The things you "hate" about I Trials!
The thing I hate the most about them: the time it can take to form them if your server population is currently low. And I hate the resulting sense of "better do it now while others are forming" pressure this also creates, even when I'm not in the mood for iTrials.
It's been a part of my love-hate relationship with all team required content and even at times teaming with friends who enjoy RPing. Sometimes I'm just in the mood to log in and be asocial. These pressures to team while the getting is good can run counter to those impulses. And I don't in any way blame the Devs for this. It's just one aspect of my fickle vascillating self.
The thing I hate the most about them: the time it can take to form them
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--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
I hate the warehouse map in Lambda. I do fine has long as I look at the floor and move around. Probably need to get a new computer. But idk. hardly lag on hami raids.
Kill the enemy. Take their souls. Drink their blood.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
There have been numerous times where I would fight like my life depends on it, granted I am participating on everything possible and not just sitting there like Ive seen some people do and all I get for my hard work is a fricken common incarnate salvage. I had one person that didnt do much work at all and got a VR, so I really think your reward is based on your participation is just bull crap.
Incarnate Trial rewards needs to be looked at because there is something really wrong, how can you reward someone who actively participates in the trial and give them in a sense a lump of coal (common) and then turn around and give someone who doesnt do crap a VR.
This my friends is the one thing I hate the most about these incarnate trials.
Let me give you an example. I walk home from work, and on my way back home, there's a place where they make amazing gyros. I know, because I've tried them. This one day I was hungry, so I decided to stop and get one. I spent 30 minutes in that ******* slow line in the mid-day heat in July, most of it standing in front of a grill blasting radiant heat directly into my eyeballs. I got the gyro, though, and it was quite good. The next day I passed by that same place and wondered "Maybe I should get another one?" then quickly remembered my experience and thought "**** that! The line is a mile long and I'm not spending another hour in the sun! I'll eat when I get home."
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.
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@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
I hate that they make so many concessions to custom team building that the potential convenience of the LFG system is rendered moot. They could have just *not* implemented the LFG system and put an iTrial contact in the game world (or even just the contact list of level 50s) instead.
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
Which, for large team requirements on slower servers, takes quite a while. Most people I speak with say they run Raids in half an hour, sometimes as little as 15-20 minutes. I've often seen raids broadcast as forming for longer than that.
Let me give you an example. I walk home from work, and on my way back home, there's a place where they make amazing gyros. I know, because I've tried them. This one day I was hungry, so I decided to stop and get one. I spent 30 minutes in that ******* slow line in the mid-day heat in July, most of it standing in front of a grill blasting radiant heat directly into my eyeballs. I got the gyro, though, and it was quite good. The next day I passed by that same place and wondered "Maybe I should get another one?" then quickly remembered my experience and thought "**** that! The line is a mile long and I'm not spending another hour in the sun! I'll eat when I get home." |
![Frown](images/smilies/frown.gif)
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
I don't want to say I "hate" anything, but I strongly disagree with some of the design choices. To name a few...
1. Untyped damage is used too heavily. We have toxic and psi damage for a reason- Most people don't resist them well. Incarnate enemies already have massive tohit and the AV's resist debuffs, so I hardly think most peoples defenses would cover it all the time.
2. Mez that Clarion at t4 doesn't fix. The gimicky holds in Underground come to mind- I got this tier 4 Incarnate power so that I have it when I do Incarnate trials. It would only seem logical to me that it would, well... Work.
3. The Lambda badges. Yeah, the Keyes badges are harder, but I think they're also one of the best incentives to run the trial. I like Keyes. The Devs like Keyes. The Devs want you to like Keyes, and they want you to play Keyes. Fine, I get that, and I understand the MoM nightmare badge for the same reason... But there is absolutely no reason to have MoLambda take three runs other than to grief people who want the badges. The trial gets run to death, the extra incentive is hardly necessary.
Overall though, these are just pet peeves. I really like all the trials, I like running the newer ones especially because I'm bored of BAF and Lambda, and TPN and MoM are a couple of the most fun things in the game for me.
And a quick side rant:
I think the Devs made a mistake in releasing MoM, UG, and TPN when they did. If these trials were the only ones that provided *non-purchasable* Incarnate XP for new slots, I guarantee that they would get run just as much if not more than BAF or Lambda.
As it stands now, the I Trials serve as Empyrean merit farms for most people- We already have every single power available and stockpiled goodies. The new alpha/interface/judgement powers were a nice addition but it really just encouraged more BAF/LAM/BAF/LAM! The only incentive for playing the newer trials is that you like them or you're saving Emps up for a PVP IO (or the previously mentioned badging.) For people like me, who happen to like the trials themselves, it's kinda crappy.
