is all high level content as stupid as the ITF is now?

When I was a new player and started soloing, the missions had such urgency, like "QUICK! Disarm/rescue/stop the____!" and so on, which I took to mean I should accomplish the mission objective just as quickly as possible. So, I was doing "speed runs" without even knowing that's what I was doing. I remember being especially proud of myself when I could complete a mission without any bloodshed at all! (I thought my contacts would be quite proud of me, too) Teams, on the other hand, seemed to want to bash everything in sight, which was good for the exp., but gosh, I thought that was a bit of a.... well, exploit. What kind of a hero LOOKS for people to beat on?

Now, years later, I know that the intent of the missions/TF's is to clear them, or mostly clear them, but I am pretty solidly neutral on the whole thing. To this day, there are some arcs I really enjoy playing, and part of the joy of these is racing through at a manic pace, trying to click things before I'm spotted, racing past spawns hoping they won't attack, and so on. I'd never subject a team to that, but boy is it fun!

I don't like "clear all" missions. Not only because there is always one guy hiding behind duct work in the ceiling, either. It often seems like the writers just know this is a really boring "filler" mission, and the only way you're going to do it "properly" is if they force you to do so. (Paragon Protectors I'm looking at you!)

Now, am I "right" about any of the above? Certainly not. But I don't believe I'm "wrong" either. A speed TF isn't "wrong". Neither is a steamrolling shard/exp run. It's about having fun without hurting anyone else (which includes exploits, which DO hurt others, albeit in the long run). I do have pity for the OP who got on a team with 50+3's who incarnated (can I use that as a verb??) everything, leaving the rest of the team to the tedium of having no purpose whatsoever. But those kinds of TF's are really, really few and far between. +3's aren't looking for shards or exp., and they've done the ITF for the badges and armor long ago - so what's the point for them? Merit hunting? Even with the WTF 2x merits, it's nowhere near as fast at merit nabbing as doing SSA's.

A number of the ITF's I've done in the last few months have been a bit dicey in terms of whether or not we'd even succeed, because sometimes the majority of the team are nowhere near 50. People who do the ITF now seem to be: 1) people who have characters 35-49 looking for exp., 2) 50's who don't like i-trials, looking for shards, and 3) people who just think it's a lot of fun, and aren't all about the rewards.

-Eeek

PS The ITF is "high level content"??

I have done the ITF twice and it was the most fun thing ever. I loved the cyclopses and minotaurs.

This thread seems strange to me where people are trying to tell each other what is fun and what is not fun. How can you argue about that its not like if you win the argument the other person will suddenly find it fun or not fun any more.

That said, anybody who doesn't think the ITF is fun is wrong!

I have done ITF's all different ways Speed, Kill most and obliterate every living thing.

With speed ITF's for those who die a lot the key is do you have a character who can withstand the mobs thumping on you while you defeat a Crystal? If not you will die. We do them only complete objectives then scoot.

1. You don't fight all the romans in part one just those holding the seers.
2. Crystals you try to each take one or double up to take them out.
3. usually we do backwards jump forward pull both AV's down and defeat the computer too all at once and then defeat the Generals and friends.
4. we jump straight to Rommie fight him on the stairs and defeat the ambushes to get your traitors or go to a tower to defeat the rest.

Punch out and its over.

Personally I like to do the kill anything in the way. Last night did one with 3 corrs, 3 blasters, 1 controller and an Ice tank. We had Cold shields and 2 thermals and so it was a walk in the park and my blaster was even herding things using chilling embrace.