Lazarus
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Posts
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Joined
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We were doing just too awesome with that Mothership Raid on Virtue I guess.
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It was that 2nd Mothership Raid on Virtue, we were so damn awesome that we overloaded the entire West Coast.
Sorry. -
Quote:Maybe you should mind you own damn business. Those of us who are here have done those dev arcs a billion times already and honestly for many of them the writing and gameplay SUCK, especially many of the pre-issue 6 heroside arcs.Originally Posted by GreenFIame
Maybe You cool Cats Should try lvling outside of AE, there a world of Awsomeness out there and beside I believe the Normal Content Story Arcs Award better Award/xp after finishing...It just a thought, I don't mean no harm with this statement. -
Quote:Not to turn this into any more of a flamefest, but this is Venture: the guy who complained to me once when he got killed by a custom boss of mine when he was deliberately playing my arc with the enemies set to be +2 levels to himself. After that I don't take any criticism he gives seriously.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Yellow inspirations are available regardless of difficulty. On x6, they drop like rain. If you can't hit, eat them. It's no different than running a dev-created mission where some Vanguard idiot aggros a giant group of Rikti with three Guardians who have triple-bubbled everyone before you get there, accidentally aggroing two spawns of CoT with Death Mages in them, or every single Nemesis mission ever.
If you've never run into any of those situations because "they're too hard" then you really should stick to farming.
Over and out. -
Quote:1) Neither the Council or 5th Column have Peacebringers in their ranks at all. Ascendants have nothing to do with the Nictus either.Originally Posted by Lone Superpower
Second mission, going after the 5th column, or council, I forget. Except this arc also added those special peacebringer 5th column that can shield themselves... and sheild others. Despite technically being stealthable to the boss, the boss battle still took more 10 minutes because it was a constant chore switching between an "only affecting self" power banish, bosses that shield themselves at 20% and then heal back up to 60%, and a basic inability to hit anything because there were shields up all over the place. (I play at 6 hero equivalency on my tanker) You might think this unfair, but this was annoying enough to warrent minus half a star.
2) If you want to sleepwalk through missions set to 6x all the time then stick to farms. Don't except actual story arcs to be easy all of the time. -
My critters never fail to give me cool screenshots, I just need to be quicker on the printscreen key.
Double Eagle Claw just before Kathode could deliver her Havoc Punch. A Burnt Matchstick was there to witness the event.
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Quote:Even if you set all 3 to "Unconcious", oftentimes when you come across the body it may stand up and then fall back down when it has been "rescued".Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
I believe the closest animation option is "Bum Slump". I thought there was also an animation option for lying down. And if you have all three animations set to that, and have them set to "stay" instead of "follow" or "Run to nearest door", they *should* stay still (starting, rescued, and a third one I forget) but I'm not 100% on that.
Could be funny though if you had the first one prompt a clue about to shaking the body down for loose change or something.
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Changes made to "All Consuming":
* Added some extra Shivan patrols to mission 1 to make it feel a bit less empty.
* Switched the SWAT allies in mission 2 from "Fight Defensive" back to "Aggressive" as they were often standing around doing nothing on the other setting, even when you were under attack.
* Fixed the front room in mission 3 to be a bit less crowded.
* Mission 5 now requires you to speak with Investigator Olafson at the front of the map in order to learn how to stop the ritual, rather than you simply "knowing" how to do it the moment you enter the mission. The contact send off reflects this change. -
Quote:Rather crappy sounding procs in my opinion. All minor damage and we have no idea how small the chance to fire will be.Originally Posted by Furio
I don't think they're a big deal, but new chars get one of each, the site says. And they're procs, not just duo enhs.
I'm not bothered by this at all really. -
Quote:And yet your statement gave the distinct impression that you didn't. Anyhow, I've already told you what I meant, take it or leave it. I'm not going to write you a free research paper on the topic.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I read exactly what you said. If you're just going to keep saying its a problem and not actually fulfill my request to explain in detail, there's nothing I can do about that. I'm really only interested in working on solvable problems at this moment.
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Quote:That is not even remotely what I said at all. You may be confusing me with Fred.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
See, when I make a critter, I have an idea of how powerful its going to be just by the power selection. I know if its going to be more difficult than the standard critters in the game. If the critter is more difficult than a standard critter, it can't be made to be "worth" its difficulty because the AE itself is capped to 100% maximum.
