Clave_Dark_5

This. I bugged it and was told they're aware of it so I'm sure they're working on it.

"When in doubt, try /stuck" is a good rule of thumb to live by.

That's your opinion. "A farm will never be as nice as a decently conceived and written mission." That's my opinion. Some of us play for something other than just DPS or XPpS or whatever. I'm not saying the system is perfect or doesn't need work to balance out both styles of play however.

A real solid effort, that one.

I seem to recall having heard good stuff about this and I wasn't disappointed. It wasn't the best thing I've ever seen with extra helpings of super-freakin-cool sauce on it, but I can't think of anything we found bad to say about it; when was the last time you played an arc you can say that about? It had some funny, the foes were well done and it was fun to play all ways round.

I'll second this because I too bought the extra slots, slightly against my better judgement and wouldn't mind a few more people taking a look at my work (oooh, look at Clave's sig listing all of his arcs, they sound so exciting!). On the other hand I have fun putting them together and even if I'm only getting a few reviews, those are fun too (getting decent ones helps I'll admit).

Additionally, I have been seeing a slow but steady uptick in traffic in the AE - hopefully a harbinger of things to come.

The changes were not meant to "put a dent in farming", they were meant to fix the above situation described by UberGuy - and they did, which is what got so many of the exploiters, not farmers, upset.

If I recall, the devs have stated outright in one place or another that they don't mind farming one little bit as long as ye olde legynd about "risk vs. reward" isn't violated.

Sure is short-term memory loss around here.

Someone on these forums suggested awhile back that it's good to publish something before you're really done with it so you can earn tickets, XP and inf for all the interminable play-testing.

The chances that someone's going to find your mish and play it before you have it "done" are sort of slim, so it's not like it will reflect badly on the mission (and you could just unpublish then republish it should some dink give you a one-star).

The times I've done it I make sure and put a "NOT YET FINISHED!" comment in the up front desc. Do that with NOTHING about what's inside and I will guarantee you no one (except maybe friends) will bother with it.

Nice! I'm gonna have to do that when I get a chance, thanks for the info on it.

Pre-nerf it was amazingly exploitative, if that's a word. People could get PLed to 50 in like hours or something, NOTHING like it is today. The hullabaloo was the fact that it went from being an insta-PL-to-50 machine to... well, once that was stopped, a lot of people just plain left and have no idea what it's like today.

I've been doing that since day one. I think players should also be thinking their difficulty settings vs. their toon's abilities just as carefully.

Still, you make a fairly good argument with your example. I still wouldn't have idea one on how to define my AV between those two examples though (what with how drastically the difficulty settings can affect things) and would like to hear how someone "should do it" to "get it right".

Ah, I see now - thanks for clarifying that for me.

I think Ozzie may have a point there. It might be best to let this be a looong open-ended "contest" which goes something like

"This pairing: Clave Dark 5's "Beat Guys Up" vs. BubbaWheat's "Guys Get Beat Up". You have two weeks to vote, which ever arc gets the most wins." No need for everyone playing to vote that way, just whoever participates that two week period. But I don't know what you'd do for a tie. After that, then the next two get paired up for another two weeks.

I can see this has draw backs though, namely that it would take forever to finish.

Please note my use of "" after that statement.

I never said I couldn't survive without it, just that it helps - as you've just pointed out as well, just in a different context.

At this point I think this is just a differing of playstyles - I like Sweep and think it's an important part of DB, you don't seem to as much.

There's also the issue of misinformation that the hysteria spread when the changes took place, "ZOMG NO XP AT ALL AND YOU CAN'T LEVEL TO 50 IN A DAY SO IT'S NO GOOD ANYMORE, WHY BOTHER"-type stuff. The extreme farmers raged and continue to badmouth MA to this day and players who don't know any better take this received wisdom as factual.

That said, I think that's been wearing off a little, I see some people playing MA arcs when I go into the buildings. Even if they're doing (less extreme) farms, it's still a start.

If I recall, the demoralization effect doesn't happen every time; slotting for ACC (besides being needed in an attack anyways) means the Sweep is more likely to happen than the fear.

And what do other melee sets do without Sweep? They get hit a lot more often and sometimes die. What they do is Placate one of the remaining foes, but then (probably) have to deal with whoever else got aggroed. Or they can run. Sweep is just one of those neat things this power set has over others, while others have their own things that DB doesn't. I believe it was designed with scrapping in mind and this is a good example of that.

That I can't tell you, I'm not much of a number-cruncher. But I can tell you that in my experience, Sweep has helped my stalker's survival simply based on it's mitigation of incoming damage (foes on their butts can't hit you).

But they're still choosing to, say, go toe to toe with an AV. Not all "high level back-ups" are built the same - I've died a few times on teams because of that, but I'm not complaining.

Which makes me ponder another question about the whole level thing (not just aimed at Lazarus here, just in general): How am I supposed to decide which level range is "appropriate" anyways (and for whom, your level 8 warshade or your 45th level controller or your teams of brutes or...)? The only thing I can think is to either make a wild stab in the dark ("Hm, my 25th stalker did ok, so I'll say 20th level and up) or using some long formalized (and silly) list...

Arc Level Restriction List
Standard foes: follow their level range
Custom foes: start at level 20
EB in arc: +5 levels
AV in arc: +10 levels
Any custom with Build Up/Aim: +10 levels
Any custom with Rez: +10 levels
Any custom with Nin (which gives them Hide): +5 levels
Customs with weapon sets attacks (excluding Archery): - 5 levels
Designed for teaming: +5 levels
Designed for solo: -5 levels
Minions with mezz sets: +10 levels
...etc.

I think we'd end up with a lot of arcs residing at "levels 40 and up". Which would be a shame.

Dropping my arc is your option of course, I do it myself (for any number of reasons) when I play MA arcs. I'm leaving the choice up to the players, if for no other reason because I've had comments all over the map the difficulty of the same arc. Both my low-level player who wants to play gets to and you get to drop it - no harm no foul there.

(And that's not even opening up the issue of teams who have one or more low-level toons SK'ed up.)

I usually don't set levels for my arcs as I figure that the onus is on the player to decide if his toon is strong enough to take it on, not me. I do my best to warn people what to expect in my arcs so it's not like I plant surprise AVs or anything. If other authors are doing that sans warning, then yeah - problem.

I once got a comment from a player that he had run through my second arc (see the sig) with a level 7 or 8 warshade. Which should work, as I planned it that way (in my possibly naive, early days of arc writing). The arc has a carefully chosen standard-foes group with level ranges from 1 to 50 up until the last mission, where my customs show up. The player told me had had to hit the hospital a couple of times and burned through a bunch of Insp's to do it, but felt "driven to beat this darn arc!" He had a blast with it and felt a sense of accomplishment when he was done. So who am I to set a level cut-off and deny any future players like him the chance to have fun?

Seconded, including that second paragraph if you want the easier way out - or play at odd hours as I do. Smaller servers really ARE dead at 3 AM. :P

That's just crazy talk!!

I actually agree with you to a certain extent and I prefer the visual look of a blue cave, it's more spooky or something.

I'm guessing people learned to hate them from the very first mission they did in one - remember how annoying it was to suddenly (and, often, disastrously) learn that there were holes in the floor you could fall through? How it was hard to find your way up to the upper levels because you didn't have a travel power yet? How aggravating it was to see your teammates get lost and get split up?

Aren't you now a better, more experienced player who can take a couple of easy steps to avoid all those little obstacles now? Aren't ya?

Sure you are. The map is not smooth and easy and it wasn't meant to be - yet it is in no way a trip through hell.