The only thing I can say is that the wife and I have multiple level 50's. Because the Dev created content is a slow trickle at best at seeing updates and expansions (we are refering to the story-driven content and missions you mention), the wife and I do exclusively MA content nowadays. We don't do it to PL (mostly it's with our 50's, who we missed playing), we don't do it to farm. We actually search for misisons/stories that sound interesting, make an ID list, play through it, rinse, repeat.
That said, should they ever limit the amount of time spent in MA, that will cancel all 3 of my household's account (me, wife, son), and we'll play only "the other MMO" exclusively, instead of both.
MA is what is keeping us here. It's fresh. We can do stories and fight Mobs never encountered before. With the Dev created content having become stale for us, and rarely updated with any consistency in Issues, the Dev created storylines just don't keep us here anymore, right now. We've seen them. Ad nauseum. Solo, on teams, on SG teams, and on PUGs. Over and over and over and over again.
If the Devs ever pull a stunt like that (and I doubt they will, just taking it from your list), then they better start putting out new story content more than once every 3 issues.
Other than that, I agree with your pros and cons, and the other two proposed fixes.
Most people already know the pro's and con's of the Mission Architect system. With that kind of power, the players themselves must exercise responsibility in how they use it.
Personally, I refuse to involve myself with the farms. I have no interest in making this game a chore, or levelling up really super fast. And so, aside from broadcast being flooded all the time, I don't really have a problem with it.
My suggestion: Join the MA Arc Finder channel. No one that channel is interested in farming.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
Not friend nor foe. Not good nor evil. A tool like any other, it depends on how it is used.
Dec out.
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(we) do exclusively MA content nowadays. We don't do it to PL..., we don't do it to farm. We actually search for misisons/stories that sound interesting, make an ID list, play through it, rinse, repeat.
MA is what is keeping us here. It's fresh. We can do stories and fight Mobs never encountered before. With the Dev created content having become stale for us, and rarely updated with any consistency in Issues, the Dev created storylines just don't keep us here anymore, right now. We've seen them. Ad nauseum.
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This.
I personally am back for MA. After four years of playing CoX with dedication, all the ins-and-outs of the regular game got too predictable. I knew where the spawns were, the turns in the map, and what the enemies would do. Got boring.
Switched to other MMOs for some fresh air, where mob layout was not as predictable and more tactical thinking was necessary.
Version 1 of the MA changes around at least the story content wrapper and the powersets of the mobs. I'm eager for later versions where we might have the ability to change map layouts and arrange where certain mobs spawn. That would make one of my dreams come true.
I have been entertained by MA as a player, as a critic/reviewer and as a wannabe creator (soon TM).
It's what you make of it.
There are many who use MA to farm and PL and don't care that they're making a huge awful ruckus over broadcast while doing it. If not MA, they'll be doing it with radio missions or in PI. It's a strange mindset of trying to get to level 50 fast (what are you going to do there? PvP? PL another char to 50?) but in some people, it's so ingrained a habit or it's their way of entertaining themselves. *shrugs* I don't join those teams. And quit without a word if I do find myself on one.
There -are- teams who do play MA for stories. Just need to find them.
As for playing through dev content, I'd submit it was probably difficult the moment radio missions came in as an alternative choice. Because the old dev content, while having nice stories sometimes, is very tedious to get from mission to mission. Vets who have done it once or twice will probably not choose to do it again given an alternative, unless they are playing with friends/SGmates who ask them nicely.
Ouroboros provides an option to play through those, solo or in an agreeable team.
One thing we are all discovering: The more options we have, the harder it will be to find a team doing the exact same thing we want to do at any given moment.
But I think it's rather backward to say, well, then let's NOT have those options and FORCE everyone to play my way or else. Because that's rather narrowminded and dictatorial, and people who don't like your way will not stay, diminishing the overall playerbase anyway.
In the end, we just have to be a little more creative finding teams that like the way we play. Specifying what you want to do may be a good start.
Invictus Est Level 50 Invul/Fire Tank
Malentis Level 50 Ice/Energy/Leviathan Dom (Freedom)
Black Jeremiah Level 50 Fire/Fire/Mu Dom
Sejanna Level 50 Dark/Dark/Elec Def (Virtue)
Arc #119664 - The MiniMech Cometh - Hess TF Mini-Sequel
After a week of digging into MA, I have to say it's the best feature I've encountered in the MMO Market. It needs, and will get refinements in the coming weeks (oh pleasepleaseplease let me create my own Adverasary Bases as playable maps!!!), but even at this stage I've been able to write and publish the stories I want to play. That's never been done in the MMO industry before, to my knowledge.
Lycaeus speaks words fo wisdom. There are people who enjoy farms to. They pay their monthly ees and thy ahv a right to enjoy the gamehowever they choose. Also, I have to tell you,oce yuove run every missionin the game 20 times, you get to aq place where you dont need to run it the 21st. youre testing out a new character build (there are people who enjoy the game for teh strategic excercise of character building too, to say nothing of the th justwant to use cool/neet looking powers they havent played with before) and wan to see what it can do you want to arrive at a levle wher eit can actually do anything in a matter of days, rather than weeks.
People powerleveling doesnt prevent you from playing your way. And even if it did, forcing them to stop wouldnt work - more of them than not would simply leave and go play oneof the six-thousand other games on the marcket that will let them play by their prefered method.
Does farming appeal to me personally? Not really - I never found leveling to be hard in this game anyway (my longest from 1 to 50 is less than a month). I actually enjoy the oposite aspect of the character creator - rediculously ahrd mobs, archvillains and scenarios that make the game actually challenging again. But not everyone likes the same things I like and unlike some people, apparenlty, Im OK with that.
As for your three "solutions".
I should be alowed to spend 12 horus straight in MA scenarios too. as previously harped I ahve the right to play whatever parts of the game interest me. Preventing me from doing things that are fun will not make me do things that I do not find un, it will just make me play less (and also hate you). After more than 4 years it is not an exageration to say that I ahve ltierally seen it all. I have palyed every single mission in the game at least once, and ussually more than 2-dozen times. In the case of all the content for level 50 characters, Ive probably played it 2-dozen times in the last month or two. But now there's the mission architect. There are thousands (literally, thousands - or so Im told) of mission that Ive never seen before, with whole new factions, and whole new NPCs and whole new plots, and whole new tactical scenarios (well, the choices are still a bit limited on that last point). Why would I want to spend even a single moment, all things being equal (I might join a taskforce or other team if my guild is doing it or if I really need the merits/drops for something), when there are all these things Ive never seen before waiting for me to play them? I dont wnat to join you damn radio team. Get over it. Forbidding peole from experiencing the content they want to because its not how you want them to have fun is the path to fail, commercially and also in general.
Two is impractical. Even assuming we were to accept powerleveling/farming missions as somehow against the cosmic moral code of the gaming universe, I do not see how you could create any automated system of controls or limits to prevent that would not also do tremendous damage to the Mission Architect in general (and ironicly make it staler and more cookie-cutter-esque).
Three is actually not a bad idea. It has never been clear to me why you are not auto-logged out while inside NORMAL missions like you are when on the streat. I assume there must be a reason for it, but for the life of me I cant see one.
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I want to propose a topic for discussion. Is the Mission Architect a good, an evil, or a complete grey area? Personally, I am starting to hate the Mission Architect. Blunt, yes, but it is true. Whatever happened to the good days of actually playing story-driven content? Whatever happened to working for levels? Whatever happened to playing City of Heroes?
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1-MA is "story driven content" to me. It's not the same stories we've been playing for 5 years, but it's still stories. I get a different one every time too.
2-If you lvl in a MA mish, how is that not "working for lvls"?
3-MA is also "City of Heroes".
I get that this is such a great departure from "normal gaming" that it will be a bit of culture shock for some, but I'm loving it. It's probably pretty easy to think of it as somehow not being a part of the game.
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One thing we are all discovering: The more options we have, the harder it will be to find a team doing the exact same thing we want to do at any given moment.
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Very true.
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I get that this is such a great departure from "normal gaming" that it will be a bit of culture shock for some, but I'm loving it. It's probably pretty easy to think of it as somehow not being a part of the game.
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I think the opening poster is referring more to the fact that 90% of the community has been doing nothing but MA farms since it started. Their views may be cynical, but it's understandable at least.
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I get that this is such a great departure from "normal gaming" that it will be a bit of culture shock for some, but I'm loving it. It's probably pretty easy to think of it as somehow not being a part of the game.
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I think the opening poster is referring more to the fact that 90% of the community has been doing nothing but MA farms since it started. Their views may be cynical, but it's understandable at least.
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I do see numbers like "90%", "99%", and other very high percentages being thrown out.
I play on Freedom and that isn't true there. I've been getting a lot of invites to MA teams (I turn them down atm until the ticket problem is fixed)...but not to a MA farm yet. So where do these "90%" numbers come from? So far, it seems I would have to seek out a farm mish because it's not coming up on my screen. I'm seeing tons of arcs that have very few plays. I'm also parking myself in IP, KR, or FF and have no problems with "farm spam". I suppose if a person went to Atlas they would assume the broadcast chatter represents "90% of the players". But there are a lot of us that don't use broadcast to find teams. "90% of use don't use it" as a matter of fact. 
(hee hee...had to work that in)
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With the Dev created content having become stale for us, and rarely updated with any consistency in Issues, the Dev created storylines just don't keep us here anymore, right now. We've seen them. Ad nauseum.
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With the success of MA, will the devs still have the same (or any) incentive to create new story content? Will future issues instead support MA (the game within a game), with everything else being put on the proverbial back burner?
Aside: if your characters spend all their time playing MArcs, does that mean they've withdrawn from their 'reality' into a world of fantasy and daydream?
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With the Dev created content having become stale for us, and rarely updated with any consistency in Issues, the Dev created storylines just don't keep us here anymore, right now. We've seen them. Ad nauseum.
[/ QUOTE ]
With the success of MA, will the devs still have the same (or any) incentive to create new story content? Will future issues instead support MA (the game within a game), with everything else being put on the proverbial back burner?
Aside: if your characters spend all their time playing MArcs, does that mean they've withdrawn from their 'reality' into a world of fantasy and daydream?
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Nah, they still spend their off time volunteering at hospitals/casing banks/mending time/teaching classes.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
The only gripes I have with MA are:
* that it exposed I13 type of broadcast spam we had in Peregrine to the new comers in Atlas Park.
If you come to a new game and all you see is constant requests to be PL-ed, why oh why would you ask yourself if maybe there is something else to do level decently.
At least from level 6 to ~40 you were not exposed to so much spamming. You went into the zones appropriate for your level and looked for teams there (even if they only did radio missions).
* that it's harder to find teams of your level as MA teams are locked into a TF mode. It diminishes the free flowing teams experience we had before with new members joining the team as we progressed through missions. It was much easier for casual players like me to join friends. Now I have to wait endless minutes for them to finish their arc while I have perfectly capable characters able to help them.
If anything I see the MA giving the devs freedom to make grand sweeping changes to a number of factions or zones. Think of it as a time capsule- -the maps, enemies and possibly ported in storylines from the regular content could be just as easily added to the fold and with a bit of categorization work on the UI could be accessed in the event of oh, let's say Recluse's ultimate victory or a successful occupation of Brickstown. I would love to see some of the sacred cows go down in an epic manner, and the MA seems to be a step in the right direction for that to happen.
As far as the leveling goes I would imagine after a bit the excitement will simmer down. Despite not having much of an endgame I think the fun of playing a 50 is alot about having all of the powers. I certainly haven't shelved mine, and see enough on the streets to know I am not alone. Throw in more zone events, maybe some cross faction raids and even *gasp* post 50 content and the fast leveling of the MA will just be background noise as we rez those who don't know their builds in the face of new content.
In the end I see no reason to question the future of the game because of one new feature. They know what they did, and I am giddy to see the next step forward.
At its current state to me the MA is to easy to be abused , i think they actually should increase the ticket rewards and just remove exp all togehter from theese arc's , as it is right now no new player will learn anything about the citys history background or major heros and villains.
You might have had a point there once, ZeroNorway, but through the magic of flashback missions there is no longer any such thing as outleveling content. You can (and I have, personally) race your way to 50 in under a week, then go back, whenever you have a spare hour and no team to play with, and run through those story arcs that interest you/you havent done for a while. Its marvelous!
Of course, there are some people who dont CARE about the city's background or major heroes and villains and once again I am moved to wonder why that is inherently evil, and they should be forced to play the game the way you think is right.
As for removing experience, that would be an interesting idea, but the constant harping on how 90% of all people are powerleveling not withstanding (and incidently, I swear to high heaven I will pay cash money to anyone who can provide actual data to support these spurious claims) the developers (who DO have access to the hard data) have stated many times that the majority of City of Heroes players do not have any level 50 characters. It doesnt make sense to me to punish the majority of the playerbase for playing a new set of content - especially such a large and interesting one.
1) Revise the system to limit the time spent on the MA each day so as to avoid day-long farming and powerleveling, and to promote usage of story-driven content. (This fixes three of the above negatives)
2) Revise the actual creative system to avoid inappropriate or offensive content from being created.
3) Cause the MA to boot any inactive players, or those that go AFK during missions.
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1) No - this prevents people who are already 50, have experienced the main game, and want to sift through the incredible amount of player made content from being able to do so. Don't limit the time a significant group of the playerbase can enjoy the game in a feeble attempt to stop AE-farming.
