New efforts!

[Codewalker]

Just Incarnate trials and a few of the Praetorian zone events.

However, hypebole aside, use of attack powers or dealing damage had nothing to do with iTrial reward tables. The participation algorithm tracked any click powers at all (even self buffs like Build Up), and was fairly generous. If you were a mastermind and you were buffing your teammates, or even your pets at all you would be well past the dreaded "10 threads" threshold. Little known fact: Team buff powers (anything that targeted or affected allies basically) were weighted twice as much as attack powers in your participation score.

There were some implementation issues the first month or so of incarnate trials when they were initially released (BAF and Lambda only) that caused Masterminds to get screwed, but that was quickly fixed. Masterminds were also tweaked to have their click powers count more than other ATs, since they had fewer in their primary set.

What bit most people who ended up getting the 10 thread reward was dying a lot and spending a lot of time in the hospital waiting for the doors to unlock. If you missed an entire phase due to that, your participation tanked.

I recall someone doing empirical testing to determine the minimum participation threshold (Arcana maybe?), and they found that even putting someone on follow and occasionally brawling an enemy or using an aoe buff was more than enough to avoid the 10 thread table.

[LaughingAlex]

The other tables, I don't think so.  They were unaffected.  It was really just the menu-based rewards you got at the end of the incarnate trials, you had to pass a certain qualifier that went by how much you were doing.  Basically it was implemented to ensure you didn't leech.  If you passed, you'd get a common/uncommon/rare/very rare.  Though I suspect there were a few smaller qualifiers in there that upped/lowered your chance of a rare/very rare, but then I also recall harder trials having a higher chance of a rare/very rare.  I think the TPF(is that the acronym for it?  It's the one where you finally kick that traitors ass Mailstorm in) trial was the best balance for rewards/difficulty.  Underground trial was the worst...

[Stealth Dart]

It was the TPN Campus Itrial.  Maelstrom was the AV to take down.  I did not care much for that Itrial as it just seemed to be too much of wash, rinse, repeat.  I participated in about 5 Underground Itrials.  Never once did the leagues I was on succeed.  So depressing to invest so much time in getting to the Avatar of Hamidon only to have team wipe after team wipe or just see the clock tick down until you ran out of time.  *Sigh*

[LaughingAlex]

I saw to many underground trials fail to ever have any interest due to how easy it was to sabotage it.  That and the fact that a lot of people were stupid enough never to watch for if they were targetted by anything.  Then course some dumb-butts would get themselves confused and deliberately cast rebirth on the stupid avatar to.

[Codewalker]

I don't think I was ever on an Underground that failed on Triumph. The usual trial leaders knew how to keep things moving and instruct people, as well as making sure we had plenty of Clarion for the final phase.

I never saw anyone try to sabotage one, but I guess that's one of the benefits of being on a small server. If you're a jerk, you get quickly blacklisted and nobody will invite you.

UG was long, but the guaranteed Rare/Very Rare at the end made it worthwhile to run from time to time.

[MM3squints]

I don't think I was ever on an Underground that failed on Triumph. The usual trial leaders knew how to keep things moving and instruct people, as well as making sure we had plenty of Clarion for the final phase.

On Triumph, I don't think I ever seen any incarnate trial fail except for that one badge where you need to kill the Tyrant while the light pillars are up. We came close, but ended up just burning him down by destroying the pillars.

[Thunder Glove]

I didn't like TPN from a storyline point of view, particularly that an Incarnate could be easily taken down by regular citizens with rocks, and how the boss of that trial was a guy whose sole power appeared to be "has guns" (but still required an entire league of at least twelve Incarnates to take down, and he had to be taken down three times before he'd stay down).  It was okay from a gameplay perspective, but not great.  It took me a distressingly long time to realize that the pattern of buildings was just "the one on the right, the one in the middle, the one on the left, repeat", and having to get to 500 popularity twice just felt like padding and got monotonous.

It wasn't my least-favorite (that'd be Minds of Mayhem, which I only ran once or twice but I repeatedly died almost every time), but it was pretty close to the bottom.

[darkgob]

I didn't like TPN from a storyline point of view, particularly that an Incarnate could be easily taken down by regular citizens with rocks, and how the boss of that trial was a guy whose sole power appeared to be "has guns" (but still required an entire league of at least twelve Incarnates to take down, and he had to be taken down three times before he'd stay down).

They're Incarnate rocks. ;)  And, uh, Incarnate bullets.  Also the guy has Incarnate teleporting kicks to the face.

............

[MM3squints]

They're Incarnate rocks. ;)  And, uh, Incarnate bullets.  Also the guy has Incarnate teleporting kicks to the face.

............

You can drop a tactical nuke from Warburg on your toon and it will bring you down to 70%, but a rock is stronger than that. Kind of makes you laugh that a rock has as much stopping power as a Kronos Titian

[pinballdave]

Depends on which buffer you are playing. For Thermal/Pain/Emps, there is lots to do in buffing and healing alone than DPSing. That why I said for the other 2 Defenders Rad/ and Cold) I took attack powers  because after you buff/debuff (both Rad/ and Cold have buff that are normally set it and forget it for couple of minutes) you can be DPSing. I actually never used my kin as a team buffer (fire/kin) just as a farmer and designed that one with farming specs.

You are leaving out some key defender types: like the MIGHTY STORM. Darkity Dark was a potent build as well, buff or debuff? I was well known for applying howling twilight before any teammate was dead. Is Traps a buff or a debuff? Kinetics went berzerk when speed boost and inertial reduction went to targetted AoE. No mention was made of the late-comer Natural Affinity.

