Talen Lee

Energy Manipulation has it, too, if you're looking for single hard targets. There's not a boss in the game that can deal with being kicked around the room like a rubber baby.

Yes.

You've also picked a good combination with which to do it.

Not so, you could always do something to subvert my opinion of you. Unfortunately, you did not, as your deliberately incorrect summary of three major enemy groups could hold up as an example.

If your custom characters are there to serve the story, that they yield less XP should not matter - they are story edifices primarily. It does clearly matter to you, to the point of throwing public tantrums and demanding that you can back out of a completely consensual financial transaction that is unrelated to this event. This does not show well of your character, of your work, or of how you would use those tools. That you are discouraged from using the system seems to me a good thing.

Tertiary to this... you made a lesbian hellion arc? Seriously? I was making a joke about Hearts on Fire, which is written by a friend of mine, about a lesbian hellion.

Hope springs eternal.

Right now, in the AE, there's a very large amount of signal:noise going on. The way the tools are set up, the ease of use one gets out of the system means that any idiot can make an arc. The problem is, any idiot can make an arc, and for the most part, they're not making good ones.

Anything that discourages people who do not view writing and story as the important elements of an arc's existence is in my opinion, a good thing. If people don't want to farm the AE, if people don't want to make paper arcs to show off their 'custom faction,' etcetera, then what's left is more likely to be stuff that suits my tastes.

Likely? I dunno, but hey, it's my reaction to the changes.

Yes, but the kind of people who care about that kind of thing aren't going to be looking for stories in the first place. They're looking for maniac slammer or freakshow boss spawns. Of course, those have their own kick in the teeth.

The irony here is, you're saying my opinion of the change doesn't matter.

I don't think that custom factions are interesting, or fun. I haven't seen them handled very well; they're a little way to add spice to stories, but by and large, because of the way the game handles and expresses them and because the quality of the writers who think they should create them, the stories in which they are hosted that I have played are bad.

On the other hand, there are plenty of arcs I have played where individual custom enemies have been used well. These do not represent a large portion of the XP in the mission, so I doubt I'd even notice if they offered reduced XP.

AE is about stories. It's not about XP. I understand that you want lots of XP to go with your stories, but I don't. And you're the one calling me arrogant? You're the one threatening to quit the game over the loss of XP from custom mobs, who, again, surely can't represent the majority of the game.

There is so much in this game, so much interesting stuff, that the devs have failed to develop narratively, so much stuff that could be explored and explained, and it's not being touched by players because they're busy making lesbian hellions or clowns or whatever they think is 'interesting.'

Could this tool be used well? I suppose so, but it's not, as far as I can see, and the fact that these factions show up for five minutes then vanish again furthers the lack of depth that these custom mobs need.

So, I'm arrogant for basing my expectations of a mechanic upon what has been done with it? I'm arrogant for not thinking your opinion of story is such a big deal if you're willing to toss that aside in the name of an XP threshold? Arrogance is somehow connected to having an opinion?

Perhaps there needs to be a remedial writing course for the AE forum regulars. They can learn the definition of words like sarcasm, and arrogance, and opinion.

Hey, anything that discourages people creating whole factions of custom critters is good in my book.

It's also falsely self-martyred. I don't see Ditzy crusading to rollback buffs to Moment of Glory, buffs to Temperature protection, buffs to Dark Melee, buffs to melee damage ranges, etcetera, etcetera.

Fact is, it's only homogenization and bad when it pulls something back from being overpowered.

And if someone spends five years doing something they seem to hate, it tells me what they really like is complaining.

The blindingly obvious, when presented to people who have not yet understood it, is profound.

Forcefield is a set that lies on one extreme end of the 'survivability' and 'team focus' scales.

I'm going to leave this statement right here where you can look at it.

Same? No. It's making the damage more than the damage was under permadom, making dominators more buffable, making dominators better when buffed, and that's all. No mez protection, no increased mez duration or magnitudes, none of that.

The changes did not move damage to Permadom and park it. For the most part, they moved further onwards, and increased damage past that point.