Downside to DoubleXP

It is because of the server culture in general. Snow is a part of my global network that started on Tri. I no longer play there (during the day it is pretty dead), but a large number of my friends still do.

Snow has no trouble because when he states what he is forming, the reply is "What do you need?" or "What should I bring."

Arcanaville is right, it would just never fly there. Shoot I play on Virtue and it barely makes it through there. When people request AT and powerset info before invite, I just ignore them.

Personally, I would not even attempt UG, MoM, or DD with a toon that is not +2 or +3 shifted. Because to me being face down that much is just not that fun.

This is just not true. So many players are hoarders and run trials over and over just for the drop table and the astral merits.

The E-merit is the ONLY reward that is not repeatable, and iirc that is only in BAF and LAM, maybe Keys now.

I think this statement down plays the value of Threads, and Components.

soooo, what you're saying is that you're NOT a masochist?



EDIT: As an aside glad to see we're getting a fuller picture of why folks in this thread think the way they do. I agree that elitism in this case is a poor term that's ignoring people's individual experiences on their specific servers does the term a huge disservice.

People need to realize not every server has the same pool of trial runners as each other.

Whereas Union has a staple of trial leaders (Damz is one of them) and they have a 'bring what you want' to the iTrials.

Union was the first to achieve the MOBAF badge and weirdly what is considered a MOBAF run on most other servers is considered a normal run on Union and a normal run (where you don't keep the AVs at their locations etc.) is considered a speed run.

However that is because it is pretty much a consistent core of people who run the iTrials and, as mentioned above, a consist group of leaders.

So different servers have different standards, hell on my +0 ill/Rad I managed a Keyes, a BAF and a Lambda one after the other which no problems because we were all following instructions.

And for the trials you named here, Snow has said pretty much the same thing, bring what you want. I have to agree though DD, UG (which I hate with a passion), and MoM are a different ball game.

Very serious. The notion that asking for shifted characters means someone will play that character, run one trial, and then if someone else tries to run the same trial in less than 20 hours that player would rather not run the trial at all than run it again for less empyrean merits is really weird. iTrials aren't run often enough on Triumph for this to be a mass problem. I'm sure it must happen occasionally, but I've never actually witnessed a player decide to opt out of a trial because of the emp limit. Like a league organizes a BAF, then because of a lower player count they switch to a Lambda. I've not really seen people say well, I got my emp for BAF already, so I'm just going to quit entirely. I've seen people switch characters, but rarely if ever quit over the emp timer.

And we're talking about the higher trials: particularly MoM, Underground, and DD here. Just exactly how many of those do you think get organized every 20 hours on average?

So do I with BAF, Lambda, Keyes, or TPN.

I think there is, at most, a core of 5-10 consistent trial leaders on Triumph right now:

@Snow Globe (myself)
@Kay Parfait
@Magenta Bolt
@Critical Ebon
@Sayaki

Not as frequently heard leading open trials on Triumph:

@Emerald Fusion (or anyone from the Fusion Force as they usually form as a group, but I haven't heard much from them lately on Triumph's main badge channel)
@Summoner Delmain

There you have it. The trial leaders of Triumph who frequently announce and lead open trials. As to who shows up for the trials, that depends on if it is an open or closed league. I know that I personally don't turn anyone down for BAF, Lambda, Keyes, or TPN. The opposite in fact. There are people that say "Keyes is too difficult for me because I'm on a new 50 that doesn't have a level shift." My response has always been "Keyes is easy, let me show you."

Apparently I have to repeat my policy (yet again):

• BAF: Bring whatever character you want, as long as it is at least level 50.
• Lambda: Bring whatever character you want, as long as it is at least level 50.
• Keyes: Bring whatever character you want, as long as it is at least level 50.
• UG: Bring whatever character you want, as long as it is at least level 50+3.
• TPN: Bring whatever character you want, as long as it is at least level 50.
• MoM: Bring whatever character you want, as long as it is at least level 50+3.
• DD: Bring whatever character you want, as long as it is at least level 50+3.

In no situation do I say "we have too many tanks, someone needs to switch to a healer". If a player wants to bring a tank, I'm not going to stop them. If they feel the need to switch to a healer or debuffer after seeing the team make up, I appreciate it, but I don't require it. I don't lead trials to tell players what characters to bring, even if it makes the trial a little harder.

And my typical response is "whatever you want" to BAF, Lambda, Keyes, or TPN. For the others, it is "Something that is +3, please."

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

Yeah not seeing an issue here. That seems pretty easy going to me.

Same here, very sound reasoning.
I've seen WAY more strict requirements for trials.

No. Quit trying to pick a fight.

It never was nor is it never meant to be a strictly defined standard, and that is not a problem in any sense. The whole point of mentioning player skill is to include the fact that there are players who are incompetent through means that are not related to numbers. Players who can't follow directions, players who grief trials, players who openly leech, all of those things are not some form of statistical data yet bear heavy consideration when team building. The inability to determine this beforehand doesn't matter; it is still something to consider when making a team. Usually it has to be done through prior experience with this individual. Sorry to say, but you have to get to know someone before you can accurately judge them.

