I16 Mission Architect XP Changes

What about infamy???

The XP changes (the possible penalty) should apply directly to inf. If not, then XP farms will meta-morph to inf farms. Previously, you could do both which I think contributes to inflation. In fact, why give inf at all for AE missions or non dev choice ones?

My opinion is that the XP change is going to have minimal impact on farmers, but a devastating impact on most story-oriented arcs, especially high-creativity arcs making lots of use of custom enemies.

The minion-LT-boss grouping thing is going to have minimal effects on farmers, since the ones who were regular-mission farming (Battle Maiden, etc.) were already having to deal with mixed spawns. Farmers will take a few minutes to change up their AE farm-mission enemies to whatever the optimal mix du jour is, and move right along.

Similarly, farmers tend not to use a lot of custom mobs in AE, because the standard ones work just fine. If there are highly customized powerset choices that are especially weak, I don't know what they are. (Certainly I've LOOKED, trying to come up with reasonable custom enemies that won't pwn level 10 teams in low-level arcs.)

People who are using the architect "as intended", on the other hand, tend to have a lot of customs. My arc "Brute Squad vs. Hero Scouts and the Soccer Mom", for instance, is 100% customs. Although all the powersets are standard-level, the comments I've gotten indicate that the arc is challenging but soloable by all ATs -- not constant-faceplant territory, but just enough that you're having to pay attention. (This is about my ideal: I want a player to have to stay alert and play reasonably intelligently, but not be helpless.) If I were to bump up the difficulty, I'm pretty certain that it would be too hard. Moreover, I believe that the current level of challenge is equivalent to fighting a high-level standard group, since I've got a wide mix of powersets, melee, ranged, control, healing, etc. in the mob group.

My prediction is that this is pretty much going to kill actual story-oriented play in MA, because there'll be no way of telling, when you look at a mission, what its XP value is going to be. MA standard enemies are ALREADY harder than normal enemies. I'm not sure what bit of insanity (beyond deliberately trying to level slowly) would drive a player to both super-size his challenge level AND get nerfed XP for it.

Farmers, on the other hand, will chug along just fine.

The way I'd handle the "custom power selection" part of the XP would be to compare the selected powers with standard/hard/extreme selections of the same powerset.

A custom selection includes all the Standard powers? It gets Standard XP. Includes all the Hard ones? Hard XP. And so on. Nerfs come when you're below standard, if possible I'd add some weight to the powers so as to make more dangerous powers worth more XP - so if you remove the hardest hitting from some set, for example, you lose more XP than if you remove a crappy one - instead of just counting powers. Ranged attack from melee sets removes all XP if removed.

Yes, this potentially leaves the possibility of making custom critters that are more dangerous than standard selections with custom selected powers but still worth less XP, but removes the ridiculousness of needing custom selections to have damn near everything to approach pre-selected sets. You could even select some powers in the sets that, if added, lessen the XP nerf of removing the key powers from Standard (this would be easy in offensive sets, probably not so much in defensive or control sets because "utility" powers may not add that much to difficulty).

Of course, something like that would be a heck of a lot more complex, but there you go.

It will take some playing time for me to figure out how I feel about these changes. On one hand I've never been a big fan of regular farms but enjoyed some of the AE farms because of the fun mob types. But I would enjoy those mobs even if they're were minions, Lts. and Bosses in the mix. Frankly, I was a little tired of the same Freaks and CoTs, and sewer teams.

On the other hand, I worry about regular arcs like my "Wicked, Wicked Wonderland" (#1224) getting any more play with these changes. It has minions and Lts and maybe one or two boss battles -- but no bosses just in the regular mobs. This arc was constructed this way because initial feedback was that bosses were too hard - especially since the arc mobs contain multiple debuffers.

I was pleasantly surprised when "Wicked" went surpassed my fondest hope of getting 50 people to play it. And now well over 200 people have played it.

Seems to me that the new rules that penalize custom critters will have the exact opposite affect on AE creation as was intended. While I'm sure that there are a LOT of players who didn't use AE just for an unfair experience advantage, I'm concerned that a LOT of players won't want to use it for an unfair experience DISadvantage, as well.

I know I won't throw in more bosses into "Wicked, Wicked Wonderland" just for the added experience. My story only warrants TWO bosses.

Not sure the devs had a viable choice here, though. Seems to me that fixing it vs. not fixting was a real Catch-22.

FWIW, at least for soloists bosses need to be enabled specifically for them to spawn. If you have room for and can make a boss, you can add one. You can promote a lieutenant to boss if you have more than one lieutenants. Or you can add a dummy boss from a standard group. Call him Biff the Understudy or some such.

If I keep any missions live, I will probably pull all the custom groups and replace them with tutti-frutti colored Council and 5th Column. I will add descriptions to them telling players what they are supposed to be imagining in their stead.

<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

It seems to me all the problems and complaints with MA deals with those that abuse it for farming and Pling. Why cant the devs just monitor the game and crack down on the offenders? Trace the spams selling inf & PL to the game accounts. Get after not only those that create farm missions but also the team leaders who form and run the farm missions. If this is being abused by a small portion then get rid of them and not punish all who choses to use MA as it was attended to be used.

Or you know, they could have simply implemented the reduced XP for groups without minions thing and seen how that went for a month rather than throwing unneeded variables into the problem.

Like others, I am concerned about the long-term effect the XP cuts for power customization will have. I totally support the decision to penalize XP for arcs that don't include a normal minion-lieutenant-boss spread, and I understand the potential for abuse in a system with custom group power editing.

Nevertheless, my concern boils down to this: many custom critters can be just as challenging, or even more so, than normal CoH enemies. Editing power selection for custom enemies is something I've long been waiting for, as it could help me smooth out unwanted annoyances in my groups of custom enemies. (E.g., if I've made several different custom enemies, but each of them has a power that slows enemies in an area, I'd want to cut out some or all of the slowing powers so that players are not frustrated by stacked slows.)

But often, I feel like many custom enemies are best balanced at some point between the Standard and Hard settings. And if such custom groups could still wipe the floor with regular CoH groups, and yet be worth less XP, then that feels philosophically wrong.

In any event - I understand and respect the large internal debate the Devs have undoubtedly been having over how to best balance rewards in the AE system. And I would make the following suggestion for consideration:

It would seem that the intended use of the AE system is to promote the creation of new stories that are fun and engaging to play. At the same time, there is a valid concern that if rewards do not match that for other parts of the game, such stories will go unplayed and unnoticed. So, what if stories that were successfully chosen for Dev's Choice status were set to give full XP rewards? Such stories would indicate that they had met the Dev standards for being a worthy arc, and might possibly raise incentive to create AE material that met these standards.