StarkRavingMad2

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So wait, you talked about how absolutely horrible it was from a continuity point of view, and yet you don't even know anything about the lore of it? Wow.

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Uhhh ... what? I said that the original attempt to explain the plot hole that had been created was terribly contrived. Arguably more contrived than DC's most convoluted stories could hope to be. I know "the lore" as you put it probably better than the devs do (tho IMO there is no "lore" to it-- it's THAT contrived). I spent a lot of time trying to piece the story together in preparation for writing my AE arc.

I just want to know how the devs "fixed" it in a Geoff Johns kinda way, or if they bothered to and just kept running with their half-conceived mess of a story premise. And since my spin involves time paradoxes, I may well end up doing it anyway. Though even then I still need to know what the plot is so I can work it in.

Thanks for the links. I'm bracing myself now.

I was going to use my last two AE story slots to write a 2-part arc involving time travel, the Nictus, and an Ourboros conspiracy to attempt to explain the worst plot hole that was ever torn into CoH continuity. I wanted to try to explain how we woke up one day and every criminal act dating back to the 1940s which had been perpetrated by the 5th Column was suddenly caused by The Council.

I had an idea to reconcile how some "new" group -- with identical tactics, technology, and super soldier development -- could just "show up" and "defeat" the 5th Column, and somehow cause ALL of their leaders to "defect" -- which could not possibly have happened because all of those mission arcs clearly establish that they ALWAYS worked for The Council.

Do the devs realize that what they did is more contrived than every DC Crisis put together?

It would have been great. Then I read the I15 patch notes. And to add insult to injury, it's a SF/TF combo, not a mission arc, so I'll probably never get to play it for myself.

So I'm morbidly curious. What did the wizards of smart come up with for the return of the 5th Column? Someone please spoil it.

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maybe every new player would stop flocking to Freedom and Virtue because they are the only ones that ever show Yellow.

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New players don't know what the colors mean.

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Dude, it doesn't even take a high school diploma to figure out which servers have more people on them.

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and everytime there is an issue release people will be locked out of their server giving a whole new meaning to nerd rage.

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Nooo. Currently people are only locked out of FREEDOM. And maybe Virtue for much smaller periods of time.

He's right. The population is spread out way too thin. You can still have your "quieter" server if there were only 5-6 to choose from. And honestly, maybe every new player would stop flocking to Freedom and Virtue because they are the only ones that ever show Yellow. It would help to have at least one more server that is perceived as having a decent population.

What I would think they'd like to do is expand the capacity of Freedom and consolidate like 4 of the bottom ends into 2.

The problem is moot, however, because of character and supergroup name conflicts. What do you do with the two guys both named Dr. Techmaster on both Infinity and Champion who both really really like their names (especially with the . in there).

This is just like I wish they would have officially labeled servers to try and guide like minded players together. It worked great in DAoC, IMO. But it didn't happen and it won't so *shrug*

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I lost interest when you began insisting that the devs encouraged farming.

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Whether intentional or not, they did. They enabled farmers and put a farm house in every zone. Not sure how that doesn't encourage the practice? Players are even getting so bold as to just come out and just /b "lf ae farm".

So let them... and make it easier for players who don't roll that way to filter them out.

Though even if you ignore that whole aspect of it, this is a workable idea that would make life easier for forming teams. The current system sounds nice on paper, but in practice it's backwards with no recruiting mechanism for players who are LFM.

This idea is a result of the issue of farming that has grown even more pervasive since I 14. I mean, heck, the game practically encourages it now by having the farm house in the every zone, including the newbie zone. So now let's just accept that that's how a lot of people want to play... But try to keep them separated from the rest of us.

Finding a team would be easier and quicker if I can filter out all of the folks who have no interest in doing the same kind of missions that I do. The current LFT flags don't really cut it. "Not Looking" still includes people who might join if you ask. It effectively filters nothing because not enough people bother using this feature, not even to say "Looking for Any" even though they are.

It would be more accurate to describe the kind of player you are with a preference flag of "Farmer" or "Story Missions" or "Radio" or "Task Force" or "Hunting". Let players choose multiple flags, not just 1. "Looking for Any" is too broad because maybe they are not open to a TF (and on the flipside, being open to a TF does not have to mean that that's the only invite you would accept). And of course keep "Not Looking (decline invites)" as an option.

