Thoughts on Trials after i12.5 - Mob Rule

Originally Posted by Snow Globe

Not naming names, but one of the developers responsible of the later trials IS a long time player that DOES min-max his builds. Additionally a lot of players in the Issue 20 Closed Beta also fall into the category of being "min-maxers". Guess what? A large portion of this game's players aren't min-maxers, and to treat them as such is a good way to alienate those players.

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus

Some examples of T4 Inspirations:

• Sight Beyond Sight:+75% ToHit, +Perception
• Furious Rage: +100% Damage
• Amazing Luck: +50% Defense to all attacks (except typeless)
• Liberate: Resist Effects
  Frees you from many sleep, hold, immobilization, disorient, fear, confuse, and knockback effects and boosts your resistance to repel, taunt and placate effects for 90 seconds. This Inspiration can be used even while under such effects.
  -40 Magnitude protection against Hold, Sleep, Stun, Immobilize, Fear, and Confuse; -20 Magnitude protection against Knockback and Knockup; 100% resistance to Repel; 75% resistance to Taunt and Placate

Originally Posted by Snow Globe

I think I had to finally get Shivans in addition to the above to actually succeed with that character. The next step for that character would have been getting the Warburg Rockets.

Originally Posted by Snow Globe

The developers of the Incarnate Trials are arch-typical Killer GMs.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

From my experience, the arc is tough but doable for melee folk.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Secondly, if most people liked Trials, then there wouldn't be a reason for the development team to worry about introducing a solo path of Incarnate progression. Surely with so many people enjoying Trials, they'd just continue to run Trials and the critical mass would be maintained. Yet the development team have expressed concerns that enabling solo progress might kill raid-goer numbers, and thus the solo path would have to be significantly less rewarding. There has to be something to it.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

The whole point of having an end game was to extend the game beyond the confines of standard difficulty. If it wasn't significantly more difficult, it would be pointless because it wouldn't be something beyond the standard game.

Originally Posted by Wing_Leader

Part of the problem, I think, is that the trials make you win only on its terms. So, the first part of the so-called challenge is figuring out what those terms are. Then the second part is arriving at a plan that, when executed more or less perfectly, manages to navigate the narrow path of success provided by all the constraints placed on the situation by the trial's gimmicks. It's not like there is a whole lot of room for thinking "outside the box" because the box itself is impenetrable from within.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

I wouldn't go quite that far. I think it is true that the devs own statements demonstrate conclusively that they believe their job as end game designers is to pit themselves against the playerbase, but I think it is less that they are deliberately attempting to annihilate weaker players and more attempting to be a credible threat to the stronger ones. Unfortunately, those two are entangled objectives.

Originally Posted by AmazingMOO

Thoughts on Trials after i12.5 - Mob Rule

Since the announcement that Dark Astoria was going to be revamped as an Incarnate Content zone, I've found myself a bit more willing to do trials. The fact that my characters will not be 'Stuck' in a 'nothing but Trials' routine has been a warming change.

However, there are still some serious problems with the whole Trial scene. While the two new trials, TPN Campus and Minds of Mayhem have added new dynamics to the Trial equation, they haven't necessarily made everything better. They both have some serious problems of their own.

Positron has mentioned a worry that if the solo and single-group Incarnate content is more rewarding than the trial content, then the trials will wither and dry up. To me, this indicates a pretty serious problem. I've mentioned before that the trials are not very much fun. If the single-group and solo Incarnate content is fun at all, and it certainly has the potential to be, I think it's going to serve as a pretty rude wakeup call. I think that people are going to angle for the non-trial content because it won't be as painful as the trial content. The trial content will wither and dry up even if it is more rewarding simply because folks don't like them.

So why isn't the trial content very much fun?

The devs have stated that they want the trial content to be fun and accessible. The problem lays pretty squarely on the last bit. The content is NOT very accessible and is therefore not much fun. This happens for a few different reasons.

The first reason is the league mechanics. Despite assurances that it would be fixed, the 'Team-up-Teleporter' still seems to be reporting very skewed times. There was also no 'official' patch note that it was fixed. While this is broken, most people seem completely unwilling to use it. They have to volunteer to stay away from instances of any kind - the vast majority of the game's content - for an undetermined amount of time.


