How Did You Get Hit?

The short version is: I can't wrap my head around how people in the Keyes Island Reactor trial, on an attempt to earn the Avoids the Green Stuff Badge, still get hit by the Obliteration Beam. So I'm posting this thread to solicit some perspectives of people who have been hit by it so I can better understand how to prepare people for Badge attempts.

Some people don't know how the final battle goes. That's fine, you gotta see something to understand it. Not knowing what the green stuff is makes it hard to avoid, right?

Sometimes, the time freeze happens JUST as you're about to run away from the green stuff. That sucks, for sure. I get that sometimes it can't be avoided.

And sure, sometimes people aren't expecting it and, while moving in reverse such that they don't see it coming up, might inadvertently step in it or whatever...

But on a Badge attempt, where everybody knows what it is and how to avoid it... with a timer ever-present on the screen telling them when it will appear, and text that flashes in front of the action saying "It's here! Move away"... and a big green circle on the ground basically saying "Warning: Do not stand here"... and still get hit by it? It just doesn't add up, and I'd really like to make sense of it.

For those who have gotten hit by the Obliteration Beam despite all the warnings, could you share your insights on why it happened? I've personally never been caught by it, but I suppose I might be missing something and I'd like to be better equipped to help people prepare for it.

As Morgan pointed out, some people with low graphics settings may not even see the green color patch on the ground that most see (with medium-to-high graphic settings) until it's too late.

Also powers like Destiny or other PBAoEs (that are normally green; heals, etc), might hinder some people too...so if you know the 12 or so people that are doing the trial; try to ask them to customize the colors to something other than green. Who knows, it may help.


Other tidbits/pointers:


1.) Really try to explain/say that no flying/hovering is allowed. If the Oblit. beam goes for someone who is hovering/flying someone may try to run away/back away trying to find the beam to avoid it, but by doing so they get hit by it because it's in mid-air.

2.) Try to have the leader (or someone) have some sort of macros/binds that say, "Oblit. Beam in 5 seconds!" and "Beam firing! Move away from the green patch!" (paraphrased).

2a.) It also helps if that same person tries to coordinate the people to stop attacking AM when he gets close to the 75, 50 and 20% HP "time freezes" that he does. So that after the oblit. beam fires, then you knock him down to that HP time freeze trap.

It also helps to have the taunter/tanker to be taunting AM near the regen station that AM regens on when he freezes time.


3.) Another is to say, "don't use long activating powers when beam is firing/about to fire."

I've been a part of a few trials where someone uses powers like Propel or Hurl and couldn't move because of the animation and by the time they could move; bam, beam hit 'em



4.) Only thing else I can think of is: practice, practice, practice. It really helps to have a good core group of people (4-8) that are doing this regularly...or just have the people get used to moving around/etc...It took a while for the main group of badgers on Liberty to get the badges but then it got somewhat "routine" (not really but...smoother than usual ).



Last thing, do not badger/harass someone that gets caught in it (unless you know they did it on purpose). Stuff happens, move on.

Not saying you harass people if they mess up but...just wanted to put that out there. Some people get way too worked up about it...


Edit:

Oh and one last thing that I knew I forgot to put down the first time....


If you're doing the trial and fail on the badge because someone got hit by the beam; depending on when it happened, it may still be beneficial to others to act like it didn't happen and still try to dodge the beam. That way people still get practice moving away/etc.

reasons ive seen poeple get hit is due to long animating powers and or not paying attention

Almost every time I have died to one of the death patch powers its because there is something about the game/the way my controls are set up that occasionally causes my character to run 180 degrees in the opposite direction I intend after firing a shot. Specifically, it sometimes happens if I press the run key too soon during an attack animation. Backward becomes forward and the character runs straight into the path of what I was trying to avoid. It's especially noticeable in fights with death patches because I sometimes panic and start hitting the key during the middle of an animation in hopes of moving immediately, and the character ends up shooting off in the wrong direction. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what causes it but I experience a lot as hitting the S key to retreat backward and end up running toward whatever I was trying to avoid.

TRAVEL SUPPRESSION GRR

I haven't read the thread, so I apologize if this had been said before. I've had two failed runs today and quite a few total. most of the people who get hit do so because they're there casually - the badge and the team isn't quite as important to them as it is to the leader and those who are there to accomplish the task. This lack in priority manifests as people going AFK briefly, talking in SG, tells, /Help, etc., or simply not reading League chat.

