GlaziusF

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Changes in how I'll be doing reviews:
In short, I won't be, unless you specifically request one be posted here, and I trust you to be fair and honest.


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I like long reviews. I do them for other people when I can. Hit me.

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i am sorry about the therapist spawning on the last floor of the hospital, at all times he is* supposed to spawn in the front as* do the allies, that he triggers. but that map is* buggy and sometimes* he goes* to the back. i have not figured out a way around. i will look at it again and mess with it and see if i can make it work another way.


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One of the things I have heard suggested but can't comment on the efficacy of one way or another: is he at the top of the objectives list? It seems sensible that the system should try to place the special spawns at the top of the list first, but I have no idea how it actually works out.

Feedback from a high 40s spine/regen scrapper. (Because I want to get Mission Engineer legit, dangitall.) She's a plant person from another dimension.

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Interesting framing device, even if it doesn't strictly work with the MA system. Maybe if his "bug me" dialog was something like "step towards the light".

Ah, the Midnight Club. Makes a nice introductory map since it's so small and mostly empty... odd. My subconscious nightmares just got owned by Vazhilok. I'm not sure what this says about me.

...I'm not sure if there's a proper use of "chicken tug", but this comes close

Well, I'll take this as comedy. But because I think about things WAY too hard, while the New Kids on the Block and the X For Dummies series both technically overlapped, at the time the NKotB were falling out of pop and X For Dummies was talking exclusively about programming.

If you wanted to go "crazy dream" with it, well, the bookreading zombies were a start, but maybe have her castigate you about various other insane personal faults, ending with "AND WHY ARE YOU ONLY WEARING YOUR UNDERWEAR?!"

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Man, the hospital map.

Yeah, this is a terrible pet peeve of mine and rather unfair to you, but there's only one of this map and a bajagillion nooks and crannies. (For our UK readers, that's 1.5 metric buttloads.)

Wow. This place is a morgue.

A really, really, understaffed morgue with bodies all over the place. ...did there really need to be so many? I'm trying to sift through the generics to find something special and it's kind of a pain. (also is it possible to not give your fireblasters Minerals? Boosted perception and all that.)

I'd also kind of like more description on them than just "figment of your imagination", but I'm suspecting space issues are at work here. If they're not then why not have a little speculation?

Ah, the Ink Men at least have someone else to drain speed off of- OH SWEET JESUS NIGHTMARES OUTTA NOWHERE! Were they an ambush? They certainly seemed to run in.

The Therapist is in the end room of the map. Is he supposed to be there? Forunately Vanity doesn't spawn within immediate aggro range. My two helpers are back on the bottom floor.

I was kinda expecting a clue from somewhere in the remains of shattered promises and broken friendships. Either way, can you tone them down? I can understand using them for effect but the effect on me is "glowie somewhere. Monk senses tingling! Must... adjust... glowie!"

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The intro to the third mission mentions Trolls in the first mission, but I didn't see them in there at all.

...my secret shame is that I'm SECRETLY A NEMESIS PLOT?

Oh, just hostage guards. Thank goodness.

Hostages, no clues. Glowies, no clues. I can understand not wanting anything specific but if a clue description can just be some words from the Therapist that'll be something on its own. As it is I'm giving up frobbing everything.

There was... a rogue patrol of CoT that included a boss that annihilated some dream guys? I think?

Ah, my secret shame is apparently an old flame. Alright. Shame about the melee bug, the silent knight is absolute pants against blasty mobs.

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...fries with that hamburger? What the hell? Have I only been dreaming that I'm getting dream therapy?

Apparently so! All my happiest memories are... in the sewers. Uh huh.

...hilariously the protector with a premature MoG problem is actually the energy/regen kind.

There seems to be some infighting up ahead, dream people taking each other out. And the Knight is taking out all my apparent bad old memories - some Nightmares spawn right where a parking meter was, which couldn't have been planned.

Shame has already taken out her guards, and I think that cues a nightmare ambush... five stacked Siphon Speeds. Time to go get a drink! And I walk through more infighting to the last room - some mind/darks and an ill... dark? I think? Either way I'm glad I stocked up on break frees.

The last boss talks about how I really haven't accomplished anything, which I guess is part of breaking through this, but he mentions other sources...

Maybe once I get out this will all make sense.

...and I hit the wrong button and walked away from the closing dialogue. Wish the souvenir said something about this.

Really wish I'd gotten any clues at all, from anything. I appreciate how hard it is to cram stuff into the space provided, but, uh, without clues I'm clueless? So to speak? If there was supposed to be something weird going on I never caught a hint of it until the Door started talking trash.

Also it seems like your souvenir clobbered my list somehow, but I'm not going to ding you for that.

If you want to return the favor, arcs are in my sig. Didn't want to dump this into the thread.

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Dream Paper (ID: 1874)

This is a well written arc, I didn't find any grammar or spelling mistakes so good job :-)

The story itself is pretty good and the missions are well well crafted with good use of dialogue.

I wasn't sure though why the lost would raid a homeless site for one of their papers, especially if the manager is the one behind it and asking a troll to deliver it for him? That bit didn't really make sense to me.


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They were using it as a storehouse, actually. When Alfonse took some home they broke into HIS house to get it back.

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The Tsoo bit was interesting. I did feel personally that surely Grandma knew what she was taking and was happy with it, I did go with it. Infact when the Tsoo boss hinted there was more at work, it was quite disapointing that the story didn't follow that lead to figure out what he meant.

