Zamuel
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Posts
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Joined
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Just a friendly bump. Hope to see everyone come out.
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Quote:I actually have a character semi-permanently locked at lvl 41 specifically for the Eden Trial. I just recently turned xp back on since another character is in range but I might turn it back off for him due to the WST.Originally Posted by Eric Nelson
I think I'll PL a toon up to that range this week and lock it and offer it to my server for starting Eden Trial runs, just because of this thread.
Or, you know, the devs could fix it.
Slightly more sinister thought: They could replace Eden with the Abandoned Sewer Trial...
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Since your thread is still active, I'd like to submit Dhahabu Kingdom and the Unfathomable Nightmare of Sand: #453511. I tested it and it seems fully playable despite the current glitch, however I discovered at least one error that will need fixing in the future.
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Quote:It's not the length but rather the formatting and actual wording. Line breaks and careful pacing can make a wall of text a lot easier to climb.Originally Posted by SupaFreak
How many lines of contact text in a paragraph is too much or too little?
It really depends on the color used and placement. I will say that too many different colors is quite distracting.Quote:Does the use of color at key points help or distract?
I think the mission popup can help out a fair bit in setting the mood. I'll say be wary on directly stating contact actions since it can sometimes take you out of the story rather than pull you in.Quote:How important are details such as environment flavor or subtle contact actions?
Rather than "per mission" I'd say be careful with having more than 20 per arc since it can potentially be a wall of text. I'll admit that I've probably broken this suggestion at least once. On the flip side, it personally feels weird for an arc to have no clues at all but there are authors who make it work. I'd err on the side of adding a clue versus using the mission outro text since the rest of the team can't see it and clues in AE are created for team members who join late and missed full missions.Quote:How many Clues per mission is too much?
Just like with mission text; it can be very helpful but you must be wary on not overdoing it.Quote:Is labeling or coloring of Clues pertaining to a mission a good thing? -
Had an interesting little discovery that I hope helps in solving this. The arcs were throwing out errors in for an enemy group in Test mode despite not even remotely seeming like traditional generic superhero names. In trying to edit the group itself I noticed two things. In the mission editor there were random stray characters/symbols listed as being in the group. In the group editor the system was not saving changes to Do Not Autospawn. I'm assuming part of it is dropped/missing and not properly closing out that part of the internal files. Not sure this is a direct result of or in addition to the overzealous filter.
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Quote:I've never heard of this before and it's not in ParagonWiki. Is this one of those Gamestop GR enhancements? (and if so, it should probably be added)Originally Posted by Roderick
Might of the Empire: Damage/Recharge/Chance to Knockdown
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Quote:I only partially agree with the latter and sort of disagree with the former. While it's long since stopped, Æntertainment Tonight did a good job of pointing out things that the author may not have caught while also recommending arcs they thought were good among submissions. Great arcs need reviews so that people know they exist. While an author may not want a bad review in video form, a respectful review with solid suggestions can only help them.Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
This is one of the problems I have with this project - great arcs don't really need a review, and arcs that need help don't want a bad review on video.
In one of your videos a user made a suggestion that you should have a music cue at the startup/intro. Might I suggest this: http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//7/76/TPN_BumberMX.ogg -
Outdoor_unique_forest_02c_rikti
v_great_ceremony
misdirectedportal
the_beast_and_the_sea
v_outdoor_shadow_molepoint
winter_06/winter_event06_croatoa
v_outdoor_longbow_cargobase
cot_ghostwidow_summoning_circle
v_crystal_caves
iom_portal_corp
iom_fb_croatoa
iom_fb_kings_row
v_outdoor_cathedral_of_pain
i20_vsf_odysseus_office
i20_vsf_oranbega
i20_vsf_odysseus_warehouse
i20_vsf_positron_lab
h_admiral_sutter_tf_atlantic_ocean
h_admiral_sutter_tf_talos
iom_fb_outbreak
coralax_cave
midnighter_office
vwarehouse_to_shapercave
safeguard_kings_row
portal_corp_lab
crey_offices
clone_factory_bottomfloor
vahz_sewers
vahz_office
sewers_clockwork_vs_vahz
independence_port_robbery
old_warehouse_multilevel
clone_factory_finale
iom_talos_conference
ppd_precint
outdoor_ship_burning
iom_skyraider_tech_platform -
Quote:Putting all this pressure on people.Originally Posted by BackFire
Zamuel is hard at work choosing arcs for the day on his home server!
Anyway, we discovered some fun stuff concerning AE and Leagues that I hope to experiment with next week. -
Actually, the AI will prefer healing if set to a ranged preference. I think there's a few other quirks to it here and there but I forget exactly what they are.
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Due to varying comments and suggestions, I propose that the Victory meeting take place at 4PM EST instead of 12 PM.
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I'll be shifting this to a 4:00 PM EST start time. That way it'll be later in the day yet even if some arcs run long it shouldn't conflict with a ship raid which I believe start at 8. I'll probably show up at the earlier time as well for the heck of it but that won't be the event time.
