Zaphir

Submitted: Who Dares Wins, id #454805


-- Z.

I updated a few things in the arc -- thanks to all who sent me feedback!

- Byers in M2 is now a Captain instead of a Wing Raider Officer; this will make him not run away when wounded. Wing Raiders are cowards, who knew?!
- M3 redesigned. It is now a 'stealth mission' instead of a 'semi-creepy empty map mission': the PPD and the heroes are already present instead of appearing once the "key" collection item is found. About 1/2 of the spawns were turned into patrols to allow some stealth action even for non-stealth ATs. Subsequently, all collections except for the "key" in the last room are now optional goals, as is the defeat of the heroes (having any of them as required just wouldn't make sense).
- (optional) clue added to M3 regarding communication with the Sky Raider main base.
- Patrol banter added to M3.
- M4 spawns were made more sparse (base group set to "Empty", and I force spawn about 15 groups in via an optional objective, as opposed to the 46 total spawns if I just let the zone spawn groups normally). This makes the number of Sky Raiders present more logical from a story perspective. It will hopefully also remove some of the annoyance wrt Z-axis shenanigans and make the map easier to stomach*. Sadly changing maps was not really an option. Believe me, I've tried. :/
- M4 briefing modified: added a hint that the player should seek out the sky skiffs. Only the 3 'main' boss groups have sky skiffs; the only 'normal' bosses spawning in the mission are jump bots. This should make the bosses easier to pick out from afar (along with their voice cues).
- M5 complete text slightly modified to make the ending more obvious.
- Arc is now Final; I submitted it to the challenge. Note that this doesn't mean I won't change the arc ever after feedback, but all updates are on hold until the challenge is over.


Thanks again to all who played the arc, especially FredrikSvanberg, Lord of Storms and Wrong Number for feedback and especially especially (!) Bubbawheat and GlaziusF for their reviews!

* anecdote: when testing this arc, I used two super-speeder characters with no flight / jump temp powers whatsoever. It's not as bad as it seems at first!


-- Z.

Awesome, thanks for the review -- glad to hear you liked it!

I've been looking at M3 and M4 myself. I've actually been looking for a smaller map for M4 (there is a certain sense of epicness with the size, but... there aren't that many sky raiders ). Is the CaD power station map the one you're referring to?

I agree with you about making M3 a real stealth run and it won't need many changes: just set the bosses to spawn in with some distribution, add some extra ppd stuff / banter and make everything optional, then make the player have to run to the exit. I've also noticed Byers going crazy when being hit. I wonder if it's due to the type of mob I chose... will try other lts (captain, porter maybe?).

edit: I just checked: the power station map is out, sadly mobs spawn all over the place, including the really-high-up catwalks and building-tops. The other outdoor industrial map [city industrial 01] has mobs spawning on the surrounding catwalks as well [all levels], but not on the building-top itself. Hmmm....
edit 2: Looks like turning Byers into a standard Captain made him not run away, whew.
edit 3: I turned M3 into a more stealthy mission with pre-spawned enemies/patrols and an extra glowie. Made everything optional except for the desk in the last room, but didn't require the player to run back to the entrance -- that's what the teleportation harness is for! As a side effect, half of the harness' power is drained, thus causing the demise of our "hero" at the end of the arc...


thanks again,

-- Z.

Added Bubbawheat's review to the first post (many thanks for the review, btw!)

I'm also curious about how M4 plays in general (it's one of the outdoor factory maps). There is a lot of Z-axis action going on, and the map is unfortunately rather large. Does this map warrant the addition of 'flavor' boss groups / collectibles / etc (optional of course, just to mix up the enemies some), or would that make it too cluttered / busy?

Another possible point I'm wondering about is the difficulty of M5. The boss-level ally might be overkill; I don't want to make the arc too hard, but having a "too-easy" mission might just kill the enjoyment of some people. So far nobody complained about it, so I'll leave it as it is.. for now.


As always, comments / input are welcome!

-- Z.

Welcome back!

Actually, now that the 3rd challenge is going on, I'd really appreciate a 'real' review on my entry "Who Dares Wins" (#454805) instead of the post-apoc experiment -- feel free to remove #445456 from your list.

