Teeto_K

Are you more interested in Custom Critter design?

Or selecting existing COH/COV/GR critters and mixing them together?

I want the ability to custom pick powers, without regard for powerset, because of challenge too.

I want to be able to precisely tune the challenge in my arcs.

The current ranks we have are insufficient to this task, and the powerset selections available only partly supplement them as an adjusting factor.

I have characters who can comfortably solo on +3 xWhatever. Bosses get rolled over by them with a bit of care and not too much effort. I'd like to make arc-ending "big bad" fights not neccessarily "Tough", but memorable. However, the Elite Boss and Arch Villain ranks merely add more HP and more one-shot potential, and for a few of them, are completely out of their reach. Having to adjust your difficulty down for ONE MISSION mid arc is jarring when I have to do it in regular content, and I'd argue more so in an Architect arc.

A properly tuned boss on the other hand, would not fall victim to being steam-rolled and missed in all the comotion, but also not dish out so much punishment that I need to put a sign on the mission door saying "You need to be THIS soft-capped in order to ride". With careful adjustment of powers,

Orchestrating a dynamic and engaging end-mission encounter is something we sorely lack the tools to do right now, and I don't see the harm in rectifying that. Terrible arc authors will be terrible no matter WHAT tools you take away from them. Their existence shouldn't mean that the many A+ authors that frequent this forum should be denied more and better options.

I have greatly enjoyed much of what has been reccomended by the regulars in this forum and would be loathe to see features denied to these talented people just because of terrible authors like me.

Yeah I was hoping that the Pet would buff itself periodically, Rapid Firing for a brief time. But if the power is flagged "Unaffected by recharge" then that's right out.

I think I'm going to go with Devastation Chance to Hold in it, since I've got a 5-slot frankenslot schema that nets me 77 acc, 94 dam, 94 Recharge. I was VERY pleased to find out that I can summon multiple concurrent storms. The temptation to go crazy nuts on recharge with IO's is slowly growing.

Hey, actually, I had read your guide, looking for the answer to the spectral terror question. It appears I missed it on my first pass, caught it this time though.

Pulsing every 6 seconds means it'll fire at the 42 second mark, so duration slotting will mean it gets to go "past permanent" by a fair bit, which will be nice.

Thanks.

I've actually come up with a new question, and figured I'd recycle my thread, since I already have one:

Procs and Thunderstorm. Namely, The "Chance for 100% +Recharge", and "Chance for Buildup" procs that can be slotted in it. Does it benefit itself with these when it casts it's thunderbolt power, or is it only a benefit to me when -I- cast the Thunderstorm?

I've recently been blasting through the levels on my Illusion/Storm controller, and having a blast, both solo and on Teams. My main (team oriented) build has a definite direction in mind, and I know for the most part what I'm doing, when to cut loose, and how not to ruin your team's day.

But, I'm left with some questions.

Tornado : I've heard of people using this as a source of damage. However, I begin to think that those people must be using it as an AOE power, with -Knockback controls like Fire and Stone cages, where I could see it's DOT being a much bigger contributor than it is for me, as it pushes a boss into the wall slowly ticking away at his HP. I take it I shouldn't be slotting this up as a damage work horse in this build?

Waterspout : This is a power I've never seen in action. It's apparently wildly popular, which puzzles me since Tornado, its closest analogue, is maligned and derided. If I'm taking this power to have "Yet another version of tornado's particular 'brand' of control contribution", will I be satisfied with what I got?

Spectral Terror : How does the Terrorize aura on this work? The 20 foot radius one that keeps most things in place. Does it pulse frequently? How frequently? Or does it just fire once when the power is first summoned?

Thank you very much for your time, and have a good day.

Posting just to echo Stryker's sentiments about buffs in TF's.

A single Kinetic defender with SO's, who maintains speedboost, is worth tens of millions in recharge bonuses.

A single Force Field or Cold defender maintaining shields is worth hundreds of millions in defense bonuses.

Most other buffs, heals, debuffs, Controls, and similar, cannot be quantified in monetary terms because there are no IO set bonuses that compare with confusing an entire spawn, flooring their resistance, and buffing your damage to the cap.

Never mind that these characters are ALSO gonna be SHOOTING AND KILLING things, on top of all this.

I don't think the OP's idea is as lacking in merit as has been let on. With some tweaking, I sincerely think that it can be fairly balanced, and useful without being overwhelming.

AND, potentially COOL. Which is probably the important thing.

First off, there are concerns about high-tier farmers using such a pool to stack up with extra AOE's and damage auras. I really don't think damage auras belong in pools, because they are FREE DAMAGE PER SECOND. Well, not totally free, but, they don't cost animation time, and tick away while you use your other attacks. In the hands of a sturdy character, the effect is really really potent.

So instead of:

Attack
Attack
AOE
Aura

I would suggest a layout of:

Melee Attack
Melee Attack
Ranged Attack
AOE attack

With an eye kept out on making sure that the attacks don't absolutely STINK, but aren't really better in terms of DPA than existing primary set options. A good line of comparison? POOL ATTACK POWERS? AM I HEARING POOL ATTACK POWERS? YES I AM!

The KEY thing is, that by putting the AOE at the top of the set, you're asking people to give up 2 power picks on what could be considered lower-tier attacks just to get at it. AND, presumably, despite being an AOE, with DPA and Radius and Target Cap tuning, we can keep it from being overwhelming. Something like a 0.80 damage scale AOE with Hurl's animation and a 7 foot radius and 5 target limit on a 16 second timer? I dunno.

Who's gonna want these powers? People playing weaker powersets that actually benefit from them. Who isn't? People who don't due to already having strong damage options.

So what kind of theme could we have running in this pool? How about something wacky and fun! IMPROVISED WEAPONRY!

The 2 melee attacks could swing with random household items, and the Ranged and AOE attack could be thrown objects: The AOE being larger objects, the ranged attack being things that can be thrown one handed. We already have a one and two handed hurling/throwing animations. (Hurl with shield = 1 handed, hurl without shield = 2 handed. There also exists the animation used in the [Rock] Temp power.) It would take some tech to make random objects be hand-thrown, and some care would have to go into the selection of the random objects, but I think the pool could really add some flavor to characters and also add some damage where it's needed.

The question of "How unfair is unfair" comes to my mind. When designing something like this, for a team, DO you even draw a line where you say "Okay that's enough of THAT"? Considering the very real possibility of an all-support "superteam" tackling your mission, something tells me "No, no you don't"

Over-attacking EVERY "weak point" seems like a tall order to cram into even an x8 spawn.

Defusing Defense: Debuffs for those who lack DDR, Tohit Buffs for those who have it. Are longbow officers and Nemesis Leutennants the order of the day? Does every enemy need AIM and powerboost? Fortitude and Forge don't seem up to the task, but perhaps I'm mistaken?

Defusing Resistance: The only unresistable resist debuffs I know of are Vanguard Sword and Longbow Nullifiers, and I might even be wrong about those. ARE there other options? Are these mobs scary enough on their own to include into a custom group? Will the other mobs in the group dillute them to the point of ineffectiveness?

Defusing Endurance and Recovery: SOME sets resist this, but enough don't that it seems a viable avenue. Tesla Cage's -100% recovery springs immediately to mind, but I'm behind the times, I'm sure there are other options. Do we deploy sappers? Super stunners?

Defusing being able to do things: How much of a place does Mez have? Just enough mez to keep people having to tank/prebuff against it, or should mez attempt to overstack players' protections?

Slows and Recharge debuffs fall under this category, and again, due to the existence of personal and grantable resistance to them, raise the question of "How much and how avoidable".

Knock Down and Back work toward this goal, but again, do we spam the entire map with earthquakes? Or put just enough knock in to disrupt the unprotected?

Finally, To-hit Debuffs and Defense, and related but not as direct, Resistance buffs are similar in their affects. Do we pile them on? The to-hit related ones seem to raise a bar that says "You must negate this much evasiveness to even play the mission", is this a statement we want to make? Resistance is "fairer" in that at least you can still HIT, but, it's also impossible (for players) to mechanically counter, though for some resistive powers specific counters do exist. (Knocking enemies out of a dispersion field or steamy mist, etc)

Defusing Healing and Regeneration: Well, there's -Regen and -Special out there. Is it worth having your minions spend time on this sort of thing?

