Twoflower

Not exactly sure what you're asking here, but some goals have options for animations -- hostages, object defense/destruction, and bosses all have options for this (although there's a bug where the one you set on the boss doesn't work but ones on the boss's allies do).

You can't make the holo-contact play an animation. They default to standing around.

Too easy to farm enemies that don't fight back / too easy to have allies that do nothing but buff you. It'd be an exploit.

You may need to resort to using a normal warehouse. Some of these special case maps like the Arachnos Warehouse weren't designed for glowies or other objectives, they were made just for the one mission in COV that uses them. As a result, front/middle/back tend to be messed up on them and glowy placements can be off.

Otherwise, /bug it so the developers know they need to look at the map's placement spots.

/bug it. That's pretty brutal, I hadn't heard of anything like that happening in beta. The devs need to know about this so they can figure out why you specifically are having this problem.

The system is using the same spawn rules that the rest of COH uses. It doesn't matter how many LTs or Bosses you put in, it always looks for minions first, then some LTs, and maybe a Boss if you're on a team.

The reason why some factions like Lost and Hellions and Freakshow spawn more bosses than, say, Longbow, is because they're hard coded in the game to have different spawn ratios for that specific faction. MA factions all follow the default spawning rules most factions follow.

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But alas, you can't even choose said power, even if the critter you're making is a mm.

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Poison was removed because the AI can't use it properly. There is a chance it'll come back in later on in a patch, though; they were working on that and traps, trying to make them MA-able, during the beta.

A poor painter blames his paints. Yes, I'd love individual power picks too, if only to remove some problematic ones (smoke, web grenade, detention field, etc) but the real challenge for a writer is to write well within constraints. Let them guide you, let them inspire you. Can't do darts? Find a way to make a character that works with the system instead of against it. You may find yourself coming up with new and better ideas than the ones you had when you were working under assumptions.

Arc Name: The Household Chores of the Damned
Arc ID: 4562
Faction: That'd spoil the fun!
Creator Global Name: @Twoflower
Difficulty Level: Medium
Synopsis: Villains! Your schemes are nefarious, your maliciousness absolute... but DARE you face the challenge of... GROCERY SHOPPING? Or how about PICKING UP DRY CLEANING? Test your prowess against these tasks, ye mighty, and despair, for day to day living in the Rogue Isles is war incarnate!
Mission Count: 5
Estimated Time to Play: 60-90 Minutes

I want this changed, so that the next farming exploit to come around with massively easy custom critters can be voted up quickly and suddenly start dropping honest to goodness rewards -- especially those juicy L50 minions which have a chance to drop purples. YEAH!

In other words... sorry, working as intended. Dev's Choice is also set up that way so that they can only DC missions they feel offer adequate risk vs. reward and thus are safe to attach normal drops to. That's directly from their interviews during I14's introduction announcements.

Got another one for you -- Faces in the custom critter editor have their scale sliders reset every time you open them up to make changes, even if it's just changes to powersets. Kind of a pain.

[ QUOTE ][*] Masterminds can no longer give inspirations to their henchmen.

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This one's fixed.

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"Build a Giant Robot and Crush Paris"

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I would so play that. The old "It is what it says on the tin" trope can apply well for these direct arcs of mad villany; it's a great way to hook the player and draw them into your arc, if it says right up front what it is, no bones about it.

One thing I wish the system had was a tagging system with a dev-chosen taxonomy -- things like "Revenge", "Mayhem", "Redemption", "Temptation" or other motivational tags would help filter stories and show which ones work which angles. Making it dev-only decided upon means you'd have some actual standard labels rather than a swath of similar but not quite same player labels. ...although then we'd get forumites screaming bloody murder if THEIR specific tag wasn't in because the devs are idiots, or something.

I started a story last night which is a Character Focused (hah! tag!) one, where you show a young girl the ropes in terms of becoming a powerful villain and getting revenge on someone who wronged her. It's tricky because I can't assume your character would even want to play along with her request to be your sidekick -- so what I did was I had, in her pitch to you, she pitch all sorts of motivations:

"If you won't do it out of sympathy for me, do it to mess with the heroes who keep stepping on people like you and me, or do it for the powerful relics I'm looking for, or heck, just do it for the money. I don't care, just please, let me be your sidekick!"

By throwing a heap of motivations at them, we can then assume the character picked the one that matched their attitude, and then move forward. If NONE of them matched, I guess they can just quit the arc, but we gotta make some assumptions to get anywhere.

Something interesting I was talking about with folks on the test server earlier; thought I'd throw it open to the floor.

What are some good, solid premises you can use to make a villain arc which isn't straight up comic book parody, but doesn't resort to the old COV contact standby of "Carry out my orders, hired thug, to further my own aims"?

The problem is that this brings in some roleplaying by design. For heroes, you don't need to ask "Why would I be doing this" because they're blunt instruments -- they fight crime, period. Villains however take action for their own goals, their own reasons, with their own tools. Any assumptions you make about those three things will limit your audience, since it'll "feel wrong" for them to play an arc that goes against their character.

So, let's think of some good generic setups that will use the existing tools without relying on standbys.

THE HEIST. This one's straightforward. There's a pile of money / a gadget / a relic you want that's in a secured location, and you need to put together a plan to steal it. Missions set the plan up... kidnapping/hiring key people to make it happen, sabotaging security systems, conning people into helping you. Your contact, rather than saying "Steal this for me!" says "I know people who can help you steal it" and he researches the leads while you take point.

THE STATUS QUO. Heroes fight villains because villains try to change the status quo in ways they don't approve of. Why not turn that around? Villains CAN fight heroes because they're trying to change the status quo in ways the villains don't approve of. Maybe Longbow built a superweapon they plan to use to erradicate Arachnos. Maybe a new supergroup showed up and is being too effective in fighting crime. Even if you aren't directly benefitting yourself but villains in general, taking the heroes down a peg back to "normal" can raise your respect in the isles, which is a good motivator.

REVENGE: An unspoken incident, or something that happens in Mission 1, results in a hero screwing up everything you've been working towards or stealing something you held dear. It's payback time. Hunt him down, beat up his supergroup, then in the end exact your revenge in inches. It's simple, but does assume there's something the hero did which your villain would find offensive. Contact could be an informant within the hero's group, or just someone who monitors hero activity and reports it.

THE DOUBLE CROSS: This one's common in COV, but in the MA, you can really go the distance since nobody says the contact has to SURVIVE the encounter. You start running jobs for the contact or they start arranging things for you, then they betray you -- after that point all communication is allegedly done on a cellphone or something. Last mission, you go maul them, and the finale text has their "Curse you!" or "Aaaagh I am dead" response.

What are some other setups that you can think of which allow a villain to truly be their own person, within the framework of MA?

I took down the KopyKatt arc for now. Curse you, three slot limit! Make me super famous, people, so I can write more things for you. Meanwhile:

Arc Name: Grunty McFisterson's Two Step Guide to Winning Respect
Arc ID: 12153
Faction: Skulls, Hellions
Creator: @Twoflower
Difficulty: Easy
Synopsis: STEP ONE: Find someone strong. STEP TWO: FIST! It's as easy as that. But finding the right enemies to beat into hamburger patties, ones that'll earn you the respect you deserve, that's tricky. So, let Old Grunty set you up! (Lowbie themed friendly fun!)
Estimated Time to Play: 30m

Arc Name: The Do-It-Yourself Laser Moonbase Project
ArcID: 2897
Morality: Villain
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Twoflower / Twoflower
Difficulty Level: Medium
Synopsis: Tired of being a hired thug running errands to help the schemes of other villains? Let Igor Underhench, classically trained lackey to the stars, help you ransom Paragon City for ONE MILLION DOLLARS with a newly built lunar death ray platform!
Estimated Time to Play: 1-2 hours.

Arc Name: Me, Myself & My Other Selves
ArcID: 5159
Morality: Hero
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Twoflower / Twoflower
Difficulty Level: Medium/Hard
Synopsis: Young heroine KopyKatt has a bit of a problem with herselves. Her mutant power to generate self duplicates recently went a bit nuts, and her clones are running wild all over Paragon! Rustle up this herd of teenage girls and figure out the cause of this incident before the whole world is overrun!
Estimated Time to Play: 1-2 hours.

Arc Name: The Hydroponic Psychotropic Freak Out!
ArcID: 6265
Morality: Villain
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Twoflower / Twoflower
Difficulty Level: Medium/Hard
Synopsis: Arachnos asks so little of you -- other than your complete obedience. When drafted to war to defend your proud homeland, serve with pride! But these damn dirty hippies don't seem to care about patriotism. They just want peace, goodwill, and free love. We can't have that! Go pound those treehuggers!
Estimated Time to Play: 20-30 minutes.

What's the best way to make an Object Defend goal which is actually challenging? Traditionally in COH, when you get one of these, you have to beat down the spawn around it (which attacks the object right away) and then a few ambush waves. I tried setting up something similar last night, but the spawn ignored the object in favor of hitting me, and then the mission was completed before the ambush wave arrived (which also ignored the object). Or is this simply not something we can mimic using the tool right now?

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If those glimpses from the alternate Paragon Times were meant to represent the Flashback system, does that mean we'll finally get to flashback to our Outbreaks and Breakouts? Will villains who missed it the first time at last be able to get Jailbird? Will heroes no longer have to stalk RV for Isolator? (Please say yes on both counts...)

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They have said badge and story arc missions only - so no.

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Yes, but remember, we're getting NEW missions and possibly arcs as well -- help Recluse take the Rogue Isles, stop the COT demon from the comics, etc.

If so, that means we may also be taking on missions from the alt-timeline Paragon Times as well. I mean, they wouldn't talk about "Recluse and Manticore searching for something in South America" if it wasn't gonna tie into the game, somehow.

Therefore, it's conceivable we may get a "Go back in time to help someone break out of the Zig" where Jailbird is available, or "Go to the alt timeline and contain the massive amounts of Contaminated in Talos" to get Isolator.

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Does this mean if my Dominator enters this dimension, her history there is that of a hero? Could this be the whole "change" system we were hoping for long ago (Hero--->Villain/Villain--->Hero)?

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I doubt it. We'd see more evidence of characters being born on the other side, if so -- and in this case, Manticore started a hero and swapped sides midstream. Not the same thing as your history changing so you were never a hero/villain.

A lot of this we need to wait and see on... but the south america / wooden symbol / alternate timeline thing points vaguely in the direction of Flashback and/or Side Switch. It could just as easily point to New Story Arc only, though, with no major feature wrapped up in it.

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I think the point of this post is enough with the weapons already. I hope that after DB, new powersets will be more mainstream heroish.

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Yeah, but what melee sets are there which are mainstream comic-ish? The only two I can think of are Shields (and then you hit the Wolverine problem of only one guy actually using this) and the Bo Staff. Psychic melee weapons are pretty much Psylocke only.

Other than that it's a wash. When in melee most heroes punch and kick, or use a bladed weapon. I suppose the tanker melee weapons (mace, axe) could be ported to other ATs, but what else is there?

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Ok, so we should blame Matt Miller for this power making it into the game in it's current state? Can I have HIS e-mail address so I can send him my Demo of being "pwn'd" in RV by some obnoxious Stalker who thinks he's so awesome for holding be while I pop 6 breakfrees only to have him AS me and dance over my body. Oh yea thanks Matt Miller... Thank you very much.

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The "awesomeness" you speak of is the neat animation. Not the BUG (note, BUG) in which it ignores Breakfrees. The devs obviously never designed it to be the only power in the game that completely trumps mez resistance, that'd just be silly. So, once the game's patched so the power acts like a normal hold (albeit a cool looking one) all will be well.

Crossposted to the official thread from the debt thread. I'd like my voice to be heard by the devs, I should've posted here in the first place...

Pillboxes, heavies, and the unkillable AVs... there's just too many ways to get debt in this zone.

I like the concept of the zone, and I think it'll be a lot of fun, but I'm going to have to avoid going there until I'm level 50. I don't want to be 4-5 loads of debt behind the eight ball with nothing to show for it except maybe a few points of PVP rep.

If PVP is going to have risk, it needs reward, too. Right now the rewards are:

1. PVP rep. Which isn't really that important outside of badges, or for PVP hardcore. But the game's TRYING to appeal to casual players, too...

2. Prestige. But that's only if you win the zone AND bag some villains before the clock counts down. There are much easier and safer ways to earn prestige that I wouldn't bother "farming" RV for it.

If the rewards are that scrawny, why is the risk so incredibly heavy? It doesn't make any sense. You're better off avoiding RV if you want to get anywhere with your character. Sure, it's fun, but climbing out of a sandtrap of debt afterwards isn't fun at all.

Well, at least we have a dev non-confirming the date. Beats stony silence. Thanks, Cuppa.

Also good to know the freespec issues days after I7 -- that way we can bank it on our new elecdarkthugs.

The Hero that shows up to stop you is just too hard. Seriously, devs, rethink this... right now my only options are to drop the difficulty before every mayhem mission, and to solo only and not bring along teammates. I can't understand posts that read "Sure, I got pounded 10 times and reached my debt cap, but WHEE FUN!". Fun starts to drop off when you feel like you're hitting an insurpassable brick wall of frustration and futility.

The neverending waves of heavy ambushes loaded with a dozen debuffs are also too much. Why chuck 10 emp grenades when 1-2 are enough to completely drain me and take out my toggles? Why hammer me with so many glue arrows that I can't move faster than a snail? There's got to be a bug at play here... I hope.

Let's see, what else... I'm going to assume pets and villain helpers ignoring the enemy in favor of pounding on civvies is a bug and will be dealt with... and that the timer starting at less than 20 and bonus time being inconsistent is a bug... those things are minor. It's the overall difficulty that MUST be addressed before this goes live. It doesn't have to be insanely easy, but it should be doable by the casual gamers you're trying to reach out to.

That won't work. Slotting endredux on a pet is like giving them Stamina -- it reduces the cost of their attacks. It doesn't reduce the cost of summoning them.

That said, I like this change. If things are really hitting the fan, I can replenish the minions over and over. The longer charge on the boss unit means focusing on keeping it alive, though, as a good tradeoff.

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But now, a twist on it. What about if I don't have, like, a t-shirt press myself, and so commission a single-item run from someplace like CafePress or something?

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Won't work. CafePress makes a profit on every item they sell, even if you do not.

Summary: CP sells a shirt for, say, $12 base price. If you sell it for $12 that means you make no profit. Good! But CafePress DOES make a profit; they set the base price up so that they do and anything beyond that is for you alone.

So, it's not legal, since of the two parties involved, CP does profit. CP has a policy against using copyrighted elements in your designs for this reason.