Justice Blues

No. The regular game mobs do not take up any real space, even in Custom Groups. They are just marked to be called from the regular storage location in the game. Custom Groups and Critters are so large because they store so much information about powers and costumes that is necessary for the game to properly show them. Names only take up a few bytes, not really enough to make a noticeable difference.

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Look at adding a hostage that is in the top of the range you want and set their enemy guard group to single and action on being free to run away. They will automatically be free when someone enters mission and disappear before they can find them. That should limit your top end. Do the same thing with a hostage whose range starts at 20.

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Or create a patrol from a group that covers the range you want and set it to spawn, preferably in the area of the map where your end objective is, when the mission objective is met. The players will probably not see it unless they go searching through the map.

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I'm still trying to figure out WHY the server is spawning at the beginning of the first mission. As near as I can tell, having the optional boss spawn at the back of the mission seems to be kicking it to the front. (I'd like them to spawn close to each other, but... that doesn't seem like it's going to happen.)


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A lot of the maps have a problem spawn location for glowies. Most of the mob spawn points seem to work correctly, but a lot of the time glowies will spawn in the wrong location. The only way to really find out where it will spawn is try the different settings when creating your mission.

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That's funny, because in beta test people were saying that willpower made the customs really hard to wear down.

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That is because originally, there was only one setting for powers. Every custom critter had all the powers in the set. Now, regen or wp at standard are the easiest defensive sets, but regen or wp on extreme (on a boss or AV/EB, Lts & minions don't get all the powers) are also the hardest defensive sets. It all depends on what powers they have.

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I've done a few arcs on my lowbie MA only brute, that I'd like to suggest:

1001 - Johnny Sonata and the Hitmen
1931 - The Do-It-Yourself Laser Moonbase Project (Was a bit rough but manageable)
1006 - Ripping Out Reform: A Rogue Island Police Story (Had a Wyvern EB in one mission, but I was able to beat him pretty easily)
6017 - Mercytown: The One With All The Fish
44333 - "Healing" the Lame

All had a great story and were fun to play.

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I'm crushed! You didn't include mine! (Future Skulls, ID #4727, Skulls, Coralax Custom Group, Level 1-15) The Johnny Sonata one is pretty good though.

On an outdoor map? The hostage AI is messed up on them.

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I found one called future Skull's it doesnt seam to bad. smallish maps first 2, huge outdoor on third.

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While the 3rd mission is on a large map, it is the only one that works for story purposes. The 4th mission is also outdoors, but I did choose the smallest map available for it.

Using an outdoor or large map for low levels is something that needs to be balanced, because of the lack of movement powers. But you also need to keep in mind the story and what is happening there. It is actually one of the harder things to handle, if what you have in mind in the long term leads you to use something that can be difficult for a level 4 to get around in. One good thing is the map types are shown in the listing, so people can choose not to try an arc if it says there is an outdoor map.

There was a bug that showed up in Beta, with the Family. The group was supposed to cover the entire range the writer had chosen, but some people, I think high levels, would only get custom critters, no Family. Turns out the Family that covered that level were from CoV, and were flagged not to show up in Heroic missions. That carried over to the MA for some reason.

You may have something like that going on, so the mobs you have chosen exist for all levels, but are flagged for one side or the other.

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it is really simple to click unpublish, edit the local copy, then republish.

I really wish that publishing it ran a great risk that people would play it. I have 2 published arcs - one has been played once (and rated 4 stars) and the other never played.

And I put Test in the title if it isn't finished.

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It's not even a matter of ratings, for me. If I published a half-baked arc, and even one person played it and thought it was crap, my reputation would take a hit. If word spreads, then I've gone from one person disliking my work to several. And that'll happen for every one person who plays the arc. My name's exposed on every arc that I publish, regardless of whether I unpublish and republish it, and most people have better memoreis than you'd think.

If such a method really works better for you, then great. But for others, things aren't so black and white.

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Amen to this. I have one published arc right now, and I started working on the sort-of-sequel to it before I14 hit Live, but was not sure how to do one bit. Now my published arc has somehow made it to the first page with good ratings, and I am really going over the second one. Even if the first arc never gets to Dev's Choice or HoF, people have liked it, and I don't want to publish anything that doesn't meet the same kind of standards.

