Downside to DoubleXP

Extremely unlikely on Triumph. The players tend to avoid it, the server culture tends to ridicule it, and the population numbers can't support it.

And, yet. SG finds runs with his requirements that are a clear step down the road toward it... I'd say the evidence counters what you say here quite well.

Form your own trials or stop complaining.

Why should Snow be forced to hand hold anyone?

By the way he does it willingly. I see that many folks missed the part where he helps others do the lower trials to get their level shifts.

Selective reading much?

I think I'll stick with Arcanaville's evidence over yours. her track record seems to be better by large margin.

Just saying.

Eccept that he DOES help fellow players. People in this thread keep selectively missing that fact, which he's stated multiple times.

He runs ALL the trials. If folks want to level up why not jump on the lambda, baf that he also runs? Why is there a requirement that you try to level up via content that could be potentially +5-+7 to you. That just makes NO SENSE.

The devs INTEND for folks to run the lower trials to get the level shifts for the harder trials. I'm not seeing anything here unique to how the rest of the game works.

I seriously don't think the devs intend for players with no level shifts to bother with the higher level trials until they "level up."

And actually what the devs intend is irrelevant, when Snow himself has said now repeatedly that he is willing to help folks get their level shifts on the lower trials. At this point it does not seem that it's Snow that's being selfish.

Just saying.

I want both of you to try to bring a level 40 to a STF. When you can do that, then you have a basis for complaining about my requirements for harder trials.

Edit:
Also, how many open trials do you host and how often? I'm guessing that you only get a core of people you regularly play with and at that point fill with others. My open trials are open, meaning that I start with myself and announce on at least 3 global channels that I'm forming a trial.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Poor example IMHO. Better example:

STF with old SKing rules. Bring along some 47s, but don't have enough people to mentor. You could do it, but it wouldn't be wise and I don't believe anyone would be against a leader not agreeing to form such a team.

AVs conning +6-7 to much of the team is a huge disadvantage.

Another example, is it wrong to make all participants of a TMTF or Apex have alpha slotted?

Leaders form groups, and they get to make their rules. I may not agree with the strictness of said rules, but that just means I can start my own and pick up the people that weren't allowed into the restricted trial.

Actually, the better example in my opinion would be bringing along half the team at 45 to a Lord Recluse Strike Force led by a level 50 under the old sidekicking rules. An elite team that was perfectly balanced for the strike force could do it, but I sure wouldn't do it with what amounts to a PUG.

Actually, I agree, that is a much better example.

Exactly.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

For sufficiently opaque definitions of "clear."

Why not go to Triumph and compete for players then?

Yes, please do.

Not sure if serious. The 20 hours is the reward penalty time. Once a player runs the trial, they aren't going to get the same rewards so they aren't going to run the trial again until they can get the rewards again. The exception to this rule is if a player decides to run the trial again despite rewards out of charity or if they really like that trial.


Definitely interesting. However, something that I always take issue with is the perceive-ability. A person's outlook, whether seeing hope in the void or despair in the light, is that person's responsibility. Their opinions are also their own responsibility. "You're making me perceive things that way" even sounds kind of silly, as if there is a mind-control device that is forcibly changing other people's opinions.

I try to convince everyone otherwise. On virtue I was the first person I saw who started hosting MoM trials with a 51+ only requirement where previously it was all 53s with specific ATs. And it work great, winning far more often than losing, but unfortunately I have yet to get any of the other leaders to be convinced from success after success. After going "Hey everyone, it works great like this and everyone can do this and I'll continually show you it works great like this", and people aren't convinced, this makes me question whether or not they even can be convinced. If they won't listen to reason or will ignore practice, then I'm powerless to change their perception. I feel the devs may be in the same boat.

This leaves me perplexed about their behaviors. I talk with them, but their reasons don't always make sense in light of contradictory evidence. It isn't about reasoning at this point. So now me and Snow are going to get into a testosterone fight.

