A personal account of my first Keyes trial; some people aren't meant for raiding
By
Amygdala,
Posted on: 2011-07-02 09:28 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I agree wholeheartedly with this. A pick up group of strangers or even people who aren't prepared to be your buddy and stick with you is not to be taken lightly. "On the internet no one knows you're a dog" has a lot of meanings, but in this case it means, no one on a trial has a way to know you need help or special consideration. You very literally jumped into the deep end of the pool, and somehow are surprised it took your breath away.|
Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
I'll just toss out the idea that this was done with a PuG, and not with a number of friends. Friends who know you would have been able to deal with the situation far better if for no other reason they would have slowed down and taken it at a pace that you could have handled for as much as the trial would allow.
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Friends who you have played with before will alleviate that. First because they can help and be accomodating, and second because there's less weight of embarrassment.
You felt judged, and that amped up your stress level to a point you weren't functional. There's no room for your brain to learn in that kind of situation.
All that being said, I think you can learn to have fun even in trials. You just need to figure out what your ground rules are.
I don't think it's as simple as some people are cut out for trials and some aren't. There's also people who want to be part of the learning curve for a server and those who don't (or can't). It may be better for you to not jump into the newest and shiniest trial when people are still figuring it out.
A big part of the chaos you saw was not because everyone knew what they were doing, but because people are still figuring out the best way to do things. If you'd had a buddy and both of you were clear on what you were going to do for each other, your experience could have been a lot smoother. Same goes if everyone around you is on the same page about the plan.
If you ever try a trial again, go with friends. Go with a trusted league lead who can clearly announce the plan and keep everyone mostly in line. Lastly, use the tools the game gives you to help keep the amount of chaos you see manageable.
By which I mean, have your minimap open so you see where people are going. Use your waypoints so you have a sense of direction about where to go. Either set your Follow Buddy as your waypoint, or put them in a Focus Group (a feature of the league interface) so you're not hunting for them in a sea of names in order to target them. Also, be prepared to move windows around so you can follow instructions, and see needed text.
Lastly, find a way to limit your input about who to listen to and what to worry about. You weren't sure what to do that would be helpful so you were trying to track all the events in the Trial and it overstimulated you.
In the end, you know best how to help yourself. I was just trying to give you a few game related tips to make dealing with the interface and the nature of groups easier. I hope you feel up to trying again someday, and you can feel free to contact me ingame if there are questions I can answer.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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I don't think that was the point, actually. I didn't read the OP as saying that THESE particular people were somehow heartless, greedy or selfish, but more so that that's the kind of mental state the Trial is (intentionally or not) designed to induce. That's true for most high-stress environments, actually - when you can't afford to have any setbacks and you can't afford to baby all participants because the goal is too hard to achieve, you end up having to make a choice - do you slow down and accommodate everyone and pretty much certainly fail the Trial, or do you cut your losses, abandon the dead weight and finish the damn thing on schedule and on plan?|
Originally Posted by Mjolnir875
It just rubbed me the wrong way that other people in this league are being painted as uncaring and heartless.
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But if the "high stakes game" weren't dangerous enough, you have the grind adding to it. Sure, most people can shrug off a lost Trial here and there, but when they start doing those in large numbers and when each is a feat of organisation and cooperation, a failed Trial because of - as the Ice Road Truckers call it - "rookie ****" is twice as frustrating to people. And I've seen this time and time again even in lower-stress environments. A team is doing well, somebody makes a rookie mistake, everyone dies and occasionally there will be that one hot head who explodes, curses and quits the team. Debt doesn't matter, the team isn't slowed down by much, but because the person perceives to have failed because he was "cheated" by someone else's mistake, he's still pissed as all hell.
