Shagster

Changes made 6/5/09

-fixed several typos and punctuation errors (thanks Police Woman!)

-added text to Mission 2 briefing, trying to clarify transition from Mission 1

-changed clue in Mission 2, clarifying why the data on the Knives of Artemis is in this base

-slight change to Athena dialogue in Mission 4, to mention her shield symbol.

-added patrol in mission 4, talking about the warrior minions and *their* shields.

-small text changes here and there in all missions

[ QUOTE ]
The Entranced Warriors have a Mars symbol as their shield device; I don't think this makes sense since they don't serve Mars in any capacity. Maybe they should have a Venus symbol (though I'm not sure male characters can get that) or a Moon symbol (representing Artemis). Or a big pink heart to symbolize Aphrodite, though that would probably look too silly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thought about this some more.

I think I might throw in a Knives patrol with the following dialoge:

First KOA: "Why do the warriors have the Mars symbol on their shields? Asserting their masculinity?"

Second KOA: "Someone mentioned that Ares was a lover of Aphtrodite. Now they all want to be the Mars to her Venus."

I think that adds a little humor, without going too far askew from plot.....

[ QUOTE ]
Amazon-Avatars (arc 5909)

[/ QUOTE ]

PoliceWoman, thanks much for the review!

[ QUOTE ]
Another player wanted to team up with me, so fair warning, I was under more time pressure to keep moving than I would be while solo. So this isn't quite as detailed as if I ran through solo. Hopefully having a second player run through the arc and leave a rating will make up for that.

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Sounds like a fair deal to me!

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Stated level range was 41-54, but I played a 24 ss/will brute (admittedly low for this arc) and was lackeyed to a 39 elec/ninj stalker. We played on Malicious (level 2) difficulty.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, that's a bit low for the challenge level of the arc. Still, I'm heartened that you were able to work through anyway.

Brute and Stalker on a heroic arc? Well, luckily, I left Alexander's text to be such that you can see yourself doing mercenary work for him.

[ QUOTE ]

Briefing: "recieving" should be "receiving"


[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for all the typos, grammar, and punctuation you found throughout. Definitely a nice side benefit to any PoliceWoman review, the excellent proof-reading!
(glad this one had less of such issues than "Escalation" did for you)

[ QUOTE ]

Alexander wants me to take a mysterious artifact back from the other Warriors, but does not explain what it is or why it's important. Would be nice to be given more info to motivate why this artifact needs to be recovered. If this artifact has been in the hands of the Warriors for awhile, it seems like he would know at least something about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hm. I was trying to go with the idea that Odyseuss was keeping Alexander, and everyone else, in the dark about this artifact. Alexander has only vague divinations to go on. This is why the hero starts out a few steps behind the Knives of Artemis and has to play catch-up for a few missions.

Further, this arc could easily be played *after* the hero has run the Redeemer badge arc, and gotten Alexander out of the Warriors and signed him up to be an informant. Leaving him more out of the loop. I tried to write this arc such that it works either before or after Alexander's canon arc.

Maybe I can clarify. Not a lot of text space left to do that in, though...

[ QUOTE ]

It appears the CoT and Warriors have been manipulated to fight somehow? Not quite sure why the CoT were attacking, possibly I missed a clue on that (was in a bit of a hurry as brutes are expected to smash stuff nonstop), but I did catch that the KoA tricked them into it somehow in order to cover up a theft.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hm. I thought the hostage rescued explained this. The Knives dropped all the protective wards on the warehouse, to draw the CoT in to cover their mystical tracks.

[ QUOTE ]

Briefing: though our clues point towards KoA, we decide to go after the Malta? Okay, so the KoA usually serve the Malta, but this seems a little bit of a stretch.

[/ QUOTE ]

Alexander is trying pull a little from Sun Tzu and attack the enemy where it is weak. He figures the Malta less protected against mystical divination than the Knives, and less ready for trouble in this matter. Plus, like many people, he assumes whatever the Knives are doing, it's at the behest of Malta.
Again, I may need more to make this clearer.

[ QUOTE ]

Contact says an informant told him to send me to a particular Malta base; would be a little nicer if the player found a clue somewhere (perhaps in the first mission) that pointed to this Malta base.

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Hm. Alexander at end of Mission One mentions he's going to use some of the artifacts from the warehouse to hire a mystic diviner. Maybe I need to explain that better at the start of Misison 2.

[ QUOTE ]
I like that you get a clue on the Knives of Artemis Tracking Database that clearly leads to the next mission. Though it's a little strange that there would be a KoA Tracking Database; usually these super secret paramilitary organizations are much more compartmentalized, so having a central database listing all agents and their location would be unlikely.

