The things you "hate" about I Trials!

If the game's not fun, then why would people be interested in getting rewards from it?

5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted

Exhaust ports by their very nature must usually be at least to some degree exposed, in order to emit exhaust. Engineers might be forgiven if they ended up too exposed. Military installments have a much lesser need to contain the specific rare weapons and chemicals that uniquely disable their own defenses.

If I were Emperor Cole, and I wanted to keep a bunch of pacification grenades around in case Marauder went off his leash (and it's pretty a long leash, apparently), I wouldn't store them in Marauder's own facility.

What, so the grenades are just specifically designed to calm Marauder down? And they're made by Cole's guys? Why? Idon't see him attacking his own guys or doing anything anti-Cole.

Hm. That's pretty lame. What's the general story behind the LAM anyway? What are we supposed to be doing nesides going in to beat up Marauder?

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."

A guy I knew didn't see his Rottweiler attacking him or doing anything anti-him, until it did.

It's a military facility, we're supposed to be shutting it down. I think.

That was such a good article! Hope everyone reads it.

I despise the feeling of being manipulated by game devs into doing what they want me to do instead of doing what I want to do for fun. Result is I've become the contrarian who refuses to desire their carrots unless I can get them by playing the I want & not paying anything above the basic sub fee.

It is my time and my money and they will not dictate how I spend either. I will continue to pay sub only because it is large enough sandbox where I can continue to do only those things that are fun for me & let me avoid their most obvious attempts at manipulation.

Yes, an awesome article. Best quote: "Heroin: It's pretty much WoW in a syringe."

--NT

Lambda Sector is Cole's IDF training facility. The "story" is that your league is being directed to "sabotage" it in order to hinder Cole's invasion plans. Though it isn't made clear before you start, the sabotage in this case takes the form of running around the interior of the facility and destroying Containment Chambers and Weapons Caches. In order to gain access to the interior, however, you must (a) defeat spawns of IDF "guarding" the road surrounding Lambda, the interior training yard, and optionally the defense turrets ringing the entire facility, and then (b) defeat the "response" robot that guards access to the elevators inside.

The sabotage phase is ostensibly the one and only true objective of the raid, represented by the simple act of destroying Containment Chambers and Weapons Caches. However, knowing what the final act really looks like, the devs cleverly appended an ancillary benefit to the destruction of these MacGuffins. You get "molecular acids" (acids) and "pacification grenades" ('nades) temp powers that are helpful in the stage that follows.

The fight at the end with Marauder occurs, not because that is the league's goal, but because once you breach the interior and start your "sabotage" run, he decides to get directly involved in stopping you. A timer counts down to his arrival, and you get rewarded with extra time (delaying him) with each Containment Chamber/Weapons Cache pair your league destroys (the logic of that is not clear to me though). Finally, after either the timer expires or you've destroyed all the chambers and caches available (10 of each), Marauder appears on the scene to drive the league away. Only at this point does it become clear that defeating him is necessary for trial success, even though engaging him at all was never described as one of the raid's objectives (or was it and I just missed it?)

Here are the full details:

By taking out Lambda Sector, we're able to step up our assault on the loayalists by moving on to take contol of the Keyes Island reactors.

The Pacification grenades were made on Tyrant's orders to have a way of taking down Marauder if he got out of control - storing them close to him is more effective for taking him down than storing them on the other side of the city - kinda like putting fire extinguishers in a building rather than having to go to the fire department to collect one if you need it.

Wow. Nailed it. I mean, I've done quite a few, but I don't feel the slightest bit super. Especially when lowly Praetorian civilians one-shot me.

--NT

Which kind of leaves open the question as to why Marauder didn't simply have those weapons caches (or rather the pacification grenades inside them) quietly disposed of. Or are we expected to believe that he isn't keenly aware of every single piece of munitions stored at the facility he is in charge of? And if Tyrant is so concerned with Marauder getting "out of control," why then permit Praetor Berry to give him a super serum that boosts his power even further? And if, as some have boasted, Marauder is defeatable without grenades, why would Tyrant bother with having them made? Marauder hardly represents a potential "problem" Tyrant couldn't solve on his own.

Those grenades just don't make much sense to me.

He's already been "banished" to Lambda Sector follwoing the events in the First Ward stroyline - hiding or destroying the Pacification Grenades could have a fatal result for him if it was discovered - he's already displeased Tyrant, so going and doing something that would seem to show that he's planning on turning against Tyrant wouldn't really be a smart move.
Marauder is in a similar position to Anti-matter - both have fallen out of favor with Tyrant, even though they're both still loyal to him - doing anything that could be interpreted as turning against him wouldn't fit their goals.
Tyrant treats people as tools to be used for his project of keeping humanity enslaved - if someone's abilities make them the best for the job, then they get the job - their morality doesn't matter at all, and he's confident enough in his own power to employ dangerous people to work for him.
For example, Mother Mayhem is a monster, but she's also an incredibly powerful psychic, so she gets the job of running the psychic thought police, because her abilities make her the most suitable for the job - just like Chimera is an elite assassin and intelligence operative, so he's the best choice to run the imeprial spy network, even though he's an unstable control freak.
Marauder is a violent thig, but he's also very good at weeding out the "week" elements in the Powers Division, making them a stronger and more efficient force, so Tyrant employs him as head of the powers Division.
All the Praetors are dangrous archvillains, but they serve Tyrant's purposes very well.

You didn't source that quote of yours, so I don't k ow how it's delivered in game terms.

But anyway, if our aim is to destroy the weapons caches at the Lambda facility, and we do so, why do we have to fight Marauder afterwards? Why don't we all just fly over the wall and escape?

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."

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."

We could, but I presume that the moment Marauder elects to engage the league in person he becomes a target of opportunity. An opportunity too good to pass up as far as Prometheus is concerned.

It's possible he could pursue us - plus, we've git a good chance to beat down one of the major loyalists and add to Tyrant's problems.
We're not just doing hit and run attacks, or only tyring to teach Tyrant and the loyalists a lesson - the purpose of the war is to totally destroy the dictatorship - the more top loyalists we take out of the picture, the weaker Tyrant's grip on power becomes.
Each Trial deals with aspects of the dictatorship that were revealed in GR - and step by step we're dismantling the fascist state that he's set up, attacking his brain-washing and prison system, his military might, his power supply for creating Warworks, his propaganda network, his thought police, and discovering the truth about his "victory" over the Hamidon, and the lies he's told the people that he claims he's "protecting".
Right now, Tyrant's in a very difficult situation, with his key henchpeople dropping fast, his support amongst the population collapsing, and the various arms of state repression being damage, taken over or outright destroyed - but that makes him all the more dangerous, because he's likely to try just about anything now to try and hold on to his crumbling empire - including forming some kind of alliance with the Hamidon.

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."

The problem with the 'right now' bit is that the way they're trying to shoehorn linear end-in-sight story into the raids, which are not just repeatable but outright grind-intended, I get no sense that yesterday we dealt with Nightstar snd Seige, this morning we destroyed Lambda's weapon manufactory and disabled Marauder, this evening we blew up the Keyes Island reactor and put Anti-Matter out of the picture, and tomorrow we'll dust off our hands after firmly dealing with Cole's propaganda machine before moving on to Motjer Mayhem. The trials are so insanely more repeatable than anything else in game, even the most popular TFs, that having them try to tell a linear non-repeating story was a terrible idea IMO.

I deal with Seige and Nightstar, then minutes later I nip to Keyes and bash up Anti-Matter, then I head back to the BAF cos apparently the two comedy droids are releasing mindwashed again, and then I go bliw up the Lambda sector, having a fight with Marauder, then whaddaya know, Seige and Nightstar are back to their old tricks and Anti-Matter's back on top of his reactors, ranting again.

When the Tyrant iTrial arrives, after I've helped down Tyrant and 'destroy Praetorian war machine' once and for all, I'll be ablevto immediately discovervthat Seige and Nightstar haven't been informed.

MoM SPOILER maybe:













Doesn't Mother Mayhem die in the MoM? Makimg her appearace in my very next BAF cutscene a bit stupid.

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."

Because boss fights are a trope of MMOs and he's the boss fight.

You do know that the Trials were being designed at the same time as GR, don't you?
Or do ou think that they were just planning to give us 3 level shifts for things like the ITF?
The change in the I18 beta was Mender Ramiel's arc - originally, the Alpha slot could just be unlocked with reward merits, but a lot of players asked for a more story-based unlock, so we got the Incarnate intro arc.
The Praetorian war was always a part of the GR storyline, right form the very first info we got on GR.

I would have rather they design the iTrial stories as some sort of 'fighting back the tide' thing, allowing a narrative reason fir the repetition.

With most of the other content in the game, my toon will play it through once from start to finish. Once I've done the striga arcs, I don't get to go speak to Stephanie to find she's lost her wedding ring again with a toon who's already found it for her.

The TFs are repeatable, but the effect of repeating their storylines on the same toon isnt as jarring since they're not often run ten times or more in quick succession.

To get a non-ludicrous PraetoriN Storyline experience, my toon needs to run the Praet zone content, and then run the iTrials just ONCE EACH, in the right order, and then not do any again.

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."

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