I've often found myself in the position of "that guy" who says things like "Calm down. We can do this. Let's just stop and try to figure out how." in the face of TFs which are going horribly badly or in cases where the team is falling apart. I rarely say this out of some position of moral superiority or extreme self-control. Most of the time, I say this because, to me, keeping the team together and fighting back is more important than accomplishing the task at hand. In fact, I'd sooner fail a TF, a Trial, a timed mission or anything else that's failable as long as we stuck together like a team and gave it our best shot. The game will more or less tell you when you're hopelessly outmatched, but I still consider it a victory if we fought our way to that point and admitted defeat, as opposed to yelling at each other and rage-quitting even just a room before.
I don't think Oz is accusing his team-mates of being bad players or bad people, but more accusing the iTrials system itself as putting victory and reward above and beyond the kind of team spirit which leaves people happy in victory and defeat. In a way, despite iTrials being team tasks, a lot of the time people join them for personal gain so that they can solo their way to rewards with the help of others. Sure, they'll follow instructions, but with about as much social investment as following the orders of your mission control NPC telling you where to go and what to do. Such an environment can leave a person teaming for the company and the interaction feeling cold, useless and unwanted. And I know that feeling all too well.
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Off-topic, if you ever see me talk about "small-team content," I'm talking two people, maybe three at most. That group size ensures a somewhat unique dynamic which more or less involves every player into the proceedings personally and actively by not providing enough critical mass of people for some players to blend with the crowd and just observe or worse: Follow the herd. I find that the more "personal" a team is, the more people are likely to get attached to that team above and beyond a means to an end.
In a sea of 24 people... Yeah, that's not gonna' happen, and it will leave the event feeling a lot more heartless, impersonal and unfriendly than the actual people taking place in it are. When you get tossed into a crowd, people's faces tend to blur, especially if you're stressed out to begin with.
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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.
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Panic attacks suck. My personal advice would have been to log out and take your own breather. Especially with the league iTrials one person doesn't make or break the encounter [potentially unlike some other encounters in this game or other games]. All in all, it's ok. Not a big deal.
In general, with any complex encounter, I'd suggest doing research before engaging.
Let's Dance!
Another thing about all the trials is that they tend to be confusing, chaotic affair when they are new. Once people know them, a common strategy develops and everyone knows what to do without being told. This in turn makes things confusing for anyone who hasn't done them, since leaders often don't bother with giving directions. If you do a Lambda or BAF, therefore, be sure to let your team mates know you are new and need to be told what to do.
In the random chaos of a trial with many characters running about doing all sorts of things that may or may not be on task, it is easy to feel uncomfortable even without having a particularly bad response to the stresses in it. On one hand, it is hard to know if one is meeting one's responsibilities: when things go well or go poorly, it is based more on some sort of group average ability than the efforts of any one individual. On the the other hand, this same issue makes it hard to judge how well everyone else in the team is doing or not doing. For me, it seems that these trials (and some 8-player TFs, too) encourage either strict micromanagement by leaders, or a sort of hazy follow the crowd and look out for yourself approach, neither of which are terribly satisfying to me.
Recently I ended up as leader of a Lambda trial league (post trial attrition, and I was left with the star.) So I wanted to try something different. I recall, before acquiring all the incarnate level bonuses, how demoralising the collection phase was. Typically everyone would power ahead, leaving squishies behind, who in turn would spend most of the time legging it back from the hospital and being reminded of how useless they are in that phase as all the items were collected regardless. This time, after checking that everyone in the league didn't object, I wanted to try making the collection phase a clear-all.
The idea was: each team sticks together; any foe encountered on the way to a collectible is defeated, as a group; no team member needs to go to the hospital. Could this be done, and still meet the objectives?
It turns out, yes! We had a mix of Lambda trial veterans and newbies, and this was the first time any of us had tried this approach, and certainly the first time I'd ever tried leading one, and we ended up with all the pacification grenades (though it was very close) and nine of the acids. We defeated Marauder handily. Some league-members said afterwards that this was the first time they had felt useful in the collection phase, and the first time they didn't spend half the time back and forthing from the hospital. I think everyone had a good time.
We didn't get all the possible merits. But we did have some massive fights against nigh-overpowering foes, which we won! There was no frantic running away, or scrambling chaos. It felt ... heroic.
I want to recommend this approach to others who run Lambda. I don't know if a similar aesthetic can be brought to bear on Keyes.
I'm sorry you had such a terrible time. I've been leary about even going into this one. I made barrier destiny's on all my characters to counter th insanity of the other two and over accurate mobs... Now I find out we need the Rebirth one for the silly scale of damage in this one... Well... theyre gonna take time to make.
Can the Dev's please just let us know in advance what the "This power will make this tf/trial 50%-99% more bearable" is gonna be for the next one? ;P
Trying some humor to make you feel better... Is it working? 
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Originally Posted by Paladin
Hey Oz,
I was there under Paladin with you last night. I just want to let you know that (with the exception of myself towards the end) everyone was very supportive of you and your disability. I have to admit, I thought you were engaging in some epic trolling towards the end, but you have to admit yourself that asking someone to stay with you while you were KOed on the ground in a previously completed section was a little extreme, right? We also tried to explain how to find us - how to leave the hospital, then to click on the team members name to locate someone who was part of the big group that you could follow. I understand that while you were under a lot of stress that even basic things can be difficult to do, but there's only so much we as other players can do. I would have come and caught you up if I weren't busy drawing Anti-Matter around. But - I have to say, the entire raid was extremely gracious and concerned with your safety, stressing that if you were having health issues to please take care of yourself, and that we wouldn't hold it against you if you had to stay either in the Hospital or leave the raid entirely due to stress. I provided the detailed instructions to you in tells because I didn't want you going in blind, and I hope that at least giving you an idea of what was going to happen alleviated some of it. From your comments while our team leader got the raid together, it seemed like you were concerned, so I took it upon myself to at least try to help. No one on the team was really motivated by putting himself above others, but rather coming together to accomplish something great and fun, as a team. And as a team, I again have to stress that everyone was very gracious, even when you made it clear that you would most likely not enjoy yourself. From your comments before the raid it was clear that you weren't entirely thrilled to be there, but I'll commend you for giving something a shot at least once. However, if you do have a medical issue it's a good thing to let your teams know that before a raid is under way or before you start to exhibit symptoms like you said you did. But as the raid went on, and without any notice that you had these issues during the 20 minutes+ while the team was ready and waiting to start, it honestly seemed like you were trying to troll up a horror story. It crossed my mind that maybe you had waited until we were sincerely engaged to tell us about your medical condition, and begin asking people to stop what they were doing to stand by you in order to evoke a hostile response - one which I was pleasantly surprised did not come. Everyone was considerate, and with the exception of one comment from me ("..epic troll is epic") there was nothing even remotely negative that went on in league or team chat. I do apologize for thinking you a troll, but I'm confused where the idea that people were off focused on winning comes from, when everyone did all they could to accommodate you, short of either stopping the raid entirely or removing you from the league in order to free you from the stress. However, now that I see there's a post on the forums about this I don't know what to think. It doesn't really match up with what I saw, though. |
I was there as well, Paladin speaks the truth.
The raid-leader and several other people were being very helpful in chat with information, tips and the mission plan. It's not like we booted the guy in completely blind.
The trial seemed to go fairly smooth for a Keyes, made quick work of all the towers, and AM went down pretty easily as well. I'm sorry the OP didn't have fun (honestly, I felt the OP had their mind set that they weren't gonna like it from the get-go.. They had some pretty gloom and doom chat going on there while we waited). But the trial wasn't 'bad' as a whole not by a long shot.
During the trial I was on a Kin, and was one of the few people capable of healing. I mentioned over League two or three times that I was capable of healing, but was a Kin, so required a target.
That all being said... I agree that Keyes is really quite hectic. I was pretty lost on my first run, but got the hang of things on my second go. It's really like nothing else in CoH at the moment, far far cry from the standard "engage and kill retarded AI" we've seen in all the Taskforces etc.
