Less than impressed...

I was going to make a long winded reply but heh... those who agree; agree and those who don't... don't.

Yes I could rebuild all my character who are more than level 20 to be effective at level 20. But for the sake of three missions? No chance, even if the following six arcs are for level 20s too.

If I decide to do a low level TF (note the TF) I am in the company of other people who help to make up the shortfalls in my own build. This is supposed to be a story arc (as in not a TF).

At 20 my level 40, dark/dark brute has no knock-back prot (slotted in CJ & first armour - both level 30 IOs) The pumicites even at 0/x3 (which I solo at normally) killed me twice in the second mission (I quit in disgust). I cannot heal while lying down.

personally im very disapointed in exemping too, i want to run stuff at my toons lvl, not artificially lowering their lvl

the arc itself though i thought was very cool, and i really like being able to get alignment merits from it

i rather spend 15-30 min on 1 decent arc to get merit than 10+1 tip mishs over 2 days (extremely repetitive tip mishs too)

I too was less than excited to find I was lvl 20 on my tank, but it's the nature of the beast. I get the sense that the SSAs are long stretches of time, like a season-long arc rather than a 2 part story. I can deal with that.

For those who say why must I exempt down- do you run the WTFs? This is the same deal. For the last few issues the content has been slanted almost exclusively to lvl 50, the pendulum is now shifting back the other way as it always will. These SSAs are geared more toward NEW VIPS, not us persay.

Personally I think the best function would be to apply the 'zone event' code to all the enemies in the SSA but I doubt that was possible within the timeframe of Beta.

Let me ask, that of the two scenarios I present, which is the more agreeable:

1) SSA as is. Exemp to 20, participate in the story, fight level 20 foes, earn rewards for fighting level 20s.

2) SSA without exemplaring. Stay level 50, participate in the story, wipe out level 20 foes, earn no rewards.

It may not be the best arrangement for existing high-level characters, but I understand the approach as a method for inserting additional storylines into the game to work on as you level up*. Basically analogous to the HEAT or VEAT (well, or maybe just the HEAT) arcs. Every level range you get another mini-arc to progress an overarching story. Only instead of being gated behind AT status, they're gated by paid status (they could try the same with other constraints - Origin Arcs, for example).


* edit: This works better IMO once all of these are released. It's quite possible that my level 16 Ice/Time does the arc at 20, maybe even 25, but has outleveled the other installments by time they are released.

Those three little missions are worth $5 USD? Really?

So glad I'm staying VIP, because I wouldn't pay for such ... and I intend to recommend to others that they only buy one signature arc and then ignore the rest. The way the nice reward table is being restricted to one signature arc per week per character, with the icky reward table being given for every signature arc played afterwards that week ...

From a rewards perspective, buying more than one signature arc is a suckers deal that I will happily laugh at people for doing when they (inevitably) complain.

From a story-first or gotta-have-em-all perspective, it may not be as stupid.

*sighs*

I'm surprised they expect people to pay for this. To use the phrase, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." The first impression for this is "Wait. Dude. What?"

At the very least, I know that mission 4 is in the 40-45 range (I found it in Ouro while filming my trailer - it's called "Masterpiece").

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite