NeverDark

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For example, a certain power lists a "5% STRENGTH against attacks." What is "strength"? Does it make my character STRONGER (ie. do more damage?) No it means increased DEFENSE. Call it DEFENSE, not STRENGTH. Never call it anything BUT defense.

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Arcanaville can explain it better, but Strength is an Aspect of the Defense Attributes. Increasing Defense Strength makes you better at defense, it increases your Defense powers.

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Yeah, it's basically a bit of internal variable speak spilling over into the in-game text. Thankfully, they tend to be color-coded, so it's easy to figure out what they do (the colors follow enhancement coloring, so red for damage, purple for defense, etc.).

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It's just sloppy and amateurish, really. It hurts the flow of game and makes it much much harder for new players to learn the game. I remember when i first started playing, it took me a little what to grasp the difference between Damage Resistance and Defense. How much harder must it be for new players when the game keeps mixing up the terms?

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That I'll agree with. It would be nice to have somewhere easily accessible (preferably in the tutorial) giving a quick run-down of the basic terminology. Granted, first we need a standardized vocabulary.

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Please do not post things like, learn to search or anything else alike to this.

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Definitely not the way to start a suggestion, especially when it's been suggested before. Here, for example.

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Points is the concept of being able to add and subtract from the base values of certain aspects of ATs. There would be three points max, one point minimum, for simplification, but that’s changeable. All base values would have two points automatically. You would automatically have 0 extra points.

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At this point, you no longer have ATs. Part of the point of having archetypes is to have a standard around which you can balance. All Blasters have a particular range of HP (slightly variable due to build preference, but bounded by caps), and thus can be treated similarly. If we allow them to decide to break the design rules, then there's no point in having the rules to begin with.

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Damage X X O
To-Hit X O O (I believe it would be this modified, not accuracy. I don’t think both)
Recharge X X X
End Usage X O O
Range X X X (This could apply to all powers, giving meleers the polearm effect, or rangers a sniper effect)
Defense X X O
Resistance X X O
Regeneration X O O
Max HP X X O
End Recovery X X X
Max End X X O

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A lot of these are attributes that players should not be allowed to change. The way To-Hit works is incredibly ugly, and it's hard to work with even when the creator knows how it works; someone who doesn't even know the formula shouldn't be touching it. Range would only affect powers with range, as the devs have shown that they want melee powers to remain unchangeable (they literally have their range unable to be changed in the code). Defense and Resistance would either be useless: they modify attributes that a player would not have (Defense for a Firey Aura, for example), or incredibly overpowering: they modify base attributes (impossible for Resistance and game-breaking for Defense) or they work like extra enhancements that ignore ED (Defense letting an SR boost his own powers again).

The entire idea is one that requires very, very, very careful design. It's incredibly easy to make a tank-mage, and it's even easier to make a complete gimp. It's a really interesting idea - for a game that's just starting development, and then only if you have developers that understand the dangers in it. It can't be worked into a game that's five years old, no matter how hard you try.

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Second Set Diversification

This is the concept of having two powers of each tier, where you may choose one of them and only one. This could have many benefits to story and playability, but is likely one of the hardest to implement due to massive work on balancing and other such things. This would likely not be available on epics, due to them having so many powers anyways, but that’s in the hands of the Devs.

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These aren't so much difficult to balance as darn near impossible. Sometimes the "choices" end up being so imbalanced they aren't really choices; a debuff on a Scrapper is going to be so low (due to the Scrapper modifiers) that there's no point in taking it over straight damage (especially as debuffs don't defeat enemies). They also tend to throw off the theme of the sets; Dark Melee is supposed to be heavily single target and control focused, and Willpower is supposed to trade damage for survivability. And again, all of this ends up being very, very gameable.

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Multiple Inherent Powers

This idea is of having multiple inherent powers (Origin and AT) to choose from when creating a character. Fairly straightforward, this would at the same point not allow things such as a Fury power on a Controller, as that is not what they are built for. These should not be overpowering either. Just for diversification, customization, and replayablity. This example will be for Brutes, as that is what I have the most experience on. I don’t see any reason epics (or any other AT excepting Stalkers) couldn’t get this.

