Zamuel

[record screech]
Ahem...don't know quite what happened there. Um, anyways on to the critique.


Story and structure

I'm not too keen on using the clues to repeat what's already in the mission. It's not an outright bad idea but could be tweaked perhaps to add different insights or to be spoken in a different voice. I also don't know if you need to outright mention the color schemes and the "(S)tart and (F)inish" notations. If you do, you may want to tweak things a bit to make them even more like a briefing than it already is. Not sure of quite the right way to do that though.

You use a setup similar to some authors in that you use very few clues. This can be potentially good though you shouldn't give up the chance for using clues to elaborate.

Deadfall doesn't give her text until she reaches the door even though "Please... help me... get to the rendezvous... point." sounds like something she'd say once you meet her. May not be fixable since some escorts can be weird but just noting that.

Perhaps it's just me but "Ambush Leader" seems a bit too...obvious. Perhaps renaming the objective to something along the lines of "Check out the commotion" would be a way to name the objective without giving things away.

In mission 2, you have a situation with multiple glowies. In a ways, it's very unneeded since the false glowies are in the same area, it's not a timed mission, and they don't do anything. Using the false glowies to give out some extra but optional information could be nice. I'd actually suggest running @Paula's Advanced Tutorial for examples and ideas.

The final map, well...it's that map. I mean, I use it too but there's some fundamental differences with using it for your arc as opposed to mine. Your customs have stealth while I made a point of giving some of mine auras. Also, you have a mid twenties arc while mine is meant for high levels. Speaking of which, I'd suggest extending the range up to 29 or 30 rather than capping at 27.

I know what you were going for and can sympathize since map selection is sort of limited for arcs set in the past or in mystical or otherworldly settings. Two maps that could potentially work, Floating Ziggurat and the Storm Palace, aren't available. I might suggest Unique -> CoT -> Vaults of Mu since it has an otherworldly feel. It can potentially an eyestrain so that's a possible negative.

Enemy design

"Oh my stars and garters."

What you have is a "Kill Agent M!" situation. (I wonder how many from the AE SG remember that...) Basically, your customs are probably fine, if challenging, solo but start getting really nasty on a team. Individual powers are fine but when you're dealing with Pain buffs + Tar Patch + to hit debuffs + exotic damage + status effects, it gets pretty bad. Main point of argument is that this is a mid to late 20s arc as opposed to a high level arc where a character has more powers and slots to deal with all that. It may take a bit of fine tuning to figure out what needs to stay and what needs to go.

With Dhahabu Kingdom and the Unfathomable Nightmare of Sand, I specifically added the Sand Raven minions and LTs in order to thin out what is otherwise a relatively buff/debuff heavy enemy group. You may want to either swap out some powers or add more customs or repurposed canon enemies. Repurposed canon enemies can be a great option if you're concerned about xp amounts. If available, recolored versions of Living Armor from the Midnighter enemy faction would be a good idea. Also, recolored versions of Red Cap bosses may work as well since their stature is different than regular humans. I state the bosses since lower ranks can potentially respawn as a higher rank and I don't know if they'd retain the coloring. Also contemplating Legacy Chain and CoT Hordelings.

Something Glazius does that's probably good after a first pass at lower settings is to run at +0 x2 with bosses on. It's not a full team setup but should give an eye for some stacking issues with powers that are otherwise fine in isolation. Plus, running in Test Mode means no debt plus special tools so you could potential test x8 situations.

One final thing, despite the darkness theme, straying away from the Darkness powersets may wind up being very helpful in balancing the arc for teams. Also, make sure your xp slider when picking powers is set to 30 as opposed to 50 since lvl 50 customs require more powers to be 100% but this isn't a lvl 50 arc.

Spelling and grammar

Mission 3 bio
Spirit of Power
Do not seek more than you recieve...
-should be-
Do not seek more than you receive...

Mission 4 outro
The dark mystics have been driven away and the tome of alteration destroyed. IT seems me'tuka wants you to enter the shadow portal.
-should probably be-
The dark mystics have been driven away and the tome of alteration destroyed. It seems Me'tuka wants you to enter the shadow portal.

Mission 5 sendoff
Your nerve endings fluxuate between a tingling sensation and total relaxation. Your body temperature rises bririefly in your extremeties.
-should be-
Your nerve endings fluctuate between a tingling sensation and total relaxation. Your body temperature rises briefly in your extremities.

Stealth fixes are good in the fact that they are fixes but the not knowing is problematic. While I appreciate you letting us know, there really should have been patch notes keeping people updated if there was a fix Tuesday. It's even comparable to how there were requested maps that were added during I19 but not listed in patch notes to let people know. It's not just the fact that this happened that has people riled up but rather the speed of communication combined with the silence on other issues concerning AE. Arguably, there should have been a GMOTD regarding this issue since many don't view the forums and were wondering what was wrong with arcs they played.

As people are pointing out, a number of common words are still blocked. It's interesting (if annoying) that AE was always known to have a more strict filter than character names from the main game despite the need for more leniency due to context clues. Obviously Spiderman (sP1d3rman?) should be disallowed but with redside being centered around Arachnos, "spider" in itself should be fair game.

This and things like it are arguably among the most "important" parts of this thread. As stated, this is a nice looking game but sometimes it obscures itself. Adding onto that, these countless effects can lag out some computers.

