twelfth

Okay, looking at the AE Interface, Indigo is an AV in the 35-41 range and 46-52 range. Which leaves a gap of 41 to 45. I don't know if having a lower mish level will bring the 46-52 version down sufficiently to allow her to spawn for all recommended levels.

I tested replacing Ms. Lib with Indigo. Indigo has /ninja I believe, which mean that she's totally stealthed/invisible when she spawns. This will probably mean that anyone playing the arc blind (i.e. not knowing about Indigo's presence) might have a damned hard time finding her. And if they do "find" Indigo, it will probably be because EB/AV Indigo will have ganked the PC from stealth. Worse still, if the PC themselves have sufficient stealth they might NEVER aggro Indigo, depending on how the surrounding escort group spawns.

This is sort of a JerkMove for design, so I really wouldn't feel good about putting Indigo in unless I could be certain to get around this.

I didn't realize that this was a thread about a series of Arcs. Since I'm mostly redside anyway and looking for some good arcs to use as alternate levelling, I'll be looking into these.

It's not a bad idea, I'll need to take some time to look at how Mission 5 is constructed now, and determine how/if I can really get that last battle to come off without suspending too much belief.

Hmm. You know, if I could remove another one of the generator spawns and insert Indigo as a sub-boss to Ms. Liberty - allowing the opportunity for Indigo to deliver some clue that Ms. Lib is on the way. Or, I guess at this point I could remove the generator spawns all together.

If GR's AE loosened file sizes come around and allow us the ability to expand to more than 5 mishes, I could definitely work in that last mission vs. Indigo. Definitely food for thought.

Gratz Bubba, I know I did this one before but now I have to do it again!!

. . .

Does that mean I'm stuck in an RL time loop? O.o;;

I don't have the MA interface here to check what level she spawns at, but your comments about Indigo's ability to "play the game" in covert ops led me to wonder if it would be possible/preferable to replace Ms. Lib with Agent Indigo herself (with the rationale that she's tying up the last loose end of her conspiracy - the PC themselves). I feel like there's some narrative logic to this, but it would require a very big revision to the final mission.

Looking at Paragon Wiki, she can spawn as a hero at 35-54. Would you think that the arc would be benefitted by the change? I still can't really figure out how to shoehorn another clue to sell the need to confront the final EB/AV as it stands.

Bubbawheat has posted his review of the arc, which appears to be dealing with some of the same issues as prior reviews.

He does mention the final EB/AV fight as being very difficult, but not as hard as PoliceWoman's laborious trial.

--

Updated arc to remove typos and grammar errors. Contemplating a big overhaul of the final fight but that will depend on whether the particular EB/AV is available at the arc's level.

Thanks Perifi, nice to see you on the boards. :P

Also, I just realized I could do the cold/psi on a defender, but I'm too much of a redsider to care. But that link is helpful and I'll be looking into this as an experiment.

Hey folks. Just wanted to get an opinion here. I've never managed to get a dom above level 12. For some reason they just aren't clicking for me. I mostly play corrs and upon the daydreaming that corrs ever got Psi, I got the idea of doing psi/cold for a lot of recharge/slow.

Of course, I can't have that yet, so I was considering maybe trying out ice/psi on a dom for a kind of *******-cousin of the idea. This would be purely PVE at this point, I don't really care about perma. Anyone got any comments on the feasibility of this combo?

PoliceWoman has provided a very complimentary 5 Star Review of TF Mutternacht.

Still having problems with selling some of the actions of the arc, but I'm starting to think that's going to be unavoidable. Also of note, PW had a really hard time with the final EB/AV on the lowest setting possible, which is a concern. I'll have to get some more responses back from players to see if that difficulty persists.

In the meantime, I still owe people some plays, but the Winter Event, RL holidays, and some LOLRP in-game has slowed down my MA activity. I haven't forgotten you, folks.

As always, a very helpful proofreading session. I constantly had problems with Westin's name and would alternately think the correct spelling was the incorrect one (and obviously vice versa). Thanks for the tip on ordnance, I never realized the two words were in fact very different (I always assumed the verbal "ordnance" was a mispronunciation of "ordinance" and carried that fallacy into my text).

Well, no win for me D=

Anyway, I realized that there were a few people who commented on TFM that I did not provide a QPQ review to. This was because the commenters didn't post a specific arc they wanted reviewed, and also because I got stupid busy with the constant revisions on this arc. So. From what I can tell, I owe reviews to:

1. Eva Destruction
2. Grinning Spade

Of course, those reviews are of little import now since the contest is over. However, I will still provide a review either on their Aeon Challenge arc (if any) or another arc of choosing. PM or comment here. Oh, also shout out I missed you on providing a review.

Gratz to minimalist, this will obviously have to go on my must-play list.

[snipping OT rant]

Well, the arc is submitted, for better or worse.

Learned a lot on this arc, which is valuable. I still think there are some problems but I also believe that the arc is as good as I can make it given the time limit and my own RL schedule and opportunities to be in-game composing and testing it.

New Updates:

1. New Mission 1 Added: It's short and basically simple. There is level range breakage that happens. I know this is a pet peeve for some, but thems the breaks. I noticed that changing the level range in the mission parameters is like TEH GOGGLES and does nothing. Oh well. Again, As I said, this mission isn't much for establishing more trust in Indigo, so I went with foreshadowing some things that would happen later in the Arc.

2. Changed the final boss in Mission 5 (previously Mission 4) to EB/AV Ms. Liberty. It was a little silly to have Mr. Inquiry to be harder to beat than someone in the Freedom Phalanx, but EB/AV Statesman was just unfair for players to face as is. So, switched it to Ms. Lib and changed dialogue accordingly. I managed to solo her on a /kin corr with two allies surviving (and the allies spawned as Lt's too) - so that's so bad at all.

3. Messed around with text color in some of the clues if there was narration and dialogue occuring in them. Otherwise the text is basic, uncolored.

4. Added Tags: Non-canon, Challenging, Drama. Set to Final.

New Updates:

1. Changed Mission 2 and Mission 3 maps to be better compatible with the objectives. Should hopefully eliminate bad spawns for objectives. Relinked objectives as they appeared to have come out of order at some point.

2. Reduced number of generators on Mission 4 in order to, again, eliminate bad spawning problems. Took it down from 5 to 3.

3. Tried to fix several animation "errors" in so much as the animations changed for no reason that I can figure out.

4. Added a new Mission 3 completion clue, in which Jackson further muddies the water on whether the film is actually genuine (he says it is, but is he worth trusting?). Adjusted Mission Start Clue accordingly.

5. Fixed a few dialogue issues, spelling errors (Blast Furnace's name).


New Problems:

1. Tried to push Mission 2 & 3 into 40-54 range to be consistent with the contact. THis would require replacing Blast Furnace with another boss. However, still using the Paragon Heroes group, that's the range for Cacophony & Holo Man. Holo Man is usually a pushover, but Cacophony forces some kind of level range error that I can't figure out how to resolve (local testing will not work, the MA interface will not allow me to test). Trying to switch to Holo Man does not resolve it. I don't think I have time to change this given my IRL schedule. I think we're stuck with some inconsistent level ranges, sorry Eva.

2. I've tried scripting an initial mission, the "rapport" mission to guide the player toward trusting Indigo. However, I realized that the mission would never really be able to do that believably. If I script that the PC has never met Indigo, then one mission won't establish that before we delve into the criminal theme. If I script that this mission is just "another mission for Indigo", then there's no reason for the mission to exist for the purposes of helping the PC trust the contact.

There is value in adding in the mission for presenting Mr. Inquiry earlier as an ally (allowing for him to recognize you later as the Dystheist), as well as possibly hinting at Jackson's presence earlier or that there are rumors of the film's existence filtering through the criminal element. I just don't know that I can sell Indigo's trustworthiness any more in a single mission. I am very lightly tempted to put a disclaimer somewhere that the arc assumes your familiarity with Indigo - but that really breaks immersion and is a case of telling, not showing.

3. At the moment, I am keeping Statesman as the final boss in his Pet version. I simply like the fact that he's there, States says that he's there to deal with the meteor, and indicates he's weakened from being in Praetoria (with text suggesting that the MA arc takes place immediately after freeing him in the Maria Jenkins arc).

I tried substituting the EB/AV version of Ms. Liberty in test and she's pretty hard (but not unbeatable on a claws/wp stalker with all 3 allies). However, given the length of the arc, I think the player might be getting battle fatigue by that point. I don't think the pacing would be helped by another huge, potentially grindy, and very difficult battle. I am open to arguments to the contrary. Every time I think about it I'm flip-flopping between the two.

