konshu

[ QUOTE ]
... if you are looking for the hero AT that solo's the easiest, I'd choose the blaster over the defender.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you like soloing with a corruptor, in terms of play style I think you'd probably be drawn more to the blaster than the def.

[ QUOTE ]
I'd submitted my arc(s) on Venture's thread, but it seems reviews may have ceased there

You probably asked on the wrong thread.

I threw your arc into my lowbie queue, which is getting some priority treatment 'coz I'm levelling up a new Plant/Thermal Controller (level 13 currently).

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh, cool!

And thank you for pointing me to the other thread. I've been reading these review threads in hope of finding some quality arcs to play.

I'd submitted my arc(s) on Venture's thread, but it seems reviews may have ceased there, and all the recent posts have been from people adding their requests for reviews. So I'm hoping I can get a review here.

If possible, I'd like a review of my first arc, "A South Side Story," #49035. It's SFMA LBMA, with a level range of 5-14. It was designed for play at levels 10-14, and it is intended to provide a challenge somewhere between a conventional arc and a TF.

"A South Side Story" is a good example of what I'd like to be reading, seeing, and playing in the game.

I realize, however, that reviewers do not necessarily have a toon at levels 10-14 and may not appreciate playing an arc at that level. If that is the case, then may I point you to Plan B.

One player who sent me a comment on "South Side" asked for "moar levels" and another person asked for a less complicated story, so I provided both of these in my second arc "Hall of the Dancing Tigers," #76764 (SFMA LBMA).

"Hall of the Dancing Tigers" is not level limited, but it is intended for play at levels 3-8. Like "South Side" it exposes and builds upon canon themes.

Anyway, I'd like a review on either of these, especially "A South Side Story."

Thanks!

I think they should fix it, so do the right thing and /bug it.

It's all we do on our end.

[ QUOTE ]
Pulse Rifle

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd like to see Pulse Rifle and Poison get developed for use outside of MM power sets, now that Dual Pistols has made it.

I'd also like to see Energy Aura be adapted for use by heroes.

In addition, I'd like to see some of the newer powers get adapted for use in the epic power pool. I'd like to see Plant Mastery, for example.

An Energy Aura shield would be another good item to have in an epic pool, as would Alkaloid.

I'd like to see an entirely different mechanism for storytelling and contacts. I think this is what the devs should have done in the beginning, but didn't. If MA ever gets a map editor, hopefully the devs will enable the following method.

To start, I want all contacts to be instanced and not on the open zone maps. So if the message comes up to see Azuria, for instance, the arrow points to a door, not to a figure in Atlas standing in a glowing circle.

When you click on the door you enter into Azuria's office, magic lab, etc (one of many custom locations). When clicked, Azuria gives a chain of dialog events, which are composed of dialog balloons, animation, and custom timing for each event.

So the team gathers to receive the mission from Azuria (except maybe for one person who is out buying enh and tells everyone to go ahead, because it always seems there is someone afk or shopping, lol). When clicked, Azuria explains through dialog balloons the background for the next mission. When she is finished, players leave the instance and upon exit the new mission auto-appears in the nav window.

This system requires 4 new design tools for the MA:

1) Either the ability to make custom maps or a bevy of small (single room) maps for use by contacts.

2) The ability to click on a NPC (or other object) and have it execute an event.

3) Dialog events (which feature onEvent trigger, dialog text, optional animation, and time delay before chaining to next event).

4) The ability to make the contact's micro-mission chain to the next real mission, and upon conclusion of the real mission, chain to the next contact micro-mission. This function already exists with contacts, but it might need to be adapted a little bit to allow the shift from an open zone contact to an instanced contact.

[ QUOTE ]

How do you get them to do that? Every time I set a boss/EB/AV to run, they aggro on the player, and fight to the end.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm. Two things on this.

One, my bosses set to flee are asked to flee not at full health, but at 75% health. If they are set to flee at full health they spawn then jog past the player and out the door. Which I suppose would be good for creating a fleeing citizen, but not so much for an actual boss. So to control the encounter so that all players have entered and can see the dialog, you have to have the boss take some damage before fleeing. Once the boss has taken damage they will fight, but at 75% they will begin to run (and best to have them give dialog informing the player that they are running). If the team is holding, slowing, or really walloping the boss, the boss may not be able to make their escape. Often they will turn and make one or more hits as they run for the door, and that can be fatal. (It would be good to have a setting where we can ask for the boss to "make haste" to the exit or give a "fighting retreat," so the designer has more control over it.)

The second thing I've experienced is that somehow, for some reason, I had a boss in the front of a mission that instead of fleeing would auto-ambush the player upon entry. He'd come barreling around the corner just as the player entered and turned, and he'd initiate a fight and would not leave when health dropped to 75%. If you ever get this effect, try to see how it is caused, because it is great to make this happen on purpose and bad to have it happen by accident.

When the latest patch came out with the ranged attacks for MA critters, I re-did a lot of the arc that had the buggy boss. In the process, somehow he got fixed and now he doesn't ambush and he does flee.

BTW, the patch itself did not fix him. He exhibited the same ambushy behavior even after republishing, and only stopped after I made some unknown change.

Something must be wrong here! Have I entered a parallel universe?

Everyone in this thread has agreed with the OP!?!

[ QUOTE ]

But there are a lot of ranged AoEs in the game -- players like them -- and yet only 3 IO sets, not counting the purple.


[/ QUOTE ]

Either that, or merge the ranged attack IO sets with the ranged AoE attack IO sets.

They did something similar back in i4, when they merged cone range enh with regular range enh.

(Yes, back in the old days if your attack was a cone and you wanted to enhance your range, you had to buy a different enhancement than the one for regular range.)

I've not actually used the defend destructible object feature of the MA, but it would seem consistent that if you unclick it as a required feature it will not count as a mission failure. That's the way other things behave.

For example, in some missions I have bosses appear using the Defeat Boss objective, but for plot purposes I have them begin to run when they take damage. To allow them to flee without causing mission failure I unclick the "required objective" button on the feature, and it works fine.

The best thing to do, of course, is test it.

Will there be an AE building in Praetoria? If so, that might help with co-op AE teaming below level 35.

Also, if we are getting Moon/Space content in the expansion, is this being linked at all to the Science Booster?

Personally, among the other nifty Science things we might see in the future (Pulse Rifle blaster powerset, etc.), I'd like to get tentacle arms if the artwork issues can be resolved. That would be the pointy-tipped tentacles plus the paddle-tipped ones. Also a mandible-mouth and tentacle-mouth detail for heads.

I've got a story-focused lowbie arc I'd like to offer up for review. I think I've got it pretty well polished, but ... maybe not. I want to make another arc, and I suspect getting feedback on the first may inspire me.

The arc I'd like to submit is "A South Side Story," #49035. It's limited to levels 5-14, and written for blueside play at levels 10-14. The intention was to give a player something fresh to do after they've done the second safeguard in KR, and to provide an arc that is more challenging than the canon arcs of the same level.

In "A South Side Story" only the bosses are custom. The other foes are standard Skulls, Hellions, and Lost.

The description is:

[ QUOTE ]
Det. Rachel Torres, head of the PPD's Gang Unit, needs your help! You'll be working with a Skull known as "Teardrop" to quell gang violence in Kings Row.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now I know playing at low levels isn't everybody's cup of tea. In fact, one of the first comments I received on "South Side" was "MOAR LEVELS!"

A few of the players also said the story in "South Side" is too complicated. So I set about making a second arc in which I kept the story simple and the level range unlimited.

So here's the deal: if the level restrictions of the first arc make it unappealing, the second arc is available, even though it is not polished to the same degree as the first. I'm happy to get a review on either one!

The second arc is "Hall of the Dancing Tsoo," #76764. It has unlimited range for xp and there are no level bumps to contend with - in other words, it's all custom mobs. It was designed to provide moderately challenging play for heroes level 3-8.

The description reads:

[ QUOTE ]
Derek Amberson, the coordinator for new heroes of Natural origin, has learned of a plan by the Tsoo to extend their reach into Galaxy City. Who will stand up and oppose the Tsoo?

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks in advance, and I hope whichever arc you choose is fun!

[ QUOTE ]
One of the demons allied with the cult was Bat’Zul. He was imprisoned by Father Gerard Henri under Mount Diable.


[/ QUOTE ]

Two comments / quibbles:

1) I believe Bat'Zul and Father Henri are associated in game lore with "The Blood of the Black Stream," which is also associated with Gadzul Oil and Egypt. This is one of the zillions of avenues in CoX that was never sufficiently explored. TBotBS was supposed to provide a villain epic AT with an Egyptian flavor.

2) Aren't the Hellions associated with devil worship and not necessarily demon worship? I know devils and demons are sometimes basically the same thing, but sometimes they are not.

As a similar idea, I could see the Hellions of an alternate Earth making a pact with the Devil to enforce payment on the contract with the Circle of Thorns. In the process they would gain immense power!

HELLION EARTH!

I've got 2 lowbie-friendly (LBMA) hero arcs up right now, if anyone would like to try them. They're probably best for game veterans as opposed to those new to the game.

Both arcs are based on canon game lore yet introduce things not previously seen in the game. Both arcs are serious, story-focused (SFMA), and should provide an appropriate challenge for both solo and team play.

#76764, "Hall of the Dancing Tigers" - This was designed for level 3-8 play, but as all the NPCs in the arc are custom, you can play for xp from 1-50 with no level jumping. The arc is 5 missions long, but the maps are all small or medium so it's not that tedious. The blurb reads:

[ QUOTE ]
Derek Amberson, the coordinator for new heroes of Natural origin, has learned of a plan by the Tsoo to extend their reach into Galaxy City. Who will stand up and oppose the Tsoo?

[/ QUOTE ]

While you could start this arc at level 1, I would suggest street fighting a little to get up to level 2 or 3 before entering the first mission. Just zone from the tutorial into Galaxy to avoid the Atlas lagfest, street clean a little, and you'll be all set!

#49035, "A South Side Story" - You can get xp on this one from level 5-14, but I designed it to be appropriately challenging for levels 10-14. Think of it as something to do in Kings Row once you've completed your second safeguard.

The foes include standard Hellions, Skulls, and Lost, with custom bosses, and the arc is 5 missions long with medium and small sized maps. My intention in making this arc was for it to be slightly more dramatic and challenging than the typical canon arc.

Here's the blurb:

[ QUOTE ]
Det. Rachel Torres, head of the PPD's Gang Unit, needs your help! You'll be working with a Skull known as "Teardrop" to quell gang violence in Kings Row.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've enjoyed making these arcs and I hope you have fun playing them!

[ QUOTE ]
I right-click on everything: enemies, allies, objects. I also read everything. As such, I try to make sure my arcs include descriptions, clues, and souvenirs, and am disappointed when I'm playing an arc that doesn't include much in the way of background.

How important is all the "wordy" stuff to you?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm literate and I read for entertainment, but I don't want to be reading a lot during computer play.

In my ideal for arc design I restrict myself to stories I can tell primarily through action, setting, narrative pop-ups, and dialog. The contact's expositions can carry some additional information and flavor. In an arc with a serious tone, the NPC info carries a description that might be needed for clarity. In all cases text is as brief as possible.

As a general design principle, I avoid the necessity of clues. I have two arcs published and neither contains a clue.

Each of my arcs has a brief (one sentence) souvenir text. I treat the souvenir as a mini-badge with a badge description.

The impression I got was that some in this thread would downgrade a rating if text was not found everywhere they looked. That's not important to me. I'd downgrade the rating if missing text caused me to not understand the story, but otherwise I don't care.

As for the clues and souvenirs in a mission I'm playing ... I will never read them.

In addition to the sources suggested above, I would append the following, which I believe is some of the original information we were given about the Skulls years ago.

[ QUOTE ]

The Skulls were founded in the mid-90s by a group of Eastern European refugees who moved into Paragon City, fleeing civil strife in their home country. Many of them settled in the Perez Park zone, but found it hard to find employment, and found themselves falling through society's cracks once again. They were subject to harassment and extortion from local gangs, primarily by the Shadows. Two brothers, Radoslav and Emil Petrovic, saw the Shadows as little more than street trash – they decided to show the local punks what a real war was.

The Petrovics' apartment was on Hollow Oaks Lane, the front line of the war. Rado and Emil gunned for any member of the Shadows who walked down their street. When that did not scare the gang off, they targeted the Shadows' girlfriends, sisters, and mothers.

The Shadows fought back, of course, attempting to take the Petrovics out once and for all. The Shadows broke into the apartment one night, and caught Rado’s and Emil’s parents alone. But the brothers knew this would happen. They jammed the exits and burned the building down, killing most of the Shadows. The building was destroyed, and their own parents died at their hands. But their reputation was forever made.

Rado and Emil were arrested as they stood quietly, watching the building burn. Something had happened to them, however. Perhaps they saw something in the flames, or were haunted by the spirits of the dead. Before they even reached jail to be booked, they reached out to the arresting officers with tendrils of cold energy, and drained them of their lives.

A few weeks later, two men were seen hunting around the ruins of the collapsed apartment. The locals had begun calling it the Boneyard. They sifted through the debris and uncovered a few grisly trophies. Shortly thereafter, Rado and Emil were reportedly seen, wearing frightening masks made from human skulls, and radiating with a dark, unearthly energy. Having crossed a threshold, they abandoned their old names, and rechristened themselves Marrow Snap and Marrow Drinker. Remnants of the old Shadows flocked to their side, as did other discontents from their neighborhood. Rather than scare off potential recruits, their terrifying reputation attracted violent and brutal gang members to their banner – the Skulls were born.

