Jeuraud

If I'm reading Arcanna and you right, and if the spawns are covered by the Streakbreaker then Jolting Chain is going to hit each target once you hit your first target, as long as your hit chance is 90+%.

I personally believe that it is the sound that makes these attacks appear to be slow. I very much dislike the sounds and turned sound off for a while, and found that this set was really rocking. I've kind of learned to ignore the sound now.

Also all of your downtime is in the animation, unlike most of the old attacks, which have a pause after the attack. I have often hitten dead enemies, because the queued attack goes off before the game knows the MOB is down.

This is a good observation. Now that I think about it I have noticed my Stalker taking damage from nearby MOBs even before my AS completes. Though this often happens with the other attacks out of hide I don’t think I have every had this with any of the other Stalker AS's. Maybe this should be /buged, or it could just be another one of the Devs latest MOB buffs that are just affecting this set, at this time.

KM also has pretty significant single target mitigation with it's Stuns, and Knockdown in just the first three powers. There high enough percentage, and the powers are fast enough that I will often get at least one of these mitigations every MOB I fight. I have often gotten chain knockdown and stuns, which is great when you knockdown that MOB that is stumbling away. Of course these mitigations are based upon whether Murphy is looking your way or not. Siphon Life is also subject to Murphy's whims.

How about you point out the language that implies that I was angry. I was incredulous that you had the gall to say you survived a team wipe with a Troller, and that you were the sole contributing factor to that survival, besides the SB.

Btw this is angry language.
My stand from the beginning is that SB is not the power that people make it out to be. You then contributed with anecdotal evidence, to someone else with my same viewpoint, that it was a great power and why. As soon as you did so, you opened yourself up to my rebuttal of your statement. That’s how open conversations, such as forums work.

Actually yes, that's why I said this because you were not clear with this statement, but this discussion is about the Kin, so decided to point out what a Kin could add to your survival.

This is what you said.
Where is endurance mentioned in this statement? This on the other hand
implies that the reason you survived was because of your cycle time. Especially being most of this discussion has been about the speed reduction aspect, not the endurance aspect of SB.

This actually backs up my claim that the Troller was a contributing factor to your survival. Now I could list what a 20+ Plant Troller could bring to the table, but I wont. Anyone who has ran with or has run one, knows what this primary can bring.

And this again is anecdotal evidence. You "believe" that SB was what kept you from dying. You can go on believing that, it's your right. On the other hand you have contributed nothing in your statements besides belief, so my opinion has not changed. I will go on in my "belief" that you survived because of that plant Troller, and whatever secondary they brought to the table. This belief is based upon my experience with the game, and is also my right to hold.

Actually this statement says otherwise,
and it's not the first time I've read this viewpoint. Despite my forum join date, I have been in and out of CoHv since May, 2004, and the SB issue has been in the forums multiple times since that date.

And I say that the power does not have the earth shattering affect that is being promoted. That most players see the fricken huge run speed buff, and think that their getting this kind of buff to their reduction time, and as the numbers have pointed out numerous times, they're not. Something to note, I play mostly on the red side. Guess what, SB does not even exist in the pre-20 game there and only one AT has it available in the post-20 game, yet we still seem to team effectively on the redside, even in the pre-20 game.

My problem is not with the power though. My problem is that for some reason some of you believe you have the right to dictate to a group of players that have this power in their set that they must take this power. That they must support your "want" for the benefits of this power. That if they do not take and use this power, they are not being good little heroes. Also I often see those with this attitude, not run Kins in the ATs they play that have this set available, and not run Hasten with every character they have. If the need for cycle reduction is so important that they have the right to dictate to other players, then they should be doing everything in their power to support this issue. Not doing so is just being a hypocrite.

For some reason this belief that you have the right to dictate to any group of players, stomps all over my sensibilities (I don’t much like hypocrites either.). Maybe this has something to do with having spent 10 years in the US Military. Hells maybe it's just because I have authority issues.

In the long run it does not matter, because no player or group of players have the right to dictate to other players, how they will play their characters, and that is what my argument boils down to. You do have the ability to boot a player if they do not play the way you wish for them to play (If you’re the team leader.), and I have the right to remove myself from your group, and note you when you do.

I would say it would be better to be rifle shot. That reduces redraw issues. One of the things I hate about the plant control and assault sets are that though they naturally go together you are still forced to redraw for the assault set.