I did my very first iTrial (I think is what they're called?) yesterday.... my very first, after being away from game for several months, and only beginning to actively play a couple of days ago.
And it was Keyes.
Perhaps not the brightest idea, no. A friend was putting together a BAF for my first, but an experienced Trial leader showed up and was putting together runs for multiple trials, and our group got merged into theirs. They were starting with Keyes.
I was so lost. Yes, there were instructions, but in a few cases they seemed aimed at people that at least had some idea what was going on. In other cases I just didn't know where I should be. With this group? That one? That other one? Were we just splitting up and having at it wherever we might be? I tried to follow everyone as best as I could, and follow the commands. I tried to not do anything stupid twice. Why twice? I might do it once, simply because I had no idea not to. I died so much. I hardly understood anything, and 'in the middle of a trial' is NOT the time to ask questions.
I'm really, immensely, overwhelmingly grateful that it didn't trigger a stress reaction - or panic attack - from me. It could have. Such things have, before. It's the uncoordinated chaos of it all, compounded with my lack of knowledge. I could have wound up whimpering in my bedroom, huddled with an icepack on my head and a raging headache, and that would've been only a minor reaction. I'm surprised I didn't.
It isn't so much the raiding issue for me. I ran a rather hardcore raiding guild in the early years of EQ1. It's an activity I never stopped taking part in- I still regularly raid in LotRO. Something about Keyes, though... it might be Keyes itself, it might have been my lack of understanding of how Keyes works, it might have been a perfect storm of my rustiness and all of the above. All I do know is: I don't think I want to go back and do that one anytime even remotely soon!
I wouldn't take it personally. The trial is very hetic, most people will be struggling to survive themselves, and it is kind of hard to type when leading an AV along on a leash. They may not even have noticed you were dead most of the time, because in trials death is inevitable, even for the toughest characters. I assume that anyone obviously having trouble and wanting help would ask for it (did you?) and anyone having a condition that might affect them would say so beforehand. Not saying anything may not always be a sign of callousness.
You have to remember, most of them will not know about your condition. If you have a condition that makes things difficult for you, you should speak up and people will generally be happy to accomodate.
Liking trials has nothing to do with competition, or greed, or heartlessness or anything you allege, and trials do not induce this mentality. I know because I do them often.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
For chaotic, well - compared to the other trials, it felt far less organized and organize-able. Lambda? Outer ring, turrets, inner ring, guard, get your assignment, get stuff, beat on Marauder. BAF? Rather easy to define stages and locations. Now, yeah, Keys has reactors... and, bunkers... and a yard... but it doesn't feel as stage-able to me. It's less well defined.
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Originally Posted by catwhowalksbyhimself
Another thing about all the trials is that they tend to be confusing, chaotic affair when they are new. Once people know them, a common strategy develops and everyone knows what to do without being told. This in turn makes things confusing for anyone who hasn't done them, since leaders often don't bother with giving directions. If you do a Lambda or BAF, therefore, be sure to let your team mates know you are new and need to be told what to do.
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If you want to try a trial but can't handle chaos then avoid any trial that isn't at least a month on live.
Although, as cat states, once people figure out how to do a trial then there's possibly less communication and it can be more confusing for a newbie-trialler as the leaders start to assume that everyone knows the 'accepted' solution and associated terminology.
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Hello again.
I thought I should come back to this thread that I started and address a few things as best I can.
First of all, to Paladin and the other person who posted there, I apologise completely. What I was describing when I wrote my original post, was as much I suppose my stream of thought at the time as much as it was articulating things.
Yes, I did think those things about people, and yes, I did believe as it was happening and in my recollection that people were being unkind and greedy and terrible. And as I said in my original post, that is a form of negative thinking that's associated with anxiety and stress. Those thoughts are created in my mind to make me feel bad about me, and reality is just an inconvenience to that rationalising of feeling. You have to understand that for a large portion of my life that I was unaware of this was happening, and it's only since I've been in therapy that this changed.
