PoliceWoman

6/8/2010

Wednesday

Mayday (50 fortunata) joined another MoLGTF attempt, this time with 3 fortunata, 2 dominators, 2 controllers, 1 stone tanker. We had a problem during mission 3 when one of the Rikti guarding Glacia got knocked through a wall, making the mission impossible to complete. Fortunately, a GM answered a petition relatively quickly, popping the Rikti out of the wall, which let us, umm, successfully fail the mission. The team leader asked me to call targets on the mitos in mission 4; those old binds for PvP targeting were pretty helpful for this. I was pretty aggressive about going after the mitos, and with the amount of control we had on the team, we were able to pop the green mitos pretty handily; though we retreated a few times to let the stone tanker hide and recover health; no one died, however, and we finished the TF in 56m 18s (including the time waiting for a GM) and successfully got the Master of the Lady Grey TF badge.

After that Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) joined a MoSTF attempt with 1 stone tanker, 3 controllers, 1 defender, 2 blasters and 1 scrapper. One of the controllers died during the Dr Aeon fight in mission 4, I think killed by stray AoEs from Arachnos minions and Dr Aeon himself. Nevertheless we finished the STF in 52m 49s; I got a Nucleolus SHO.

Star Amethyst went on to do a speed ITF (23m 37s), then I switched to Shield Maiden (50 mace/shield brute) for another speed ITF (21m 28s). The second one was a little faster due to the team being more damage-heavy.


Thursday

Mystery Girl (46 emp/pistols defender) joined a pickup STF attempt. Most STFs I've been on lately don't have an empath so I wasn't sure how I'd do, but I actually felt very useful, mostly because the regen scrapper and the blasters, even with fortitude, all needed quite a lot of heal spamming to keep alive. I even got complimented on my healing, which was nice. Finished in 1h 13m, got Mystery Girl to level 47, and a Peroxisome as reward.

After that I played Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) on an RSF. I managed to get killed twice by Longbow during the first mission, mostly due to carelessness (I had assumed an area was cleared that wasn't, then didn't run fast enough when I saw there were Longbow all over it). Despite this we otherwise did fine, and beat the Freedom Phalanx on our first try, finishing in 35m 13s. I got a Golgi.

I also noticed I had a lot of tickets piled up at the AE building from people playing my story arcs; I claimed 3700 of them on Indigo Ifrit for a Gold reward roll, and lucked into a Miracle (+recovery) recipe, which I immediately crafted and slotted.

Arrow Girl (28 archery/nrg blaster) joined a 7 player pickup team fighting Freaks at +2 difficulty; we seemed to die a lot, though, and had two team wipes.


Friday

Deianira (15 SS/SR brute) lackeyed to a level 50 villain team doing paper missions in Grandville against the Council, which got her to level 19.

Mayday joined yet another MoLGTF, with a team of 3 fortunata, 2 dominators, 2 controllers and 1 fire brute. Most of the team had the badge already, so this attempt was mostly for bragging rights. We purposely failed mission 1 and mission 3, I was assigned to call target mitos on mission 4 again, and we stealthed to the end of mission 5; everything worked perfectly and we finished the MoLGTF in a speedy 34m 8s, which got posted on the badge forum to wow other servers with our awesomeness.

After that, Star Amethyst joined a speed ITF, finishing in 24m 26s; then I played Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) on a MoSTF attempt. I actually have the MoSTF badge on Police Woman already, but the team leader had asked me to bring a blaster, as he really wanted a blaster-heavy team. Our team makeup was 1 stone tanker, 2 controllers (cold and kin), 1 defender (rad) and 4 blasters. One of the other blasters promptly died during mission 1, causing us to restart; on our second attempt, a controller managed to die to Silver Mantis on mission 4, after which we decided to finish the TF anyway. Completed the STF in 55m 24s and got a Golgi.