My suggestions to fix this are to first, exclude any players from leagues that enter the queue more than 60% 'full' from the average. A lot of leagues will announce that they're launching in a Global Channel and if players want in, they should queue. When players queue and get in 30 seconds later because they KNOW a trial is rolling, the average is reduced significantly. Likewise, drop the lowest queue times to help smooth the statistics. Last, the average should be of a 90 minute window. Lots of servers have slightly different peak times. If the average measures queue times since the last server reset, there will be long stretches of 'non-peak' times when the average is very low compared to reality, even if it were working perfectly.


Another reason is league leadership. I heard a player tonight on Victory announce that they had a team built in Pocket D for a trial, but needed someone who could lead it. That says to me that there is willing, but no confidence. The person who was confident enough to build the team did not feel that he could lead it. This is a problem. There are parts on all the trials where a lack of leadership will doom the trial to failure: the escaping prisoner phase during Behavior Adjustment Facility, the maze hunt during Lambda, ALL of Keyes, the Lichen-Infested Warwalker fight during the Ungerground, ALL of TPN, and the Mother Malaise fight during Minds of Mayhem. It's not enough that players are familiar with how to accomplish the goals. They need, at the very least, someone to make sure that the sub-goals are being accomplished in the right order, that anyone making mistakes is corrected, and that if someone is griefing, they are booted from the league.

The 'Vote to Kick' feature isn't exactly well-documented or very accessible.

BAF and Lambda have been around long enough that people will step up to provide leadership during bits they understand. Even then, it's still very possible to fail. MoM is MAYBE doable without the leadership since the goals are straightforward. Keyes, UGT, and TPN are simply not doable without a strong leader. That's not accessibility. If these trials are going to be 'fun' and 'accessible', then the goals are going to have to be SIGNIFICANTLY simplified. Even with the changes to make Keyes less punitive, there are still LOTS of folks who don't understand the goals after several runs.

That's bad design.

The alternative to simplifying the trials is to make them single-team content. You can expect a single team to be lead through complex challenges by a willing private. An army of 18-24 players needs a general.


Developers, let me challenge you here: We know that the trials scale and that the limits are arbitrary. Build test versions of Keyes, UGT, and TPN that will allow you to go through with 6-8 players. Go through them with teams of 6-8 and see how different YOU think they are in terms of fun.


My thoughts on Keyes:

All three reactors need to have the mechanisms for unlocking terminals be exactly the same. My suggestion is to remove the bit where you have to lead Anti-Matter to them and instead make it so you have to clear the Warworks away from them. Make Anti-Matter more aggressive to compensate for him not being at the reactors. If you want the terminals on the 2nd reactor to stay accessible, don't have the Warworks spawn on top of them until Anti-Matter arrives.


My thoughts on UGT:

This is a fun two trials. It NEEDS the extra rewards. However, the mechanism to use the Lichen temps on the Infested Warwalker is confusing. Make these work MORE like the Pacification Grenades in Lambda. We need screen popups that say something like 'Lichen Infested Warwalker is Regenerating. Use Lichens!' Ditch the glowing NPC lichens that help with his regeneration or make them destroyable like the crystals in the trap room. Most Leagues spend a lot of time trying to position the Infested Warwalker away from them. The fact that they CAN and that it seems to be NECESSARY to win the battle is, again, BAD DESIGN.

Additionally, there's a pretty serious problem in that all the Giant Warwalkers tend to get stuck in the walls causing the trials to fail because no one can hit them. This needs to be fixed.


My thoughts on TPN:

The 'Approval' feature on this trial is confusing. It doesn't make a lot of sense unless someone explains it to you and there's nothing that says, 'If you lose all approval, you fail.' Either eliminate it and go for a straight 'You need to activate X number of terminals' metric or spend some time explaining it IN the trial. A cutscene where H.D. explains it at the very beginning of the trial would be a good idea.

The 'Chase Maelstrom Away/Defeat the Telepaths' phase is the funnest part of this trial, but the mechanics for converting the Citizens are confusing. Leave the citizens BLUE until they're converted. Rather than have rioter defeats reduce the Approval Rating, add a badge in for not defeating any of them.

I'm personally really surprised that players are reporting that there don't seem to be any significant changes to this trial since it was in beta, despite the long delay. Why did you bother delaying this if you thought it was ready? Why release it if it wasn't ready after you delayed it once?

The rare recipe on this trial is really dumb. The fact that the Empyrean unlock is for one character only rather than account wide is also really dumb.


My thoughts on MoM:

The whole trial is pretty fun. The 'Create a void to fight Penny Mayhem' is the weakest part. The NPCs are hard to see and this mechanic is confusing. I suggest making the NPCs much more visible and to have the void NPCs be untargetable.

It's also confusing to try to figure out which room you're in when trying to keep Shalice from hurting Aurora. I thought I was simply lagging badly the first time I went to buff her and that the multiple clones of Mother were lag artifacts. There needs to be some HIGHLY VISIBLE graphics to differentiate the reflections, Shalice clones, and Aurora. I suggest very bright auras on the Shalice clones and the reflections. The two rooms could also be two different colors. A switch from red to green highlights would be adequate.

I would also do more explaining on the fight with Mother Malaise. The fact that the monsters can help slow and root Shalice is not readily apparent. Give us a popup like 'Defeat Monsters next to Shalice!'.


The fact that any of these trials is failable due to players simply not understanding what's happening is BAD DESIGN. It CAN be fixed, but the developers need to make some hard decisions either way. Either simplify the goals so a mob can understand them, or cut that mob down until it's a single group. I think you're going to have to do one or the other, or they will indeed wither and dry up the second there's an alternative.

Originally Posted by DreadShinobi

My only issue with MoM is how easily one person can grief the entire trials chance for success by simply using knockback abilities. I'd arguably say its worse than the way targetted/lethal force works in UGT. The Storm Voids in stage two and the GMs in stage four need to be immune to knockback (and repel). If a GM gets knocked away right before it dies in stage four it can mean entire failure of the trial, and its far too easy for one person to do this, knowingly, unknowingly, or accidently. Otherwise the trial is fine.

Originally Posted by DreadShinobi

Vote Kick is (AFAIK) still bugged and should be disabled until it is working properly.

Keyes does not need to be nerfed more, it is already disgustingly easy.

My only issue with MoM is how easily one person can grief the entire trials chance for success by simply using knockback abilities. I'd arguably say its worse than the way targetted/lethal force works in UGT. The Storm Voids in stage two and the GMs in stage four need to be immune to knockback (and repel). If a GM gets knocked away right before it dies in stage four it can mean entire failure of the trial, and its far too easy for one person to do this, knowingly, unknowingly, or accidently. Otherwise the trial is fine.

TPN is fine as it is. The only thing that I really have an issue with on TPN is it's midtrial reward of 60 bonus threads. TPN is too short and the success rate is too high to deserve the same bonus that UGT has. UGT /needed/ the midtrial 60 threads and guaranteed rare/vr. TPN doesnt.

All the trials can be done with the minimum number of people, which means 8-12 people, not far off from normal team size for endgame TFs which typically require 8 people. Some trials can be done with less than the minimum if you really want to and have some people willing to fill.

Whether you get a strong leader or not is kind of a toss up, if you don't feel other people lead them as well as you could, lead them yourself. But I don't agree with nerfing the trials to compensate for bad leadership or bad players that can't make decisions for themselves to stay effective during a trial when leadership is slacking. There are plenty of resources to find out what to do at whatever point during a trial. If you are doing a complete PuG then you can't really complain if things aren't perfect... its a PuG.

Originally Posted by ketch

It's already annoying that they've removed the ability to knockback the Telepathist in the TPN.

