Design an Incarnate Trial

So, I'm bored, why not come up with an incarnate trial? There is a lot of potential in these and they can have more complex mechanics than the rest of the game.


Arachnos Rising: A +3 trial
Arachnos has recaptured Trapdoor, studied the remains of Gyrfalcon's machine and some captured Tsoo tattoo artists have also put their work into Arachnos's latest goal. Empowering the Patrons to Incarnate level and giving Lord Recluse more power. You need to go stop him from gaining more power and maybe steal some yourself.

Stage 1: The version of grandville from STF is there. There are some Arachnos between you and the door. Simple beat up x many too move on.

Stage 2: Now you are inside the lab there are some temp powers to collect one of which will release Trapdoor. He makes a run for the exit and will teleport a bit and can be attacked.

There is a badge for beating him down before he escapes.

At the end of stage 2, you will find a lab with the patrons, each in their own Make-your-own incarnate machine. You need to free 3 of them from the machine and they will teleport away. The last patron will finish the process, gaining more powers.

Stage 3: Now you have to fight the AV and each has a powerful ability that needs to be shut down.

Ghost Widow has a PBAoE aura that applies a mag 100 hold and deals heavy damage to the person it hits, checking every 10 seconds.
Mako puts patches on the ground for 10 seconds. Anyone still in the patches when they go off takes massive damage, enough to bring them to 1 HP.
Scirrioro keeps summoning whirlwind pets that heal and buff him make him harder to kill.
Black Scorpion will randomly target someone and charge them, teleporting to them and dealing a PBAoE which does a large amount of damage (not enough to take people to 1 HP though).

Using the temp power will disable this ability, instead just leaving them powerful trial AVs.

There will also be spawns of Arachnos reinforcements.

Defeating the AV without the temp powers will grant a badge.
There is also a badge for beating each of the empowered Patron's once.

Stage 4: Lord Recluse has appeared followed by the three patrons. He has been drinking his Incarnate juice, because he has got more powerful.

He will summon 3 bane spiders every 45 seconds. One of these will be named slightly diffrently and be carrying an Orestes Rifle. This is a no damage, fast recharging attack that takes away peoples level shifts for a short while. If the bane spider is beaten within 20 seconds, it will not use the power.

Lord Recluse himself is simply very tough tanky AV who deals decent damage , and he has 3 patrons with him, each of which has their old stchick from STF. Whirlwinds, mag 100 holds, the works.

Lord Recluse's has one new trick, though. Anyone without a level shift (even one), will trigger Lord Recluse's ability and spawn a boss class spiderbot which does a decent amount of damage.

There is a badge for defeating Lord Recluse before any of his Patrons. There is another badge for defeating the Bane Spider before it debuffs anyone.

Another idea:

Heart of the City: A +1 incarnate trial

So, the Circle of Thorn are getting a lot stronger. They now plan to summon something big, something really big. The Prince of Demons himself. They have captured an Incarnate, Madame Bellerose and plans to sacrifice her in the heart of the City to summon this demon. Not likely :P

Stage 1: The entrance to the city is being guarded by a powerful demon, Baphomet, and his allies. Time to break faces.

The demon deals a mix of fire, ice and toxic damage, and will spawn little demons on league members that after 20 seconds will die and put a patch on the ground that deals fire, ice or toxic damage as a dot.

If they aren't allowed to live the 20 seconds and spawn a patch, you get a badge.

Stage 2: Powerful mages and demons from the CoT have come to stop you. Rollister, Libri Vermis, Tarses, Drejak and the Envoy of Shadows have come to stop you.

When one of them dies, they will put a buff on the others, adding a damage DoT to their attacks (Fire, cold, negative, energy, toxic), increasing their damage buffs. They are weaker than normal trial AVs to make up for their numbers.

There is a badge for putting them all down within 1:30 of each other.

Stage 3: Now you have to fight Baron Zoria, leader of the Circle of Thorns.

Any one defeated in this stage will have their body teleported to a soul crystal which has to be destroyed before they can be revived. He also has a single target confuse called Thorn Stab that if it hits 3 times, will confuse you and heal him 25%. You will recieve a message sayng you have been stabbed with the thorn in red text to know to drop agro.

If you go without anyone being confused or soul trapped, you get a badge.

Stage 4: The world will shake, you have 30 seconds to ready yourself, here comes the Prince of Demons.