The best way to combat this is to find like minded individuals using the forums. Get a group of people as on the ball as you are going and you'll get the badges within a few runs. Try for pickup groups and you're rolling the dice.

I like to joke with my friend that successfully running the trials don't require 16-24 people, but instead require varying numbers of basically competent players. Lambda requires 1 competent person, Keyes requires 1-2, the Underground requires 3-5, and the BAF doesn't require any. For the Masters of Keyes badge, it requires everyone to be competent, or lucky enough not to be anywhere near the Green Circle.

Let's see:

1. Designated healer, trying to keep an eye on peeps getting disintegrated so pretty much focused on league healthbars.
2. The colour green and it's preponderance on every healing power.
3. Everyone running around like mad hares on heat.
4. Travel supression which, funnily enough, happens for all powers fired, even if said powers are HEALS!!!!!
6. Too much gorram info on the screen, flashing, and in different colours.
7. Everyone and their mother using the brightest most noticeable colours on their powers which leads to sensory overload.
8. Easily being dis... CARROT!
9. Motherofpearl lag.
10. The game cheats. You know it's true. It just plain cheats.

I've done Keyes a mere handful of times, but between the GFX soup, the red/green/dis spam, my relatively low graphic settings and the extremely bad performance I get in a league of 16+ players on a praetorian map, I think I only saw the warning once or twice.

Long activation powers , and lag is the culprit also all the bright swirls of colors and movement mostly but distractions sometimes happen in the real world.

Honestly? I forget to pay attention to the timer. On the couple times he caught me in his Obliteration Beam, it was because he froze time.

That said, I understand and accept this, so haven't joined any MoKeyes runs until I get a little more practice in; I'm worried I'll jeopardise them.

Distractions: The two main ones is trying to heal someone being disintegrating, I lost track of the beam; and destroying the terminals which is a classic case of scrapperlock. If you're going for the Avoids the Green stuff, tell players not to worry about disintegrators (if everyone fill up on green insps, they should be able to take care of their own disintegration) and not to attack the terminals.

Green player powers, especially Epiphany make it hard to see the beam. Everyone going for the badge should use a costume slot for customized powers which are a medium grey.

Not stopping at the 5 second warning: This is where lag and travel suppression will get you. If you wait until the Splash Warning, it could be too late. Gotta watch the timer in the Objective Box and at 5 seconds, stop whatever you're doing and just watch for the beam. I do that now because I have a macro that announces the beam at the 5 seconds mark with the wolf Howl emote (for an auditory warning) and chat that says to spread out.

People not spreading out: Hey, if everyone that was paying attention actually did run and spread out at the 5 second mark, it would give a clue to those not paying attention to also run and look.

My ping is around 1,500 on a good day on average its around 2,000. So by the time I see the flashy text it's already happening.

All of the "move or die" FX powers should be tagged with a priority on them to make them draw first before any other FX, so those people with lower graphic settings will still see them even if a million other things are going on.

If you find this isn't the case, please report the bugs so we can remedy that.

My reason (note, I've only been hit once)

"ALERT! OBLITERATION BEAM FIRING!"

Okay, green spot on the ground, wait, there's 3 of them. Which one do I go to?

This one?

BLAM!!!

Umm, guess not.

And it turns out it was hidden by another two green spots that are more prominent on the ground.

For me it is a combo of two things:

1) the Green crosshairs are difficult to see on the ground (even harder in the air) at the settings i run trials on (everything cranked down way low, especially particle effects)
1a) i can't zoom too far out on that stage of the trial, the player effects are too blinding
1b) Some patches (sleet, ice slick, oil slick, quicksand, and i am sure there are others) cover the crosshairs

2) Customized powers just make item 1 even worse
2a) Green customized pwoers being the worse offenders
2b) Really bright powers can be distracting to the level i can't resolve the crosshairs


NOTE: i have never tried any MO runs for trials, i'm just responding to why i, as a player, have problems with this mechanic

For me, I have zero clue what is going on in that trial. I've run it twice now, and doubt I'll ever do it again. The flashy text pops up and I'm like? What? What does that mean? In the first stages when you're picking up blinkies and trying to use the powers on the terminals I would get the message that Warworks were nearby when there were NONE nearby, which was confusing. The whole trial seemed like a massive clusterpancake and at the end people congratulated each other on a smooth run.


...no thank you.