Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

I’ve spent a lot of time complaining about I21.5, which you can see on the beta forums if you want. But I haven’t spent much time suggesting how to make things better. So, with that in mind, here are my Incarnate trial suggestions! I’ll suggest more as I think of them.

Nemesis Fortress Trial
Deep within the Shadow Shard lies Nemesis’s base of operations. To strike a crippling blow against the Prince of Brass, you’ll need to first cross the Rularuu-infested islands, and then overcome Nemesis’s ingenious traps. For 8-16 players.

Part 1- Getting In
General Hammond kicks off the trial by giving you the co-ordinates to the Fortress. Unfortunately, it’s up a narrow slope of islands, covered in Rularuu. Defeating the Watchers on each plinth will allow the gravity geysers to function once again, propelling the heroes close to the entrance to the fortress.

Part 2- Twisting Corridors
The entrance of the castle is guarded by fierce armies of Warhulks, each led by a Fake Nemesis and prepared to call backup from deeper inside. Defeating these mobs sets the Automaton factories within on full production, ready for later battles. Meanwhile the heroes will have to fight their way across a bridge with gears and chains whirling dangerously overhead. Friend and foe located underneath a falling gear or piston will take a high amount of smashing damage and be knocked down.

Eventually, the Incarnates will reach…

Part 3- An Obvious Trick
There is one large, brass door, and two sets of switches that must be pulled simultaneously. This means the trial must split into two even groups. When the switch is pulled, the floor opens up and the groups are trapped in the underground furnace areas, fighting through tides of automatons spawned by the forges. Destroying each of the furnaces in turn, and carefully avoiding steam bursts and more falling pistons, the groups battle their way along to the stairs back up to the maintenance zone, where they encounter…

Part 4- A Betrayal?!
The opposite team has gone rogue, and is bearing down on our Incarnates! Or perhaps they were automatons the whole time. Either way, inside the suspiciously empty maintenance room, the league-members who weren’t in your group appear, empowered by Nemesis’s steam technology, to put an end to them.

Part 5- The Prince Himself
The two groups, having rejoined after defeating their mechanical doubles, finally enter Nemesis’s inner sanctum. Nemesis, surrounded by his troops, addresses the heroes, then activates his defence system. It splits the room into three irregularly shaped corridors, marked on the floor for a few seconds before the change (5-10). At the end, the forcefields shift and the heroes are trapped with whatever allies they can manage. If Nemesis ever ends up in a channel on his own, he’ll exit the stage, only to return with a colossal Warhulk, surrounded by Steam Ponies. And can you be sure it’s the same Nemesis? He’s certainly had time to recover a lot of his health. A player stuck on the barrier as it forms will take minor energy damage and be thrown back and disorientated.

While a player is in a force field channel Nemesis isn’t in, he can try and damage the loudspeakers which buff the Nemesis soldiers like the Leadership pool.

Part 6-GET TO ZE… Portal..?
Having realised he’s beaten, Nemesis teleports away, and Hammond informs the Incarnates there’s activity on the roof! The team escape up, and arrive just in time to see Nemesis running for a portal! The portal is being worked on by automata scientists; defeat them and the portal will take longer to become functional. Otherwise, now it’s just you and him, going all out. Nemesis fights at his full strength here, utilising high defence and leadership abilities to bolster his strength, and using his fierce Nemesis Staff, the original and the best.

The Trial awards badges thusly:

“Pony Up”
Let Nemesis escape, then defeat him and his entourage.

“Tick Tock Goes The Clock”
Kill a Fake Nemesis in the “Furnaces” section by crushing him under pistons (possibly a bit easy…)

“All Together Now”
Get everyone in the league in the same forcefield path, and end up with Nemesis.

I’ve got a few ideas for Rikti and Council, too. I’m afraid you’ll have to blame Zortel and Foundation Maths for making me think of these, the mind does tend to wander

I like the idea, and kudos for thinking it through from beginning to end (though I think this belongs in the suggestion forum...).

You have to remember though, we've been told that the Incarnate Storyline is currently focused on Praetoria. There will be others exclusive of Praetoria. There are two new trials in the beta: TPN will most likely launch in the next month or so since it has already been announced, and it stands to reason the Mother Mayhem trial can't be too far off after that, since it is already in the beta-testing phase. That's six of the seven promised Praetorian trials, with the "confrontation with Cole" being the most likely finale.

They have also just now started in on the Coming Storm saga, which is only natural since the Praetorian saga is wrapping up. I bet we'll see new Incarnate stuff focused around that once Praetoria is wrapped.

But hell, I'm all for speculating!

Oh, yeah, I realise we're going to finish Praetoria and move onto the Coming Storm. I'm just saying if I wrote trials, I would tie them into the lore, and this is what I'd make.

Speaking of which, an idea I had on the bus was making one team heroes and one team villains, and segregating the cutscene at the end. Heroes get a rewarding cutscene showing all the Nemesis plots being foiled now his plans are blown, and villains get to loom over Nemesis's shattered suit and cackle menacingly. It could, perhaps, award a slightly different temp power to each side, too, but I'm not sure temp powers on trials are a good idea.

This sounds too fun, I prefer raiding Laundromats in Praetoria.

sounds clever, but 6 parts? the mindset seems to be doable in under 15 minutes or we abandon it.

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

It's a good idea and all, but not going to happen any time soon, right now the main focus is the praetorian War and On Comming Storm, that all they seem to focus on is the end game stuff right and the getting the Incarnate done.

Want to REALLY put your money where your mouth is? Make these (as close as you can) in MA.

The only trouble with that is that the MA has almost none of the features of an actual trial. Nevermind falling gears, I can't even get intercom dialogue. I would but we'd basically have 5 nemesis missions.

The thing is, much like in the real trials, there's not much of a story here. Heroes go whack Nemesis base. End.

Trials tend to be gameplay-oriented affairs, and the OP does a good job at that. As a story arc with extremely limited mechanics, though? Eh.