Friggin_Taser

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Actually aside from that one trial there's nothing else added to it. I mean PvP is a game mechanic and the bases are a tool for utilizing that they themselves aren't "content" in the sense that people have been asking for content as in missions, TFs, trials, etc for their 50s...

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While I, myself, consider bases and baseraids content, I think Shak meant specifically the Cathedral trial is new content.

It certainly is. And it's exactly what a lot of people have been clamoring for for months: a mid-size raid that can be done with more than just 8 people. It means that the tech is in place to have similiar "raids" in the future and maybe even a possible instanced Hamidon-like encounter.

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Wait, what's the reasoning for disallowing xp gain during the trial? Would it be abusive in some way? How?

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The Rularuu Spawn Boxes would then become the new CoT Portals everyone used to farm.

Yes, Rularuu are tough. Yes, people don't usually like to fight them. But since you have spawn points that would non-stop spawn them for you for a whole hour (which you can then go back and retake the mission), people would do it. And since you could get 24 people in there, it'd be even worse than Portalfarming was in the past.

The Cathedral of Pain is on a special timer to keep Items of Power in circulation through mainly base raids. It's available for 5 days every 60 days I think.

Seems like they didn't turn off the timer this go round, since it's now unavailable exactly 5 days later.

Sounds good.

The way we should go about this is start doing a run with only 1 IoP and testing the recharge times. If the are anything more than 1 minute, then the recharge times are directly linked to the amount of IoPs you currently have.

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We had 2 IOPs, the momument of resistance and of fury. Both other trials were completed with 15 people and 10 people, respectively.

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This might be the red herring we're looking for.

First time we did it with a group of 18-20 people with no problem. Second time we did it with a group of 8 people, also without a problem. As Fashion said, it appeared the wellforges respawned after we took down The Aspect both those times and, like him, I can swear we took longer than a minute to take down all the wellforges and Aspect himself.

The third time (with the exact same 8 person team we had for the second run) we did it, we noticed the wellforges respawning every minute on the minute. We had two Items of Power.

Everything you described, icedone, is what we witnessed, too, in our third run. It was like a completely different trial from the second run we had just completed minutes earlier with no difficulty.

Could the culprit be the number of Items of Power your SG has at the time?

Edit: For the record, our team for the 2nd and 3rd runs was:
Level 50 Mind/Rad Controller
Level 50 Illusion/Empathy Controller
Level 50 Gravity/Kinetic Controller
Level 50 Fire/Fire Blaster
Level 50 Fire/Devices Blaster
Level 44 Ice/Energy Blaster
Level 50 Dark/SR Scrapper
Level 50 Dark/Regen Scrapper

All experienced players who have previous IoP Trial experience, most of which were part of the first successful attempt with the larger team.

One thing I've got to stress here:

We're on the test server. We're testing a new raid that opens the door for an entire field of content for the entire game.

This is not the time for petty supergroup secrecy. What you might think is your SG/VG "cracking the code" to the trial could actually be a bug. Here is where we need to share all the data we can such as teamsizes that completed it, tactics used, box respawn activity, etc.

The testing Flamer, FashionSense, and I have done and posted about have shown that there might be larger, gamebreaking bugs to this trial that could severely hamper the completition of it for smaller SGs.

So, I ask of you: use the test server/forum for what it's meant for: testing something and then posting what you find. This is not a way for you to get a preview of future content only. Do everyone in the game a favor and post what you find so, if there is a bug, we can get it squashed before this hits live.

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The CoP trial was completed with a kinda-sorta Pickup SG raid. and we succeeded so its very possible by competent gorups

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Oh yes, we're definitely not saying otherwise. In fact, if anything, the fact that we did it with only 8 people today proves that.

I think what we're looking for is a bit more anecdotal evidence of others seeing the disparity we saw between our second and third runs today. Like Flamer said, the second time we did it was cake with 8 people. But the third run seems something happened. It was almost like a completely different trial.

So I think what we're looking for is some evidence here to answer a few questions:

1. Did we somehow manage to have just really good luck the first two runs killing the box spawns before they respawned?
2. Is there some kind of bug that prevented the boxes from respawning the first two times we did it but didn't mere minutes later when we tried it again with the exact same team?
3. Is there some kind of built in mechanic that makes the IoP Trial get progressively harder the more and more IoPs you have?
4. Why is aggro so wonky in the Aspect room itself?
5. Is there some kind of special trigger that determines whether a box will or won't respawn?

Hopefully with more findings posted in this thread, we can iron out the details before this goes live.

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Just a heads up:

I have several devs reading this thread, and are working on the bugs you guys are finding, and on ways to improve the Mayhem Missions (such as making the end Hero non-random; currently the end Hero you get is totally random, and has nothing to do with anything you did in the mission, we are looking into changing that).

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I ran the AP mission 4 times and the KR 3 times. I got the same one everytime. Unless you are refering to the higher level ones who get EB/AV.

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Yeah, my two cents:

Two person team doing a level 39 Brickstown Mayhem Mission on the third difficulty level netted us a boss-level Blast Furnace.

Five person team doing a level 40 Brickstown Mayhem Mission on Villainous netted us the same hero: boss-level Blast Furnace.

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My feeling is that they've got it pretty much right with this version. Any SG large enough to be able to get a raid ready base together should also have a good chance of beating the trial.

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I have to agree with Sadako now. With the last incarnation of the IoP Trial, I feared we'll have a redux of the Hamidon situation, with only one SG being able to defeat it and lording it over us for months until the rest of the server found out the trick.

This new version appears to be both a challenge and easy enough for even the most casual of SG. I would hate to see only the top 5 SGs/VGs on a server being able to compete in base raids because only they had the numbers/voice chat necessary to defeat it.

