Rayonn

The movie is Mal's rogue--->hero morality mission.

Once I was fooling around with the costume creator, and I made a DB/SR scrapper that looked something like River. After watching the animation for One-thousand Cuts, I had to exit CoH and open up Netflix, to watch Serenity again.

The other River (the DP/hallucinogenic lipstick Corruptor) is cool too, but not nearly as cool as River Tam.

I've got a character who needs his RP identity to be worked out better. He's a villain by alignment, but rather friendly (if arrogant). He doesn't have much interest one way or another in the fate of Primal Earth, so I'd like to have friends on one side or the other as a way to draw him into the plot.

EDIT: Actually I'll probably use a different character, so never mind this. But the above offer still stands.

Anyone interested in meeting somewhere to RP an initial meeting between our characters before the action starts?

Mirror Man: I'll do the Icari as soon as I have the time.

I now have a villain (formerly Praetorian) at 20, so I can do low- to mid-level villain and rogue arcs now.

I've actually made the Offworlders as a custom group in AE. We aren't at the point in the plot to fight them in numbers, but I could make a map with Council and an Offworlder as the boss.

The big thing the Council has planned might be a major strike against the 5th Column. (Normally we'd let them fight it out, but maybe this endangers civilians.)

What do y'all think of these ideas?

I've prepared a draft of a build (difficult to do in Excel).
This is mostly to decide which set bonuses and procs/uniques I want--I can choose which enhancements I want from each set as I go.
With the set bonuses I focused on regeneration and defense against S/L and E/NE.

I exemp a lot with this character when review AE arcs, so I'm planning to use relatively low-level enhancements to so that I don't lose too much.

Any feedback? If someone could look over this I'd really appreciate it.

Aemilia Lacera
Science Brute
Kinetic Melee/Invulnerability/Energy Mastery
Pools: Fighting, Speed


Kinetic Melee:
Quick Strike (6 slots): 3 Pulverising Fisticuffs + 3 Pounding Slugfest
Body Blow (4 slots): 4 Kinetic Combat
Smashing Blow (6 slots): 3 Pulverising Fisticuffs + 3 Pounding Slugfest
Power Siphon: (3 slots): 2 Rectified Reticle + 1 Recharge
Taunt (4 slots): 4 Perfect Zinger
Burst (6 slots): 2 Scirocco’s Dervish + 4 Eradication
Focused Burst (3 slots): 3 Devastation
Concentrated Strike (6 slots): 4 Kinetic Combat + 1 Recharge + 1 EndRedux

Invulnerability:
Resist Physical Damage (2 slots): Steadfast Protection (Resist/Defense global) + 1 Resist
Temporary Invulnerability (4 slots): 4 Reactive Armor
Dull Pain (6 slots): 2 Numina’s Convalescence + 3 Panacea (including unique proc) + 1 Recharge
Unyielding (4 slots): 4 Reactive Armor
Resist Energies (2 slots): 2 Resist
Resist Elements (2 slots): 2 Resist
Invincibility (6 slots): 3 Luck of the Gambler (including global) + 2 Shield Wall + Perfect Zinger (Damage proc)
Tough Hide (2 slots): 2 Luck of the Gambler (including global)
Unstoppable (4 slots): Either 3 Reactive Armor + 1 recharge or 4 Reactive Armor (not sure yet)

Energy Mastery:
Superior Conditioning (2 slots): 2 EndMod (or a set)
Physical Perfection (4 slots): 2 Numina’s Convalescence + 2 EndMod (or a set)

Fighting:
Boxing (1 slot): 1 Accuracy (don’t plan to use it)
Tough (3 slots): 3 Reactive Armor
Weave (3 slots): 3 Luck of the Gambler (including global)

Speed:
Hasten (2 slots): 2 Recharge
Superspeed (1 slot): 1 Run Speed

Fitness:
Swift (1 slot): 1 Run Speed
Hurdle (1 slot): 1 Jump
Health (5 slots): 2 Numina’s Convalescence (including unique) + 2 Miracle (including unique) + Regenerative Tissue Unique
Stamina (2 slots): 2 EndMod (or a set)

Crey's Nightmare
ID: 295501

Follow-up:
I really like the changes you made. Glad I could help you strengthen what was already a good story.

Mission 4
The power changes have the Crey cyborgs challenging but beatable. (The LTs spend the beginning of every fight buffing each other. This is where a lot of the difficulty seems to come from, though I don't think it actually needs changing.)

I really like the way the story turned out. Nothing needs changing here, though I would point out that if you the objective to escort Yambu to the final boss, you can use her arrival dialogue to make a confrontation between the two. This would require her to survive until then, though (she died just before the boss when I played).

At least I think that would work--it's what I'm doing in my arc, but I haven't tested it yet.

Rated 5 stars in game. I've decided to adopt Glazius's policy of always rating 5 stars in game for a solicited review, because it seems that anyone who is seeking to improve their story ought to have it bumped past all the farms. I've gone back and re-rated all of the above arcs.

Tonight, by the way, was tons of fun. Both the RP and missions went very well.

So... next Tuesday, 8 pm. CST, Independence Port PD.

The Council is planning something big, but we don't know what it is yet. IC or OOC. So this would be a good place to plan that, out-of-character. What do we want to do next week?

So, let's plan to meet this evening at 8:00 pm CST in the Police Department in Independence Port.

I also played Police Woman's 'Teen Phalanx Forever' #67335.
It doesn't really need a review from me, so all I'll say is: if you haven't played this one yet, do so. There's a reason it won the Player's Choice award.

Crey's Nightmare
ID: 295501
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 40-54
Length: 4 missions
Enemies: Carnies, Crey, and a custom group.
Description: Missing psychics, desperate Carnies, and Crey somehow right in the middle of everything. Help the Conclave of Psychics unravel this mystery.

Aemilia Lacera, level 41 heroic KM/inv brute +0/x2 with bosses

Mission 1:

Nitpicks:
- You should probably capitalize the first letter of each important word in the mission title and subtitle.
- 'agree' is spelt 'aggree' in the player's dialogue.
- In the send-off dialogue, "the Carnie's purpose" should be "the Carnies' purpose".

Tips:
One thing you might do to make the arc more memorable is to give the contact more personality. See Talos Vice by @PW and A Wake for Dead 6 by @Clave Dark 5 for examples.

Try adding more dialogue between the Carnies and the captives. As it is, 'rescuing the captives' just means 'fight those enemies, then watch that guy run off'. (This happens in a lot of the in-game missions as well). Have the Carnies talk about what they do to their 'recruits' (or emphasize it it in a clue), to drive home what I'm saving them from and add emotional impact.

Regarding the clues that drop on rescuing the captives, I would recommend going for one or two clues that advance the story and add emotional impact rather than lots of short clues that add nothing but flavor.

It will increase the emotional impact of the developments in the next mission if the player cares more about Yambu. You should try to make her especially likable. Maybe emphasize how she's so intent on protecting her fellow psychics that she's willing to go into situations she can't really handle. (Rather like Xander, in his good moments, if you've ever watched Buffy. Or Simon Tam in Firefly. Or Rory in Doctor Who. Why are these all guys?)

Finally, the mission doesn't really have a climax. This is not necessarily a problem in the first mission, but you might consider adding a fight with a boss, who might hint at later developments in her dialogue.

Mission 2:

I really liked this mission. Short and flashy, with plenty of plot development (How many twists were there? I count three.). See my suggestion above on how you might increase the impact of what happens to Yambu.

Nice job with the ambush and patrol. However some of the NPC dialogue was repeated several times. I'm not sure what caused this.

Mission 3:

Fairly straightforward--fight Crey, hack computer, fight boss.

I like the costumes and concept for the cyborgs.

On the other hand, the boss fight was extremely tough. Minions with Phantasm? LTs that Fulcrum Shift? Ambush? Remember that the Carnies that summon a phantasm are bosses. These might be a bit overpowered.

Also, I'm not sure why I had to fight the Security Chief. It looks like he was supposed to be trying to block my exit, but he spawned farther back than the computer and I had to chase him down. You should either change that or (perhaps better) have a plot reason why he must be defeated.

Mission 4:

Ok, the first spawn is killing me before I can even get one of them. I'm gonna have to hold off on this last mission until you make the minions less overpowered.

If we did Studio 55 I might bring a Praetorian character instead.

Sounds good to me.

So...
If no one else is interested, I guess we should pick a night. Practically anything works for me.

Thanks for the answers.

How important is it to have all your defense softcapped in that situation? On the build that nearly softcaps everything (except psi and toxic), it looks like most (roughly 70%, though I didn't count) of the slotting was chosen to add defense, at the cost of suboptimal slotting for other stats.

Is it worth it? It seems to me (though I'm inexperienced) like it would be better to aim for F/C and E/N in the 30s, using the extra slots to add additional layers of protection (optimized DP, +regen, ability to kill things faster, possibly more resists although they seem to be overslotted* if anything).

*By overslotted, I mean 'having more IOs slotted than are optimal to enhance the power, but are necessary for a desired set bonus'.

