I made a farming mission with a good story. Well, it's more of a challenge mission. . . I know I'm in the extreme minority there.
Anyways, for actual play, I'll takes story and average exp. Sure a farm is tolerable, for a while, but it's repeating the same thing over and over for no apparent reason but to earn more expz and lewtz. I find it hard to take over time. I like arcs with good stories, that actually entertain me in some way, and make me want to actually play the game.
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Hey guys and gals. Could you help me by answering this question for a project I'm working on?
Maybe a lot of people already answered this question but, when you're looking for or creating a story arc would you rather go for farming missions that has no story and give good XP or do you go for an Arc that has a good entertaining story and average XP? Why?
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Surely you answer this yourself by stating 'a good entertaining story' - so by definition it has to entertain (with the implication that the farm is not entertaining).
Who, when given a choice in a game (which ought to be a fun pastime) would pick 'not entertaining' over 'entertaining'?
Entertaining story every time.
Story.
There are already a boatload of identical farming arcs out there.
There is endless opportunity for stories.
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Story. Although I do have to say that, so far, I've enjoyed stories that have been set within CoH lore more than those that pretty much ignore it. I'm not sure if that's just bias on my part or if the story itself was at fault.
@Doctor Gemini
Arc #271637 - Welcome to M.A.G.I. - An alternative first story arc for magic origin heroes. At Hero Registration you heard the jokes about Azuria always losing things. When she loses the entire M.A.G.I. vault, you are chosen to find it.
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Hey guys and gals. Could you help me by answering this question for a project I'm working on?
Maybe a lot of people already answered this question but, when you're looking for or creating a story arc would you rather go for farming missions that has no story and give good XP or do you go for an Arc that has a good entertaining story and average XP? Why?
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First and foremost I want the story to have maximum rewards for the greatest number of different ATs that might play it, at the highest difficulty, but with fewest deaths of the players.
However, a CLOSE second is that a modicum of thinking effort *ought* to be enough to wrap around the bones of such a mission a halfway interesting story - it doesn't have to be shakespeare, or emo drama, but a basic storyline with some creativity really enhances the mish.
Bottom line, I have GOT to have great rewards, but I really LOVE those rewards dressed up in a decent story.
For Great Justice!
Story. Farming is stupid and boring.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
You should always have story, even if it can be farmed. MA is there for you to be able to tell your story, not to make the perfect farm mission. 
The story doesn't even have to make sense. For reference, see half of cannon CoH content. :P
<sigh> Viv says its no longer "all me".
http://wendy-mags.mybrute.com/
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I made a farming mission with a good story.
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I'm not convinced that such a thing is possible, sorry.
Story, every time, all the time. Farming is boring, and the only reason for farming, when you boil it all down, is laziness and impatience.
Story all the way.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
Story. I'm not above combining story with great rewards (and have in fact done so in two of my arcs; 1356 and 2922), but story will always come first.
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
I would consider story relevant if anyone but the group leader saw it.
Solo, story is acceptable
Grouped...story never wins, keeping the group happy and moving is always more important.
We need more farms.
A very sad story about War Witch and the neglected kitty. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219670
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Originally Posted by Black_Barrier
Guess it's hard to click while actively trying to keep the drool away from the keyboard...
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Hey guys and gals. Could you help me by answering this question for a project I'm working on?
Maybe a lot of people already answered this question but, when you're looking for or creating a story arc would you rather go for farming missions that has no story and give good XP or do you go for an Arc that has a good entertaining story and average XP? Why?
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This question is nearly both a categorical error and propaganda.
Lets take the errors that underlie the assumptions.
1. Farming arcs have to be high rewarding grinds. Right now I am fighting maps of carnie EB's with custom support the challenge is intense. The people who made them came up with a high reward situation that has a considerable learning curve.
2. That it is possible to tell a meaningful story through the compass and short one liners from npcs. This is what most people on a team get to see for a story.
For an 8 man team 7/8s of the people playing your story get a readers digest version with half the pages missing
Now to go to what may be your real question which is how to get your arc well rated. Making a farm type arc will have certain people immediately one starring it. They can't even conceive that there could be merit to such a thing. The funny thing is a long arc that is complex full of subtext will be boring as heck for most of a team.
Your best bet would be a short to medium arc with fun battles and a little interesting narrative for the TL. Start off getting your friends and sg mates to play it. They will give you good ratings and good feedback if you ask for it.
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I would consider story relevant if anyone but the group leader saw it.
Solo, story is acceptable
Grouped...story never wins, keeping the group happy and moving is always more important.
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These are limitations in the way missions work, but there are work-arounds. Using extensive clues is a good one. (Although the team leader has to pause to allow people to read them.) Telling the story partially through dialogue is another. (Set up one of your channels solely for NPC dialogue, so you can read it all as you go.)
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
I need plot. I create stories for myself, and I make them interesting enough for me to play. Sometimes they may be a little light on text, since I'll have much of the story in my head and I don't want to spend too much time creating, but I'll put in enough to allow me to get immersed in the story.
I make a slight exception for my Kheldians, in that I tailor the enemies to be good on XP but not too annoying for them. They need things to be a bit easier than my other characters. My Kheldians will still get some story too, but not necessarily as much as other characters.
I personally have npc dialouge turned off on all but one toon that I solo arcs with. I have seen some very very funny missions that were set up with great rewards yet were not using exploitive enemy types. one of thebest low level missions I played was a sewer run made for villains that centered on eventally runnig into a hero sewer team and helping give them their trip on the pain train back to level.
It had all the normal npc's that hero sewer runs would see and at the end is a custom set of hero's that get suprised when you show up.
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I would consider story relevant if anyone but the group leader saw it.
Solo, story is acceptable
Grouped...story never wins, keeping the group happy and moving is always more important.
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Everyone can see the send-off from the contact. Everyone can see the NPC dialog. Everyone can see the NPC animations and placement. Can everyone see the clues? I'm not sure about that one. Everyone can see the placed objects. Only the team leader can see the debriefing from the contact. I think there are plenty of ways for story to be conveyed to everyone on the team.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
The best story missions I've been on so far as non-leader have had brief but informative mission-beginning and -ending pop-up bubbles.
A weird thing is that I actually read almost all of the text in MA when soloing (if it drags I'll quit the arc), but have almost never (in two years of playing) followed the storylines in the regular game. The regular contacts nearly all seem to have loggorhea...
Farming.
Story is good and all, but I'd rather play the STORY of actual dev created stuff. That's just me. 
My point is similar to Rep's....If I am soloing, I tend to stop and smell the roses as it were. When I am teaming...it is far more important to keep the mob moving and happy not forcing some to wait so others can do a book report. If you want to read the story you can usually fall a bit behind in most arcs for a sec or two...but, in my opinion, it is more important for the group to be fed and moving than it is to sit around and read the dialog. When groups sit around for any reason other than the occasional...5 min smoke/sell/bio break they tend to disintegrate...
All of this is from the perspective of leading a PUG. If I am running a friend/sg team we are on completely different standards.
What is it that makes a farming mission what it is? What is different in design from a normal mission?
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What is it that makes a farming mission what it is? What is different in design from a normal mission?
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Classically, in CoH, farming missions have had large numbers of high-density spawns, with enemies of relatively low difficulty given their reward level. Most farmers have AoE-oriented toons, so mobs that group up nicely rather than spreading out are preferred, although this is not consistently true -- Freakshow missions are frequently farmed, for instance, despite being a mix of melee and ranged. Farming a mission usually refers to repeating it over and over again, rather than allowing it to complete normally.
However, with the advent of MA, we've gotten things like "boss farms" -- missions full of nothing other than bosses, intended to maximize the reward-per-unit-time metric that farmers tend to look at. Farm missions are not necessarily simple, and indeed, serious farming is a skill and requires toons that are optimized for it.
You can, in MA, absolutely design an interesting mission with a good story that nonetheless has high rewards for the time spent.
Amusingly, people are increasingly trying to dress up their Meow farms in story trappings. I wonder if anyone reads a word of it.
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Amusingly, people are increasingly trying to dress up their Meow farms in story trappings. I wonder if anyone reads a word of it.
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Of course they don't. The entire point of dressing up your meowfarm in a story is to try to avoid the axe that everyone... EVERYONE... knows is coming by futilely pointing to your own meowfarm and saying "See? Mine has a story! Means its not just a farm!"
Of course, this is fooling no one...
Hey guys and gals. Could you help me by answering this question for a project I'm working on?
Maybe a lot of people already answered this question but, when you're looking for or creating a story arc would you rather go for farming missions that has no story and give good XP or do you go for an Arc that has a good entertaining story and average XP? Why?