The Myth of "Hard" raids.
If you want my expert opinion, the trial difficulty goes in this order:
Easy: Standard BAF, Standard LAM, Standard Keyes.
Medium: TPN, MoBAF,
Hard: MoM (both standard and master runs), MoLAM, MoTPN.
Hardest: UG (both standard and master runs), MoKeyes (if successful).
A player can do the easy and medium content with no shifts and have little problem. From there, you start to need things. As for the rankings, let me explain things in reverse on the list...
The reason why I have the UG listed as hardest is because that is one of the few trials where you can fail despite everyone doing things right. There is no immunity to the gimmicks, only actions you can take to lessen the blow. Should team makeup be particularly unfavorable, the war walkers targeting attacks can put and end to the team simply because there is no one there who is capable of standing up to it. At the end, the Avatar is still a very hard boss, even with clarions. Combine that sometimes crap happens, and Desdemona will draw aggro and get killed due to umpteen reasons. Now that people are getting the hang of MoM, the UG takes the throne as the king of difficulty.
The MoKeyes is more speculation than anything else, since I have yet to actually attempt a run. However, the badges are all incredibly difficult, and two of them are geared toward making the trial more difficult. I do not have the scale of pulse damage memorized, but getting Antimatter under 10% health at a reactor seems like it could lead to team wipes and stalling very easily. Not destroying terminals means the team's offensive output needs to be outstanding, and healing capabilities profound to avoid anyone being disintegrated. If you can't avoid being DIS at the end, going for the MO would spell defeat for the team.
MoM's is a "perfect storm" for difficulty. Heavily focused on psionic damage means that players take a ton of damage, the purple patch ensures that damage output is hindered and defenses shredded, and each AV has gimmicks that can wipe the team. The inability to use the hospital means that mistakes compound quickly, and player losses quickly culminate into a slippery slope of destruction. However, by following precise instructions and knowing the tactics, a PUG of 51+ can complete the trial. Thankfully the trial is designed to let players give instruction.
MoLAM is rarely attempted, but it is essentially running a LAM under all the conditions that would normally lead to failure. To get the badges, you have to do specific things that end up making it so you can't use either pacification grenades nor the molecular acids, causing adds to build up quickly against an unstoppable wall of an opponent. Without good coordination and well constructed team, a league will be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and raw power of the IDF.
MoTPN is also rarely attempted, but the rise in difficulty ascends this trial into hard territory. The reason why "all inside" runs seem to work so well is that it is idiot tolerant; with 24 players running about doing terminals, there's a good chance that some of them know what to do. To do MoTPN, you need to split the team 3-ways at one point, thinning the numbers. Though this is more effective, it requires upmost coordination and also requires that all people know what exactly what they are doing. This turns the trial from idiot tolerant to idiot prone; those guys who never bothered to pay attention escalate from a miner nuisance to a serious threat.
TPN trial guide video / MoM trial guide video / DD trial guide video / BAF trial guide video
/ Lambda trial guide video / Keyes trial guide video / Magisterium trial guide video / Underground trial guide
Swimming a hundred meters is challenging-for a 5-yr old. I don't think most adults would say that swimming 100 meters is particularly challenging, however.
The trials are like that. GG is wrong.
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
- Having to hang around for >20min <1hr before the league was ready/full enough
- Greatly incentivising specific incarnate powers (Rebirth, Clarion)
- The increased likelihood of ...difficult... people when forced to team with ~16 others
- Poor UI given the choice of mechanics (Someone on the league failing to find/use temp powers)
- Crashing/Lag
- Poor use of scale (Civilians throwing rock that take out incarnates)
- Poor content planning (Forcing a +4 trial at the ends of the "new incarnate" solo arc)
- Getting minimal reward through no fault of your own (Idiots failing Lambda by emoting behind Marauder)
- Making AT primaries redundant (Controllers in BAF, somewhat fixed now)
- Mass death you can't control (Keyes timestop+obliteration beam)
On the day we defeated Hamidon without gimmicks in a straight in your face fight - I became Incarnate. The game can hand that out now if they want to but when me and 149 of my friends kicked Hamidons *** after months of planning - that was hard.
Marut, Dynamite, Acemace, CC, Addie, Zarok and so many others who worked so hard for so long - on that day we became gods. I didn't need a level shift to know it and those first Hami O's - even though I gave away my first one because of the poor delivery system and some were shorted - was sweet. |
Maybe you should check out wow after all, they have tons of elitists there who love to bemoan how the "casuals" with their "welfare epics" have ruined the game.
Oh, okay, you're here to grind that particular axe. Would have been nice to know on Page 1 before we all wasted our time replying, thinking that the topic was about trial difficulty.
In the Lam I mostly had to battle the lag inside and died when I froze in the middle of a large group.
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Eh, I think there are a large number of adults who would find jogging 100m hard enough, let alone swimming it. I'm not in as good a shape as I could be but I'm not grossly out of shape either, and I know I wouldn't be all that keen on having to swim the length of a football field.
Suggestions:
Super Packs Done Right
Influence Sink: IO Level Mod/Recrafting
Random Merit Rolls: Scale cost by Toon Level
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Be well, people of CoH.
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"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
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The Minds of Mayhem trial has no such reward structure. I've finally been able to get on successful MoM trials and have had common rewards most of the time from it.
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Agreed.. The only Guarentees you have on trials are 60 threads for defeating Maelstrom outside the first time(TPN), 60 threads for defeating the Lichen healed Warworks(UG), and a rare or very rare for completing the UG itself. Aside from reward drops for Master of runs all the other trials can and do reward anything from a common to a VR. My own personal results seem to show that Keyes has a horrible drop rate ... After all that rushing around, and on squishier characters more than a death or tow if not very careful, I can not recall the last time I got anything from that trial but a common or Uncommon. I run most if not all the trials every night normally staring with Keyes so I am not talking about what I see from running one keyes a week.
�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
�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
Anyone pulling Marauder out the door behind him is griefing the trial and should be dealt with appropriately. It's still two different events:
1: photo-bombing Maurader
2: pulling him out of lambda
1 does not mean 2 will happen. As stated, I've never seen a trial fail because of it, but I've also never done it because I find it stupid.
Be well, people of CoH.
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Anyone pulling Marauder out the door behind him is griefing the trial and should be dealt with appropriately. It's still two different events:
1: photo-bombing Maurader 2: pulling him out of lambda 1 does not mean 2 will happen. As stated, I've never seen a trial fail because of it, but I've also never done it because I find it stupid. |
It does sound like someone would almost have to intentionally pull Marauder out of the compound.
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"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
Hate to burst your bubble Bill but I have.. and exactly as described. We had an MM that first refused to even try to help out with the glowies phase because as he put it.. "All I do in there is die" This struct a raw nerve as my defender headed back inside from the hospital for the third time and ran past him. We finally competed the glowie phase .. and as I waited for the door to the hospital to release (death #4) the cut scene began and our hero had summoned all his pets and was dancing behind Maurader. The cut scene ended and before anyone had a chance to do anything TRIAL FAILED MAUARDER HAS LEFT THE COMPOUND. Our mastermind had allowed his pets to taunt the AV OUT the door and the trial failed. He was kicked from the league and I am pretty sure I wasn;t the only one to rate him with one star to ensure I never team with the jerk again.
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If this happened to me i would have petitioned him and refused him entry to any and all trials that i would be part of for X time.
I have zero time for griefers in any form [i've given people 1 star in a costume contest for constantly trying to spam up the local chat even after asking politely not to] and from what you've said, he only had one intention on his mind.
Now with lambda i can somewhat understand people not liking the collecting the glowies stage, i always ask if i can go in the labs team as the warehouses do destroy my computer to unplayable levels [thus im useless there].
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
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@bpphantom
The Defenders of Paragon
KGB Special Section 8
If this happened to me i would have petitioned him and refused him entry to any and all trials that i would be part of for X time.
I have zero time for griefers in any form [i've given people 1 star in a costume contest for constantly trying to spam up the local chat even after asking politely not to] and from what you've said, he only had one intention on his mind. Now with lambda i can somewhat understand people not liking the collecting the glowies stage, i always ask if i can go in the labs team as the warehouses do destroy my computer to unplayable levels [thus im useless there]. |
I didnt bother to petition.. to be honest I don't think the guy was purposely trying to cause the trial to fail. It was more a case of just being a complete idiot and not even thinking that his pets MIGHT pull the AV outside.
Yeah I know what you mean about the warehouse .. doesnt bother me too badly but I have seen team mates ask to be on the acid team because not only can't the move in there.. the lag gets so bad it crashes them.
Oh .. another example of Cut Scene bombing that backfired.. And this one I have seen several times. There is a brief period right after the cut scene ends before Maurader becomes aware of what is around him .. the main reason folks can pose beside him and not end up dead. However I have been on several teams where the dancing fools lingered and when they finally decided to move away they pulled the AV and all the support troops right onto the team while we were still waiting to start throwing acids. Team members died and had to hosp and before long the adds simply over ran us. On one particular Lambda, and this was a LONG time ago, we never did recover because the leader couldn't get the players to hold up and re group so as fast as they'd come back from the hospital they'd die again. We never managed to close a single door and eventually as time was running out people started to quit. last thing I recall seeing from the leader was "Lets head back to the RWZ and reorganize and try to figure out what went wrong!" DUH your dancing team mates reversed things so that instead of us ambushing the AV and troops they ambushed US!
![EEK!](images/smilies/eek.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
Failing Lambda because of cutscene bombing is mostly down to players not knowing the risk, rather than griefing.
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I had someone once deliberately taunt Marauder through the gate because the trial wasn't going well. We only had two or three minutes left on the clock and probably would have failed anyway, but it was still kind of annoying. Much like failing TPN due to someone killing citizens or failing UG because UG has abysmal mechanics, much about winning the trials involves making sure no single individual undoes what 23 others are doing. That doesn't make the trials "hard" but it does, IMO, make them unideal for how they are being used. The fact that people rarely intentionally (or accidentally--the trials have no qualms about making sure your uninformed mistakes bring the rest of your league down with you) invoke these mechanics doesn't really address the fact that they are, for whatever reason, there.
The Confuse the UG boss uses is especially irritating, for a different reason. Leagues who prepare for it will never actually face it, so the question becomes why even have it, except to make us spend time standing outside the trial preparing for it? The end result of several of these kinds of mechanics, along with the rezz penalty in MOM, is that the best leagues sail through without even seeing what these trials can dish out, and the worst ones are Nintendo-hard meatgrinder screaming-match death trains that serve mainly to reinforce why you should stack the deck before starting instead of using the LFG queue all of this was supposed to be built to support.
Leagues who prepare for it will never actually face it, so the question becomes why even have it[?] ... the best leagues sail through without even seeing what these trials can dish out, and the worst ones are Nintendo-hard meatgrinder screaming-match death trains that serve mainly to reinforce why you should stack the deck before starting instead of using the LFG queue all of this was supposed to be built to support.
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"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
Underground and Keyes are the only trials with rewards weighted more based on their difficulty, though even that, only Underground guarantees a rare or better.