Pepper Spray should be a short ranged cone. It would also be a -perception, -to-hit, with maybe a stun

Tear Gas would be a -perception, -to-hit, with a fear

Are you honestly trying to tell me that you had, what I believe was a Kin Troller, backing you up during a team wipe, and all you believe they had contributed was the SB that they had put on you. What in all hells was this Troller doing during this time. Hiding behind you, shacking in fear.

That Kin has IMO the second best AOE Heal in the game, and in a group wipe one of it's disadvantages is overcome by having the MOBs in your face.

That Kin probably has a descent single target Damage buff/debuff, that can give a 20 - 40% damage buff to the group.

That Kin probably has a descent single target Recharge debuff/self buff.

That Troller probably has a 4 second single target Imob, unless they were Illusion or Mind.

That Troller should have a 8 second single target Hold.

That 20+ Troller should have other mez type powers to play with.

That Troller does have Containment, and had damn well be taking advantage of it during a team wipe. Hells if you are in a team wipe, your heavy duty damage dealers are probably already used up, and you are not dealing much more damage than the Troller with containment.


Spirits people, I'm not saying that Recharge Reduction or even SB are a bad things. I'm saying that Kins and especially Trollers with the kin secondary can give more to the group than just SB. And I'll be straight up and say that IMO during a team wipe SB is the least of their tools, because it has already failed most of the team.

Strawman

Here are Ketch's numbers.

This is what they parse out to be.

from 240 to 131 = 55% reduction @ 84.8% invested
from 131 to 95 = 27% reduction @ 70% invested
from 95 to 79 = 17% reduction @ 50% invested

When I was using the quoted "real world" I meant real world. These numbers actually state that I was giving more to SB than it actually gets.

What I have is a altiholics view of Controllers. One where there is still challenge in the game. Where the whole primary of an AT has not been trivialized by some peoples image of the game. Where the game is not just made up of Tanks, Blasters and Buffers. If this is your game, fine, I see no challenge in it, and no real fun for myself, thus I see no purpose in playing this type of game.

Still if this is your game how does a +25% "real world" recharge reduction (We are not talking about FS here.), of an already modified recharge reduction (After all in this type of game everybody should be reduced out the wahzoo.), add to this type of game. I've done the math before, and I don’t see it. So if SB is such a game altering buff that every Kin should have it and make sure that every team member is always buffed with it, then you should be able to lay out some numbers and show me what I'm missing.

I would say that Bubbles and SB are not even close to being the same, at least not when you as a non-Defender can get SB. You are talking about the post 20 game, when everybody should have a good handle on the mechanics of the game, when they should be slotted up with at least lvl 20 IO's or better enhancements, thus already reducing their endurance usage, and recharge time fairly significantly. They also should have a endurance recharge power of some type if they have endurance problems. On the other hand a Bubbler can now issue some descent bubbles to their teammates, increasing their "real world" value.

I think the value of that around +25% "real world" recharge is way over estimated, and though I don’t think the actual +50% endurance recharge is nothing to sneeze at, by the time a non-Defender can take SB your teammates should be taking care of their own endurance issues, because they can. As for the run speed buff, I hate the fricken thing no matter the level, because I cannot turn it off/on, unlike say Ninja Run.

Also for me, I don’t really care about a Controllers buffs (They are gravy to me.), and even though I think with containment their damage powers do pretty descent damage, that is not what the powers, nor the Controller, are there for. I expect a Controller to be locking down the MOBs and keeping them locked down, and straight up they better have those mediocre damage powers slotted up and being used whenever available, because a Controller could be SBing me all day long, but if they are not locking down the MOBs, then as far as I care they are not doing the job I expect from them, as a Controller. I could care less if my powers are recycling 25% faster and my endurance is recycling 50% faster, if I'm am being pounded into the ground by some MOB/MOBs that could and should be locked down, and aren't.

Seems to me the primary reason to run a petless build is because you want the challenge or you want something from the class that does not exist in other classes (Such as pistols before DP was introduced, or you want to play with Force Fields on the villain side.), and you don’t want to mess with the pets. What other class in the game has whips?

If you don’t like petless builds, don’t build one, don’t give advice on one, and don’t party with one. That seems simple enough to me. Personally I would rather party with a petless MM who is active with their powers than one with all of their pets, who just stands around with their thumb up their @ss.


