A few basic questions about MA now ...

OK, I admit it. I'm not the smartest hobo on the CoX railway system. So it comes as no surprise to me that, after reading all the patch notes, I'm still mystified by some of the changes in I16. Maybe one or two of you, far smarter than I, can learn me something here:

1) If I create a custom villian group with minions, Lts, and bosses ... but I don't set the mission high enough ... and ONLY minions and Lts. appear IN mission, does that mean I only get 50% of the experience. (I've tried readjusting spawns by increasing number of virtual team and +2 or more levels -- but then they the mobs just kill me. I don't play a lot of farm-friendly- style ATs.)

2) If I enjoy story-based AE missions with custom critters where the author only has one Object-Spawned boss, does that mean I only get 50% experience?

3) Do MA arcs that use standard foes (council, etc.) receive more experience than custom critters? (I hope not since the big lure of AE for me is not having to fight the same old good guys and bad guys that I get in traditional arcs and scanner door missions.)

Thanks

Disclaimer: All these answers are based on how I THINK the xp changes are supposed to work, based on patch notes and Horatio's posts. I could be wrong, or something could be buggy.

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Originally Posted by Galactic_Hobo 1) If I create a custom villian group with minions, Lts, and bosses ... but I don't set the mission high enough ... and ONLY minions and Lts. appear IN mission, does that mean I only get 50% of the experience. (I've tried readjusting spawns by increasing number of virtual team and +2 or more levels -- but then they the mobs just kill me. I don't play a lot of farm-friendly- style ATs.)

No. As long as your group contains all three ranks, you will get normal xp for the group, whether you encounter bosses or not.

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2) If I enjoy story-based AE missions with custom critters where the author only has one Object-Spawned boss, does that mean I only get 50% experience?

Bosses used for "fight a boss" objectives aren't subject to xp reductions. The group surrounding them is.

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3) Do MA arcs that use standard foes (council, etc.) receive more experience than custom critters? (I hope not since the big lure of AE for me is not having to fight the same old good guys and bad guys that I get in traditional arcs and scanner door missions.) Thanks

Some custom critters award less experience than standard foes. A custom critter set to Standard awards 75% xp. Custom critters set to Hard or higher will give full xp. A custom critter with even a single Standard power removed awards 0 xp. Custom critters created before i16 went live will award at least 75% xp, since there was no option to remove powers from the Standard setting before then.

If you create a custom group that has at least 1 minion, at least 1 lieutenant, and at least 1 boss, each without having the "Do not auto-spawn" flag set, the group will not be penalized at all for the minion-lieut-boss spread, regardless of whether the player's difficulty settings allow for bosses to be spawned or not. If the custom group is made of custom critters, xp for individual enemies will still be adjusted for powers selected.

So, to answer your questions:

1) You'll get 75% xp if all of your custom mobs have standard powers selected, up to 100% xp if your custom mobs have all powers selected or you use standard mobs, despite not seeing bosses.

2) 75-100% xp depending on powers selected. Unless the custom mobs don't have the standard powers, in which case you're boned.

3) Standard critters are always worth at least what custom critters are worth. They will be worth more if either the standard critters are set for higher xp, or the custom critters have any less than extreme power selections.