How Did You Get Hit?

That's ... not right. Mothership Raid is so mindnumbingly easy you can do it afk.

Hate asking this, but what server?

My experience with the iTrials, just express at the beginning/when you get recruited that you haven't done it before. It'll usually be fine. Keyes [and to some extent] UGT have an appearance of being intimidating [especially Keyes if you read the forums], but they are pretty straight forward. Keyes might be a bit more awkward since it's one of the few times in the game that it utilizes vertical space.

The only real general 'thing' to know I can suggest is knowing about your temp powers and knowing when you get some. Two of the trials randomly award them out to members, so you have to be aware of that.

It DOES suck for people like you, because despite adjustments to the rewards given, this trial is still not being run. I'd be upset about not being ever able to run a task that I like, too.

This trial is [probably] irreparably broken, since things of this type tend to be adjusted by the developers years later, if ever.

The take-home message, generally speaking: we have people saying that things are fine because they have sharper senses than "the median person," that they "intuitively know" how to run this trial, etc. Outstanding: I am thrilled to death that we have forumites out there with real-life superpowers. /endsarcasm. BUT THIS TRIAL IS STILL AVOIDED BY MOST PLAYERS.

So, something is still wrong, because if there is one bunch of people who will endure discomfort in the acquisition of desired awards, its gamers. This trial is so unpleasant that even the hard-core are avoidant. Smells like massive fail to me.

And that is from someone who would run the Underground trial twice a day, if I could.

Arcanaville,

Thank you, thank you THANK YOU! I tried this (the part quoted that I bolded) last night on a Keyes and never once got obliterated playing a stone tanker with rooted running. This was a great way to summarize the obliteration issue, and give me a tool to minimize getting caught in the green stuff.

You have helped me many times on the forums with your posts (not directly, but by improving my understanding of the game, the mechanics, and design philosophy) – plus I love it when you snark.

Thanks for all the help.

Just a side note but there have been times where I have been held (playing on either my Kin/Rad Def or Mind/Emp. Controller; so no mez. protection that they have) right before the Oblit. beam was fired.

I swear there is a hold that the Oblit. beam does/uses before it fires...I've been caught in it before but I always carry one BF at the minimum for cases like this.


When I lead a Keyes I try to tell squishies to always carry 1 BF for the final fight and the rest greens.

I understand their frustration. I actually got into an... well, it wasn't exactly an argument, but I was heavily recruited for a Keyes iTrial, all in tells, for about 10 minutes the other night. And this was AFTER I told the recruiter that I hated the thing and wouldn't do it.

When they're desperate enough to recruit bodies that they try to convince haters... well, it's not a pretty picture.

--NT

It does have a hold component, and Break Free inspiration will not help you to escape it.

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

Unless myself or a friend is hosting a Keyes Badge run, I'm not seeing Keyes being run.

Underground is such a mess as well. Unless I specifically don't announce a Underground and just invite through tells, I expect the Underground to fail at one of three points: The AV battles.

Why? Players cannot get their mind out of the "pile on the AV and attack" mentality.

There are players that say Undeground is too easy, just like Keyes. The difference is that the developers have missed the lessons that ITFs and Mothership raids have taught: make things simple & fun.

Underground isn't fun unless people know what they are doing or listen to the league leader. Keyes isn't fun thanks to the length and that people clearly are not ready for the amount of gimmicks thrown at them at one time.

Neither is worth the rewards at the end. Especially to someone that gets a common or thread table at the end.

Last night I was talking to someone on Triumph that waited for 2 hours in the queue last night for a trial to start, without success. I have one thing to say about that, Positron:

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

Glad I could help. I still think SnowGlobe is basically correct about most of his complaints about Obliteration's mechanics, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try to help players work around those difficulties in the meantime.

Definitely has a hold component: when i don't move in time i get held through stone armor's Rooted power.

And thanks for bring the pictures to this discussion - i struggle mightily to see the current green patch (especially if it is near the water tower - like it was in your screen cap).

I think I'm extremely generous when it comes to tolerating content and content difficulty. I will, in fact, create nightmares entirely on my own (I tried to solo Barracuda the other day, which of course didn't work out so well against Reichsman). Having said that, I will jump onto random Lambdas, random BAFs, and even random Keyes (at least when they were being run more often). If I don't recognize the leader as someone capable of running a Master Underground, I won't join at all anymore. I've given up trying to figure out if a random assemblage of people can run it. A random assemblage of people can't run it. An inexperienced leader can't control it. And it'll be an hour or more before you even realize it.

There's a lot to like about the Underground Trial. For one thing, it corrects an error in Keyes where people are supposed to more or less stick together, rather than randomly scattering in Keyes. There's no point in the Underground where having less people would be better, except for having less stupid people during the bomb phase, and even that is only problematic on badge runs. But unless you have a supersaturated league of massive damage and debuffs, the tactics involved with the twin warwalkers and the avatar at the end are so precise relative to how most content in the game works - even Keyes - I'm sorry, but to put it bluntly we're just not up to it.

