I guess I don't understand the AE nerf

I was trying to make sense of what I was reading about how it would scale down if you don't have one of each type of enemy in a mob(boss, LT, and minion)

Is that only for custom enemies? and how will it effect some of my more squishy toons who when they solo they only get Minions and LTs when they go through a Mission?

I have a couple missions that I don't think have even one Boss in them other than the end Boss, so I guess I will have to redesign those Arcs, I guess it is not a big deal since I don't run the AE missions much anymore, the only time our SG even uses it is when we have so many different levels we need the Auto SK to get us all the same level, but with the new way I16 will auto SK/Exp everyone I guess we won't need it anymore, guess this will finally kill most of the AE abuse.....

Sounds like you DO mostly understand it.

Not quite, if you don't get an of an enemy type (i.e. bosses) because of team size and/or difficulty setting then you're fine. You only get reduced rewards if you design the mission using a custom group that doesn't have any enemies of a particular type.

So your squishy toons will be ok, the bosses are still available in the mission they just don't spawn because of difficulty settings.

Pretty much what Adeon said.

Just to clarify - yes, this applies only to custom enemy groups in the AE. Specifically, this seems to be targeted at boss-only custom groups used to spawn the 'boss farms' that have been rampant lately. Such a group would now have severely reduced rewards.

There's no problem if the group in question has an appropriate mix of minions, lieutenants and bosses in its makeup. Whether or not you spawn them doesn't matter - it's the compostion of the group. So even if you never see a boss because you're playing on Heroic with a small team, the fact that those bosses exist in the group means your rewards are untouched.

Naturally, those who enjoy abusing the AE in this way will loudly cry DOOM at this change (those who haven't got wind of it already and are making a lot of sound and fury about the game dying as a result). Most people won't be affected in the least, since they either weren't heavily using the AE or were using story groups that were properly built in the first place. Most farmers will move on to the next-most-lucrative abuse of the system they can find. Most probably already have.

They also slightly nerfed Freakshow XP (they were farmed for a long time before AE) just in case. Farmers get nerfed as a matter of course, but the effect generally isn't noticeable among non-farmers, despite what they say.

Cool no worries then, I haven't really created many custom enemies, mainly because they end up wooping my tail, plus I like to keep my stories CoX rooted with actual CoX enemy groups. Anyways I think it is a good idea, my SG won't even need AE anymore with the new SK/Exp feature coming, we can all be the same level without auto SK or trying to match up everyone withing a few levels of eachother using SK, GREAT change to the game

Although you do come across some outstanding custom villain groups, like Sister Blaze's story arc that has the Disco Trolls. Those guys are a hoot to fight!

Hmm, I created a villain story arc that involves existing groups such as Longbow and the Paragon Police. However, I also created a custom group of superheroes that need to be defeated throughout the arc. All the heroes in this group are lieutenants or higher. They all appear in the arc as unique set encounters, always placed on a map that includes regular spawns of Longbow and Police.

Would this arc be affected by the change? Will the heroes get reduced XP because their group has no minions (even though minions aplenty belonging to other groups appear on the same map?) If so, would adding token minions to the custom group solve the issue, even if those minions aren't included in the arc?

I guess I'm not too concerned about it, but some of the hero bosses in that arc are a bit tough and it seems a shame if their XP isn't even up to par.

Cool, then I should be good, since my custom enemies only appear as boss objectives, never as random spawns.

I'm still good, the escorts in the boss objectives are all non-custom groups like Longbow etc. My custom group only appear as the individual boss objectives themselves--yes, even the lieutenants, who represent the "lower ranks" of the superhero group that the villains need to cull as they work their way up to the tougher opponents.

So no, once you take out McAwesome-Lad, you won't later run into Captain McAwesome surrounded by 3 clones of McAwesome-Lad. The good Captain will just have to rely on his Longbow cannon fodder instead.

i find this to be good news.

but i'll say DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! anyway.. just because i've never had to say doom.

Oh, you'll have more chances.

I wanna see a Dick and Jane inspired arc now.

See Skuls. See Skuls run. Go. Hunt. Kil Skuls.