Wicked_Wendy

I'm sure most of you that participate in the incarnate trials have seen the advertising for mini BAFs. ost are probably keenly aware of what it means but I decided to post here and go over some of the benefits.

Okay lets start with size.. A maxed out BAF requires 24 players and depending on the time of day can fill quickly or take as much as 20-30 minutes to fill. A mini BAF can have as few as 12 players so recruiting takes up much less time

Now lets discuss LAG .. Not everyone deals with this but most of us do in one form or the other and it can cause attacks to take a lifetime to fire off or casue problems as extreme a crashing. The worst lag time on a BAF of course occurs during the Escaped Prisoner Phase and with a smaller team the lag is not nearly as bad and the number of prisoners is much smaller so it becomes much easier to prevent any escapes thus earning an extra astral or if its your first time ... a badge, the astral and a component.

Adds .... Okay this is one area where if you are still working on IXP a mini may not be for you. With a smaller team there are less adds meaning less stuff to kill so less XP. However is you have your Judgement and Lora open a mini means less Adds trying to take off hyour character's head while you are trying to defeat the AVs.

Time in trial .. I haven't really tried to gauge this but I think it's pretty much about the same on a mini as it is on a full sized BAF. Less adds may make it easier to concentrate on the AV but less team mates means it may take a bit longer, depending on the team make up, to defeat them.


Now the important thing with a mini is .. SIGHS .. it does require the players to actually pay a bit more attention to instructions. If you are on team one and team one and two are supposed to go to the south and do choke points ..... standing at a door up north is not helping your team andmay result in the trial failing. Quite a few of us now have multiple incarnates and what we are working on is either tier 4s or just accumulating astral and empyrean merits to but stuff at the stores in Ouroborus.... FAILING the trial because you don't feel like paing attention means you just blew an emp and now get to start all over again. Now keep in mind that 4 astrals = 16 threads while 1 empyrean = 18 at the store and you can see why folks don't like the idea of failure.

I have done both the full sized and the min and enjoyed each but I tend to lean toward the mini trials.. I am not sure but I think my rare and very rare drops may be better since I started joining them. Anyway that gives anyone that has no clue an idea of what a MINI is.. so go join one and see for yourself!

A.. yes I definately would and to answer the question you posed to someone else here is wht.

I was on a lambda where a Mastermind just out and out refused to even help his OWN team out with acids let alone helping mine with the grenades. He stood AT the gate the entire time waiting to pose in the cut scene. The reason i know is because on 2 occasions my Defender had to run past his lazy but to get back inside and TRY to help

When confronted by several members of BOTH teams his excuse was he was too squishy and would just die anyway.. Now keep in mind this was after I had run BACK from the hospital past him twice. So its okay if I die repeatedly helping my team but its a bother for him.

Now for the part that got him probably one starred by about 15 players including me. Despite him we managed to acquire all 10 acids and nades and off course there he was along with his pets in the cut scene with Maurader. We all teleported back to the entrance and then.. TRIAL FAILED MAURADER HAS LEFT THE FACILITY. The idiot either aggroed the AV himself or one of his pets did and maurader chased them out the front gate.. trial over.

Now you ask why would i kick someone for being in that scene before i knew if the trial would succeed of fail.. because i saw it fail due to someone being in it.

But wait I have more for you. Another lambda and the acid team is doing great ..eventually gets all 10 but the grenade team is filled with nothing but squishies and we run out of time with exactly 2 grenades. Okay still no huge deal YET. we just need to hit the weapons delivery points and pick up some more grenades before we attack the av.

I even warn people in league chat.. dont aggro the AV. Unforntunately 5 members of team 1 decided grenades were not as important as posing with Maurader and i no sooner got that warning out than all the adds and the AV were attacking us as we stood there in front of the facility. Care to take a wild guess who aggroed them.. our illustrious returning film stars. Multiple deaths began to occur and we were so busy fighting to survive no one could even get to the portals to stop the flow of adds. eventually it just got overwhelming and we couldn't stay alive long enough to even regroup.. people started quitting and the trail failed. So again.. HOW do you know what those idiots posing in that scene will cause to happen. You don't and more and more leaders and players are to the point where even if it means the trial fails and we start all over its time to send a message. You pose in that cut scene instead of helping your team mates and you are kicked.. not after the trial DURING it. period

Now for B.. No I have never had to or even ever felt there might be a need to kick anyone from a Task Force. But let's see.. the ITF.. cut scene triggers before anyone could possible get near Romulus. STF .. same thing no one is getting into the picture with Recluse or Aeon.. about the only scene in that where anyone could is the first mission posing with Sands. unless you weer after a master of I see no way that could cause failure. Lady Grey has a few cut scenes but again the trigger for them makes it impossible for anyone to actually be in the scene or at least i have never seen it... I suppose in the mission where we rescue Infernia some jerk could wait around where the Av spawned and be in that.. but again it wouldn't cause the mission or the TF to fail.

