Talen Lee

I think everyone should always have 5 stars, right? That way everyone feels good, because everyone is special!

Arc 82059 - A Proper Heist
Level Range: 1-14

Bank heists always have a certain glamour about them, whether it's put there by Jason Statham failing to find his own rear, or by a Daniel Ocean-like mystique of coolness and spectacular refinement. On the other hand, that's the kind of glamour that City of Villains quickly eschews, with its rampage-to-the-bank style of heist, where you run away with a giant sack slung over one shoulder cackling manically. There's no real feeling of planning, either - your broker handles all the details, and you get their attention by performing entirely unrelated things that sometimes can involve the retrieval of magical doo-dads that you may not have any reason to care about, countering attempts to frame yourself, and occasionally kicking in the teeth of someone who had no idea you were coming because you feel like you're not scary enough. There's no real sense of nuance in the whole affair.

This isn't an arc I'd call villainous because that word has such implications and it's beneath this arc. No, this arc is criminal. Yes, it uses the word 'villain' a few times, but I'm okay with that because the tone of the arc is definitely that of crooks. It's a low-end arc, it's people making the best of a bad situation in Mercy Island. This is how I felt more of Port Oakes should have felt - buttoned down crooks and thugs, trying to put on a veneer of respectability.

The arc has a number of NPCs, and they all have distinct character voices. You could mistake two of them for one another in their dialogue, after a fashion, and there is a little bit of weirdness about the first and third in their mechanical distinction, but whatever. The arc has a clear feeling of the scummy underbelly, of competing with crooks for the role of best crook, conniving your cohorts and actually being appropriate in your level of behaviour. The narration has a clear sense of scope and scale. It has appropriate, in-universe slang.

Characters in this arc are distinct and clear, with everyone having notable and particular mannerisms that distinguish them one from another, each mission having its own tone and shape. And it's fun! There are extra things to do, and badass beatdowns can be asserted. Me, I took the principle of killing every ****** in the room, which meant I clicked everything I could find.

So, no problem, right? It's a great arc, lots of flavour, fun stuff to do, and no real 'what the ****' moments, along with some nice optional content and a sense of character voice for the NPCs. So, five stars, right? Right?

No, unfortunately. See, I've left out one major complaint I have with this arc. It opens with a typo, moves on to run-on sentences, and then, from there, the longer the arc goes, the worse the grammar gets. I don't want to belabour the point - I've produced one of my longest to-the-author letters covering the persistant grammar problems, and hopefully he'll be able to weed out the daisies and we'll have a great arc on our hands here.

There is a final clause; this arc works from 1 to 15, but it's worth noting that missions 2 and 3 feature an enemy group that have a minimum level of 5. I had fun kiting these guys, and because it's DXP, I quickly shot up from 2 to 6 and didn't have any trouble with them, fighting whites and yellows instead of reds. I also killed everything on the map - but I bet there are brutes and other non-stalker characters who would hate this experience.

Rating: ***
Tags: Solo Friendly, Canon-Related, Kid Friendly

Way to waste the whole purpose of the rating system. And you're smug about it, too?

One handy mantra I learned from smurphy: A single, even-level TO of end redux in each attack works out as more endurance efficient than having stamina with three SOs in it.

Annnnnd if it's a 'j' sound in the G there, it'd sound like the word 'codger,' which means 'old person,' and if it's a soft g like a sch sound, it'd be like a 'cosher' which is means 'someone who hits people,' and so on.

Language is cool.

It's okay. I know you're a dude. That just makes it hotter.

I'm reminded of, in my visit to Texas, at four in the morning with a slightly-deranged skinny British bloke leaning on my back to keep himself from the paroxysms of laughter which this simple act of explanation had induced, of being stared down by a Texan man who looked the sort to eat his hams without getting them out of the fridge first, a man who wore a cowboy hat indoors unironically, and whose job description gave him the right to carry a gun but whose disposition made that a pleasure, and having to explain to this glistening man who had an equator rather than a waist, where I lived - for the purposes of verifying myself as a witness for future reference.

"Wollongong, sir."

"Where is that, exahcktly?" he asked, eyebrow raised.

"That'd be in Australia, sir. East coast." I said, in my most earnest tone. I'd been awake for two days solid. This man was the security chief of the Dallas Adams Mark Hotel, and in theory, was having a whole weekend made up of this sort of malarkey, so dealing with me was not on his list of fun things to do - let alone when there were anime cosplayers wielding banangs on the stage floor. I was doing my best to Assist In His Enquiries ('Yes, sir, your underpaid man who doesn't seem to speak English dropped my friend's scanner on the floor, and yes, all the bits went skittering all over the place, and no, none of us did it.') and yet, four in the morning was when he had found the time to see us. As the only witness to the event who didn't have an immediate connection to the individual in question (ie, his family), I was seen as a necessary evil.

As it was, I imagine I sounded suspiciously like I should have had my cap in my hand, or at least an empty bowl for More Gruel.

"Would you," he said, giving a pause in that manner that people say is an expression of Southern Politeness, but seems more to be about Southern Illiteracy, "Spell that for me, sir?"

"Alright," I say, drawing a breath. "Double you oh double ell, oh-en-gee, oh-en-gee."

Behind me, the brit falls on the floor, laughing. None of us are drunk. None of us are ever drunk. We're a trio of nerds who lost a scanner because a hotel lobby attendant dropped it. And all I could think about in that moment was the way this guard's tone, the tone that indicated shooting me and hiding the body was still a feasible win for his night.

...

Oh, wait, this was about how we don't use the English language properly. *spin finger*

"Their country has a hundred percent literacy rating, Leo - how do they do that?"
"Maybe they don't, and they're bad at math too?"

QR - Eh, probably just in your head. On to the more important business of staring at DJ's forum accoutremont.

I...

I... just love this thread so damn much.

QR

My em/nin stalker ASes once a mission. Then the rest of the time he's charging from target to target, killing things.

The 'cute trick' problem that plagues most people's estimation of the stalker seems to be a non-factor for my style of play. In the lower levels, you can - and probably should - play sissy stalker games. But after about 25 or 30, my stalkers just wind up playing like st-specialised scrappers with more utility in a team.

YMMV.

Safer? Howso? Oh, everything's dead?

Personal preferences here, folk, but which sounds more fun?

Mass Hypnosis -> Fulcrum Shift -> Rain of Arrows or
Mass Hypnosis -> Fulcrum Shift -> Full Auto?

I'm wondering.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Really, no.

Any chance of getting threads to automatically jump you to the last appropriate place you were?

Getting to grips with the new forum software.