Wonderslug

You can also go to their user profile page and ignore from the "User Lists" menu under the user name. Slightly less effort that way.

Assault, for a Scrapper, is a constant 10.5% buff.

Build Up is a 100% buff that lasts 10 seconds, part of which is eaten by its own animation time--1.188 seconds, factoring in ArcanaTime, leaving 8.812 seconds of useable buff time in a perfect world. With a 30 second recharge, again in a perfect world, that's ~29.4% uptime, for an average damage buff of 29.4%.

At 20 seconds (which would require 450% recharge, by the way), it's an average buff of ~44%.

In fact, one white recharge TO in Build Up will yield a higher average buff than Assault.

You can only pick Venom Grenade once. Once you pick one version, the other is locked out. (Likewise, you can only pick one version of Frag Grenade.)

It's autohit. (It has an accuracy value, yes, but *everything* has an accuracy value. Even powers like Build Up. Autohit overrides it.)

The Pets category is only available as a boss objective.

There are several reasons pets and MM henchman are not available as standard foes; the biggest are probably that a) in many respects they're enormously weaker than "real" mobs (henchmen in particular, especially since they cannot slot for damage), b) they give no rewards, and c) in any case the generic spawn profile won't spawn anything except minions, lieutenants, and bosses unless it has no other options.

The ambushes speak in this mission. There's also a speaking boss in this one and a few other one-shot hero missions with Clockwork patrol dialog, but it's been so long since I've done a Clockwork contact I can't recall which ones.

Updated version for i15

<ul type="square">[*]Dominator modifiers updated[*]Dominator assault set and Gravity Control &gt; Lift attack values updated[*]Domination removed from damage buff selector[*]Dark Melee &gt; Siphon Life and Midnight Grasp updated[*]Soul Drain split from Sunless Mire and updated in damage buff selector[*]War Mace &gt; Clobber updated[*]Energy Melee &gt; Barrage updated [*]Fixed typo in Icy Assault &gt; Bitter Ice Blast damage[*]Tanker Pyre Mastery powers now treat fire damage as fire damage[*]Pyre Mastery &gt; Char damage value updated[*]Wolf Spider &gt; Single Shot/Venom Grenade/Frag Grenade cast times updated[*]Blaster and Corruptor Assault Rifle cast times updated[*]Stalker epic snipes changed from range scale to melee scale[*]Black Dwarf Mire and Drain cast times corrected (they were swapped)[*]Fifth APP and PPP powers added where applicable[*]Damage/endurance/recharge calculator for claws formulas (single-target only) added[/list]

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...I think your best bet at this point is to get a better connection, if possible.

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Probably! Though most browsers that aren't IE should at least try to resume a broken or interrupted download, although that's not always an option. Will that not work?

In any case, if you were to buy the AE box edition, you'd only need to download I15 and a few patches. Should be under 200MB. Seems like kind of a waste if you've already paid, though.

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And if anyone has any more detailed info on the current Family bugs: Is it just the level 30-40 range that isn't spawning at all? Or does it affect the 20-30 range as well? Are they not spawning at all for both heroes and villains? What about low-level Family, I have read that they won't spawn below 20 for heroes, but need more details.

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The problem is limited to heroes.

The issue is this: certain groups have mobs that appear to be somehow flagged "villains only." It's not a problem for villains because there appear to be no mobs anywhere flagged to be exlcusive to heroes.

The clearest illustration of this at work in the normal game is the Circle of Thorns and the Valentine's Day event missions. Heroes alone will never encounter Hordlings, Hellfrosts, or Succubi, yet adding a single villain to the team will allow them to spawn (and thus let heroes get the badges). It's not a problem with CoT because there are other things in those level ranges.

It is a problem with Family because there are multiple level ranges where they spawn in CoV but not in CoH. Everything Marcone (essentially everything outside 20-29 and 45-50) seems to be flagged "villains only." The game tries to honor that flag at all costs; it would rather spawn a +10 mob than spawn a villain-only mob in a heroic mission. Putting them in custom groups seems to help, though I have gotten some confused and peculiar results trying to test it.

It's also problem for Carnies (or was last time I checked), since 30-39 Carnies are likewise exclusive to CoV and flagged as such. A level 30 hero attempting an allegedly 30-54 Carnie mission will find himself facing +10s.

It's apparently not an issue with Tsoo, possibly since 30-40 Tsoo spawn in Siren's Call, accessible to both factions.

It could conceivably cause problems with the 15-29 Crey in CoV, but that's untestable because of another lovely issue:

Late in I14 closed beta pohsyb added some sanity checks to helped ensure things spawned at the level they were supposed to spawn. Part of that was cross-checking individual mobs against the "official" level span of their groups. That had an irritating side effect: any critter that didn't intersect its group's "official" level span effectively disappeared from the MA. That includes all the 15-29 and 25-29 Crey (a full assortment of fully functional minions, lieutenants, and bosses), but not the 21-30 Protectors, which overlap the "official" 30-54 level range.

