How Will the Latest Patch Affect You?

Rewards in Mission Architect missions that contain more than one allied critters will give progressively lower rewards for each additional allied critter in the mission.

You know, I never thought the nerf for custom enemies was fair, even though it didn't affect me. Now, nerfing custom allies for the same reason -- to spank farms -- hits me right where it hurts, and unfairly so. My NPC allies aren't set to help a whole lot, just enough to interact and act like heroes, and even then some players run off in order to leave them behind. Yet players will be penalized the same as if they were Elite Boss level assisting aggressively through the entire mission. Does this torque anyone else off as much as it does me? Will your arcs be affected?

As I said in the other thread, I already tried out "Splintered Shields" and it's clear that maps with Ally-faction mobs as Patrol or Battle details are going to be clobbered. I use that trick in a few places, so those arcs are going to suffer.

And I don't give a damn.

Yep. My lieutenant-level Scrapper and Blaster allies give the player an unfair advantage which must be squashed. They are especially exploitative before you rescue them and after they get themselves killed.

Not to mention those level 30 PPD in a level 40+ mission. Those guys will clear the map for you and ensure you get a random PvP IO upon completion.

I'm not taking them out because nobody's playing the damn thing anyway and I'm sick of changing stuff (that I don't want to change) in an arc marked "Final." It's technically not broken so it's staying like it is.

Edit: Torqued? Damn right I am. Not because of the possibility of people giving me low ratings for sub-standard rewards (in a world where people dock stars for much stupider reasons, that's not worth getting worked up over) but because yet again legitimate users of AE are once again getting their toys taken away because of a bunch of "want it now" brats who insist on doing what they have been repeatedly told not to do, and because the devs do nothing to actually stop those specific people beyond telling them not to do it despite glaring evidence that they will do it anyway.

It affects my arc DayJob Hell (I'll bet, haven't checked for sure yet). During the course of the arc you interact with two diferent allies in two of the missions and then get them both in the last one so you can betray them (story-wise) at the end.

I'll probably not change anything in the arc as I like the story parts with them, but... well, if I ever decide I need to write another arc and I'm at my 8 cap, guess which one will get the cut? Still, makes me kinda sad. :/

Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers From Hell, Made to Wave the Flag, and Holding Down the Fort all just got their dicks smashed in with a sledgehammer repeatedly for an hour straight.

I wasn't aware that using non-combat allies for scenery was so exploitative. I've seen the error of my ways. I'll just stick to making newspaper missions from now on.

The arc that was Dev nominated as Best Original Story of 2009 is pretty much ruined.

Death to Disco! now gives about 40-45% of normal exp in it's second mission because there are battles going on between the Rockers and the Disco Nation. The Rockers are of course considered an ally group even though all they really do is fight in the battles and not aid you in any way.

Disco really is dead now.

WN

Well, at least I'm in good company. I'll be damned if I'll change my arc. Without my NPCs it won't mean squat anyway. I agree with your edit, Eva. After seeing nerf after nerf because of farmers since the game was released, it would sure be nice if they'd put the same amount of effort into just punishing them that they do in punishing us all because of them.

40-45%? Lucky. I've got enemies that are giving out 117 influence at level 50, because I decided that a dance club should have gray con civilians dancing in it.

I stopped making arcs for general audiences after the critter nerfs in I16.

I will now stop using the MA system entirely, except as an occasional storytelling tool or if I need a few tickets for a piece of salvage.

AE has been dropped as a viable option for SG nights, even for the 50s.

My one published arc will get pulled sometime after the weekend. When factoring in all the nerfs, I can't imagine it gives much reward at all.

I've lost all hope for MA. What really should be my favorite feature of the game is now something I'm barely going to touch. I think the development team has grossly, grossly mishandled it. I'm very disappointed and sad.

After sitting and thinking about it, I think this might actually wreck the second and third missions on An Arachnos Slumber Party. What's doubly frustrating is that we can't get any form of Conversation objective for when you just need scenery or just need a character to talk to.

IMHO i think this nerf was a little too much

someone did some testing for what actually drops xp and what not in the thread here

apparently defend objects, escorts, and captives all reduce xp for being nothing more than interactable, while ally patrols and allies in battles will not affect anything

Personally it's another nail in the coffin of cheaters. Yes, that's right, cheaters.

You know the arcs I mean: Outdoor, City Map 01 etc with 20 allies all with no attacks (because Allies don't matter when it comes to having actual attacks), only debuffs and group protection (like Dispersion Bubble).

That it has affected actual arcs is a shame. If those arcs could be 'protected' from the XP nerf in some way then surely that's the way to go forward?

Now, I am fully-prepared to spend time going through every single cheater arc, list them here and have a GM or other go through and delete those arcs.

I won't put global names in, just the ID of the arc.

Now, if only the punishment of persistent cheaters, including account-holders with multiple accounts, was actually being actioned then that would be a good thing.

After my initial "on noes!", I'm not so perturbed now. AE is still an on-going experiment that sometimes takes wrong turns, we can deal with that. I'll live, you'll live, we'll all live.

