What would you do to make Keyes fun?

I'll say again that I'd put money on it that the Underground Trial will become the third most run trial behind BAF and LAM, with Keyes being a distant 4th come Issue 21.

The U trial is not easy, but it's actually you know . . . fun.

I've had the same problem with LAM runs. People love going AFK during the grenade/acid part. Maybe I just need to be more selective on who I invite.

What she said.

That really sums up exactly what I thought when I ran the trial the first time. But I could not have articulated it. All I knew was that I was immediately "irk'd" when everyone scattered to gather objectives around the first reactor.

it is fun, what would get it run more is for baf to be les zerg-able, until people cant get the rewards by doing the path of least resistance, a vocal portion wont do it because they want the easiest way.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Good points. Hopefully the additional EMP merit will be enough to tempt some folks to give it a shot again.

What gets me though is when there is teamwork, it is amazingly fun. Last night I had the best Keyes run in my experience. It always comes down to the final fight with AM and whether people are buying green insps or if they are waiting for someone to heal them.

My last failed run was the most frustrating thing I've done in game. I'm almost certain at least 20% of people don't run with league chat on.

First, I absolutely love the final Keyes fight. I've said it several times, and I'll say it again-- I think it's the best AV fight in the game, and it makes me feel like I'm actually facing an evil mastermind (the character type not the AT). I do not want them to reduce the number of abilities that he has in that final fight. It's what makes the fight so awesome.

These are the things I don't like about the Keyes Trial as a whole:

1) The 50% HP unresistable, undefensible damage aspect of the pulse: The concept of the pulse is great. The "bring healers" aspect of it is not. As was suggested many times in beta, a random interesting debuff of some kind (and by random I mean everyone gets hit with the same one, but a different one per pulse) that needs to be overcome in a different way for each type would be more interesting and fun. That second or two of "which one were we hit with, and how do we deal with it?" instead of just staying in a healing bubble would greatly increase the dynamic feel of the Trial. The damage that's added due to Anti-Matter's health status is fine as it is (and could be increased, if necessary, if the base pulse damage was removed).

2) The repetition/length in the three Reactor phases: Having to stabilize the three reactors in basically the same way 3 times is really dull. Having 3 different ways to get the cells is good, but the powering-up of the terminals is so similar it feels like doing the same thing for 40 minutes (or however long you take). If they can't change up the actual method of stabilizing each reactor, I'd cut the number of terminals per reactor in half instead of doubling the end reward.

3) Excessive reliance on healing: Too many of the gimmicks are undefensible and unresistable damage. It devalues other methods of support, especially in the final fight. Disintegration should have more of its damage be affected by resistance and defense, so that non-healing type buffers can help against it as well.

4) Excessive anti-melee measures: While I love this trial's final fight, if I'm playing Melee I feel like I'm not contributing very much, as I can probably only spend 1/2 of my time attacking Anti-Matter due to the various position-based attacks/effects, while ranged characters can just move a little and keep on firing. I don't really know what to do to fix this one aside from adding more objectives to fight during the phase that aren't right next to Anti-Matter, which I'm sure a lot of people would be against.

I also agree with Arcanaville that Time Stop should stop time, and not allow timers to continue to count down and the Obliteration Beam to hit us while frozen.

Coming in late to this but I just wanted to post my opinion.

Keyes to me is just plain boring. It's not difficult to do on a basic non-badge run, just far too lengthy and like I said, boring.

Granted, I've only ran it twice, but when I ran it the first time, there was virtually no instruction given. I just did what everyone else did and followed what instructions were given. Successful runs both times I've done it, but just not interesting enough to keep doing compared to the time it takes.

For me, it's not only a matter of fun, but one of time as well. I prefer the shorter trials since I can get one done in 15-20 minutes. Both of the Keyes runs took close to 45 minutes. I'm sure folks have gotten the time down considerably by now, but even if they have, it's still a bore-fest.

Now, I haven't had a chance to run the new underground trial, but by the sounds of it, it's FUN. It may be lengthy, but if the fun factor is there, I will try and make time for it.

Will 2 Emp merits make me run Keyes again? Sure, if only to see if the time it takes to do it will offset the lack of fun I have with the trial. If I can get a Keyes done in say 20 minutes, then I might just start running it again from time to time.

Of course, that's if anyone else wants to run it. Just because I might, doesn't mean others will.

Forcing people to run Keyes would probably have more of a backlash effect.

The risk/time/reward/fun number for Keyes is 3 EMP merits. At that number I can see dedicated speed teams running it. Even at 2 EMP its not quite worth it.

People will make their own choices based on how they value the rewards/challenges.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aura_Familia You do. I was speaking specifically to how many of these trials are run each day. None of them are hard once you get down to learning the mechanics. But you need a certain aspect of them being actually FUN to run for folks to want to learn those mechanics. For the BAF and LAM, wanting to get your unlocks and slot something in them was a viable push to get people to want to learn the mechanics of them. There is NO SUCH thing for Keyes. By the time Keyes finally arrived most folks had gotten what they needed. Same thing by the time the U trial arrives. The only two things that will push folks to want to learn the U or Keyes are: 1. Is it fun. 2. Is there no other way to get my alts slotted up? The answer to 2 is easy. So it falls on 1. to get more folks to run Keyes. And yes getting more folks to run Keyes is important. You need participants in the Incarnate System for it to actually function as a viable system. Having a third trial that folks can form for reduces potential burnout and keeps participants in the system. Hence the creation of this thread. Saying "folks suck" is all good and well, but it's not good when you are up at 11pm and want a 3rd EMP and the only 15 other folks refuse to run Keyes. Just saying.

Actually, I have a tiny fix for all the incarnate trials that would make them more fun: Remove the timer that only lets you exit the hospital for 10 seconds every 30 seconds.