UltraAlt

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/joint-solar-maximum-announcement-nasa-and-noaa

I would go on to say it is better to use when you are at 1/2 health, because if you get down below 1/4 health, it is unlikely to save you from falling in combat.

Nope. I really like the sets that you think are "hokey".

Great pick. It has one of those "hokey" mechanics that you say that you don't like.

What to you expect me to say? I like Storm Blast. I like Marine Affinity, and it has a similar mechanic - so I'm assuming that you think it has a "hokey gimmick" as well. I like those sets and how they work. Do you need me to go into a big diatribe about why I think they are fun to play? You obviously don't, so that is worthless typing. I can tell you sets I do not like and that is the Assault sets, but this thread isn't about sets I don't like, now is it? Oh, but it does appear to be about sets that you think have "hokey mechanics". I guess that is what this thread was really about as you even list another mechanic that you think is "hokey". Maybe not making snide remarks to people that reply to your posts would be a good idea. I approve of:

The character list displays a yellow "pre-warning" icon to give advance notice before the inactivity period expires. Level 1-5 characters start warning 7 days prior, while level 6-49 characters start warning 30 days prior. -

Heck, if we are going with GM's already in the game I would throw in Adamastor, Caleb, Deathsurge, and a powered-up Kraken and Koago into the mix as well. I would even throw some AVs wandering around the streets of Peregrin Island like Maestro, Schadenfreude, and Nosferatu with some vampyri or packs of warwolves as backup.

There are several that post about others' arcs here, but they do not do directories of their works. If it is a forum listing that includes everyone arcs, it should be updated in the main posts that would be thumbtacked. Submissions could be replied and then whomever posted the initial post would move the new submissions into the first post on that thumbtacked listing of story arcs. I would suggest that it is titled as "AE Story Arcs" or something like that and that have a listing of story arcs by creator in alphabetical order by arc creator. I think it would be good to suggest creators that post submissions to the list include the keywords and tags (listing this at the top of the post so those looking at the post immediately know what they are looking at as they read through the listing". The listing information already done? It should be easy enough to copy-and-paste that information into the new main combined listing. For myself, I just want to see people's story arcs get some publicity so that they will be played.

I wanted to hold off replaying, but this is about my comment more than about this thread. I apologize if it hurts your feelings, but seemed to me that the Base Building Community wasn't for the average base builder. You didn't use the term "elite" but you used other terms that pointed toward that meaning. I did use that term because that was how I felt and why I step out of that areana. You and Easter Bunny were the Community Reps and the two of you were making the calls for that Community. I said my peace and I left. I didn't feel like my base building was to the "level expected" to be able to participate. That's how I felt. In reference to the elite in the case, the system AE system is already convoluted as you have pointed out. Making a spreadsheet somewhere with "approved" or "confirmed" story arcs somewhere would not be within each reach of the community either. It would have the be referenced in some locked thread here and/or on the wiki and people would have to go looking for it rather than it being in the game as easily accessible. Who would get to decide what is on the spreadsheet and who would access it? I'm assuming it would be mostly accessed by the players putting things on the list as most other players wouldn't even know it was there. That is why I suggested the in-game badges and the AE - it is in the interface; and why I suggested the "Tanker Tuesday" model as it promotes Story Arc Missions. We bump heads. That's fine. We are both outspoken, and I don't think either one of us should stop being outspoken. In the end, I think our collision brings thing to light for other people. I don't consider you to be attacking me. You shouldn't consider me to be attacking you. I'm a Jack-of-All Trades and Master of none. I'm not trying to be "the best"; I'm just trying to have fun and interact with people.

