Solo content.

The problem is that real life trumps a Trial only when the real-life activity in question is important. Yesterday, I had to bail on a friend of mine not because I had work in the morning or because I was late for dinner or anything even remotely justifiable, but because I wanted to watch the new episode of IRT Deadliest Roads. The History Channel only really show this once in the time slot that's comfortable for me, and if I miss it I need to wait for next Monday. If I miss it THEN, I don't get to see it at all.

How many people do you believe will show understanding if I bailed on a Trial with that excuse?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

If its a good friend, they will probably understand and have been bailed on in that manner anyway. A good friend would probably realize the time and remind you. An aquaintance doesn't need an explanation imo. "Sorry, RL, Gotta bail mate" should cover it.

Yeah, I'm not worried about my friends. I have a rather erratic on-off status, especially when I'm solo, since I tend to sometimes post on the forums while playing, walk away to have dinner or swivel my chair to watch TV, and quite often, too. I rarely need justifications with friends.

I'm more concerned with large teams with strangers, especially on larger commitments. I recall starting a TF years ago just 15 minutes before Van Helsing started on free TV. I couldn't well bail on the guys, but I wanted to watch the movie, so I spent my time with attention split about half-and-half. I did pretty well in terms of performance, but I managed to enjoy neither the TF nor the movie. That's kind of what I mean.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

30 threads each for Judgement and Interface, 45 each for Destiny and Lore.

Uncommons are 60 threads.

Most of this is in my guide (in my sig).

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I hear you. For years I refused to team because my playtime was so erratic, I never knew if I was on for half an hour, or sometimes even less. Subjecting a team to that was not fair imo.

Thats one thing about these trials I enjoy so much. They can be completed in less than 45 mins, sometimes less than 30. That kind of time frame I can commit to, even with two kids under 3 years old. And if the kids need me? See you folks.

I really wish the turnstile system would give you the option of pulling you out of an instance or whatever. I would be much more willing to use it then. As of now, it is useless. Even with the carrots added to it.

You would lose that bet. My main has done right at 175 trials, and has only 2 tier 4s. I've done another 20 trials or so on an alt. It does not take significantly bad luck to require a hundred or more trials to get all tier 4s. Just as it does not take significantly GOOD luck to get all tier 4s in well under 50 runs. I know MANY players in both situations.

That is one of my biggest objections to the way the trial rewards are set up. A completely random system like that is fine for something that is part of an optional system and can be traded, but NOT for a character locked item required for continued advancement.

This would actually be a big boon to me, as well, and might just edge me over into "eh, might as well" territory. Right now, iTrials are organised events. People broadcast, people gather, people wait, and it's a hassle. If I could drop my name into a box and reserve the right to be yanked out of ANYTHING I'm doing at the time to join a Trial... I just might. Eliminate the hassle of setting them up and you eliminate much of my problem.

Of course, this assumes that there is SOMETHING for me to do while waiting for one, which for Incarnates there really isn't at the moment, aside from "All that crap's grey to me. No XP."

You know what's depressing to me? When 50 runs of ANYTHING is considered a best case scenario lucky eventuality. I don't think I've done any one single piece of content over level 20 fifty times, and that's spread across coming on 50 characters. And now I'm told I'd be lucky to progress with "just" 50 reruns EACH? Yikes!

This is B. F. Skinner at his finest. The theory goes that if you give people a definite goal with defined requirements, say "run 50 Trials," then people will not be motivate towards the beginning, because they'll know the first or second or third Trial will not give them the reward. They'll become very motivated and increase their playtime when they're near the goal, say on Trials 47, 48 and 49, but then once they have that reward and they're looking at the next one another, say, 50 Trials away, they'll pause because they'll be satiated with the reward and disincentivised by knowing that the next one is far away.

Heartless game developers fear these pauses, because YOU MAY NOT COME BACK!!! So they don't want you to stop playing ever ever, for which they need a different design, one which gives you incentive to try hard ALL the time. Enter random drops. With a random drop, players are motivated to try hard ALL the time, because you don't know when the next drop will happen. It might well be on this very Trial, even if it's the first one you do. It won't be, of course, but it won't stop players thinking that, who knows? It might drop on the second one. And so on and so forth.

At least that's the expected reaction. As someone told me earlier in the thread "[I'm] not responding." And I'm not, because when I look at this kind of random drop system, my thought isn't "Holy addiction, Batman! I might get my reward on this very run!" but rather "I have to run how many of this thing? And I may still get bupkis at the end? Sod this, I have better things to do with my life."

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

It doesnt really phase me either, yet I enjoy the trials. Go figure. In the 7 years I have been playing, I have had three purple recipes drop on me. I make my own luck. I play the game to try out different powersets, and find things that synergize well. People farm for influence. I pl a new toon, any infl. I get while doing so just adds to the bank.

If I want to take it further, and slot the toon for set bonuses, or purples, I produce and sell items to the market. No depending on drops.

Even with the incarnate content, The first goal is the level shifts and tier 3's. If I can tier 4 anything, great, but I am not going to gripe that I cant complete a toon without my tier 4's. The toon is complete already, everything else is gravy. Actually, that is not true. The toon is never complete. The toon evolves with the game. I just honestly enjoy having a toon that is capable enough to solo a container spawn, or take care of a escapee door mostly on its own. Or hand trapdoor his *** even with his bifranubs out.

Paragon Studios is lucky they have a lot of good will built up with me, or I'd be gone already over the shoddy way they've responded to player's concerns about these trials. Or rather, the conspicuous LACK of response. Sad part is, one of the things that is saving them I figure is that the rest of the industry is so bad on that score. I really cannot figure out why they've gone down this road.

