Story arcs.. Do people play um any more?
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2011-06-28 07:17 in Player Questions
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These two reasons I see named often, but I really don't get how the trials or taskforces are any better. All of them suffer from one or both of these flaws, so avoiding stories arcs, then doing something with the same flaw you are supposedly avoiding is silly.
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Originally Posted by Vice_Virtuoso
3. Done it all already. Outside of Praetoria, I've done every single story arc in the game, on both red and blue side, multiple times, as I'm sure a majority of veteran players have. Nothing about them is new to me, so it's essentially no different than running papers in terms of repetition. And for the Praetorian arcs, those can only be completed on new Praetorian characters anyway (which excludes the characters I exclusively play these days). And yes, I've also done every TF and trial in the game, but those at least have the rewards and fun factor going for them.
4. Aged content. This primarily applies to hero side, but the majority of the heroside story arcs are from before the City of Villains release, which almost universally have horrible writing, cardboard-flat character personalities, and practically no mission mechanics aside from defeat-all, kill the boss, or grab the glowie. Even on the odd occasion that I feel like doing an old story arc, I am soon reminded why I avoid them. Villain missions are much better in this regard, although even that feels pretty dated with stories and mechanics of tip missions (particularly the I19 vigilante->villain and rogue->hero tips, which are fantastic) and the quality of Praetoria stories. |
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
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The slower, more casual style is typically reserved for solo. When teaming, you have to consider the goals and playstyles of all the people in the team. Not everyone is okay with suboptimal XP (often less than solo) in a slow moving group where everyone's reading the dialogue and having coffees between every mission.|
Originally Posted by SuperJe
anyways, it just seams lots of people arnt interested in the slower more casual arcs. (like that one poster that said, I make sure to click as fast as i can so i dont slow people down) thats sorta what im talking about. I rather not do that. Take your time, grab a coffee inbewteen missions, enjoy the night.
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If it helps any, look for me. My villains are also on Infinity and I have characters from 50 down to 6. I'm usually open to teaming but PUG experiences from the past have made me kinda leery.
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Originally Posted by Major Deej
I do story arcs every day.
If I feel like teaming, I'll send out broadcasts, recruit via the global channels, etc. If I get a team; great. If no one replies, I don't start writing forum posts about it. I move along and play em until the next mish, then send out broadcasts, global channel invites, etc and rinse and repeat for each following mish til I have a team. My intention is that IF I want to team, I'll form a team if I see none starting up; IF I don't want to team, I go on hide (I may have a busy home schedule, requiring me to get up and afk a lot in one session/evening, ergo, I'll shift to hide mode so I don't waste anyone's time but my own). |
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Originally Posted by Clave_Dark_5
I think they started to drop in popularity once radio/newspapers came out becuase they were faster to get and run and there were no moments of "GAH, another fed ex mish!" involved with doing a pre-set arc (plus that whole "done these a jillion times already" thing). Most of the PUGing I do these days I never see them run, can't recall the last time I did see one.
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@Remianen / @Remianen Too
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That's the Ernesto Hess Task Force. My very favorite in the entire game. Great fun. |
Originally Posted by SuperJe
I recall foundly one TF. (forget the name, its the one on the island with the giant robot) it was one tank and 7 blasters.. talk about a ride.
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Leader of Legion of Valor/Fallen Legion (Victory server)
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StainedGlassScarlet - L50 Spines/Inv Scrapper | Badges: 1,396
Avatar detail taken from full-size piece by Douglas Shuler here
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I do something similar when I'm leveling one of my crew... I'll run arcs to get tips, do the tips for a change of pace until I have my daily limit, and then go back to the arcs for a bit. |
Originally Posted by Supernumiphone
I do both. I run arcs until I get tips. Once I've done five tips, I usually switch to a different toon. I run arcs solo though, for all the reasons others have already given.
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I know it's nowhere near the fastest or most efficient way to level a character, especially since I tend to run them solo or duo/trio, but I like them a lot more than the same handful of speed-run TFs or AE farms.
@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...
I pretty much only do contact story arcs. I'll boot up a couple radios/papers if I don't have much time, but otherwise it's contacts all the time. Of course, I pretty much only solo or team with folks from a few global channels, so my presence doesn't mean much except ground clutter between missions.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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Almost exclusively here.|
Originally Posted by MentalMaden
Everyday.
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{that and one-shot missions}
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Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
These two reasons I see named often, but I really don't get how the trials or taskforces are any better. All of them suffer from one or both of these flaws, so avoiding stories arcs, then doing something with the same flaw you are supposedly avoiding is silly.
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Originally Posted by me
And yes, I've also done every TF and trial in the game, but those at least have the rewards and fun factor going for them.
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I do almost nothing but arcs. Only exceptions would be some of my high level characters who are out of contacts to run arcs for. Of course, I also, for the most part, don't team for much of anything where teaming isn't prerequisite, though, so my perspective may be slightly skewed.
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They aren't better. But they give better rewards.|
Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
These two reasons I see named often, but I really don't get how the trials or taskforces are any better. All of them suffer from one or both of these flaws, so avoiding stories arcs, then doing something with the same flaw you are supposedly avoiding is silly.
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That's the same reason to run tips even though they are the most repetitive of all.
I do arcs almost exclusively. I do newspaper/radio missions if I need a new contact, and do newspapers or tips when I just feel like something quick, or just need a few extra XP to bump me up to the next level.
34 heroes,
20 villains, Victory, Justice, Infinity, Virtue, Triumph, Exalted -- some more active than others
I do arcs all the time. I typically don't do any tfs until that toon hits 50. Arcs are how I get most of my reward merits, also.
"Most people that have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing." - John Cleese
@Ukase
I level up in regular contact story arcs. I typically do so solo. I start doing things that are high-speed and high value after I get to 50, because at that point I am looking for rewards that are not XP, and a 50 has pretty much top-rate earning potential (barring market use, which is about the player, not so much the character).
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
The only story arcs I do are either for a certain temp power (wedding ring), to unlock a contact (katie hannon TF) or for AV fights (Maria Jenkins, etc).
Otherwise I run Tips.
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True enough =)|
Originally Posted by rsclark
They aren't better. But they give better rewards.
That's the same reason to run tips even though they are the most repetitive of all. |
And I just realized I didn't answer. I do everything. I run story arcs often, I especially spend a lot of time in Oroboros.
Most of my friends don't care about rewards and just want to play the game. I'm the same way. I love the stories and after 3 years am not bored with them. Some I like more than others. The new tip missions I love that they have actual super enemies to fight instead of just a named boss. Though I do wish they would have more variety and use the full list of villains and heros from the bank missions instead of just the small "rogues gallery" list.
We often run each other's story arcs and none of us care if we are getting merits or not.
I also usually toss out a notice or two that people are welcome to join and it's rare that I don't get 2-3 responses even late at night. Granted, the Maria Jenkins and Tina McIntyre arcs are the easiest to recruit for =)
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
my static team (3-4 meetings a week, each different characters often on different servers, 2 of those are "what do you want to play right now" meetings) prefers good stories to anything else, so yeah, we run story archs
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"Notice at the end, there: Arcanaville did the math and KICKED IT INTO EXISTENCE." - Ironik on the power of Arcanaville's math
Yes.
Enjoy your day please.
I will, but I'll often run solo or advertise that I'm running a particular arc.
The vast majority of teams I'm on are paper/scanner mission teams.
I honestly don't care what content I run, I team for the social aspect of it.
I don't really see the difference in the matter either.. The missions are all practically the same whether your running contact arcs or paper missions (not counting the new stuff, and some outliers). Either click Blinky, Save a person, or clear the map.. The major difference is the stories attached to the Story Arc, which you may or may not have time to read depending on the team.
Though once you're in the 40 range, its not terribly difficult to jump on "AV Mish" teams, people going for their Accolades. Which is all story arcs.
I run story arc team all the time on Justice. I pick up whoever wants to run whatever level missions Im running. I like to read to storylines as i go along as well. I take any level any AT as long as i have a full team. I do it all the time.
Ok.. a question then.. If you go a story arc in oroboros, does that mean you basically run the arc like a task force with a group, and at the end you all get the story reward, merits, badges ect?
cause if soo thats sounds like the best way to run an evening group with a group of people that wanna spend a few hours running arcs..
also if you do arcs that way, does it unlock the contact in the main game world so you can buy insperation from them? if soo what about after you have out lvl'd the contact?
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Everyone gets the merits and badges.|
Originally Posted by SuperJe
Ok.. a question then.. If you go a story arc in oroboros, does that mean you basically run the arc like a task force with a group, and at the end you all get the story reward, merits, badges ect?
cause if soo thats sounds like the best way to run an evening group with a group of people that wanna spend a few hours running arcs.. also if you do arcs that way, does it unlock the contact in the main game world so you can buy insperation from them? if soo what about after you have out lvl'd the contact? |
If you run an arc like the one that unlocks Katie everyone gets that too.
I don't think you get the inspiration thing though.
Enjoy your day please.
Tip missions, mostly everyone can join in and get rewards.
Radios/Papers have convenience factor, and tend to be easier than tips or arcs. And everyone gets the safeguard/mayhem reward.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):