Its just not the same thing. And I have served as a team leader now on a number of trials and believe me after my experiences if i caught one of MY team in that cut scene the league leader wouldn't have to kick because IF i can i would.

Okay so it's been a while now and between the hordes of Task Forces we did to open and slot Alpha and now the hundreds of trials to open ans lot Judgement, Lore, Interface and Destiny I was curious.. How many 50 (+) levels do you have and how many have all teir 3s or tier 4s in every slot.

So I'll start

Operative Tessa SoA Crab 50 (+3) A - t4, J - t4, L - t3, I - t3, D - t3
Icee Hottee Blaster 50 (+3) A - t4, J - t3, L - t3, I - t3, D - t3
T-Bot0327 MM 50 (+3) A - t4, J - t4, L - t3, I - t3, D - t3
Agent O SoA W 50 (+3) A - t4, J - t3, L - t3, I - t3, D - t3
Lorien Sindenari Blaster 50 (+3) A - t4, J - t4, L - t3, I - t3, D - t3
Ragin Reb Tank 50 (+3) A - t4, J - t3, L - t3, I - t3, D - t3
Avenger 003 Controller 50 (+3) A - t4, J - t3, L - t3, I - t3, D - t3
Avenger 006 Blaster 50 (+3) A - t4, J - t3, L - t3, I - t3, D - t3
Taxibot Tandar Controller 50 (+3) A - t4, J - t3, L - t3, I - t3, D - t3
Def Bot One Defender 50 (+3) A - t4, J - t3, L - t3, I - t3, D - t3
Tia Anker Tank 50 (+3) A - t3, J - t3, L - t3, I - t3, D - t3

Now of all of these only one, Tia Anker had serious assists.. Astral merits were used to purchase an Alpha slot for her and 150 threads from vouchers were used to open all of her other powers. I am currently contemplating my 12th incarnate and it will probably be one of my Scrappers.

So.. who are your incarnates and what level are their powers. Oh and in case you didn't pick up on the 'code" A = Alpha, J = Judgement, L = .. you get the idea lol

Just to be sure check your power consumption as well. could it be you are just a little over the maximum your generator will crank out... If so some systems may shut down simply because you don't have the power to run them. Also do the same check with your control.. I can't recall if a vault even needs any but if your over your limit there stuff stops working as well.

Okay lets see where to start on this...

1. Despite the rant the triage beacon from the traps set is NOT useless on a Keyes trial. Yes it doesn't move but I have been on trials where the beacon was set down near a computer terminal and healed the players while they cleared the IDT and then waited, with pulses going off, for the Tank to bring AM so they could use their glowies. Is it as useful as other heals no but on a trial where ANY heal is beneficial not using it simply because it isn't mobile is not a good excuse

2. Twilight Grasp does require at least one enemy to work but it does absolutely no damage. What it does do is debuff that enemy and heals your team mates. It does make it easier to do damage to your enemy but it can hardly be classified as an attack.

3. I think it was Zombie Man that clarified this but I'll chime in as well. The pulses that damage you during a Keyes trial are not affected by any thing else except the health of Anti-Matter. They go off about every 30 seconds no matter what anyone does during the trial until all three reactors are secured and then it stops. The only way to alter the pulse is to damage Anti-matter and then instead of 50-60% of your health being affected it gets worse.

Now I have done a lot of trials, all three types, and while not every leader is the smartest kid on the block .. the complete lack of many players to follow even the simpliest of instructions has made me question the overall IQ of some players.

a. Players on Lambda that have basically 1 thing to remember. Which team they are on and where it is going during the collection phase. Heck if you can't remember either of those try this... as soon as the Security Guard falls click on your team leader and follow him/her to which ever door they head towards. I have been on lambdas where 12 or more team mates were doing acid and 4 or less of us were in the warehouse after grenades.. you remember grenades..those things we use to pacify Maurader so he actually takes damage when we attack him.

b. Along the same line on the BAF Team 1 and 2 South choke points and team 3 North. And moments later the team leader from 3 is calling out to specific players to get them to the right pathway. This is a one -- 1, This is a two... 2, and this is a three .. 3. As before if you can't tell them apart the person at the top of your team list is your leader.. click on him and go where he goes. /e rolls eyes

c. Do not attack the AV until all the doors are closed on Lambda. And of course seconds later Maurader and every IDT troop on the map is suddenly in your face. Of course a part of this problem is the ever present need for players to BOMB the cut scene and then drag everything back as they try to rejoin the rest of the team that was acually doing their job and collecting acids and grenades.