That's also the reason Tub Ci and Serafina aren't available: both of them have minimum levels in the 40s, but Tsoo cap at 40 and Legacy Chain at 30. They're in the architect, they just are no longer accessible as they exist outside their factions' level ranges. (There were also some high-level Troll and Warrior EBs, but they never actually appear anywhere in game.)

The fix for the Crey problem is simple: list them as a 15-54 group (like I said multiple times through beta...). The Tub Ci/Serafina issue could be worked around by extending their minimum levels down into their factions' ranges.

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Snipers will spawn with Nemesis on indoor maps too, but I'm not sure if that applies to the AE as well. I have played very few Nemesis arcs. I guess everyone is just sick of Nemesis plots.


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They should show up indoors fine even in AE if you use the stock Nemesis group, since the Nemesis spawn profile is set to include snipers in regular spawns. Putting them in a custom group like the OP is trying to do will nix that, though.

(Also, there is one way, other than setting them as bosses, that you can force snipers to spawn anywhere: create a custom group containing nothing but snipers.

...I wouldn't recommend it, though.)

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I think that's how snipers are supposed to work in general. You can't pull snipers in the general PvE game.

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It is. The sniper "archetype" actually has a permanent inherent immobilize effect applied to it. They will move if they're buffed with a power like Increase Density that grants immobilize protection.

The generic spawn profile used by custom groups doesn't seem to recognize anything other than bosses, lieutenants, and minions unless it has no other options. The only way to force snipers to spawn is to set them as boss objectives.

Actually, I want to say they will spawn naturally on outdoor maps, but it's been so long since I tested that I don't trust my memory there.

Mechanically speaking, yes, an awful lot of kheldian powers were copy/pasted from other sets, with minor alterations as to damage type and secondary effects, and of course new VFX slapped on top. Some of them have gradually diverged from their original model, either due to kheldian buffs or alterations to the sets the powers were based on.
<ul type="square">[*]The bolt and eyebeam powers are, as noted, carbon copies of Neutrino Bolt and X-Ray Beam.[*]Incandescent Strike is Total Focus with a hold instead of a stun.[*]Solar Flare is Footstomp, unfortunately as it was before it was changed to knockdown.[*]Glowing Touch is Heal Other with a stupidly short range.[*]Essence Boost is Dull Pain/Hoarfrost/Earth's Embrace.[*]Reform Essence is Reconstruction.[*]Conserve Energy is (*drumroll*)...Conserve Energy.[*]Group Energy Flight is, for reasons known only to Geko (and I suspect only dimly even to him ), Group Fly.[*]Restore Essence is Revive.[*]Light Form is Unstoppable.[*]Combat Flight and Energy Flight are Hover and Fly.[*]Starless Step is Teleport Foe, including the rank- and level-based restrictions.[*]Sunless Mire is (old) Soul Drain with a slightly larger radius.[*]Essence Drain is (old) Siphon Life.[*]Stygian Circle was, originally, an exact copy of Dark Regeneration, including the oldschool 49 point endurance cost (!!), save that it required dead targets, thus making it virutally useless. This was a major contributor in the early and largely justified belief that Warshades were bordering on unplayable, along with fun stuff like the inherent -30% Kheldian resistances to everything and the fun bug that made all Dark Nova powers cost far more than they should have. Fortunately Stygian was changed fairly quickly.[*]Shadow Cloak is Cloak of Darkness.[*]Inky Aspect is Oppressive Gloom.[*]Eclipse is modeled after of Energy Absorption, but with resistance rather than defense. Eclipse has seen at least two buffs, and I don't recall exactly how the original version stacked up--I think it may originally have been just a drain on the order of Power Sink, but my memory is unreliable on that point.[*]Stygian Return is Soul Transfer without the mag 30 stun, or in fact any stun at all [*]Shadow Recall and Shadow Step are Recall Friend and Teleport.[*]Gravity Well has some mechanical resemblance to Freezing Touch and Shocking Grasp in being a damaging melee-range hold, but is almost certainly based on Midnight Grasp; they have the same animation and originally delivered damage+mez in the same way (an initial hit plus 10 ticks of DoT over 10 seconds), but neither the original nor the buffed version exactly match the damage/end/recharge profile of any other power. [*]Unchain Essence bares some superficial resemblance to Fallout, but has too many differences for Fallout to be more than a distant inspiration.[/list]Everything else is either unique (not all that much, really) or so standardized that it can't really be said to derive from anything in specific.

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but really could use some explanation as to how Doc. Vahz is making a comeback after being put in the Zig some twenty levels ago.

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I can see how that's a valid concern from one perspective, and I think I can address it briefly somewhere without it feeling too shoehorned in. However, it honestly never even really occurred to me to address that issue, given that

a) it is evidently possible to escape the Zig using only a rock and a length of pipe;
b) if you cannot find a rock and a length of pipe an Arachnos transport will be along shortly to blow a hole in the wall;
c) the swiss-cheese nature of comic continuity has produced several canonical examples already of villains appearing none the worse for wear after having been dealt with for good, honestly, no really, I mean it this time (see also: Countess Crey, the Clockwork King, Nosferatu...);
d) the conundrum of MMO continuity means that I, for example, have heroes who have never fought a Vahzilok in their entire careers and others who have personally incarcerated Dr. V upwards of five times apiece; and
e) in any case he's not actually the major motive force behind the arc; if that isn't coming through clearly enough that's something I need to fix.

