dugfromthearth

I've seen the name Grim Riddles - I'll have to check it out

if you've read Ender's Game, at one point he assigns a kid to think of crazy and dumb strategies to win. The crazier and dumber the better. The idea was to think outside the box.

What are some crazy/dumb things to do in MA?

make a tutorial - teach someone calculus in MA
make a history lesson - teach someone the history of Paragon City

riddles - ask a question, have clickies labeled with possible answers. The wrong clickie spawns an ambush, the right one completes the objective

do a music video - have the NPC's say the lyrics to a song/poem. Have the setting, actions, animations, etc match the song/poem

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One man's "spite" is another man's "illustration".

And just for the record, going off on a Mary Sue rant isn't "writing a guide". It WAS however, quite amusing.

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one man's "rant" is another man's "guide"

rants are against the ToS, guides are not

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Very cute, but there's a huge difference between using one's characters' stories for an arc and Mary Suing them.

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Yes, but, I think the point trying to be made is that very few MA authors (at least that I've seen to date) have figured out that difference. And of those who have, a large number of them haven't figured out that most people don't care about your character's story if the arc doesn't make their character feel like an active participant in it.

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Oh, understood, but that's a flaw in execution, not in concept. Nothing wrong with telling one of your characters' stories in and of itself. In fact, done right, you won't even know it's one of of the author's player characters, just one created for the MA.

It's like when my college writing professor told the class to not use the word "hopefully" at all, because so many people don't know how to use it. I deliberately used it in my next paper...correctly, of course.

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adding elements to your arc out of spite is also not a good practice.

Amazingly good writers make anything work - but you don't write guides for amazingly good writers. And most amazing writers are amazingly bad, they just think they are good.

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Trying to keep your four digit number is like paying attention to your post count on the boards. It's ultimately meaningless.

Ooo, you're at 1400! Which means...nothing at all, really.

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1400 is not nearly as good as 1337

I look around with my lvl 50 ill/rad using superior invisibility

I test with my lvl 26 dm/wp scrapper primarily

My arc is story, not challenge. I expect them to be solo'd. So I want to see what that looks like.

is the prison map for Breakout available?

You could have them appear in prison that way

you can remove it from local stories without it affecting your published arc

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It's becoming increasingly obvious that the only solution that will be remotely close to palatable to everyone is to define a minimum standard set of powers and allow everything else to be freely picked.

Do hard and extreme have any xp or reward effect?

If not - if they are just ways of selecting powers, than I definitely think that a minimum set and free pick of additional powers is the way to go.
Which is essentially what we said during closed beta, but we got ill-defined tiers instead. Now they're slightly better-defined tiers in which adhering to the rules defined produces many dubious corner cases. That's not a good enough step up.

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in reality - no one will notice

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I am absolutely in favor of Build Up and similar powers being available at Extreme for those people who want to challenge themselves or those who dare to play in their arcs (so long as those arcs are properly labelled).

The problem is not what is available at Extreme, it's what is available at Standard and Hard, where you want to build balanced or unusual critters.

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my concern with that is if you add a tier 9 attach which probably does double what the other attacks do - and then add build up - suddenly going to extreme gives you an attack that does 4x the damage you did before.

Build up instead of a tier 9 makes sense, but I'd rather have the tier 9 for variety and skip the build up

For defenses we need 3 levels:
1) resistances/defenses
2) better resistances/defenses, mez protection
3) self rez or other special powers

For attacks we need these levels
1) a couple of cycling attacks (tier 1 and 2, plus ranged)
2) a complete chain of attacks, a control or other special power
3) add a nuke or other massive burst damage attack

Do we really need them to have aim/build up at all?

there is even a thread telling you how to promote your arc

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post13277897

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/postl...Board=villains

is the correct board for posting your arc

steampunk maps should be easy for hardcore - there are many factory maps that can be steampunk

the redside office type maps have an interior that looks old fashioned and would work for that era I think (there would still be computers around occassionally)

very small map but the boat dock and bit of mercy island has an old fashioned look to it

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I'd settle for having "front" spawn points which are reliably in the front, and "back" spawn points which are reliably in the back.

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we really need just 2 - entrance, and special spot in last room.

Entrance would be first spawn you encounter. You can set an ally there or whatever.

Special spot is for those maps which have a platform or other special place in the last room and you really want the big boss to spawn there. Instead he spawns in a corner right now.

note that the ally objective is then auto completed. So if you have another objective chained off of it, it will trigger as soon as you enter the mission.

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Very cute, but there's a huge difference between using one's characters' stories for an arc and Mary Suing them.

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Yes, but, I think the point trying to be made is that very few MA authors (at least that I've seen to date) have figured out that difference. And of those who have, a large number of them haven't figured out that most people don't care about your character's story if the arc doesn't make their character feel like an active participant in it.

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right - an arc has to be about the player, not about your character. The more attached you are to the villains, contact, allies, etc - the less likely you are to be writing for the player.

thanks for the tip. My text is confusing enough, some color for emphasis might help

you can just turn it into an ally instead of a rescue.

Make the ally non-combat and tell them to wander, run away, or run to nearest door (which doesn't work outside usually)

I don't know how to change the text colors at all.

Is there a guide to doing that? Also the variables besides $name and when you can use them?

I've created allies who seem to be fighting or at least not surrendered. And in Faultline the cops have captured people.

But I hadn't seen an ally having captured a villain in MA. They were a katana wielder and had their sword on guard, the foes where kneeling with hands on head. It looked really good and really changed the feel of "rescuing" an ally.

I assume solo players care about stories - teams don't.

I label my arc soloable.

The devs design standard mission arcs to be soloable - TF's to not be. You can't really design for both.

Now there are players who try to solo anything (a blaster apparently soloed the ITF). But those are the exception

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Making an arc based on your character instead of the good of the arc is a major cause of bad arcs.

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I do believe most professional writers would disagree with your views. A great story is made by great characters. Period. A good plot helps, but characters can compensate. The plot can never compensate for poorly developed characters.

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You missed the point. See Dr Fear for re-education

heroic solo - AV and EB become bosses, bosses become lt's

that way everyone can solo an arc in theory if they are on heroic