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I arrive at a suitably trashed office and immediately run into the Rikti. I come across a number of glowing trash cans and search each one for clues. Annoyingly, the author has cranked up the interact time on them all. This is especially annoying for a Brute, as it means each search is going to waste even more of my Fury.
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I was trying to give the impression here that in the chaos that there might be some difficulty in searching for something. Upon review, the interact time may be a bit high, even for that. It has been reduced from 8 to 5 since it is especially unfair to brutes.
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I see some battles with Ravenheart members, but they died pretty quickly most of the time. The exception was when I found Talon, who was oddly already rescued and there were some Ravenheart nearby. I can only assume that the battle spawned next to the hostage and that they took out his captors.
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I'm a bit disappointed that of all the groups where Rikti are slaughtering Ravenheart, that the group nearest the captive should somehow emerge victorious. Strange, and something that hadn't happened during any of my test runs. Probably just a freak accident, but I'll keep an eye out for it.
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However, Talon has a bug. Once rescued he ran off and told me that he grabbed this item off of a Rikti before he was captured. However I didn't receive a clue or see any text telling me what it was that he gave me.
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Definitely a bug. You're supposed to get a second map piece that was wrestled from the attacking Rikti by the Talon before he was overcome by them, just barely holding out until you arrive to help.
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I found all the bombs but had to backtrack all the way to the beginning to find that last Rikti, who was wandering around and possibly part of some lost patrol.
This mission is straightfoward but could do with a smaller map. 6 bombs might be a bit excessive considering their size and implied yield. Another suggestion, maybe put a Raid Leader in the last room and change it so that the objectives are the bombs, 1 rescue, and defeat the leader and his guards. Then you could say that after destroying the bombs and taking out the leader that any remaining Rikti fled for their lives.
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This is a great idea, and something that I will likely be adding, if I can make enough space in the file size to fit another boss with his own dialog. This would be a good place to insert another Magus and give the feeling that there's some kind of connection between the Rikti and magic in this arc.
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Sumannus now tells me that Husk has tracked down the mission map piece (had I forgetten that we were looking for one or was that what the mission clue in mission 2 was about?) and is paying me to retrieve it for him. He tells me that CoT are also in the area but nobody knows why.
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Indeed, the second map piece was supposed to come from the Talon in the second mission.
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I enter a nice, spacious cave (notice how nobody uses blue caves in MA arcs?) and hear some battle dialog ahead. The Rikti and the CoT are both fighting over a Soul. Whether this is the name of the artifact that I am here to retrieve (nav says artifact, briefing said map) or if they were talking about a literal soul, I do not know. Yet.
By the time I arrive it seems that the CoT are whupping the Rikti. The caves lead into a Rikti base.
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I was surprised to find that the CoT can take on the Rikti so easily when I was building this arc. It worked out well though, as this mission provides a transition from the first group, the Rikti, into the seemingly more powerful second group, the Circle, that you will be facing off against for the remainder of the arc.
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After searching the base the first major thing I ran into was a Death Mage named Arch-Mage. This might take a little while.
And it did. I hate running into these Archmages, they're pretty much stealth Elite Bosses. After a while he went down and mentioned something about failing the Dread Priestess. He dropped the third map piece, the second must have been in that clue I never got in mission 2.
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Fixed. He is now a normal Death Mage.
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In another room I found a magical looking box and inside was a vial containing the soul of a Circle priestess (how did I know that anyway?) Apparently the Rikti were trying to destroy it, probably because they hate all things magical except for those Maguses, and the CoT came to stop them. A clue informs me that the completed map shows where the Rikti got it from.
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The vial could have been labelled... right? ... right? Nah, you're absolutely right about this, and I'm going to rewrite this part of the mission to better conceal what you've found until Sumannus explains it to you after mission completion.
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Sumannus recognized the vial as containing the soul of the Dread Priestess and fills me in on her. Probably should have had the vial be unknown until this part, since it made little sense that the clue says that I already know what it is when I found it.
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Agreed.
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So apparently this Priestess has found the Raven King in the past and this vial was a phylactery of sorts, it held her soul so that she would be immortal as long as it was intact. The Raven King was after it but also were the Rikti, for reasons that I still don't understand. The map, which is now intact, shows where the Priestess has been hiding all this time.
Um, why do I have to go and defeat her? Why not just smash the vial and destroy her that way? Or would doing so just make her mortal and still require her physical body being killed? Some explanation would help here.