I had one guy do a global friend so I could let him know about the second arc when it is done and he can check it out. So it is going to get tested a lot before it gets where anyone else can see it.

Do you have any custom groups or critters with the same name as something already in the game? That can cause problems sometimes.

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For my arc:
Name: Future Skulls
Arc ID: 4727
Length: Long
Morality: Hero
Missions: 4
Enemy groups: Custom group, Skulls, Coralax
Description: A low level arc, the Skulls get an idea, and it is up to you to stop it from happening.

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Other:

In the final mission, the Skulls sacrificing victims appear to be the ones trapped. Perhaps select a different animation for them?

Do your custom bosses have ranged attacks? I hovered above Bonesnap and pinged him to death, and all he did was run around aimlessly on the ground. If your bosses have only melee, they need to be able to fly.

Other dialogue has the same issue as the contact dialogue -- you need to offset $name as though they were actually saying someone's name (so with a comma or as a separate exclamation/imperative).

Bonesnap says, "You again!" But I don't remember encountering him before...

Overall, nice flow to the arc and good use of custom critters. Was very happy with the lack of Defeat Alls, especially on the larger maps. (The third map was maybe a bit *too* big?) Rated 4/5.

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Thanks for the list of typos and such. Someone sent me a comment saying there were some, but I have been looking at the arc too much and all I can see is what is supposed to be there as opposed to what is actually there.

For the rest, the only Skull that should have been in a trap like pose was Bonesnap. He is supposed to be draining the energy from the hostages and transforming. If other Skulls are in that kind of pose, I need to fix it. And I need to do something to clarify what is happening to him.

Guess I am going to have to add Flight to the bosses. I am too used to the regular bosses having ranged attacks.

Bonesnap was the boss in the first mission in the arc, although he was not required to finish it. At least he is supposed to be, unless the name didn't change when I was editing it earlier.

I agree the map for the third mission is on the large side for a low level mission, but it was actually the original inspiration for the story and it is referenced in the first mission intro. Then I started going through bad guy groups for the proper apocalyptic worldview and came up with the Skulls. I don't know of a smaller flooded map to use for it.

Thanks very much for the detailed look. Now I need to do some editing.

And to quote one of the Dev's from Beta (pohsyb I think it was) "You can't do that. Yet." But they definitely know we want it.

You can place him in the mission at the front as an ally and use the Single setting, so there will not be any enemy around him. Place him as the first objective and with luck he will be in the first spawn point of the map. But there is no way to guarantee that. He will show up in the front area, but just which spawn point is beyond our control right now.

I am going to guess here. You have a custom group in your mission, with some regular mobs from an in-game group as part of it. Probably the Praetorians or another high level group. And you have an AV/EB that you created, which is why you have the custom group, so you could add it to the old mobs.

If this is the case, the game is WAI. Custom groups are automatically level 1-54, but the high level group mobs will only spawn if the mission is high enough level to reach them. But the Custom AV/EB can spawn at all levels. So when a level 15 team enters the mission, the only thing that can spawn at level 15 is the EB, which means that every spawn point in the map will get that mob.

How did I do?

If you want to have a high level mission, you need something in the mission to set the level. If you want to allow any level to be able to play, you need to use nothing but Custom mobs.

There are a variety of ways to make a mission use the proper levels. I like this one.

Do you have any hostages/allies in the mission? They will also set the mission level, so if you have one that is only available for levels 22-26, the mission will only be available for those levels.

The good news is, a Dev in Beta said they are considering the idea of branching storylines. So don't throw your idea away, just be patient.

And we get 3 story arcs only, up to 5 missions per arc. Unless one of your arcs gets into the Hall of Fame or picked as a Dev's Choice.

Well I am going to see how you treat mine, when you get to it.

Future Skulls, ID 4727
4 missions, levels 1-15

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The levels seem to be a bit all over. If possible, add NPCs to the missions to stream line it (a contaminated boss in each mission, maybe). Helen Klein has a LOT of text. Might want to condense it or cut some out by adding it to the clue. The second mission send off text should be expanded as it's pretty short. Third mission barrel has no "collecting" text on the progress bar. Mission four safe has no "collecting" text on the progress bar. Adding a synopsis of the missions I just ran to the Souvenirs would be nice too, look to souvenirs in-game to see examples of that, I suppose.