Saturday

I've been making an effort to play more MA story arcs to fill out my Alternate Contact Tree using MA Arcs, and so I solo'd San Min (37 MA/will scrapper) through The Rikti Accession (a neat arc where you help the Traditionalist Rikti against the Restructurist Rikti; I gave it 5 stars), The Sleeping Star (started out a missing persons investigation but soon turned into an origin story for some kheldian, which kinda turned me off; I gave it 3 stars) and OMG! It's the LOLBAT! (a jokey story arc where you fight the rogues gallery of the LOLBAT; this was hilarious and stupid at the same time; I ended up giving it 4 stars).

San Min joined a pickup ITF after that, clearing most. On paper the team seemed pretty support-light, with 2 kins, 1 tank, 1 veat, 3 scrappers and 1 blaster, but we actually did really well, probably due to our massive DPS output. Finished in 47m 58s and got San Min to level 39.

After that San Min joined a pickup Moonfire TF, which was briefly interrupted to fight off a zombie invasion of Striga Isle. We inadvertantly failed the "Rescue Dr Todd" mission (managed to stealth to her and free her, but then died to ambushes), but still finished in 1hr 25m. I got the Safety in Numbers, Glimpsed the Abyss and Silver Bullet badges from killing lots of stuff during this TF.

Teal Serpent (27 archery/traps corruptor) joined an 8-player villain team doing level 42ish missions. We were pretty support heavy, but this worked well; we beat up Foreshadow, Malaise, Ice Mistral (3 times!) and Scirocco. This got Teal Serpent to level 29.


Sunday

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) joined a 7-player Posi 1 TF, mostly for the badge. We were kinda support light, with 4 scrappers, 1 blaster, 1 empath and 1 peacebringer, and had a near-wipe against Doc Buzzsaw and the Vahz, and two actual team wipes in the final mission. The CoT ambush got us on the steps of city hall, then after that we managed to lose to our evil doppelgangers on our first attempt. The second attempt went better as we all targeted through of the scrappers, to focus fire on one doppelganger at a time. Finished in 1h 10m and got the Rule of Three badge, which is badge #715 for me.

Kashira (31 db/ninj stalker) solo'd through All in the Family, an AE story arc where you become a contract killer for the Family. It was well-written with good characters, and had a lot of drama at the end, where you're given a choice as to how you want the story to end; I gave it 5 stars.


Monday

A mid-level controller friend was looking for team and not getting any bites, so I logged on Arrow Girl (29 archery/nrg blaster) and formed an 8-player pickup team which did Tobias Hansen's story arc in Striga Isle. Finishing Tobias' arc got me 13 merits, level 30, and enough vampire kills to get The Slayer badge.

After that team broke up, Teal Serpent (29 archery/traps corruptor) joined an 8-player villain team running level 42 paper missions in Grandville, culminating in a Founders Falls mayhem on +2 difficulty where we had a very rough fight with Foreshadow as an AV, who nearly wiped the team. It felt like my web grenades and poison traps kept him busy enough to let the team use some awakens and get back in the fight, and we managed to beat him after a lengthy battle. This got Teal Serpent to level 31.

3 or 4 missions "feels" about right for me, for most arcs. However, some people prefer to always use the full 5 missions, simply because they feel using less is "wasteful" somehow.

But, really it should depend on your story. Hopefully, you have a story in mind that you are trying to write. The number of missions should really match the number of "scenes" (or "acts" or "chapters") in your story. Use just enough missions to tell your story, and no more.

Added: All in the Family (#128109) V25-30
A Family capo hires you for a series of contract killings, which soon become personal.

Source: Dr. Aeon's Dev Choice Suggestion Thread

This was a very well-written arc that did a good job of portraying a "player choice" for the ending.

Added: OMG, it's the LOLBAT! (#337435) H35-40
O hai! Villainz are in ur city stealin ur monies. Kan I haz help?

Source: Pro Payne: From 1 to 50 in M.A.


Added: Karmic Exchange (#47550) H45-54
The ghost of a murdered woman asks you to stop her husband from making a terrible mistake. Drama.

Source: Dr. Aeon's Dev Choice Suggestion Thread

Added: The Rikti Accession (#278757) H40-54
Help the Rikti Traditionalists stop a Restructurist super-soldier program.

Source: Pro Payne: From 1 to 50 in M.A.

6/3/2010

Thursday 5/27

Shield Maiden (50 mace/shield brute) did a speed ITF in 25m 51s.

