Who interacts with the Mission Architect with consideration to its stories?

I'm curious. All I hear anyone talk about on the boards is how they nerfed the EXP here or such a mechanic is questionable.

While the system obviously has its own mechanical implications (farming, Architect tickets, etc.), the developers were pretty blatant about their desire for this to primarily be an engine for story telling.

So, here's the incredible vague thing I'm asking:

If you interact with the Mission Architect primarily because of its story capabilities, what are your current thoughts on it? Are you bored with it because you've played all the good stories? Happy with it because the stories are endless? Do you get a fair rotation of players?

Due to time constraints, I've barely played anything until just recently, so my perspective is unwillingly myopic. Help me out here.

Thanks!

Has anyone translated this into the AE yet?

I've had good luck with the hall of fame and guest author arcs, award winners, and five star arcs. On those odd occasions when something is poorly written, I just bail and move on to something else.

Basically, if you stick mostly with the highly rated material you'll run across some very well done arcs.

I go through phases of playing and not bothering with it. Find some interesting stuff (sometimes in a good way, sometimes not) just picking random arcs at times, other times I'll look for something higher rated, or vs some group, level range or alignment.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I only care about the stories. I haven't done much with it lately, reviews slowed to a trickle, due to a combination of real-life business and general disappointment with the system.

I've gone in on occassion, looking for well thought out stories.

I go in and just look down the list. Sadly, I've found most of the ones I've tried just didn't appeal to me.

I want something that isn't obviously comedy (not that it can't have funny moments) and sticks to feeling like supers taking on supers.

Sadly for some reason, I keep running into things that look like business people or mercs, and this includes the RPAEs I've done with my SG for their continuing story arcs.

I'll play an arc with a good story once.

I'll play an arc with a good story and good* rewards more than once.

* Good meaning "equivalent to a Dev arc of the same length and difficulty".

I believe there's a lot of fun arcs in the MA system. I have to take it on faith, though, because the rating and search tools make actually discovering most of them quite difficult. I generally like the DC/HoF arcs, but because they're locked against editing and subsequent updates tend to invalidate them, they're slowly turning into a collection of nonfunctional relics. I don't like to work to find good content, and I don't think I should have to. I place the blame for this squarely at the feet of the developers, who clearly did not choose to benefit from the experiences of other maintainers of user-provided content when they designed the MA system. This is one of the few places where I believe the developers made a clear and unambiguous mistake.

yeah, when time permits. usually i view ae as an arcade and it fits my characters better to be out pounding real villains, but i have seen some good things.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I prefer if it has a good story to it. Or something even resembling a plot. I really couldn't give a crap less about the rewards.

Seing as it took me over 2 years to get my first 50 you can tell im not bothered by rewards (Although good rewards are considered a bonus). I love the MA, there is so much in there that is superior to Dev written arcs unfortunately most of it is buried under apile of cr*p. I personally use it to play against villain groups I love, find arcs that fit my character concepts, play out interesting stories, and to simply enjoy other's creativity.

Used to care but I don't any longer... I mean, what's the point when you still have to schlep over a buttload of farms to get to a decent story that isn't loaded with EB/AV at every corner.

People need to balance for squishies not for übber purpled pimped out damage dealing builds...

Most of the stories I tried were garbage that makes bad fanfic look good. Even the Dev's choice and Hall of Fame arcs were of worse quality than the majority of the official missions. There were probably a couple of ones that were decent, but not so memorable that I can name any.

I play an arc every now and then. I used to play unrated arcs, but it got a bit annoying wading through all the crap. So now I'm working my way through guest author, and dev choices and other high ranking arcs.

It's tough to find decent villain content though.

I build my arcs for story.
Im also dissapointed that they are buried behind a wall of one 5-star rating arcs that are, frankly, utter dross.

*shrug*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

There is plenty of good stuff in the MA, it's more than enough to get you to 50, and the rewards are fine.

That said, it is currently a lot of work to find good stuff in there. Once the utter emergency state of exploit-fixing has passed, there really needs to be improvements to the search/tagging system that will help you to find stories you like without stumbling upon a succession of deliberately-built farms.

As it is, use the forum reviews to find the good stuff; you may never set foot outside the MA again.

From a story perspective, there's so much more I wish I could do, that sometimes just happens by accident.

