Incarnate Underground Trial Badges

[Ukase]

Back before the shutdown, on Liberty, I routinely would lead UGT badge efforts. If my memory is correct, these efforts would be following an MSR (those didn't happen all day every day like they seem to do now).

 

I've decided that with the increasing number of level 50 players that there is more demand for iTrials aside from BAF and Lambda. I ran UGT back then for several reasons:

It seemed as if nobody else was, because it is the longest of all iTrials, and people are under the notion that they've got to have a t-3 clarion slotted in order to have any real chance to succeed. This simply isn't the case, provided that team composition is half-way decent.

 

Obviously, the more level shifted players you have, and the more experienced they are in running the UGT, the better the league's odds are of succeeding.

 

I'll just say this: the competence of the players overall I've run into is much better than I recall it being previously. This could be from only die-hard fans of the game returning, so I'm seeing the better players, or it could just be the easier path to slotting the characters with the good stuff, as opposed to simply using SOs.

 

With that said, on Excelsior server, I've got a really fun Sentinel called Blister. Blister is simply a generic character, not ideally suited for any specific role in the UGT. No snipe for the bombs, no taunt for any AV's, merely a big fire ball and a few blasts that lack the range that most blasters will have. My Sentinel does have one thing going for it - it's more survivable than a blaster.  Having played one for at least 2000 hours, I know a thing or two about blasters.

 

So, on Saturday nights, at 7pm central time, in Pocket D, I'll be forming UGT's  on a regular basis. This first run, on June 1, it will merely be to help folks get familiar with the trial. (And to help my addled brain remember where all the bombs are - I remember the 8 in the hallway, and the ones in the curved tunnels, but right before then, there's at least one that seems to take the leagues I've been in by surprise.

 

So, if you're a badge enthusiast, I encourage you to come out and see if there's room for you. For best chances of success, I'll want a mix of ranged attacks for the bombs (and if I can't get those, we can "space-balls" it, with a similar technique used on the Ritki pylons - we just bum rush each bomb as quickly as we can, killing them before they kill us. It's quite tense and nerve-wracking, but it's a lot more fun than waiting on ranged characters to snipe the bombs, and a nice mix of buffs/debuffs. Just like any other task force or trial. Good composition tends to make for best results.

 

I also intend to run some of the "newer" iTrials, like Magisterium, MoM, DD & TPN - but my experience in those is not on the same level as UGT.

 

I also plan to do these on Torchbearer with my main, Ukase, but that's for a different post.

[Cobalt Azurean]

No bomb badge this run, but fun times were still had! Thank you again for forming and leading this, Ukase!

[Ukase]

Thanks for playing!

 

That first bomb - I still don't know where it is specifically, just the general area. The rest of it went decently well, I'd say.

 

I would've liked to have had the second av closer to the corner, that's for sure. But I've tanked him before - and unless the taunter flies at his head level, he doesn't seem to like the corner very well.

 

 

[Ukase]

For the time being, given that it took an hour just to form the league last time, there doesn't seem to be that much interest in the time slot I've chosen. So for now, I'm putting this on hold - at least at that time slot.

 

I'm going to try something before the hami raid, or after and see how that goes.

[Sothoth]

Well, once you start advertising, you gotta give people 20-30 minutes to finish whatever they are doing at the time.

Scheduling the time on the forums doesn't help much since only a small fraction of the people visit the forums.

[iBot]

Having just gotten my first 50 since returning I would be interested in running these regularly.  Well any of the iTrials for that matter.  My suggestion would be to try to coordinate with those running Hami and MSR.  It seems as though a lot of higher level characters run those too so conflicting with one or the other could cause lower turnout then otherwise would happen.

 

If we can all get enough of us familiar with how to succeed at these, them I'm sure we can start running multiple groups of them at various times to try to cover most of the players that would like to participate.  All this stuff was added after I left live so its all brand spanking new to me :).

[Ukase]

Well, once you start advertising, you gotta give people 20-30 minutes to finish whatever they are doing at the time.

Scheduling the time on the forums doesn't help much since only a small fraction of the people visit the forums.

 

I have to realize that it's not the case that players visit these forums. They used to visit the CoH forums, but even then, that was probably only 10% of the player base.

 

But, I think it could be argued that the folks that read the forums were the best 10% of the player base, as far as knowledge of game mechanics, character builds and overall skill.

 

In any event, I don't particularly enjoy standing around (or sitting, as the case may be) doing nothing, waiting for someone else to finish something up. It's a waste of my game time.