CoHMR link is here; arc thread is here.


Thanks again,

-- Z.

My [vigilante] thugs/pain mastermind "The Last Sheriff" is not entirely sane... he thinks he's the law in the wild west of the 21st century. He also watched way, way too many western movies. And no, I have no idea how he manages to retain his recruits -- the 'Arsonist' position has an especially high turnover rate.

Good (Punk)
Bad (Punk)
Ugly (Arsonist)

Butch Cassidy (Enforcer)
Sundance Kid (Enforcer)

Wyatt Earp (Bruiser)


(I also had "Major Havoc" as a merc/traps MM, but he got deleted at level 4 or so. I was going to use names from Catch 22, but the character didn't get far enough for that)


Saddle up pardner,

-- Z.

It is the year 2016. Two years ago, a solar cataclysm all but destroyed life on Earth; the few survivors of the disaster hid underground or sought other means of shelter. Now, a month after the fury of the Sun has subsided once again, the various survivor factions all over the globe scramble to reclaim what is now known as the... Scorched Earth.

The two arcs below take place at the same time (it's not an arc series, though you might recognize certain connections once you played both). They are level 20-25 (a necessity due to the enemy groups involved) -- however, I've playtested them with low and high level characters alike.

Arc Name: Kali's Scythe
Arc ID: 445456
Faction: Heroic or Vigilante. Neutral is a stretch.
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Zaphir
Difficulty Level: Easy. Only stock Lost/Circle of Thorns/Hydra/??? for the most part; the end boss is a (standard) EB, but you have a boss-level ally to help.
Synopsis: You've spent the last two years in a secret Vanguard bunker under Atlas Park along with a handful of Vanguard personnel and some civilians. As the only hero denizen, you have a difficult task ahead of you -- try to find survivors, deal with any dangers that might be lurking outside, and search for clues relevant to the cause of the disaster.
Estimated Time to Play: 45 minutes, maybe more if you do all the (optional) objectives and read the text.
Link to More Details or Feedback: Arc / setting thread

Arc Name: To Reign in Hell
Arc ID: 448234
Faction: Villain or Rogue.
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Zaphir
Difficulty Level: Moderate. Standard enemy groups (Arachnos, Legacy Chain, ???) with a custom EB end boss. You have at least a powerful Lieutenant-level ally at your disposal to deal with the end boss, along with other sources of help if you're crafty.
Synopsis: You got lucky when the disaster hit -- you were loitering in Grandville and your survival instinct led you to a nearby high-security shelter. After knocking out the guards, you locked yourself into what was apparently the private bunker of an Arachnos Arbiter with its own power source, food and drink aplenty, a huge television and enough DVDs to last you a lifetime. Two years later the control panel indicates that it is safe to go topside once more. Time to seize your opportunity and make the best of this disaster!
Estimated Time to Play: 45 minutes, maybe more if you do all the (optional) objectives and read the text.
Link to More Details or Feedback: Arc / setting thread
Note: Your contact in this arc is the Television, with all the soft character mind-control / silliness that implies. If you don't like Television, stay away!

I've added a souvenir and done some playtesting with my SGmates (+ solo on a low-20s MM and Fortunata), so I think the arc is kinda-sorta ready for primetime.

I'm very interested in feedback, so don't hold back!


thanks in advance,

-- Z.

Well, your situation is very different from mine wrt getting your arcs played, so I'm not sure how well my experiences can apply in this case.

But still, the arc is probably close enough to 4.5 (I imagine it was mostly well-received) that getting a dozen 5-star plays might just catapult the new-old arc to instant page 1 status. From those numbers I'd say that is likely -- you seem to be getting a lot of plays on even your newer arcs, and challenge arcs tend to get a rush of plays either way. To me it seems to be a smaller gamble than starting afresh.

That's just my opinion, though!


-- Z.