I'm there with you. Have you tried searching by the tags? Yeah. I'm there with you on the intent. I think that is what this thread is about. I believe that if it isn't in the AE itself then it will be just as dismissed as the base listing spreadsheet. Only the elite will use it, so what's the point. I don't think most players even know about the AE tag system that has been around for practically as long as the AE system has been live. I think you have your order wrong. 1) Farming 2) Enjoyable stories 3) Difficult content (and no one said that you couldn't make difficult content without AVs, but AVs are obviously difficult content while leveling and on a small team) 4) RP Farming is overwhelmingly the largest use of the AE. How often do you see /lfg messages for farming or door-sitting in the AE? When is the last time you saw a /lfg message for someone recruiting for an AE story team? RP is at the bottom of the list for sure. Players will do that in the Pocket D, in a base, or while running around doing missions. Honestly, I have NEVER run into anyone RP'ing in a mission. Someone "could" do that, but I have never seen that in an AE mission. I find your example to be intentionally extreme. I think the goal is to help prevent that from having to happen. Suggesting to search using the tags and creators names should help narrow down that search and the time "wasted" looking for favorable content. It looks like the main tags that you would want to use for searching would be Mission Type Tags [SFMA] - Story Focused Mission Arc Challenge Level Tags [LBMA] - LowBie friendly Mission Arc [MLMA] - Mid-Level Mission Arc (Appropriate for levels 20-40, Post SOs and Pre-Epic Pools) [HLMA] - High Level Mission Arc (Appropriate for levels 40+) I would also search for "low" + "level" to find more leveling-related arcs. I would suggest using the "my level" button but that apparently only really takes the first mission in an arc into account, but that can help narrow it down. What I tend to do is to pick a genre or keyword to search for. Say "Kaiju" or "Horror" (for this time of the year). Now pair that with the "my level" button and that really narrows it down. One would think "horror" might be a pretty broad category, but only 2 pages worth with the "my level" button active at level 30. Now into the tags. it seems that the search can't take them if you put them inside [ ] most of the time, but if you type in - say sfma - it will search for that. So you could click on the "my level" button and then search for horror sfma. At level 30, I'm seeing 3 arcs. I agree there aren't keyword buttons for hero, vigilante, rogue, or villain. It seems to be an oversight by the DEVs honestly. No tags were created for the alignments either. Reading the descriptions would tend to clarify what alignment the missions are in most cases. Yep. It falls down from the start. Allowing farming in the first place. Not creating an interface that is user friendly. The various "keywords" aren't even radio buttons that can be clicked for a search. Where are those "keywords" listed? You have to start creating a mission and go into Story Settings and see them listed in the Story parameters section. Easy Challenging Idea of Teams Solo Friendly Custom Charact (yep, not even "custom characters". Just "Custom Charact") Complex Mecha (yep, not even "complex mechanics") Non-canon Story Canon Related Rule the World Save the World Origin Story Magic Comedy Horror Sci-fi Drama Kid friendly Romance Mystery Of course, once you do search, those keywords are on the listings Any of this explained in the interface? No. Any tutorials about the AE in the AE interface? No. There are a good number of tutorial stuff in the wiki, but mostly it is all figure it out for yourself. No way for players to provide information in-game in the AE interface to help someone new to the interface. That's all on the Dev-side. Again, a "Tanker Tuesday" sort of situation seems to be the route to go to start. It would cut-out the selection process down to what - hopefully - would be story missions. I think this is really the starting point. AE Community lead AE mission teams. The next level is what I was suggesting originally getting the DEVs to add a "Farm" and a "Community Choice" icons. Of course some have suggested use of the search term "-", so someone could put in "-farm" and it would list all arcs without the word "farm". The "Community Choice" would be basically replacement for the inactive "Dev's choice" - and I would hope that Farms would be left out of this selection. The interface does suck. Not at all. I have like 3 50's. I am not going to level any other characters past 49. I'm even level-locking some characters at lower levels so that I have characters to join teams on par with the level of the team. This was from a while back, but ... As you can see, my average character level is below level 31 on all of the servers. It would be a disservice not to realize that around 1/2 of the community is only playing 50s (or in the process of power-leveling to 50). I like the leveling process as part of character progression, and I love to "ding". yep. The "leveling" is the game. The end-game is what is stuck on the "end" of the game. I will agree with that as well. I'm also going to wait for the more of the others in this thread to respond before responding again.

Why did I think this thread was about ideas for "couples" playing CoH?

Sounds like running into any new group of enemies in the game in general. If you don't know the "gimmick" of a enemy group, they will always have the upper hand. As a long time creator for the AE, making a story arc with enemies that are intentional easy ... isn't really a Story Arc ... it is a Farm. Can you create enemies that are impossible to defeat by certain combinations or number of characters? Sure. You can put Giant Monsters into AE arcs. I used try to make AE missions for different level ranges that were consistent throughout the arc. With around half of the players at this point only playing level 50's (or in the process of power-leveling to level 50), most players don't want to play any AE content that is going to gimp them from using their level 50 powers. It would be good to be able to search the AE for a level range, but I don't remember being able to do that. If you want "Blue" story arcs, all of mine are "heroic". Debately, some might be considered vigilante by some, but they are intended to be at the core heroic arcs. In fact, most of the Story arcs that I have picked to play from the AE are "heroic" story arcs. That can't be said for some of the story arcs that a fellow player has picked to play when I was on an AE team. Of course, they are buried alive under a sea of Farms, haven't had enough plays to be "Hall of Fame", and haven't been picked to be "Devs Choice". And that is what most of this thread started to be about - other creators are in the same position. Er, what? So you don't want a Story? You just want a fight? ... but an easy one? Seems like you are looking for Farms and not Story arcs, but I might not be following you. Yes, it is very hard to find "good" story arcs in the AE ... and that seems to be what this thread is about - finding some way to make actual Story Arcs more visible to the community by denoting them in easier ways in the interface. Not everyone is going to know to go to https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Mission_Architect_Tags and look up "tags" to use for the search feature in the AE. Not every AE creator is going to add "tags" to their Story Arcs. The whole player-based "tag" system was created almost immediately to try to differentiate story arcs from farms, but the "tags" system is not intuitive and the Mission Architect (itself) never really references the use of "tags". It is generally less likely for players to play low level AE missions. If you feel that there need to be more "leveling" missions in the AE, then you seem to know the kind of missions that you should create to fill in the gaps. Please create missions to fill in those gaps. Like base builders, the AE creators are creating missions that they think are enjoyable to play. Some are character or supergroup-centric. I have written one of those myself (but tried to leave it open so that the character is playing it is the focus even if it was created as a mission arc for a specific character). This is not my favorite mode, but some players really like recruiting players to run arc to show how great their character is (Devs have been known to do this as well). Most strive to make arcs that they believer are fun to play. Some are intentionally trying to make the missions challenging because they don't find the game in general challenging enough. There is already one built into the AE, but, yeah, I know it doesn't work as intended. Farms were not intended. I know what you are going for. I know what you did with the base listings. I was against it. I gave up on the base building community as it seemed to very elitist. I can certainly hope that the those that want to promote the AE can avoid that, but I have already seen who some of the AE creator community treats players that try to promote their missions in the forums. Others have said that it has dissuaded them from creating more content. I can't say I'm super motivated to "correct" missions that were broken in the move from before the Sunset to Homecoming's changes or flesh-out arcs that I have the basic framework laid out on already. Apparently, the discussion is limited to a few. If the few can't even organize to play AE missions together, shooting for some star in the sky is only a pipe dream. I think that the "Tanker Tuesday" model is the first mode to try at this point. If that gets going consistently, them maybe the AE creator community can gain some traction and DEV attention. yes. Use the https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Mission_Architect_Tags If you find a creator you like, then you can search by their name. And, yes, I think everyone that has been involved in this thread knows: Doesn't it seem to be the point of this thread to somehow mark missions in the AE that are "good" story arcs so that they can be easily found by players?

