Trials, level shifts and time, oh my!

This is certainly not a new issue. It's been discussed at length in other areas of these labryrinthine forums. On some servers - players that are level 50 are told they cannot participate in certain trials because of a lack of level shift.

The Avatar from the UGt spawns at level 54(+2)
All AVs(and bosses in the phase 4) from the MoM spawn at level 54(+2)

So, a level 50 is effectively trying to help clobber a level 56.

If it's a scrapper, this is doing about 15% of a scrappers normal damage, while a 50+3 is going to dish out about 65% of normal damage.

So basically - 50% less effective than a +3 for pretty much every AT, except those that heal without needing an NPC target.

As most of you know - I place more stock in who the player is behind the screen than in the toon. If I know you've done a given trial before, and based on repeated trials with you, I don't mind if you bring a base 50, provided we don't have too many other level 50s. A line does have to be drawn somewhere, though.

For the most part, many are willing to switch. I am thankful for that.


There are two sides to this issue. It's not often that Liberty has enough people to do two different trials at the same time. As a result, we have level 50 toons that "fill out" the league. After all, 15% of a damaging attack is 15% more than zero. So, I let the unshifted folks play.

The alternative is either to wait, and wait, and wait to see if any more friends log in and to spam the global channels or not do a trial at all.

I don't know about most of you - but I'd rather take the chance on a trial than not do one. I'd rather risk the 50 minutes on a non badge ugt for around 12 astrals and 2 emps, and a likely random uncommon drop along with the rare/very rare reward table and 60 threads as opposed to running a BAF for 6 or 7 astrals and an emp and a random reward table.

That being said, I feel I owe it to our server to take into account the feelings and thoughts of those who are trying to get to +3, as well as those who already are, but still need some rares and very rare salvage to get their slots to the 4th tier.

I've always tried to cap the number of non shifted to 5, but I'm second guessing that now, based on some feedback I've gotten.

If it's up to me, I'll run MoM and UGT all day. I am so weary of BAF and LAM. Particularly LAM. But, I can't do these alone.

As a compromise, because I know what it's like to want a badge and feel like you can't get it, I'm going to restrict the Sunday MoUGT runs to level shifted toons only. I don't think that's too restrictive. I place that same restriction on myself for doing a mere BAF/LAM.

As for the MoM trials, it's really such an easy, fun trial - I don't concern myself with badges for those. I'm just not going to run them if everyone on the league isn't at least +1. If you're on the league, and you want to do the MoM trial, switch if you must, I'll wait.




My reasoning is that after some constructive criticism, it's just not fair to me, or anyone else on the league that has put the time in.

To help ease the pain of this for you folks that are still trying to get iXP, do we not recall the days when we'd let Nightstar and Seige respawn on purpose, so we'd get more adds to get more iXP?

Mondays: I've already posted elsewhere that at 10pm (central) I'd lead two of these. I'd already stated that at least half the league must be +3, and the other half +1.

Thursdays: Will farm iXP on BAF 6PM central until just enough time is left to do it properly and get the emp merit for completing it.

Fridays: After the MSR, approx. 9:15 pm central, Regular UGT - anyone can come, as long as we have 5 clarions that are t3 and t4 (at least) and at least one kin, one emp and one +3 tank and no more than 5 unshifted 50s.

Saturdays: iTrials - will try to do all of them throughout the day without conflicting with the hami raid.

Sundays: After the MSR, approx. 9:15 pm central, MoUGT Level shifted only.

Obviously some of you may have strong opinions one way or another. Feel free to share your thoughts.

Just remember PW's words -- Trial forming > lftrial

You have my official seal of approval and my support.

I don't see anything wrong here, you and I seem to be seeing eye to eye on this. If there need to be more BAFs, Lambdas, or Keyes runs to help people get a leg up on the level and incarnate shifts I'll volunteer to lead them.

That way there's less reason for people to gripe about anything said here.

Flying to the theme of Top Gun after drinking a whole pot o' coffee,
~Raven

Incarnate trials are for suckers. But yeah. Baf/lam is pretty much for plp to start building up their incarnate powers imo. MoM/TpN/Ugt/keys(sorta) are more for shifted People. I could see a non shifted 50 jumping on a Ugt/keys every once in a while, but having a lot of plp with no level shift on the higher level incarnate trials is not really good for the league.

I've been there. I remember a time when I really wanted some ixp. I joined a ugt. We were successful. I believe I was the only one without @ least 1 lvl shift. Not saying that all non shifted people should die in a fire, but half the league shouldn't be without a shift, especially on the newer trials that have higher lvl enemy groups.

I'm behind you 100% Ukase. This is the main reason I do the lower level trials on Wednesday, I hope most will show up and work toward getting shifted prior to the UGT's you run on Friday and Sunday.