I do wonder what kind of challenge that the devs can put into the game that doesn't require level shifts, though. I talk about this with Arcanaville later, so to save space I'll just direct to the end of this post.


I remember the only time I've ever seen a league fail at the end fight of MoM. It was a very strange problem that, thanks to someone's joke, I call the lemming tactic. The standard strategy for the final AV fight is to summon temp pets, buff, then rush the AV. This league had an... initiative problem. That is, they wouldn't attack the AV until a lot of people were already attacking the AV. This kept rearing it's ugly head through the trial, with the whole "lets wait two minutes before fighting Malaise" and "lets wait in the starting room until an Eye of the Storm is up". So, in the final AV fight, when we have all of our pets and and we go to charge the AV, everyone is just standing around while the AV snipes them. I run ahead and start fighting the AV thinking that other people will run up, but they don't. So here I am, a level 53 Dom with no resistances or defense to speak of, tanking the AV. Of course I get slaughtered, and then the next brave soul who runs up gets slaughtered, and then the next one gets slaughtered... repeat the process. It wasn't until after a full minute that the brutes on the team decided to start attacking the final AV, but at that point over half the league had wiped and wasn't able to recover. At the end of the trial I was all like "Just a tip to everyone, ONE AT A TIME DOESN'T WORK!!!".

You don't get des-rez during the final AV fight...

It happens on virtue, too. We get dozens of people standing around all going "LF trial!" but no one starts it. I think my record time for forming a full UG is 30 seconds.



This raises the question of what can be considered elitism. After all, min/maxing, exclusion, stringent requirements, specific powers, all of those are there to increase the odds of success. Elitism itself seems to be to increase the odds of success, so it is hard to make a distinction. The litmus test I always use for elitism is whether or not you are excluding a player for matters other than their playing skill. If you are excluding via AT, not slotting IOs, Levels, and their kin then this is a case of elitism. A player that is merely doing what they can to make themselves better isn't itself elitist, but the moment when that extends to discriminating against another player is the moment that it extends past the line.

Also, at what point does having those requirements become elitism? I myself tend to host MoMs with a +1 requirement (and I'll willingly break it if we have a lot of +3 teammates or if they're a support toon with nice buffs). Is it when players are hosting things with +3 only? Is it when players are requiring IO sets? Is it when players are only asking for specific ATs or Power sets? The scale of exclusion rears applies here, too. I run MoM with the +1 requirement not because it isn't nice to have a team of only 53s with IOs stomp the trial blindfolded, but because I am trying to get as many people as possible on board while still retaining victory. My actions are not to see if we can win as easy as possible, but if we can just win even by the skin of our teeth. Sometimes I think even the +1 requirement isn't necessary.

Though I do think that the level shifts are a bit of a case of trickery with the numbers. Something I brought up once is that, though the Warwalkers in the UG trial are level 55, they have 0% resist to all forms of damage. This makes them less durable than Nighstar and Siege, and arguably even Antimatter though they don't have level shifts. Something else I mentioned in the beta forums is how most of the difficulty of the trial is based upon the mechanics. I mean, sure the Avatar of Hamidon is level 55 and has resists to everything, but I have yet to find a team that both didn't have issues with his confuse and didn't beat him. If you overcome that confuse, he becomes a big wall of HP that you whittle down. To these, I wonder what exactly lends to success: is it the level shifts, or is it better tactics and strategy? From my experience, it certainly isn't the lack of levels that is getting me killed; it's all those gimmicks and sometimes the incompetence of a player(s).

I also wonder how it is you can put difficulty into the game despite stats being an integral part of the game. Increasing the stats needs stat increases to counteract them or very specific strategies requiring specific powers in certain amounts. Gimmicks need precision, and the more precision is needed the more prone to mistakes and idiocy it becomes. I can't really figure it out, and I don't expect someone else to off-hand.

• No. It assumes that the player has only one level 53 character that they are trying to get better salvage for, and/or they have the time to run the trial with that one character. This, a very safe assumption, since level constraints and time constraints are quite real, and I have come into conflict with these while hosting trials countless times. I've already made mention of the exception several times now, but exceptions are just that; not the general flow of the players.
• This is also a very safe assumption. If you run a trial and then run it again immediately afterward, the vast majority of the players quit. I did it just last night when I hosted two consecutive UG trials. Want to know how many out of the original 16 others that formed the trial with me stayed? 3. The rewards are like a constant pressure that mold people toward a certain behavior, and this creates a general trend requiring effort to go against. In this sense, you are talking a lot about people wasting your time, but expecting others to run the trial more than once without the rewards is a time waster for that person themselves. These are in direct conflict with each other: Either you care about people wasting your time, or you do not care about people wasting your time
The players that are concerned about the rewards table run the BAF and LAM over and over again. They do not run MoM over and over again. They don't even run UG over and over again, and that guarantees a rare and 60 threads on completion. No, they run the UG for experience, and they run the MoM/DD trial for their Emp reward. Once that reward is granted, they go do other things. This should be self evident: you say yourself that an UG forms once every couple of months. Little hint: If players enjoyed the trial so much that they would run it over and over again, then it wouldn't be that rare.


Keyes and TPN do not give guaranteed rares like the UG and the easily obtainable MoDD does. TPN only gives double Emp merits once, so it is more efficient to run MoM and DD once that day and then run the other trials more often than that. The UG is one of the best ways to unlock slots and get shifts, since it combines so many things together in a single trial. The fact is that if you host a trial and exclude someone who is trying to make progress on their toon because they don't have the level shift, then you are hindering their progress. It is because of the iXP and drops and astrals and inf that even a failed trial gives progress. BTW, this whole one trial = another trial analogy is useless because it actually doesn't give a scale to how hard things truly are.


Because letting more players get into these trials to progress further is selfish...




And I have been saying that this is wholly incorrect on account of many people being able to successfully form their trials without those stringent requirements, and that failures on these trials are never from lacking those stringent requirements. Since success does happen, once again you have to explain away this wizardry that lets people win these things without an elite team of 53+.

Now, the Devs can't really put another mechanic into the game that would discriminate against players while making the trial have a level of challenge. Increasing their resistance would require shifts to overcome, increasing their damage would require shifts, increasing their accuracy would require shifts, increasing their HP would require shifts, increasing their defense would require shifts, and giving them heavy debuff powers would require shifts. Even with these shifts the majority of their power comes from gimmicks that ignore shifts in the first place. The only way to increase difficulty would be to increase the precision and teamwork needed, and those are idiot-prone tactics since it makes it easier for one player to ruin it for the team. All-inside TPNs didn't become popular because fighting Telepathists and Maelstrom was easy to coordinate.



Thankfully public discussions are for other people's viewing instead of whomever I'm arguing with. There's never been a situation where some guys argued online and one changed their opinion.


It isn't about the raw numbers. It is a proportional example. Of course, this ignored the whole "getting rewards from those trials" thing, which I mentioned above, so you're dodging the point.




I'm talking with Aracanaville about what classifies as elitism. Though it isn't directed toward you, you're welcome to join in on the discussion.




"Lucky" would've been having more than one clarion . It wasn't luck, and it wasn't some form of sorcery. Everyone else had their own boosts that weren't clarion, and with a few inspirations we exterminated the avatar.


That doesn't make sense. You are saying that you aren't working for a goal during your play unless there is someone who isn't optimally suited for your play. Does the goal only exist once that player shows up? If not that, then you're saying that you are always working while playing the game, and this constitutes a problem in itself.


(Note, this paragraph has been relocated slightly for writing purposes. It was originally below the next one).

My failure rate with mixed teams is not only less than 100%. I'd argue it is far less than 20%, especially when I am hosting. Now, in all seriousness, have you considered the possibility that, just maybe, Triumph is doing something wrong during these trials?


