Hard MO runs on Excelsior

[macskull]

28 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

 

It would be nice if having "Master of..." meant something beyond bragging rights, even if it was just additional rewards from subsequent successes on that same trial.

That’s one thing I think Rebirth has done well - putting content-specific set enhancements behind those badges. It might not necessarily get more people to run the badge content but it absolutely gets players who don’t want to run it to subsidize builds for the players who do.

[Techwright]

3 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

 

It would be nice if having "Master of..." meant something beyond bragging rights, even if it was just additional rewards from subsequent successes on that same trial.

 

Agreed.  As one who runs "Master of..." completely casually, in the vein of "I gots nothin' better to do...", I'd point out that I'm probably not alone in saying I've so many badges, why go for another that others probably don't even notice?

 

Now if there was some temporary reward involved, besides a nerf bat, that might entice me to try, my interesting would likely increase.  We already have an in-game template for that: the rewards at the end of DFB and DIB.  Those rewards last until level 22, I believe it was (maybe higher for DIB) and definitely helped out, especially the endurance boost during the teen ranks.  Why not affix a reward with a badge, some sort of boost for the next X number of Veteran levels?  One time only or repeatable after the previous one expires, doesn't matter.

 

 

Edited July 8 by Techwright
Added text for clarity.

[FFFF]

I would love if the Master of badges were title options.

[LastHumanSoldier]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

That’s one thing I think Rebirth has done well - putting content-specific set enhancements behind those badges. It might not necessarily get more people to run the badge content but it absolutely gets players who don’t want to run it to subsidize builds for the players who do.

 

I am for this. So long as its not RNG.

If I *carry* a team through a Master of I want a targeted reward.

 

Edit: *I am kidding.
Edit 2: *Maybe.

Edited July 8 by LastHumanSoldier

[macskull]

12 minutes ago, LastHumanSoldier said:

 

I am for this. So long as its not RNG.

If I *carry* a team through a Master of I want a targeted reward.

 

Edit: *I am kidding.
Edit 2: *Maybe.

RNG is fine as long as it’s not too random. Summer Blockbuster is a good example - you know that if you pick the enhancement set you’ll get a specific set and they all sell relatively well, and if you don’t get the one you want you’re only a few converters away from it.

 

The d-sync/Hami is an example that’s similar but not done as well because 1) you can’t convert them and 2) there’s orders of magnitude of price difference between the good and bad pieces. The adjustment to drop table weighting and new ways to unlock them seem to have helped a little but the odds of coming out with an enhancement that’s worth 10k at best while the completely useless Empathy Defender that your team carried through the entire TF comes out with the 350 million inf threat/rech/acc are too high.

[Techwright]

2 hours ago, FFFF said:

I would love if the Master of badges were title options.

 

You mean titles like "Helper", as oppose to the currently selectable badge titles that also appear with the name, yes?

[Forager]

I have a perspective for you as an inexperienced, but interested player. 

 

When I join Master runs, I know that there are specific requirements, and I might kinda know what they are or be able to look them up... but I have no idea, mechanically speaking, how to make that happen.

 

This is where a leader would typically come in, but it's been my experience that the leader of these is mostly only telling people when. They barely say what, rarely say how and almost never say why.

 

I think they are so familiar with the content they cannot relate to the perspective of a newcomer. They don't say much and they often don't realize how much of what they are saying is meaningless to others.

 

There are people on your runs who have never opened their Combat Attributes window and looked at their stats.

 

There are people on your Master runs that don't know what "incan" means.

 

There are people on Master runs that don't know what Master runs are.

[Oklahoman]

1 hour ago, Forager said:

This is where a leader would typically come in, but it's been my experience that the leader of these is mostly only telling people when. They barely say what, rarely say how and almost never say why.

 

I suspect a lot of the leaders you are talking about are just winging it, not using a popmenu, and that's why you're not feeling as informed as you would like. Most of the regular leaders I see will use a popmenu (or just a tray full of macros or even just keybinds) to help give consistent instructions that are helpful to the league. Personally, I revisit my popmenus a lot and consider if I need to give more information, less information, or information at a different time - all based on how the runs have been going lately.

 

2 hours ago, Forager said:

There are people on your Master runs that don't know what "incan" means.

 

Part of this is on the player, too. You have to speak up and say "what's an incan and where can I go to buy one?" Or, if you can't bear to show your ignorance to a team or league of people you'll never meet in real life you can ask in the HELP channel. My experience has been that when people ask questions like this the other players are generally helpful, because we were all new players once. As you play there is a sort of shorthand you develop so we don't have to spell out "the incarnate Destiny power called Incandescence" in chat.

[Forager]

34 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

Part of this is on the player, too. 

 

Only if they have a problem.

 

I was discussing the problems leaders and more experienced players face, while offering the inexperienced player's perspective. 

 

Chief among them those problems and one that very likely applies to you as an expert: they are so knowledgeable and familiar they have no concept of how far removed their understanding of what's happening is from the average player, let alone the below average ones.

 

And every time I talk about that aspect of leadership, someone invariably says some version "If they don't know something... they should ask."

 

The perspective I'm offering is that some  don't know what they should ask... they don't know that they don't know something... they might not even know that there's something they are supposed to know.

 

There are players in your failed runs that don't know it failed... and even more that don't know why it failed.

 

Maybe they don't know because they didn't ask, but they definitely don't know because you didn't tell them. This isn't a CoH Master run specific issue, though. This is a general principle of skill and knowledge transfer.

[Oklahoman]

4 minutes ago, Forager said:

There are players in your failed runs that don't know it failed... and even more that don't know why it failed.

 

Maybe they don't know because they didn't ask, but they definitely don't know because you didn't tell them.

 

I'm assuming here that you're not talking about MY runs specifically, but leaders in general. And I agree with that. I was once on a badge run with a trial unfamiliar to me and discovered that everyone else on the team was on Discord and just yakking it up there. Periodically the leader would post "STACK!" in chat. I came to understand that was an instruction to me to attack the same target as the leader, something clear to everyone in Discord but unclear to me. I think they had a good chuckle in Discord about this newb who wasn't following instructions and caused them to fail the badge. As a leader, you've got to communicate what the goal is and how we get there in a way everyone can see.

 

Now, if I have a blind spot here and you're talking about my runs in particular, talk with me about this in chat so I can see where I'm messing up.

 

23 minutes ago, Forager said:

Chief among them those problems and one that very likely applies to you as an expert: they are so knowledgeable and familiar they have no concept of how far removed their understanding of what's happening is from the average player, let alone the below average ones.

 

THEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS! No one... and I mean NO ONE... calls me an expert!

 

Seriously, though, I take my popmenus very seriously and try to target them at the average player - and I revisit them frequently. I get what you are saying about the below average players, but that's where I need communication to be a 2 way street. I do have people who will chime in and say "this is my first run, instructions appreciated" or "what's a Lifegiving Essence" and I can work with that. What I can't help with is the person who used a Pacification Grenade despite me saying "Do not use [pacification grenade]", "Pass me any [pacification grenade]s you have", "STILL MISSING 1 [Pacification Grenade]", "CHECK YOUR POPUP TRAY UNDER INSPIRATIONS FOR A [Pacification Grenade]", and finally "DO NOT USE [Pacification Grenade]" only to discover the person doesn't know what a Pacification Grenade is and used it because the game said to. I don't know a way to be more clear on something like that.

[Forager]

Yeah that's about as thorough as you can get. Some things can't be helped. There is no limit to how ignorant or even intentionally disruptive people online can be.

 

For me? I think you do a fine job explaining things... but I feel comfortable asking questions and when I'm not sure what to do I stop shooting and stop moving until I am sure. If I'm totally lost, sometimes I will click my team leader, hit F, then watch for a few seconds. I also respect your time and expertise.

 

I don't think any of that is typical, though.

 

There's an acceptable rate of failure and each person has their own beliefs about it. My point is that if a leader is dissatisfied with their rate of success, then they are the ones who have to solve that problem whether or not someone else should. I would extend that at least in part to the more experienced players as well.

