Smaller iTrials: Would you do them?
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2011-12-26 20:13 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Quote:
Why, when they give the same rewards now that they did when they were new and hen e harder because not everyone knew exactly what to do in them?|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
We're meant to have moved on to the tougher Trials now
 |
You're trying to tell me you exclusively MoM and UG?
Eco
Edit: new. And if you want reward to drop with decreased difficulty, then all trial rewards should be nerfed for players after they've done them X number of times. Familiarity reduces the difficulty, after all.
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
|
Quote:
The 1-50 game moves players on by reducing then totally removing rewards once players become too powerful for the enemies in their level range - right now, the Incarnate system only has one level range, and they're testing increased rewards for the toguher Trials, and a few tweaks to their difficulty as a way of moving players on - if that doesn't work, then the next level of Trials will have a new currency, creating the next level range for the Incarnate system.|
Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
Why, when they give the same rewards now that they did when they were new and hen e harder because not everyone knew exactly what to do in them?
|
Quote:
| And if you want reward to drop with decreased difficulty, then all trial rewards should be nerfed for players after they've done them X number of times. Familiarity reduces the difficulty, after all. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
So purples and pvp IOs keeping their bonuses all the way down to level 1 and SSK don't happen? People have leveled 1-50 in Praetoria, before FW, by doing 1-20 content exclusively.
|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The 1-50 game moves players on by reducing then totally removing rewards once players become too powerful for the enemies in their level range ...
|
Quote:
But not by out-levelling the 1-20 content |
Originally Posted by Ogi
People have leveled 1-50 in Praetoria, before FW, by doing 1-20 content exclusively.
|
To level to 50 in Praetoria, you have to keep exemplaring to avoid going past the 1-20 the content range and losing the rewards.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Tasks designed for 1 player can't be as complex as tasks designed for 2 or more, Trial enemies are between 2 and 6 levels higher than the DA enemies, and it's hard to fail through a lack of teamwork when you're solo.
|
I disagree. They can be every bit as complex. Simply in different ways.
As for the level of the enemies. Okay. So they're bigger, fatter sacks of hit points. Woo.
I think Reichsman has proved that simply throwing umpty-bajillion more HP at us to beat down doesn't really make it "harder".
As for it being hard to fail through lack of teamwork when solo. Think about that for a sec. If the content is fail-able, and you fail it because you're unable to handle it alone, technically you've failed through lack of teamwork.
And no, I'm not going to give a more serious answer here. You're not interested in a serious answer. You're just here to spew irrelevance and PL your post count.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Quote:
Inventions in general, Purples, PVP IOs, and Incarnate abilities prove this statement to be the first statement of 2012 that I've read on these forums that is 100% absolutely FALSE.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The 1-50 game moves players on by reducing then totally removing rewards once players become too powerful for the enemies in their level range
|
EDIT: All of the items I listed above allow many of my more squishy toons to crank it up to +4/x8 and get MORE rewards. Hell everything up there minus Incarnate abilities allows that.
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!
Quote:
Such as?|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
I disagree. They can be every bit as complex. Simply in different ways.
|
Quote:
|
As for the level of the enemies. Okay. So they're bigger, fatter sacks of hit points. Woo. I think Reichsman has proved that simply throwing umpty-bajillion more HP at us to beat down doesn't really make it "harder". |
All the Trial AVs are way weaker HP-wise than Reichsman, because that's what we asked for.
Quote:
|
As for it being hard to fail through lack of teamwork when solo. Think about that for a sec. If the content is fail-able, and you fail it because you're unable to handle it alone, technically you've failed through lack of teamwork.
|
Telling players they're getting a solo path, but then making parts of it need a team would be kinda missing the point
Also, as far as failing goes, it's hard to fail a story arc, even if you fail on a single mission of the arc - like rescuing someone before the timer runs out - if you rescue them, the story arc continues, but it also continues even if you fail to rescue them - the contact just has slightly diffrent text, then hands you the next mission - and while players accept failures on Trials, I don't think they'd be quite so accepting about failing story arcs, and then having to start them all over again.
For example, imagine Mender Ramiel's arc is an Incarnate story arc - each mission has a timer on it, just like each stage of a Trial has a timer, to crank up the challenge factor - and a solo player manages to get past Trapdoor, but with difficulty - but then they fail the Hero 1 mission, so the whole arc fails, and they have to start again - this time, they get past Trapdoor and Hero1 , but fail at the Echo of Minos - so they have to start again, and get past Trapdoor and Hero1 again.
