Entrance Requirements for iTrials
I've successfully thrown him at just about everything else in the game, but he still gets eaten alive by the Underground AVs and their effects... It's just painful to try to play him through that mess. So, your "paper brute" isn't alone.
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Dodge, Dip, Duck, Dive, and...Dodge
Right, and BAF is the most popular Incarnate trial the devs nerfed to encourage players to try the other trials... And look, how well that worked! Never mind that the lone wolf players are pulling the AVs to one spot because its more convenient for them (and on a tennis court of all things! How bloody anticlimactic for the site of a final battle). And then we are back to Ye Olde Follow the Leader Taking Down Hami dilemma we experienced years ago - and that got nerfed too...
Come on and wise up. There is a group of select players that LOVE being the rare few able to maneuver through these overcomplicated game mechanics and dont care how many lesser players follow in their wake taking out the scraps and leftovers. That isnt fun gameplay everyone can enjoy; its LAME... Much as I love a good challenge, I also love community gameplay. Chasing after the few lone wolves leading the charge in these Incarnate trials is not worthy of lvl 50+ content. Sorry. |
The biggest problem with splitting the league up and having small strike teams is that each one then becomes more reliant on the individuals. And contrary to your claims, those are less fun, because one or two poor performers can ruin it for the entire league. That's why UG gets played so much less often than BAF, Lam, and Keyes. Those three work well because you don't need top performers in every slot.
Coordination and making sure people know their role is really freaking difficult, especially if the intent is to make trials that are accessible to PUGs. If everyone involved is performing at the top of their game, then sure you can pull off amazing stuff. But you can't expect that.
I'm hopeful that the solo/team Incarnate stuff coming in I22 will give us more chances to feel like individual badasses, but I can't see it working for league trials without abandoning design and accessibility goals.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
Just because you can't emulate it completely is no reason to make a hard left and floor it out of the general neighborhood at top speed.
Being on a trial not only imperfectly emulates the feel of a superhero, it goes more for the feel of 1984. The cutscene at the beginning should be in faux black-and-white, and a should have someone in a military suit match back in forth in front of the league forcing us to repeat over and over "As an individual, I am unimportant. My significance is nothing in the face of the collective." She could even have the Frau Farbissina accent and be swinging her riding crop while we repeated the deprotagonization mantra. |
Yes one could argue that the typical raid/trial paradigm of most MMOs don't really live up to the "look and feel" of what they're trying to deliver. I'm simply making the case that until computer technology advances I really don't think MMOs are going to be able to deliver much that's any better. This is not a specific failing of this particular game - this is a general problem of all current MMOs.
P.S. It might be fascinating if there was in fact a MMO based on Orwell's 1984. Not exactly sure how you could make a completely playable game based off of that, but you might be able to adapt it into some kind of generalized futuristic dystopian thing.
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
Yes people like you and Rubberlad are suggesting that there's a problem here but you aren't really providing much more of a solution other than saying "the Devs should make this game more like a comic book". How do you do that exactly?
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On a 4 person team, i can be completely convinced that the group would fail without me - and I can also know that the other 3 people feel the same (ie that they are the important one). It's a good bet that none of us are correct, but it's the feeling that's important more than the reality.
On a 20 man team, nothing will produce that same feeling, because I can see that my actions are having no noticeable effect.
One of those is a good design for a game about superheros and the other isn't.
Don't throw 30 people into a bucket and expect them all to feel important?
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Offer an alternative that could actually work effectively in a MMO setting.
I'm all ears here...
EDIT: You added to your post after I posted this. So you want a bunch of small team content? What if I think epic "comic book" battles are better represented by massive 24 member leagues all working on a single trial?
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
On a 4 person team, i can be completely convinced that the group would fail without me - and I can also know that the other 3 people feel the same (ie that they are the important one). It's a good bet that none of us are correct, but it's the feeling that's important more than the reality.
On a 20 man team, nothing will produce that same feeling, because I can see that my actions are having no noticeable effect. |
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
Again that's something that you want stopped.
