Trials too easy?
By
Amygdala,
Posted on: 2011-08-28 11:04 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
None of the trials have ever required X number of Tanks, or any particular AT, to be completed successfully.
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Trials were hard at first, but the majority of players know how to do them now to a schedule. It isn't that they are easy, it is that people know what they are doing.
You do not need a set-AT schedule. All you need are competent players who can actually read instructions.
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Originally Posted by Wavicle
CoH players are stupid and incompetent compared to WoW players.
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The weakness of the Trials, BAF in particular during the prisoner phase, is that they're too tightly scripted. Once people "worked out the script" it was EASY to adapt play in ways that exploit that scripting. When the Trials were "new" they were hard, simply because people didn't know the "patterns" the Trials followed. But now that those "patterns" have been discovered, and it is known that the variability of them is severely limited ... it's not that difficult to defeat those Scripts.
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Trials were actually pretty hard when they came out because 1. few people knew how to do it well 2. we didn't have +2 or +3 and there were no Incarnate Powers.
Incarnate Powers and extra Level Shift make a world of difference.
BAF is the easiest one for sure.
Lam can still be hard. I know I've failed a few times due to people not knowing where to go and/or people crashing and resulted in not having enough grenade/acid.
I can see Keyes being very hard for first timers. I was lucky enough to join a team that does it regularly and they told me what to expect and what to bring (inspirations wise and healing destiny, etc). Otherwise, Keyes is probably the hardest content in the game right now IMO because if you don't have the right setup, it can be nightmare. And also, by the time Keyes came out, we already have many +2 and +3. I can't imagine doing Keyes with all +0 or +1. It will be very hard which is a good thing. :P
Now the question should be "Is the regular content too easy"? Judgment is so overpowering...
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Too easy? I think so, but I think the entire game is too easy overall. All 3 trials I completed successfully the first time they went live. Even though I ran them all in beta before, it was the first time for mostly everyone else.
Now we almost failed Keyes the first time only because AM got stuck in the ground, but a GM barely made it in time to fix it.
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
Thanks for the feedback!
I have only run Keyes once and it is definetly...harder. Just like what was said before about not knowing what the hell is going on lol.
But I guess its time to grind that one too! If not only to get that extra emp merit!
BAF and Lam are too easy, and while Keyes also isn't that hard once you learn, I think it's too hard because of the learning curve.
I guess what mean regarding Keyes is that people don't want to do it not because it's HARD, but because it's confusing. Making something hard by making it too convoluted isn't the way to go, imo.
I want trials to be difficult much in the way that the LRSF is difficult. You're not faced with gimmicks, you're faced with something extremely daunting to match head-to-head with. I want an AV to be standing there and then all of a sudden summon 50 bosses right on top you. THAT type of encounter is fun and challenging imo, not dragging Positron around to 20 different blinkies while keeping track of 5 other objectives and obstacles.
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Rsf isn't difficult though. It's "gimmick" is to stand there and dps all the heroes into dust.
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Originally Posted by Crazy_Larry
I want trials to be difficult much in the way that the LRSF is difficult. You're not faced with gimmicks, you're faced with something extremely daunting to match head-to-head with. |
<:[ shark goes nom nom nom ]:>
[QUOTE=theOcho;3409811]As to the REAL reason I'll be leaving, I'm afraid it is indeed because Tamaki Revolution dc'd on me during a RSF.[/QUOTE]
The funny thing about the new 'extra-difficult' Trials is the lack of failure (*on average*) compared to things like the Hami Raid or the STF or the LRSF or the ITF. When they first came out, failure was pretty common for several months after introduction.
And then, once these new iTrial became figured out, they became very easy.
Oh, and WRT "need two Tanks" -- lol.
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The RSF can be difficult if you don't have enough team survivability. And a standard +3 AV isn't really about DPS, at this stage of the game it's really about burst damage. You need to kill them before they kill you.|
Originally Posted by TamakiRevolution
Rsf isn't difficult though. It's "gimmick" is to stand there and dps all the heroes into dust.
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Perhaps you have to consider the RSF before everyone got so OP with Incarnate powers. The point it, it's more fun to jump into a massive horde of dangerous enemies and duke it out than it is to dodge difficult-to-see reticles on the ground while keeping track of 15 other things, some of which you're not even sure of its purpose.
Rsf was easy before incarnate powers, not right when it came out, but it's been a walk in the park for a few years now. Sitting still and mashing buttons just gets old after a bit. I've been enjoying the new mechanics that have been coming out since GR, in the newer arcs and in the incarnate tfs and trials.
It's nice having a variety of different ways to play the game just to mix it up a bit.
<:[ shark goes nom nom nom ]:>
[QUOTE=theOcho;3409811]As to the REAL reason I'll be leaving, I'm afraid it is indeed because Tamaki Revolution dc'd on me during a RSF.[/QUOTE]
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All the trials are gimmicky, but Keyes and Lambda are especially so because of the tremendously clunky mechanics of temporary powers. These trials would be improved tenfold if a separate power tray automatically opened up for trial temp powers when they are in play.|
Originally Posted by Crazy_Larry
I guess what mean regarding Keyes is that people don't want to do it not because it's HARD, but because it's confusing. Making something hard by making it too convoluted isn't the way to go, imo.
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Having to dig them out of of the Powers window, which can have almost a hundred entries these days, is ridiculously clumsy.
The trial already forces you to have a big clunky display window showing the current status of the trial. While temp powers are in play that window should be expanded to include a tray for the temp powers.
Trying to explain the temp powers and getting newbies to use them properly is the biggest challenge in those trials.
PUGs on Freedom (from PD) generally screw up the escapee phase of the trials. Especially if you are doing 16man and trying to get people to use chokes. There are always at least 1 escapee. It boggles my mind. But it happens ALL the time, esepcially on teams with few level shifted toons.
LAM still borks PUGs on the warehouse phases.
If you are with a group of people who know how to play, no issues. But PUGs make trials hard.
Most task forces and trials start out hard until people figure out what works best and they develop strategies to over come the difficulties. I remember when LRSF was a difficult SF, now its a walk in the park.
Pretty much all the challenge available in this game comes down to two things, very broadly speaking.
- A sequence of steps you need to complete to succeed. Most of the time there can be multiple ways to approach this, but most server communities or server subcommunities settle on a few popular sequences of steps to execute
- A set of powers wielded by foes that players must answer with their own powers
Powers are an arms race of sort between the devs and the mobs. The IDF and WarWorks represent a continuation of previous "scary" NPC factions we have seen such as Arachnos, Longbow and Vanguard. By themselves, however, even given the boss-heavy spawn patterns in which they appear in iTrials, they really are no match for leagues - especially once people on those leagues start getting level shifts, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Incarnate powers themselves.
The iTrials try to counter some of this with tactical challenges, such as pretty much forcing Leagues to split up in Lambda, and recommending it for maximum merit rewards in BAF. There's also things like the cascading buffs the 9CUs get. But these also fall broadly into the "script" people have learned - everyone knows they should probably to split up for the Lambda collection phase, and most people know they can't leave 9CUs laying around.
The iTrials, and the Praetorean TFs before them. mostly innovate because they mix these two things - the script and the powers race. The major AVs in these contests have, for lack of a better way to describe them, "scripted powers". You can't reliably counter these powers with your own, but you can counter them with consistent reactions. Back away from Nova Fist. Let someone else take aggro with Sequestration. Don't stand in the nanite patch. Don't defeat Bobcat before Neuron's health is below a certain point, or if you do, wait for his buff to wear off.
For the most part, I don't think there's anything the devs can to avoid this way of designing "challenge" for us - and the then inevitable way in which we find it easy once we become familiar with it - other than to require us to greater and greater levels of coordination. As others have mentioned, this game does not support complex multi-team interactions very well. It doesn't have built-in voice comms (which is fine with me) and it doesn't really support any useful text communications binds - people have to make those for themselves. Some leaders are willing to do that, but most people in pugs - which is what the vast majority of iTrials are by necessity - are not.
If the game is going to require complicated team/player coordination to introduce complexity, it needs to support the means to do so more directly - the challenge should exist because of the need for coordination, not because the game actually makes coordination difficult. Barring that, it will likely continue to introduce "scripted" complexity, and we will learn the scripts by heart and things will be much easier until the next, new script comes along.
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Clearly, you should always run Keyes with 23 other players who have never run on it before.
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Originally Posted by RoboRage
Not sure if this is where to post, but, I started my first Baf/Lam back to back last night and WOW, we cruised through so fast that we ran 2 more back to back.
