Twoflower

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It would be interesting to see how many people would call it an exploit if a mission has very effective rewards - and nothing else. No comm officers. No units that can't or don't fight back. Nothing specifically wrong with the mission - just really good xp/rewards with possibly a lame story. I wonder how many people would "report" such an ebil mission.

Hopefully, not many.

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I wouldn't report that. I only care about the obvious exploits, the things which destroy the concept of risk vs. reward.

If I played it (I usually skip farms, but sometimes you don't know what you're getting into) I'd consider it LAME and give it one star, but I doubt whoever "wrote" a mission like that is looking for the hall of fame, so that shouldn't really matter. In the end it wouldn't hurt my experience much, I'd just mark down my opinion and move on.

Hopefully the devs will close these obvious loopholes around the XP system and then we won't have to deal with this dichotomy -- both for people looking to make XP grinds without being smacked and people looking to avoid them.

Semantics aside, the point is that anything which grants unbalanced risk vs. reward (specifically, laughably pitiful risk for awesometastic reward) should be dealt with. Call it whatever word you want, that's the end goal.

And yes, there's more than Rikti Comms. That's just a working example of the sort of thing that needs some rethinking, to prevent effortless XP gain.

A good point. I hadn't even thought of why the ordinary Freak bosses weren't available for customs, but it makes a lot of sense... in the context of the Feakshow itself they're fine, outside that context they're exploitable. Give the Comms the same treatment, which is no doubt coming in the next patch, problem solved.

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ps. what makes the other 40 threads better than this one? maybe they should consolodate here.

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The others didn't start out with a poorly worded rant calling out the devs, which is against board policies in the first place. We can do better than this.

I'm not saying make the TOPIC itself forbidden. That's stupid.

I'm saying let's funnel our efforts into one well organized thread instead of the 40+ "screw you and your mother" style threads we have.

It's not constructive discussion, regardless of how you feel about the issue, to have so many devolved threads when we could have one quality one.

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Which I hope these anti-farming nazis run into

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Godwin's law.

Can we get this thread closed now? It's run its course, regardless of what side of the discussion you fall on. Post in one of the more civilized threads from now on.

I'd LOVE to have a basic pistol attack set in the editor. I have some melee+armor characters because it makes sense, and seeing them floored by immobs is disheartening. Plus, a pistol set would let us make Hellion style mega-lowbie content that doesn't wipe the floor with the PCs.

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1) anti-exploit and concerned about bringing to the devs attention portions of the game which may not be balanced
(a rational approach)

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I'll take that camp. Obviously not everybody is going to write story-focused arcs, that's impossible. But things like Rikti Comm Officers and other way-too-much-XP for way-too-little-risk type exploits need to die in a fire.

The whole point of game design is to have your risk meet your reward -- that the fun is in the challenge. If some oversight of the devs in the number crunching results in Juicy Bunnies of XP Giving you can effortlessly toss into the combine harvester of a full team, that needs to be changed.

If someone just wants to make a map full of Council and farm it, sure thing -- just like newspapers. They may be 'easy' but they're still capable of fighting back decently.

Outcasts, easily. I made a faction of "Outcast Elite" that go 1-54. They're easy to turn into total murder machines too, since the elemental power sets have a number of hideous side effects.

Longbow are pretty easy to swing in appearance; the spandex is straightforward and things like Spec Ops tactical bandoliers are available. All you'd miss are the chest emblems and, sadly, the weapons (since most of them carry some subset of Assault Rifle or Devices but not the entire set).

About the only factions you can't make a reasonable approximation for are ones with decidedly nonhuman appearances, or robes. COT are out, so are wolves and some robot types and so on.

Agree and disagree.

Disagree, in that most canon COH/COV arcs are designed to be slowly unfolding mysteries. You see the fringes of a situation, you start to learn clues, you uncover what's really going on, you maul the bad guy, you find resolution or a twist that you didn't see coming or what have you. If you do it right you can tell a great story without having to say up front "Here is everything that is going on and there will be nothing interesting or new happening, go fist the enemy."

Agree, in that COH players are keenly trained trope-sniffing bloodhounds who will NEVER say "It was probably just a coincidence" or "Did you hear something? Nah, must've been the wind." The instant anything out of the ordinary happens they'll immediately leap on the evil twin clone from another temporal dimension theory, and likely be right. Be aware that they're gonna be sussing you out the instant they're in there, so don't hint too strongly at the mystery in a way that'll let them figure it out on page one.

Alright, let's look at the solutions here.

Remove AE from Atlas: No. Goes against the spirit of AE, which is to be able to go from 1-50 entirely in AE if you choose to, running stories and missions by other people. Besides, they'd just start their characters in Galaxy City otherwise, or would take taxibots to wherever the lowest building is.

Remove XP from AE: No. HELL no. AE is awesome and don't penalize those of us who are not exploit-farming just because of those who are.

Any Decision Whatsoever Other Than Closing Off The Loopholes That Allow Easy XP Farming: No. See above.

Close Off Loopholes That Allow Easy XP Farming: Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, and this is what the devs will probably run with. Pull Rikti Comms out or reduce their XP. Force factions to include minions, bosses, and LTs. Whatever rules you gotta put in place to ensure some level of challenge, so that enemies can fight back and offer ordinary rewards.

I've got no objections to farming, in the sense of fighting dudes to grind out XP on them -- before MA I was running endless newspapers against easy guys like the Council, for instance. It's a way to get to your best powers, or to close the gaps between levels. But effortless XP, XP that relies on explots and gimmick custom factions and is custom designed to yield high reward for zero effort and zero risk, that's gotta go.

It's a game. Games have some measure of challenge. Otherwise the devs may as well add a "Instantly level to 50" button to make people happy who don't care about playing the actual game.

I haven't PUGed in years, but that doesn't mean that it should be destroyed as a viable option for folks looking to do the other 98% of content in the game (including NORMAL AE missions). As is, it's a useless avenue until the exploits are closed or people get bored with it and move on.

I think the key is to stick to the top-level tags, and THEN add any sub-tags the author feels like adding. So, first SFMA, then if you feel like it and you have the space add things for genre, approach, canon, etc.

That stuff just narrows down a narrowed down search. But you have to use one of the primaries, first and foremost, just to get folks to FIND your story. Then you can start telling them what to expect beyond that.

Perhaps an explanation along those lines should be added? To emphasize that even if there's eleventy billion of the things, they are not all required, and there is a "core" set you should turn to first.

I'd use VSMA, but my VSMA arc is DevChoiced and thus locked. Darn! Once I get some story space (I15?) I'll be writing more VSMA, though. I made a whole concept just for those arcs (Minions Local 412).

No, not rated means not rated.

However, it IS possible to rate 0 stars on purpose. Click the 1-star, then click it again to de-select it. And yes, it does drag your rating down severely.

Exactly. Work around the problems, work with the problems, don't just fold or try to force the issue. For example, if spawn placement matters greatly, use a map which is has better spawn placements; no outdoors or uniques, use the stock map sets and select one which has a clearly defined front area and is largely linear. I do that in my missions and it works out fine.

Yes, it'd be nice if these things are fixed. But it's entirely possible to write a compelling story using what we have right now.

Agreed. If you find a blatant farm abusing our beloved [SFMA], report it immediately. Get that crap kicked out of here. SFMA should be for, y'know, STORY Focused Mission Arcs.

Tags are not the cure for a bloated, overly-stuffed-with-farms MA. They are a half-effective effort by the community because we have nothing better to use until the devs throw some weight behind them.

And I mean that in the most positive sense -- these are not going to solve the problem but it is the best we can do for now, so we should do it regardless. But don't go thinking they're a magic bullet, 'cause they ain't.

