Based on casual observation, the true "challenge" arc seems to be a niche thing. There aren't a lot of them out there. There are quite a few story arcs flagged as "challenging," but as for pure "test your character" missions, I'm not seeing a lot of them.
My guess is that a few people have published some, and everybody is just using those, since, unlike farm arcs, they aren't being taken down.
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Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
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So far, in my arc searches, I've looked for: a particular genre, something that fits a particular Origin, a particular level range, a particular enemy group, and/or a morality. Arc length has also come into play.
The I15 additions have made my searches easier. While I think some of the existing tags could be more refined, I wouldn't take any of them away. I'd actually add Origin as another category you could set.
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Origin is a tag in fact
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"Origin Story" is a tag. The only tag that caters to players of a specific origin is Magic, and possibly maybe Sci-Fi, if you squint.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
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This is an example of difference of opinion. I see Origin as a story that tells the Origin of any character, while I see magic as a story that involves Magic. The fact that the two can be used together is more of a happenstance. They don't have 'Mutation' as a type of story, because that does not make any sense.
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"Cater to players of a specific origin" is misleading, I should have said "cater to characters of a specific origin." By which I mean, players using a Magic-origin character might want to run arcs tagged as "Magic," as that would make sense for the character from an RP perspective.
I agree, Mutation doesn't make much sense, but Tech and Science definitely do, and maybe even Natural, if you interpret it as "the guy with no powers fights guys with no powers." At least it makes sense from a comic-book perspective: The Punisher usually fights armed guys with no real powers, Iron Man fights power-armored guys, Spider-man fights science-origin guys...and the X-Men fight other mutants because Stan Lee was lazy.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
[ QUOTE ]
Based on casual observation, the true "challenge" arc seems to be a niche thing. There aren't a lot of them out there. There are quite a few story arcs flagged as "challenging," but as for pure "test your character" missions, I'm not seeing a lot of them.
[/ QUOTE ]
The problem with 'challenge' is the horrifying variation on what that term actually means to the player and the creator.
If it were functioning correctly, I'd mention my first arc (third map was stolen for "bugs"...I need to do a re-write of the content anyway) as being a "challenge" arc. Prior to i15, it was described [PCMA] (player challenge) and [TFMA] (team focus). Past i15, it still has that but is now "team" and "challenge" on the descriptors. It took one group of friends several tries to figure out how to beat it. It's not easy and skirts the line of being fair (no AV ambush-equivalent stuff though...I don't see the value in making the bags of hitpoints come and kill you without a chance) but it at least has some teeth accompanying the description.
However, another arc I've played, described with [PCMA] gives you AV class allies on EVERY MAP and the big bad of the arc, spawns as an EB on Invincible. Actually, virtually every arc I've played that has been described as "challenging" has painfully failed to illicit even the slightest risk. It's to the point I actually started writing reviews of said "challenge" arcs and I have a few *.txt files on the desktop waiting to be finalized simply because they aren't owning up to their name. If it has real content, is marked "challenge", and the content isn't cheese challenge I run it.
Myself and the people I tend to play with can't be characterized as 'average' players but I can tell when something wouldn't be challenging for a MAN build, either...
</rant>
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I think a lot of people use the "challenging" tag to avoid the ragequit 1-stars from people trying to solo a level 40+ arc on their level 25 controller. I don't use it, because what is and is not "challenging" is entirely subjective.
There are people who have trouble soloing on heroic. There are people who solo AVs. Who's definition of "challenging" are we using again?
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
I don't care how bad you are--an arc where you have an AV class ally for EVERY mission does not warrant being called "challenging".
But yes, I already touched on your point. I and my regular band of players do not fit the "average" description in any way or form (we raided the Mothership+GM with 5 people and made plans to take down Hamidon with one team among other things...never made it to the point of trying out the latter though). It's the reason I've been tempted to make my "challenge" review but then, like you already said, it's rare to find "challenge" and "content" and "not cheese" all in one set.