My question is, my defender kin/rad is 50+3, everyone was level shifted and someone said we needed at least 2 tanks. However you probably know that sometimes we can't make up the 'perfect' team. Do you guys feel that it's that important anymore to have multiple tanks, since the trials are becoming so easy? I mean some of the enemies were yellow! And I pulled Siege! |
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Trials are right at the spot they would need to be, at least so far. Keyes is probably verging on annoying, because of the constant, unavoidable and unresistable damage (I much prefer the beam mechanic in the final phase, where you have to dodge the area being targeted. People still get hit by that, but that's what happens if you don't pay attention... the earlier phrase with the constant damage is a pain. I'm probably never going to play it on a Blaster that does not have Aid Self fully slotted again, as the one with just the default in it did not have it recharge enough, and I lost track of all the times he got hit by a lucky shot from the mob, then the blast, equaling death). Don't know about the Underground, as I haven't tried it yet.
BAF should be fairly straightforward, but I have run into a disturbing trend of people not listening on trials. I and others I know on Victory have had BAFs fail because too many prisoners escape, and these happened because people did not listen to what to do, or react to prisoners escaping. That said, it should be easy... but it's still tricky enough to be difficult if you go for the default and people do not listen. This becomes even higher if you go for most of its badges (which is worth it), as it requires listening and more teamwork.
I have to admit the title of this thread makes me laugh. People were complaining BAF and Lambda were too hard when they came out, and now here we are. Thank goodness the devs generally have a better handle on this than some of their playerbase.
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Originally Posted by RoboRage
Not sure if this is where to post, but, I started my first Baf/Lam back to back last night and WOW, we cruised through so fast that we ran 2 more back to back.
My question is, my defender kin/rad is 50+3, everyone was level shifted and someone said we needed at least 2 tanks. However you probably know that sometimes we can't make up the 'perfect' team. Do you guys feel that it's that important anymore to have multiple tanks, since the trials are becoming so easy? I mean some of the enemies were yellow! And I pulled Siege! |
A tank is always nice for pulling the AVs but certainly not a required item for success. I've pulled Northstar with a Blaster using my sniper attack. On the BAF ranged and control character do much better during the escapee phase of the trial than the poor melee types. Now on the Lambda just the opposite is true during the glowie phase.. melee troops rule the day and support squishies generally just try to stay alive and contribute what they can.. but even that isn't always true. My Plant/Rad defender does very well on both trials.. No I am not saying she never dies hunting for grenades or acids but she holds her own and rarely dies more than once.
Basically between the level shifts and people knowing what to do they have both gotten a lot easier. But the same was true of the ITF when it first arrived. Until players got the hang of how to deal with the huge mobs and Romulus and his healing Nictus it was a nightmare.. now its probably one of, if not the , most popular TFs and level shifted or not people get through it with ease.
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I've joined quite a few trials that never made it to the end, specialy BAF (thats with the prisoners right?) goes often wrong at Nightstar/Siege fight, overwhelmed by the adds and too few levelshifted folks, either a massacre or a wrong kill (not with the 10sec).
LAM i ony seen once going wrong, but that was only because we couldnt get much of the temp powers. Since he jumps alot, you can buy time to assault him without many mobs, making it still quite doable. The mid-part of the 10 items.. can often be a freaking nightmare.
We even had 1 BAF with mostly tanks and brutes, Siege was a serious pushover, but the prisoners (with few control or ranged) were way too hard.
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The trials are about right, the next few raids created might want to be something where people 50+++ with pets are taken into account. However the time for when they arrive may depend on how much of the populace is 50+++ with pets.
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That was amazing. *Slow clap*
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
Pretty much all the challenge available in this game comes down to two things, very broadly speaking.