d. Do not attack Anti-matter. Now a little bit of this not happening is acceptable... I have been on Keyes trials where we were battling the ADDs at a terminal and the tank pull AM in so we could activate it. In the heat of battle an AoE doesn't care what it hits it just hits so if Anti-matter is in range OPPS. But I have been on trials where by reactor 2 he was down to 70 percent.. that is an aweful lot of opps

e. Ahhh yes on the BAF... please don't attack Siege until the tank pulls him close to Nightstar's body. So as I stand there watching half the dang league is in the grass shooting at him and his ADDs. I guess they don't think the Tank can manage to taunt him into place without their help. Of course they also don't seem to be aware that every time he is attacked he stops to retaliate and we all know how slow he runs to begin with.

f. Team 3, during the BAF, is on ADDS. And then as my health drops rapidly realize about two dozen or more 9CU and MK1 vickies are crawling up my back because absolutely no one is attacking the hordes of growing adds. I have actually seen this result in trials failing. For reference purposes see comment b concerning what the numbers one, two and three look like.

Now I am not saying there aren't people out there that have no clue what a Defender is for or how to use them. I was playing them years ago when everyone assumed defender = healbot and it took a lot of time to educate people that we also buff, debuff and have actual attacks .. some of which actually add to the overall debuff we can provide (Rad/Rad for example). telling a Defender not to attack is about the stupidist thing any player can do and here is why.....

Defenders Dark Blast .. every single attack has an inherent -to hit attached which allows everyones attacks to do more damage

Radiation Blast .. every attack has a - DEF attached again making it easier to damage enemies

Electric Blast .. all attacks have a -Recovery attached so eventually any affected enemy has no end left.. no end means no way to fire off any attack or use any ability to heal.

Ice Blast .. all attack have a -speed attached

PSI blast .. three attack have a -Recharge so enemies attacks dont recharge as fast and cant be used a soften , one puts enemies to sleep and two others disorients

Sonic Blast .. all powers have a -Res so all enemies resist damage at a lower rate.

Dual Pistol .. with ammo changes every single attack can cause -speed, or -Dam debuffs.

All that leaves is Archery and Assault Rifle as the only two attack powers that don't do anything but cause DAMAGE(okay thats not quite true AR has knockback but that doesnt really debuff anything)And even with those the last time I checked the idea was to damage the enemy until they fell down and stopped trying to damage you. While a defenders damage may not come close to matching a Blasters ANY damage is good damage. Even when I am playing my Empaths I fire off attacks as fast and as often as possible I refer to it as preventative medicine.. if all the bad guys are dead then they cant cause any damage I need to heal. I have blatantly ignored leaders that told me to "just heal" and have never once been kicked off a team. And if it ever does occur rest assured that leader is getting one star as a rating and put on ignore so I never have to deal with him or her again.

I figured I'd expand a bit on my original post here. now i am sure if they read this thread there will be some die hard players beating their swords against their shield and bellowing toward the sky..

"NO! NO! These are incarnate powers meant to make us God Like that would make it easy."

Now boys take a deep breath and calm the heck down. It's already gotten easy or at least easier. I took an 5 Astrals and bought an Alpha slot for Tia Anker, my second incarnate tank, and then she claimed a ton of thread vouchers and bought IXP. Without ever getting near a trial she had all 5 incarnates open. Then between doing a few trials herself and claiming more threads she got all her powers to tier 2. As of today she did a Keyes Trial, BAF and finished with a Lambda. All her powers are at tier 3 and she is working on tier 4 for her Alpha.

How did she accomplish it so fast.. simple I have 10 other incarnates that are already at tier 3 or 4 on all powers and they converted ever Empyrean and Astral they earned into Thread vouchers. So the Devs have already come up with a way to make getting your characters the new powers easier. Now as time went on I also started slowly using a few Astrals here and there to buy some of the costume pieces and every single character I own, incarnate or not, shared in those rewards. You tell me how my idea is any different than what the devs have already given us. What it does is allows players that 1) can't do the trials due to the lag and PC issues OR 2) players that hate the trial concept and simple don't want to use it a method to still benefit from the new powers.

Now I have seen posts in other threads where people claim.. "Well if they are not doing the trials why do they need those powers anyway!" Well the short answer is they don't. Players were successfully completing the STF, LRSF, Kahn TF, Baraccuda SF, ITF and LGFT long before Alpha, Judgement, interface, Destiny or Lore existed but they do now and they allow players to do one of two things:

1. Breeze through 45-50 level TF/SF and truly feel like demi-gods

OR

2. increase the difficulty to +4 and still enjoy the TF/SF along with the challenge.

