peterpeter

Nope, I'm not crazy. It must be a bug of some sort. The only option under "Animations" is "Enemy Group Starting Animation". Nothing else. I tried deleting the ally and adding it again. No change.

For an escort, I see 5 different options under animation. For an ally, just one.

I just added another ally, and this time I can see all four options. So strange. So I deleted that Ally and added another one, being careful to follow the steps in the exact same order as the I did the last time that I couldn't see the extra options. But this time I can see the extra options. Sigh. I already /bugged it. The poor QA folks hate bugs that you can't reproduce, but now I can't seem to make it happen again.

Well, thanks for confirming that the other options should be there.

EDIT: Ah, I think I can reliably reproduce it now. If the ally is the same faction as the enemy group for the map, then the extra animations vanish. (I wanted to have a traitor on the map, sort of. It's part of the story.)

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And tell me about Katie TF? How come that thing gives crap reward ( not even a pool C recipe ) while farming in AE over less time gives better reward?

Broken. It is broken.

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If I were to start on picking broken things in this game I would never know where to stop.

But on risk/reward first there has to be risk in the game. Currently thre isnt.

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And that's what merits are about. Time vs reward instead of risk vs reward, because there is no risk in this game.

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people often fail to make a distinction between what they like (not all aspects of the game have to be liked by everyone) and what is "good for the game".

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I'm not taking sides in this thread. I just wanted to point out the remarkable correlation between how much people like something and whether they believe it is good for the game. Even people who think they are making a distinction between the two almost always believe that they things they like are good for the game, and that things they don't like are bad for the game.

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it's clear that they haven't had anybody on zone (map!) construction duty for a long time now

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I don't think that's at all clear. Someone created Cimerora and all the maps to go with it. That was May 2008. I don't think the AE building took nine months to build. Whoever created Cimerora has been doing something for the past year, and I'm looking forward to seeing what it is.

And maybe when they're done with that, they'll see this thread.

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Under the ally tab on page 2 of your mission, you should have an animations tab. In that there are 4 options. Enemy Group Starting Animation, Ally Starting Animation, Ally Rescue Animation, and Ally Stranded Animation.

I do see the same options under both standard and custom ally type. Hope that helps!

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I swear that's exactly where I was looking, and the only option was "Enemy Group Starting Animation". Did I just not scroll down or something stupid like that? I don't know, but I'm looking forward to going home to find out.

No, I mean there is no option for an animation. I can't set any animation at all. There's a place to set the animation for the enemy surrounding the ally, but not the ally.

I must be missing something. I thought it was possible, and you all say it's possible, so I must just be staring right at it and not seeing it. I'll look again tonight.

I was editing an arc with an ally in it, and I noticed that there is no animation option for the ally. They have to start out kneeling, no matter what, even if they are set to be singular - all alone with no one holding them captive. Did there used to be options for animations there, or was I just imagining that? It's a little awkward to have the ally kneeling all alone in the hallway, waiting for the player to show up.

or E, they make extra slots unlockable in lots of other reasonable ways.

Get a dev choice mission, have a real extra slot. Not just that they move a mission out of your slot, but actually give you another slot.
Get a HoF mission, add yet another slot. Keep the slot even if you lose the HoF spot.
Have one of your stories get over 1,000 plays, unlock a slot. No badge, so there's less temptation to farm it. Just a slot.
Achieve some combination of MA related badges, unlock a slot.
Etc.

Yes, the total number of slots that someone could have would be much larger than it is now, but very few people will unlock most of those slots. At the same time, add in some automatic trashkeeper function so old, unplayed, poorly rated arcs disappear from the list of playable missions unless the author periodically renews them.

I'd settle for having "front" spawn points which are reliably in the front, and "back" spawn points which are reliably in the back.

Shopping malls, suburbs, hospitals, airports, sports stadiums, wild west towns. Yeah, there are a ton of things they could add, and I desperately hope they do. And I'm optimistic, because the devs who create missions would like to see a lot of the same things that we would like to see, but now there is more reason to include them.

Yes, people wouldn't bother to tell you about the spelling unless they thought the story itself was good enough to be worthwhile. I agree a spellchecker would be a nice feature, but I can't judge how practical it is from a coding point of view.

Of course, if they do add one, then we'll get to brawl with the folks in the UK over how to spell words like center and color!

Some good ideas already, but I'll add my two cents. If you don't want the ritual to be stopped, then don't make stopping the ritual the mission goal. Maybe send the hero in with the goal of finding out when the ritual will be held, only to find out that it's already been held. Or have the goal of defeating a boss, but in his dialog have him announce that it's too late, because the ritual is complete. Or have the goal be to rescue three people, and as you rescue two of them they tell you that the fifth was sacrificed and the ritual was already done.

(And I love the talking transmitter)

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No one says crap if you suck in math, or cant even name the last 2 presidents, or cant even point out north amercia on a globe.. But miss spell Speel and its a travisty..

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I'm pretty sure there are lots of people on the forums who would make snide comments about everything in that list, but none of those things come up very often. Spelling errors are visible in every single post.

Rather than getting bent out of shape because people pointed out your spelling errors in your missions, you could correct the errors and feel grateful that some total stranger took time out of their life to offer up their assistance, free of charge, in an area where you have difficulty.

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It's not a bug. The person clicked 1 star first, and so Eco got no tickets. The other guy then proceeded to give the full rating, which counts towards Eco's average immediately, but no Tickets are awarded because the "rating change" was too soon.

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That's not the way I remember Pohsyb describing it. I thought that the highest rating during the time period would count.

I would blame lag. Maybe it's just me, but the gap between getting a rating and getting tickets seems to be hours, at least.

You can get a whole list of them by talking to the AE trainer person in the AE building. $himher, $heshe, etc.

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There is simply no effective reason to play anything besides Meow.

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Fun. That's the reason. If playing that farm is fun for you, great. If it isn't, do something else. With all due respect, if you've been gone for four years then I don't think you're in a great position to comment on this game's "delicate balance".

If characters are below the minimum level of the enemy's range, they will be sk'd up to the minimum.
If characters are above the maximum level of the enemy's range, they will be exemped down.

Custom enemies have a range of 1-54, so no one will be sk'd or exemped automatically. Instead, the enemies will spawn at the appropriate level for the mission owner. When the team members are all different levels, then the team needs to manage sk'ing and exemping on their own, just like with a regular mission.

NPC dialog shows up in its own channel. Maybe you don't have it in your chat tab?

It's only MA souvenirs, not all souvenirs, and it might have been mentioned somewhere in the original announcement and patch notes, but no one would have noticed it anyhow with so much info to digest all at once. Their goal, I believe, was to make it possible to delete souvenirs if you didn't want them. The method they used was to store the souvenirs client side. The downside is that anything stored client side is account specific but not character specific. Maybe someday they'll address that somehow, if they think it's important enough to be worth the time.

I think you can tell us a lot more without spoiling anything. Every enemy group has a level ranged listed right next to the name. Some groups appear more than once with different ranges. Maybe you mixed them up?

You're in luck! You can still run my arc! (See my sig).

Some people have luck searching for low level groups, like Hellions and Skulls. Of course, then you'd miss the mission with custom groups, and probably find some things that are unsuitable.

Absolutely, though, being able to search by level range is one of the first improvements they should make to the MA search screen.

It is a "feature" that souvenirs are account-wide. I don't like it, but that's the way it is. If one character runs a mission, all characters get the souvenir.

I ran a mission recently where a boss was really hyped up, but then spawned as a lieutenant. I practically one-shotted the poor schmuck. Making the boss seem scary can backfire.

Personally, I don't think anyone's gun is the right approach to final boss fights. Foreshadowing is fine, but having surprises can be fine sometimes too. To me, the important thing is emotion. I want the player to actively dislike the boss, to be really mad at them and be happy to get a chance to fight them.

Maybe the boss could taunt the player during the fight. Maybe, earlier in the mission, the contact could pass along a taunt from the boss. Maybe the end boss could appear earlier as a hostage and then mock the player while escaping. Maybe the boss could be described as doing something really mean, especially to a character that the player likes. There are lots of possibilities, but all can be tricky to pull off.

Other emotions could work too, of course, but are probably even harder to write for.

First of all, your reason for defeating all enemies is just fine. No one is stopping you from defeating all enemies. When you use that same reasoning to force other people to defeat all enemies, then that's a different matter. Other people might believe in the "cut the head off the snake and the snake dies" approach. I generally figure that, once I've done 99% of the work, the police can come in and clean up what's left. Someone might figure that the heroic thing is to engage in the least amount of violence necessary to prevent the imminent crime. Whatever. The point is that your motivation for defeating all enemies does not translate into a motivation for forcing other people to defeat all enemies.

Second, there is a big difference between defeating all the enemies and defeating all the enemies you can find. If defeating everyone is not required, then I can defeat all the enemies I see and go on my merry way. If the defeat all flag is set, then I will probably defeat all the enemies I come across and then spend another half hour running around an empty map trying to find the last guy hiding under a staircase. That is one of the least fun things in the entire game.

Third, just because your missions haven't been played as often or rated as well does not mean you are doing anything wrong. There are just a boatload of stories right now. It is hard to get anyone's attention. The mission in my sig has been scientifically proven to be 17% better than sex, and yet only seven people have played it so far and it's stuck at a 4 star rating. It's not my fault that the rest of the universe has failed to recognize my genius. In fact, the lack of five star ratings is proof positive that I'm just as talented as Van Gogh, because none of his paintings got five stars either.

Make missions you are happy with. Listen to feedback, but stay true to yourself. Maybe eventually you'll be discovered. Maybe not. Try to be patient. And if that doesn't work, throw eggs at Venture's house. It's all his fault anyhow.

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If anyone wants to run a mission of mine, it won't take long. The only thing I've published on live so far is Doctor Nadir and the Hellion Heist. It's very short, suitable for soloists and lowbies. Arc #49661.

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this is a nice little story that is dying to be an arc. it is only one mission, but it has the potential to be easily blown up in to a full story arc. the first could be a simple investigation, no boss. then the next can be a confront boss. the final could be set in atlas and destroy all objects kind of thing. the story does not have to be difficult. no custom toons other than the boss is necessary either. your story is easily playable and could be a lot of fun too. keep it simple and you can have a nice little story arc...

please try my welcome to donut world, still looking for feedback and player completions.

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Thank you. You aren't the first person who has suggested that I make it longer, but I'm reluctant. As a player, I prefer missions that are short but sweet. I do have a couple of other one-mission arcs where Doctor Nadir teams up with other villain groups, with new and different villainous schemes, but the 3 arc limit is quite a squeeze.