Thoughts on Trials after i12.5 - Mob Rule
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2011-12-09 23:00 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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That's coming in I22 |
Originally Posted by Rodion
If you're in a mission there's no reason you couldn't be in the looking for trial state
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
The trial process has issues...
The biggest being the limitations of the system. To make foes harder they have to hit harder or be more durable... The crazy death facing Penelope in MoM trial as case in point.
I have no reasonable recommendations to adjust them, but I look forward to the soloable content.
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I agree they are fun for some people, but to pretend that the reward at the end has nothing to do with people joining four or five an afternoon is perhaps a bit misleading.
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Originally Posted by El__D
A) The trials are fun for a lot of people, myself included. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to form four or five of them on any given afternoon on my server (Protector). Just because you don't enjoy them doesn't mean they aren't fun to play at all.
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If enough people aren't doing the trials because the slow solo rate is still more tolerable than grinding out yet another trial hammering the solo path rate to something that is unacceptable is one of their tools to get people back to the trials, and it's a tool they've already considered using on their popular trials.
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Originally Posted by Bosstone
Since the reward rate for solo/team play has not yet been established, it's impossible for it to be nerfed. Don't assume it's naturally going to progress at the same rate as the trials.
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I tend to agree with most of what you said, expect for the bit about 6-8 man trials. I can understand why people would like this, less lag, less idiots, easier, but if we went that way, it would kill off the leagues. After going to all teh trouble of making te league system, I would think the devs wouldnt be in a hurry to do that.
Also, I suggest maybe MoM be locked behind a system similar to Apex/Tin. Baf and Lam are super easy to jump on after just hitting 50m no alpha slot or incarnate powers at all. UG gives a ton of xp, and you can still help to some degree. But MoM, with 16 players max, and +2 AVs all over..just how much can a lvl 50 really help?
Of course, this creates another lockout system, but the one in the Incarnate TFs didnt cause a big deal.
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They should be able to work out a suitable progress rate for the solo stuff in the I22 beta, so they mightn't need to nerf it once it's live.
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Originally Posted by Ogi
If enough people aren't doing the trials because the slow solo rate is still more tolerable than grinding out yet another trial hammering the solo path rate to something that is unacceptable is one of their tools to get people back to the trials, and it's a tool they've already considered using on their popular trials.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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What is 'unacceptable'? That's subjective and it's different for very person. You can set the bar low enough that a majority of players will find it unacceptable, sure, but there is no actual cutoff beyond which the rate is wrong, except by an individual player's metric. If half the playerbase find the rate of solo Incarnate progress acceptable and half find it unacceptable, who's right?|
Originally Posted by Ogi
If enough people aren't doing the trials because the slow solo rate is still more tolerable than grinding out yet another trial hammering the solo path rate to something that is unacceptable is one of their tools to get people back to the trials, and it's a tool they've already considered using on their popular trials.
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There will of course be people who find that the rate of solo Incarnate progress (whatever it may be) is unacceptable, but do not wish to participate in the trials for faster rewards. If the rate of solo rewards is acceptable for most of the playerbase, then why should that small group be given much if any credibility? There comes a point at which some players are clearly just asking for the rewards to be handed to them.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Any incarnate content that can be run solo will have the immediate advantage that it won't cause you to jump through irritating hurdles before initiation, like that required of you should you wish to PUG a trial. Therefore if you include the time taken to recruit and configure a league into the equation, the rewards for solo would have to be very poor indeed for them not to draw people from the iTrials.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The slower progress and time-gated rewards on the solo path will make it less attractive to any players looking for the fastest way to advance their Incarnate abilities.
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The good news is that solo content might make it easier to PUG due to more people running the solo content while queued.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The Trials are toughest content in the game
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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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actually that's a bit of a misconception. People don't think they need to get a team built pre-queue in order to get in, people try to get a full team going for 'max rewards' to squeeze out as much XP as they can out of the AVs. Every time I've joined a DFB trial the leaders have always tried to fish for a full 8 because of that exact reason.
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Originally Posted by Rodion
Even for trivial trials, such as Death from Below, people still think they need to build a team. That trial is absolutely trivial, and can easily by done by any four characters regardless of AT, yet if I queue by myself it's very hit or miss whether I'll get into one. Most of the time when I queue myself on Freedom (in particular), and the queue dialog pops and says there are 4 or 5 players, 1 or 2 players will decline and the trial will not start. I've completed that trial with just 2 players for the last two parts, so it's not really that hard.
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Agreed. Plus trial and error (if you will pardon the pun) shows that its quicker to broadcast for a team than queue. YMMV.
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Originally Posted by Agent White
actually that's a bit of a misconception. People don't think they need to get a team built pre-queue in order to get in, people try to get a full team going for 'max rewards' to squeeze out as much XP as they can out of the AVs. Every time I've joined a DFB trial the leaders have always tried to fish for a full 8 because of that exact reason.
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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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With the amount of merits we can now get on the Trials, the time-gated rewards on the solo path won't be able to come anywhere near that rate of progress.
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Originally Posted by Jagged
Any incarnate content that can be run solo will have the immediate advantage that it won't cause you to jump through irritating hurdles before initiation, like that required of you should you wish to PUG a trial. Therefore if you include the time taken to recruit and configure a league into the equation, the rewards for solo would have to be very poor indeed for them not to draw people from the iTrials.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Time gated? When did the devs say what the parameters for rewards were going to be for the solo content?
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
With the amount of merits we can now get on the Trials, the time-gated rewards on the solo path won't be able to come anywhere near that rate of progress.
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The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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Most of the end rewards in the game are time-gated, including the Trials - so time-gating will also be used on the solo path, as it's a nice and simple way of making sure the progress is slower than the Trials without needing to add any new currencies.|
Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei
Time gated? When did the devs say what the parameters for rewards were going to be for the solo content?
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Empyrean and Astral merits are time-gated on the Trials, so they'll be time-gated on the solo path too, with either a longer cool-down or less frequent reward points during the content, as the solo stuff isn't as challenging, so the rewards won't be a high or as frequent as the Trials.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
It's telling when the Devs previewed the revamp DA a few weeks ago, alot folks on this fourms were happy and jumping for joy. Then they asked how soon because they want something different from the trials.
No matter how you spin it, you got a good chuck of the playerbase who want the small group/solo path and will flock in droves to it no matter how bad the Devs slow down the reward for.
Once again, the Devs have an issue on hand right now: why are folks more looking forward to DA revamp then the new trials?
I personally find the iTrails fun. I enjoy leading them, I enjoy the challenge they represent. Currently, the trials seem to get run quite regularly. I don't think this will change come Issue 22, the people who like trials and want to get their irewards faster, will still run trials. The 100% against trials group seems to be the minority. People will continue to do what they find fun.
Now if after issue 22 it becomes impossible to find a trial team, I'll admit changes need to be made. We'll see.
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I'm not against the trials but the Devs need to be remind of the goals of the trials were at the beginning and to keep those goals in mind when making new ones.|
Originally Posted by Jake_Summers
I personally find the iTrails fun. I enjoy leading them, I enjoy the challenge they represent. Currently, the trials seem to get run quite regularly. I don't think this will change come Issue 22, the people who like trials and want to get their irewards faster, will still run trials. The 100% against trials group seems to be the minority. People will continue to do what they find fun.
Now if after issue 22 it becomes impossible to find a trial team, I'll admit changes need to be made. We'll see. |
And fact due the fact the copy tool has been down for months and we are now on LIve testing the new trials kinda grates on some of us. Just a little.
Really looking forward to the DA content as small team/solo is always my preference over gigantic league play. My hope is that it features more straightforward gameplay than the 'gmmicks' in each of the iTrials currently.
As for the iTrials, I am not really a fan of the unavoidable damage patches being constantly used and the information overload that happens with constant red text spamming the screen that is too big to even read and/or covered by my power trays.
But alas, at least we didn't get a new currency, so I can run the few iTrials I find more fun than the others until the small team option is available.