If all you want in life is to zoom to 50 as fast as possible without experiencing 99% of the game, without any effort, without any risk, without any GAME involved, then you are not helping the situation.

Agreed. The challenge of writing for a game is that you will never, ever be able to wholly match the vision in your head -- and you shouldn't try.

Don't ram a square peg in a round hole. Instead, design a round peg from the ground up. Don't make the story and then adapt it, consider the tools you have on hand and write a story based on those tools.

If you work with the system instead of against it, your work will be strong and the players will never feel like it's an awkward match.

My experience was AWESOME. For a week there I was bringing to life all the ideas that I'd been pondering since the Architect was announced -- fine tuning, tweaking, playtesting, WRITING. It was wonderful and probably one of the highlights of my year so far.

Then it went live, I published 3 of my remaining 8 stories, and I never wrote again.

Maybe once whatever microtransaction / vet reward / craftable slots go in with a patch or I15 arrive, I'll be able to use it again. Until then I don't want to nuke my ratings by pulling down what I've got up, and if I write any MORE I'll be digging myself deeper in this hole, so I've been putting it aside in hopes of using it again one day.

HFMA works for me. We need a good comedy tag and it does keep the "focus mission arc" paradigm ball rolling. Maybe add it with a companion tag of DFMA, for dramatic?

I've also got no problems with a legitimately challenging RBMA, one which offers up massive bang to go with the massive buck.

But if the devs clue into our tags, you can believe they are gonna scrutinize any arc tagged RBMA because it ALSO can and will be be misinterpreted as "farm". So, as noted, caveat author. Be careful, dude. Use it wisely and go in peace; use it poorly and suffer.

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This was exactly my thoughts too. I realized, Wait a second. The game has drug references. What gives?

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I recall that when Fallout 3 was going to come out in Australia, it got banned because it used cocaine, heroin, speed, etc. as in-game buffs. However, when Bethesda changed these drugs for made-up ones like jet and buffout, Australia was cool with it and allowed the game's release again.

Notice how in COH, they never mention real-world drugs. That's how they get away with it.

It's just like how on kid's cartoons, you can shoot a laser pistol at someone -- and sometimes, a machine gun -- but you see very few revolvers or other handguns.

It's all about ties to the real world, and what a child might have access to. A kid can't trip balls on Surpadyne and then mow down people with a plasma rifle. A kid however CAN shoot up speed and go put six in his classmate's heads with daddy's handgun he forgot to lock up.

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And this bull where you have the word "Farm" in your mission makes it bannable is way out of control. It seems the GMs are yanking Arcs with Farm in it without even testing it. Abuse of power IMO.

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Agreed. We can't even write stories about agriculture! We've got entire Croatoa maps based on fighting pumpkin men in farms, but can't use them.

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If you do no more than give 5-8 of your precious 300 characters to the tagging idea, it couyld help everyone a LOT. After all, you don't have to multi-tag it - just pick the best single tag that encompasses your mission purpose.

I do not think saving those 5-8 letters will help you if at the same time people who would want to play your type of mission can't find it in the sea of missions, many of which they would ignore if the could.

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Agreed. It's up to authors to decide how specific a tag and how many tags they want to use -- or none at all. The whole idea is to improve your search result placement and get more plays, so it's up to the author to decide if appearing more often is worth the smaller desc size.

At first I was against tags because A) I was gonna hold out for dev tag solutions, and B) I didn't want to sacrifice my description characters given I was at or near limit on all my arcs. But working through my descs last night, I found I could eliminate some wordiness, fit a tag, and still maintain my creative writing's integrity. I'd rather lose some writing redundancy than lose search placement.

When you edit a VEAT's costume slot #1, you're put into a much more restricted version of the editor which has different slots from the normal costumes, limited pieces to pick from, etc. My guess is that given we don't have the VEAT powers in there in the first place, putting in this hybrid editing mode for costumes that can't even use the crab arms on your back and such wasn't a priority. We might get it in the future if they add in the VEAT sets.