PoliceWoman

I'd like to nominate:

Interdimensional Headache (#459592)

for villainous arc.

This is a feedback thread / change log for


Agent of the OSS (#525356, heroic level 20+)

The Office of Strategic Services needs your help to extract an OSS agent with valuable intelligence who has been captured by the Nazis.



Author notes

* This arc is set during WW2. Punching out Nazis is one of my favorite things in the game, and is one of the things that first got me hooked on CoH. This arc caters to that particular guilty pleasure. Also, I like the time period.
* Inspirations: the Wonder Woman TV show, the Ubelmann the Unknown arc, the Captain America movie, Hogan's Heroes, various WW2 prison break movies, Casablanca, and a throwaway line in my character's back story about the "Golden Age" Police Woman's adventures.
* I really, really wanted to make mission 2 a decadent Weimar-era cabaret with your ally as a Glamorous Wartime Singer. But I could not figure out how to make this work; there is no "sing into microphone" animation (I looked...repeatedly) or anything close, and I couldn't find a map for a nightclub with a stage.
* I tried to provide some throwaway clues and references to things that are discovered in canonical content (especially the Ubelmann the Unknown arc) and would be glad to take ideas for other things along these lines.


Recent changes due to feedback

* 3 players commented that they didn't like the mix of German and English used in the dialog and clues. I've now largely corrected this, using English for almost everything, with a few exceptions: names of mobs; Achtung! (which everyone knows); and Zeitspielraumexperimente, which is a reference.

* One player thought I didn't use enough custom characters. I actually like re-using standard mobs, but decided to add a custom "Council scientist" minion that can appear in mission 3, since that made sense within the story. Might add some more; I'm tempted to make a stereotypical SS officer in a black trench coat.

* 2 players felt that punching out Hitler in mission 3 didn't really work in the context of the story. I've decided that I agree; I've removed Der Fuhrer and replaced him with a new optional boss, the head of the research team.

* One player thought it was an anachronism for 1940s era Council to have war wolves, vampyri and galaxies in it. I ended up making a "Council" custom group, cherry-picking just the normal Man-with-Gun mobs, and adding the new Council scientist. However, after reading paragonwiki some more, Arakhn (the leader of the Galaxy soldiers) is supposed to have been around for 100 years, so I don't see why there wouldn't be Galaxy soldiers in this era. I ended up making my optional boss a Galaxy archon, with some dialog from the regular soldiers referencing the fact.

* Two players destroyed the device in mission 3, completing the mission, but wandered around exploring for awhile after that -- then were confused by the exit popup which says they were "caught in the explosion" from the device. I ended up rewriting this text to hopefully make more sense if the player does something like that.


Thanks to everyone who has offered suggestions so far!

I just published a new arc that could use some constructive feedback.


Agent of the OSS (#525356, heroic level 20+)

The Office of Strategic Services needs your help to extract an OSS agent with valuable intelligence who has been captured by the Nazis.

Crime is Art and Art is Crime (#517859)

Mission 1

Briefing: "I draw the line where it crosses the line" - redundant phrase that makes it meaningless. Possibly this was intentional, but I wasn't sure. Holding an art show doesn't seem illegal enough to justify a PPD raid (admittedly nitpicky).

I love the line "I was into ironic anti-crimes before they were cool."

"Cruel Paintings" glowy should probably be called "Cruel Painting". I like the various art glowies; I kinda think there should be more (it's a big warehouse ... or possibly the map could be smaller) since it is an art show. Maybe more cruel paintings.

I like the interaction between Lady-in-Scarlet and Sven Dali, or, technically, Sven Dali's sculptures.

The Stone Slab is good, but I dunno if I buy the Rikti drones as abstract art; I only saw a few mobs in the ambush but I'd suggest more stoney looking things. I realize not all sculpture is made of stone, but stone things will be more evocative of the animated statue thing you're going for. The rock-like DE maybe? Cimerorans recolored grey? Perhaps custom mobs with heroic looking costumes, but colored grey (like the statues in Atlas)?

Frozen Maiden's cameo was amusing.

Maryonette's puppet gag didn't quite work for me, the mobs she uses don't really look like puppets to me; they're far too obviously Automata, which are meant to look human. Perhaps if you re-colored them to be more garish?


Mission 2

Briefing: I think the info provided by Lady-in-Scarlet would be more effectively conveyed as an "end of mission 1" clue depicting Lady-in-Scarlet saying these things "in character" during an interrogation, rather than being related second-hand by Captain Sabine. Then Sabine can maybe recap it here in the mission 2 briefing.

Sabine says Lady-in-Scarlet says that Dali is "turning to some bad people"; what bad people?

"Richter Holdings" immediately suggests a connection to Lord Recluse to me, but then Sabine says it's a 5th Column front.

Send-off message: "facists" should be "fascists".

The mission title is "Raid the Art Studio"; consider mentioning that it's Dali's art studio in the briefing itself, e.g., change "He has a warehouse" to "He has an art studio in a warehouse". (Nitpicky)

For an art studio there really isn't very much art. Just the stolen paintings that clearly weren't made by Sven. To make it more like an art studio there should really be a bunch of artworks that are in-progress, partially completed, or even finished but cast aside as not good enough. I think there should be some sculptures, perhaps a mix of inanimate ones (Hero statue objectives) and fighting ones. Especially good would be if there were more art crimes that were previous attempts before the Big One represented in mission 3. Maybe stolen and re-animated versions of Michaelangelo's David, Venus de Milo, or other famous statues.

I love the evil scheme to [SPOILER]animate Mount Rushmore[/SPOILER] but I don't see what the 5th Column gets out of this. They aren't normally out to just cause random chaos (unlike the Carnies); they should benefit somehow. Alternatively you could make the mobs in this mission Carnies; their connection to Dali makes more sense anyway and causing chaos is just fine with them.

Possibly I missed some optional objectives as I did not fully explore the map. I didn't encounter many mission details before I completed the mission though.


Mission 3

Aha, some more examples of Animated Statues! I like the Astronaut Sculpture but he could use more description (only 5 words currently).

Clay Wad looks pretty good too. Consider making them slightly grey rather than pure white?

Ran into Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, they were quite fun. I think maybe they should be named "Statue of Abraham Lincoln" and "Statue of George Washington" since they aren't actually Lincoln and Washington. Also, I think they should be made the maximum height, since they are described as being 600 feet tall. (Which begs the question of how I can encounter them inside the cave, but maybe we can ignore that.)

The line "The Empire of Liberty is going to stomp a mudhole in you and walk it dry!" just doesn't work for me. I suggest "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to kick your butt!" I really like "I hold these fists to be self-evident!" though.

I don't think it makes any sense for Theodore Roosevelt to self-rez, suggest you drop that from his powerset. Also, an animated statue wielding a stone gun that actually shoots exceeds my sense of disbelief (I know, we're talking about animated statues of Presidents, but still) ... consider making him a mace wielder so he can use a "Big Stick"?

I am utterly shocked that Sven Dali isn't an earth controller, or at least an earth dominator. Admittedly control powers are hazardous to many players, but I kinda think he should have the earth control pet. He did do some stone melee attacks, maybe I just didn't see enough of his powers. He died awfully quickly, maybe should be a higher tier boss. He should totally summon or animate more statues to attack the player during the fight.

I am tempted to suggest renaming the big bad guy to "Muhammad Dali" for an extra joke, but it doesn't really work for an artist.

I think Dali needs a groupie, a female Carnie re-colored or re-costumed in a "hipster" outfit, who spends her time appreciating Dali's genius. Or possibly an animated female statue, a Galatea or Caryatid.

Final debriefing: I like the suggestion that an artist wants to paint the hero. I'd like to suggest you tie this closer to the story by making Lady-in-Scarlet the person who is so impressed by the hero's awesomeness that she wants to paint/sculpt the hero.

Souvenir: "George Washington's Head" doesn't really work as a souvenir for me. I'd suggest something like "Sven Dali's Scarf".


Overall

Here's the feedback I wrote:

Very fun concept! Felt mission 2 was a little weak, 5th Column connection very tenuous and needs more "artsy" details; add some early art-crimes that Dali did before building up to the Rushmore plot. I don't buy Rikti drones as sculpture; suggest animated hero statues. Animated presidents should be max height! Also, Dali needs a female hipster groupie!