However, you raising the question has given me a very meta new arc idea...

Your run is the first time anyone's reported that problem with the interceptor, but I'll see if I can find something with a smaller footprint since I evidently can't count on it spawning in a sane place.

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My Carnie-lore-fu is weak. Is there anyone in-game that is a reformed Carnie?
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Being a Carnie doesn't work that way. Although not a hive mind, all Carnies are somehow tied psychically to Vanessa DeVore. She'd notice any decent in the ranks and remove it from their minds.


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She doesn't have quite that degree of control, at least not consistently. There's at least one carnie in a Harvey Maylor mission who manages to get away from her, although it is not a pleasant experience and we don't find out what happens after: wiki link. Note that she can't pinpoint the traitor precisely.


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If the blue spirit visage from the minions is Vanessa stealing their soul... what is the blue visage when you defeat HER? Or does she do that?
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SPOILER

Well, Vanessa herself IS possessed.


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It is, apparently, Vanessa's psyche.

Vanessa was possessed. She is now very much in control, to the point where it would be more accurate to say Giovanna is imprisoned in her head. More to the point, by the time you fight Vanessa you have already gone inside her head and eliminated Giovanna.

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Arc ID: 4178
Arc Title: Wholesale Soul Sale
Author: @Wonderslug
Description: Don't care to part with your soul? UniStyxHellCorp understands. As a special introductory offer we'll accept someone else's-at a slight discount, of course. And in return, we'll help you help us help you be as bad as you want.
Rating: *****

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Good heavens, someone played it.

I've been entirely swamped for the past two weeks and tonight was the first time I've even logged in since the patch that rearranged all the custom critter powers, so I will definitely be giving this another pass or two if only to fix what's been broken. Just for starters, I note that Ashfield has acquired Build Up, which is not something I like to give critters with Seismic Smash.

Mission 2 is longer than I would like, but I haven't had time yet to scour the MA for shorter maps that still meet all my requirements. I'll likely axe the minion Ascendants entirely, since they're basically worthless as threats *and* annoying if you lack mez, though one of my major beefs with the Council is that Ascendants as the Center's personal goons seriously aren't used *enough*. The EB can probably be cut, especially since file bloat from test to live already forced me to cut the Blackshirts down to minions only. (Sadly, they still almost always slaughter the Column handily--or did last time I checked.)

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Not if the number of plays is also displayed. One of those would be played 0 times and rated 0 times. The other would be played 600 times but never rated. That would be a huge red flag to person #601.

Which, sadly, gives a new way to grief: start the mission, then quit. Over and over. It will look like the mission is unplayable, or not worth finishing.

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The solution to that is trivial. Multiple ratings from the same account only count once, and only the most recent, and there's no good reason multiple abandons (or completions) from the same account shouldn't obey all the same rules. One account, one vote, regardless of how many forms that vote may be expressed in.

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I agree that we should be able to start from minimums and pick any other powers we want via checkboxes. However, that is likely to bloat the size of the critters in terms of data. Would you still want that option if it doubled the data footprint of custom critters?


I would, but I'm not convinced I'm in the majority.

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Doubling is highly unlikely, given that you can theoretically represent a power pick with a single bit and no MA critter can have more than 21 assigned powers (counting flight). That's without even getting into fancy stuff like using hex values. If the bloat would me much more significant than that, I'd argue investigating optimization techniques should be a high priority.

The real question is how difficult it would be to integrate such a system into the existing MA code, and what it would cost in terms of development resources (as measured in pohsyb's blood, sweat, and tears, and possibly Castle's consumption of antacids).

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.

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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* Cannot give LTs Thunderstrike at all. Instead they now get Lightning Rod on Extreme. (Suggestions: Change it back to Thunderstrike, Lightning Rod on a LT?)

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Other than the fact that Lightning Rod is flashy, it really makes no sense to reserve it for higher ranks. It's weaker than Thunderstrike on minions and because it's a pet it does the same damage regardless of rank. It actually becomes proportionally weaker when given to lts and higher.

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Elite Paragon Protectors attack one another and friendly allied mobs.

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I've seen this happen when mixing 7th Gen Paragon Protectors with Crey as well.

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Hmm. Any specifics about these two cases? Were you using the stock Crey and Paragon Protector groups, or were they custom? Objective spawns, or normal random mission spawns? I use both in a custom Crey group and they've gotten along fine with everyone they should.

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no more than the maximum filesize is 100,000 bytes. I have a non-reduced mission that is 92% in the editor, and 105k on disk.

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The meter measures memory footprint, not file size. That's direct from pohsyb in closed beta, and he wrote the thing.