No.

This is a classic issue in psychology that rears its head: no one ever thinks they are in the wrong for their actions. If you ask someone who, say, robs stores or beats their spouse or spray paints a neighborhood or sells drugs, they'll always have some sort of explanation for their action. Some will deny that such an action takes place and when pressured they'll join the others that deny that such an action is incorrect, and then when all are pressured further they'll say that their actions are justified through some circumstances. To this end, since elitism is undoubtedly viewed negatively here, it will follow the same line of reasoning. Merely saying "I'm not being elitist" doesn't accomplish much.

As far as that particular should-no-longer-be-being-discussed-between-us issue goes, other actions don't suddenly neutralize the requirements. The issue of perception is also another subjectivity, since by default an elitist perceives their actions as necessary for their perceived justifying circumstances. If someone consciously thinks they are going overboard, then they wouldn't abide by that standard because of its overboard nature.



No.


No. Again, not a definition.


No. This doesn't make sense.


Already made that distinction.

Trials are not competitive between each other. The analogy doesn't apply.


No. Understand != agree. You're still going on about the previous discussion, which as I have said before is futile. The requirements were elitist, not the person.

No. Never said you were elitist. The whole time, and at every mention of elitism, I have been talking about the trial requirements. Now, granted others have said that you are elitist, but I am not somebody else. You're still beating a dead horse that you refused to listen about.


No, no, no, no, no. You're not even listening. You couldn't even get my trial requirements right.

I suppose that is the reason why I asked at what the line would be. From the sound of it, it seems like you're saying that elitism can't exist as far as trial requirements go. I'm certain that it does/I'm mistaken in my assumption here...

Though something I wonder about experiences is whether or not players are taking different steps to deal with the same problem. To take the UG as an example, a big hurdle to climb for a lot of teams is pulling the Lichen-Infested WW into a corner. Players will stand in front of it and keep attacking, their temp pets will get into the way, players will spam taunt on it despite orders not to, ect. The way that I deal with this problem isn't to have more level shifts. What I do after broadcasting and using league chat is click on that character, then send them a tell or two in private telling them what to do and if I am league leader a warning that I will kick them for otherwise. It is a copy/paste, so it goes really quickly for each of the players. If I am not the league leader, then I suggest to them after the tells fail that they should be kicked. Thankfully the problem player has never been a team or league leader. This tactic so far works like a charm; in all of the dozens of UGs I've been on, I've only had to kick one other player and I've seen a player get kicked maybe twice in total. Now, the ancillary benefit of this is that the player who I've "dealt with" has promptly learned their error, and in future events will know what the correct procedures are. In a mini-UG run once I saw something that was just beautiful: once the LIWW spawned, all of the players cleared out like a flock of sparrows taking taking flight, leaving only me and the head tanker to pull it into the corner. This wasn't a team of 53s, either.

I've seen other tactics, too. I've seen players make others buy or even give other players a stack of red inspirations for the sentinel fight to blitz it down as quickly as possible. I've recommended bringing yellow insps for tougher AV fights. With trial teams, the less confident I feel about their autonomy the more active role I take in leading it. I've evens seen frequent league leaders take Incandescence in case they ever need to herd the group for some reason. It is rare for me to encounter an issue that required more DPS via levels as its only solution, whereas for the numerable failed trials I have been on I can always pick out some flaw in tactics or actions or some weird circumstance and go "Yeah, that is definitely why we failed".

Now that we're breaking into experiences, there has to be a reason for the circumstances that causes these experiences. Whenever the pool of 53s gets drained by someone when I host a trial I see an increase in the time it takes to complete those same trials. For the harder trials (MoM, UG, DD), I see an increase in failure rate due to various circumstances other than raw damage output (IMO player survivability is more an issue with level shifts than just their ability to kill things). But even those failures can be accommodated with better strategies. I wonder what exactly is going on to make players so hesitant to have something other than 53s on those three trials. My suspicion is that, after a few failures, they put down a high requirement then never budge from it, not realizing that you can relax that requirement quite a bit while still winning the vast majority of trials.


The TPN, MoM, and DD give half the merits after the first completion. Don't know about the UG, since I've never been able to run it successfully consecutively on the same toon within 20 hours. More on that later...


This isn't a proposed behavior. It is an observed one: There have been numerous times where I have tried to host consecutive hard trials, or I have tried to host a hard trial within an hour or so of another person launching that trial. It never goes well: Most people break away from the consecutive hosting to do another trial that gives emp rewards, or even to host the other one to get the rewards. A few will alt, less still will stay on board, but at the end of the day I have to reform well over half of the league, and this isn't always immediate. The second league rarely performs as well as the first. For the non-consecutive trials I still see a performance decrease if I host it after someone else has run a 50+3 trial, and less 53s in my own league.

Now, on Virtue these trials are organized quite regularly. I'd say it is around 3 a day for MoM and DD, and 2 a day for UG. I've seen a lot more hosted than that in a single day, though. As for the minor trials, I see players opt out of those all the time, too. Running the Lam > BAF > Keyes > TPN series is quite common, but when run late in the day a quarter to half the league drops after each trial. Those minor trials are a lot more common than the three big ones, and it is those that players run over and over again despite their diminishing rewards. I believe the only "marathon" trial run that I've seen last more than a few iterations was the TPN.