This being said, it seems like a person is really missing out by not taking at least the first tear pets and keeping them in bodyguard. You can pretty much keep them from attacking by putting the pet command def fol in each of your attacks.

ie:
1 "powexec_slot 1$$petcom_all def fol"
2 "powexec_slot 2$$petcom_all def fol"
etc.

This resets them each time you use a power, keeping them from attacking, but also keeping them in bodyguard mode. Because of MOB AI the MOB will pop them once, but if they don’t immediately attack the MOB will often run to a different target (Just as the pets do .). This means the pets should take minimal damage.

This makes for an oddball resistance shield, but 33-75% resistance to All (Depending on level.), is nothing to sneeze at. Especially being you are getting this from just one power, without any slotting. Also if you really need the extra dps, you can set up another keybind file that can be loaded on the fly that will remove the pet commands.

I've played with this and it seems to work, but I don't have the patience to go without the pets dps, so I haven't tested it extensively.

The biggest problem I see here is that you have forgotten how to play a pre-20 melee character.
Shields are pretty much just wasted endurance until you can slot them up. You definitely cannot run two shields and a damage aura. In the lowb game you can possibly run two shields, but endurance usage is still going to suck. You also need to slot up your attacks for accuracy (Slot 2 or more acc TOs), or set your difficulty down. You should be as close to 95 as you can get. That way all you can miss is one or maybe two in a row (If you drop below 90). Missing four in a row in the lowb game will get you dead with or without shields. Slot end-reduction next in your attacks. Sands is actually not to bad on endurance, because by the time you get done with it you have already recovered some of the cost (It truly sucks though when you miss with this one.).

All this being said the pre-20 game fricken sucks. The MOBs bump up in damage & hps. This means that you are taking more damage, and dealing less percentage of damage with each hit to the MOBs. All the while all you have is TOs till level 12, and limited slots. Even when you are able to slot with DOs the MOBs are still ahead of the curve. Not till you can slot level 20 IOs do you start catching up to the MOBs. This is a trickle affect of the Devs having to rebalance the game around SOs. This absolutely sucks for true newbs, and of course those who are not altiholics.

My suggestion would be to get rid of TO/TOIOs. Have DOs drop and sell at the start of the game. Have SOs drop and sell where DOs do now. Drop IO's down as well. I would also suggest that Health and Stamina in Fitness be swapped. This would make the pre-20 game a hells of lot better.

So what. Most teams can take on any Dev created mission/arc as well. I don’t see them reducing the xp for the less than Stand/Stand Dev critters, that exist through out play. Pretty much every non Boss Dev critter is below an equal level Stand/Stand Player critter. I posted numbers, others posted numbers and it was ignored. Now if you just give your critters Armors for the secondary then it’s not that big a deal. As soon as you give them Buffs/Debuffs and to some limit Heals (In other words make your critters somewhat interesting.), things change dramatically. AM and Tar Patch fit between the Standard and Hard categories in their respective power groups, thus they can be given to a Standard difficulty Player critter. A double stacked AM or Tar Patch is not a pretty sight to a player, especially a lowb, even if their just coming from minions.

This is absolutely BS. The actors make the story. What they look like and what they can do are part of the story.

In the story I was creating one of the factions is a Wolf/Human hybrid that were “made” by The Morrigu. This faction called Morrwolves, has joined up with a few other Dev factions for a specific purpose. Their appearance and abilities reflect their connection to The Morrigu, and were a part of my story arc. This story was going to be a three arc story, and the first arc was from levels 3 to 20. Even if I wanted to use Dev critters for this faction I could not have, because none of them fit the description in my head, at the levels I wanted my story to start out at.

Sometime you can choose to overlook an actors appearance, but it still changes the character. On the Sci-fi version of the Dresden Files they chose to go with a Latino woman, instead of a blond Irish gall, for Murphy. This actress was a petite, feisty, attractive woman; hells, I liked her, but she was not Murphy. Even though I liked the show I had to constantly tell myself that she was supposed to be Murphy. I had absolutely no problems relating the Actor who was playing Harry, to the Harry in the books.

Only in Farms do the actors not make a difference to the story.

I could not care less about getting to 50. I have a 39 month badge and have never made it to 50. What I care about is the Risk=Reward that is the mantra of the Devs. The changes made to the Player created critters with I16 stomps all over this mantra. Before I16 the Player critters did not follow Risk=Reward, but with the changes from I16 they are even farther out. It’s real easy to make a player killer, Player critter, by accident. On the other hand you have to intentionally make a Player critter that is capable of doing minimal or no harm to a player. Like I said above, many of us posted numbers in the open beta forum, and these numbers were not discussed or even acknowledged by the Dev responsible for the MA changes.

