Defenestrator

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I'm going to try to play some arcs tonight. I haven't had too much luck with the "pick one randomly" method yet. And I agree that most of the 5-star arcs appear to be farms.

I found one that was the giant outdoor ruined city map with 60 glowies and only Rikti Communication officers. (Yeah, that got one starred and reported.)

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For the love of god don't just one star one for that unless its just map after map of it. At least see if there is story involved. Mine starts out similiarly on the carnie city map, but there is a story driven reason for it.

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There was no story involved. I should have also mentioned it was a defeat all.

On that obnoxiously gigantic map.

With nothing but Communication Officers.

If that doesn't scream "farm" I don't know what does.

I'm going to try to play some arcs tonight. I haven't had too much luck with the "pick one randomly" method yet. And I agree that most of the 5-star arcs appear to be farms.

I found one that was the giant outdoor ruined city map with 60 glowies and only Rikti Communication officers. (Yeah, that got one starred and reported.)

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Anti Matter and his mobs are unlockable with tickets.

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It that's true, he's not showing up in the choosable villains list.

Neither is Tyrant.

And on the other hand I've seen missions that are nothing more than a Farmers Market be unanimously 5-starred and up at the top of the listings. (I quickly fixed that.)

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That's the problem with this whole rating thing, people clearly have different ideas of what makes a good arc, enemy group, etc. Some people are being serious, some goofy, etc. when making their mission. And from what I can tell, they don't always describe their arc well, or it may not even be read well by the audience playing the arc.

However, what I think most are looking for from MA missions (unless they're a farmer) is not all that different from dev created missions. They don't mind a challenge if they're warned, but people will also want missions that can be soloable.

Though to your question, Viv, if I'm going to consider an arc well done and thought out, it does need detail everywhere. I'd be a bit annoyed with the devs if they put out an arc with a new group that didn't have a good story, descriptions for the bosses and characters, etc. Anything else shows something that was slapped together or at least not as much thought was put into it.

That doesn't mean no one will play it, but with how much content is out there, I think people not willing to put that work in and missions without that kind of detail are going to go by the wayside. I think there will still be room for fun little one-off missions, though. Like your little arc about roleplayers on Virtue, you probably don't need to have descriptions that are super detailed. However, you had such great humor with that final catgirl boss's dialogue that I think you could add a description that would be quite hilarious.

One last little example. Yuuden picked up on the overall storyline/point of my arc last night, but there is a lot more details that can make you think about the line between justice and vengeance. You don't NEED to seem them to have fun beating up the Warriors and getting the overall story, but having good details there do make an arc better (though I'll let others say whether my details and arc are "good"). CoX is full of great details the devs added in: passing citizens cheer on my heroes ("You rock, Swedish Fury!"), give humor (says a Nemesis soldier to another mob "Nemesis is down with the hood, as it were"), etc.

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Here's what I've basically been doing for ratings:

1-star -- no effort placed into the arc, or it's clearly just a farming arc (yes, farming is auto 1-star). Dialogue (if it even exists) is awful. Created enemies are done simply to destroy other players with no attempt at balance.

2-star -- Just a step above a 1-star. Some effort was put in but the arc is just completely unoriginal. How many "see if you can beat my character" arcs do we actually need?

3-star -- An average arc, but nothing that's going to stand out. It might have some decent writing, but it's fairly unappealing and unoriginal. May contain multiple problems with custom MOBs, lots of typos, etc.

4-star -- a solid arc that is about on par with what the Devs do. This also might be a good story that has a fatal flaw somewhere in there (i.e. escortee is too fragile, end villain is unpossible to defeat) that could easily be tweaked. It could be a fun story that I'd easily recommend to others to check out.

5-star -- it doesn't need a be the BEST ARC EVAR, but it needs to be fully fleshed out, make sense, be fun, and obviously been tested and balanced. Dialogue is full written and engaging, and the arc also should not deviate from CoX lore (i.e. "Statesman is really a Rikti!"). I really don't look at character descriptions too often, so this isn't one of the details I care that much about (and frankly it will be the first thing I eliminate if I'm butting up against the file size cap).

I do NOT remove points for obvious bugs or problems with wonky AI, etc. If the problem can be blamed on the game engine, it's not the author's fault.