Virtue: @Santorican
![](http://i.imgur.com/dmfLZ.jpg)
Dark/Shield Build Thread
No, they require 20mins to form one. Which is annoying as hell.
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To be fair though, thats how long roughly an average taskforce takes to fill. So numbers to fill a league wise, its not THAT long. [Yes i know the argument of "but its the only way at the moment to further our characters"
![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
The thing I HATE about iTrials the most:
There is guaranteed to always be ONE person that fell asleep at the keyboard and we all have to wait until they wake up and click the green button...
Who do I have to *&^% around here to get more Targeted AoE recipes added?
Arc Name: Tsoo In Love
Arc ID: 413575
There have been numerous times where I would fight like my life depends on it, granted I am participating on everything possible and not just sitting there like Ive seen some people do and all I get for my hard work is a fricken common incarnate salvage. I had one person that didnt do much work at all and got a VR, so I really think your reward is based on your participation is just bull crap.
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If you fail to cross the line for participating, you get 10 Threads - if you cross the participation line, you get a random slavage roll at the end of the Trial - the amount of activity you do after you've crossed the participation line has no effect on the random salvage roll at the end.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
I'm just not happy with my luck on the RNG for Salvage rewards or threads. Some of my characters take weeks of daily runs to upgrade from constaint comman and uncomman drops, breaking down merits is also one of the only ways they seem to get anywhere.. While I see other people constaintly geting so many VR they have to break them down to get rolling.
I've also yet to get anything above a Comman on TPN,MoM, Or Keys since they were added with supposed higher droprates for R/VR.
The thing I hate the most about them: the time it can take to form them if your server population is currently low. And I hate the resulting sense of "better do it now while others are forming" pressure this also creates, even when I'm not in the mood for iTrials.
It's been a part of my love-hate relationship with all team required content and even at times teaming with friends who enjoy RPing. Sometimes I'm just in the mood to log in and be asocial. These pressures to team while the getting is good can run counter to those impulses. And I don't in any way blame the Devs for this. It's just one aspect of my fickle vascillating self. |
While this isn't the MOST offensive thing about certain trials, it's the most offensive thing they all have in common.
The TPN Trial .. A mechanic which requires players to avoid using any form of AoE while outside or risk failure. Yes there are ways around this issue .. the league I run with doesnt even try to deal with telepaths and simply runs from building to building defeating techs and accessing terminals but .. this is basically asking some players to stop using more than half of the attacks they spent 50 level obtaining. Oh I almost forgot to mention.. this also nullifies one of the incarnate powers you run trials to opbtain in the first place.. there was a thread on the forums the other day talking about a trial that failed because some one, NOT paying attention to instructions, used their judgement outside and killed off so many civilians the trial failed right there and then.
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Every trial has a gimmick that you have to know in order to make it work. That's the point of these trials: to make us learn to do something together, coordinating large groups of players, and make strategic and tactical decisions. Some of the gimmicks are ridiculously idiotic (like leading Anti-Matter around by the nose to use his RFID, something which he never figures out), but the point is to require us to do something other than stand around pressing the exact same sequence of buttons while the NPCs flail ineffectually on tankers.
The trials are also heavily scripted, requiring players to perform very specific actions in a specific order. My guess is the devs view this as a plus, making the game seem more like a movie or a comic in which players actually play specific roles instead of hitting things.
The trials intentionally make us play differently, and make certain powers and sets suddenly useful that were once considered utterly worthless. For example, area immobilizes and slows are typically denigrated, but are excellent to have in the BAF. Snipes are generally considered worthless, but can be very useful in the Underground Trial.
Every trial also has something that a single person can do to screw it up for everyone. One moronic brute or tanker can taunt Marauder outside the Lambda complex. One moronic brute or tanker can get the whole league sequestered in the BAF. One moronic blaster can attack Anti-Matter and increase the pulse damage. But is this materially different from the scrappers and blasters who could cause team wipes by drawing aggro from multiple spawns back in the day? The ability to kick can help, but if the league organizer is responsible for this nonsense the only recourse you may have is to quit, wasting whatever time you've devoted.
It's always been possible for one or two players to cause a TF to fail simply by bailing at a critical moment, depriving the team of enough fire power/debuffing/buffing/aggro management to defeat the AV in the final conflict. And the ability to kick is useless in this case.
I will agree that getting ganked by mere civilians in TPN is completely unwarranted. There's no logically necessary story reason for this; why are the telepaths outside wasting their time whipping up civilians when they could be inside utterly destroying us?