Mayday (50 fortunata) did a "speed" LGTF with a control-heavy team (1 brute, 3 fortunata, 4 controllers) to try and counter the green mitos. Had some deaths but managed to knock it out in 29m 6s.

Kyrie Eleison (49 fire/regen scrapper) joined an STF; we were kinda damage heavy and suffered a lot of blaster deaths. Our stone tanker tanked LR straight-up and seemed confident enough to go AFK while doing so; not really sure how people do this, my tanker seems to get eaten up fighting LR head-on. Anyhow, we finsihed in 58m 45s and got Kyrie to level 50. I got a Golgi as HO reward.

San Min (37 MA/will scrapper) solo'd The Portal Bandits, a MA story arc about some lizard-girl aliens who try and steal Portal technology from hapless Earthlings. This was pretty well-written and I gave it 5 stars.

Deianira (13 SS/SR brute) solo'd Future Skulls, a MA story arc about averting a possible-future where the Skulls grow powerful enough to conquer the world; this was also pretty good and I gave it 5 stars. This got Deianira to 14.


Monday 5/31

I was away for the long weekend, and when I got back, Two Tickets to Westerly, my Dev Choice'd MA story arc, had reached over 1000 plays (which is where the MA interface gives up counting). This was my first MA arc to reach this many plays. I'd like to think it's because it's a great story arc, but my feeling is that it's getting so many plays because it's the shortest story arc on the first page of the default MA search, which probably makes it look more inviting (due to lower time commitment) to the casual MA player. Nevertheless, I thought this was pretty cool.

Lady Arachne (50 wolf spider) joined a Recluse SF that finished in 30m 57s. I got a Centriole. Went on to do a speed ITF in 22m 51s; got a Numina's (END/HEAL) recipe as a random drop.

Mega (50 SS/will brute) did a Sharkhead SF in 24m 0s.

Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) did an STF in 36m 35s, getting a Nucleolus. For some reason my regular STF team really loves shield scrappers, while I think most pickup STF teams would rather not have scrappers at all. Went on to do a speed ITF; had a lot of death due to the team being pretty light on support, coupled with intentionally splitting up to rescue more sibyls/break more crystals faster. Still finished ijn 26m 7s.

I rerolled Psychic Woman to be a mind/emp controller; my thought process was that a mind/emp controller would be a huge help on the Master of Lady Grey TF runs I've been on lately, being able to give +regen to a tanker and stack holds quickly on green mitos. But green mitos should be fixed any day now, certainly before I get a new controller to level 45. So I'm not sure this actually made sense to do, but oh well. I solo'd my way up to 5, then sidekicked up to help a couple blasters in their teens defeat Dr. Vahzilok (as an elite boss), and tagged along on their fortune teller mission for the Spelunker badge, which got me to level 6.


Tuesday 6/1

Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper) joined a 7 player speed ITF, finishing in 22m 33s.

Mayday (50 fortunata) solo'd The All-Seeing Eye, a MA story arc where you try to prevent villains from gaining control of a spy satellite. I thought this was a pretty neat idea and pretty well executed; I gave it 5 stars.

Went on to join a Master of Lady Grey TF attempt, with a team of 1 tanker, 3 fortunata, 2 dominators, 2 controllers. We purposely failed missions 1 and 3, then successfully beat Hamidon and his cheating mitos on mission 4. The team leader asked me to call targets for mitos, so we could more quickly stack holds and damage on them, which made it feel like a "real" Hami raid. Unfortunately the team leader (one of the squishy controllers) managed to get killed on mission 5 trying to stealth past Rikti drones, so we ended up failing the Master Of attempt anyway. We finished anyway, in 36m 23s, which was a surprisingly quick time.

During this MoLGTF attempt I also found out that the fortunata "Psychic Wail" power doesn't zero out your END. I had always thought it would crash my END (like most tier 9 Nova-like attacks) and drop my 7 toggles, so had never taken the power. But if it's a crash-less Nova, I'm thinking I need to respec to work it into my build.