Offer an alternative that could actually work effectively in a MMO setting. I'm all ears here... EDIT: You added to your post after I posted this. So you want a bunch of small team content? What if I think epic "comic book" battles are better represented by massive 24 member leagues all working on a single trial? |
I have certainly seen comics where large groups of heroes fight. If the battles are important, you get smaller groups accomplishing one aspect while the rest do something else. That is much better modeled by a group version of the clone arc - where you are playing a small, but necessary part, but are kept informed of the part your clone is playing.
I have also seen a bunch of heroes gang up on Galactus, but the only time that is ever successful is in Marvel Zombies. Even then, it follows the more common plot of "heros fight big bad, heroes lose, smaller group of specialized heroes do something important that changes the battle significantly." Again, this is something better handled by the normal team based content.
The idea of supers throwing enough bodies at a problem to make it go away is something I have never seen in a comic or anywhere else, because it's ****** storytelling.
You'd be wrong.
I have certainly seen comics where large groups of heroes fight. If the battles are important, you get smaller groups accomplishing one aspect while the rest do something else. That is much better modeled by a group version of the clone arc - where you are playing a small, but necessary part, but are kept informed of the part your clone is playing. I have also seen a bunch of heroes gang up on Galactus, but the only time that is ever successful is in Marvel Zombies. Even then, it follows the more common plot of "heros fight big bad, heroes lose, smaller group of specialized heroes do something important that changes the battle significantly." Again, this is something better handled by the normal team based content. The idea of supers throwing enough bodies at a problem to make it go away is something I have never seen in a comic or anywhere else, because it's ****** storytelling. |
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
Regardless as I've said this game already provides for a wide range of playstyles all the way from solo content up to huge leagues. Just because you don't like a certain subset of what the game provides doesn't make that subset wrong in the least. It's like saying a particular color in the color spectrum is "wrong" and the rest are "right". *shrugs*
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
I have no idea what you're actually trying to say here. Are you saying it's only the league leaders who like pulling the AVs together and that the rest of the league would prefer to fight the AVs separately?
The biggest problem with splitting the league up and having small strike teams is that each one then becomes more reliant on the individuals. And contrary to your claims, those are less fun, because one or two poor performers can ruin it for the entire league. That's why UG gets played so much less often than BAF, Lam, and Keyes. Those three work well because you don't need top performers in every slot. Coordination and making sure people know their role is really freaking difficult, especially if the intent is to make trials that are accessible to PUGs. If everyone involved is performing at the top of their game, then sure you can pull off amazing stuff. But you can't expect that. I'm hopeful that the solo/team Incarnate stuff coming in I22 will give us more chances to feel like individual badasses, but I can't see it working for league trials without abandoning design and accessibility goals. |
As Zwill already said, there are no hard requirements for participating in an Incarnate trial other than being 50 . At the same point, he acknowledges that there's an implied learning curve that every participant needs to grasp/ understand... that's a catch-22 that's always going to mess everyone up.
In no uncertain terms, not everyone is lining up to play an Incarnate trial just to LEARN how to play a CoH trial all over again after achieving level 50 (and after 50 levels of gameplay, folks should already know what they need to know to participate and enjoy an Incarnate trial - shouldn't they?!). Now if there's a *new* learning curve required to successfully enjoy the gameplay at the Incarnate trial level (as if the Incarnate trials were some kind of CoH Graduate School program), then that's a flaw in the overall design.
Again, perfect example: the "meteorite" mechanics in the new Galaxy City tutorial which you never see/encounter again until you hit level 46+ and run an introductory Incarnate trial like Apex or Tin Man (which suggests these initial Incarnate trials are really the tutorial level for Incarnates). Why would anyone be upset that folks aren't re-learning the game at level 50 when they're encountering game mechanics they've never experienced before (aside from that rare glimpse in the Galaxy City tutorial)?
Hell the lvl 1 -50 game practically CONDITIONS folks to constantly rove blindly through the content in packs of 8 or less and feel personally involved with saving/vandalizing the city, but then you hit lvl 50+ where suddenly anyone participating in an Incarnate trial has no choice but to keep their head down, obey instructions, and follow the leader around a giant city map just to take down an AV on a ******* tennis court ---and you think that's MORE fun?!
The game designers can't have it both ways -either you encourage players to be more individually involved/active in community-friendly content or you don't. And because the Incarnate trials DON'T encourage individual participation as you so astutely point out -a level of participation that's been set up and ingrained in the average player's mind for 50 levels prior -folks are begging for solo Incarnate content to make them feel heroic again. And I guarantee you that when Issue 22 starts rolling out solo Incarnate content, you will see most (if not all) of the player base avoid the current Incarnate trials like the plague.
Bottom line: for some players, it's more fun to roll a new toon than it is to take their established lvl 50 toon and run it through an 50+ only Incarnate trial where people yell at you for not being high enough level to participate, not knowing their support function in the course of the lone wolf leaders steamrolling the content, and for not following orders when given. Only don't hate the game for steering the player wrong, hate the player for not recognizing that the game itself has changed...
Whatever.
You'd be wrong.
I have certainly seen comics where large groups of heroes fight. If the battles are important, you get smaller groups accomplishing one aspect while the rest do something else. |
Its a war. Steel Canyon and Skyway are getting wrecked, the large groups of heroes are on the homefront repelling the assault where they can. The smaller, specialized groups (incarnates) are making calculated strikes on the Praetorians to help turn the tide.
Whether or not the game does a decent job at conveying that (or if that's what is supposed to be going on at all) is something else.
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
Underground, MoM, and TPN are all pretty hardcore. And sometimes hard to succeed even WITH a bunch of +1s, +2s, or +3s. Keyes used to be The Big Bad of the trials, but has gotten a lot easier.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Shadow_Mokadara
Considering there is a timed defeat badge in TPN and Mayhem trials, they probably wanted to ensure they got those badges by recruiting the best they can.
An apt sentiment. I think I'd better walk before the subject turns to lone wolves stealing the masses' precious bodily fluids.
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Look, all I'm offering is one perspective on the Incarnate trials problem. The OP, you, Eva and others are offering different perspectives of the same shared problem. And ultimately all these perspectives are valid regardless of who is right or wrong because thats just how people feel.
Meanwhile the Incarnate trials are still very rigid content, with self-serving opportunities readily available for some VIPs but not others to enjoy; and the Devs are scratching their heads wondering why anyone would even want solo-friendly Incarnate content. Its because not everyone wants to compete in a hostile league environment where only "the best" are welcome. And who wants to pay to maintain VIP status just to be shunned, insulted and humiliated to the point they dare not take part in the Incarnate trials at all?
No, for some folks, the fun in playing CoH - and the Incarnate trials - is being allowed to enjoy the overall content freely as they always have via lvls 1-50 rather than compulsively obsessing about the mutually exclusive lvl 50+ endgame rewards. I dont think thats a bad thing. Do you?
Meanwhile the Incarnate trials are still very rigid content, with self-serving opportunities readily available for some VIPs but not others to enjoy; and the Devs are scratching their heads wondering why anyone would even want solo-friendly Incarnate content. Its because not everyone wants to compete in a hostile league environment where only "the best" are welcome. And who wants to pay to maintain VIP status just to be shunned, insulted and humiliated to the point they dare not take part in the Incarnate trials at all?
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No, for some folks, the fun in playing CoH - and the Incarnate trials - is being allowed to enjoy the overall content freely as they always have via lvls 1-50 rather than compulsively obsessing about the mutually exclusive lvl 50+ endgame rewards. I dont think thats a bad thing. Do you? |
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
Tex: One time the LFG tool made me the league leader of a Lambda, and, unable to figure out how to move players from team to team, I just hit the Quit League button to escape. I also got tagged as Desdemona's escort one time, and though I toughed it out til the end, I spent the whole trial worried I would mess up and have 23 angry players screaming at me. I am grateful for the players who step up to the plate to perform these roles. I think a lot of players are very uncomfortable filling them. |
The screaming-at, name-calling and insults including a heaping helping of four-letter words heaped on this person for their mistake were bad to the point where I haven't really sought out an UG trial since. I'm sure I will one day, but my eagerness is gone. I loved UG. These trials create an incredible amount of pressure on both participants AND leaders.
For that reason I don't think I'll remain on any badge-specific leagues in the future, if I do I will hang back until the objective is completed. I have even seen anger on the DfB trial if badges are lost, like people don't run that 5 times in a row anyways! Master-of runs? No thanks; Im not going to be the one dog-cussed in league chat, tyvm.
I rarely lead trials, but every now and then I did. The behavior I've seen lately makes this a risky proposition.
