The things you "hate" about I Trials!

The more I think of it, the sillier the iTrial narrative design seems. I used to think tge BAF and LAM were treatable as repeatable narratively. Seige and NS are trying to release mindwashed again, and we have to stop them again, and look, Cole's filled up his weapons caches again, time to go destroy them again.

But if they're really only supposed to actually happen once for each character's story, then what are the endless repetitions supposed to be?

Eco

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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."

Maybe they went about it the wrong way. It takes X number of normal story arcs plus a bit of street-sweeping and the odd TF maybe for a toon to get from 0 to 50, and I believe it can be done wihout repeating any content.

Perhaps they should have worked out how many iTrials ( or empys or astrals or threads or whatever iRewards they want to use as a metric) it will take for a toon to get from 50 to the maximum tricked out incarnate progress state (after all, theoretically once you've crafted every single Incarnate ability for every single slot you're done for the time being until they introduce new slots) and then released that number of different iTrials, lockig toons out of them once they'd done them and gained their rewards.

So if it would take like grinding iTrials 1000 times to get to uber-Incarnate, they'd need 1000 separate iTrials.

That would certainly slow down the i-progress, which would keep us subbing for longer.

And it wouldn't cause any storyline problems.

Eco

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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."

Not very serious, no . But GG at least would get another 1000 'this [whatever] is awesome because it is!' posts out of them

Eco

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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."

• I hate the way people feel the need to fill the league to the maximum before starting.
• I hate the fact that leaders spend time before loading into the trial trying to organize teams a certain way when the trial doesn't require it.
• I hate when leaders lock full leagues (a lot).
• I hate that the league system doesn't play well with locked leagues.
• I hate backseat drivers.
• I hate people that ignore proven tactics, given a valid explanation. Such as how to taunt WW or Night/Siege or fighting IN FRONT of the terminals in Keyes.

• I hated the TP kick from maelstrom, better since the change.
• I hate the fact that Antimatter doesn't stay taunted very well.
• I hate the fact that Olympian guards do so much dmg with the stun.
• I hate the first part of the UG where you have to wait.

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Originally Posted by Texas Justice They require me to team with others.

And this is just funny...

I think it stems from several factors as to why so many seem to hate content some just roll through and move past like any other part of the game.

For one COX is very solo friendly. This is one of its greatest strengths to be honest imo. However when players long used to, maybe even spoiled by the ease such content has in that it lacks a need for real strategy and creates real challenge.

Now While I hate how they end with fighting characters that shouldnt be any tougher AVs then when we used to solo them in certain story arcs instead of some fun battle of epic proportians pitting us against like upwards of a dozen AVs at once that you needed to seperate to avoid them buffing each other etc, you know like 8 on 8 would to me be more heroic feeling.

I love how effective the incarnate powers are at doing what IMO they are meant to do. Let me feel more powerful then I was, without breaking the old content entirely.

For years some of my favorite TFs are in the shadow shard. except doc Qs I run the rest fairly often, especially those with a lvl 50 cap. These TFs have long been feared by many because of the heavy def debuff, psi dmg, and CC heavy power of the ruls which tear into some of the most hardy of tanks and scrappers.

Even now many newer players, or poor man builds, struggle to survive there, and when i run TFs I can often see long before looking at thier build info, the issues hindering them. Some seek to learn how to become stronger, some say its thier concept and it wont be changed for any reason.

As a Lore Based RPer I understand concept desire, but refuse to let it force me into making an inferior character anymore then I let the so called optimal power comboes be my reason for picking sets. For example I have a many years old and frequently shelved dark sr and dark regen. both are fun concepts and do fit the power sets i chose, but the sets despite being among the most godly combos just feel dull.

My Psi/Ment blaster who most say is the most gimped of blaster sets for dps is imo the best character I have, and he outperforms id guess humbly 90% of ALL other players I run with if not more.

Nor do I see an issue with I trials themselves making us have to use our new powers wisely. However I do understand the feeling of frustration that can occur when a large group based activity is easily ruined by one person, be it through ignorance, accident, or intent.

