twelfth

Need to reach out to the community on this one.

I'm writing an arc in which I want to have an optional objective in which two enemies (of different enemy groups) are talking to each other about a plot point. Ideally when the PC(s) run across them, they aggro and both attack. I would like this to be two bosses, so that they don't wipe completely.

Right now I have the objective set as an Escort, involving a Boss critter as the "Escort" and then a "Single" guard of the "Enemy Group". The Escort is set to Rogue so he also attacks you ('cause they don't want to be captured).

Since it's an Escort, I reasoned that you could "guide" him back to the entrance (i.e. Chase you) in order to win a "bonus" clue about the plotline.

I set up the objective and went into test mode and had three problems:

1. I think the Escort and his guard spawned in very different places (The Escort wasn't guarded and I never found his designated Guard)

2. The unaware and alert text for the Escort popped up immediately upon entering the level, even though he was on a completely different floor (set for back).

3. Once I did guide him back to the entrance, he wouldn't actually get near it because he was primarily a ranged critter, and would just attack at range.

There was another possible error that occurred that involved the "escort" preempting any of the other triggered objectives (as in cascaded objectives were not spawning until the escort was completed) - but I'm not sure if that's actually what occurred (or if I just missed where the correctly spawned objectives). Still, if this is a Known Issue (Escorts trump all other objectives for priority), I'd like to know that.


Anyone got any help on how to make this trick work? Specifics are below:

1. Escort was a Family Quantum Gunner (the boss level), 'cause I needed a Family critter that would spawn over the largest level range (I'm trying to make an arc with a very wide range of accessability).

2. The floor plan was a COH office building, medium size as I recall.

3. Tested with 39 lvl stalker, but had hide off for guiding the escort.

4. Other enemy groups were Arachnos (1-54) and Cage Consortium (1?-40), resulting in a level range (1-40)

Where in this thread can I shamelessly request a 5 star rating? *dodges flung poo*

Like an undead succubus, I shall necrobump!!

Man, the Mapserver was making you its beeaotch this XXP weekend.
I firmly suggest getting even. Time to WIN THE INTERNET.

I had this problem earlier in the week as well, Multiple people in the SG had the same problem. "Map Failed to Load" appeared in my Global tab. Is this the old "too many items" bug coming back to haunt us?

[ QUOTE ]
Buying -res procs now

[/ QUOTE ]

Crap. You're totally right about this.

Also, I have done the "pull Rommy" and fight him once. Sorry, no pics (so it didn't happen), but here's what I can tell you:
1. We did the initial ambush, then skipped to Rommy.
2. Somehow Imperious managed to live and followed us all the way to the end.
3. We had aggro control on one Nictus, Impy on the other Nictus, and everyone else pulling Rommy away and pounding on him. We did get him stuck in a corner (I want to say near the staircases on each side of the main platform), so that might have limited his mobility.
4. I was healing Impy so he would continue to hold aggro and keep the Nictus away from Rommy.
5. Eventually the team took out Rommy, and he disappeared just like any other mob. No rezzing.

Of course, this did leave us with three other freaking annoying AV Nicti that we had to take out, which presented its own challenges.

In short, perfectly possible to defeat Rommy only once, but sort of situational & there are other methods to victory which are easier to reproduce.

Why isn't this stickied yet? I'm no AE baby, but this is a compassionate & fairly comprehensive review. The only thing I would add would be an explanation of TF/SFs & how merits work. 2 thumbs up! d ^.^ b

[ QUOTE ]
Stalkers get to swing their own mighty Broadsword.

[/ QUOTE ]

double entendre ftw.

[ QUOTE ]
Either he ...Got toggle-dropped... or we can assume that Maelstrom .... had acquired some special armor-piercing impervium-kryptonite bullets.

[/ QUOTE ]

It occured to me that the real answer is that CoH:GR is going to once again change the PVP experience sufficient that a lethal dmg blaster can one-shot an Invul/ tank.

Okay, I got a new question. In the new background information for Maelstrom, it mentions that he was partnered up with a super-strong, invulnerable hero named Ironsides aka "Melee". It's mentioned that the two used Melee's invulnerability to good effect in their past missions, particularly in using Melee as a bullet shield.

However, once they are captured by Praetorian forces, Maelstrom is able to kill Melee by shooting him in the head.

Um...how does that work? Did no one try to shoot him in the head before? Was he foolish enough to drop his "at will" invulernability in front of Tyrant? Or was his "invulnerable skin" somehow not extended to his eyeballs or his mouth or something?


EDIT: Hold the phone, wait a second. Going back over the entry on Mael, it mentions that Mother Mayhem has Seers?? Does this mean she runs the Praetorian Fortunata corps?

Manti, I know you won't answer that question, 'cause it's too close to revealing large chunks of the Prae/Arachnos connections. Can we at least get a clarification on the original logical inconsistency?

[ QUOTE ]
I've settled for "Praetorian Monsoon"...

[/ QUOTE ]

Typhoon?

[ QUOTE ]
Don't be foolish. They deposit eggs in your orifices, not honey. Then, when the eggs hatch, little larval baby bees eat their way out of your body.

Slowly. Typically through the softest parts, like the eyes, genitalia or abdominal region.

[/ QUOTE ]

Srsly. HAD. WORSE. RELATIONSHIPS.

I'm not in the majority here, but you could reasonably match up elec/ to /dark & /kin

Elec/dark has a reasonable number of aoes, which matches well with the tar patch debuffs, and the control aspects of each will probably make ya reasonably soloable. Not to mention you will eventually get TWO pets (voltaic sentinel & dark servant) to do your ebil biddings.

Elec/kin is the corr I'm working on now with emphasis on sapping (not uber, but not shoddy either). Spamming the end drain powers, I can generally solo EBs. Elec still remains versatile, with a reasonable single target hold; kin brings in the -spd debuffs and -dmg/+dmg powers. Again, pretty soloable - but /kin always makes ya welcome on teams.

[ QUOTE ]
'Punch the Author of this Arc in the Crotch: With a meteor' is now up and playable.

[/ QUOTE ]

True to my word, I gave it 4 stars on the name alone and one extra BONUS star for having a bee girl as the contact.

'cause Bee girls are hawt. Except for when they sting you into unconsciousness and use your body cavities to store honey. Really, though, I've had worse relationships.

(srsly tho, ran solo on 41 elec/kin corr, no real problems once I was actually paying attention to what I was doing...text was cute.)

[ QUOTE ]
No, I want competition, not a fight. I don't know what's so hard to understand about that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think he might mean something like SC or RV, where the ultimate objective is to control some outside objective.

For example, the TF involves trying to gain control of an "Item of Power". Heroes have their version of the TF that, if successful awards a control point for blueside. Villains have the the same for redside. Each alignment will compete to see who can successfully control the MacGuffin for the cause of Good or Evil. I would assume that the MacGuffin would somehow provide temp powers or buffs to the players of the controlling alignment, but that's getting ahead of myself.

That's what I see Smurch means as a "competitive TF"

Me, I like the ITF. I haven't spammed it but it's a reasonable TF that runs quickly even with a full team (unlike Posi), has variable missions (Effin Citadel), and has a lot of versatility on how you can run it successfully (anything that has a temp power required to beat). And I like co-op 'cause when you roll redside as much as I do, finding enough people willing to commit to a TF can be sorta difficult.

I think I've got a 50% success rate on the ITF at this point, usually only marred by player drop-outs, or that "oops our 50 lost their exemp/mal" that shoots up the diff to impossible. I've seen it beaten a different way each time - sometimes drawing the nictus, sometimes just killin' Rommy far enough away that he never rezzes (that was sorta fun once we managed it), sometimes mezzing all three AVs and pulling one at a time, and sometimes just a knock down drag out brawler run. I've knuckle-dragged up Lag Mountain, I've tp-skipped and worked backwards, I've done pick & pull. I haven't done a "tank-stealth" on the cave mish, but I'd be interested to see it.

I think it's a good ITF 'cause it doesn't stick to one thing. Which, seeing as its a co-op TF that can bring in any variety of ATs - is probably a good thing.

I've pointed this out before, there are a lot of NPCs in the PVE content that are not represented in the MA which could be used. I'm not sure what the rationale is, but I'd love to petition for their inclusion in the MA.

I'd also like to see the standard contacts available in the MA for use as hostages or whatever. I'm perfectly happy to have them as "person" level critters. Where can we petition for their inclusion??

holy crap, I just got the recipe over the weekend and was planning to put it in my elec/ corr's basic attacks.

Forum save, guys. Thanks!

I'll put this on my list for a repeat, it was a pretty fast arc.

PoliceWoman has posted a new & comprehensive review of ...INTERNET! (Scroll toward the bottom of the page to find it) - 4 stars!

Expect to see several of her suggestions transferred into the newest build in the next few days.

Thanks for the comments, I'll note the typo issues and get them cleaned up. As I said last night, if you had a good time, that's better than getting five stars. I actually have answers to most of your questions, so lemme spam your thread:


[ QUOTE ]
The contact, "Betty the AI", does not really look tech-y or cyberpunk-y enough to be an AI.

[/ QUOTE ]

My alpha draft of the mission text actually went into detail on how she was created in the 1950s as one of Alan Turing's last experiments, making her reasonably mature. I think I was trying to avert making a "sexy AI goddess", and that if there was a conscience or guardian angel of the internet, she'd look like your Granny and not like someone from Tron. Just a stylistic choice, really.

Actually, I think her critter text that I put in the MA Creator actually mentions her origin. Not that you can see that ever in the game.

[ QUOTE ]
The caption for the briefing...should perhaps be in a larger font or different color...

[/ QUOTE ]

That was on the patch queue a long, long time ago and it got buried. I'll need to change it.

[ QUOTE ]
It's a little strange that a Freakshow would be the boss of these Goldbrickers...

[/ QUOTE ]

His critter-info text explicitly mentions how out of character this alliance would be.

[ QUOTE ]
You might consider giving the Goldbrickers some dialog....It might also be fun to have several starving Third World children chained to computers farming gold...

[/ QUOTE ]

Both excellent ideas. Before i15, the arc was pushing 99%, so text was getting pared down a lot. I think it is down to 95 or so now, so these are both excellent ideas.

[ QUOTE ]
Mission 2

[/ QUOTE ]

Mission 2 was the mission I knew was the weakest on the "fun" level. It's really an extended series of fetches, which was kinda grating even when I was testing it. I never got really any serious commentary on it when I was testing it and few people have mentioned it on the review threads - so I was never really clear on how to improve it.

I think you've got some good ideas here, so I might overhaul the mission to include them.

[ QUOTE ]
You might consider adding some clues (maybe attached to optional glowies) that contain sample flames and diatribes about politics (both left and right wing), religion, telling new posters to read the darn FAQ, and Hitler (who inevitably is mentioned in flame wars).

[/ QUOTE ]

This was the HARDEST part of writing the mish. How do you represent flamers in a game with content restrictions on profanity and making bigoted remarks (which are pretty much a flamer's bread & butter)? I didn't want someone to get peeved and flag the mish. I suppose I could swap things around and make generalized summaries of the posts. ("This is just a long list of derogatory slurs" or "This is a reeling post about how Positron was really born in Paraguay as 'Chinualomogo Ramirez Y Levi' and thusly is an illegal immigrant and...frankly you stop reading after the first sentence.") I'm not sure, it might drag the lightheartedness of the whole thing of course if I'm sticking in Strawmen Politicals.

Concern's dialogue text has him call the player a fascist at 25% health. This was a nod to Godwin's Law, as it's the last thing he says before you defeat him. I was going to make a flamer boss named Godwin, but I ran up against the spawn limit for the bosses.

[ QUOTE ]
You might consider making the mission map a little smaller...

[/ QUOTE ]

Right now it's set on medium and random. I'll have to change this because 50% of the time the map is too short and all the objectives get jumbled up & 50% its just a freaking grind (like you mention here). It'll be put on the patching queue.

[ QUOTE ]
"slimy, perverted creature unfit to walk the world beside to decent, loving people" doesn't quite scan. Maybe "slimy, perverted creature unfit to associate with decent people".

[/ QUOTE ]

You're probably right. I was trying to go with the slimyerverted::decent:loving symmetry. It was probably a stretch.

[ QUOTE ]
...can porn really be "blasphemous"? I suppose certain types could, but not generally, I'd think.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, you have naughty nuns and lustful priests in porn, which is technically blasphemous. But Betty's kinda going on a tear here. She is a literal Net Nanny.

[ QUOTE ]
The Scrapyarder ambush is a little weird though? I guess they're mad at me stopping the live broadcast?

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the essential thrust (haha) of the ambush. I mean, all those big, sweaty men working day in & day out, in close proximitygetting dirty..taking their shirts off... no girls around...

*catches breath*

Um, yeah, so they need some prawn! Or else something horrible (-y sexy) might happen.

FYI, they were supposed to be Dockworkers - as an obscure reference to one of the fake PSAs you can hear on "The Cape" (a CoX player-run internet radio station based on Virtue). But there isn't a Dockworker group in the MA Creator - even in the game they are just reused Scrapyarders.

[ QUOTE ]
have a pizza?

[/ QUOTE ]

I was running out of ideas. What do you expect to get after cleaning up all that prawn? Hmm. Hand Sanitizer. And maybe some triple-strength antibiotics. And Brain Bleach, which was supposed to be one of the clickies, but was cut in the alpha stage of designing this level.

[ QUOTE ]
I am not sure why any of them are here; they don't seem to be related to the Mapserver goal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mission four pretty much is intended to break the Fourth Wall (or at least bend it a whole lot).

Originally the spot held by "Maybe Nemesis" (OR IS IT?) was held by that weird Dancing Bartender from your ally's ubiquitous video (not gonna spoil who that is). But since he was a custom critter, he wrecked the arc's file size up to 99.9%. Since he was a one-note joke, I dumped him, added a lot more humor content in the various missions. I put "Maybe Nemi" in so I could still point out you could save an Ally as an optional objective, and relate why there were Nictus in the Mapserver's level. Plus, you know, cheap shots at Nemesis Plots...I really don't think even he knows what he's doing.

Positron is there, 'cause plenty of the players complain that it's his job to fix problems like the mapserver errors, when it really isn't. The prawn are basically porn files on this supposed computer system. As I mentioned in my PM, several people wanted to see more Prawn (surprise, surprise :P) so I let them make the ED & Nictus/Tentacle Prawn jokes.

[ QUOTE ]
This is a fun thing for a patrol to say, but I think "Yus" should be "Yes".

[/ QUOTE ]

"Yus!" is totally taken from real chat in the game.

[ QUOTE ]
The Mapserver is actually quite a tough fight...

[/ QUOTE ]

I intended it to be tough, but on my tests it spawned as an EB every freaking time. I ran it on diff 1 & 3, with up to a trio and he always spawned as an EB (he was designed as a AV). He's supposed to have one ambush, but that might be bugged from the last patch update, so I'll check.

[ QUOTE ]
...logically, shouldn't killing the Mapserver actually disconnect everyone from the Mapserver?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, and logically smacking your television set or your toaster should break it even worse than it was, but it always seems to help, doesn't it?

[ QUOTE ]
Shouldn't it also give you a free pass to all Prawn sites?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, this is Betty we're talking about. Prawn seems to be her berserk button. But I'm the author of this Arc! I say, the Key to the Internet must do this. Will amend!

[ QUOTE ]
...how did the Nictus get "digitized" into the computer realm?

[/ QUOTE ]

Energy beings get energized?

I don't know about squatting it, but I'll certainly start coming over there. I know a lot of my toons are sort of all over the place since I'm working on day job badges - but I have a few that I could send over there.

Duly noted, Turg! I'll look forward to an update!

[ QUOTE ]
That'd make for a great arc, "Find The Author and Punch Him In The Crotch - With A Meteor!"

[/ QUOTE ]

I give it four stars on the title alone.

Hey Cras, what server are you doing these runs on? You still on virtue or have you moved around?

I like mission planner, but it hasn't really been updated since the opening of i14. So, there are certain features (like triggered collection objectives) that haven't been added in. Also, the offline creator will not allow you "text cheats" - by which I mean going over the character limit on a text entry using html codes. The regular mission creator will ignore html coding in the text for the purpose of your "character limit". If you swap the file from online MAC to offline and then back you will find that your text has been truncated.

Still, it's the best offline tool I've found so far - and if you're just putting together the skeleton of an Arc while offline (say just drafting up the text) - it's a really great tool.