[/ QUOTE ]

I found this at Brimstone Wiki: Petrovic Brothers (Skulls)

If you would like to see a player's treatment of the Skulls with a bit of a behind-the-scenes type flavor, try my arc #49035, "A South Side Story."

[ QUOTE ]
Arc #92630: I Will Dance On Your Grave
Rating: 3 stars
The short of it: Some of the custom enemies are well balanced, others are annoying, NPC text seems lackluster, a lot of outdoor maps


[/ QUOTE ]

I played a slightly earlier version of this arc. Here's a few observations for the arc writer:

1) In this case, I would prefer to see original contact art. While Hequat looks voodoo-y, I kept looking at the contact and saying "That's Hequat." I would rather have seen a contact with an original look that is consistent with the NPCs in the arc.

2) While I liked the contact's accent, using accented dialog is tricky. Some readers might struggle to figure out what is being said and others (like myself) will find inconsistencies in the accent to be grating. (And there were inconsistencies.) If you keep the accented dialog pay close attention to it, and if you say "heem" in one place, don't say "him" in another. If you render "them" as "dem," then be sure to change "think" to "tink," and so on.

3) I think the story could be told better. The title is outstanding, and the premise of voodoo + Skulls is great. But when I was playing I felt like I was slogging through battles instead of revealing more story. I found myself floundering with a lack of suspense, and I admit that when I couldn't easily resolve mission 3 (I couldn't find Grave Dancer on the burning forest map) I quit the arc.

4) I really liked the NPC helper toon in mission 3: Sun Dancer, a Native American themed hero with what appeared to be fire manipulation / thermal powers. I would have liked to have seen a story that involved more of the Native American and Voodoun mythos, and more of Sun Dancer's story in relation to the arc.

5) I think it might have helped if I'd had a greater sense of the passion in the story. What are the emotions that are motivating the various characters? Is there any love, hate, fear, doubt, pride, jealousy, disgust, or sense of wonder? If these motives were in the story, I didn't find them. Maybe this isn't required for every arc, but it occurred to me it might help if such motives were more explicit here.

[ QUOTE ]

However, in regards to Citadel being built by the 5th Column, I still don't think that's correct. I doubt I have my original Bastion TF souvenir sitting around, but I think you have it a bit backwards. In the Bastion TF, the 5th Column had gotten their hands on Bastion's schematics and were using them to improve their robots. As far as I can remember, Bastion was built by a superhero.


[/ QUOTE ]

Bastion is described as being "the original android hero." He was nearly completely destroyed in the first battle with the Rikti. I don't see anything regarding his creation, so I can't rule out a 5th Column origin story. If anyone has source material on Bastion's beginnings, I'd love to see it.

Contextually, we know that the "Mek Men androids" first appeared in the early 1940s. They were created by Othman Doul (aka "Vandal"). Doul was recruited by Requiem into the 5th Column in the 1930s presumably because of his skills as a tinkerer in electronics and advanced mechanics.

If we were to suggest a heroic origin for Bastion, I'd suspect it was created by James St. John-Smythe, designer of the Vambrace battle armor (worn by ex-football hero Brandon Warfield). St. John-Smythe, as part of Team Vambrace, was one of the founding members of the Freedom Phalanx (1932). St. John-Smythe was apparently one of the geniuses of his age and most likely a multidisciplinarian scientist. His scientific enterprises included the St. John-Smythe Foundation for Medical Research, which among other things investigated the "troll-condition" created by chronic abuse of superadine. The most obvious course would be for St. John-Smythe to have decided to replace his friend Warfield - after death or injury - with a complicated mechanism capable of movement and crude decision-making. Possibly the first version of a Vambrace/Bastion armor was radio-controlled and it went on from there.

Getting back to the actual game history ... around the same time Bastion was destroyed by the Rikti, Rick Davies (a starting science origin contact) donned an armored suit and battled the Rikti under the name Horatio. As the war progressed, Rick was severely hurt and his armor damaged.

Positron took the Horatio armor and used it to reconstruct the badly damaged Bastion. If the Horatio armor was based upon the Vambrace technology, and if - as I have speculated - the original android Bastion was also based upon the Vambrace technology, then it makes sense that Positron was able to merge the two fairly similar systems.

DATA also gave Bastion significant upgrades, after which his name was changed to Citadel.

The Council's version of Citadel is named "Bulwark." Bulwark is said to use the "same technology" as Citadel, plus that of the Mek Men, but so far as I can see it is unclear whether they are speaking of the technology from DATA, the modifications made by Positron, the technology behind the Horatio suit, or the technology behind the original Bastion.

I would say the most likely scenario is that the Council stole the Bastion upgrade technology from DATA, but really it could be anything.

If anyone has any additional information on this, please post it or PM me. Thanks!

[ QUOTE ]
I have a new character I'm running from lvl 1 to 50 exclusively on MA content. Currently, he's lvl 12, and I'm having trouble finding low level focused content in a consistent manner.


[/ QUOTE ]

I've got 2 arcs for blueside lowbies: "A South Side Story" and "Hall of the Dancing Tigers."

The Tigers arc is aimed mainly at the very low lowbie (3-8, tho you can do it till 14) and South Side is aimed at 10-14. South Side *is* Hellions and Skulls, so be warned!

My arcs don't have the LBMA tag in them - I just heard of it now - so I'll go pop it in the descriptions ASAP.

Is there a thread somewhere here that lists all the abbreviations (like LBMA) that people are using now?

[ QUOTE ]

Favorites, I would like to have this so I can add the story arcs I enjoy and would like to play again.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is definitely needed. It's frustrating to finally find an arc that's good only to lose track of it. The stars are really no help in this regard.

[ QUOTE ]

This is the best idea I've heard so far. Drop the -toHit and make this power a 4 min click. While it might not be taken because it may not grant the user fly anymore, it would certainly get more use in the team.

[/ QUOTE ]

Group Fly could be handled like Inertial Reduction, where on activation a wave moves out from the caster and those within the radius get a temporary ability to fly. In this way the caster gets flight and those within the radius get independent flight. (This would also help MMs with pets that fall off pathways in multilevel CoT rooms.)

Or it could work like Grant Invis, where you dole it out to individuals. This gives the player more precision on casting, but it prevents the power from being used on self. (Chances are, though, that the player already has Fly in addition to Grant Flight.)

Or it could be kept as is, but with a prompt.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


I might be missing something here, but wouldn't Team Recall do essentially the same thing you are describing?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. You are missing something.

See either link in Sig (the RV one demonstrates TTP to a greater degree)...you can't do that will assemble team.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks ... I can see how that could work a bit easier now. It's almost like reverse herding, in that the team clusters around the leader who brings all the team to each mob. The team has to be coordinated and expecting the tps, just as during herding the team has to wait for the tank to complete gathering.

Team Recall wouldn't enable the same kind of play, as it would require the TPer to sneak into foe groups and tp (without interruption) from inside them ... which would be difficult, as I think tp activation exposes the user. (Maybe Sup Invis would work?)

I could see fortunata teams and shield teams using this to some advantage, as this style of attack would play to their proximity buffs.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'd say nuke both Group Fly and Group Teleport from orbit and rewrite them.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'd like Group Teleport a zillion times more if it was reconfigured to be Team Recall (i.e., "Assemble the Team").

[/ QUOTE ]
You've apparently never seen TTP used properly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which, in itself, might suggest something isn't quite right with it. I, for one, have never seen Team Teleport used... Ever. And I'm not joking.

[/ QUOTE ]TTP is a combat maneuvering power, that lets the entire team enter a spawn at the same time. This disperses aggro, and allows PBAoEs to envelop the whole spawn immediately. It was used to great effect on the Fire/Rad superteam (Hotfeet + Choking Cloud x8 all affecting the spawn at once), and it was used occasionally on the Traps superteam I was on (keeping everyone inside the stacked FFGs when the alpha hit). I've also seen several Masterminds use it to great effect. For teams like the Frads, it not only serves as protection (disperse aggro among a team of squishies) and offense (Hotfeet/Choking Cloud combo), but also speed (no travel time between spawns).

It's not a common power by any means, but it does have use.

[/ QUOTE ]

I might be missing something here, but wouldn't Team Recall do essentially the same thing you are describing?

[ QUOTE ]

I'd say nuke both Group Fly and Group Teleport from orbit and rewrite them.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd like Group Teleport a zillion times more if it was reconfigured to be Team Recall (i.e., "Assemble the Team").

As for Group Fly, I can think of one place to use it, and that is if you are a MM in some of the multilevel rooms in the CoT maps. Yes, you'll lose acc and you'll have an end drain, but at least you won't have your pets falling off the pathways.