Combined with this, it would also help if the player with the star (or solo) could set a flag of LFM, not LFT... "Forming team for" Story Missions / Farm / Radio / TF / Hunting. That way you don't have to necessarily go through the list and send /tells. Players who really are LFT could contact you and maybe save you time.

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Anyway, this just sounds like a 'woe is me' OP with farming as the villain. Like most examples of that mindset, it's wrong but never would the person admit that perhaps fault lies with them rather than some outside element.

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Well really my arc was more of a sidenote, honestly. Though it is a factor in my annoyance at how pervasive farming has become.

I know farming is common in all games. And I have played a few others (not many, but enough to know what you mean). IMHO, farming has suddenly become more common here by orders of magnitude over other games.

I managed to put together a team just now to my pleasant surprise. This is a case where I welcome being proved wrong.

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Yep. [ZQ] The Once and Future King.

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Okay there's ONE. What day in the first week of going live was that one made?

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to be fair - you don't normally encounter crey much if at all before 30

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Well true... but the fact that they couldn't grasp enough of the game mechanics to figure out how to look was alarming. I didn't know what a Malta was until I hit 40, either. But if I had to hunt them, I wouldn't have ran willy nilly into the Nemesis mobs and wondered why it wasn't working.

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Thank you for your SOB story

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Actually I thought it was a pretty funny story. And yet, yes, sad at the same time.

In defense of farmers... I can understand why someone would want to skip the first 20 levels. The power progression in this game for many ATs is downright painful until you get into the 20s, in part because you need to waste 10 levels taking the Fitness and Travel pools and also in part because so many sets are built around some really good power that you don't get till 16-26 (which then don't become useful until you slot them).

But after that point, I can't even relate. My attempt to explain to AE farmers how much they are missing out on by effectively skipping the whole game falls on deaf ears.

I honestly could care less about why someone farms. To me it's BORING. I want to run missions with thought and variety written into them. And I hate the fact that it has become impossible to find a team that does anything else. It was bad enough doing the mind-numbing monotony of jumping between radio missions and then skipping all the side missions in the safeguard. Now the bar has been lowered even more.

Here's to hoping that I15 has better ways for players to sift through all the crap... and gives the devs a better way to sift through all the crap to stamp more dev choice awards on MAs with some creativity and balance put into them.

My honest suggestion to maybe help out us players who do not want to Farm... give the farmers an easy to access way to search for like minded players.

Make an LFT search window that filters out those who declare themselves as Farmers. Allow those who do not want to farm to refuse invites only from those who are. IOW, just legalize it. Accept that the problem is beyond control and let them go, but give them their own sandbox so that they quit bothering the rest of us.

But the original suggestion of removing AE from many zones will help a lot. Why they make us run all over creation for the University, but make the AE Farmhouse so accessible is beyond me.

What's really depressing is that I have lost all faith that the devs care about what we think. You all realize that we're only talking to ourselves right?

When is Champions coming out again?

Yesterday I was at Icon in Indy Port to get my 3rd costume slot mission. So were two other guys who had apparently just hit 30. I'm standing outside Icon, having just defeated my ambush when one of them sends me a /tell, "What are Crey?"

Not "WHERE are Crey?"... "What are Crey?" -_- Oh boy.

My answer is, "Those guys" as a Crey mob scaled for Invincible 2-man team charges into view. They invite me to their team (by the time I clicked Accept they were at 1/4 health), we stomp them... and then one of them starts running around the map.

"Where are they?"
"They aren't in this zone. We have to go to Brickstown"
"How?"

Oh boy.

So I lead them to the train (which I have to assume they used to get to IP in the first place), and after a few explanations of which zone I went to... they both run off randomly. I try to tell them that Crey mobs are pretty close to the train and to follow me.

Then one of them calls "Here" from a rooftop. I fly to that roof, where they are already engaged.

... uhm

"Guys, those are Council."

"What do Crey look like?"

Now -that's- some serious A.D.D. at work beause we literally just fought a huge gang of them 3 minutes prior. But I still needed 20-some more for my costume, and I kind of felt sorry for them.

"See those guys down there in the suits and SWAT outfits?" At that point I could hear "LEEEEEROY JENKINS" in my head as they charged down.

