Sumericon

The rules for PvP and PvE are different. Probably the best place to test your PvP build is the arena.

For the "long hallway" situation, you can set your map to Empty, then spawn your EB/AVs with the Defeat a Boss detail and set surrounding enemy group to Empty. Subsequent AVs can be set to spawn upon defeat of the first.

For the "random AV" situation, I thought you could have created a custom group of all possible AVs and spawned each Defeat a Boss detail randomly, but after checking I see that the random option is not available for custom groups although it is available for standard groups.

I just played this arc. I thought it was well-written and finely crafted. Good job. Recommended.

I'm not looking at the lists right now, but if memory serves, all 3 of you, WN, Lazarus, and Dalghryn, have arcs that would be on the What's Hot list so you'd get new slots right off the bat. I don't see the issue here, unless your true intent is to try and take something away from the current HoF authors, regardless of how they achieved it.

I don't agree with changing the requirements for Hall of Fame. Sure, the 1000+ plays hurdle seems gargantuan in the current AE environment, but I still have hope that things will be done down the line that will revitalize it. More players means more plays. Dumbing down Hall of Fame as a response to declining interest would strike me as the devs admitting failure and throwing in the towel on resurrecting AE. I don't want that.

The label "Hall of Fame" itself sounds epic, and getting that many plays while keeping a high rating truly is epic. It's something accomplished over the long (long) term.

As a DC'd author, I can verify from experience that arcs listed on the first few pages get more plays than those that come after. I'm all for getting more plays for the better arcs, and more slots for the better authors so they can make even more great arcs!

Top-rated arcs with only 100 plays doesn't strike me as epic enough to earn the label Hall of Fame, but the benchmark has merit, and WN's already shown some data to support it as a milestone. Instead of dumbing down Hall of Fame, call the 100+ plays arcs "What's Hot" or "Hot Arcs" or somesuch. The recognition would make these arcs more visible which in turn gets them more plays, and, if they're truly worthy of Hall of Fame, they'll get there (much) later.

Just my two cents.

Even if what you claim is true, dubious as it is (in the vernacular: pics or it didn't happen), and you "already thought of it", it is apparent that, given the actions taken over the past year, that the decision-makers had dismissed those arguments and chose another path.

Unless, of course, that everything from i14 to the present and forward is being treated as one very long MA beta, and the plan is to work out all the kinks now in order for a completed version to be launched fresh and clean-slated with CoH2 and do it properly from the start. That at least explains why they would be willing to take their lumps now from the players and in the press for the current incarnation, because it's merely a laboratory and not the finished product.

Wow. You got me. You totally took me to task. I'm blown away by how much energy you expended on flaying me. You used asterisks and everything. I'm bleeding all over my keyboard.

But, before I grovel....

To the Red Name(s) It May Concern:

It's a rule. An unmoderated medium will always degenerate to the lowest common denominator. It's like leaving books of matches in the classroom. The entire student body is not necessarily going to be involved, but, lacking the proper supervision, that school is going to burn to the ground.

I know what you thought. You had this idea, the first of its kind. You thought the players would share your vision for the AE. You thought you could trust the players to use it the way it was meant to be used, the way you thought it should be used. You thought you could let the system police itself. The "good" arcs would rise above the rest, the chaff would sink to the bottom, and abusers would be flagged. It was a noble approach, but not realistic, and, given the game's long history of the constant push-and-pull relationship between yourself and the "min-maxers", I'm surprised you would even entertain the notion.

This is your wake up call. The players cannot be trusted. It was admirable to give them the opportunity to prove otherwise, but by now you must realize the conclusion is unavoidable. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You built this system. You're going to have to step up and manage it properly.

The conflict is centered around this question of rewards. How much is too much? How little is too little? What exactly is the magic formula for risk vs. reward? You've always been sketchy about this answer, and understandably so. If you say the answer is "5", then 12 new forum posts suddenly appear discussing the best way to attain "4.999999".