It’s irrelevant, because the changes made by the Dev was done from ignorance (Anybody that had bothered reading the open beta thread could have told that.), and from my viewpoint, the arrogant belief that Dev created critters must be better than Player created critters by default.

The changes to the MA by I16 do nothing to farms. It’s easy to make a Dev critter farm, and these changes do not affect these critters. What affected farming in the MA (Thus Pling in the MA.), is the changes to side-kicking, and having more control over mission settings.

Also there is a reason why “soon” is a joke in the forums.

There is another variable that can be causing this.

I had a Custom group that included Hellions, Skulls, Outcasts, Trolls, and Player created critters. Each Dev faction had random Minion, Lt, Boss. I also had multiple Minions, a Lt, and two Bosses, Player created in the Custom group (All custom critters set to Hard/Stand at least.). I had the Lt and Bosses set to not spawn automatically). When I16 hit I was only getting 1/3 xp from any MOB in the mission. It did not matter whether it was a Dev’s or mine, and it did not matter whether it was a minion or a Lt. I removed my custom spawned critters from the Custom group, and got 0xp from the MOBs. Those Hellion, Skull, Outcast, & Troll, Minions and Lts that were wondering around in my mission were worth 0 xp.

I was finally able to get my Custom group up and running. For some reason the Custom group rules was totally ignoring the fact that I had Dev critters in the Custom group, in each sub-group. I had to set my custom Lt and one of my custom bosses to spawn to get full xp even from the Dev critters. (I /buged this.)

This meant that when my custom Lt spawned in a “easy” Rescue, it spawned two of these. Those two Hard/Stand Thorn Assualt/ Rad Lts, totally reamed my lvl 15 Thug/Dark MM, along with his Lt, and two Minions in under 30 seconds (It’s amazing what two AMs, and a full attack chain can do.). Note that these Player created Lts were only worth 85% xp of an equivalent Hellion, Skull, Outcast, & Troll Lt.

My primary point is that you can also get low or 0 xp depending on the makeup of your Custom group, not just the makeup of your Custom critters. My secondary point is left up to interpretation.

The AE brought me back to CoHv, and I was having fun playing the Dev content, while breaking up the routine with Custom critter arc/missions, and creating Custom critter arcs. I was not power leveling nor farming. This time around I only got to level 20 (Though I did probably make over 20 alts that got close to this level.).

I saw the changes being made to the MA with I16 open beta, and did not like what I was seeing . What the Dev was doing did not jive with what I had seen. Things like Player critters needing 18 powers to be at 100% xp of Dev critters, when many of the power groups only had five or six powers in them. Saying that Stand/Stand Player critters where not as difficult as Dev critters so that they were only worth 75% xp. Both of these painted a big sign over the Dev’s head, blinking “Ignorant of the MA system”, for me.

I ran a couple of test in the Beta MA, during open beta, to verify my observations, and then posted the results in the Beta forum. I was not the only one to do this. We continually stated that the changes to the MA would not affect farms, only Player critter arcs/missions. Not once did the Dev come into the Beta MA feedback forum and discuss the proposed changes, nor commented about all the data that was being posted. All they did was post what the changes were.

I16 releases, and my Boss farm that I built to test my observations has not been effected at all. I get full xp/drops from this mission. My Story arc on the other hand was royally ******. I’ve been dinking with it since the I16 release, and at least I got it to give normal xp for the Dev critters, but my created critters do not give full xp. This includes my Custom Lt that is Hard/Stand, Plant Assault (Set to melee.), with the Heal and AM from the Rad group. I had an “Easy” Rescue scenario that popped two of these, and they just handed my level 15 Thugs/Dark MM, along with his Lt and two minions, there *****, in under 30 seconds. Both custom Lts hit AM, and went to town on us. Two +1 Dev critters groups, with Lts and Minions, could not do what these two 0 Level Lts did to me, and they were not even worth full xp.

I’ve argued, experimented and posted my result enough, and I am through fighting this change, within the game. Like I said the AE brought me back to CoHv, and the I16 changes to it have caused me to unsubscribe, again (Been in and out of this game since June 04.). I beta tested CO and know that I will not be going there. I did try the Aion open beta, and found it to be fun (Though a little limited in the classes.), maybe Ill check it out until something else comes along. I might check out GR when it comes out, but more and more CoHv has been leaving a foul taste in my mouth.

You cant directly. A spawn is based upon the difficulty level you set for the spawn, and then is adjusted by the players settings.

In my Boss spawn setup. The Boss spawn is set to easy. This causes one 0 level Lt and one 0 level minion to pop. If the player sets Boss on, then one 0 level Boss and one 0 level minion will pop. The more the player plays with their settings the more variables will be in the spawn. Of course the more players in the mission also affects this. Or used to. I have not teamed since I16. Does the number of players affect the missions still?

Leaving the spawn setting to easy allows the player to adjust the difficulty level to their liking (At least while solo.). The ability to so dramatically effect missions, I feel, is a good thing that came with I16.

I did not advertise my arc (Level 3 to 20), because I had not finished it, but I left it published so that I could play and update it with my alts, and if anybody else happened to wander by and see what I had, they could play it (And hopefully give useful feedback.). Also to tell you the truth I never notice the advertised Arcs in all of your sigs. I have learned to just ignore advertising in general. I had to remove my arc from published, because only getting 1/3 xp for everything in the mission, including MOBs that can be tougher than the Dev critters that were also part of the mission makes it badly broken.

The premise of my arc was that a bunch of low level Dev factions had joined together with an unknown faction, and were playing with a ritual that could remove and transfer magical energy from one individual to another. The new Faction was Hellions, Skulls, Outcast, & Trolls (Shamanic Magic.), along with an unknown faction called Morrwolves. I called the new faction LMU, and I put random Minions, Lts, & Bosses from each of the Dev factions in the custom group along with my custom critters from the Morrwolf faction, which also consisted of Minions, Lt, & Boss.

When I checked my mission after I16 everything in the mission was only getting 1/3 xp. Custom critters and Dev critters alike. When I removed the custom critters from the custom group everything in the mission went to 0 xp. This meant that all the Hellion, Skull, Outcast, & Troll, Lts and Minions wandering around in my mission was worth no xp. The only way I could fix my mission was to remove the Custom group and install a Dev group (Hellions), which removed the whole premise of my story.

I put a lot of time into this Arc, and it is badly broken. Unlike my Dev group Boss farm, that took me all of a half hour to make, You will never see anything but one specific type of minion and one specific type of Lt/ Boss in this Arc. There are no ambushes, destructibles, escorts, rescues or any real plot in this Arc, but it’s still worth full xp.

I’m frustrated and discouraged because I have no idea how to fix my Story arc so that it is the story that I started with, and not some Dev acceptable bastardization.

Wait’n’see? You can see right now.

I checked an arc I’ve been working on today and was getting about 1/3 xp from the MOBs. It’s a mixture of Dev and Player created critters and groups. I have Minions, Lts and Bosses in the groups. I removed my Player created critters and got 0 xp for the Dev critters still left. I replaced my Custom group of Dev MOBs (The group had Skulls, Hellions, Outcasts, Trolls, randomized.), with a Dev group (Hellions), and the mission went right back up to full xp. My farm that took all of a half hour to build is still full xp.

Something is really broken when a Custom group of Dev Critters is worth 0 xp.

I’m not a farmer so I don’t know what the standard for xp (Or whatever your farming for.), per hour is. I do know that I recently built a MA mission (On Test.), that included no Player created critters, and spawned a Boss at every spawn point. I built this mission in under a half hour, the spawn was one Boss and one Minion. I was able to make over a level off of this mission in just over a half hour, with very little danger to my character (Level 8 Stalker.).

I then edited the mission to remove one Boss spawn and added one Patrol. There was no change in the Boss spawn xp. I edited the mission again, and removed four more Boss spawns, and the mission now spawned Lt’s, where there were Bosses before. I now had a visible representation of "one of each" in the mission. I again tested the Boss spawns and the xp had not changed.

This tells me that the “one of each” on test does not actually work. All you have to have is the potential for one of each, which every Dev group has. I know for a fact that the Player created critter modifications on test does work.

So even the “one of each” can be bypassed on Dev created groups. This means that the modifications to the MA on test will do nothing to reduce rapid character advancement via the MA.

If the Devs truly want to limit player advancement via the MA, they are going to have to reduce the xp of all critters in the MA. This badly thought out, heavily focused Player critter nurf, will not do the trick. All it will do is reduce the number of legitimate Player created critter arcs/missions.

