Calash

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I totally understand this point. Once upon a time you could get a useful perspective out of JB discussions if you could get him to identify the core problem. The reason I really can't take any of his tripe anymore is that he still has nothing new to say. He likes to use meaningless fallacies of logic such as "least damaging melee archetype" or meaning less comparisons between comic book design and game design. I also find his tactics of distorting quotes and quoting out of context nearly as reprehensible as his name calling. JB has lost sight of the goal of these debates that is making Tankers more useful, and better balanced within the game as the game evolves. JB merely wishes to be right about everything and if the solution or conclusion is not his it must be wrong and therefore attacked. Since "Going Rogue" was announced and JB made public his decision that he is going to CO as soon as it comes out, he has become even more combative and has stopped adding useful dialogue tho the discussion besides ranting "I'm Right, told you so"


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Perfect summary and the primary reason that I ignore most of his arguments, even if they do have some merit.

Ahem....


It is my civic duty to inform you of a miscalculation in your stratagy.

You see, after the last Virtue invasion the Victory Elder Counsel (VEC) held a meeting and determined that we would not be surprised should a future invasion came.

As such our mad scientists worked day and night, sacrificing Hammi raids and Merits, to come up with the Universal Thread Attack Deflection and Redirection System (TADRS)

The TADRS is a simple device that we installed while Mod8 was in the bathroom. It redirects oncoming portals to random forums. In your case, the PVP forum. As the items you stole are treasured resources for them you have caused an inter forum incident.

As such you can now assume you are at war with the PVP forum.

Have fun storming the castle.

Anybody get an odd feeling that sometime after the expansion we will be looking at a 3 way epic battle between Reichman, Tyrant, and Statesman?

They fixes not nerfs.

Grandville has some great places to discover. I spent a couple of hours mapping out the tunnles under the city. A great time waster.


I think another person hit it on the head, we need contacts that give zone type missions. Something simple like "I lost my watch in the caves, can you go get them?" Just to add flavor to the different areas and promote exploration.

More open world caves and buildings would be fun too

I forget the name but the arc is called "Haunted House Ride"

Mindless fun with ghosts, zombies, and monsters.

The one thing I kind of miss about true Open World Environments.....


I can point myself in a random direction and explore. In other games I could spend s couple of hours just walking in one direction and seeing the different landscape. The scale of such an environment is a fun distraction, at least to me.

That being said on Open World would just not work with Travel powers. We move way too fast to really enjoy the details that would be found in such an environment.

Thanks for the feedback.

Some of the problems you ran into are due to limitations of the AE engine. For example the fighting between the robot groups should not be but there is no good way to set the mission up without the potental for this.

Another is Calash in mission 5 having nobody around him. He turns on Blazing Aura and kills them off before you get to them. If he spawns in the front you get the effect I was looking for of him fighting off the attackers.

In mission 2 there are 6 total terminals. 1 is the correct one, 4 spawn ambushes, and two do nothing. They are random to try and make it less repetitive.

Mission 3.....that one has been giving me problems. I had thought I got rid of the issue where only the dwarfs spawn but apparently I did not. At higher levels you get a random assortment of other world creatures. I will look into it again and try to get the level arrangement done better.

I intentionally left out some of the background that you were looking for. Being based off of an RP arc there is a ton of material but it would only bog the mission down. A bit more would not hurt and I can drop the names around the arc.

I am sorry you had problems with the last mission. My attempt was to design an encounter that did not consist of targeting one mob and punching until he was dead. Being in his lab would allow him to draw upon support troops. The concept, at least in my head, was that the ambushes had to be stopped first then you can finally take him out.

That being said the difficulty level of this encounter is something I am always working on. It may be best if I put a minion level mob into the ambush group so that it has less healing mobs. My other option is to limit the healing mobs to one ambush and use the regular ones for the others. I will work with this balance and see what I can come up with.


Thanks again for the feedback


Edit: I made some corrections to the spelling. Proof reading is not my strong point so I will have to go over it again slowly.

I also took your advice on the computer terminals. They shoot out a message saying if you have a good or bad feeling about this terminal when you use it. If you want you can cancel the interaction before the ambush spawns.

Adding a minion to my ambush squads in mission 5 resulted in no LTs being spawned and no healing support at all. I am going to play around with the difficulty and see if I can get it to work right with a couple of healing mobs and minions to fill it out. this will get rid of the insane recovery aura and energy punches the ambush brings.

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From the press release

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Going Rogue will also introduce two primary new fictional characters representative of this alignment shift in the game's lore: Maelstrom, a pistol-wielding hero gone rogue, and Desdemona, a demon-summoning villain who has been redeemed.


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/em looks at Des

/em looks at press release

/em eats some pie and thinks about it.

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Aren't these characters already in the game? Desdemona has been there since CoV launched.



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Sure....ruin my fun..


/em pouts

From the press release

[ QUOTE ]

Going Rogue will also introduce two primary new fictional characters representative of this alignment shift in the game's lore: Maelstrom, a pistol-wielding hero gone rogue, and Desdemona, a demon-summoning villain who has been redeemed.


[/ QUOTE ]

/em looks at Des

/em looks at press release

/em eats some pie and thinks about it.

Short Version: While a bit confusing at times I love this arc. 5 Stars.


Long Version:

This arc attempts to take a different approach to the AE and puts you in an experimental Dream Therapy. Played from a level 50 perspective there is a great progression of difficulty as if unlocking each aspect of your persona opens up your subconscious and allows you to use more of your strength.

Each personality trait is unique and quite good. I found that my secret shame being a School Girl to be a bit dark but I think it added much to the story.

The one gripe I had was with "The Door" at the end. Being in my own mind I have to wonder how he would have known so much or been able to reference other peoples therapy.

Overall I loved this arc and think you did a great job with it.

Since I am planning on running Hero Therapy tonight I will toss my arc into the mix.

17006 - End Game.

The details are linked in my sig.

Kinetic armor for Tanks.

A very click oriented powerset that not only has some great personal potential but can also boost your teams abilities by drawing energy from the mobs around you.

Are we sure the maps are missing because of intention and not a bug in the patch?

Only to the forum health.

No

There is a bit of a lag time between when you submit it and when it shows up on your personal published list but if you search you should be able to find it.

Check the AE chat channel as it will let you know when the publish is completed. For me it runs about 20-30 seconds for a 99.3% full arc.

Is it me or is there a TON of nit picking on this thread?

As authors of our own MA stories our responsibility lies solely with the vision of the story, not the critics, not some imaginary guidelines that people feel the need to apply.

Critique is a useful tool but it should not be the measure of your story and you should not limit your creativity based on it. Learn from it but do not restrict yourself just because person X hates Lord Recluse.


The process should be

Create
Refine
Publish
Learn
Repeat

You learn from the Critique to help your abilities grow.

What about Devouring Earth Quarries? Why are they in the MA if the issue is with the size of the mob?

/em sigh


Just make the MA building it's own zone. Boom, no more broadcast spamming outside of the building.


Or just remove the ability to send a broadcast outside of the building. Same effect and probably easier to add.

Arc ID: 102790

Title: Time For Reflection
Faction: Neutral
Difficulty: Easy to Medium
Length: 3 Missions. 1/2 hour run on both my Tank and Crab Spider

Notes: 1 Elite Boss encounter. Allies

Summary:

What if you did not exist but were force to? Shattered memories and fractured dreams of a mad god yet to have no hope of your own?

Such is the life of the Shadow Shard Reflections. Yet even in their state of eternal purgatory something is changing. An Overseer calling it’s self “The Watcher” has sought you for purposes unknown.

1 arc a day...you should be done in about 200+ years


Quick question, do the Devs revisit arcs at all? I know I am not the only one who goes through countless revisions of my story as feedback comes in. Would hate to think it got dismissed when I accidentally had an AV with Unstoppable at the end.

Ok...it was not an accident. I just did not realize how powerful the end boss became when scaled up to AV level.

It takes several seconds to upload, so be patient. Also I have noticed that the details in the Published Stories tab do not update right away. If you go to browse and search for your arc you will find it with the updated detail text (if any)

Bad kitty, my pie!!

It is a difficult bridge to cross. Public praise is a very high form of flattery and can inspire an Author to work harder. As you noted Public disapproval can be seen as humiliation, demoralizing, and painful to an Author who put a lot of effort into a work.

Do the benefits of public praise outweigh the negative effects that can come with public critique?

Personally I take both as they are meant to be, forms of feedback to help improve. Grey_pilgrim played my arc a while back and privately gave me some very good pointers. Had they been public I would have taken it as such and still worked to improve the arc (Thanks BTW, you helped me kill some nasty bugs and balance the encounters).

Of course I can not expect others to approach critique with the same eye as I do. Some are more sensitive to such comments than others. However, if you list your arc publicly are you not asking for a public response?


Thanks for the positive feedback Kong, I am glad you enjoyed the arc . I know I have some spell checking left to do and hope to have it mostly cleaned up at some point this week.