To sum up my latest question, how necessary is softcapping to everything?

I'm new to building characters. My highest-level character (a KM/Inv brute) just hit 40 and I'm trying to figure out how to slot her secondary.

So, with Invulnerability, most of your defense comes from Invincibility, which provides defense in direct proportion to the number of surrounding enemies (if I'm reading it right). So, when talking about softcapping defense (that means going 45%, right?) with this powerset, do we mean hitting the softcap when surrounded by 10+ enemies (which looks to be trivial), hitting the softcap against only a single target, or something in between?

It seems like it makes more sense to talk about the mob size at which defense hits the softcap.

Any advice on slotting Invulnerability?

P.S. I'd prefer verbal advice to posted builds, because I can't get Mids on my Mac.

A Wake for Dead 6
#379160
Author: @Clave Dark 5
Length: 4 missions
Level Range: 5-15
Morality: Heroic
Enemy Groups: Mostly Council

Level 40 Kin/Inv Brute.


Mission 1:
The contact seems rather… odd. The bunny thing seems like it's setting a tone much lighter than I was led to expect from the arc description. Maybe not though… I'm intrigued.

I like the idea of the mission itself being a flashback.

This mission was ridiculously easy. But that's not a bad thing here, because, well, it's about the story.

And the story is good. Not all that much actually *happens*, but we get plenty of evidence that Dead 6 is going to be an interesting character. And since the mission is so short it doesn't *feel* like nothing much has happened. If I was going to complain about this mission, I'd point out that a space is missing from between 'much' and 'a' in the second clue (which looks rather Spanish), and that the last clue suddenly shifts to a more formal narrative style.

Compare:
'[A] threat's a threat, no matter how ridiculous.'
'The sky in the east was fading into a rich navy blue[.]'


Mission 2:
Now Meter Rabbit tells me the story of how *he* met Dead 6. This mission is from Meter Rabbit's point of view. That's probably why Bubbawheat recommended this arc to me in the first place, because I'm using a similar mechanic in the arc I'm working on. Let's see how it works out.

First, I have to deliver a crate… Disconcertingly, the first security guards I encounter are not in the office building but in the tunnel. That I (or Rabbitual Criminal) just dug. Oh well, I don't suppose there' anything you can o about that.

I deliver the crate, but then I overhear a security guard say that a hero is coming. (I like the way you did that.) Now it's unclear what I'm supposed to do, but looking at the map shows that several enemies have appear near the mission start. I'm guessing I'm supposed to try to escape and run into Dead 6 (currently Orange 6) on the way out. (You might want to make that clearer). Since Rabbitual Criminal was apparently captured by Orange 6, I'm interested in seeing how you handle this. The story apparently demands that the player be defeated, but in terms of gameplay that's awkward.

WHOA!! Ok I was not expecting that. ('Alright kid, this is where it gets complicated.') And I got clobbered. And there's no way I'm going to say what actually happened. Spoilers and all that. But… I think the last time a game made me jump that hard was the first time I saw the Flood.

And now for an anticlimactic nitpick: There's an asterisk in the debrief that looks like it's supposed to refer to the editor's not (colored text) at the end, but there's not a corresponding asterisk there.

Mission 3:
Bomb? Time for something big time. On the other hand I'm somewhat confused. This is soon after the Rabbit was defeated by Orange 6 (right?), but Dead 6 was dead when I met him, and he's apparently dead now. So when did he die? Did I miss something or will I find out later? Let's see. Never mind. The mission explained it. I do feel that the chronology could be a bit clearer. As far as I can tell, this takes place over just a few days, so perhaps just including the days of the week could make it clearer.

Again, easy mission. I would have liked a gameplay climax to coincide with the climax in the story (which was quite good), but it's not really necessary if you can't think of a good in-story justification.

To get nit-picky, there are a few places where you used 'lead' when you meant 'led'. Also,You Capitalized Some Things Like Titles That Perhaps Should Have Been In Sentence Case.

I just noticed I've mostly said negative things here, but actually I really liked the twist in the story.


Mission 4:
And now I take down the Council leader.

I'm just going to start listing edits I'd make to the writing, because you don't need any help with the story and I'd like to avoid spoilers.

So:
- In the Rabbit's dialogue, there are a few places where there should be a comma before the player's name.
- Again, when a clue title or objective is worded like a sentence, I (personally) think it looks better to capitalize only the first word.

This is completely irrelevant, but 'Going Through the Motions' from the Once More with Feeling soundtrack came up in my iTunes during this mission. Singing Council FTW ('She does pretty well with fiends from hell, but lately we can tell…').

No problems with the custom boss.


Overall:

Short and poignant. I don't think I'd change anything, except for the edits to the text that I suggested. And possibly the addition of a boss or ambush at the end of mission 3, which is the climax of the story but only involves a collectable item in-game.

Thanks.

Also, I've unpublished the first draft of the arc. The rewritten version is coming along nicely, though. Thanks for the advice, everyone.

The group is starting to come together. So far we've decided to include some light RP as a team of vigilantes, and to start playing around 8 or 9 pm CST on an unspecified day of the week. If someone wants to exemp down to 30, that's fine. We're planning to optimize the difficulty for a fairly methodical playstyle.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that we'll be playing in Paragon City.

Thanks, I plan to. I would like to play some award winning or finished arcs, and I might do in-character retellings of those if I have the time. I wouldn't be able to do those as frequently, though.

Review of Hazard Corp: Vexed by Vahzilok
Arc# 30594
Length: 4 missions
Enemy groups: Vahzilok
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 1-20
Description: Hazard Corp, supplying maintenance clues for Paragon City, is under attack by the Vahzilok! They need heroes to shore up their field operations, blunt the attacks, and help prevent further assaults from this source.

Level 40 Kinetic/Invulnerability Brute teamed with Lavel 25 Spines/Regen scrapper (Old Man Icicle, played by @The Alt-oholic)

Mission 1

Hazard Corp is under attack by the Vahzilok and apparently it's up to me to do something about it. One question here: what is Hazard Corp? Since Sandra Taylor has no contact description, it's hard to tell.

Nitpicky style suggestion: write out 'Hazard Corp is under attack'. The apostrophe keeps catching my eye like there's something wrong with the grammar there, even though there isn't.

Good use of colors to highlight the mission objectives.

The titles of the clues are placeholders.

Rescued Bubblegum Pop. This was apparently an optional objective, but looks like it's going to be useful as the first thing that she did was turn on a force field.

Given that her description says she's not much for fighting, you might consider toning down her attack powers.

And then she died a little while later. I'm pretty sure I had all the aggro; apparently the vomit attack does AoE.

In the title of the clue dropped by Organ Bank, Vahzilok is misspelled. Actually I saw this in a number of places.

Mission 2:
Not much to say about this - feels like a radio mission, which in my opinion is ok for a 2nd mission out of 4, as long as it leads to a good twist in the story.

Which it did. A law firm??

Mission 3:

Well, I expected to find something about what the connection might be between Vahzilok and a law firm. I never really did---why did Pater and Finnel have files on Seam Ripper?

Sandra's description is very minimal

The end-level bosses have so far had stock eidolon descriptions. You should flesh out their background and motivations some more. This can also give you some ideas for deepening the plot --- if the villains disagree on the best course of action, or have conflicting objectives, then it gets complicated.

It seems odd that Seam Ripper would be listed in Pater and Finnel's files under the name 'Seam Ripper'. It also seems odd that the firm was overrun with Vahzilok and no civilians. Was this a Saturday?

Also, I noticed a good deal of dialogue like this:
Abomination: They're workers, not heroes. They won't be able to handle something this overwhelming.
I didn't think zombies were this… insightful. (Presumably this was supposed to be spoken by reapers? I'm not really sure how to fix this)

Mission 4:

Now we take down Seam Ripper at last.

Skin Graft actually showed more signs of character depthr than anyone I've met since the two allies in mission 1. Perhaps the dissatisfaction with Seam Ripper's plans could lead to some plot twists?

The EB fight wasn't too hard. I died, but that was my fault for not having dull pain ready. Seam Ripper had a non-stock description, but I didn't really understand what led to his vendetta against Hazard Corp.



General thoughts:

The gameplay was balanced, but the story seemed overly straightforward and the characters weren't all that developed. We never did find out what Seam Ripper had against Hazard Corp, or what his connection was with Pater and Finnel.

Overall, I felt that there was perhaps one mission too many for the amount of story. The 2nd and 3rd missions just involved fighting even more Vahzilok in a different place, ending with finding a clue to where we should look next.

You should elaborate on the connection between Seam Ripper and Pater and Finnel. Do they not know that he's an Eidolon, or are they in the business of working with supervillains? (Like Wolfram and Hart hehe) The latter alternative might make a good plot twist, as well as let us fight something other than horde of zombies for one mission.

An alternative plot twist could be one of the Eidolons betraying Seam Ripper. We saw that Skin Graft at least was somewhat dissatisfied with the plan. You might consider fleshing out the motives of the bosses more.

Also, Sandra Taylor and Hazard Corps in general would benefit from more description.

Rated 3 stars in-game.