Fun I really don't go out of my way to fight any certain groups, but you have to love fighting Na.... errr... I mean Council and 5th Column. Frustrating This is a strange question to me. Any group that has mezes before the same level of player melee characters can gain mez protection are a a bit frustrating. But, in general, once you know the "trick" of any group, it makes them far less frustrating. I really can't make a good call on this because it is sort of archetype related, and I'm pretty patient. More fun to fight later on but disappear I'm a bit confused about this one. Are they more fun to fight later on because they are weaker than your character at that point? On general merit, I would have to say the Minions of Igneous (https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Minions_of_Igneous). They seem to be under used in general.

The ones you think have hokey gimmicks

I'm sure I probably have most of those people on ignore.

For me, it would be for making Story Arcs easier to find in the AE. They are currently buried under farms. Obviously, Farms get more plays than anything else. Obviously, Farms are played repeatedly by the same people. This gives them a chance to get Hall of Fame over time - as it is based on plays. Story Arcs simply aren't played that much. I think Farms are also going to tend to get 5 stars from pretty much everyone that plays them, so that puts many Farms in the 5 star list. Devs Choice, hopefully, never picked farms for that level of "story" recognition. At least, I would hope that the Devs Choice were based on "story" and not on "farm-ability". All that being said, I have had at least one my arcs was called a "farm with a story" - probably because of two of the maps picked are large open areas. The enemies, however, were not the kind of enemies that one would but in a farm to make farming easy - which is the whole point of a farm. I'm assuming those that make Farms would have no issue with their farm missions being marked with a Farm icon. Based on my prior comment, I think that a player should have a right to have the Farm icon removed if its placed on an arc that they created as a Story Arc. I also think that any arc granted Community Choice icon should not be a Farm and should clearly be a Story arc. And I do mean arc; I don't think that Community Choice should go to one or two mission Story arcs. I think it should be at least three missions long. To me, things that set story arcs apart from farming are the dialog, enemy choices, complexity in the arc, and obvious story progression through the arc - both in story and setting/maps. This is all sound. The people that would want to promote this are the most likely to want to have their arcs played. I keep my mask on, but I wouldn't feel fair to judge my own arcs if it was going to grant a reward. That being said, I would like other people to find my story arc in hopes that they would enjoy them and they are lost in a sea of stuff so no one is likely to find them if they are just browsing for a mission to play in the AE terminal. So maybe the route to go is to figure out when people could play together consistently (day of the week and say a 2 hours time - most weeks - kind of like Tanker Tuesdays). Once the group can gather, then people that want to participate can generate a list of missions to play; tack new missions added to the list on to the end but mix it up so that one creator's arcs aren't being run back to back. The group can use /LFG to fill if they have room/want. (As far as I know, players can still join AE arcs at any time - unlike task forces, etc.) If the team doesn't finish an arc in one week, it rolls over to the next week. Does this sound like something that will make a step toward achieve the goal of Story missions being played in the AE?

I think you are ignoring the fact that some some players are trying to speedrun everything ... most often it seems because they are level 50+ already. The people that rush out of missions are going to be the first ones rushing into the next mission .... before everyone else gets there. I can agree with this, and I generally go with this. Dependant on the archetype I'm playing, I'll sometimes wait until everyone else is safely out before leaving a mission.