That's how the Trials work - fail one stage, you fail the whole thing, and have to start again - but adding that level of risk to a story arc that's meant to be soloable would be a pretty big step to take.
But if they did add that, they'd also need to remove any contact chain, so that players could play any Incarnate story arc in any order, rather than having to do the standard chain of completing one arc to get the contact for the next one, otherwise, there could be some players who'd be stuck doing and failing the same arc over and over again for several days, trying to complete it just to unlock the next one.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
I never knew grays gave any rewards.
|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Inventions in general, Purples, PVP IOs, and Incarnate abilities prove this statement to be the first statement of 2012 that I've read on these forums that is 100% absolutely FALSE.
EDIT: All of the items I listed above allow many of my more squishy toons to crank it up to +4/x8 and get MORE rewards. Hell everything up there minus Incarnate abilities allows that. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
Find a fire blaster with more purples than barney, exemp him down to a level where he has rain of fire as his highest level attack available. Now sit back and watch what more global accuracy and recharge than a character native of that level could even slot does to enemies of that level.
|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
I never knew grays gave any rewards.
|
Quote:
That's the key part |
Originally Posted by Ogi
exemp him down
|
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
No, it's not.
|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
That's the key part
|
Quote:
Yes it is - exemping down is the only way to get rewards from content you've outlevelled because the game moves you on by reducing and removing the rewards as you progress through the level ranges.|
Originally Posted by Ogi
No, it's not.
|
Right now, the Incarnate system doesn't do that, because there's still only 1 level range for it - none of the Trials are gray yet, so there's not the usual mechanic in place for telling players it's time to look for higher level enemies to fight.
In the 1-50 game, the rewards from enemies in your level range drop as you become more powerful - on the Trials, that doesn't happen - so far, we've gained 2-3 levels on the Trials, but the content we were doing before we got those levels is still giving the same rewards even when we've gained those levels.
Unlike the 1-50 game, where XP is the key to increasing your power and progressing through the levels, the Trial path is all about Threads, salvage and merits - if they removed XP from the 1-50 game, all progess would stop - if they removed IXP from the Trials, progress would be slightly slowed down by needing to convert Threads to open the slots.
The key progress reward in the 1-50 game is XP, which is reduced and then removed from enemies as you become more powerful than them, which moves players onto tougher enemies to continue their progress - on the Trials, the key progress rewards are Threads, salvage and merits, which remain the same, even as we become more powerful than them, so there's no need to move onto tougher enemies, because the weaker ones are providing just as much progress.
That's why the first idea the devs had to try and move players onto the tougher Trials was to copy the system used in the 1-50 game - reduce the key progress rewards from the easier Trials.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
Rain of fire is at level 6. Available down to 1. A natural 1 has one primary, one secondary, and one base slot in each. A 50 exemplared to 1 has three additional powers. With purples 45% global accuracy and recharge would be a conservative amount. Those bonuses are not scaled while exemplaring so actual contribution from slots is irrevelant.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Yes it is - exemping down is the only way to get rewards from content you've outlevelled because the game moves you on by reducing and removing the rewards as you progress through the level ranges.
... |
While exemplared the 50 has a big shiny 1 next to their name but numerically they are fighting as a much higher level but they still get rewards.
Girls, girls, you're both pretty... can I go home now??
"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.
That said.
There are two sides to this argument that are not as mutually exclusive as currently presented. Niether however, are relevant to Incarnate content because they deal with exemplaring to lower levels and are a different debate entirely.
Incarnate content, by its nature, assumes the character is as powerful as they can get in all ranges of large team/small team/solo content.
Creating a proper (relative) challenge in smaller team content can be as easy as 'needing' different, more specific, incarnate powers, used over the course of a Task Force. I'll use Destiny as an example here in this particular example (There could be one for each or a combination thereof however specialtized per Incarnate power would work best per 'contact/TF'...)
There's an AV that 'needs' Barrier to survive its Alpha Strike that could cause the team to wipe and the mission to fail, but then there's an AV later in the same mission that 'needs' Clarion to resist the Alpha Strike hold they cast to prevent a team wipe, causing the mission to fail. At the end of each small team mission they gain an Incarnate component (common ones in the first 1-2 missions, Uncommon in 3-4, Rare OR Very Rare in the 5th mission of the arc) Set them up as TF's so there's no chance of changing characters as needed.