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If you want to find out what the Tsoo were up to, talk to a Tsoo contact in the 15-20 range and start the arc called "The Tsoo Shenanigans".

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The troll paper boy (he was kinda cute, I liked his character) didn't seem too interested in helping sometimes, was he set to fight defencively? Probably best actually, I can imagine him dying on aggressive.

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Yeah, melee-flavored allies think their attacks reach 7 feet when they're really only 5 feet long. If they start to attack ranged characters they'll just sit there and stare at them. I'm hoping they fix that soon.

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My one quip would be the final bosses power selection. I don't understand the selection. Surely Psi/Psi would fit better? There are a lot of psi powersets to choose from, including the blaster and dominator secondary. :-)

Overall I did enjoy the arc and rated it 4 stars. The actual quality of the dialogue was easily 5 stars though. Nice work!

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There are a lot of psi powersets, but who can deal with psi at level 20? I wanted to give his main attacks a more commonly-resisted type.

As requested, I'm going to see if that mission 4 acts any better.

Huh. Some revisions this time around. The rave has both an "Agent Johnson" and a "Special Agent Johnson". That's about twice as much Johnson as I was expecting. Also there are some glowies to frob but they're all in a side room. Weird placement quirk, I guess.

New wrinkles in the rescue mission too. When you're talking about legal agreements though it's "breach" not "breech".

Ah, finally found her. Didn't notice any patrols, but there was a Field Agent hanging out in a spawn for some reason.

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Last mission. Interesting premise, probably going to be a pretty long slog if 45 minutes is a reasonable time. Let's see how much I need.

...why is the detective headed over to the safehouse? Aren't they hitting the hospital in force?

Aw man, this hospital. It's not your fault, but there's only one of these maps and I know it like the back of my hand because everyone uses it whenever they need a hospital.

The system text for a nurse rescue talks about rescuing "both" nurses, but a) there are 3 and b) it's going to play every one anyway.

...man, this is going to sound really anal, but no way would Roberts have access to a hospital's records after he already left it to work at some other company. Hospitals are federally mandated to be crazy about access control - if patient records leak to the public terrible things can happen. Besides, if he had credentials he could just have logged in from a remote location.

Maybe Roberts left his security jammer - a Crey enterprises product with an Atomic Healthcare sticker over the logo - jammed into the back of the machine?

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Overall it felt like a later-level update of the Dr. Vahz arc, minus running around for one mission with a permanent RI debuff on you.

My only real complaint is the detective's dialogue. I can't offer an easy rule of thumb for it -- I just know he crams too many ideas into one sentence with no punctuation and it's tough to follow as a result, like a kitten chasing a laser pointer on a tile floor. Circuit_Boy was, I think, offering help with getting grammar in shape, so you might want to talk to him about that.

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Right I've made some changes and updated the arc, if you wish to play it again :-)

GlaziusF is there an arc you would like me to play?

Thankyou everyone for the feedback I have received so far, it has all been very helpful :-)

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"Dream Paper" would probably work the best for you. The other hero arc's been played a lot and the villain one would be impossible for you because of the Carnie bug (villain carnies start at 30, heroes at 40, so a hero fighting MA carnies is at 30 fighting 40s. Yeah no.)

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Hey thanks for the feedback, I will give it a good look over when I get back from Uni tonight.

The detective dialogue has been quite troublesome for me really.

No idea what happened for you on Mission 4, it is a tech map but I chose a linear map on purpose because I don't like the "lost in space" labs. Patient X has always been in the final room, perhaps you didn't look properly and presumed a bug too quickly? Again I have done this arc myself over 10 times and never had it fail. :-)

As for the noise, I will probably reduce the number of clues.

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The last room was one of those giant central reactor affairs with a little side drop, yes? Ran circles around that thing and dipped down to the side as well. Nada. A Crey patrol had spawned in there, though. Do you have those set to random places? If so I may just have had bad luck for it to overwrite the boss fight.

Noise is more ambient noise from the map, as I was checking to see if there was a glowy about Patient X being removed to a different facility or something.

Okay! Live feedback from a high 40's spine/regen scrapper (gotta get 50 arcs for Engineer):

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Pulling a Batman on the underworld is something you don't see enough of. The detective grates, but I'm sure that at least initially he has his reasons. (Wonder what he thinks about the Kheldians on the force. Or the Psicops.)

And Jimmy has no idea what my gender is. ($himher, $hisher, etc, are used for that.)

Nice spiel from him, could use a few more hard returns for pacing.

It's nice that the detective thinks the FBI is actually going to be able to do something. I've worked for FBI agents in much lower security bands.

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Ah, custom enemies... talking about a police tipster. I wonder if I've coincidentally met this person.

They seem to be the next generation of Vahzilok.

Ah, nice fakery with the boss objective. I was wondering where the bodybag got off to.

And the contact's sorry about the deathtrap. Alright...

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He names some new guy I've never heard of before, this cop who's grieving over losing a body just as I investigate a case about a radical group of surgeons. He says we should go arrest him immediately And he's coming along for backup. I... wonder. Okay, let's ride this train. The view from the window should be nice at least.

Hmm. Willpower. I may be taking less point than the detective suspects.

Crey patrol. Okay, they're just humoring the maniacs on the off chance they'll work. I can buy that.

Heh. Doctors with long striped scarves. Is that deliberate?