And I will also agree that the trials are often not very fun, typically when you've got obnoxious twits in the league. But that isn't materially any different from when you have obnoxious twits on TFs. Which, I will also admit, is why I avoided trials for many years...
There have been numerous times where I would fight like my life depends on it, granted I am participating on everything possible and not just sitting there like Ive seen some people do and all I get for my hard work is a fricken common incarnate salvage. I had one person that didnt do much work at all and got a VR, so I really think your reward is based on your participation is just bull crap.
Incarnate Trial rewards needs to be looked at because there is something really wrong, how can you reward someone who actively participates in the trial and give them in a sense a lump of coal (common) and then turn around and give someone who doesnt do crap a VR. This my friends is the one thing I hate the most about these incarnate trials. |
- 10 threads OR
- Random roll
Does knowing this, in an intellectual sense, make it FEEL any less suck-tastic?
HELL NO!
In general, I love the incarnate trials. The Praetorian storyline fascinated me from the beginning and seeing it continued is great. But, there is one thing about the incarnate trials I really hate:
A single person can quickly cause the league to fail the trial - often instantly. For example:
TPN - use judgement on civilians = instant fail.
Lambda - dance in the cutscene then aggro Marauder and run out of the courtyard = instant fail
BAF - get 3 circles while the league is together. Every league member held = instant fail
UG - Judgement or Destiny powers on the Avatar while confused. Also, incandescence on the league during an ambush can cause Desdemona's death = instant fail
Keyes - Kill anti-matter before the end of the trial = instant fail. This usually only happens when people are trying for the Anti Anti-Matter badge.
MoM - Use knockback powers or aoe mez powers during phase 2 or phase 4. Not an instant fail, but a likely one
I run the incarnate trials almost every day because they are a nice source of the rewards that I want. However, I have seen each of these trials fail due to the actions of a single person. Sometimes it isn't intentional and the person really didn't know that their actions would do that. Still, its a big annoyance to everyone on the league feeling that they just wasted 30-60 minutes. I really wish that the trial design would prevent that kind of failure from happening.
1. The dysfunctional LFG tool, especially now that it's being used for other things, DfB and events. People dropping DfB if AVs won't spawn. Oh noes! My XP/sec is going down .1! Better make the LFG useless to everyone else to make sure that doesn't happen to me!
2. Slideshowriffic. Before the cutscene skip if everyone had seen it it wasn't until my third BAF I knew there was a cutscene. Going from TFs and world events Destiny, Judgement, and Lore can't have made things any better with the frames-per-minute issue.
3. Raiders and the "great" community they bring with them. I got into CoH to get away from them in that other game. Now that game is the pug friendly one and this one is getting the Mos Eisely vibe.
4. Lost in a sea of supers. I'm the 10th one from the right on the third row.
5. You gotta be super to beat up pedestrians. You go from smashing every AV in existence at once, solo, to smashing warwalkers in small groups to getting taken out by pebbles.
I don't want to say I "hate" anything, but I strongly disagree with some of the design choices. To name a few...
1. Untyped damage is used too heavily. We have toxic and psi damage for a reason- Most people don't resist them well. Incarnate enemies already have massive tohit and the AV's resist debuffs, so I hardly think most peoples defenses would cover it all the time. 2. Mez that Clarion at t4 doesn't fix. The gimicky holds in Underground come to mind- I got this tier 4 Incarnate power so that I have it when I do Incarnate trials. It would only seem logical to me that it would, well... Work. 3. The Lambda badges. Yeah, the Keyes badges are harder, but I think they're also one of the best incentives to run the trial. I like Keyes. The Devs like Keyes. The Devs want you to like Keyes, and they want you to play Keyes. Fine, I get that, and I understand the MoM nightmare badge for the same reason... But there is absolutely no reason to have MoLambda take three runs other than to grief people who want the badges. The trial gets run to death, the extra incentive is hardly necessary. Overall though, these are just pet peeves. I really like all the trials, I like running the newer ones especially because I'm bored of BAF and Lambda, and TPN and MoM are a couple of the most fun things in the game for me. And a quick side rant: I think the Devs made a mistake in releasing MoM, UG, and TPN when they did. If these trials were the only ones that provided *non-purchasable* Incarnate XP for new slots, I guarantee that they would get run just as much if not more than BAF or Lambda. As it stands now, the I Trials serve as Empyrean merit farms for most people- We already have every single power available and stockpiled goodies. The new alpha/interface/judgement powers were a nice addition but it really just encouraged more BAF/LAM/BAF/LAM! The only incentive for playing the newer trials is that you like them or you're saving Emps up for a PVP IO (or the previously mentioned badging.) For people like me, who happen to like the trials themselves, it's kinda crappy. |
I wasn't particularly happy when we finally got destiny, lore, justice and interface and discovered all the salvage my characters had stored was practicaly useless aside from converting from shards to threads. They are taking such a long time releasing the next set of powers I am almost certain we will, once again, find ourselves forced to start mining some NEW form of salvage to open them... Otherwise many players will have some powers open to t3 or even t4 in no time.
