FUNdamental Design Problems (Longish)
By
AmazingMOO,
Posted on: 2011-10-21 09:11 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I think one of the other problems is that what we're raiding doesn't feel like it should require 24 people.
I mean you do have the handwave of 'oh they're empowered by the well' but that is still a handwavey response as to why these AVs are suddenly worthy of a full set of 24 people to take them down.
I mean the new AV in the TPN trial is freaking Maelstrom...a guy who we've been battering around since level 20! Surely you could have atleast picked Chimera or Black Swan.
For me personal, I know this would have taken more developer time, there should be concurrent content, small team and raid.
Small team would be the Praetorian stuff as we have it now, with less gimmicks admittedly. The big raid stuff would be the 'world ending threat' of a Galactus level bad guy. A reformed Rularuu, a merging of Primal and Praetorian Hamidon into mega-hamidon, stuff like that.
In comic books, they only throw big numbers of supers at the really big threats, the Praetorian AVs just don't feel like they're worthy of being that level of threat.
The other problem is the lack of feeling of progress. One of the reason the BAF and Lambda are popular are that you can see a big change once you achieve you various incarnate slots, you feel super powerful which cannot be said of Keyes or Underground. Instead of designing the next raids in this tier to require Incarnate powers (which they seem to be doing), design them as if nobody had Incarnate powers, make them tough, yes but make it so that players who are unlocking their Incarnate slots for the first time get a real feeling of progress.
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That was my first thought when I heard it was him, "What? I've kicked his butt hundreds of times!"|
Originally Posted by Dr_MechanoEU
I mean the new AV in the TPN trial is freaking Maelstrom...a guy who we've been battering around since level 20! Surely you could have atleast picked Chimera or Black Swan.
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Is he supposed to be "Well-Powered" or something?
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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Wow. I have disagreed with you before, but not as fervently as in this case.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Incarnate Trials are not fun. They were never fun. Moreover, they were never designed to be fun. They were designed to be a player-conditioning Skinner box. They were designed to be addictive. They were designed to the most repugnant practices in game development, where the goal isn't to entertain players but rather to keep them locked on a constant treadmill by engineering the experience such that it constantly gives players cues to try harder and grind more and never gives them any stopping points.
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I have absolutely no doubt that the Devs wanted the Trials to be fun AND addictive in terms of loot gathering and power progression. I am confident that the Dev team has not sunk so low as to not care about those things as you seem to imply. I also disagree about not giving them stopping points. Specifically, each Category only has 4 Tiers, there that's a stopping point. Also, the Devs have specifically stopped giving us new Powers (we still have 5 more (that we know of) that aren't even earnable)... that is another imposed stopping point.
And I never thought I would say this considering how I felt about the Incarnate Content when it was announced and when I first played it, but: it is fun. I like running iTrials... especially the Underground, Keyes (not so much) and BAF. The secret, I have found, is to do OTHER stuff, and only sprinkle in some iTrials every once and a while. I think the principal issue is many people don't do anything else, and are getting burned out... and/or trying to never die and succeed in ways that simply aren't possible.
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Just want to agree with this post in general and restate the general "Challenge<>Frustration" theme.
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Originally Posted by AmazingMOO
If you get it right, you won't HAVE to keep fiddling with the drop rates, cool-down timers, and introducing new currencies to keep people's interests. People will do the content because they WANT to do the content. Right now, a lot of people simply don't WANT to do the content and that's not something that putting a new stereo up on the counter and tagging '8000 Tickets' on it is going to fix.
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This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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Agreed.|
Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
I have absolutely no doubt that the Devs wanted the Trials to be fun AND addictive in terms of loot gathering and power progression. I am confident that the Dev team has not sunk so low as to not care about those things as you seem to imply.
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I do find BAF fun. I find it fun because its a quick morsel that fits well into my often short gaming schedule. It has a simple story that hangs together logically enough. The AV mechanics can be a little annoying but don't push into the "needless frustration" area. Plus it comes with a half-time-change-of-pace section that allows different ATs to shine.
But no doubt if I farmed it the way some feel is "required" I would probably hate it.
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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I'm not nearly as confident as you are. Not when you have a system built, essentially, on invisible numbers rewards and designed around repeating the same two, four, six tasks over and over and over again. This from a team which banned people for making Architect arcs where they did essentially the same thing. You can't go out of your way to tell people to not use the word "farm" in their Architect arcs and then turn around and make a system that, for all intents and purposes, is farming for merits.|
Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
I am confident that the Dev team has not sunk so low as to not care about those things as you seem to imply.
