Eva Destruction
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Posts
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Joined
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Wouldn't it be nice if you could bid on a range of recipes rather than a single recipe? Like if I want a Numina's I can use at level 35 or lower, I could place a single bid for a level 30-35 Numina's. That would go a long way toward solving both the supply and demand problems at lower levels, as well as making things more profitable for sellers in the late 40s and making IOing out easier for level 50s who don't care about that .03% from a 50 over a 49.
I know it'll never happen, but I can dream. -
Quote:How would cutting XP create incentive to use AE? You honestly think people would use it just for the tickets?Originally Posted by Neogumbercules
My "solution" to re-incentivising people to return to AE and helping to reduce the farming capacity has always been to simplify the process as much as possible and make it as easy and straight forward to understand as it can be. Rather than coming up with tons of new rules regarding XP and custom mobs I would just do three things:
Big increase, possibly double, ticket drop rate.
heavily cut XP gain straight across the board. No special rules based on power selection or whether or not a mob is custom. Just have everything be worth 50% XP.
The majority of CoH players are broke. They have no idea how to use the market. Accumulating tickets and spending them efficiently can make you rich if you know what you're doing and think of long-term benefits. Most people just want to watch that XP bar go up. How many times have you been on a team and had people comment that the XP was good/lousy? Now how many times have you been on a team and had people comment that the drop rate was lousy?
And people who want a custom group that will see limited use will still have to create all three ranks, using up file space unnecessarily. If I'm using a group for one patrol, what is the point of creating a boss most players will never see? Just so you can get a smidgen more XP for defeating the three minions you will see?Quote:Make it impossible to make a custom enemy group with just 1 class. Each group needs boss, lt, minion.* This way even the most optimised farmers are still severely limited and will probably realize that they'd be better off farming normal content for XP with a good amount of drops.
Unless people who aren't 50 are actually using it, which they won't, because the XP will suck, it will only increase market supply of items that are already in high supply.Quote:People who play AE will still earn XP, but will also earn tons of tickets to spend on rolls. This has the added effect of drasitically increasing market supply of just about everything that isn't purple.
The massive influx of farming is over. And it's not limiting to disallow groups of only minions? Again, I will repeat: Every custom critter uses up around 6% of your file size. Going Rogue and its max file size increase is months away.Quote:I believe these changes if implemented would provide enough reward for players to still consider playing the AE, while also preventing the massive influx of farming and allowing players to not feel like they are being limited in their creative ability to design custom mobs to behave exactly the way they want them to behave.
You will still gain xp. It will just be greatly reduced. Authors walk a fine line between acceptable rewards and story. It's unfortunate that they are being forced to compromise, simply because of a solution to farming that went too far, and that all arcs that contain custom groups are being given a bad name by authors who can't be bothered to learn the mechanics of the system.Quote:*Note that right now (unless they changed it since I re-subbed, been gone for a while) you can make an enemy group with just 1 class of enemy. Only problem being you earn 0XP for them. My proposed change would make it impossible to even create an arc without all classes being in your custom enemy group. You'd simply get the orange error message telling you to make more enemy classes.
This does not mean that authors who do understand the (flawed) reward mechanic should be punished so that those who don't bother to learn would maybe possibly have some incentive to use MA again. -
Quote:Unless you're Super Reflexes or something. In that case, the sheer number of +to-hit powers available to custom critters makes them potentially far more dangerous than the vast majority of standard critters.Originally Posted by Seldom
The only way to fix this is going back to the dev reward metric, which rewards based upon the difficulty of the abilities. This gets real tricky, but I believe is the best way to do it. Fulcrum shift is simply more dangerous than targeting drone.
You can also just wait for the "Arc name has been updated" system message and hit "Search" in the My Published Stories tab, that will refresh the window to show the most recent version. The important thing is to refresh that window. Most people don't know that though, because it's not really obvious until after you've lost a few edits.Quote:Originally Posted by konshu
Naturally, if I was going to be an MA user I had to find a quick way around this problem, and the solution is to click the "Browse and Play" tab, then go back to "My Creations." Just switching the display tabs from "My Creations" to "Browse" and back is enough to update the editor to point at the most recent content.
