TeChameleon

Oh. Huh. Thanks for the heads-up, Armsman. Good to know.

Huh- welcome back, BB- I was kind of wondering what had happened when you vanished from Devious' RP.

My arcs are in my sig- feel free to pick whichever one you prefer; all could benefit from feedback (although some changes may have to wait for i15, as Small Fears is quite literally five characters from the current limit- as in, I could fit one more short word in, but that's about it ).

Oh- and if you decide to try either Small Fears or How to Survive a Robot Uprising, both are tuned for high-level play, so running with a twenty-something toon probably... won't work very well. Trollbane is set for 10-14, mind you, so... eh, s'up to you.

Well, Glazius, if you're jonesing for some more arcs (and hopefully they make more sense to you than the first one of mine you reviewed did, *sigh*...), I just put my other two arcs on the CoHMR site, Trollbane and How to Survive a Robot Uprising (see my sig for the numbers).

I can't edit How to Survive a Robot Uprising until they fix that stupid glitch where some of the mobs have a default text that's too long, though >.<

Also, if you have a few, would you be willing to do a quick re-run of Small Fears? I think I've taken care of most of the more egregious bugbears in the arc that you touched on... I don't need a full re-review or anything, but I would be interested to know if your impressions had changed at all.

Aye, thanks Jophiel. That's odd- the only variance that should have been possible is he could have spawned at +1, which I wouldn't expect to make that big of a difference (the arc is also recommended for 10-14, but unless you have a very shiny power coming up at 10, it shouldn't make that big a difference either).

I may poke around the innards of the arc, see if anything's gone wonky with the Custom Critters- wouldn't be the first time that's happened, although I thought I had just checked them not long ago... hmm.

Sorry for this, I hadn't expected it to be a headache like this

Huh... you know, you're the very first person to tell me that they had trouble with CF, Jophiel. I was actually thinking about tweaking him so he was tougher, because most folks were just sort of splatting him and moving on O.o

What difficulty level were you running on? The "recommend difficulty 1" in the description text is there for a reason, neh?

Also, there wasn't much of a twist... or much of a conflict, either- it was a systematic murder campaign on the part of the Skulls.

That's... more than a little odd, given that it's exactly the same critter (unless it was the Bonemason, in which case it's exactly the same critter as the Baron, except with a different skin and text >.&gt.

And yeah, the ambush being hostile to the boss is working as intended

Any plot suggestions from what you saw?

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I'm really glad to know that I'm not the only person who when a review thread he likes bumps to the top, he goes through and rereads reviews.

And hey, agnosticism - in writing - is a matter of choice and style.

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Oh aye- just you said that I 'tried to be as player agnostic as possible', and I was pointing out that wasn't really what I was shooting for when I was writing it- it's just that the story lent itself to that particular stylistic decision, so I ran with it.

Welcome back, Talen... and, as an aside to a comment from a while back- Small Fears being 'player agnostic' wasn't actually a conscious decision- the story just turned out that way.

Just an aside on the wrap up/tie up- I've always known the saying to be 'wrap up some loose ends'. Might just be a regional thing.

And as to the shoot out... the Battle triggers are borked to the point of uselessness. The spawns 'native' to the map always spawn more and higher-level mobs than their opponents, meaning most battles are painfully short-lived. So even if there was a firefight programmed in, you probably never saw it.

Archery/Fire or Archery/Mental for AoE goodness; Archery/Energy for Boost Range and nasty blaps (or /Electric for nasty blaps and even less Endurance issues than Archery normally has) would be my suggestions.

Sounds cool- be warned, though... in terms of 'feel'?

Blasters peak very, very early- they're actually a bit overpowered in the early game- but mob health and resistances scale faster than your damage does. By the endgame, you're still a relentless engine of destruction, but you have to kill things one room at a time rather than simply wreaking a swathe of destruction three miles wide

Controllers, on the other hand, mature quite late. The low-level game (at least in my experience, with a Grav/Kin) is a bit of a slog, really. It's only in the later game (post pet, basically) that Controllers really and truly start to come into their own.

Pity... I've got a pair of arcs that would suit Taraklis and Darkfire Avenger quite nicely, but they're both designed for levels 45+

(How to Survive a Robot Uprising and Small Fears, respectively)

If the spirit should move you, LJ, please take a look at any or all of my arcs; the numbers are in my sig.

Trollbane is a 10-14 arc, although it's on the steeper end of the difficulty scale. Somewhat mystery themed, with a darker twist.

How to Survive a Robot Uprising is a high-level arc; an unfolding semi-continuation of the Rogue Robots mini-arc in City of Heroes (I'd advise against difficulty two or four for the last mission).

And Small Fears is a horror-themed arc, scaled for the higher levels.