Ah, and it looks like they're planning on double-crossing each other.

A recording device! My goodness, do you mean nobody in the precinct is ratting on me of their own free will?

Hmm. Leading him out might get a little tedious, especially since nothing else seems to have spawned to liven it up. Can you just make him an ally who follows you around, maybe looking for the evidence to clear his name?

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And hoping that one lead will lead to another... juding by these reports it seems that it will, in the worst way possible.

...um, that's odd. I've gone all around this place but not found Patient X. Or a glowie that says "sorry, hero, your hideous medical monstrosity is in another castle". (the whereami calls it "tech_45_layout_03_01" if you were using a random map.)

Yeah, sorry, gonna have to bail on this one. Ran up and down it three times with the sound all the way up to listen for glowies.

Also I never knew tech labs were so loud.

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You want to give the contact text a bit of a work-over. Commas should separate related parts of the same idea that need a little breathing space; semicolons, if not periods, should separate ideas that can stand on their own. Do a pass for common confusions (its for it's, your for you're) and the like. They weren't everywhere, but they showed up, and the detective's dialogue felt a little stilted as a result.

Not going to give this a rating because it's not fair to stick the player with a system bug beyond their control to fix, but up until I had to bail it was a solid 4.

I don't really have an arc you can do for XP thanks to the hero Carnie bug, but if you'd like to take a look at "Dream Paper" in my sig that'd be nice, though I'd understand turning it down since I didn't get to the end.

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I started the arc solo, so it can't be that the spawn size is set at the beginning of the story arc; maybe it's determined by the high water mark of your team size somehow? That might also explain why my 2 player team got beat up by Rikti in the other story arc where the team size decreased from 4 to 2.

Anyway, even if there IS some weird logic that meant I was soloing a map spawned for 3 players (which is sounding kind of plausible now that I think about it), I think you should still drop the buff/debuff sets from the minions; reserve those for lieutenants and higher. If you don't agree, that's cool, but you might find it worthwhile to test using a mid-sized (3 to 5 players) team (of average ability, not an optimized superteam or anything) to see what happens.

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Well, I know TFs do a thing where they spawn for minimum X people, regardless of team size. I wonder if whatever logic got rejiggered to allow for invites/drops mid-mission didn't crank the spawn number back down when people left.

As far as the buff/debuff sets, I'll have to take another look at numbers. I assigned them on the assumption that they'd work like everything else - a minion mace guy does less damage than a lieutenant mace guy, and IIRC a minion empath heals for less than a lieutenant empath. I could swear some of the buffs scaled down (so the siphon power is dropping your damage/boosting theirs by 10%, coming from a minion).

The intent was not so much "all defender superteam" as "everyone runs 1 leadership toggle", creating an incentive to lock down/take out "the healers" that you really don't see much in stock groups, in addition to a reason to mop up the minions.

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After two team wipes and two deaths while soloing on the lowest difficulty, I'm throwing in the towel and giving up on this mission. Possibly this is doable on a stalker who can stealth to all the objectives and take out just the spawn around them. I didn't find it doable on a solo level 28 brute though, and brutes are generally considered decent soloers.

I think the Bravuran Militia definitely need to be toned down. At a minimum, I would remove all the buff/debuff secondaries from ALL your minions; those start to get crazy synergy once you have a few of them in the same place.

Overall
I like the premise and the writing style, and the costumes of the Bravuran NPCs. Each mission is interesting and has plenty of stuff to do. Unfortunately, the difficulty of the custom mobs in mission 3 is a showstopper for me; I really feel like I tried, a lot, to fight past these guys, and I tried both teamed up and solo, and took 4 deaths before giving up. With these results, I didn't feel like I could give this arc more than 3 stars.


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Well, "crazy synergy" is the idea. Everybody in the group is working at "standard" level except for the lieutenant's fire buff set and the boss's merc set, for Spec Ops. Unfortunately I can't see the numbers on the flashbangs they were hitting you with. Did you actually get blinded or just notice the flash?

Nobody has boosted perception. If you saw any Storm bosses they can grant it with O2, but by that time they're already aggroed. Tech maps do tend to throw the occasional pair of spawns into close proximity to each other, and of course there are the ambushes you get from provoking the guards around defendable objects.

But I tested this whole thing on a dual blades/fire brute, on difficulty 2, and generally just ate inspirations as they dropped. He's got a knockback resistance set bonus, but aside from that, no power pool stuff except Stamina. The dude tends to die every other spawn on a big team, and he was generally in more danger from the Legacy Chain.

Maybe the map was still set at/spawning for 3 for some reason? I'm pretty sure DB/Fire is worse all around than Elec(right?)/Invuln.

(Also, with the text and multiple objectives, this arc is kissing 100%. The unique models for Lloyd and the first mission's Contessa were the first casualties - she's now in the generic uniform of the army's DB Lts.)

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I kind of have the opposite problem.

I want the first mission of an arc to be a sort of "training mission," in which you face the team that will be your allies for the rest of the arc - several bosses in sequence. I don't think it'll be *too* hard (they're just Bosses, not EBs), but don't want someone having to repeatedly beat their head against the wall if they fail. Plus, if they *do* get killed, it'd be nice to have that be an automatic "mission fails but no harm done, just a training mission."

Doesn't seem to be any easy way to do this, though.

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"Touch the VR console to end the simulation."

Put it in the front of the map on a decently long timer, and the (all entirely optional) bosses in the middle and back.

