Can someone explain Signnature Story Arcs (SSA)?
By
80sBaby,
Posted on: 2011-11-08 08:05 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I think you can get hero merits from every time you run them. Basically, it's about which of the Surviving Eight of the Freedom Phalanx will (apparently) die. Each arc only takes about 15 minutes maximum, and they're easily soloable on any archetype as long as you have enough inspirations to pop on an EB at the end.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Shadow_Mokadara
The SSAs are mini story arcs released on roughly a monthly basis which are part of an overall plotline; in the first instance, which of the Freedom Phalanx will die. They exist both redside and blueside with slightly different content for each and can be run once a week for Hero/Villain merits (and as many times as you like for regular merits subject to normal diminishing returns) assuming that you are the correct alignment and have confirmed that alignment by completing at least one morality mission.
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I am too, but it's really not all that hard to do the tip missions. I'd suggest turning the difficulty down to +0/x1 at most, and running with a Scrapper/Brute/Tank/Stalker until you get the hang of them. I find I can do five of these in less than half an hour most of the time, unless I get saddled with one of the hostage escort missions which can take longer.
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Originally Posted by UnicyclePeon
I am still unable to make myself do tip missions on a single character long enough to generate hero merits, because I am an altaholic.
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I usually just throw them back and wait for another tip, which doesn't take long.
| I find I can do five of these in less than half an hour most of the time, unless I get saddled with one of the hostage escort missions which can take longer. |
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So far as I can tell, the SSAs are broken as of the last patch. If you have a native hero / villain who has never run tips, the game won't recognize you as a hero / villain and will fail to offer you the appropriate a-merit award. So no a-merits at the moment for those who have not run at least one set of tips ending in a morality mission to confirm their alignment.
In particular, this affects all characters in the 11-19 range who are able to run SSA1 but are unable to run tips and a morality mission for credit.
They are available at level 10 in Skyway by Theoden and 20 by a Contact in Talos.
If you have done the Morality mission first - you can do the first one TWICE and get 2 hero merits. You can then do the other one for 1.
If you have NOT done the morality mission - you can accept a double normal merit reward (yes love all the currencies) - twice.
You can run them every 7 days for Hero Merits.
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It isn't broken - it was changed because I explained in a post how it was open for exploit because it takes less than an hour to get to 10 - you run 2 of the SSA and now in an hour or so you can indefinately get 2 hero merits over and over again. |
Originally Posted by konshu
So far as I can tell, the SSAs are broken as of the last patch. If you have a native hero / villain who has never run tips, the game won't recognize you as a hero / villain and will fail to offer you the appropriate a-merit award. So no a-merits at the moment for those who have not run at least one set of tips ending in a morality mission to confirm their alignment.
In particular, this affects all characters in the 11-19 range who are able to run SSA1 but are unable to run tips and a morality mission for credit. |
The Moderators found this less than amusing and the Devs patched the flaw. I wasn't trying to encourage and exploit - I was showing that thinking outside of the box can let you see how a potential problem could occur.
A serious farmer would just level to 10 - get the merits and cash in - delete and do it again.
Now it is fixed.
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The way the system works now, you have to run tips to affirm your heroic or villianous status before the SSA's start awarding Alignment Merits.|
Originally Posted by UnicyclePeon
All,
Anyway, I thought I heard you can get hero merits doing them? If do, how often? I am still unable to make myself do tip missions on a single character long enough to generate hero merits, because I am an altaholic. So if these have a chance to generate hero merits without me having to do 5 missions across 2 nights in a row, I am curious to try. Thanks, Lewis |
If you cant make yourself run tips now, theres no point in playing SSA's for merits.
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Shame you didn't keep mum about it and silently PM a dev about the exploit, you might have been able to get the Bug Hunter badge.
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Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades
It isn't broken - it was changed because I explained in a post how it was open for exploit because it takes less than an hour to get to 10 - you run 2 of the SSA and now in an hour or so you can indefinately get 2 hero merits over and over again.