I suppose that liberators from a dictatorship are themselves just being selfish in contrast to what their dictators want to do. If you do something for someone else sake, then that is not selfish. My playstyle does just that, so by definition it can't be selfish. What I am doing is giving these trials to more than the 1%. This info may have been lost, but it isn't just you and you alone that is causing this problem. I get into arguments on my own server about this. The entire mentality is to blame. Now, you are having an indirect effect on the problem: When a player goes to these forums and they see someone like you saying that you need +3s or else you'll fail miserably, then what are they going to do? It certainly isn't "rebel against the forum and host it with different requirements". Your statement is that players who aren't level shifted are only so because they're being lazy, and that is just plain incorrect.

You're changing the subject. I have been talking about your play style asking for certain things in the league that are a detriment to others, and how the trials aren't themselves necessitating these requirements. I take issue when someones says they do something because it is possible, as if their actions are from some great free-existing uncaused event beyond comprehension, consequences, or need for explanation. Possibility != cause, no matter how you slice it. This is an anti-intellectual line of reasoning that shuts out logic, so there is no other way to deal with it other than to strong-arm someone (which forumers lack the ability to do to each other) or bring up their problems to make them feel uncomfortable in doing so.

You keep dropping things then doubling back. You can't say that level requirements are necessary than say it is just a preference that doesn't need justification, then keep bringing up how the trials are supposedly to be too hard. You can't say that this needs no justification in the face of the fact that it is far from necessary to have these requirements while still saying that it is necessary to have these requirements. You can't say that other trials that succeed without these requirements needs no explanation in contrast to the argued necessities of the unfair system. This is paradoxical and unreasonable. If you keep dropping points then circling back to them, then our discussion is over because a discussion is impossible with you.

So, SG's just imagining those runs he manages to fill, then? Gotcha.

The problem is the unverified intention is to run the easier trials and move 'upwards' but they still allow 50s into any Incarnate trial. But they add NPC shifts to the later enemies which makes it harder for 50s to do anything....


... it needs sorting out. Either remove the shifts or block out the players. The shifts being removed would be better for the health of the trials but there'd be complaints of dumbing them down (as opposed to the constant complaints about them being gimmicky) but blocking out players would castigate them entirely. Sadly I don't see anything like the passover that was done for Keyes happening anytime.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

The highlighted portion is a false assumption. As that false assumption is the basis for your entire argument, your whole premise falls apart. I know at least 30 players on Triumph with multiple 50+3 characters. Of those, I know at least 10 that have over five 50+3 characters on Triumph. It takes me, at most, 20 trials to be 50+3. Why? I use Astrals and Empyrean Merits to fund my character's progression. I know one player that most of his 20+ level 50+3s were +1 without stepping foot in an Incarnate trial (I think he got to the point that some of the later ones became +3s before entering trials) because he used the Astral/Empyrean Merit vendors to transfer farmed shards/astrals/empyrean merits to his new 50s.

Maybe on your server, or maybe they just swapped to a different character and you didn't notice because they got onto another trial. As far as the trial you chose, I personally wouldn't run UG twice in a night, even with a stable of 11 characters to choose from. UG is simply too long and too annoying to deal with multiple times in a day. On the other hand, Triumph runs UG trials once every few months, so that isn't an issue.

Nope people can, and do, switch toons if they want more Empyrean merits. On the other hand if they are looking for the reward table, they will sometimes choose to take Astral Merits for another chance at the reward table.

Actually, Lambdas are being run less often on Triumph. Same goes for BAFs, but not to the degree of Lambdas. The go-to trials seem to be Keyes and TPN. The DD is popular, but that may be because of the "get the badges while people are doing the trial" factor. However, MoM and UG are rarely run, with the clear loser being UG due to length and difficulty. Getting a UG formed (and I'm not talking about the ones I form) is like asking people to take a trip to the dentist for a root canal. They might do so, but they'd much rather be doing something else.

