Huh? How did that work? As long as I've been using the MA the only way to "assign powers" that I knew of was through the custom character creator.
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
[ QUOTE ]
Huh? How did that work? As long as I've been using the MA the only way to "assign powers" that I knew of was through the custom character creator.
[/ QUOTE ]
'Person' is right below Arch-Villain on the creator screen.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
*smacks forehead*
I've apparently been mentally filtering that option out since the MA was introduced. I wonder if I could use it to save a little space on non-combat customs. Hm.
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
[ QUOTE ]
*smacks forehead*
I've apparently been mentally filtering that option out since the MA was introduced. I wonder if I could use it to save a little space on non-combat customs. Hm.
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't know, haven't really toyed with them much outside of using them as contacts
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Everyone can't be an expert designer whose mission will appeal to everyone who plays it on their first attempt.
I made a mission just to be silly and cute. The next day, I read so many posts about what people expect to 5-star and 1-star due to mission content that I almost pulled my arc off right then and there. I'm glad I didn't because my reviews have been more positive than negative.
Then again, my title was outlandish enough that the snooty types would turn up their noses and pass it by. I'm told that allies dimish the overall rewards in a mission. Perhaps, the designer of those defender filled arcs either didn't realize this or he or she just thought it would be fun for "someone"?
[/ QUOTE ]
There were a LOT of defender allies in the mission, and I still got two levels from that one mission. I think, like what happens with confused enemies, you don't get full experience when an allie helps you inflict damage. But these guys didn't have attacks. They just followed you around, so all the damage was from me. Maybe I was getting lower exp, but it sure didn't seem it. I can't imagine how much I would've gotten if I didn't have to share it with TWELVE other NPCs. 
The mission had an almost non-existent story, and it only had a single type of mob to fight, so it was pretty boring. It had a few 5-star ratings, but they must have come from friends, supergroup buddies, or secondary accounts, because it was pretty bad. I hated giving it a low rating (I really don't like giving low ratings), but I wasn't about to give it more than it deserved.
[/ QUOTE ]
It is a badge farm. There are badges for hostages released and custom critters killed. That is why it has so many 5 stars, same reason so many of the xp and ticket farms had 5 star ratings.
Justice Blues, Tech/Tank, Inv/SS
----------------------
Fighting The Future Trilogy
----------------------
[ QUOTE ]
OP is just another DOOOOOM spreader, trying to stir things back up.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm trying to decide which type I prefer. The screaming, yelling and frothing at the mouth DOOOOOOMsters are more entertaining, but the sad and disappointed types tend to have a little more depth....
Dec out.
Been trying to have fun with the MA myself for the last week or so. It's not as easy to get a nonfarm team as it used to be, ironically, so I mosly just solo what arcs I find.
There are some really, really good ones in there, but it's pretty much a lottery to find one that will start. All in all, I still think the MA was a good idea, but I'd really rather be playing it with someone else.
Stand UP.
FIGHT BACK!
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
OP is just another DOOOOOM spreader, trying to stir things back up.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm trying to decide which type I prefer. The screaming, yelling and frothing at the mouth DOOOOOOMsters are more entertaining, but the sad and disappointed types tend to have a little more depth....
[/ QUOTE ]
You do yourself a great disservice by not reading the actual OP and the OP's later post. The thread is about broken mission arcs. You all got sucked into the hyperbole and expected it to be about farming.
I swear it's like someone could post a topic remotely sounding like a a gripe about farming not being available in MA (note: it still is), put a sentence in vaguely referring to MA and then post nothing but links to cute puppies and people would start attacking the OP for wanting farming.
[ QUOTE ]
You do yourself a great disservice by not reading the actual OP and the OP's later post.
[/ QUOTE ]
I did, actually. I just didn't have any comment on that. Yup, some are broken.
Dec out.
[ QUOTE ]
Search "Chesticles" and enjoy!