After that I switched to Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) for a Master of the Statesman TF attempt, with a team of 1 stone tanker, 3 illusion controllers, 1 dark defender (me), 2 blasters and 1 scrapper. A blaster promptly died on mission 1, which caused us to restart. The second try we did pretty well until the last mission, where our scrapper entered melee with the patron AVs despite the leader asking him not to, and got killed as a result. Finished the STF anyway in 1hr 4m and got a junky Peroxisome SHO.

Deianira (14 SS/SR brute) solo'd Just Say No to Dihydrogen Monoxide, a MA story arc where the Council threatens to contaminate Paragon City's water supply with Dihydrogen Monoxide, which certainly sounds dangerous. The first mission was pretty funny, but it used up all the best jokes, leaving not enough funny in the remaining 2 missions; it was kind of like a comedy skit that just goes a little too long. I ended up giving the arc 4 stars.


Wednesday 6/2

Spy Girl (26 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd Too Many Bunnygirls, a MA story arc where you foil a nefarious plot to turn innocent citizens into bunnygirls. This was silly but fun; but I felt the ending needed a little something more to wrap up the arc. I gave it 4 stars.

Deianira (14 SS/SR brute) solo'd A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings, a MA story arc where four different villain groups simultaneously kidnap kids from the same orphanage (which happens to be an orphanage for super-powered children). This wasn't a bad story, but I found the whole situation just too implausible to really believe in. I gave it 4 stars.

Mayday (50 fortunata) did a re-do of the previous night's MoLGTF attempt, with basically the same team makeup (though a few different players): 3 fortunata, 2 doms, 2 controllers, 1 stone tanker. This time we had one of Glacia's guards in mission 3 get knocked through a cave wall and we had to wait for a GM to answer our petition before we could move on. Otherwise went fine, and we successfully completed the MoLGTF in 56m 18s (including the wait time).

After that Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) did a re-do of the previous night's MoSTF attempt, with 1 stone tank, 3 controllers, 1 defender (me), 2 blasters, 1 scrapper. This time we had a squishy die during the fight with Dr Aeon, so we didn't get the Master of badge, but we did finish the STF in 52m 49s. I got a Nucleolus SHO.

Finished the night doing two speed ITFs, one with Star Amethyst (23m 37s) and one with Shield Maiden (50 mace/shield brute, team was very damage heavy with 5 scrappers and 1 blaster, 21m 28s).

To fill holes in the contact tree, I'm particularly looking for:

* Science arcs in the level 1-19 range
* Villain arcs in the level 10-29 range
* Really, any arcs in the level 10-29 range (seems an under-developed level range)

Since this resource is intended to steer Mission Architect players to good arcs, I must warn that I will unapologetically give preference to:

* highly polished arcs over newly published arcs
* arcs recommended by another player over arcs submitted by author (or author's significant other)

Added: Quid Pro Quo (#82369) V1-10
A local scumbag tries to take advantage of you, but you make him sorry. Very evil.

Source: Dr. Aeon's Dev Choice Suggestion Thread

Added: The Fan Club (#5898) H25-34 (mostly)
Some of your hero's overly eager fans get in over their heads.

Source: Dr Aeon's Dev Choice Suggestion Thread

Added: The All-Seeing Eye (#57352) H45-54 (mostly)
Prevent a spy satellite from falling into the wrong hands.

Source: Dr Aeon's Dev Choice Suggestion Thread

Added: Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls (#158877) H1-14
While in Perez Park, you meet interesting characters and agree to help another hero "Kill Skuls". Parody.

Source: The Unofficial Official Lowbie MA Review Thread

Added: Future Skulls (#4727) H1-14
Help Mirror Spirit prevent a dire future from coming to pass.

Source: The Unofficial Official Lowbie MA Review Thread

Updated: Amulet of J'Gara level range changed to H25-30.

Added: The Portal Bandits (#3326) H40-54
Stop an alien race from stealing Earth's portal technology.

Source: author submission along with a positive review in the Pro Payne: From 1 to 50 thread.

5/27/2010

Found some notes that didn't make it into my earlier updates, so adding them here.

