Twoflower

I've updated the arc. Changes:

* El Puppetista properly refers to you as señor now.
* Better description of U-Gal's motivations in the last mission.
* The safecracking in the first mission pops up as an optional goal in the compass text after rescuing Eddie the Ear.

ALSO: I've fixed the DIY Laser Moonbase arc. Issue 17 broke it pretty badly, making the last mission unfinishable. I've fixed it, at the cost of it losing its Dev Choice status (since any DC arc, once edited, loses DC). However, odds are Dr. Aeon will restore its DC once he reviews the revisions.

The map only has two hostage locations -- inside the vault and in the front room. I want you to bring Eddie with you, so that leaves the back, and that doesn't jive with how things chain together. Ahwell.

Anyway, in story, UG turned on you and was helping EP, but only because she was more afraid of him. After you beat up the remaining UGs, she turns again back to your side. I can clarify that in the text, if it wasn't clear.

They say the Golden Giza has stood for decades without a single robbery on the books. It's time to change that. With the help of Minions Local 412, assemble your team of offbeat crooks, launch your clever schemes within schemes, and make off with Johnny Sonata's prized treasure!



Arc #: 404549
Title: The Do-It-Yourself Casino Heist Project
Level Range: 20-54 (varies)
Enemies: Standards and Customs
Difficulty: Medium
Morality: Villainous
# of Missions: 5

From the author of "The Do-It-Yourself Laser Moonbase Project" and the 2009 MA Award Winning "An Internship in the Fine Art of Revenge" comes another fine romp where YOU control your villanous destiny, and you reap the rewards. Your contact works for you rather than the other way around, and at the end of the day, your shadow cast across the isles will grow darker and more midnight than something that is very dark and more than slightly midnight! Or at least you'll be richer.

The arc is finalized and completely playtested, but currently seeking feedback to help further tweak and tune it. Your feedback is appreciated!

COMING SOON (around Going Rogue): The Do-It-Yourself Doom Army Project! Recruit your own faction of minions and henchmen, and unleash a wave of terror upon the world!

As SPTrashcan's dedicated tag along journalist, here's some more photographic evidence.

Also, the related thread on MM pets doing the same thing is here:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=2856255

Here's an example of enemy mob AI doing the same thing the MM pets are doing -- gleefully running into melee range where before I17, they certainly did not. In this case, Rikti Drones, which would stand and plink away before unless line of sight is broken.

In this case, a brute with a damage aura is able to easily dispatch them, whereas before they'd stand outside and fire, which increased the risk of large group herding.

(Brute in question's my friend and I'm not calling it a ZOMG EXPLOIT, but it certainly lowers the challenge overall, which even my friend admitted.)

Okay, I think we've confirmed at this point that ALL MM pets, and apparently even some range-preferring enemies (Rikti drones, gunners, etc) have broken AI. That's some major problem underlying the game that goes well beyond my soldiers being stupid.

Can we get some dev lovin' on this? Even if only to acknowledge they're looking into it. How do we get their attention, wave arms and shout and jump up and down? I already did a /bug on it...

There seems to be a problem with Mercenaries Masterminds. Maybe the others; I don't have any other ranged-focused MMs to test with. Can some other Mercs players (or bots or thugs?) confirm this?

The pets are closing to melee range after 2-3 attacks. They ignore all pet commands like Stay or Goto or Follow, in favor of jogging right up to the enemy and following them around like glue. Issuing a new Goto or Stay works... until 1-2 attacks later, then they're back to following.

Mercs have to date be one of the best behaved sets for staying at range and shooting, without blitzing into melee. I never had problems with this before I17. It makes it very hard to play a mercs MM when they jog away from your FF Generator / suppress pain aura / right into the trick arrow gluetrap designed to keep enemies at bay and away from you.

Hope this gets fixed. Otherwise, my tricked out L50 Mercs/Traps is gonna have a really rough time with the upcoming endgame system.

It's under Add an Ally. There's a field in settings called Destination, just under Combat Abilities. You can use this to have them follow you until you reach a specific goal; after that, Arrival Behavior determines if they run away, keep following, or stand around.

Problem is, the goal you lead them to seems to need to be mandatory, and if it's a glowie it won't clear itself once the ally arrives. You'll still need to click the glowie. I've got a thread open a bit lower in the forum (no replies yet) asking if there's a workaround.