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Thanks for the feedback!

The level issue is frustrating for me. I wish we were given more control over the levels. Even if it were just to narrow the range Is there any way to tighten those levels up without adding an arbitrary seeming boss to the encounter?


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I just thought of this and tested it. Add a patrol that is created when the final part of a mission is completed, like when they defeat the boss or collect the clue. Chose any level you want by picking the regular group from the game that matches. Unless they go back through the mission map looking, they should never see the patrol, but it sets the level range of the mission. It won't work with a Defeat All map, but it should be possible with everything else.

And to get back on topic, come on someone, play my arc!

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It can be done with custom Critters, but you would have to include an Escort, Captive, Rescue type Detail to factor your Created Critters back down to the level range you want.

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Ambushes, patrols, and anything else works also.

You can also create a patrol of the level range you want, set to be created when the final mission requirement is done (Boss defeated, clue found, etc.). It sets the mission level, but the players will never see it unless they go back through the map looking. The best part of course is you can use a completely custom group, and set it for any level, just by using a particular regular group for the patrol.

The same thing happens in the regular game. If you go on a Hellion mission with a team, it will spawn Damned throughout the map. The only thing different about the end boss, unless it is an EB or AV of course, is that it has been given a name. That is what you need to do for your end boss. Give him a different name so people can tell the difference.

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Yes, but I'm out of slots and I can't publish them.

The key to making good lowbie content is to avoid customs. Custom characters always get a robust amount of powers, but lowbie enemies intentionally only get "shoot a pistol once" or "swing a knife once" to keep them managable. So, hellions, skulls, contaminated, snakes, RIP, etc. are okay.

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I can't stress this enough....I decided to level a character solely on MA, and its been ...troublesome at best. Things to watch out for:

-Custom Groups (I won't attempt them on my lowbie, too much pain)

-Missions that have 1-54, followed by 40-54. A lvl 10 sk'ed up to lvl 40 does not a lvl 40 make.

-Unique Maps (awesome! a ton of glowies to find...in an outdoor map with no travel power....)

-Custom Groups (a lvl 10...with...rad infection, and ele end draining powers...nice).

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Custom groups by themselves are not bad. My arc has a custom group because I wanted a couple of custom bosses for story reasons. But most of the group is regular Skulls, and I have tried to keep the power of the bosses down. So if the only reason you are skipping an arc is it has a custom group, you might want to give it a look.

The level jumping around OTOH, is a real pain. I have been re-writing my second arc because the mobs I wanted to use were too high a level. Since I want it to be accessible to low levels that finish my first arc, I needed to make some changes.

I was somewhat worried about the bosses for low levels, but I have received feedback from a level 4 and a level 5 that were both happy with the arc, so it seems to be fairly balanced.

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Name: The Final Nemesis
Arc ID: 14826
Length: Very long.
Morality: Neutral
Mission 1: Medium size map, level range 41-54. Contains Boss, Collection, Patrol, Battle.
Mission 2: Large size map, level range 30-54. Contains ambush, Collection, Patrol.
Mission 3: Large size map, level range 41-54. Contains 8 Av's
Mission 4: Unique map, level range 30-54. Contains AV, ambush.
Enemy groups: Nemesis, Soldiers of Rularuu
Description: What is the Shadow Shard's true purpose? Where is Rularuu himself? And what is Nemesis's final master plan?

For this arc I decided to go for a truly epic feel. Nemesis is such a fun character to write for and Rularuu is such an interesting one that I decided to combine the two. Also of note is that this arc will be quite hard solo. The third mission contains no less then eight AV's all in close proximity (but not so close that you cant safely pull them apart), and the final mission contains....well...I'll just let you see for yourself.

Edit: oops, forgot to critique someones.

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That was fun. Well, mostly. The 3rd mission did get a bit frustrating, especially the 2 EBs that used Confuse and End Drain. But I only died 3 times, all on the third mission. Good story, just found a few spelling and grammar issues overall. And it was twisty enough to make a good Nemesis plot.