And I am going to lapse. I can't always predict the triggers, I can't always control the outcome. Learning to let go of control is something I have to work on and that was part of why I did the Trial. I had a negative attitude about it, and I wanted to not only challenge that negative thinking, but also be open-minded to the experience.
Paladin, the simple story is that the conditions of that Trial, the concern about my friend and also being tired were a perfect concoction of triggers that were ripe to happen. And is often the case for people who suffer anxiety, the trigger can be something they're completely unaware of.
You're right; I was negative going in and expressing concerns, and those were warning signs and I didn't recognise them going in. Had I been more alert, or given a bit more thought to the situation, I wouldn't have gone in at all, or I would've coped a lot better. I didn't declare that I had anxiety for the very same reasons I hadn't posted about them on here til now. I still feel embarrassed, it's still personal and really, I'd had a resistance built up from doing the BAF stuff. I can't know what my limits are unless I test them, and while that might sound like I've just dived in the deep end, what would the alternative be? It's important for me to gradually expand those stress and anxiety tolerances.
As for the troll nature of things, what you're describing is known as catastrophisation. So when I start getting anxiety, the sense that it's becoming catastrophic grows and grows. So something that started out just as confusion and nervousness blew out for me, and I had to work at having to stop in place and gather myself again. If I hadn't then I wouldn't even be typing this, I'd be spending the next day or so sleeping off the stress I put my body under by going through it. I'm still a bit tired now, to be honest.
I was feeling (or so I thought) in a decent place to give this a try, but it's clear I wasn't. It's really that simple. To put that in perspective, I attended a social event today for four hours, ran some friends through an AE arc I'm working on for two, and then did a BAF straight into a Lambda after that without pause. My head was together, I was relaxed, I knew the BAF wasn't going to stress me and I made a distinct point of asking lots of questions to the Lambda group (who were gracious enough to talk to me both before and after the Trial had ended for long periods) so that there were no longer any surprises for me with it. And of course, no surprises is key to someone like myself. Control, control control. I must learn control. /yoda 
I don't hold you or anyone else in that Trial at fault. I seriously don't. But that is the difference between someone who is emotionally shutting off and thnking catastrophically and someone who has rested and come down from that point of anxiety. It is a literal difference in thinking and I can fully understand why you see that disparity. I hope what I've said here helps clear things up.
Pramantiss, I apologise to you as well. Unreservedly.
A lot of what I wrote yesterday was from the heart and it just needed to come out how it came out. I freely admit I wasn't thinking too clearly once I got started and it really just had to keep going. If I wasn't going to be honest about how I felt and how I was thinking, I wasn't going to be able to look at the truth of those words and whether were in fact true.
And a lot of that is emotion. What Samuel_Tow said is true; those feelings I had/have about Trials is about that, Trials. I've always had a prejudice against raiding in every game I've played in that had it and it's driven me away from more than a few now.
And you do kind of lash out at people when that desire to just emotionally withdraw happens; it's like a raw wound that people are trying to poke with a stick. I couldn't articulate or express fully what was happening to me and the best thing to do was to just do what I did, which was to shut off for a while until I came back to myself. And that point, I was on autopilot and the thought of quitting didn't even enter my head. I was all about finding a target and hitting it. There was absolutely no finesse at all I was doing. None.
Now the question would be is if I wanted to go back and do a Keyes Island run again, and I'll answer honestly 'no', and that holds only for now, the present.
That experience is a negative one. And it's stinging enough that I'll want to avoid it until I have a resistance built up again.
Do I think Trials for some bring out greed, a desire to rush through and complete everything? Do I think for some people it's fun, they find it interesting and they do their best to help others? Yes. Yes to both.
I hope that answers the quieries and clears up where I am a bit.
