Ok, listen, this is starting to get to a critical mass

I think that a big part of this is differing definitions of "casual".
The Trials certainly are casual compared to other trials and raids and things of that ilk.
However, some people do not find large team to multi-team content of any sort to be definable as casual.
It's not a right or wrong sort of thing, it's just personal definitions and/or personal preference.

So, if some people consider any or all of the difficulty metrics within the trials, the amount of time they take, the amount of players required to start/to succeed to be beyond their definition of casual, it's not casual for them.

And the opposite is true and I think this is where the Developers may have overlooked (if they did overlook it), most likely through their own exuberance of the systems.
If none of those things register as being beyond another player's definition of casual, then it is casual to them.

Regardless, it is possibly a temporary situation and the types of content linked to the system may open up across more forms of content.
I'm not saying people shouldn't voice their criticisms, I'm just saying that there are some reasons why things may have gone the way they did, even if we don't like them.
Even if it is through making mistakes... we all make 'em.

I, personally, agree that tacking on the endgame system to this game as something so heavily focused on these new trials is odd and disappointing... but that's just my opinion (and anyone else's who shares it).
It takes a lot of time to make this stuff and not everything that is going to be made is going to be on my side of the fence. Hopefully things will even out eventually.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

I agree.
I think that the developers saw this limited style of events as being epic.
And they're not entirely wrong to look at it that way... However...
I think that most of the players now see the Incarnate System pretty much akin to level 51+... new powers, new top level(s) to reach.
Few players don't intend to reach level 50 with their characters (even if they're not desperately focused on that goal and in no rush... they still intend to reach it some day and not cut them off).
When the Incarnate System first rolled around... there was a lot of talk about how you don't run all of your characters through this stuff, and so on.
However, I think this is becoming more and more of just the additional steps of our on-going level/power progression... and people are not going to want to stop at level 50 with their latest alt...
And the repetitive path that it takes to get through the Incarnate system is likely going to become more of an issue for these players.

Anyway... right or wrong, I just think this is part of some players' bad feelings about the system...

I think the design goal of Epic, limited, super-super stuff is what the Devs had in mind...
I think it gets processed by much of the playerbase as More Powers and Levels and STUFF for us to get for our characters!! Just like Epic Power Pools and such.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

I'm with Nuclear Toast on this one. This feels like a re-run of the Vanguard pieces, and I sincerely hope I can use my Paragon Points to unlock the non-Incarnate Incarnate costumes at character creation.

Something that often gets left behind in these arguments is that while people like me may not need, say, a Roman Gladius sword on every character who uses Broadsword, having that sword at character creation is still important. The character creator's stock at creation is all I can conceivably use for inspiration, because that's the only place where I can see my costume together and animating attacks before I make a character, and I need to see this before I go "Yes! Yes, this is the character I want! Make it so!"

Example: Once upon a time I made a big fuss about unlocking the Rularuu Claws on a character, to the point where I monopolised an entire day from a friend of mine trying to unlock it and failed to do so anyway, since both the Efficiency Expert Pyther act and the Technician Nylor arc only unlock costumes for mission owners. At the end of the day, I gave up on it, because I started suspecting that the claws just wouldn't look good as they were wrist-mounted. Call it sour grapes if you will, but the fact of the matter is at no place in the entire game could I see what my character would look like doing Claws attack with the Rularuu Claws. Since I don't know if it'll look good or not, I don't care.

"But Sam!" I can hear you saying "Aren't the Incarnate costume unlocks account-wide?" Yes, but they still don't show up at character creation, because you have to make a character, name it, claim them AND THEN visit a tailor to use them. About the only reason I stopped giving a flying rat about the Incarnate costumes stuff is just this - the claiming tech is just not good. So, yeah, I've basically chosen to leave those costume pieces alone. If I can buy them AT CREATION, swell. If I can't, then oh well.

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.

Yep. I try and bring my head back to this idea whenever things aren't entirely appealing to me or others and whatnot.

