Saint Valencrime

A long time ago I was at a lecture by one of the game designers from Doom and CoC. He had a good speech about how creating a memorable game experience was creating classic moments for players.

I think if you take that scene and add some good fighting music it becomes a classic bdss moment. Something that players would want to re-enact.

Imagine you are tied with Red Phoenix at 23/23 in your Arena duel. You choose 5 opponents and the crowd gasps. In the distance you see 4 Freakshow tanks and Arakhn begin to walk towards you. You hear your fighting music (like Keep Em Separated) play in the background as you begin to sprint towards your five opponents. The crowd roars as the fight begins....

Something like that would be fun to have. Looks like something to make for myself in AE.

In a Manga I read there was this PvE game called the counting game. There were a set number of enemies who varied in strength. Each person in the game would pick a number and they would have to defeat that number of opponents. The player who defeated the most opponents would win.

Lets say this was PvE Arena. Each person/team gets 3 minutes to defeat all their foes. The foes only come from groups that have level 1-54 mobs. Mobs would be minion only, lt only, boss only and mixed. This would vary the difficulty a lot. So one side could pick 2 and get 2 tough mobs to defeat 3 minutes. The next team might pick 5 and get 5 easy mobs.

Another option would be 1 boss only with no mob. One person pick 2 and get Archons while the other person would pick 1 and get a Consigliere. So it would be part luck, part strategy and part character build.

Time Forum Gladiator - Travel through time and conquer the forums! Defeat Angry Anti-Jack mobs! Defeat the Kitty Court! Prevent anyone from talking about why they don't PVP! Convince COH to go ahead with the Rhythmic Gymnastics Mastermind!

Terror of Mot - Mot has replaced all the hot links at the COH website with ones to their new website Ghost-se . Stop this before its too late!

Pocket D Heist - You have 32 minutes, a dump truck, and 3 random artifacts stolen from the Magi Vault. Steal as many fighting monkey as you can!

Fallen Thunder and It Can't Get Up - How does 200+ year old Nemesis keep attacking when he is constantly defeated? Steal the Nemesis Life Alert System and end the invasion!

I was messing around in the AE Editor having my villain boss quote Nietzche. When I got to the Dialog for NPC defeats Player I ran out of good quotes. The Boss I was using was a stock NPC so I figured no one would ever lose to him. So I typed in "Two Words - Damage Enhancements" as his catchphrase.

I am using my Ninja MM to test balance. I don't want things to weak or to tough. So I get to the final boss and set up my Ninja team. They all rush in and this Boss goes beserk and flattens them. What I didnt realize was every time a henchmen is defeated you get the catchphrase.

So this NPC boss yells "Two Words - Damage Enhancements" and starts heading for me. I summon up more Ninjas. This Boss flattens one and "Two Words - Damage Enhancements". He flattens all my good henchmen and I decide to run. Now he is chasing after me yelling "Two Words - Damage Enhancements" as he flattens more Ninjas.

Now I have this crazed robot chasing me yelling "Two Words - Damage Enhancements" flattening every Ninja that tries to stop him. I am running for my life and Angry Robot chases me out the front door yelling "Two Words - Damage Enhancements" all the way.

I found that amusing for some reason and wanted to share it. Some day I want to see Lord Nemesis chasing some badge hunter all the way to the tram yelling "Two Words - Damage Enhancements".

I went from customizing my characters to customizing the villains I fight. I have my own version of the Council with terror cells of Saboteurs, Hit Men, and Spy themes. Hours of fun using the Praetorian tunnel maps.

So I guess I moved from stage 1 of Altitis to stage 2

They should have a zone event with the freakiest Freakshow. Like the Freakshow who was trying to make himself into a centaur. You could have some new rare Freakshow minions with unusual machines grafted into their bodies. That would be an amusing zone event. It would drive the artist crazy but it would be fun. Maybe every Friday the 13th.

So ..... call it a draw?

You may win this battle $target but 3 of your PUG will quit before you get to the final mission and I will have the last laugh!

Stealth Panther Power Activate! ..... Oh Crud

Note to Self, put in Hospital Teleport system for NPCs

This week and this week only at Paragon Market , amazing deals on the random purchase pack! This message brought to you by Paragon Market! Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Who has two thumbs and a black eye? This guy

You wouldn't hit an NPC wearing glasses? /em put on glasses

You may think you have won but I sent my pet Liger, Mr Whizzles, to your SG Lair when the fight started and he had a big drink of water! Muhahaha!

I call a Mulligan. Do over! Do over!

Look behind you! Its Darrin Wade with a $target killing ceremony! Quick, run while they are looking!

Please, please, please, please, please, not the cell next to Flambeaux!

Came accross something interesting in my AE playing and testing. It appears that you can create NPC mobs as challenging as Boss Fights without having the NPCs spamming holds.

There is a Chinese Astrology belief called the Cycle of Life where two forces togther are more powerful than separately. Wood feeds Fire and makes the fire burn more intensely.

By analyzing power sets you can create NPCs who compliment each other and make fights tougher. In theory you could create tough groups of normally wimpy NPCs by paying attention to which powers work well together.

An NPC with speed boost and ranged ice attacks would shift speed and recharge If you had an NPC with a powerful but slow attack then the Kinetic/Ice NPC would make them more dangerous.

There are a lot of weapons that use -defence or +knockdown. This combination can lead to the bouncy castle attack where the first NPC makes the player easier to hit and the second NPC knocks them down or up.

One of the things I am using this for is learning about slotting henchmen. Tonight I got a call looking for help from a PUG that was getting pummeled. By combining Ninjas slotted for +disorient with +accuracy and the acid mortar debuffs my henchmen managed to curb stomp some NPC bosses who had been wracking up debt for the PUG.

1) The Bob Dylan Task Force
Kings Row
Freakshow
Stealing all the bank dough
Crimes grow
Bombs blow
Rescue trapped hero
Don't need to be the Statesman to know this is a no-no

2) Doctor Aeon is in a mad experiment to create a hybrid between a frozen dinner and a pot pie. Stop this mad experiment before it destroys Paragon City

3) The Party Pooper has siezed control of Praetoria. You must fight for your right to party!

4) The Living Palindrome will harass Sarah every day at noon with his army of solo gigolos. Find out who trained this villain and beat them so they never do it again.

5) A desperate scientists hid his doomsday formula by training a rikti monkey to screech the ingredients when physical contact is made. Then he hid the the beast in a large pack of Rikti monkeys. To save the world you must run through the Rikti War zone spanking these monkeys.

6) You got a day job with Fedex just as they opened their new Oranbega branch. Today is Halo Four Pre-Order Delivery Day. Flambeaux will accompany you to the first 89 glowies.

7) Win the tri-county pie eating competition. Your toughest competition will be the chubby kid that everyone picks on.

Arc 91925 Rumble Rock has escaped

This was an interesting arc. It had a mix of custom NPCs and game NPCs that made sense. This was frustrating because with some feedback it could have been a 3 star arc. It looks like the one star hatred came from the cargo ship finish. I have been using a Ninja/Devices MM to test and was able to bring down the bosses with some difficulty

Arc 51060 Madam Wing's Challenge

The first few sentences of an arc sets the stage. In this mission the author used the introduction to say how the warehouse smelled like bird droppings. It had some interesting NPCs but was lite on the story.

My Top 3 One Story Arcs so far

404978 Foil Barth Vader
-- really good looking costumes and decent balance for a lower level hero

500493 Aunt Elle's Chamber of Horrors
-- Modern Horror Movie made into a COH arc lots of cliches

Arc 91925 Rumble Rock has escaped
-- Challenging and good job working together customer and normal NPCs into a believable story, cargo ship warning for pet users


Notes for Self

Ways to Arch a Hero....
Career
Knowledge/Learning
Family (SG, sidekicks)
Wealth
Fame/Acceptance of Peers
Romance
Children (trainees,role model)
Mentors
Health

The Family are those close to the hero who are allies but do not emulate the hero. The children would be those who see the hero as a role model to emulate.