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Not sure if this one has been noticed. I made an AV with Mind Control as her main power set in the MA, standard difficulty. I tested her with my level 50 super reflexes scrapper on the lowest difficulty (so she was an elite boss). Her mind control attacks seem to have a 100 percent hit rate, even with elude running. Her secondary set, fiery melee, missed every time. But mind control never missed. I tested a couple of times and never saw her mental attacks whiff.

I am pretty sure I've fought other mind control bosses on MA where this didn't happen, but I can't be sure. In fact I have an LT in another custom group with mind control as his main set and he seems to miss at the normal rate.

The arc with the uber-mental AV is 83170. Her name is Myriad, spawns in the third mission. Fortunately she's an optional boss.

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Several mind control attacks are not considered positional in nature and will ignore positional defense, IE super reflexes.

Playin' things now.

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Okay, first mission is... aw man, burning Atlas Park?

I HATE this map. There's no minimap and there are honeycomb walls all over the place blocking targeting.

And there are crazy warbeasts from crazy enemy groups! And a hostage from the Objectivist States of America! I want to go all over this map and find everything!

And I CAN'T.

Because there's no minimap and there are honeycomb walls all over the place blocking targeting.

Exiting. Oh, this will get hilarious.

(also I am a plant person from another dimension, what is this "monkey" you speak of?)

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Wonderful briefing with the other alternate Earth. Now it's time to go smash aliens again! Woohoo!

ALIENS AND ZOMBIES! I have died and gone to B-movie HEAVEN.

Okay, you seem to have mixed something up there. You have a zombie talking about Hank and Maria, and a trooper going FLEEEEESH.

Loved the boss's dialog. So cornball. Of course that transponder has me worried.

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Ahaha, the intro to the next mission is wonderful. I do wonder who I'm going to be picking up.

...a carnie? Maybe?

Have I mentioned yet that the tanksuit is absolutely hilarious? What is that, another fine product of the random button?

Whoa. Pyro Terra. Yeah, steering clear of those.

It's kind of sad about the tents, they actually block out that energy beacon so I was still running around trying to find a dude.

Why not just use the tighter Steel Canyon map, the one Bobcat and Mother Mayhem show up on? Even worse problems with an escort?

Now the beacon, now it goes down, and - heh. Oh, that's nice. Hello, tons of reinforcements.

Unfortunately they have a tendency to fly after shock troops and get lost.

Wow, and I needed 'em for that giant rumble at the end. That was great. Dropped him just as the war cavalry showed up.

I think this is why not tighter Steel Canyon. Not enough room for all the epic.

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Ah, and now the closer. This one's for Joike!

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Another thoroughly enjoyable ride, ARH.

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My friend just told me. It's the word naked. I'm pissed, that is so [censored] stupid.

"Invisible to the naked eye" Is obviously a euphemism for hot orgies! Am I right!?

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Well, you could always try "untrained eye".

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Sounds like you are desperate though lol.

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You got that right! I can't tell you how much time I've sunk into fixing this one thing, to no avail.

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Check the details on maps carefully: Freak-lympics doesn't have a back position for a boss spawn. Only 5 front and 3 middle.

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Where are these kinds of details listed, Corsair? I'm not at my home comp, so I can't call it up at the moment.

Thanks, everyone, I will definitely try these fixes out. I am ever amazed at how quick and helpful y'all are!

EC

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If you look over at the right pane when you select a map you'll get a listing of map objectives and where you can place them, in addition to a minimap.

Unless you've picked a random one, then all bets are off.

Pathologic?

Pathologic is about hard choices, changing viewpoints, and the terrible balancing act of life.

I don't think the MA supports choice or reflects its results very well, though. And I can't see making a Russian game work without that.

I can grab a kind of structure from it - fight through the same map three times with three different "viewpoints" trailing you, seeing different events and finding different clues each time. Then one or two failable missions.

But I wonder what kind of contact you'd need for the whole mess.

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I wouldn't mind hosting a story arc of yours if you need some more room. Although you could ask to get pohsyb to Dev Choice your arcs since he likes them so much.

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Only 1 dev choice per account now.

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I thought that was only for the migration off of Test server. No?

Aw, sorry to hear that, Cat.

My stuff is properly tagged! ...though most of it's for lowbies or mid-carders.

Less than 100, right? ...well, Dream Paper probably has fewer than 100 plays, given how often I've seen "someone voted on 'arcname'" right when it got back to 5 stars.

But for purposes of this thread, I have two qualifying arcs.

"The Bravuran Jobs" (5073) is a villainside arc - because of the way Carnies currently work it's not recommended for a hero that can't take level 40 carnies natively. It's a bit heavy on "self-motivation" in the villainous style, though.

"Bricked Electronics" (2180) is a lowbie (sub-20) heroside arc, and it works as low as level 6 and perhaps even lower. It ends with a few mysteries left unsolved, but if you've played enough villainside arcs you may be able to work them out.

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I don’t have much in the way of comment about MA-only that wouldn’t be reiterating what I said yesterday: the pacing, advancement-wise seems a bit slow (which really only proves that the mission and story arc bonuses, along with patrol XP, do add quite a bit to the pace of the game – so be glad for them folks!), but as long as I can effectively keep myself in the best enhancements available for my level, it seems at least a reasonable trade off. I honestly don’t know when I’m going to start looking into IOs – I suspect perhaps at level 12, when I can see what, if anything, I could buy once I’m totally outfitted with DO’s. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have an ample ticket surplus. I’m about midway through level 9, and have well over a thousand tickets. I’m now positive I’m going to have plenty left over when it comes time to change out to DO’s, so the only question is what, if anything, to get with my surplus. If you guys have got anything you’d like me to try out, I’ll take it under advisement.