Only real problems were running out of inspirations in the 3rd mission and finding the final boss in the last. No map really sucks, but it obviously out of your hands. The final boss fight was really epic. I barely managed to take him down with all the stuff that was going on.

Definitely not solo friendly, but it was worth the time it took.

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For my arc:
Name: Future Skulls
Arc ID: 4727
Length: Long
Morality: Hero
Missions: 4
Enemy groups: Custom group, Skulls, Coralax
Description: A low level arc, the Skulls get an idea, and it is up to you to stop it from happening.

I have a 4 mission arc published, Future Skulls, ID 4727, for 1-15. The first couple of missions are pretty straight forward, shouldn't be a problem with any low level. The 3rd and 4th you need to defeat custom bosses, but I tried to keep them reasonable. And there are some custom minions in the 3rd that are unreasonable, but they are not required for the mission and are easily avoidable. I guess I should grab a low level alt and give the arc a try. I didn't think of that before.

No, you have to choose and place each hostage for rescue individually, in a separate Rescue Hostage objective.

Are you trying to have 6 different hostages rescued in a mission show up in the navbar? All you have to do is place the same Navigation Text in the various plural and single sections of the objectives. If you place "Hostages to Rescue" in the plural Navigation Text part of all the Hostage Objectives, and "Save the last hostage" in the Single part of the Navigation Text, the navbar will combine them and read "6 Hostages to Rescue" counting down as they are rescued.

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Second, It was a farm mission, and he called it a farm mission in the title and description. They have explicitly said no farm missions allowed, which is why MA missions will not give you any non-MA badges. I do know of a couple of people that have created missions for farming MA badges. But they do not call them farm missions. And they are not planning on leaving them up when they get their badges.

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Prove it.

If it's out there then prove it. I have not seen a word about farming missions from the devs. Was this said in closed Beta? If so are we supposed to magically know what is and is not "appropriate" based on what a few people on these forums seem to be pulling out of their rears?

It doesn't really matter I suppose. Even if it is said buried out there somewhere; content that is getting banned needs to have the reasons for the ban stated. Especially in the complete absence of rules regarding use of the MA. Outside of the EULA of course. They do not stop Farms now. They do close exploits that make farming easier. a simple name change on this arc isn't going to change anything about how fast tickets or Xp will be gained. If that is the issue then that is what should be addressed. Other than that This banning makes no sense whatsoever. HE did not use any word that is vulgar or copyrighted. Nothing is accomplished by banning this arc. Nothing changed. What was the point? What was the exploit?

EDIT: And It only takes 5 people reporting it to get it removed? and people are worried about 1 star bandits.

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Try actually reading this post. Especially the 6th bullet point under Code of Conduct Reminders. Then there is this post from Positron at the bottom. Is that explicit enough for you? Remember, they consider farming at least semi-exploitative behavior, that is why they have made so many changes to limit or stop it over the years. (And I am not saying I agree or disagree with this, just that it is the way things are.)

Then there are the non-explicit things, like the fact that nothing in MA counts toward any non-MA badges, specifically so that people can't farm them. You really think that they would do something to prevent farming, then ignore any other farming behavior if they find it?

And you are right, it doesn't matter if it is out there explicitly. As Zombie Man and Uber Guy point out, they reserve the right to pull any content, for any reason.

As for needing 5 people to get an arc pulled, if there is nothing wrong with it, just put it back. If it gets 5 more reports, it gets looked at by a GM and if there is really nothing wrong with it, nothing happens. Well, to the arc. I would bet they will look at the people doing the content reporting to see if they are maybe harassing you. Since they do keep records of stuff like that. (Actually, I am not certain it is pulled automatically after the 5. It may have been looked at by a GM at that point too. But I did not receive anything from a GM in Beta until the second round of 5 reports.)

Janlee,

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I thought that MA was specifically designed so you "can't" farm?


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You can't farm non-MA badges with it, but there is no real way to prevent someone farming tickets or MA badges unless the GMs see the mission. The OP's problem was calling direct attention to his farm mission. As others have pointed out, all he needed to do was give it the veneer of an actual mission to avoid the ban, unless a lot of people reported it.