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See above about being easy to break and ruining theme. They also end up causing massive balance headaches. Powers have to be designed knowing that, for example, some players have inherent recharge buffs, so their recharges have to be somewhat long, shafting those who picked damage buffs. The way defense and resistance stack means that new powersets have to be designed around players being able to give themselves higher performance, meaning that these sets have to come pre-nerfed. Nobody wins, because everyone starts from such a different place that they're essentially playing different games.

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Natural Origin Powers

Inherent One: Throwing Knives - ST Ranged DoT Damage
Inherent Two: Nerve Strike - ST Damage/Disorient
Inherent Three: Molotov Cocktail - AoE (Minor) Damage/(Chance Mag 1) Fear

The different origin powers are more or less for a change to the norm, rather than things that are meant to make a large difference.

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Now these I like. They allow for some extra customization, and they're not particularly gamebreaking. There need to be more temp powers like the inherents that allow for a little wiggle within AT bounds.

tl;dr version - All good ideas, if you're starting from scratch, but they just can't work here. Shoehorning these into CoX wouldn't be forcing a square peg into a round hole, it would be forcing a square peg into a solid surface - there's just no hole to try.

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I'm wondering if some of these wouldn't be better classified as TROPES as opposed to cliches, the difference being that a trope is simply a common storytelling device that isn't inherently good or bad.

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I'd say most of these are. They're not inherently bad, although they're easy to use badly.

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For instance, let's take the "Gotta Fight The Contact" Trope. In some arcs, it seems that the contact's intent from the very beginning is to lead you into a trap, and you, as a player, were helpless against falling into it. This can get frustrating after a while, because these missions just keep telling you how much You Suck. You don't want a game rewarding your hard work with insults and betrayal

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A prime example of throwing the Idiot Ball that a lot of arcs fall into. If the contact is clearly setting me up, and the arc won't let me do anything about it because it assumes I don't see his intentions, then the arc is telling me that I'm an idiot, and that doesn't fly well. If you want to have the contact stab the player in the back, either make sure you're subtle enough that it's a surprise (which is very hard to do), give the player room to get out of it, or make it clear that the player has no choice but to go along. If you always assume the player is smarter than the contact, you'll avoid these problems.

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For a brief few shining moments, I was dead excited about writing my own missions...until I came to the Forum and found that apparently I was one of the stupid, banal, unwashed masses.

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Bah, don't let us tell you what you can or can't write. We'll be happy to tell you what we think does or doesn't work, but we're just loud, opinionated blowhards. I may not like the "Architect getting bugged" plot, especially because I've seen it so many times, but if you've got an idea to do it well, I'm certainly not going to stop you. Heck, you may just change my mind on the whole thing.

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I had thought of suggesting an Autohit, but then what if the target has abnormally high Defense? By raising the cap, you have the potential to hit with 100% accuracy, but the usual calculations still apply.

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Even so, you start running into really ugly problems. Raising the cap works similarly to adding a very short 5% toHit buff (or Defense debuff) for the duration of your AS, and that brings about all the problems toHit buffs have (they work wildly differently vs Defense than vs Resistance).

And that's discounting the whole "changing the engine's calculations" thing, which I'm still pretty sure ends up requiring a rework of every power that requires a hit check.

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Al because of a 5% chance, which happens far more than 5% of the time. I swear Stalkers run on differant accuracy rules, but that's a differant arguement.

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Perception bias, statistics, all that jazz. I'm sure you've heard the whole act before.

Let’s see…

Bad suggestion that’s been made many times before, showing a refusal to use search…
Seeing contrary arguments as snarky personal attacks…
Incoherent, irrelevant analogy…
Attack on other poster’s playing habits…
Declaration of dissent as “defending the status quo” or “fearing change”…

Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe we have a Bingo.