As an artist myself, I always try and respect that there are people and artists that simply want to deliver what they want and what they've designed and that it is not always going to be what I want and that is okay (and, just for the record, I enjoy a lot about the trials and think they're fun. Especially when I first ran them!).

The difficult point to figure out is how much does the audience/customer-base factor in for a lot of this type of work?

I'm not raising that as a counter to what you said above... more so as just how that is the difficult line to balance upon. Sometimes you're going to go over that line, on either side, and that's fine (either intentionally or incidentally).

MMOs are interesting in this respect, I think. How much are they art to be what they want to create and how much are they closer to the side of a wedding band (so to speak)?
I don't think they're that far on the side of having to aim for what the customer wants, but they're not just free artists creating their own raw interpretations of whatever their hearts require, either.

MMOs are a little more on the side of giving the audience what they want (and, no sometimes the audience doesn't really know what they want or how much they'll enjoy what they don't even know they would).

It's an interesting aspect of these creations and I don't think the developers here have strayed too far or anything. It is a very difficult balancing act and I've seen this team sway this way and that and generally result in a lot of pleased customers, so that's a great job in my book.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

I feel very similarly about what you were saying about character and costume creation from the beginning and this is, in no way, a counter to that... This is just an In case you didn't know sort of (potentially) helpful reply...

At the time of this particular endeavor of yours, there very well may have been zero way for you to see those claws...
But the AE allows you to make costumes with those and other unlockable pieces and can be rather valuable in that sense.
Make sure to unlock any and all costume parts with your AE tickets and just go in and create a custom enemy. Load and save costume files, as per normal and such.

Anyway... I imagine that you do know this now... And I know that it doesn't really change the real matter of your post!
Just wanted to post this in case it helps you or anyone else a little!!

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

Indeed it does, but there's a catch While you can use all the game's costume pieces in the Architect's editor, that does not support power customization. My chief concern with the Rularuu Claws is if they would look right with Claws powers. The reason for this is they're mounted on the forearm instead of on the back of the hand like almost all other claws. The only other set of claws that are like this is the Vanguard Claws, which I only discovered when the Vanguard Pack came out. They look great in still shots... Not so great in practice.

That's because forearm-mounted claws follow the forearm, which is locked to the elbow and upper arm. Human forearms sort of twist along the entire length of the forearm from the elbow to the wrist. City of Heroes forearms are static and hands turn only at the wrist as though on a sliding joint. Because the basic Claws stance has the elbows slightly sideways, forearm-mounted claws tend to stick sort of on the sides of the arms. But the fists are rotated to point almost directly up and forward, and you end with claws on the sides of the fists where the thumbs are.

I hate how the Vanguard Claws work. I want to know if the Rularuu Claws work the same way, but I've never, EVER had those unlocked on any one single character at all. So, I have no way to test this. Chances are, I never will. Which is disappointing, in that I'm not about to commit any more time unlocking something I have high suspicions may look terribly off. The Rularuu Claws look GREAT in still shots, but until I can see them in actual animations, I don't intend to bother.

*edit*
On a completely unrelated note, I am AMAZED at how much better FRAPS' screenshots are when converted to JPG than what the game captures vie its internal screenshot tools.

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.

I agree with you then - on the hate part. Thry aren't bribing plYers who hate the trials. But they are bribing playets who merely dislike them, to boost their datamining figures so they can say 'look, X players did the BAF last week, therefore it's a success.

Eco

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

That said, As a trial-disliker myself, I have to concede that the BAF itself is just about the most casual-friendly 'endgame raid' I've seen in my admuteddly limited experience of them, in any game. It's quick and easy.


But so is making a piece of dry toast, and I don't want to eat notjing but that for every meal.

Eco

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

The Trials are all casual friendly - players just need to know what they're doing in them

People need to ask around about your history with trials. I wish forum rules allowed me to post the things I have heard.