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I'm glad you have fun. More power to you. I still don't think that's what the system was designed to deliver. MMO end game raid grind never is. It's a threadmill to keep people from running out of things to do, and since there are a finite number of things to do, then the threadmill has to have an infinite completion time while still looking like it might have an end at some point.
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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
I also disagree about not giving them stopping points. Specifically, each Category only has 4 Tiers, there that's a stopping point. Also, the Devs have specifically stopped giving us new Powers (we still have 5 more (that we know of) that aren't even earnable)... that is another imposed stopping point.
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As for "the end," T4 is intentionally designed to be a complete waste of time. Up until T3, the system is a grind, but it's within the realms of just slow gameplay. T4, on the other hand, is intended to waste your time for not that much benefit because people aren't supposed to get to the end, just close enough to see it from the bottom of a gorge. If you DO want to get to it, then the game will simply cross its arms and say "You still want it? Fine. Have a nice life." T3 is meant to make you believe you could get to the end, while T4 is meant to waste your time. And if you do get to T4, then there really isn't much more the game can offer and many other ways for it to intentionally slow you down.
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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
The secret, I have found, is to do OTHER stuff, and only sprinkle in some iTrials every once and a while.
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Here's the thing - I DO NOT WANT to run Trials. Ever. I have not the slightest desire to be a face in the crowd of 20-something people, beating on a Mary Sue for half an hour, feeling like a complete gnat. That's not "epic," that's "humiliating." I've never been interested in "belonging" or being "part of something greater," and right up until level 50, the game is all too happy to step back and let me play it my way. Then suddenly post level 50, that's no longer an option. Well, no option, no play. If you enjoy ridiculously huge teams, then I'm happy for you. I don't, and no amount of bait is going to change my mind.
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Originally Posted by Slaunyeh
For me, the chief offender it's the whole raid mentality. Standing around with an army other people, wailing away at something lost in special effects is not fun. Feeling like "hey, if I went out for coffee right now, the outcome of this fight would be exactly the same" is not fun.
PS. I think it's worth noting that Mayhem missions are fun due to a fluke. Imagine if the environment scaled with your level as originally intended. Imagine if it took the same 30 seconds to destroy a car at level 50, as it did at level 5. How'd that be for shattering any sense of "how awesome am I!?" Mayhem is awesome due to a bug that made it fantastic fun, not because it was designed to be fun! I don't know if there's anything to learn from that story, but there it is! |
Personally, I didn't come to a game called "City of Heroes" to be weak, insufficient and insignificant. I didn't come here to receive a humbling experience. I came here because there are few games out there as good for the ego as City of Heroes. Because this game lets me take my own creation and be the most awesome in my own little world. ... ... Right up until I try to do anything to do with Incarnates.
I'll make things really simple: I don't want to have to band with 20 other people to take down one NPC. I want the NPCs to have to band together 20 strong just to take on me. Occasionally, this happens, but it's not very common.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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To be honest I am confused with your post. If Incarnate trials is all you have left to do but you don't want to run Incarnate trials then shouldn't you just create a new character?|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Would that I could, but there is no "other stuff" which offers progression towards the Incarnate system. The "other stuff" I could do is essentially passing time
...snip... Here's the thing - I DO NOT WANT to run Trials. Ever. |
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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Then you'll miss out on the major Incarnate story moments |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Here's the thing - I DO NOT WANT to run Trials. Ever.
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The Trials are the resolution of all the problems we've been show in Praetoria - the entire storyline there has been building up to them, right form the GR tutorial, through Praetoria City, First Ward, and Tyrant's invasion.
And once the Praetorian chapter of the Incanrate storyline is over, we'll start the Coming Storm chapter, with more Trials for the big story moments as we try and save the multiverse for a second time.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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All snark intended, there's story moments?|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Then you'll miss out on the major Incarnate story moments
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The Trials are the resolution of all the problems we've been show in Praetoria - the entire storyline there has been building up to them, right form the GR tutorial, through Praetoria City, First Ward, and Tyrant's invasion.
And once the Praetorian chapter of the Incanrate storyline is over, we'll start the Coming Storm chapter, with more Trials for the big story moments as we try and save the multiverse for a second time. |
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I agree with these things entirely.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[Lots of things with which I agree entirely.]
