New efforts!

[Arcana]

When's the last time you updated fraps? It's been a very very long time since it caused my games to crash.

I had the absolute latest version at the time and it was almost always rock solid stable.  But if your server had been trying dozens of times to complete a really hard way, had never succeeded before, and you knew the servers were shutting down and your chances were extremely limited (we succeeded for the first, and I believe *only* time, on October 28th, 2012), how many things would you have running in the background on the umpteenth attempt?

[ukaserex]

Well now that just sounds like only a small portion of the community enjoyed them...  ??? Was Liberty the only server that had a very active involvement in incarnate trials?

Nope. Although I didn't run them like I did on Liberty, the Champion and Infinity servers had slightly more people doing incarnate content on a more regular basis than Liberty.

There was always a small percentage of players that just didn't like the incarnate content, or didn't like the way players were rewarded. (or weren't rewarded at all! That 10 thread issue and players with older systems that would habitually disconnect come to mind.)

It boggles my lazy mind imagining people who didn't like the iTrials. But, I think that many of them were free players - vet players who'd let their subs lapse until whatever it is they were waiting for went live. Free players couldn't do iTrials, so that removed a fairly large number of players from the equation. For most adults, $15 a month, when compared to a movie ticket or dinner out is next to nothing. A very small price to pay for a month of amusement/escape - but for those on the shoestring budget, the unemployed, the underemployed, etc., $15 bucks can make a difference. And, for a lot of people, if they can't do something, they tell themselves they didn't like it to make themselves feel better. At least, that's what I told myself. <shrug>

Grinding? Life is a grind. Every moment, I have to breathe. Seems like not a day goes by and I have to find something to eat. I always get tired and need to sleep at least once every day. All that darned repetition!
There is no such thing as a grind. It's all in your mind, your perception. If you like it, it's fun, if you don't, it's repetitive, or tedious, monotonous, dull, boring, or, okay, a grindfest.

But - incarnate trials were the least grinding of all the content, simply because you had more options on how to play your character. More attacks. Different tactics than pre-incarnate content. More teammates.

I can understand why some didn't like Lambda. The labrynth-like location of boxes/weapons caches to destroy - and if you were squishy and couldn't keep up with the other players who seemed to have memorized their locations..well, it wasn't much fun, that part of it. The street sweeping seemed a bit dull, so much so that many iTrial leaders would skip that part.

About the only point I can concede on iTrial negativity is that some would suggest that you needed to be a +1 or a +2 for the more difficult iTrials. The Magisterium - that one - well, if you weren't +3, your effective damage (if you even scored a hit) was going to be very low. Some would rationalize that they were there to buff, but that's a different conversation altogether. But, the fact that it was gated (had to have those two slots opened - I forget which two) also turned the stomachs of several players.

Sure would like to run a Really Hard Way right now.  :'(

[Arcana]

Life is a grind. Every moment, I have to breathe.

Not always exactly the same air.  In fact, you're pretty severely penalized with diminishing returns for breathing exactly the same air.

I knew a lot of players that liked running incarnate trials.  I also knew a lot of players that hated them.  And many in between.  I can't say they fell into distinct groupings by veteran status or playstyle.

Well, crazy people tended to like running iTrials.  But other than that, I mean.

[Blackstar5]

I didn't like the Itrials, I didn't hate them but I was more of a solo/small group player, my toons were set up for solo/small groups so when I hit Itrials I wasn't exactly set up for the mobs. When the DA solo Icontent came out is when I really started working on Incarnates.

[Cobra Man]

But what you're calling grinding is no different than the rest of the game. To unlock contacts you run scanner missions over and over and do a bank mission. To earn rare recipes you had a limited number of taskforces to do in order to get the merits needed for recipe rolls or you had to do something else and rely on buying them with influence. (later they expanded recipes as rewards from incarnate trials as well via empyrean merits) Heck we got new incarnate trials added more often than the number of new taskforces added since city of villains "Strike Forces" We got the itf, return of the reichsman, apex, tin mage, sutter. It took years to get new taskforces added since villains but more choices for trials were added sooner.

As for incarnate xp, wasn't that added to the dark astoria missions as well? Personally, I just burned threads on it at 50k iexp per thread on the first 3 incarnate powers it didn't take long.

Every MMO has some content that needs to be repeated in broad terms to progress.

The problem was that in order to obtain iXP and associated drops for your character you were required to grind the same 8 TF's repeatedly. It also didn't help that some of these TF's were zero fun to play (TPN, Keyes). That's obviously only my opinion on those 2 but I know I wasn't alone here.

You could simply go down the route of the missions in DA as you say, but these had vastly reduced iXP rewards and it certainly wasn't viable if you had multiple 50's that you wanted to incarnate. Of the 30+ level 50's that I had, I only chose to incarnate about 10 of them. The incarnate TF grind crushed the fun right out of the game for me for a considerable amount of time.