Notes for myself on creativity needed for arcs

Boss 7 d/t
Objects 3 d/t
Captives 6 d/t
Allies 10 d/t
Ambush 1 d/t
Escort lots
Patrol 2 d/t
Battles 4 d/t
Object 8 d/t for defendable and destructible

More d/t = the need for more creativity in an arc
There are only 5 attack powers suited for weak NPCs
Make multiple versions of recurring NPC bosses with different power mixes for better replay value

There are nine aspirations that serve as goals in Feng Shui...

I only ran into one tough arc tonight with chain hold minions but I got through it. I played another mission with British Cyborgs. They were not just cyborgs they were British Cyborgs!!! They seemed polite and didnt say too much.

Then I worked more on making up some one star minions of my own. It takes a lot of time to figure out the exact costume parts that have the right bad anime look.

See I disagree. I can export any arc, run it through a spell checker, and then suddenly its good by your standards. I am not looking for a dictionary when I play MA. When I first played the Positron TF no one was yelling "Hey, they used a reflexive pronoun when it should have been a demonstrative pronoun, lets get $target". If I create a yardie adventure you can be dead cert I am not using the King's English.

The MA has a triple scoop of creativity. You have creative costumed NPCs that set the mood. You have good dialogue and clues. Then you have interesting plot lines and parodies.

That is the strength of the MA. Its not 9999 warehouse tile sets. Its not setting up chain effect hades because someone wanted cold themed minions. To me that makes it the most important reason to encourage someone with a good idea to keep trying.

A while back I had this crazy idea on April Fools Day to be the first person to go from level 1 to level 50 playing one star arcs in the mission architect. Playing these arc would show me a lot about what works and what doesnt work for making my own missions.

There were a few things I noticed quickly with some testing. The experience points awarded for MA arcs is bugged. Weaker NPCs are worth more XP becaise of this bug.

A generic minion with 2 primary attacks and 3 secondary defences is worth 40-60 pct of experience. However if you make the secondary power an attack the NPC gets weaker but the XP pct goes up to 100. Martial Arts, Claws, Archery, Dual Pistol (no switch). Fire, and Dual Blades can be combined to create full XP NPCs with no defence, no buffs and no special attack effects.

The second thing I noticed is that some one star arcs have some real creativity behind them. I played Foil Barth Vader 404978 and someone spent hours creating NPC that look like droids and imperial troops from the star wars saga. IMHO you should be able to review the reviewers. Some person took a fun creative adventure and gave it one star because of some stupid pet peeve. This one person's miserable attitude kills the chance of other people playing something that was fun and amusing.

The third thing I noticed is if English is your second language then welcome to my one star kingdom. People seem to be merciless about giving good creativity and good ideas one star for a few spelling errors. Its too bad that there is no spell checker function to avoid this trap.

In the meantime its back to the world of evil super soldiers, Detective McMuffin, Clockwork Terminators, crooked cops and a ton of crazy ideas.

I have been reading through the TV Tropes list of stereotypes for heros and villains. Some of them give me a laugh or make me smile. The minion listing is great showing how many ways writers have tried to make cannon fodder interesting.

Some of my favorite sections are Hannibal Lecture(and the why you suck speech), Action Mom, Yardies, Just You Me and My Guards, and Make the Bear Angry Again. I am tempted to write a pointless MA Arc just to fill it with Renegade Russians or British Mobsters.

I always wanted to try some sort of scenario based PvP myself based off of game missions

One Person is a Giant Monster and fights a team of players

Terra Volta Trial where one side spawns in as random Freakshow Lts and Bosses againt a team of heroes

One Person is fully powered Statesman and fights a team of villains

One side plays as the Shooting Stars against a villain team

The current PvP reminds me too much of chess nerds. If I go into PvP I will fight an uninteresting characters who is focused on game math. I don't feel like I am fighting a hero or a villain I feel like I am fighting a Math Teacher. It really ruins the moment.

Patch 13.C10.WN release notes (Spoilers - fake release notes)

Fixed issue where Citizen would jump out of Arson Building in Steel Canyon into net held by clown henchmen. The citizens would land in the net only there was a trampoline underneath which flung them back into building. Missing BOING sound effect added back to animation

Clown Henchmen will no longer try to extinguish fire controller pets with legacy seltzer bottle

Clown Henchmen in Sewer Trial were spamming "Everything Floats Down Here". Fixed.

Due to copyright concerns <petsay> "Jingle Bells $target Smells $sidekick laid an egg" is disabled for Clown Henchmen

After several complaints the power up animation for clown henchmen by squirting liquid in their mouths has been changed

The Unique Map for the Clowncil Task Force has been fixed. Glitches with the giant secret base inside the Massive Cream Pie have been fixed. Costume fixed for Archon BeepenHonker.

Clown Henchmen will no longer switch into "I'm with Stupid" T-Shirts when Mastermind is AFK

Temp Kick Me Sign Power fixed

"Clown Summoning: With the Clown Summoning Power Set for Masterminds, you will be able to command and control your own circus of clowns. The minion pets are three traditional happy clowns, with squirting flower ranged attacks and balloon-sword melee attacks. The lieutenant pets are of the sad clown variety, and finally the boss clown is a vicious mime with a very powerful self-containment attack that puts himself inside of an invisible, shrinking box. Clowns arrive on the battlefield via a single tiny car that they all pile out of."

I was able to beat someone else who had a Liger in Arena Combat. The design-your-own power guy won't have his Oversized Arms Melee for another 6 months. The bee bark was unable to penetrate the invisible shrinking box. Its just a matter of time before Clown Summoning dominates PVP until someday it will become CVC.

Whenever I think of Hero Deaths in Comics there is always a time afterwards when various others try to step up and take their place. Its too bad we don't have some NPCs trying to step up.

A Freakshow Tank who replaced his torso with a Statesman colored shield. A Coven NPC trading in black for Red White and Blue. At lease one Longbow Boss with a Patriotic shield trying to fill in. How about a Meat Doctor who has operated on himself to give him the face of Uncle Sam? A Red, White and Blue Carnie from the Carnival of Light?

Creating some custom NPCs from existing groups who are trying to take the Statesman's place could make for some fun NPCs.

Replacing the Statesman gets the Red Side nothing. However there is a favorite villain group that people like beating up. Most of their AVs left with the Council. So they could use some new AVs for Arcs.

So Blue Side would get the Replace the Statesman while Red Side get the Hostile Takeover: Fifth Column competition. The Blue side competes for a spot in the Premiere NPC hero group. The Red side competes for a chance to sieze control of the 5th Column and become the new AV(s) leading them.

Voting from players would be by leveling up. The contestants would be placed in the same zone as NPC trainers. When someone uses one of them to level up it counts as a vote. So people who play red side vote red side. Blue side votes blue side.

Characters who do not win could be used as new Mayhem/Safeguard characters. Some of the villains could become new 5th Column AVs reporting to the new leader. Some of the heros could be used in new arcs.

Replacement: Hammer & Slammer
Source: I'm Gonna Get you Sucka
Powerset Guns/Guns/Guns/Guns
Battlecry: How many Ribs for a Dollar?

Replacement:Noober
Source:Baldur's Gate
Powerset:Heya
Battlecry:What about now?

Replacement:Patches Houlihan
Sourceodgeball
Powerset: Special Trainer
Battlecry: If you can dodge a wrench you can fight crime
** Players training up levels have to either dodge wrenches or run through traffic to train up

Replacement:Bobby Boucher
Source:The Waterboy (Adam Sandler)
Powerset: Impact Melee
Battlecry: Captain Insano shows no mercy

Replacement:James T Kirk
Source: Star Trek
Powerset: Mastermind - Red Shirt Security
Battlecry: We come in Peace, Shoot to Kill!

Replacement:Blain
Source:Predator
Powerset:Minigun
Battlecry:Aint got time to Bleed

Replacement:Ash
Source:Evil Dead Movies
Powerset:Shotgun/Chainsaw Blaster
Battlecry: This is my Boomstick!