The Moderators found this less than amusing and the Devs patched the flaw. I wasn't trying to encourage and exploit - I was showing that thinking outside of the box can let you see how a potential problem could occur. A serious farmer would just level to 10 - get the merits and cash in - delete and do it again. Now it is fixed. |
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fixed that for ya lol (bug fixer is a AE badge i believe)
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Originally Posted by DarkGob
Shame you didn't keep mum about it and silently PM a dev about the exploit, you might have been able to get the Bug Hunter badge.
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Thanks everyone. Looks like I will have some issues sticking with the initial affirmation. 
Two nights in a row on the same character? Crazytalk! Anyway, thanks for the info. I just need to figure out whether my own personal quirks will allow this.
Speaking of which, my need to have all my characters be hero status, and my need to have the scorpion shield on about 8 newish characters, means I have got to get 8 characters to 35, patron quested, and crossed over. So I guess I am still QUITE a long way away from being able to run SSAs and Tips, thanks to my compulsions. 
Thanks,
Lewis
/would totally pay 200 points on the paragon market for a LOTG.
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Not even 2 nights the first trial takes 20 minutes. You can have 2 merits in 45 minutes or so if you have your morality chosen.
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This is wrong.|
Originally Posted by ShadowMoka
I think you can get hero merits from every time you run them.
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Originally Posted by konshu
So far as I can tell, the SSAs are broken as of the last patch. If you have a native hero / villain who has never run tips, the game won't recognize you as a hero / villain and will fail to offer you the appropriate a-merit award.
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To earn Alignment Merits from the Signature Story Arcs:
1) Either start as hero/villain or change to hero/villain.
2) Run a full set of alignment missions and a morality mission to CONFIRM your current alignment. Even if you were always a hero, you still need to do this once.
3) Each arc gives you ONE FREE RUN that does not count against the timer.
4) Once you hit the timer, you can get ONE Alignment Merit - PER WEEK PER CHARACTER.
So, say you're high level and never ran any of the arcs yet. And say you have already done at least one Morality Mission to confirm your alignment - i.e. doing a Morality Mission the same alignment as your current alignment.
Then, you can run arc #1 and get an A-Merit. You can immediately run arc 2 and get another. You can immediately run arc 3 (released today) and get a third. Then you can run ANY of the arcs and get a 4th. *NOW* you have to wait one week before you can earn another on THAT character.
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The "2 nights" was referring to the alignment missions, which you MUST do first in order to be eligible to get A-Merits from the arcs.
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Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades
Not even 2 nights the first trial takes 20 minutes.
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I think my altitus and lack of attention span are going to screw me then. It will take 2 nights to qualify. 1night to earn the bonus ones (which would give me 4?). It could take me a week to do that, if I even stick with it past 1 night. But even if I did, I could only get 1 merit a week since they share a timer.
Oh well.
Maybe I need to alter my spreadsheet to track whether a character has confirmed or not.
Thanks,
Lewis
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That would have been nice to know BEFORE running SSA 3. And in game.|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
2) Run a full set of alignment missions and a morality mission to CONFIRM your current alignment. Even if you were always a hero, you still need to do this once.
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Learning about it on the forums is just the cherry on the annoyance sundae.
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Um, they tell you that at the end of SSA 1. |
Originally Posted by Baler
That would have been nice to know BEFORE running SSA 3. And in game.
Learning about it on the forums is just the cherry on the annoyance sundae. |
I just ran it last weekend for the first time (I'm a newbie) and it explained that I couldn't get the Merit because I hadn't run a Morality/Alignment Mission.
I then asked how I get Alignment quests in /HELP and they told me about Tips. Easy peasy.
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I've run the Alignment and Morality missions many times. I received Hero merits for completing SSA 1 and 2. I expected the same for SSA 3 and was surprised to learn that I have to reinforce my alignment before I can claim the Hero merit. I would have liked to know that before I ran the Arc.
