As I see it, the level range of the arc should be fitting for the arc.
For example, when I am asked to do something about trolls from the nice police officer in the Hollows. Then fighting them at level 50 feels odd. It was a great story and the customs were well done but I can't see trolls as level 50 treats.
So yes I prefer to be exemplared down for that mission. What I do not like is when I keep switching all the time between one level and the other. Try to keep your arcs in the same level range please.
I am hoping that in future builds that you can level balance the arc. At the moment I have overlapping missions in the level 40 range by having Tsoo, Rikti and Nemesis troops, however the arc seems to see-saw at random between 40-50.
I would either hope that some of these restrictions would be relaxed a bit ( i.e having mission 1 level 10-20 and mission 2 level 20-30 would result in level 20 opponents throughout ) and then stick the appropriate level suggestion on the arc description.
As usual, I would imagine someone has a better suggestion of a level fix for the MA, so if you do, PLEASE suggest it to the Devs thanks 
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I've created a custom group for my (currently) only mission that is purely non-Arachnos robots (they feature in mission 4). It scales from 1-50 absolutely fine.
Your key groups to doing the same are... Council (Mekmen, Hoverbots), Sky Raiders (Jumpbots), Rikti (Drones), Malta (Titans), Clockwork (Any).
To be fair I would have excluded the Clockwork except for the fact I had a hole in the 1-20 range. I considered Nemesis Automatons but they weren't actually robotic enough at all.
If you need a uniform group of robots, then the only option is to make a fully custom faction. I'll be doing the same in my upcoming mission arc "Arachnos Research and Development: Reap What You Sow" (Coming to an AE Terminal Near You Soon)
If you feel like your arc needs a level restriction (especially if you thinking it as a alternative TF for that level range) it is good.
Just like normal TFs i usually try to do them in their level range heroes.
One thing i can't understand is, according to MA UI Ghosts are 40-50 group but we have them in Croatoa. Couldn't find Croatoa ghosts in list also. So as i wanted my first arc to be in Croatoa level range i will use either Fir Bolg or Cabal with my custom mobs. (Pity my more favored groups are too high for 25-34 range)
For before level 20 range, i some arcs for low level characters and they are more fun than most of the in game missions. Biggest plus is they don't have hunt missions. If your arc is well written and good balanced it will fill a gap and give low level heroes more choices. Only hard part is balancing your custom groups for that level range i guess. Thanks to MA's power giving system, for me either they have less or too much powers at their arsenal. So i usually leave all mobs at Standart/Standart.
The thing that irritates me (as a mission creator) is having to have slight level shifts even when using tricks to lockdown level ranges because the standard mobs have some odd level ranges...
In an arc that I'm still developing (though I started it not long after Open Beta started) my 1st 3 missions are:
Mission 1: 29-35 (locked down using Rogue Robots Group)
Mission 2: 30-38 (locked down using Prisoners Group)
Mission 3: 29-35 (again using Rogue Robots Group)
These groups provided the closest picks (IMO) to achieving similar mission ranges using mobs that won't seem out of place and allow some small variation (the main groups used in these missions have different sets of mobs at the extremes of the ranges shown).
But the small difference in ranges irritates me...
It would have been good if the spawns had some standardisation applied to ranges (though I could understand that that could cause issues to the normal game).
Or maybe if new non-standard 'standard groups' that were slotted into set ranges were provided... There's no real reason why lvl25-29 or 39-40 prisoners couldn't be made and added by the devs. I'd hope that for slight tweaks like this it would only need a replication of existing mobs, possibly tweaking combat stats if required to adjust for the change of range.
Even creating these as the only mobs in new standard groups would allow them to be used in MA custom groups to tweak the mission range as required.
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What I do not like is when I keep switching all the time between one level and the other. Try to keep your arcs in the same level range please.
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Is the level switching acceptable when given a story reason?
Try Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! (arc #: 3662) - Not only should it hopefully raise a smile or laugh, but it has 3 missions each at different level ranges... and there's good reason storywise for the 3 missions to be at different levels:
mission 1: Is low level 13-19 as I wanted to capture how poorly the custom mob 'PL-heroes' play by having them fail against a basic, low-level group.
mission 2: Is mid level, 29-35. This is due to the level of an ingame activity (it attempts to capture the essence of mission 2 of Hess TF, and so I set it at a similar level. Note that I purposefully didn't try to match the Hess TF too closely so that I don't spoil an excellent TF!)
mission 3: Is high level as pretty much all PL farms will be high level !
Since you hate level switching I wonder how you'd find this arc...
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I have no problem with low level arcs, in fact I have even heard people talk about the lack of low level arcs in MA.
Though one thing I do recommend is that your level range should try and be consistent. As in you're fighting at full strength, then suddenly fighting as a lvl 10 for no reason and then lvl 30, etc.
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I've tried to design my arcs for specific level ranges, and design accordingly. So I would say arcs where individual missions do not have a level range overlap are best avoided.
You also need to consider mission content when designing for lower levels. A custom boss that a level 50 could handle might be far to difficult for a level 20. And while you might be fine with a "Hard" ambush for level 50s, you might need to use an "Easy" ambush for level 20s.
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Though one thing I do recommend is that your level range should try and be consistent. As in you're fighting at full strength, then suddenly fighting as a lvl 10 for no reason and then lvl 30, etc.
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So... Is the level switching acceptable when given a story reason?
If so:
- Presumably you're fine with it being used to simulate the old bigbad-has-stolen-my-powers story.
- Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! does it purposefully for a different reason (as mentioned above) - is that fine?
- Would world/dimension hopping that 'affects' your powers be a good enough explanation?
- Does 'a wizard did it' work?
- Could it work as a mid-arc flashback (you recall when...)
Just asking as I'd guess that many (not all) people who are bothered by level switches probably wouldn't mind as much if there is a reason given for the change... So I'm wondering: how much reason is needed?
If someone needs a lowlevel mob for concept in mission 3 of their mainly-Malta arc isn't it acceptable just to have the lowlevel mission just for story?
If it needs an explanation, does it need a good one?
Isn't a dodgy-explanation better than nothing as the author tried?
Is a bad explanation worse than no explanation?
Just wondering...
BTW - for some reason I kept thinking of a Raiders of the Lost Arc arc writing the above... I suspect that one group may cause level-swapping issues... Snakes. Why does it always have to be snakes?
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Snakes are available from 1-52.
I really should do something about this signature.
My poor memory again - I thought there was a big gap in the middle of the range.
Still - my error only detracts from the final (BTW) note - and that was more thrown in to appease my poor humour. 
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- Could it work as a mid-arc flashback (you recall when...)
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That's an awesome concept, I'll need to remember that one.
But I'm fine accepting ANY reason, so long as there is one. As for fighting Malta and then suddenly getting depowered because the next group is Trolls, well, I'll forgive them as it's one of the limitations of MA, but I will still find it jarring.
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I was suprised, since there are no snakes between 16 and 39 in official CoV missions, but evidently the critters exist, just not used.
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As for fighting Malta and then suddenly getting depowered because the next group is Trolls, well, I'll forgive them as it's one of the limitations of MA, but I will still find it jarring.
[/ QUOTE ] Under those circumstances I would be inclined to use the CCC to create high level Trolls (or low level Malta).
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As for fighting Malta and then suddenly getting depowered because the next group is Trolls, well, I'll forgive them as it's one of the limitations of MA, but I will still find it jarring.
[/ QUOTE ] Under those circumstances I would be inclined to use the CCC to create high level Trolls (or low level Malta).
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But that may become problematic if you're nearing the size limits - since you'd need something like 4 mobs ( 2/1/1 minion/lt/boss) as an absolute minimum to 'extend' the existing group. You'd probably want more like 3/2/1, 2/2/1 or better to create a decent group of all custom mobs.
It's why it'd be good for the devs to add some non-standard-level groups the quick and dirty way - take the same skin/animations and reset the applicable level range and power modifiers.
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A question about level range;
If you use a specific level range creature in your arc (for example Fir Bolg 24-34) and use other group who has a larger range (like Red Caps or Tuatha whose are starting around same level but ends at level 50), does higher level range mob will spawn at the highest level of the arc? (Depending on the example, will the highest level Red Cap spawn at lvl. 34-35? )
All mobs will spawn at a level detimined by the level the player is exemplared too.
e.g. if you have 25-35 and 30-40, and the player is level 50, all the mobs will be level 35. If the player is level 1, all the mobs will be level 30.
The code that varies mob level by +/- 1 is currently broken.
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Thanks for the reply, Praf. I think now i can make my arc more fun.
I wonder, what are peoples feelings about MA arcs that restrict you to to pre-lvl 50?
That question came up for me yesterday as I was getting started on my first own story arc. Basically, for the first mission I need a group of automatons or robots as enemies. At the time the only possible candidates for me seemed to be the Clockwork, but they are only lvl 1-20 (*)
There's also Psychic Clockwork, but they on the other hand are lvl 40-54, and as far as I'm concerned, for balance reasons I'd rather have a lvl 40 play through my story as lvl 20 than the other way around.
Another option is to just use a custom robot group (which I'll need to use anyway from mission 2 on, so it might even make more sense story-wise to go with them from the beginning)
But anyway - I just came across the thread that talked about story arcs that can be used from lvl 1-50, so my question basically is: what are ya'll thinking about arcs that bump your lvl 50 chars down to lvl 20?
As for me, lvl 20 is okay with me, I just don't particularly like to go beneath that. Stamina, you see - I still remember what a pain certain ATs and builds were for me before I got that...
(*) Yeah, I completely forgot about Nemesis at the time, and maybe even about others I still haven't remembered. Let's ignore that for the sake of discussion for now