Supplying the same rewards to the solo arcs (Howerver, setting them up like the enforced solo missions in Praetoria) Each mission would require a particular Incarnate power to survive each mission that is mutually exclusive from another (Now I'll use Lore as an example) You 'need' to have Seers to breach the seer network in one mission. Next mission you will need Rularuu to get past the Rulu-Shin cult (they'll attack you otherwise) to complete it successfully.
In other words have different contacts reqire multiple in any particular Incarnate power to succeed. One mission apiece for small team content (with those 'bosses' along the way) or in each mission, for solo.
They could even be set to make them possible without those options (with some other 'easy' contacts for folks that don't want to collect all the pokemon for faster, better rewards, or are Incarnates just starting out- make sure they're specially marked!!! they only give commons at the end of their entire arc, assuming they've unlocked the slot, then they just get a special ammount of Incarnate xp!!!)
Replace 'team effort' with 'as long as they have time to prepare' of the Batman mentality, and you have a winning combo. If someone has enough of the basic nescessities (and spends the time) to fit a small or solo story arc with these guidelines, let them do it!!
There are ways to create challenge even in solo content. I can run x mission solo today, but now I know I need n to complete the next one, I might be better served running a couple small team/ large team missions to prepare for it.
Or... I spend a more time (days, or weeks for a whole "Advanced" solo story arc) wading in the incarnate kiddy pool getting what I need in any given incarnate power, I'll be able to get all I need!
Does that 'do it' for ya?
"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.
"In the 1-50 game, the rewards from enemies in your level range drop as you become more powerful - on the Trials, that doesn't happen - so far, we've gained 2-3 levels on the Trials, but the content we were doing before we got those levels is still giving the same rewards even when we've gained those levels."
Or, the trials become less difficult content the more you run them, and yet their reward rates don't reduce.
Which contradicts your 'easier incarnate progress requires fewer rewards' stance.
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
|
Quote:
What grays? i'm talking about fighting things that are red and orange.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
I never knew grays gave any rewards.
|
Or how do you think farmers currently do it before they get incarnate abilities?
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!
Quote:
win
|
Originally Posted by lycantropus
that said.
There are two sides to this argument that are not as mutually exclusive as currently presented. Niether however, are relevant to incarnate content because they deal with exemplaring to lower levels and are a different debate entirely. Incarnate content, by its nature, assumes the character is as powerful as they can get in all ranges of large team/small team/solo content. Creating a proper (relative) challenge in smaller team content can be as easy as 'needing' different, more specific, incarnate powers, used over the course of a task force. I'll use destiny as an example here in this particular example (there could be one for each or a combination thereof however specialtized per incarnate power would work best per 'contact/tf'...) there's an av that 'needs' barrier to survive its alpha strike that could cause the team to wipe and the mission to fail, but then there's an av later in the same mission that 'needs' clarion to resist the alpha strike hold they cast to prevent a team wipe, causing the mission to fail. At the end of each small team mission they gain an incarnate component (common ones in the first 1-2 missions, uncommon in 3-4, rare or very rare in the 5th mission of the arc) set them up as tf's so there's no chance of changing characters as needed. Supplying the same rewards to the solo arcs (howerver, setting them up like the enforced solo missions in praetoria) each mission would require a particular incarnate power to survive each mission that is mutually exclusive from another (now i'll use lore as an example) you 'need' to have seers to breach the seer network in one mission. Next mission you will need rularuu to get past the rulu-shin cult (they'll attack you otherwise) to complete it successfully. In other words have different contacts reqire multiple in any particular incarnate power to succeed. One mission apiece for small team content (with those 'bosses' along the way) or in each mission, for solo. They could even be set to make them possible without those options (with some other 'easy' contacts for folks that don't want to collect all the pokemon for faster, better rewards, or are incarnates just starting out- make sure they're specially marked!!! They only give commons at the end of their entire arc, assuming they've unlocked the slot, then they just get a special ammount of incarnate xp!!!) replace 'team effort' with 'as long as they have time to prepare' of the batman mentality, and you have a winning combo. If someone has enough of the basic nescessities (and spends the time) to fit a small or solo story arc with these guidelines, let them do it!! There are ways to create challenge even in solo content. I can run x mission solo today, but now i know i need n to complete the next one, i might be better served running a couple small team/ large team missions to prepare for it. Or... I spend a more time (days, or weeks for a whole "advanced" solo story arc) wading in the incarnate kiddy pool getting what i need in any given incarnate power, i'll be able to get all i need! Does that 'do it' for ya? |
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!
Quote:
Longer missions with multiple objectives, time limits, etc.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Such as?
|
Quote:
|
That's not what they do on the Trials - they throw those dreaded "gimmicks" at us instead - because players had brought it up quite often that AV fights could sometimes be kinda flat because they were sometimes just huge sacks of HP - so the devs took that feedback onboard, and gave us Trial AVs with special attacks and moves instead of just more HP. All the Trial AVs are way weaker HP-wise than Reichsman, because that's what we asked for. |
Quote:
|
So solo content should only be soloable by certain ATs and builds?
|
Quote:
|
Telling players they're getting a solo path, but then making parts of it need a team would be kinda missing the point
|
Quote:
| Also, as far as failing goes, it's hard to fail a story arc, even if you fail on a single mission of the arc - like rescuing someone before the timer runs out - if you rescue them, the story arc continues, but it also continues even if you fail to rescue them - the contact just has slightly diffrent text, then hands you the next mission - and while players accept failures on Trials, I don't think they'd be quite so accepting about failing story arcs, and then having to start them all over again. |
That's a hell of a blind spot you got there girl.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Quote:
Actually, I've found that this makes a lot of the iTrials easier at minimum settings.|
Originally Posted by Bosstone
The iTrials, on the other hand, do not become simpler. As I understand it, there is some scaling according to league size that's different from normal content (don't know the specifics though) and the objectives are constructed such that you can't just steamroll right on past it. They can get easier, but brains are still needed, and in some cases they actually get harder with more people, like oldPosi.
|
There seems to be a sort of difficulty maxima on things like the BAF somewhere between its minimum and maximum league sizes. At the extremes of league size the AVs seem to melt faster on average than when the league is somewhere in the middle at around 16-20 people.
Someone who had a non-temp power for viewing foe stats was able to see that small leagues resulted in debuffed AVs -they are actually penalized to help minimum sized groups.
To your point though, it's not wise to turn your brain off in a large-league iTrial. The increased spawn sizes and AV stats make the fights more dangerous, which was not the norm for most content due to force multiplication. (There were a few exceptions - sometimes increased spawn sizes produced dangerous force multiplication for NPCs. Usually, though, player character multiplication could drown it out.)
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
We already have those in the 1-50 game |
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Longer missions with multiple objectives, time limits, etc.
|
Quote:
| No. Actually they added the "gimmicks" because they needed some way to be able to deal with 12-24 heroes. Not because it makes the trial tougher. |
They could produce Trials much faster if they weren't trying to give us new and exciting encounters.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
You're still missing the point |
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
What grays? i'm talking about fighting things that are red and orange.
Or how do you think farmers currently do it before they get incarnate abilities? |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
I'm in favor of the earlier Trials having reduced rewards for people with level shifts - but only if the alternative method of increased rewards for the harder Trials doesn't work.|
Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
"In the 1-50 game, the rewards from enemies in your level range drop as you become more powerful - on the Trials, that doesn't happen - so far, we've gained 2-3 levels on the Trials, but the content we were doing before we got those levels is still giving the same rewards even when we've gained those levels."
Or, the trials become less difficult content the more you run them, and yet their reward rates don't reduce. Which contradicts your 'easier incarnate progress requires fewer rewards' stance. |
The third option is a new currency to unlock and equip the next slots - that could be added once the Praetoria chapter of the Incarnate storyline is over - with the Battalion as the new Trial enemies, there'd be a suitable opening for them adding new types of IXP, salvage and Threads to go with them.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Eco
I have failed Lambda twice in the past week on Virtue and came within 1 minute of another fail. One of these was about 5 minutes ago. Unless you can solo it with gates still open it, failing it is still very, very possible if you end up with a weak league.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that leagues (at least on Virtue) have gotten a lot weaker over the course of time, rather than better. Teams seemed to be at their peak about 3 or 4 months ago. I'm not sure if more people are running incarnates-in-training now, if there are more new people, or more people aren't paying attention, but the "easy" trials have been a lot more hazardous for me lately. I can't remember failing one time in months, but suddenly am failing them about once every 20 runs.
Case in point: I automatically assume on any given Lambda run that 2 portals will be left open and those acids never accounted for. I'm stunned when all 10 gates are closed; that happens only once every 10 runs or so now. Long, awkward fights with Marauder where no one throws a grenade are also the norm for me.