Pep_Cat

The Safeguard "sewer bombs" side mission uses a map that starts in a sewer, moves to a cave, then goes up into an office. However, I haven't see that, nor any Safeguard/Mayhem map, in the MA, unfortunately. >_>

Huh, I thought you could only have one weapon set per custom critter. o_O

Maybe there's a bug when they have two weapons, and the AI isn't sure what to do. I have had customs attack with ranges, bum rush me, then just stand there for about 5-6 seconds, then use more ranged attacks... even though I know they have melees on them. <_<;;

I just changed their preference to melee, so they'll open with a ranged attack, then melee me.

Of course, now they use a ranged attack, run close, melee me once, then run back and around a corner, if I didn't hit them back. O_o;;

Silly AI.

If maps have a problem, even if we don't know about it, then okay, drop the map, fix it, and put it back. Preferably, do that in the same patch, so we won't notice it missing (though it might have a different ID number on it, so we'd still have to Edit an arc to fix it, like how costume parts would get changed, even though the end result is the same).

However, with these missing maps, we don't know if they were removed due to bugs, exploits, or just an "oopsie, clicked the wrong thing, sorry" type of error. I'm sure i15 will probably add some more maps, especially any maps that were in Beta but taken out... but I really hope we don't have to wait for that to go Live til we get back these current crop of dropped maps. <_<;;

I set a an ambush and a hostage enemy spawn to both Hard, and ended up with a boss for each in a three-person group, but I think we were are Challenge Level 5 for that. Re-trying it later, though, I got a boss on one spawn, but the second spawn was mostly Lts. <_<

Doing the same arc on CL 1, I just got very large spawns of minions at those two points, but no bosses.

Escorts can have their animation chosen, or used to at any rate, I haven't checked the current version. When I ran my arc to check its compatability, the escort in there was still doing the proper emote, though. <_<

I believe that combat allies are stuck with the on-their-knees animation.

Yeah, the clickable object isn't something you can spawn as a trigger. It looks like they all have to be spawned right away, though the defendable/destructable objects can be trigger-spawned. <_<

I'd like a restaurant with a sizable kitchen for an exciting shootout.

Both formal restaurant and fast food would be good. >_>

Alas, Escorts can be lead to the Exit, but that's it. We can't spawn glowies to escort them to. Hopefully, we'll be able to later on, as that happens quite a bit in normal missions.

Well, I suppose if it looks like one of your arcs were heading towards HoF status, you could polish up an extra arc, then publish it with the very good possibility of never editing it. <_<;;

But that sounds very screwy. Maybe instead of immediately getting Hall of Fame status, the server will flag it as one, but not give the badge, extra arc, or any visual indication that it is HoF.

After some amount of time (a day, a week, dunno, something), if the arc is still in the HoF range, then it gains Hall of Fame status, rewards are offered. Should it drop from HoF, nothing would be taken away.

I had the same problem. I removed two custom critters from my first arc, but the file size didn't go down. Even though the critters were no longer listed in My Groups or My Critters tabs, they were still listed in the .storyarc file itself, when I looked through it in Notepad.

I just ended up deleting the arc and starting over, after making sure I had the exact custom critters I wanted. -_-;;

I'm sure there's a better way to do that. <_<

I try to design for soloing characters, for a wide level range. Due to the nature of the custom critter powers being all set to primary levels (giving them quite a few powers at lower levels), I don't even bother attempting to balance it for very low characters.

I figure that if a player wants it harder they'll up their difficulty for more, or higher level, spawns, so I try to keep the specific spawn points set to Easy or Medium (depending on what that spawn is supposed to be doing).

Not an ally. It would be a non-combat follower, and I can't make it a specific character because there aren't any Arachnos members with significant level ranges.

That's the point of having three members with the overlap. I'm covered from 11-30 (though the final mission will be 15-30, thanks to a Wyvern Boss I'm using).

I can make the entire map filled with this custom group (it shows up on the Custom list), but when I try to use them as an objective (escort, captive, boss), that custom group just doesn't show up at all.

Geez, this would be so much easier if the level ranges of non-combat characters didn't change the mission's level...

The airport from Striga Island would look suitably remote, though there's no jungle nearby. However, it's not a map in the editor. There is a Primerva map, which is part of the jungle area in Nerva, but I think it's a river section, rather than a flat land area suitable for an airstrip.

