Eva Destruction

I have been held by a Titan once or twice before i15. And since I don't avoid Malta, that's really not a lot.

Today I was testing my Malta arc (in my sig, shameless plug) and my brute ran into two Hercules Titans who had just happened to spawn next to each other...and suddenly I couldn't attack. Then I saw "HELD" in my status bar. Of course, in retrospect I probably should have known better than to stand in a DoT patch. So I risked dying because I was dumb. I like it.

I don't recall the Hercules Titans having any sort of mez protection either. I've been one-shot holding them with my Malta-pwning blaster forever...unless they got some mez protection as part of i15.

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6% is the normal size for a custom critter - I've never seen a critter take up significantly less than that.

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Well the custom group from my other arc takes up 38% of the file size, it has 9 critters in it, including an EB that takes up 7% or so on his own. So the remaining critters would be taking up about 4% each. They shrank significantly when i15 came out. I haven't edited their costumes since though.

The problematic guys were taking up less space until I edited them, including their costumes, as their sleeves had inexplicably been changed from "suit long" to "blazer." Then the file size got bigger. When I tried to edit them again I kept mapserving and crashing, I had to delete and remake them.

The pre-edit critters were in the arc before. The arc was at 96% or so. I played it today, they were spawning fine. The new, bigger critters, that push the arc up to 102%, are practically identical to the old ones, except for some custom power selections, which don't increase the amount of space a custom critter takes up (I have added custom power selections to critters since i15. The file size did not increase at all. In the local mission file, their custom power set is listed as "39"...I'm guessing each combination of powers has a pre-set number assigned to it.)

Verifying files didn't help. The arc is still playable without the second custom critter, just that one mission is a bit more annoying for a level 45+ character.

I've had to delete the original minions and recreate them, since trying to edit them kept crashing the game. The new ones still push the file size up over the limit, even though I recreated them with the same costume...some weirdness going on here.

For some reason these guys are huge, they're taking up 6% of the file size each, just like pre-i15 customs did, even though their costumes are a simple suit without any of the extra doodads that normally eat file size, and their bios are one sentence.

And I just hard-crashed trying to edit the minions from the AE terminal. It's all a Crey plot, they don't want me making them less annoying for high-level players so they broke my customs

It didn't seem to increase the space requirements when I edited the allies in the same arc. Like I said, reverting them to standard didn't fix the problem. I never edit anything outside the mission editor, unless I'm deleting custom groups or characters.

Also, for some reason now I keep mapserving trying to edit the arc...maybe I shouldn't be doing it with my Architect commlink from Siren's Call, but it was fine before I started messing with the custom group.

One of my published missions was sitting comfortably at 96%. It contains a custom Crey group (because all-tank spawns at 45+ are annoying and tedious to fight), consisting of two custom minions and random Crey minion, lieutenant and boss.

I tried to edit the customs' powers, to make use of custom power selections. When I did this, the file shot up from 96% to 102%. Abandoning the changes kept the inflated file size, since the new, bigger minions had already been saved. So there's nothing I can do now except remove one of the minions. I tried reverting them back to their "standard" settings...no dice.

Solutions anyone? I would really like to be able to keep both minions.

These have already been mentioned, mostly because I'm choosing a lot of arcs to play based on recommendations from here, but I'll second:

Teen Phalanx Forever: Just fun overall.

Astoria in D Minor: Lovely creepy mood.

Escalation: Great custom enemy design, and the story was cool too.

MacGuffin Delivery Service: Nice use of game mechanics, cool narrative style (although it may be broken atm due to Family bugs)

Blowback: Shush you, I like Malta. This arc gets into some aspects of the group that canon only mentions in passing.

Pandas vs. Rikti: Very cute, very fun.

There have been many more awesome arcs, but those are the ones that come to mind right now.

What about Viridian? He makes you kill 200 frickin' Paragon Protectors just so you can be his delivery boy, then makes you clean up his mess, which he should have seen coming as soon as Nemesis showed up in the first mission.

Some arcs give an unusually large completion bonus. Also, were you playing a hero or a villain? Some villain arcs are considered "mini-arcs" despite their length, and give a smaller, if any, completion bonus.

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I want to know more about High-Roller's new life (even if you have to make it up.) Who was "Mr. Simmons"? What crazy antics could their protégé get into?

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Why don't YOU make it up? To the AE! *cues Batman music*

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Lastly, but probably more importantly... what's up with Dominatrix and Tyrant? You know what I mean. If she is their Ms. Liberty and he is their Statesman...

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I believe someone already answered that question, and the answer is "eww."

Sure, set BossGuy as a boss objective, and set the surrounding enemy group to "security guards," and set the objective to spawn when you free the ally. If you have an appropriate map, you can have him spawn near where the ally is freed, to make it look like an ambush. There is no way to make an actual ambush have just one BossGuy in it, as far as I know.

They could have been nailed with that chat bug that records your last few keypresses, started to leave a comment, and decided against it. Or they did leave a comment but some bug ate it.

I think a lot of people use the "challenging" tag to avoid the ragequit 1-stars from people trying to solo a level 40+ arc on their level 25 controller. I don't use it, because what is and is not "challenging" is entirely subjective.

There are people who have trouble soloing on heroic. There are people who solo AVs. Who's definition of "challenging" are we using again?

Cap au Diable on Freedom is similar. Mostly, because people are jerks and stand around with PBAoE heals on autofire, summon Mastermind pets, etc in the building.

A power dampening effect, such as the one in Studio B, turns all your powers off. Which would mean retoggling every time you enter a mission. Annoying at best, and possibly instant death on all those casino maps people like to use.

"Cater to players of a specific origin" is misleading, I should have said "cater to characters of a specific origin." By which I mean, players using a Magic-origin character might want to run arcs tagged as "Magic," as that would make sense for the character from an RP perspective.

I agree, Mutation doesn't make much sense, but Tech and Science definitely do, and maybe even Natural, if you interpret it as "the guy with no powers fights guys with no powers." At least it makes sense from a comic-book perspective: The Punisher usually fights armed guys with no real powers, Iron Man fights power-armored guys, Spider-man fights science-origin guys...and the X-Men fight other mutants because Stan Lee was lazy.

"Origin Story" is a tag. The only tag that caters to players of a specific origin is Magic, and possibly maybe Sci-Fi, if you squint.

Based on casual observation, the true "challenge" arc seems to be a niche thing. There aren't a lot of them out there. There are quite a few story arcs flagged as "challenging," but as for pure "test your character" missions, I'm not seeing a lot of them.

My guess is that a few people have published some, and everybody is just using those, since, unlike farm arcs, they aren't being taken down.

Hit republish
Wait until you get the "blah blah blah" has been updated message. This can take a minute.
Hit the "search" button to refresh the "my published stories" page.
Hit "edit" again and your changes should show.

This just happened with my timed mission, on the Steel Canyon map. As soon as the captive hit the truck, mission fail. The arc has three other missions with captives, with no timer, and they are fine.

Apex would be a MA/SR Scrapper, wouldn't he?

It would be cool if you could set the level of custom enemies, so you could make him level 15.

Unfortunately, since the removal of the "x people have played your arcs" badges, you can't tell whether someone has played your arc and hated it or low-rated it without playing it.

I find it amusing that people are *still* dismissing vote griefing as "why don't you just admit your arc sucks?" Even some of the most discerning critics have flat out said they don't rate lower than 1, and when all the 0-star votes were removed....voila, a bunch of arcs jump up to 5 stars. Frankly, most players aren't that discerning.

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As an aside, in the Watchman movie, Silk had stilettos...except for the hallway fight, where she suddenly didn't.

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Assuming that it's a continuity slip, and not just a "can't do this scene in heels" issue.

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Both the scenes in the Watchmen and Batman looked like a "can't do this in heels" thing. IIRC Silk Spectre went through three pairs of boots in that movie: the stilettos, the flats, and a pair of medium heels.

Yes, I look at women's shoes in movies. I love high heels IRL and all my characters wear them. Yes, even my martial artist, cause she's just that good. I actually don't like the new "high heels" and "witch boots" options, the heels are too far back on the shoe. Wearing shoes like that IRL is really uncomfortable, they feel like they're going to snap off at any time. Whereas the classic "stiletto" and "thigh high" options have the heel centered under the character's actual heel.

Personally, as a player, I don't like arcs that span the whole 1-54 range. They always show up when you click the "my level" button, even though they are usually too difficult for lower-level characters.

From a purely technical standpoint, it's nearly impossible to balance an arc to be an appropriate challenge for all levels, especially if it contains customs.

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I can understand the mindset of wanting to always dress females in "realistic" Batman-esque clothing because let's face it not many superheroines IRL would likely fight crime in 5 inch stilettos even if they could.

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Hmmm, my Agent Wildkatze is guilty of just that in her base costume. The suit covers head to toe, but has stilettos. I vaguely recall debating about it for half a second and deciding she's just that agile she can do it. As a comparison, my tankers I don't expect to be that agile, and have flat soles.

As an aside, in the Watchman movie, Silk had stilettos...except for the hallway fight, where she suddenly didn't.

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If you ever watched the old Wonder Woman show from the 70s Lynda Carter's boots magically became flats whenever you'd see her in an action scene as well.

I figure between your example and mine that pretty much proves the point.

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Also happened with Catwoman in Batman Returns. Bugged the heck out of me.

I figure, if I can leap tall buildings anyway, a pair of high heels isn't going to be that much of a hindrance to normal, day-to-day buttkicking.

And honestly, if I was built like my toons (chest slider never past half, and rarely even near that), I'd wear "with skin" options all the time too. As long as they were gravity-defying and wedgie-proof, of course.

The same thing does indeed happen if you finish the mission, then die, and hit "exit" instead of "go to hospital." You only go to the AE hospital if you click "go to hospital" inside an AE mission.