IMO if it is a MO attempt such as your Sunday runs everyone must be shifted. We both know there are folks out there that will run in the UGT knowing they are not contributing with their un-shifted toons which is not fair to the rest of the league.

I will continue to run my Wednesday leagues in hopes that everyone will show up and earn the IXP where they should earn it. Of course after the run last night I will be a bit more selective on who I send invites to.

Thanks for all you do on Liberty making it possible for us to maximize our rewards.

I'll admit Ukase, I was pissed off and disappointed in the MoM run that failed. More so that some of the newer folks didn't listen to the directions and that those same people were not shifted. I'm being honest. It's selfish.

BAF/LAMBDA are there for a reason; hence why I ended up running 3 BAFs and 1 LAMBDA last night because I had a toon that was 50 (+1) and I wanted to encourage non-shifted folk to get their shifts.

We do need more leaders willing to do a grind night now and again just to get those goodies to shift yourself.

I don't agree with the reasoning of, "well it's just a few folks" regardless of how good a player they are. They will be next to useless at -6. But that's my opinion and of course not fact.

It was your trial and for that I do apologize if my "nay saying" was too negative. I have just never failed a MoM and I was flabbergasted. I was more disappointed in the tells that I did give to people who said "oh sorry" and continued to aid in our failure.

I do believe in one cardinal item; respect the leaders choices. If the leader decides to have non-shifted people on the trial, then that is their choice. Everyone else knows what they are getting into when they join the trial.

A few things come to my mind when I see level 50s... just 50s on a trial recommended for shifted folks.

1) They're too damn lazy to do the BAF/LAMBDA because of them hating it or no one is willing to step up and lead it.
2) We are lacking in leadership for iTrials.
3) They want the goodies fast (which honestly, isn't as fast as most think).
4) They are filling holes (we don't have enough shifted of this or shifted of that). Which I find hard to believe... see #1 and #3.

.....screeech!

Hold the phone? RECOMMENDED!

Yes, I had this discussion with someone the other night. We still have 5 other incarnates that are to be opened and I guarantee you, doing the MoM and TPN trials will have the iXP going towards those.

I think I've rambled enough... hopefully I got some idea of how I was feeling and my opinion across. I respect your decision Ukase and will support you anytime. You know this and if you don't, well you do now.

Cheers!

@Tax E - RIP CoH 2012

In general, agreed. Makes sense.

With the one obvious caveat: timing. It's rare that I'm online before 8:00pm (lolpacific) during the week. By then, trial activity is usually wrapping up for the day, and attempts to start up a new league are hardly ever successful.

So when I'm working on a new incarnate, the choice is substantially determined by availability. If there are people interested in BAF/Lam/Keyes, I'll always prefer those for working up to +1, possibly to +2. If UGT is the only thing I'm able to attend for the entire weekend, well ... I have no pride.

I'm currently in a good position where I have everyone incarnated who I wanted to be, so they're just running for fun, for better salvage drops, for an extra Destiny power, etc. So right now I'll pretty much always be on a +3 anyway.

That said, a guideline of +1 for UGT and MoM is reasonable, though I'd leave open the possibility of a pity spot. As long as the league has enough of a critical mass of shifted people to succeed, I personally don't care if we carry a character or two.

As I've probably said a few too many times before, I've always felt like not bringing one of my own +3s (preferably with a T3 or 4 Clarion-) on Underground was slacking. I don't hold doing so against anyone else, but for myself, it's a little too much like being a burden that the rest of the league is expected to carry.

So, yeah, no protest from me re: the level requirements...

That aside, with the general lack of lower-level trials being run during Pacific hours, it really has become a bit of a slog for FCM and I to get new characters incarnated, and I know we're not the only ones in that boat... It's just the reality of living in our new "End Game"-world, I guess. If you get behind the curve or come in late, it's a lot harder to catch up. (And for what it's worth, I hear a lot of grouching and grumping from some of my 500-pound-gorilla-playing friends about similar raid-progression issues over there, so at least it's not a situation particular to the City... It seems like a problem that's just the nature of the beast.)

Thanks for your replies.

Voltz, you and HP have probably led more trials and tfs than any other 25 people on the server combined. (at least PUG trials) I don't think that the same folks leading more baf/lam/keyes is the problem.


It may help the symptom, but not the problem. Like any server, we have pacific coast folks who are just sitting down to play when East Coast players are logging off. I think a lot of the issues could be solved with a higher population. Sadly, that brings other issues that can be even more annoying.

For right now, I'm going to continue to do the UGT, and do it the way I always have. Those on my global list will get invited first, then those in Pocket D, and then from global channels.