This game is getting entirely too many forms of currency etc as is without another set of components and salvage we have to farm to open and slot the next range of incarnates.
![Mad](images/smilies/mad.gif)
�We�re always the good guys. In D&D, we�re lawful good. In City of Heroes we�re the heroes. In Grand Theft Auto we pay the prostitutes promptly and never hit them with a bat.� � Leonard
�Those women are prostitutes? You said they were raising money for stem cell research!� � Sheldon
My only problem is the players.
There's always ONE person in every PuG league who, despite having all the instructions laid out in plain English, goes and seems to either forget everything, or purposefully does NOT follow instructions:
Biggest example? On a Keyes, we were going for "Avoids The Green Stuff". So what happened? First time an Obliteration Beam Reticle appears, everyone scatters...except one person who runs past us and head-long INTO the reticle.
TOh and the lichen phase has it quirks as well. I am not certain HOW this works exactly and I have been picked on numerous occasions to collect them. I am GUESSING here, please feel free to correct if I am in error, that like the grenades in the lambda we use to pacify Maurader the lichen can only be used one at a time. Once someone has thrown one at the warwalker you need to wait for it to wear off before using a second??? Okay I have had trials where I stood face to face with a WW that was at 100% and no matter how many time I clicked on a lichen in my trays i couldn't get it to work. IF this is the case couldn't they have at least come up with a warning like in lambda letting us know it was okay to use the glowies we collected again??
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I've stopped playing power sets, or making builds, that depend on an auto-activated click power in order to function properly (no Super Reflexes for me, not if I'm going to go Incarnate anyway).
The TPN Trial .. A mechanic which requires players to avoid using any form of AoE while outside or risk failure.
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The BAF .. while much less of an issue than others mentioned here the prisoner escape phase can be a nightmare for single target melee characters.
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I hate the sabotage phase of Lambda as well, and I can usually survive it reasonably well because I play a WP Brute. I still hate how everyone just runs around willy nilly trying to take these things down as fast as possible, never bothering to work as a group to maximize buffs and stuff. First-timers to the trial will always be left wondering what the hell they are supposed to be doing, and spending most of that phase getting ganked by IDF and waiting to return from the hospital.
My general problem with Lambda is that the entire trial is poorly presented. The league defeats the EB and then a timer starts counting down until Marauder arrives to "deal with the situation". No explanation of why the grenades or acids are useful is given, so the sabotage phase has no other motivation behind it other than there is nothing else to do unless you just want to wait for the timer to expire. There is no better evidence of this than the fact that not a single newbie who ends up with acids or grenades has any clue what to do with them.
1. Untyped damage is used too heavily. We have toxic and psi damage for a reason- Most people don't resist them well. Incarnate enemies already have massive tohit and the AV's resist debuffs, so I hardly think most peoples defenses would cover it all the time.
2. Mez that Clarion at t4 doesn't fix. The gimicky holds in Underground come to mind- I got this tier 4 Incarnate power so that I have it when I do Incarnate trials. It would only seem logical to me that it would, well... Work. |
NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
Don't take the title the wrong way I run trials constantly and with the group I have hooked up with I enjoy the experience .. however a lot has been written here of late about some of the frustrating mechanics of these trials and I thought this would be a good topic to explore..
okay one by one then
The Underground Trial .. An entire section of the map where basically I am in a race against infection that threatens to defeat me. There is NO way to fight what is attacking me all I can do is run as fast as I can and keep popping greens. {Great timing too since shortly afterwards we face the AV in the final chamber .. lovely time for a squishy character to be out of respites when the general rule of thumb is don't use heals... if you are confused you'll heal the AV} My Tank and Brutes manage this area just fine since they have a ton of hit points and great defenses but by controllers and defenders barely make it through alive at times.
Oh and the lichen phase has it quirks as well. I am not certain HOW this works exactly and I have been picked on numerous occasions to collect them. I am GUESSING here, please feel free to correct if I am in error, that like the grenades in the lambda we use to pacify Maurader the lichen can only be used one at a time. Once someone has thrown one at the warwalker you need to wait for it to wear off before using a second??? Okay I have had trials where I stood face to face with a WW that was at 100% and no matter how many time I clicked on a lichen in my trays i couldn't get it to work. IF this is the case couldn't they have at least come up with a warning like in lambda letting us know it was okay to use the glowies we collected again??