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I'm also pretty sure it can't be done without rewriting the way the engine handles hit calculations, which (if I'm thinking of it correctly) involves changing every power in the game to accommodate a variable hit cap. And that's ignoring the PvE/PvP switch.

[/ QUOTE ]The closest thing they could do is make AS an autohit attack, double all of AS's effects with a "If not Hidden" flag and the "Not auto-hit" flag. So AS is autohit, but if you're not Hidden, it requires a it check. Just like Taunt is autohit, but if you're in PvP it's not.

Not that I particularly like the idea, but that's a way it could be done. It's also different from the OP's suggestion of allowing it to break the 95% hit chance cap, rather making AS from Hide autohit.

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Hmm, I could see that working. I don't like it; AS should not be autohit, even in PvE. It's too powerful an attack to only be interruptable, and it sets a bad precedent.

Do we really need another arc about a glitch/virus/someone hacking into the Architect mainframe? Apparently the system was coded by drunken toddlers with brain damage for how easily it craps out.

I'm also pretty sure it can't be done without rewriting the way the engine handles hit calculations, which (if I'm thinking of it correctly) involves changing every power in the game to accommodate a variable hit cap. And that's ignoring the PvE/PvP switch.

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Arc #12034 - To Live In Infamy
Rating: ****

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Hehe, I think you like this a little bit more than I do. I'm still working on polishing it up quite a bit, as I think it needs a lot of it.

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It's not enough to have a good idea, you have to have a good story. An idea is only a place to start from.

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As I like to think of it, you have to a plot, not just a premise. There is a difference, and it's a big one (and it drives me crazy that so few people properly understand it).

Here's a premise I've been kicking around in my head for a while:

A college dropout gets ahold of a time machine, and instead of using it to correct egregious errors in history, he jumps back to when gas is $0.25 a gallon and jumps forward to when HD widescreen TVs are $100. He uses temporal bargain hunting to avoid getting an actual job.

It's an premise, but it's not a plot. There's no problem to solve, there's no conflict. It's an idea, but nothing more. I can't actually do anything with it yet (if anyone can, please do; I think it's too cool an idea to just leave lying in my head).

Similarly, with arcs, you can start with an idea, but if you don't have a plot, you don't have an arc (you have one mission at best). There must be a problem to resolve, some sort of conflict that happens before you have a story.

Okay, /soapbox.

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There's a custom enemy faction that while they weren't explained, did give me a desire to know more and weren't seemingly heavily overpowered. I am reluctant to try the arc again on a dominator, though; I did it on an (almost entirely) Un-IO'd bane Spider, and found the arc very doable on a moderate difficulty.

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As you may have figured out, this arc is one in a chain. Actually, it's the second "chapter" in what will eventually be a five-part ur-arc (if we get Prisoners back so the first arc is valid again, and if I get off my [censored] and get the next few working to my satisfaction). But, one of my standing design principles in writing the chapters is that each one (outside probably the last) should stand strongly enough of its own. The feeling that this is ultimately satisfying but there's more you want to know is exactly what I'm going for, so I'm really glad that's what you got.

(And if you want heavily overpowered, you should have fought them back when the minions used Claws. Thanks to the stacking defense debuffs, my Willpower tank lasted about 10 seconds. The dominator shouldn't have any problems with them, as none of them has any sort of mez protection beyond the rank inherent.)

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at times, the dialogue feels like it's filling in to a word-count, and leaves an NPC saying things just for the sake of saying things

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Hmm, is there anywhere in particular that jumps to mind? I wanted most of the NPC text to work towards characterizing the hero team (assuming that's where you're talking), but if it's breaking the flow, it's not important enough to keep.

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there are other points where the compass text - the bane of mission architect arcs everywhere - gets weird.

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Grr, I could have sworn I tweaked that. I'll keep fighting with it.

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keeping itself to a level range, it makes the work feel appropriate to that level range.

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That's a major pet peeve of mine I keep running into with Architect arcs. It's extremely flow-breaking to jump around from combat range to combat range, and if it's not properly explained, it stabs immersion right through the heart.

