twelfth

I had a pretty different experience on my attempt this morning. I picked up the arc, hoping that with one mish I should be able to blow through it before work. No luck there.

Ran this on my 38 elec/kin corr on diff 3 (my standard); I usually solo pretty well with him (although slowly) as its a versatile set. I have completed several arcs on solo at the difficulty without too many problems. I'm used to dying frequently, but those are usually where I get over my head or I've made some critical error in playstyle. Whatever.

I think I died about six or seven times just attempting to free the hostage who was clearly visible by the time I entered the mish. I think I went through about three or four mobs of the mish in total before I decided that I was going to need a team to help take the heat.

The Corrupted Data critter was a [censored]. I live and die off of my acc, and a combination of dark/rad (which is double -tohit, along with -def, and possible -resist; along with negative energy damage) was just an exercise in futility. This was on top of having about three or so claw/?? Typo Bugs on me in an average group. And these were all minions. I managed to clear these guys after about four deaths, and then the Ambush hit. Spawned right on top of me with four minions (SS/?? fanbois), and a LT (ice/storm), death number 5/6. When I spawned back in, I was furiously hitting my insps and trying to mitigate the incoming damage and managed not to die again.

I was about to call it there, but I decided that maybe the (presumed) ally would help out with this kind of trouble and I could hazard running in and grabbing him (since the guarding group had cleared) and trying one more time.

The Ally is an LT. This was not going to help me. As soon as I got next to him, the nearest critter group rushed in and started shreding us all over again. That was the 6-7th death and too much for me. Quit, comment, no rating.

I had a inkling that this was going to be a slightly difficult mission, expecting an EB during at the end - but with the mention of "Trolls" in the description I overlooked checking to see that there were nothing but Custom Groups prior to jumping in. I notice that the arc was posted not too long after i14 dropped, so this might be suffering from some of the early MA arc mistakes (too many custom critters; critters too strong for soloing).

On the other hand, the customs were well designed visually, and I appreciated that all the critters had flavor text. I didn't think there were flaws in how the mission was laid out, but I would not return to this on solo and I don't know if it would hold attention in a team.

Did not rate because I did not want to tank a rating due to getting in over my head. But I don't think this is easily soloable for a squishie or a low-to-mid level toon for that matter. For what appears to be a humor-based mission arc, there's just a little too much frantic button mashing to save yr life.

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Why did they let Villains play Heroic arcs, and vice versa?

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Maybe because it would be more attractive to users that way? If you're going to insist on that level of immersion, just sort your arcs by the alignment and ignore the rest. Let the rest of us enjoy the full range of the MA arcs as they stand.

Of course, I'm the kind of player who would like if it we could do cross-faction trading.

You know, now that I think of it, I guess "the rest of the story" is what is served by actually having Arc Souvenirs that summarize the plotline of the arc. Of course, I usually ignore them in the regular content, so I often forget to see if an MA Arc has them. Does everyone get a copy of the souvenir or just the Team Leader?

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I'm personally hoping for fast animations and recharge on several powers to allow for a nearly constant barrage of bullets.

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I could see this, maybe moderate/low damage attacks, but with crazy fast recharge (ala claw/ for melee sets), with some DoT as "bleed" damage or something? Maybe "specialized ammo" for debuff effects (e.g "Manstopper" for knockback/up, Armor Pierce for -Resist/Def)?

DB-like Combos would be for the f'in win, though.

It only really bothers me, when Im testing a arc. ....So I have to actually publish it, let him proofread it, then go back and edit.

Yup, I have to do the same thing. Sort of annoying, but that is how the regular mission text works out in normal PVE content. Only the team leader ever finds out how the debriefing went. I think changing it might require some large reprogramming of how the mission interface actually operates. In PVE, I find this most annoying on SF/TF's I haven't run yet.

Thanks for the unsolicited Review! I'll put one of yours on my queue.

You're the second or third person to mention the Kheldian problem. I guess this calls for a disclaimer somewhere.

As we discussed, Nadya, I've got my troubled* stalker, Celine Dioscura - who was an experiment in alternative portal technology that went exactly as it should- but not as expected.

I don't think I mentioned this earlier, but there is a scrapper version of her (the pink haired girl Nadya also spoke with) known as Selene Dioscura. Where one goes, the other is bound to follow. Um. Literally.

Celine is planning on going back to Praetoria with an army to bolster the resistance and push things into a full-blown war on Tyrant and pretty much the entire planet. Her secondary objective is the Hero-Killing on Primal Earth that she circuitously discussed.

Both characters are linked on my VV page in the sig.

* Not crazy. At all. She has a medical condition. But she's not crazy

Seriously. If AM & his group are in the MA selectable critters, then I'm missing him. I didn't see him in the unlockable content. If he's not available in MA, do we know why he's missing?

I was just planning an Arc and I sorta wanted to use 'em. Has anyone else noticed any other praetorian groups missing? Obviously, I could just sub in regular Posi & some of Neuron's mobs - but that's sorta feels too much like bricolage for me.

I know I played a mish that had an ambush that had like 6 tentacles and two regular hydra slime guys (I forget what they are called). This was early into i14 though, did the ability to put in a lot of tentacles get patched at some point?

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Actually a fun thing to do might be to create a mission with lots of minion level allies and the trick is to keep them all alive and herd them to final battle.

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This reminds me of that lowbie redside mish in which you get 4-5 wolf spiders to help you wipe out a bunch of snakes. The allies drop really easily, but until then it's all grins and LOLs when you roll up on some snakes and break out the DAKKA.

Hmm. Thanks Hera & Eva...I'll be looking into this once I'm back ingame. You might see another question from me, but we'll see how it goes.

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What you can do is, make a custom group, make your special Bone Daddy, then import regular Skulls into your custom group.

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Whoa, whoa. I was just about to make a thread on this. How do you import regular PVE critters into a custom group? I've seen people do it before (e.g regular Council marked 'Bobs Discount Mercs' or whatever). I want to be able to use this in MA if I can, what's the technique? Also, can you mix/match PVE critters into a custom group (e.g. Putting freaks and trolls into the same group)?

Agree with shadow shard, particularly the Chantry, also agree with the BNY mish map.

PATCH NOTE: 05/13/2009

1. Changed some minor typos, partially caused by editing errors and text limits.

2. Mission 4: 5 patrols using the same tired joke is ...uh..tired. Reduced this to one patrol, added 3 new patrols of Nictus (no text) and one of PRAWN (by popular demand).

3. To Do: Find snappier text for the Prawn Patrol (huh...there's a nice ring there) in mish 4, 'cause my comedy gland had been sucked dry at the time.

I think it also lieks mudkips, but i'm not

[corrupted data]

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first, the few typos that i saw...

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I'll grab all these first chance I get. Thanks for doing the tedious task of proofreading.

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i really liked the custom groups and fighting them. it is too bad that they are only in one mission.

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I am considering bringing back the prawn for their own MA Arc at some point, but I was running out of space & didn't want to overuse them in this arc. I already have two bosses and an EB designed for them that I just didn't enter into this arc for space reasons.

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my one bit of criticism is your choice of maps. i was not big on the 1st or the 2nd maps, the 3rd and 4th were ok. were you deliberately avoiding unique maps?

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In a word, yes. I designed the arc in the first few days of MA being live, and unique maps were going at a dime a dozen. I felt like it might be better to see a few normal maps and focus on the dialogue, clues, and things like that than worry about showcasing unusual maps (which, as I said, were becoming painfully common). I'm also not familiar with too many of the really unique maps as most of my playtime has been on redside, where they don't come up very often at all. So, I can't just look at a name for a unique map and always know what it will look like.

I'll try to track down the Freaks unique maps, and the foggy map might work for the first mish. I know I wanted the tech labs for mish 2 & 4 to reflect the idea that you were in a digital environment.

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...the patrol texts on the last mission got a little repetitive.

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You're the second person to point that out and I'll have to fix it for sure now. I'm not sure if I have the room to put in different patrols (I think the arc is at 95-96%), but it's on my revision priority list now.

Thanks for your input, RG! Once I have some more arcs up, I will definitely be looking for your help in polishing them!

Well, I'll give it through the weekend and see how things go, okay? =D

Stomp, if there's a rebuild on the Arc, I'll grab a friend of mine and re-run the arc. Alternatively, I can wait until there are some more revisions from playtesting to run it again (got several arcs on my plate atm)

@skydance:
I think I'm at 95-96% capacity on the arc, but I'll see if I can switch up the patrols. I felt like there had to be a reason for the Nictus to be there, since the rest of the missions had enemy groups chosen strictly by theme. But yeah, belaboring a joke is poor form.

@Cap'tain:

Yeah, I had forgotten about Kheldians on mish 4 - that mission originally had Psychic Clockwork - but I felt like the critters weren't a serious enough threat for anyone at 40+. Nictus were the next idea I had, since I figured I could get squiddies and Novas and such - but the dang mission won't spawn them normally. I have no idea how to force the MA to give me the squiddehs!!

As the Arc is vaguely skewed toward team play (with the recommendation in the send off text in that mish in particular), I figured that it shouldn't send things over the edge into unplayable.

Oh well. Thanks for the comments, I believe my main test-it alt is working on your time travel arc (which I think is the newest one?). Only just started it before I came to work this morning.

Well, a note in the thread would be welcome for certain. If you don't find enough to comment on, a tell would be just fine too.
d ^_^ b

Thanks, Dinah! I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for giving me a bump on Saturday night!

I have commented (or perhaps raved) about Hero Therapy (tm) in your review arc.

I humbly submit my own creation (in the sig), with details available here.

I hate to have you do this, but I was told last night by someone who played it that there are a few instances of "dropped words" (which is a constant problem when I'm doing text re-edits), but they didn't know where they occurred. If you do run it, can I ask you to keep an eye out for them? I tried searching for them but only came up with a case of using the wrong "their".

Thanks for your assistance and thanks for making an outstanding arc!

I didn't expect much out of the mission Arc, but boy was I surprised. This turned out to be, as I PM'd, the best MA Arc I've run yet. I ran it solo on my 45 ice/EM blaster on diff 2 and really didn't have any trouble completing it. A had a few deaths, but those I believe were strictly playstyle errors (and missing those beastly silent ambushes from the Nightmares).

The allies do help the solo squishie quite a lot, being as I had Steel You Lack tank most of the bosses while I wiped out the surrounding mobs, and then joined back in for the kill. I had some trouble with Secret Shame but, again, I think that was playstyle problems and nothing in the design. I actually did remarkably well with the AV at the end (who scaled to an EB for me), although I was chewing up insps moving through the various groups in the final room. But, WTF, it's the final battle in the final mish, you might as well pop everything you can, right?

The storyline was quite good and although The Door hints at it, I'm quite glad that there wasn't an eleventh hour Face Heel Turn in the therapist. And to address the above comment on how The Door knew about the other patients, the Therapist tells you in his initial contact that there have been other heroes who have undergone the therapy. I took the Door's comments as the subconscious doubt and mistrust in surrendering to the therapeutic process. I mean, how many times have our characters seen mad scientists take advantage of their patients/subjects? I think it worked out pretty well.

Yes, there were a lot of glowies, but they were never mandatory, and I think served to continue to immerse the player into the mindscape of the dreamworld. My favorite was probably the memory of the First Car Accident in the final mish. The whole thing was very bittersweet with an overall sense of primal unease that comes with sifting through one's psyche. By coincidence, the toon I ran this arc on is having lots of coping problems in her plotline, so this was completely awesome to tie into it.

Also, great choice of maps -- I'm a redsider by habit, so a lot of the maps had never been seen before. The whole atmosphere had a vaguely Silent Hill effect - at least portions of that game before the PC would enter the shadow worlds. Desolate and foreboding, sinister while being necessary to traverse.

Anyway, as I gushed over the in game tell, I fully plan on recommending the arc to all my SGs/VGs. 5 stars, completely earned and deserved, wish I had 6 to give ya.

Can I make a recommendation for a tag on WIP arcs? I know that sometimes I have to publish an arc so someone else can be able to read all the text (like the still busy or mission complete text) that only the team leader can read. Others might want to publish it just so they can get some more in-depth commentary so they can tweak it? Perhaps:

[RDPC] - rough draft please comment?