Personally, I don't care about XP. I care about story. Wipe all XP from the AE and I would still use it. I know I'm not alone thinking this way, but I also know I'm likely in the minority. However, at the same time, if you continue along your current path and nerf AE to the point where it ceases to be a functional tool with which I am able to tell a story or find enjoyable stories authored by other players, I will stop using it. I'm not alone in thinking that way either, and, face it, if you persist in alienating the authors that create the content for the AE, it will fail, and poor Doc Aeon will be out of his shiny new job before he's barely qualified for benefits.

You already have two classifications for AE arcs: Honored arcs (includes Dev Choice and Hall of Fame) and Published arcs. This implementation shows that you have the ability to 1) differentiate the rewards between the two classes, and 2) lock arcs in a "finished" form that forbids further edits and changes.

What is needed here is a third classification for arcs. Something in the middle that borrows from both. Let's call it "Approved arcs" for now. You can think of a better name later.

Honored arcs continue to have (or the option to have) "normal" rewards, just as they do now, while Published arcs have no rewards at all.

Enter our new category: Approved arcs. Arcs that are in the Published class can be submitted to a queue to be reviewed and checked for exploits. When they have passed quality control testing and are deemed exploit-free, they are locked and passed into the Approved class. Approved arcs will have XP and ticket rewards just like arcs currently in the Published class. Not nerfed XP but XP in line with what a player would expect to achieve through normal gameplay.

Of course, the quality control process has a certain cost involved. Let's look at the Cost-Benefit Analysis.

For the cost of adding mod(s) to the AE system, you would reap a number of benefits.

First and foremost, you would completely eliminate the players' ability to abuse and exploit the AE system. This, on its own, would let Positron sleep more soundly at night and make him a much more pleasant person around the office. Additionally, you would save all the future costs involved in fixing any as yet undiscovered exploits.

Next, you would be able to continue to keep your definition of what is "acceptable" AE content in-house by exercising direct control over which Published arcs qualify for Approved status and which do not. Arcs would rise or fall on their individual merit, not get struck down as collateral damage by the latest nerf levied against farmers and exploiters.

Another benefit, and perhaps the most elegant of all, would be that you could roll back every nerf and change you've made to the AE thus far. Give us back Sky Raider Engineers as allies, put the Prisoners group back in, take those silly throwing knives away from custom melee sets, and so on. Abuses for disportionate rewards would be a thing of the past! Features that were once useful for authors but since removed because they were exploitable for farmers can be inserted back into the system with no qualms or hesitation.

One important benefit would be satisfaction of your stated goal that, with Honored and Approved arcs, AE remain a viable method for players to level from 1-50. Although the Approved category would have to start from scratch, if you could add even four to six new arcs per week, it would quickly grow to a respectable size and give players a plethora of options in searching for fresh, player-designed content. Doc Aeon has shown the tenacity to introduce a new Dev Choice arc on a semi-regular (close to bi-weekly) schedule. The standards for an arc to graduate to Approved status would be much less stringent than required for Honored status. I don't think that four to six arcs per week would be unreasonable.

Finally, and possibly most notably for some, it would be time for the other end of this argument to put up or shut up. All those players who have consistently argued that their reason for designing and playing exploit and farm missions was to "test their build" will have free reign to test, test, and test to their hearts' content. They can make the ultimate outdoor map of jellybean, green jello, meow mix, and banana bread and clear it over and over if that's what makes them happy. Unless, of course, it's not about testing their build, and their main goal all along was to unbalance the reward system. Then I suppose they'd leave AE and move on to their next farming strategy. I'm seeing a win-win here.

Don't get me wrong. AE was a great idea. If it weren't for the AE, I can't honestly say that I'd still be playing and paying for this game. Since it's release, it's taken a beating from bad decisions, poor judgment, and overall mismanagement, but it's not too late. AE can be a great idea again. You still have players that believe you can turn this thing around and take control. I still believe, but I'm barely hanging on at this point. Don't let me down. I still have stories to tell.

I'm not sure exactly if it's what you want, but load up ZAGMUK Act Three (#342751) and walk into mission 1. Captain Davis should be the first detail you encounter. If that is similar to what you're going for, I'll tell you how I did it.