It isn't, apparently. Just like real life, you are not accountable for your actions. If you eat too many cookies and get fat and your teeth rot, it's obviously the fault of the cookies, even though all the thin people with healthy teeth have access to the same cookies as you.Quote:Originally Posted by Shard_Warrior
Well, just my 2 inf, but I look at it as Posi provided the warning... it was the choice of the player to ignore it. It's like buying a product that contains a warning label... if you choose to ignore the warning and use the product in a way not intended and get hurt by it, it's your fault.
The apparent solution here is to ban cookies. Except now the people who enjoy cookies but don't abuse them are also being punished. -
The Rule of Three - Finale
#1984
The Positron Task Force. Hours and hours of tedium, defeat alls, the most annoying enemy groups in this level range, traveling all over the city, zoning, zoning and more zoning, and more defeat alls. Just to end up providing a diversion so the Freedom Phalanx can save the day. I'll tell you what Posi, why don't you have the Freedom Phalanx just do the whole Task Force for us. All that crap is grey to you anyway.
This single-mission arc rewrites the final mission so that I actually get to save the day, while the Freedom Phalanx mops up. The title is, quite simply, "Save the Dam." Now to get the full effect I suppose I'd have to run the real Posi TF up until the final mission, but I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a spork so let's pretend I went through all that preliminary tedium and get on with saving the dam.
Posi is doing some weird emote when I come out of the mission. I've never seen it before, but it's kinda cool. Anyway, there really wasn't much going on in here. While the concept was nice, in that my "Task Force" got to be the real heroes, the real Posi TF had all three groups fighting each other at the end. There were no battles here, and very little boss dialogue. Also, the nav bar tells me to activate a shield...as the techy guy of the FP, wouldn't it make sense for Posi to tell me about the shield ahead of time?
So this rectifies two of the big problems with the Posi TF's final mission - the FP doing all the real heroics, while I slog through another overlong defeat all - while not rectifying the other one - it still feels anticlimactic. -
Granny Granite and the Senior Moment Gang
#139671
The premise: A doctor (with no bio) has tested an experimental rejuvenation formula on his elderly patients. There are some unforeseen side effects, including a susceptibility to mind control. And it turns out the formula activates a latent mutation in the Granny Granite of the title. She forms a crime gang. I have to stop them.
I walk into a bank full of heavily armed retirees. Nice costuming, although the bios are rather sparse. They seem to be worried about losing their powers...does this mean the formula isn't permanent? Dr. Reynolds has nothing to say about that.
This leads me to a jewelry store robbery, led by another latent mutant, who has a crush on Granny. From the stolen goods I find out where she's hiding.
Back to Reynolds for an infodump. Turns out that 1. it's not permanent, 2. Granny has the forumla, and 3. she's busted her henchmen out of jail. All of this is rather sudden, perhaps the information about the formula should be given out sooner. It's not like I can do anything about it until I find out where Granny is.
Overall this arc was rather sparse, very few clues and not much of a bio on most of the customs. With an arc like this there's always the problem of keeping it inoffensive; I am beating up senior citizens, albeit violent and rejuvenated ones. Perhaps add some concern for their well-being on the doctor's part, a simple "don't rough them up too much."
Also the susceptibility to mind control is a bit of a cop-out. No actual mind-control is being used, and if it's just a susceptibility to suggestion, wouldn't that also work the other way around? *Waves hand* "You don't want to shoot at me. You want to go home and rethink your life." It would be unnecessary if it were established earlier that the formula wasn't permanent, giving the gang an actual motivation to follow Granny. A typical side-effect of sudden rejuvenation is an exaggerated youthful recklessness, so you don't really need the "mind control" angle to motivate gang, or to motivate the doctor to stop producing the formula.
I didn't find any of the customs particularly difficult, and DD and the retired boxer were nicely done. The whole thing just felt somewhat...incomplete. -
Quote:Maybe, just a little bit, if you're doing one of those uber builds meant to take down a pylon in five minutes, it might make a tiny bit of a difference on paper. And really, when you're shelling out for purples and PvP IOs, the cost difference between a 38 and 40 ToD is pretty insignificant. The big difference is that the 40 will be available, as long as you're willing to pay. The 38 might not be.Originally Posted by Frogfather
For what its worth...a full set of level 40 ToDs vs a level 38 set gives
.9% more accuracy
.3% more damage
1.3% more end reduction
.9% more recharge
Is that even noticable...when you factor in how much cheaper the level 38 is going to be I dont see it as a contest. I know the stock response is going to be "but Ill know, and therefore will covet the better set." I wish there was some way to do a blind taste like they do with pepsi or coke...or that "We secretly switched the coffee in this gourmet restraunt with new Folgers crystals" thing they used to do...