This is the notes from the patch, and it does not mention anything about the Custom Powers breakdown percentages in the Ops post, nor does it mention the part about needing all of the common levels in Custom critter groups (Which I agree with.). I could not find what thread they are a part of, but I’m going to say something about the breakdown list anyways

The Custom powers breakdown list does not reflect what is actual happening within Custom Power groups. There are power groups such as Cold Domination that only have six powers in their list. If I go by the breakdown list I could select Cold Domination Custom, and that critter would only be worth 70%xp of a equal Dev created critter, even if I select all of the powers of both groups. Anybody who has actually dealt with custom critters knows that this is ludicrous. Most Custom critters even at the “Standard/Standard” setting could wipe the floor with most of the Dev created critters. If you doubt it just put a battle in a mission, Custom critters against equal Dev critters, and see who is left standing. It’s a good way to see how balanced your Custom critters are.

If this list came from a Dev it shows that the Dev does not know how the Custom Powers system is setup, nor the strength of Custom critters, and the Dev probably should not be even messing with this part of the AE system until they do know how it actually works.

As for the numbers that are listed in the patch, the Devs have always preached risk=reward, yet this setup violates that mantra right from the get-go. Standard pretty much mean’s same-as, so if a Custom Critter is set to Standard/Standard, then that critter should be getting the same xp as an equal level Dev critter. If the Devs do not believe that a Custom standard critter is equal to a equal level Dev critter, then they need to change the wording to reflect this. Standard should be made Easy (35%), Hard should be made Standard (50%), and Extreme should be made Hard (Say 65%). This change in the percentage in the Hard category reflects risk=reward xp of the Hard catigory. If I make a critter that is Hard(Extreme)/Hard(Extreme) then the xp should reflect that.

As I have stated before my experience with creating Custom critters in the AE is that even a current Standard/Standard Custom critter can beat most equal level Dev created critters, and the ability to deal with a Dev critter is what should be the measurement of “Standard”, and xp of a “Standard” Custom critter should reflect that.

Again if you want to measure the ability of a Custom critter, have them duke it out with an equal Dev critter, and see who is left standing.

I disagree with pretty much every thing in this post. I liked the older AD&D cmptr games, as well as ones like Fallout 2. I liked the random combat (As long as it was not like every few feet moved.), and I liked the stories.

Then the diablo rpGs started coming out on the computers, and this pulled the FPS crowd over to the cmptr RPG side. These diablo babies started hitting these older cmptr RPGs, because they had already blasted through what was available. They wined and cried about the games being tedious and slow paced (Because they were story driven.). Eventually what were story driven game sets, turned into leveling based game sets.

Most of the players who want the faster pace have no real interest in the stories, they just want to level. Unfortunately for some of us this is the larger player base. The older cmptr RPGs became, maybe not less popular, but a whole lot more trouble to create, and have pretty much went the way of the dinosaurs. In fact, the table top versions have also become more level driven and less story.


Now for the Ops question.

I think that the AE is a pain in the *** to use. It is easy to build farms and rp lite mission/arcs with the AE. Try to tell a story with this tool and things become a whole lot more difficult.

This game has always been kind of clumsy mechanically (Accuracy system and MOB AI for example.), but not till I started using the AE did I realize how FUBR the mechanics of this game really are. NWN a 3D multi player cmptr RPG that came out over a decade before this game, has better game mechanics and a hells of a lot better dungeon/mission creator.

With the NWN tool, I can build and set triggers pretty much anyplace. I can set specific MOBs at specific places. I can expect the MOBs to actually use all of the abilities I give them. None of these are doable or actually happen within CoHv. I’m constantly having to go back in and tweak the mission or MOB to get the story to flow the way I want it to, or to even happen at times.

I have no interest in creating a rp lite level driven farm. I’m trying to tell a visual story with the AE, and this is very difficult to do. I believe that the AE is the same tool that the Devs are using to create their missions/arcs, and I can see why many of the missions/arcs are so flat. I feel sorry for them that they have had to deal with this system for the past five years.

The whole point of my soapbox is that the farms and rp lite misions/arcs are easy to build, so they would be the first ones built, and the ones built by the player base who have no real interest in telling a story (A large number.). This makes for a lot of fairly worthless missions/arcs (To me.), at the start of the AE, and more story driven missions/arcs being created and edited, now that the AE is a little older.