GrinningSpade

Mini reviews:

Dream Paper: ID 1874 Heroic level 15-20
Good arc with a refreshingly failable contact and a few plot twists that makes it interesting to keep a good eye on the plot.

The author used different color coding for optional objectives in the navigation bar and used a system to code the clues gained in the arc for easy reference. For those of us clue happy authors a good idea.


Butter Fingers Hero: ID 97383 (1-14)
This arc explains why a wise hero keeps sealable pockets inside his or her spandex. Saves a lot of mess. And makes a nice low level heroic arc.

My view:

PvP changes. Ok, well hope some guy who cares about PvP loves those. I don't care about them. So no opinion there.

MA
I love being able to create my own missions. The editor is still a bit buggy but it is an excellent piece of work. Sure there are neat things missing but it is a very good start.

One of thing that bugs me is that it is hard to make playable Custom mobs. Making killer mobs is easy, making playable ones is not. That could use some tweaking.

Missions.
Most obvious problem is the search engine. Right now there more then 100000 ID's and the search engine simply is not up to the task to help us find missions that are to our liking. Plenty of good suggestions has been made to improve the search engine. One of those would be that the search engine is made capable for more advanced text searches. The other part is that we need more categories to search for. To name a few: level range, humor, canon, story, team, eb, av, challenge and even farm.

Another big problem is the farming. While farming has always been there, it was more or less confined to PI and Ourobouros. One of the things happening now is that new players get bombarded with PL farms. Giving a very bad first impression of this game. And try to tell a player to 'grind' his way up to 50 the normal way after he is getting used to the highway? another farming problem is the market problems and the influx of inexperienced players at high levels.

One thing this issue did for me is give me a whole new game to play. Creating, testing, criticizing helping and getting new challenges for old and new toons. I am happy with Issue 14 but I agree that this can become a very bad thing for the game as well.

Ah ok just tried the last one again and there was no show. Will try the next one soon. And don't worry, I never go in alone. I got up to 17 friends just itching to join in

Good idea, I will see to it. Now if only the souvenirs didnt end up missing all the time!

Update (21-4-2009):

Red 1-10
The Blackmarket wants you: ID 1064.
Mercytown: The One With All The Fish: ID 6017
The Rogue Islands sewer system: ID 5482
Magi and the blue knight: ID 12619 (5-30)
Noob assault course : ID 38967 (5+)
Birth of a Villain Group: ID 60573
The Arachnos Hero Simulator: ID 1189
Acts of villainy: ID 43405
A proper Heist: ID 82059


10-20: The missing geneticist, id 2542
15+ Arachnos Research and Development: A Security Breach Arc, id 28817
The Outcast Outcasts: ID 2050 (5-20)

Blue 1-15:
A Darker Dawn ID: 2502
Twisted Tales - Part One - Storyland in Danger! ID: 12397
To Hell with a Hellion in a Handbasket ID: 39143 (5-14)
Goldbricked!: ID 83859 10-20
Hellion Earth: ID 54207
A Game of Knucklebones ID: 35280
QUICK-START TUTORIAL - Knowledge is power: Architect Entertainment & You! ID 28470
'It's not easy to get started' - ID 80488
Jack Wolfe's Sewers Task Force: 74810 (small team play recommended)

15-20
Bringing Down the Overpass: ID 26728
The Steel and Gold Affair: ID 53761
Fighting of the Blackguards: ID 96201

Blue 20-30
The Secret of the Curse of Pirate Jefferies' Treasure Island: ID 14030
Faerie Gold ID: 95553

35-40: Love Spurned: ID 1934
40-50: Might Makes Right: ID 5213
30+ : Shadows in your mind: ID 47625


Neutral

1 - 54 Tales of the Weird Dimensions: Grand Convergence: ID: 7896
20-19 Twisted Tales - Part Two - Making a Song and Dance: ID 12479


Help me to improve upon this list concentrating on low level content.

On a personal note: Trolly needs your help, anything suitable and fun for a lvl 17+ Brute? Don't worry about factions. She is a bit dim due to having had to much superadine. In other words, I want missions for 15-30

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I'm not suggesting that low level characters and arcs be removed from MA - just that the buildings are removed from those zones. This would give newbies a chance to experience the start of the game, but wouldn't be overly detrimental to those people who want to hop on the train and PL or farm or whatever - but it would give a better impression in the starting zones.

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Yes it would but i hate the idea of losing good arcs for lowbies because of some farmers. And I WANT alternatives from the normal low level content.

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I'd like to add tough, I recently started playing, a week or so ago. Right now I'm just getting int othe game, realising there is so much I haven't done yet and regretting that MA was released. I'm sure you guys can understand where I'm coming from when I say it's hard to find a team to do stuff besides farming. If I din'd get invited to a SG, I would have never known what this game has to offer and would probably still be farming.
But yeah, shouting for a team for an hour and being offerd only to farm 10x in that hour, kind of makes the choise harder to play the actual storyline then to hit the petting zoo right?

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^^ This.

We alienate new players from the true game. We need to stop this before we lose new players becasue once they hit 50 they start wondering wow that was neat, I hit 50 in one day, now what? Oh look WoW.

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Simple way to stop extreme PLing. Make trainer visits mandatory before you can start earning xp towards your next level. Done.

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I was just about to suggest the same thing. I am 100% in favor.

In reaction to Damz: Allow people to earn xp up to the next level -1. Yes that means you will have to visit the trainer in between missions. A small price to pay imo.

This is city of heroes not city of powerleveling. Let's stop the powerleveling now once and for all.

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I added an ally as an EB to help squishier characters out, that of course makes it a lot easier for melee toons so you can't win really

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I mentioned about people putting in strong allies on the MA channel earlier and i must admit, im not really one for the + column about it. Anything above a lieut as an ally is too strong for a MA mission, especially if its a custom made one.

Take for example this: Earlier i was in a mission and was able to rescue 2 allies, one troll and one custom. The troll wasnt doing too much damage but enough that it was helping me (positive), the custom was 2 shotting everything in sight and thus reducing my rewards GREATLY (negative).


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Yes, be careful with adding help. Remember that while bosses tone down, allies don't! I have fought Bosses with multiple EB help. And that is a bit to much of a good thing.

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The hardest part is indeed finding arcs interesting enough to play and soloable. For that reason I started the threat good arcs to level up from 1 to 50 (I need level 17+ arcs now please).

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*cough* Fighting off the Blackguards, ID: 96201 (Heroes, lvl. 15-20) *cough* Soloable, without an EB in sight.

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Will check it out soon then

But for those who want to contribute to the list: For solable leveling arcs.

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EBs scale down to Bosses on Villainous. You shouldn't complain about arcs being unsoloable if you're making them harder for yourself on purpose.

Now, if the EB is impossible even when downranked to Boss, then you have a valid complaint.

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Happened to me this morning. I must admit, i tried them with a AR/DEv, arguably one of the worst solo AT's. I did send the author my reply without rating.

I solo MA most of the times. In fact I am on a quest to level up a toon from 1 to 50 with MA content only. Living on tickets and influence gained from playing. Smartly, I am using a ss/wp brute for this. Because a lot of mobs out there are indeed overpowered.

The hardest part is indeed finding arcs interesting enough to play and soloable. For that reason I started the threat good arcs to level up from 1 to 50 (I need level 17+ arcs now please).

Luckily, Eb's scale down and when i see an AV in the description then that is for me a sign not to bother.I also always check the level range of the missions. Making sure that I don't have to scale to much up or down during play.

Finally when I encounter an arc from a known European that has to hard custom mobs, then I let them know and dispense my rating. For those I cannot reach with a comment, I will have to bring the message into another way. Either with a 1 if the mission was generally rubbish as well, or a 2 if the mission was bad but at least the author tried to make it into something or it could be redeemed.

Uhm you ant the characters shown into combat pose? That's the only way weapons etc will show.

Hmm, weight problems?

Happy cucumber salad day then Knightly!

Quick solution. Remove the MA building from Atlas. That way the farmers will move to other, hopefully, less obnoxious places.

Its out of the HoF again

Yes I would like tat, in fact I would like it a lot. But I understand why they didn't.

The system right now uses premade maps. All stored on our own systems. So the data transfer to and from is easy. A system like you describe would use up a lot of extra data to be send back and forth the client. They really want to be sure that their systems can survive the current load.

Then there is the bugging problem. Notice how easy it is to make a bugged arc? Add bugged maps to that mix for extra fun.

I think there is a lot of stuff they need to work on to make this one happen.

Wish it had been available at the start.

/signed.

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why not? That's how I run every Dev arc, even the ones with Arch Villains (admittedly, downgraded to EBs) and I manage to solo those just fine.

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But commenting that you don't think a solo player could beat that boss is not the full comment and gives a false idea about that arc. It should have been a soloplayer on Tenacious.

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I would have thaught that including the phrase "Elite Boss" may have been a hint considering if I was on heroic it would have been a "Boss". But then I have the tendency to beleve other people put as much thaught into what they read as I do and am often disapointed. So you may be right there

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Remember Murphy's Law. It also goes for writing stuff.

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why not? That's how I run every Dev arc, even the ones with Arch Villains (admittedly, downgraded to EBs) and I manage to solo those just fine.

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But commenting that you don't think a solo player could beat that boss is not the full comment and gives a false idea about that arc. It should have been a soloplayer on Tenacious.

Wow, did not even know that spook could mean something else then a FBI goon.

But it is a real pain that the feeback system does not seem to be able to cross the pond. I only bother commenting now when I know that somebody is from our side.

That's easy it is the first contact you got. Alan Deslock I believe.He can tell you who to go next. Just follow the arc.


Btw the contact who gives the mission can be found near the BM at PO.

To be honest, I doubt that people want/need a feature like this. Think about what happens to the various PvP games we got. Nobody is using them.

So your idea could be fun but most of the players don't care much for the whole competition thing.

May the Cake be with you! Always.