I think we need to talk about trials...

Let me be clear, I like the idea of trials to get your ascendancy points....

However, nobody is running it.. People are legit buying the carry service from discord to get their points as soon as possible, because they don't want to run it themselves.. We are talking seconds before a carry run is full with 5 ppl buying it and it is 24/7 constantly that people are getting into these carry runs..

That is a huge design flaw and I think I know why...

1. Both trials are 100% RNG locked.
You can so easily brick your run if you are not insanely well geared, or have overcome a lot of the downsides you get from the runs (ie. no es in sanctum or filling the arena with petrify, bleed bombs, lasers, fire etc. in the chaos run). This means that even though 80% of the run is going smoothly, you can be unlucky for the last 20% of it and just be f*cked over by RNG, making you fail the run on the last 10-20% or even at the last room/boss.

2. Time investment.
It simply takes too long. As I am one of the people that absolutely hate sanctum and don't wanna gear specifically for doing those runs, having to do a run in 40 mins to get to the end of a 4 floors sanctum is simply too long. Yes yes, I know that the ones running it have move speed and everything build for it, but for the average player it simply takes way too long. If you then also get f*cked by RNG as mentioned in my first point, then you invest 40-45 mins just to fail in the last two rooms, who wants to go through that? I bet you, most people wouldn't. Even in trial of chaos, if you can't afford the materials for the boss, you have to run 3x 10 room chaos trial to get the three materials to go into trial master, which would also take maybe 40 mins, due to most rooms being gated behind timed events or just having to run a lot when getting into the later stages of rooms.
And again, if you then get f*cked over by RNG, you can start over.. Simply too much time spent/wasted on this.

3. The cost.
The quickest way of ascending to 4th without buying a carry, is to just buy two fragments for trialmaster and go through a single 10 room that gives the last fragment and then fight him. However these fragments costs more than just buying a carry, so unless you really want to fight the trialmaster, the cost isn't worth it. This also applies to sanctum, since all the good relics that makes the run a lot smoother and faster, are just super expensive.
Therefore, the cost of running these mechanics comfortably and fast is just too expensive.

These are the three biggest flaws to the trial system and why a lot, if not most of people don't wanna run it. It's simply too much of a time and currency investment, just for getting your four ascendancy points.
Especially when you can just pay 45-60 ex, spend two minutes and get all four ascendancies at lvl 20.

And no, I don't want you to block off the carry service, forcing us to do the mechanics ourselves... that would be an absolutely terrible solution that will just make people not want to even play. But we need to do something about the way you ascend, because it's simply not working as intended at this point.

Warm regards and happy holidays! <3