 

This is before we even get into the rate at which warm bodies turn into experienced players, and whether or not that's also your responsibility... which is what I'm really curious about.

[shortguy on indom]

• SO, HOW DOES THIS MAKE YOU FEEL?

[Snarky]

6 hours ago, shortguy on indom said:

• SO, HOW DOES THIS MAKE YOU FEEL?

About as confused as leading a Task Force.  So many people saying “I do not know what to do”…..

 

DO NOT DIE

 

Follow the Tank. If you are dps, then Safely do that.  If you debuff, then…..

 

Anybody starting to get this?

[Ukase]

21 hours ago, Forager said:

The perspective I'm offering is that some  don't know what they should ask... they don't know that they don't know something... they might not even know that there's something they are supposed to know.

This is 100% accurate for some players. It's a challenge, but I continually try to remind myself that the player behind the avatar might be an 8 year old kid. Most of us are likely on the older side of 45, just based on things I've read on the forums, discord and other chat channels in game. What's fun for an 8 year old is likely not going to be the same for someone on the darker side of 50. 

And yeah, some people are just stupid - and that includes the leaders. They do not know they don't know. They have no idea that there is something to know. Worse, they've managed to get to level 50 without being aware of it. And I'm not talking about something obscure like how to get to the gas station in Pocket D. An example might be how to get to Peregrine Island or Pocket D. My favorite was a player who had Portal Jockey at level 45, but had no idea (or claimed to) how to get to Peregrine Island - until they got there. They'd been there before, but they didn't know that's what it was called. 
Doesn't mean they couldn't make their character function with some degree of competence, it just means the details of some things weren't important to them, so they may lack terminology knowledge, or any number of other things. 

I look at it like taking a Calculus course. Calculus is challenging for most people. A smart student might be able to tutor 7 others into getting a passing grade. But if one of them hasn't taken Algebra before the class, it's going to be much harder. 

Unfortunately, because some gamers are talented, and very much so, there's no fair way of establishing a pre-requisite to increase your odds of success without excluding some of those very good players. 
This is where old Snarky is missing Cosmic Council. It was generally pretty clear from chat and badge count who knew what they were doing, and who would need extra instruction. And at least some of that instruction occurred over discord before the scheduled Master run took place. In a PUG, it's terribly difficult to set that kind of structure up. 

It would probably suck the fun of the game right out for Snarky, but since Cosmic is mostly dormant, if not dead, he might just as well set up his own group of blood suckers. 

[Forager]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

And I'm not talking about something obscure like how to get to the gas station in Pocket D. 

 

Wait... what? Lol news to me!

[ChzBoi]

18 minutes ago, Forager said:

 

Wait... what? Lol news to me!

.........you can even get inside it if ya want!!...........

[Ravenplume]

On 7/8/2024 at 12:54 PM, FFFF said:

I would love if the Master of badges were title options.

So, you can't click on them to set your title?  If so, you could likely still make it a title using the /settitle command if you know the badge number.

 

The one I remember most was /settitle 215, which allowed my Ice/Rad Controller back on Live to have Snowbeast as his title.  Back then, gladiator badges could not be set as titles by directly clicking on them.  Perhaps that can be done with the MO badges if you know the badge number?

[FFFF]

I’m aware you can set them below your character name. What I mean is having it displayed more prominently. 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, FFFF said:

I’m aware you can set them below your character name. What I mean is having it displayed more prominently. 

Run around Atlas every half hour broadcasting it…

[Snarky]

two more attempt today.  well organized.  we took a lot of incarnate team inspirations. 

 

the first run looked good.  for whatever reason the Flyer and a ton of soldier adds joined the 4 AV fight.  we did not make it.  

 

the second run.  a dumbass corruptor tried to run to the thorn tree room even though we had teleport.  which adds to my data that all corruptors are bad people.

[Spaghetti Betty]

Master of runs are super easy if you pop Ultimates the whole time! It's not cheating, it's gaming!

 

Also, I just completed a +4 MoKahn last night!