Smaller iTrials: Would you do them?

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."

People play DFB a lot because it's fast, easy XP, not just because it's a regular-team-sized trial. I mean, Eden, the CoP, and the Abandoned Sewers are small trials too, and I don't exactly see people flocking to them.

As for the OP: It depends on how interesting the content is. (Not having anything to do with the Well of Origin Hijacking would be a plus.) I have zero interest in Incarnate powers, so I wouldn't do a small trial just for the rewards.

This is one of the reason I'm looking forward to the Solo content, so that my wife and I can play some incarnate stuff together and not have to worry about getting in a trial.

I'mreally hoping the DA stuff proves popular ebough to steer the devs away from the experiment with WoW-style endge grindimg and back onto what CoH should be about.

Eco

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."

My hope is that the Diabolique whatever is closer to a Task Force in play style and execution, built around smaller 6-8 man teams where it's less about which sets of incarnate powers you're carrying and more about are you good at playing your character. Where being a tanker MATTERS, because there arn't one shot kills, and being a defender matters because you're supplying the buffs and debuffs, and so forth. Your personal performance becomes a lot more important, and not just because you can jump through the hoops on time with the rest of the herd, but because you - and your powers - matter.

I want to be able to think and talk in a trial, not have split seconds between every other thing to dodge the next barrage of insta-death or uber-power that instantly heals the AV and then blow it because one of the 24 man herd is illiterate or has scrapperlocked.

I loved the Apex, Tin Mage, Sutter, and Mortimer Kal task/strike forces. They're short-ish, they're exciting, they're challenging, they get to the point, they've got plenty of bad guys to smash and they're not so fast paced that you can't even chatter or respond beyond "group 1 south." They're also small enough that you can have a sense of being on a team. 24 man hordes are just... I feel about as important as an Ensign on Star Trek.

So basically I want a Task Force more than a Trial. I'd also really enjoy it more if it were less about "Oh, you'd better have six guys carrying Destiny(whatevers), because we have an army of Ghost Widows that spam AoE Soul Storms and have an AoE Twilight's Grasp with a radius of 11 parsecs and a recharge of half a nanosecond" and more, y'know, the TEAM. Less instagibs or huge masses of players or mandatory power sets, more about a small team of heroes (or villains!) going forth and kicking ***.

Heck, can you make it a Task Force? Or include a Task Force to cap off the DA story arc, the way Lady Grey's does for the War Zone? Because when I hear Diabolique trial, I'm just imagining 24 strangers with little chance to catch the story or talk (or roleplay! Some of us like to do that in missions, you know!) because you've only got 17 seconds to do whatever. Something that I've always liked about CoH was it's rather forgiving pacing.

This doesn't mean make it easy or hand us a victory. Just make it more like a Task Force and less like a Trial.

Well, I wouldn't, but I don't do TFs or trials. I'd like to see less stuff like the Halloween trial, not more.

I'm not even doing the new signature "story arcs", because they're in TF mode. I'd like the devs to get back to making some real story arcs.

Yes, you need to drop your ridiculously high expectations, as well as your needlessly grandiose and obtuse analogies and bizarre sense of entitlement in a video game about superheroes.

Also, unless you eschew team content entirely (which is a different and valid argument), you've probably run more than 12 TFs, almost all of which are long than Incarnate trials.

Look, I'm not saying there's no room for a solo path, but you have ALWAYS gotten better rewards from team-only content. Don't expect that to change.

Do you not count fighting an invading army from another universe as saving the world???

Rather limited personal attack attempt 3/10.

The game has met for the most part my ridiculously high expectations. The Incarnate stuff is Not Scottish and if its not Scottish...........

I play in teams, I play solo, I play TF's and all other trials except Incarnates because it is a poor attempt at a farming raid grind. I even at times have played a few CEBR ticket farms. When your final "content" is a perpetual drag and not fun - we all lose.

If you haven't read Silverlock, do so and perhaps you would have a different reply.

If the faster progress route of the Trials is a "grind", then the slower solo progress route will be a "grind" too
The Trials are now a major feature of the game, and are popular with the devs and the players - they'll remain the core Incarnate content, and more and more of them will be added to the game as the Incarnate storyline unfolds.

Like the 8 new story arcs they gave us in the last Issue?

Dark Astoria has nothing to do with IH's complaint.

The reason the Incarnate system was implemented in the first place was the lack of an actual endgame. You could pretty much get away with running each TF that was in-game once, get the badge and any unlockables from it, and be 'done'. The only repeatable endgame was to make a new character and start from scratch. For altoholics like IH, that worked just fine. For players who wanted stuff to do with their 50s, they didn't have much.

So they implemented the Incarnate system and are pushing it to get people who want stuff to do with their 50s to play it. Dark Astoria was created in response to demands for solo/small-team stuff to do with 50s. But the Incarnate system was never intended for people who like to make new characters, because that was always in place. It was intended for people who have a few characters they enjoy spending most of their time on.

Sure, there's valid complaints about the Incarnate system. But there's really no point in hating on it if your response to hitting 50 is to store the character and roll a new one.

That's how the Incarnate system already works - the Trials give the best and fastest rewards, because they're large group content.

There are grinds and then there are Grinds. iTrials are the capital G grinds, possibly with RIND in small capitals.

I've been ground to a lifeless husk by far better Grinds than the iTrials. If you're going to take on a raid grind (that is completely 180 from the previous seven years of the game's existence and one of the big things that set the game apart from the endgame grindfests) you should at least learn from the big name grind games and try to do them at least as well.

What TF do you have to have at least 4 purple sets to get an invite for? Not MoX runs, just the plain old +0/x1 TF.

iTrials are level shifts or get out.

Not the ones I've been on

Lambda, BAF, and keyes can all be done at +0 (that's not to say level shifts dont make it easier though). UGT has lvl 55 AVs, and MoM and TPN have lvl 56 AVs. These aren't meant to be done at +0. Level shifts aren't hard to acquire. Heck you can even get +1 without even doing any trials. You can also transfer threads from other already level shifted toons to your non level shifted toon to get them their first shift faster.

1. Would I run them? Sure. Content is content. This applies to your last question too.

2. Would they be run enough to make them worth making - depends on your qualifiers. If you're suggesting to award an Astral or Empyrean merit at the end of it, I think people would go nuts over it, and I think it would be a huge mistake balance-wise.

BTW, what you named above basically translates into a story arc (I won't say task force, since those are typically much longer, with Apex/Tin Mage being exceptions). We have that already to many differing degrees. The "trial" part of it implies a comparative reward, which by your breakdown doesn't apply, I think.

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Yeah, that's BS. I dislike iTrials just as much as any other guy but I've always been able to get (and participate somewhat efficiently, thanks to the very low level at which much of the playerbase plays rather than due to any ability on my own end...) a spot on leagues relatively easily, using fresh level 50 characters who are just alpha-unlocked (not alpha slotted, much less level shifted).

Where it's definitely not casual though is that it can take minutes if not dozens of minutes to get a team going unless you're well-connected (which is by itself the definition of *not* casual). There are low-pop servers, i.e. Vigilance, on which iTrials hardly happen outside of peak hours, and when it happens, you better be willing to put up with anybody and any specific trial because there aren't enough warm bodies to be picky about either.

Sorry, can you explain? This is news to me.