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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Kinda interesting, I was on one of those type runs before... And we actually would have failed if not for two melee deciding to ignore the league leader when we had 1 minute left and only 3 grenades/3 acids collected. Of course, it didn't help that the acid team still spent 3/4 of their time in the hospital.|
Originally Posted by halfflat
In the random chaos of a trial with many characters running about doing all sorts of things that may or may not be on task, it is easy to feel uncomfortable even without having a particularly bad response to the stresses in it. On one hand, it is hard to know if one is meeting one's responsibilities: when things go well or go poorly, it is based more on some sort of group average ability than the efforts of any one individual. On the the other hand, this same issue makes it hard to judge how well everyone else in the team is doing or not doing. For me, it seems that these trials (and some 8-player TFs, too) encourage either strict micromanagement by leaders, or a sort of hazy follow the crowd and look out for yourself approach, neither of which are terribly satisfying to me.
Recently I ended up as leader of a Lambda trial league (post trial attrition, and I was left with the star.) So I wanted to try something different. I recall, before acquiring all the incarnate level bonuses, how demoralising the collection phase was. Typically everyone would power ahead, leaving squishies behind, who in turn would spend most of the time legging it back from the hospital and being reminded of how useless they are in that phase as all the items were collected regardless. This time, after checking that everyone in the league didn't object, I wanted to try making the collection phase a clear-all. The idea was: each team sticks together; any foe encountered on the way to a collectible is defeated, as a group; no team member needs to go to the hospital. Could this be done, and still meet the objectives? It turns out, yes! We had a mix of Lambda trial veterans and newbies, and this was the first time any of us had tried this approach, and certainly the first time I'd ever tried leading one, and we ended up with all the pacification grenades (though it was very close) and nine of the acids. We defeated Marauder handily. Some league-members said afterwards that this was the first time they had felt useful in the collection phase, and the first time they didn't spend half the time back and forthing from the hospital. I think everyone had a good time. We didn't get all the possible merits. But we did have some massive fights against nigh-overpowering foes, which we won! There was no frantic running away, or scrambling chaos. It felt ... heroic. I want to recommend this approach to others who run Lambda. I don't know if a similar aesthetic can be brought to bear on Keyes. |
As a sidenote however, staying together a group is extremely important with Keyes. The zone-wide AE is there to encourage that you stay together. There are a few times where you can split up productively [early parts of the collection phases for each reactor, and to try to power up some terminals before AM shows up], but largely you want to move as a team in KIR.
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Originally Posted by SuperOz
That experience is a negative one. And it's stinging enough that I'll want to avoid it until I have a resistance built up again.
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In more general terms, I will assume you know a few techniques that help mitigate the attacks. Yogic breathing works, it's just something you have to do before the attack sets in.
Let's Dance!
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Honestly, I'd recommend he avoid Keyes until he's done both BAF and lambda for some time.|
Originally Posted by reiella
I'd honestly suggest waiting until KIR is on farm status server-wide like BAF and Lambda are now. Your first few jumps in are going to be high stress incidents. In more general terms, I will assume you know a few techniques that help mitigate the attacks. Yogic breathing works, it's just something you have to do before the attack sets in. |
Even on farm status (which honestly from what's I've seen it's ALREADY on farm status--the issue isn't that Keyes is hard. It's not.) it's still the MOST chaotic raiding encounter ever conceived for this game. It is NOT for folks who like to take things slow or in a paced manner.
For someone like that I would NEVER recommend them doing Keyes. Luckily there are two other slower paced trials.
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Great post.|
Originally Posted by SuperOz
I hope that answers the quieries and clears up where I am a bit.
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Keyes is a hectic trial with tons of stuff going on and a need for clear instructions and coordinated play (well, you can succeed with less coordination, but deaths and likely frustration for some players will rise). I can easily see getting overwhelmed.
It may be over the line for you. On the other hand, after some time passes, perhaps you can work your way through the Keyes in small steps. Make it through the first reactor just by following someone with an AoE heal and occasionally attack. Then maybe retreat to the hospital if it starts getting overwhelming. Relax for 60 seconds, stock up on greens, organize the inspire tray.