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This is some pretty solid stuff in the patch including a number of fixes for varying kinds of content. Extremely pleased with preventing the airstrikes from hitting the hospital in the Sutter TF. Was ruining any desire I had of running it.
I do agree that more shard conversion options would be a good thing. It would be really nice if there was some form of sidegrade from Notices to threads or even iXP. -
We generally meet once a week on Saturday/Sunday (it's fluctuated a bit over time) but it was decided to meet on different servers. For instance, Justice is April 24 and this prior Sunday was Pinnacle. So it's sort of a one time event for this server but weekly for the event.
If it makes you feel any better, I tend to be a few minutes late most of the time. What time are the ship raids usually run on Sundays? I'm thinking of making this 3 hours before the raid so the two won't conflict yet it's later than the set time.
While I'm plotting out some good stuff to run, if anyone is curious about the nuttiness we sometimes get into with bad arcs, the original meeting thread is here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=194302 -
Understandable. In fact, I might suggest shifting it an hour or two if enough people are interested but it is otherwise too early.
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http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=256446
The Mission Architect SG that usually meets on Triumph is spreading out amongst the various other servers for the next few weeks. With this being my home server, I volunteered to lead the event here. Really it's just simple teaming for a few non-farm AE arcs in RWZ so it's coop. Any level is allowed and I've got a few ideas of what to run.
Giving a heads up to those who might be interested in joining us but don't regularly read the AE section of the forums. -
Quote:I'd actually argue that the new version of the Abandoned Warehouse texture doesn't look good at all but that's because it's half and half of the new and old and looks incredibly unprofessional.Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
The new ones look 100x better.
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I would like to submit Dhahabu Kingdom and the Unfathomable Nightmare of Sand: #453511 for entry.
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It periodically spikes up and down per Issue. Sometimes it's super smooth and other times it's unbearable and/or has a high chance of crashing the system.
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Quote:One of the things I like about Galaxy is the fact that there's breathing room between its main attractions. I will say that knocking down a few of the non-descript buildings and perhaps either raising or tweaking others would help.Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
Freedom Court, boxed in by skyscrapers, is shunted off to the side. Its sightlines don't take in nearly as much of the zone. The main attractions - Galaxy Girl's statue, the arena, the monorail, and AE - are detached from each other in the wider neighborhood and can't form a cohensive sense of space. Since no particular geographic element dominates the rest of the map, the zone's that much less attractive for a villain's domination.
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I have to wonder if the statue of Galaxy Girl would be more iconic if it were placed in front of Freedom Corps rather than behind it. Then again, it might be better with a different pose. It is a little interesting that Galaxy City does seem to be 100% ignored in-game at times. I started my first character there and I'd argue that the slightly longer musical key for the starting area sounds better than the one in Atlas. Then there's all the other things noted here like Freedom Corps and a much bigger longevity to the city's lore that would make it seem like a prime target.
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Quote:Yeah Eden feels like nothing else in the game as far as the map is concerned. Which is interesting considering it's blatantly linear.Originally Posted by Crazy_Larry
I mean, when you step into the Eden trial, it feels so much different than anything else in the game. Even if that trial has become somewhat easy and the "epic-ness" has faded somewhat, it FEELS epic, and the devs need to be incorporating that feeling into the new Incarnate trials.
Quote:Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
I couldn't agree more. Let's not also forget that Paragon, the Rogue Isles, and Praetoria are a City of Super Heroes, a City of super Villains, a paranoid police state respectively, it'd be easy to imagine that the office buildings (To say nothing about any of the other places) would have panic rooms, shutters and sturdy doors to lock areas down, people working in them erecting barricades, or even the enemies raiding the building have brought portable shield wall generators or made their own barricades to impede your progress. And then there's the idea of other security measures spawning, such as batteries mini-defense turrets, security cameras (in the form of those laser strobes from mayhem missions), or even just traps laid out by others.
From there maps can become amazingly creative in ways to circumvent these things. Like finding the security office and hacking/taking over the security systems to make things easier, busting down barricades with our raw POWAH!, or even just a clever reskin of what's basically an elevator in the form of fire stairs, open windows near drain pipes, open elevator shafts, air ducts, etc. etc.Quite simply, maps need to be more dynamic and need better insight to their creation even if they are nonsensical in the actual design. A lot of maps have doors that are just scenery. If objectives could open them up, it could make things pretty interesting. Well, it'd be interesting if Reveal didn't exit.Quote:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
This is the point where I start to question developer priorities, to be honest. Most of the tilesets we use now have been in the game since Launch. Think about it - normal/old offices, normal/old warehouses, blue labs, caves, Column/Council caves, Oranbega, sewers, pink tunnels (Issue 1), ships (Issue 3)... OK, CoV has its own versions of most of the old maps, but those are just reskins of existing tilesets. And even Going Rogue uses reskins of offices and warehouses.
We've gotten new bits to old tilesets exactly ONCE - around I8 or something like that, and it was a HUGE improvement. A dozen new corridor pieces, a dozen new rooms, it made things almost new again... For offices and warehouses, anyway. Nothing new for blue labs ever, nothing new for sewers at all, still the same three ship maps...
