Circuit_Boy

The lack of dialogue in the final mission is intentional. I was trying for a "silent mission" narrative there, where once enough of the eulogy has dropped, it should be pretty obvious to the player what's happened.

I did set the last mission just to defeat Archon von Brunn and his personal retinue of minions. I'm not sure why the Galaxy City High Student Council President triggered the mission complete for you--MA's a little buggy on that point. I had something similar occur when I was running through, but it was because the minions of the various bosses had gotten intermingled. Easily changed to just beat up von Brunn.

All of the eulogy is there--I was careful about that. The first and last parts of it drop on entry and exit, respectively. Two more parts are linked to the required objectives (Archon von Brunn and the body bag). The other three parts are linked to bosses you may or may not find; I didn't want to annoy players by REQUIRING they get all seven parts when, in reality, they'll get the point if they just charge through, beat up Archon von Brunn, and find out what happened to Doug.

Doug rushes in because he's impetuous and headstrong. I thought that's somewhat clear from the start--he charges headlong into burning buildings with no super powers. He's already there in each mission when you get there.

The GPS thing was shoehorned in after another critique. I guess I should write that out a little better; what I was thinking was that Council bases aren't exactly going to have addresses. They're underground bunkers. But every kid has a cell phone, and many have GPS in them, so it would make sense for the Council to give these kids the GPS coordinates of their bunker entrances.

In a sidenote, I teach college-level English and have for over ten years now. I once toyed with a numerical grading system, but it has some very, very definite drawbacks. For example, let's say I decide to take off 1% for each run-on sentence. That seems fair, right? For most students, this wouldn't be that much of an issue--it's a common issue, but three run-ons in an essay is the typical upper limit for the average student. However, I've had the rare student who writes otherwise decent papers that are chock full of run-ons and comma splices (really the same issue except to extreme grammarian nit-pickers)--let's say she or he writes twenty run-ons in an essay. Let's say the content is B-level (80% range), but because there are twenty run-ons and my policy was knocking off 1% for each run-on, I'd have to knock it into the D-level (60% range). In reality, it's the same issue repeated over and over, and I quickly came to the realization that strictly adhering to some kind of numerical values could become grossly unfair to my students. It's a reason I dropped using numbers except for bookkeeping purposes (the other major reason being I hate quibbling with students over 2%).

I bring this up because you knocked off 0.1 points six times, for a total of 0.6 (more than half a point), due to a style choice (the "silent mission" narrative). I'm not sure if it speaks more to a weakness in my style choice or a weakness in your evaluative structure.

No problem, PW.

I thought I had put my arc, The Hero of Kings Row (#230187), on your queue earlier. I played--and gave extensive feedback on--Mistaken Identity (#349473) before you pulled it.

That's too bad about "Mistaken Identity". I think it was a workable concept; I may try my hand at it myself eventually, though not in the next two weeks.

I'll throw mine onto the queue: "The Hero of Kings Row" #230187.

You're welcome. I don't mean to suggest you're consciously using any of this in your story. There just aren't that many tropes in fiction that haven't been done before, and they "float" around in our media, so it's impossible to avoid being influenced by them.

It occurs to me that another way of resolving the genre issue is to consciously underscore it--maybe set this up as something like an episode of The Twilight Zone. Maybe even get Television involved (which might slip you around the "railroad" issue others have commented on, too).

I think the basic idea can work, but it either needs to be a truly outstanding example of its genre, or it needs to do something unexpected with it.

I agree wholeheartedly that Lt. Tasha Yar's death to what was basically a mueslix monster was ridiculous. However, I didn't get into the show until well into the 4th season, so I didn't see that little piece of "theater of the absurd" until well after I'd been truly hooked and was watching the reruns. The only TNG episode that was worse, in my opinion, was the one in the 1st or 2nd season where all the top brass of Star Fleet are replaced by insectoid replicants.

It's not so much that knowing who it was immediately ruined the plot for me; it was that combined with instantly recognizing the genre and knowing its expectations.

The episode I'm referencing is "Frame of Mind". Read the synopsis--see how similar it is? (Just so I'm clear, I'm not accusing you of plagiarism.) Oddly enough, I just saw it last week on WGN, so it was fresh in my head when I ran your arc.

On reflection, there's also a Battlestar Galactica episode, "The Farm", with a somewhat similar premise: Kara "Starbuck" Thrace is told by a doctor that she's in a maternity ward and she thinks she's going crazy because she suspects the doctor's really trying to kill her. (By the way, this particular episode manages the whole "committing an evil act in the service of the greater good" quite effectively.)

There are, of course, echoes of The Twilight Zone episodes "Twenty Two", as well as "The Eye of the Beholder" and "Number 12 Looks Just Like You".

I was thinking it over this morning. This is clearly its own genre. I think, to make this particular arc work, you have to tweak, break, defy, and/or twist the genre expectations, much like the films "The Usual Suspects", "Momento" or "The Sixth Sense" did. For me, once I recognized who "M" was, and once I realized the arc fit this particular genre, the rest of the missions were just going through the motions.