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'Epic' is a hard thing to nail. It differs from person to person. Some feel it's a one-on-one fight.
There are some spoilers ahead, so please be warned.
There's a Japanese Cartoon I really enjoy called 'Seto No Hanayome'. Without spoiling it too much, there's a big fight at the end that's a group of about 8 of the 'good guys' coming together to rescue the hero's love interest from the super-rich, super-spoiled big-bad. The 8 of them have to fight through dozens and dozens of the faceless lackeys and defeat a couple of dragons while the hero rescues his love interest.
"This one is for Sun! And this one is for Sun! And this is for Sun! And all these punches! These are all for Sun!!"
I personally think the most epic moments in the game fall pretty close to this trope. The End of the Faultline Arc is a great example. The Heroes have to fight 3 Archvillains and save Penny to save the world from the Chronometron.
The last missions of the STF and LGTF are also good examples.
Once the Heroes are done dispatching all the faceless minions of Arachnos, here comes ALL of Recluse's most trusted lieutenants AND an assault helicopter to thrown down on you at once. Only then can you face the Scary Evil Spider Dude himself AND his superweapon of doom.
LGTF goes about the same way. The plucky band of Heroes have to fight through many tough challenges-- Clocky, The Riders, Dragon, HAMIDON... everything the Rikti can throw in their way before they can fight Herodotus. And then, once you've finally gotten close to beating Herodotus, Riktified Hero One shows up to lay the smack down on you.
That's Epic. At least to me.
Having Marauder show up to drink a super-potion at you so that he can face a LEGION of heroes to slowly beat him down is somewhat less epic. It doesn't FEEL like a do-or-die fight. It's a LOT more engaging when you go with the minimum-sized team rather than an army, but still lacks that sense of awesome. It got a little better when teams were encouraged to fight Marauder's reinforcements along with him.
It's not us versus the bad guy and their army. It's the bad guy versus us and our army.
Your mileage may vary.
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Yes, including key character deaths, charater transformations, and revelations of secrets that change the Paretorian stroyline |
Originally Posted by Ogi
All snark intended, there's story moments?
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| Please, no. Put the story in missions or TFs so that I can actually *read* the story. I didn't even know BAF had an intro cutscene until about my 4th run since it was loading so slowly. |
For example, the Praetorian chapter of the Incarnate storyline brings a resolution to the whole Praetorian stroyline - it's been leading up to the Trials since the GR tutorial, right through Praetoria City, First Ward and Tyrant's invasion - the characters, situations and stories all lead up to our counter attack against the loyalsits to set Praetoria free, as we help the Resistance dismantle the dictatorship and take down the Praetors one after another.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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That's a question so loaded as to be disingenuous. No, I shouldn't. There's more game to play, more "stuff" to earn, more ways to progress my character. But only if I want to play Trials. Let me put it this way: Imagine that after level 30, you could no longer team with anyone. The Team function simply didn't work past level 30 and you had to solo all the way to 50. Now suppose you just hit 30 with your team-built Defender and realised this. You have a choice - respec into a solo build or start over. But you want to play on teams, that's what's fun in the game for you.|
Originally Posted by Jagged
To be honest I am confused with your post. If Incarnate trials is all you have left to do but you don't want to run Incarnate trials then shouldn't you just create a new character?
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You complain that you can't team and I tell you "Well, you reached level 30 and you don't want to solo. Isn't it time you started over?" No! Of course not. It's not time you started over because there's more game for you to play, it's simply restricted behind a playstyle which you don't enjoy and wasn't required up to 30 anyway.
I want to take part in the Praetorian war, I want to pursue the Well of the Furies storyline, I want to find out the truth behind Mender Silos, the Coming Storm, Ramiel, Prometheus and so forth. I want my Sword/Fire Scrapper to have that huge kill-all fire AoE, I want my Bots Mastermind to have that powerful team buff barrier. There's stuff in there that I want, I just don't fancy doing 24-man Trial after 24-man Trial. In fact, I wouldn't fancy it even if it required a whole stream of nothing but two-man simu-click missions, which is essentially what this boils down to.
Let Raids exist, it's clear they're not going anywhere. But as long as more story content and more character progression exists, I want an alternate path.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Speaking of awesome - and it kills me to do this - but I want to recite a specific scene from A.T.O.M.. To give you a basic idea of the show, it centres around a group of five teenagers, each with various unique skills, each of them largely realistic, aside from team leader Axel Manning, who practices a martial art referred to as "Jo Lan" which is essentially blue energy melee and pretty much a straight-up super power. Throughout the series, everyone gets their moment to shine, but at the end of the day, it always seems to come down to Axel to face the final moment of truth.|
Originally Posted by AmazingMOO
'Epic' is a hard thing to nail. It differs from person to person. Some feel it's a one-on-one fight.
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The specific scene in question is actually pretty simple. Resident villain Alexander Pain uses a super power of his own to blast the whole team away, apparently defeating them all. The camera then pans to show everyone down on the ground, hurt, knocked out, with clothes all ripped up. Everyone, except for Axel, who, while still hurt, is also still standing. Apparently, he used his "martial art" to somehow block the energy blast, taking damage but surviving much better than his team-mates. I forget how the episode ends (the show sucked and it's been a while since I saw it), but it's essentially him against the villain and backup for quite a while before his team-mates come to.
That, more or less, is what I see as epic. Less what happens when you have a whole team to back you up, but rather what happens when you DON'T. Maybe that's just me having never been a fan of team sports, maybe that's me having never held any real desire to "belong," but 20 people swarming a single enemy doesn't serve to make those people come off strong and respectable. It serves to make the enemy come off strong and the people come off weak.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I don't think I am the one being disingenuous here. Its fine for you to want to be a completist. But expecting to enjoying "everything" is an untenable position. As is acting as though you "need" this stuff to participate.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That's a question so loaded as to be disingenuous. No, I shouldn't. There's more game to play, more "stuff" to earn, more ways to progress my character. But only if I want to play Trials. Let me put it this way: Imagine that after level 30, you could no longer team with anyone. The Team function simply didn't work past level 30 and you had to solo all the way to 50. Now suppose you just hit 30 with your team-built Defender and realised this. You have a choice - respec into a solo build or start over. But you want to play on teams, that's what's fun in the game for you.
You complain that you can't team and I tell you "Well, you reached level 30 and you don't want to solo. Isn't it time you started over?" No! Of course not. It's not time you started over because there's more game for you to play, it's simply restricted behind a playstyle which you don't enjoy and wasn't required up to 30 anyway. I want to take part in the Praetorian war, I want to pursue the Well of the Furies storyline, I want to find out the truth behind Mender Silos, the Coming Storm, Ramiel, Prometheus and so forth. I want my Sword/Fire Scrapper to have that huge kill-all fire AoE, I want my Bots Mastermind to have that powerful team buff barrier. There's stuff in there that I want, I just don't fancy doing 24-man Trial after 24-man Trial. In fact, I wouldn't fancy it even if it required a whole stream of nothing but two-man simu-click missions, which is essentially what this boils down to. Let Raids exist, it's clear they're not going anywhere. But as long as more story content and more character progression exists, I want an alternate path. |
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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The zerg rush where the 'weak' (aka the Corr/Def who likely just shielded you) fall behind is not very fun for up and coming players.
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Originally Posted by AmazingMOO
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Zerging an Objective isn't fun. All the trials suffer from this to some degree by including so much unresistable damage and insta-kill effects. The single worst offender is the glowie hunt in Lambda. When a player is defeated and has to run back into the maze after going to the hospital, chances are the enemies left behind in the mad rush are going to zap him again before he catches back up to his team. |
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They don't HAVE to be something that can't be resolved by a single team. That's BS and you know it. Maria Jenkins' arc (where you... oh yeah. Beat down every Praetor and save Statesman? That incarnate guy?) proves that.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The Trials will always be major story moments, because they're built around the idea that the situation is so serious that it needs a couple of teams of heroes to deal with it - it's something that can't be resolved with a smaller team - which means that it's always going to be a key moment in the meta-storyline.
For example, the Praetorian chapter of the Incarnate storyline brings a resolution to the whole Praetorian stroyline - it's been leading up to the Trials since the GR tutorial, right through Praetoria City, First Ward and Tyrant's invasion - the characters, situations and stories all lead up to our counter attack against the loyalsits to set Praetoria free, as we help the Resistance dismantle the dictatorship and take down the Praetors one after another. |
They COULD re-tool the existing Incarnate trials to scale down to team size like the SSA/TFs do. Then they wouldn't have to re-develop a whole separate storyline for a small group/solo path, small group/solo folks wouldn't be locked out of the existing storyline, and every would be happy.