Fair warning, the difficulty on Small Fears and Trollbane can get a bit wonky; there's Illusion Control-using mobs present, and thanks to the [censored] stupid confusion being mandatory... *grumble*

i15 can't get here soon enough.

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Blasters have pretty good damage, but their secondaries seem weak. They don't buff or heal and the secondaries don't add any significant damage. Corruptors do almost the same damage, while having the ability to heal and buff when not focusing on damage. One might argue that blasters are only focused on one thing, however with more damage power sets on Villain side (Dom vs Controller), a corruptor can slack off and things will still die fast.

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Gotta say, this bit raised a few question marks.

Properly played and in the right circumstances, an AoE-centric Blaster can erase spawns so fast that the rest of the 8-man team (aside from maybe the Tanker) will complain that they don't have anything to do. Nothing I've seen or played suggests that Corruptors can match that, even with really good luck with Scourge.

And Blaster Melee attacks are absolutely brutal- as has been mentioned, check the numbers. You just need to adapt your playstyle; Blasters do not play like Corruptors, they require a great deal more mobility to run to their fullest potential.

Scrappers and Brutes seem to be about even in the long run, from what I've seen- they just leverage their damage differently... and while Brutes may have a slight edge in survivability, it's really not that big of a difference in standard play. *shrug*

Tanks do what they do very, very, very well. Nothing in the game can soak damage like a Tanker can. A good Tank will direct the flow of battle, keeping things under solid control and positioning things so that their teammates can use their powers to best advantage.

StrykerX speaks truth regarding Controllers- high-level ones can do absolutely obscene amounts of damage.

Defenders are a bit of an odd duck; they can't do damage like Corruptors do, at least alone, but that minor difference in buff/debuff strength adds up surprisingly quickly when you have two or more 'fenders on the team. A team of 8 defenders will chew up and spit out anything the game has to offer without even breaking a sweat.

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if you try to play blueside after playing villain content, prepare to be bored to tears.

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*sigh*

Yes, because the content is so radically different -_-;

Mind you, be careful- a lot of the older content follows some different (and frankly rather questionable) design doctrines, so you may find yourself frustrated and annoyed at constant FedEx missions, random zoning, and contacts who refuse to give out their cel number until you're on their third-from-the-last mission. If you stick to the newer areas (levelling via the Hollows, Faultline, Striga, and Croatoa), there's no real worries.

In all honesty? TRY IT. It's the only way you'll know. Play them up for a few levels and then make a judgement call from knowledge, rather than just vague (and occasionally wildly inaccurate) generalizations.

Prayin' for you, Terror.

Typically, gingerale mixed with fruit juice from concentrate (orange, grape, or Fruitopia Strawberry Passion Awareness. Dunno what hellhole you live in, PK, but here in the real world (aka 'Canada' ), Fruitopia is still going strong- to the point that I just kind of stared at your post in incomprehension for a while)

If I've been lucky enough to make a munchies run to my favourite Portuguese-Canadian Bakery up North, I'll often have a glass of Guarana Antarctica on hand. Mmmmm, caffeine...

Argh... sorry, Chill. I'm working this Friday, as is Panda, so neither of us can make it

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Another fun one is Electric Blast/Energy Armour baddies. Run up and watch your blue bar go bye-bye! *evilgrin*

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Don't those suck for everybody? I mean, sure, the melee endurance drain aura sucks extra hard, but their hideously draining blasts aren't really all that much more forgiving.

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Depends what you're running, I suppose- if you make it minions with Electric/Energy Aura, anything with respectable AoE will erase them and probably barely notice them as being a problem. Melee, on the other hand... hehehehe...

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Strange that there hasn't been an enemy any Scrapper I've ever played hasn't been able to take on.

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*grin*

I could probably take you up on that, Sam... if you want hair-pullingly difficult for Melee ATs, while only being marginally more difficult for Ranged ATs... pop out a heavily Dark-oriented set of baddies. Get a bunch of 'em running Chill of the Night or whatever, and watch Scrappers whiff until their arms fall off while the Blasters sit back and plink away to their heart's content.

Yeah, kind of found that one out by accident when playtesting a MArc on my Blaster... then a friend ran it with a Scrapper and I got an earful

Another fun one is Electric Blast/Energy Armour baddies. Run up and watch your blue bar go bye-bye! *evilgrin*

Thanks for the run, Glazius- some quick responses-

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...wait, is that one custom lieut using Psychic Wail? There's this "end recovery debuff" icon that shows up after the PBAoE.

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Uhm... they really shouldn't have it. Not sure if it's a mistake I made or just something that got buggered up with the last patch >.<

Anyways, it's removed now.