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I'm pretty much nearing the point where I'm done with the Incarnate system until I22. Standing around for 20 minutes waiting for ANYTHING to form in Pocket D or Virtue is tiresomely retarded.|
Originally Posted by Necrotron_RO
Really looking forward to the DA content as small team/solo is always my preference over gigantic league play. My hope is that it features more straightforward gameplay than the 'gmmicks' in each of the iTrials currently.
As for the iTrials, I am not really a fan of the unavoidable damage patches being constantly used and the information overload that happens with constant red text spamming the screen that is too big to even read and/or covered by my power trays. But alas, at least we didn't get a new currency, so I can run the few iTrials I find more fun than the others until the small team option is available. |
Can't wait for small teams or solo content to arrive.
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Originally Posted by El__D
B) The trials are not 'anti-melee' or 'anti-ranged' or 'anti-' much of anything for that matter. Some trials are harder for some ATs opposed to others yes, but no one AT has been singled out with any of the gameplay aspects put into the trials (Stalkers getting a special entrance in the Keyes bunkers aside). The big damage pulses and patches?
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My ranged characters can jump/run away and continue to attack and use buffs/debuffs.
My melee characters can jump/run away but if they do they have to stand there and do nothing while the patch is under the AV.
I've been on 4 (successful) MoM trials, where my Scrapper spends the 1st stage malaise fight just standing there watching it happen.
> Countdown to patches
> Patches appear
> Jump away and avoid patches, wait for them to disappear
> Patches disappear, engage AV, 5s on countdown until next wave of patches.
I'm sorry but that's anti-melee. 7-10ft is their primary functional range.
The patches present a situation where their mitigation is largely irrelevant, and their damage is almost completely neutered.
It's the direct opposite of fun.
It started in Apex, got worse in Keyes and has reached a new zenith in MoM.
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I've been there for quite some time. I hate that the LFG system isn't as useful for passive teaming as it should be due to the incessant standing-around-forming-teams nonsense. For awhile DFB was convenient for passive teaming, but now even that seems to be plagued by people standing around forming teams to the point where I was queued up this evening on Virtue (while street sweeping) for an hour or so with no joy. And the two times an event tried to start up, the fourth person didn't join and the event failed. Lock that guy out of the queue for an hour.|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
I'm pretty much nearing the point where I'm done with the Incarnate system until I22. Standing around for 20 minutes waiting for ANYTHING to form in Pocket D or Virtue is tiresomely retarded.
Can't wait for small teams or solo content to arrive. |
Hrm, that ended up being more of a rant than I intended.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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Level shifts are critical for the success the trials, as that directly relates to DPS required to defeat all these time based challenges.|
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
It is also funny that they are level shifting AVs to Level 54+1 and Level 54+2, then expect players without level shifts to be able to do the trials with heavy-handed time constraints.
Purple Patch anyone? |
While a league can get by often with several people not having any level shifts, their damage is much, much less than level shifted characters.
It's weird, with SSK, we had gotten away from the disparity between team contribution with everyone either being +0 or -1 on the the team, but the level shifts in the iTrials brings back the teaming dynamic where barring certain powerset selections and buff/debuffs, +3s do the majority of the damage on trials, while +0s contribute significantly less, not by any fault of the player, but simply by the way the difference in levels calculates damage. Yet everyone gets the same rewards. I don't really like it, as it creates a significant disparity again in contribution. Having all team members being nearly equal was the greatest change SSK brought, and now we have moved away from it again.
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Right now, I actually have trial fatigue. I've run MoM and TPN a few times each, and really have no desire to repeat the experience - especially on a melee character. UG is too easy to fail at the regenning WW. Profitable till then, then *ROADBLOCK!* | OP: 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. |
I don't find these new mechanics fun, and I hate debt-farming. Those of you in love with these punishing developments, have at it.
My issue is that levels 1-50 hold your hand and basically give you levels. iTrials, by comparison, are sorta difficult. So after the game has finished carrying Little Timmy through 50 levels, he has learned that all he has to do is mash buttons until happy fanfare plays. Then he goes into an iTrial and mashes buttons. When the League leader tells Little Timmy to stop mashing buttons and click his temps of the War Walker, Little Timmy is puzzled and responds by mashing buttons. When the League leader spends 15 minutes explaining to Little Timmy that using his Ion Judgement while confused will, in fact, kill the raid, and all he need do is keep himself Break-Free'd the whole fight, Little Timmy responds by mashing buttons (and murdering the raid).