[Codewalker]

particularly that an Incarnate could be easily taken down by regular citizens with rocks

Because of the weakness field generated by the seers floating around. It's made explicit by the intro text that the seers are bad news and will "warp the minds of the Primal Earth allies present so they don't pose a threat."

So if you chose to ignore the seers, as most leagues did, it's really your own fault that regular citizens could two-shot you.

I agree that about the plot of TPN however. The big bad is... the chump that you've been wiping the floor with in tip missions for the last 25 levels. But somehow has Incarnate power now and takes 12-24 players to defeat? Lame.

[Big King]

I liked the variety of all the iTrials and found, like most things in the game, with a competent leader and folks who can follow instructions, they could be quite smooth.

In fact, one of my favorite memories is the Incarnate Trial Extravaganza my SG hosted on Justice in July 2012 (prior to the dreaded news). No one was turned away and the point was to allow players not experienced with iTrials (especially the less popular ones) the chance to experience them with clear instructions in a low stress setting. I was not an expert, but with some prep ahead of time and the support of my SG-mates, I led leagues to victory in all the trials and got 12/16 of the badges we were shooting for plus 6 more we weren't! We were a single bomb away from Master of Underground in a single run.

Proof (and some great nostalgia for me):
https://web.archive.org/web/20120911092944/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=292861
None of the trials were ever at risk of not completing. Scroll to the bottom for our badge results.

It was an extremely busy and rewarding pair of nights that truly showed the positive aspects of our community. I hope I get to do it again some day.

[MM3squints]

You are leaving out some key defender types: like the MIGHTY STORM. Darkity Dark was a potent build as well, buff or debuff? I was well known for applying howling twilight before any teammate was dead. Is Traps a buff or a debuff? Kinetics went berzerk when speed boost and inertial reduction went to targetted AoE. No mention was made of the late-comer Natural Affinity.

Those Defenders I never had. I had Emp/, Thermal/, Rad/, Cold/. I mostly played Doms and Trollers. Although the best /Storm I made was a Fire/Storm/Mako that had burnout. So much fun when you see 5 Tornados+ 2 Water Spout turning everything into complete chaos. (well not so much chaos because ring of fire would root them and all you see are ticks from ring of fire+tornado and water spout dmg+containment bonus.)

Edit: spelled shout instead of spout

[Mistress Urd]

all of this talk of buffing sets reminded me of my goal of having at least 1 of each buffing set to 50. It was a journey that was a lot less bumpy than the 1 of each archetype (14) to 50.

[Fanta]

You are leaving out some key defender types: like the MIGHTY STORM. Darkity Dark was a potent build as well, buff or debuff? I was well known for applying howling twilight before any teammate was dead. Is Traps a buff or a debuff? Kinetics went berzerk when speed boost and inertial reduction went to targetted AoE. No mention was made of the late-comer Natural Affinity.

Storm, Dark, and Traps are all great debuff sets. I'd still take traps for FFG defense and mez protection. The great thing about Traps on a defender is that you got all the good powers very early on. I could do a speed run of STF(MLTF) and after that have a friend want me to run Posi with them(Mez protection at lvl 8 ). Pair it with Sonic secondary and you get both -defense and -resist. It was great solo or on a team. No need for more than one build. Well, almost no need :D

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

You are leaving out some key defender types: like the MIGHTY STORM. Darkity Dark was a potent build as well, buff or debuff? I was well known for applying howling twilight before any teammate was dead. Is Traps a buff or a debuff? Kinetics went berzerk when speed boost and inertial reduction went to targetted AoE. No mention was made of the late-comer Natural Affinity.

With Dark Miasma i generally considered Twilight Grasp and Howling Twilight potent debuffs that happened to have a heal and rez affect attached, respectively. Both powers were especially handy against AVs. Dark's buffs were nearly nonexistent, but the debuffs were pretty good compensation.


That said, my Traps/Dark was in my top 5 favorite characters, probably the top 3.

[ike]

so I'm confused

are these efforts to get the game entirely and reopen/open new servers, or are they just getting rights to the IP to use for other purposes?

I mean that second possibility, while nice, just doesnt feel right at all...

[LaughingAlex]

They plan to get both the IP and also get servers up and running.  So in other words they want to gt the game entirely.

[Aggelakis]

so I'm confused

are these efforts to get the game entirely and reopen/open new servers, or are they just getting rights to the IP to use for other purposes?

I mean that second possibility, while nice, just doesnt feel right at all...

The main focus is the IP, to hook future stuff into. NCsoft offered to add a static shot of the game in addition to that. We don't know much more than that.

[brothermutant]

You are leaving out some key defender types: like the MIGHTY STORM. Darkity Dark was a potent build as well, buff or debuff? I was well known for applying howling twilight before any teammate was dead. Is Traps a buff or a debuff? Kinetics went berzerk when speed boost and inertial reduction went to targetted AoE. No mention was made of the late-comer Natural Affinity.

Oh Yeah, Storm was mighty to be true, but a power piggy bar none. I always stayed away from Storms. I made a Tri-Dark Defender build once, called her "Soul-suckin Barbie" (modeled after my kid sister  ;) and that toon was ALWAYS welcome on a team (unless I left that team stealth aura on and went AFK, always while they were trying to get a NPC to follow them to the door). And I agree with the others post about using the team rez more as a CC move and one great big -regen debuff too. That thing was mean to AVs/Monsters. Ever since I used a Dark toon to solo one of those zone monsters, I ALWAYS pick powers that have at least ONE -regen move in them. Makes killing bigguns sooo much easier.