Now, this may be just a server issue where beggars can't be choosers on less populated servers. This also may be a self-reinforcing issue, where the requirements make it so it isn't hosted as often due to having such stringent requirements. This is probably a combination of those two issues, however.

I don't have to pick a fight, you started it with saying that how my requirements to form leagues is elitist. At the core of your argument is that your way of forming a league is better than other players.

And yet you are committing the same logical fallacy as asking "Have you stopped beating your wife?", you are presupposing that what I'm doing is elitism. So there isn't any way anyone can answer your charge of being an elitist that will satisfy you except "yeah, I'm being elitist". In other words, you are just flinging mud around, and wanting people to adhere to YOUR standards of league building. If that isn't a textbook case of elitism, I don't know what is.

So basically you are going around prejudging people because they have a different set of standards than you do.

Until you can come up with a concrete definition of "elitism" you are just throwing accusations around, nothing more.

It makes perfect sense. Your posts say that how I'm form a trial is using elitist requirements. By the way you have used the term in this thread, you are using it in a disparaging way. You also claim that your way of forming trials is superior (ie. not elitist by your standards), therefore you are trying to impose your rules for forming trials on others. At the heart of your posts in this thread is that you think that other players should form trials by the same rules as you do.

Trial leagues don't have to be competitive with each other for the analogy to apply. However you have already express that the analogy is sound because you claim that asking for +3 characters denies other leagues those same characters. So either the leagues are competitive, as you claim, or no one can fail any trial.

The trials themselves are a competitive medium. You can win or lose, just like any sports team. In forming a sports team a coach wants the best players they can get. In the same fashion a trial leader who wants to win will also try to get the best characters they can get to succeed at a trial. Elitism isn't a factor.

However, and here is the sticking point, there is a difference between being a jerk excluding a character because of some bias against blasters/tanks/whatever and someone excluding a character because they are (in the league leader's opinion) not equipped for the trial the league is about to face.

The problem is that I see my actions as being who and what I am. I'm defined by my actions, even more than my words. It doesn't matter to me that you are claiming to distinguish between me and how I form a league. I am myself and how I act, including how I form a league.

Then clearly state them.

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

If I don't ask for +3 (or even rarely +2), I get 1/2 to 3/4 of the league at +0 or +1, with a lot of those +0s without the alpha slot even unlocked.

So what? You aren't leading the trials I'm on.

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

I have to heartily disagree with +1. Because +1 means no Destiny, which means no way to deal with the idiotic confuse at the end of the trial. I hate the UG with a passion even though I think it is the best looking environment in the game. The tile sets, and mobs in the mission are just beautifully done. However the last encounter is so frustrating to me that I doubt I will ever run it again now that my main has the badges. Oh, he is t4 all the way, and it was still a pain.

What I said, directly, several times now is that it cannot be elitist to ask for what you think you actually need. Need trumps preference, and elitism represents a preference, unless you believe its elitist to want to succeed most of the time.


Not on Triumph you haven't; that rarely happens. No one appears to be saying that the way Snow Globe runs trials is the way anyone else should; however you're implying that the way he runs them invites a slippery slope to increasingly higher restrictions on trials that has essentially zero chance of happening on the server Snow Globe runs trials. If other players specifically decided to emulate Snow Globe on other servers, then theoretically that could happen, but frankly I don't think Snow Globe has that degree of influence over how incarnate trials are run on any server other than Triumph. Every server does things their own way, and servers do not often emulate other servers.

Well, Clarion does makes it easier for everyone, won't really get a argument from me about that. Those cases where we don't have enough...I bring a bunch of large break frees.

Sadly those do not stop you from getting nuked by the idiot who didn't.

UG is poorly designed, Arcanaville made that clear multiple times. I think at some point it will get another reevaluation like Keys did.

sad but true..."WHY ARE YOU ASSASSINATING ME!? D:"

I hate bringing my Tanks/Scrappers for that ridiculous debuff alone...

I obviously didn't put a fine enough point on it earlier in the thread. Maybe you need to get better at leading UGs, MoMs and DDs.

I've said this in a few other ITrial threads, but you can vastly cut down on the risk in the Underground trial by having your tank/scrapper/brute/taunter fly when taunting the Avatar and the War Walkers. By doing so only the tank gets Targeted, meaning you only have to worry about one person getting hit with Lethal Force Authorized. The Avatar doesn't even do that much - He'll dance trying to get to the flier, maybe fire off one or two Will of the Earths, but that's it; he has no range to attack with. Since people don't have to worry about the crazy damage from the Avatar's stacking debuff, they can huddle tight and make it work even with only one T4 Clarion - or a bunch of tactics.

By taunting while flying you can solve (most of) the real problem area of the trial: a whole league not paying attention. It's much easier when the only one who can screw it up is the guy who's job it is to pay attention in the first place.