Eva Destruction

You can't trigger two objectives off one completion? Since when? Oh wait, you can. You're thinking of ambushes.

This sounds a lot like one of those "when I was your age we used to walk to school barefoot in the snow uphill both ways" stories. Completely missing the point that playing a game isn't supposed to be a chore or "build character," or something like that, it's supposed to be fun. If a majority of players find it unfun, and removing it won't break the game, remove it.

Like the devs do? Making a story that could be condensed into 5 missions take 15 missions instead? Unlike them, we don't have to stretch a limited amount of developer time and resources into keeping the players busy for as long as possible.

Your criteria for a "story" could be fulfilled by adding some text to a string of paper missions. That may fulfill the "story" aspect of arc design, but not the "mission design" aspect. If you can't adapt your writing to the medium, you're not as smart or creative as you think you are.

I can't help but notice that the forum's default color is reserved for insults.

Soon after that change was made, I noticed Comm Officers in AE missions giving Lieutenant-level rewards if they showed as part of the Standard Rikti group. Only Comm Officers that were used in custom groups were treated as minions. Not sure if that's still true.

Anyway, back to the Freakshow and such.... I can understand why you wouldn't want them to be attackable while they're stuck in their rez animation, but having them untargetable is just plain annoying.

If you set them to "wander" or "do nothing" they're not supposed to. That doesn't mean they won't, as ally behavior is rather wonky.

I would suggest using patrols and "boss" details set to allied. They will do their thing and ignore you, although they will attack and be attacked by any enemies that approach them.

Creating a custom group out of stock critters with a "civilian" look (Family, Midnighters, Scrapyarders) that max out well below the minimum level of the mission will result in a mission full of grey-cons that should ignore you until you attack them. That would probably be better suited for villains though, and it sounds like your arc is heroic.

When you edit a published arc there is a "Save As Local: Stop working on published arc" button at the top of the editor. It's the second icon, right next to the Republish button. Click it. It will save your arc locally without affecting the published version at all.

Note that any changes you make before or after clicking this button will affect only the local copy, not the published one. If you want to keep your local copy updated, what you do is:

1) Make your changes, republish.
2) Wait for "blah blah blah has been updated" system message. Hit Search to refresh the browser window.
2) Hit edit again, Save as local. Your local version will now match the published version.

"Playing through" most farm missions requires finding the blinky and clicking it. The developers and GMs probably have access to tools that make finding said blinky instantaneous. So it doesn't take long at all to play through a reported arc and determine whether or not it's a farm.

This is if they can't just look at the mission file and make a determination from that. The kinds of farms that are clogging up the search engine in droves are very very obvious.

How do you know? That's the thing with CoT, they could be anyone.

^^These guys^^

Also, Odysseus and Merulina. Not that you can actually see Merulina, but I'd like to see mre of her in the same sense as I'd like to see more of Rularuu.

Quoted without the ragequit.

I would like to know what suddenly made the problem so bad that a solution had to be implemented RITE NAO, while a new issue is in closed beta, preventing it from being tested at all.

Your stop-gap solution would be bad enough if it only affected allies. It does not. It is flat-out BROKEN. People figured out that it was broken within about an hour of the patch notes being posted. So please explain how something so broken ever made it to live, I would really like to know.

Let's go with this food analogy. Some people don't eat cookies at all, some people eat them occasionally, and some people eat them a lot. Because they eat so many cookies, more and more people realize there is a market for cookies, so they make more and more of them and market them more and more aggressively.

Next thing you know, there are cookies and cookie advertising all over the place. You have to go past the isle of cookies in the grocery store to get to stuff that isn't cookies (and the AE is a very disorganized grocery store. The fruit isn't all sorted out in the produce section. You have to search for it among the cookies.) The people who don't like cookies at all complain about the prevalence of cookies. The people who eat too many develop health problems. Then the government steps in, tells us people are too unhealthy, and bans cookies.

The health nuts rejoice. The people who ate too many cookies complain for a while, then realize they can have ice cream instead. The proceed to gorge on ice cream. Meanwhile, you have a bunch of responsible, healthy people who still enjoy a cookie every once in a while, but now can't have one.

I want a cookie.

Mine involves a lot of getting distracted, deleting stuff, forgetting what I was doing, getting more distracted, giving up and running a mission. With some tabbing out to read forums, half-watching whatever show my husband is watching, and checking my markets to see if my stuff sold.

I've been working on the same arc for six months now due to this method.

Was he a villain? Maybe the GMs are Democrats, cause there was a "VP Cheney" on Champion redside for a while as well.

"powexec_name summon aeon"

That is the first thing I would ask a redname: why was it imperative to put this patch out NOW, when it could not be properly implemented or tested, when the problem it is intended to solve has existed for a year.

Even better, they let players entertain each other. You know, the whole "Multiplayer" aspect of MMORPG.

If I saw it as a "burden" I wouldn't do it. People most certainly wouldn't pay extra for the "burden" of creating more content.

What do 50s farm for if not inf? A tricked out 50 with a good (and usually expensive) build can generate quite a bit of pure inf running on high difficulty settings, hence the current inflation in the market.

And I agree that tickets are providing a crucial service, although probably not the one you're thinking of. One of the most immediate and noticeable effects of the introduction of tickets was that the price of highly desirable recipes that don't go to 50 went way down, as level 50s are now able to generate them at a decent rate.

Have the devs ever come out and said "IOs are not to be used for soft-capping. If you soft-cap your character you are not using IOs for their intended purpose and if you do it repeatedly you will be punished"? Like they said about AE and farming? I don't recall them doing this. I don't recall all those posts sharing and discussing soft-capped builds for any and every AT being deleted. The reduction to the defense bonuses granted by BotZ will be in the open beta patch notes. Not the same thing at all.

And yeah, if you find a way around a hard cap it would pretty much have to be through an exploit. Right now if I managed to get my Blaster past the HP cap it would have to be through an exploit, since the game code says I can't do that.

Yes, I realize the ban-hammer can swing too hard sometimes, which is why I would suggest using it only for the most obvious offenses. A single mission, outdoor map, intro text: "kill stuff," full of [insert enemy group that the creator's favorite farm toon does well against], with a single blinky to complete and maxed-out buffing allies is obviously a farm. There is no way to dress it up as anything but. And the little wannabe farmers don't know how to keep their mouths shut, so it should be pretty easy for a GM to search for things like "meow" or "bubble" or "jellybean" or whatever the latest keyword is with kids these days.

By no means would I suggest banning someone, even temporarily, without a thorough review of the arc in question by a GM who is knowledgeable about the system.

They do, occasionally. Whenever they do we blow through it in a day or two, and by "we" I mean players who actually play content and aren't just looking for quick rewards. Which is why it was awesome when they introduced a theoretically infinite source of new content, by allowing us to add our own.

It's also why the "I'm bored of all the content so I want to get to 20 as fast as possible" argument holds no weight. There was a whole bunch of new content to level up on back before people trying to get past the lack of content as fast as possible (presumably so they could complain about the lack of content in a variety of level ranges) convinced the devs to break it.