Then either try to head to the 2nd reactor or perhaps just explore the map. Watch the trial pop-up and get used to the information it is displaying. Use your greens to stay alive through the Pulses and get your bearings. The timers on gaining control of the reactors are very generous, so you will likely not be harming the league by learning the map and getting your bearings.
If you can get to the 2nd reactor, rather than actively engage, perhaps look around. Try to learn where the terminals are on the reactor platforms. Perhaps observe the path the War Walkers take as they try to escape. Maybe watch how the league leads Anti-Matter around and how people use the temps on the terminals.
Not sure how the last stage will hit you. It is crazy. So much stuff is going on, it may be way over your line. Good luck and have fun.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
IMHO:
The Client Programmers need to do one of two things:
- Get their act together
- Be given enough time to implement a usable UI rather than the mess we have now.
The UI in this game is _horrific_ new UI is patched in poorly with minimal thought and _frequently_ the game devs try to work around real UI issues with in-engine kludges (Like the blue instruction text)
We _have_ an objective UI, it _can_ already extend to show additional information (like in the PVP zone events) the pop-help is a _joke_
If there is a timer on an action the instructions need to be explicit, obvious, persistent, in an expected place and provided in advance of the timer, this is not rocket surgery.
Imagine if the instructions for the trial were under the nav area like any other mission and they were something like:
Current Task: Disable Reactor Hope
- Defeat Warworks guarding cases of power cells on that ground under Reactor Hope
- Collect Power Cells from cases on the ground under Reactor hope.
- Clear Warworks that surround the Reactor Terminal
- On the 1st floor of the Reactor
- On the 2nd floor of the Reactor
- On the 3rd floor of the Reactor
- Use the Powers cells on the Reactor Terminal while the are clear of Warworks(The power cells are a temporary power)
- On the 1st floor of the Reactor
- On the 2nd floor of the Reactor
- On the 3rd floor of the Reactor
Let the team/league highlight a single row on the above for
- The league,
- Each team
- Each team/league member
In addition make the temp powers appear under the nav bar like the shivan shards in PVP zones.
There are many other improvements that could be made but this would be a start.
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A fair point, I'd contest that Lam [especially since I just had this nice lovely stream of multiple failures to complete Lam] can be pretty chaotic. The warehouse level, if folks aren't properly organized can result in pretty bad fail. And if you don't get enough acids, it makes the last phase suck dingo kidneys. I am actually really amazed managed to see two Lams complete fail like that though in short order.|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Honestly, I'd recommend he avoid Keyes until he's done both BAF and lambda for some time.
Even on farm status (which honestly from what's I've seen it's ALREADY on farm status--the issue isn't that Keyes is hard. It's not.) it's still the MOST chaotic raiding encounter ever conceived for this game. It is NOT for folks who like to take things slow or in a paced manner. For someone like that I would NEVER recommend them doing Keyes. Luckily there are two other slower paced trials. |
I personally really like the three reactor setup because it's an escalating bit of complication. The basic idea remains the same behind each reactor, just different wrinkles. But it faces a great bit of difficulty because in this game, folks don't actually like to stay together. As you said, it's not that Keyes is really hard, it's just chaotic, but I contest now it's more chaotic than folks feel Lam is because it's newer. We got a lot of people who really like going off on their own [let's be honest, the game encourages that pretty much everywhere else
] and makes it's difficult for people who are trying to stay with the group.And well vertical space is frustrating to 'stay together' on.
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Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Not sure how the last stage will hit you. It is crazy. So much stuff is going on, it may be way over your line. Good luck and have fun.
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Let's Dance!
Limiting my comments to this game, some people like PvP and some don't - even back when it was 'working right', I had to spend a lot of time in PvP zones collecting badges. I fought a lot of PvP'ers and won more than I lost. But I was doing it because I wanted the badges. I never liked PvP, I still don't and, once I had the badges, never did it again. Not every part of the game is going to appeal to every person. A lot of people simply don't like teaming in general and are annoyed that the iTrials are the only way to get the new stuff.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
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