Last night I watched a BAF form, with a league leader turning down +3 melee toons for reasons unknown. Said leader was walking from toon to toon, looking them over as if it was a costume contest, and then resorting to rewarding the final two spots on the league to whomever could answer somewhat obscure game-based trivia questions. I've never seen a BAF league with such peculiar membership requirements.
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I have to say that I sympathize with Rubberlad quite a bit. I come from a tabletop superhero RPG background and am somewhat spoiled by what is possible in that format. I am fully aware of the limitations of the computer game format, but I think that the MMO as a game platform has become way too calcified in old paradigms. Unfortunately, COH is not the place to seek significantly new game ideas given the age of its design and the inertia of its 7+ year old code base.
Nevertheless, I too wish for a superhero MMO (hell, any kind of MMO for that matter) that feels less like WoW and more like its source material (in our case, a comic book). I can't tell you off the top of my head what that game design would entail, but I like to think that there are some awfully bright minds out there, unencumbered by an existing design, who could rethink much of this.
Of course in the mean time, I will play COH until it bores me (again), since it is still the best MMO I've ever played.
NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
Again that's something that you want stopped.
Offer an alternative that could actually work effectively in a MMO setting. I'm all ears here... EDIT: You added to your post after I posted this. So you want a bunch of small team content? What if I think epic "comic book" battles are better represented by massive 24 member leagues all working on a single trial? |
yeah I don't think that type of of thing is something that folks should point to as epic. I'd actually argue a lot of comic readers are tired of it.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
For what it's worth I'm not against content that works well with a "four-person team" scenario. But there are already plenty of TFs/SFs/arcs in this game that can cater to that. The Devs are also currently working on "Solo Incarnate" content for those people who don't like huge leagues. My guess is that we'll also be able to run that stuff with small teams if you want. *shrugs*
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Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
Again that's something that you want stopped.
Offer an alternative that could actually work effectively in a MMO setting. I'm all ears here... EDIT: You added to your post after I posted this. So you want a bunch of small team content? What if I think epic "comic book" battles are better represented by massive 24 member leagues all working on a single trial? |
I haven't done a MoM or TPN yet so I can't say about those, but probably the hardest thing to scale down to 8 or less would be the "Stop the prisoners" section of the easiest trial, but I am sure that could be done as well.
ps: I hate massive cross-over comics as well. They are never "epic"
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
I'm finding it somewhat funny that you think my -opinion- on this subject is absolutely wrong and your -opinion- is absolutely right.
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Regardless as I've said this game already provides for a wide range of playstyles all the way from solo content up to huge leagues. Just because you don't like a certain subset of what the game provides doesn't make that subset wrong in the least. It's like saying a particular color in the color spectrum is "wrong" and the rest are "right". *shrugs* |
Now, it may be possible to make content that gives a mass battle and at the same time presents the story to each member that they are the protagonist hero, but it's not going to be easy, because comics aren't like that. Stories in general are not like that.
Now allow me to be a jerk about it:
I don't want to carry your mooching ***. I don't expect anyone to carry me, and I don't expect to carry anyone else. BAF, Lambda and Keyes still form frequently. Run those, get yourself a level shift or two, then ask again to join a higher level trial for higher level people. I'm fully behind any leader who insists on level shifts for UG, MoM or TPN, as well as any badge attempts on the easier trials. Now if someone is excluding you from BAF, Lambda or Keyes on account of a lack of level shifts, then it's probably because a) they think they need the level shifts for the trial to succeed, which means their league sucks and has to rely on brute force to win, or b) they think including only level shifted people will make the trial go faster, which it doesn't, because the pickier you are the longer it takes to form the stupid thing. Either way, they're not someone whose league I'd want to be joining. |
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
Come on and wise up. There is a group of select players that LOVE being the rare few able to maneuver through these overcomplicated game mechanics and dont care how many lesser players follow in their wake taking out the scrappt leftovers. That isnt fun; its LAME...
Much as I love a good challenge, I also love community gameplay. Chasing after the few lone wolves in these Incarnate trials is not worthy of lvl 50+ content. Sorry.
When something good happens to me, I can never enjoy it....
I am always too busy looking for the inevitable punchline...
BEHOLD THE POWER OF CHEESE!