Originally Posted by Wing_Leader

I have only solo'ed this arc twice. Once with a scrapper and once with a brute. The first time I tried it, my DM/SR scrapper couldn't take down Trapdoor, and that was because I didn't know anything about the clones. I didn't see any clones anywhere, so how was I supposed to know they would be a factor? I tried again after reading a bit on the forums, learning of the clones (still have never seen one), and just took Trapdoor down before he could bifuricate; at least that's what I'm assuming I did because I was able to take him down. The same thing happened with my StJ/WP brute. Just took him down before he became unkillable.

Originally Posted by Void_Huntress

Every time I see this, it's vaguely disappointing to me. The Trapdoor fight plasters on the screen in big red letters, TRAPDOOR BIFURCATES AND BEGINS TO REGENERATE.

Even if you're not sure what that means, you should know that Something Has Happened.

Originally Posted by Wing_Leader

That notice is useless if it doesn't result in a visible effect that (a) I can discern the cause/source of, and (b) come up with a solution for. Maybe my game client was borked somehow, but I saw nothing else to attack, debuff, taunt, or otherwise attend to other than Trapdoor himself. I saw no visual indication that he had changed or was doing anything other than fighting as he was doing before. In short, I had no other usable indicators telling me what needed to be addressed, or that I needed to be doing anything other than simply continuing to pound on him, which was of course futile. When I saw I couldn't put a chip in his hit points, I looked around for another target to take out, a glowie to destroy, anything. I saw nothing in the room with me. Nothing. Consequently, when I went back to deal with him again after that, the only tactic at my disposal was to try even harder to take him down before that mysterious notice came up and I was again faced with an unkillable enemy.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Here's a riddle. A man has two girlfriends, one that lives in town A, and the other that lives in town B. He goes to the train station every weekend and catches the next train that is heading for either town. Even though he arrives at the train station at random times each weekend, and trains leave for town A and town B every twenty minutes, he finds he is seeing one girlfriend ten times more often than the other. If he does in fact arrive at the train station at genuinely random times, how is it possible he isn't going to each town about fifty percent of the time?

Originally Posted by Snow Globe

The distinction between the two at this point is imperceptible to the point of being meaningless.

Originally Posted by Shagster

Train B on average leaves about 1 minute and 49 seconds after Train A throughout the daily schedule?

(i.e. there's a narrower window of "time after Train A but before Train B" than there is of "after Train B but before Train A")

Which I assume leads to the metaphor that the Train to Solotown is always departing, while the train to Leagueville often leaves you waiting at the station a while.

Originally Posted by Wing_Leader

Well, I think there are many ways to approach the idea of "more difficult"; essentially we are talking about the very heart of game design itself. The devs have taken one particular approach, one consistent with the approach taken by devs of other MMOs, and it is proving to be fun for some and highly frustrating and unappealing by others. Where that split falls for COH players overall I don't know, but that seems besides the point to me. A better goal, I think, is to find a design that appeals to everyone.

Part of the problem, I think, is that the trials make you win only on its terms. So, the first part of the so-called challenge is figuring out what those terms are. Then the second part is arriving at a plan that, when executed more or less perfectly, manages to navigate the narrow path of success provided by all the constraints placed on the situation by the trial's gimmicks. It's not like there is a whole lot of room for thinking "outside the box" because the box itself is impenetrable from within.

You can't, for instance, prevent the Avatar of Hamidon from firing off its Confusion; you can only hope to protect yourself against it. You can't turn Mother Mayhem's Suffer In Silence against her. There's only one way to shut down each Keyes reactor, meaning there is no room for different approaches to solving that problem (in essence, shutting down the reactors isn't an obstacle to be dealt with, it is a fixed objective you are required to complete, and in a particular order, no matter what else your brilliant strategic mind may come up with). There are simply too few vectors for solutions--in fact there is usually only one.

The huge advantage that tabletop RPGs have in this regard is that the adaptability of the human GM means that there are potentially infinite solution vectors available. But rather than think of ways to make objectives have multiple approaches, and have more things be obstacles rather than requirements, these trials will always feel gimmicky and one-dimensional. We aren't really encouraged, or even allowed to do any creative problem solving, we are merely required to figure out the tricks to the solution and, like a computer program, simply execute each trick in sequence like so many CPU instructions.