Sure .. I could have just chosen not to want some of my 50's being incarnated but that's the point. I did and I was forced to grind in order to do it.

Also ... The only way to earn iXP was tied to Praetorian content. If you didn't like Praetorian content?

That's tough luck :)

The sensible way would have been to open up earning iXP and incarnate drops to all post level 50 activity.

Problem solved.

[FloatingFatMan]

Not always exactly the same air.  In fact, you're pretty severely penalized with diminishing returns for breathing exactly the same air.

I knew a lot of players that liked running incarnate trials.  I also knew a lot of players that hated them.  And many in between.  I can't say they fell into distinct groupings by veteran status or playstyle.

Well, crazy people tended to like running iTrials.  But other than that, I mean.

My only problems with the iTrials were the idiots that were running one, took one look at my PB, and said "bugger off".  Idiots didn't have a clue what they were doing, clearly...

[Shadowe]

My only problems with the iTrials were the idiots that were running one, took one look at my PB, and said "bugger off".  Idiots didn't have a clue what they were doing, clearly...

Seriously? You got that response on Tiger White? Religious excrement. If you want a character who can do a bit of everything, bring along a PB. If you want a toon who's good at it, I'd take Tiger White over any other I can think of (not that I know many dedicated PB players, mind you).

Hell, I know how damned effective she could be. She's a damn near perfect addition in any "we need more X" scenarios.

Wow.

Some people are idiots.

[FloatingFatMan]

Seriously? You got that response on Tiger White? Religious excrement. If you want a character who can do a bit of everything, bring along a PB. If you want a toon who's good at it, I'd take Tiger White over any other I can think of (not that I know many dedicated PB players, mind you).

Hell, I know how damned effective she could be. She's a damn near perfect addition in any "we need more X" scenarios.

Wow.

Some people are idiots.

Yup, seriously.  I really really got that, quite a lot, too.  It was quite frustrating as, because of that shortsighted attitude, it took me a lot longer to get incarnated up as it should have done.

Unfortunately, it was quite a common attitude among a lot of players on Union, not just for the iTrials either.  I didn't get to run quite a lot of the task forces because "people who knew what they were doing" decided that they needed a pure AT far more than one that could tank, blast, scrap, heal AND provide some control, all at the same time...

The best teams I got on were those who'd teamed with me before and knew what sheer carnage TW could create. :p

[Shadowe]

*grumble grumble grumble* Idiots. *grumble grumble*

And this is why I loved it when my wife would organise an event.

The One Rule: Bring along a toon. (Sub-rule: Who can join whatever we're doing.)

That's it. She would take anyone, of any archetype, for any content, ability mix be damned. We even had a tank show up for a lot of our 'Fender Frenzy nights when we were all meant to be playing defenders. Didn't matter. Failure didn't matter, either.

Shame she never got around to organising leagues for iTrials.

[mrultimate]

Hello All,
              Yes I still live (to those guardianites who care). I love COH. ALL of it. I can't wait for it to return. I enjoyed everything--PVP, missions, early game-late game. I was end game more than anything-I liked dusting off a maxed out 50+3 and kicking ass--was kinda the point of rolling a toon in the first place(for me). I also enjoyed a good challenge, it was really satisfying to "gutcheck" and finish a mission/TF with a team after megawipes that you were sure weren't up to the challenge at first. I tried to make sure to help the newbies when I could--never wanted to be that jaded VETERAN player that was too good to help.
                                          Anyway thats my 2 cents-take it or leave it-punks
                                               Godspeed to IRONWOLF and the mysteryteam.

Guardian For Life!

[thunderforce]

There have been some criticisms of the end game and factors of play in I23. To me one of the biggest BUFFs to the support buff and debuff teammates was when certain powersets affected the team or the raid in one cast: speed boost, ID, forcefield buff, sonic buffs. It was a glorious day when a sonic mastermind and a forcefield mastermind could buff their pets and teammates in one swoop.

I was certainly very happy to retire the "buffing script" (knew how big the team was, how many pets, where I was on the team, divided up buff duration evenly and used voice synthesis to call out numbers at even intervals; I was the sort of bubbler who actually did bubble everyone all the time...)

WoW launched over six months after City of Heroes and certainly long after CoH's design was finalized

That's a fair point. I think of WoW as having been around forever, but of course you're right, and so back then MMO design wasn't a matter of trying to be just like WoW.

[thunderforce]

Except that incarnate trials were not a grind...
(elided)
I'm sure If I stopped to think for awhile I could add more pros for cox form of endgame because it's simply not fair to compare it to the overused system other games have.

Those are fine things, but none of them change them being a grind. If you run the same content repeatedly for eventual gain, you're grinding.

[Yoru-hime]

I never cared for iTrials. Waiting around for leagues to fill, monotonously doing one of a very few things over and over and over, with most people so burnt out that they didn't even bother to talk unless they were griping at someone they perceived as making their grind longer. Particularly before Dark Astoria, the transition into post-Alpha content felt like the world got a lot smaller and crankier in a hurry.