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Heh. I'd like to see an IO build from extremely low levels, even though it'll be hugely expensive. I want to see how much money you can make by cherrypicking rewards at the MA...

Though that's more market goofery than anything and as such may not be your bag.

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#2180 Bricked Electronics (5 stars; honestly was teetering between four and five, and decided to go with five).

Pros: This arc is well written, with an intriguing twist at the end. I actually liked the organization system for clues the author came up with – I didn’t think it was strictly necessary, but it certainly didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the arc. The custom foes were well done and well balanced (always worth bonus points from me, since custom foes do add variety, and I’m always pleased when an author includes them while resisting the urge to “power them up” and thereby make them unfun). By and large, I enjoyed the plot, and thought the story was good.

Cons: There were points where the story got hard to follow. To me, the weakest point was the “stumbling across the Council sub-plot” in the third mission: it doesn’t tie in that well to the rest of the arc, but I honestly didn’t find it so far out in left field that it ruined the arc for me either. The last mission did strike me as kind of a risk on the author’s part: if it goes well, you don’t seriously annoy the player, and you get to keep the rating he or she has been forming as they’ve been playing the arc. If it results in a mission failure, I can certainly see a player being miffed enough to rate it lower (let’s face it – making the last mission in an arc fail-able always risks irritating a player who has invested in playing through the arc.) That said, the premise behind the last mission is certainly logical, and the time limit did make it exciting for me.

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I try to end my arcs with a modestly tight time limit or otherwise failable condition, if it makes any sense for the mission to end one of two different ways. It's the only branching path that will "stick", so to speak, even if I have to write the souvenir so it sounds ambiguous.

When I was in beta I'd often let timers run out just to see what happened. That's why I try to keep them low, though admittedly for your AE character going out and punching things on the street isn't an option.

(For the record, the mission won't fail if the Goldbrickers destroy that deposit block, only if time runs out. Though I'm not going to ask you to play through again to see what happens, it IS a little more interesting than YOU IDIOT FAILURE WHY DID YOU FAIL LIKE AN IDIOT)

Live feedback!

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First mission! Okay! Going into a warehouse to find an artifact - except my contact never tells me what it looks like or where I can find it. I guess it's in the glowy box, it usually is.

Hi, Mr. Circle Mage inside the door. Hi, Mr. Captive Guy inside the door. Hi, three relevant glowies inside the door. Hi, massive sprawling room behind said mission-completing items with absolutely nothing relevant in it. It would be nice if you mattered.

So the Circle Mage dumps on me what's actually going on as I wear him down. Uh, if it's really important enough to head back to Oranbega maybe you should just beat feet, guy. No? Rather get chopped up? Suit yourself.

The glowy crate formerly contained the artifact (I know this... how?) and was levered open, leaving "distinctive weapon marks". So distinctive I can't actually tell what's distinctive about them! Given that you can pick up a crowbar for like five bucks I wonder why they'd bother leaving suc obvious traces.

I also wonder what the point of the Circle is. The Mage kinda beats into my head that the Circle being there at all is a mistake, a clever ruse by some third party, and the clues at the scene paint a picture of that third party, alright. The contact also impresses on me when I get back about how the CoT actually didn't play an important role, and I'm kinda wondering what the point was of calling them in at all if it's going to provide 15 seconds of smokescreen.

I would at least like to have a description of the crate with the artifact, so it doesn't seem so unreasonable that I conclude it's gone. But this whole scenario is making me think the Circle mind-controlled my contact and planted the evidence against the Knives.

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...especially since he's sending me to Malta. Knives are a mercenary organization. Generally only Malta has the scratch to hire them regularly, but they'll work for anyone. And occasionally they pursue their own weird agenda.

This isn't to say that it doesn't make sense for Malta to have intel on them. But how does a Warrior find out about a shadowy government conspiracy, let alone a minor intelligence hub of same?

...and the boss just gives up the intel? That's rather uncharacteristic of him. I was expecting a cyanide capsule.

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It'd be nice if I some of the clues I picked up actually mentioned Croatoa, seeing as how I'm being sent there now.

Ah joy. I get to wait around for caltrop patches to clear before my new allies will be ready to go. Eh, forget it, I'll just ditch 'em anyway.

It is nice to see the Knives actually being mystic for once. A lot of people forget about that aspect of them.

Do you want an ambush interrupting every attempt to smash the tablet? As the arc stands you'll only get that for the first one.

...I'm gonna be fighting JunJun, VesVes, CereCere, and PallaPalla. This may be amusing.

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Aw. Just #s 2 and 4. But what's this about weirdness with "the Incarnate of Zeus"? Did the Warriors get their hands on an artifact with Incarnate power in the first place? Also I think Zeus is technically like everyone involved's dad or something. But then again this is Greek mythology, there's about even odds that for a given X Zeus is its dad.

It's a temple but it's not an Oranbegan one! My hat is off to you, good sir.

Aphrodite! Reading her description... honey, everyone loves beauty everywhen. That's why it's called beauty. It's just that these days you can get it out of a tin.