Why shouldn't they have access to everything... they pay the same amount of cash each month we do. Personally I enjoy the trials but using the new system saved me a ton of time trying to earn IXP since they made it even more of a grind earning it by doing trials. But even I get to a point where I simply say NO MORE and go play one of my lower levels for as much as a week to break the constant 1-2-3 rinse and repeat we currently have.

I think this will make it possible to open up more characters to incarnate powers and gives players other, legitimate, options for opening them without the trials.. (casue I am sorry takes months and hundreds of millions in INF to accomplish what I can do in days or at most a week hardly seems fair). As mentioned before I still think the game needs an incarnate contact or two that will allow players to solo or form smaller teams (2-8 members max) and earn thread and components. It offers every player an alternantive to doing the same 3 things over and over and over.

I can't believe this flame war is still going on. Look this same sort of BS, sorry but that is what it is, has been going on in one form or another since they announced Going Rogue was going to make it possible to switch sides. And I quote (sort of):

With GR and side switching why would anyone play a TANKER when they can play a Brute

With GR side switching why would anyone play a Scrapper when they can play a Brute.

With GR will anyone even play Defenders again now that they can be Dominators of Corruptors


Pardon the response but YADA YADA YADA YADA


Maybe my PROBLEM is I like to play the game not spend hours checking combat logs and adding up columns of numbers to determine exactly how much damage any one of my characters is doing. I PLAY them and if I am having fun and they are doing well then in my mind they are fine.

We have, currently since who knows what the future may hold, 14 different ATs we can play and there is nothing wrong with any of them. Some required some tweeking.. Stalkers are much better now that they have been buffed than when I first tried them years ago as an example.

For pure damage nothing outshines a Blaster. The question of why would I want want on my team when a scrapper or Brute requires less attention from team mates is irrelivant. Maybe if more people learned what it means to be part of an actual TEAM they'd understand.... Some of the insanity I have witnessed on Lambda and BAF trials shows that far too many seem to think they can ignore instructions and just do whatever the heck they please and then can't imagine why the trial failed. Okay a Blaster doesn't have defense just pure damage.. well gee we have buffer/healer ATs out there and now almost everyone can BUFF and DEBUFF with their incarnate powers so .... part of your JOB on the team is to help keep your team mates alive. I have a BLASTER that took rebirth and once every 2-3 minutes I will make sure I am in position to benefit as many of my league mates as possible and hit the button then watch 750 points of heal spring up above everyone, including my own character's, head. I am not even a traditional Support type AT and I am still willing to do what i can to help keep my team healthy and in the fight.

I have watched Tanks or Brutes die on BAF runs trying to taunt NS or Siege into position and I move forward and with one long range snipe she comes running while they are on their way back from the hospital. That's called picking up the slack and helping the team.

Instead of arguing back and forth for 11 or more pages on if this AT or that AT is worth playing .. maybe we should try spending some time trying to educate players how to actually be a productive member of a team. When they learn how to do that stuff like this happens more often:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=265813

So last night I pulled out my Main/Badger Operative Tessa and did a couple of trials. She has long ago gotten all of her 5 incarnates to 3 or 4 and I have been busy with the other 10 I currently play. The BAF she joined went well . nothing spectacular just your normal run. Then she joined a Lambda.

Phase one went by so fast it was almost rediculous. The mobs dropped in front of us and the turrents went down without a hitch. As an indication of what might happen later even the Security guard dropped fast and never had a chance to even heal itself.

Phase two was amazing.. at one point both team 1 and 2 had found 9 of the glowies. I was on team 2 and team 1 did finish slightly faster than us and came by to help with the last grenade. OH did I mention that we got the extra Astral for taking out a weapons cache and a containment pod at the same time.. well we did.

On to phase three and OMG people are actually aware they had acids and are closing portal.. leaving just the one open like the league leader asked! After buffing up we launched into the ADDs and Maurader as they assembled at the front gate. Now this is the only thing that went wrong during the entire trial... we wiped out all of the ADDs getting to 21/30 and when I looked up to check that total I noticed Maurader was down to like 6% health after we'd used exactly 1 pacifcation grenade. The poor guy never once got to use his patented catch phrase "On the ground again" because seconds later he was dead (err defeated). So our only ERROR was killing off the AV so fast we missed the added Astral for defeating 30 IDT troops. To be honest we were all so excited at the massive firepower we had just displayed no one seemed to care.

So to recap.. no one died, not even once. Everyone went where they were supposed to go and did what they were supposed to do. Everyone followed instructions and knew how to count to 2 and recongnize the numbers (LOL). And when the final battle occurred we made the So-called BAD-BOY Praetor look like a 2 level Hellion being attacked by a 50 level. If I were that league leader I think I'd have friended every person on that team so I can find them again