Grey Pilgrim

The rodent decreed that 12 was the target level last night... I think most were spread in the 10-12 range when I last looked. Might work on getting a Cap contact and getting to level 12 so I can have an Enforcer next week.

Blech, Pain Dom is kind of weak for MMs... it'll be nice to hit SO range and be able to heal a decent amount (almost half for Sooth, almost a quarter for Nullify). I know I'm used to the Defender Empathy, but if Mid's is right, even Empathy on Controllers blows MM's healing ability out of the water, which feels a little wonky. Is it because of the pets? Damage buffs in Pain Dom? Or what.

Was frustrating to be tossing heals around and not seeing the green bars go up much (and seeing my blue bar get hit hard), especially since Des tried to make himself as popular as possible last night. Hopefully it'll get better, there. Having fun with the dual wield pistols at least.

That would work if the boss isn't supposed to be unique/solo, which is what I needed. No problems in making generic bosses spawn in an ambush, etc., especially if you're using a custom group. Not so much if you have a named or unique boss.

Yeah, my two biggest wants for MA choices is the ability to have a boss spawn in an ambush, on their own, have two bosses in a mob (as we see all the time in CoX, but cannot do ourselves in MA... I wasted a lot of time trying to get two bosses to spawn together in my arc before realizing you couldn't), and to be able to choose where things spawn. Would certainly make things a lot easier, make writing dialogue easier (I had to adjust some dialogue when I realized that things might not spawn in as I wanted, no matter how linear the map was).

I'm surprised about the lack of "boss" options, actually... it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to put more of them in. And if you were afraid of farming, you could just limit the number of boss spawns you could have in a mission (rather wonder if they might do that somehow with all those farming going on).

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Try not to take it so personally.

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Yes, I'm glad we're all not taking things too personally (meant for a lot of people, not just one in particular).

We're all having fun running into the reason why Philosophy has a whole branch for debating aesthetics. As usual with most things in Philosophy, it can drive me nutty with how endlessly things can be debated. Oh well.

I'm quite glad you can choose actual map types with the MA, it allows the creator to make sure hostage missions, etc. aren't too ridiculously long and large. Surprisingly, some of the "large" maps you can choose from are not very large, so even going by the description there isn't completely reliable.

Open air maps are probably the trickiest things to use well, I would say, just from their size. The few MA ones I've played have reminded me why I generally hate those maps in the 40s (find the boss and the glowies in the city and around the carnie tents, yay!).

I'd be more for whips as a weaponset if it didn't mean people would have even more reasoning to make catgirls as a character. *shudders*

There are good reasons to have defeat alls, and you can actually set up the mission to make it easier to do. My arc has two defeat alls, but that's because you absolutely cannot have anyone report that you were the one actually doing the attack on the two hangouts.

To alleviate the "pain" of having to do that, one is all Family (relatively easy opponents), and I picked two fairly linear maps, so it's hard not to see all the foes as you go through anyway. Knowing and picking your map is a big one... if I have a hostage on a Croatoa maps, I'm probably going to use those capture settings where magic is used on them: flares, so to speak, to help a player see where they are.

Any objective setup they have for a mission is okay, as long as the reasons for that objective make sense, and as long as things are set up to make it fairly easy to accomplish said objectives (or at least without too much frustration). The real reason people don't like defeat alls (or find the 25 magicians on this Oranbega map) is because most CoX missions where those happen are in huge maps with nooks and crannies with things that can hide. Until you KNOW an arc creator didn't set up an objective well, rejecting it because it has a type of objective is being hasty.

That's being counteracted a bit, as people are remembering that you can roll on common salvage for dirt cheap with tickets, and I think that's filling the gap, along with some others putting those cheap enhancements on the market to make for more sane pricing. Took a bit to sell an ancient bone for 7.5k, and that was a steal just a week ago for those.

I don't think they set up the MA well enough to account for farming... to some extent, there's only so much that they can do, because there are people that always want to be PL'd (not sure for what, in this game). But yeah, I think there have been a few too many loopholes.

Yup, nothing like the inspiration of last minute panic for wanting tutoring or help with a paper. I personally love the ones that e-mail me at 2 AM in the morning before a paper is due with a question about the paper... like I'm sitting around, waiting for their e-mail at 2 AM. *shakes head*

Hart, you have joined a prestigious crew of many other forumites that are "cheaters." Now turn off your xp until we catch up and behave!

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Oh, and Viv, sorry, but your arc sucks.

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Woah, wait... who said this? It's one thing to dislike an arc, and another to be completely insulting about it (which is why I hate those movie reviewers that seem to think it is their job to come up with creative ways to insult a movie... very few moviemakers *cough*Uwe Boll*cough* deserve this). I don't think you can expect too much starwise from your arc until you flesh things out, but it was hardly a bad mission. Though the dialogue of that catgirl boss at the end really made up for things. Hehe, still makes me chuckle to think of that one.