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Like a good arc in a comic book, I wanted to see what happened and was glad to see it from the side I saw it.

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Awesome, then the arc did everything it was supposed to do. Thanks for playing it, and I'm overjoyed that you liked it.

Just a note, it won't save height settings (those aren't stored as part of the costume). For that, you'll have to eyeball it.

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Me and my small cadre of game designer wannabe friends have discussed possible solutions before and we seemed to center in around adding passive regen to both sets.

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Specifically, I wanted to see some added to the passives, making them a little more valuable (Grounded is okay, since it offers ElA its Knock protection, but the EA passives are still a little too weak).

As for CP, on top of its current stats, I've been thinking that it could either get another regen bonus, or it offer either Defense or Resistance, depending on the set. EA would get Resistance, and ElA Defense. It offers some extra mitigation, but it won't stack to a point that it becomes a second Tier 9.

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When creating custom mobs, my goal is to create multiple, interdependant threats. If you take out the healing mob, the damage mob is free to pummel you. If the damage mob is attacked first, the healer will be free to heal.

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I find those are always the most interesting groups to fight. Consider Malta - every archetype has a specific enemy they beeline for. Squishies hate Spec Ops, as their stun grenades last a ridiculous amount of time. Tanks and Scrappers who aren't Defense-based hate Sappers, since they're susceptible to having all of their endurance drained and their toggles dropped. Defense-based characters hate Gunslingers, who have a high chance to hit that no amount of Defense can negate.

Including a potential Kryptonite for everyone into your enemy groups can make for a fun group, as long as you don't go overboard.

I guess I'll throw my hat into the ring, either for Talen or anyone else who's looking for something to play.

Author: NeverDark
Level Range: 35-40(ish)
Subject: A routine mission to stop an Arachnos thief uncovers a mad plot to restore a supervillain to his former glory!
5923 - If At First You Don't Succeed

Author: NeverDark
Level Range: 20-29
Subject: Aid Rebecca Hurst in swatting a pesky hero problem with an undead fly swatter.
12034 - To Live In Infamy

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The Bad:
* Really drags in the second and fourth missions. I ran from end of end of that Zig map three times looking for Trucco but couldn't find him. Finally just picked a high spot and scanned the area while hitting Tab until I spotted the Riot Leader, who from a distance looks like all the other prisoners. Maybe add some inactive dialog to him so that of the off chance the player runs past him they have a better chance of noticing him.

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Hrmm, he's supposed to have some inactive dialogue. I'll make sure that it's not in the wrong text box. And I was afraid that the nav bar text would be a little too confusing. That'll need touching up too.

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* Glowy hunts in outdoor maps, especially that ruined city map, get old fast. Spent several minutes looking for bosses, hostages, and glowies until finally one ended the mission. Found it just before I quit the arc out of frustration.

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Yeah, I was afraid about that mission, too. I'll turn down the number of glowies and try to make the objective a bit more clear. Unfortunately, there aren't any other ruined maps I can use, though I would like one.

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The Confusing:
* Who the heck was the orange-eyed policeman supposed to be?

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A hook for a later arc. Eventually I'm make sure they're clearly linked in their descriptions, but for now I want to make sure they stand strong on their own.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad the rest of the arc worked nicely, and you did confirm a few of my fears.

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Arc Name: MacGuffin Delivery Service
Arc ID: 1567
Faction: Family, Tsoo, Circle of Thorns, Carnies, Freakshow, Council, Paragon Police
Morality: Villainous
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.
Estimated Time to Play: 30-45 minutes

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Just added to my queue. I'll get to it a little later tonight.

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Arc Name: Bananas About Hamlet
Arc ID: 48619
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global: @Scalpel
Difficulty Level: Easy to Moderate
Synopsis: This is my first attempt at mission creation, so I tried for a short, amusing story about the Rikti attempt to use a bunch of monkeys to write a great work of literature. It's a short, single mission, with a boss fight at the end.
Estimated time to play: 5-15 minutes


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This is a nicely clever mission. I really like the idea you've got going, and Horatio's dialogue is perfect. The only problem I ran into was that I just couldn't complete it; I cleared the entire warehouse, but I apparently still hadn't defeated everything. It looked like something odd with the ambushes. Check all the triggers on those, and make sure they're working properly, or you may have to take them out (I hope not, as I see what you were trying to do). Otherwise, I loved. It was just the right length to keep the joke funny.