It doesn't HAVE to be 20 people beating up Marauder. I've solo'd him twice in mission arcs. It's completely arbitrary that we need 20 people to beat him up in Lambda.
As I said earlier, the Praetorian content could have easily been single team content, infact if it WAS designed as single team content we probably wouldn't be running up against the problems we're facing now because:
1) Designed for small teams means less annoying gimmicks, which in turn means they don't need to be retuned in order to make them fit the playerbases style (like Keyes is in the next issue, Underground, the TPN and MoM probably will be). They can still use gimmicks (heck the final Romulous fight is a Gimmick).
2) Big fights can be saved for something truly worthwhile, look at Hamidon, the dude is huge, that is a big comic book event style fight right there. The Mothership raid is less about fighting 1 big bad guy (he tends to keel over very quickly) but more about surviving the onslaught of thousands of Rikti as you plant bombs etc.
Large groups of metahumans should be reserved purely for threats that would appear genuinely world/universe threatening or where the enemy is in such number that it requires there to be many, many supers. Rularuu the Ravager is a lot more worthy of "oh crap, call in everyone!" than some shmuck I've been punching around in level 20 tip missions.
3) Gets rid of the 'cog in a machine' effect of not feeling like you're actually serving any purpose. Like you could simply disconnect and the trial would continue without you. On single team you feel worthwhile (I know Sam will disagree with this).
4) People are more inclinded to atleast try single team content, they'll happily give it a go, the old but crap heroside Taskforces still get run despite being crappitude of the highest order (looking at you Seige). I imagine people would find their setup for each individual trialforce (it's my new name for trials that should be taskforce sized)
It is very weird that when the industry itself is moving away from huge raids (the big Gorilla MMO developer noted that the 10 persons version of their Raids was vastly more popular than the 25 persons version) that City of Heroes is moving TOWARDS this.
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Yes it does - that's how to set up multi-team content, and show the level of the threat we face.|
Originally Posted by Feycat
They don't HAVE to be something that can't be resolved by a single team.
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For example, the Praetorian Hamidon destroyed hundreds of superpowered people, and wiped out whole divisions fo the Praetorian Guard as it moved up from South America and into America, and only stopped when it agreed a truce with Tyrant - and now that it's woken up again, it's not something that 3 or 4 heroes could take on by themselves - it'll need a couple of dozen Incarnates just to have a chance of defeating it.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Our raids start at 8 or 12.
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Originally Posted by Dr_MechanoEU
the big Gorilla MMO developer noted that the 10 persons version of their Raids was vastly more popular than the 25 persons version) that City of Heroes is moving TOWARDS this.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Good. Give us that then, and use that excuse rather than the pitiful Praetors that we've been giving a good spanking ever since Peregrine Island was introduced way before the EU release.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Yes it does - that's how to set up multi-team content, and show the level of the threat we face.
For example, the Praetorian Hamidon destroyed hundreds of superpowered people, and wiped out whole divisions fo the Praetorian Guard as it moved up from South America and into America, and only stopped when it agreed a truce with Tyrant - and now that it's woken up again, it's not something that 3 or 4 heroes could take on by themselves - it'll need a couple of dozen Incarnates just to have a chance of defeating it. |
But on the other hand, that's just an arbitrary story reason to band an arbitrary number of heroes together in order to hit an arbitrary foe. There's really no good game design reason to do it - in fact, there are quite a lot of game design reasons not to: it gets a lot harder to balance the thing and you have to cheat a lot to make it a challenge.
There are also quite a lot of story reasons to not do it as well. The epicness of the story is diminished by you being a small cog in the epic machine that has to fight the epic foe. Epic fights are epic. Epic foes are epic. Cogs are not.
Which sums up the reason that I don't enjoy the trials pretty nicely. I do not enjoy being a cog in the machine. Being a cog in the machine sums up my real life pretty well, and I play City of Heroes to escape from that life.
Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
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EPIC post! I've sworn off iTrials myself and you've touched on all the points of why that is.
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Originally Posted by AmazingMOO
FUNdamental Design Problems
So what makes them unfun? Confusing goals aren't fun. Being Insta-killed isn't Fun Zerging an Objective isn't fun. Sitting in the Hospital while other people finish the challenge isn't fun. Grinding for Currency to Buy Rewards isn't Fun. (It's called 'Work' in the Real World.) Downtime is no fun. Trying to Corral 16 or 24 Strangers is not fun. ...I think that the trial designers need to go further than simply tweaking numbers. They need to step back, take a hard, deep look at what they've built and ask themselves 'Why isn't this fun?' |
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Neither of which I actually said, by the way.|
Originally Posted by Jagged
I don't think I am the one being disingenuous here. Its fine for you to want to be a completist. But expecting to enjoying "everything" is an untenable position. As is acting as though you "need" this stuff to participate.
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I don't expect to enjoy everything. I never expected to enjoy Incarnates, and - surprise surprise - I didn't. That's fine. There's no way to change raiding to make me like it any more than there is a way to cook chili to the tastes of a man who hates spicy foods. I don't expect them to. When I say "Incarnate content," however, I don't mean "raids." I mean any content which advances the Incarnate storyline and allows me to progress through the Incarnate power trees. SOLO Incarnate content, then, is what I'm referring to. It's very possible to create content that is both Incarnate and something I like. They just didn't do it and, frankly, I don't ever expect to see it. Promises have been made, but then promises have been made about a lot of things, many of which never happened.
Secondly, I never claimed I need "this stuff" to participate, by which I presume you mean "in the Incarnate system." I'm well aware that I don't need T4s of everything. As a point of fact, I don't need T1 of anything, because none of the game that I actually enjoy is designed to expect Incarnate powers. When those were being added to the game, I postulated that sooner or later they would make us too strong for the base game and we would NEED more content to progress through it, more content which would deliberately require us to attain these powers before attempting it in much the same way as we're required to attain level 50 before attempting Mender Ramiel's arc.
I don't "need" any of "this stuff." I want it. Sadly, to get it, I need to raid, and since I'm going to raid over my dead body, that just means I'll never have it. You may call this disingenuous, but this doesn't change the fact that I want my Incarnate powers without having to raid, because I irrevocably hate raiding. And that's not going to happen.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I totally agree with this. Have the difficulty and rewards scale with how many folks you have. Start at the minimal threads reward and then scale up, and the chance of what thereof, the more folks that are there from the beginning to the end of the Trial. I wouldn't mind doing a scaled down Trial with six of seven people, knowing that all I'll get out of it at the end is threads... just so I can do them for the fun of it with my SG...|
Originally Posted by Feycat
They don't HAVE to be something that can't be resolved by a single team. That's BS and you know it. Maria Jenkins' arc (where you... oh yeah. Beat down every Praetor and save Statesman? That incarnate guy?) proves that.
They COULD re-tool the existing Incarnate trials to scale down to team size like the SSA/TFs do. Then they wouldn't have to re-develop a whole separate storyline for a small group/solo path, small group/solo folks wouldn't be locked out of the existing storyline, and every would be happy. It doesn't HAVE to be 20 people beating up Marauder. I've solo'd him twice in mission arcs. It's completely arbitrary that we need 20 people to beat him up in Lambda. |
I also wouldn't mind doing a large scale one like we do now with 2-4 teams, if I knew the wait and headache would be balanced by the chance of greater reward. Even getting a BAF or Lambda together can take a half-hour or more, even moreso on the Keyes and Underground, taking into explaining the strategy and reluctance of others joining.
A 'heavy' Incarnate trial should be the current Underground one, or one where we face down Cole with all the power the Well has now granted him. Everything else at this point has felt more like a Tin Mage or Apex that just reqired more people.
It's been mentioned they're going to be making an announcement soon on solo and smaller team Incarnate content. I really look forward to that.
EDIT: Actually, do all the level shifts work in Tin Mage or Apex? I'm not sure. If they don't that would actually make them harder than the Trials with arbitrarily less reward...
"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.
I actually enjoy the Underground, sort of. Not Keyes tho. I used to despise the BAF but it finally seems to have its lag under control.
How would I change the trials? I'd remove 9/10ths of the timers. They are simply overdone.
Would the STF have been more fun if we stuck a 10 minute "win or die" timer on the fight with Recluse? No? Then why does every single trial have this feature built into it? The Underground finale is especially egregious. That boss either tends to drop like a rock or is absolute hell to fight, and after laboring for an hour just to get there, having just 10 or whatever minutes to figure out what you need to do and do it is really asking a lot.
PS I'll add that I really wish the Underground had been a Task Force, minus the timers. It is very well done and has the most impressive environment I've seen this game pull off. The length of the trial didn't even especially bother me, just getting to the end and fighting that killswitch of a boss.