TPNs are faster than the UG, have the 60 threads as a mid-trial reward, the 2 Emps for the first run, 1 Emp for the successive runs, a higher than BAF/Lambda chance at a Rare/Very Rare, is far quicker to form, far quicker to run through, and without the higher chance of failure. To put it simply, Undergrounds SUCK.

The MoDD gives exactly ONE rare component. It isn't repeatable, so you are comparing apples to oranges.

I can form and run both a TPN -and- a Keyes in the same time it takes to form and do a UG Trial. That is two higher than BAF/Lambda chances at Rares/Very Rares, the same amount (if not far greater) of threads and Astral Merits, and one more Empyrean Merit.

The Underground, and I've said this before, only has better rewards in potential.

Yeah, because I'm willing to help others get their level shifts in other ways is selfish. Cry wolf much? Just because I'm not willing to help others out in one way doesn't mean that I'm selfish.

However the reverse IS true: If, when offered help, players refuse that help and petulantly stamp their feet like whiny little children that they should be included in whatever they feel like despite clear warning. At that point they are being selfish. Stop painting these people as victims. They aren't. Other options are being given to them, but they are refusing those options. At that point they are being selfish.

If I somehow managed to convince everyone on the server to not play with someone because they ticked me off, that would be blocking their progress. Even then they'd have outlets (DA arcs, server transfers) that I could not control. Get a clue, I can't do that. No one can. The only people that can are the GMs.

If I were only running Undergrounds, MoMs, and DDs without running the easier trials, then I would be selfish. However I'm not just running those trials.

Only by ignoring that I'm running the easier trials can you even begin to make the claim that I'm being elitist or selfish. At this point you are committing a logical fallacy that you can drive a truck through.

You have already said you don't want to discuss it, but I'll repeat myself (and you): Just because someone can do something doesn't mean that everyone can. You are basically saying that because some players can do the more difficult trials on less shifted characters, that means that every unshifted character should be allowed to join any trials that form.

Yes, I agree that someone is ignoring the numbers, but it isn't me.

You are destroying your own credibility enough in that discussion that I don't need to help her.

Yeah, it isn't making sense to you because you have a preset notion of what you THINK my motivations are, instead of the reality of what my motivations are.

And who is being elitist now? Or perhaps condescending would be a better term. Either way, at least I'm not being hypocritical.

Oh, I see it now... Martyr complex... Gotcha. I hate to break it to you, but if you want to fall on your sword for something, that doesn't mean that someone who isn't killing themselves is an evil tyrant.

I hate to break it to you, but I've seen the majority of (edit: Triumph) trial players on my leagues at one point or the other.

Perhaps that is because everyone else thinks that you are wrong. Perhaps you shouldn't be looking as much at others and spend more time looking at yourself and your own motivations.

Of course it would be incorrect because that isn't what I've been saying despite you (and others) misrepresenting what I've been saying.

What I've been saying is that "Some content is more difficult than other content, and if you want to do the more difficult content please bring a character appropriate to the challenge. If you don't have a character that is appropriate to the challenge, join one of my other hosted incarnate trials so that you can bring something appropriate. However, if you don't want to put forth that much effort, then find someone else willing to take you because I won't take you on that harder content."

Of course, that would take someone actually reading what I post.

No, you are saying that how I choose to play the game is somehow "wrong" and that I should change how I play.

Actually, I can. You admitted yourself that just because someone can do something, that it doesn't follow that everyone can. That is the problem in a nutshell. If everyone could do it, then all the content would be the same. The problem is that not everyone can do some of these trials without level shifts.

At the end of the day, asking players to bring characters appropriate to the content isn't being elitist, it is being practical.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Agreed on all points, and the developers need to get their act together because it is only fueling threads like this one.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Fair enough, but then what you're talking about when you refer to elitism bears no resemblance to what I understand elitism to be or to any reasonably common definition of elitism. Its something mostly unique to you. By your definition of elitism, any expression of preference other than player skill - something we cannot judge or measure prior to actually running content with the player - is elitism, and by that definition I'm elitist. I sometimes express a preference for teaming other than player skill. Like if the player is a jerkwad, I might choose not to play with them. I'm an elitist when it comes to dipsticks.

