Things that make you go "Hmm, what just happened"....... while BAFing

It isn't a new feature with Issue 20.5, and the people that duo'd the trials did so because of a bug that prevented the league from collapsing for too few players. Thankfully it has been at least partially fixed.

The reason for it is that most teams with the minimum to start the trials failed during beta.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

If anything, there should be a "SORRY, YOUR LEAGUE IS NOT INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO FINISH" warning. Then you can find a different league that can read and count.

Hey, then it'll match the "You're too stupid to use a Hospital Door" pop-up.

I thought that was what "Too Few Players to Finish" meant. Silly me.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Never underestimate a small group of coordinated and intelligent players.

If they are already in the middle of a trial it is completely bogus to kick the league and suggest that "nope sorry, we don't believe you can finish this so we won't give you the chance."

I compare it with amusement park rides saying that you have to be this tall to ride.

From what I can tell there is a bit of grace. It seems that if a trial meant for 12-24 players looses 4 players, that is too many players lost.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Yes it has in fact Leanardo posted a thread on the same topic some time back and the general felling then was .. what the F....


It wouldn't be so bad if the game simply didn't allow you to start or continue if you dropped below the minimum.. with a small margin of time since we all know players do dc and suddenly being total you have failed the trial because 1 poor guy dc'd during the prisoner escape phase. Lets give him at least a couple minutes to log back on.. but the team Leanardo was leading was doing the keyes trial.. they lost 2 members almosy immediately and they never returned. They cleared 2 towers and were headed to # 2 when they got the same message as you.. Trial failed too few members to continue.

That's better that half way through the trial and apparenty there small numbers didn't prevent them from succeeding nicely until the game decided they were too small to continue.

Of course there were arguments that the trials were "SPECIAL" and the minimum number was some golden rule that could never be broken.. B.S.... at this point someone. somewhere on probably every server has soloed the ITF, Kahn, LGTF the STF along with the Barracuda and LRSF. every single one of those has a minimum number required to START as well but if players have to log for RL or simply log because JOE wants to test his new purpled out build and solo the ITF .. the game has NEVER caused a Task Force or even any of the other trials (Eden abandoned Sewer, etc) to fail.

At that point it seemed like the first time anyone had seen it and it was assumed to be some crazy new requirement. I think, I HOPE, that now its just a random bug they need to fix.

Enforcement of the league minimums on the Incarnate Trials is intentional:
There is a check and it seems to be working. If anyone has a problem with that, they should take it up with the developers, not other players.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

That's the starting requirement. This is a more like random spot checks throughout the ride.

THAT is precisely what it is Edana. An IF it truly is working as intended then the intention goes against every other established task forces and trial in this game...

I challenge anyone to give an example, other than these three new trials, where once a Task Force or trial is underway any number of players can quit and the trial or TF can still be completed by what remains as long as they are capable of doing so. That is 7 + years of doing things one way and then.. with no prior warning what so ever.. suddenly coming up with a totally new and, in my opinon, total bogus requirement for the three new trials.

If this is working as intended then we need to do the exact same thing we have done in the past... protest and make suggestions until it becomes VERY clear to the Devs we want his changed. I run mini BAFS a lot these days.. the lag is less of a problem and they are much more fun. Now in most cases these involve 16 players but i have run as low as the minimum of 12. And as we all know when the prisoners pahse begins the lag spikes and people can crash. Based on the examples I have seen if I was on a 12 man BAF that became an 11 because someone crashed or even if someone had a REAL WORLD emergency and simply had to leave and now my league was under this PRECIOUSm minimum and after pulling Siege and defeating him and then starting to battle Siege and Nightstar and having them down to say 10 0r 15 percent of heal each.. and All of a sudden I got a message saying trial failed not enough players I would be off line and it would be quite a while before I came back, At that point saying i don't have enough players to succeed is pure BS .. I am about 30 seconds away from a mission complete and having absolutely NO problem at all doing so.

The TRIALS are trials not the dang quest for the Holy Grail. They don't deserve any special considerations that don't apply apply to anything else in game. If we are going to put this sort of requirement on them then it applies to everything else as well. You are REQUIRED to have 8 players to start an ITF so if one member quits.. Trial fails start again. You need 8 to start the STF.. one or two need to leave because of RL issues..trial fails go back to IP reform and try again. Yeah I can just imagine how well THAT would go over with the player base.

Certain players have elevated these trials far above what they deserve. We are getting new powers by running new missions.. that's all. Do they make us more powerful.. sure they do. I get a kick out of taking any of my 50(+3)s on an ITF or STF and setting the level at +4 and STILL watching everything melt in front of me. my Tank stands toe to toewith Romulus and pounds on him totally oblivious to the nictus trying to help until poor little Romi wants to run home to mommy. But I don;t think of a single one of my characters as god like.. just more powerful super heroes.

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."

No other TF or Trial gives out incarnate XP. I know for a fact that on beta that players farmed incarnate xp when there were no minimum amount of alive players were on the map. Smaller leagues give more incarnate xp. They also didn't have any content that allowed you to grow beyond level 50 either, so your demands that they continue in the same mould as previous content is moot. There is also the Empyrean merits.

I would accept (and I suspect that the developers might share this opinion) trials not failing if the following stopped awarding for leagues that significantly fell below the minimum requirements: Incarnate XP, Empyrean Merits, Astral Merits, Badges (and their components), and the trial reward tables.

Eliminate those, and you clear all the balance issues an undersized league present.

Going 1 or 2 players under the minimum doesn't trigger this. The original poster dropped to two-thirds of the minimum for a large portion of the trial.

The trials are new content, with new rules. Of course some people can't see beyond the old content.

You mean 6, right?

Neither do I. However it is new content, it has new rules, and the rewards they give are balanced by those rules.

The trials were never meant for solo, duo, or small team play. If you want that, you'll have to wait for the developers to make Incarnate content for those groups.

Sadly that feature is still broken.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

And to once again state what I did in my post.. who cares! The trials are not some holier than thou feature of the game just the latest one. Far too many players, here on the forums not in game, have elevated them to some pilgramige to Mecca. If ten players can successfully complete a BAF and supposedly incarnate powers make us GODLIKE then being able to complete with 10 as opposed to 12 should give out better rewards not less. People are attaching too much "AWE" on them.. So eleven people instead of 12 managed to complete a BAF and earned an Empyrean... I can use an Empyrean at the store in Ouroborus to BUY.. an Astral which is worth exactly 4 threads. Now WHY in heavens name anyone would do that instead of just running another trial and earning 4, 5 or more Astrals I have no idea. But one Empyrean = 20 threads in game and 20 threads = 1 lowly little common component. It is NOT mana from heaven its a reward for completion and if you do more than one trial in the same day it's replaced by an Astral.

my thats generous.. okay then here's an idea along those same line.. the next character you get above 45 and take on an STF.. unless the team finishes the trial with the requiered starting number of 8.. you recieve no XP toward making 46 for the entire trial and since you didn't have the required number don't receive any of the badges normally awarded. THAT is essentially what you're suggesting because of some inflated view of the trials. The Astral merits are awarded for completion of specific tasks in each trial... sure its easier to deal with the mob sizes spawned during say the BAF prisoner escape phase with 11 or 12 players than it is with 24.. MAINLY because the lag is gone and you can actually get your attacks to fire off and move. BY ratio the mob spawn with 12 players is the same, or very close, to the mob size with 24. And since we already have evidence that Astrals award even below the TRIAL minimum obviously the award is based on completion NOT how big the team is.


http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...91&postcount=1

Read that and tell me it isn't occurring when a team SLIPS one below the minimum.. and again who the heck cares.. in fact there are probably as many players out there that LIKE the feeling of accomplishment by finishing something solo or duo that normally requires 8, 10 or 12 to do so THEY care just as much as the elitists shaking with horror at the thought of a trial being completed with only 11 players! LOL You know the worst part.. if you actually read what Leandro wrote.. this was not a case of player dc'd and 5 minutes later TRIAL FAILED. this occurred when they had probably just started and after completing 2 of the three reactors and startied work on the third.. TRIAL FAILED. In short the game allowed all of them to think everything was fine and they were doing well and then suddenly.. "Oh we are sorry we forgot to mention that unless you can maintain 12 players on your team you are not permitted to finish this trial.. You FAIL. We do hope you don't mind wasting the previous 20-30 minutes of your time. Go out and feel free to start over." That's not good business .. that's called ticking off your customers and that can and does result it them finding other things and other places to go for their amusement.


and when someone with a RED letter name stops in here and says that I will believe it and then continue to protest until its changed. Until then its just your opinion and last I checked you are just a normal player. And as to the "old content" remark.. so are you saying that 7 years of content and the RULES that governed them mean absolutely nothing now... people play this game because they enjoy it and the way it is set up. We are on the verge of going F2P and from what I see NC Soft is using that as a tool to eventually attract more players to become VIPs. Imagine the surpise when a former F2P player that now PAYS to play the game hits 50 and starts doing trials only to discover the same rules that applied for 50 level don't anymore.

see comment above


Once again when did you start working for NC Soft. This argument hold no more weight than saying a Statesman TF was never meant to be soloed or duoed... Fact is people can and do just that. Now personally I have no problem teaming, at the minimum level for a trial or the maximum, but there are players out there that like to FEEL like a superhuman and completing the BAF solo .. as opposed to having 23 of your buddies along to hold you hand.. makes them feel that way. It's never ever been an issue in this game before .. and IF we are supposedly becoming demi-gods it would seem to me we'd need less help NOT more. This is not an issue of players longing for a practical solo route to become an incarnate.. these players are quite happy to run with 8 or 12 players (or more when available) to do so.. what they are asking for is the ability to complete the trial after committing time and effort and not getting a slap in the face if one or more players suddenly disappear.


Exactly so even if a league leader wanted to TRY and find a replacement for a player that had to log off because OH I don't know lets say .. his house was on fire... He can't. So for no other reason that EITHER a bug or some stupid new rule.. His league is now destined to fail. They may as well just quit, reform and start all over. the ONLY problem with that is how many of those players will leave the league because now they have to go make dinner, or go to work, or wahtever.. and now their one chance that day to complete the BAF, LAM, or KEYES and earn their Empyrean is gone all because of some goffy rules that doesn't apply to any other content in this game.