As for it sounding "too easy," I learned in CoV beta to never gauge difficulty with testers. I know myself and others in CoV Beta had no problem with the respec trial. But the casual players who got to it when CoV was released did.

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I was part of Fashion's successful run.

I think I got something like 150k debt relief for taking down Rularuu on a level 50 controller

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57k for Electron Girl.

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You might be right, I think I imagined a 1 in front of there.

I was part of Fashion's successful run.

I think I got something like 150k debt relief for taking down Rularuu on a level 50 controller and then another 32k for completing the trial. That sounds like a ton of XP for someone not 50.

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what is required for the TF Commander Accolade? i assume it's related to completing a certain combination / # TF's?

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Completing Positron, Synapse, Sister Psyche, Citadel, Manticore, and Numina's TFs.

There is also a badge for Toxic Tarantula kills, as a new progress bar has appeared.

This might tie in with the Tarantula gladiator Lord Recluse announced as being part of I7 a few months back.

He also confirmed that the Arachnoid gladiator is tied to 40+ content, so keep an eye out for him.

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WOOT! Thanks, Cricket.

so... first problem... villains seem to be able to keep the Gladiators that now award just for heroes. Is this fair to all people involved? Is this worth the headache you're going to create with new villains demanding access to old badges (think Isolator only worse.)

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Is it worth the headache from people complaining if they have badges taken away?

I missed out on the chance to get Disruptor/Longbow Warden 2 when it was bugged and being awarded for completing a mission on my main villain. But I would never ask the devs to forcibly remove badges from people who did get it that way.

Really, I say live and let live on this one. Taking badges away from players sets a bad precedent, especially trivial gladiator ones. If it were an accolade or something more "loot"-ish, I could see a problem.

It's the penguins, I tell you.

Hero Choice Award Winners

So Clint, if, as you said, "Taser thinks all the forumbase are children" and, as you said, "Children love to watch people act out and be crass," and I was voted favorite forum poster...

There's no way I can read that sentence that doesn't make it sound like you are insulting the forum, not me. So, as you put it, I was only voted favorite poster because the forumbase are children that love to watch someone act up and be crass? And even then, you had to stretch something I said (that "some" forum posters act like children) to try to attack me.

It's like you have an elitist shovel you keep digging yourself deeper and deeper wtih.

Ladies and gentleman, Clintonian has started his Sullen Cowboy Sour Grapes and Jealousy grand tour a little early this year.

Watch as he plays all his hits, including "Personal Attacks on Taser because he Personally Attacks Others" and "Not Without My High Horse."

Of course, we're ignoring the big picture here: that Castle got SERVED! Oh my god, when MightyScourge said the answer to everything was just to keep feeding those hamsters? Man, Castle, there's egg on your face! Bet you never thought of that, eh, Castle?

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This is actually untrue. Simply feed the hamsters more.


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You hear that, Castle?

Boy, you just got SERVED!

Look what MightyScourge did there. Responding to your post, saying it's all lies, and then offering up no kind of evidence or even really speculation to back the accusation.

Obviously you've been had, Castle. There's no way you can fight back against an ironclad response like that. MightyScourge has found your hidden weakness: that you have no actual knowledge of the system you spend every day working with.

Boy, Castle got DISSED.

Keep feeding those hamsters, Castle, lest Scourge has to call yo' mama out for being so fat.

I wonder why Citadel isn't following Statesman into battle.

He at least has been featured prominently in the comic as one of the main Freedom members.

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Also, tell your powers guys that we liked it better as Chum Spray! Some Blasters are still calling their level 49 power Foce of Nature; you can change the power name, but we're still gonna call it Chum Spray whether you like it or not.

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I remember bugging the hell out of poz and pohsyb when I5 hit test and they renamed the FOCE "Force of Nature." How boring! Statesman, you can make this right. Give us back the FOCE!

Also: rename Bile Spray "FOCE Spray" if you have to.

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I was just scanning the Dev Digest and Cricket is wasting no time jumping and and modsmacking threads!

Welcome aboard!

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I have to say, I actually like Cricket personally PMing you and telling you WHY a post of yours was deleted and asking you not to do that again.

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So, someone got his tushie paddled, eh? Tsk, tsk.

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If deleted posts were removed from your total postcount, I would be down to somewhere around 3k.

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I was just scanning the Dev Digest and Cricket is wasting no time jumping and and modsmacking threads!

Welcome aboard!

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I have to say, I actually like Cricket personally PMing you and telling you WHY a post of yours was deleted and asking you not to do that again.

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I think it's good that you highlight the virtues of PPPs, but just like some of the people who slag PPPs, you offer a distinct bias and seem reluctant to acknowledge that PPPs are a mixture of pros and cons.


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I sound biased only because I entered someone else's conversation, Clint.

Honestly, I have no allegiance on this one. I'm dealing with what we got. Am I in love with the idea of patron pools that can't be changed and are similiar across the ATs? Not too much. Some powers look cool. But they are just other powers for me. Am I angry that the devs would dare for me to bow down before a fictional character to get powers? Of course not. We do that everytime we train.

Would I protest wildly if they announced in I8 that heroes were getting patron pools and villains were getting APPs that are based on elements/powersets? Of course not. More choice is always better and we're not 100% sure that's not what they are going to do anyways. Then people can have the option of being part of the greater narrative by aligning themselves with the environment and storyline or have the choice to base their epic powers on their origin and powerchoices.

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Mm. Not really, and I hope the devs are not as emotionally hyper-sensitive as you potray them.



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Clint, just because you read my posts as if they were being narratived by a screeching woman watching her baby get crushed by a bus doesn't mean that's how I wrote it.