Keyes Island Reactor TrialQuote- An Astral Merit will be awarded immediately after stabilizing each reactor.
QuoteOriginally, the Keyes Island Reactor Trial was harder. As a result, few players would attempt it, opting for running Behavioral Adjustment Facility Trial and Lambda Sector Trial over and over instead. It was changed to entice players to attempt the Trial more often. Originally, the Trial had the following:
- Phases 1, 2, and 3 required all ten Containment System Terminals to be neutralized rather than just six
What If ...What if there was a "duplicate" Keyes Island Reactor Trial made available.
Call the currently implemented version "easy" and the newly added duplicate version "hard" (or the functional equivalents) to help identify which is which.
The "easy" version makes no changes to the current implementation (aside from changing the name in the LFG window).
The "hard" version implements the following changes relative to the "easy" version:
- 1 Astral Merit is awarded after completing the first two Reactors. 2 Astral Merits are awarded for completing the third Reactor.
- 1 Astral Merit is awarded upon successful completion of the Trial.
- Phases 1, 2, and 3 require all 10 Containment System Terminals to be neutralized rather than just 6.
- Disintegrate, as used by Anti-Matter, deals more damage with each tick, with the final tick doing 90% of a player's health rather than 80% as it is currently.
The "net yield" for running the "hard" version would be increased
Incarnate Experience gain (as a result of needing to defeat more Foes to clear each Reactor), along with an additional +2 Astral Merits for clearing the entire "hard" version Keyes Island Trial.
Question:
How difficult/complex/hoary would it be for Dev Staff to implement a parallel "slightly harder" Keyes Island Trial with the above modifications on Rebirth?
Rationale:
When originally released, the Keyes Island Trial was deemed to be "too hard" by Players,
so the completion requirements were lowered. However, when the trial was originally released was during
Issue 20.5 Incarnates Ascend, when only the Alpha, Interface, Judgement, Lore and Destiny slots were open, placing a lower upper limit on individual PC performances. However, with Hybrid and Genesis slots open on Rebirth, PCs now have even greater power than was available to them during Issue 20.5, which has shifted the "balance of power" in the direction of making the Keyes Island Reactor "somewhat easy" to complete (within 15-20 minutes, typically now) at relatively low(er) risk to individual participants due to increased Incarnate Power available to most (daily) repeating PCs.
Therefore, a "nudge" in the difficulty level of the Trial back towards its original parameters as released in Issue 20.5 would seem warranted, in order to "rebalance" the challenge for increased Incarnate power levels available by Rebirth Issue 6+.
No need for a "remove and replace" with a higher difficulty level (unless there is a community campaign to do so, indicating widespread support) of the Keyes Island Trial if there can be 2 versions available concurrently (pick one) and that the Diminishing Returns on Empyrean Merits applies to both versions (to prevent double running for an unintended increase in Empyrean Merit yields on a daily basis).
Opinions from Staff?
