PumBumbler

Heh, that was my topic. If it's an enemy, I want to copy Powerforge's method to force the the bad guy AV/EB to spawn at 50 instead of 52.

Well I think I read the parent post that got deleted this morning, and while it was inflammatory to a degree, I felt it was well written with serious thought put into it.

In a sense it wasn't too far off the other topic that got locked up the other day. I wonder what the point of having a forum like this is if people can't discuss issues that they feel are important to them.

Granted, the discussions can get heated, and various colourful verbiage might get tossed around, but what's the alternative? Just quietly seethe and not be able to work things out?

I didn't think any of the ToS/rules were violated other than the use of some multisyllabic words.

Is the AV an ally or an enemy? Is it published so I can see?

[ QUOTE ]
Any creative use of letters, numbers, and symbols to bypass the filter is a punishable offense.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic with a sig like that.

Too bad you can't use the capital i in place of the lowercase L for it since it wouldn't show up in searches.

I was hoping it would be clientside with validation serverside on publish. Happy bday stever.

Although it is in violation of the TOS, has anyone gone through the .pigg files to find out the verboten word list yet?

And yes, I have bugged this issue.

OK, so I've got mission 3 of my arc 53420, balanced upon the unavailability of anything less than a 52-52 character. Since that NPC is central to my arc, all mobs in the mission turn out to be a whopping 52, regardless of difficulty.

So I have to balance the mission so someone on heroic level can finish the EB in it, especially a non-uber hopped up toon. I put in some allies (40-54) which were up to the task of helping out. Since the last boss is supposed to be epic, it wasn't a stretch that the signature allies couldn't beat the boss by themselves but you could help tip the scales. I would have preferred the mission to be set at level 50 so the PLAYER could be more of a decisive factor, but since the NPC was 52-52 que sera sera.

Ally NPCs conned pink, EB conned pink, you get to contribute. Not the biggest deal, right? BZZT. Wrong.

Since the latest patch to MA, my allies con pink (level 52) just like they did before. Until you rescue them. Then they auto exemp from 52 EBs to 50 EBs. Now you get to face down the uber end Boss who has spawned with 3 or 4 52 Bosses as well. Your 'signature' allies can barely face down the surrounding Bosses, let alone the EB who proceeds to tear you and your allies a brand new orifice.

The 'auto-exemp' is either a bug, or a bait-and-switch. Now without knowing that this issue has been thrown into the MA during the patch, I merrily dismissed the reports that the mission was tough...I knew it was tough when I wrote it, but I had spent a lot of time balancing it out so it wouldn't be a player-kill fest. Which it is now.

I'm not surprised that people would rage quit my arc and possibly 1 or 0 star it. It's turned from a carefully balanced arc that a decently SO'd 50 could play to an exercise in cruel and unusual punishment, even for purpled toons. It might as well be from Arcana's scrapper challenge (no disrespect intended).

So now I'm mad because people who have referred my arc as being fun are now looking bad for duping people into a horrible arc they cannot finish. I can barely patch or fix anything to change the balance since:

A) the Story is highly integrated. Yanking and pulling out stuff is going to massively change the NPC text throughout the mission. To do so without knowing whether another patch/change/nerf will fix/change/destroy the balance again would be masochistic.

B) my Arc is sitting at 99.34% of the file size. Adding a single ally with 5 characters in the name is all I can do before it gives me a warning that I am overlimit. So I could try and rebalance the arc with a 52-52AV thrown in just to allow the player to finish the mission, which would have no text or description on why they are thrown in, and make the player feel even less of a participant in their arc. Nuh uh, I've already had to work with everything being +2, this would be even more ludicrous.

I look like a jerk because I have just told people, 'you just have to figure out how to approach it,' not knowing that it is basically a Kobayashi Maru scenario.

Now I understand the devs are working hard to make the system as good as it can be. I understand that there are changes that will break things as well. But for heaven's sake, can we get a decent patch notes system so that people know what the heck will be broken BEFORE we find out from the players of our arcs?

