Trial leadership .. what is going on!

Very true, including the one and only BAF I've led, which somehow became a Mo run completely by accident, just because it worked out that way. There's a reason I love Union - we're awesome, sometimes by accident.

Or go camp the wall in Cim. Or switch to another character and do something interesting. There are plenty of things to do in this game that don't involve waiting for failure to happen. You people sound like masochists. When I get bait-and-switched into a AE farm, I don't stick around and explain why I don't want to do it. They made the quit button and one starring for a reason. The same goes for anything else that takes a nosedive because of bad choices. It's not my job to explain why I'm not enjoying myself. I'm in the game to have fun not to get practice for my future career as a guidance counselor.

There are better things to go down on than a sinking ship.

Were you getting a paycheck?

If so, then what relevance does it have to playing a game.

Of course, there is absolutely no reason to believe it is true.

I was on that run too and the whole thing went to ****.

See.

I normally don't mind your stories so much, but I have a few problems with this one. It mainly boils down to, I wish that people would stop going into these things expecting perfection.

I can understand if you feel like you've been lied to, point taken. Before leaving, did you ask the leader why he queued up the team for a Keyes instead of a BAF? Maybe he screwed up and picked the wrong option. Did you check your chat channel carefully and make sure that you didn't misunderstand? You did say that one of the team members said he wished you were doing Keyes instead; are you sure you didn't miss a leader's comment saying something like, "Okay, we're going to do Keyes, is everyone okay with that?" Sometimes things are easy to overlook in the league chat, even by multiple people.

As for points two and three, that's just how it goes sometimes. It's not like everyone is born knowing how to lead these things, and if you've been on enough of these teams, some of the things you take for granted that are "obvious" really aren't. Over the past few weeks, I've watched as Belle has lead some of these trials on Infinity. She gets flustered because it's not like she sits there playing with a spreadsheet mapping all of this out. Last time I sat in on one of her trial sessions, unbeknownst to her until well into the trial, she had plain 50s on her team, hardly had any teammates that were +1, +2, or +3. They got wiped over and over, and she kept blaming herself for doing something wrong that she just couldn't figure out.

Fortunately for Belle, she has a lot of friends, and they were very reassuring. Some of them pointed out things she could do better, and I helped out as much as I could. I'm pretty sure she'll run more at some point. But if everyone were as intolerant of imperfection as your post conveys, why would anyone new ever want to learn to lead these trials? I mean, I know that if I had led some trials that failed and thought that this post might be about me, I'd probably give up and never run one again, not particularly wanting everyone in the world to think I was a dumba** just because I had the audacity to expand my role and *gasp!* make some mistakes.

I suspect at this point you and a bunch of other people are probably going to jump in and tell me how these mistakes you ranted about are obvious and no one should ever make them. I know you were probably frustrated. And believe me, when it comes to a threshold for tolerance of stupidity, mine is pretty low. However, there's a huge difference between stupidity (knowing the right thing and deliberately choosing to do otherwise) and ignorance (not knowing the right thing) and/or mistakes, differences in opinion, and desire to try a different way of doing things. Everything in your recounted stories doesn't particularly smack me of stupidity, but of 1) a misunderstanding, 2) wanting to try something different, and 3) simple inexperience, which can only be overcome with people giving the poor guy a chance.

So of the three trials, you bailed on two and one failed. Big effin' deal! On the one that failed, how many threads and Astral Merits did you get? How much Incarnate experience? I'm guessing they were something above zero, so it's not like you were just piddling around wasting time with nothing to show for it. Unfortunately, though it sounds like you also managed to convince three people in the process that they're utterly incompetent at leading trials and shouldn't try. Wouldn't it have been better--even worth giving up some rewards for--if you had had a little patience and understanding and possibly helped to create three more kick-a** trial leaders, people who have graduated from the school of hard knocks and learned from their experience, instead?

So that's my rant. I'm just really tired of people playing this game with the attitude that their time is so precious that if they don't get the particular shiny they were going after, no matter what other rewards they were getting along the way, it was just a miserable failure because their fellow player wasn't a perfect automaton doing things they way you think is "right."

By the way, regarding store 3, you were just plain wrong. There's a bug affecting these trials in which most of the time, once you get in, the teams are scrambled up and the leader has to rearrange them anyway. Have you considered the possibility that the team leader didn't want to spend a lot of time there figuring out who goes on what team just to have to move them all around again once they get inside? That once everyone was inside, he would have thrown a couple of tanks and brutes on team two and a couple blasters on team one?

Or come to the boards and complain how bad trial teams are for the fifth time in recent memory. Or do something about it.

A team of people working toward a common goal? You can't extrapolate that?

If you honestly believe I am lying, the only thing I can say is that I post very infrequently and would not have bothered replying except I recognized the specific team make-up and felt that reporting the run's success would help inform the discussion.

Let me say something more general: it is possible to have successful teams with unusual compositions. It's even fun.

Agreed.

It also seems a lot of people will judge something before it even starts, and unless the team set up or the method is the one they're used to, they automatically predict failure. It's not even worth it to try and see what happens. And I get it, winning is fun. Astral and Empyrean merits are smexy. But, isn't it also kind of fun to see what happens in unusual circumstances? Isn't it fun to try something new once in a while? Sure, you'll probably win with a stacked team, but it leaves you thinking "Well of course it succeeded. Look how many X we had!" When the underdog team wins, you're more like "[censored] yeah! Did you see that?"

In short, this:

Of course they could be lying. Honestly just as Win if they are. But the point remains, that their assessment of the team's chances is actually more realistic than the OP's.

The mindset that any particular AT or team composition is necessary is so outmoded when applied to this game as to be laughable. The fact that the OP relies on that mindset to set up one of their unhappy tentpoles of bitchitude moreso.

Yup, that one happened to me, too. I'd been running iTrials for about a week, without hitches, mostly mini-BAFs that rolled to Lam that rolled to mini-BAFs. Good, lucrative, fun - at least, to me.

Then I hit a mini-BAF that literally I could NOT figure out what the hell was going on. People were dying left and right. We almost failed on the PRISONER stage because of so many escapes. The tanks died like 4 times trying to pull the AVs. I was totally boggled and started to feel like, somehow, somewhere, I was failing these folks and didn't know why. People started crying that we needed 3 full groups, when you clearly don't.

Well, in this case, maybe we did. On review, almost all my members were plain 50s without any level shifts, without Lore pets, without Destiny opened up. Well, not a very good composition for a mini-BAF, but since I never ask levels, and half the time can't even see my team (RWZ can get to be such a circus!) I didn't even think to check it.

Never happened before, hasn't happened since, but holy crap did I feel bad about that. I mean, at this stage in the game, to fail a BAF? I felt like total fail. Would have been even BETTER if I'd come to the forums to see someone complaining about what a dreadful leader I was.

I know it's just anecdotal, but I see a wide desparity in 50's levels for iTrials. Even with the many, many I've run, I only =just= got my (counting) third level shift on my main grinder. The other three iTrial 50s I use don't even have their Alphas slotted yet.

People that run iTrials continuously don't always comprehend that there are newer/returning players just trying out Incarnate content. I still see the BAF cutscene regularly. And yes, they may be new Incarnate characters by experienced players, but that still means characters without level shifts. That can really change the iTrial dynamic.

--NT

Completely agree. Doing the "All Scrapper" runs of various content is really fun!

the should of bought Vanguard Mech Pets!

It's true - and I was one of them! I'd just switched to a new 50 to start running trials on, having outfitted my last 2 as much as I wanted (I only go to T3, T4 seems like too much of a bother with the amount of 50s I have to work on) so it was just really overall... yeah, a mini wasn't great with the majority of the teams not really boosted.

Well to answer your comments..

