Egos_Shadow

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Uh. How did he deal with ranged characters before?

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Well, some of the new ranged melee attacks are pretty potent, much more so than normal mobs tend to be.

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Right now it's pretty pointless since every mission in an arc can potentially have wildly different level ranges. This should hopefully change "soon".

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This isn't necessarily a down side to the idea. If you search by a max level, or by a level range, you just only return arcs which have all missions adhering to that criteria.

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I agree. If you want your minions to have blast sets, but not annoying secondary effects that stack up like crazy, you pretty much are limited to assault rifle and fire blast. Maybe radiation blast to a lesser extent, as defense debuffs aren't that big of a deal since anyone who uses defense to stay alive has resistance to defense debuffs.

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Stacking defense debuffs can really tear up even someone who depends on resistance or regen, since it doesn't take too many of them to get enemies to the point of "only missing on a 1".

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I've written a short letter to the devs asking them to rethink their decision. I'd encourage other folks with concerns to do the same. However, I have some small problem. Who exactly should I sent it to? Do we know which dev-person is point on this issue?

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I don't think this is a dev issue at all. I mean, I can see Customer Service getting guidelines from the developers with regards to farming missions, but I can't see the devs typing up content guidelines, or really having much say in the matter. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to ask someone, but you may want to get an answer on wether they can do anything about it before sending them a bunch of letters asking them to.

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OK thanks. How do I determine the number of spawn points a map has? The only info it gives me is the number of wall items floor items glowies, etc. I have never seen a spawn point number on the maps.

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I've always seen it in the form:
X number of 'Any' objectives
X number of 'Defeat Boss/Destroy Object' objectives
X number of 'Rescue Hostage/Ally' objectives
X number of Floor Clickies
X number of Wall Clickies

The numbers you should be concerned with here are the first 3; you'll need to make sure that all of those are filled in order to make sure that nothing spawns on the map until you're ready for it. Ideally you'll want a map with as few as possible 'Rescue/Escort Ally' spawn points, since you have to fill those with something too, or they'll fill with normal mobs.

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But of course, violence is OK and sex is bad.

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Unfortunately that's the facts of existence in the US. Wether you like it or not, ultimately you have to either accept it or accept that there may be consequences for not going along with it.

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So people actually use the default sorting?

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Most people who use the search use the default sorting, in the same way that most people don't use the forums. People on the forums are more likely to use different search methods... or to just have a Notepad file with a pile of arcs they've been asked to play.

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First travel power at 30? Par for the course if not staving it off even longer.
There's enough temp travel powers to keep me from picking one.

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Yeah, Raptor Pack plus the GvE flight booster is more than enough unless you're heading to the hind end of Nerva. In which case it's time to autofly and go get a drink. :P

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Can we make arson missions? I'd love to have a mission where you set fire to a rivals' warehouse/hideout and take them out as they try to escape the flames.

It would be awesome as pie to have the arson flames damaging players and mobs

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Not currently, but I really hope they will add the ability to have "mission events" like this at some point. Or maybe just spawn "fire" objects...

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Yesterday, got a few more plays (all 5-stars I might add) and it bumped me back to up page 4. Think I was at about 61-62 rates. Log in today to find I'm up to 65 rates, but back down to 4-stars (no comments from anyone BTW). Didn't even bother trying to find the arc as it's most likely back down in the page 250+ range.

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To be fair, since 5 stars means "4.5+", all you need are a few 3 star rates to pull you back down. While this isn't to discount the reports of 1-star banditry - it does happen - it's pretty easy to lose your five star rating if you get played by a couple people who simply think your arc is merely average.

The latest patch invalidated a bunch of arcs for some reason. Life's weird that way.

They really should be marked as "invalid, please pester the writer to fix them" or something in the search interface though.

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I'm actually glad you brought this up; this is what I'm getting at. BADGES were intended as recognition for accomplishments in the game. The badging mini-game, as you put it, is something the community did by taking the earning of badges out of context. They're not necessarily there so everyone can earn them. The "gotta to earn them all" mentality that has developed ignores what badges themselves are meant to signify, and I feel should be ignored in regard to issues such as these.

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I once made a co-worker consider quitting, by forcing him to realize that his "best practices" design was conflicting so badly with how paying customers were actually using the system that, had he actually implemented it everywhere it would cause huge problems. This is because people would happily continue using it the way that worked best for them unless physically prevented from doing so, and in the latter case, they would then proceed to complain about it.

There are times that the customer base needs to be slapped with a "stop doing that!", and there are times that you have to suck it up and understand that your design needs to take into account how people are actually using the system.

I was on an SG team shortly after Ouroboros was introduced. We were doing the Pilgrim's opening arc, and by the second temporal scaling mission (the shivans) these people, who were otherwise quite reasonable, were just about ready to riot.

I enjoy playing content for its own sake, but I think for a lot of people, if it's not granting XP, or it's not level capped, then it might as well not exist.

So I'd have to say that no, a zero xp Mission Architect is a terrible idea, due to the fact that I enjoy not being the only player in the game.

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So it annoys the living daylights out of me that tickets largely seem to be based on how much damage one does, whether or not one buffs. I go into a mish with a scrapper, tank, or brute, and they get a heck of a lot more tickets than my buff players. In one case, a fire tank gained nearly ten times the amount of tickets as the sonic I was playing.

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I don't see this at all when I play buff casters. Random drop is random.