Defusing being alive: As has been already discussed, exotic damage typing is probably your best bet. Energy and Cold and Negative and Psionic seem to me to be the least resisted/defended against, but then again, there are strong stackable sources of protection from each, so perhaps avoiding overspecialization is more important than wailing on a specific "percieved weakpoint".

It would be fun to toss one's hat into the ring on this, to see what players actually find challenging, and see what is just unfair, if any such thing exists.

To all of you out there who are afraid at not having the information needed to give to support:

Just explain the situation thouroughly. Give as much information as you do have. Tell them about how you haven't used the security question in X years. I myself don't have ANY of the serial codes or my master account number, yet my own account lock out was fixed by the first response from Support. Tell them what you need, and why you need it. Be concise and straight forward.

There is still hope.

I am presently afraid to try getting into my account.

If I was feeling like being a tantrum throwing child, I'd threaten to unsubscribe, but I'm on recurring billing and presently can't access my account, so that's an empty threat. I guess that's one way to retain customers. Realistically, I just wanna be able to buy booster packs and upgrade my billing to a longer term plan, but that ain't happening until I jump through support hoops.

I don't have ANY emails in my inbox from NCsoft or cryptic or whoever, and this inbox only goes back as far as 2007, which PROBABLY means I have my account registered under a defunct e-mail address I'm no longer using.

I don't know the answer to my security question (which strikes me as an in joke, but heck if I remember what), and don't even have a reasonable guess. 7 years is a long time. I've moved 4 times since starting the game and bought most of my account upgrades online, I certainly won't be able to supply any serial codes.

Ugh.

I'm irritated, and, frankly, I don't see what this "system" is doing for me that the previously existing system didn't already do.

Common IO / Temp Power recipes (AKA Pool A Common) and Common Invention Salvage and Costume Part Recipes (AKA Pool E), and Common Incarnate components, and Small Inspirations
Uncommon Enemy Dropped IO / Temp Power recipes (AKA Pool A Uncommon) and Uncommon Invention Salvage and Uncommon Incarnate components, and Medium Inspirations
Rare Enemy Dropped IO / Temp Power recipes (AKA Pool A Rare) and Rare Invention Salvage and Notices of the Well and Large Inspirations
Ultra Rare IO recipes (AKA Purples) and Favors of the Well
Mission Complete awarded IO recipes (AKA Pool B) and Incarnate Shards
PVP recipes and Special and "Non invention" salvage (Candy canes, Vanguard Merits) and Special Inspirations
Reward Merit IO recipes (AKA Pools C and D)


Look at that list. Look how pretty it is. Imagine, memorizing a short list of colors, and being able, at a glance, without consulting a wiki, without looking up gamefaqs.com, without MESSING around with NONSENSE, knowing where an item came from.

Beautiful, isn't it. Oh yes. Allow me to bask in it a while longer.

The developers seem to have adopted a "Lets make this item name Orange so people will be excited about it" attitude, which just ends up being confusing. EVERYTHING is orange. The whole list up there? Blue through green? Those are all currently orange. Posh. Nonsense. Fix it.

BTW I LOVE YOU GUYS YOU MAKE GREAT ORANGE TEXT I'M JUST SAYING MAYBE SOME OTHER COLORS WOULD LIVEN THE PLACE UP XOXOXOXOXOXO LUV YA!

Areas like the one being described have long been a favorite quirk of mine in this game, and the NATURAL store having these properties is news to me. I'm gonna have to log into the game and try it out.

I frequently used the Science store in steel canyon as a place to do portraits of my characters, because it's "behind the counter" area had access to a completely-black non rendered wall which was delightfully convenient for photoshopping. and similar image manipulation. (EDIT) Wait no not the science store it was the generic store. I spent so much time in those stores back when selling your TO's for full value was the difference between DO's or more TO's at level 12. I should know better, I mostly make magic and tech origin characters.

My Earth / Trick Arrow is an odd duck that I've not seen too much of, considering the popularity of each set individually, I'm not surprised.

What I WASN'T surprised by was how effective it was. I created the character with one goal in mind, and that goal she fulfills quite famously: Permanent strong AOE control. Additional aggro from multiple spawns becomes irrelevant when you have as many debuffs and controls at your disposal as this combo.

Quick Sand + Glue Arrow + Earthquake = Nothing moves.
Stalagmites + Quicksand = Nothing moves.
Volcanic Gasses + Quicksand = Nothing moves.
Oil Slick Arrow + Glue Arrow = Nothing moves. *
EMP arrow + Haha who am I kidding nothing at all = Nothing moves. *

* I have yet to level her high enough to achieve these lofty goals.

The absence of Stone Cages is intentional: It interferes too much with my AOE knockdowns, and those of others. Not to mention the advantages to be gleaned from being able to make enemies move to where you want them, however slowly. Undirected and irrelevant Immobilize spam from controller teamates is a minor peeve of mine (Though usually it's not a deciding factor in a fight, so I keep my yap shut and just keep knocking skulls), so I'm avoiding the opportunity myself.

Also excels at stacking controls on multiple bosses with the 2 single target holds. Finally, if the team IS defensively solid, she can focus on QUicksand, Disruption arrow, and Acid arrow, with stalagmites as an opener, to be a fairly effective force multiplier.

While she supplies little in the way of her own damage, she enables even defensively reedy teams to really cut loose, having SOME kind of control available every spawn.

I don't wanna poop on our hamidons. But after sunday's raid, I have a suggestion to make:

On the topic of a suggestion that:

A) Addresses the principle, if not the facts, of the problem of "I haven't gotten a shard drop in a month"
B) Does so without violating the requirements that Arcana laid out for any shard drop system.

Theoretically speaking, drop rates are set so that players earn, on average, X drops for every Y kills. That is the design intent of random drops. The amount of variation from this average that exists is intentional too, because, let's face it, breaking the average on the positive side, getting more drops than you "expect to", is a good feeling and creates cool moments. For example: Getting 5 purple drops on a TF. Getting one of every possible drop type off of the same mob. Etcetera, and so on.

Deviation on the negative side is a neccessary evil, because it's inherent to a system that deviates. There is no way for everyone to do "average or better", someone is on the low side of that average, weighing it down. That poor sap. Of course, that's how averages work.

But what the developers CAN do, is limit how far down that deviation can fall.

How so? The same way they did for hit-rolls against enemy targets: The developers could introduce a drop streakbreaker

Your % chance of drop creates an "average number of kills to get X drop".
Your streakbreaker can define "After X number of kills without a drop, a player deserves a break."

One requirement of this number is that it would still have to be quite a ways below the "intended average", or it would skew the "actual average" a signifigant amount above the "intended average". How far below? I honestly don't know, but it would be a lot. 2 times as many kills? 5 times? Maybe less, but my gut says that's unlikely. But, getting a drop of a certain kind no longer is a "near statistical certainty", it becomes a "absolute eventuality".

Someone, out there, is the unluckiest player in City of X. SOMEONE, though we'll never know who, is clocking the lowest drop rates out of anyone in the game.

This suggestion goes out to that guy.

Increasing the damage of an attack increases it's endurance efficiency at the same rate as increasing its endurance reduction.

Similarly, increasing the ACCURACY of an attack increases it's endurance efficiency at the same rate as increasing its endurance reduction, except in cases where the amount of gained hit-rate from the accuracy slotting is above the 95% cap for your intended target.

The advantage that both of these slotting options have over endurance reduction is that, like endurance reduction, both also increase the speed at which things die. This has a teritary endurance benefit of requiring less endurance invested in surviving, via buffs, debuffs, and controls.

A similar comparative relationship can be drawn between Accuracy and Damage, and Recharge reduction, when observing DPS as opposed to DPE, with the missing benefit of Recharge slotting being Efficiency.

For optimal efficiency (Damage per Endurance per slot), slot exactly enough accuracy to reach the to-hit cap, then exactly that amount of endurance reduction and damage.

Figure out what to do with the excess space yourself based on the particular priorities of the character in question, noting that survivability powers magnify the benefit of increased kill speed in increasing efficiency due to the fact that every second the enemy lives incurs a cost in endurance to survive their attacks, regardless of whether controls, buffs, or debuffs are the tools being used.

It wasn't really the idea to make you mad, or anyone mad, though usually mad people work harder to put people in their place (although not neccessarily more effectively), which is something I might need. Putting into my place that is. I'm like a plate that's fallen off the shelf, and onto the floor of the market forum. The question I'm posing is "Am I broken and destined for the rubbish bin, or did I land in one piece?".

Or is it?

Truth is, I'm pretty sure "I'm wrong and my ideas are bad." and I should be devoting my time to another thread about fixing defense-stacking instead, because at least I myself am confident about the quality implementing my (as yet unarticulated) ideas would confer upon the game.

Heh, thanks for confirming. I just did a little reading up too. I was confusing and combining the functionality of procs with the functionality of normal IO set bonuses.

This BASICALLY tosses my idea on the midden-heap, at least in my eyes. Unless I wanna go out on a limb and say that ALL IO's should have exactly the same benefit that was supposed to set Purple sets apart, in the context of exemplaring.

Actually, I'm on a roll, why NOT say it, I'm in that kind of mood.

All IO set bonuses should be available at all levels, regardless of the color of their text.

Purple sets have ENOURMOUS set bonuses, and enourmous enhancement value, which should be more than enough to set them apart and help them maintain their value in the face of a sweeping buff to every IO in the game.

Prove me wrong.

And for a final touch I'll add a sunglasses icon to my post. Because HECK YEAH SUNGLASSES.

I find myself thinking stupid things sometimes. Even after only typing the subject line, I find myself mulling over a myriad of problems with my idea and how it will never work and even if it was implemented everyone would hate it and hate me for mentioning it.

But what is the loathing of the masses if not a first step on the road to acclaim? The bottom rung of a ladder if you will, a ladder which you will climb, with your enourmous clown-shoe clad feet, precariously teetering and over balancing yourself with each step, occasionally catching the needlessly long false toes of the shoe on the rungs as you try to maneuver your foot into a position that allows you to ascend. But ascend you shall.

So what dubious notion has weeded it's way into my head?

I don't like how exemplaring and IO's work. Yeah. I'm whining that the game mechanics don't adhere to some imagined ideal that might not even be ideal, or even imagined. It's needlessly complicated, and makes high level players compete in the market for low level inventions, when perfectly good low level characters could be buying them instead. Or something. There's this incredible pressure to buy "Level 25 or the lowest possible level" of inventions, resulting in prices for low level stuff to be way higher than high level stuff. ED prevents the higher enhancement bonuses of higher level stuff from being that much of an attractive force away from the promise of "having all your set bonuses in sirens's' call" (no I do not know how to use plurals' apostrophes). Part of what bothers me about this is that I, as a player of a lower leveled character, don't have the option of saying "To heck with it, I'll just slot the level 50 version of the set".

Aside from demolishing the value of hours of effort on the part of thousands of players, in the assembly and collection of the components of their builds, inverting the value of both salvage and recipes as levels increase, throwing the market into chaos and anarchy and making everyone mad, how bad is the following idea:

Hold on, I can't find the formatting stuff to change text size and text color and stuff, so I can't really highlight my text satisfactorily. I'm "BBcode" illiterate, so lemme have a couple shots in the dark here.

Ah, there, hexcodes, you're like an old friend.

What if when exemplared, you had:

>All of the set bonuses of sets slotted in powers you still "have" at your new combat level
> All of the set bonuses of your Purple Sets

Really, this is an awfully large amount of writing for "I don't like the 3 levels below rule change it", but I will say that I've always found the rule puzzling. It seems terrifically artificial and wierd, and inconsistent with the rest of the exemplar system's treatment of your enhancements. After all, you aren't deprived of enhancement values based on the level listed on the enhancement.

Sure the change (modestly) removes value from Purple sets. It turns the whole market for salvage and recipes on its head, all in the name of helping some level 25 jerk slot some sets as he levels up? Screw that guy, the entire WORTH of low level recipes and salvage is at stake here, by devaluing low level drops, you're robbing that very same player of the ODIUS amounts of INCOME that he could be GLEANING from his drops.

Is this too much to ask? Is it worth exploring what would happen, in a strictly theory craft environment? Have I answered my own question already? Here, let me click the mad-face icon for my post, that'll get attention.

I can definitely relate to your malady: I didn't have my first level 50 until I had 2 level 49's, and that was after several years of play, and at least a dozen sub-20 alts deleted.

The best advice I can find is get some friends to play with regularly.

For me, a HUGE boon to my leveling on one of my characters was the fact that I got to be really good friends with a Fire/Fire blaster player, and they REALLY wanted Sonic Resonance buffs and debuffs. Result was, every time they came online, I was "pestered" into logging that alt in and rocking out for a good couple hours, so the pink bars filled up rather swiftly. Good times, good company, and good progress were a formula for what was literally my fastest 50 out of the ones I have.

Arcs by genre. This thread differs to the CoHmatoes thread as it links to authors' information (sometimes posters!) instead of reviews.

Note: I cleaned up some of the formatting and deleted any obviously broken URL tags for the sake of readability. I could not figure out how to fix the bullet color-coding.

2nd Note: I've had some problems when displaying this page while having the "Number of Posts to Show Per Page" set to a high number (in my case, 100 posts per page). This causes a programming error on the forum, leading to non-display due to the large amount of text in the posts. Drop your limit down to 20 posts to work around the issue. -Turg

Bullets colored for heroic/neutral/villainous. Non-existent arcs removed. Lists alphabetized. Arc IDs updated.[/color]

AE System

• 15+ Min TUTORIAL = Knowledge is Power: Architect Entertainment & YOU! (I15) #28470
• 5th Anniversary Flashback Smackdown #126896
  
• 'Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces the Great Face' - Tryouts #190069
  
• Death for Dollars #1050
  
• Signal to Noise #67277
  
• Welcome to Architect Entertainment #1004

Character/Supergroup Origins

• A Hero is made, Not Born #20863
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• Jumping in Feet First #1345
  
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• Secret Origins(Tech) The Snake Women of Epsilon V #42221
  
• The Amazing Rat Race #1144

Classic Super-Hero/Super-Villain

• A Crusher Crimewave #1 : Crisis at The Citadel #179354
• A Crusher Crimewave #2 : Escape from The Zig! #83458
  
• A Crusher Crimewave #3 : The Fall of Mocker #123613
  
• A Show to Die For! #30645
  
• Check... and Mate #15095
  
• Daybreak Patrol Needs Help # 321834
  
• In The Shadow of Statesman #1160
  
• Marketing Opportunity #83747
  
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• Sidekicks Can Be A Pain In The Cape #28430
  
• Teen Phalanx Forever! #67335
  
• The Golden Age Secret of the Paragon Society #344596
  
• This Life Immortal #5756
  
• 'Tis Nobler in the Mind #257226
  
• To Save A Single World #83744

Comedy

• A Show of Hands #296884
• A Translator is the Wind or the Thunder in Turns #2936
  
• Celebrity Kidnapping #1388
  
• City of Norms #132944
  
• Daytime Divas #94504
  
• Death to Disco! #84420
  
• Doctor Nadir and the Hellion Heist #49661
  
• Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662
  
• Gnomish Madness #30204
  
• Hail to the King #34640
  
• In Poor Taste #259920
  
• Invasion on Earth BX1132! 98943
  
• Jerk Hackers! #162482
  
• Laugh? I Thought I'd DIE! #68429
  
• MacGuffin Delivery Service 1567
  
• Martian Chimpanzees and the Cyborg Cheerleaders of DOOM! #69947
  
• Mean People. #16690
  
• None More Black, Dude! #86312
  
• Papers and Paychecks #298290
  
• ParaCon #1684
  
• Rise of the Drakule #51357
  
• Return of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood #84543
  
• Shirley You Jest #25474
  
• Shortbow #143566
  
• Teen Phalanx Forever! #67335
  
• The Extadine Lab #2595
  
• The Fire Bunnies #10377
  
• The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076
  
• The Invasion of the Bikini Clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space! #61013
  
• The Minimech Cometh #119664
  
• The new and improved Lord Recluse Strike Force #7901
  
• The P.U.G. Strike force #35585
  
• The string thief. #15726
  
• Too Many Bunnygirls! #101165
  
• Trademark Infringement #2220
  
• Walk On the Wild Side #3580
  
• You Say It's Your Birthday! 3630

Comedy/Drama

• Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings #1481
• Death by Snoo-Snoo! #247372
  
• Fashion Apocalypse #14840
  
• Females for Hire #110723
  
• Fishing for Fame with Red Herring #66861
  
• Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
  
• Have a Blap, Blap, Blappy Day Kids! #2019
  
• How to Survive a Robot Uprising #12669
  
• It's a Nice Day for a White Wedding #9059[
  
• Kidnapping an Idol #136188
  
• Papers and Paychecks #298290
  
• Putting Out Fires: A Corporate Satire #20100
  
• Rum Runners of Bloody Bay #3691
  
• Teen Phalanx Forever! #67335
  
• The Cat's in the Cradle #8776
  [COLOR=blue]
  