I gave this arc 4 stars. I hope this helps!

I'd like to nominate

Legacy of a Rogue (#459586) for Best Arc - Heroic.
Tutorial Arc 3: Dark Harvest (#470181) for Best Lowbie Arc.

Here's a link to the Results of Projectionist's Mission Architect Contest.

Added: Project Dragon (#522067) H15-40
Infiltrate Tub Ci's martial arts tournament to stop a Tsoo plot.


Source: MA Arc Finder global channel.

Mon 9/19/2011

I spent some time playing Spy Girl (49 MA/ninj stalker) helping an emp defender complete 5 rogue tip missions.

Kashira (12 kat/fire brute) duo'd the Midnight Squad arc with a time controller, getting to level 13.

Shield Maiden (7 mace/shield scrapper) solo'd Reese's arc to level 8. I beat up Reese and informed on him to Marauder. I already feel the lack of the Death from Below trial on gold-side; leveling in Praetoria feels a lot slower as a result.

Tue 9/20

Spy Girl duo'd another 6 rogue tip missions with my emp defender friend; this reinforced Spy Girl's Rogue alignment, gaining 60 merits.

The new Spacegirl (2 beam/rad corr) joined the NERDCON ONE sci-fi themed team. The rules were that we had to have beam weapons, robotics, and/or time manipulation. This resulted in an 8 player team of 5 corruptors, 1 blaster, 1 defender, 1 controller. We did 2 Death From Below trials to get to level 10, then did the Posi 1 TF. The evil clones had a lot of time manipulation, but we managed to beat them, finishing in 55m 36s. We then went straight into the Posi 2 TF; we tried stealthing some of these missions, but this went poorly because none of us actually had stealth, so we suffered 2 team wipes before giving up on stealthing and just killing through. Dr Vahzilok went down fast due to the amount of debuffs we had; finished in 45m 53s. This all got Spacegirl to level 17. I did have someone ask, "Say, wasn't Spacegirl level 50?" and I had to confess that I restarted her because Spacegirl absolutely needs to have beam weapons.

Psychic Woman (10 psy/time corr) solo'd Idol Hands, a lowbie arc where you stop a Hellion plot. This was actually quite good and I gave it 5 stars.


Wed 9/21

Shield Maiden (8 mace/shield scrapper) solo'd Mr G's arc, then duo'd a mission with a controller who wanted to clear every mob in his mission for exp. I ended up running out of time due to a previous commitment, and had to bail mid-mission, which I felt guilty about. I did hit level 9 though.


Thu 9/22

Police Woman hit the inf cap at the market again, mailed myself another 900M. Rare salvage prices (where I make most of my inf) have fallen to about 1-1.5M inf each; previously they were around 2M or higher. I speculate that this is due to the huge amount of rare salvage coming from people farming AE missions.

Mystery Girl (53 emp/pistols def) bought an Armageddon proc for 375M, which completed her set of 6, gaining 5% toxic resist as a set bonus. I realize it is a little extravagant to buy very rare damage sets for an emp defender, but hey, I have the money, and she needs the extra recharge and DPS. I joined an Underground trial which took half an hour to form, then an hour to run. People kept dying, which made me feel like a bad emp; I tried to heal the whole league, but couldn't keep up with this, so eventually tried to focus just on my team. Got a rare, 2 empyreans, a fistful of badges and a Performance Shifter (END/RCHG) recipe from this trial. This gave me enough salvage to upgrade my lore pet to the tier 4 Cimeroran pet.

Kashira (13 kat/fire brute) duo'd Theoden's "Who Will Die?" arc in 22m 15s, getting to level 15. Did it again in 19m 22s, getting to level 16. This arc was surprisingly quick and fun with some nice touches in the missions. I also picked up the new Spring Attack pool power; people on the forum ***** about this not being good enough, but I kinda like it. Strangely I was able to get 2 hero merits by doing the arc twice; I would've guessed it would only let you get 1 a day, or less.


Fri 9/23

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) did the Underground trial. I was assigned to a "bomb squad", which was heavily incarnated range attackers that were sent ahead of the league to destroy bombs. This was pretty dangerous work and ultimately wasted when some scrapper ran ahead of us and got blown up. Finished the trial and got an Uncommon and the Regenerate This badge.

Went on to do a Lambda (got a common) and a BAF, which was messy with not much support, and I ended up dying a lot to AoE (but got a rare).

Kashira (16 kat/fire brute) joined an 8-player team to beat up Protean; this got her to level 17.


Sat 9/24

Mystery Girl (53 emp/pistols def) joined the Hamidon raid; for a little while it looked like we wouldn't have enough interest, then suddenly a lot of people showed up and we had a good raid. Beat him on the first try and got a Nucleolus.

I also spent some time editing my AE story arc Crisis at Talos Towers, based on some feedback I had received from people who had tried it. This arc is meant to be a combination story/farm, but I'm finding it quite hard to do both at the same time.

Shield Maiden (9 mace/shield scrapper) finished soloing Mr G's arc, then did part of Transmuter's arc to get to level 10.

Ice Kate (39 cold/ice def) duo'd 2 rogue tip missions, then joined a 7 player team for 1 hero tip. I got a compliment on Kate's name and background story, which was nice.

Kashira (17 kat/fire brute) joined a team for 2 hero tips; we had a near wipe against Nemesis. After our tank and other brute logged off, I ended up becoming de facto tank; as a low level fire brute, I was pretty squishy, but kept trying. I did get to level 19 from this.

I used the reward points I had been given for my current veteran status to unlock all the tier 8 Paragon rewards. The tier 9 VIP goodies were taunting me, though, and I ended up spending US$50 for 4600 store points; but this was really to gain the 4 reward points that came with the purchase. This gave me enough reward points to buy all the tier 9 VIP items, unlocking some fun costume options. I'm able to resist most other stuff in the store, but I'm a sucker for costume items.


Sun 9/25

Shield Maiden (10 mace/shield brute) finished soloing Transmuter's arc; for my moral choice, I chose to save my fellow teammates instead of going after Ricochet. I went on to do Tami Baker's arc. The mission where I fought 100 Destroyers in front of the TPN building was really cute; I liked the civilians who where cheering me on. 100 mobs is a lot to handle at level 10, though, so I got beat up twice; but eventually hacked my way through them all. I thought the final confrontation with Dominatrix was kind of dumb, though; her intervention in the arc seemed very clumsy and heavy-handed to me, so I half-thought she had been framed by someone else -- but no, it was her. Shield Maiden hit level 11 from all this.

Kashira (19 kat/fire brute) did some solo testing of my Crisis at Talos Towers arc, which got her to level 20.

Psychic Woman (10 psy/time corr) joined a sewer trial, getting to level 13. I'm not sure about psy/time corr so far; kinda debating switching to mind/time controller for more control, or maybe psy/dev blaster for more damage.

I started a Poison Woman (3 plant/poison controller) and joined a red-side sewer trial, getting to level 7. I'm not real psyched about poison so far either, so not sure how far I'll get with this.


Mon 9/26

I restarted Fire Emerald (formerly a fire/mm blaster) as a fire/time corr; went hero-side and solo'd my way to level 4. I'm kinda liking fire blast with time; it may just be my perception of the special effects, but this just feels like it's doing more damage than my psy/time corr.


Tue 9/27

Spacegirl (17 beam/rad corr) joined the sci-fi theme team for a Synapse TF. 2 players had to leave mid-TF and one was AFK for awhile, leaving 5 of us slogging through the +0 x8 missions. We were heavy on debuffs though, and managed to defeat Babbage with 5. Finished in 2h 22m and got to level 21.

Kashira (20 kat/fire brute) joined a 6 player pickup team which did the finale of the Ray Cooling arc, getting Kashira to level 21.


Wed 9/28

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) solo queued into a BAF, got an uncommon.

Fire Emerald (4 fire/time corr) solo queued into two Death from Below sewer trials. I'm finding the chance for knockdown proc from the promo enhancement is actually really nice in Fireball. This got Fire Emerald to level 10.

Spacegirl (21 beam/rad corr) solo'd Serge's costume mission, then joined a pickup team for two slightly stale door missions.