Comments very welcome, particularly on Problem Points 2 & 3 (problem one is too low priority for me to deal with atm).

A Penny For Your Thoughts

TL;DR: 5 stars - Mechanically sound and reasonably sophisticated. Fun, quick, and presents a slightly different tone to story arcs than most. Good use of objects, emotes, linked objectives; Nice costumes. Does have some lingering proofreading issues, questionable on how closely meets Challenge criteria.

Pre-Game:

I played this solo on Lady Burlesque, a 26 Psi/MM Blaster; diff set at +1/x0/Boss ON. I didn't have another hero toon within range, so she was technically a little stronger than a regular toon would be at lvl 20 (more powers, common access to SOs). Tags seem okay, and I might even consider this a "Romance" arc.

Mission One:

The briefing looks good.

It is at this point that I realize that I know almost nothing about the clockwork king himself. Every time I've run the Synapse TF, it's been later at night and I wasn't the leader- so I really don't remember much of the storyline. I've also not been through any of the other storyline contacts that deal with him. So! I'd like to talk about canonicity - but I know bupkiss on it.

Mission starts off with the Clockwork King's Lair, which is unusual for an arc since I've seen a few end there. Nice animations on the Vahz and good choice of "destructable" items. I pretty much assumed that there was no need to destroy these items - so I didn't. I probably took longer than necessary on the mission, but I was taking in the scenery - which was well done.

PROOFREAD: Mission Start Clue - "...can you here me?" should be "hear me?"; also "...pretty cool am I..." should be "...pretty cool, am I..." (note the comma)

It's a short mish, basically a info collection mish - which is not a bad idea for a first mission.


Mission Two:

How do you change the contact emote?

Not sure why the Tuatha are on the map, but I guess they work as fantasy adversaries as well as anyone. The Redcaps would seem to be a little more devious and fantasy goblinish. But, pfft. It works. The clockwork are immensely cute, by the way. I'm still not exactly feeling evil at this point...

PROOFREAD: Debriefing - "Was you like..." should probably be "Were you like..."

Mission Three:

At this point, I'm wondering why the heroes would want to pull CK out from his delusion. It isn't hurting anyone except him, and ...well...he's a villain.

You did a really good job using the chained and linked objectives on this mission - which is really, really surprising considering how small the map is. This is a very full mish on a tiny map but it doesn't feel like a throw-away mission.

As far as the bosses go, both were fine. Blue Steel and Penny spawned as red-conned bosses. I died once on Blue Steel, and only because I was a little too slow on my insp draw. I think Psi Blast's -recharge kept him from slamming me hard, and Penny was more than reasonable. I am curious how you modeled Blue Steel - since I don't know how you got the shield worked out on him or how you added aura effects.

Mission Four:

First off, great title. I don't think a lot of people will get it, but I did and it was a nice reference.

PROOFREAD: Start Clue - "how it well end" should be "how it WILL end".

PROOFREAD: Post-CK#1 Clue - "I wish you don't need them" is probably supposed to be "I hope you don't..."

I finished the mission with about 2 minutes left, but I sort of twiddled around looking for allies and didn't realize there were two battles with the CK. Actually, let's just respond to your specific questions:

1) Should there be more combat, or do you think it has enough?

This isn't a grindy combat arc, and I don't think it has to be. The combat available is sufficient for anyone who wants to have it, but spare enough that you can avoid the majority if you want to. I think it's fine.

2) Did you find the final mission too easy/hard/just right?

I took this on with the two allies (unless there were meant to be 3), which did it pretty handily. Since the final mish has a time limit, I think that making the battle a big challenge is probably not a great idea (unless you want to make the mish a Race! Against! Time!)

3) Should the time limit be shortened/extended/leave it as it is?

As mentioned, I did this with about 2 minutes left - partially 'cause I was picking off some of the random spawns, and then looking for allies before they were actually there (I assumed the first battle in the final mish was the actual FINAL one). 15 minutes is a leeeetle long to wait if you want to take the mission failure option, but not vastly so - and its not as if you can't go around taking out some of the random spawns to blow the time (and get xp/inf/tickets)

4) Did you think a convincing argument was made for picking either choices?