Now, if you're saying you *don't* know whether a critter will be overpowered or not, and the XP slider could give you a hint by saying the critter is worth "150%" or "220%" then that's something else, but that's a lot more difficult than it sounds.
What I said is that I use the XP percentage as part of a way determine if a custom foe is worth using in an AE mission. I can damn well see if it is overpowered or not just by looking at the powers, but that is because I have a pretty clear understanding of nearly every damn power in the game and have more insight than a player who doesn't and is only looking at those numbers. Plus that damn level slider will not stay put, it frequently resets when going from screen to screen or even changing powersets, so it's easy to not notice that the powerset you are looking at is reporting numbers for a level 1 foe, not a level 30 or 50 foe, until you're in the mission and wondering why you're getting your clock cleaned in seconds.
However if I have a critter who is already becoming overpowered considering the level range I intend to use them in and seeing the powers that they will actually use when being spawned inside that range, I sure as hell will be looking at the XP. If this critter can already mop the floor with every AT except a Brute or Tanker and is only giving 60-70% XP, that critter is NOT going to get used at all. It's scrapped and I have to find a different build.
That is the big issue. It's very, very easy to make rather weak minions who give 100% XP, it's very easy to make decent LTs who give 100% XP, it's a damn PITA to make a decent boss who gives 100% XP.
You may know that, but there is nothing written on that editor screen to tell the player that the critter AI is only going to use up to 10 of the 12 powers that you are giving him.Quote:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Suppose I made a Fire Blast / Ice Blast Boss that took basically everything. We both know that a critter with twelve attacks is literally no more dangerous than one with ten, because you can't make proper use of that many attacks: your attack chain would be full long before then. -
Quote:I'm with you one this Fred, especially since one of my recent research projects was a application to automate a large number of equations so that the user won't get hung up on repetitive calculations every time they change the inputs in order to get the results that they desire.Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
Thanks for the explanation.
I'm aware that the numbers don't represent the actual difficulty of a critter, but I still think that showing the real number couldn't hurt. It's an indication of something and it would be useful for me when I try to decide between a power that is worth 10% and one that is worth 20% if I can actually tell which one is worth the most by selecting each one and watching the total percentage change.
Let me give an example: when designing a minion or lieutenant I can usually hit 100% just by picking two or three powers from the primary. Now I have no (easy) way of telling what different powers from the secondary are worth, so I have to turn off powers in the primary and select powers in the secondary to check their numbers. But now that I've turned off some attacks, some of those secondaries won't show accurate numbers because they only have a value if the critter has attacks! If the total was always visible even above 100 I wouldn't have to do this juggling, and I wouldn't have to guess so much.
I don't think I'm the only one with this problem.
What I take the XP percentage as is an indication of "is it really going to be worth the player's time to fight an enemy with this much power to devastate them?" I've trashed quite a few enemy concepts because the critters were simply too overpowering and/or flat-out annoying if you tried to make them worth the same XP as a standard enemy of that level range.Quote:Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
I just don't know why nobody else can see that the xp percentage value is an indication, a hint, a clue to how powerful a critter is and that it can be useful to see the value of various powers even after the critter is at 100% already. -
Quote:Originally Posted by ArrowRose
The Invasion of the Bikini-Clad Samurai Vampiresses From Outer Space
ID - 61013
@Aliana Blue .Quote:Originally Posted by ArrowRose
The Wentworth's Thanksgiving Day Parade
ID: 347683
Author: @DjinnimanQuote:Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
#2595: The Extadine Lab
It's just so cute.Quote:Originally Posted by Zamuel
Dhahabu Kingdom and the Indelible Curse of Hate
#367872
@ZamuelAll receive the Lazarus Seal of Approval, as well as:Quote:Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
"Mercytown" (#6017) by @Frija.
I'll plug "Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black" (# 161629) since it's the only arc I have published right now.
Arc ID: 380417
Arc Title: The Star-Dwellers
Author: @K'aji
Description: The year is 1931. A pulp-fiction author's drinking has put him in debt to bootleggers, but it's the tome that drove him mad which poses the true threat. Battle mobsters, cultists, and cosmic horrors in this tale of the early Midnight Squad.
Now for my own plug.
New and improved for Issue 17! Even if you played it before, play it again to experience the Director's Cut!
Arc Title: The Portal Bandits
Arc ID: 3326
Morality: Heroic
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 40-54
Synopsis: A mysterious group has invaded a Portal Corp lab and sealed themselves within. The PPD has been unable to get inside and a hero is needed to enter the lab, defeat the invaders, and discover their intentions. (AV present, Allies are provided. May be challenging.) -
Also "The Amulet of J'gara" is fixed to be levels 25-30 now. I did this so that the player will only see the AV using her level 32 power if they deliberately boost their difficulty.