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This particular Malta administrator is supposed to track all of the Knives *non-Malta* activities. Part of that "don't trust anyone" thing. I might alter clue text a bit.

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The description of the Ritual Stone has an extra period at the end of it.

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Oddly, I was using the default dev-provided description. The extra period was their fault! fixed now.

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I like the dialog but for some reason in this mission all the dialog is repeated twice. Possibly a bug due to having 2 players? Not sure.

[/ QUOTE ]

bug that kicks in with critters defending destructibles with some team sizes and difficulties. Happens in some other arcs I've seen too.

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The optional allies we found in this mission were suppressed from being "rescued" by the KoA caltrops, until the caltrops faded. Not much you can do about that, but thought you should know.

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Yeah. that's quite annoying. Big part of the reason I switched those ally objectives to Optional.

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I like the ally dialog and their motivation to bring the KoA back under Malta control. I was shocked that we had a Sapper as an ally; in the previous mission I had made a hotkey to quick target Sappers so I could kill them, so I spent most of this mission instinctively wanting to kill my Sapper ally every time he fired off his END drain attack.

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh. The Sapper ally gets some interesting reactions.
I guess you really felt the oddness of allying with such traditional enemies.

[ QUOTE ]
Found and fought Aphrodite. I think she spawned as a boss for us. Wow, she's so very pink. Shouldn't she be in a "toga" costume rather than the "bridal" costume? I guess bridal could work, too, though.

[/ QUOTE ]

I tried to give each Avatar a distinct look. Hestia gets the toga. Athena gets a "Xena" look, using roman costume parts. Artemis gets some Valkyrie parts. Aphrodite I wanted to have the most "girly" look, and also most "modern", suggesting she's *already* picking up modern fashions a bit.

[ QUOTE ]
While fighting her, we had a crazy number of charmed warriors ambush us. I think it must have been two or three ambushes all at once (we had high DPS so reduced Aphrodite's HP to zero very quickly). That might be a lot of ambushes for the average person to handle. Then again, Aphrodite is depicted here as mostly running things by charming others into helping her, so maybe giving her a lot of helpers makes sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, it's kinda Aphrodite's schtick.
Killing her too fast can be a tactical mistake, but I'm not sure how best to give advance warning on that, in character. Hm, maybe Alexander could warn based on knowing how devoted the warriors will be to her.

The other alternative is, I could switch Aphrodite's second power set to Willpower instead of Empathy, and make her die a little slower... a little less thematic, and might make her tougher for *other* ATs....

[ QUOTE ]
The Entranced Warriors have a Mars symbol as their shield device; I don't think this makes sense since they don't serve Mars in any capacity. Maybe they should have a Venus symbol (though I'm not sure male characters can get that) or a Moon symbol (representing Artemis). Or a big pink heart to symbolize Aphrodite, though that would probably look too silly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, Male characters can't have Venus symbol. (what's up with that?)
I thought about heart. But too silly. Athena wouldn't go for it.
I went with Mars as the "male symbol", plus Ares was the lover of Aphrodite... yeah, a bit of a stretch.
That moon idea is a good one, maybe...

[ QUOTE ]

Fought Athena, who was axe/shield. Athena traditionally wields a spear, but no way to really represent that. She has the Jupiter symbol on her shield, but Athena's shield (the Aegis) is traditionally depicted as having Medusa's head on it; there's not such a device in our costume creator, but maybe a snake motif would work.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, but the Aegis is the shield of Zeus, and Athena carries it as his shield maiden and favored daughter. I thought the Jupiter symbol was appropriate due to that. I think I'll add dialogue from Athena about "carrying her father's shield into battle", see if that helps.

[ QUOTE ]
You might consider giving all the goddess avatars a glowing nimbus or halo? To signify their (semi-)divine status?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hm. I'll look into that.
Pretty happy with their costumes and look. But that could add something for sure...


[ QUOTE ]

Overall
I like the mythological premise, and I think this is exactly the sort of plot the Knives of Artemis would love to enact. The dialog is very good and I particularly like how each of the goddess-avatars has their own personality and opinion of the situation. I thought the hook for why you're doing the first two missions was a little weak and could be improved, but the last three missions were all quite good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks much for playing and for the very detailed review.
Making some changes now. I hope I can tighten up the links in the first 2 missions.
To be blunt, I was going for a bit of an "unfolding mystery" feel. What is the artifact? What can it do? What are the Knives up to? Is this a standard Malta job, or are the KOA up to something more?

Also wanted the hero to be a few steps behind the Knives at first, giving them time to use the artifact. The Hero "catches up" in Mission Three, keeping the rituals from being fully completed in 3 out of 4 cases.

Of course, trying to get a feel of "Mystery" and "Chase" in the Mission Architect is tough, so maybe I was too ambitious...

Thanks again! Off to edit arc a bit more!

PoliceWoman did a Review of Amazon-Avatars!

Pull Quote: "I like the mythological premise, and I think this is exactly the sort of plot the Knives of Artemis would love to enact. The dialog is very good and I particularly like how each of the goddess-avatars has their own personality and opinion of the situation. I thought the hook for why you're doing the first two missions was a little weak and could be improved, but the last three missions were all quite good."

Rating: 5 Stars!

Link to review (spoilers galore, of course)
PoliceWoman's Review of Amazon-Avatars

Thanks much to PW for reviewing the arc! (and for taking a teammate along for an extra play and rating! )

And now, my responses are here:
Detailed reponse to PoliceWoman's Review of Amazon-Avatars
and
Quick point of something to fix

[ QUOTE ]
I'll have to try this arc out when I get home today. I'll give a thorough review as well :-)

[/ QUOTE ]

Hope you like it!

And make sure you have your A-game ready for that last mission, it's a toughie! (you have been warned. bring a team or lots of inspiriations or temp powers)

Well, here's an interesting moment. My arc was mentioned as an example when discussing issues of plot and theme.

In this post, KeepDistance wonders why "Escalation" doesn't qualify as JABOSTH (Just A Bunch of Stuff Then Happens). Which is a fair question, if you look at "Esclation" as just a series of fights against a villainess.
KeepDistance asks a question about "Escalation"

And in this post, Venture answers:
Venture discusses the Themes of "Escalation"

Best thing about this for me, is I definitely know for sure that I expressed the theme I intended in my story. At the very least, Venture nailed it. Exactly what I was going for.

Interersting to have my mission arc used in an example in what is arguably an academic discussion about the emerging artform of Mission Architecting.

considering tweaking the power level of final character in arc. However, will probably wait until Issue 15, and custom power choices hopefully will give more flexibility.

changes made 6/3/09

-fixed the "Escalation" faction. All the robots had disappeared from the faction in a previous edit! This caused problems with spawning patterns in mission 4. Fixed now.

-changed emote used by some robots in Mission one, to make searching for objective spawns easier.

Got artist Rob Banbury to make a flier for "Escalation"

Hopefully, will be posted in the forums by Community rep soon. But, for anyone who wants a sneak peek:
Flier for Arc #6143 - Escalation

and much thanks to Rob. For those who like the looks of his art, his Deviant Art page is at:
Rob Banbury on DeviantArt

changes made 6/2/09

-changed naming scheme on critters for 4th mission a bit

-experimenting with alternate emotes for "surrounding spawns" on Mission One, to try and make Dr. Lashion easier to find.

Changes made 6/2/09

-fixed some typos spotted by GlaziusF (thanks!)

-changed goals in Mission 3. Rescuing Malta allies is now totally optional for those who wish to let those Malta bastards suffer at the hands of the Knives. (And serves them right!)

-fixed the custom group "Amazon Avatars Minions". Apparently, the minion and boss critters had disappeared somehow, leaving only the LTs. yikes!

-changed "Enscorcelled Warrior" LT critters from Broadsword / Shield to Dual Blades / WP, to make them more distinct from Minions in same faction. Should also reduce impact of either shield powers stacking, or over-stacking of DEF DeBuffs from Broadsword.

-fixed animations for the spawn around final boss in final mission, to make easier to find on outdoor map.

Glazius,

Thanks much for the review.

However, it looks like something got totally borked since my last playtest! the Amazon Avatar's Minions are *not* supposed to be an all LT faction! Arggh!

And the LTs had just gotten a lot nastier due to the recent difficulty shifts in critter powers.

Fixed that. And even changed the LTs to Dual blades to avoid too much Shield stacking with minions while I was at it.

Sorry the whole thing was crazy on the Gameplay side. That was NOT what I was intending.

And you've convinced me. Freeing the Malta allies in Mission 3 is now totally optional. If nothing else, waiting for the caltrops to de-spawn is a major pain.

Testing it now to see if the spawn animation around Artemis is final mission makes her stand out again. Must've lost animations in a patch somewhere.

Thanks for finding this glaring problem! Not sure where it came in.... Maybe I edited a typo on another computer and uploaded a bad, old version of the faction file....

GlaziusF,

thanks for the review.

something got borked in the arc. The Amazon-Avatars Minions group is *not* supposed to all LTs.

and Avatar of Artemis and her spawn *are* supposed to have a pretty visible animation to make them easier to find on the map.