I'd definitely not unpublish an arc with 165 plays. Unless AE gets some major changes, there's no way you'll get that many plays normally for a new arc, IMO. You are lucky to get more than 10 (and that's with 5 people in your SG playing it on day 1); going on personal experience here. :/

I'll elaborate. I have 5 arcs currently:
- the first one was made before the 'big AE nerf', and has the most plays (it's also the most critically acclaimed because people actually played it ) at 47. It's at the point where getting a 5-vote would put it into 5-star territory, but it has received only one play in the past 9 months.
- the second one was made for Aeon's second challenge; it has 17 plays (SGmates, reviewers, and other contestants for the challenge, mostly). It received zero plays since the challenge.
- the third and fourth ones were made a month ago with standard advertisement ingame / on the forums; they have received exactly *one* 'random play' (outside SGmates and explicit solicitations), even though they both sit at a 5.0 star average and 10-5 plays respectively (!)
- I finished my fifth arc for the 3rd Aeon Challenge just a day ago, so no data yet.

So yeah, I definitely wouldn't unpublish an arc that has more than 50 plays, even if it's in 4-star land. I would basically rewrite the arc I was least satisfied with (without unpublishing it) and keep the plays, *especially* if you think the arc might get over the 4.5 hurdle with a few good ratings.


-- Z.

'Eya,

I finished the 'first draft'* of my arc for the 3rd Aeon Challenge and I'd really appreciate a review if you have time:
"Who Dares Wins" (Arc ID #454805, Rogue alignment)

Level range is 30-35 and it should be fairly easy to solo. More info about the arc in this thread.

* The arc is basically complete, but I'm open to suggestions / comments. The souvenir is not yet finished (I'll probably create it tomorrow).


Thanks in advance,

-- Z.

'Eyall,

I've finished the first "draft" version of my challenge arc; it is basically done except for fancy text formatting. It has now received some testing from SG-mates, but I am curious as to its solo-friendliness and whatnot. I'm very interested in feedback, good and bad; I'm open to suggestions as well!

** WARNING ** I wrote this arc as a first-person "flashback" from the POV of a Sky Raider captain (in MA terms, it is a holographic memory instead of the usual VR simulation). This means that you, the player, are playing as the captain. If you don't like your character being hijacked like this (understandable), this arc is probably not your cup of tea. Sorry, but this is the only way I could get the story of this arc to work!


Arc name: Who Dares Wins
Arc ID: 454805
Faction: Rogue
Creator: @Zaphir
Level range: 30-35
Difficulty: Easy. No customs to speak of, no EBs, no timed missions. You have an ally in 3 of the 5 missions, and other sources of help in the fourth (you ARE a Sky Raider captain after all).
Length: Fairly long; it has 5 missions, but 3 of the maps are Small. The other two are a Medium map and an outdoor map.
Enemy groups: Crey, Rikti, Freakshow; some Council, PPD and Sky Raider cameos. Two custom "bosses" (LT-level).

Synopsis: You are the leader of a Sky Raider strike force working directly under Duray's command. You've been planning a daring attack on Terra Volta for nearly a year. Nothing can get between you and your prize now -- or so you think.

Notes: I built fairly heavily on 'early' Sky Raider lore (ie. the origins), but since I haven't played the later arcs, I only had Paragonwiki as my main information source. If you see any inaccuracies, please mention them in your feedback; thanks! Similarly, it has been a while since I've done the Sky Raider TV trial, so if anyone knows the exact map used for the second mission, it would be much appreciated.

Reviews:
Bubbawheat (Dr. Aeon's Challenge -- A Player's Perspective) link
GlaziusF (later in this thread)
MA Super Team link

-- Z.

Note that the "combine objectives" trick works even if the objectives are different: such as having a boss, an escort, a captive and a bodybag collection for the 'X scientists to find' objective combo. You can even combine required and optional objectives in this manner. One thing to look out for is that you will NOT get the proper singular objective description for the last objective (ie. if the last scientist is the captive, you will probably have the boss' objective text show up instead), so you need to keep it generic for the single objectives as well, such as "Find the last scientist".

Another related not-so-obvious "trick": if you don't specify a Plural / Singular nav bar text for an *optional* objective (the 'Required' field must not be checked!), it will not appear on the nav bar. This is useful in case you want to set up your spawns manually, want to have 'flavor' or 'decoy' glowies in a mission, want optional 'minibosses' to not show up in the nav bar at all, etcetera.


-- Z.

Yeah, pretty much what PW said. I try to avoid chained objectives in the first place; a good rule of thumb IMO is to never make the player backtrack unless it's either a small map or it REALLY needs to be done for the story to make sense.

IMO the flag refers to unconventional use of common AE mechanics; you are right in that AE mechanics are rather simplistic themselves. Such unconventional use / tricks can be
- having objectives that the player can choose to fail and thus get the 'failed mission briefing', simulating a branching mission. However, the arc will still go on as normal, so this is typically used for the last mission only.
- using invisible mobs/patrols or despawning bosses to provide "voices in your head" style speech mid-mission; I do this in my "Tales from a Scorched Earth - To Reign in Hell" arc, though the apparitions are still visible some of the time (haunted house and all that).
- having 'traps' in the mission: optional collection objectives that spawn optional bosses/patrols/ambushes that the player has to fight. The LOLBAT arc makes good use of these.
- many other things. For example, I'd say "Signal:Noise" by Cheshire Cat (one of my favorite arcs) uses the AE tools creatively to set up a pretty creepy atmosphere.

That said, I personally act as if the flag didn't exist, mainly because everyone thinks it means something else. The in-game description doesn't help things, either.


-- Z.

I have tentatively taken off the WIP flag from both arcs since they're pretty much feature-complete; the last boss of the villain arc needs a new costume, but making costumes is hard work.

I'd definitely appreciate more feedback on 'em, especially the villainous one [only got one comment so far from @FredrikSvanberg, many thanks for that btw!]. I know that Television is hit-and-miss, but I'd like to know if there is anything I can improve wrt the contact and/or the plot.


Thanks in advance,

-- Z.

'Eya,

Actually, now that I'm making an arc for the 3rd challenge, I'd really like a good evisceration of my 2nd challenge arc: "To Dream of Nothing" (#374644) to see where I can improve.

Since the arc was made for the challenge, its level range is 5-10. As you mentioned earlier in this thread, that level is kind of tricky to write an arc for [and I do use some enemy groups that are potentially problematic]. Don't be put off by the EB alert, he is kind of weak and you have two LT-level allies to help you.

edit: I tried to proofread the heck out of the arc (and I had the help of a SGmate who is a professional editor/proofreader), but errors are still inevitable 'cos English is not my native language. However, don't be any more lenient because of me not being a native speaker!


Thanks in advance,

-- Z.

Hey, thanks for reviewing the arc! Glad to hear ya liked it.

Heya,

I'd like to plug "The Coldest of Wars" (#299972) as a campy Silver Age-style story. The level range says 40+, but it's all Crey and Freaks (along with some easyish customs), so should be playable even at lower levels. Also, ice cream.

If you don't mind exemping just to 25 (you still have access to your level 30 powers at that point, I think?), my two new post-apocalyptic arcs "Kali's Scythe" (heroic, #445456) and "To Reign in Hell" (villainous, #448234) could definitely use more plays and/or feedback; they are also pretty text-heavy, so I hope they're up your alley! Sadly I was pretty much locked into the 20-25 range for these arcs for enemy group reasons. :/

More info on these arcs (and the setting in general) is available in this thread.


-- Z.

It is the year 2016. Two years ago, a solar cataclysm all but destroyed life on Earth; the few survivors of the disaster hid underground or sought other means of shelter. Now, a month after the fury of the Sun has subsided once again, the various survivor factions all over the globe scramble to reclaim what is now known as the...

Scorched Earth
[placeholder for swanky movie trailer image... once I get un-lazy enough to create one!]

This is a post-apocalyptic alternate-future COH setting I've been thinking about for some time. I've created two arcs so far, and might create more later on depending on how they are received (I got a few ideas, but nothing concrete yet). This is not intended to be a multi-arc story; rather, a single overarching theme/setting behind multiple arcs along with several minor connecting plot points (in fact, the first two arcs take place at the same time). I want to make sure that each arc "works on its own", so to speak. Neither arc is really 'final' yet -- I want to do a final polish / design iteration based on feedback once I get some (hint hint!). All feedback is welcome, I'm not adverse to making large changes if the suggestions are reasonable.

