MA: I weep metaphorical tears of despair
By
3dent,
Posted on: 2009-04-10 24:12 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Just found this . Not THAT funny, but highlights rather well what most of the playerbase are probably going to use MA for.
Seems a bit odd that NC have spent the last couple of issues doing all they can do limit farming, then they devote one issue which appears to make it ridiculously easy.
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
http://faces.cohtitan.com/profile/SteelRat
I really recommend (until things settle down) that people join the channel "Mission Architect" (and if you on Defiant then "Defiant Architects" as well) and contribute to the word of mouth and testing of arcs.
I've played some good fun arcs this way, and been able to share my own (which I'm moderately proud of) where it might otherwise be buried in the dross.
MA is a great channel, but is a bit polluted with "Farm" MA speak at the moment. Still, I recommend it till somethingbetter comes along.
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Just found this . Not THAT funny, but highlights rather well what most of the playerbase are probably going to use MA for.
Seems a bit odd that NC have spent the last couple of issues doing all they can do limit farming, then they devote one issue which appears to make it ridiculously easy.
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I liked the captain Dynamic series. But it is less funny now that farmers found how to farm missions. It also proves the need for a more diverse rating system.
Like Farmable, story, difficulty, badgey, canon, levelrange
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Just found this . Not THAT funny, but highlights rather well what most of the playerbase are probably going to use MA for.
Seems a bit odd that NC have spent the last couple of issues doing all they can do limit farming, then they devote one issue which appears to make it ridiculously easy.
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I liked the captain Dynamic series. But it is less funny now that farmers found how to farm missions. It also proves the need for a more diverse rating system.
Like Farmable, story, difficulty, badgey, canon, levelrange
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Level Range. For the love of all that's holy please let us search for missions within a suitable level range. As well as screening out AVs and /or EBs if we want (I'm tired of running across EBs with annoying Tier 9s)
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Just found this . Not THAT funny, but highlights rather well what most of the playerbase are probably going to use MA for.
Seems a bit odd that NC have spent the last couple of issues doing all they can do limit farming, then they devote one issue which appears to make it ridiculously easy.
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I liked the captain Dynamic series. But it is less funny now that farmers found how to farm missions. It also proves the need for a more diverse rating system.
Like Farmable, story, difficulty, badgey, canon, levelrange
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Level Range. For the love of all that's holy please let us search for missions within a suitable level range. As well as screening out AVs and /or EBs if we want (I'm tired of running across EBs with annoying Tier 9s)
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Ill second that nothing ruins a fun arc more for me than coming up against a EB i just can't take down no matter how many purple/red/yellow pills i pop.
Not my site at all, but I'd like to punt http://www.cityofguides.com/ma/missions.php as a viable alternative to the official engine.
It at least has space for reviews so you can tell the world if there was a problem with the arc
EDIT I posted in wrong thread
granted, I don't really see the point of farming in general (unless we're talking fish, cows or chickens or something) but why would you use the MA for farming enemies? I'd much rather do it in a normal mission where I can get badges for defeating the billion or so enemies.
@craggy see me on Union for TFs, SFs (please!) or just some good ol fashioned teaming.
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granted, I don't really see the point of farming in general (unless we're talking fish, cows or chickens or something) but why would you use the MA for farming enemies? I'd much rather do it in a normal mission where I can get badges for defeating the billion or so enemies.
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There are badges for defeating enemeis in MA test mode, and custom enemies 
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
oh, yeah, suppose so. I've been getting a lot of them just by playing normally. But I suppose I won't end up having them all by the end of the first week the thing has gone live. Oh well.
@craggy see me on Union for TFs, SFs (please!) or just some good ol fashioned teaming.
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MA is a great channel, but is a bit polluted with "Farm" MA speak at the moment. Still, I recommend it till somethingbetter comes along.
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I'm hoping that "Mission Architect" will calm down a little bit myself with farming chat and focus on mission creation and feedback discussion, but then I also appreciate that the channel will be used not only for what I envision of tMA discussion, but other peoples take on MA discussion too.
Whilst Badge collecting in MA could easily be discussed in Sals for example, it is still valid MA discussion so it's hard to find a balance on what the ops should clamp down on. So I hope people use the channel responsibly and appreciate everyones ideas on MA.
