Lazarus

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Has happened to me many a time this evening.

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Still happened to me multiple times last night too.

I don't mind a few spawns of KoA appearing but I would drop an arc if it turned out to be all KoA, all the time.

Arc announcements are done over there.

It's nice to see that the number of people reviewing arcs is growing, growing enough that it's getting hard to keep track of them all. It doesn't help either that a few hours of inactivity even can cause a review thread to get buried in this forum and since we can't go around getting every review thread stickied, maybe we can get a list of them instead.

Arranged in alphabetical order for fairness and ease of use:
Bayani
Bubbawheat
DeviousMe
Dominemisis
Dragonslay
HolyEvilAoD
Lazarus
Misho
Peacemoon
Policewoman
Rapulis
ridiculous_girl
Sooner
Talen_Lee
Venture

If I missed you, add yourself to the list by quoting it and putting your link in the correct spot.

Might as well include a link to the CoH Mission Review site as well.

This is a list of people who do reviews, not somewhere to request one. Follow the links and post your requests there, after reading their rules on the first post of the thread.

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CoX is the only MMO I couldn't ever stick it out to reach 50. Everquest, DAoC, LoTRO, WoW all capped out toons.

CoH I peeter out at about 43. Thats pretty wierd.

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oddly CoH is the only game I've reached the level cap on - or even come close.

AC, AO, WoW, LotRO - never came close

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CoH is the only MMO to have kept my interest past Open Beta.

Arc Name: MacGuffin Delivery Service
Arc ID: 1567
Author: @Lazarus
Faction: Family, Tsoo, Circle of Thorns, Carnies, Freakshow, Council, Paragon Police
Morality: Villainous
Number of Missions: 4
Difficulty Level: Easy-Medium
Synopsis: A routine late-night pawn shop robbery turns into a major ordeal when you pick up a mysterious little statue that everyone seems to want for themselves. You don't know what it does, why it's so important, or why you can't seem to just get rid of it.

Due to the 5/5 Live Patch, a lot of people's arcs may be in a broken state at this time. Please check your arcs and make sure they're the way you want them. I won't resume reviewing until after this week is over, so you have some time to fix them and avoid getting marked down for problems which you were unaware of.

I told you so.

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All I can say is we need the ability to choose powers we decide. Currently things are all over the place.

[/ QUOTE ]Did you forget about Sunstorm's Q&A???

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I do have some extremely good news though, we are setting up a custom power selection mode for Issue 15. Critters will start with the standard powers for their rank, and any other power in the set can be added individually.

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Yes, and we also discussed a lot of this over there. The problem is with all the things that were unnecessarily broken in the meantime while we await i15, coming Soon(tm).

The patch went live as is, just as feared.

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though, one of the things I might do if I were going to use my own hero as the contact is to have him be running missions parallel to your own

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The contact's inability to be in two places at once is a very good excuse, as long as you also explain why he cant just do one thing first and the other one later. Although not exactly original, it is nice to see objectives intercept at some point, so you can actually feel the other guy has been doing something.

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That's what I did for the story in "The Portal Bandits". The first mission has the contact bringing you in to lead a strike team coming in from one side of the base while he comes from the other. You don't see him as he gets delayed and you finish the main task before he can get there.

Later on events are happening simultaneously so you are each doing different missions, and it's only in the final one that you meet up in the same place and the contact becomes an ally for the big showdown with the villains.

In fact it is implied during the arc that you're getting more of the action than him most of the time. At another point you go off to raid two safehouses at once so as to interrogate both villains. Guess who gets the empty safehouse and who ends up running into both villains at the same place?

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Wait, didn't Venture say somewhere we shouldn't use nemesis? I can't recall..

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He also hates it when you insert your own characters into the story yet does it himself in one of his arcs. Like anything his advice is to be taken with a grain of salt.

The least sensible complaint he ever made to me was that a +2 version of a custom boss of mine was kicking his [censored] too much while he was soloing. If you're soloing at that difficulty level then you should expect some, I dunno, difficulty.

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"It's a Nemesis plot." might be the other obvious one.

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Funny thing is that I haven't seen a lot of Nemesis plots since MA went live, or a lot of Nemesis at all. People are probably just sick of him.

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Exchange rates will always fluctuate. I'm surprised nobody's brought up the issue of prestige farming, since you can generate vast amounts of prestige simply running an 8-man all-SG team.

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Because how much they have available to spend on their SG base has little to no effect on anyone outside that SG.

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- The text in the Nav window changes, for instance from "Locate the Boss" to "Defeat the Boss" in the midst of a mission

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Arc 1567, MacGuffin Delivery Service, does this a few times.

Exactly, all that the .storyarc files do is tell the client what maps to load, and what costume pieces the critters are wearing. The server is not using any special AI for custom critters that it doesn't use for generic ones as far as we know, the .storyarc file just tells it what the rank of the critter is, what powers it has access to, and it's preference for ranged or melee.

For now I hope they put these difficulty changes on hold and just push the mandatory ranged attacks. Things like these Bosses with Standard extreme damage attacks shouldn't be pushed out at all.

I'm not declaring victory until the changes on Test are gone and the new system is in place. As long as there is any chance of these current changes going live I'll be on alert. I don't want this kludge ruining my missions and others while we wait for Issue 15 to arrive Soon(tm).

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my concern with that is if you add a tier 9 attach which probably does double what the other attacks do - and then add build up - suddenly going to extreme gives you an attack that does 4x the damage you did before.

Build up instead of a tier 9 makes sense, but I'd rather have the tier 9 for variety and skip the build up

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I actually wouldn't mind if they just took out the Aim and Build-Up powers either, it would make sorting Standard/Hard/Extreme easier. I imagine most players would rather keep them in, though. Do any ingame enemies use Aim/Build-Up?

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None that I can recall, but then for some reason they also took Thunderstrike away from Custom Minions and Lieutenants when we already have regular Minions (Crey Voltaic Tanks) and Lieutenants (Pantheon Storm Shamans) who have had those powers since CoH started. Who knows what they're thinking.

I wouldn't mind having Aim/Build Up in some sort of "Beyond Extreme" tier but already we can see that this tier thing is simply not working.

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If they make the custom critters even harder, then low level characters may not be able to handle it.

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Especially if Super Strength Bosses start getting Knockout Blow at level 8 as a Standard Attack.

[/ QUOTE ]Not even "at level 8"...critters don't have level-gated powers. They have them, or they don't, so a level 1 boss would have KOB.

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Interesting, because I have never seen my Mind/Thorns Boss, who is Hard/Extreme, use any level 35 or 38 attacks from Thorn Assault when limited to level 33 and I know that she has them available.

Just tested her at level 50, 37, and 33. Above 33 she does use the level 35 and 38 Thorn attacks. Below 33 she does not use them.

[/ QUOTE ]I fought custom controllers with pets below pet level (I think I was on my 19 emp/dark or my 20 PB, frankly I forget). And was flattened by Energy Transfer at level 35 on a mob that had /energy (friend's arc, that's how I knew).

So I was just gathering from those two examples.

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Well at the Energy Transfer case it seems that since Energy Melee is being treated as a Primary even when Secondary it's still setting it as a level 32 power. As for the Pets at level 20, I have no answer other than it looks like the Devs had BIGGER problems to deal with in the MA system before even thinking of this patch.

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If they make the custom critters even harder, then low level characters may not be able to handle it.

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Especially if Super Strength Bosses start getting Knockout Blow at level 8 as a Standard Attack.

[/ QUOTE ]Not even "at level 8"...critters don't have level-gated powers. They have them, or they don't, so a level 1 boss would have KOB.

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Interesting, because I have never seen my Mind/Thorns Boss, who is Hard/Extreme, use any level 35 or 38 attacks from Thorn Assault when limited to level 33 and I know that she has them available.

Just tested her at level 50, 37, and 33. Above 33 she does use the level 35 and 38 Thorn attacks. Below 33 she does not use them.

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If they make the custom critters even harder, then low level characters may not be able to handle it.

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Especially if Super Strength Bosses start getting Knockout Blow at level 8 as a Standard Attack.

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Please don't hammer the whole playerbase just to nerf the farmers. We don't want to be collateral damage in the battle against farms.

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Agreed. This is like using artillery to kill a mosquito at a picnic party. The chances of it hitting the target are next to none while the collateral damage will be immense.

Right now when you select a set as a Secondary and look at the details, if it is a Primary for any AT it still uses Primary level selections. Anyhow, discuss this over in the thread.

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The arrangement of powers does seem to be assuming level 50 players, though.

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Most of the Tier-9s are going to show up as early as level 32 and all will be there by 38. Custom Critter powers are given at the same levels as they are to players and do so in odd ways. For example, a Katana Boss on Standard will have Soaring Dragon by 26 and Golden Dragonfly by 32. Give him Willpower and set that to Extreme and he will have Strength of Will at 32 as well, not 38.

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The high-end powers probably should go away if the boss is only level 20 or so

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Super Strength Bosses are getting Knockout Blow at level 8, on Standard.

I always test at Difficulty 2 and adjust the difficulty of mobs up and down from there. That lets me see bosses around my level and gives me more chances to see Minions and LTs in action.