Arc Name: If At First You Don't Succeed
Arc ID: 5923
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global: @NeverDark
Difficulty Level: Low/Moderate
Synopsis: A routine mission to stop an Arachnos thief uncovers a mad plot to restore a supervillain to his former glory!
Estimated time to play: 30-60 minutes

I've made some enormous changes from beta, and I really want to make sure the story flows properly and there aren't any glaring plot holes. The last mission especially needs to be perfect.

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I wonder what a fixed Fleeting is like...

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Unable to have children?

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I suspect a lot of people still don't know about the Ninjitsu bug.

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That's the big problem I'm running into. There have been three arcs now that I've had to quit early because I couldn't take down one Ninjitsu Lt. I can't say "make the enemies a different powerset" because the set clearly fits the concept (say, a spy-esque KoA-style group), but I can't finish the arc to rate it. Hopefully that gets fixed very, very quickly.

Err, exactly how would you like them to be different? They're unlike TFs in the sense that you can add and drop people in the same way as normal missions. The only thing they share with TFs is that everyone on the team can read the clues, instead of just the leader.

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The last several times I was on test, I noticed that the story arc icon had changed and been replaced by a green book. Am I crazy? What does the green book mean?

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According to a friend, it's a new icon to denote a zone arc, seemingly.


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Specifically, I noticed that I only had it on Sister Arlia, the Pilgrim, and Senator Decimus Aquila. I assume that the only thing in common between them is being a zone-arc contact.

Reposted for live!

Arc Name: If At First You Don't Succeed
Arc ID: 5923
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @NeverDark
Difficulty Level: Medium/Low
Synopsis: A routine mission to stop an Arachnos thief uncovers a mad plot to restore a supervillain to his former glory!
Estimated Time to Play: 30 mins to an hour

It's changed quite a bit from beta, so please let me know how everything works out. Thanks!

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for 5 years, give them a plaque....in "their" base, nuff said.

[/ QUOTE ] You know that's the argument most of us alternate reward idea people hold right. Let TT have a reward on their server...

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I have no problem at all with this if this is the only reason for not having a plaque. Make it server specific.

I'm guessing this is also Bill's problem/proposes solution as well with a plaque?

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Were that possible, I think there would be far, far less debate over this. There would then be debates over what plaques should be on other servers instead.

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If you create the "Penguins of Mayhem" and write good stories and get players to play and vote, the penguins by definition are now part of City lore.

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This is not true, or at least has never been stated to be true. Even Hall of Fame and Dev's Choice arcs are still bound by the rules of the Architect system, and thus are not part of the CoX canon. The only possible option to get your story added to canon would be to write something so spectacular that NC hires you as a writer, and then convince Posi and the gang to wedge your story in along with the story they're already planning to put in place.

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Also it should be on a loading tip.

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Now that's an idea I can get behind. It's still significant recognition, but it stays in the metagame.

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Would any of that effect your opinion?

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Samuel_Tow
An article in the City Scoop, special forum titles for the organisers, a spot in the game news or some such would be a lot more appropriate

[/ QUOTE ]Sam has it right. Any of those things are far better than a plaque in the game world.

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This, exactly. Should TT be recognized? Absolutely. But not this way.

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There's one that I've been looking for, but strongly suspect isn't there- it's the office one with the thick green debuffing fog that you do a ghost mission in in Croatoa. Is it around and I'm just missing it, or is it not in the editor?

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Is it the debuffing fog specifically that you're looking for, or just the map?

If the latter, it should be under the Unique maps tab. If the former, I don't think it's available. I'm pretty sure the fog is a specially spawned entity that players don't get access to, rather than a piece of the map.