Examples of why I removed points from some arcs:

--Had a solid arc of three missions with a decent but simple story (it was looking like a solid 4-star). The villain groups seemed pretty decent until I got to the final EB. The EB was an "Illusion Dominator" and all of his flunkies were Illusion users set to extreme. The final room quickly filled with dozens of Phantom Armies, Phantasms, Spectral Terrors and I got spammed with Confuse and Blind powers. (This is something that would easily have been caught and fixed if the author had tested it.)

--Another story where I had to venture into a custom group (not too dissimilar from the Carnival of Shadows) and had to meet up with someone, rescue him, and then lead him out. The only problem was the rescuee was a lieutenant with +perc powers and he frequently charged across the map into combat. Needless to say he was dead within 15 seconds of his rescue. (This is something that would have been noticed and easily fixed if the author had tested it.)

To aspiring authors...TEST YOUR ARCS. I spent two days debugging an arc of mine before I put it live. I'm not sure if I'll ever write one that is that epic again because of the time involved, but I learned a lot of stuff by going through the testing process. I had many scripted encounters that didn't flow properly that had to be tweaked (and retweaked). It was worth the effort to make sure it all worked out properly.

Also, make sure you label your arc properly in the description. If the arc is meant to be a challenge, make sure the playerbase is aware of this.

Things that I learned that I was disappointed by:

--Anti-Matter and Tyrant are currently not available for stories.
--Poison and Traps are not available for Master Mind custom characters.

Arc Name: The S.P.I.D.E.R. & the Tyrant
Arc ID: 92382
Faction: Custom group, Praetorians, Arachnos
Creator Global/Forum Name: Defenestrator
Difficulty Level: extreme
Synopsis: It's a sequel to the last Praetorian arc "A Hero's Hero." Tyrant sends minions through to try to make contact with Lord Recluse. What does this mean for the world? Can you stop Tyrant's new scheme? Expect lots of AVs/EBs (I provided allies to help the solo player), ninjas, robots, and oh so much more!
Estimated Time to Play: 90 to 120 minutes
Link to More Details or Feedback:

A quick note: Tyrant is currently not available to add into a mission, unfortunately. I was able to write around this little detail, but it's a disappointment. This is the culmination of two days of writing, reworking and testing, so hopefully everything is working properly.

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If you're going to put an AV or EB in your missions, make sure that you mention this in your description so that people who are actually interested in your content can be sure to turn down the challenge level.

[/ QUOTE ]I recommend taking the same approach to EBs/AVs that the canon missions do; the contact says something along the lines of "You should bring a team for this mission" before you accept it, and the text is in a different color to make it stand out. Exact phrasing can vary based on the contact's character and the mission in question.


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I would disagree with this. The AV/EB message should be in the Description as well as possibly in the contact's message. You don't see the contact's message until you start the TF or are part way through it. Even at level 1 AVs will be a problem and many will want to just avoid the mission.

Moreover if it is in the description hopefully we can come up with some "approved" descriptions like noAV/EB, AV/EB so that you can search on missions.

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Maybe I'm wrong, but don't the individual mission blurbs in the AE interface contain information like "Defeat all, escort hostage, boss, AV?"

I'm going to start work on my first arc tonight (it's going to be epic!) and I will definitely be putting "expect multiple AVs/EBs" in the overall description.

I was going to start a thread like this, but I'll add my hints to this one:

1) As mentioned above, Defeat All's are the pits. On a smaller map, they're far more tolerable. On a big outdoor map, they're just obnoxious (or clearly there for farming...but that's another debate).

2) Think a bit about power selection for custom enemies. Having too many unbalanced powers together makes for either impossible, frustrating, or pointless encounters. A challenge is good, but if you're not careful it quickly turns into futility.

Examples: an elite boss with Storm powers -- very challenging.
An elite boss with minions surrounding her with ALL of the storm powers = an entire room full of Hurricanes, Storm Clouds and other super annoying powers.

An elite boss with Illusion powers -- very challenging.
An elite boss with minions with ALL of the Illusion powers = an entire room full of Phantasms, Phantom Armies, Spectral Terrors, Confuse and Invisible powers going off. (I counted at least 20 Phantom Army guys in this one mission last night after fighting ONE GROUP.) This actually turned a potential 4 or 5-star arc into a 2-star for me since the final room was unbeatable. What this says to me is, this person didn't test his own arc. Balance your custom groups.

You can adjust which powers minions and lieutenants have. Please make judicious use of this feature.