Thu 9/29

Police Woman won a hide-and-seek game, finding the hider at the statue of Talos; the prize was a level 35 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) recipe. I also hit the unclaimed ticket cap at AE and claimed 300. I only claimed 300 since I was experimenting on spending tickets on common arcane salvage rolls, and that was enough to fill up my inventory; most of it was junk but I sold 6 alchemical silver for 156K. This seems like decent inf for the tickets I spent, but is kind of small potatoes compared to my other marketeering, so probably isn't worth it for me.

Spacegirl (21 beam/rad corr) solo'd Matthew Habashy arc; this arc caps at level 10 so was all grey to her, but she still got an arc completion bonus at the end, which bumped her to level 22, allowing me to slot SOs.

Fire Emerald (10 fire/time corr) solo'd Welcome to MAGI, a story where Azuria's apprentice goes crazy and does erratic things. The writing style was nice but the plot didn't really work; I gave it 3 stars. This got Fire Emerald to level 11.

Kashira (21 kat/fire brute) joined a 7 player team working on Roy Cooling's arc; we had 2 team wipes to rogue PPD (those guys are actually pretty tough), but got Kashira to level 22.


Sat 10/1

Police Woman solo queued into a BAF; I got a rare. This let me upgrade her Judgement to the tier 3 Pyronic Total Radial Judgement. I don't really like sitting around idle while leagues form, so I find that queueing via LFG and doing other stuff until a trial "pops" works better for me. For no really good reason I spent 120 astral merits and 18 empyrean merits on costume pieces from the vendors in Ouro; I got the full Ascension set and a bunch of the auras and path auras. I'm not actually using any of these costume pieces, so I feel rather silly for having spent so many merits, but I like having them available in the tailor.

Spacegirl (22 beam/rad corr) joined a 5 player Sister Psyche TF. I got a costume compliment, which was nice. I also noticed that I did not have to redraw my beam rifle when using rad toggles; she kept the gun in her hand while applying them. This was really nice. Finished the TF in 1h 14m and got to level 23.

I started a new version of Kid Valkyrie (now a broadsword/regen brute); I had retired my original Kid Valkyrie (who was a broadsword/regen scrapper) because I just sucked so badly at playing regen. But maybe a regen brute will do better due to higher hit points. I did a Death from Below trial to get to level 7.

April Fool (52 thug/TA MM) joined a RSF. The final fight was very bloody; we had only one melee toon, an energy aura brute, who had trouble holding the attention of the AVs (we think due to Energy Cloak debuffing his aggro somehow). We had one team wipe, then on the second try we had a sort of rolling wipe where people kept hospitalling, then rushing back to the mission and into the fight. At one point I was solo (all teammates and pets dead) while kiting most of the Freedom Phalanx, and survived mostly by virtue of inspirations and jumping around like a maniac. Finally won, finishing in 38m 51s; I took an essence of the incarnate.

Blond Justice (53 sword/shield scrapper) did a speed ITF in 16m 3s.

Later in the day Police Woman did another BAF (got a rare), then a Lambda; I was asked to lead the grenade gathering team, which was odd since my team had a tank and a brute, but it worked out; got another rare.

Fire Emerald (11 fire/time corr) accepted a pickup invite to a 4 player team playing Avenge the Gates of Fire, an AE arc where you rescue king Leonidas and the 300 Spartans from hell. This was a neat idea but not that fleshed out, and the custom mobs were really hard at my level. I gave it 3 stars.

Shield Maiden (12 mace/shield scrapper) solo'd Praetor Sinclair's arc. Chimera was such a jerk and Belladonna was so cool that I switched to her side during the "moral choice" mission, joining the Resistance. I also solo'd Investigator Kang's arc, stopping Cutter Cain. This got Shield Maiden to level 13.


Sun 10/2

Hit the ticket cap at AE again (actually I suspect I had been at the cap and wasting tickets for a few days), so I claimed 3700 tickets and spent them on a gold reward roll, getting a Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) recipe. I also hit the inf cap at Wentworth's and emailed myself 900M.

Police Woman joined a pickup lambda; we only had 1 kin for support who I ended up rezzing a lot with medicine pool. We had a lot of deaths but eventually zerged Marauder down; I got a common. Also did a BAF and got an uncommon.

Fire Maiden (53 SS/fire brute) did a BAF trial and got a rare; I used this and 8 astrals, 7 empyrean merits to upgrade her Lore slot to the tier 4 Cimeroran pets.

Shield Maiden (13) solo'd Hatchet's arc, including an unbelievably long defeat all. Hatchet is Not a Nice Guy and I ended up betraying his insane plot to Marchand, who gave me some orders to act as an infiltrator in the Resistance. This got me to level 14.

Tue 10/4

Spacegirl (23 beam/rad corr) joined a 7 player Moonfire TF. I got a costume compliment, which was nice. Our team was very heavy on buff and debuff, which made things easy; clearing most, we finished in 1h 17m. I got the Silver Bullet badge for all the werewolves.

The NERDCON sci-fi team got off to a slow start; initially there were just 2 of us and I ended up duoing with the other player, a blaster, doing old-school street sweeping in Founders Falls. A third player came on a bit later and the 3 of us did Theoden's "Who Will Die?" TF in 27m 38s; I took the hero merit. We then recruited up to 8 for a Citadel TF that took 1h 14m. Vandal simply melted under all the beam weapons. Beam weapons seem great against AVs and when there's multiples on a team; I'm tempted to start another beam alt. This all got Spacegirl to level 27.

Finished the night by visiting the Echo of Galaxy City and collecting all the badges to get Galactic Explorer, which seemed like an ideal badge title for Spacegirl.

Glad the feedback was helpful! Of course everyone has their own Vision for their arc, so please use any of the input you think will help you; feel free to ignore the rest.

Regarding the use of magic in the arc, my main concern was consistency. If Azuria can magically sense A, why can't she magically sense B. If Wexler can magically escape in mission 1, why can't he magically escape in mission 5. It sounds like you have a very detailed mental picture of why magic in your story works this way, but it's hard to see this from the player's POV. On the other hand, over-explaining precisely how the magic works can distract from the main story, so I wouldn't necessarily suggest having Azuria explain every single thing.

I would suggest editing some of the places that might seem inconsistent to be less so, and/or "showing" why magic works the way it does (rather than "telling"). Examples:

* in mission 1 you could have Wexler's defeat dialog be "I'm outta here! Escape spell, ACTIVATE!" but then in mission 5 his last line would be "Escape spell, ACTI-- *fizzle* dammit!! *gack*" You don't have to do exactly that, but something like that would show that he uses magic to escape in the first mission, but this magic fails him in the last mission, and this would be integrated more tightly into the narrative than using up clue/return dialog space to have Azuria explain exactly how the magic works.

* in mission 2, you could completely avoid my concern about Azuria's magical senses by simply rewriting the line to "Tim's a good kid, this isn't like him. I'm worried he might be in over his head", i.e., have her express a human concern for his well-being rather than having her "magically" sense he's in danger. This would also help illustrate why Azuria tries to rationalize Tim's behavior.


Regarding Azuria jumping to the conclusion in mission 3's briefing that Tim is mind-controlled, this makes much more sense now that you've explained that she's grasping at straws for some non-evil explanation for Tim's behavior. This didn't fully come across for me when I read the briefing; you might consider editing the briefing to more strongly hint at this. Perhaps the player would notice something in Azuria's body language or her voice being strained; or the Accept message could be used to express doubt (though be careful about "powerposing" the player too much).


Regarding the sudden reveal of Tim's feelings for Azuria: I think it makes perfect sense for Azuria to be totally surprised by this, but I still believe it would be good to give some foreshadowing to the player. The player has already found Tim's diary; that would be a natural place to insert a line like "Dear diary, Azuria said I did a great job filing the Mayan artifacts today. I think she may like me!"


Regarding making a more definite end to the story: this is just my opinion, but I prefer having each story arc be a "stand alone" story, with its own beginning, middle and end. To a story-focused player the ending is the "reward" for the story: the world is saved, the evildoers are punished, all the mysteries are solved, etc. It's already a lot to ask to get a player to try a 5-mission arc; it's fine to say this is "part 1 of 10" if you have a huge epic saga planned, but the player deserves some "payoff" at the end of your arc, even if it's only part 1. (Your mileage may vary.)


Anyway, I hope this helps you. Best of luck!

Welcome to MAGI (arc 271637)

I played a 10 fire/time corr.

Arc description: "Is their a traitor in MAGI?" -> "Is there a traitor in MAGI?"

Mission 1

Seems strange that Azuria couldn't detect the portal when it was being used to steal her vault, but she can detect a hypothetical item that created a portal after the fact -- yet she cannot find the vault itself. Could use some explanation and/or more handwaving.

Liked Burning Mad and the patrols with dialog. "Timothy Wexler" seems like a rather mundane name for a wizard; maybe he could use a "stage name"? If he stole the whole MAGI vault shouldn't he have weird artifacts that he uses against the player?

The clue "A Traitor in MAGI?" says that you overheard Wexler say he worked for MAGI, but actually his dialog mentions nothing of the sort. Would be stronger if he said something along those lines so that you actually do overhear him mention he worked for MAGI. His dialog as he gets wounded is surprisingly wimpy; perhaps this is intentional.

You may want to make it a little clearer in Wexler's dialog and/or clue that he is teleported away before being captured; this is mentioned in the system text but it's very easy to miss there.


Mission 2

The scepter is described as creating portals; how does this allow the seers to locate the vault? You could perhaps mention that the scepter has scrying abilities, but then why couldn't you also use the scepter to scry on Timothy? Furthermore, why didn't Timothy use the scepter to escape, instead of crushing the gem in his ring? Surely opening a portal with the scepter (which was already in his hand!) would be much easier.

If a seer located the vault and retrieved it, wouldn't the location the vault was stashed reveal something about Timothy? Like, was it under his bed? In his secret underground lair? Or what?

Azuria charges me to "Find Timothy and bring him", but since he just teleported away the last time we tried to arrest him, what's to stop him from doing that again? Maybe Azuria should give you something to prevent that.

Furthermore, the briefing says "I sense a danger I do not recognize within", then the very next line is "There is a powerful mystic aura...we think it is from one of the artifacts". These sentences seem inconsistent with each other; either she should recognize it as an artifact, or she shouldn't know what it is. Also, if Azuria is knowingly sending you into a mystic aura, as a mystic herself, shouldn't she do something magical to try and protect you from it?

Send-off message: how can she sense Timothy faces grave danger when she couldn't sense Timothy was about to rob her blind?

Inside the mission, my only objective is "Destroy summoning stone", but I have no idea why I should do that. According to the briefing, I'm supposed to be looking for Timothy to bring him in, but there is no mention of this in the objectives.

One of the Hellions says:

[NPC] Blood Brother Brawler: I KNEW working for Wexler was gonna suck.! Didn't I say we should get out, Bob?! I told ya!

There's an extra '.' after "suck".

Also I don't understand this dialog:

[NPC] Blood Brother Brawler: Argghhhhh! Earn, my ear is in his mouth!

I think maybe "Earn" is a name here, but it's an unusual sounding word for a name, so I'm not sure.

I do like the number of patrols and battles, makes the mission seem more lively.

I found the summoning stone and it repeatedly says nonsense like:

[NPC] Summoning Stone: squeesffssfssffsqueesfsfsfff

...not sure what this is supposed to mean. Just a noise?

Destroying the stone ends the mission. I think the stone was one of the artifacts held by MAGI; shouldn't I have tried to recover it, not destroy it?

Wexler isn't here, but there are some clues showing he was here.

The clue "Could Azuria Be Wrong?" describes what Tim writes in his diary; it would be a stronger clue if you wrote them in the form of diary entries, so the player feels like she is reading from his diary.

Also, the purpose of this mission (from a story standpoint) seems purely to put the diary in the player's hands, but it seems weird that the diary is found in a random cave, rather than in a "normal" place for a diary to be found, like someone's bedroom or office.


Mission 3

If the robe wearers were sacrificed (as Azuria suggests), shouldn't there be some physical evidence, like bloodstains or corpses? Azuria makes a pretty huge intuitive leap to "Timothy is mind controlled but somehow is telling us via clues"; I'm afraid I don't follow why she would think this. Why would mind-controlled Timothy suddenly write diary entries when it's established he has not written in his diary for 5 years? The CoT have no reason to make him write in his diary.

I think maybe your diary clue is meant to portray that Timothy is becoming megalomaniacal due to some evil influence. But if this is the case, why would he also leave clues that are asking for help?

Anyway, Azuria apparently recognizes the robes belong to a CoT mage named Canis, and consequently sends me against a Hellion named Fyrepyre (who apparently knows where Canis is). This seems unnecessarily complex. Also, Canis seems to have suddenly become the big bad guy, but was never mentioned until now, so I'm having a hard time understanding why it's important to find him. I think the story is trying to say that Canis is a CoT mage who is mind controlling Timothy, but IMHO the clues for this so far don't really seem strong enough to support this conclusion. I think the story would be stronger if the evidence really showed the player that this must be what's happening; as it is presently written, it feels like Azuria is just telling me what she thinks is happening, without an obvious basis for why.

I pass by a Hellion who says:

[NPC] Blood Brother Slammer: Indeed. Although I shall be most grateful when our leader stops dealing with those dreadful mages!

This guy just doesn't sound like the other Hellions, being too well-spoken; not sure if this was intentional.

I found and beat up Fyrepyre. His fight dialog is less-than-intimidating, but from the way it's written, this must be intentional. He reveals that Canis hired Fyrepyre to kill Timothy. This seems very confusing, but is apparently meant to be.

Debriefing: "whatever the Hellion's thought" should be "whatever the Hellions thought". Azuria first says we need to go after Kanis, but then suddenly says, wait, no, do this mission instead. Huh?


Mission 4

So suddenly Azuria wants me to go investigate some reports of Hydra, who might have killed a mystic named Alicia. This has no apparent connection with anything else in the story. What about Timothy Wexler? Azuria suddenly giving me this mission instead just doesn't make any sense.

In the mission objectives, "4 Remains remain to find" sounds very awkward due to the repetition, I suggest you just make it "4 Remains to find". You might consider changing "Find Alicia Torrens or her remains" to just "Find Alicia Torrens" (since finding her remains would also count as finding Alicia).

The Skulls in this mission have some exposition explaining that they were tricked into coming here and fighting the Hydra. (To what end? Not sure.) Found and fought Brightbone, he seemed fun.

It turns out this mission does have a connection to Timothy Wexler, providing some additional clues; but considering Azuria basically sent me on this (apparently) unrelated mission, this seems to be too much of a coincidence to be believable.


Mission 5

So in the final mission Azuria sends me to beat up Kanis and save Timothy. But based on the set up so far, I'm not really sure Timothy isn't a bad guy, too. (Azuria realizes this possibility in the send-off message, fortunately.) It seems strangely convenient that she still hasn't decoded the last entry in the diary. Also, this contradicts the clue "Could Azuria be Wrong?" which explicitly says that I can read the last entry (3 days ago).

In the mission one of the CoT says:

[NPC] Guardian: Those Hellions might have suceeded, but, Kanis always seems to know what's going to happen.

"suceeded" should be "succeeded"

I found and defeated Kanis, which triggers "Defeat Timothy Wexler" as an objective. But the mission itself is called "Defeat Kanis", which I've already done; you may want to call the mission something more general (like "Stop the Ritual" or something) that will still make sense even after beating Kanis.

When I find Timothy, his opening line ("You've ruined everything...") is a huge wall of text, 8 lines long on my screen. There is no way I can read this during combat, you may want to make it shorter or break it up some. Oddly, defeating Timothy doesn't complete the mission; I have to kill the Hellion that is with him, too. You might consider making him "only boss required".

Why doesn't Timothy just teleport away again at the end of this fight, like he did the first time I beat him? (I guess he ran out of tricks?)

Timothy's dialog reveals that he did it all due to a huge crush on Azuria. This really comes out of left field; in my opinion, you need to have more foreshadowing of this reveal, so that the player can go, "Ahh! I remember this was hinted at in the clue from mission 2" or something. Also, if he really has a crush on Azuria, why would he start the arc by robbing the MAGI vault, which would make Azuria look [more] incompetent? Your "A Mad Mage" clue explains that his actions were crazy and inexplicable; but I think your story would be stronger if you determine Timothy's motivations (in this case, the crush on Azuria), then have his actions follow from that (try to do stuff to impress Azuria), rather than simply saying that he was crazy.

In the final debriefing with Azuria, she says Tim never showed romantic feelings towards her, and maybe he was mind controlled into it (again with the mind control!). This seems a strange way to end the story, and it's left open-ended as Azuria invites you to check back with her from time to time in case there's more. But actually it's the end of the arc, so there's no real sense of closure.


Overall

I like the amount of detail in the story arc, which is rich with clues, dialog from minor characters, and optional objectives. I thought the plot could be better; right now it's just "crazy wizard does crazy things, no one knows why!" but I think it could be a lot better if Timothy was given a clearer motivation, then his crimes and other actions were driven by that motivation.

Additionally I felt the briefing for mission 4 made it sound like an irrelevant tangent, which only tied into the story out of pure coincidence; I would really recommend reworking it so that mission 4 more seamlessly follows from mission 3.

I also think you could benefit by writing a more definite end to the story, where the mystery is solved and the story gets some closure; right now it feels like we're left hanging.

In its current form, I felt I could only give this arc 3 stars.

Thanks for the story. I hope some of this feedback helps!

Some excellent feedback so far. Thanks very much for the constructive criticism!

I agree that in its current form, exceeding the ticket cap so quickly but having no way to instantly end the mission is hideously inefficient from a farming standpoint. Up to now I've been balking on adding a "click this glowy to complete the mission" objective (as seems traditional for farms) because it felt unheroic to not rescue the civilians, but I like Coulomb's suggestion of making it linked to rescuing someone, which ties much better into the story. I'll see if I can make that happen.

I like the "lead civilian out" objectives from a story standpoint, but you're right that it's a time waster from the farm standpoint. Will look into this.

I'm not sure adding a whiteboard glowy would add much but I like the idea of an unexploded Rikti bomb to defuse.

I agree the Storm Elementals tend to obscure vision, but truthfully I like this effect since I want to convey a confused, smoke-filled environment filled with dangerous hazards.

Everyone noted I had no clues, and I agree that I'd like some clues; but I was at a loss for what clues would make sense in this mission, since it's really not an investigation, it's a rescue. With the suggestions I've gotten I think I could perhaps add a clue pointing the player to Coulomb's sprinkler system, and maybe another one for Zaphir's Rikti bomb.

I'm going to cogitate on the feedback some more, and then I'll see what I can do to spiff things up. No worries on the low ratings -- they're totally deserved. Considering some people routinely rate farm arcs with 1 star, and others routinely rate story-oriented arcs with 1 star, I recognize that there is a steep hill to climb when making an arc that tries to please both camps. It might prove impossible, even. Nevertheless, it's an interesting challenge.

Added: Idol Hands (#141376) H5-14
A Hellion's quest for power endangers the city.

Source: Leveling in AE

Mon 9/12/2011

Thunder Girl (51 elec/SR) did a STF in 30m 15s, took essence of incarnate.

The Mission Architect profanity filter still disallows "Black Scorpion" as an NPC name (sigh), but I found I was able to trick it by renaming my AV to "Black Scōrpion". Not the most elegant solution, but it works for now.

Fricka C (15 fire/fire dom) solo'd Seer 1381's arc to level 16. I felt sorry for poor Katie Douglas, who had most of her life stolen away.


Tue 9/13

Issue 21 dropped, and I got a fistful of badges by logging in: Loyal Customer, Tenacious, Unshakable, Diligent, Persistent, Rookie, Radiant, Doorbuster. I mysteriously picked up 5 more auction house slots for a total of 27, and my salvage capacity jumped to 105; all part of the new Paragon Rewards system. I also noticed the max characters per server had jumped up to 48, and I had some unused character slots banked and earned some more from I21, so I happily unlocked more slots on Liberty.

I restarted Shield Maiden (formerly a shield/mace tanker) as a mace/shield scrapper. I got a fistful of weird level 1 enhancements: Will of the Seers (DMG/RCHG/psi proc), Resistance Tactics (DMG/RCHG/smash proc), Clockwork Efficiency (DMG/RCHG/nrg proc), Might of the Empire (DMG/RCHG/knockdown proc), Syndicate Techniques (DMG/RCHG/lethal proc); apparently this was originally some special Going Rogue promo that I automatically got as part of Paragon Rewards, too. I joined an 8 player sewer trial which got me to level 7; this was very fun, we got to beat up a lot of low level AVs and even got SOs from doing so.

I re-created Kashira (formerly a db/ninj stalker) as a katana/fire brute, then ran the sewer trial 3 more times to get to level 12. Someone called me on having a costume that looked too much like Elektra, which was unfortunately true, so I ended up hitting a tailor to rework Kashira's costume to be a bit more different. Now she probably looks too much like Mai Shiranai. Bleh. We also did one of Twinshot's missions, but it involved talking to a lot of NPCs and killing very few NPCs, so no one on the team seemed to like it.

Started Negative Nelly (a newbie dark/mental blaster with a "photo negative" style costume) and did a sewer trial to level 7. I spent most of the trial roleplaying an extremely negative attitude, crying doom whenever we saw an AV, saying the game is too hard, and so on. I think most of the team "got it" so I didn't get yelled at too much. Not sure whether I like dark blast on a blaster yet. We'll see.


Wed 9/14

I hit the unclaimed ticket cap at AE and claimed 3700 to spend on a gold recipe roll, getting a lousy Force Feedback (RCHG/END). The Paragon Store was finally up and running on Wednesday, so I purchased the Beam Rifle powerset and the Server Transfer pack, which were both on sale. This cost 1120 of the 1750 points I started with.

Shield Maiden (7 mace/shield scrapper) solo'd Matthew Habashy's story arc which seemed to mostly be against Hellions; this got me 2 merits and I hit level 8. I also found that my brand new character had a free respec, which must've been awarded on Wednesday, too.


Thu 9/15

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) joined a 23 player Underground trial. This involved running through many tunnels killing things while escorting Desdemona. We did a lot of travel during this trial, which makes me think the Underground trial map must be huge...but it didn't seem too laggy, which was surprising. We fought an AV with insanely high regen from some kind of lichen, some other, easier AVs, and ran into lots of bombs that had to be destroyed. The final encounter was with an Avatar of Hamidon who confused people a lot. Then there was a lengthy cut scene with lots of exposition from Desdemona. I got an uncommon reward, 2 empyrean merits, and the Tour Guide and Underground Seeker badges.

I joined another underground trial that was forming, but after 20 minutes it hadn't started yet and I was running short on time, so I dropped out of the league.

I restarted Shield Maiden again -- still a mace/shield scrapper, but I decided she had to be Praetorian in order to fit her back story (she's from the War World and is one of Battle Maiden's lackeys). This probably sounds dumb but I reroll characters for silly reasons sometimes. Anyway, the Praetorian tutorial and starting area still seem basically the same. I did spend 400 points buying the barbarian costume pack, using some barbarian pieces for Shield Maiden's costume, though I felt some costume pieces were a bit too ludicrous for me to use. Solo'd to level 4 before calling it a night.


Fri 9/16

I started a new Psychic Woman (newbie psi/time corr with a generic heroic tights costume; probably need to make a better one) who went hero side and did a sewer trial to reach level 7.

I rerolled Spacegirl (formerly mind/rad controller) to a newbie beam/rad corruptor. Even though Spacegirl (the 50 mind/rad controller) was level 50, fully incarnate slotted and heavily purpled out for recharge, I decided she just had to have a laser gun!! So, yeah, I transferred my controller to Exalted and started a newbie beam/rad corruptor. I got her to level 2 and out of the tutorial and plan to play her on the Sci-Fi theme team.

A friend asked me to help on the Underground trial, and I joined as Police Woman. I was doubtful about our team mix (tons of damage, very short on buff/debuff) but we tried it. We got stopped cold by the lichen-infested war walker, though, as its regen was just too high. We had some confusion over which of the lichen objects to kill in that room also; some thought we had to clear the whole room, some thought only the nearby ones were relevant. We also had a number of people die and go to the hospital and get lost, unable to find their way back, so they were missing for most of the fight. So we ended up running out of time and failing the trial.


Sat 9/17

I decided to transfer my controller Sakura to Exalted and re-use the name for my katana brute, because I thought it would be a great name for a katana wielder. I had controller Sakura use 400 reward merits for 20 random recipe rolls first; best of the bunch were a Blessing of the Zephyr (KB protect), a Miracle (recovery proc), a Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG), an Obliteration (smash proc), a Decimation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) and a Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG). So I deleted Kashira, transferred Sakura to Exalted, then tried to re-start my katana brute with the name Sakura .... only to find the name Sakura is no longer allowed as a character name. Argh! I checked Exalted and was able to log in controller Sakura without being forced to rename or anything, but the game absolutely would not let me start a new toon named Sakura. So I sheepishly re-started my katana/fire brute with the name Kashira, again. Did sewer trial to 7, solo'd Matthew Habashy's arc to 8, then solo'd Sondra Costel's arc. The new Atlas story missions have some really neat mission mechanics. I was also excited that Bonebreaker was the boss of the Skulls in one of these missions, but was disappointed to find that he wasn't actually anything like the Bonebreaker that I wrote in my AE arc Two Tickets to Westerly.

Psychic Woman (7 psi/time corr) solo'd Matthew Habashy's arc to 8, then joined a 5 player sewer trial that got her to level 10.

Darla Doppler (52 kin/sonic def) joined a Numina TF on a full team. We found that I21 had made it a little harder to find clockwork in the new Atlas, and had cut the Galaxy hunt from the TF entirely. Finished in 46m 42s and got a Notice of the Well.

Ice Kate (38 cold/ice def) did a clear most ITF in 35m 54s, getting to level 39.


Sun 9/18

Kashira (8 kat/fire brute) solo'd To Dream of Nothing, an AE arc about a mysterious event that depowers all high level heroes for some reason. This had some good writing, but I found the story logic for the depowering effect was too inconsistent, making it unbelievable; and also the missions were a bit tedious, with one of them requiring 12 glowies and another forcing you to backtrack a lot. I gave it 3 stars. After that Kashira joined a sewer trial, getting her to level 12.

I solo'd Shield Maiden (4 mace/shield scrapper) through the Deputy Assistant of Information and Warrant story arcs in Praetoria, getting to level 7. It definitely seems easier to level blue side newbies over Praetoria newbies, due to the new sewer trial.

I started Poison Woman, a new plant/poison controller with a goth-y costume, sending her to red side (poison just doesn't seem heroic to me) and did the first new story arc in Mercy Island.

Tehuantl (22 widow) joined a 3 player team for one mission in First Ward. Saw some Carnival of Light there; they look really neat. I'll need to spend more time exploring there.

Here is an arc I could really use feedback on:


Crisis at Talos Towers (arc id 518075) H43-49
A Rikti dropship has struck the Talos Towers, causing massive structural damage and setting them on fire. First responders attempted to evacuate the building, but have themselves been trapped by the fire and debris. They need a hero. Can you help?



Author's notes:

I originally wrote this arc for the MA SuperTeam's 9/11 tribute day in 2010. It is very short (1 mission only). I ended up unpublishing it earlier on in order to write a story for "Iron Architect", but now that you can have more arc slots, I decided to re-work it and republish it.

The debate about farm vs story arcs has driven me to attempt a farm/story arc. Consequently, I've reworked this arc somewhat to make it more farm-y, so it can be a story-oriented farm. However, I'm concerned that straddling the difference is making it both a weaker farm and a weaker story, so could use feedback on improving both aspects.

Some particular problems I have:

* I really don't have much time for character development or clues, since it's a single mission on a small map. But I would like more, if possible. Maybe this is OK based on the scenario (a rescue operation), but could use feedback or ideas on this.

* Running my fire brute on x8 I hit the ticket cap long before completing the mission. I see most farm missions have a glowy that autocompletes the mission in these cases, but I am having trouble coming up with a way to make this fit the story. Perhaps "Call the Fire Department"? But it seems rather unheroic not to rescue all the hostages.

* I have a mix of fire and non-fire damage which admittedly makes it less optimized for farming, but I like it this way, so am reluctant to change it.


Feel free to 1-star it if you hate farms or hate non-farms or whatever. But would like some constructive feedback if you do.

To Dream of Nothing (arc #374644)

I played a level 8 kat/fire brute.


Mission 1:

I found the premise of the mission to be something of a stretch. Heroes are losing their powers, OK, this is a normal trope. But even Natural origin heroes are affected? That strains my suspension of disbelief. It is more typical for characters like Batman and Manticore to survive these depowering events relatively intact due to being "ordinary humans".

Additionally, a depowering event would be extremely lethal for Positron because it would mean he's leaking antimatter (i.e. turned into an atomic bomb) and he definitely WOULD NOT be talking to newbie heroes in this situation. (See the CoH comic book by Top Cow - the very first story arc in this comic book has exactly this situation come up.) I know this is rather picky, but it will be a sticking point for people who are knowledgeable about the in-game continuity; you may want to consider a different contact.

Also, Positron knows people are losing powers so he sends us to investigate a professor who has disappeared? The connection here is very weak, IMHO. Sure, we are told he is a professor of superpowered studies, but I think the story would be stronger if you show that the professor is connected; for example, if your first mission was to generally investigate the "heroes being depowered" event, then the final clue of this mission pointed to this professor, leading into the 2nd mission being a "find the professor".

I like the mission begins clue and how detailed it is; the other clues I find during the mission are great quality also. I am curious as to why the Council in the mission weren't affected by the depowering event, but perhaps this is due to them being low level (which Positron said would exempt you).

Squad Leader Zovir's opening monologue is a HUGE wall of text (8 full lines on my chat tab). I find this unreadable during combat - I like reading dialog, yet I cannot actually read this until after Zovir is dead. Please make it shorter.

For some reason I had "2 terminals left to investigate" but the mission ended when I clicked on "Suspicious terminal". Possibly this is working as intended, but it struck me as odd. Clicking on it also seemed to spawn an ambush, and there was an ambush on Zovir also.... my brute was able to handle this, but it might be pretty scary for a squishy toon in the 5-10 range.

I think it is most convenient that the "anomaly" disables certain electronics (the Council's communications) and not others (the computer terminals and PDA). Will try to ignore this for the sake of the story.

Debriefing: a little disappointing that the Council plot is actually tangential to the anomaly. Seems to diminish the sense of accomplishment at the end of the mission; why was this mission necessary if it's not related to the main plot?


Mission 2:

What, this mission is against a Council vault, too? But Positron just said they didn't matter.... I think maybe reword mission 1's debriefing to be more consistent with this mission. Right now I feel some sense of whiplash. Also the line of "I am not sending you in there alone -- some of your peers will assist you" -- why does he feel it necessary to give me reinforcements this mission, but not the previous mission? He does mention "chaos on the streets", but darn it, I'm a superhero, I should be able to handle that?

I clicked the Nictus Vault Manifest which says I found some documents, but I did not get a clue for it ... it sounded like maybe I should, though. (Later: I eventually got some info about this in the mission end clue...mechanics of this seem a little clunky though.)

[M2] The broken machine : how do I know the Council had routine inspections of these? It's not like the Council follows government safety regulations. (Later: I find out that they have routine inspections in the "mission end" clue, but this doesn't really work due to the order these clues are found in.)

[M2] Logs from the Vault : this is a lengthy clue that "tells" the reader what they find, but I think it would be a stronger clue if you wrote it like an actual excerpt from the documents.

Debriefing: I think "Family Marcone" should perhaps be "Marcone Family". It seems oddly inconsistent that Positron would be very pedantic in the briefing (giving me an excerpt from a scientific dissertation, even), but then talk about being a "gambling man" in the debriefing (highly unscientific). (Admittedly very nitpicky, take this with a grain of salt.)


Mission 3:

I think "Nictus" should be "Nicti" (plural) in the briefing. Most of this briefing is recapping what happened so far, but a lot of it is weak speculation which Positron admits by using the word "probably" for most of his theory of what's going on. He never actually tells you what the mission is before asking "Are you ready?"

He does explain some of it in the send-off message. "The three of you" I imagine is meant to be me and the 2 heroes introduced in mission 2, but does not make sense if I'm not solo; suggest rephrasing to "Your team". Positron also mentions "Nihil" which is the first time this name is mentioned as far as I can tell; how does he know the Nictus's name?? Also, why is "Nihil", who is established as a highly powerful Nictus, only weakened and not completely depowered, like apparently Positron is? (Sorry to keep harping on this, but having the depowering anomaly be logically inconsistent is really bothering me.)

Inside the mission I have "3 students to find (optional)" ... no students were mentioned before this, why am I supposed to be finding them? I'd either have them mentioned in the briefing, or not have them show up in the nav tool at all and the player just stumbles over them. "Find Agent BR-008" and "Defeat the Council leader" being separate objectives is also somewhat spoilerific -- my assumption would've been BR-008 was the leader otherwise.

I found "Memoirs 11.16" in a suspicious barrel. Why a barrel? A desk or file cabinet would be more typical? More memoirs found on an analyzer and a corpse. OK, so the 12 memoirs are a single narrative divided into 12 parts among 12 different glowies. Personally, I find this mechanic a little tedious (12 glowies is a lot to find, and 12 clues is a lot of text, and since I find them in a random order I keep having to search my clue journal for which one is new, which is made particularly difficult because all the clues have nearly identical names) but your mileage may vary.

I found several corpses which gave "Memoir" clues; but I kinda think I should also get some info about how the person died, who they were, etc.

I find one crate which is a destroyable object when most other crates have been clickies so far. Seems a little weird.

Found Sigfrid, his opening monologue is pretty long too, making it hard to read in combat; though it's only 5 lines this time.

When I rescue Agent BR-008 the game text says "The agent sighs once and breathes no more", but actually, his in-game model stands up and looks alive. Can you make him fall down or something? Also the clue starts off "As you interrogated the dying Council agent" but it is easy to miss the game text saying that BR-008 dies, so you may want to repeat the fact that it's BR-008 that is dying in the clue text. Initially I thought it might be talking about one of the guards I just killed. Also, this seems an implausibly long and coherent monologue for someone who is seconds from death. If BR-008 had time to say all this, wouldn't a real hero have spent this time getting him medical attention rather than listening to the monologue? Consider having the hero just take BR-008 prisoner and have BR-008 reveal all this info after being captured?


Mission 4:

In the briefing, apparently no ship or airplane can catch Nihil's ship or even see it or approach it ... except for the one I'm on? Because I have powers? I'm sorry, but I found this really hard to believe.

Rescued the two allies which spawned "Nictus leader" as an objective; Blackshift ended up spawning near the mission entrance (behind me) and I ended up searching the whole ship twice before I found him. Possibly this was a vagary of the random spawn, but it would be better if this boss could be spawned later in the ship than the allies.

Defeating Blackshift spawned "leader of the thralls" as an objective. I searched for and defeated Janus, which spawned "Shadow Cyst" as an objective. Found and defeated the cyst, which spawned and ambush and also Nihil. Nihil spawned behind me again, requiring more backtracking (sigh!). The actual appearance of Nihil was a little less intimidating than I would've expected, but makes some sense based on him really being a possessed person. Having an EB in a level 5-10 arc is a little scary but it's the end boss and you have allies, so I think that's probably OK.

I guess defeating Nihil also ended the depowering anomaly? The souvenir says there was a machine that Nihil destroyed out of spite, but I didn't really get that from the gameplay. I think maybe I would've liked to see an actual machine to destroy?


Overall:

I felt like the "depowering anomaly" was not very well thought out; the way it was handled did not seem logically consistent within the arc (some things depowered, some things not) and the plot thread was not tightly woven with the main story, which appears to be the possession and madness of Dr. Patrick/Nihil. You may want to consider cutting it (I know it was for the Aeon Challenge, but it felt really distracting from the main story). I found gameplay to be tedious in places (12 glowies/12 memoirs, also massive backtracking in final mission). I did like most of the writing but felt the dialog was overly verbose in a few places. The supporting characters were interesting but were portrayed like pickup team members, could use some development to make you care more about them.

I gave the arc 3 stars. I hope some of this helps you out!

Thu 9/8/2011

I played Fire Maiden (52 SS/fire brute) on a speed STF. I was the tank and found while fly-tanking Lord Recluse that I could still send Lore pets to attack the towers, which seemed cool. Somehow Lord Recluse got stuck on top of a pillar (I thought he got immob'd there, the leader thought he got stuck in geometry) which made him harder to kill, but still finished in 23m 12s, a very fast time. I got a Nucleolus.

Followed that with an Apex TF which we finished in 15m 49s, a record time (for me anyway); I took the 10 threads. Also did a Lady Grey TF in 17m 43s, also a record time. I got assigned to help hold green mitos, which I thought was weird, but between KO Blow and Char I suppose I do have two holds.


Fri 9/9

Fire Maiden did another STF; I was tank again. Somehow I managed to pack the patron AVs so tightly together that Black Scorpion died of AoE without anyone directly targeting him; I think I landed on the right side of the AVs, taunted them, then flew to the left side to try and point them away from the team. But more likely it was just lucky. Finished in 24m 12s and got a Centriole.

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) did a Mortimer Kal SF in 18m 4s for 44 merits and a Notice of the Well; then I queued into a BAF trial where I got a common.

April Fool (52 thug/TA MM) joined a RSF. We had tank and our only brute said he had nothing slotted, so the team leader asked me to tank -- which I tried to do, but it was awkward as I had no taunt (though I do have a lot of annoying trick arrows that tend to draw aggro). We also had one person disconnect right away and never come back, and two players who were doing the RSF for the first time, but both claimed they were really laggy (often missing the time window to for Recall Friend or Resurrect, which frustrated the team leader), so they were not very much help. So this was a rough RSF. In the final fight we had a team wipe after killing Numina and Positron, but we won on the second try. In that last fight I was really relying on high DEF (from IOs and Vengeance) and high RES (from orange inspirations and my patron shield); my pets died like flies to the Freedom Phalanx. Finished in 52m 41s; I took the Essence of Incarnate, got a Soulbound Allegiance (DMG/RCHG/ACC) recipe drop, and a compliment on April's name and costume.

Switched back to Police Woman and did the 2nd villain respec on a 5 player team. The whole team was pretty squishy (3 blasters, MM, kin controller) so we had a lot of death, but finished in 15m 55s. I got the Thorn Thief badge and an assist credit. After that the team merged into a 14 player BAF trial; I got a rare.


Sat 9/10

Police Woman did another 2nd villain respec in 19m 27s for another assist credit.

Ice Kate (35 cold/ice def) did an all defender clear all ITF on +1 difficulty. We were nigh indestructable due to massive buffs (cold shields, fortitude etc), but our DPS seemed a little low, even damage capped from fulcrum shift. Finished in 1h 5m and got to level 37.


Sun 9/11

Indigo Ifrit (51 fire/rad corr) did a Lambda, getting a common and 46% interface exp.

With my free arc slot I republished Crisis at Talos Towers, in honor of the 9/11 date. It's a story where a Rikti dropship hits an office building in Talos Island and you have to rescue civilians and police from the fire. It's also an arc that heavily features fire damage, and so with the talk about making a story-oriented farm, I tried re-purposing it to be more "farm-y", by tuning the enemy group, upping all the spawns guarding objectives to "hard" and adding more ambushes. I playtested it a bunch with Fire Maiden (52 SS/fire brute), picking up about 4500 tickets doing so; but I'm normally I'm solidly against farming, so I have mixed feelings about it and have been too shy to really advertise it. Also I suspect it's in some kind of halfway state right now, where it's not got enough story to be a "good story", but the risk/reward isn't optimized enough to make it a "good farm". Not quite sure what I'll do next with it.

Ice Kate (37 cold/ice def) solo'd 5 vigilante tips, finished the very grey Stephanie Peebles arc for 15 merits, then did the vigilante morality mission to change her alignment to Vigilante.

Strong Woman (52 inv/SS tanker) joined a BAF trial. I noticed one scrapper was dead and stayed dead through most of the prisoner phase, and called him on it; someone else said he was probably AFK. I blamed the AFKer for all the escapees, which got some laughs. The league was trying for the Strong and Pretty badge, and detailed one team to take care of adds while the other two teams wrestled with AVs. The AV teams were not especially good at this and we had a lot of deaths, but eventually got them down, timing it correctly so no spawns were up, successfully getting the Strong and Pretty badge for the league. (I actually already had this badge.) I did get a rare and lore unlocked, and crafted a Warworks total core improved ally (the tier 3 Warworks damage-oriented pet, with a Vicki and an incarnate shift).

San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) queued into a BAF trial and got an uncommon and to 36% Lore exp.

Wed 9/7/2011

My Talos Vice story arc got selected as a Developer's Choice! This was really exciting, and I logged on to find my unclaimed tickets maxed again (had to claim another 2000). This gives me two arcs on the front page of the default Architect Entertainment search, which is pretty awesome, and an extra story arc slot for free, which I haven't quite decided what I'll do with yet.

Indigo Ifrit (51 fire/rad corr) did a Lady Grey TF on a very debuff-heavy team in 20m 2s.

Thunder Girl (51 elec/SR scrapper) did a Statesman TF in 27m 45s; I found her Ion Judgement was excellent for clearing vines on the villain respec map. I had a player comment that she had a new costume (actually an old costume with minor tweaks to include Resistance goggles, which seem to be my new favorite costume piece), and another mentioned he hadn't seen Thunder Girl around that much, to which I answered that I wasn't that sure how well SR stands up as a defense set against incarnate content.

Thank you all for the kind words This is very exciting!

Tue 8/30/2011

Mystery Girl (52 emp/pistols) joined a 14 player Keyes badge attempt. We had 3 healers. We damaged Antimatter down below 10% which made the pulse damage around 1300 in several pieces; this was enough to instantly kill me if all the component parts hit. Looking at the combat dialog, I did notice some of the pulse damage was unresistable and some was energy, but my empath has no energy resistance so the difference was minor. We had some close calls in the final fight where twice someone was being disintegrated when the time stop effect began, but due to superior positioning of the AV, the time stop duration was very short every time. I got the Anti-antimatter badge and Master of Keyes accolade, and a very rare. The league as a whole got the Loves a Challenge badge also (though I already had that). A very good run indeed.


Thu 9/1

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) solo queued into a Lambda trial, got an uncommon. Most of the toons I play often have unlocked most of their incarnate slots, so I figure I'll play Police Woman on some trials to try and get salvage for the tier 4 boosts. Someone recognized when I showed up by my signature full auto attack and I got called "the most reliable AR around" which was awfully nice. I solo queued into a BAF for another uncommon.

Avatea announced a Praetorian invasion in Atlas Park, so I ran over there, along with multiple leagues of other heroes. We beat up Diabolique, Chimera, Dominatrix, and probably some other Praetorian AVs (though they were coded like giant monsters) who had made it inside City Hall; as well as War Walkers that were roaming the streets.

Strong Woman (52 inv/SS tanker) did a BAF, getting an uncommon and to 46% Lore.


Fri 9/2

A malicious player (or possibly several players) has been going around hitting high rated story arcs with between three and five 1-star ratings, including not only my arcs but also those of most of the AE authors who are active on the CoH forums. This caused both my Teen Phalanx Forever! and Fusionette Incarnate arcs (along with many other arcs by other authors) to drop from a 5 star to a 4 star average, and has resulted in lots of wailing on the Mission Architect forum. The funniest response to this was the Farm Reviews thread where people are playing farm arcs and attempting to review them as if they were intended to be stories. I contributed this arc by playing through Zombie Robots (Fire Farm Version) with Fire Maiden (53 SS/fire brute). This arc actually had hints of story and characters but did not really do anything with them. But there were enough attempts at actual development that I gave it 2 stars.

After playing a farm arc I decided I wanted to play an actual story arc, so I played Ice Kate (34 cold/ice defender) through Who Dares Wins, a Dev Choice and contest winner. This was a terrific story about a Sky Raider captain plotting to take over Terra Volta; I gave it 5 stars. This got Ice Kate to level 35 and I did the intro to RWZ arc that let me join Vanguard.

April Fool (52 thug/TA MM) helped a 10 person league farm EoEs in the Abyss for the red side Hami raid; I picked up 8 EoEs before heading out, and mailed some of them to the raid leader.


Sat 9/3

Ice Kate (35 cold/ice def) joined a 6-player Numina. We had a very solid team with 3 defenders, 2 VEATs and a brute, and finished in 43m 14s.

With the farm review thread in mind, I messed around with writing a Cimerora based arc where you fight barbarians, hoping to make some kind of hybrid farm-and-story arc. I started with the premise that you're rescuing Sister Solaris and some sibyls from barbarian hordes that happen to be Battle Maiden minions. Made a little progress with this, but it's not good enough to publish yet, especially since I would need to unpublish something else first.

Police Woman joined a Lambda and got a common. Another player was playing through my Attack of the 50 Foot Villain story arc and gave me feedback with some really good ideas. Using the Architect accolade I started editing my story arc and got so involved in this that I completely missed the league queueing up for a BAF and got dropped from the league. But, I got to use the time for editing instead, so the arc is nicely improved.

Fricka C (14 fire/fire dom) exemplar'd to a level 5 and duo some missions in New Praetoria, getting her to level 15.

Sakura (30 plant/storm controller) joined a Moonfire TF. I was constantly out of END, finally had to ask our kin to cast SB, after which he was a little better about keeping SB up. This was the weekly strike target, and so I hit level 32, got the Silver Bullet badge and 159/200 on the vampire badge.

Mystery Girl (53 emp/pistols def) helped out with the red side Hami raid, as a vigilante. We had a weird strategy with only 2 brutes taunting yellow mitos, so each had to taunt 3 mitos each. It took awhile to recruit enough healers to make a valid attempt at Hami, and even after that we had about 3 false starts due to not getting enough Adrenaline Boost and Painbringer on the main tank. Asking around I found that none of the other healers had AB/PB perma. In fairness, it does take a decent amount of recharge to perma AB/PB, and many of the healer toons were secondary characters that people brought to try and help out. We eventually managed to get our buff status stable enough for the tanker to go with 4 AB/PB stacked on him; we really couldn't maintain this many AB/PB on him for long, but he said he also ate an EoE whenever he started to run low. We managed to clear 3 waves of mitos before suffering a raid wipe, but succeeded in beating Hamidon on the next try. I got a Membrane HO.

April Fool (52 thug/TA MM) did a clear most LGTF in 52m 18s, taking the merits; followed by a clear most ITF in 1h 2m. I accidentally aggroed Imperious with my MM pets, so I ended up charging in to take the aggro, sort-of tanking him. I took the ancient nictus.


Sun 9/4

Sakura (32 plant/storm controller) joined the Sisterhood Sunday Event for Citadel TF. We had a strong team and cleared most missions; I tried to stealth once but the team was killing mobs fast enough to stay right behind me, so I gave it up. Finished in 1h 22m and got to level 33.

Ice Kate (35 cold/ice def) solo'd 5 vigilante tips (thinking of going villain to pick up patron pools) and a Striga mission for the Slayer badge. I flashbacked the Spelunker mission for 2 merits and the Atlas Medallion.

Strong Woman (52 inv/SS tanker) did a BAF; the leader called for controllers to be on doors and all non-controllers to stay on the streets. This seemed OK; not sure it is either better or worse than the normal doors strategy. I got a common, then swapped toons for each of the following runs. Mega (52 SS/will brute) did another BAF for an uncommon. April Fool did a BAF for a rare. Police Woman did a BAF for a rare.

Darla Doppler (52 kin/son def) did a Moonfire TF; we had 2 kins and were pretty fast moving, finishing in 1h for 64 merits and a notice.


Mon 9/5

Police Woman did a 6 player Moonfire. We had high DPS and finished in a blazing 44m, getting 64 merits and a notice. Most of this team swapped to red side for a 7 player Renault SF; I played Police Woman as a vigilante. I got to stealth/TP the Shockstorm mission while under heavy fire from ambushes, which got me some praise from the team leader. I also found that the black helicopter improvements make it really easy to get from Nerva right to Kalinda by taking the North Mercy destination. Finished in 51m for 24 merits and an assist credit, putting me at 18/50 on assists.