I wish to have a female Arachnos escort follow the player around on a map. To make sure I don't get a random assortment of Arachnos, I created a custom group that includes two Fortunata Seers (11-20, 21-30).

The editor complained that I have a group that doesn't have continuous levels in it (um, 11-30? that's pretty continuous), so I added a Blood Widow, which is 15-24. There, overlap, and the mission is now set for 11-30 range, and the editor doesn't complain anymore.

I can make this custom group the Main Enemy for the map, but I just want her for an Escort. However, the editor doesn't even list her group at all, even though I can see it in My Groups. My other custom groups, made completely up of custom critters, all show up, but the one with just Seers/Widows doesn't.

Since we can't use our player Soldiers of Arachnos in the MA editor, is there a way I can make this custom group work, or am I going to be going back to the storyboard again? =>_O=

Edit: Ah, boo, didn't even see the above post. >_>;;

Wonder if it can be set so that the first set of powers you pick are like our Primary, with tier 9 at 32, and the second set are like our Secondary, with tier 9 at 38. <_<

After all, it does differentiate between "Primary" and "Secondary" in the saved file...

Tier 9 on a boss? Fine, but should be on Extreme. I mean, that's the Final Attack power, why make it Standard?

I'm thinking that we need two additional settings. It might not be everything folks want for their custom, but it'll give more variety.

Though I'd much rather just pick and choose specific powers, that would have a balancing issue, not to mention making the filesizes much larger... <_<;;

Seriously, I hope that if they can't alter the new powersettings, they'll just remove that from the patch before sending it Live, since I know they'll want i15 on Test soon (wouldn't want my customs to have those settings for the next month before i15 goes Live otherwise). =o_O=

Initially, it's CL 1, with my shield tanker (or fire scrapper), just to see if the darn thing works. Once I've ascertained that, I'll bump it up to CL2, to check on how my customs work in larger numbers. I'm not really a powergamer, so I don't bother checking for CLs 3-5. I take the assumption that if you're at those levels, you're either teamed, or you know what you're doing. <_<

My Shield Tanker, 47, and Fire Scrapper, 50, are both heavily IO'd out, with a lot of bonuses. It's mostly so I can blow through the missions, testing if spawn placements work, and if all the triggers go off. I'll check Clue spellings after the fact (since clues don't go away until the arc ends... wish would could set some clues to disappear at end of each mission...).

Now, after everything works right, I'll retest it with my Emp/Eng Defender (36),. and my Psi/Men Blaster (22). I don't have any Controllers, but I'll test it with my Mind/Elec Dom (26) as well. If I can't survive with all three, I'll take another look at custom critter ranks/powers/difficulty/missionlevel, to see if I can make it more fair. <_<

Which means it's important to /petition each one of those you get, assuming the name is still there.

Of course, somebody at "won't name the site but begins with G" thinks it's worth bothering with... <_<;;

I couldn't remember all the color options the devs used, so I just made up my own.

Royal Blue for the mission title, Sky Blue for Proper Names, Orange for Mission Objectives (and any Optional Objectives the contact might mention), Red for Items "given", or "taken from", the player. <_<

I got something like that on my 8800GT card, though more severe. However, it didn't just slow the fps down, it totally locked it up. In my case, the card was overheating, severely. <_<;;

I have no intention of using EBs or AVs in my arcs, unless I suddenly have a "really good idea", in which case I'd put some sort of comment in regards to that in the Description box.

Bosses with Hard/Extreme powers are pretty rough as it is, adding custom EBs/AVs with those powers would be nasty. <_<

I've noticed when looking at storyarc files with Notepad, each mission has these two entries:

MinLevel 1
MaxLevel 54

I'm only using custom critters in that arc, so I get the full range. Suppose if you were to change it to:

MinLevel 20
MaxLevel 40

Would that have an effect to force level ranges? Can't get ingame right now to check myself...

I've put a number of non-essential objectives in each of my arc's missions, each of which has their own clue text. There are also a few patrols in which its members have these little discussions about whatever is on their minds. <_<

Though I'm not much of a "techie", those that are will want your Dxdiag report, and a HijackThis! report will be good as well.

For Dxdiag go to Start-Run, and enter: dxdiag

When it finishes checking out your system (progress bar disappears), click on the Save Information button. Save the text file to wherever, and copy the contents of it here.

For HijackThis!, visit here and run this program. Copy the file to here as well.