Lazarus

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I would much rather be able to see right in the search what PoliceWoman or WrongNumber recommends than whatever lousy picks that the Devs made months ago. At least their lists would be likely to update on a somewhat frequent basis. Also if I play a good arc it is likely that the author may have similar tastes and I'd like to know what his favorites are.

Another really good feature would be similar to Amazon.com with a "people who liked this arc also liked..." list that would be presented to you when you complete the arc. That would make a lot more sense to have than that big search tags window that doesn't do anything. (WTF is it there for anyways?)

"Raaaaa! I'm a vicious octopus!"

To give an example of a story-based reason, I have a custom group of just BP Shamans that is used in "All Consuming" for a few parts where I didn't want any zombies around. To spoil the plot a bit, in an early mission the player fights through a warehouse full of Warriors to find the person who is paying them to guard the warehouse and the clients that person is dealing with at the time. At the end of the mission is a custom boss who is having a conversation with some Banished Pantheon.

Now, since we don't have a Conversation Detail like non-AE arcs do, I have little control over the makeup of this group. It would make little sense to find the boss negotiating with a zombie or a Spirit Mask who somehow got to a warehouse in Talos Island with anyone noticing them. The best solution was a custom group of only Shamans set to be the group surrounding the boss, as I cannot go the other way because the game would not let me select a Shaman as the boss because only customs are allowed to be anything but boss rank when used as a boss detail.

Unfortunately I haven't gotten around to test this arc yet, which I need to as I've heard of a lot of bugs where people are finding that exemption to not be working properly and leading to situations where a group that does have minions/LTs/bosses is still giving reduced or even zero XP.

So you're saying that your "Chains of Blood" arc not change at all if you completed removed the Circle of Thorns from it? That "Blowback" would not be affected at all if you replaced Malta with Rularru?

After all, you claim that the group is irrelevant to the story.

Whatever helps you sleep at night. Everyone else on the other hand wants to see their characters advance and experience new content, not have to choose between one or the other.

I think I need an insulin shot.

How many friggin' times does this have to be said before the "it's all about story and rewards shouldn't matter" crowd get it through their thick skulls?

Unfortunately the answer is probably: infinite.

It's a suitable metaphor and how I feel about it as well. If nobody is playing the arc, then it makes it feel like a waste to have spent so much time writing and testing it in the first place.

Oh dear...

I'm starting to consider using -1 level myself for those reasons. Getting quite sick of lowbies having +1s thrown at them all the time when I have no stamina, no enhancments, and ran out of inspirations a couple rooms back.

It does that for Sky Raiders as well, WTH is up with that? As if the Reactor Trial wasn't already stupid easy and boring with the huge waits between attack waves.

They could, it's just very likely that they'd end up killing the patient as they get carried away.

I can honestly say that I have not entered the Sewers since issue 2 and those were all solo runs in the Abandoned network for the challenge of getting from Skyway to Boomtown without dying. As for TFs, the ones I have only done once are the Statesman TF, Lord Recluse SF, and Katie Hannon TF.

I've actually run less TFs since merits were added as it became even harder to find a good team than it was when people were speed-running them for the random rare drop at the end. Those I always found pointless anyway, as most times I made more money from killing all the mobs than off the usually crappy recipe I'd get at the end of the TF.

I guess I'd better not recommend arc #3326, "The Portal Bandits". It's 4 solid missions against those critters. You do get a few of them as allies in the beginning mission for "Of Futures Past" as well.

Yes, they are built as a 40+ group. When I set the level range of my missions that high it is for a good reason.

As for weakening them, with the new restrictions on custom critters I can't reduce them any further without making them worth 0 XP. As hard as they may seem, most of them have their powersets set no higher than Standard. Many of them are already only worth 75% of normal as it is.

Of course the Devs rarely do the sensible thing, they like to use sledgehammers to kill flies.

The only problem I had with TFs and the new diff settings was the nonsense of people setting to -1 on Master runs and getting those badges. Not so much because of the -1, but because it was bugged so that it was reducing the level 54 AVs all the way down to level 49. That was plain wrong.

Considering that pohsyb has lurked in the MA Arc Finder channel ever since i14 went live, you'd think at least ONE arc talked about there would have gotten picked.

I doubt that'd make any difference. Only 2 of my 6 arcs are not marked as Final and some have even been nominated for Dev Choice by others.

Even more fun when you do that run, and then another Brickstown contact gives you that same damn mission because for some reason that last one didn't count.

Well that is nice if your arc is meant to be only run by teams as some sort of task force. On the other hand you have screwed over many other ATs by making the arc so dangerous for them that there is no incentive to run it. Especially when other stories with easier Dev foes give greater rewards.

Even more so as anyone who truly cares about the story is more likely to solo AE arcs as otherwise they will miss out on a lot of details since 1) only the team leader gets to see debriefings and 2) teams tend to move too fast for players to catch all the dialog and read things like clues and mob descriptions.

It's very easy to make a killer "non-meleers need not apply" custom group. A well-balanced group who is a decently challenge to all ATs without being obnoxiously overpowered is much more difficult and requires more than just Standard/Hard/Extreme to tweak them. The Devs, in their astounding ignorance of their own game, have only penalized authors for taking such efforts.

Recolored canon mobs are still the same canon mobs, if you can be easily pleased by a different coat of paint then that's good for you. On the other hand, people should not be punished for trying to be more creative and designing new critters from the ground up.

If the story is about the group, then no other group will do. A story where any group can substitute would have to be so damn generic that there would be no point it running it over a paper mission.

Squeeeee!!!

<.<
>.>

Um, you didn't hear me make that sound.

Was supposed to say "9 out of ten" to make it obvious. Doh.

'Bout damn time!