Anyways, I'm being paid to go and defeat her down in Oranbega so off I go. Sumannus tells me that the Raven King will meet me there.
Ok, now that I'm inside it tells me to destroy the Dread Priestess' soul at the altar. Still I think some explanation in the briefing would be beneficial.
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The clue for the vial explains that attempts to destroy it were futile. I've updated Sumannus' text to explain that the only way to destroy it is to break the magic seal that protects it at the altar where it was created.
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Suprisingly, I find an altar in the first room I come across. I presume that clicking it will summon the priestess, possibly to my location, and I have not found the Raven King yet. I decide to not consider those things and click it just to see what happens.
Boy it takes a long time.
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Interact time is reduced on this one. I thought I had already fixed this, but it looks like the changes weren't saved. It is now turned to 6 from 10.
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Interestingly the opposite happened. The Dread Priestess appeared somewhere deep inside the map and Gregory Husk spawned right next to me instead. Yay, forcefields! I just hope he doesn't spam Force Bolt.
Well, he does use the annoying Force Bubble and his bots generate knockback, but in these cramped corridors it's not such a huge deal as there is only so far that he can push them away and none are getting stuck inside walls.
Then he puts someone into Detention Field. Hmmm...
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My biggest fear was that he would do this. He behaved himself on every playthrough I made while I was testing, but I knew this would happen as soon as I turned away. Unfortunately, Detention Field is available even on standard difficulty.
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We get to the last room and find the Dread Priestess, whose description tells me that she was once a member of Ravenheart. I see also that the author is a fan of the magic booster pack.
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The timing on the booster pack couldn't have been better. When I was planning this arc, I wanted her to have a similar appearance to what you see there. It worked out for her character, I think.
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Then I noticed that Greg was gone. I found him on the otherside of the map, apparently he didn't follow me through that portal, despite being right next to me, and took the long way instead. I went to find him and returned to the boss room.
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Odd. In all of my playtesting, he spawned on the otherside of the portal, so I never really encountered this. I'm going to take a look and see if there is someway I can remedy this.
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The Dread Priestess is Dark Blast/Dark Armor. Shame she had Oppressive Gloom on because it made such a nice costume near impossible to see until we was dead. In all it was a pretty easy battle with Greg backing me up. She wasn't to happy to be feeling pain all of the sudden, so apparently smashing the vial simply made her mortal again.
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Trying something out here, I turned up her difficulty in the Dark Blast to give her a life drain, which might make her a bit more difficult, possibly even giving Husk a bit of a hard time. I toned down her Dark Armor to balance that change, which also means that she won't be using her Oppressive Gloom.
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I exit and get a "nice job" from Sumannus but no mention of my payment. Where's my money?
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Would you believe I ran out of file space and totally forgot about this until you mentioned it? How embarrassing. I made some adjustments to give me enough space for Sumannus to explain the payment situation. Sumannus now believes that the money he gives is a suitable payment. If you wish, you can imagine it comes in a large bag with a dollar sign on it.
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The Verdict:
Despite the feeling that this was an arc made for the author's villain group, it still had a pretty solid story. It was confusing until the last mission due to that missing clue, so the author needs to look into that. The briefings had a few typos and could use some more info as well. The second mission could stand to be shorter and not a defeat all as well. Gregory Husk was a helpful ally but could also be annoying, especially for a meleer. I'd give it just over 4 stars, but needs some polish to get to 5.
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It is actually loosely based on the villain group. Sumannus and Husk are both members of the group which make a cameo in the story. The Dread Priestess is an original character made specifically for this arc.
While I wanted to use those characters as a cameo, I didn't want to detract too much from making this story be about the involvement of the player as someone who was brought into the middle of a big mess as sort of a paid mercenary, who ends up cleaning up the mess that the characters involved in the story wouldn't have been able to do without their help.
The minions of Ravenheart encountered in the second mission will eventually make a return as a proper enemy group for a future Heroic arc, likely with some improvements.
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Just as an addendum here, I checked the mission and can confirm that the Talon was supposed to give you the map piece.
Clue Name: Map Piece
Clue Description: Given to you by a member of Ravenheart when you saved him from the Rikti. It fits together with the first piece you found in the office, but it still looks like a piece is missing.
I also changed the vial's description to explain that the Rikti were trying to reclaim the vial, rather than destroy it. If I can make enough space in the file, I want to expand on explaining how the Rikti plan to use the magics contained to their advantage, which will also help explain why Rikti Magus are involved.
Thanks for the review, and the suggestions to help improve this arc. It's greatly appreciated.