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How about if the creator is online, and someone plays his/her arc and doesn't rate it when done. Will the creator have anything come up in their chat box? Or will the creator never know someone played it, except I suppose as progress on the one badge. Thx.

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They'll only get progress on the "people have played your arcs" badge, which doesn't exactly leap out at you. Someone who plays but doesn't leave a comment and either doesn't leave a rate or mucks it up is totally invisible to the writer.

It's been a bit since I checked, but I'm pretty sure even if they can't give you tickets from a rating, you'll still get a "Someone has rated (arcname)" message when they click the stars.

I'm not sure that's a story that's doable with the current constraints. Even if you made the ally bone stupid and set a hard ambush of brutal maimers to trigger on them being freed, you can't guarantee they'll die.

I'm not even sure that's a good idea in the first place. Remember, we're here to play a game more than read a story. If I really can't save someone, then they should be a body bag when I enter.

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On a side note, lately I've logged in with feedback comments for my arc, and people telling me "+5!", but then I either don't have tickets to claim, or the arc doesn't even show an increased number of rates. It seems either the MA system really hates me, or people are sending the comment and clicking "finished" before clicking on any stars.

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I've actually seen this happen while I'm logged in. Ie, get an MA comment that say "5 stars rate meh arc plz: #xxxx" with no associated ticket notice. This is really obvious since I have both Private Messages and Architect Entertainment piped to the same tab.

I'm inclined to be generous and assume that it's just someone screwing up rather than people being jerks, however, since the overwhelming majority of people who bother to leave comments (even "star exchange" type comments) have been honest about it.

I know that when I look at arcs I've played, sometimes it doesn't show me the "you rated this arc *****" note, even when the other person confirmed receiving the tickets from my rating.

Go go MA open beta?

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This whole issue is deemed "LOL" to me. This debate has been going on for forever.

I like the "arguing" of both sides. It is entertainment. :O

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All I heard was "blah blah farmin' mah post count blah".

In an amusing coincidence, this was all I was saying as well.

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Why are the naysayers act like there aren't anything else that can be used to farm besides Comm Officers?

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The "you can't fix everything, so you shouldn't fix anything" argument is always kind of amusing. I often see it referred to as "declaring the perfect the enemy of the good".

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A good point. I hadn't even thought of why the ordinary Freak bosses weren't available for customs, but it makes a lot of sense... in the context of the Feakshow itself they're fine, outside that context they're exploitable. Give the Comms the same treatment, which is no doubt coming in the next patch, problem solved.

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First..an exploit is using a loophole in the code. There is no loophole here. no exploit. WAI. Using comm officers opens you up for those annoying no xp mobs that pop out. They could always restore the xp they give and drop comm officers back down.

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I also would hesitate to call a faction of all comm officers an exploit. But, similarly, I wouldn't call a faction of all comm officers working as intended. They're only balanced in terms of risk and reward when used as part of the whole Rikti faction.

But, to try and get ahead of the usual, incredibly pointless definitional twiddling over "farm", "exploit", etc, regardless of what we call it, they give an unbalanced reward. I wouldn't expect them to stick around the way they are for that much longer.

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Comm officer EXP is the lesser of two evils....basically you either get harder than normal minions for crap exp or better exp for a harder challenge. They took the exp away from the summond mobs already. That is why they have better than normal exp anyway. Now if they all summoned portals as a priority in the attack chain instead of one or two of them....I think it would be a different ballgame.

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They've already made a difference between the mobs you can pick for custom factions and the mobs you get with choosing the standard factions. Just look at the combiner mobs (Titans, Natterlings), Force Field Generators, or the fact that if you want a specifically placed level 45+ Freakshow boss, he must be a Noise Tank, but if you just play an MA mission with Freakshow you'll get Freak Tanks like normal.

Given that, why the *@%& you can still place Comm Officers in a custom faction is a bit boggling, but I expect that change is making its way through QA.

The answer isn't to fiddle around with the CO rewards, it's to just not let you add them to a custom faction. Bam, no more Comm farms.

My own testing while trying to figure out just how rerating works indicated that it keeps updating the rates (for example, I could make the star rating on an arc with a low number of rates change by leaving the "finished mission" window open and clicking back and forth between 5 stars and 1 star). However, I didn't think to click all the way up to see what that would do for tickets.

Since it does seem to count the last rating clicked, which is the important thing, I wouldn't worry. At most you're out, what, a single boss defeat's worth of tix?

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I play a grav/ff controller and have come across the same thing. Go into a mission, they were dark/dark and none of my holds or immo's would work.

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Wait, dark armor makes AE enemies resistant to immobilize?

That's some hax right there. That's some @#%& hax.

[/ QUOTE ]Cloak of Darkness gives immob protection...

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Ah; minions shouldn't have that on Standard should they? Maybe this is also partly a "why must everything be Extreme" thread?

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I play a grav/ff controller and have come across the same thing. Go into a mission, they were dark/dark and none of my holds or immo's would work.

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Wait, dark armor makes AE enemies resistant to immobilize?

That's some hax right there. That's some @#%& hax.

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Whew..i hit all the arcs up to cappy's post. I played most of them either solo (emp def) or in a duo when it was too hard. Great job everyone!

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Yeah, there's some pretty good stuff in this thread, though I have only played about a third of them. I guess that's the theme with I14... more arcs than you can handle...