It's a pity there's no dolla-variable for the opposite sex, that might make for interesting taunts. At least if I wasn't a plant person from another dimension.

Fortunately I had enough break frees to not get confused in the middle of her horde of ambushes. I would suggest at least giving her some decent resistances so that a team doesn't get a ton of minions dropped on them when she melts, as bosses tend to do before a team.

Almost unique among the melee powersets, Hard Broad Sword has buildup. Just thought I'd put that out there.

I'm wondering if you intended Aphrodite to show up at the back of the mission here, since most of the minions seem to still be under her sway even after her inglorious faceplant into the gravel.

Oh, it's a patrol of Knives of Artemis! Why are they not the rank and file in this mission, with the charmed warriors as "honor guard'?I guess for a little variety.

Hestia has a nice description. Helps explain why she's trying to burn down her latest guest.

...wait, why does Athena have a Jupiter symbol on her shield? That's odd.

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Come to think of it, all the goddesses are rather tall. I guess for concept, but it's kind of odd to see "Sister Luna" towering over the Knives she was once supposed to be.

Nice use of patrol dialogue and setpiece battles in the last level.

Interesting summons as Artemis is whittled down. It might be nice to have them as patrols in the last mission, possibly?

Anyway, nice close to the arc, fights felt very nice, but there's some work that needs to be done on the setup of the earlier missions.

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Bricked Electronics

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Not as drastic as the rework I did following Venture's comments, but I've tightened and clarified a lot of the text. At least I think so. Anybody wants to give it a shake, link to the comment thread's in my sig.

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Poor Supergroup base Mission Computer. It sits there, looking so cool and tempting... And all it does is offer a trial that doesn't exist.

What if SG leaders could post published arcs on it, scripted by members of the SG? I can see even more of a 'GM' component, more life in bases, and something resembling the TroubAlert! (...though the MC would need a little blinking red light ...indicating new arcs! )

The contact hologram would not be necessary, as the contact image appears while talking to the Mission computer. The only thing I haven't figured out is how to implement the mission door-- a feasible, SG base-workable, replacement for the AE "holo-tube".

The thing that appeals to me the most about this idea is the concept of getting "calls for help" at your SG base-- team members gather in the base, as would be required for a TF (all in same zone), get the mission info, stock up on supplies from base storage, buff up at empowerment stations, and jet out to save the day!

Anyway, this one's been bouncing around in my head for a while, and now it's out and free. Back to scripting.

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The raid portal would be a good replacement for the holotube, now that plots are so cheap.

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Ok I have a new theory, can anyone confirm or dispute?

It seems to me that Custom critters are being given priority over standard critters when populating the mission.

The reason I'm thinking this is that my standard guys weren't showing up in the hallway sections of the map (enclosed space, you're more likely to get a small group of higher-level guys) but appeared in the more enclosed spaces where you'd get a larger group of lower-level guys. So if you have three custom minions and they have priority, the standard guys will never spawn for a solo tester on diff 1, 3, or 5, and almost never on 2 or 4.

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I have a custom group that's a mix of Clockwork and customs.

If I run the mission with them at level 20 I'll run across spawns that are entirely customs. I think this happens because the game is trying to spawn level 21 enemies and scale them down to 20. And only the customs are valid level 21s.

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Bricked Electronics

Stated level range is 8-20 blue side. Played a 10 inv/ss tanker.

Very interesting premise (IMHO)... Mark Freeman has the power to read data remanence off of electronic devices and he's convinced there's something weird about a refurbished cell phone he acquired and he sends you to investigate it.

Mission 1
Briefing: despite quite a long briefing with interesting text in it, I find that Mark has actually told me almost nothing about what's going on but it's just the start of this investigation, so hopefully I'll learn more.

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It's... the start of an investigation? Hmm. More on this later.

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I like the pop-up as you enter, where you hear jetpacks. Helps set the scene.

Goldbricker Swag clue: "The Goldbrickers were probably trying to move fast, and that meant not hitting home base too early." I'm not sure what this actually means? Maybe this is an expression I'm not familiar with. Do you mean to say the Goldbrickers forgot this crate?


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Well, Billmark's talking about "stop 4 on the itinerary" and "I knew we should have dropped this stuff off". The idea is they're making a lightning-fast sweep around targets of opportunity and grabbing tech to fence.

Could probably stand to trade "hitting home base" with "going back to base".

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Billmark's dialog: "Ggh" needs a vowel in it.

Billmark's clue: "Rogue Isle Protector" should probably be "Rogue Isles Protector", or else use a specific island name. "The flakes of ink in the compartment suggest that he marked it up"... I don't think most people use ink that flakes any more. Maybe "ink smears" instead of flakes.


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It should be. It isn't. But for plot purposes I don't really have to have the jetpack cook off all of Billmark's markups. Will remove. (the newsprint is fine because villains have flaming hands)

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Debriefing: "A newpaper?" should be "A newspaper?" Also "Dead tree edition, my one weakness" doesn't scan; maybe "Dead trees, my one weakness" would make more sense.

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Man, curse this infernal versioning weirdness! I could swear I found and fixed that yesterday. Will take another look.

Dead tree edition is hacker talk for a printed copy.

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Logic problem: if I brought Mark the jetpack the Goldbricker leader had, wouldn't he be able to divine something from that using his powers? Even if you don't want to give away more clues at this stage, consider mentioning that Mark tries this but doesn't learn much; as I see it, there's absolutely no reason not to bring every bit of electronics that we find to him to analyze.