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Quote:Hey, my Martial Arts critters each have both Eagle's Claw AND guns.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
You can make everything else Dual Pistols/Katana and give them black trenchcoats and sunglasses so they at least THINK they're cool.
Besides, everybody knows that Eagle's Claw isn't really cool unless you put a Kinetic Combat proc in it. Do the math and you'll see I'm right, there's a coolness factor equation on the Scrapper Forum somewhere.
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This "Rule of 5" hits one of my AVs very hard. Despite having nearly every Katana attack except for Build Up and Divine Avalanche, and nearly every Energy Aura power except for Entropy Shield and Overload, she just will not give 100% XP. Even worse, the XP is actually less than 90% at the level she appears at (a level 40-50 AE arc).
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Thanks for the good review, Coulomb2! Now for some changes.
Changes made to the Nagan Hegemony group:
* Nagan Specters no longer have Smoke Flash.
* Nagan Infiltrators no longer have Smoke Flash.
Changes made to "The Portal Bandits":
* Slightly reduced the difficulty of Takala's group and attached ambush in mission 2.
* The Nagan death squads in mission 2 now trigger off of the Dimensional Stabilizer glowie, which in turn is now only clickable after Takala's defeat in order to preserve the order of events and avoid a situation where the player may have to fight their way back to the glowie after a hospital trip.
* Removed the erroneous reference to Naga Obscura from the mission 3 send off.
* Added the optional "Find Ally" objectives for Iron Samurai and Anna Nethema to the objectives window in mission 5.
* Moved Iron Samurai to the front region of the map in mission 5. Anna is still in a random location in the middle region.
* Naga Obscura no longer has Overload. -
Quote:I never noticed a big problem with Smoke Flash myself, as it is not a true Placate. It is a PbAoE with a very small radius and requires a hit-check (I've had them use it right in my face and yet miss). However perhaps it hits too often for someone with little or no defense, so I'll probably take it off of the minions at least.Originally Posted by Coulomb2
Cons: I really only noticed a few things. As mentioned before, the “stealth” Nagans having the ability to placate proved to me more of a useless time sink than something that made them more difficult foes.
I'll don't know if I'll remove the ambush from the boss fight, but I'll probably change the trigger for the other groups to the glowy since that is the true bait for the trap.Quote:Originally Posted by Coulomb2
And when you combine the difficulty of the group with how the second mission is put together (as discussed in my writeup above), it seems to me that there’s a good chance that the Nagans trying to stop you from getting out of the lab will actually be encountered while you are returning from a trip to the hospital. There’s got to be a way to make it more likely that’ll play out as intended, since it really would have been very cool if it had worked that way (and I certainly liked the idea).
That's because it is an error. In the revamp of the arc I removed all references to Obscura before the end of mission 3. Looks like I missed one.Quote:Originally Posted by Coulomb2
The fact that Iron Samurai was (if I recall) by mission three making references to Naga Obscura felt off
Actually I forgot that she even had Overload. The power has been in the "doesn't work" list for so long, it must have been a very recent patch that fixed the AI (and of course they didn't mention it in the patch notes). That'll be coming off.Quote:Originally Posted by Coulomb2
Naga possibly having Overload (which is very hard to counter if you’re not on a team or have the right powers) was annoying, but given the warning giving in the mission briefing certainly not “unfair.” But I can tell you that, in practice, what that power mostly accomplishes is just having to run away, and then wait for three minutes until it wears off. Not all that dangerous, but doesn’t really make the arc any more fun either. (Ironically, it would seem like popping a tier 9 would be a very suspenseful moment, but, much like Instant Healing, it actually ends up being the opposite.)
Cobalt Stinger is the contact for the sister arc to this one, "Of Futures Past". It explains her involvement and motivations as well as showing a few things that you didn't get to see in "The Portal Bandits", like what Iron Samurai was up to during missions 3 and 4.Quote:We needed more information about Cobalt Stinger, and Iron Samurai had some files – Stinger was actually a villain, and a member of a group called Smash, Inc. Two of his known associates were a pair of very rare female trolls known as Vikki and Tami Vandale. -
Some delayed change notes.
Changes made to Nagan Hegemony group:
* Removed Flashfire from the Nagan Incinerator. Replaced with Bonefire.