3) Don't be lazy. Yes, there are a lot of options to fill out, but the difference between the "okay" arcs and the "Dev Choice" arcs are the extra care the authors used to flesh out in-mission dialogue, souvenirs, and character descriptions. I found an arc last night were all the dialogue was "BLAH BLAH BLAH." That's a good way to get one starred. (Curious that it was rated 5 stars, though...people apparently have oddly low standards).

4) Escort missions in enormous maps are also boring. Also, if your escortee is combat capable, please make them semi-durable. The AI causes them to attack quickly, and if they die quickly it means a fast mission failure and there's nothing the player can do anything about. (This also suggests that somebody didn't test an arc out properly, or they'd have seen this.)

I'm sure I'll think of more as I run more random arcs.

As I understand it, he got banned because he killed Chuck Norris, kicked Statesman's dog, and shoved Moderator 08 down in the mud.

Yay...the idiotic store just charged me twice.

Advice to NCSoft...buy a real server.

Can you make Fed Ex missions as part of your story arc? Example:
Mission 4: Go talk to Statesman in Independence Port.

??

Auras -- level 30 tailor mission

Server: Victory
Zone: Cap au Diable
Character name: Lunachick
Time: 1:40 pm
Location: Cap au Diable tailor
Mission: Matthew Burke's mission to unlock auras (level 30)
Mission Contact: Matthew Burke
Bug Description: after completing the mission, I do not have access to auras at the tailor
Link to Forum Discussions:

I remembered another buyer/seller subclass that deserves some special attention, and they need to be mentioned as both:

The Arbitrager -- this is the person who will buy up low-valued surplus commodities and resell at higher prices in order to profit off an artificially created market. You can generally tell an arbitrage attempt is happening when a commodity (usually a piece of salvage) that normally sells for well under it's value is suddenly being sold for well over its value. The best solution here is to dump your current stock of said commodity to profit and wait for the market to return to normal.

This is not to be confused for a commodity running into an extremely low supply and driving prices up.

10. Equilibrium is key.
Experiment and learn which price points you can set your wares at to maximize your profit and keep your sales moving quickly.

When I tell people I can make millions of infamy/influence with little effort in a weekend at the auction houses (Wentworths or
the Black Market), people often ask, "Gee, Defenestrator, how do you do this?"

I can turn around after a day of rocking faces and turn into an entrepreneur, and so can you with Defenestrator's Easy Plan to win at the auction house, which I will offer now.

What this guide is NOT:

1) It is NOT a step-by-step guide on what EXACTLY to do to build wealth on the auction houses. I put in time to research my cash methods, I will ask you to do the same.
2) It is NOT a way to have money pouring into your coffers without putting in some effort. It WILL take time and effort to get your character(s) to the point where you can benefit the most.
3) It is not a guide to farming for influence and recipes.

What this is is some basic BUSINESS philosophies that I apply when dealing with the auctions.

Here we go:

1. Do your homework.
There are many resources on the web that have breakdowns of crafting costs. www.paragonwiki.com is an excellent resource and a database of information. Once you have that, you will need to learn how to apply it to your own auction needs.

2. Know the mathematics of the auction houses.
This is a mistake I see happen all the time when monitoring the pricing data. As you should know by now, the AH will charge a 5% listing fee, and then extract the remaining fee (10% total) once the item is sold. An item that costs 200k inf to create that sells for 210k on the AH is actually LOSING money.

To determine your BREAK EVEN price for an item you have created (or, even a recipe you are selling), you need to multiply the cost by 1.111111.

For example, you spend 5,000 on a recipe, 5000 on component A, 20k on component B and 20k more to actually craft the recipe for 50,000 total inf. Your break even price on the AH should be:

50,000 x 1.11111 = 55,556. If you want to guarantee PROFIT, you should aim a bit higher.

3. Sum up ALL parts of the final good
One good way to start crafting early on is to use the salvage you find to create your first items, but a common mistake is to simply assume that because you found the item, it costs you nothing.

Let's say you find a Luck Charm and Boresight, and you purchase a recipe to use them for 5000. The recipe costs 35,000 to craft. A common mistake would be to sell the IO for 50k. That would be profit, right? Wrong!

On the hero side, you can usually turn that Luck Charm around for 50k! That would be 50k in lost earnings if you short sell the crafted IO even though you got the Luck Charm for free.

4. Specialize early, diversify later.
Crafting is set up so that once you earn a memorization badge the cost of crafting goes way down, and you no longer need a recipe. Concentrate on getting one badge and producing that item as you can until you build up a decent nest egg, THEN branch out into other areas and begin selling other items.