I think it was a little weighted toward fighting to bring the CK out of the illusory world.

5) And just for fun, which choice did you make?

I completed the final mission "successfully", and did not opt to let him go gently into that goodnight. And here's why:

It's mostly an RP reason. It's sort of amusing that Lady B was doing this mish 'cause a lot of her powers deal with attraction, desire, longing, and love. And the arc is a lot about the (presumed) love between CK and Penny. Initially I was considering what was happening from a fairly pragmatic perspective. It would make sense to let the CK just slide off into the great beyond peacefully, painlessly, within his own dreams. It would end the menance of the Clockwork army and maybe bring some closure to Penny's life - even if it was a little painful.

But, I realized, I was doing all this not really for the CK but rather for Penny. And Penny wanted him to live. I felt like she had pretty genuine, if complicated feelings for the CK. And she's not stupid. She knows what he does, the threat he poses. And so, Lady B reasons, if she makes the decision to love someone (whether romantically or otherwise) then she needs to learn that decision comes with responsibilities and consequences. Basically, Lady Burlesque saved the Clockwork King in the hope that the love or affection that they share can allow both Penny and the CK to grow. Maybe for better, maybe for worse - but that's their decision, not our hero's. Letting CK drift off would be easier, it would be cleaner, it would be simple.

Love is none of those things, and the Glamourous Guardian knows that the there's only one law she's always upheld - Love.

Another toon I have might have done something else, this is just what I felt like was in character for Lady B.

Overview:

As I mentioned in my PM, this arc is pretty much finalized. I think you've got a strong voice here, I think the mechanical issues are fine - pretty polished. You've got a very good command of the interface. I think if you polish out the grammar issues, you should be good to go.

I said that I don't know how much it sticks to being part of the Challenge, but I really enjoyed the arc too much to really care. I think this is a good arc in general and would be good even outside of the Challenge.

I know this isn't much of a critical review, but there was really not much left to comment on. Good luck and thanks for your comments on my own arc.

Recent Updates:

1. Changed Mr. Inquiry to Custom SS (Standard + Foot Stomp) to get rid of Rage from his Hard SS. Hopefully this will keep him from one-shotting everyone.

2. Changed Accept text in mission 4: introduced more doubt into whether the film is actually real, made Indigo less strident that the film shows objective truth (which was the original intent). Also did less hijacking in how Inquiry gets the film (he steals it from Indigo instead of KO'ing the PC). Changed the Mission Start text accordingly.

To Do List:

1. Look into the potential intro "rapport" mission, although it looks like we might have to change the level of the arc to 40+ to be consistent with Indigo's normal missions.

2. Because of the above, Blast Furnace might have to be replaced with another hero - which will require new scripting.

3. Consider making the final boss Ms. Liberty, although I remain iffy on whether that will actually improve the arc or not.

Still looking for opinions. BTW, would ppl here want to see the new text (so as not to redo the entire arc - unless you want to)?

Final Note for the evening:

Looking back at the text for mission 4, I think that I've worded Indigo's response very stridently, that I've made her sound far more convinced that the film is genuine than I intended. The Still Busy text highlights some doubt in the PC's mind (yes, this is hijacking, sorry), but I suppose I should have crafted the text to provide more ambiguity.

It's the ambiguity that perhaps gives the PC a hope spot that they are not colluding to allow a crime to go unpunished. Well, other than their own.

Thanks for the unsoliticted review, S12, I was sort of hoping you'd take a look at it.

I've had a fair amount of IRL issues this week, but I'll get to this ASAP

Updated Changes

1. Pulled out the Heroes Of Paragon custom group. They were replaced by Longbow (for Blast Furnace) and PPD (guarding the generators & patrols in mish 4)

2. Updated chained objectives in Mish 2: Never noticed that the safe spawns at the beginning, allowing a player to sequence break and never rescue Phipps. This resulted in a change to how other patrols/ambushes spawn.

3. Moved the Mr. Inquiry Ambush in mish 3 to spawn on the completion of an escort. With no allies, and Inquiry's general difficulty - it really is too much.

This results in dropping the arc from 99.9X% full to 74.XX% - enough for a short small mish at the beginning to establish a rapport between Indigo and the PC. I'll be working on this independently - but it might necessitate a republish.

Also have some grammar changes to make in the near future.