This is why imo I trials need a different system to punish. Like a lengthy lockdown in a cell. for example using extreme powers like flashy aoes gets you targeted by a insta kill sat laser. you end up in a cell that is nigh impossible to escape from. requiring several allies. Now the main team has to lose members to save the lost one or move on without him. This would be a good way to have those griefing get shut down, while those who screw up by accident or first time can be shown mercy and those helping can feel more heroic.

Personally I dont tie the RP of being incarnated up with the trials at all, they are just big war stories that after one time have been done as far as the story goes. I actually prefer for RP reasons to just grab WST notices and convert them slow and steady style. might take a while but my characters get where they need and do so doing alot of the content ive always enjoyed.

The one and only thing I dislike about the iTrials are that if you are not Level 50 or not an Incarante, it is nigh impossible to find an 8 person team (or sometimes any team at all). This varies from server to server, I'm sure - but on Champion I can spend an hour trying to form up a team or a task force with no luck.

Since the iTrials came out, I haven't seen any Hamidon raids, Kahn TFs, Statesman/Lord Recluse TFs, LGTFs, or mothership raids...the only task that gives alpha slot common components that I still see run are ITFs.

I love the Incarnate stuff, but I feel like it overshadows the older content.

I suppose that follows. I am not sure it's likely, though (as you may have been hinting at with the "quixotic" bit), since the devs also seem to want to use them as a narrative vehicle. If they create more story-arc-driven content in the vein of I22's DA, that may be able to change, with the arcs being the narrative delivery and the iTrials then being something fits into that narrative, but makes repetition (more) sensible.

There's still a problem, though. For that to work, the repeatable tasks have to relate to something that makes sense to be essentially static. "Winning" at the trial can't really be associated with any change in the narrative. Roughly, it'd be like the trial equivalent or running the PvP zone missions. Longbow and Arachnos aren't going anywhere, so invading their bases over and over without really affecting the larger world makes sense.

But even a narrative told in story arcs needs to either go somewhere, or end up unresolved. If the arc narrative goes somewhere, then even though the associated iTrials may be internally consistent with repetition, they won't make sense for anyone who got past that part of the arc narrative. If the arc leaves things unresolved, and we're running the trial over and over in an eternal status quo, then (at least in my opinion) that doesn't feel much better than running something with a story over and over. One breaks immersion, but the other just feels ... empty.

Another problem I see with cramming storyline into the iTrials is that you only geg a tiny bit of story. It takes multiple hours of gameplay to run the whole of the Striga storyline, or Croatoa, or First Ward, and many dozens of missions. This gives a feeling that the story lasts a long time. The Praetoria storyline delivered in the iTrials is over in what, 8 short missions? The fact that thy are intended to be run over and over and over may fool some into thinking the iTrials give hundreds of hours of content, but they don't.

I fear that the DA content will not be analogous to the amount of individual missions delivered with Croatoa or Faultline or FW for example, because the devs think that running a repeatable mission 5 times is as good as running a 5-mission story arc.

That's a grim road to go down in terns of delivering content i
IMO.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of each new zone that's been introduced with a count of the missions and TFs etc that came with them.

Eco

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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."

No, I agree that pure numbers of missions don't make an engaging story-see the Dr Q TF for example.

But just giving us repeatable content isn't the way to go either. I wonder how many non-repeatable arcs/missions DA will have.

Eco

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."

See, I don't think the Mothership raids are that great an example. I find them a fun, but story-wise hollow experience. Don't get me wrong, I don't get any great satisfaction from the embedded story in iTrials, and the cutscenes got old fast, but I don't feel that things like the RWZ are any great shakes just because they're vaguely explainable. I don't ever feel like I'm accomplishing anything fighting the Rikti. I know they'll be back as soon as the shields come up. The raid is just an excuse to earn VMerits. Sure, it's fun, but for me, its (lack of) story has zero to do with that.

Hamidon is different for me. Like the Rikti, I know he'll be back, but it feels right that he's going to be back, because he is the big bad, and his presence in The Hive / Abyss is completely open ended. There's no plot you obviously stop, there's just the mechanics of overcoming his off-the-scale stats. He's impersonal and so is fighting him. Your imagination can insert reasons why he's there and what fighting him actually achieves. Anything with more sense of plot prevents that. Even with the mothership raids. we plant bombs on the Rikti ship, but that apparently does nothing, when planting bombs seems like it should do something.

iTrials.