I use max-level because it bugs my eyes to see 38s and 39s. I am perfectly aware that there is no noticeable difference. Every time I look at my enhancement screen I have a moment of "what's that 37 doing in there? Oh, right, it's the proc." -
Quote:I have it on pretty good authority that it's Bob.Originally Posted by Willowpaw
And she never did actually get to learn the Envoy's true name (I'm still guessing it is Willard).
Anyway, as for Nos, aside from chowing down a bunch of purples, and popping the wedding band if you have it, he has that self-heal, so you need a decent amount of damage to get him down before you run out of purples. I've taken him down with multiple Blasters, but an FF defender might not have the damage output. Of course it doesn't help that half of FF's mitigation is useless against PToDs. -
Quote:It doesn't require this. Exiting after an unsaved edit is refreshing the window so you see your updated arc. An easier way to accomplish the same thing:Originally Posted by Sister_Twelve
Make your change, then republish. Then in order, do this:
Edit -> Exit without changes -> Edit, you'll probably have to click it twice.
When you go back in the second time, your changes will be there. I don't know why it requires this, but it's how I always edit published missions after losing two or three complete editing sessions.
1) Edit, republish.
2) Wait for the "Arc name has been updated" system message
3) Hit "search" on the MA interface. This will refresh your window so the new version comes up.
4) Now you can edit again, and your original edits will be there. -
Quote:You can set a triggered event to spawn at either the rescue or the lead-out. I'm pretty sure the clue drops when the lead-out is completed, and you do have to complete the lead-out to actually complete the objective.Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
escorts "complete" when rescued, not when escorted so that doesn't work either. My best solution is to add some grey-con enemies to defeat. Obviously won't work in every situation, but it's one way to go.
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Manually set the mission level to 50-50 under Mission Parameters. That'll force the AVs down to level 50. I just tried it with Valkyrie, Malaise, RSF BaBs, STF Scirrocco, and Regent Korol, all of them spawned at 50, with my diff set to +0.
And make sure you are using a map without any +1 spawn points, like an outdoor one.
Edit: last time this was brought up was before the fancy difficulty sliders, when forcing an AV to 50 was a real pain. Good to know it's much easier now. -
You can make him an escort, with the next objective triggered to spawn when you lead him to the door. That's about all I can think of.
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Nobody has the stuff for sale, because they're levelling too fast. So nobody bothers trying to buy, because there is nothing for sale. So nobody bothers listing the stuff they do have, because nobody will buy. Vicious cycle, that results in my level 35 having decent stuff like Crushing Impacts sitting in my market slots for days, vying for space with bids on Thunderstrikes that just won't fill.
Nobody rolls at low levels because so many people IO out at 50. So there's nothing to buy. So people pay through the nose for the convenience of buying at max level even on recipes like Numina's and BotZ where lower-level is better. So nobody rolls because their stuff won't sell for as much. Another vicious cycle. Not to mention all the people who save up tickets to just buy what they want instead of buying on the market, because max level is so expensive and anything lower is unavailable.
I do supply some mid-level stuff. I start to IO at 32, so I roll merits and tickets at 35 in the hopes of getting something I can actually use. That's where the unsold Crushing Impacts come from. -
Quote:i talking bout cereal kilers of teh english....wut u think i taking bout?Originally Posted by Lazarus
Serial killers tend to have better grammar.
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Quote:So we're hanging jaywalkers now when there are remorseless serial killers walking around?Originally Posted by Venture
*has Clark taken out and hung for the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue*
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I play on both Freedom and Champion, and I treat them as alternate dimensions. A few of my characters have alternate-dimensional equivalents, same face and body scaling, but different costumes, different powersets and usually different names, because the Champion toons are the originals and the names are inevitably taken on Freedom.
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Quote:Get a friend who hasn't done the cape mission yet and doesn't care about getting a cape to hold it for you?Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
DRAT! Not that I care about getting capes early or not, but this was the only way I could routinely get into the Omega Team Memorial map to film without having to start a Kahn!