The single greatest complaint said by easily the most people ever against this game is the instances. Why they're a problem varies from person to person, but they're almost always the problem. They're repetitive, they're nonsensical, they're boring... And how much has been done for them? Not all that much. In fact, the more genuinely new instances we get, the more boring they become. No offence to Praetorian labs, but those are mostly just giant square warehouses with props strewn about.
Instances are hover half of what we spend our time in, if not more, so why do they always receive such rock bottom priority?
More tools for both the developers and players would be nice but I sort of don't see it happening. However, you make a massive point that things like mansions should be "easy" to make by re-purposing assets.Quote:Originally Posted by Serva_Obscura
Personally I think the reason we don't get new tilesets (I only really count the troll/rikti/cimeorran caves and the Praetorian labs, the rest are so similar to existing assets or just so small) is because the devs know with their current build tools they would still need to manually generate a load of maps using those prefabs. A directed-random map generator with an extended tileset would do _so_ much for the game.
I've said it once and I'll say it again, Paragon _need_ to invest in their build tools. With all of the assets they have available it should take a day to knock up 5 new mansion-style maps (re-using offices and the midnighter building)
If they updated the build tools they could hold a competition to let players build maps for the game, hell just update the demorecord format we'd do it in text files if needed. Get us to do the work. -
I think there is one or two minions or LTs with 3 powersets but it's something insignificant. As in, two obviously different attack sets + an armor. Big Dog in the Destroyers enemy group seems to have two copies of Hurl Bolder. I think the bigger issue is options such as AR + "Brawl" + passive armor that a lot of enemies have that isn't properly able to be reproduced.
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www.paragonwiki.com Is a good site for all CoH information and it also has breakdowns of enemy group powers. It may take a little bit of fine tuning here and there, especially since some groups may act quite differently when mixed.
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I'm going to handle Beastangel's Catalyst X Cometh #491298 a little different than most that I've done. While I have the typo information in Notepad and will probably still go over it in a future post, I'm going to concentrate on the overall story structure and enemies. I think there's a sizable amount of "I see what you're going for but..." to everything.
Enemy Design
You've got a number of enemies with similar color schemes. While this helps to make them seem like a unified group, they tend to blend together so it's harder to tell them apart. What I suggest is to add a 3rd trim color and there's even multiple options for that too. You can either add the color based on rank (white on minions, blue on LTs, etc) or simply add a color for each individual enemy.
Some of your enemies seem a little too strong though that depends on if you want this to be a challenge or not. Some of what I'm saying may be ignorable if you intend it to be a challenge.
The status protection and decent damage on Hollow Soul Elite is fine on its own but she really shouldn't have a Tier 9 defensive power. What makes this different than Paragon Protectors using Moment of Glory is that I think you were using Elude. Elude's move speed buffs in addition to the Elite's ability to fly prevents you from using things like Caltrops that you could have otherwise slowed down a MoG user.
The strength of the end of mission bosses is a little uneven since you start with an EB/AV then down to a Boss/EB then back up to EB/AV. Might not be a major issue but just feels a little off.
Brimstone has both Blazing Bolt and Volcanic Gas. Blazing Bolt does an incredible amount of damage and is not interruptible on AE enemies. Volcanic Gas actually scares me slightly more since it has the potential to stack itself to roughly a +12 mag hold which can actually overcome some melee characters. However, it's a locational summon so in a lot of other ways it may not be that bad since it forces the player to move around instead of standing in just one spot.
One final issue that may be really difficult to adjust is "sameness". While you have different bosses and maps (more on maps later), you fight the same enemy group throughout the arc. It's good to mix things up but with your arc's story there may not be a good way to add a different enemy group that still fits.
Story and Mission Structure
While heroes do right because they are the forces of good, in some ways the arc lacks a personal connection. Perhaps having an optional rescue in the first mission can help in the feeling of the enemies threatening innocent people. I think this goes double for the fact that Void Wolf does a lot of "I'll stay behind to protect people" type of comments. Also, Void Wolf himself lacks a bio. A little surprising since while a few typos may need cleaning on some of the enemies, everything else has a bio.
You have a lot of simplistic objective names like "Lord Glaudo" as opposed to "Defeat Lord Glaudo" that are more descriptive. Also, an increase in clues would help. Don't overdo it but a few will add to the story.
Mission 2 doesn't really need to be a defeat all. In fact, I think it may even go against the idea of the mission. Catalyst X has magic crystals and you are stealing them before he receives the shipment in order to thwart his plans. Attacking the crew would alert them to what you're up to. You could leave Brimstone in as an optional or even required objective since while you may not want them to know you're there, taking out a major general would be good. Also, you may want to change the name so that the name simply calls them crystals while the bio or clue reveals that they're from the netherworld.
You do a good job of keeping your arc fresh by keeping the maps varied and I like that you used the mausoleum cave for one. However, I question the choice of a CoT cave for mission 3. Either you should add more descriptive information about James infiltrating one of the enemy's caves or you could use one of the offices that transition to a cave to imply that he was attacked in his home or office. Also, you may want to mention James in the first mission so that mission 3 has more weight.