If it was possible to solo the Underground trial, but it would take twenty four straight hours to do it, and the odds of getting the badges in it were only 10% per try, I would start now. I'm not balking about difficulty: I'm balking at futility. For me, the Underground trial passes the horizon of content that exceeds the difficulty level any designer could reasonably expect was tolerable from the current playerbase. And I'm sure there are people who love it and skate through it, just like I personally have no problem with fighting Antimatter with Keyes, or running Lambda on a squishy blaster, or tanking in BAF. I don't claim to represent anyone but myself, but I think given my normal stance on difficulty, complexity, and developer discretion when it comes to designing high end content, when I have a fundamental problem with something I think you've crossed a threshold you shouldn't be anywhere near.

I'll run Underground if you're running them, or a few other players, but otherwise at this point I would rather attempt to solo a Master of STF. To me, that's actually a better risk/reward activity than a random Underground. I mean that literally: that's next on my list after I figure out the right set of freemium filler/helpers for Barracuda. The ten hours I spent figuring out how to solo (more or less) a Master of ITF run was more entertaining than any Underground run I've been on so far, including the successful ones.

To put it bluntly, the Underground trial is the *only* content that I wouldn't run if it didn't have badges in it. I can't even say that about the shard task forces. I can't even say that about the original Positron's task force.

To put it even more bluntly, I've thought about hacking the game servers to give myself level 9 permissions so I can just miracle myself the Underground badges I'm missing, because I think that would be easier, especially with my timezone limitations.


Remember what I said about Lambda; remember what I said about BAF. I said people were exaggerating the difficulty, and one day we'd be doing them with our eyes closed. Remember what I said about Keyes: its hard, but with time we'll eventually get to the point of Keyes being no more difficult than the LRSF. Frame my comments about the Underground in that light.

I have supported, and tried to help players get used to the trials. I'm sure that Arcanaville isn't suggesting that I'm not (in addition to my complaints ).

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

I'm not, but a lot of times when I say "there's a way to work around X" someone will come along and say "so are you saying the devs are perfect and everything is fine and blah blah blah" and then I have to waste time finding something shiny for them to play with.

Well, I'm learning to think about what you are saying. Just so that you don't need to waste as much time trying to find me something distracting to play with.

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

From this point on, when someone questions Arcanaville flippantly (without actually discussing her actual post/points), I will see the "you... my point" graph she linked to.

--NT

Yes and no...

I know there's a hold component when the beam actually fires but I'm talking before it fires.

Example:

"Obliteration Beam is about to fire in 5 seconds!" (or whatever the first warning is)
Then you get the Oblit. Beam targeting graphic/green patch on the ground...that's when I got held a couple of times...a good 2-3 seconds before it actually fires.

And yes I've used a BF to break free from it and run away (and still get the badge from what I can recall; no absolute proof to say that I got the badge when that happened since I don't have that good of a memory ).

Again, as far as I can remember I was never near AM (so no AM 'nuke' hold effect).

Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing:

I've known, since the first time I got caught in the beam, that it does a hold moments before it fires. Characters caught in this hold float a bit off the ground, flailing their arms and legs helplessly before crashing to the ground and getting hit by the beam itself. Getting caught by the hold fails the Green Stuff badge, even if you get away from the beam itself in the split-second between being let go and the beam hitting.

That's not what I'm talking about.

Yesterday, the warning popped up and sure enough, I'm standing in the green patch. As I tried to move, I found I couldn't, and my status bar said I was held. Unless my reaction time was exceptionally slow, this was before the beam's hold kicked in. In any case, I wasn't doing the "air swim" animation.

Based on the discussion afterward, I think what likely happened is I got used to ignoring Atomic Blast on my scrapper (who could survive it, and has hold protection) and my blaster and controller (who work just as well at range), but my peacebringer can survive the damage, but didn't have the mez protection to take the hit.

I'm a little late to this discussion, but I would like to comment on the "stealth procs". I run my blaster (Firekraker) through Keyes as often as I can. I find Keyes to be a very enjoyable trial, mainly because it is quick and easy. That said, it does take a couple of runs to figure out what is going on.

I use Unbounded Leap +stealth and also run the Stealth Power for my ghetto Invis. I have found that I am undetectable (as usual) untill I am hit by the 30second pulses. Those pulses make me detectable for a few seconds. So, if I am in a bunker and stealthed when a 30 sec blast goes off, then I will most likely be detected on my way out unless I wait a around 5 seconds (I might be waiting too long, but better safe than sorry).

This is also important while colecting glowies from the first reactor, if I get hit with the pulse while trying to sneak up to a box I am often noticed and attacked. Once I figured out what was happening it became much easier.

I have very little healing on my blaster, and the first several runs of Keyes were filled with death. This did not really bother me, becasue I took it as a challenge to figure out a way to not die and still contribute. So I simply made a T4 Rebirth Destiny. I find that the Incarnate abilities are so easy and quick to make (even from nothing to T4) that there is no reason not to have several different abilities made to switch into for certain tasks. Of course my definition of "quick" is most likely different from others, I have spent a considerable amount of time in another MMO where it took me over 197 runs of 1 mission to acquire *1* part (of 4) to craft an item that I wanted. And that particular mission had a 1 day timer, took me almost a year to make that 1 thing.

In CoH I find the high-level Incarnate abilities very fun to craft, and the fact thatyou are always getting closer to making one (even on a failed mission or with poor luck on end-rewards) a refreshing change.