DeviousMe

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Good information, and not to rain on anyone's parade, but what happens if an upcoming patch/nerf/whatever BREAKS a DC arc?

How does one fix that?

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You don't have to. Since this kept happening on test, the decision came to be that when a dev-choiced arc was locked into the system, all of it would be. In other words, it is no longer affected by any changes, even things that would've made it invalid when it was a normal arc.

First of all, thanks again to everyone who's provided me with feedback to improve my arcs. I've found some really useful stuff around these boards.

Now then, updates:

"Hunting the Dark Dragon" - rewrote parts of the story to fill in the plot holes pointed out to me by some people. It should now be explained much better what the Dark Dragon is doing, why the Circle is in a panic, why Malta is helping him, and what Arachnos has to do with anything. I've also shortened the first map (thanks to Khellendrosiic for finding another one that met proper spawn conditions), and while I'm not entirely sure if that was a positive change yet, I'm going to let it dangle a while and see what happens.

"the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz" - devs removing more Rikti mobs made this really bugged-up for a while. I think I've fixed it again - at least I haven't run into any walls playing it yet. So theoretically, this is back and fully operational.

And yes, I will be adding to my critique thread again soon(TM). Finals reek.

To Venture: Just wanted to apologize for my earlier behavior. Hedoren's right, and I had no reason to harsh on you for voicing your opinions in any manner you choose.

Some generic stealth powers without the huge damage buff would be nice.

((Okay, not quite sure if Torcher and Pyra followed Griffin to the hospital or entered the detention block, so if it's the former, please feel free to assume everyone got there while this here stuff happens. Also welcome Spade, but you'll need to give me a little more info on Marius' location and such so I can figure out what's going on. ))

Štátna Zbrojovka
Floor 31, Biolab 4

The biotechnicians present were duly surprised by the sudden change in 'behavior' of their newest acquisition. Terran or Esterosian, they of course had no idea of the cause, and since the flesh-gob now growing inside the tank didn't seem to match the goo-covered remains they were still analyzing (in the same lab, but naturally not tossed into the tank), this left them quite puzzled indeed.

They still took appropriate measures, being no strangers to reviving regenerators who thought a quick revival could be followed by a speedy breakout, but also thought in other directions, attempting to figure out what was going on by employing several disciplines of their foci.

Among other things, they focused attention of whether the growing being might be trying to communicate, as well as of course attempts to open a channel from their end. Telepaths they unfortunately had no access to, or at least not in the immediate vicinity, but means to rip information from the minds of prisoners were quite plentiful, and required little modification to remain benign.

In short, after Sydonia had given her report and departed the lab, the staff set about to find answers to the questions that had arisen...

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Floor 33, Detention Block

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"You know how tempting it is to blow away a couple of you guys while your attention is completely on him?"

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"To do that, you would need to lower your shield first." the Družstevník replied neutrally, though there did lie a hint of 'right back at you' in regard to her thinking they weren't paying attention.

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"Have made clear what self will comply with. Also, may be addressed as Flashpoint Zeo. Refuse to be de-personned by number and dishonouriffic."
"Made desires known to [...] disappeared spacey research-type."
"Desires likely to be above pay grade of guards. Suggesting requesting visit by superiour?"

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This audibly affected the armored Tsaiv's mood, his tone reflecting such a bit as he stated, "Is nice. What makes you think we care? You are a criminal. People as you have no privilege to have desires fulfilled. If you will not comply, we will use force - and we have more than enough to handle such as you. No need to call in superior."

The man raised his rifle a bit to underscore the ultimatum, but before he could proceed further, a three-fingered metal hand gently pushed the barrel back down.

"Maybe, maybe not." Wolfgang spoke guardedly, now standing beside the Družstevník, mustering Flashpoint Zeo with the cold care of one warrior sizing up another. He didn't leave Isabel out of the same however, though the lack of pupils in his blue-glowing eyes made such nearly impossible to tell.

"You're the people from der Reichsmann's new world, aren't you?" he said to the both of them, and it was not a question. As far as he knew, it was an undisputed fact, "My apologies we've had so little time for you, for we'd truly like to have a chat with you about your leader. It's just been very busy. So if you'd be willing to tell us everything pertinent about him, I may just be able to convince Teivos not to execute you..."

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Staetlov Research Institute
Level P-3, Armory

While a few of those present had left (mostly CANINE units, since they took up a lot of space; there remained two, however), the door was not open. As per the cyborg's earlier orders...

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"Search the place. He said he'd already gotten what he came for. If so much as a bullet is missing, I want to know about it."

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...they swept the armory for anything out of place. Of course, they were looking primarily for stolen weapons, not wayward metal backpacks lying around, but until they were done and had reported their results, the place was nevertheless a hot zone...

