Eva Destruction

Whooo, finally managed to copy stuff without crashing. Yay for huge reduction, the Mega Mech has 9 custom critters and was almost at the file limit, on test it's at around 77%. I'll probably be adding in a few more customs.

And using the "custom" power selections doesn't seem to be affecting how much space the critter takes up, thankfully. Yay for no more Total Focus at 32!

Reeeeeeeeally? Sweet.

Hmm, I recall a thread a while back where a guy had written a program that could compress your arcs by removing some of the extraneous custom critter information. Maybe the devs decided to do it for us?

Was this the Portal Bandits arc? Having played that one I'm guessing most of the file size was taken up by the custom critters, so a reduction that huge....

I only wish I didn't keep crashing the MA when I try to copy my arcs over...

"Look for clues" is perfectly clear. It's pretty much accepted that it means a blinky. After all, if you knew what you were looking for, half the time you wouldn't need to look for it.

And as for hostages being killed, not every map allows rescues, and no, sometimes you can't switch to one that does. Also, bad guys are bad. Sometimes they kill people.

Unlocked costume pieces maybe? I've noticed that extras like auras, capes and wings use up quite a bit of space.

I really really really hope that isn't the case and the file sizes did get smaller though.

That's what I was trying to figure out. Apparently there isn't one. You have to edit the published mission.

Maybe a certain percentage of arcs completed? That way Mr. "I love the MA and I run player-created content daily" gets to recommend more arcs than Mr. "I never use the MA, I just go in to recommend my friends' arcs."

Unfortunately the "random" button on test only gives you one random arc, not a page of them. So you have to keep clicking it until you get something that sounds vaguely interesting, rather than having a whole page to look at.

I would honestly like for the DEFAULT search to be randomized somewhat. Have maybe three randomly chosen Dev's Choice arcs at the top of the first few pages, two or three Hall of Fame arcs when we get some, thereby still showcasing those arcs but not to the exclusion of all others, and the rest be completely random until you click on a "sort by" button.

Right now, we have: Dev's Choice arcs. Two 5-starred arcs that likely deserve it, since they have kept their rating for over 100 plays. Three or four 5-starred arcs that might deserve the rating, having over 20 plays. And then on page two you start getting into 5-starred arcs with a single rating and a one-sentence description such as "So and so is attacking paragon city and you have to stop him." Your 4-starred arc is better than those.

Yeah, the problem would be having a limit on the "recommended" list. I've 5-starred more than ten arcs. Although I do like the idea of having a box you can tick to indicate why you liked the arc.

(How many 5-stars do you need to cancel out a 1 and push you back up to 4.5? Is it 7?)

The big difference is the stingy 1-star reviewer is ONE GUY. Well, ok, it's more than one guy, but they're in the minority. You need 7 5-star ratings to cancel out his 1-star.

On the other hand, when you get to the front pages, you are on the front pages for a lot of guys. The first jerk 1-stars you. You are still on the front page for the second and third and fourth jerk, until they refresh their search window. You now need 28 5-star ratings to cancel them all out and get back up to 5 stars.

There is also the fact that a good arc will get a lot of high ratings, because people enjoy it, and most of us aren't literary critics and will give out 5 stars based on a simple "I had fun." I honestly can't think of a way they could get rid of undeserved 5-stars by friends, except to maybe require finishing the arc to assign 5 stars.

Even anomalous 5-star ratings can sometimes be legitimate, especially with things like Supergroup arcs, or in-jokes, that are designed to appeal to a specific group but are playable by anyone.

So if somebody was to go play your arc now, before you republished it, just to be a jerk....

What? Your sig says to play it!

Change it ONE PIECE AT A TIME. Then republish. Then wait for it to actually republish.

Mapserving right when you're almost done your totally awesome rewrite SUCKS. Massive souvenir rewrite, mapserved, twice. I didn't touch it for a week after that, even though I agreed with the people who had said the souvenir should be expanded upon.

That is why I ask if I can work on it locally.

Because someone asked: No, you can't make petless MMs. Most of the sets seem to have the first two powers required, which in the case of MMs is a pet and an attack. However on standard MMs seem to get the pet and two attacks, it's still a wussier MM.

From a cursory sweep, keeping in mind that I'm kinda drunk, here's the maximum amount of "wussing down" you can do for custom minion primaries:

Blast sets must have the first two single target attacks. (On Standard most have those and the first AoE)
Melee Sets are largely unchanged. They must have the first two attacks, and the ranged attack. A few sets (Katana, Dual Blades, which has three attacks on standard) can lose an attack.
Control sets must have the first two powers. Mind loses Dominate.