[/ QUOTE ]
I tried this and I did enjoy but now my boss wants to talk to me about my Google searches during work hours. 
Oh wait! You were talking about searching in the MA! oops. 
[ QUOTE ]
Really, the only people who complain about MA are the ones who miss the Rikti Comm farms. The average player still gets a lot of enjoyment out of them. I took my level 11 tank to it, picked out a mission that turned out to be a farm, and got quite a bit of tickets from it. I rolled for about 15 recipes, several trays full of salvage, and got half of my powers slotted. Normally, most of the recipes I'd get would be for common IOs. Here, I was able to frankenslot several of my powers.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is just patently false. I never made a Rikti Comm farm. I didn't meow. I didnt PL toons on the MA. Period. I published 6 arcs over the course of the first few weeks that I'd spent countless hours workin on. All of them were (and the ones still up are) averaging 4 star ratings or above with 20-50 ratings.
I'm still utterly disgusted by the way the devs have handled post i-14 stuff.
The worst part is, people's valid complaints about maps being yanked with no warnings, idiotic changes to powersets on custom critters that make things WORSE, not better, and blatantly false information like the fact that automatic suspensions wont happen when in deed they did...to people who were simply in perfectly legal LEVEL PACTS no less, are dismissed by comments like yours.
Look, its one thing to like a game. It's quite another to ignore when the devs do things that hurt players because it didn't personally affect you.
Seeing how the Devs have publicly responded to this whole mess is even more disheartening. It's like they haven't had a sophomore level public relations or even public speaking course.
I'm not crying DOOOOOM...but I am saying "Please...wake up." Im a long time veteran of the game, have 2 accounts because when my nephew stopped using the one I gave him for Christmas one year I took it over for more Justice slots (pre-slot buying) and spend far too many hours a week on the game. And you know what? i14 has actually made me, for the first time, think about trying Champions online when it comes out.
That's not meant as a threat. Really. But it should say something about the importance of the way things should be handled and the clusterhump that has been i14 handling.
Yeah, I sort of wish the devs could take a mulligan on i14. The MA has a lot of promise but I feel like it was still one major rewrite away from being ready for public consumption.
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
I can't say the "NERF" bothers me much. Even before it happened I was doing a combination of AE and traditional missions. I belong to the MAarc Global channel and it always seems busy with people advertising their new arcs and offering friendly advice on how to fix missions.
The new content is great, Tickets are amazing.. I have actually completely enhanced certain characters using nothing but tickets to buy SOs and pocketing the influence I'd have used to do so prior to I 14. On several occaisons since the NERF I have used the AE to get the last bar or two I needed to attain a certain level and it seems like I leveled fairly quickly... Not sure what the problem is or what server you are on but on Virtue AE is still going strong.
�We�re always the good guys. In D&D, we�re lawful good. In City of Heroes we�re the heroes. In Grand Theft Auto we pay the prostitutes promptly and never hit them with a bat.� � Leonard
�Those women are prostitutes? You said they were raising money for stem cell research!� � Sheldon
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Really, the only people who complain about MA are the ones who miss the Rikti Comm farms. The average player still gets a lot of enjoyment out of them. I took my level 11 tank to it, picked out a mission that turned out to be a farm, and got quite a bit of tickets from it. I rolled for about 15 recipes, several trays full of salvage, and got half of my powers slotted. Normally, most of the recipes I'd get would be for common IOs. Here, I was able to frankenslot several of my powers.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is just patently false. I never made a Rikti Comm farm. I didn't meow. I didnt PL toons on the MA. Period. I published 6 arcs over the course of the first few weeks that I'd spent countless hours workin on. All of them were (and the ones still up are) averaging 4 star ratings or above with 20-50 ratings.
I'm still utterly disgusted by the way the devs have handled post i-14 stuff.
The worst part is, people's valid complaints about maps being yanked with no warnings, idiotic changes to powersets on custom critters that make things WORSE, not better, and blatantly false information like the fact that automatic suspensions wont happen when in deed they did...to people who were simply in perfectly legal LEVEL PACTS no less, are dismissed by comments like yours.
Look, its one thing to like a game. It's quite another to ignore when the devs do things that hurt players because it didn't personally affect you.
Seeing how the Devs have publicly responded to this whole mess is even more disheartening. It's like they haven't had a sophomore level public relations or even public speaking course.
I'm not crying DOOOOOM...but I am saying "Please...wake up." Im a long time veteran of the game, have 2 accounts because when my nephew stopped using the one I gave him for Christmas one year I took it over for more Justice slots (pre-slot buying) and spend far too many hours a week on the game. And you know what? i14 has actually made me, for the first time, think about trying Champions online when it comes out.
That's not meant as a threat. Really. But it should say something about the importance of the way things should be handled and the clusterhump that has been i14 handling.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you, that sums up how I feel precisely.
The MA itself... I love it. The dev's handling of every single issue that arisen from it... abysmal.
I love this game, but like you I'm seriously considering CO or DC for the first time. I'm not the only one, a half dozen of my SG mates have said the same thing.
WAKE UP! The house is on fire!
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/517513781597443/
Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
[ QUOTE ]
I'm still utterly disgusted by the way the devs have handled post i-14 stuff.
...
WAKE UP! The house is on fire!
[/ QUOTE ]
I think in large part what happened was that dealing with the xp loophole exploits took so much dev time that they pretty much didn't have any time for anything else. I'm hoping that isn't so critical now so they can look at some of the other critical issues that have been building up in the meantime.
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
As far as I can see, the only real mistake the devs made with their response to the exploiters was to hit people in leveling pacts.
However, leveling pacts themselves are ready-made powerleveling services; how are they supposed to know which ones were done purposefully and which ones were strictly happenstance?
I always wondered about the feasibility of leveling pacts myself. Now we've seen one of the bugs in it.
[ QUOTE ]
As far as I can see, the only real mistake the devs made with their response to the exploiters was to hit people in leveling pacts.
However, leveling pacts themselves are ready-made powerleveling services; how are they supposed to know which ones were done purposefully and which ones were strictly happenstance?
I always wondered about the feasibility of leveling pacts myself. Now we've seen one of the bugs in it.
[/ QUOTE ]
The Devs haven't JUST made mistakes with exploitation issues, however.
Off the top of my head I can list the following problems I've noticed with Dev handling since issue 14, and again I stress that I LOVE this game and the things Im about to list are disappointing to me. Also Im not a farmer or exploitter.
#1: Before issue 14 was released, there were MANY known bugs which were completely ignored despite, literally, hundreds of posts about them in the forums. These included map issues, the known ninjitsu bug, the ability for blasters to snipe from a distance and kill minions with no ranged attacks, etc. The Devs posted a "We're almost ready for launch!" thread in the forums and it was followed by -SEVEN- pages of testers saying "guys, this isn't ready." It was still launched with the issues above known.
#2: The devs began dealing with some of the issues above AFTER they released the product, and then did so without (and in the case of changing the powers of critters, INSPITE of) player feedback. This caused people who had spent hours creating balanced custom critters under the first set of guidelines to suddenly find their critters completely unbalanced and, in many cases, unable to be balanced due to the seemingly arbitrary changes to some of the powersets. Seriously...minions with STACKING ice storms? That sort of stupidity made some arcs based around critter groups even MORE imbalanced than they were before.
#3: They pulled maps without any explanation, and without the courtesy of even listing which maps were pulled and why, so players who spent hours or days creating an arc very well could have had their arc invalidated without even knowing it without NOW spending hours testing their arcs. This mistake is a simple 2 minute action that could have, and SHOLD have, been taken care of.
#4: Positron posted a rant, and Im sorry but thats the only word for it, which prompted almost 700 pages of negative feedback before he responded, and his response, in my opinion, was just as rantish and unclear as his first. I GET that there were exploiters and some of what was going on was stupid, but don't get pissy about something you refuse to specifically clarify to your customers about, and even MORE importantly, don't claim that you won't be doing things that you then turn around and do, like blanket suspending accounst that were level pacted simply because they "levelled too fast" and then go DAYS without stating how or why that happened and what you plan to do to fix it. And no, I haven't personally had an account suspended.
#5: Don't give your public tools to do something then scold them for not doing it the way you intended. If you expect them to use a tool a certain way, create it properly BEFORE you give it to them. Meow farms were happening on test. If the Devs didn't want it to happen then it shouldn't have gone live until it was properly addressed, and since it DID go live, don't act disappointed and hack the hell out of the system that people who AREN'T farming put hard work in to when you knew it was going to happen. This is even WORSE when you refuse to spell out exactly what you DO expect because then you think THAT will be abused. Well guess what, if abused is going to happen either way, then at LEAST do your part and let us know when and what you see as abuse so we know where we stand.
Lets say I own two accounts, and I made two lower level characters and enter them into a levelling pact. I fall in love with one though, and, as I usually do, begin focusing on him and get him to fifty in three months. during that three months I've ignored the other one though...so when I log him in..."ding!" he's 50. Have I abused the system? In all honesty, at this point I truly don't know. If I have, then how so and what is the point of the levelling pact? If I haven't then why are people being banned for similar actions? Hire a frickin' public relations person already and get this mess cleared up. And please...PLEASE don't let it be Mod08.
All in all, I've seen the devs take what should have been a ground breaking moment in MMOs and handle it like a bunch of high school students in an economics class. It has been far from professional and, for the first time since I started playing this game years ago, I'm actually disgusted with the company that is running it.
I REALLY hope that this changes and they redeem themselves, but so far I haven't even seen them admit that they handled it poorly. Just hearing that would go a long way toward winning me back over.
[ QUOTE ]
#1: Before issue 14 was released, there were MANY known bugs which were completely ignored despite, literally, hundreds of posts about them in the forums. These included map issues, the known ninjitsu bug, the ability for blasters to snipe from a distance and kill minions with no ranged attacks, etc. The Devs posted a "We're almost ready for launch!" thread in the forums and it was followed by -SEVEN- pages of testers saying "guys, this isn't ready." It was still launched with the issues above known.
[/ QUOTE ]
To be fair, the same thing happened with nearly every beta I've followed. I'm particularly thinking of i9, which turned out pretty much OK, as far as I can recall. If the devs held back every issue that had DOOM associated with it, we'd still be waiting for i1.
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
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Really, the only people who complain about MA are the ones who miss the Rikti Comm farms. The average player still gets a lot of enjoyment out of them. I took my level 11 tank to it, picked out a mission that turned out to be a farm, and got quite a bit of tickets from it. I rolled for about 15 recipes, several trays full of salvage, and got half of my powers slotted. Normally, most of the recipes I'd get would be for common IOs. Here, I was able to frankenslot several of my powers.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is just patently false. I never made a Rikti Comm farm. I didn't meow. I didnt PL toons on the MA. Period. I published 6 arcs over the course of the first few weeks that I'd spent countless hours workin on. All of them were (and the ones still up are) averaging 4 star ratings or above with 20-50 ratings.
I'm still utterly disgusted by the way the devs have handled post i-14 stuff.
The worst part is, people's valid complaints about maps being yanked with no warnings, idiotic changes to powersets on custom critters that make things WORSE, not better, and blatantly false information like the fact that automatic suspensions wont happen when in deed they did...to people who were simply in perfectly legal LEVEL PACTS no less, are dismissed by comments like yours.
Look, its one thing to like a game. It's quite another to ignore when the devs do things that hurt players because it didn't personally affect you.
Seeing how the Devs have publicly responded to this whole mess is even more disheartening. It's like they haven't had a sophomore level public relations or even public speaking course.