1. I don't ever just log on and advertise looking for any trial. I normally wait for a trial leader to advertise they are looking for members and then, as requested, send a tell. Now I have LED a lot of task forces and always advertise what I am forming and IF there is anything special going on I add that as well. The issue is far too many "leaders" these days just assume that everyone is perfectly happy with whatever insanity they want to attempt. I absolutely HATE speed runs on the ITF and a while back I joined one with a character I was looking to level. The leader advertised in several globals it was a SHARD run.. which usually means to the vast majority of the players no short cutting and we will take out as many mobs as we can.. not necessarily a kill all but we sure wont be skipping 10 ambushes in mission 2 as the brutes, tanks and scrappers race from crystal to crystal. Which is exactly what happened and when several of us commented about it the leader made some comment about our whinning too much. I sent a tell and told him exactly what i thought of him and quit. As i mentioned .. DON'T lie to me. I can always find another team or start one of my own.

2. I thought I explained my reservations on leading trials fairly well. When they first started I wanted to wait until I understood what needed to be done before I led one.. something far too many so called leaders out there right now never bother with. heck I was on one league recently where it took 3 tries for us to make the leader undersatnd how to Q up the trial. Later on the lag situation became so bad I couldn't even think of joining a full sized BAF because I'd simply crash over and over. I could do mini BAFs and Lambdas but there were times when the lag would crash me even on those.. So I avoided leading because I didn't want to start something and then go POOF and force leadership on someone that had no desire to do it.

3. Lastly I did say i was very probably going to start leading trials myself simply because the lag has gotten better and I now know as much, if not more, than half the leaders I am encountering.

And as for calling them the bottom of the barrel .. sorry but a bad leader is a bad leader. Are all of them that way... heck no! I hooked up with a great one earlier tonight that was running a BAF marathon. For three straight hours we did one trial after another and in between i used my globals and advertising skills to help replace anyone that had to leave. It was fantastic.. Out of (I forget) 9,10 or more trials i think we had 1 where we didn't get the extra astral for having no prisoners escape. Oh and here's a indicator I use to judge how well a trial went. i was on my MasterMind and in all the trials we ran I died once and only had to replace one of my minons on one other occasion. I had several trials I left and didn't even have to replace any inspirations and .. because I have a self rez I never saw the inside of the hospital ONCE. THAT is a good leader. he's on my global friends list now and ANY time he wants to run trials i will happily join up and help him recruit and lead one of the teams.

Oh God Guy I have seen that too. Seems to me like the HARD part of a trial , or for that matter any team, leadership is recruiting. Always struck me as strange for someone to FIND 23 other people to join a league, put them into fairly balanced teams and then hand the thing off to someone else.

SOOO saying.. "Pull Avs to north wall, chokes not doors, team 2 and 3 south 1 north" is too stressful but finding 23 team mates isn't!

Ahh well .. whatever


Now I have seen it on things like the ITF. I 40 levels recruits and then asks one of the 50 levels to lead.. so all the 50 can get shards. THAT makes sense.

Yes that's true but Sort of HARD to do since they form up in totally different places and a 35 level can join an ITF.. which would automatically rule out doing an STF since you HAVE to be 45 or higher to join.

But lets take your idea and go another way.. and one I know has happened. A leader advertises he or she is forming a SHARD/XP ITF. Now I think most of us can agree that means we are NOT on a speed run. Not necessarily a kill all but we will defeat as much as possible to maximize our chances for shards and to give the lower level players all the xp they can get by taking out mob after mob.

Now you join the team and as mission 2 begins you suddenly find the team leader, a tank, and two brutes racing ahead and destroying all of the crystals. Leaving the rest of the team far behind and leaving them to TRY and deal with the resulting ambushes which include an EB. It becomes very apparent you are now on a speed run and when you question the leader are pretty much told to stop whining. mission 3 begins and you are teleported almost immediately to the Phalanx control console and while you are STILL trying to destroy that both Romulus and Requim are pulled from above so that phase can be completed as FAST as possible. Afterwords the team is rushed to the location of each general so it can be completed as quickly as possible. With ONE mission left you have now skipped countless mobs that would have given those on the team looking to level xp and probably a level or even 2 (I have joined shard runs and left with 2 + levels added to my character).

Now I am not saying that no one on that team didnt earn xp but how much did they pass up because the leader LIED about what he intended to do .. probably so he could fill his team and get started.

In the example I gave I don't know if the leader was just an out and out liar that realized not as many people like the Keyes trial as the BAF and he wanted to fill his team. Or if it was something as simple as hitting the wrong button when Qing it up but the fact was I offered to join a BAF. I personally don't enjoy the Keyes trial and IF it was advertised that way I would never have sent a tell. So after spending about 10-15 minutes standing around while the leaque completed recruiting I wound up quitting because I am tired people playing these sort of tricks. I had to go and find another league, wait another 10-15 minutes to fill and then finally got to do what I wanted to do to begin with. So because a leader wasn't honest about his intentions I probably spent about as much time standing around while a leaque was forming as it actually took to complete a trial. Now I am semi retires and have a good deal of time to play, when i am not taking care of the house and such, but there are a lot of players with limited amounts of time to devote to anything on COH. That 30 minutes or so sitting around doing next to nothing may have been a sizable portion of the time they had to play that day.

Now .. I want to see just how many people actually think its perfectly okay for a leader here, or for anyone anywhere, to purposely LIE about what they intend to do and trick others into joining them so THAT leader can have what HE wants. There are players out there that believe that no one else in this game matters at all as long as they get what they want. If you met someone like that in real life you'd probably grow to dispise and hate them pretty quickly but here because they are WILLING to lead a team we are suppose to ignore treating people like people.

As mentioned elsewhere here there is a rating system and when I started doing trials I used it. There are players running around with 4 or 5 stars over their heads because they impressed me with their leadership skills and the way they treated people. And there are players with one star that were complete jerks and i wanted to be certain I never teamed with them again. In one case the guy was so bad i not only one starred him I put him on global ignore so he can never invite me to anything ever again.

I can understand your reservations given your connection issues. As you stated, that has been resolved for the most part. I wouldn't be too worried about the occasional crash. The tone of your previous posts seems to imply that the trial leader is central to success. This is simply not true. As someone who leads trials on a daily basis, I've crashed many times before without coming back to a league riot. Give some credit to your fellow league mates.

I understand taking the 'sit back and learn' approach. It makes sense and it's safe. However, one of my favorite trials I've been on to date was my first Keyes run. No one had done it before, including the leader. But he took the plunge anyways. He opened up VoodooGirl's guide and did what he could. And you know what happened next? We failed. Imagine the horror and wasted time, I know. After that, he ran another one and it succeeded because everyone had learned from their experience. Whether your leading or participating in a trial for the first time, you can read all the guides you want, but there's going to be some experiential learning when you finally try it for the first time. That may involve making mistakes. E.g., the person who doesn't know how to start up the trial. They could have been on 100 trials but if it's their first time doing that, it might take them a second to figure out what's what. It's not a big deal. Just give them a hand and move on.

I'm not sure why you're asking this, since the answer is fairly obvious. Most people are going to tell you that it's not OK, and those that don't are probably the ones that do things like this. The most important thing though is that it bothers you. Even if you get everyone to nod their head in agreement, it's not going to help your circumstances as much as rating a player in game, ignoring them in the future or starting up your own trials.

Most people aren't defending the person that lied about the trial, though. We're pointing out that you were quick to judge the leader in example 3, which did not involve lying about which trial they were going to run.

What is a cutscene bomber?

People dancing with Marauder during the cutscene.

First Lambda I did, we had a cutscene bomber. I saw him standing by the door as I headed back from the hospital and didn't know why he was there rather than in one of the groups getting acids and grenades. Then I saw the cutscene with him protesting Marauder. It was the League leader.

The main objective is to not allow Marauder to leave the Lambda facility. If the cutscene bomber doesn't move inside fast enough (and the main gatedoor is open) Marauder can occasionally pound them into the dirt and then follow their carcass outside leading to an instant failing of the trial.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.