I'll happily concede that point. Compared to other games and their raids, ours are a walk in the park. However, I still think it's a mistake to say, 'Hey, other games have a raid based endgame, let's do that!' and not try to cater to the playstyles this game supports.

I do feel the situation is temporary though. Despite what someone suggested earlier, I believe that constructive feedback on the forums is useful and I doubt that the multiple threads on this subject have gone unnoticed. The Incarnate system is a work in progress and so I can do my best to be patient with it however I will say that level 50 TFs have now become boring due to the powers being useable in them. And that is a shame.

If I have a concern, it is that the few times we've heard anything official (Devs or Community Team) about solo/small team Incarnate content, it's always sounded to me as if they were somewhat surprised that we would want something like that. This concerns me as it makes me wonder just how well they know their playerbase and the strengths of the game the Incarnate system is being added to. Also, as it obviously wasn't there when they started developing the system, it worries me that it will be some hastily cobbled together mish mash of poorly designed missions that make no sense.

I'd offer to help you if you were on Virtue, either the story arc redside or cheesing the eyeballs in FBZ Blue. But I think they are forearm mounted. Certainly do sympathize with you though, I'd like the costume creator to be more flexible all around [and really, exception for the Ascension pieces, it doesn't seem pointed that they're blocked before the fact]. I want to say it's prolly going to be related to the touchups that Freedom is going to give the costume creator, but I dunno and frankly, it's not worth getting hopes up over until it's known anyway .

I hardly think it's relevant, but I'll offer up my personal experience with GG running a few trials. Clean straight forward runs. One of the few trial leads who bothers asking if anyone hasn't done the trials before and offering an explanation of how the trial works.

Hey, if you do happen to unlock the the things for yourself, snap a few pics of the combat stance and the first couple of attacks. That'd be awesome

But unlocking them via story arc doesn't quite work, though. The arc owner gets all the credit, and the team-mate doesn't get the unlcock.

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.

Actually, it's not the difficulty that makes it non-casual. It's the grind. If you have to commit yourself to grinding, it's NOT casual.

Ah, my only claws char is trapped in Praetoria (who is oddly enough using the vanguard claws because it mimics the effect of Viccy the best imo) now or I'd do it for ya. I've done the farm though for my Shield Brute. Done the farm on my MM for a badge. So it's managable, I just don't tend to player claws.

Truth be told, this should be doable on a hero. I've already, um... "Cheated" one Rularuu's Bane for a level 1 character that way. Asked a friend of mine for a favour, he brought his 50, SKd my level 1 and took him to the Shard, where he proceeded to smack down 100 Overseers while I cheered from the sidelines like a cheer leader. A very pale, dead, vampiric-like male cheerleader who wanted his damn evil-looking sword On the upside, Artegor is a much cooler character for it.

I'd do the same for my evil duchess, but unfortunately that doesn't work on villain-side and I'm not sure if she's high-level enough to even visit hero-side. Plus her Victorian chest clips with her breasts now, so...

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.

Say what you want about her forum rep but when she's ingame the term I hear most often would be 'Git R done'. She produces results while keeping everyone happy and involved. Just sayin' rumors are bad.

Really? Really? A bigger person wouldn't have the urge to post things they've "heard". Have you ever actually DONE A TRIAL with her? I have. No problems and I would gladly do so again.

AF, while personal experience leads me to agree with you, this path isn't going to be helpful to the overall discussion.

Put her on /ignore and let it go.

Look if you come on the boards and say something is a joyous lark for you when it isn't and you are completely misrepresenting the experience and your relationship to it, you can expect to be called on it. Not many people have had leagues revolt.

It's almost as if they were trying to make them casual-friendly

The most telling question has yet to be asked: do you wear your formal - or casual - costume while engaging in these 'raids'?

I wear my usual outfit - I don't think anyone dresses up for Trials - or any other content

Well, my tank had a special costume for Hamidon raids - no cape and no aura.