The TPN Trial .. A mechanic which requires players to avoid using any form of AoE while outside or risk failure. Yes there are ways around this issue .. the league I run with doesnt even try to deal with telepaths and simply runs from building to building defeating techs and accessing terminals but .. this is basically asking some players to stop using more than half of the attacks they spent 50 level obtaining. Oh I almost forgot to mention.. this also nullifies one of the incarnate powers you run trials to opbtain in the first place.. there was a thread on the forums the other day talking about a trial that failed because some one, NOT paying attention to instructions, used their judgement outside and killed off so many civilians the trial failed right there and then.
While we are on the subject of outside on a TPN.. this has been brought up repeatedly in numerous threads why is it that my super powered hero can easily be defeated and find herself in hospital because some irate civilain threw a brick at me? This can be annoying enough when rushing from building to building but have you ever noticed how LONG it takes for a Public Opinion victory to take affect? We teleport out of a building after gaining 500 points of PO and then my character is defeated by angry citizens while i am waiting for the offical notice to appear! If we gained their support INSIDE the facility exactly why are they still trying to kill me when I head outside to battle Maelstrom?
The MoM Trial .. Okay this one isnt too bad except it employs the same annoying "clouds of death" we find in the Apex Trial. Now my ranged characters could care less as the run around the outer edges dealing damage and avoiding the pink clouds but once again its a melee character's nightmare .. you cant stand and just fight you HAVE to hit and run, only use the powers you have with short animation times, or stand your ground and die again and again and again. I have a number of characters that have the master of badge for Apex.. every single one of them is a ranged character and not one of my melee characters has ever completed it .. [this is because after several failures I stopped sending melee characters anywhere near Apex].
Keyes Trial .. much better since the nerf! That constant death beam made the whole experience just annoying. I like to participate in battles not spend half the trial running back from the hospital. I guess if there is anything left thats anoying its the amount of things AM has to throw at you in that final battle. I have to avoid being obliterated, worry about being disintergrd and every time I turn around time freezes .. THAT last one is the one I'd like more clarification on. I have had times where I was within melee range of Anti Matter and while people all around me were held I was heading toward the generators to destroy them. And then on ONE particular trial I had died and was out of awakes so I headed to the hospital. I got to spend an additional 20 seconds inside because for SOME reason the time freeze Anti Matter used had me chocking helplessly at the door?????
The BAF .. while much less of an issue than others mentioned here the prisoner escape phase can be a nightmare for single target melee characters. Blasters, Troller and Defenders sit at a choke point and fire away at things running toward and a way from them but my tanks, scrappers and brutes either man a door, which highly upsets some leaders that insist I should be at a choke point, or I wind up racing around like a maniac for 5 minutes trying to get in more than 1 hit on anything! Of course my melee abilities shine when we battle the AVs so it doesn't feel like I spend the entire trial watching other people work.
Lambda.. Here again we see a phase that sort of discriminates against certain ATs. During the glowie search Tanks, brutes, Scrappers, even WS and PBs in Dwarf mode can easily wander around ignoring the mobs as they destroys glowies.. Squishy types on the other hand find themselves dying and paying the hospital a visit again and again. The rest of the trial is fine but it can be a real pain during that part.
NOW... general annoyances.
Any trial any time.. how often do you enter the Q and those well thought out teams your leader put together are a huge MESS when you actual arrive inside? Lately? It seems like always! In many cases it even requires whoever the game as selected as the new offical trial leader to turn control back over so the ACTUAL trial leader can straighten out the mess.
Any trial any time part 2... this one is hit or miss but the other day I ran a Keyes, TPN, MoM and UG on my brute on full sized leagues. EVERY single trial that day I had to send the leader a tell asking to be reinvited because the game had kicked me off the team as we tried to teleport inside.
Now as I said at the beginning none of this has driven me away from doing the trials and on the league I run with I actually enjoy doing them but I do wonder exactly who on the Dev team thinks that coming up with one annoying restriction after another on every new trial is winning over players? I hear it all the time in broadcast in the RWZ.. "I'll do anything BUT .. {insert name of trial you can't stand here}" This is ually followed by a remark about how said trial sucks or worse. Okay I look forward to comments and other opinions. Please dont turn this into a flame war
�We�re always the good guys. In D&D, we�re lawful good. In City of Heroes we�re the heroes. In Grand Theft Auto we pay the prostitutes promptly and never hit them with a bat.� � Leonard
�Those women are prostitutes? You said they were raising money for stem cell research!� � Sheldon