5. Know your market.
This isn't always as easy as it sounds (more on this later), but common knowledge of the game should dictate what types of IOs you concentrate on.

Pop quiz: How many different power sets use Hold enhancements? How many different power sets use Damage enhancements?

I think you can see what I'm getting at here.

There will be more people buying Damage IOs over time. That's good. The bad part is there will be higher competition, but that's okay.

Patience is key.
When buying or selling, you need to be able to stick to your guns on your pricing and on what you're willing to pay. 70k for a Luck Charm? Forget it! Low ball bids and let them sit. The market typically fluctuates up and down several times during the course of the day. Start your auctions right before you log off and reap the rewards when you first log on the next day. Let the AH do the work while you sleep or run missions.

Do NOT give in to market pressures and slash your prices (unless you really goofed on your pricing). You lose your 5% listing fee, have to pay a new listing fee, and might even lose money if you price yourself too low.

7. Observe market trends.
Okay, so you want to do some crafting but you're not sure which IOs to make first. You have components for Damage and Endurance Reduction. Check the market out before making the enhancers. If you see: "Bidding: 3; For sale: 163" then this is currently a weak market. You may want to hold off on making that type of IO. If you see: "Bidding: 50; For sale: 2" then you might want to rush your product on the market.

Additionally, if you see that prices are much higher than normal, you'll want to increase supply to try to take advantage of the current market. If prices are much lower than normal, you'll want to stay out of that market.

For this reason, I do not recommend crafting level 10 or 15 IOs at all unless you want the badges (and only then, do so in your later levels when you have tons of spare cash). Level 20 IOs are also risky. These markets are dominated by The Badge Hunter seller and The Vulture Buyer (see below).

Likewise, level 45 and 50 IOs will be money losers until after you have the badges as that is a saturated market. (Expect to lose MILLIONS to gain these badges as you will lose 150k - 300k per sale.)

8. Understand seller psychology.
I've broken the types of sellers down into a couple of categories.

a) The Mogul. This is the person who tries to profit from the system and won't sell at a loss. Ideally, this is where you should be to make inf. The Mogul is patient and will wait for his or her prices because he or she will not lose money on the AH. The AH is not a welfare system for lowbies.

b) The "Normal" Seller. They approach the AH as a system to supplement their gaming and will try to make a reasoned approach to selling. They're not out to be a Mogul, but they're not going to get taken to the cleaners, either.

c) The Badge Hunter. This is a person going after the badges, crafting everything as fast as they can and then dumping their inventory at low, low prices on the auction house. A Badge Hunter can still be a Mogul. The Bargain Hunter (see below) loves the Badge Hunter, and the Badge Hunter can cause problems for The Mogul.

d) The Ambivalent. This is the player who doesn't give a crap about the auction houses, the economy or the crafting system, but they're okay with reaping the rewards of an over-inflated economy. They're the type who will place everything they find on the AH for 100 inf. or less. The Mogul can take advantage of this person to supply raw materials.

9. Understand buyer psychology.
Buyers tend to have different tendencies than sellers, and here are my observations.

a) The Mogul. This guy appears again, and he's out to minimize expenses while maximizing profits. Again, this is ideally where someone taking the time to read this guide should be at.

b) The "Normal" buyer. They exhibit patience by placing a bid for what they believe an item to be worth. They have no problem waiting for an item to come to them on their terms.

c) The Lemming. They look at the sales history and see that the last 5 of something sold for 400k each, so he automatically bids 400k. Mogul sellers like The Lemming.

d) The Impatient. This one is pretty common as we seem to be in a "I need it now" kind of society. They will generally start with a low bid and then work their way up until they actually win what they're looking for. Money is generally no object for the Impatient.

e) The Bargain Hunter. They behave much like the impatient, but their low bids will generally start in the basement instead of at a medium price, and they'll stop bidding at a pre-determined ceiling. They won't spend more than they believe something to be worth.

f) The Vulture. This is the predatory practice of placing extremely lowball bids on expensive items and hoping that market forces converge to create a buyers market. This requires a low # of bidders versus a high number of sellers and having an Ambivalent seller coming along. These buyers are the most patient of the patient. Vultures are not the target buyer of The Mogul Seller. The Vulture is not your friend.

