FredrikSvanberg

I don't even know how it works.

But I suppose you are right. If an entire menagerie of cats weren't out of every possible bag by now I wouldn't have gone into all that detail.

The mission involves killing creatures of "underling" rank which somehow give rewards as if they were "boss" rank. This is obviously not correct. It is an exploit because it grants too high rewards for too little effort.

The EULA everyone signs when they log in, and the devs themselves on multiple occasions, say that it's against the rules to use exploits.

No, the fault is clearly with the cheaters and their cheating buddies. The correct way to handle these exploits is to report them as bugs and then leave them alone, not talk about them with anyone and never mention them again.

The correct way is not to make several copies of the same mission with slight changes to try to squeeze some more rewards out of it before it gets removed, playing it over and over again as much as possible, knowing what they are doing is wrong and will eventually be stopped.

Except it gives you 50% more xp while it lasts. Or at least that's what it's supposed to do. If it doesn't, it's bugged.

Perhaps you should simply respec out of Rage. I got rid of it on my SS brute and I haven't looked back. I couldn't stand the crash either. Give it a shot, you might like it better that way.

With 30% S/L you can almost softcap with just one Luck inspiration. That's not too bad. I also believe there's a temporary power that grants the same amount of defense as a Luck inspiration for 30 minutes - kinetic shield. I think? It can be crafted from a recipe so it shouldn't be hard to find. Try to squeeze in 2.5% more defense somehow and you'll get softcapped with an inspiration or temp power running.

Edit: That's the softcap for white conning minions, so it might not do much good against AVs, but it sure can't hurt.

I don't think they are trying to stop farming. Just cheating.

That damage has already been done. Can only improve from now on.

No, cheaters and exploits must be quashed.

Good because my suggestion doesn't remove or reduce the XP. Glad to have you on board.

My suggestion would give you 50% real XP and 50% patrol XP which could then be burned earning real XP at a 50% faster rate. You would get just as much XP as before, at the same rate, but only if you stepped outside the AE and did some "real" missions. If you only played in the AE you would only earn 50% XP.

Huh? What do you mean "Patrol XP I am not spending any time playing at all"? That sentence makes no sense.

What it really comes down to is that people who farm exploits are cheating so they should be punished.

That doesn't actually make it better. Besides, the axe is great against undead, it just needs to be more reliable and/or a pbaoe.

Not that kind of epic, I'm afraid.

It's unfunny because it's untrue.

If they change the star-ratings system to something more fair at the same time: immensely.

It's not that they use a special formula, it's that the only rating that matters is an average of 5 stars. Anything below 5 won't get you a hall of fame and it won't get your arcs a good position on random searches. That is why lower votes than 5s are just different degrees of down-rating, and why a single 1-star vote is a death sentence for any new arc.

But that's not true either. I pretty much reserve 1 star ratings for farms, but more than 80% of the arcs in the system are farms. Here's my chart:

1 Star = This arc is a farm and not worth my time. Worse than 10% of the arcs in the system.
2 Stars = Well at least there's some kind of story or something. Worse than 1% of the arcs in the system.
3 Stars = About the same as classic official content. Worse than 0.1% of the arcs in the system.
4 Stars = About the same as current official content. Worse than 0.01% of the arcs in the system.
5 Stars = Better than current official content. Worse than 0.001% of the arcs in the system.

Interestingly that 0.001% number looks similar to the number of 5-star average arcs with more than 100 plays... Maybe off by about a magnitude but still pretty close.

Overall: I like it, because it's short and generic enough that I can just put it in any character's story without thinking about it or having to explain/change too much in my own mind to make it fit. It's not very deep and not much is really happening but it's at least affecting my character personally and not someone else's story that we have to just go along with. This story is about me. I like random clones because I can replay the arc several times and get something new every time.

Mission 2: Some clone allies don't seem to help out much. I know this isn't your fault but maybe one ally is enough, and you could make it tougher. Let the other allies remain as enemies, betraying when you set them free. I'd rather fight them than bring them along and then have them not fight when I need them.

Mission 3: The Green Guard? That's the best name? And with a "the" too? Seemed weird.

The doc talks about being "taken by freaks" but he's guarded by some of his own men.

The "Willy Freak" was called "Smart 1" in mission 2 but not here. His description says that I've never seen a Freak like this before, but I have, in the previous mission. If he's not supposed to be the same guy he needs new dialogue.

The Crey ambush had some broken text replacement code. The $hisher got a linebreak in it so it showed up as "$his<br>her".

I must have missed something. There was no clue mentioning what the doctor was going to use the research for was there? I was just slapped with some bonus immorality in the debriefing, talking about all the good things he was going to use it for, but I didn't notice any of that in the mission.

I think it's a bad idea to have the doctor be an elite boss when none of the clones are tougher than a boss. The fight against him was longer than any of the other fights, and almost took longer to finish than one of the missions.

That sounds really fun. I want that.