I just ran this one today and I hate to say that I was hoping for something else.

Maybe it's that I don't like Brechtian theater. Maybe it's that I recently saw an rerun of Star Trek: The Next Generation where something very, very similar happens to Commander William Ryker (though it alternates between a mental ward and a play--the basic idea's the same). Maybe I've just seen too many episodes of the original Rod Serling Twilight Zone.

It felt like the arc was too derivative, and it didn't shake or play with any of the genre expectations. What was supposed to be one of the highlights of this arc--"how strange normal CoH activities sound, when told to an independent observer"--has been done time and time again in drama, on TV, and in the movies. I was hoping for some kind of surprise, some kind of twist of the narrative formula, and I didn't get it. (By the way, I just don't know how far saying "how strange normal CoH activities sound", because the citizens of Paragon City are witnesses to super powers, Rikti invasions, zombie apocalypses, winter hordes, kidnappings by the Circle of Thorns, etc. on a daily basis--on the streets of downtown Steel Canyon, even! We're not talking about Kansas vs. Oz here: the 'civilians' are residents of the same place.)

By the end of the second mission, I had figured out more or less where things were going and was just left wondering what the answers to the "Big Questions" the arc was playing with were. Unfortunately, I don't feel like those questions got answered, not even by the souvenir.

I "got" almost immediately that "I" was supposed to be M------: there just aren't that many French canon characters in CoH (by the way, the French would use his full name; the second part is not a middle name).

This robbed the arc of its emotional impact for me, because I figured that either "M" was lucid and it was a Nemesis plot (after all, the automaton plot is a canon plot), or "M"'s just projecting his memories of the events of his psychotic break into my character's head the whole time. Either way, I'm not doing the so-called "evil deeds".

How cruel must Sister Psyche be not to give the player an actual explanation? Alternately, if we're forced into being "M" for the duration of the arc, then we're just bystanders watching what happened to him.

Regarding the EB in Mission 1: I'm glad I played this on Circuit Boy, because most "true" EBs are completely vulnerable to Endurance Drain. I can easily see any solo character without some ability to strip him of the ability to act having problems, but I didn't.

I have significantly revamped the second and fourth missions of this arc. I think it's more or less in its final form.

Okay, you just passed out of the range of the arc I'm trying to get some feedback on, but it should still be mostly in-range:

"The Hero of Kings Row" ID# 230187.

It's intended to be 1-14, though you may not even notice the one level downshift. The XP's the same either way.

Well, if you're open to submissions, I'll throw one of mine in:

"The Hero of Kings Row" ID #230187.

It's gonna toss you back a few levels, but now that you get XP regardless, it shouldn't matter.

I'll throw mine on here, too:

The Hero of Kings Row ID #230187

I'll throw my most recent arc on here:

The Hero of Kings Row (#230187). It's designed for levels 1-14, and, though it can be soloed fairly easily, I'd like to find out how it plays for a team.

@Backfire ran it earlier, but I've significantly revised the 2nd and 4th missions.

In almost all respects, Accuracy, Damage, and Recharge (in that order) are going to serve you better in those powers (Charged Bolts and Lightning Bolt). If you can make room for genuine EndMod enhancements, feel free. If you're going to hang any proc, I'd use the +Chance for Build-Up on Charged Bolts (in fact, I did it myself). Dead's better than drained, and the amount of drain we're talking about is so negligible as to be nonexistent.

Gilia, you must be somewhat low-level, then, because beyond, say, 20 or so, no snipe I'm aware of does enough damage to one-shot a lieutenant, regardless of whether the Blaster using it is at the damage cap.

Stryker, defeated foes don't wake up. Defeating foes is still your best damage mitigation strategy. Mezzing foes is always a second-best strategy; if you can one-shot foes, you usually should.

Unless you can one-shot a lieutenant or a boss (and no one can), you're going to take damage from him--AND from all his minion buddies. You can, however, one-shot a minion before he can fire back.

Let's assume a solo genuine boss spawn: one boss, two minions. I take out both minions with Aim -> Build-Up -> Zapp Minion #1 (defeated at this point, no attack back from that target) -> Lightning Bolt Minion #1 -> Charged Bolts Minion #2 (defeated at this point). From my opening attack, I've already reduced the incoming damage I'm going to take by a significant percentage. I take the alphas from Minion #2 and the Boss, but not Minion #1, and Minion #2's damage is eliminated seconds later. That leaves the boss and its damage for the rest of the fight.

If you take the same scenario and go from high-to-low, starting with the boss and dealing with the minions last, you're taking 100% damage from the Boss, Minion #1, and Minion #2 for almost the entire duration of the fight.

Both fights are going to last more or less the same time, but people who use my low-to-high strategy are going to come out of their fights less banged up than those who go from high-to-low.

Defeating foes is the blaster's best damage mitigation strategy.

Whataguy, you're absolutely right. It's the same with my Brute's LF--I ran HeroStats on it about two years ago and I was really surprised. The Blaster version is slightly stronger and considerably larger in area, so I'd expect somewhat even more impressive results.

Truly, the only headscratching power in any of the three Electric sets is Lightning Clap. The Brute version is workable (though in a well-built E^3 Brute, there are lots of better options), but the Blaster version, in its current incarnation, is inexcusably bad. 50% chance to do a Mag2 Stun and radial Knockback (not Knockdown)? If you're building a "sapper" build (Short Circuit, Power Sink, maybe Lightning Field), it actually operates against your best interests. There's no rational reason to pick or use it.

Postagulous, one thing that often gets overlooked in the "debate" (such as it is) over both Thunderstrike and Total Focus is their ability to one-shot a minion (with Aim and/or Build-Up). I don't have TS in my current build, but it's not as bad a choice as its detractors say.

Just remember, there are some players here who appear to think that DPS is a god that must be kowtowed to, never once considering that DPS is irrelevant if you can one-shot something.

I think this actually goes back to one of the first 12 City of Heroes comics (with Apex and War Witch)--there was a leather-clad female character who I think was a Hellion (it's been a very, very long time), who was basically sporting the stereotypical "lesbian haircut #2" and there were other indicators that she was lesbian.

Sure, it's "personal preference", but in my opinion, stripping an E^3 Blaster of damage powers in favor of anything from the Fighting Pool when Holds are available is basically "gimping" him or her. There's no point to it.

If you've got your foes held, you don't need those toggles burning your Endurance, because a foe that can't attack you is doing 0 damage. 47% of 0 is still 0, making that S/L Resist mostly irrelevant (unless you're a tactical moron).

Let's just say in five+ years of playing E^3, the thought of taking the Fighting Power Pool has never crossed my mind. Between the full drain of Short Circuit + Power Sink and the stackable holds in Tesla Cage, Shocking Bolt, and Shocking Grasp, there's just no point. Maybe on a Fire/Fire Blaster...

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on 95% of this.

As far as I'm concerned, and as far as the canonical text of CoH is concerned, the Council are still Nazis--they're just a splinter group created out of an internal schism within the organization, the result a power struggle between the Center and Requiem. The organization's fundamental ideology and fundamental tactics did not change. Case in point, the arcs involving the creation of what-used-to-be-called-WarWolves and Vampyres has remained almost completely unchanged, and the arc referencing World War II German figures also remains intact. I know players perceive the Council as "watered down", but that's mostly due to visual aesthetics (i.e., costumes) and the shifting of names out of German.

I have no intent to "tone down" the dialogue because it's intended to be ugly and brutal. It's the kind of rhetoric--including the phrasings--that fascists, antisemites, and racists historically used and, to a fairly significant extent, still use today.

Those two criticisms are really at odds with one another. On the one hand, you claim the Council are "watered-down", but on the other hand, their dialogue is too "hurtful". You really can't have it both ways on this. If I water down the dialogue, then the Council simply become bad guys because they're bad guys, as is the typical player perception. This arc is written to serve to remind players why they're bad guys. Otherwise, they might as well be cardboard standees. And although you say I haven't found a way to tone it down without losing the impact, I'm just going to stand by my position on this: that's neither possible, nor desirable.

I did retweak the final mission. I think what's going on should come across very, very strongly this time around.

I also retweaked the second mission to explain how the President gets away, though it's not really the gaping hole you think it is. Minor, wealthy parents, difficulty connecting him to the crime the Hellions are committing (and known to commit routinely), previously reported "kidnapped" by the Hellions--he'd be sprung from jail in a heartbeat.

I also did a very minor edit so the StuCo are missing (from school) for a week, not a day. As for why their parents don't call the police, unless Doug's a telepath, he probably won't know that. Perhaps they're not missing from home.

As for the Emancipator's reveal, I'm just going to leave that as-is. His tone of voice ("I guess you've already figured out that...") indicates he expects you've already figured it out at some point before.

As for your question about why he calls if he's just going to go in himself, I thought that was thoroughly covered by the dialogue, context, and clues: he has no actual powers himself. He's not a superhero. He's a kid in a costume, and he doesn't know what to expect.

Regarding the "errand boy" thing again, I'm just going to stand by what I said. I don't think that's any more an issue with this arc than with any other AE arc or most of the canonical story arcs. I've run every last one of them, both red-side and blue-side--in some cases, many times. I even have an arc ("Jenkins's Guide to Super-Villainy") that pokes fun at the phenomenon. It's ubiquitous in the game, both in what the Developers have written and in what most of the players have written in the AE (including most of the Developers' Choice and Hall of Fame arcs).

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but the kind of changes you want made really make me think that maybe you ought to write your own version.

[Edited for grammar: teach me to try to write and grade at the same time. The spirits of my students are taking control and I'm mimicking their errors.]

Okay, tweaked that, and the "defeat all" objectives, too.