Except maybe the exploiters, they'll die a cold, lonely, XP&inf-less death.

It won't.

I'm not in some hurry to get to level 50, and besides that I don't play AE for EXP, so it could be churning out 0 EXP and I'd be okay with it.

As with most game changes, I think people are freaking the **** out prematurely.

*EDIT* - As an aside, I was kind of enjoying all the... Players of questionable intelligence huddling up in the AE mission. I worry they'll eventually be turned away into the streets again where I'll have to interact with them.

I/m not bothered at all about the effect on my own experience apart from the possibility that I'll not see future arcs made by wtorytellers who've said they'll not be making any more because of this nerf. I'll be very sad to see Dayjob Hell go, too.

I'm very happy that the farmers have something to be unhappy about.

And I'm sympathetic towards those in the MA community who do feel upset byt the effect on their arcs.

I play for story primarily. XP etc is a bonus. It's nice when it comes, but if the MA gave no rewards I'd level on normal missions and play MArcs for fun.

I write arcs without having rewards in mind at all.

I'll not be changing a thing about my arcs because of this nerf.

Eco.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Sorry for the rather coarse analogy, but let's talk porn. Once upon a time, pornographers tried to pretend that they were legitimate filmmakers. That didn't work, and the result is now that cinema and pornography are two separate industries.

I wonder if there's some way we can likewise separate the "industries" of farming (but not exploitative farming; that should still be hammered into the ground) and story-based MA arcs.

The first step is obviously having different lists for either. That way, the farmers won't low-rate the story-based arcs for poor rewards because the farmers won't even look at story-based arcs, and likewise the people who like stories can find stories without having to wade through farm arcs. Just like going into a DVD store, you first go to the section you're interested in; you don't have to look through the ones you're not interested in.

The second step, which is more complex and controversial, is that maybe story arcs and farm arcs should have different rules. I have no idea how the rules should be different, so I'm not going to comment on that, but perhaps rewards appropriate to player-type or something.

No, you're not alone at all. It took me weeks to make time to write the first two arcs, and significantly more time to promote them so I could get enough feedback from members of this forum to fine tune them into the best work I'm capable of. If only a very small handful of players even bother coming to play them as a result of developmental mis-steps aimed at stopping farmers, I've got far better things to do with my time than start another arc.

It's pretty destructive to pretty much all of mine; most of them feature multiple captive releases, or stand-alone captive releases whose purpose is to insert flavor text. My second Dr. Aeon contest entry, The Great American Skull Fry, is particularly badly struck. Here, one ally was added specifically for the purpose of being mostly useless in content, to fit the theme of "hero loses his powers". And, as an arc designed to be played by level 10-15 players, I think it's safe to say that XP is a legitimate issue.

I have a design philosophy that holds that mission briefings, debriefings, and clues are not the place to advance your story. They tend to be rather team unfriendly; they have to be looked for specifically, you may not know when a clue has been added, and debriefings are only readable by the team leader. Every text that develops story or theme ought to appear in mission entry and exit popups, or NPC chatter. This way the text is presented to the entire team, and the leader is not the only one reading it. So I use a lot of non-combat NPCs. I don't really care all that much if rewards are reduced for allies, but this goes too far in reducing rewards for captives. You can't create missions that resemble dev content ("5 office workers to rescue") without reducing your rewards substantially. There's a wide discrepancy between the stated intent of the patch note and what this actually does, which suggests to me that it is not working as intended.

Oddly, the one unaffected arc is .... the proof-of-concept arc I made to demonstrate why the custom critter nerf achieved nothing worth doing. This, fortunately, is the arc I use for tickets runs, and I swap in new sets of main custom enemies tailored to the character I want to run it on. That one includes no captives or allies in the main mission.

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

Three arcs of my six were hit.

This Costume Contest Sponsored By Tubbius, 101933, is pretty well shot to pieces. Its whole point is to jam as many NPCs into it as possible for fun.

PENGUIN, 29205, was hit because Tubbius Claus and Waddle were both in the third mission. I deleted Tubbius last night, but I'm going to go back and add him back in shortly. I was looking to rework that mission a touch anyway.

PENGUIN Part 2: Waddle's Revenge, 302196, had a very minor issue about a Battle that never really came up; deleting that battle and rewriting the end of mission 3's text and the start of mission 4's is a change I can accept.

SO: back to fixing PENGUIN, I think. Like most others are saying on here, very few are playing my stuff anyway without serious forcing from me.

EDITED: PENGUIN is corrected, returned to its pre-deletion-of-Tubby state from last night. I've also gone through and corrected a LOT of custom power selections on various toons in my arcs. If they're real PCs of mine, they're going to have power setups as close to my own real characters as they can get. Try re-running some Tubbius arcs TODAY!

Every one of my arcs got nailed in some way by this idiotic patch. It sends a really contradictory message too considering many the boosts to XP that i17 is supposed to be bringing with the newer custom options they announced.

And it's not just XP that is affected, it's all rewards. Influence and tickets are severely reduced as well. I tested one of my large missions with allies and got a whopping total of 6 tickets for the ending bonus, when the same mission with no allies at all would give over 100 tickets.