Lazarus
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Posts
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Joined
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I'd recommend against Blind and Confuse, the recast times are so short that NPCs can stack it very easily and aggravate the hell out of the player.
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And please use colors sparingly: lighting your text up like a rainbow brite can actually make it harder to read.
Also stay away from dark green on black, it's hard to read for many against the green background behind the contact holograms. -
Cimeroran Surgeons were removed from AE a long time ago for this reason, the farmers were abusing it (big surprise there.)
Also if you don't give a custom critter any attacks and set them to Ally they won't use their buffs or heals either. This is also because farmers abused the hell out of it. -
Quote:Exactly. Unfortunately AE doesn't give us the level of control in our NPCs and encounters to match what the Devs can throw at us now.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
As long as "challenging" doesn't mean "defense is useless," bring it. -
I think it'd be more effective if the rating window that comes up after finishing an arc showed you what other works the author has. Only show ones that are not marked "Work in Progress" though.
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Look at how long it took to get Earth Assault added and even then it had to be altered since for some reason NPCs cannot use the stone hammer animations. Also it's had it's damage numbers widely off-balance since it was added to AE and they still have not addressed that either.
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I have pretty much zero chance of ever getting any more than the 8 arc slots I already have nor do I have any new stories that I consider worth the time to retire an existing arc for so I haven't written anything new in a year.
I don't care much for incarnates either, except for occasional TFs with old friends I'm finding little reason to keep my account active these days. -
The Amulet of J'gara (#1709)
The Portal Bandits (#3326)
Breaking The Barrier (And Putting It Back Together) (#347029) -
Quote:Neither $target or $name works in the name field for NPCs. I've tried it when using doppelgangers.Originally Posted by Ramification TM
Don't think that will work. Even $target I think just gives you your own name.
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I've only managed to do it by adding extra boss details but using custom minions, LTs, or bosses who are set to not auto-spawn. You can use them for custom enemies but not if using non-customs (then boss spawns only allow bosses, for whatever dumb reason still).
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Until the End of the World
I liked the story overall and also liked how the contact was your lackey. However the arc suffers from some serious clue overload, it didn't help either that the UI keeps scrolling back up every time I get a new one, so I have to search through them all to find the new one every time. -
Well now that the 3-month limit is repealed, I'm actually eligible.
Arc Title: The Portal Bandits
Arc ID: 3326
Factions: Crey, Rikti, Nagans
Morality: Heroic
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 40-54
Synopsis: A mysterious group has invaded a Portal Corp lab and sealed themselves within. The PPD has been unable to get inside and a hero is needed to enter the lab, defeat the invaders, and discover their intentions. (AV present, Allies are provided. May be challenging.) -
Quote:Those already are taken care of to some degree, there is code in place that severely nerfs the rewards if the missions are all bosses and these days an ally with no attacks will not use their buffs either.Originally Posted by Rial_Vestro
Farms can be easily spotted though as the enemy groups tend to only spawn bosses. There should be some kind of requirement demanding that every custom group have Minions, Lt., and bosses in them. This would prevent arcs that are only farms from being published in the first place.
Another exploit is the allies being created who have only buffs and heals with no real attack capabilities. This too could be programed so that every custom character must have at least 1 attack capability.
Unfortunately that doesn't clear out all the abandoned farms, just discourages the creation of new ones. -
Quote:You're not meant to think much into it: newbie players will wonder "WTH was that about?" until they get to the high levels and veterans will go "level 5 Nemesis Automatons? WTH!"Originally Posted by Coulomb2
Only thing that seemed odd to me was Nemesis angle seems pretty clear it was to give you more to do in the office (and foreshadow how Nemesis takes over businesses), but it didnt actually bother me.
It's just one of those things I'd like to see in the game more if the low levels ever got revamped, little glimpses of what is to come in the later story arcs. -
Quote:It's quite easy to get custom Minions and LTs up to 100%, but still near-impossible to get Bosses to 100% without giving them powers that your average AV doesn't have. Very few powersets (generally "weaker" ones) will give a boss full XP without making them overpowered, which is rather silly that an easier boss can be worth more XP than a tougher one.Originally Posted by Wrong_Number
Actually, when they introduced the ability to control what powers your custom characters have and therefore increase/decrease their reward values, in general rewards went up. I know most characters in my arcs are at 90-100% when they used to be set at 75%.
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Quote:I call BS. You'd be lucky to have 750 tickets after 2-3 missions on medium-large maps, certainly not after a few dozen enemies.Originally Posted by Djeannie
There were far more then a dozen groups
It is just that you'd almost always have 750 tickets by the time you've finished off a dozen groups, now you're lucky to have 300 from the same dozen groups.
In the past I have ticket capped on a dozen groups many many times. Then I go buy salvage for myself to use in crafting
If this is remotely true then it had to have been a farm. -
Quote:If there were only a dozen groups in the mission then it couldn't have been a very large map. The ticket cap is scaled to the size of the map, 1500 is just the maximum possible on the biggest maps.Originally Posted by Djeannie
After the winter lord fix patch or right around there, needing some salvage and being out of tickets I went back into my mission and after having defeated a dozen groups and exiting the mission that I came nowhere near capping tickets. It was more like 1/3 as many.
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I remember this one fondly.
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Quote:Agreed. I treat all of my arcs as if they actually occur in the actual game world and as such tie into canon quite a lot. The whole virtual reality thing is completely ignored in my writing.Originally Posted by lionheart_fr
For me, this one point is a non-issue. Any mission I run, whether "canon", radio, AE, or whatever is "real" for my characters.
Just because Paragon came up with an explanation to differentiate player-made vs. official canon doesn't mean that one can't ignore that explanation and still RP.
The AE building is not a virtual reality, it is just another teleporter. -
Quote:In other words, the things that it should have had right at launch in issue 14.Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
The problem is that farmers will 5-star their farming arcs and 1-star something that doesn't meet their needs... and vice versa. Its the utter-failure of all universal rating services. We don't all have the same interests.
What would be helpful in sorting out the stuff:
- A "star" rating thats based on ratings by my Supergroup and friends' ratings. More often than not, you team/befriend people with similar interests, so a MA arc that they liked is one that you're more likely to enjoy.
- Barring that, a simple "recommend" option that you can filter on (what do my friends recommend? What does the author of the arc I just ran recommend? What does Marcian_Tobay deem worthy? Heck, with that one, you could almost see the rise of MA critics-- people that frequently rate MA arcs well, so others follow their suggestions.
- A "Follow Author" option that will email-notify you when an author you liked publishes a new arc.
- Barring this, a website that offers this service outside of the game-- where authors can post their work & players can leave feedback. Heck, authors could use it to promote their work or recruit testers (or casting calls for unique characters) and heck, even pool resources (author A makes a custom villain group and writes a profile, then authors B,C,D,E, and F take that VG and make arcs around it).
I don't have the time for such a project (it's why I don't get many MA arcs played... and have yet to make one) but it could probably get close to done using some open source publishing tools if an existing fansite service (hint hint Titan Network :P) would be interested...
What's it like to be devoid of a sense of humor?Quote:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I am sick and tired of pseudo-comedy arcs in the Architect. No, the Freakshow are not cute. No, Dr. Aeon's antics are not funny. No, I don't want to hear debates about "arrest vs. kill." There are few things I like less than overt comedy, and it seems like that's most of what's out there. What has ALWAYS been out there.
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Anyhow, the last straw for me was the lack of any sort of Architect Awards for 2010. That pretty much showed that the Devs don't care anymore, even the few things that Aeon does now and then is just bread and circuses stuff rather than addressing real issues.
However the main thing keeping me from AE are the same reasons I've hardly bothered with i19 either: having a job again and having so much fun playing and modding Fallout: New Vegas. -
Quote:So screw over authors who like to come up with their own contacts rather than using the same old ones we've seen a billion times. No thanks.Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
In the same issue, allow story writers to put their stories as part of existing in world contacts.
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Quote:I know, asking this question should be a hangin' offense.Originally Posted by Wrong_Number
Here we go again....
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Quote:The 5-star system is flawed by design as it's being used by a large group of people where no two (not even in this small community) can agree exactly where the cut-off for a 5-star or 4-star worthy arc is. Add in capricious players who don't give 5-stars to anything that is not "perfect" and therefore never give 5-stars as nothing is perfect to them.Originally Posted by Ramification TM
Fredrick had the idea we should do what YouTube does. Thumbs up or Thumbs down system AKA Like/Dislike. It's a fair system and makes it easier for everyone involved.
How they'd put such a system in would be rough considering all the old arcs on the old system. Maybe even impossible. But I think everyone agrees the 5 star system is for the birds.
Like/Dislike is even more vague but gives more leeway and takes out a lot of the guess work of "well what do the rest of the masses consider to be 5-star worthy?" Besides, much of the time the difference between a 5-star and 4-star arc is pretty minor, the 4-star one may have better design but appeals to more of a niche while the 5-star just has more broad appeal.
Well we can sort by publish date. However we cannot specify a date range (which would be nice) nor sort by the number of plays (which would be really useful). I would however like to be able to see the last modified date on arcs and be able to sort by that. There are a lot of older arcs that are maintained and updated, it would be nice to be able to sort those out of the mess of arcs that are effectively abandoned.Quote:Originally Posted by Clave_Dark_5
(Also, I realized that changing current five star rating into thumbs-up ratings would end up having the same 'bad effect' WN mentioned: older arcs that got tons of plays in the old days would end up pages ahead of newer arcs.)
Tabs are definitely needed. The first page should be a random selection of arcs from every category as well. It doesn't look good to a casual MA'er if the first 3 pages of the list never seem to change, it just makes the list look stagnant. -
A Clone of Your Own?
Liked: Decent use of Doppelgangers.
Disliked: Poor motivation for the player, much of the humor falls flat, does not feel like it belongs in the level range it is designed for.
Notes:- The arc description does not match up with the first mission briefing at all. Mephit says that he asked the player to come meet him, not that we showed up to talk to him.
- Missions 1 and 2 feel like they could (and maybe should) be merged together. Really it's rather stupid for the player to give any of these clone notes back to Dr. Mephit, plus in this version of the arc the explanation of how he (or the Freaks) got your DNA to begin with has gone missing.
- Why does the custom freak change his name between missions 2 and 3? Also does he really need to have a self-rezz that works 100% of the time and heals him to full? Fighting him a second time along with an ambush was rather annoying.
- Was the glowie in mission 3 only supposed after we "confront" Dr. Mephit? It shows up on the objectives before you meet him and he follows you there for no reason, only to get mad after he stood by and watched you delete his files. How 'bout we fight him before the terminal is active and get the pass phrase off him that way?
- What was the point of the Dr. Mephit clones? They're just there and don't have any dialog.
- Where did Dr. Mephit's assistants go?
- I still don't know why you insist on shoehorning this arc into the 40-50 range. As I have said before after playing previous versions, this does not feel like a high-level story nor does Dr. Mephit feel "big time" in any way. I really think this arc should take place in the late 20's to 30's at most.
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Could Vikki be the Wicked Witch of the West? She's already green.