Must stop posting this stuff while drinking, but....this is my shiny new toy and it just got shinier.

Forgot to add:
The test mode options also include a "complete mission" button. I guess it's easier than dragging missions around in the editor.

And, just noticed, a new "Dev Only" map: The burning lab from that high-level villain arc where you fight Baphomet.

Nope, they still tried to kill me as soon as I attacked. The ambush went straight for me, and I didn't see an option to make it part of the goal.

On the upside, you can change the standard critters' descriptions too, but only when you add them to a custom group.

Can I do the edits to the locally saved copy of the arc, then overwrite the published version without losing the arc ID and ratings? If so, how do I do it? Or do I have to work on the published version?

I'm considering a fairly heavy edit of one of my arcs, basically merging the first two missions into one. It would be MUCH easier to do in a local file.

Well you can't take them all away. The first two powers seem to be locked in, at least with my limited checking before I was yanked away from my squeeing to go run a Katie....but it looks like it'll definitely be easier to make custom critters suitable for lowbie arcs.

And it doesn't let you CHOOSE the spawn points. Just see them. They are color coded for front, middle and back.

OOO, I can change stuff for standard critters? Really? Sweet, now your goons in the villain arc I'm working on will be less 5th Columny and more Your Goony.

Tweaking, definitely. Taking away Total Focus from the bosses in my 25-32 arc, thank you very much, as soon as i15 is live.

Not in the patch notes, but in the description of the little test arc I made:

WARNING! Story arc may contain: Archvillains, Elite Bosses, Enemies with custom power selections.

Also, I filled a mission with Midnighters and set it to go to 50. It's full of greys. Oh, the possibilities.

Also available in test mode: Buttons to Go to next objective, Kill target, invisibility, invincibility, and the maps now have all front, middle and back spawn points marked.

Aaaaand, I gave my AR custom boss two powers. That's it. On the "Custom" setting you can remove powers that are there on Standard.

Oh, and you can mark an arc "Looking for Feedback," and search by level, and add "ask about this contact" info, and....

I am now officially totally distracted from getting a bunch of badges yoinked.

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And I ask again: What does one guy's rating style have to do with griefing?

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The relevance is that while I recognize that ratings griefing does occur, I cannot think of an obvious way to clearly distinguish between ratings griefing and genuinely harsh ratings in the general case, which makes its very difficult to formulate an enforceable policy regarding ratings griefing except in very obvious and extreme situations. Even then, its unlikely to be enforceable automatically, without the involvement of customer support to research the issue carefully. That may require more time than its worth to enforce.

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On the other hand, if they were serious about banning repeat offenders, someone like Heavens_Agent would be ok, as he had actually played the arc in question and THEN decided he didn't like it, rather than the more obvious "this person has started x arcs, and immediately quit and assigned them a low rating."

If this is too difficult to datamine, then it's a case of the devs making promises they can't keep to assure the players that what we predicted would happen, wouldn't.

Well if it was weighed by percentage of objectives completed (required or not) that would discourage people from making what are essentially paper missions....

On the downside, stealthers' votes wouldn't count for as much.

And I ask again: What does one guy's rating style have to do with griefing?

Look, you can say "maybe six people in a row just hated your arc" all you want. You can ignore the fact that people only hate that arc when it's at 5 stars. But when you get a low rating on ALL THREE OF YOUR ARCS, none of which are highly visible or heavily played, overnight, I find it hard to believe that someone just decided, "Hey, I really want to play an arc by this person. Oh, this one's crap, I'll try another...that one's crap too...." Generally when you play an arc by someone and it's total crap, you don't go out of your way to play another arc by them, right?

All this arguing about "how we are supposed to rate" doesn't solve anything, it won't change anyone's mind, and it's obfuscating the real issue, that some people are spiteful jerks.

Well, that may be so, but it does make it stand out when you're scrolling through your power window. Since I didn't notice it the first time, I only mentioned it as the reason why I believe the pack was applied during my play session.

As opposed to the magic pack, which I purchased, but couldn't use until I logged out and back in.

Dear Caves:

Arc ID 1805. That is all.

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All I heard was "stone brute" and "kin corrs."

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QF proving the original anti-LRSF correct.

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Can't they both be right? I have done the LRSF on a fairly optimized team. It was fun. A lot of that fun was of the "I am Jack's smirking revenge" variety, and much of it was that it was my second time playing primary support on a task where my role was critical and I enjoyed knowing that I could do it, but it was fun.

That doesn't mean the SF is not poorly designed. We had a stone brute, a kin, a therm, a rad, and two VEATs. That's what it took for us to have fun.