Very first drop I got on live was a very rare. So yeah.

Must be that invisible PITA accolade you have that grants a critical chance for vr drops.

It's funny, my main the character who got that, gets commons, uncommons and very rares, but very few rares. Took quite a few trials to get to T3 in all slots. I have four very rares just sitting in my tray now and no desire or ability to use them since I don't have any rares.

Lady Loot can be a mischievous one sometimes.

And then you conveniently ignore the fact that he said that they would do the alternate methods because they would be too easy and quick. That's a pretty important clarification that you blithely skip over.

You have completely mis-characterized what was said, and it amazes me to see you repeat it.

Here's the exchange for your transcript:

[Team] DEV NAME REMOVED: it's true. if we put the new rewards in the old content though, people would just grind that instead, because it's so much easier
[Team] DEV NAME REMOVED: regardless of the number of paths we make, the easiest one will be ground the most.
[Team] Sudona Forte: I dunno, I'd do the trials since that's the only way to get iXP or get uncommon/rare/very rare components.
Barrier Core Epiphany is recharged.
[Team] DEV NAME REMOVED: as is, there's only one path, but it's definitely the proper challenge level

It is clear for anyone who can read that the devs wanted iXP and other incarnate rewards to be available predicated on a certain level of challenge. It's not about "you have to play this because we want to force you to play our way", it is clearly about "we don't want someone to speed run the ITF to the top because it's a breeze". How you can claim such nonsensical negative spin when the exchange is right in front of everyone to see boggles my mind.

This is exactly what EG has said earlier in the thread, and it is exactly in keeping with how you run a game if you want to gate off advancement with a challenge.

The only place which I can see his saying something that makes your case is the reward level on Apex and Tin Mage. I agree that they should give out more, probably at least 5-10 threads. Two is just plain silly. Since they don't give out the needed iXP, they wouldn't be any more of a stopgap than shard runs of old TFs. Anyway, I doubt people would do them instead of the trials since they aren't really much quicker, and you would have to spend a lot more time at it vs. trials even to get uncommons done. The devs once again prove they don't fully understand their own game.

Heck, now that notice of the well gives 40 threads on conversion, they just provided the WST as a pretty valid incarnate advancement path.

However the devs are not in some sort of insidious plot to make you play the way they want. They are trying to control valid means of advancement. They consider the trials challenging content, and this provide the most expedient path to advancement. Other paths exist but are going to be slower as they do not constitute the same level of challenge.

Previously, an IO'd out 50 - Frankenslotted - was "upper echelons", with the ability to stretch my "faves" into having an "IO Build". Note that I wasn't there, either, but I could see there from where I was standing, and it looked like I could get there.

Now, the "upper echelon" is "unlocked all Incarnates slots, and slotted good options for them (that don't have to be the rare, but that'd be nice)". Getting to this level adds a considerable amount of time on top of what it takes to get a well-built, IO'd 50 - and requires a specific playstyle (Trials).

I don't actually begrudge those who do have the time to pursue it. F'instance, before, I understood that there'd be a gap between what I was trying to build and a "actually IO'd out" toon, and a "purple'd out" toon, and I considered that gap pretty reasonable - people with more time / dedication / energy than me can manage even better results; that's fair enough.

I just think another route there would ... well, would be a massive improvement.

It's interesting, Doc - I see both what you're saying, and what Dispari is saying, in the Dev's statement. So Dispari isn't the only one who sees what they put in their post. But you raise a point about what the Devs say, as well.

I sure hope they don't consider the trials challenging. I think it took all of a week for people to essentially get the trials on farm. Three days to T4's when they first released (if I remember correctly). There's a lot of solo/small team content I'd consider much more challenging. A +4/+6 Carnies Radio mission is more challenging that either trial.

For all the goofy systems (sequestering, rage grenades, etc) the trials are far from the most challenging content the devs have put out. They're not in the top percentage of quality missions overall IMO. If they were TF's or arcs I'd play them once and never go back, not because they're bad but because they're eh.

It would be far easier for them to provide challenging solo/small team content IMO. Having 14-24 people in a league makes for a power level that requires limiting powers (no control on fleeing patients, or sequestering for example) to present a (fake) challenge.

Takes a team to start those, doesn't it?

It doesnt even matter to me that it takes a team to start them. I am not interested. How is trading a rare for a common make any advancement sense what so ever. If thats the case, I will save my common salvage for you if you give me your rares 1 to 1 Doc.

Once again, context is everything. I was discussing Dispari's exchange with a dev in which they had proposed that other TFs grant a valid number of threads. It had no bearing on the solo angle.

But thank you for stating the obvious.

Wow, this is pretty silly.

Yes, a notice of the well is a rare. It is also a rare for a slot you have likely already filled, certainly to the max tier before you would even consider this.

Once you have your tier 4 alpha, what are you collecting rare alpha salvage for? You want to sit in your SG base and polish it?

40 threads for something that is otherwise useless is a good deal. If you are comparing it to invention salvage that is specious. Invention salvage can be traded unlike this. As such it had no inherent value beyond the utility you can derive from it. If at a given moment you need threads and are done with alpha, those 40 threads are plenty of utility for something which otherwise does you no good.

I have to imagine you are grousing just for the sake of grousing.

The topic of the thread is solo content. Stay on topic and cease being an ***.

What the heck are you doing with all those Incarnate merits you've been earning?

I don't collect it, thats my point. It is a waste of time spent on a very specific obsolete reward. Much like shards.

Saying it isn't a viable way to advance isn't grousing, its disagreeing with your statement.