Also, certain tasks like the Avatar fight at the end of the Underground are extremely difficult to accomplish without significant aggro control. Without a few tankers or number of brutes with taunt, the likelihood of a random assemblage of players being successful is low. Its not impossible, but I'm far less likely to want to spend an hour or two of my time waiting for such a league to form and then attempt it, unless I have some special interest in seeing that attempt succeed. If a friend asked me to fill it to make the attempt, I probably would. But otherwise, I would check my elitist butt out of there and go run a DA arc.

The way most people define elitist (within the context of teaming in this game) is either to demand the best even when good enough is good enough, or else judge actual players based on superficial accomplishments and not on the merits of whether they are sufficiently capable of running the content. By that definition, I'm not elitist. By yours, I am. I'm ok with that. I'm still not going to self-identify as an elitist just because your definition is so expansive that it includes me, because I don't acknowledge that definition as being particularly representative of what the word means to the vast majority of players.

Our discussion is now over.



My litmus test is not a definition in any sense.. Did you honestly think when I mentioned elitism that I was talking about not discerning between intolerable behavior, or regular team building? The whole context was in the topic of performance in the game, and extending it beyond the issue of performance doesn't make sense. I even mentioned that the mere existence of requirements to succeed aren't themselves elitist in the second paragraph (although it can easily wander into that territory). I'm surprised I even have to bring that up. Now, the other things, like what is "good enough" and "superficial" aren't clear cut. Superficial accomplishments certainly aren't superficial to the elitist, which is why they discern as such. Of course, this does fit the litmus test I used since it would be discriminating against players due to their badge count and not their performance, so I am not sure how that resemblance is lost. Likewise, a players capability to play the game is a merit of sufficiency. It cannot be put on a numerical scale, but regardless it exists.

I am also not talking about mere preferences. The key feature of elitism that I use in the litmus is exclusion applied to other players. If a team needs a tank and they don't let you join because you can't fill that role that as a blaster, this isn't based upon exclusion. To reach such a predicament, it would require them to include many others who already cannot fill that role. By contrast, if a player is forming a team and doesn't let you join as a blaster because "Blasters suxxorz", then that is a completely different predicament.

Elitism in practice requires that players who possess the skills are not being used, and this is done by excluding those players. To check to see if elitism occurs, you see if someone is excluding players. Elitism not in practice has no effects, so it really isn't a problem. Though if there is a better way to determine elitism that doesn't involve the very tool elitists use to enforce elitism, I would love to use it. Though honestly I think we've been using the same definition for elitism. I have a habit of describing things by their results, so I think this is where the confusion is coming from.

Good.

However I think that your response to Arcanaville bears some scrutiny.
Basically what you are saying is that you don't perceive what others are doing as fair, and you are upset about that. You are trying to push your standards of right and wrong onto others.

The problem with your "litmus test" is that player skill is a subjective assessment, which is not a strictly defined standard.

[Edit]

The difference is that what I'm asking for is an objective measurement (level shift) that matches the objective (again, level shift)+subjective (overall difficulty) statistics of a trial. You are basing your opinions mostly on a subjective measurement (player skill). While I factor that in, I don't solely rely on the subjective aspect of someone joining one of my trials.

[/Edit]

I don't do this. However I'm likely to take the blaster then switch to MY tank in this case.

Then, by that definition, I'm not being elitist. I'm not excluding players without the needed skills as I perceive them. I'm doing the opposite: I'm helping people get what I feel are the needed skills to do the trials.

Your way of determining what is elitist is so subjective that I doubt that anyone could agree with your definition.

The root of the problem is that you are not using the same definition for elitism as almost everyone else in this thread is using the term. You are using a your value system (that everyone should have equal access to all trials) and distorting the definition of elitism to fit that value system. You are being elitist by trying to impose your standards of how to form an incarnate trial onto other players leading trials.