I'm trying to design an objective where you lead an escort to a glowie. Problem is, the only way to do it is to have the glowy be a required objective of the mission -- meaning you have to click on it too, not just lead the escort there. Otherwise, I get a "MMParentTriggerInvalid" error.

Is there a way around this, or am I stuck with having both actions (click + lead) required?

Seeker Drone Slotting: I've got three Stupefys and a raw Recharge in mine. Focus is on accuracy and recharge. The stun is nothing to write home about, the -tohit is okay but not worth slotting. The main goal is to have it up every 50 seconds or so (one spawn) and have it strike home accurately. That -26% damage debuff is godly, and the alpha soak is critical too.

Triage Beacon: I'll advocate this power. It's not used every fight, but it makes a great panic switch. You know the T-junction in a smooth caves map where you can't help but aggro spawns to the left and right? Triage. Keeps the fight rolling and keeps your team from being ground into the dirt in a prolonged battle. Same goes for EBs, AVs, or any other tightly packed space. Slot for three heals, add recharge to taste; you want it available when things are about to go downhill, but presumably that won't happen too often.

Traps is a terrific defender set. Def numbers mean you're pumping out some strong debuffs (put an Achilles in Acid Mortar for extra giggles) and strong buffs. Working duo, even before I17's damage boost to defenders, I'm able to work with a scrapper to take down archvillains thanks to my debuffs... I can cut down on incoming damage with seekers (and with dual pistol's chemical ammo!), debuff their damage resistance with mortar, keep my partner alive with triage, keep them bubbled with ffgen, and spam web grenades to lower the enemy's recharge. And using Traps on my MM, I was able to provide a terrific hardened defense point to take down the entire freedom phalanx from in the LRSF. Glorious.

AR/Dev to 50.

You have two 'modes' when you're an AR/Dev; solo and team.

Solo, play it like Solid Snake. You are sneaking around using your cloak and a stealth IO proc, picking and choosing what fights to take on. Doing corner pulls into tripmine traps, or for maximum fun, Teleport Foe-ing a particularly troublesome LT or minion onto a pile of mines for an instagank. Web grenade + Ignite to melt an enemy down to nothing. Sniper rifle from cloak after dropping a mine for cloak's damage boost and the mine's defiance boost. Hell, I'd even take Gun Drone, for a little backup damage in the 40s because, hey, why not?

However, this is a very SLOW playstyle. It's tactical, because like Batman, the more time you have to set up your battlefield and draw the enemy into your pit of doom, the more deadly you will be. Mines take forever to prepare, GunDrone certainly is not a speedy power, etc.

Teamwise, it's the exact opposite -- you will be moving fast and have no time to drop mines or set up elaborate doom-pits. Instead, you are now the Master of Cones. Slot Buckshot and Flamethrower for range, and combine with Full Auto. Hose down an entire corridor of enemies for fun and profit, then Slug/Burst any stragglers until you can repeat your cone trifecta. If you and your team don't mind the knockback (many do, though) you can even take M30 grenade, but be aware the splash of enemies flying every which way will ruin your followup cones.

However, this is a very MITIGATION LACKING playstyle. If you gun down everything in sight with AOE after AOE, expect them to be unhappy with you, and that cloaking device ain't gonna save your skin. Caltrops will help, but they also draw MORE aggro to you, so don't drop them under the tank's feet. That's why I recommend teams before you consider cutting loose with AOEs on large clusters of bad guys.

If you want something middle of the road, which offers Murder and Mitigation and a natural/gadget theme? Traps/AR defender. Shoot from safety. Yes, you have less damage, you won't be a blastery death machine, but it offers a good balance. Traps is basically everything Devices should've been, jettisoning the cruft in favor of some amazing stuff.

I really don't dig blapping. The run in, run out thing is a bit annoying; I like to be downwind from the fight, pumping red hot death at the enemy.

That in mind, for PVE (team or solo, hopefully both, but hey) what combo of primary and secondary would the good at bringing the pain from afar?

The only experience I have with blasting so far is AR/Dev (which is great for AOE on teams, even if it's not a potent murderer) and Elec/MM (again, mass AOE murder on teams, but weak ST and solo). Both good ranged fighters but I'd like to try something new.

Given the endless fun of the Bruiser failing to go into melee, or going into melee and then Leeroying the hell out of everything in sight and aggroing four spawns at once, I'll wish for largely ranged guys. Probably not happening, though; the preproduction art from the PAX panel looked more melee focused.