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Looking up information on the Goldbricker jetpacks, it doesn't seem like they're built to "know" anything. There are mentions of a security measure that'll burn them out without an authorized user but that's contradicted in the mission where it appears.

Probably could fit in something about how their jetpacks and weapons are "high tech, but it's all hard-wired. No memory. Well, no USEFUL memory. They save self-diagnostics, but you can't plan with those."

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Mission 2
Pretty good briefing, though still we don't seem to know anything. Another good popup on entering the mission that sets the scene.

You have some clockworks in the "Constructs" faction and others in "JJ's Constructs"; should these be in the same faction or are they intentionally different?


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Original Enemy Group bug: if I want the allies in mission 4 to be "JJ's Constructs" they have to be that enemy group, which means any chatty fights also betray their true origins.

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I found a destructible Charging Station 1-A that I destroyed, but it seemed unconnected to any of the objectives; not sure what it's purpose was. Or maybe it's just there for color.


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Ding ding ding.

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I fought a Tweeter clockwork, a lieutenant with sonic blast; this actually seemed quite dangerous to my 10 tanker (who admittedly is still kinda squishy), due to the stacking sonic blasts. The other custom mobs seemed fine.


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Ran through this whole thing on a level 6 shield scrapper. Shield's a "weak defense set", right? I don't even keep track anymore.

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JJ's rant: "drek" should be "dreck". "'course they have" should be "'Course they have". "nobody's usin' it any more" should maybe be "nobody's usin' it no more", but the way it's written can work too. Her rant is very good but she never does say where she got the cell phone, which was the whole point of busting up her operation.

Debriefing: Mark is impressed that JJ was able to repair cellphones; but, I would actually think he'd be more impressed that she hotwired Clockwork robots and built a few robots of her own. May want to reword what he says.

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Regional variant. I'll clarify what Mark's impressed about - building a robot defense force is a personal project, doing the microelectronics work to repair a cellphone means you can operate to someone else's spec.

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Glad he is using his power to look at the cell phones I picked up. If you have a superpower, use it often.

Mission 3
Briefing: Nice touch on mentioning J.J. reformed and got a job. I'm a little puzzled how Mark knows the phones came from a cave; did J.J. tell him or his power tells him somehow? Would like some clarification. If it's his power, though, why wouldn't he have known from the first phone?

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I'll try and reword the text, I think he said that JJ pointed him to the cave?

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Also Mark complains that J.J.'s refurb of the phones wiped out the memory; but I'm pretty sure in mission 1's briefing Mark claimed that erasing the memory doesn't stop his power. I can't definitely check this from where I am in the arc, but if so, that would appear to be a contradiction on how his powers work.

The stuff about robbing a bank just sounds weird. Maybe drop it until later in the story, or else rewrite it to sound more like a mystic vision or psychic reading (i.e. describe it based on vague impressions that Mark psychically sensed).

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I'll see what I can fit into the first sendoff. Something like...

"You want some specifics about this ghost? Yeah. I do too.

"It's like... trying to piece together a line drawing when all you see are the corners. Your brain gives you an idea of the shape, but it could be anything.

"The only thing that'll tell me more is another piece of tech with a similar past. My inner techie wants me to share my ideas, pass 'em around for comments, but... I can't. I guess that's just part of being a mutant; being the only person on the planet who does what you do how you do it."

As for the refurb, well, there are different levels of wiping out data. I'll try and make it clear that JJ's doing the high-class time-consuming one.

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Second part of briefing: Now Mark expects me to pick up some sort of trash? This wasn't mentioned in the first part of the briefing, which was just "Go check this cave out and have a look around". I think the briefing isn't quite clear on what the player is being asked to do.


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I thought the first part of the briefing was okay about that - the cave is where JJ picked up the junk to repair in the first place. I'll take another look.

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Mission title of "Find Mark some fresh discards" is very inglorious sounding. Maybe "Investigate Cave" or "Collect Evidence" ? Both sound more officially heroic, but work out to be the same thing as "Find Mark some trash".

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It's supposed to sound a little inglorious. That's why he apologizes to you after you take the mission.

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Upon entering the mission, I find it's not a cave, it's a Council base! I suppose a Council base is a type of cave, but I was expecting more of a CoT style cave based on the info. I kinda think Mark should've been able to tell us that the cave was being used for 5th Column loyalists though.

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Well, all he has to go off is JJ's description at this point. I'll try and make that a little clearer. It doesn't really occur to him to check it out because he thinks that, y'know, she'd let on about something like a secret base run by a nutbar with nerve gas.

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Technological Detritus clue: "netbooks", do you maybe mean "notebooks" or "e-books"? "Most of them are pretty damaged, from the fall if nothing else." What fall? Maybe you mean "Most of them are pretty damaged, apparently from getting dropped down an air shaft."

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Nope. Netbooks. I'll try and be a little less cute about why they're damaged if I've got space for it.

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Now that I've picked up 2 boxes of tech detritus and defeated Archon Targus, a new goal of "3 gas cylinders to destroy" has appeared. However, this does not connect to the mission title of "Find Mark some fresh discards", which has been accomplished already but the mission hasn't completed. May want to rephrase mission title so it makes sense no matter what the humans are actually doing.

Debriefing is cute again refers to Mark having trouble with "wiped" electronics though.