Calash, you're welcome! I'm glad I was able to help out (it helped that we were playing at the same time, heh). To be honest, I'm approaching these arcs a lot like my teaching... one of my favorite parts of my job is helping people improve their writing, thinking, etc., so it's quite fun. Boy, now I want to play your arc and Voo's arc again, just to see what got tweaked.

LifeGuardian's post shows a big problem with the rating system and how people view it. "5 is just if something completely knocked me over with awesomeness and felt like it could be something the Devs had done as part of a zone redesign (like the Faultline or RWZ arcs)." If everyone uses this criteria, very, very few arcs are ever going to make it in to Hall of Fame. If ever. I'm not saying that it should be easy street to get into Hall of Fame, but it's a bit rough if people are going to require 5 star arc to be awesome (and by the sounds of it, better than most arcs already in the game). Awesome is hard to get from a lot of people... heck, people have a lot of differences about the great movies and books out there.

Meh, keep it up if you wish, Kong. You're not the only one doing reviews, and frankly, they're going to happen no matter what with this kind of feature, no matter how people feel about them (not being harsh with those that don't like them, those are just the facts).

Might be worth having more do the reviews, I guess, to spread things out and leave room for disagreement. That's why Rotten Tomatoes can be somewhat useful.

And Voo, while it would be nice if we could just rate it on our own (like we can rate other players), that would just leave a huge pile of missions with no way to discriminate the good from the bad unless you played it yourself. Ratings, reviews, and critiques have their pros and cons, but they are around for a reason. Too much stuff out there! Some good, some bad, and we don't all have time to be a reviewer for a job, heh.

At some point, a critique is a critique. You take what you can/want to from it, and leave it at that. It probably would be better to have another thread where people discuss what a good mission is to them, get a dialogue going, etc.

I dunno. I don't mind discussing other's arcs with them and even with others, but I'm thinking a review thread is not a good thing for me to use... I'll probably just keep it to private interactions, I think.

Pistachio, I understand where you are coming from and feel the same way, to some extent. However, review, stars, etc. are going to be used and even needed by people. When I published my arc (a week and a half after the MA came out), it was in the 88000s... even though some of those numbers are apparently arcs that were published and then removed, that is a LOT of content. People already couldn't play all the content 1-50 made by the devs, and they used other people's reviews (nothing official usually, but word gets around) to decide if they wanted to do something or not.

The MA list here on the Victory forums is great so we can see what our fellow forumites are doing, but even that is getting long... I haven't been able to keep up with it, as I want to play regular missions, too. Reviews and word of mouth are inevitable with any type of content a person can view, play, etc.

The best you can do is describe your arc well, and hope that your audience was paying attention to that description. Even then it's not enough. Take the movie A Knight's Tale. Clearly, using "Low Rider" as music in a tale set in the medieval ages is anachronistic and for fun. But a lot of critics panned the movie for doing so... which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. *shrugs* Such is the creative and reviewing world.

*added*

If your arc is in the Victory list, Life Guardian, I and a few others will get to it eventually. It just takes a bit, with regular content, MA content made of dev choice, SGmates, and forumite missions, etc.

Voo, I haven't played your arc since you revised/republished it (I panicked and thought I had republished last night too when I was editing mine for a couple typos that slipped by me somehow... they really need to rephrase that button), but I thought the mobs were a fun challenge.

Acc debuffs are a pain, and are a source of annoyance for a lot of players, so some may react to them differently. I personally thought yours were a good challenge, that had my Tanker using his hold a lot (he doesn't do that much except for Sappers anymore)... and actually wishing it would recharge faster.

As for the "details" like descriptions, Kong is being consistent with that. He likes the extras that are there with dev created stuff. Some can do without those details, of course, but not having them can detract from things. I don't know how much you revised after I played it, but the biggest thing I wanted more out of your arc was more story details and background. Descriptions can do that for the players that want it.

I think I gave your arc a 4 when I played it, because it was a fun challenge to me. I felt a little iffy, as I wanted more story details, but it sounded like you were going to work on those more.

Heh, now for your "forumite mission," those mobs are a little over the top. They were hitting me worse than the Cimerorans do, and the end drain those archers have is way over the top to my mind, especially if there are more than one (I think getting hit by one of those drained half my end bar or so... 40-60 end in one power is a lot). It was an interesting challenge for me, Viv, and Yuuden, and I didn't mind it too much, but it did feel like a bit much, especially since it was a funny mission (couldn't focus much on what forumites were saying because the mobs were so tough).

So there, some more food for thought. I think you do a fairly good job with your custom mobs- they do provide a different challenge, if over the top sometimes (and then not nearly as bad as some I have seen).

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.

I was wondering what to do about our missions, actually. I was debating whether we should just have a review thread to compliment the MA list thread, or what?

But I dunno, I would encourage careful writing and receptions of reviews. On the receiving end, people can be altogether too defensive when they receive any feedback, even if it's being kind and helpful. It's also important to be careful of tone when you're writing feedback or a review. Do NOT follow the lead of those crappy movie reviewers that think it's their job to insult the maker as much and as wittily as possible.