My 7950GT melted down awhile back, and I got a 9800GT as a good drop-in replacement without needing a better power supply. Glad to see that it'll support GR, although 'minimum' is concerning. I don't mind losing some of the finer details like reflections in your shoulderpads and such as long as the basic shadowing and world reflection that make the zones come alive still works fine.

Played redside, level 29.

After deciding Mercy was bugged, Cap was kind of a pain to search for presents. I found maybe three in the 20 minutes I was in there. Presumably others had a route planned out (maybe gobbling them all up) because we got in okay after that.

I liked the battle in Winter's Realm. It was pretty simple, straightforward, but without being just a matter of beating on a sack of HP. It wasn't always clear when the WL was phased, what with all of the FX on him -- and I didn't know I had to go look for a WG until someone said it in Broadcast. A popup text of "Defeat Winter Guardian" or something might help.

Overall, not bad, and a fun way to earn candy canes other than Farming Baby.

I'll drop in. Which do you guys need data on more, midlevel hero or midlevel villain?

I'll also be helpful given I never did the first test or read much about it; if someone coming in fresh can't figure it out, hey, even in failure there is useful data!

It's hard to think of something that doesn't come in the form of "Can we have Feature X please?", which will never get a straight answer since they can't declare that they WILL implement some crazy idea I come up with.

So, I'll ask this. Initially the number of arc slots was quite limited, and then was expanded via the micropayment system, but remains locked at 8 maximum (barring honored arcs). What's the bottleneck preventing more expansive publication? What would need to happen in order to allow a 'youtube-of-heroism' sort of affair where people can contribute (virtually) as many stories as they can write? Or is this decision a conscious one to force people to limit themselves?

Here's one that's semi-plausible.

/skipto25

This would set your character's level to 25, and give you enough inf for an SO loadout. However, you could no longer earn XP or inf, and would have no contacts other than newspapers.

The idea is it's a 'demo run' of an AT or power set combo you THINK you might like, but don't want to take days to find out if it's going to work for you or not. By level-locking and denying access to story content, you can run generic stomps just to test out the powers, then when you're ready, roll the character for real and proceed normally.

I guess this could also be skipto50, to get a full-on impression, but 25 seems like a good distance to sample the core powers.

Sweet. I'm all for comedy arcs that also tell a good story and have interesting characters.

So, when do we get the inevitable followup of Pandas vs. Rikti vs. Zombies vs. Aliens vs. Predator?

Alright, lemme clarify here. Mostly because it's been gnawing at me a bit that my offhand remark probably aggro'd half the board. (Now I know how BaB feels.)

I don't want to name names and I still don't, because that way lies madness. But my main beef isn't with ALL reviewers -- it's with ones who let their 'critic persona' overwhelm their efforts, resulting in caustic, unhelpful reviews coated in a superiority complex with a general air of being aloof. Hence: Simon Cowell clones. And there's more than one review who cops that attitude.

However, because this isn't a world of absolutes, there are of course plenty of GOOD reviewers who primarily offer constructive feedback and just want to help people improve arcs. They aren't trying to be anything other than that and don't let ego get in the way. That's the sort of feedback people should definitely listen to, along with the other channels I've mentioned.

But someone who comes at you like a raging twit in the guise of criticism, well, just ignore them. And I still say if you disagree with feedback, be it constructive or destructive, unless you're deliberately trying to hit mainstream popularity... write what you want. It's your hobby, your game, have fun with it.

Winning this award has given me the single greatest prize I could hope to achieve.

A FREE STORY SLOT!

BRB, outlining my next MA arc.

I don't even bother reading the ramblings of the self-declared critics. I write whatever I want to write; things that interest me, gameplay styles I enjoy, stories I want to tell. Then, let the chips fall where they may.

I didn't even posted a discussion/review thread to the boards for the villain arc I won for, I just published it and was surprised when it didn't hover around 4 stars like all my other arcs do... so, I figured it might be worth a shot.

If you must write, write. If someone doesn't like it, oh well.

Wow! Best Villain arc. Man, the contenders for the award were really strong, too!

Thanks to Paragon Studios, and thanks to the folks who played and rated my arc! I wouldn't have submitted it if not for the positive feedback I got on it, convincing me it would be worth a shot. Kudos!