[MM3squints]

My only problems with the iTrials were the idiots that were running one, took one look at my PB, and said "bugger off".  Idiots didn't have a clue what they were doing, clearly...

I think that was one of the luxuries of being on a small server like Triumph, you take whatever you can get. If someone wants to join an iTrail and meets the minimum requirements, they can join. On the flip side, we only will get 3-4 trials operational a day

[adarict]

I'm curious about something that came up in this little discussion of grinding.  Comparing iTrials with the rest of the game, and implying that both are grinds, strikes me as a little... off.  OK, in a BROAD sense, the entire game, and pretty much EVERY MMO, would be considered a grind.  There are only so many kinds of missions.  Not all of them can be unique.  Early in a game's development, you are also hampered by how much content you can actually HAVE coming out the gate.

Someone had mentioned that in order to unlock contacts, you had to run scanner missions repeatedly.  Ummm, why?  I suppose if all you wanted to do was maximize the length of time it took to get somewhere, but with very few exceptions, I never repeatedly had to do any particular missions on pretty much any character I ever made.  I never power leveled my characters, I didn't use AE.  I just ran missions as they popped up.  Sure, there were some bands of levels where you ran out of content, and had to run newspapers or whatever, but for the most part, I don't recall ever having a character that had to spend significant amounts of time repeating content.

With regards to iTrials, I personally didn't like them, but not because of any kind of grind or anything.  I just generally didn't run trials or task forces at all.  I was one of those people that often only played in small sessions at a time.  I didn't like rushing through TFs, and since (especially during the last couple of years), a large portion of people were only interested in doing speed runs, I just avoided them.  Regardless of all of that, I think people are more justified in saying that iTrials were a grind, because there simply were fewer of them, and there weren't really other options if you wanted to progress.  To me, that is what made them qualify as a grind.  If the game had continued for another year or two, I think it would be harder to call them a grind, because there would have been more effort put into adding content for Incarnate stuff.

To me, the majority of the game was only a grind, if you were wanting to level up as fast as possible.

[umber]

It boggles my lazy mind imagining people who didn't like the iTrials.

I didn't actively dislike them and surely ran enough of them its not like I was going out of my way to avoid the experience, but there were several nagging annoyances to be sure. 

• On a smaller server like Triumph it was a little more difficult to assemble the necessary people to get one launched.  Oh, there was usually one every evening but outside of that window it was unlikely, and the herding of cats even then could be a non-trivial chore.
• For pushing so much lore into the iTrials the typical run was such a mad dash for loot it made absorbing that lore somewhat painful.
• As an altaholic there was a nagging feeling that iTrials were all but forcing me to retire but a handful of L50s.  Purely a perceptional issue and self-inflicted wound but... perceptions matter, they are what they are.
• It drove a bit of a rift between the subscribers and free players.  I didn't mind the sub cost, on multiple accounts, but it was a wedge issue for some.
• With loot associated with the runs, if you weren't lucky enough to be present with the first group to obtain the badge good luck convincing a later group to take the time for a badge.  Again, I tended to be on those early badge runs but I saw it discouraging some fellow players

Having said that, I'd sell at least one offspring into slavery to tank a BAF again.

[Sinistar]

My only problems with the iTrials were the idiots that were running one, took one look at my PB, and said "bugger off".  Idiots didn't have a clue what they were doing, clearly...

Indeed, some people just don't understandPB's at all.

[Yoru-hime]

I didn't actively dislike them and surely ran enough of them its not like I was going out of my way to avoid the experience, but there were several nagging annoyances to be sure. 

I'd add to this list that once an iTrial was deemed not worth the effort on a server, it could be just about impossible to get a team together for it, making the Incarnate world even smaller. TPN and DD were just about impossible to get a group together for on Infinity, though it seemed to vary from server to server which iTrials were considered out of favor. Most of the groups I joined that were trying to run one of these just gave up and switched to yet another BAF or Lambda when they couldn't find the numbers.

To be fair, the devs were trying to fix a lot of the endgame problems. Dark Astoria and the new Incarnate story arc were steps in the right direction, but that first year or so of Trial-only Incarnate advancement left a lot of people with a very bad taste in their mouth.

[FloatingFatMan]

To be fair, the devs were trying to fix a lot of the endgame problems. Dark Astoria and the new Incarnate story arc were steps in the right direction, but that first year or so of Trial-only Incarnate advancement left a lot of people with a very bad taste in their mouth.

All they really needed to do was make it possible to earn iXP and everything else through everything, not just the damned Praetorian stuff.  That way, soloists could still get everything, and those that loved the trials could do them and get the stuff a bit quicker.

[JanessaVR]

Hmmm.  On Virtue, I rarely had a problem finding an iTrial, as long as it was during "prime-time" hours - it was only at odd times of the day that it would be problematic (or the available people were not exactly "A-List" material and our ability to succeed was a bit iffy).