TheHangedMan

This would be nice

Samples of the writing so I can make sure its not tossed together in 5 minutes

NPC example so I can see the quality and power listing

Comments from people who played it

The final results were

1) Malta Group +21
2) Carnies +13
3) Vanguard -11
4) Cimer-somethings -23

Watching the fights the Storm Elementals and Knives of Artemis were the next most powerful groups.

Vangaurd and the Cimer-somethings had a problem because at least one boss in their faction was being left out by the random boss function

A Group
Carnies +18
Crey +4
Arachnoids -22

B Group
Malta +11
Knives of Artemis +7
Dominatrix Followers -18

C Group
Cimer-somethings +24
Nightstar Androis -24
** The Random Boss function made both Cimer factions the same

D Group
Vanguard +11
Storm Elementals +2
Snakes -13
Nightstar Androis -24
** The Random Boss function made both Vanguard factions the same

Finals Round (1 pt per Boss left standing , 4 fights of 3 vs 3)
Carnies 5 Malta 5
Carnies 11 Cimer 3
Carnies 8 Van 3
Malta 11 Vanguard 0
Malta 10 Cimer 0
Vanguard 7 Cimer 0

One of the more interesting things coming from this is that many people claiming to "farm" are actually grinding. If you look at the missions they create they are using custom groups which are harder than the basic NPC groups . Sometimes the NPC group they pick from existing groups is one of the harder ones. If you are looking for the most reward for the least danger then groups like Prisoners, Winter Horder, Bobcat's followers or Malaises Lunatics are all very weak for good XP.

Something else I noticed is two of the toughest groups are COV groups. A new villain player can easily run into snake bosses and Legacy Chain Bosses with a much higher risk of a team wipe. Perhaps that discourages some people away from COV-side.

After the first round I am down to 12 groups. 11 slots were decided by a round robin between 3 teams with 4 fights of 3 boss vs 3 boss using the MA. Cobras won the 1-54 bracket so they got a free pass to round II . Best possible score is +24 meaning every boss lived and defeated every boss fought. Worst would be -24 (lost every fight and defeated no one)

Group A
Arachnoids +23
Carnies +24
Crey +24

Group B
Diabolique +10
Knives Artemis +24
Malta +19

Group C
Nightstar +13
Cim Traitor +12
Cim +12

Group D
Storm Elementals +23
Vanguard +24
Cobra (won 1-54 bracket)


Carebear Hall of Shame
Axis America -23 (vs Battle Maiden and Arachnoids)
Bobcat Followers -24 (vs Carnies and Black Swan)
Malaise Lunatics -24 (vs Infernal Demons and Knives of Artemis)

I may run these three later just to see who the worst bosses are in the high end.

The idea is to combine powers from different powers into a set that can be chosen for custom critters.

Dual Blades - Weakness
1) Nimble Slash
2) Ablating Strike
3) Typhoon's Edge
4) Throwing Knives

Elemental Powers (Earth, Air, Fire, Water)
1) Stone Mallet
2) Tornado
3) Fire Blast
4) Frozen Fists

TP Foe Set
1) Caltrops
2) Mines
3) TP Foe (target mine)
4) Throwing Knives

Fly Like a Rock
1) Web Nade
2) Tp Foe (Up)
3) TP Foe(Up)
4) Throwing Knives

Generic Thug
1) Boxing
2) Kick
3) Pistol
4) Empty Clips

These power sets would only be standard

I think most devices are a tactical power which does not go well at all with a generic AI script. In addition Devices cuts the damage nearly in half for custom critters which is a huge drop.

Web Nades should only be used on tanks, scrappers, targets with movement powers or under 20% health

Taser should be used in combination with a snipe attack so the snipe attack would go off before the taser wears off

Mines or Time Bombs should only be placed if targets are immobilized or slowed (in combination with caltrops)

Obviously the current pattern of doing every attack in order never checking the situation will not work well with devices.

Last night on the test server I ran some tests on the Custom Critter Blaster Secondary Sets on standard level . The only set that stood out was Devices. It was extremely weak. No matter what ranged attack it was paired with, the Devices Blasters got creamed.

The 45 bracket is giant because I bought all the optional enemies with my tickets. I did get a chance tonight to use my roadmap and it worked very well.

I stopped making arcs and focused on playing them with PUGs of 6-8 people. I have been using the time to chart out which bosses are the most dangerous so I can pick missions based on how good or incompetent people in my group are. I avoid custom groups because there is no way to tell how difficult player made custom NPCs are. If you have a high play count instead of a high post count you know that this is important because of the team wipe / phony excuse quit with PUGs.