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Originally Posted by 80sBaby
Um, they tell you that at the end of SSA 1.
I just ran it last weekend for the first time (I'm a newbie) and it explained that I couldn't get the Merit because I hadn't run a Morality/Alignment Mission. I then asked how I get Alignment quests in /HELP and they told me about Tips. Easy peasy. |
Oh, k.
So, you have to run a Morality/Alignment mission just before doing SSA 3, no matter how many times you did so prior?
Because that doesn't seem to make much sense.
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Yes and no. When you run a hero/villain morality mission you get one of 3 rewards as a progression:|
Originally Posted by 80sBaby
Oh, k.
So, you have to run a Morality/Alignment mission just before doing SSA 3, no matter how many times you did so prior? Because that doesn't seem to make much sense. |
1) Alignment change
2) 50 reward merits
3) 1 alignment merit
If you run the morality mission as a viglante/rogue you can only get the alignment change rewards. If you are already a hero/villain and run the identical morality mission you will get the 50 reward merits ONCE, then after that you will get the alignment merit, provided you don't change your alignment after that.
In order for the SSA to award you alignment merits you need to have completed step 2. If you start as a rogue/vigilante then you have to go through 2 sets of tip/morality missions to change first to hero/vilain, then to reinforce your alignment and get the 50 merits. If you are already a hero/villain you start out at step 2 and only have to run a morality mission once. If you have already done step 2, say on a character you use to grind alignment merits, you are GTG.
This is further complicated because there is no way to keep track of whether you have reinforced your alignment, so if you have a lot of alts like me it can get really iffy. The characters I use to regularily grind for alignment merits are safe and new characters I have been tracking, but I did SSA 3 on my widow just today, forgetting that I recently changed her back from rogue to villain (recently being a month+ ago :-). She had an excess of reward merits and I was converting them to villain merits, as thats a cheap way to get LoTG's and miracle/numina uniques even at the cost of 20 mill per conversion, but I hadn't bothered to run her through a second villain morality mission since you don't need to do that for the reward merit->alignment merit conversion.
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OK.
That makes more sense, in a convoluted sort of way, I guess.
Thanks.
Piling on...
#1) Is there any benefit to running these if you could care less about merits (of any sort)? Good XP/Drops? New characters to see? New rooms? I mean are these being designed at a House of Horrors level as far as look and feel... or is it "nothing new to see here" and better to just skip 'em if you're not into the alignment thing?
#2) I'm gathering you can solo or duo these now, but I'm getting mixed responses in-game as to what level you need to be to run these. Anyone?
Thanks.
Each of the SSAs so far incorporates at least one unique tileset and at least one unique boss fight. The third one has hands down the most elaborate boss fight outside of a trial, and you get to fight him solo! I have nothing bad to say about the SSAs, they're the best thing since sliced purples.
Oh, and as for their level, it is increasing over time. The first one is 10-20, the second one is 20-30, and the new one is 30-40. If you're higher than the maximum, you are exemped down to it for the duration.
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Originally Posted by EricHough
This is further complicated because there is no way to keep track of whether you have reinforced your alignment |
You can see it (and show it to other) under your Personal Info.
You can See, how much A-Missions or Morality Missions Alignment Changes etc. you have done.
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All,
I tend to be slow to adopt new habits, and I keep hearing about Signature Story Arcs, but I dont quite know what they are, how to do them, what the rewards are, or anything. I tend to click past new contact popups and I never look at the game login splash page. So thats probably my problem.
Anyway, I thought I heard you can get hero merits doing them? If do, how often? I am still unable to make myself do tip missions on a single character long enough to generate hero merits, because I am an altaholic. So if these have a chance to generate hero merits without me having to do 5 missions across 2 nights in a row, I am curious to try.
Thanks,
Lewis
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"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan