Red_Raccoon

The police station map is available in AE and does not need to be unlocked (unless they've changed this). I originally used that map when I designed my first AE mission shortly after release, and it was definitely there.

I'm still good, the escorts in the boss objectives are all non-custom groups like Longbow etc. My custom group only appear as the individual boss objectives themselves--yes, even the lieutenants, who represent the "lower ranks" of the superhero group that the villains need to cull as they work their way up to the tougher opponents.

So no, once you take out McAwesome-Lad, you won't later run into Captain McAwesome surrounded by 3 clones of McAwesome-Lad. The good Captain will just have to rely on his Longbow cannon fodder instead.

Cool, then I should be good, since my custom enemies only appear as boss objectives, never as random spawns.

Hmm, I created a villain story arc that involves existing groups such as Longbow and the Paragon Police. However, I also created a custom group of superheroes that need to be defeated throughout the arc. All the heroes in this group are lieutenants or higher. They all appear in the arc as unique set encounters, always placed on a map that includes regular spawns of Longbow and Police.

Would this arc be affected by the change? Will the heroes get reduced XP because their group has no minions (even though minions aplenty belonging to other groups appear on the same map?) If so, would adding token minions to the custom group solve the issue, even if those minions aren't included in the arc?

I guess I'm not too concerned about it, but some of the hero bosses in that arc are a bit tough and it seems a shame if their XP isn't even up to par.

I use it when I solo with my AR/devices blaster, but as others have said, its not so useful on teams (except in the middle of a Rikti invasion).

The best use I ever found for it was when I was in Perez park working on the Kil Skulz badge for my blaster. I would just walk into the middle of a large spawn of Skulls (I was too high level to aggro them), drop a time bomb, walk away, and watch the whole group get blown up. I'm ashamed to admit it was stupidly fun and I got the badge long before I got bored of doing it.

Does the "debt" show up as blue? If so, that's not debt, that's patrol XP. You get an XP bonus for it, not a penalty.

I play on Justice and Champion pretty much weekly. I also play on Guardian on a fairly regular basis, though probably not quite every week.

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The idea is pretty cool in theory, and I appreciate that they wanted to create an appropriate mood. But the reality of navigating a zone with near zero visibility is just plain obnoxious.

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follow the roads.

or if you fly/teleport, go straight up to the ceiling box and then bee line it to your destination.

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Both are useful suggestions, but neither will eliminate (only reduce) the possiblility of smacking into obstacles, especially for teleporters. Like most zones, the roads in Astoria don't just follow straight, endless gridlines, but often end in T intersectons faced by a wall or building, or else will curve around obstacles and terrain features. And some elevated roads have collapsed sections that terminate abruptly, a real treat for the unexpecting super speeder.

As for just flying or teleporting over everything, I discovered an interesting tidbit by trying just that -- some of the buildings in Astoria extend all the way up to the altitude limit! So even teleporting along the zone ceiling may still end with you materializing face-first into an office window.

And don't get me starting on accidentally running into a huge spawn of baddies I didn't know were there. Or worse, hunt missions where I'm looking for mobs I can't locate.

Astoria is tolerable with a flying hero, and not too bad with a super-jumper either. But just very annoying with a superspeeder and just miserable with a teleporter.

Dark Astoria, definitely.

The idea is pretty cool in theory, and I appreciate that they wanted to create an appropriate mood. But the reality of navigating a zone with near zero visibility is just plain obnoxious.

I think instead they should have made Astoria a zone of eternal night time rather than fog. Or just restricted the fog to certain "especially mysterious" areas of the zone.

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So...you'd rather be stuck up than give some easy directions? I'm sure you're doing something important in Pocket D after all...

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I'd rather people put forth the minimal amount of effort required to learn such a basic aspect of the interface themselves.

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is it so hard to tell them to open their map? it's not like you have to hold their hand, but I guess it's cause I see no real problem w/ helping people regardless...

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Is it so hard for them to look and see the word "map" on their interface and figure out to open it themselves? I have no problem with helping people, either. I have a problem with encouraging laziness.

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I admit I had trouble finding my way out of Pocket D the first time I went there (via the VIP pass). The map was not especially helpful. Sure, the locations of the zone exits are shown--but you need to take an elevator to get to the section where the exits are, which is something the map doesn't tell you. Although the elevator doors themselves aren't hard to find, they are much bigger than the other elevator doors encountered in the game and can be mistaken for simply a metallic wall section by a newcomer.

Of course, now when I go to Pocket D, I'm amazed that I ever got lost there. I swear the place seems x4 smaller than it did on my first visit. It's a reminder to me how something that seems simple and intuitive once it becomes familiar can actually be bewildering to a fresh observer.

I'd like to add one thing, in case it wasn't clear (it certainly wasn't clear to me when I started playing this game last January).

A lot of contacts will send you to talk to someone else in a different zone--the first time it may be Dave Wincott in the Hollows, later contacts will often send you to see the liason officers for a PVP zone or the security officers for a hazard zone. Now, here is where it confused me: I thought this meant the contact had no missions for me. After all, if he/she had something for me to do, why send me to someone else, right?

Wrong. I missed out on a lot of early missions because of this assumption. The "talk to someone else in another zone" is sort of a mini mission in itself. Once you talk to the person they send you to, you can come back and the contact will usually have more missions for you, possibly even a whole story arc for you to complete. The point of sending you to other zones is the developers' way of making sure you learn the existence of those other zones and the things you can do there. It doens't meant the contact is trying to get rid of you! It was over a month before I understood this.

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Add me to the list of people who likes to click the power buttons. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one either. Maybe it isn't the most optimal way to do it, but it's what I'm comfortable with and I seem to do just fine, so why change? Don't feel you have to force yourself to change.

I have a friend who was suprised to find I click the buttons and said I should use the number keys. But I watched him playing once and it didn't seem like he fired off his powers any faster or easier than I do. I never noticed a difference when teaming with him, either.

The only real problem I have with it is that sometimes I'm too frantic and I'll click a button while the mouse is still moving. Instead of activating a power, it'll move the button to another place in the tray. Seems very sensitive about that. But with practice I'm getting better at avoiding that.

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In the options menu, you can lock the powers in your tray.

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Thanks. I didn't know that. I'm sure it will come in very handy.

Add me to the list of people who likes to click the power buttons. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one either. Maybe it isn't the most optimal way to do it, but it's what I'm comfortable with and I seem to do just fine, so why change? Don't feel you have to force yourself to change.

I have a friend who was suprised to find I click the buttons and said I should use the number keys. But I watched him playing once and it didn't seem like he fired off his powers any faster or easier than I do. I never noticed a difference when teaming with him, either.

The only real problem I have with it is that sometimes I'm too frantic and I'll click a button while the mouse is still moving. Instead of activating a power, it'll move the button to another place in the tray. Seems very sensitive about that. But with practice I'm getting better at avoiding that.

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Did you hammer on the console of the Millenium Falcon as you said it?


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No, but when I saw all the enemies waiting to kill us, I did swing around in my swivel chair and cried "it's a trap!"

I did give Willpower to one of my custom mobs, I may remove it and see it that helps.

I may also need to space out the spawns a bit, but I imagine that's probably a matter of picking different maps. Spawns that are simply too close together on solo suddenly morph into one huge spawn when played with a group. I tried my arc with some SG mates last night, and the first room was just absolutely full of enemies. I believe we were looking at 3 different spawns, but there was literally no telling where one left off and the other began. I think my buddies were ready to kill me, despite my pleas that "it's not my fault!"

I created a custom enemy group for a mission arc and I noticed that the mobs from this group have an unusually high aggro range. I used a standard group in the same arc and the difference is very noticeable. What makes it worse is that on a couple of my mission maps, the spawns tend to get placed rather close together. Combined with the large aggro range, I found it's very easy to end up fighting 2 or 3 spawns at once.

I didn't see an option for adjusting the perception of custom mobs. Is there a way to do this?