I'm not crying DOOOOOM...but I am saying "Please...wake up." Im a long time veteran of the game, have 2 accounts because when my nephew stopped using the one I gave him for Christmas one year I took it over for more Justice slots (pre-slot buying) and spend far too many hours a week on the game. And you know what? i14 has actually made me, for the first time, think about trying Champions online when it comes out.
That's not meant as a threat. Really. But it should say something about the importance of the way things should be handled and the clusterhump that has been i14 handling.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you, that sums up how I feel precisely.
The MA itself... I love it. The dev's handling of every single issue that arisen from it... abysmal.
I love this game, but like you I'm seriously considering CO or DC for the first time. I'm not the only one, a half dozen of my SG mates have said the same thing.
WAKE UP! The house is on fire!
[/ QUOTE ]
I agree with both posters, but it's DCUO for me.
I actually love the MA like Steele said. I still run my own arcs and a few people who create arcs that I know are safe. But the devs really let me down with their handling of this issue. I was really down on the game for awhile there.
Then the bastids went and announced Going Rogue. Checking off that last thing on my wishlist is a good way to get an evilgeko in a good mood.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
1) MA - 100% cool!
2) Dev handling of problems with it - 100% overreacted to.
I figure there's probably one other important percentage to go here:
3) Player Base Upset about #2 - .5%
[ QUOTE ]
We have been having a great time, both playing other peoples' story arcs and making our own. Since we weren't using the MA for farming, our experience hasn't been altered.
[/ QUOTE ]
QR, not bothering to read whole thread
But this is what me and my partner are doing. Lots of fun
Crime of Fashion Level 50 Rad/Rad Corrupter
My Toons
My Rad/Rad Corrupters Guide
Mindscape - Reworking
[ QUOTE ]
1) MA - 100% cool!
2) Dev handling of problems with it - 100% overreacted to.
I figure there's probably one other important percentage to go here:
3) Player Base Upset about #2 - .5%
[/ QUOTE ]
I agree wholeheartedly.
[ QUOTE ]
1) MA - 100% cool!
2) Dev handling of problems with it - 100% overreacted to.
I figure there's probably one other important percentage to go here:
3) Player Base Upset about #2 - .5%
[/ QUOTE ]
This post seems remarkably myopic. There are plenty of legitimate grips about the MA that have nothing to do with farming, and my reading of the OP was that it was those legitimate gripes the thread was supposed to be about. The fact that most of the posters jumped back into the farming/exploit debate doesn't make those complaints less legitimate.
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
[ QUOTE ]
1) MA - 100% cool!
2) Dev handling of problems with it - 100% overreacted to.
I figure there's probably one other important percentage to go here:
3) Player Base Upset about #2 - .5%
[/ QUOTE ]
Statistics to back up above statements- 0
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There were a LOT of defender allies in the mission, and I still got two levels from that one mission. I think, like what happens with confused enemies, you don't get full experience when an allie helps you inflict damage. But these guys didn't have attacks. They just followed you around, so all the damage was from me.
[/ QUOTE ]
It's not possible to design custom critters with no attacks; that was one of the things modified early on in the MA. However, there does seem to be a loophole where you can set allies to "non-combat" and still have their PBAoE buff toggles affect you. I thought that had been considered a bug and was fixed prior to i14 live, but I encountered a mission that seemed to indicate that either the fix didn't take, or was re-introduced.
I was actually considering using such allies to help mitigate what was otherwise a too-difficult mission for some players, but I resisted because I suspect the devs will change that when they get the time to do so. I'm actually a little surprised the tactic doesn't exist in more farm missions than it does; it seems to indicate farmers do in fact want at least some challenge to go up against and not just a cakewalk. (Or they just haven't figured out the trick yet in sufficient numbers.)
[/ QUOTE ]
For awhile, it was possible to assign powers to 'Person' class NPCs; they don't attack but they still had their toggles. I checked today to see if that option was still available; it seems that it isn't.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars