Terra Volta Trials: Reduce the reactor-room tedium!

I know I'm probably going to be one more in a long line of people who've made these recommendations, but I think after failing to see one happen even as the WST over the past six days, they could stand to be repeated. So, here goes. My suggestions for the TV respec trials are:

1) Make them shorter.
2) Make them have less time between waves.
3) Make them take the exact same amount of time, but with no downtime between waves-- i.e., the ending of one wave triggers the next wave, and go buff up at your own risk.
4) Decrease the time involved but offset this by making the trial easier to fail.

Any one of these would make them less tedious and grindy, which means more people would do them and have more fun with it. The redside trials are much easier to get participants for.

A lagniappe suggestion about respecs:

Give us the ability to make unused respecs claimable "Character Items" in our mail! My 50(+3) elec^3 blaster main is never going to use any of the four respecs currently sitting on him.

Thoughts?

The space is there for characters who DO have problems (and need the respec.) So just shortening it globally would be a bad idea, IMHO.

Giving us some way to say "We're ready" (with a random time between *RIGHT NOW* and, say, a minute later) wouldn't hurt, though. Or give us something to do in between, like redesign it slightly so you have to do something to repair the reactor (have it damaging itself, the belts only temporarily shore it up, you have to do XYZ to undo enemy and reactor damage.)

As originally designed, the trial was too hard to complete with characters that needed a respec.

Its been made easier at least twice that I am aware of and the Devs used to sya there was a targeted pass rate that they tweaked it too. I can't help wonder if the pass rate is too high these days.

May it is too easy these days, but every so often I'll run it on a PuG that really struggles with clearing the waves given the time span now.

Same is redside, a team that knows what they are doing has no issues with the vines, but a poorly organised PuG can really struggle.

All SG/coalition groups have no issues.

Chances are, this won't happen. Enough people complained years ago that it was too much, too many, too fast, too everythin' and so it got the nerfbat.

G'luck with the windmill, though.


Edit: Or what Catwhoorg said.

Well, Catwhoorg, maybe something needs to change if hardly anyone wants to run or participate in one and they cite either the tedium or the long wait between waves as a reason. If your build is so messed up that you can't complete a respec trial, then you need to do one of two things: re-roll if the character is below level 10, or use your second build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cobalt Azurean G'luck with the windmill, though.

Thanks for the constructive input!

There are two current problems with the TV respec trial that make it a) Too easy and b) Too long.

1) A lot of the mobs in the reactor spawn at -2 to the players, this wasn't such an issue pre-supersidekicking but now everyone is the same level so it's much more noticeable.

2) The gaps between the waves are *far* too long, irrespective of how much you're trying to account for crappy teams. 5 minutes from the start of one wave to the start of the next is just silly. An average team (Last I ran was 2 vets and 3 newbies) can clear each wave in under 30 seconds.

The simplest solution is just to make the waves spawn X seconds after the last mob of the previous wave is defeated, that way weak teams don't get overrun and everyone else doesn't fall asleep between waves.

Here's another suggestion for you, to stop it being "too easy"; scale the subsequent waves to the speed at which the previous ones were defeated. So if it takes 5 minutes to kill the first wave, then go easy on them for the second one, if it takes 5 seconds, spawn groups of bosses at every door instead.

Since they've added it, I've been an advocate of adding the same functionality as the iTrials/TuT. As soon as each wave spawns or maybe as soon the group is defeated, it should pop up with a window that has a "Vote to Spawn next wave" button. If everyone votes to spawn, then the next wave spawns. The voting would be anonymous as it is with league events. I think this would be the best solution to this.

what i like doing in the reactor room during the downtime is tping underneath the reactor lol

Respecs? roflol

NEVER did I respec any characters. Ever. I read what the powers are/do/do to you, and then select/slot accordingly.

And, since I never use them, earned or freebies either, I've got something all of my originally 'given' respecs, and a ton of tailor tokens too. So there's that. I think Holiday Kitten might be the biggest user of my tailor tokens...

On the trial, sure, I've done it. I like it just fine as it is, and as been said, if you're that bad/inexperienced at making a character, then you're gonna need it to be a little lighter to get through it so you can respec.

The Devs already know about the ridiculous amount of wait time in the trial. The thing is (especially now that coh is f2p) it's not going to change because the opinion of average player skill is such a controversial subject.

You're right that the the trial is tedious and boring. Personally, I'd prefer to have just one big wave of sky raiders, followed by an AV. If people fail, tough luck. Maybe next time, they'll think twice before claiming that builds don't matter and teamwork and tactics are the panacea to every challenge.

I for this.

Or allow the players to choose how fast or slow they need it to be. I get the idea behind it. The point your doing the Trial is for the respec and your respecing because your build probably sucks. So you might need more time. But if its just one player doing the respec and 7 others IOed and Incarnated out toons going along for the ride it can be teeth pulling and mind numbing painful.

Give them the ability to speed things up by throwing a switch in the first room or something. Each switch pulled decreases the time.