is especially annoying when the above happens.. A couple of ways this suggestion might help;

As stated in the OP, calling out their name might catch their attention

Once you know who has the Acids, you can PM them. This might grab their attention quicker, and it's easier for you to explain what they need to do. (As at this point, the chat box is probably flooded with unhelpful banter about them using the Temp Powers, so much yelling could cause confusion in some people). PMing them directly helps circumvent this..

Lastly, if they had some sorta weird glow, it might catch their attention, as it is easy to miss the "Temp Power obtained" with all the battle spam going on, and remind them to check their temps.

However, its all moot if the person doesn't know basic English, is griefing, or is just totally oblivious.

An idea I had once was for the temp powers to go to a specific person, one who (hopefully) knows what he or she is doing. Perhaps the League leader, or split evenly between the two team leaders. This way, as long as the leaders know a bit about what they are doing (which is no guarantee, but more likely then some random member), there shouldn't be many problems.


Also, I think the League chat should make "beep" noises akin to Team chat, as new messages come in. Making it easier to keep up to date with the chat box in the middle of some crucial moments.

Yeah, this happens on every dang run. At least 1 hold out, no matter how much people are begging others to check their temp powers. I have also had a couple fail because of this.

This really needs to be addressed. When 1 person can ruin a trial for 15 other people there is certainly a problem.

This happens so often it almost makes me wonder if there's not, in fact, a problem with the temp powers being rewarded. At least one of the Lambdas I've run was with a team of folks who were all well experienced with the trial and yet in spite of collecting all 10 Acids in the base, we still had to go through and get one or two spares from the courtyard after a brief period of "OK, who has the last one?" It's not impossible that someone wasn't paying attention or was intentionally being a dick, but it seems unlikely in this case.

Either way, if we had some kind of indication that someone has the temp power, it would make matters that much easier to sort out. If you got all ten in the base and there are still 2 doors open and no one's glowing, then hey, there might be a problem to fix.

I don't think they should have made the acid grenades temp powers. Finding any temp power in the current way things are is pretty cumbersome. Simply unlock the doors for clicking as the acids are acquired.

As Bas said, I don't think it is just people being stupid. Every single Lambda I have done, there is NEVER 10 acids to be had as we exit that build. Not once. Now, some of those times, yes, it could well have been people being stupid, not checking, not knowing how, missing instructions, whatever. Hell, I missed the acid in my own tray once, as the leader, while I was asking the others to check..lol.
Seems more likely to me that not every glowie gives a temp..that would also fit in with teh MO badges being the collecting of 10 acids/nades. Whats so hard about collecting 10 if all the glowies do in fact drop 1?
Also, the fact 10 dont drop, means teams have to get the spawning crates and chamber in the courtyard, adding another layer of (kinda) strategy to the fight.
Even on the 8 man run I did, in which I personally knew the entire team..we didnt get all 10 doors down as soon as we left the lab.

The easiest way to avoid this is to decide who will be responsible for the Acids and who will be responsible for the grenades. Even on a random PUG this is a point I think people can agree upon.

I like these suggestions. Here's hoping they make it so.

After doing a dozen of so Lambda runs, I can empathize with this.

The issue of the molecular acid and placate grenades and to who has what, how they're to use them (if they're supposed to use them, pending on league and leader's badge desires) is a huge communications failure, not particularly on the leader's part, but in the mechanics of the trial itself. The situation allows for griefing, hoarding, unknowledgable players getting blamed for their actions/inactions, and a huge amount of dissent and anger from the veteran trial runners vs those that don't have a clue what's happening from one moment to the next.

As such, aside from some of the suggestions above, I'd think it'd be better if the molecular acid items were not a requirement to use in the mechanics of the trial. Allow it to be 'available' to speed things along, but don't have them as a mandate to get a mechanics-based portion of the trial accomplished, that way, the league doesn't suffer due to miscommunications, hording, griefing, et al.

There's no reason the temp powers should be a mandated use item; change the trial's mechanics so that Marauder/portals, etc CAN be brought down using our own powers, and not mechanically locked behind these temp powers. Use them as an OPTION to make things a tad easier/qucker, not a MANDATE to complete the trial.

This is just another suggestion; YMMV.

Oh lord yes please...so many times people either don't listen. don't have league in their chat or for some reason- don't want to use them..naming those who have them will help out so many people...or at least give someone the glow like shivs (as mentioned above)

FYI...in my mind if people refuse to use them..kick..their not helping the team.. they might as well not be there

How about 'yet another tray' that would show up with the trial temp powers only on it, once you acquire them? It would disappear once the powers are used or out of the trial instance.

That way it won't be buried in a huge power list or not show up in your tray at all if it already fully populated.

This would make the noobs see they have something that might be (critically) useful, and the vets who don't know what to do but have a full set of powers see they acquired something as well.

*temp tray would only have 2 slots

I think the issue may be that the temp powers will only go into a given tray once. Also, they're copies, not charges, so whenever you use the power, it disappears from all trays and if you have more than one you have to dig through your temps.

Solution? Macros!

I do agree that it should be more visible who DOES have the temps in any case, mostly to discourage griefers.

It isn't necessarily someone holding out or not noticing that they have the temp power, or the destructibles not dropping one each time they're destroyed, or even people DCing and losing them. I DCed and still had one (unfortunately, since this was a Master attempt and the whole process flustered me so much that I forgot to move it out of my tray. One finger slip later and I threw it right at Marauder.) and later had a crash to desktop and still had one when I returned.

There's a whole other possibility that someone told me about, but I didn't believe until I saw it for myself. Two (or more) people using their acids on the same door at approximately the same time. This can easily happen on the obstructed view doors at the Northern corners. I always go to the one behind the rounded bunker that Marauder jumps to because he jumps there and because it's closest to the spawn point for more acids. One time, I came in from one side and threw it right as someone came from the other side and threw another.

To the topic at hand: I am all for a wholly-new aura to designate that a player has one of these temp powers.