Metatron_NA

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Edit: I don't think striking the MA will work. Remember, this is to make an adequately long and obscure combo of letters that you can search on. Searching on two letters is more prone to false positives. It's either the whole tag or no tag, to maintain consistency.

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I threw in another version after you posted that addresses that, TwoF. I think the inclusion of a "+" prefix (or any other uncommon grammatical character, like ~ or &lt is a fair compromise between querying and character conservation.

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As long as FIRST we make SURE that their search system treat +XX different from just plain XX - many search engines ignore special characters. Has this been tested?

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If you're going to do this, can you please strike off the "-MA" extension? It's unnecessary, we all know it's a mission arc, and for some of us, having to insert five acronyms in order to be recognized might push us over the 100% mark for publishing.

So, if someone had an arc that would qualify for all of the above, it could read:

[ SF LB PC TF ] or +SF +LB +PC +TF
vs:
[SFMA] [LBMA] [PCMA] [TFMA]

...which basically nearly doubles the character length.

I'll add my own suggestions on this later if this takes flight. Thanks.

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It is necessary a lot of the time if the specific two letter combos can be found in other words. you need to at a minimum make usre the combos of letters occur nowhere else. MAYBE SFM/LBM/PCM would do it, and if so, I will agree with you - drop the "A" - it is not needed:
SFM = Story Focused Missions
RBM = Reward Based Missions

etc

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At this rate, I could get out of actually writing a description for the arc, and just have all 300 characters taken up by tags.

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That's what I'm afraid of this system turning into. There's limited enough space as it is; the "Description" field should be exactly that, a "description", not a keyword dump. I'd rather dump the keywords if it would put my arc or desc limit over the top, but then I risk losing the "market". And this really only benefits players who READ the forums...

Looks like Greyhawke got something stickied to start a discussion there on how to make it work. I'll chime in there constructively, but yeah, I'm not fond of this idea. =/

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If you do no more than give 5-8 of your precious 300 characters to the tagging idea, it couyld help everyone a LOT. After all, you don't have to multi-tag it - just pick the best single tag that encompasses your mission purpose.

I do not think saving those 5-8 letters will help you if at the same time people who would want to play your type of mission can't find it in the sea of missions, many of which they would ignore if the could.

Also, it may improve your ratings. If I see a TagXtreme (assuming that tag means uber hard mission for the pure challenge) I am not going to one or zero star it, while on the other hand I certainly will if I only find that out once I get inside.

I really would NOT ignore converting some of your description into helping the player decide if your mission is the kind he may or may not want to play. The advantages for doing so in a clear way are obvious, and the disadvantages of not doing so, equally so.

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One obvious problem is that if I looked at a mission with the description tag "SFMA", these letters mean nothing to me. Well, they could mean some stuff, but it'll all be guesswork. I keep trying to associate it with something about Science Fiction, possible due to the SFWA.

I'd probably get into the habit of tagging stuff "story", though. I know this is likely to get mixed up with the "non-story" search results, but it's clearer.

At this rate, I could get out of actually writing a description for the arc, and just have all 300 characters taken up by tags.

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The problem is that a LOT of missions use the word "story" in their descitpions. The player-created tagging system (until the devs come up with one) needs to be one that won't lead to false positives.

Now, if you did something like TagStory, then you could searh for "TagStory" and not come up with any false positives.

What do you guys think, is TagXXXX, where XXXX is a natural short word, a better cleaner and more natural temp solution (while hoping for a dev one) than using acronyms?

SFMA vs TagStory?
MAXMish vs TagXP?

PS. You probably can't put a space or ":" inbetween Tag and Story in TagStory or else the search system would consider them two seperate words and you get false positives again.

Thoughts?

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The problem with that is that the more full-word descriptions you have to use, the less and less room you have left for an actual description.

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NF = Not Farm.

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A major problem with the search engine they use is that if you look for NF that will also find:

iNFluence
iNFamy
coNFerence

etc..

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Unfortunately a tag such as "XP-based mission" would very quickly be appropriated by farmers. While your giant map populated entirely by Rikti might not be an exploit, it would end up sharing the same tag as a giant map populated entirely by Comm Officers, and would get removed anyway.

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ALthough I too have had my issues with the dev's actions or lack thereof from time to time, I think we *have* to give the devs the benefit of the doubt. I think we have to treat them better than this. Until proven otherwise, we need to assume that the devs will NOT remove missions based on XP even as them do remove missions that break the rules. We need to trust them at least that much.

Similarly, we need to amit that people who are looking for XP mission (non rule breaking ones) that they have just as much of a right to easilt find them as people looking for story based ones. The goals are of equal importance, so lets accomplish the tagging of ALL valid missions with appropriate tags.

I'm being utterly serious. After all, the point of a tagging system is not to just help YOU (you aren't that narcissistic are you?) - its to help EVERYONE find every valid mission type they could be looking for.

And for the record, YOU are the one that brought up farms - I said no such thing. I was very precise. Apparently you feel that only people who want what you want deserve to be able to find what the want easily.

Weird.

I also recommend that for people who design missions just for fun, glory, and great xp, we should come up with an acronym to more easily find those missions...

XPBM - XP Based Mission?

LCGR - Low Challenge, Good Rewards?

Mostly About XP Mission - MAXMish?

Something would be good - as hard as the story-persuers find sorting through the multitude of published missions, is how hard it is to find these missions among the multitudes of story, badge, ironman, and other less rewarding missions.

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qr - I would say that there are arcs in the MA that don't fall under the definition of story focussed. Test missions fir certain custom mobs, badge-farms, xp-farms, pure 'challenge' missions, simple boss fight setups, these would be examples of things I personally wouldn't mind missing if I was searching specifically for arcs with narrative.

Tags for those types of arc are fine as far as I'm concerned.

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(slight edit for completeness)

Exactly, not only do we need tags for narratives - we need tags to help people find the *other* kinds of missions.

...

Aren't they ALL story based missions though?

Of course, if not - if there's *some other* kind of NON story based mission out there - if there's some *other* reason people create and play Mission Architect missions - maybe that *other* reason (whatever it is) should have a way to easily pull up mission for *that* purpose?

Just a thought? After all, the SFMA is only ONE kind of mission. Apparently there exist other kinds as well.

Food for thought.

I will check into that, but the problem I was having was the reverse - no boss spawns, all underlings.

My mission has only one objective - a glowie that must be clicked. What I am trying to do is make the bosses spawn singly through the map instead of in groups of two, and without lieuts or minions. I though one way to do that was to have a Custom boss in a custom group, and in the custom group also have an underling - like a rikti monkey (maybe that's the boss's pet.)

However when I do that I get NO bosses spawning on the entire map, and only Rikti Monkeys. Weird.

Anyone have any ideas?

How do you search for a mission that DOESN'T have a certain tag? For example, how do you search for a mission that doesn't have SFMA?

Or do we need a NASFMA tag? (Not A)

Or should we just permit the acronym For A Repeatable Mission (FARM) - i.e., a mission not so much focused on story, but on effective, efficient and fun encounters.

Sound like a good contrary acronym?

;p

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Add one underling to the boss' custom group, then set the Surrounding Enemy Group option to the boss' custom group (not "same as boss", click the Custom tab and specify the boss' group). That's the only option that I've come across to spawn a boss "alone". The underling can be explained as a toy, a pet, multiple toys/pets (when it spawns more than one), a minor summoning spell, a spirit of some kind, whatever you like.

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I tried this, it didn't seem to work - all I got were spawns of underlings with no boss - why?

Unless you were talking about a Mission Objective Boss? My mission objective is a clicky - can I still cause spawn groups with 1 Boss in it by using underlings?

How do you make a level restricted mission? Specifically level 54?

Notoriety? You mean the challenge level 1-5?

I am writing a mission where this guy sends makes a bunch of energy clones of himself - how I want to do that is a custom Boss character. But when I do that, they spawn too thickly, forcing any poor sod who solo's the mish to take on 2-3 bosses at once. I also want this boss to stand alone in his spawn - he is the dramatic center - I don't want lieuts and minions around him.

How can I get only 1 boss per spawn? I heard somewhere one trick is to find a underling that you can add to the custom group as some kind of toy or pet, but I tried that and didn't see to work?

Any ideas?

How about a tag/acronym for people who aren't so much looking for stories, and are more looking for fun and effective adventuring? Something like:

Fast Acting Running Maximally

...or something...

<p<

>p>

heh

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Epically Manifested Opus.

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/lol and /signed

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You can add in a level restricting NPC as an ambush to a clickie, or as a captive to be rescued, or an ally that is passive and runs around on their own.

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I went into a mission that was a 54-54 mission, all I saw in the mission was a destructible object, some custom A/V allies, and some custom Boss baddies.

How did they get the mission to level 54? How can I do the same in my missions?

For that matter, how exactly do you:
<ul type="square">[*]add in a level restricting NPC as an ambush to a clickie [*]add in a level restricting captive to be rescued [*]add in a level restricting ally that is passive and runs around on their own?[/list]Thanks.

I certainly hope I won't get flamed for this, but I am curious...

Do you get a better ticket bonus/more drops from a Defeat All MA mission? Or would you have gotten the same amount of tickets from killing the same guys if the Mission Objective had been Click the Glowie?

Weren't merits introduced in I13 IIRC? Pre then, you could collect IO sets much faster.

Thanks, awesome help!

So it would appear that we can now have a way that doesn't involve grinding merits or a lucky break on the still mostly dead market to complete our sets.

Question: With the average rate of ticket drops, the average rate of recipe drops, and the knowledge that if I get a recipe I don't want I may be able to trade it to someone for what I do want - does this make it any faster to complete sets by using tickets? With the newly nerfed Merits completing a set is dog slow compared to what it was pre-I13.

So if I wanted a complete set of Decimation:
* Decimation: Accuracy/Damage,
* Decimation: Damage/Endurance,
* Decimation: Damage/Recharge,
* Decimation: Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge,
* Decimation: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge, and
* Decimation: Chance for Buildup Proc:

Which of those can be awarded on a Bronze Roll, which can be awarded on a Silver, and which on a Gold? (those are the only kinds of IO recipe rolls at the ticket guy, right?)

(PS. I know I could buy some of these on the market perhaps - would still like to know the answer.)

EDIT: And what are PVP IOs btw?

Say I want to collect a full set of Decimation - can I do that by playing player-generated content, collecting tickets, and taking some Bronze/Silver/Gold rolls (and getting lucky or being patient)?

Or are there some IOs (apart from the purples) that you simply cannot get without spending Merits?