With the actual suggestion part of this:

• Floating Decals Know how there's various chest details like Eye of Horus and Infinity? Why not have an aura variant that has these glowing and floating just slightly off the chest. Maybe even the option for a smaller version in front of the face.
• SG Costume Change emote Do a chest thrust, a huge burst of light followed by a large Floating Decal version of whatever your SG picked as their logo, and then change to the new outfit.
• Digital Stream While the digital stream for AE is pretty cool, the version that sits under the contact's feet is way too bright. A more muted version would be nice. Also, it would be nice to have one available as a player aura.

A most delectable dish. Quite light and flighty like you would expect from Annette's antics but with its own unique and surprising flavor. Most interesting is the lack of warehouses despite the City of Heroes influence. A departure from the norm that tickles the palette. I'd definitely try this again.

Wait... Hamster is AmazingMoo? I mean, I know Hamster and Satanic Hamster are two entirely different people but I didn't know that's who Hamster is.

It's probably not needed. It's just a weird mental organization quirk in that since I "know" the Dewey Decimal system runs from 000 to 999, I find myself wanting to rearrange them and the inability to do so mildly drives me nutty. I will note that they aren't organized in clues in the order you find them. Rather, it's whatever order you have in your arc.

Actually got to run this twice. While it probably plays better solo, in a group you have the ability for other's to catch the references.

There's at least one person capable of getting you a successful Abandoned Sewer Trial run.

It should still be added to the list but I wonder if it's WAI. You survive at full life due to the anti one shot code but lower than that it's effectively acting like you're being hit by burst damage.

...is it?


I say that because while this patch has hurt us massively, all those people farming iTrials would have a fit if their rewards were taken away to fix our problem. It sucks but I'm fully aware of just how low we are on the priority list. It can all be summed up with pointing at one feature request: increasing the number of purchasable arc slots from what it is now. A lot of things come down to money, yet Paragon Studios/NCSoft deems us as unimportant enough that we aren't even worth selling to.

Something else is that we don't have a big name supporting us. You, Bubbawheat, Lazarus, Wrong Number, and others do a lot for this community. However, that's not the same recognizability and clout that say Arcanaville or Zombie Man may wield.

I'd argue that (unfortunately) we aren't in quite the same situation. AE is a commodity that can be put on the back burner in favor of other things under the company umbrella. Primarily, we aren't the majority. Intriguingly, my comparison is how numerous companies can ignore a safety issue since they can do fine or even "save" money pushing that aside. Luckily we actually aren't that bad but it's essentially the same situation. I mean, they let Admiral Sutter TF get away with nuking people in hospitals for weeks and villains got screwed over with the Merit Rewards for Barracuda SF for months before anything was done. I will say I'm pretty sure that if the Incarnate Trials, ITF, or a new badge were affected then response time would be far faster. Then again, more people would be testing and catching those.

And of course there's the silence. I mean, Zwillinger has been doing a great job as community rep but there's others who have been silent concerning AE in the public eye. Plus I'd argue that it takes a glitch of THIS magnitude for there to be a visible response.

You have Glazius to thank for that. Previously, mission 4 intro text was worded differently and the player just sort of went OF COURSE! [/mbison] with the plan for using the crystal. While the idea was to try to put control in the player's hands, it wasn't as smooth of a progression as the current version. Plus, it gave me the ability to add more backstory to the conflict.

Upon looking at the Sand Ravens I notice that part of the problem was that they had Quickness from Super Reflexes. I decided to let the minions keep Quickness but lose flight. The LTs will keep Flight but lose Quickness in favor of one of the resistance passives. The unique boss Sand Raven Shuja was Ninjitsu instead of SR so no worries there.

Likewise, there was a fair bit of radio silence there.

In a lot of ways, the flight on the Sand Ravens was deliberate due to their name. I'll keep it on the boss and LT versions but I will remove it from the minion versions due to the sheer numbers. Dehydrated Servants are an intriguing attempt at adding a sort of zombie. While Drain Psyche has the potential to be nasty, even in the darkness you can target them before you "see" them. I may add another type of minion but I'm not sure of what since the LTs are quite varied (the enemy group uses a 2:3:1 ratio of minions, LTs, and non-unique bosses).

I probably need to tweak the wording there. Essentially, the drought curse is sort of like a PBAOE. If you move Queen Ubuge far enough away, you won't feel the effects. Though it's a little impolite to drop her on someone else's doorstep.

I'm glad she actually survived long enough for you to see that. Teams tend to sort of just eat her alive before the ambush reaches her since she lacks a defense/resist secondary (something I'll adjust whenever this current AE glitch is fixed).

Bugged...unless Queen Auri is crossing the fourth wall and is most displeased with your performance.

Intriguingly, the optional Circle mages and the Dusty Reliquary weren't in the original versions of the mission and were explicitly added to lessen the monotony and to enhance the story. Giving them different dialog is a good suggestion to make things more interesting. All things considered, I should probably add a Sand Obelisk or two as well.

Yes.

Yes, it's been confirmed that Dev's Choice arcs drop shards. It would be nice if we got some new Dev Choice at some point but that's a discussion for another time.

This map is available in AE but I think it requires unlocking. Some maps need to be purchased with tickets from the vendor at the top of the stairs. I believe that specific map is actually under Unique -> Warehouses as opposed to the casinos.