Wednesday 5/19

Deianira (12 SS/SR brute) solo'd through Sibling Rivalry, an MA story arc where you pursue this mysterious enemy that is stalking Sister Flame. This arc is remarkable in that it was written by someone who was like 8 years old. It's very good for someone of that age, but if you don't consider that, I thought it was a bit lacking; the characterization is a bit weak and "the real story" of why the bad guy is going after her isn't really explained. I ended up giving it 3 stars, but felt a little guilty about it. (Later I got a reply, presumably from her dad, that Sister Flame had apparently gotten bored with Mission Architect and moved on to other things; which seemed like a shame. Oh well.)

After that I joined a 4 player pickup team that had no support characters. This started off well until the team leader decided it would be a good idea to raise difficulty to x8 for a Goldbrickers mission, which promptly gave us a team wipe (the Goldbrickers' sonic attacks are very nasty in large numbers) and the team kinda dissolved after that. It did get Deianira to level 13, though.

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) joined a Statesman TF with 1 tanker, 2 controllers (kin and rad) and 5 blasters. The team leader had asked me to play a blaster, and when I saw we had 5 blasters, I asked, are you sure you wouldn't rather I play something else? But he was a big believer in DPS, so we did it like that. We had a lot of deaths among the squishies (though I managed to avoid being among these casualties) but otherwise did just fine, finishing in 56m 40s and getting me a Nucleolus SHO.


Thursday 5/20

San Min (34 MA/will scrapper) did a Sister Psyche TF on an 8-player team, finishing in 1h 35m and getting her to level 35. I also got a costume compliment from a teammate.

Spy Girl (25 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd through That All Men Are Created Equal, a nifty geopolitical thriller where you try to protect political candidates from a (fictional) fledgeling Eastern European country holding its first elections. I thought this was interesting and well-written; I gave it 5 stars. Did a few paper missions after that to get to level 26.


Wednesday 5/26

Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) joined a Master of Dr Kahn TF that we sorta speeded at the same time. This went quite well; in the last mission we had a few squishies get low on life from Reichsman's AoEs but managed to survive it. Finished in 35m 46s and got the Master of the 5th Column badge.

Deianira (14 SS/SR brute) solo'd through The Dead and the Damned, an MA story arc where you help a couple star-crossed lovers get together against the backdrop of a Hellions/Skulls gang war, with magic thrown in. The story was quite well done, with lots of details, and I gave it 5 stars.

Updated: Dhahabu Kingdom to H41-54.

Updated: H10-20 Magic contact, H40-50 Technology contact.

Added: The Dead and the Damned (#87912) H11-14
Help an unlikely couple get together, against the backdrop of a supernatural gang war.

Source: found with the in-game MA search tool using the keyword "LBMA".

5/26/2010

Monday

Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) joined an STF, which went well and finished in 40m 55s. Got a Peroxisome SHO.

Quick Katie (50 plant/kin controller) joined a Master of the LGTF attempt, with a team of:

1 tanker (stone/mace)
1 brute (?/fire)
1 fortunata
5 controllers (ice/rad, ill/rad, 2 fire/kin, plant/kin)

We got to mission 4 before we ran into any serious problems. I had a moment of terror when I remembered plant holds only affect things on the ground (so, no good on flying mitos) but fortunately, a teammate told me this was "fixed" awhile back along with earth control holds. We also found that the fire aura brute's Healing Flames will work even when being debuffed by the green mitos.

On the downside, we had a really hard time holding the green mitos. Sunday's successful MoLGTF run had 2 fortunata and 5 controllers for a total of 7 people with holds (so to beat 50 mag everyone needs to stack about 2.4 holds); this attempt had 1 fortunata and 4 controllers with holds (the illusionist did not take any of his hold powers; I'm guessing because Phantom Army is just that good). With only 5 people with holds, to beat 50 mag everyone needed to stack about 3.3 holds. This was possible, but we had to fight mitos for much longer before we could kill them, leaving us exposed to damage for much longer, and as a result we had a lot of deaths (failing the "Master Of" part in short order). For some reason we had one teammate that was convinced that the reason we weren't succeeding is because I didn't have the Tree of Life power, which he thought could give the stone tanker enough regen to tank Hamidon. This seemed a little crazy to me, but I couldn't seem to convince him otherwise. I don't have Tree of Life in my build right now because I think people that are speed boosted would never stand still long enough to benefit from it; even if I did, I'm not convinced it's a magic bullet against Hamidon (it'd be risky to fly over to the tank and drop a tree every now and then, and even so, it's only 150% regen). But I could be wrong.

