macskull

Yeahhh... about that. Isn't the whole point of creating your own story arcs... creating your own content? If I wanted canon I'd play canon. Then again, I don't usually give two ***** about story unless it's the first time I've run a TF/SF so it's all a moot issue to me.

I'm guessing the reasons we were told to use custom mobs sparingly are the unpredictability factor (I don't know what sets these custom mobs are until they attack me, unless there's some other indicator, whereas I know what to expect when I see a normal NPC) and the huge amount of space they take up in an arc's filesize allotment.

From high-level play on an SO'd Mind/Earth from beta:

Earth is fun. It's endurance heavy but that's to be expected. I think it'll be a popular set, though for farming Psi and Fire are still better and for PvP it's got too much melee and AoE to be effective.

Wait, wait. Let me get this straight - these changes that were implemented to curb farming are pissing off more "normal" MA players than farmers? Wow, who didn't see that coming?

Yep, people went from farming Edens and Katies to farming ITFs and LGTFs.

Yep, that bug is still around. Basically you'll see someone stealthed just as they enter draw range, and then they'll fade out. Not enough time to target and attack them, but it's funny especially if they're standing still or AFK - just walk over and fire off a PBAoE (or pop a yellow or two and go to town).

This is completely and blatantly false. While it's generally true that primary powers on a given AT are more powerful than the same set as a secondary on another AT, that's not how things work behind the scenes. For example, why doesn't a Corruptor do as much damage as a Blaster? They both have blast sets as their primary (the answer is AT modifiers, which is also the answer to your statment - see below).

For a more realistic example, let's look at Entangling Arrow. For Defenders it's a primary, but for Controllers it's a secondary. That means it should be better for Defenders, right? Wrong - well, kind of. The immobilize duration is longer for a Controller because of their AT modifiers, but the slow is better for Defenders, because of their AT modifiers. Same deal with Ice Arrow. Power effectiveness isn't based off whether a power is in a primary or secondary, but rather off an AT's modifiers for the specific attributes of that power.

EDIT: You are more or less correct about pool powers being weaker than in-set versions of powers, though there are some exceptions.

This. In the case of pseudopets like Tornado or Lightning Storm, they spawn at your level. Given that the purple IOs now work on pets below 50, that's really a nonissue though.

Based on your posts in this thread I'm going to have to assume you've never fought a custom group that wasn't a clone of a standard NPC group, which means you've probably played one or two arcs.

No, not a bug.

I'm still peeved that VEATs are getting a throw-away power with Focused Accuracy (hello, incredibly redundant endurance hog!) and kept pushing for changes the entire time during closed beta. *shrug* Guess that just means one less power I have to worry about taking.

When the recharge times were still at 1.5/3, you could be riding a 70-80% damage bonus just from Defiance, which went a long way for making up for Neutrino Bolt's not-so-wonderful DPA. Throw a few damage procs in there and it was awesome. Now I'm not so sure and I think I'll be sticking with a Psi Blaster.

Rad/Fire and Rad/Mental are both beastly AoE machines.

Hey, let the anti-farm writers rejoice all they want. Give 'em a few weeks and they'll just go from whining how "no one plays my arcs because they're all running farms!" to whining how "no one plays my arcs because my custom mobs don't give decent XP!"

There are two reasons I haven't made a "story-oriented" arc since the I14 closed beta:

1. I'd rather be earning merits or tickets than working on "homework."
2. I don't want to have to continually retool the stories I spend hours on because the developers feel the need to constantly tweak how the MA works.

Speaking from experience I'd be especially frustrated as someone solely in the second group, and such people have already made their voices heard. If I spend hours working on a story to get it just right, and they change the way the system works, those hours were for nothing and I've got to spend lots of time going to plan B, which may or may not break in a future patch. For example, I made a short 3-mission story on test fairly late during the I14 closed beta, and by the time I went to copy it over to live to publish it, it was so broken I didn't even know where to start, so I simply scrapped the idea and made a farm. No thanks.

I'd rather have less people in the zone, and have those people be intelligent PvPers, than have two dozen people in the zone, and have all two dozen be standing around watching (i.e. doing nothing - not gaining rep, not getting inf/drops, nothing) two or three people hitting each other in melee range until someone dies. That's not fun, that's stupid and boring and a waste of time.

I'm sorry you're offended that I choose to attack enemy players in a zone where the explicit purpose of the zone's existence is to attack enemy players. I'm sorry you're offended that I do not need to observe the arbitrary and made-up rules two people have put in place between themselves. I'm sorry you're offended by me telling you there is a place you can go to duel uninterrupted. I'm sorry you're offended that I play by the rules.

Just as a heads-up, there's a new command (/arenalist) in I16 which can be used to create and join an arena match from anywhere in the game, and when you're finished you will be teleported right back where you came from. If you refuse to use the resources given to you to avoid being interrupted when dueling, then you have zero right to complain when you're interrupted.