TheDeathClock

I could be wrong, as I've not done any targeted experimentation but your difficulty setting seems to raise the final number of tickets you gain as the reward for completing the mission, but doesn't change the number dropped off enemy defeats. Aside from, as was mentioned above, the increase gained off having more Lts and full on bosses to deal with on the maps.

Chances are you didn't specify a name your group, or a group has a name that isn't allowed by the word filter. Double check all of them.

Tech maps are notorious for this, because of the way the elevators link, sometimes the fourth layer of the mission is actually in the middle of the map simply because the way the play area was laid out. It makes it hard to plan accordingly. Experiment and test a lot until you can work something out is what I had to do.

Oh, as in abducted by a completely different set of NPCs coming and taking an existing NPC? I don't think there is any way to accomplish that right now.

And as far as NPCs changing sides, really isn't any reliable way to accomplish that either. You might be able to jury rig something with ambushes because you can specify which side the ambush comes as, but there isn't any way to guarantee the ambush will come exactly when, or exactly where you'll want it to be.

If you treat the one you want to be abducted, or flee, etc like a captive you can pseudo accomplish this.

You will have to carefully set the animations and text used to make what you're trying to do clear, but currently its the only way to make it work.

If you pick the right character model, set up the right animations to make it look like they're cheering their buddies on while they fight, and then curse your existence as they are "rescued" and then run away, or something like that, it should accomplish what you're looking for.

If anyone is still looking for story based arcs to try, I'm still looking for feedback on two of mine

Between the ticks (gha can't remember the Arc #) - its a character origin arc, and I'm still looking for feedback mostly on the ending / last mission. I couldn't quite get what I wanted to happen to happen in it, so settled on using battles instead... And intend to quite possibly re-work it.

System Shock (Arc 60488) its shorter, only two missions, just a fun little journey into what happens when Luddites bomb an A.E. Server room.

Feedback on both would be greatly appreciated

I'm also guessing a lot of people don't really stop to think how power sets are going to interact with each other.

Its easy to just go "Hey, Dark Miasma and Electric Blast would be cool for my super evil alien guy to have" and not realize that when at boss, elite, or AV levels of number scaling they become totally unmanageable... And its usually just the secondary effects of the set that make it so bad, like dark's accuracy debuffs and electric power sets and their endurance drains.

I had to take electric blast away from all my custom NPCs, even the minions. All that stacking endurance drain was totally overwhelming, even solo on heroic.

Should testing catch this stuff, yes... But some stuff is going to slip through anyway especially because the tester may have an AT and power sets that aren't particularly countered by what they're making and it just doesn't occur to them that it won't be that easy for everyone. I usually just include feedback if an NPC seems particularly obnoxious.

I've also heard the more costume bits you add to custom characters the more space they take up. I've not personally experimented with this, but if you've got your custom group with really fancy costumes, try toning them down some, that might free up a few more k that you can use to fit more missions.

Chances are it was a custom npc with any of the stalker pools featuring hide, and was flight enabled. When they hide, they flee for a few moments until they can come back and nail you with hefty hide bonus damage. I really wish we could get a weaker form of stealth to use on custom NPCs as I would like to have some that can go stealthy without the obnoxious values tied to the stalker pools and without that horridly nasty damage bonus too.

As near as I can tell, some of the tech maps, due to the funky elevator linking in them, don't have a logical "front" "middle" and "back"

If you look at the layers on the MA, there are spots where layer four would actually be considered the second floor when you're playing through the mission. Its my best guess that this is what fouls up the spawn placements on these maps.

If you're looking to avoid farms, try going with missions that aren't just one map long. Look for the longer ones as the people who take the time to link that many together usually take the time to put some writing effort into them.

I'm not quite sure where exactly the system is getting its length estimations, but I've played through some "very long" arcs in under an hour and spent nearly two on one tagged medium. So don't be afraid to look at some of the longer ones just because the MA thinks they are "very" long.

Make sure that all of your previous goals have no errors. You can't use a mission goal as a trigger until it is error free. I was staring at the MA for 20 minutes figuring out why I couldn't do it, until I looked up at the Errors notification and realized that my collection objects didn't have a name.

Slapped the name on them and I was good to go. Hope that helps!

I've been strolling through most of the stories I've done on my dark/dark defender. I can solo most Elite Bosses, and depending on their powers, I can some times take down an AV though it takes FOREVER to solo.

I do wish people would learn that Elite Bosses and AV's should be a unique challenge though. Throwing one into every single part of an arc only makes it frustrating.

I've also noticed a lot of people putting Heroes are rescuees in their missions. That tends to swing things the other way. The Hero decimates things and its suddenly easy mode.

As an aside ... I (sort of) found a way around having to put in over powered helpers to assist soloers on trickier missions in my arc. I set a friendly Ambush to join the fight once the Elite Boss was down a certain amount of health. Setting the Ambush to easy makes sure they're only minions so they won't be doing everything for you, but the added damage they bring can help damage light AT's get the job done and not have to give up. The only down side is they tend to get stuck, or not all come like they are supposed to.

If they can't give us specific points, I wish they would at least make it more clear as to which part of which maps classify as "front" "middle" and "back"

I've specified things to be at the back of the mission, only to have them show up on the second floor of the map, only because the way the elevator linked maps work, the second "floor" is actually the fourth area, and deepest section of the map. (or ... thats my theory of what happened anyway)

I've also specified Ambushes to come from the front, only to have them poof up out of no where right next to me while I'm fighting the boss.

So ... failing the ability to put specific spawn points down on a map, I'd like to at least know what counts as which area on any given map set.

I saw this on someone's council map that I was running. There was a green dot on where the Boss at the end was. It was there from the very beginning of the map.

It wasn't my mission though so I don't know exactly what the settings were.

sooo many pages, so this has probably already been said... But we need a facepalm emote. Slapping your face/forhead with an open hand after you withness your lackies do something incredibly stupid for the 100th time in a row.

Also need a seetheing emote. Arms held out bent in front of you with closed fists and upper body heaving like you're breathing heavy and trying very hard not to wrap that light pole around someone.

And the popular finger nail polish. Rub a closed fist on your chest or opposite arm, then hold it open in front of you to inspect it with head cocked to one side. (ewww bits of hero under my nails...)

And I'm pretty sure I saw it somewhere else: the overly elaborate, stagger, choke, suptter, gag, collapse to knees, choke some more, flop over, twitch a time or two then lay still dying emote.

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19. Will there be loot?

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Maybe

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Let the posting begin!

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Oooh baseless speculation - I'd guess that loot wouldn't be like typical MMO loot (ie k.o. the hero get two scraps of spandex, and a hero hanky) but be things you can steal to place in your base, like that big glowing rock in the MAGI room of City Hall that provides instant teleportation back to the base in case of a hero raid, or one of the Medi-com teleporters from a hospital (to allow you to respawn in your base instead of where Villains would normally respawn), etc. And those would be the types of things that enable your base to be raided so heros can attempt to recover the equipment. Which of course necessitates devious traps, like that squad of Jump Bots you purchased at insane markup from the Sky Raiders and programmed to defend it, or of course, the ever popular giant lasers...