Smaller iTrials: Would you do them?

If the trials over 8 are not fun people won't do them given an option.

That is NOT the players fault. Why do people run the ITF over and over? Because it is still fun and I have done it over a hundred times. I also love the Hero Side respec trial. I love the Wheel of Destruction arc, Joe's garage, the new Positron TF, Sewer Trial and Abandoned Sewer trial, Eden trial and I like to solo as well at times.

Last night we were running Hero tips for over 2 hours after an SG mate bullied me into starting and leading a team. We ran 27-32 tips and had players from 17-48 on the team. It was FUN. I have a high pressure job and so at times the solitude of soloing along and just drifting through the city is relaxing.

Sometimes I fire up Oh Fortuna, login Carmina Burana and fill up a team and burn the city down! It is my personal opinion that if the Raid content can't stand on its own it is pooorly designed. It is my opinion also that it is poorly designed and so players will run from it if a reasonable solo/small team path opens up.

And then you're done in less than a month, and what else is there to do?

The same things you've done for the six years before iTrials.

If you're into that sort of thing, help others go through them. Peeps do that with the respecs all the time. It then becomes a choice rather than a felt need.

Repeating content?

I'd say "roll an alt," but I recognise that there needs to be incentive for people to keep grinding Trials because these take a certain critical mass to run. I think that's where an "average" level of power comes in. The "average" is the place where a less driven player like myself would consider progress enough and be satisfied, with the above-average and very-exclusive stuff above that serving as a hook for the less apathetic. Hell, if you move the level shifts down to T2 of abilities, that might actually be the case.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

A handful of iTrials vs. everything in Oro... I'll take the selection in Oro. Or MA, which unlike common knowledge proclaims does have more missions than CEBR and Fire Cyborgs.

The problem with that attitude can be seen in the AE - the devs discovered that there is a section of the player base that will zero in on the quickest path to progress, and ignore everything else - it wasn't a majority, but it was big enough and done frequetly enough to get the devs to make so many tweaks to the AE, including aded Marty to try and slow them down.
Because this section of the player base was just door sitting on the same AE farms 1-50, that could be interpreted as the rest of the content "sucking" compared to the AE farms, because they were only doing the "fun" content.

But you're still repeating content - that's why it seems weird to want non-repeating content now, when you've been repeating content since hte game began.
No MMO developer can produce content fatser than their players can play it - so making anything that's non-repeatable is just crazy.

Hence the reason I said that the Alpha slot was wonderfully well done and the rest of the Incarnate stuff was poorly designed.

The Devs left the players with Baf and Lam or nothing for a while - then complained when the trials that the players have perfected are what they choose to run the 100 times they need to in order to get tier 4 on all abilities.

But allowing players to advance doing normal content would be the best idea. Just like the Alpha slot.

Repeating convenient/non-annoying content.

If there were no rewards on the ITF, would it still be run as often as it is now? Or would it become "annoying"?

The Alpha slot is a very good intro to the Incarnate system, but it has limited potential for further progress, as there needs to be more challenging content for us as we get more powerful - the old non-Incarnate content doesn't offer a challenge to an Incarnate.

You don't need anywhere near 100 Trials to get to T4 in the 5 slots
Or do you mean getting to T4 on every tree for every slot? Because that's not really meant to be something many people would do

But then they'd be advancing on content that they were too powerful for.

"Become"? I already find it annoying. As I find all TFs annoying.

Ehhh not quite the same. There were farms in existence in the game world before AE and folks still farmed. The only difference is AE allowed you to make your own farms.

I haven't seen anything that allows you to make your own insta Itrial yet with 11-23 other players ready at your whim. The DA content however will allow you to skip the "sitting on your thumbs for 15-30 minutes while we wait for a trial for form" pre-req to any attempt to incarnate progress. If folks prefer the DA content, then YES it means changes NEED to be made in the Incarnate trials.

Actually that's the one tf I'd bet most would find fun without any major rewards.

Mowing down hundreds upon hundreds, like in the the movie 300, is probably a reward on its own for many.

There are hundreds of Warworks and DF to mow down on the Trials

Peregrine Island got pretty quiet once the AE came out

The slower progress rate means that the DA content will be useful as a filler for the downtime between Trials - DA will become the main raid zone, instead of the RWZ and Pocket D, and leagues will be easier and faster to form in DA

On which you are on a time limit. There's no such limit on the iTF so it's more relaxing to mow them down. Also a plain old just out the gate level 50 isn't mowing down any Warworks and DF. More like plinging them with 1-20 damage ticks.

Remains to be seen. I hope so but won't hold my breath.

It's a no brainer - if there's a team of 8 doing one story arc, and a team of 6 doing another, it only needs one click of "invite team to league" and they're ready to go for Lambda - and the LFG working while on missions makes it every easier.
And when there's a choice between hanging around chatting on the RWZ or Pocket D between Trials, or spending that time street sweeping in DA and/or running the repeatable Incarnate contact missions, with the added bonus of being able to use the LFG while you're on a mission, then there's really no reason why anyone wouldn't go to DA to form a Trial.

Why would you not like all of your characters to advance to the end game? So the Devs are making this so you can run it once get ticked off and quit running it?

Please enlighten me. I slowly level alts up and sometimes when the character really grabs me I zip them all the way up. I took my Fire/Dark corr all the way through tier 4 alpha. You really need to think your replies through GG - you are saying the devs made content they don't want us to run?

How many Incarnates should we expect to have just one? 3? 42? Just curious as to how the end game is supposed to work if we are not supposed to play it.

You obviously have no idea how people play this game. If I am on a team rolling along having fun I don't suddenly in mid-flow say hey lets join those guys we don't know and run an ITF.

No.

You misread - the thing that's not really meant to be done much is unlocking every single tree in every single slot.
Basically, what the Incarnate system is, is something that a few people have suggested before for the rest of the game - a free-form power selection method.
Only instead of the notmal framework of a free-form power selection method, where you can pick any type of power, but only a certain number of powers in total, the devs have given us the option of taking every single Incarnate power - with the only restriction being the time it takes to actually craft them.
Unlike the 1-50 part of the game, where your powers are limited in number and in theme, based on the choices you made at level 1, the Incarnate system allows anyone to take anything, with no limit except the crafting time.
If you choose to paly, say, a fire based avatar, then the game will offer you a selection of new fire based powers as you level 1-50 - but when you get to the Incarnate system, you aren't limited to fire based Incarnate powers - you're given a choice of every single Incarnate power - but that doesn't mean that you're supposed to have every single Incarnate power.
Right now, there are 5 slots, but 42 different power tress - the system is not designed for it to be normal to unlock 42 T4s, or even 42 T3s - an average Incarnate will have 5 T3s, one for each slot, giving them close to the best of each of the 5 powers they've chosen, and the 3 level shifts - T4s are more for those players who want to squeeze every last bit of perfromance out of their avatars, as the bonus from T3 to T4 isn't very big.