Current list of Scorched Earth arcs:

Arc name: Kali's Scythe
Arc ID: 445456
Faction: Hero/(Vigilante, Neutral)
Level range: 20-25
Difficulty: Easy. No custom enemies (though Circle of Thorns can be annoying); while the last mission has an EB, you will have a Boss-level ally at your disposal.
Synopsis: You've spent the last two years in a secret Vanguard bunker under Atlas Park along with a handful of Vanguard personnel and some civilians. As the only hero denizen, you have a difficult task ahead of you -- try to find survivors, deal with any dangers that might be lurking outside, and search for clues relevant to the cause of the disaster.
Notes: This is a 'serious' heroic/survival-oriented post-apocalyptic arc with no real plot twists.

Arc name: To Reign in Hell
Arc ID: 448234
Faction: Villain/Rogue
Level range: 20-25
Difficulty: Moderate. Custom end boss (EB), but you have at least a powerful Lieutenant-level ally at your disposal along with other sources of help if you're crafty.
Synopsis: You got lucky when the disaster hit -- you were loitering in Grandville and your survival instinct led you to a nearby high-security shelter. After knocking out the guards, you locked yourself into what was apparently the private bunker of an Arachnos Arbiter with its own power source, food and drink aplenty, a huge television and enough DVDs to last you a lifetime. Two years later the control panel indicates that it is safe to go topside once more. Time to seize your opportunity and make the best of this disaster!
Notes: Your contact is the Television who *does* exert a sort of soft mind-control / hypnosis over your character throughout the arc, just as it does in its canon missions. The general 'style' of Television briefings also makes the arc a bit more campy and less serious than the hero equivalent. If you don't like this stuff, stay away -- you've been warned!!


edit: Note for this week (Sept 20-25) -- I'm out of the country until Saturday with no access to COH, but I will be able to read the forums. Please reply here or send me a PM if you have feedback, thanks!

Bumping this because this is the EXACT problem that happened to me today (it mystifies me why it just started doing this today... and my SGmates using MSE didn't seem to have this problem).

Following the steps in the post fixed the issue for good -- thanks!


-- Z.

You can spawn 'boss', 'patrol' and 'battle' events after the hostage is rescued (afaik there is no limit to the number of these you can trigger off a single event). By making sure you spawn a number of events equal to the number of available boss/patrol/battle spots, you can completely populate the map. (you can surround the bosses with the appropriate villain group, and make the patrols of the appropriate enemy group as well... battles can work if there you want two villain groups fighting each other in the mission)

You can simulate combat by giving a combat animation to the two parties; there are a few with casting spells, firing guns in various body positions, standing in a battle stance / flailing around with some item, etc. You may not have all of these options available for the villain of your choice, though.


-- Z.

Yeah, look for HTML tags in the field. If you click the error message, it will highlight the field that has the error in it -- if you see any broken HTML in there, fix it and the error should go away.

If that doesn't solve it, this error can show up when editing custom critter descriptions, or when you cut and paste long text into a text field from an external source. Sometimes it is possible that you don't actually see the erroneous hypertext tag in the text field -- in that case you need to copy the visible text from the field (select all, control-c), paste it into an external program like notepad, ensure that the notepad version has no broken tags, copy the fixed version back from notepad, then clear out all text in the offending field and paste the fixed text back into it (ctrl-v). If you don't mind losing the text, you can just delete everything in the field without all the copy-paste hassle.

The surefire way to fix it (more effort, though) is to edit the offending file with a text editor manually and make sure that the text field in question has correct HTML tagging.

(Semi-related, but the MA text editor has an annoying tendency to fill up your text with invisible non-breaking space   characters in place of normal spaces, especially if you edit previously-written text; sometimes when writing a description your cursor disappears randomly as well. I'm getting closer and closer to just coding an offline MArc editor one of these days... :P)


-- Z.

'Ey there,

I'd like the handyman-ification of arc #445456 (Tales from a Scorched Earth - Kali's Scythe) if possible. It's about 98% done (last mission needs a bit 'more stuff') and I'm at the "hm, this is almost complete, I wonder how I could improve it before releasing it into the wild" point. All feedback is welcome!

The arc is actually the first part of a 'semi-series', a set of loosely connected arcs built around the Scorched Earth post-apocalyptic setting. They are not meant to be an arc series though, so each one needs to work on its own as well.


Thanks in advance,

-- Z.