Would you implement some kind of a standard contact interface, maybe a TV, no better a radio, or maybe a newspaper?
Sorry couldn't help that... I do understand it's about the Auto-SK and getting different flavors. But looking at the existing system, if you pick say medium and large for size, and 3 or 4 stars, search, pick a random page and a random arc then you are getting a similar effect.
Now if you define a certain criteria set, and enlist a number of people to participate, you could create a database of arcs that meet those criteria and are playable and not farms and not overpowered. Then stick that on a web page and attach an RNG. Give it a bit of a context e.g. "Hero Action Network", someone clicks the button and it spits out an approved/assignment arc id.
It's a fun idea in principle, and I've made quite a few generator type programs and you tend to learn a lot about the underlying system in the process of making them, but the end product is rarely as interesting as the process of making.
so let me see if I understand
the arc is stored in a plain text file. So you don't really need CoX to create arcs. You would just have some sort of random arc generator that wrote out the text file.
Then you could plug that into CoX and play it.
It is a very interesting idea. You need to figure out what is important to you. And I suggest first creating a sort of "stub" version.
Just use pre-generated villains it can plug-in, pregenerated objectives, that sort of thing. Then you can see which things you need to rotate to make it really interesting.
Newspaper & Radio missions are random single missions - they're still level restrictive, and they are not tailored to your individual strengths and preferences. That said, they are still the mainstay of certain level range's playing time.
That, however, doesn't have to be the end of it. Content that is tailor-made for a certain toon, or set of toons, is quite possible. The normal way to do things is to form a group and then select content that is appropriate for what you have - if you have two tanks and a controller, you probably don't want to be stuck in a "defeat all" mission with high-HP mobs, for example. If you've got 3 blasters, you'll probably have a rough time against heavy-hitting enemies.
Now, if the program generating the content knows what strengths and weaknesses a given party has, it can create enemies and goals that play specifically to those strengths. If it knows that three of the eight people hate timed missions, it can avoid giving any. You can have novel new enemies in each arc, without being subjected to things your party cannot readily deal with.
Sorting through player-made arcs is... tedious for most people. There are a lot of BADLY MADE arcs in the MA database, and they are similarly not keyed to your particular play style. You could certainly play hundreds and hundreds of arcs and then try to come up with a list of level appropriate stuff for different ATs, or you could just have it create the arcs for you on the spot.
I'm planning to do the latter. While the arcs will not have deep and satisfying storylines, they also won't require any work on the part of the player, and they'll be ready to go whenever there is a player or party wanting some content they're capable of successfully navigating.
dug - you don't need a stub... the file is simple enough. The only things that need pre-making are decisions on which costume pieces go together and under which theme, which maps suit which themes, and various text aspects that can be strung together for flavour. Then the program can pick a theme (like... high tech, or magic, or undead, or whatever) and then build appropriate costumes for the custom mobs, give them appropriate abilities, and whip together 5 missions with varying goals that are acceptable to the players, and voila... there's a storyarc file one of the players publishes and the party plays. It can be unpublished once they're done.
My wife and I have been playing COx for quite some time, and have characters we enjoy playing of various levels. Like many we're not particularly fond of repeating the same things (like the early levels) over and over. Recently some friends of ours have taken to playing, but different people play at different rates, and the various characters we all want to play end up at different levels.
This is where the MA is particularly good - the auto SKing system lets people of many levels play together without havign to find people of the same level to do the SKing. Likewise, it lets you play through a certain level range without having to repeat the same content.
So the idea is this - a program that automatically generates story arcs based on a set of criteria (player AT/powersets/preferences) for a group of players to play through. It would allow groups comprised of characters of various different levels to play together, and would cater to their strengths and to what they enjoy.
Additionally, this would let people who don't want to suffer through the same content again instead level through new and customized content. Granted, the lack of drops might be a downer, but likewise anyone who is sick of standard content is probably not depending on those drops for much.
While generating random storyarc files is easy, making it a worthwhile thing would depend on quite a bit of user-made data - specifically, figuring out which enemy powersets are best and worst for which ATs or which player powersets, as well as levels, and associating them with preferences. Some people hate being knocked back, some people hate END drain, some people hate enemy holds. Likewise, some ATs don't care too much (a tanker isn't worried about being held except in the early levels). Also, some maps and some mission objectives are more annoying or more fun than others.
So, I figured I'd see if there was anyone out there that was interested in helping to hammer out that sort of details with me while I work on the arc generator. Certainly the use of standard enemies is an option too, but there are some sets of standard enemies that are better or worse for some ATs and powersets as well.