Grrrrrrr...
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite -
Quote:If those are the only misspellings you could come up with, you obviously don't play villains muchOriginally Posted by LostHalo
Oh, and "assasin" is WRONG. "Asasin" is WRONG. "Asassin" is WRONG. "Azassin" is ******* WRONG. EASY way to remember: There are two ways to make an *** of yourself in this word! *Weak, censor, weak. Well, the meaning should be obvious at least.
Bonus (negative) points for "Rouge Asassain" and his ilk. It says "Enter the ROGUE Isles" right on the ***** screen.
Both are used in game.Quote:Corrupt'e'r and Corrupt'o'r are troublesome too but I let that slide because a lot of spell checkers (including the one in Firefox) are actually mistaken in labeling the latter as incorrect. -
Quote:Speaking for myself, I'm certainly not accusing you of doing a deliberate knock-off of anything. I think much too highly of you as an author. The two arcs just happen to share key elements, one of which (It's All a You-know-what) is so ubiquitous in this game that there's a good chance that any plot you come up with has already been explained that way.Originally Posted by PoliceWoman
2. I'm uneasy at the number of people who felt the arc was derivative of Blight. Nothing against Blight, but I'd rather not give people the impression that the story is just a knock-off of another story arc.
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Quote:This. The majority of errors I encounter in arcs I play are stuff like this, or accidentally doubled words, or omitted words, or general signs of editing. I see far more of this than I do actual spelling errors, again most of which are omitted letters or letters that randomly insert themselves during editing.Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
The average MA writer would make a spell check utility curl into a fetal ball and cry for it's electronic momma before it finished checking the first mission.
Also, the vast majority of grammatical errors these days have more to do with punctuation usage and the "to/two/too" and "there/their/they're" conundrum. Spell check would unfortunately do nothing for those issues.
The authors in this forum are generally good spellers, I guess. -
Quote:It's happened to me many many times, and not just recently. Save first.Originally Posted by Clave_Dark_5
Sometimes when I'm composing the arc's text, I get second thoughts about chunks of it - "this needs to go after the mission accept, she needs to tell them this before she warns them about the sandwich, that chunk of text needs to go on mission 3 not 4", etc. So I cut and paste that chunk to wherever I want it, then go back and highlight the now-redundant text and hit delete.
Use to be that was that - text gone. Twice today I did that and it deleted all the text in that window not highlighted. And of course we don't have a Control-Z function.
This may have been just a one-time bug or something with my system, but after having it happen to me twice, I quit tempting fate and backspaced over any text I wanted to delete.
I haven't been playing a lot and certainly haven't been working on my MA arcs like I feel I should, so this seems new to me and I'm wondering if anyone else has seen it. -
Quote:Yeah, that's pretty much what the storytellers and story players were complaining about.Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Honestly the fact that the search is clogged with old farms and old content that hasn't been played in ages is ALSO annoying. Funny how the devs didn't fix THAT aspect, yet folks were screaming about that as equally as they were yelling about the farming.
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Quote:Who what how? Funny I don't recall anyone calling for a nerf to custom critters back in the days of the farming debate. Everyone was calling for an end to exploits, and then to boss farms, and the ones who screamed the loudest were not storytellers.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
The nerfs on custome critters hurt the storytellers more than anyone else, funny when you think they brought them on themselves.
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The problem with "back" and "middle" spawn points reversing seems to be spreading. This weekend I encountered it with a map that I know spawned properly a few months ago (Council Robot factory). In fact, I haven't run into a map lately that didn't have this problem.
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A LOT of maps have the "back" and "middle" blinky spawn points switched, including the Tech maps. Try setting the blinkies you want in back to "middle," and the ones you want in the middle to "back." This bug is annoying, but at least it's consistent.
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Quote:Longbow are a hybrid group, the Wardens are Mutant or Science.Originally Posted by Blood Spectre
Though I will grant you that Longbow Eagles have them in great supply, and that Longbow is about the definition of a Natural group for this game. But Longbow is also a new development, and could be held to represent the curve of modern technology's advance. Even so, other groups with jetpacks (Sky Raiders, Wyvern) are definately Technology based.
I view Wyvern as more Natural than Tech, since the only high-tech stuff they have is the jetpacks, and not all of them have those.