• The Running of the Bulls #29973
  
• TURG FICTION: Ghost in the Machine, Act I #1013
  
• TURG FICTION: Ghost in the Machine, Act II #174557
  
• TURG FICTION: IX #351787
  
• The Toypcalypse! #49280

Crime/Gangs

• A Little RnR #17523
• Battlin' Tom's Murder Extravaganza! #99803
  
• Bricked Electronics #2180
  
• Celebrity Kidnapping #1388
  
• Fatale Attraction - Part 1 of 3 #181264
  
• Fatale Deception - Part 2 of 3 #227466
  
• Fatale Corruption - Part 3 of 3 #232783
  
• Females for Hire #110723
  
• Lesbian Hellion Liberation #208830
  
• Mechanical Mayhem #76721
  
• Meet the Demon Spawn #151099
  
• Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons #100045
  
• Plastic Pistol Peril #1135
  
• Talos Vice #338380
  
• The Bravuran Jobs #16809
  
• The Internet is for Crime #53385
  
• The Superadine Revolution #262739
  
• Whitehawks #113811
  
• [ZQ] Power Play #187269

Drama

• 7662 - The Fan Club #5898
• A Flame the Burns Bright #112548
  
• A Warrior's Journey: The Flower Knight Task Force #260284
  
• Clonus, Parts 1 & 2 #21499 & # 21290
  
• Digital Love #3571
  
• Matchstick Women #3369
  
• Of Mentors and Legacy #1589
  
  
• Questionable Ethics #393301
• Talos Vice #338380
  
• The Conciliators: Simone #4010

Global Domination / Destruction

• Axis and Allies #1379
• The Twilight of this Blue Orb #98529

Heist

• Celebrity Kidnapping #1388
• Easy Money #31490
  
• The Great Diamond Heist #96169

Historical (Realistic)

• A Wrinkle in Time #266880
• Destroyer of Worlds #352820

Historical (CoH Lore)

• The Consequences of War #227331 and 241496
• The War on Superadine #151088
  
• [ZQ] The Once and Future King #71601

Holiday

• Battle of 15 April #72140
• City of Ho Ho Ho, or A Claus in Paragon #18775
  
• Hectic Holidays #36999
  
• Santa's Missing List #34961
  
• Santa's Workshop of Misfit Toys #134140

Horror

• All Consuming #261148
• Astoria in D Minor #41565
  
• Creepy Crawlers #82553
  
• Dark Dreams #3615
  
• Die Count Daddy Macula Die! #10619
  
• Don't Play With The Dead #260107
  
• Duality #84105
  
• Hunting the Hunters #93362
  
• I Will Dance On Your Grave #92630
  
• Lights, Camera, Scream! #177826
  
• Project: Perilous - Into the Chthonian Pit #3586
  
• Rise of the Blood Countess #3805
  
• Small Fears #12285
  
• Something Comes to Yarmouth #58812
  
• The Amulet of J'gara #1709
  
• The Children of Astoria 217499
  
• The Zombie Apocalypse Task Force: Something wicked this way comes #91456

Kaiju

• Attack of the 50 Foot Villain #363366

Large-Scale Crisis

• Akhdar Blood #247198
• Alpha and Omega #60015
  
• Bleed the Freak #6919
  
• Breaking The Barrier (And Putting It Back Together) #347029
  
• Flight of the Valkyries - Precursor #20272
  
• Is it Live or is it Memory-X #70210
  
• The All-Seeing Eye #57352
  
• The Clockwork War #18672
  
• This Is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz -- Neutral 1356
  
• War of the Worlds - The Anakim Invasion - Part 1 #15006
  
• War of the Worlds - The Anakim Invasion - Part 2, The Terran Revolt #46711
  
• Win the Past, Own the Future #1429

Magic

• A Deal with Destiny #61748
• A Dream of Awakenings #132616
  
• Chains of Blood #4829
  
• Croatoa's Great War: The Parfait Family Reunion #71880
  
• Deal with The Devil's Pawn #207266
  
• I Will Dance On Your Grave #92630
  
• Rex is Missing! #51702
  
• The Magical Miss Fitz #5079
  
• The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks - A Moth Cemetery Tale #124319
  
• The Tannhäuser Gate 96322

Military

• Axis and Allies #1379
• Red Typhoon #4912
  
• Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago #1297
  
• Redoubt Operations #2: Wrath of the Imperium #269283
  
• Whitehawks #113811

Misc. Adventure

• Impossible Kung Fu Mission #111367
• A Glitch in the Wyre #73197
  
• The Council Cargo #36951
  
• Hero Therapy! (TM) #119228
  
• The Second Coming of the Mega Mech #122274
  
• Who is Kidnapping the World's Great Philosophers #253920

Mutant

• The Legion of Mutants vs. the Iron Agents #200364

Mystery

• A Hero in Need...is a Friend Indeed! #375018
  Blowback #4643
  
• Dream Paper #1874
  
• Females for Hire #110723
  
• Hunter of Beasts: It begins with a riot... #110465
  
• The Fireside Poet #189439
  
• What Rough Beast #255143

Mythology

• Atlantis Attacks! #30898
• A Warrior's Journey: The Flower Knight Task Force #260284
  
• Madness And The Minotaur #90124
  
• Rites of the Maenads #61159
  
• Tales of Cimerora, volume 1 : Of feathers and fur #12647
  
• The Aegis Affair #16376
  
• The Four Treasures of the Tuatha De Danaan #164100
  
• The Parable of the Fruit Salad #65369
  
• The Seeds of Yggdrasil #48907
  
• 7662: The Seelie War #2462
  
• 7662: The Unseelie War #2453
  
• Ecloga Prima (Haec excursio in lingua Latina) #309162

Nemesis Plots

• Brass Reaver: Part 1 #244755
• Rise and Fall of the Iron General #142200
  
• The Handbag Plot #36414

Player-Chosen Outcome

• Hunting the Dark Dragon -- Heroic #2922
• Papers and Paychecks #298290
  
• Playing Gods #51106
  
• Time's Maelstrom #182874

Public Domain Characters/Literature

• The Praetorian Invasion of the Land of Oz #168841

Puzzles/Riddles

• Grim Riddles #1396

Samurai

• A Warrior's Journey: The Flower Knight Task Force #260284

Sci-Fi

• Above Mars - Part 1: The Wellington #159769
• Adventures of the Space Marines #2133
  
• Adventures of the Space Marines 2 #2171
  
• Assault on Aru Prime #174856
  
• City of the Apes #171184
  
• Metatronic Mayhem #1750
  
• Spaced Invaders #77971
  
• That Mysterious Buzzing Sound #12774
  
• The Adventures of the United Earth Rangers #29549
  
• The Balance of Power #26931
  
• The Continuing Adventures of the United Earth Rangers #70237
  
• The Fracturing of Time #171031
  
• The Knights of Rularuu #75386
  
• The Nemesis Theory - #171203
  
• The Portal Bandits #3326
  
• Welcome to Donut World! #1233

[ QUOTE ]
Are you sure that's strong enough to counter the disincentive from people who gave you low ratings based on the critters being too hard?

[/ QUOTE ]

For me, from both the perspective of a player, and an author, yes. For a select cut of the MA crowd, also yes. For you? It actually sounds like yes, or at least a maybe. But I realize that it's very unlikely to represent the feelings of most players, or authors. The incentive is there, but I suppose it's an issue of people not valuing it.

Also: Regarding your "current strategy", it's still designed to be hard. It's just that "hard" is the only option for Leutenants and Bosses right now. You just can't make a "Fallen Buckshot" in the Custom Critter editor.

More generally, and more related to the topic, there is the option to "make a THIRD option", regarding standardizing custom critter rewards on different difficulty settings, and allowing granular power selection: Include both as options. 4 difficulty settings: Standard, Hard, Extreme, and Custom.

Reward escalation can apply to the 3 original difficulty settings, and for authors who want to take the risk and make the sacrifice in the name of their art form, the Custom difficulty would exist, but only give standard rewards. Of course, this statement does make the bold leap of faith that you can put a numerical XP multiplier value on the differences between powersets, or tune those powersets to match a given multiplier.

How hard should 10% more XP be?