Paragon, if you didn't baby-coddle your players for 50 levels, maybe I wouldn't have so many braindead toddlers on my Leagues. Either dumb-down the iTrials to be as EZ-Mode as the rest of the game, or implement some way to make it more exclusive to people who know how to do more than mash buttons. Let Little Timmy play in his sandbox instead of letting him wander aimlessly into the demolition derby.
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No real issues for me. Still find all the trials fun to a point.
TPN is 'meh' to me but it's not boring/etc...
I feel sorry that people have bad experiences with the trials because of bad leadership (or no leaders at all).
Most trials will always be harder when they first release; if the leaders don't communicate what to do and when/etc....then yes I can understand why you may not like 'em.
I don't understand the "AT bias" argument. The AV(s) can be pulled away from the pink (or blue in the Apex TF) patches by taunting it....ta-da!
If the pink patches only spawned 'on top of' the AV then I can see the anti-melee bias but the patches spawn everywhere and not just in melee range.
The one and only thing that I wouldn't mind (and would be an advocate for) is for some NPC that you can go to that explains everything. From TFs/SFs to the iTrials.
And not just text explanations (well for TFs/SFs maybe since those are pretty straightforward) but a video drive-by of what to expect in an iTrial. I never really understood why MMOs don't have something like that in their games.
"You want to know what to do in this iTrial?" Oh, go look online...o_O That "breaks immersion" and usually the information isn't even on the company's website...it's on a fansite (but in our case it's on the forums here or possibly paragonwiki).
If there was an NPC that showed some video clips/documentation on what to do/what to expect and what it looks like I think there wouldn't be as much of a need for a "great leader."
You'd then possibly have the opposite effect, "I know what to do, follow me!" "NO! Follow me, I know what to do!"
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I somewhat agree with AkuTenshiiZero too. The whole game (even the itrials) are "easy" and anything that isn't "tank and spank" somehow people get lost on.
I know people still die from Marauder's Nova Fist attack. Really?! Come on people it says, "back away!"....just back away for 5 seconds...sheesh Worst gimmick I think (the Nova Fist attack that is).
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You keep repeating this teaming-hard/solo-easy mantra and its simply not true.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
as the solo stuff isn't as challenging
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The team stuff gets more rewards to encourage play with other people, not because its in any way harder. Its not.
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
Even for trivial trials, such as Death from Below, people still think they need to build a team. That trial is absolutely trivial, and can easily by done by any four characters regardless of AT, yet if I queue by myself it's very hit or miss whether I'll get into one. Most of the time when I queue myself on Freedom (in particular), and the queue dialog pops and says there are 4 or 5 players, 1 or 2 players will decline and the trial will not start. I've completed that trial with just 2 players for the last two parts, so it's not really that hard.
Another issue is that the tools for building trials are so primitive. The LFG queue interface needs to be expanded to allow everyone to see who's queued and what ATs they, and there needs to be at least two states for players in the queue: looking for trial and queued for trial.
Instead of recruiting in broadcast channels players be able to click a "looking for trial" button in the LFG window. Then other players can see them listed in a window similar to the looking for team window. League leaders can then recruit players as needed, inviting them to leagues.
If you're in a mission there's no reason you couldn't be in the looking for trial state, and when the trial was ready to go you could hurry up and finish the mission or just exit out to Ouroboros, then get invited to a league or queue for trial.
The LFG chat channel should actually be chat for people looking for trials, not just messages from the LFG interface.
The restriction that everyone must be in the same zone to start the trial should be removed. It's obviously unnecessary, since people not in the same league can be folded into the trial, and when you actually start the trial the interface disassembles all the teams anyway (and frequently does not rebuild them properly once everyone is in the trial).
Finally, I suspect that in the long term the trials will have to be cross-server if the devs intend people to play all of them on an ongoing basis. Someone on Triumph will never be able to get into an Underground trial, but if the LFG queue worked across all servers anyone would be able to get any trial pretty much any time, even after the intense interest in doing them dies down.