2) Blacklisting everything possibly offensive is impossible. There will always be a way around filters; if offensive content becomes a problem start to place actual account-based penalties on it. Post offensive content once? One day suspension, continue to do so and the penalty scales upward until eventual account closure.
3) Then boot players who go AFK from normal missions. Oh, wait - this is City of Heroes. By far the largest reason I and many others play this game is because it doesn't take 8 people to complete an 8 man mission for the vast majority of situations (i.e., every situation I play in).
Laundry done? Go afk. Tacos last night? Go afk. Someone at the door? Go afk... This game is one of the only MMO's that really allows you to AFK or even leave the team at any time without feeling bad, because you aren't hurting your team. Hell, if someone wants to take a shower when I'm playing (be it a farm or legitimate missions) I always tell them to just doorsit for the next mission and if they aren't back by the time were ready to do another one I'll boot them to make room.
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X% of the playerbase already XP farmed like this, now a significantly larger percentage is doing so. They didn't add anything, they only made what was already going on accessible to a larger group of the population. I don't know, but it seems to me like there is more activity on the servers since i14 than I've seen in a while.
AE is a friend. This is a game without any true endgame, if two people playing the game different ways level at two very different paces - what does it matter? Hitting 50 isn't a requirement to enjoy the game. There have always been huge divides in the time it took people to level depending on how they play (solo doesn't come close to small teams which don't come close to large teams).
People got sick of running around doing the same arcs over and over. Step one, add the radio missions to the game - bam, no more contact hunting. Easier to just friggen play-the-game. Step two, add MA - bam, no more running at all but we can still experience a wide array of content. Woot!
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All-boss All-melee All-smashing/lethal missions are a problem. They are entirely too easy for the rewards that they give (hell, hover = immortality) - fix that, don't remove the AE or put ridiculous limitations on the AE itself. Fix the exploitable content.
The reason people care if others farm is because:
- They fear it will bring nerfs to the rest of the game. Farming of missions has caused those missions to gain timers or lose rewards in the past. Farming of certain critters has caused those critters to lose rewards or have their AI changed. Nerfs like these affect the nonfarmers to a degree equal to or greater than the degree the affect farmers.
- They fear that it will doom the game via jealousy-induced ragequit. Some people can't stand farming, just physically can't stand it. But they don't want to take 3 months getting to 50 when their farmer buddies get there in 1 week. If enough people like this move on to another game where they feel they can 'compete', we all suffer.
- They fear that the Devs will design content around the farmers. Farming often involves powerful powerset combinations, like stacked debuffs. Even if these combinations don't end up getting nerfed, the Devs may come to beleive that they are the norm, and design foes that can basically ignore the casual gamer. Some beleive this is already happening with the creation of foes like Sappers or Vanguard Magi.
- They fear burnout. A few people may actively enjoy farming, but the people that actually hate it but are willing to do it to get the shinies may outnumber them. These people are logged into some other game and actually playing THAT game while their characters sit at the door to a farm. They get no investment in CoX, and just leave when they finally hit 50 and find out that there is no endgame, and they have missed the journey. Or even worse, they just end up repeating the same content over and over until they just burn out and leave the game having seen no other content but the ITF or Eden or Katie Hannon the whole time.
There are a lot of reasons to fear farming, and there are a lot of ways it could affect people other than hardcore farmers.
That said, the only real ways to stop farming without affecting non-farmers that I've ever thought of would probably be some kind of hard cap on earnings per hour, and even then, farmers would consistently hit the cap while casuals would be below it.
The only questions are:
- Would such a solution would be worth angering the people it would anger?
- Do we have a choice; is the harm done by farming worse than the harm to be done by any solution?
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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At its current state to me the MA is to easy to be abused , i think they actually should increase the ticket rewards and just remove exp all togehter from theese arc's , as it is right now no new player will learn anything about the citys history background or major heros and villains.
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What they may need to do is actually hand out some brief account bans on people who keep posting up missions that get flagged for exploits, and prevent anyone from posting arcs until they have the 3rd veteran badge.
You may not be able to stop people from exploiting the system, but you can stop them from continuing to exploit the system.
@Mindshadow
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At its current state to me the MA is to easy to be abused , i think they actually should increase the ticket rewards and just remove exp all togehter from theese arc's , as it is right now no new player will learn anything about the citys history background or major heros and villains.
[/ QUOTE ]
What they may need to do is actually hand out some brief account bans on people who keep posting up missions that get flagged for exploits, and prevent anyone from posting arcs until they have the 3rd veteran badge.
You may not be able to stop people from exploiting the system, but you can stop them from continuing to exploit the system.
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I currently farm, I started because I have my 15 month vet reward and didn't have a level 50. I had a 45 fire/kin that I had played on and off again for a significant amount of playtime that I really wanted to finish so I could try the khelds (I absolutely love my WS). I'll keep farming until the devs state that they are going to punish people who do it, or it gets nerfed - mostly because I enjoy it and I'm taking this oppertunity to get a few characters up that I havn't had the patience to before (a spines scrapper for instance - too few attacks at the low levels. I havn't tried to make one since radio mishes got added though - I bet I could get through the rough spots with that).
Now that my girlfriend's fire/kin is about finished were going to take turns getting toons we want to about 32-35, high enough where it's really fun for us (before i14 35 was "done" for our toons).
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All that said, this is the solution that would work best in my opinion. Even an earning cap wouldn't get in the way because we would just rotate our lowbies out for the x hours we wanted to play that evening.
I can only farm because I hover with my fire/kin, I'm not a great player - I don't have a single IO set bonuses... I just never could enjoy farming before - I died too much. Removing the all boss, all melee, all smashing lethal farms would remove AE farming in general for me and I'm sure I'm not alone there.
I won't quit though - I realize its going to get nerfed soon probably, I just don't want to "miss my oppertunity" to get a few key combos that I want (illusion/rad - ice/fire tank - arch/mm blaster - spines/dark scrapper... that's my short list of people I want 26+).
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I want to propose a topic for discussion. Is the Mission Architect a good, an evil, or a complete grey area?
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Any tool, technology or idea, is as good, or as bad as the people who discovered, conceived and are using or misusing it.
I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
Yet another I know whats better for the game than the devs threads. Horrible superfluous "fixes" are not being solicted by the devs to my knowlege.
The devs have this covered and are basing any changes on datamining not the repeated rant cries of the same vocal minority. Its not like people didn't bring these things up 5,000 times once MA was announced, they did.
People need to move on and play the game their way and let the devs do the policing.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
As a disclaimer, right off the bat, I know I am going to get flamed for this. If all you want to do is flame, please don't comment (even though I know you will...).
I want to propose a topic for discussion. Is the Mission Architect a good, an evil, or a complete grey area? Personally, I am starting to hate the Mission Architect. Blunt, yes, but it is true. Whatever happened to the good days of actually playing story-driven content? Whatever happened to working for levels? Whatever happened to playing City of Heroes?
The MA was greatly hyped and advertised by NCSoft (whom I am not blaming for anything written in this post) as a brand-new gaming concept that was to revolutionize the world of City of Heroes/ City of Villains. The new tool was going to let players customize the game in a way never before seen... And then Issue 14 was released. Overnight, the chat channels changed from saying "Level 1 Blaster lf sewer team!" to saying "Level 1 Blaster lf AE farm! Paying 1mil inf per run!" I find great issue with that. I miss teaming with PEOPLE. Instead, I have one Fire/Kin troller and six other essentially afk players. The game has changed dramatically in two weeks time from a game to enjoy with a full party and the satisfaction of overcoming the obstacles of a mission into a farm farm farm farm farm game.
As such, I feel it is necessary that the community discuss and debate the Mission Architect. Write down your thoughts, your qualms, your concerns, your experiences with the Mission Architect.
Personally, I feel the MA has a definitive list of positives and negatives:
Positives:
+ Great for leveling up lowbie characters rather quickly.
+ Allows for creativity and countless stories.
+ Gives a new level of customization to the MMO genre.
+ Gives the community a ranking system.
+ New badges and rewards and goals to strive for.
Negatives:
- Causes an imbalance in the level of people actually playing story-driven content and player-made content.
- Keeps many people from interacting (one runner and 7 inactive soakers).
- Lots of lagg in most areas containing an AE building.
- New players won't experience the actual game.
- Gives way to people making inappropriate or offensive content (this is a minor negative, as most people don't do this)
As such, the MA needs major revisions. Many are probably incoming, but I feel it would be beneficial to state them.
1) Revise the system to limit the time spent on the MA each day so as to avoid day-long farming and powerleveling, and to promote usage of story-driven content. (This fixes three of the above negatives)
2) Revise the actual creative system to avoid inappropriate or offensive content from being created.
3) Cause the MA to boot any inactive players, or those that go AFK during missions.
Some may perceive these negatives as minor flaws, but I personally have come to hate the MA. I still use it, as it is nice to level quickly, but only because there are no teams outside of it. Please discuss.
-Redux