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Well, the idea is that an actual hero in his actual base is the straw that breaks Targus's mind, and halfway through the battle (which is actually when the objective shows up, not that you're looking up there at the time) he barks an order to gas the city.

Naturally, you're not about to sit back and let that happen.

I'll definitely make it clearer about how he's not just gassing the base, but I kind of want there to be a feeling of this tiny little errand turning into you saving thousands of people.

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Mission 4

Not a bad briefing, though Mark talking about getting "old files off a system", then suddenly switching gears and saying he got info from pictures taken by the phones, is a little dissonant. Most people don't refer to a phone as a system, so these sound like two different items; maybe rephrase the earlier sentence to also talk about phones.

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Well, yeah. Most people. Mark's a tech-head, and I can't think of a way to spell out that your modern phone has its own file/operating system without coming off as talking down to someone who may have built their own power armor.

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Second part of briefing: "I tracked down the article Billmark was so interested in." The newspaper was described as something Mark was having trouble making anything of. He maybe should mention whatever it was that caused a breakthrough on learning a clue from the newspaper.

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I do pick up this thread a little earlier on, and it'll probably make more sense if the paper gets found with Billmark's handwriting all over it - Mark turned the paper over to the police lab, which scans it in using optical character recognition (OCR, which he mentions) and then he can analyze the resulting, basically, text file.

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This second part of the briefing is a VERY long exposition on imaginary banking laws;

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Permit me to introduce you to my close personal friend, Chapter 33-21 of the Rhode Island General Laws. (tl;dr version: if you don't get in touch with a bank at least every 3 years, whatever you have in any accounts there is considered 'abandoned' and subject to civil seizure)

It's actually good that you think I just made that up, because it gives the editorial in the RIP some credence. I am making a judgment call that in the wake of interdimensional war the state might put a moratorium on civil seizure, but I think it's a reasonable one, and Mark is speaking as someone who has worked on the problem of getting in touch with people.

If there's room I'll have him say something about civil inspection of the bank vaults creating a deviation from standard operating procedure that the Goldbrickers might be able to take advantage of, but the reason I have him spell it out is exactly because it's so hard to believe.

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Mission entry popup: Why would I assume that the strange noise is JJ's package? I'm in a villain base, there could be many possible explanations for strange noises other than a robotic gift from a geek girl you just met. It may make more sense to find whatever it is, THEN realize it is from JJ.

Got laptops for Mark but he still doesn't seem to get much off of them despite his technomancy?

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Well, yeah. They're people-coded. Like secret agent coded. "In Paris, the cafes are many." "The heavy flag flaps not at night." "Hooray, hooray for the spinster's sister's daughter." And then they walk away and half an hour later a diplomat gets a bullet in the head. There's nothing there for a computer to make sense of.

I should probably file a layer of specificness off the intro dialogue, though.

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Mission objectives: "Drop the Goldbricker boss" is already covered by the "Arrest all Goldbrickers!" goal.

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Mandatory objectives always put in text, and I'm not sure about how putting an optional boss in would affect a defeat-all.

Also, I want the player to know there's a boss here.

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Even after beating the Goldbricker boss and going through Mark's final debriefing, I'm still not quite sure what was going on here. I guess they were trying to steal the contents of one person's bank account before the money was nationalized? But if they are robbing the bank anyway, why not take everyone's money, not just this one person's money?

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I'll see what I can put in the description of the block the Goldbrickers are trying to break, and in the welder/boss dialogue, to make it clear they're aware they're operating under some significant time pressure, even without some scrounger kid showing up.

They knew they wouldn't be able to fool everyone forever, and in a city of heroes the safe deposits are going to be crazy reinforced, so they went for the most valuable/important part first, and that's when you come in.

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The Goldbricker boss's insane babbling suggests there is something more, and the reasons behind this particular robbery appear intentionally left a mystery. As a result, I didn't feel a sense of closure at the end of the arc; it still felt like there were loose ends that were never really addressed.

Also, in hindsight now, the original adventure hook of the refurbished cell phone seems a lot less central to the plot than I would've expected; based on the explanation during the story arc, it seems to have just been a phone used a couple times to talk about a robbery, then thrown down an elevator shaft. With all the ghost-in-the-machine type talk I had pictured the secret of the cell phone being much more dramatic for some reason.

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Well, not to talk about. Maybe they took pictures of the bank or the street around it, got a sky view from Google Image Search, sent a text message - something that "the phone would have to remember". Mark's mutant power is to wade into the fragmentary echoes of that data and have something in the back of his head whisper "bank heist".

I'll try to find somewhere to put that.

And part of the, uh, "theme" of this arc is that something insignificant on, effectively, a piece of junk eventually ruins this hyper-secret hyper-important heist the Goldbrickers are planning. And you helped!

I'm not exactly sure what I can do to convey that I'm not making the unclaimed property law up without sounding like I have a law library stuck where the sun don't shine. You're right that the plot hinges on it and if somebody thinks it's BS plot spackle then the plot falls apart, regardless of how real it is.

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If you mean "I want to take a Malta Sapper and change his goggles and make him yellow", it's not possible. Existing NPCs are non-editable.

What you CAN do is make a faction that consists entirely of Malta Sappers, Carnie Illusionists, and Earth Thorns. You can add any existing NPC into a custom faction, alongside your own custom mobs or just by themselves.

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You'll have to pull the Earth Thorns in from the Shadow Shard Reflections but you can get them in the same level range.