9. It takes money to make money.
You're going to need to have some sort of a nest egg to begin crafting. I've started with as little as 60,000 inf. and built that easily into 7 digits over the course of a couple of days. If you're of a low level, you can easily get a small nest egg buy acting as The Vulture, buying up Uncommon Salvage for low prices and selling it to a shop for 1000. You don't have to do this too much, but it should be easy to get into the 60-80k range to start real crafting.

The level 45-50 IOs are profitable in volume, but take a huge outlaying of resources to get to the point where they will be profitable. You'll need to be a dedicated crafter to make this work.

That's pretty much all for now. If you've learned anything from this, it should be that crafting can be profitable in CoH and in CoV to those who are willing to exhibit buyer and seller patience and who do their homework in market trends and in the math of buying and selling. You'll need to experiment and figure out what works for you.

If you have questions, I'll try to answer them.

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Psychic Blasters are now a reality....With Powerset Proliferation players now have even more character combinations to choose from.

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My altitis is starting to go into over drive and get all twitchy.

Though I think I have some characters I can delete...I'm discovering that defenders just don't fit my style too well.

/wants a psi/energy blaster
//and a dark/electric blaster
///and a plant/sonic controller
////etc.

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I hope this doesn't sound pessimistic (I have no reason to think this will negatively impact the game), but what do the following parties have to gain from this deal?

NC Soft
Cryptic
The Players

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Just guessing here:

NCSoft -- full rights to an established franchise. This means they keep all the profits and can license things out as they see fit.

Cryptic - $$. Plus they won't have to be caught in a conflict of interest between NCSoft with COH/V and Microsoft with MUO.

The players -- a sharp stick in the eye! (Kidding) ExLibris promised goodies. I await my goodies. Also, this would allow NCSoft to roll all of their games into one payment umbrella the way Sony does with theirs (if they should choose to do so, and it's been rumored that they might).

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The entire current team of COH/COV has signed on with NCsoft and we will be continuing our schedule of 3 free issues per year, as well as some other great goodies as we grow the team and IP.

Ex

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As long as the people who've knocked out the last few expansions are staying with the team, then I have confidence that this game will continue to escalate in greatness. The past year has given us a lot of great additions to an already fun game.

As far as the hinted-at goodies go, can you throw us a bone on those?

(I hate suspense.)

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standing outside in the eye of a hurricane.

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Done that one when I lived up in Maine. My last year up there we actually had one hit landfall in Wiscassett (you know, where the nuke plant is!) and the eye came right through Augusta. There is nothing freakier than being in the eye.

I've never been through an earthquake, though.

Lighthouse --

When doing something like this, how about fixing the problems with the Eden TRIAL first.

1) The Eden TRIAL does not give a Pool D TRIAL recipe. It gives a standard Pool C. Right now the only way to get a Pool D TRIAL recipe is the Respec Trial on the hero side.

2) The Eden trial can not be started by someone beyond the level range.

Let me see:

--Level 35-40 content? Check!
--Co-op content? Check!
--New TF/SF? Check!
--Server-wide event? Check!
--New costume parts? Check!
--Release date? Hmmm...

When is this going live?

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Freebird's is good, but I like Chipotle's rice better. And the Chipotle barbacoa is suuuuuuuper yummy!

I live in Austin, just south of Yeager Lane (almost in Pflugerville).

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We don't have a Freebirds around here, but Chipotle is amazingly addictive.

/have a strange craving for a giant burrito now

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[demon voice]You cannot put Big on that list and still possess a soul.[/demon voice]

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Actually, I can. It had the stink of Penny Marshall all over that movie.

For me, the concept of Hell boils down to a Penny Marshall / Ron Howard movie festival.

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In order for us (ok, just me) to take your movie critique seriously, I must ask for your three "Best.Movie.Evar."s


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BEST

MOVIES

EVAR!

I hope I qualify in the right to say Cast Away sucks.

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Well I can't think of a bad movie that Tom Hanks was the star in. Maybe I didn't like some as much as others but non where bad.

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Really? I can think of plenty:

The Da Vinci Code
The Terminal
Cast Away
The Ladykillers
You've Got Mail
Apollo 13
Forrest Gump
Sleepless in Seattle
A League of Their Own
Joe Versus the Volcano
Turner & Hooch
The 'burbs
Punchline
Big
Nothing in Common
The Money Pit
The Man with One Red Shoe
Splash
Mazes and Monsters

(Yes, I hated Forrest Gump and Apollo 13.)