The team eventually came to the conclusion that we were struggling because we just didn't have enough holding power. Despite this, we persisted and were eventually able to kill off the green mitos, mostly through zerg tactics.

After beating Hamidon, we entered the final mission to find level 53 and 54 mobs because the original leader had disconnected and the person who now had the star was on +3 difficulty. Despite this handicap, the final mission was trivial compared to the Hamidon fight, and we finished the TF in a total of 1hr 37m.

Finished the night soloing Spy Girl (26 MA/ninj stalker) through The Do-it-Yourself Casino Heist, a MA story arc where you rob the Golden Giza. This was a pretty good arc with lots of detail, but started off a little slow and had a couple logic problems that bugged me. I gave it 4 stars. While playing this, a passerby in the AE building complimented me on Spy Girl's background story, which was nice.


Tuesday

Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) joined a friend who invited her to an 8-player pickup team doing AVs in Peregrine Island. This team was a little squishy and we had a lot of deaths, but nevertheless we beat up Neuron, Battle Maiden and Black Swan before the team decided to head to Striga Isle to do the Hess TF.

I switched to Arrow Girl (28 archery/nrg blaster) for Hess TF for exp and the badge. The person running the Hess TF was very organized, clearly having done a lot of Hess TFs before, and stealth/TPed the team to almost everything. Finished the Hess TF in 42m 42s.

Played through this and thought it was a neat concept. I liked the characters introduced and especially liked the various optional side objectives in each mission, and the ending was quite good.

My main gripes were:

* Pacing. Taking 3 missions to "get the band together" felt too long compared to the actual planning and execution of the heist. Any chance the crew could be assembled more quickly? I felt like the actual heist (mission 5) was the "meat" of the story and the best part of the arc, but as presented, it takes awhile to get to the payoff.

* Ubiquitous Gal is supposed to be the perfect "getaway" person, but if she's so good at escaping, I shouldn't be able to catch her; if I can catch her, she isn't good enough to get us out of the Giza. I just couldn't get over this fundamental contradiction. Not sure how best to resolve that.

* (Spoiler) The robot duplicate of the Ear apparently can crack the safe just as well as the Ear could; if this is the case, why did we need the (real) Ear at all? Seems to make the (real) Ear nonessential to the story. (This may be a bit nitpicky.)

Anyway, hope that helps!

Perhaps a simple change would be to display "total number of stars earned by this arc" instead of "average number of stars", and also sort by this rating.

That would let you keep the 1 to 5 star rating system (i.e., requires few MMI changes), but even a 1 star rating moves your arc "forward" in total stars (making "1-star griefing" pointless).

If arc A has 200 plays averaging 4.2 stars and arc B has 2 plays averaging 5 stars, currently arc B appears earlier in the default search. Changing it to total stars would make arc A valued at 840 stars and arc B at 10 stars, putting arc A much earlier in the default search. I think this might be desirable behavior.

You could also recalibrate Hall of Fame to be 4000 total stars or something. (This might be still kinda high, dunno; this would instantly catapult all 4 star arcs with 999+ plays into HoF status though, so I don't think it's crazy high.)

On the down side, this suggestion would make the rating system more of a popularity contest than a quality contest. But I get the impression most people don't believe ratings are an accurate measure of quality anyway, considering how the current system is getting metagamed (with 1-star griefers and others only rating things 5-stars to compensate).

5/24/2010

Friday

San Min (35 MA/will scrapper) joined an 8-player pickup team doing Brickstown radio missions. This got her to level 36. Went on to solo Kiss Hello Goodbye, a film noir themed MA story arc which did a good job of conveying the pulp detective genre. I gave it 4 stars.

Mega (50 SS/will brute) did a clear most ITF in 37m 46s.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) joined a Master of the ITF attempt. I started off kinda concerned because we had team members nearly dying just trying to solo the Cimerora wall before we started, but we actually did okay once we started. We ended up failing on the Phalanx Computer in mission 3 during the last wave of robots, where too much aggro on the squishies caused some deaths; I also died to this (though I wasn't the first to die), which was annoying because they killed me through soft-capped range DEF. Finished in 51m 24s. Went on to do a STF in 53m 40s, getting an Enzyme SHO.


Saturday

Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) did a 7-player ITF in 29m 51s.

Kyrie Eleison (48 fire/regen scrapper) did an 8-player ITF on a pickup team. This team seemed a little weak to me and we had a lot of deaths, but still finished in 35m 44s and got Kyrie to level 49.

San Min (36 MA/will scrapper) solo'd One Million Eyes, an MA story arc where you join a superhero-themed social networking web site, and it gives you leads to fight crime. This was a really imaginative arc with good writing, excellent use of canon, and good characters. I thought it was awesome and gave it 5 stars.

Mystery Girl (44 emp/pistols defender) joined an 8-player team doing Tina MacIntyre's arc as part of Ghost Falcon Day, which was originally a much bigger event but didn't quite happen. I think this team running The Praetorian War was the only actual thing that did happen. We got the Emancipator and Multidimensional badges, and beat up the psychic Clockwork King, Bobcat, Shadow Hunter, Neuron and Antimatter. We had a team wipe to a Zeus Titan (formerly 2 smaller robots that escaped our controller's holds by combining into a Zeus), a few deaths due to splitting up several times (one of our scrappers ran off and died, then I went over there to rez him and got clobbered too), another team wipe from over-aggro fighting Anti-matter's robots, and another wipe from overaggroing Arachnos in a radio mission. We did finish The Praetorian War, though, and this got Mystery Girl 43 merits and level 46.


Sunday

San Min (36 MA/will scrapper) joined an 8-player pickup team fighting Praetorian blue clockworks on an outdoor map. We tended to overaggro them, then get overwhelmed by DEF debuffs from their rad blasts. The team had a lot of deaths, but I managed to avoid dying by strategically breaking line of sight and/or running away, along with lots of help from defenders healing me.

After that, San Min joined the Non Speed Numina Task Force, an 8-player team which was, as advertised, Non Speedy. We waited for everyone to enter missions before beginning, even if some people were off shopping, and were discouraged from stealthing missions (though we ended up stealthing & TPing to the end of at least a couple missions). We split up for the various hunt missions, which I think was sensible; having the whole team move to each hunting zone would've been a bit much. Despite the Non Speedy-ness, we still completed the TF in 1h 15m, which isn't bad at all.

After the Numina TF I was just crafting IOs in my base when another scrapper asked to join me. I wasn't really doing anything, so I thought, why not, and I ended up forming a pickup team that completed the Kelly Nemmers story arc in Croatoa (7 merits) and doing some radio missions in Brickstown, ultimately beating Ice Mistral AV in a safeguard mission before the team broke up.

A bit later, I played Arrow Girl (27 archery/nrg blaster) on an 8-player pickup team. We were kinda support light and died a lot (theoretically we had a traps player and 2 stormies, but none of them were particularly team-support oriented; I had to ask the traps defender to summon his FF Generator). Our original tanker went linkdead during a mission and never made it back, so another player swapped to her tanker alt, after which things seemed to go a lot better (maybe aggro control was part of our problem). This got Arrow Girl to level 28.

Some of my friends who do speed TFs were making noises about this mythical "Master of the Lady Grey TF badge", and so we ended up forming a team to try and get it. I played Idealist (50 fire/thermal controller), figuring that thermal buffs and heals should be helpful for a Master Of attempt. Our team was 5 controllers (fire/kin, grav/FF, fire/thermal, 2 ill/rad), 2 fortunata, 1 tanker (inv/?); we were very controller heavy because LGTF is currently messed up so that you need 50 mag of holds to kill green mitos.

A mothership raid was going on in RWZ at the same time we were forming up, and our last two players couldn't get into Rikti War Zone due to it being full, which ended up forcing our whole team to move to RWZ 2, which was a pain. Once there, we started the LGTF and were halfway through mission 1 when I noticed that, hey, the leader forgot to set "no deaths, no temp powers" for the Master Of settings. We quit and restarted the LGTF with the right settings. We did mission 1 and mission 2 the normal way, clearing to Penelope Yin and leading her out, then fighting our way to each of the Riders. Only the tanker, 2 fortunata and 1 controller entered mission 3, deliberately failing it. In mission 4 against Hamidon, our strategy was to focus fire on 1 blue mito at a time, then run away after each one dies. This worked for the first 2 mitos, but on the third one, our tanker got hit with a really nasty DOT from Hamidon and died. The tanker had been taunting Hamidon to keep him off of us, and eventually Hamidon got a lucky hit in. In hindsight, we realized that it would've been better if the illusionists dropped Phantom Army on Hamidon instead of having the tanker taunt. Thermal radiation was also not as good for this as I had hoped; while the buffs/heals are nice everywhere else, Hamidon damage goes right through thermal shields and debuffs people so they can't be healed, which was pretty frustrating for me. Anyway, we decided to go ahead and finish the LGTF, rushing the rest of the mitos and running to the end room of mission 5. Finished in 1h 14m.

A little later we did another try (with some players swapping in or out). This time I played Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) and our team mix was 6 controllers (2 fire/kin, 2 ill/rad, mind/rad, grav/rad), fortunata, fire/inv brute. The grav controller had recall friend and stealthed to the end of mission 1 to TP the team there; we then deliberately failed mission 1 (abandoning Penelope Yin die to the ambush; felt kinda guilty about this, probably because Penelope is not nearly as annoying as Infernia). Mission 2 we mostly cleared to each Rider room, zipping through a few rooms that weren't too heavily populated. Mission 3 the brute and fortunata solo failed for us. Mission 4 we basically had the same plan, except that the brute would not taunt, Phantom Army would be dropped on Hami instead; and we killed 2 blue mitos each round, before running and hiding. This worked to clear all the blues, though I got scared a couple times when mitos tagged me with damage; I chomped an Essence of Earth each of the first two times, which I'm convinced reduced the damage from the DOT. (Didn't die, anyway!) After getting the blue mitos, we targeted the yellow mitos; the fortunata reported that Dominate seems to hurt the yellow mitos (presumably due to having no positional tag), and I found that Dominate/Mesmerize seemed to work for me, too. Then we cleared all the pylons and got to work on the green mitos. Mind control felt really good for this because I could stack Telekinesis with Dominate. The green mitos didn't seem to take any damage at all until held, and then would suddenly POP, dying in a split second after being held.

Once all the mitos were down, the Weakened Hamidon didn't give us any serious trouble, and the grav controller TP'd us to the end of mission 5, where we beat the AVs and won the TF, finishing in 1h 12m. This indeed awarded us all the Master of the Lady Grey Task Force badge, which (as far as I know) is the first time it was awarded on Liberty. (We all vowed to actually get this badge on our badging characters later on, when they fix the green mitos to be less insane.) I also got a Devastation (ACC/DMG/END/RCHG) recipe drop at the end, which was nice.

Finished the night playing Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) on a speedy 7 player ITF, finishing in 23m 47s.

Added: Small Fears (#12285) H45-54
Rescue children from the manifestations of their childhood fears. Horror.

Source: Dr Aeon's Dev Choice Suggestion thread

Added: One Million Eyes (#71933) H40-54
Join the new hero-themed social networking site and fight crime!

Source: Dr Aeon's Dev Choice Suggestion Thread, also the Player's Choice Awards

This arc really impressed me. Terrific concept and execution.

Added: Kiss Hello Goodbye (#156389) H1-54, but should be around H25-54

Source: heard about this arc some time ago, always meant to get around to playing it.

Moved: Cracking Skulls to level 1-10 tier (due to lowered difficulty).

Moved: Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black to Technology origin (since, hey, Freaks)

Added:

That all Men Are Created Equal (#151277) H41-54
Protect a fledgling Eastern European democracy against the Malta. Geopolitical thriller.

Source: found on page 4 of default MA search