Already people have noted that there are missing maps, emotes and HTML text length issues that prevented previously published missions from being played. But this is even more insidious when existing missions that are publishable are punishing the players because of balance issues.

I would like to get a clarification on what is going on with this auto-exemp ally issue. Will players now be screwed thinking that they get to Rescue their +2 ally to help only to see that ally con orange when they auto exemp to the same level as the player as soon as the ally is 'active'?

Is it a bug that's going to be fixed?

Right now the only thing I can do is put a huge warning not to play that arc because it is [censored]. I can't unpublish or suspend my arc without losing the ratings or arc ID. I've gotten lots of excellent feedback from the original arc before the patch, including some that had suggested it be Dev Choiced, but now it is basically unplayable.

PS. apparently you can't even use the word 'regent' in the ally name because it is copyrighted. So you can't even name a boss 'Regent Korol' even though you can use the NPC toon.

Sounds like pvp to me.

Welcome to the MA pvp! I can't wait for those people to protest when changes are made to star ratings.

You should never have to unpublish an arc unless it was suspended due to complaints.

The only time you have to unpublish is when you want to put another arc in the 3 slots you have, or that the arc is not in a playable state and you don't want it played (publishable but not considered to be playable).

You can always edit your arc after it is published and as long as there are no errors, republish it and it will keep its arc ID and ratings.

Your original premise is valid though. Arcs that are rendered non-playable should be flagged so the author can fix the problems quickly.

The OP has a Mac Pro, and not a laptop. The desktop towers can be pretty demanding when you have 8 cores demanding to fed with data, hence larger heat spreaders.

The MacBook Pro that you are referring to is an entirely different beast.

There has been an extreme correlation noted between the people who have signed up for this and the meow mission participants.

Everyone who has signed up, please report to the nearest detention center for vaporization. Attendance is not optional.

No I didn't...not completely anyhow.

[ QUOTE ]
I forgot to add,



Ma wasn't really intended when the game came out, so they can probably scrap it. It was shoehorned in and really requires to much work that may have an adverse effect on pve. They are better off removing it and leaving it for other games that it fits in better.




Man its awesome throwing this stuf back at people. I will be back as I think of more!

[/ QUOTE ]

Can I has my i3 back? I'm not even a pvper and I think the i13 revamp stunk.

I always thought that throwing stuff on the back of people was more cho's job...

Nope, not currently.

Heh, somehow my global got renamed to opprime28.

Seriously though, I could not have said it better myself. Somehow grief starring others seems like an acceptable method to keep your 5 star cartels going, and now the Gang War nerf.

The only difference between you and me, op, is that my arc was published. And instead of unpublishing it and losing my arc # and ratings, I've got to put in a disclaimer saying that if you are squishy, quit now because Gang War, which is a central part of one mission but supposed to be light hearted and funny, is now some fight to the death hair pulling tooth-gnashing session.

Minions before, bosses today. All for a bunch of guys who pop out and grant no xp. Devs please fix.

And oh yah, don't make maps go poof. And stop bloating my arcs with default text boxes that go 'over limit.'

I don't have an issue with the massive and fast xp gain per se, but I do have an issue with players who don't know how to play the game and being given a high level toon.

This is what the MA farms/meows/PLs have given us. While it is great to have new blood coming in, the problem is that when you allow someone to play the same mission over and over again and rapidly gain levels, there is zero encouragement to learn about their powers, the enemies or the game mechanics or background.

The level system is there to encourage players to learn about the game and how to use their powers in an appropriate fashion. When you have a massive influx of players, it will be difficult for the rest of the population to absorb them. By absorbing, I mean to help them along in making them productive and informed citizens of Paragon/Rogue Isles.

By allowing the existing scheme to continue, you will just put the experienced players at odds with the inexperienced newbs. While there is a certain segment of those players who will get up to speed quickly, it usually takes more experienced players to help them along. If you overwhelm the experienced players, there will be many inexperienced players 'left behind'. Those players will be marginalized and will not understand how to build their toons or how to get the most out of this game.

I think the holes should be closed and an alternate method given to players who have many 50s and have a lot of experience in making toons and have done the same content over and over again. Perhaps there should be a way to 'bank' or 'buy' levels such that experienced players can skip levels using influence/infamy/tickets/merits etc.

As an aside, I've farmed some of these 'meows' and have noticed many issues with new players not knowing what to do. One thing I noticed from no fewer than 3 different fire controllers is placing their bonfire on top of a densely herded mob. Now most of the time it was masked by the stacked -kb of my ice controller, but it's happened often enough that I've seen tornadoes and bonfires scattering mobs nilly willy from inexperienced players. They were leveling so fast that they didn't know/care what the powers did or meant. What will they be like on their first Rikti Mothership raid? Will they quit in frustration? Will they just give up? How well will they be seen as reliable allies on TFs, Hamis etc.?

Will other players now look at badge counts as being an indicator of a good player? I think this easy xp is going to have ramifications outside of the meow mishes personally.

Yah I've got this bug too on my arc 109841...everyone thought I was doing some kind of exploit to get Posi to lay about.

[ QUOTE ]
Guess MA did one thing, it sure does show the average person how difficult it is to make a custom group thats fun for more than one group type

[/ QUOTE ]

One method of testing mob difficulty is to benchmark them against developer mobs. An easy way of doing this is stage battles in a mission and watch the outcomes. Do this with about a dozen battles and you'll start spotting trends. Maybe your Lt. or Boss dominates the battle. Perhaps a particular power is causing lots of trouble, or not firing off at all.

If your mob is consistently wiping vanguard, longbow, malta and rikti, you might be overpowering them. Ideally you want to make them win 50% of the time, or win/lose a battle with only a minion or Lt. left. Adding and removing mobs and or powersets and difficulty settings will allow you to tailor your mob such that it feels close to standard developer mobs.

My arc 53420 has a mission that can be quite difficult. One of the missions has a boss that is near impossible to solo. I've balanced it by making sure there are enough allies sprinkled across the map such that a solo defender could do it by collecting the various allies.

You can up the challenge by refusing to rescue any/some of the on map allies and take on the big boss by yourself or just your group.

The boss was benchmarked against Black Scorpion, Ghost Widow and Lord Recluse, and fits right in between GW and LR for difficulty.

Storywise, the arc is directed toward a post-patron arc villain, preferably 50. It has been finished on all challenge levels as well.

PS. Just remember that many (if not all) missions should auto sk/exemp for mission architect, and that post 35 groups can gather in RWZ so you can co-op the story arcs as well.

Here.

I'm not sure how far it will get you though, without some extreme level of promotion. I've noticed that when my arcs hit 5-stars, they quickly get hit with a 0 or 1 star rating and fall back to 4 stars. Promoting a story arc shouldn't be more important than creating a good story arc, or trying to protect it from arc griefing.

Basically the system as it stands is a 4-star and below ghetto and no one will play them, since there evidently is a lot of competition for people to try to get HoF or DC and they'll do anything to keep others from getting it if they think there's a chance that hurting someone else will increase their odds. The only 5-star rated ones are ones that get voted up by friends or coalitions to keep their own arcs rated highly and 'played' more often.

However, this issue isn't limited to CoH. Notice how much advertising goes into junk products, bad movies and blah albums? Real creative talent never gets the same chance to get recognition.

I think it is. It seems to be when either the team lead has invited people who have not quit the MA (logging or DC) and then there are too many people for the mission.

Other problems may be when people have started their own MA and get invited to another MA, I've seen instances where team mates have locked up loading, not been able to enter the mission (they have no waypoint indicator) and multiple instances of the same mission (half the team is on one and half on the other).

Generally all of the above issues have been fixed by everyone abandoning the MA/TF and starting over, sometimes with a new leader.

I think that the new paragraph fields in the character bios is broken since i14. If you had a character with nice spacing between paragraphs, don't edit your bio, simply going into the editor will remove the paragraph spacing. Additionally, you cannot seem to enter any line breaks into your character descriptions now. This is PC side, I'm not sure if there are extra bugs in the mac side which may have been introduced in i14.

This also includes the use of <br> tags.