Powers are an arms race of sort between the devs and the mobs. The IDF and WarWorks represent a continuation of previous "scary" NPC factions we have seen such as Arachnos, Longbow and Vanguard. By themselves, however, even given the boss-heavy spawn patterns in which they appear in iTrials, they really are no match for leagues - especially once people on those leagues start getting level shifts, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Incarnate powers themselves. The iTrials try to counter some of this with tactical challenges, such as pretty much forcing Leagues to split up in Lambda, and recommending it for maximum merit rewards in BAF. There's also things like the cascading buffs the 9CUs get. But these also fall broadly into the "script" people have learned - everyone knows they should probably to split up for the Lambda collection phase, and most people know they can't leave 9CUs laying around. The iTrials, and the Praetorean TFs before them. mostly innovate because they mix these two things - the script and the powers race. The major AVs in these contests have, for lack of a better way to describe them, "scripted powers". You can't reliably counter these powers with your own, but you can counter them with consistent reactions. Back away from Nova Fist. Let someone else take aggro with Sequestration. Don't stand in the nanite patch. Don't defeat Bobcat before Neuron's health is below a certain point, or if you do, wait for his buff to wear off. For the most part, I don't think there's anything the devs can to avoid this way of designing "challenge" for us - and the then inevitable way in which we find it easy once we become familiar with it - other than to require us to greater and greater levels of coordination. As others have mentioned, this game does not support complex multi-team interactions very well. It doesn't have built-in voice comms (which is fine with me) and it doesn't really support any useful text communications binds - people have to make those for themselves. Some leaders are willing to do that, but most people in pugs - which is what the vast majority of iTrials are by necessity - are not. If the game is going to require complicated team/player coordination to introduce complexity, it needs to support the means to do so more directly - the challenge should exist because of the need for coordination, not because the game actually makes coordination difficult. Barring that, it will likely continue to introduce "scripted" complexity, and we will learn the scripts by heart and things will be much easier until the next, new script comes along. |
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It is much better to make the Trials "Difficult, but easier with practice" than it is to make them "Hair-rippingly, frustratingly difficult, but possible with practice"
They got easier because we learned how to beat them.
Remember when LRSF was called "too hard"? What about the STF? The ITF was deemed too hard. So were Kahn and Barracuda. Apex and Tin Mage were called WAY too hard.
What do all those things have in common nowadays? They are nothing more than business as usual now.
Every new thing introduced to the game was called too hard by some of the population. Now even the least skilled players know how to go about beating those tasks with relative ease.
If they had made the trials as difficult as they would have had to have been in order to STILL be challenging, it would have been an entirely different problem.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
I find this is impossible.
I was attacked, insulted and ridiculed because I said I had no desire to run one of these trials. I was told it is because I didn't like "hard" content.
So you are saying a "trial" that takes less than 20 minutes is too easy?
So you are saying the Keyes Trial the "hard one" that is being ignored by most players because you have to run the stupid trials 30 times is how it should be? Unfun - was the word I recall used often.
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Actually Keyes isn't too hard, it's arguably one of the harder trials to fail. The problem with Keyes is that it's LONG and TEDIOUS. Short of outright killing AM (why are you doing this?), the reactor sections are near impossible to fail, as AM will eventually run out of people to kill and will zip over to a terminal where someone is waiting and not fighting anything. Even then, you have something like a half hour to get your collective heads out of your rear to actually move him around, so it's not hard as much as it is annoying. The only point of failure comes in the final phase, which really only fails if the League has low damage or lets him regen fully every single time. Even a decently strong League can out and out ignore disintegrate and just blow 20% of his life off like nothing. If the last phase was extended in time by ten minutes, Keyes would be hands down the easiest trial in the game.|
Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades
I find this is impossible.
I was attacked, insulted and ridiculed because I said I had no desire to run one of these trials. I was told it is because I didn't like "hard" content. So you are saying a "trial" that takes less than 20 minutes is too easy? So you are saying the Keyes Trial the "hard one" that is being ignored by most players because you have to run the stupid trials 30 times is how it should be? Unfun - was the word I recall used often. |
But it'd still take 30-50 minutes of wading through annoying and stupid mechanics to complete. In the span of one Keyes, odds are you can get done with both a Lambda and a BAF (or three BAFs, if you relaunch immediately), get double to triple the astral merits, and obviously double to triple the salvage. I'm not sure about others, but if anything, it just makes Keyes seem to be designed by people that hate players.
Not sure if this is where to post, but, I started my first Baf/Lam back to back last night and WOW, we cruised through so fast that we ran 2 more back to back.
My question is, my defender kin/rad is 50+3, everyone was level shifted and someone said we needed at least 2 tanks. However you probably know that sometimes we can't make up the 'perfect' team.
Do you guys feel that it's that important anymore to have multiple tanks, since the trials are becoming so easy?
I mean some of the enemies were yellow!
And I pulled Siege!