I think following both guidelines will help review be helpful, rather than a bad/negative thing.

Arc Name: Belated Justice
Arc ID: 88003
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: Grey_Pilgrim
Difficulty Level: Medium
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island find and defeat the murderer of his childhood friend. Fight the Warriors, Tsoo, and Family as you search for justice.
Estimated Time to Play: 45-60 minutes
Link to More Details or Feedback: Use the in-game feedback or PM me. Feedback is appreciated!

Realize that the spawn locations can just be wonky. I learned about that ally set to single trick earlier this week, but his location can still be all over, even though he's set to "front." I'll sometimes have to cut through several mobs before I can get to him.

Rather frustrating, but that's how it is, currently.

Good. Glad to know it's not just me having issues. I think, heh.

I think two of the biggest things I've seen that need improving with the MA (I know devs, it's never enough is it?) are boss spawning and spawn selection. I think that would answer a lot of problems people have been having so far with the MA, if this part of the forums is any indication, anyway.

Still quite good, but it'll be nice if they can tweak those things for sure.

Boo, you're leaving us for yet another fantasy MMO? I feel so hurt!

Just kidding. Have fun in your other endeavors, and I hope you return. The community is what I really love about COH, so I hate to see anyone leave.

Although... you should try some MA stuff, maybe that will hook you!

I have a couple similar approaches to missions, Heraclea. Warehouse maps are pretty good for this, and actually some of the office maps are fairly "linear" (even if they have multiple floors). Some of the cave maps are linear, too, though they can curve around a bit. Look around in them and see what works is about the best I can say, in addition to looking at these suggested.

Okay, with two of my missions that I tested in my 5 mission arc, something that was supposed to spawn in the back of the mission spawned in the middle or front (one was a glowie, another was a boss). I'm guessing locations as best I can, but the glowie was right next to another encounter I set for the middle of the mission (and there was a LOT of cave left before the boss I placed in the back), and the Boss meant to go in the back was next to another boss I had placed in the middle of the mission.

There was also plenty of room in the "back," because both missions had normal spawns in the back near other encounters in the back. If that makes sense, heh. Both missions DO have ambushes, but as I said, there were normal spawns in the back, so I don't think anything could be crowding these "back" encounters forward.

Any ideas on what I could be doing wrong/need to fix? Or is this something wonky with the MA?

Yeah, starting small and working up is a good idea, though I'm not sure what could be "buggered up" by having a boss spawn in with an ambush or a battle. I would think you could take the same settings from a boss spawn and use that. Nothing different from the other, and that's where I'm having difficulty with this feature not being in the MA.

Though I'm sure we don't know all the details with the programming, so there's some good reason for it not being in there.

I agree... where and how you include information is important. If you put too much in while someone is running around a mission, that can be a bad thing- it can be missed or drowned out. I prefer patrols, bosses, etc. to have text that adds flavor or a bit of knowledge to what is going on. Anything else can be missed or cause overload.

Doing a bit with each opportunity you have is probably the best. No walls of text, but enough detail so there is a story and flavor. It's certainly a balancing act, though.

An underling? I'll have to look at that next time I'm in-game. I thought there were only boss, lieutenant, and minion options for custom groups. Let me know if it's hidden in there somewhere or if I'm just blind.

Egos, they've been working on the MA for a LONG time now, and as I said, two boss encounters is not uncommon in CoX already. You already have an option to put a boss in to the mission, so I can't see it as being too much of a stretch to allow that in an ambush, battle, etc. Obviously, I'm not a dev, so I could be way off. But it doesn't seem like too much above and beyond the idea of putting a boss in the mission. *shrugs*

I'm quite understanding of AI issues with allies, for instance, though I still wish they would work better.

That's extremely frustrating, since that's a common thing you see in missions throughout CoX. Not sure why they didn't add it here (and I wouldn't think "unbalancing" is a possible concern, given how powerful custom characters are). I'm making do with the second custom guy spawning in after you defeat the first, but I of course have no control over spawn locations either. Grrr.

Thanks for the confirmation, though. I won't have to waste any more time trying to make it work somehow.

Heh, I had some funny things happen while I was working on it, too. When I made the minion, I didn't notice that he was only about 4 feet high, so the ambush would spawn in 3-6 minions that were midgets and tossed boulders at me (Hurl was one of their powers). It was a comical sight, let me tell you.

Okay, I have a special encounter I want to make, where two, and only two, bosses are squaring off. I also need them to be custom characters.

I've tried doing this with a battle where they are both fighting (but one dies too quick). I've tried this with one being a boss, and then the other ambushes you as you fight him. I even tried this with one as a hostage. Problem every time is that there will be more than one of them (I made a custom group for each and put them in as the sole boss), which is definitely not what I want. Is there any solution to this?

Ugh, I even tried adding a minion in to the ambushing group, and all that does is make the ambush group full of minions (at any difficulty), rather than just the boss and a minion or two. Am I stuck and forced to create two boss encounters?