These issues must've popped up since my last playtest somehow.

My sincere apologies. Sorry this resulted in far worse gameplay for you than I intended.

Escalation was reviewed by Lazarus

Lazarus reviews Arc 6143 - Escalation

4 Stars.
He didn't like difficulty of final fight.
Or effects of multiple devices minions in Mission 4.

Changes made 5/31/09

*altered mission intro and accept text on Mission 4. Done to fix a possible plot hole if the playing character is of divine origin or connected to a god/goddess. Also helps clarify and expand the role of the artifact in the plot.

Glazuis, your feedback on my first arc (5909 Amazon-Avatars) was a great help to me, and helped me get thinking in new ways about it. I've made quite a few changes, I'd be interested in seeing what you think of the new version.

My other arc (#6143, "Escalation") has gotten some reviews, but could always use more, if you are interested.

Both arcs have some custom critters of above average difficulty, so beware.

Both arcs are posted on cohmissionreview.com and each has a discussion thread (listed in my sig)

Escalation got a review on COHmissionreview.com

it was a good review, and the reviewer was smart to emphasize the difficulty of the end fight.

http://cohmissionreview.com/2009/05/...tion/#comments

Glazius_F,

thanks for the extensive feedback, and sorry it took me so long to reply. I worked on fixing a lot of things brought up in your feedback, then got caught up in work and RL things for a bit.

[ QUOTE ]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

Mission briefing now explains that Alexander has a crate inventory number, but not even a description of the artifact.

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

[/ QUOTE ]

darn the spawning of everything up front sometimes, no matter how I changed the front-middle-back assignments.

I fixed this by adding a *lot* more optional glowies scattered throughout the map, with clues that talk about the Warrior's use of artifacts and this warehouse. should both give more flavor and stop all the mission objectives from being front-loaded.

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

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clarified in clue that an enchanted sword was used to cut through the powerful wards on the chest.

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

[/ QUOTE ]

the idea is the the Knives raid the warehouse for the artifact, then dropped the wards from the inside so the Circle would come and trash the place. The Knives figured the Circle being there would prevent any divinations or mystic tracing methods from pointing at the Knives. Due to Alexander's advance warning, you interrupt the Circle before they are done.

Added some new text to clarify this.

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

[/ QUOTE ]

added text to clarify this.
Alexander sells some of the artifacts to buy the services of some mystic seers and diviners. Malta has limited anti-magic resources (comparitively).

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

[/ QUOTE ]

He's spotted some very scary trends in the Knives activities, so he hopes the hero will do something about it. Plus, if he lives, might be able to tell his superiors.

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

[/ QUOTE ]

now mentioned in clues.

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

[/ QUOTE ]

perfectly valid approach. especially if you don't want to team with Malta.

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

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yeah, that's kinda my inspiration for this arc. "What are those mysterious moonlight rituals for? What could they accomplish?" I wanted to write an arc that highlighted the overlooked mystical side of the KOA.

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

[/ QUOTE ]

I figured one ambush should use up their squad reserved for that purpose. Plus, I didn't want to go crazy on the ambushes, especially with Knives. Ambushes with other factions, that's for later missions....

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

[/ QUOTE ]

Hope it was.


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

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text clarified now. Alexander is afraid getting Statesmen close to the Avatars will cause them to gain power faster.

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

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I wanted to avoid Oranbega like the plague.
I think this was a more appropriate map choice.

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

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Added text saying that the warriors are enticed by Aphrodite, then trained by Athena. They'll hang out even if Aphrodite is down, in hopes of helping restore her.

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

[/ QUOTE ]

1) variety, as you said
2) most of the Knives are busy elsewhere. small hint to Misison 5.
3) best chance to use the custom faction.


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

[/ QUOTE ]

Traditionally, Athena bore the Aegis, her father's shield, into battle.

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

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Sadly, I can't do cut scenes. It'd be neat if I could do one of Sister Luna, 5'8" Hand of Artemis boss turn into 8 foot tall Avatar of Artemis EB as part of her empowerment... ah, well.

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

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks. If player wants they can try to go straight to Artemis, but lots of fluff flavor text to read for those who like it.

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

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Good suggestion. I've added this.

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

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Been working away at it. Hope it's better now.

Thanks for the detailed review, and again, sorry it took so long to respond.

[ QUOTE ]
[Tell] @Casual Player: Feedback on Architect Mission Amazon-Avatars: Excellent
MA arc. I look forward to seeing this made into a dev's choice.


[/ QUOTE ]

That made my evening!

(quote posted with permission of @Casual Player)

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[ QUOTE ]
Johnny Butane's just gonna come right out and ask her if she wants to suck face?


[/ QUOTE ]

Possibly, but this being Johnny Butane, he'd arrive at the date, tell her she was doing it wrong, that the restaurant wasn't a real restaurant because he wanted italian but they only served thai food, complain that she wasn't improving to suit his needs, argue that he was going to go out with someone else who was better and more available, yet still insist on staying the entire evening despite threatening to leave repeatedly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite literally laughing out loud.

Loudly, with gusto.

Kudos.

[ QUOTE ]
So, I have this friend, and he posts on these forums, and he's just kinda curious.

Are you hot?

[/ QUOTE ]

She's a nerd girl, that means she's hot in my book, whatever she looks like.

She's a nerd girl who could probably beat me on an IQ test comparison. Doubly hot.

She's self-confident, and more than able to stand up for herself on the forums. Combined with everything above, off the scale hot.

em: sits back and waits to see what kind of humor Arcanaville's response to this will have. This could be good.

Minor typo changes only on 5/25/09

*fixed destructible object dialogue in Mission One, changed "Rogue Island" to "Rogue Isles"

*added the word "percent" to numerical data in computer glowie clue in Mission Four (had tried to use "%" before, didn't go through)

*added a missing "a" to mission briefing for final mission

additional typo fix in afternoon

*fixed extra "up" in Mission briefing for First mission

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And I was impressed you soloed the final fight on a blaster. Not easily done.

[/ QUOTE ]
I managed it with my Archery/Energy blaster last night...though I was defeated once before returning to finish the job. Probably would have been easier if I had the Flight pool instead of Jumping. Escalation has one heavy-duty ranged attack that was doing around 900 points of damage, so I'd just trigger Aid Self immediately afterward and be back at full health by the time her attack recharged. My character isn't a defense build, either...about the only boost I have is the global +3%.

The main problem was dishing out enough damage - even with Build Up, Aim, and Surveillance to help, it took a while to wear her down.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know what you mean, both about flight making it easier, and wearing her down.

I took her on with both my blasters on Justice. Sgt. Ironside is IO'd out for big defense, but the lack of flight meant running around like a maniac trying to avoid melee. Didn't help that Assault Rifle's lethal damage stinks against Invulnerability resists. Serapha Wrathsong, on the other hand, flew above and whittled her down with Sonics. Had to burn a lot of purples and greens though. I think it's a good thing the final fight happens on a open, outdoor map. More tactical options.

Sounds like a lot of people are having epic fights with Escalation, which is great. I know my grav/rad controller Dr. Continuum had one of the most challenging and sastisfying victories of his career against her. Took me a long time running around and trying to slowly kill her with smashing damage. As I stressed out, one of my SG mates asked what I was up to that was so intense and I was like "Nearly getting my butt kicked by an NPC of my own creation, and loving it!". Helps that with Dr. Continuum, it was superhero scientist vs. supervillainess scientist.

I suppose that since "Esclation" is an odd mix between a "Story Arc" and a "Challenge Arc" for some, I may be minimizing my audience. But, I think the diffifculty at the end is well justified by the storyline.

[ QUOTE ]
Good arc. There was a missing 'a' in the final briefing, but otherwise I couldn't find a single problem with it. You gave plenty of warning about the difficulty in the later missions, so I can't fault you for that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for pointing out the missing "a".
And glad you liked it even with the tough fight at the end.
Seriously, good job beating her with a blaster. It isn't easy.

[ QUOTE ]
I gave it another run-through myself, this time on Mr. Pagliacci/Virtue (28 Dark/Psy Defender). The changes were all for the better.

Now Escalation can stew over being sent to jail by a clown.

[/ QUOTE ]

oh, man, a clown? That's gonna burn her ego, big time!

You just signed up for double the normal number of hate letters from the Zig each week, I think.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the changes.

I think I'm at the point where I give out just enough hints without "giving away the ending" on Escalation's final fate.

[ QUOTE ]
I also gave Escalation another run through. Love the improvements; I increased my rating to 5 stars.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yay! Thank you!

Can I quote the revised rating as your "review rating" when I put together my "movie poster" ?

Wow, "Esclation" is sitting at 99 reviews, and it's been oscillating between 4 and 5 stars last few times I've checked. Must be right at 4.4 or something...

[ QUOTE ]
I just got done playing it. Apparently I did the newest, most improved version. It's really good. I enjoyed it a lot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for playing and rating my arc!

I appreciated the tells you sent while playing through.

And I was impressed you soloed the final fight on a blaster. Not easily done.

During my playtests, I did solo through the whole arc on each archetype, my blasters had the toughest time.

Thanks again!