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Oh, I see. That other kid... showed up as a chained objective? Why isn't he just on the map to start with? (also the system message checks assumes he's spawning on escort complete but he really spawns on rescue)

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The other kid is a chained objective because he's got plot-critical info, and that's the only way I can make sure you rescue him last (yes, even setting them to front, middle, and back often screws up... also, that guarantees that you'll be schlepping off the backside fo that stupidly oversized map... and it doesn't necessarily work. I really wish they'd put in the real Green Fog map in... y'know, the one with the actual green fog? It's smaller and fits the mood even better :/)

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This office is, I'm pretty sure, not in psychic space.

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It's not- poor phrasing on my part. That was mostly just intended to be a warning that there was something large, nasty, and psychic running around in the area. Rephrased things slightly so that it's clearer what's going on- you're just headed to an office building that apparently has something to do with the Fears, and whoever summoned them (as far as your contact can tell, anyways). No psychic plane, not inside Mother Mayhem's mind, or anything like that.

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...wait, I'm inside Mother Mayhem's mind? How the baloney sandwiches did that happen?

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You're not. Like I said, poor phrasing on my part.

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I guess given that this kid can rip open portals to the asylum like it ain't no thang, I shouldn't have been surprised.

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He's not. You're using the portal Mother Mayhem 'accidentally' left to her asylum.

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And the tier 9 psychic blaster lieuts also get confuse now, and there's another one with Deceive and buildup.

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Like I said, the tier 9 was a glitch or an oops (really don't know which at this stage, I've had to tweak things so often after patches or because I made a mistake)

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Yeah, uh... why exactly am I bothering with fighting Mother Mayhem? And what's with this whole puppet business? You'd think she'd be able to, y'know, READ MY MIND AND KNOW WHY I'M HERE?

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Uhm... didn't you read the clue that dropped once you killed MM? She was trying to manipulate you into attacking her hospital so that she could gank you and the end boss while you were busy with each other.

Of course, you were going after Phobia for your own reasons, so her attempts at manipulation really didn't accomplish much (other than getting her head kicked in again). *shrug*

I really wish I had a bit more space to fill in the edges of the story. Ah, well... come issue 15, I guess. Things, I promise, will definitely be somewhat clearer.

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But their power selection is unnecessarily brutal. Rage? Psychic wail? Two confuses? Tier 9 melee powers on minions?

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All the tier 9s are gone- they weren't in there deliberately. Author fail, sorry (or maybe patch glitch, I have no [censored] idea anymore -_-. The confuses are gone the second I have that option (friggin' stupid decision on the devs part, to be honest)- they weren't in there originally, but then one of the patches forced them on Mind and Illusion Control sets. Rage is staying- the lieuts are supposed to be more dangerous on the final mission.

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I'm betting that space issues kept the missions pretty sparse - there were an awful lot of customs. But sparse is sparse, though everything certainly fit.

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I'm five characters from the limit. Yup.

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Leave Mama M out of the third mission or give her a really, really GOOD reason to be there, and for cryin' out loud psychic wail on a lieutenant is murder.

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Yeah, sorry about the Psychic Wail thing... not sure how that happened (and I'm now going through all my customs to figure out what the hell is going on with that... thanks for finding the problem, anyways >.O). Mother Mayhem has a fairly good reason for being there the second time, I thought- it's her frickin' house, after all...

Anyways, thanks again for the run. I look forward to the day I don't have to fix things every patch, *sigh*

Heh... thanks everyone. And I made my cake myself; Feathery Fudge Cake from my grandma's old recipe

(and Chill, just what I always wanted... *evilgrin*)

... is it wrong that my first thought was that they should be named Stan and Ollie, and that my second was that I was jealous of your system, BBT?

Ah, well- cute little kitties. Hopefully they grow up friendly, healthy, and happy!

My arc, "Trollbane" (#106553) is set for levels 10-14, although the difficulty might be on the higher end- a DB/Regen should be able to handle it without any major problems, though (although you might want some breakfrees for the fourth and fifth missions; there's an Illusion boss in there and I can't get rid of the Confuse until i15 -_-).

Flashpoint Zeo took one look at the obdurate look on the Sovereign's face, sighed, and let the subject drop. It was clear the man had absolutely no interest in any viewpoint save his own rather draconian control-freak-ish one. Obviously, talking wouldn't save the day on this one.

He trailed after, glanced around at the hangar bay, and gave an unimpressed grunt at the super-ship-thing- even if it was a match for one of the titanic Rikti Motherships, the heroes of Primal Earth had handled that sort fo thing before. The big tank parked himself in front of the portal and waited.

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I'm *really* struggling to find anything new and original in the MA arc catalog right now - its all "fan-spasm" content featuring the Council, the Carnies or what have you. I'd kill to see some innovative NPC concept arcs appear in the MA - something other than killer bunny rabbits or a campy fashion show face-off...

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Rubber- have you tried following the [SFMA] tags? Those are supposedly "Story-Focused Mission Arcs", and the tag should shut out the farms and whatnot.