* New LT added: Nagan Ravager (Claws/Ninjitsu).
* All arcs featuring this group have been updated.
Changes made to "Of Futures Past":
* Created a second model for Cobalt Stinger. When seen as a contact she wears non-combat clothing.
* Updated Alina Ivanov's outfit.
Changes made to "The Amulet of J'gara":
* Changed the level range of the arc from levels 25-33 to levels 25-30. This means that Mindskewer will now only use Mass Confusion if they player deliberately increases their difficulty level to spawn level 32 enemies. -
Quote:My only complaint is the Arachnoid EB standing in for King Ananzi. A regular Super Arachnoid probably would have sufficed and wouldn't have taken ages to kill.Originally Posted by Zamuel
Arc Name: Dhahabu Kingdom and the Indelible Curse of Hate
Arc ID: 367872
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global: @Zamuel
Synopsis: A hero's work with the Portal Corporation doesn't just spread through Paragon. Other dimensions need help as destiny has decreed you to be their savior. Aid Queen Auri as the Dhahabu Kingdom fights to stop an evil curse from destroying all she holds dear.
Otherwise this arc gets the Lazarus Seal of Approval. -
Big money, big money, no whammies....
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Quote:All that I can saw about that one is: What a [censored]!Originally Posted by ArrowRose
Today, I logged in to see the following feedback on my arc Suppression:
@Chromatique : Feedback on Architect Mission Suppression: It's "Extraordinaire." If you aren't sure how to spell a word, you should look it up.
This feedback came with a 1 or 2 star rating and knocked the arc from 5 stars to 4 stars overall.
When it comes to many of the existing HoF arcs, it already was a popularity contest anyhow.Quote:Originally Posted by PoliceWoman
On the down side, this suggestion would make the rating system more of a popularity contest than a quality contest.
Unfortunately the Suggestions Forum is where good ideas go to die. Here it is more likely to be seen and read by the Devs actually in charge of AE as well. Although maybe the other AE forum would have made better sense.Quote:Originally Posted by cursedsorcerer
Good suggestions, but should this be in Suggestions and Ideas, rather than here? -
Quote:The problem is that most of the 5-star range is filled with bad arcs that have 2 ratings that the author managed to get from their buddies, and this places them hundreds of pages ahead of 4-star arcs that have hundreds of ratings (so obviously some people liked them) yet they are getting punished just based on an average that is being rounded up or down.Originally Posted by Clave_Dark_5
I'm all up on that idea, but one reason I'll point out for the Asian grading curve there is the sheer number of arcs. If I want to sit down and play a few arcs a week say, there is no dearth of 5-star arcs, "so why would I even bother dipping my toe into the 4-star loser end of the pool?"
At least let us see the true average when we hover our mouse over it or something! -
I'll explain one of the main reasons that I like to use Electric Armor for some critters, especially for a boss: it's the power Grounded. It allows me to give a critter resistance to Knockback and Immobilization, two very cheap tactics for making otherwise tough foes insanely easy, without giving them protection against Holds and other mezzes that can make them into utter nightmares for squishy ATs.
I've asked repeatedly since issue 14 beta if we could get a set of options ( maybe at the first screen where we pick things like the critter rank, melee/ranged preference, Fly/No Fly) where we can select individual resistances to certain status effects. For example, Nemesis all have resistance to Fear but not to other mezz types so why can't I make a custom critter group who also have an innate resistance to Fear? Right now the only way would be to make them all Dark Armor or Willpower and give them the Mezz Protect toggle, which would have the collateral damage of also giving them insanely high protection against Holds and such on top of the innate 1-3 pts of protection that the critter has.
What I would like to see is something like a 3rd powerset of just passive powers where you can select resistance to: Immobilization, Hold, Slow Movement, Knockback, Fear, and Confusion. These would not be on the level of protection that, say Indomitable Will, would have. Just enough protection to require a double-stacking of the status effect for it to take effect, and maybe some resistance to reduce the time it would last so that stacking mezzes won't be too easy.
This way you could make critters who can be a bit more challenging to the player without being overly unfair to the non-melee ATs. -
Quote:Great, there goes my SS/ElA Boss as well! I'm not adding KO Blow though because at level 50 she'll be annihilating players left and right.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Well I bugged it...and here I was thinking, "hmm, this SS/Elec boss I made gives full XP without KO Blow, nice." Oh well. *Adds KO Blow in anticipation of fix.*