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Somewhere in China

The red dragon gave a nod, apparently satisfied with the answer. She wasn't really, but at least this guy seemed to know what was going on here.

"Could you elaborate on that a little more?" she thus asked, not much less confused than before, "Foreign despot in North America? Did Nemesis declare himself Emperor of the Americas again or something? How about you just explain to me what's going on here...?"

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Take any in my sig. I need the most feedback on "the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz" and "Hunting the Dark Dragon".

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We will go with Hunting the Dark Dragon #2922. Love fighting the Circle, hate the Malta, who doesn't hate a sapper.

Mission 1: The circle is summoning dragons, allegedly. We will go and investigate. I assumed we would be clicking something, but the dragons were a great idea. They were way overpowered as allies, but in this case I was happy because it was a really huge Oranbaga cave and the quicker you can get through one of those the better.

Mission 2: If I have this straight, Circle summons the Dark Dragon, but can't control it. Dark Dragon makes a deal with Malta. Poorly designed mission objectives here. It says defeat Weedeater leader and crew. There were 3 bosses, and crew meant entire huge room with the thorn tree. I would skip adding his crew to the defeat, but that is just me.

Mission 3: OK, next up we take a stolen Arachnos flier into a Malta base. If you don't know this map uses a door to go inside the building, you are S.O.O.L. which I was for about 10 minutes. A hint would have really been nice. Otherwise the mission was fine. Your map choices are some of the more annoying ones in the game though. Space pirates are a nice touch, but I'll be interested to see how they fit in, or if they ever do.

Mission 4: OK, back to the dark dragon and his next target. Perhaps we meet him in this mission. Wow, nasty ambush, dropped me before I even knew they were coming. I regroup and head back in, knowing they are there now. Ambush goes down this time, but still not without a fight. Mako shows up out of nowhere, I hardly have to fight him though, something else in the mission brought him down to about 1/5th of his health. I stepped in and finished him off no problem.

Mission 5: Contact says he is lost in the story. Frankly, so am I. That one big room was a real battle inside. More information on who the guards you had to beat were - mission objectives should be clearer. Mission gives you a choice on how you want to finish, which is a neat ending. I won't spoil anything here.

Overall, I think you took on too much story here. The mission objectives were poorly defined in some instances. Map choices were more tedious than fun in some cases. 3 stars.

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Thanks for your time, this gave me a ton of useful info. Some changes made since this review:

Mission 2: Weedkiller Leader now changed to the name of the boss, makes him easier to find. Objective changed to defeat boss only.

Mission 3: Patrols added whose dialogue tells you where the door is.

Mission 4: Mako's appearance is now scripted to blend more smoothly with the rest of the mission. Fixed inconsistencies and added more info on the main plot.

Mission 5: Rewrote nav. text to clear up who needs defeating.

You may be right about taking on too much story. I tried to trim it down some, drop more info with less clues. If you'd like to take another look at it and let me know if it reads better now, I'd appreciate it. If not, that's cool too, as the maps are still the same due to plot purposes.

Nope. Closest you can come is making a really small custom critter and matching the powersets as best you can.

I think it's mostly that you're pushing too hard with this. Just start creating and see what people think; things will melt even over time.

Personally, I find the idea of another Rikti War set in the time you describe to be pretty far-fetched, especially if it's supposed to be stand-alone and not incorporate anything fom the previous ones. See, I also liked the idea of escalation, but I think present day is a much more appropriate setting, and thus chose it for my Rikti War arc, which gives me a ton of material to work with. YMMV, of course.

So type in 2-16 as well. Hey, I didn't say it was perfect; just that I find it makes things just a little bit easier...a really, really small little bit, but IMO, with the current search engine, we need all the help we can get.

Sounds like you ran into the custom critter naming bug. Very annoying, but at this point there's sadly nothing you can do about it. Just set the names correctly in your editor window, make sure they're correct in the .storyarc text file, and hope for a fix to come someday.

Not sure about lowbie arcs, but I use level range tags to make my arcs easier to find (in the lvl XX-XX) fomat. Don't know if a lot of other people do this, but you might try typing 'lvl 1-15' in your search window and see what you get. Can't hurt to try.

I use tags mostly to identify the arc categories, rather than anything specific about it - things like the leve range (in a lvl XX-XX format), and some general pointers like "TF". Since the enemy groups are already identified in the description, I figure that (for example) this makes it easier on people looking for a lvl 40-45 arc, a Rikti arc, or a TF arc...well, if the search function worked better. That last one generally turns up every arc with a word containing tf in the title, description, author, atc.