As for MoM, I'm just going to chalk that last failed attempt as a reminder of the purple patch. I knew about it, but hadn't realized just how truly ineffective a non shifted toon would be. I certainly wouldn't take a level 46 on a Statesman tf if there were no sidekicking feature, why would I do so on a trial?
So, Tax, I think your feedback to me was spot on. As for being flabbergasted, I wasn't. I was incensed at whoever took the des rez. We would have won that trial were it not for that bad judgement on the part of an unknown player. (At least that part of it, anyway.) The 3 minute finale is far easier than the first part because melee folks can continue to wail away without having to dodge pink.
Yet, the reason it came so close to the wire was undoubtedly a lack of dps, no doubt because there were several unshifted folks.


Overall though, as leader of any trial I form, I reserve the right to "take pity" on those non-shifted toons that belong to players that have given a tremendous amount of their time, support and knowledge to the server overall and to me specifically.

Names that come to mind -- and who doesn't want props? In no particular order:

@Mystic Fortune
@Cinder Frost
@High Voltz
@Heavenly Perverse
@Lumberjack Jill (call him LJ!)
@Letroy (A Debt Junkie will always be welcome! Best SG ever.)
@Xtreme Raze
@FlyingCodeMonkey
@Brightfires
@Wulfrich
@RavenLord
@Karmaa
@Energizing Ion - Probably the kindest, most generous with his time.
@PW
@Noyjitat
@Hazygreys - if he ever comes back.
@Tax E - gotta look out for the hami-raid leader
@Daleaha

The sad part, I can't take 'em all on one trial, some of them are ignoring each other.

Oh, this week, I may be acting kind of loopy in game. I'm painting parts of the house, and the fumes are ....pervasive.

In all seriousness tho, i agree with what you're saying.

As far as the UGT, Mom, and TPN go, you're just not going to get a very successful outcome with a unshifted team. Especially if you are attempting a Mo run.

Outside of a few like @Ukase, @Cinder Frost, @High Volts and a couple others, we could all run some incarnate trials more often. But, like Ukase said, its more of the issue of the lack of population on this server. Granted, It's grown quite abit in the past few months, but its mostly because of the freebies that dominate atlas park. Of course, i transferred a toon over to FREEDOM the other day for pvp purposes, and i have to say, that AP over there is just ridiculous. Its loud, obnoxious, and very commercial. I don't know, is there a happy medium? Just seems like on the larger servers, AKA, Exalted, Freedom...there is just less respect between players.

Anyway, Ive enjoyed playing on Liberty server...would like the population to grow alittle bit, but not to the extent of the larger servers. lol, oh if we could fabricate the outcome of things.

Ooookay so I haven't been on lately....a few reasons:


1.) Real life has been busy with work/etc... (trying to figure out when I'm going to have double-jaw surgery (oh yeah, I know you're jealous!))

2.) The last few nights (weeks?) when I do get on; usually no one is on or is talking. I'm sure that's in a part because of that one far, far away galaxy game that just came out but also probably cause some just finished doing itrials and are now 'bored' with them which I understand.

3.) i22 beta is out! Weee!
3a.) Psst, btw the new DD iTrial is pretty much a "tank-n-spank" if you haven't read anything (as long as everyone (or most everyone)) is +3. Most mobs are lvl 54+2 or +3 in it but beyond that....easy-peasy.


I know I have 3 toons that aren't lvl-shifted to +3 yet (Cold Caller, Magmificent and Arbiter Awesome)....so always up for any trial I can get in on.

And now, I think I see why our playerbase that is unshifted wants to do the harder stuff. Sheer boredom with BAF and LAM. And I really don't blame them.

I took a collection of players that were mostly plus 1, 2 or 3 +3s and the rest unshifted on a BAF, that went well.

Some of us had done a Keyes earlier, when a couple of folks on that props list above that weren't ignoring each other may have started to do so. It still succeeded, and although our league was light on heals, I figured we'd be ok. And I think we would have, except - just like in MoM, and UGT, and Apex, we have some players that simply cannot stay out of a specific area.

I know that anyone can get caught once or twice, because sometimes you can get held, and the oblit beam hits at the same time. Not much one can do about that. But, some of these folks just need more than a "stay out of the green". For whatever reason, it seems some players don't trust the leader, and want to know why. Some players require structure and need to know who's accountable for this task and that task. Even if the league really doesn't. There could be a number of causes - I suspect that if the oblit beam were red, folks would have an easier time. Maybe they think green is good. <shrug> In any event, that was an abysmal failure. Particularly frustrating when you see plenty of time left to take out a bag of HP, and then you see that bag get bigger because some folks had lag, got distracted by kids, or something - and then don't understand that some players are really quite driven to excel - not just succeed barely, but expect things to be well done. I certainly want things to be done well. But, I have to realize that Liberty has several tiers of player skill levels. And the term skill level isn't entirely accurate, because some players are exceptionally skilled, but also may be at work, taking care of children, or married to a spouse that doesn't understand that you never knock - you just slide the food under the door.
/end digress

After the keyes, we had too many to do a LAM - yet many wanted to do a MoM. I explained the purple patch, and one fellow said to me, who cares? Let's just have fun. So, I figured if I'm gonna blow a trial, I'll do one I've already got macro's for.