My question then was... Did the Devs REALLY not realize that farming would become so pervasive that they had no prayer of controlling it? Is THIS what they really wanted? People getting into the game just to skip 30 levels of content?

And here I am with my little story arc that chances are no one will play because all anyone does is farm. Once upon a time I was so jazzed about I14. Now I have no inspiration to write any more arcs because I don't see the point when like, 10 people total will play them. Maybe.

After that experience I headed to Wentworths, where certain formerly not-so-uncommon salvage had only 15 pieces for sale at like 100K. I then realized... Oh yeah. No salvage drops except for the tiny handful of dev choice missions... the last of which was chosen on like DAY 3 of AE going live (which were all written in Beta and transferred I am sure). -_-

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Arc ID: 82136
Name: Family Matters
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The story of the Family involved (no spoiler) was poignant and made for emotional involvement. Good placement of allies, although I have to say that that girl, somthing-or-other knight, was pretty worthless. If she attacked one time to my ten, I'll eat my hat.


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Wow. I blush. Thank you.

Pet AI can be pretty worthless sometimes. I wish I understood why.

It's hard to keep track of who's next in here. A lot seem to be getting skipped. I went back and hit a few that looked like they got missed. There was one in particular I liked.

87912 - The Dead and the Damned

At first the writer sets you up thinking this is going to be a serious story. The premise is kind of cool actually. The Skulls and Hellions are gearing up for a big war by acquiring powerful magic artifacts. But it quickly turns light hearted.

You soon realize that you've stumbled upon the San Francisco Troop version of West Side Story. The dialogue and narration is firmly tongue in cheek. The boss fight dialogue, especially, is priceless. The shift from what sounded like a serious arc to just having fun was almost kind of jarring... but it made me laugh, which was all the writer really wanted I suspect.

I loved all the pirate chests in mission 2. Very clever.

Watch out in mission #4. Bone Daddy's are already among the toughest bosses in the lowbie levels. A Bone Daddy with a Zombie ambush thrown in is ebil.

In the final mission, it's a good thing I was playing my tanker. You get a WHOLE bunch of allies to help you with a double boss fight (which at level 14 or lower, the help is much appreciated)... but they are nearly all squishie minions and Lts. I've never used Taunt to protect my pets before. IOW don't count on them too much.

I gave it 4 stars.

Here is my first creation...

Arc ID: 82136
Name: Family Matters
Creator: @Shadow Guard
Description:: A new gang of Outcasts is making bold moves into Independence Port. What is the secret behind their newfound power and their role in the turf wars that plague the docks of Paragon City? (psst... AV fight)

Length: Long (5 missions w/ 1 short 3 med and 1 long but straightforward office map)
Difficulty: I envisioned it as a 20-30 arc (though technically it caps at 40 and mission 2 lets you go at 50). I made new amped up Outcasts with stacking buff/debuff and some control. Mission 5 ends an AV (an AV that I can't believe the devs did not already make!). So tougher than average, but I soloed it with a lvl 28 scrapper and ran through with minimal death on a team of 4.

Arc ID#109148
Title: The Pantheon of the Fallen: Chapter 01

Saying "easy to challenging" is far too polite. Mission 3 being not even remotely soloable for a scrapper is not "challenging". It's in the uber league. As in "only for players who roll on Invincible because everything else is just too boring for them".

The Lt's killed me in 3 hits, dude. With inspriations and 4-5 critters amping up my RttC. I'm can't grasp how a team could do any better when they'd be generating even more critters on the map.

As for the story elements that I got through before giving up...

My first impression is that I've got a bit of a problem where my motivation to help this blind elf chick is because I am "compelled by her words" and feel I need to "prove my worth" to her.

Flowery dialogue is one thing, but flowery narrative is a bit heavy. Both could use some lightening up actually. You also assume a bit too much about how a character will react to everything. Why was it so hard to break in? Why am I so afraid of detection when I make a living out of busting into bad guy bases already and this is supposedly just an exercise mission of sorts? In mission 2, why am I "confused" at merely seeing the cult's version of a transfer memo? Stuff like that was kind of jarring.

Only one or two typos (ie hide in PLAIN sight).