Case in point for my Transverse Experience Arc (404018). In the 4th mish, I use the Circle of Thorns Tree map. A couple of times now when finishing the mish up, the Ebby has spawned right on top of the pedastal in between the two steep steps near the front of the map. If you are in the Room when it happens, it looks completely awesome.

I'd give anything to be able to have him spawn there... every time.

In my other completed arc, 405542, in the first mission I have a computer terminal become active after the player has completed a rescue. Sometimes this terminal activates on the second floor, and sometimes on other floors. While it doesn't hurt the narrative of the story, being able to lock down the terminal spawn and the rescue spawns would go a great way towards making sure players get the story and clues in the desired order.

For me, from a story perspective, having more control over spawn placement is one of the biggest features Mission Architecture lacks.

I have played all the guest arcs and most of the dev's choice and hall of fame. Although I will agree that those are, in most cases, the cream of the crop available in AE, I have not enjoyed many of them.

I do recall Fearghas' arcs as standouts ( I LOVE Longbow Joe) and was pleased to see him hired on as Dr. Aeon.

I also look for the latest farm because I'm interested to see how those things work. I don't mind using them to get a few levels in the 20 - 35 level band, or to amass some tickets if I am in need of supplies. But after a few runs all farms bore me, even if the rewards are great.

Finally, I ocassionally look for low level missions to substitute for sewer runs and Hollows, since I have done that so many times. It's very hit and miss in this area. It's difficult to make a mission or arc in the 1 - 20 range that is either not an imitation of existing dev content (eg. clear out skull's base), or something that is unique but incredibly difficult because of custom mobs, or a few that are unique and just hard enough but give out subpar rewards.

When I engage in looking for low level content I frequently get upset due to rising debt or a feeling that I wasted my time if I only get a bar's worth of experience for two hours of play. At those low levels, the XP should be fast and furious. That is when I usually look for a farm to make up for lost time and then leave the AE for a few weeks.

One final note: I can't think of any story arc that I have repeated or care to repeat other than my own vanity mission. Even the good ones don't call to me to do over and over again.

The times I use AE, it is for story. The interface doesn't make it easy to find good stories, however.

I go for the stories, not the rewards. My problem is that even highly-regarded AE missions (which is entirely different from highly-rated missions) often leave me going, "Um, what was so great about that?" I haven't done any recently since my arcs got broken. Just not interested in plowing through the clunky interface again, so the whole thing has been tainted for me.

I've levelled a character to 30 or so just by running story arcs in MA, but it's not something I'd do every time around. There's a much bigger overhead:mission ratio with MA than running normal missions. First, dig through five pages of four/five-starred arcs with descriptions like 'Kill all the catgirls' or 'captn super dood needs help r u the 1 2 help him???' to find one arc with a halfway decent-sounding premise. Load it up... a good half of the time, something in the first mission sets off my idiot alarm and makes me drop it. It's not something I really do with teams unless I've pre-picked a list of arcs I know are decent, since few people have patience for 20 minutes of hunting before we find one arc we want to run.

When I have the patience for sifting through garbage to find the good stuff, though, it's a nice alternative to normal missions. There's some great stuff hidden in there, but unfortunately, 'hidden' is the key word.

I don't care about rewards much at all these days. I've been around too long to really be interesting in leveling as a goal any more.

I do run the Dev's Choice and Hall of Fame arcs now and again, and I've enjoyed doing so. It's never a bad thing to have some new alternate stories to run through. I haven't had any luck with trying to search out good arcs from the giantic pile of poorly spelled farm missions, so I don't really try. I basically wait around for someone to tell me what's good to try (Dev's Choice and the like) and then I try it.

Every once in a while I think "I'm going to hit up the 4-star selections and find some lost jewel of story-telling and adventure..." before spending a half hour pawing through pages of garbage or playing some extremely lackluster missions. It would be nice, if perhaps impractical, if they could wipe the AE and have people re-load their arcs, thus clearing out a lot of abandoned chaff. I know it's not that simple and there'd be problems associated with doing it but I can still dream.

If I just want rewards, I'll play my own arcs. Not because they're farms (they definitely are not) but just because I know the maps, objectives, mobs, etc so it's easy going with no surprises. For finding stories, I feel like I'm in a giant warehouse where 99% of the crates are filled with old coat hangers so I usually just don't bother.