Of course Stryke and Myself are lucky to have such a good Op crew onboard on this one 
In-game and now on Twitter @Tsumiju Zero "The Nightmare of Dra'Gon"
"The flow of battle can only be influenced, not by realtime tactics, but by strategy."
Proud resident of the Union EU Server.
B.A.F. Trial Guide
Id keep MA as it is and set up "Xemulas' maddicts" channel.
Xemulas is to MA what Sal is to badges, and to my mind there is no better person in the EU to reveiw, help, and promote MA.
(Oh and before I forget, please try his arc. He has worked tirelessly reveiwing others, and I think he deserves something for that, please dont forget about his own)
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Burt the devs do not have our limitations. they have far more resources at their disposal and, if they wanted to could add more.
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You keep saying things along these lines, and that the devs resources would have been better left elsewhere, but seem to be ignoring the fact that the devs were doing a lot of the work of this anyway, for themselves. Previously, they were using spreadsheets to make missions.
Now, while they obviously still have a little more flexibility than we do at this point (given there are some things in dev missions we can't do yet), I'm guessing this method was probably a lot more time-consuming, possibly more error-prone, and perhaps meant not everyone on the team could just easily throw something together. So no, they haven't really had amazing tools.
Not only that, but given they were intending to make the MA before they came up with the idea of releasing it to the players, that suggests to me that they wanted a better mission builder so they could make more/better missions. I think it's a safe assumption that we are going to be seeing more dev-created content, and this is the first step towards that. It might be we'll see more new mob groups if this has made them a lot easier for the devs to create, it might free up time to come up with new missions objectives and ideas we've not seen before.
So between that, the fact that a lot of people love it and are using it heavily, and the fact that it's brought an ageing game an awful lot of publicity... how exactly has this been a waste, even if you don't like using it personally?
It's a tragedy that people only want to use Mission Architect for farming. If you don't build a mission with large open areas and lots of enemies, no one seems to care about it.
You need only have the IQ of a two-year old to put together a 5-star rated mission since it involves an outdoor area and lots of Freakshow/Rikti/Insert FOTM here.
It's really... really... REALLY sad.
That's how it's really been a waste. The bad ones win and the good ones fade into obscurity. I saw a 5-star mission which had only "Farming mish" and "Kill stuff" as the name and mission brief. The thing was probably cobbled together in under 5 minutes and had over 20 people giving it 5-stars because they could level quickly.
If people only care about levelling up, earning badges and getting influence then I concede that Mission Architect seems to be doing a wonderful job. For those small number of us who actually care to play a mission arc with some MEANING to it, it's absolutely tragic.
Mission Architect works fine. The players sadly don't. City of Heroes? Hah! More like City of Farmers...
Characters:
The Heroic Mary Grace (50)
The Mystical Thunderspark (50)
The Candy-loving Little Jenny (50)
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It's a tragedy that people only want to use Mission Architect for farming. If you don't build a mission with large open areas and lots of enemies, no one seems to care about it.
You need only have the IQ of a two-year old to put together a 5-star rated mission since it involves an outdoor area and lots of Freakshow/Rikti/Insert FOTM here.
It's really... really... REALLY sad.
That's how it's really been a waste. The bad ones win and the good ones fade into obscurity. I saw a 5-star mission which had only "Farming mish" and "Kill stuff" as the name and mission brief. The thing was probably cobbled together in under 5 minutes and had over 20 people giving it 5-stars because they could level quickly.
If people only care about levelling up, earning badges and getting influence then I concede that Mission Architect seems to be doing a wonderful job. For those small number of us who actually care to play a mission arc with some MEANING to it, it's absolutely tragic.
Mission Architect works fine. The players sadly don't. City of Heroes? Hah! More like City of Farmers...
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^^ Completely This. And it's been like that for a little while, MA just seems to exacerbate the problem.
I wonder if it's worth creating a channel for those of us who really DON'T want to farm. You get much above level 40 these days and it's the same problem. Can't join a team 'cos it's full or farming, can't make one because people want farm teams.
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
http://faces.cohtitan.com/profile/SteelRat
i'm not a farmer, i'm a city boy.
@craggy see me on Union for TFs, SFs (please!) or just some good ol fashioned teaming.
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I wonder if it's worth creating a channel for those of us who really DON'T want to farm. You get much above level 40 these days and it's the same problem. Can't join a team 'cos it's full or farming, can't make one because people want farm teams.
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I'd join that. As much as I love my 50s, I barely play them as the only teams that seem to be looking for 50s are farm teams. Shame. 
That said, there are some great arcs out there created by people who really care and really want to tell a story. I've been writing down the idents of each one I've really enjoyed so I can go back to them again later.
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
Well for the sake of the Lord, share them, Dante!
I dont like sifting through the dross to get to them!
Wow... I actually expected my post to be torn to shreds by the pro-farming players. It's nice to see there are actually others out there who think the same thing.
I'm humbled.
Characters:
The Heroic Mary Grace (50)
The Mystical Thunderspark (50)
The Candy-loving Little Jenny (50)
people want to farm that's fine for them. Its not really something I play the game for. Sure, if an interesting story happens to have enemies in it that will earn me a badge I'm happy, but I play for either a fun story, or a fun team.
@craggy see me on Union for TFs, SFs (please!) or just some good ol fashioned teaming.
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Burt the devs do not have our limitations. they have far more resources at their disposal and, if they wanted to could add more.
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You keep saying things along these lines, and that the devs resources would have been better left elsewhere, but seem to be ignoring the fact that the devs were doing a lot of the work of this anyway, for themselves. Previously, they were using spreadsheets to make missions.
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You mean the capability to make an architect for themselves is new?
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Now, while they obviously still have a little more flexibility than we do at this point (given there are some things in dev missions we can't do yet), I'm guessing this method was probably a lot more time-consuming, possibly more error-prone, and perhaps meant not everyone on the team could just easily throw something together. So no, they haven't really had amazing tools.
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This project turns over something like $20,000,000 a year. Dont you think they should have? I mean, they employ programmers don't they?
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So between that, the fact that a lot of people love it and are using it heavily, and the fact that it's brought an ageing game an awful lot of publicity... how exactly has this been a waste,
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Never said it's a waste. I said it's crazy to concentrate on this when they should have been trying to match upcoming competitions inventiveness. MA, like it or not, is very much a double edge sword and in my humble opinion, doesnt carry anything like the juice the CoH need to inject into the game in order to fend off CO.
In another time, or if it had taken one issue rather than two, this would be a worthwhile addition. But now? Unless they have CoH2 up their very short sleeve, I don't think so at all.it does carry a double edge sword to it.
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even if you don't like using it personally?
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Says who? The two ain't mutually exclusive, you know. Check out arc 56763. And bring friends. Lord Anarchy is bad [censored].
Don't get into a flap. It's only my opinion and I'm thick
Arc 56763 Lord Anarchys heaven
2 mission arc. Bring friends cause Lord Anarchy means business...
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What really annoys me is that the devs put an enormous amount of effort into this, when that effort should have been put to better use.
The resources could have been used to create new contacts, missions, mob types, zones etc that are part of the CoX canon.
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Youve got to be kidding me.
Personally I appreciate the effort put in by devs to create something out-of-the-ordinary, but I havent tested the architect long enough to have an opinion yet.
Frankly speaking, with MA as it is now, with "text lag" bug, missing alternate keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-V works, Shift-Ins doesn't, backspace works, delete doesn't. WHY?) clicks popping up the wrong menus, text lag, scroll wheel not scrollling if mouse is over certain controls, general slowness, lack of spell check, text lag, lack of WYSIWYG (please, make at least the edit-time font configurable, thiis one burns my eyes,) newline delete bug, and did I mention text lag? I'd better be using Excel.
The idea to integrate MA into the game was fine, but the idea that it would work like cossie creator was... Misguided. You don't need to input loads and loads of perfectly-spelled text into cossie designer.
As a result of that misguided analogy we have this atrocious set of next-to unusable text widgets. "Hey, That's like cossie creator, it ought to be simple, not like MS Word! And those bugs? Who cares? No one would input lots of text anyway! Right?"
I'm usually on the devs side IRT these things, but those widgets are inexcusable.
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Burt the devs do not have our limitations. they have far more resources at their disposal and, if they wanted to could add more.
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Wanting to and being able to do so with speed are two different things. You've been smacked around these forums enough for that to have sunk in, but continue to ignore it.
Ho-hum.