He is a huge demon who is immune to everything to start with. However, he hasn't come through properly. You just need to kick him back to where ever demons come from. There are 4 altars with a circle of thorns ritualist on them. Beat the ritualists to make the Prince damagable. Burn him down.

It's a Nemesis Trial!

Foolish supers of Paragon and the isles! you really thought that mimicing a Rikti Invasion was the pinnacle of Operation Fallen Thunder? Imbeciles! Now you face the wrath of my mightiest creation, the Dammerung!

The recent invasion of Paragon city and the isles was merely a distraction from the true plot of Lord Nemesis! His massive flying fortress, the Dammerung has launched from it's secret underwater base, intent upon raining destruction down upon the city of Paragon and the Rogue Isles! And what's worse, it's powered by several alternate incarnates, held against their will! Do you have what it takes to stop the Dammerung and rescue the captured incarnates?

Stage 1 - Landing
First, you must actually approach the Dammerung, you start out on a Destroyer for a briefing, followed by the acquisition of a auto-fly jetpack temp power, like when attempting to fight the Seed of the Hamidon in First Ward. The team then has to fly up to the ship, fighting off several waves of nemesis Airtroopers in the process, before blasting their way inside.

Stage 2 - Security
Once inside, there will be numerous Nemesis robots of all kinds to fight through as you seek to override the security systems to gain access to the captured Incarnates. Each Security system will be guarded by an upgraded Mega Warhulk. Once all the Mega Warhulks are defeated, you gain access to the Reactor chamber. During this time, you can also take time out to sabotage weapons systems, lessening the damage inflicted outside the ship. But nemesis technicians will try to repair said systems! A badge is awarded if all weapon systems are down when the last Mega Warhulk is destroyed.

Stage 3 - Reactor
At last you've reached the reactor chamber, and you find out the horrifying truth! The Incarnates powering the Dammerung are alternate versions of yourselves! 4 random members of the League get to have the doppelganger tech applied, and see their alternate selves powering the ship!

At this point there is a cutscene featuring Nemesis (maybe) who in proper villainous fashion explains that if you do free your alternate selves, the failsafes will trigger the self destruct mechanism! He then cackles, and challenges you to think of a way out of this one, before unleashing both a horde of soldiers, and the true boss of the mission, a gigantic Jaeger robot, and sealing everyone in the reactor room!

At this point, a timer starts. You only have limited time before the ship reaches Paragon and unleashes it's mightiest weapons upon the city. If you free the alternate incarnates, not only will the gigantic jaegar slow in it's attacks, but the alternates will join the fight, and the first timer will extend. But, a new timer will start...time until the ship self-destructs with you on it! And each incarnate freed will make the timer shorter!

If either timer runs out, the trial is failed. However, once you beat the gigantic jaegar (And nemesis helpfully chimes in when it's nearly dead to let you know in his style that it is a load-bearing boss), the ship starts to break up anyway, leading us to...

Final Stage - Escape!
The ship is exploding around you! But you're too far out of range for a mediport! But you still have the jet packs you got at the beginning of the mission! Triggering the afterburners, everyone has to navigate out of the ship as it falls apart, much like the second Death Star. It IS possible to fail here...but only if everyone basically does nothing and doesn't even TRY to get out. As long as a one person per team gets out, the trial is a success!

Badges-
No Shots Fired- You managed to keep all the weapon systems disabled on the Dammerung! (Self-explanatory)
Ominous Skies- The people of Paragon City saw an ominous blot on the horizon...but then it exploded. (Defeat the Gigantic Jaegar with less than 2 minutes on the timer, then successfully escape)
One for All- You can't leave a man behind, even if you have to save them twice! (Save all captured incarnates, then successfully escape)
All for One- You are your own personal savior. (Save your own duplicate from the reactor)
Nemesis of Nemesis- Complete the Nemesis Trial.

It's a defeat all in a 50 story Crey Lab where you fight only Knives of Artemis, Master Illusionists, and Zeus Titans. The final boss is a Phantasm.

This thread delivers!

I will make one soon as I can get the idea finalized. I like the idea of this thread.

Erebus: +0 Malta iTrial.

Malta now has Battlemaiden on side, helping transform them into a fighting force to rival the incarnates. They have started to produce weapons that weaken heros and incarnates based on some of Praetoria's technology they have stolen and infomation from Battlemaiden, and rumour has it, found a way to mass produce Khronos titans.

Stage 1: You are on an island controlled by Malta and scattered around are 4 Khronos titans, guarded by lots of Malta. Time to go smash them.

Each Khronos titan is more like an EB than an AV and should go down pretty easily.

There is a badge for bringing them down within a minute and a half of each other: Titan Toppler

Stage 2: Battlemaiden and Slinger will appear to stop you. Slinger has been enhanced by some of the nanites from Battlemaiden and both have a new trick.

Battlemaiden has lost her swords from above trick, but now will have a bar that slowly counts down. Upon hitting 0, she will stop all her regen. Gain +1000 res to all and +1000 def (so basically she is undamagable), some damage bonus and will begin to beat you down. This lasts for 10 seconds and triggers every 40 seconds.

Slinger will summon robots with various huge ST debuffs. One of them (the assualt bot) will debuff level shifts.

There is a badge for defeating Slinger while Battlemaiden is in her undamagable state.
There is another badge for defeating them both within 10 seconds of each other.

Step 3: Battlemaiden and Slinger were just distractions. The Erebus titan is here.

Erebus comes with a number of smaller titans called Shield Titans (about the size of Hercules Titans). They give him a shield which cannot be debuffed that gives all damage against him a -25% debuff, stacking up to 4 times, once per titan. (so if an attack did 100 damage, with 3 shields up it would do 25 damage. Then resists would happen lowering it further). Defeating a sheild titan would remove the damage debuff.

Erebus will also use an ability that works a little like the Warworks lance's but would then apply a patch on the ground that deals energy damage to everyone in it (think MoM purple patches damage) for 10 seconds.

There is a badge for leaving at least 1 sheild titan up at all times.

Wait 45 minutes to get a league together.

Start the trial

Wait a bit more because a few people crash whilst joining

Chase around a lot killing stuff.

Kill a named AV - faceplant a lot because there's a previously unseen mechanic that takes a while to work out.

Kill more mobs and chase around some more.

Kill 2 more AVs. Watch out for the strange mechanic again

Crash just before the end and miss the reward

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Here's one I've been drafting in my head: Basically, Ra has grown weaker and now needs the help of Incarnate players to guide the sun through the Underworld and slay Apep for the night.
It begins a lot like the Underground trial where you escort Ra and keep him safe from Apep's cultists (Reskinned Talons of Vengence Snake women and Snakes, possibly give them some of Scirocco's powers like dust devils and desert wind), with the odd trail hazard of of Apep popping up out of the waters of the Underworld to try to eat someone. (this would be a long warning instant death locational effect, if you are killed by it, Apep's cultists get a powerful version of a Veng buff for each player they ate, eating Ra is an instant fail condition, thankfully, you're kind of always supposed to be moving)

However, early on a trap is launched and weakens Ra further, he cannot continue and passes off the Reigns to guide the sun to a random player. This is where things get interesting.

Reigns of the sun would use the new APB tech to give one random player a handful or extremely powerful temp powers that could be used throughout the trial. However, to wield the power of the sun is an enormous burden, for God, Mortal, or even an Incarnate. While you hold the reigns your regeneration is halted, you are hightly resistant to being healed, and recovery, and recharge is slowed, you also lose your level shifts or are bestowed negative levels. To make up for it though, the powers of the sun are ENORMOUS. A large area PBAoE debuff can put enemy stats into the subbasement, a powerful single target attack with tear holes into even level shifted AVs (but cost HP), and other irresistible powers.
But if the burden of the sun proves too much, it will automatically be passed onto another player when you die, or you will be able to pass it to another willingly (there's an accept prompt).

Unfortunately, even if one player can hold on forever, you must not, for Apep has locked down portions of the Underworld to keep you and the sun trapped, and by its power you can break these seals to move forward, but it comes at the price of defeat.

Furthermore, like the Minds of Mayhem trial, you must be cautious for every time you die (except at the locked gates of sacrifice) after you and Ra part ways, it will be counted against you, and too many deaths means Apep steals the sun.

In the final portion of the journey, you must battle with Apep himself and slay the monstrous serpent for another night and carry the sun up above the Eastern horizon.

Weird special thought: completing this trial during the Halloween even causes the sun to appear and weakens all monsters during the Halloween Zone events.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.