I have a bit of a plot nitpick with your explanation of the hero and villain factions. In CoH history, superhumans first appears with Statesman and Lord Recluse in the 1930s some time, maybe even earlier, but still 20th century. Based on that timeframe, your good guys have only heard rumors that your bad guys have been growing since then (the better part of 100 years to build their forces?)... so it doesn't jibe that they have been enemies for millennia.

Making clickies take 12 seconds was a bit much for no real reason. And not sure why there were multiple files with the same label on them.

That said... this does sound like it could be a pretty good story, even if the prose has some shades of purple. I was intrigued enough to want to know where this was going if I thought I had any prayer of surviving it. Your idea of challenging is on a far different scale than mine.

Thanks for the link. With AE forums so split up and there being SO many sticky threads, I've been wondering how to get the devs attention on an arc. That's a SERIOUSLY tall order with 90,000 arcs now. I don't think there's a single one over the 10,000's.

Is there any way to get more? If you make a dev choice worthy story perhaps?

Is there any way to make a quick way to report spammers?

Part of why they get away with it is because most players don't want to be bothered with stopping what they are doing... clicking menu... Petition... select the right option... type the message... get the spammer's name right...

But if they could have a command to report spam where you can report the last person who sent you a /tell (maybe by automatically including a log) with fewer clicks, that would curb the problem drastically.

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I like this guide. Its simplicity is fabulous. I did want to mention, my level 46 mastermind received a recipe for a level 49 quickfoot set: endurance. I don't know if it's a bug.

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No that's right. You get recipes up to the level that you can use.

You can't put more than one of the same set on a power, but can you put more than one set on one power?

For example, can you six slot a ranged attack with 3 from Ruin and 3 from Thunderstrike to get the set bonuses from each?

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A) The Devs feel that there is too much Inf in the system.

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What they fail to understand is that all of the influence flows like wine after level 35 or so. Through the teens and 20s, a lot of us struggle to pay for our enh's. Buying inspirations? Schaa. I understand the prices at higher levels, but the lower tiers are brutal.

I agree that we should have set prices. The auction house is just another system for power gamers to exploit, making the problem worse for the high end money hoarding.

I'd rather see personal apartments than dump more into unused bases, though.

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My suggestion to you is, log in to Test and look around. It'll give you your own educated perspective on the system, rather than having you form a misguided, largely incorrect viewpoint based on bits and pieces of information with no context.

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It might have been more useful to explain what happens differently in practice than in the theory. I'm a little lost on what is uneducated or incorrect about analyzing the actual numbers.

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First, I strongly believe that the level 10 and 20 IOs are grossly overpriced. There is absolutely no incentive to even craft one of these things
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Second, I think there is a problem at levels 25-40. In this level range, basic IOs are still expensive enough that non-twinked characters are going to have huge difficulty justifying the expense.

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Okay good I'm not insane. You noticed the exact same thing that I did. Until my toons get into the 30s, they are always dead broke every level. The crafting costs are ludicrous. It's not worth starting until I'm 35 and have -some- influence to spare.

But then again... some devs seem to view the game as if it doesn't begin until then.

These questions are really too broad.

I HATE missing (even more than being mez'd). This is why I always slot 2 Accs on every single attack I ever get. 75% is pathetic by superhero standards. I feel like an utter gimp when I miss every fourth attack.

With that slotted, against even con minions, I expect to land 90% of my attacks. Against Lts, 85%. Against bosses, 75%... depending on the type.

The special Arachnos helmet for males is still two shades too bright. I had a red and black armored costume that matched the helmet perfectly, then after I7 the helmet was suddenly brighter.

Why can't we make that helmet be whatever color we want anyway?

Several of the new boots are this wierd shade of gray that we can't change. That same armored costume had Techbot boots that matched perfectly, but I was forced to change them.

I've been in two of these now, just Atlas. One with a team and one solo.

Consistent with mayhem missions, it went swimmingly when I was solo (Dark/Dark Defender) and HORRIBLE with a team. Also consistent, but not in a good way... the only way to do it successfully is just just scramble straight for the bank and ignore everything else.

I was under the impression that we were supposed to have a few minutes to fight our way to the bank before we were prompted that the robbery was underway. I realize the notes say "immediately", but starting us on the other side of the map and expecting us to ignore everything (and survive running past it) is very harsh.

After stopping the robbery, the timed portion is very cool.

Bottom line, though, the timer could be longer before the robbery is triggered.