It was really ugly. None of the tanks were equipped for the IDF, or the AVs. Somehow, we got through the first one, despite a much longer than normal battle. We worked our way to the pair of AVs, and got by the self-repairing, though that was looking scary - seems that the fight took so long, a lot of us had run out of temps. But, we finally got him down, but ran out of time against the second.

The IDF were camping against the scrappers I'd assigned to the regen lichen, and that's all it took to let the AV to regen from 10% back up to about 40%, and from that point, we rallied back, and then suffered a Lethal Force. It would seem a lot of the folks had more fun losing than winning, but I could be wrong. To be honest, I never expected to get that far.
But, yours truly got his blaster from +1 to +3, plenty of time for Friday's scheduled run.

I had to cash in a couple of threads for it, but now I can work on my invuln tank and emp until Friday.

Sadly, the bulk of our players on Liberty do not take the time to learn about things like the "purple patch". It'd be a good thing if they knew more about it, but I guess when you bring math into a game, it takes the fun out for some.

I want to thank those of you that have stepped up and started leading these bafs and lams. I sure hope the next issue or two will have some more elementary trials for the players to do, because I'm sure most of us are really quite tired of them.

Cheers!

I don't know about math. For some I was on a league with tonight, it sure seemed they thought common sense, or reading instructions were about as fun as seeing the dentist.

I'll reiterate, Keyes has no business being failed at the fight in the truckyard. None. There is no excuse for standing in a green target circle of death when sense, the league, and it's leader say not to do so, particularly when it kills you. Over...

and over...

and over...

...again.

After that, I'm seriously looking at taking up another game for a while. That was ludicrous and appalling. Wonder how many of those derping the league tonight were first time 50s. Although I'm not keen on staying to find out, either.

Off to bluer skies,
~Raven

And trials are going to fail. Often for stupid reasons. I've been astounded lately at the number of BAF's I've seen fail because no one would listen to the leader on the prisoner escape phase.

I just shrug and wait for the next one. But when the venom starts to fly, I quietly quit the league and do something else.

And as I said above - I thought the trial went great until the end. There's a LOT for new players to learn about fighting Antimatter that is difficult for leaders to communicate. If you go over it before the trial starts people forget. If you try to use macros and get it across at the right time then there's the chance that so much is going on that people miss it (or don't pay attention). It takes a few times for people to remember everything.

That's why I consider Keyes a gateway trial for the others. If you can't wrap your head around that one, the other trials won't be for you.

And that's okay.

But there's NO excuse for the kind of vitriol that followed what was supposed to be a non-badge trial for new 50's, IMHO.

'Sounds like I made the right choice to spend last night getting Nem and his Bride to 38 instead of trialing...

People got nasty over a newbie-night trial failing? Seriously?

There's an awful lot going on in Keyes, and the effects aren't always easy to see or sort out if you're new to them. If a good portion of the group wasn't as familiar with the trial's mechanics as we Usual Suspects tend to be, it shouldn't be a shock that mistakes happened... even dumb ones... and it can be very hard to keep up with league chat when you're having a tough time just staying alive.

Heck, with a high enough number of unshifted and/or inexperinced people, it shouldn't be unexpected for even a BAF or Lambda to fail. Remember what those trials were like when they were new? Back before any of us had +3s? It's like that all over again when you go in with a low- or no-shift league, and failure isn't uncommon under those circumstances.

So, yeah. Anyone who goes into a trial like that and still expects perfection? I hate to be harsh, but they're not being reasonable or realistic. We've gotten used to the idea that some of the trials are cake-walks, but for a less-shifted and less experienced group, they really aren't.

Hmm. Chalk me up as having not gotten the memo. If Wednesday night trials are for new 50s that wasn't something I was aware of at any time. That said, I would like to whole-heartedly apologize for my behavior last night.

One bit of advice I would give for future iTrials with people new to them is that more advice be given at the start of the trial than "Ok, we all know what we are doing, let's do it". I think that was responsible for both me not knowing that we had new folks, and also for the new folks not knowing what needed knowing.

Guess I'll take a break to get my head back on straight, and again, sorry for chewing people out.

Contemplating life and Liberty from atop a Lord Recluse statue,
~Raven