You believe that everyone should have an equal opportunity to do the trials. Well, I agree with that. However there is a difference between having an equal opportunity and not having the required skills. You wouldn't make charges of elitism against a sports team that cut a player for not being able to keep up, right? You wouldn't question the fairness of the rules of the sport and you wouldn't question that only the appropriate players are on that sports team, even though for all intents, the remaining players would be the elite of the team.

Because how to from an incarnate trial team with is completely subjective, we have a disagreement as to what constitutes merit. So you are flinging accusations of "elitism" at me. You have your own standards because building teams for incarnate trials is a subjective team. Because you don't understand my (or other player's) subjective standards, you fling disparaging terms around without accepting the the fact that your standards are not shared by everyone.

By calling someone "elitist", you are saying there are universal standards where none exist. By saying that I'm elitist, you are saying that I'm unfairly discriminating against players. If that were true, I would not be helping players get the level shifts that I think a character should have by my standards for a difficult trial. That you are making charges of elitism when you are just as guilty, if not more so, is laughable. You complain about my rules while you try to put in place your own.

Not everyone can succeed without level shifts, you've said so yourself. At that point some selection process has to occur. The question is, "Which one?" At this point everyone knows mine: 50+0 to 50+3 for BAF, Lambda, Keyes, or TPN and +3 for UG, MoM, and DD. We know your's as well: Include everyone, even 50+0 to any incarnate trial. People will gravitate towards what will work. For Triumph, that likely means people will continue to join trials that I host. I can't say what will or will not work on another server.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Which is why specifically in the case of level shift requirements for the higher shifted trials, I leave that to the discretion of the league organizers. If requiring higher level shifts is "elitist" that would imply that it was clear cut, that that requirement is objectively unnecessary. But that's not possible to determine for a given league, so it cannot be called elitist for a league leader to require what their experience tells them they have a high probability of requiring. I don't believe its elitist to attempt to have a high rate of success.

Everyone experiences different success rates. Even on Triumph, I've had different success rates than Snow Globe has had, and that's even with a sizeable percentage of the trials I've been on actually having him on them (its not a big server). For example, I've *never* failed a Keyes. Ever. That's a combination of luck, and generally running it on leagues where a significant percentage of the players are known quantities. But I know Snow has been on failed ones. My impression of what's necessary will be different from his, because I haven't even seen a failure yet, even on low powered leagues.

On the other hand, I've only been on a handful of successful Undergrounds. People who tell me that trial is easy and they run it with their eyes closed clearly have a different experience than me, but lets just say that anyone who thinks that can and should be run with anyone has a different opinion than I do, and upon request I would be more than happy to explain to them in precise detail just exactly in what specific ways their opinion differs from mine. It involves pliers and high voltage.

Because experiences differ, judgments differ as to what's necessary for the different trials. Chalking up differing experience to elitism is failing to acknowledge just how widely disparate individual experiences can be.

This hits the nail on the head, right here.

I've been on 4 non-bugged Keyes failures (plus one fail due to AM getting stuck in a catwalk) out of 106 Keyes trials on Triumph. At this point my TPN percentage is actually better: I've yet to see a failure on that trial. I actually don't expect that to always be the case as I've been hearing about more failures for TPN.

Underground (50% fail overall), MoM (55% fail overall), and DD trials (42% fail overall) are a different matter entirely.

Edit for comparisons here are the failure rates I've seen for all the trials:

Overall Trial failure rate: 9.83%
Overall BAF failure rate: 6.75%
Overall Lambda failure rate: 8.14%
Overall Keyes failure rate: 5.00%
Overall Underground failure rate: 50.00%
Overall TPN failure rate: 0.00%
Overall MoM failure rate: 55.56%
Overall DD failure rate: 42.86%

I used to have an open-door policy as Blood Red Arachnid and others have suggested. I'm of the opinion that is why the failure rates of the 3 trials are so high. So my policy has changed to what it is now.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters