Spectral_Ent

Page 7 of the Paragon Times, Tuesday the 1st

Serious vandalism was reported on Spanky's Boardwalk based on what's believed to have been an altercation between metahumans. A large steel support was ripped up, and curiously set back in place, as well as several benches being unsecured from the ground and cosmetic damage to shop windows and deck chairs.

Paragon Police Department had this to say:

"We realise that many super-strong heroes are capable and may even need to remove objects from the floors in the line of their duty. We do, however, wish to request they clearly label unsafe areas instead of trying to replace them in this fashion as most of the damage has already been done."

Paragon City Police are not seeking any suspects at this time.

I think it might be an idea to have the Avatar do a slowly stacking confuse effect, so you have some time to get the confuse res spores. Maybe have the spores reset your confuse counter, so it slowly builds up again?

Having concluded a piece of urgent work I can now begin working full-time on the next MA arc. Therefore, is there any feedback from the last arc I could use? Too short? Right length? Too hard? Maybe something a little more in our level range would help.

I should have kept my mouth shut. Yes, that's meant to be saturday. If people were confused and can't make it I entirely understand.

To reiterate, the meeting is 7PM today! (Saturday 22nd)

The only trouble with that is that the MA has almost none of the features of an actual trial. Nevermind falling gears, I can't even get intercom dialogue. I would but we'd basically have 5 nemesis missions.

Oh, yeah, I realise we're going to finish Praetoria and move onto the Coming Storm. I'm just saying if I wrote trials, I would tie them into the lore, and this is what I'd make.

Speaking of which, an idea I had on the bus was making one team heroes and one team villains, and segregating the cutscene at the end. Heroes get a rewarding cutscene showing all the Nemesis plots being foiled now his plans are blown, and villains get to loom over Nemesis's shattered suit and cackle menacingly. It could, perhaps, award a slightly different temp power to each side, too, but I'm not sure temp powers on trials are a good idea.

I’ve spent a lot of time complaining about I21.5, which you can see on the beta forums if you want. But I haven’t spent much time suggesting how to make things better. So, with that in mind, here are my Incarnate trial suggestions! I’ll suggest more as I think of them.

Nemesis Fortress Trial
Deep within the Shadow Shard lies Nemesis’s base of operations. To strike a crippling blow against the Prince of Brass, you’ll need to first cross the Rularuu-infested islands, and then overcome Nemesis’s ingenious traps. For 8-16 players.

Part 1- Getting In
General Hammond kicks off the trial by giving you the co-ordinates to the Fortress. Unfortunately, it’s up a narrow slope of islands, covered in Rularuu. Defeating the Watchers on each plinth will allow the gravity geysers to function once again, propelling the heroes close to the entrance to the fortress.

Part 2- Twisting Corridors
The entrance of the castle is guarded by fierce armies of Warhulks, each led by a Fake Nemesis and prepared to call backup from deeper inside. Defeating these mobs sets the Automaton factories within on full production, ready for later battles. Meanwhile the heroes will have to fight their way across a bridge with gears and chains whirling dangerously overhead. Friend and foe located underneath a falling gear or piston will take a high amount of smashing damage and be knocked down.

Eventually, the Incarnates will reach…

Part 3- An Obvious Trick
There is one large, brass door, and two sets of switches that must be pulled simultaneously. This means the trial must split into two even groups. When the switch is pulled, the floor opens up and the groups are trapped in the underground furnace areas, fighting through tides of automatons spawned by the forges. Destroying each of the furnaces in turn, and carefully avoiding steam bursts and more falling pistons, the groups battle their way along to the stairs back up to the maintenance zone, where they encounter…

Part 4- A Betrayal?!
The opposite team has gone rogue, and is bearing down on our Incarnates! Or perhaps they were automatons the whole time. Either way, inside the suspiciously empty maintenance room, the league-members who weren’t in your group appear, empowered by Nemesis’s steam technology, to put an end to them.

Part 5- The Prince Himself
The two groups, having rejoined after defeating their mechanical doubles, finally enter Nemesis’s inner sanctum. Nemesis, surrounded by his troops, addresses the heroes, then activates his defence system. It splits the room into three irregularly shaped corridors, marked on the floor for a few seconds before the change (5-10). At the end, the forcefields shift and the heroes are trapped with whatever allies they can manage. If Nemesis ever ends up in a channel on his own, he’ll exit the stage, only to return with a colossal Warhulk, surrounded by Steam Ponies. And can you be sure it’s the same Nemesis? He’s certainly had time to recover a lot of his health. A player stuck on the barrier as it forms will take minor energy damage and be thrown back and disorientated.

While a player is in a force field channel Nemesis isn’t in, he can try and damage the loudspeakers which buff the Nemesis soldiers like the Leadership pool.

Part 6-GET TO ZE… Portal..?
Having realised he’s beaten, Nemesis teleports away, and Hammond informs the Incarnates there’s activity on the roof! The team escape up, and arrive just in time to see Nemesis running for a portal! The portal is being worked on by automata scientists; defeat them and the portal will take longer to become functional. Otherwise, now it’s just you and him, going all out. Nemesis fights at his full strength here, utilising high defence and leadership abilities to bolster his strength, and using his fierce Nemesis Staff, the original and the best.

The Trial awards badges thusly:

“Pony Up”
Let Nemesis escape, then defeat him and his entourage.

“Tick Tock Goes The Clock”
Kill a Fake Nemesis in the “Furnaces” section by crushing him under pistons (possibly a bit easy…)

“All Together Now”
Get everyone in the league in the same forcefield path, and end up with Nemesis.

I’ve got a few ideas for Rikti and Council, too. I’m afraid you’ll have to blame Zortel and Foundation Maths for making me think of these, the mind does tend to wander

There's one notable thing I can think of.

The new options are cool, though, as are our new fixes. Thank you for correcting so many of the typos.

Is there no Domi/Base/AE/PvP love this patch, though?

Indeed, I commited the cardinal sin of forgetting not everyone is on the channel all the time. Saturday is the day the most people are capable of attending. I will ideally go from 7PM onwards. There are only three missions and the last one is an RP mission, so time shouldn't be too much of a factor.

Thank you to Il, Dru, and Bun for donating toons for us to beat up

Okay, I'm potentially good for Thursday or Saturday. What works for people?

He's written as laughable, though, and he also crashes into the plot with the subtlety of a train after what might have otherwise been a tense scene, killing any chance of making Serene into an object of mystique. Instead she just kind of comes out of nowhere, then you kill her, and go home, without worrying too much about it.

In fact, when was the last one period? I'm sure people are doing them, but I'm not seeing the huge crowds in Pocket D anymore.

Not complaining at all, I can live with or without them, but I've just noticed they seem a lot more scarce lately, making me think union as a whole isn't really doing them.

Actually, the complaint about Katie could probably be resolved in the same complaint as "the ending feels rushed and unconnected." We could have two arcs, 20-24 and 25-29, a "find out about the apparitions" arc that ends on "something's up with the Carnival of War", and then a 25-29 arc that deals with the Talons. Then we could build them up properly and rescue Katie at the end. During the Talons arc she could fall to their anger because of lingering resentment toward you, and then snap out of it (after you beat her up, of course) to hold off part of the army before you go fight Serene.

GG, there are multiple aspects of content. Saying this content is overall good isn't a blanket statement of approval for every single bit of it. It's more than a little possible to have enjoyed Praetoria's content except for constant ambushes.

And to echo CaptainMan's statement, while you're clearly quite happy with Praetoria based Incarnate Trials, there are a lot of people who aren't. On this very forum, even. The idea that all content has to be capped off in an Incarnate trial somewhere is a thought that I'm sure alarms more people than just me.

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Yes.

'cept the huge barricade around the server, topped with snipers and wizards.

But if you can't make it through you're not really trying.

((You're welcome to join if you like, it's a unionwide plot ))

I think pushing Praetoria has become a larger problem with the game as a whole. It used to be relegated to level 40-50, but now it feels like it's everwhere.

When I first started playing CoH I had never seen the Rikti before, and they were the source of hushed rumours and sly comments from my betters (read: People in Atlas).

I thought they were called "Headmen" because they wore TVs on their heads and I only realised Pariahs looked like Rikti when I finally saw them. New players don't even have the old naked Rikti to compare them to.

God, I hope not.

I'm reminded of the Incredibles blooper.

"I feel like the maid! I just saved this place! Can it stay saved- FOR FIVE MINUTES!"

It is an AE arc so everyone will shift to the appropriate level, and I've only used security guards and... PPD and Carnies...

We'll see how it goes >_>