Level 30 Groups (no level 45 Bosses) Bracket Round Robin Style

Group A
Cabal
Fir Bolg
Legacy Chain

Group B
Midnight Squad
Prisoner
Rogue Robot

Group C
Scrapyarder
Sky Raider
Slag Golem

Group D
Lost
Tsoo
Wyvern

Round 1
Legacy Chain(Tellus of Earth) won Group A
Midnight Squad won Group B 24-0
Scrapyarder (Foreman) won Group C 24-0
Lost won Group D by 1 over Tsoo

Second Round - Round Robin Style
Legacy Chain (Tellus of Earth)
Scrapyarder (Foreman)
Midnight Squad
Lost

The Legacy Chain squashed everyone else winning 3 matches by 31-3. The Earth Tellus Boss has holds, pets, knockback attacks and armor. Just for fun I ran the Legacy Chain against the Cobras and Shivans. The Shivans were also squashed 12-0 while the Cobras lost 7-3.

The Prisoners were clearly the weakest bosses in this bracket. Their bosses are built very similar to the Spetznatz who did very poorly in earlier test fights.

Second Set of Matches was NPC groups who have level 15 Bosses but do not have level 30 Bosses. This was a battle of the beginner groups.

Round 1
Vahilzok 9 Warriors 2
Trolls 10 Spetznatz 0, Trolls get a pass for best score
Shivans 4 Spectral Pirates 3
Outcasts 9 Mooks 3
Luddites 8 Minions of Igneous 3
Gold Brickers 8 Clocks 2
Banished Pantheon 6 Minions of Batzuul 3

Round 2
Shivans 6 Vahilzok 5
Luddites defeated Outcasts in a Tie Breaker
Banished Pantheon 6 Gold Brickers 1
Trolls get a free Pass

Round 3
Banished Pantheon 6 Luddite 4
Shivans 5 Trolls 2

Round 4
Shivans 9 Banished Pantheon 3

The Goldbricker Bosses were the only NPCS I have seen so far that can actually escape fights. For every other Boss so far fleeing is futile.

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I've noticed that in battle spawns, one side has more enemies and higher ranks in it's spawn than the other. Unfortunately, your battles were skewed towards whoever was in the slot that spawns the most.

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That can be fixed. If you change your difficulty setting to the lowest level, pick the right map, and then create custom factions using the random boss spawn then its always 3 on 3. I have a special saved MA mission just for this. I also use a third group to lock in the level I want for the fight.

Freakshow tanks reply - The Council and the 5th Column both have Warwolf transformation similar to Freakshow Tank Rez. Rez is not a factor against a competent opponent the same way the Rez is not a factor against a competent team or soloist. Rez almost always happens after the battle has been decided. 5th Column got a few extra kills with War Wolves against Arachnos Boss NPCs. The Council War Wolves got the stuffing beat out of them by the Hydra Tentacle Bosses when they spawned.

Two reasons for doing this. The first is because its fun. The second is knowing which groups are the hardest and easiest. If the PUG I am leading doesn't have a good balance I can switch to the easier groups. If people complain and say the missions are too easy then I can pick a harder group.

When I finish I will have a road map from level 1 to 50 for running PUGs using the basic NPC groups.

Left side would have a picture of a minion, LT, and boss from the default NPC group from the first missions. The middle would have the mission test for the first missions. The right side would have a list of up to 5 critiques that the user could save or after receiving the e-mail. This would show the person looking at missions some sample NPC costumes, sample text, and some opinions from other people. This would help someone decide if the mission is one they would want to play.

Which Bosses are the roughest to fight? I created a MA mission with a large open area. In this mission there were 5 fights between two groups of bosses. The two sides were the random boss spawn for the group (no minions or lts). Then I counted the survivors. The most survivors won the fight.

For the first fights I used groups which list over a wide range of levels like Arachnos or Longbow

First Round
Arachnos 6 5th Column 5
Tuatha 10 Winter Horde 0
Snakes 11 Paragon Police 0
Longbow 7 Nictus 3
Hydra 7 Council 3
Rogue Island Police 8 Cage Consortium 1
Family 7 Security Guards 2

Second Round
Snakes get a pass for best round 1
Arachnos 9 Tuatha 0
Hydra 5 Longbow 2
RIP 6 Family 5

Third Round
Snakes 11 Arachnos 0
Hydra 6 RIP 5

Final Round
Snakes 6 Hydra 2

Most Dangerous Bosses
Cobra (Snakes)
Giant Tentacle (Hydra)
Deadly Ripper (RIP)

Least Effective were the Paragon PD and the Winter Horde who got slaughtered.

If your PUG is auto-leveled by the MA it eliminates one hassle of leading a group. However some groups are way too tough for characters who do not have advance powers. So search for missions with the NPC groups who appear on the next set of levels above you.

If your group has the levels to fight Trolls then move up to Sky Raiders or Freakshow. If your team is from 8-12 then move up to the 15-25 mission range. This will keep your players from getting bored and will save you from playing SK matchmaker or dealing with people who refuse to SK.

