Core Levels for Next Season

[Drakona]

It suddenly occurs to me that there may be a reason my default reaction to flares is "pretend you didn't see that".

[bahamut]

[bahamut]

Keep a set with black rose in it, Categorize.

[bahamut]

[Drakona]

Um. Anyway.

So, seeing as nobody actually wants Black Rose and Wrath to be in, we'll leave them out. That leaves us with a nine level core set -- same as last season, but minus Black Rose and Take2.

I'm thinking it would be pretty easy and fun to create some extended lists on the random page. I like the extended core set that falls out of the top 20 here. I'll put that in and see if it gets used.

I'm also thinking of some of the feedback we got at the town hall meeting, about people having trouble deciding which levels qualify for trophies. It might be nice to maintain a list that you have to roll on, if you can't agree. I don't want to just write the lists, though, and as I look at what people have chosen to play, some of the choices seem . . . a little sketch. We had a thing going on first season with the dogging and ratting trophies where we said, "It's not the level, it's how you play it", but I don't think restricting your tactics really makes a lot of practical sense.

Here are the levels that *have* been played for various trophies. Perhaps we can construct a reasonable random list out of this?

Disorientation
----------------
Octave Pro
Zenith
Three sisters (weak...)
Monkey bars
June bug (weak!!)
Tetrafusion

Dogfighting
----------------
Blubird
Killbox
Rumble
Doghell
(Untitled) [Hrrm...]
Fuzed
Athena Mc2 [. . . wat]
Wyndham
Warzone
Eris

Of that list, I think Blubird, Killbox, Rumble, and Doghell are reasonable. Though Rumble and Doghell both come with caveats. Which kind of gets to the heart of the problem with doing something like this: I think Doghell is probably acceptable if you agree, but it can be played in a very anti-dogfighting style, and that seems iffy to have fall out of a random level generator. Blubird by comparison very much forces the style.


Ratting
-----------
Umbriel
Cenote
Broccoli Ratting
FRP
Take2
Logic
Lurk
Nocturnal
R34p3r
June Bug

Again, a lot of hrrrm going on -- but hard to set a standard.


Blind is special.


Fusion
-----------
Ugh
Purple
IS
Ono
Jafl
Viral 3 (I'm going to assume fusion only, though it doesn't say so!)
Aglaia Fusion Only
Wyndham Fusion Only

So, that's ok. Obviously any level fusion only should count. Ugh really seems to be the gold standard, though.


D2
----------
Dissent2
Logic D2
Fuzed
Nocturnal
Neptune
Athena
Goddess
Min69
Vamped
BI2
Wyndham
Barathrum
GI Jane
Orb of Aldur

I'm not really qualified to comment.

x4
------
Way too many to list by hand. This trophy is super popular, but the rules are clear cut, so that should make finding levels easy. The good ones are . . .
Wrath (any number of xs)
Ascend x4
Logic x2-4
Mindtrix x4

Though um . . . looking over the page, I see a fuzed x4 in the list, which--at 8 smarts and 4 homers--technically doesn't count. It's close enough to let slide, but the rule is 10 smarts / 20 homers! Gotta x5 fuzed to make it work.

----------------------------------

The conclusion I'm coming to looking at these is that we clearly have a problem . . . but not one we can resolve in a day. I would have liked to make random lists out of the popular levels, but I'm not sure that's a really good solution. Some trophies really have a best level. Like, if you can't agree for fusion, you should play Ugh. If you can't agree for dogfighting, you should play Blubird. Some trophies have acceptable levels, but I wouldn't feel comfortable with a substantial portion of the matches being played there.

I'm not sure what the best solution is. I'd like to get it figured out for next season, but it's okay to work it out in the first week or something.

[roncli]

[Lady Silver]

[Jediluke]

LS beat me to it! Well played

[bahamut]

"I will include Black rose and Wyndham in the core levels for this season."

[Sirius]

I am undecided whether some of those D2 levels are actually good. Didn't Orb of Aldur have something weird like a one-way wall in it?