Giving feedback? Yes, feedback is something I can always use. For your consideration:

"This Is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz" (1356) - an expansion on the events of the Rikti War Zone and the Lady Grey Task Force, and IMO what a 'real' Rikti invasion should be like: on a large scale, chaos everywhere, heroes and villains alike scrambling just to survive the onslaught of the Rikti Lord of War - and you're caught right in the middle of it, along with some rather unusual characters that likely won't be what you expect.

While this was structured in the manner of a task force, and thus a team is highly recommended, I'm fairly confident that I've managed to make this soloable. You may still want to bring a partner or two to make things easier, but shouldn't outright need them.



And not quite as epic, since the story in this one is on a significantly smaller scale (though I like to think it presents some questions and insights, as well as a chuckle or two to make up for it), but something I can still use feedback on:

"Hunthing the Dark Dragon" (2922) - without revealing too many details, the Circle of Thorns attempts to add dragons to their supernatural hordes, and as is quite typical for their magical rituals, something goes horribly wrong. Or does it? After all, something bad for one side might be good for the other. In the end, the choice will be yours to make.

This arc can be tough for support ATs, even supposed 'powerbuilds' that are used to steamrolling paper missions. Thus I recommend you bring along someone who can hold aggro, and for the final boss (if you end up facing him) at least a few competent teammates.

Mako has the Crab Spiders, Black's got the Tarantulas. Recluse has pretty much everyone that his lieutenants don't.

Some interesting opinions there. Got a couple of questions though, mostly about the maps. For 1 and 3, I could've put up large generic maps; do you feel that would make it better? Also, why do you feel that missions 3 and 4 are padding? Or are you just not a fan of 'chasing the bad guy' stories?

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After releasing the hostage on the rebound, he ran off warning me that there were a bunch of pirates coming, thus revealing that he was actually the Dragon (of course, you're scripted to be slow enough on the uptake to not be able to do anything about it).

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Interestingly enough, a lot of people are. However, how would you suggest I alter this? Unfortunately, MA lacks the mechanics to make captives targetable and still have them run.

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, he wasn't an AV, or if he was his PToD didn't turn on in time. I was able to knock him down and kept him from running. There were two guards in the room, also mandatory kills, one of which I think was an LT I barely noticed. The other was a Ice Melee/Willpower on max that had to be killed twice. In the debriefing Stemitz tries to make it sounds like there's some moral ambiguity in here somewhere, which I'm just not seeing.

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Yep, he's just a regular boss. He even says so in his dialogue. I'm kind of saddened you didn't get into the story enough to get its major points, or the moral at the end, but judging from that last paragraph, I guess the other stuff had already killed your interest at the time.

While this seems to be a hotly contended issue, I dare say my Welcome to AE arc works just fine for low levels. I've had people go at this at lvl 2 and come out at 6, 7, and 8 without much trouble at all. YMMV, though.

"Hunting the Dark Dragon" and "the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz" are both higher-level arcs, however, so it might take you a while to get to them. The first seems to work just fine at or above 35 (recommended 40), but I definetely recommend you be 45 before taking on Hro'Dtohz.

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Humor Arcs - We get it. Super powers versus fruit.

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Humor is very subjective. Personally, I thought that arc's concept was pretty funny - especially the play on the celery stalk...er.

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This series of arcs is my favorite thing to come out of the architect.

I love the way the different episodes could all be played from different characters, heroes and villains weaving together a meta-plot.

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While I'm of course biased toward my own work, I nevertheless whole-hartedly agree here that Fearghas' stuff is superb work. I really wish there was some other way of earning slots for stories like these.

Thanks, Posi. That answered the questions I had and more.

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It'd be nice if you could pick non-boss characters from the stock groups to use in "fight a boss" battles, which would serve here as "setpiece" battles -- LT challenging you or training warriors. But currently I don't think that's possible. Any Warrior boss fight has to be an Elite Slasher/Hewer/Crusher.

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No kidding. I wanted to use lts. as boss fights in a planned low-level arc of mine (like the devs often do in the 1-10 content), and ran into a wall when I found I couldn't actually do that.

I've found two somewhat haphazard workarounds, though they're rather limited. The first is of course to make a custom group lt, but you can only get so close to existing groups, and the second is to make an 'enemy escort' - select the add an escort objective, make the captive an lt. and set to hostile. It'll 'fail' the mission when defeated, but if fail is complete, at least it technically accomplishes its purpose.

Like I said, rather limited.

Indeed. Just set the plural text the same. The system is smart enough to combine them into a single objective.

Be aware, however, that if you have different singular text, there is currently a bug that will cause the last singular objective text to swap out for the first. So if you have 4 boxes to collect, and have them listed in your MA editor as 'red box, blue box, green box, yellow box', and their plural text as 'boxes to collect', as soon as 3 of the 4 boxes are found, the singular nav text will set to 'red box', even though it may be the green box you haven't collected.

Štátna Zbrojovka
Floor 31, Biolab 4

Sydonia was indeed in no sunny mood upon the medical team and her reaching their destination with the stasis unit. Staff on-hand and awaiting their charge in the bright, silver-clad laboratory that could've well been the envy of any mad scientist wishing to create a clone army or something to this nature, it didn't take long to relocate the head to one of the stereotypical-looking transparent cylinders, filled of course with the requisite green goo.

In another of these floated the head of Krieger Kruger, the reanimation vat having already restored significant amounts of biomass. The man himself was still done and gone of course, no soul remaining in that flesh; Teivos simply wanted to get at the memories of the brain inside his skull, and for that a personality was entirely unnecessary.

'Gregory', however, may well have presented a different case. Since he was (both by own statement and general appearance) still alive, the specialists and their equipment stood a strong chance of restoring him. Whether this would actually take place or not, however, was a question only time would answer...

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Floor 33, Detention Block

The elite troop performed a wraparound upon Major Dos Santos as she entered their formation, believing fervently they needed to secure her against Zeo. Aside from this shift in formation, they simply let her depart. They knew well enough that she'd said all she'd intended to say on the matter, and once she considered something settled, it was out of sight, out of mind with her.

"Prisoner 424-A," the Družstevník then addressed the tanker, his squad's weapons never taken off their potential troublemaker, "Due to loss of this facility, you will be relocated to Zigursky Penitentiary in Paragon City. Will you comply...?"

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Also On Floor 33

Wolfgang cringed in shock and surprise as Vlasta's shout came so forcefully to stand down the guard barring their way. What had just happened? Teivos didn't usually do that. It...it wasn't like his friend at all!

Something was wrong.

Apparently, the Tsaigon got wind of this too, surprised at his own behavior. Something was wrong with him - and it probably wasn't just that he really wanted lunch. Hunger just didn't explain that sort of forceful, self-entitled manner anymore. He was acting...connection, had acted like he believed he was better than everyone else.

The magic explosion Renata had spoken of! Of course, that had to be it! Teivos knew more than well enough that his people didn't understand the first thing about magic (knowledge of basic composition didn't equal insight), and this his suspicious fell immediately upon Flashpoint Zeo.

That man was going to pay for this!

However, if Teivos was acting this way here already, there was no telling if it might get worse when he got close to the guy, and even the Tsaigon realized this potential danger. He wanted to confront the man about it now...but he knew it was by far not the smartest thing to do.

"Wolfgang, I'm putting you in charge." he therefore told the cyborg, making sure the guardsmen got it, "You and you; escort me to the hospital. Make sure I don't go insane on the way."

"Yessir." the two confirmed simultaneously, stepping out of the formation while the others entered. Well, except for Griffin, that was. He didn't seem sure of where to go at all.

"Stick with Vlasta." Wolfgang therefore told him comradely, giving an inverse nod toward the departing Teivos, "He could use a conversation to keep him stable right now. And if he does go manic, you're probably the best one around to hold him down right now."

The griffin accepted this, having actually hoped for it (getting near a fire giant wasn't exactly something he was too keen on, feathers not being fireproof and all that), and did as suggested. Wolfgang meanwhile motioned for the others to follow, and with the Kazbek-armored troopers now giving passage, entered the detention block...

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Somewhere in China

The red dragon blinked. That was...unexpected. What the hack had happened while she'd been out?

"I'm not going to pretend to understand what that means." she told the drill instructor after a few moments, "You said Hotaka was here, right? Can you take me to him...?"

Dev's Choice is currently a pretty debated topic among the dev team, so I surmise they'd rather leave their fingers off it completely until they've come to an agreement they can all work with.

Well, turns out I don't have the space for all those spaces...wow, that felt weird to say. Thanks again for the go-through, a lot of the text sounds much, much better now. Also glad the red lightning comment got a chuckle out of you. I was already wondering if I was the only one that found that amusing.

*pounces on OP*

Yay, artz! I shall go collect references now.

Alright then, if you like, try this one on for size: the Dark Dragon, a character of a friend of mine. His in-game appearance regrettably doesn't capture the character well at all (mostly due to the lack of access to cloaks/robes like that of the Circle of Thorns; he'd slip one of those on in a heartbeat ), so would be nice if you'd see what you can do with that.

My friend's also got an amusing little sketch of him from a while back, though sadly the artist disappeared somewhere. It's much closer to his true appearance than the game screenshot, and though it's still not quite where it should be, I hope it might help you some.