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
[ QUOTE ]
Origin is a tag in fact
[/ QUOTE ]
As in an origin story. That's not what I'm referring to.
I'm referring to the 5 Origins (capital O) of the game: Magic, Mutation, Natural, Science, Technology.
For example, If I'm playing a Mutant character, I may be interested in arcs that focus on that sort of thing (Crey experimentation, Arachnos projects, Outcast exploits, etc), just as some of the arcs do in the regular content.
Author-side, it'd make it easier to write for a more particular character type.
Character origin and Origin can co-exist, which is why I'd make Origin its own category to be set.
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I've been a little conflicted on what to put in there myself since while 2 of my 3 arcs have an Extreme AV in them and I put them as "Challenge," both of them are optional in every way and it's made very clear to the player that they don't have to fight them. I don't think they're really "Challenge" missions, but the other tags don't seem to fit either.
"Solo Friendly" indicates anyone can solo it, which isn't really the case since I know that if I put it under that classification some Peacebringer with no attacks, only his heals, and the Medicine Pool (yes, I've seen a screenshot of a PB specced that way) will complain that they couldn't take out the EB that's been scaled down to a Boss because they're playing at Heroic.
They are easily soloed if you have someone who can handle an EB set to Standard (or one that appears in the game anyway), so they aren't really the "Team Oriented" or whatever it's called.
So I guess it will just take some time for the playing community to decide what these terms mean to them, we authors to come up with a consistent definition when we publish, some other options to be added (which I'm not really all that in favor of since eventually it would be so specific as to be stifling), or some mix of some or all of those.
A few days ago, I published a MArc called "Witch War! Salem vs Croatoa!" It's a MArc which has Magic as one of it's classification tags. I already ran it after it was published, and it's a kinda fun MArc for those that like anything to do with Croatoa! It's a Level 25 to Level 34 MArc. I'll post the Arc I.D. Number in my sig in the next 2 or 3 days, but, until then, if you wish to try that MArc, or either of my other two published MArc's look under my Global Name, which is @Star Ninja if you're interested.
Try my 3 MArcs: I.D.#67166:Protect the Artifacts!! I.D.#97724:Level-Up Time. I.D.#243803:Witch War! Salem vs. Croatoa!
I have no idea what to set for classifications, either. Two of my arcs might fit the 'origin' tag, but only if you consider the introduction of a new custom enemy group to fall into that category. I won't tag it that way because I'd be afraid most people might get the impression that it's a story related to the origin of one of my PCs and just ignore it for that reason.
I can't tell people it's team focused, since I can't run missions in teams, so I have no real way of telling. If I say it's 'solo friendly' or 'easy', someone on a squishy will probably freak out if they face-plant or can't defeat some of the enemies that might be a little tough on some builds. If I mark it as a 'challenge' some high level maxed out super-uber people will complain that it was 'way too easy', since all the customs are set on standard. The level range is 1-54 because they are all custom critters. I really don't want to set it to any particular range because if someone wants more challenge they can easily adjust their own difficulty settings to make it as hard as they like. I'm not a big fan of missions that try to slam anyone that plays it into the dirt. So, I'm kind of between a rock & a hard place with that one, too. As far as I can tell, there aren't a lot of mid-range choices as far as trying to pinpoint difficulty goes.
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In I15 were were given the tool to tag our MArcs, but to me, there are too many option, and that means problems with interpretion. If you have things open to interpretation, I don't think this will be very helpful.
IMO, there are 3 very basic categories of arcs. Story, Challenge and Fighting arcs (farm arcs). I really think that they should consider those basic categories as a top level classification. If they wanted to include sub classifications, that is fine, but the way it is set up now, it really doesn't help the players that much.
Are there any other basic types of Arcs?
I understand that arcs can crossover categories, but I think that they can primarily be set as one of these three choices.
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