Then you can focus on the more typical PUG leader issues like today when the primary healer's child decided it was time for number two in the middle of a huge ambush.

10 Arcs with PUGs this weekend for 5000 tickets (Started level 10 finished at level 18)

Started off with Shivans mission 202147, was fun

Shivans

Next was Source of Corruption with Evil Longbow, this had some good fights

Evil Longbow

Then we did Hobo Haven 163806 which had the largest Hobo Fight ever
So Many Hobos!

Then we put the Fuher's Brain on ice which had lots of Fifth Column and a Cyborg with an evil brain. The Cyborg with the evil brain had the best boss chat of the missions we did.

Brainknapping with the 5th
Take that disembodied Brain!

Then we turned to the Sky Raiders and Bell's Plot 133164 which had an interesting mix of NPCs

Bell's Plot

Then we did the Bunnies mission where they had captured their rivals in the Golden Angels. One of my team mates had to flee for their lives with an army of bunnies chasing them and I laughed to hard that I could not type in commands and died.

Bunnies! Nooooo

We tried to do Pharoah's Curse which had a real Indiana Jones look to it but a few bugs in the MA with multi part missions and crashed team mates stopped us. The bugs were in the MA not the mission. The mission looked cool and had the best look and feel of the missions we did.

Next we did a mission to stop the Sky Raiders Menace. This was the Skyway map filled with NPCs. My team threatened me when I suggested someone should fill the map with Tsoo Socerors . This was good xp and you can try to knock robots off the bridges at the same time you make them explode.

Sky Raiders in Skyway

Last but not least was the Stop the Show 182456, which had the best team XP and got several compliments.

freakshow

Its not insulting, its accurate. Like your habit of posting opinions as facts with no supporting arguments . Then acting like everyone should accept it because you say so. Like that whole "blueside is redundant because I think it is" nonsense you posted.

Many people who post here do not read the entire post .They read just enough of the post to find something to complain about. Thats why you have the Open Letter to Open Letter crapfest and very few threads which are intelligent discussions of current game issues.

I know. I posted an entire paragraph . Then I expected the Playskool Cartel to pay attention long enough to read a paragraph. What was I thinking?

If the arc displayed the review messages of the 3 highest and 3 lowest ratings that were not blank I think it would be useful for getting a pro's / con's for people thinking of playing it

People should review the same arcs or else their effort will be meaningless. The reviews should be grouped in an easy to read format. People should get virtual rewards for virtual community service.

There are tens of thousands of arcs which no one knows if they are any good. If the people reviewing continue to randomly review arcs then there will be a large number of arcs which one person has reviewed and you won't know if its good. In order for the MA to benefit players there has to be an organized effort to critique the mission arcs to give a much better idea of how good the arc is. A common place where you can see 5 opinions on an arc the same way you can read a couple of opinion on a new movie or play. Now what reward should the people doing this get? IMHO, after 50 reviews someone would show up on their server and thank them in broadcast for the work they put in like anyone else doing community service. This would not solve the large arc problem but it would create a small growing oasis of reviewed arcs that people could check and see a variety of e-opinions the same way people do now with books, movies or music. I am thinking that people would need to review at least one already reviewed arc for each new arc to slowly build a consensus. There would also need to be a way to easily merge e-opinions into an easily read blurb of reviews.

Something like this:

Arc 99999999 Death Death Death Kill Kill Death Doom

Review A .... Was unable to kill the boss at the end
Review B .... I liked the creativity
Review C .... I was able to beat the mission in 5 minutes
Review D .... I liked all the Rasta injokes
Review E .... The Custom Groups were all very clever

This would put mission arcs even with radio missions. When you complete 3 radio missions you get a mayhem mission which gives useful temp powers. So what if AE missions also gave useful temp powers for completing 5 different missions of the same length.

5 short missions with custom groups - temp power
5 medium missions with custom groups - temp power
5 long missions with custom groups - temp power
5 very long missions with custom groups - temp power

5 short missions with default groups - temp power
5 medium missions with default groups - temp power
5 long missions with default groups - temp power
5 very long missions with default groups - temp power

The temp powers could be whatever creative ideas that would work in the system like Acrobatic Tumbling movement, Flying Carpet temp power, or a Golden Age Power Armor unlockable costume piece. The Devs could use whatever powers are just below the bubble in the massive list of power suggestions that have been made.

This is standard tower of Babel sorting logic. Given the current way that missions are set up there is almost no way to sort any mission with custom groups down to a small enough group where the average person would read each of them. 5 mission lengths and 0-5 stars only cuts things into 30 pieces . Still need something that reduces the number of hits by a factor of 100.

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Ok, that poem is awesome. heh heh

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually its Snow White's Love Song updated to fit the picture