Had another team complete this arc and say the boss level Statesman and Maiden Justice were too weak. Oh well, I think I need to suck it up to make sure the soloers can still do this. 
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Based on player suggestions, I added some more text to the mission contact's initial briefing, to explain better what is going on in the story arc.
Her initial spiel now goes:
"Ahhh, $name! Excellent. I am pleased you have agreed to help me on my glorious mission.
What is my mission? Why, to restore the 5th Column to glory! No, wait, not merely to restore it...but to TRANSCEND its former place. We will CHANGE history and bring about a New World Order where the 5th Column will rule for a thousand years!
Our first step will be to return to the year 1939 and eliminate the foolish painter who led the Fatherland to inglorious defeat. This will clear the way for new leadership."
I hope that speech sounds sufficiently villainous and megalomaniacal.
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
I liked the overall story and concept very much. I enjoyed the villain groups, including the custom groups. The mission goals, maps, and special bosses are all nicely done.
Mission 1 - Some more backstory here might be appropriate after the mission. Perhaps the clue could include some notes Hitler has about a political rival becoming too powerful and his concern about it. Maybe a pamphlet or somesuch with a picture of the player's character, demonstrating how the contact has been working on our behalf in the past. That way there is some political will behind the takeover as well.
Mission 2 - In the Nav window it says Defeat Allies. It might be confusing and seem like a kill all. Might be better to say Defeat Generals of the Allies or some such.
Mission 3 - If the map would support it, a few more battles would be nice. It brought me glee to aid my men, I'd like more opportunity to do it.
All missions - The information in the clues should be in the return to contact text. The clues should be redone some. As an example of why, the clue for mission 3 states that we forced the Soviet surrender, then we return to the contact who says that Russia's defeat is assured. That is backwards. It seems like the clues could contain information about what happened in mission 3, while the return to contact text explains how after our success there the campaign quickly moved to success in the rest of the Soviet Union.
Thank you for the enjoyable time. I ran the mission once with some SG mates, 4 or 5 man team. I liked it enough to run it again solo, in order to better critique it.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
After finishing this arc, I have one burning question: is there some reason you can't use "Fuhrer"? Does it trigger some filter? It doesn't seem so. And it bugged me unreasonably.
In the Wolf's Den, there's a possible boss spawn in the back room up on a catwalk that isn't immediately obvious to access. Just a heads up.
I dislike scouring outdoor maps in search of things to do. At least I can make a custom target macro for "general", but then the Soviet generals are nearly invisible until I get close to them. Maybe give their guards some kind of obvious animation? I think the French general was drilling his troops but they didn't stand out much against the cityscape.
It didn't help much that none of your custom groups except the US Army had lieutenants, which meant all the spawns were just varying numbers of minions.
Schadenfreude certainly seems to be living off my sorrow. AR does knockback and "avoid" with the burn patch, meaning she was always sending something away and chasing it down. Especially when a lot of stacked web grenades had me slowed, this hurt. Maybe make her dark blast on a power level that doesn't take Torrent? Wait, no. I think just Hard AR rather than Extreme will work.
Speaking of minions with web grenades, the saddest thing in the world is to get 4 web grenades on you and unwittingly run up a tiny slope into a "pit" with 6-inch high walls. It was like being tied up and bumped to death by puppies, and if I hadn't heard the Oberst behind me I'd be furious right now. Web grenades and broken terrain are not good playmates.
And that brings me to the last thing. That ruined Atlas Park map. If you're going to use it, at least mention the giant robots in the arsenal of things that got dropped on it? But it has no minimap, making it a real pain to know where you've been, and it's chock full of broken terrain that gives allies fits. (Speaking of allies, are the Obersts supposed to spawn with no surrounding captors?)
I'd almost suggest the Atlas Park with the meteor wrecked into it and have Shaddy gloating about how their super-science dropped a freakin' space rock on the place.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
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After finishing this arc, I have one burning question: is there some reason you can't use "Fuhrer"? Does it trigger some filter? It doesn't seem so. And it bugged me unreasonably.
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With "Nazi" getting caught by the profanity filter, I was real paranoid about getting Inappropriate Content complaints for using actual Nazi terminology, hence why I called this mob "the Furor". You're about the sixth or so person to either be bugged by the "Furor" substitution or (more often) to tell me that I mispelled Fuhrer/Fuehrer, though.
It's sounding like more people are offended by mispellings than by Nazi terminology, though, so I'll give switching his name to Fuhrer/Fuehrer a try. (I'll have to figure out if I can actually get an umlaut over the U into the text editor; not quite sure how to do that, but worth learning!) If I start getting flagged for Inappropriate Content, though, I'll have to switch it back ... if I get the chance, anyhow.
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I dislike scouring outdoor maps in search of things to do. At least I can make a custom target macro for "general", but then the Soviet generals are nearly invisible until I get close to them. Maybe give their guards some kind of obvious animation? I think the French general was drilling his troops but they didn't stand out much against the cityscape.
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Yeah, the Soviet generals have a little stealth from the Cold powerset. I can usually spot them due to the arctic air aura, but that requires some +perception; my main character has capped perception so I probably never noticed how annoying that could be for others.
I'll try giving the group of mobs the Soviet generals are in some special animation; maybe the binoculars animation (to show it's a command post) or the shooting animation.
I sympathize with the comment on outdoor maps, but with the missions representing Great Battles of WW2, I feel like outdoor maps are pretty much required.
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It didn't help much that none of your custom groups except the US Army had lieutenants, which meant all the spawns were just varying numbers of minions.
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My original concept had a minion, lieutenant and boss for each enemy army; so 3 models for the British, 3 models for the French, 3 models for the Soviets, and 3 models for the Americans. Actually, I originally wanted to re-use the Spetnaz Commandos villain group for the Soviet Army, but I couldn't use them due to their level range only going up to like 14 or something awful like that. I only used 2 models for the Germans, since I wanted to re-use 5th Column for them, but I *needed* custom models for Hitler and for Schadenfreude. As a result my arc started off with 3+3+3+3+2 = 14 models, which made it packed to the gills on test server. Code bloat from transferring to live servers made this over the size limit, and I had to start removing custom models to make it fit. I ended up deciding the lieutenants of each faction were the least interesting, since I need minions to be cannon fodder for most spawns, and I need bosses to be used as objectives; so I deleted the British, French and Soviet lieutenants. The US Army lieutenant got kept because I thought his model looked more cool than the others. This gave me enough room to fit on live server, add a lot more text (I previously couldn't put enough due to space limitations), and add a Bodyguard model for the Secret Service agents surrounding President Truman (originally I had him guarded by Paragon Police, which didn't make as much sense).
Anyway, this is why I have no lieutenants in the Allies, Red Army or Secret Service custom groups. This admittedly makes most spawns for small teams/low difficulty just a bunch of minions, which maybe is too bland.
Thinking about it, the Allies enemy group has a British minion, British boss, French minion and French boss; I may demote the French boss to be a French lieutenant, just so there's one model of each echelon available for this map. This makes the French troops wimpier yet more numerous, but that may actually be an improvement based on the amount of glee I've seen players show while attacking the French NPCs.
I really want to squeeze a Soviet lieutenant back into the Stalingrad map, too; I had the sudden idea to add a Soviet Commissar, Zampolit/Political Officer, something like that, as a lieutenant, maybe a thugs/sonic in an olive drab trenchcoat so he can shoot dual pistols and yell at you at the same time. If only I had a way to make him shoot his own retreating troops! LOL.
Not sure where I can find space to put another guy in though; maybe I can rework the Secret Service faction to use Crey security agents, if they go high enough level.
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Schadenfreude certainly seems to be living off my sorrow. AR does knockback and "avoid" with the burn patch, meaning she was always sending something away and chasing it down. Especially when a lot of stacked web grenades had me slowed, this hurt. Maybe make her dark blast on a power level that doesn't take Torrent? Wait, no. I think just Hard AR rather than Extreme will work.
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Well, I sympathize with the concern over knockback, but frankly, I must insist that Nazi dominatrixes use guns. Or whips, when they come available. But guns for now. I'll give toning down her attack set to be Hard instead of Extreme a try. I think you can't avoid *some* amount of knockback with AR, but burn patches are probably unnecessary.
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Speaking of minions with web grenades, the saddest thing in the world is to get 4 web grenades on you and unwittingly run up a tiny slope into a "pit" with 6-inch high walls. It was like being tied up and bumped to death by puppies, and if I hadn't heard the Oberst behind me I'd be furious right now. Web grenades and broken terrain are not good playmates.
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Well, I really like the look of the US Army men throwing grenades. But yeah, web grenades can suck on this sort of terrain. I could change the basic soldiers to be AR/regen, so they just shoot; then maybe give either the lieutenants or the bosses the device secondary, so I still have some green army men throwing grenades, but you won't get tons of stacking web grenades at least. I think I may do that, the assault rifle secondary on the MA/AR lieutenants is kind of wasted at the moment.
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And that brings me to the last thing. That ruined Atlas Park map. If you're going to use it, at least mention the giant robots in the arsenal of things that got dropped on it? But it has no minimap, making it a real pain to know where you've been, and it's chock full of broken terrain that gives allies fits. (Speaking of allies, are the Obersts supposed to spawn with no surrounding captors?)
I'd almost suggest the Atlas Park with the meteor wrecked into it and have Shaddy gloating about how their super-science dropped a freakin' space rock on the place.
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I originally used Atlas Park 2, the one with the big meteor, for this mission, but I got multiple complaints of how the NPC allies would aggro on the meteor and get stuck trying to kill it, which was an immersion breaker. That's why I ended up using the ruined Atlas Park map. I actually kind of like the wrecked giant robots on this map, since I think they have either Council or 5th insignia, so sort of fits with the theme. I'll add some description to the mission entry popup to explain the killer robots, though, as you suggest.
I agree that the broken terrain is a pain to maneuver on, but honestly there are no good Atlas Park maps that I've found. Atlas Park 1 doesn't allow most types of mission details; Atlas Park 2 has that hated meteor on it; Arachnos Atlas Park has that big underground tech lab area which doesn't work for this story. The ruined Atlas Park was the best fit for what I was looking for.
My *ideal* map for the last mission would be a completely pristine, shiny happy Atlas Park, but with pillboxes as in RV, and as you blow away each pillbox, that section of Atlas Park turns into the ruined, broken version of Atlas Park, just like taking over pillboxes in RV. That would let you turn the sweet happy Atlas Park into a twisted ruin.
Thanks for your input! I'll look at implementing some of this stuff tonight.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
OK, I made the following changes:
* "Furor" is now "Führer" throughout, by popular demand.
* On the Dunkirk mission, French Officers (boss) have been demoted to be French Lieutenants (lieutenant), so as to give the Allies faction a lieutenant model.
* On the Stalingrad mission, a Soviet Commissar (lieutenant) model has been added to the Red Army faction. He is thugs/sonic, because I want him to use pistols; maybe he should be mercenaries, but I rationalize that thugs at least throw molotovs.
* Increased number of German vs Russian battles in Stalingrad (someone said he LOVED helping out his 5th Column buddies in these).
* Gave Soviet Generals some special animations to make them stand out more. The Generals should now all use the "binoculars" animation. Their escorts should all use the "shooting rifle, low" animation.
* On the Atlas Park mission, I added references to Giant Mek Men attacking.
* I dropped the custom Bodyguard model from the Secret Service faction. Instead, the Secret Service faction now consists of standard "male security agent" models from the Crey faction. Unfortunately I can't change their background info, but they LOOK right at least.
* Massively expanded the souvenir text to describe the whole story.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
More changes:
* US Private is now AR/regen (no more web grenade)
* US Sergeant is now MA/dev (now with added web grenade)
* US Colonel and Generals are now merc/willpower. They also now have a cigar. (I remember someone asked for that...yes, really!)
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
I spent some time solo testing, and I came to the conclusion that even the signature pet version of Statesman is way too hard for a soloer. I spent about half an hour jousting him, he got low on life and went unstoppable like 4 times, and I only killed him in the end because I summoned a Vanguard Heavy onto him (something I don't expect most soloers will be able or willing to do).
I ended up dropping Statesman out of the final mission, but I left Maiden Justice (aka Ms Liberty), who seems much more doable.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
What people are saying about Axis and Allies:
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[Tell] 2009-04-20 04: 31:08 Message From @Eviella : Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: Amusing, if that's the right word for an alternate reality where you help the 4th reich win. Well structured; 5 stars.
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[Tell] 2009-04-21 12: 35:14 Message From @Steele Magnolia : your clue for the 1st mission of Axis and Allies spells Fuhrer Furor
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I originally intentionally named this guy "Furor" because I was worried that using the proper spelling might trigger complaints about inappropriate content. After many, many complaints that I can't spell right, I've now renamed him to "Führer".
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[Tell] 2009-04-22 09: 06:43 Message From @Markus V8.0 : Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: 5 stars for you!
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[Tell] 2009-04-22 16: 04:47 Message From @O.o Snap : Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: Very well written story.
[Tell] 2009-04-22 16: 05:57 Message From @O.o Snap : tehre is one lil problem I found under navigation. I think it was the 3rd mission where u needed to kill 2 generals and free Paulus... u should indicate when pluralized that you need to defeat the 2
[Tell] 2009-04-22 16: 07:08 Message From @O.o Snap : like on the plural version of the generals, write "generals to defeat" because it would only indicate 2 Generals. Another thing was the kinetic mastermind on 2nd mission... I can see how people woudl object... especially with caltrops + siphon sp
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I'll look at the Stalingrad objectives and see if I can make it clearer that you're supposed to kill the Soviet generals and rescue the German general. I guess it maybe is a little ambiguous and might give the player the wrong idea that they're supposed to do Darth Vader's "You have failed me for the last time!" force choke on the German general.
Several people have commented on the powers of the Allied officers, especially the kinetic. Originally this was meant to be a joke that would let the French run away really fast, and it wasn't too bad when the French officer was a boss, but after I demoted him to be a lieutenant, he shows up a lot more, so there's a lot more kinetics enemies running around. I'm leaning towards changing the French lieutenant from mercs/kin to mercs/regen or mercs/martial arts, something with less annoyance factor.
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[Tell] 2009-04-22 20: 58:45 Message From @muddlewait : Awww, you neutered the A&A baddies
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Yeah, I felt I had to drop Statesman from the last mission to keep this story arc relatively soloable.
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[Tell] 2009-04-22 22: 07:36 Message From @Manga : Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: Large maps are tricky and time consuming but it's still fun
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[Tell] @KingSac: Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: Great arc!
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[Tell] 2009-04-23 19: 46:23 Message From @KillDozer : Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: This was the best arc I've done so far! Excellent use of maps (despite having 3 outdoor maps), great costumes, and obviously a lot of actual historical fact to back it up! Fantastic! 5 stars. My humble little arc is called "Why Do Bad Girls Like Bad Boys?" (arc 63910). I hope you like it.
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[Tell] @jjac: Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: Well, you know you're doing something right when you've made German dictatorship a fun and memorable experience. Found the stacked -spd from the French a bit annoying though, and the American Generals need to blend with the scenery a bit less. Chalk me up for another review.
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A second comment about the French having kinetics; yeah, definitely going to change that.
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[Tell] 2009-04-24 06: 00:13 Message From @Carnada : Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: Lots of fun, thank you! 5 stars. Please rate mine @ Carnada
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[Tell] 2009-04-24 23: 54:23 Message From @Lycanus : Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: Whoa....think I'll retry that in a few levels...interesting though...will save the rating for when I manage to finish this...(dunkirk is....killer)
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I'll change the lieutenants to have a less annoying secondary, hopefully that will help with the Dunkirk map.
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[Tell] 2009-04-25 05: 07:36 Message From @Meltman : Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: The Allies powers make no sense.
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More support for getting rid of the kinetics on the Dunkirk map. I'll change that next time I'm on.
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[Tell] @Aracade: Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: That was pretty cool in my opinion. The use of mastermind pets is a good touch to make up for limited creation space.
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[Tell] @Steeple: Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: In all honesty, this is the best arc I've played. I wish I could give it 6 stars!
[Tell] @Steeple: I liked it even better than the Dev's choice arcs they have up. Gives me a goal to look towards.
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[Tell] 2009-04-27 13: 39:20 Message From @UPWARD : Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: good one liked the set up alot
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[Tell] 2009-04-27 19: 44:01 Message From @Northpaw : Feedback on Architect Mission Axis and Allies: Fun arc. thanks for sharing it
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Thanks for the great feedback, everyone!
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
In response to player feedback, I made the following changes:
* French lieutenant changed from Mercenaries primary to Assault Rifle primary.
* Soviet commissar changed from Thugs primary to Assault Rifle primary.
* Added some patrols with dialog to the Dunkirk and Stalingrad maps to make the battles a little more dynamic.
Thanks for the feedback!
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Some additional changes I made as a result of feedback and my own testing:
* Gave each mission a title in a larger font, to make the briefings look a little more classy.
* Added "Goebbels", an optional 5th Column boss, to mission 1 to force it to be limited to the 35-54 level range. (Previously it was 1-54 and I'd periodically get feedback saying, "Cool story arc but I couldn't handle it on my level 11".)
* Added "Panzer", an optional 5th Column ally, to mission 3 to force it to be limited to the 40-54 level range.
* Soviet commissar in mission 3 no longer has the sonic dispersion field (the graphical effect just doesn't look thematically right for what I'm going for).
* Fixed typos in MacArthur and Schadenfreude's dialog in mission 4.
* Renamed "Panzer General" to "Stormtrooper" in mission 4, because Stormtrooper makes more sense when you don't actually have tanks rolling through Paragon City.
* Added clue to mission 4 which you receive when you capture President Truman. The clue contains the radio address you force the President to issue after you capture him; shamelessly stolen from the speech in Superman II where the President surrenders to General Zod. (To address player feedback saying "capturing the President needs to be more cool")
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Finding my own story arc in need of visitors and my Crab Spider in need of tickets, I decided run address both problems at once by running and reviewing [u]Axis and Allies[u]. That turned out to be tougher than I expected: I find myself divided on the arc. Parts of it worked really well, and parts of it fell flat.
On the positive side, I think this was a very well put together arc. The story is a straightforward classic, and it flows very well. Each mission 'felt' appropriate to the story thanks to the setup, map selection and some nice details. I particularly liked the design of the Allied military critters: each had a distinctive yet appropriate look. Given the limitations of the available MA artwork and file size, I don't think you can do much better.
On the negative side, I never really felt myself getting invested in the arc. It's possible that I'm just never going to feel invested in a story about the Nazis conquering the world. But on reflection, I think the problem stems from how the arc starts off. Schadenfreude wants to restore the 5th Column to glory by sending me to depose Hitler, and then lead Nazi Germany to victory myself. What I don't understand is why Schadenfreude wants me to become the new Führer. We've known each other for a single mission when she gives more or less ultimate power over the cause to which she has clearly dedicated her life. I can't see how that would work.
If she really is devoted to the 5th Column, wouldn't she want to make Requiem the new Führer? Or if she was only devoted to its "ideals," wouldn't she want to run the show herself and make certain those ideals are maintained? Obviously, to run this arc at all my character has to be sympathetic to those ideals, but I still feel like I'm more of a hired gun to Schadenfreude than I am an equal partner in her lifelong ambitions.
Basically, I think the arc glosses over exactly why I become the Führer. Everything after that makes sense and flows well, but being the obsessive nitpicker that I am, I can't quite ignore the first hurdle we skipped. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to address this problem.
The "best" solution would be to make this arc the second part of a multi-arc story. In the first part, the player meets Schadenfreude and works with her to help preserve the 5th Column in the present day; at the end of the arc they find a way to go back in time, thus starting this arc. This would give the player time to bond with Schadenfreude. It would explain why she's willing to trust him as Führer, and make the player more invested in her story (as much as possible given the whole "Nazis win" premise). The problem with this solution is obvious: it's a massive amount of work and would require another story slot.
A simpler solution would be to make someone else the Führer (either Schadenfreude or Requiem). I'm not sure how much space to you have to tinker with the mission, but it would be a lot less work than adding a whole new arc. This solution risks making the player feel less involved himself (since he's now a flunky ratter than the ruler of Germany), but I think you can get around that by making the player a sufficiently important general that he effectively becomes the face of the Reich. But this way, the player can grow into the role rather than having it thrust on him after Mission 1. It would also give you a chance to explore Schadenfreude's motivations, if you're interested in that.
The last solution is the most straightforward: have Schadenfreude explain why she trusts the player at the helm of Germany in her opening dialog. Either claim that she knows the player already, or that she isn't up to the task herself and feels the player is someone she can rely on. This doesn't really solve the problem per se, but it does mean that anyone running the arc will have to come up with a solution themselves before they get started. They won't have to make the sudden switch from hired muscle to trusted ally during the arc.
Okay, that's the big stuff covered. Here are a few other minor comments:
* In mission 1, the Führer is being guarded by 5th Column troops. AFAIK, the 5th Column never operated in Germany; they were Requiem's private army, and only operated in America. It would be nice if you could create a unique group for the mission (the Wehrmacht, SS or somesuch) instead of using the actual 5th Column. Put all the human and robotic 5th Column troops in it (since the Axis America models seem to be the Council Empire models at the moment); you won't be able to change their /info but it would be a good compromise. Assuming you have space for another custom group, of course.
* In Mission 2, Gen. Weygand says "Viva la France" upon seeing me. I think that should actually be "Vive la France." But you should check with someone more knowledgeable to be certain.
* In mission 2, the use of Energy Melee by the British Soldiers seems a little out of place. I know most of the likely candidates are already used by the other armies, but EM struck me as off. Perhaps you could just give them a minor defensive set instead?
* In Mission 4, the soldiers guarding the Stormtroopers have a line to the effect of "There's one of them Krauts!" when they see me. The line feels appropriate to the time period, but given that I'm supposed to be the Führer of Germany at this point, I think they should recognize me personally.
* As far as I saw, none of the generals in missions 2-4 had a unique /info description. If this was done to save space it may be unavoidable But if you do have the space, a line or two about their (altered) history would be great.
So, there we have it. I haven't decided what to rate the arc yet: it's wavering between 3 and 4 stars, so I'll sleep on it and see how I feel tomorrow. In the meantime, thanks for the arc; it was fun, and I hope this can help improve it. I'd also love it if you could take a look at my arc when you get the chance: Aeon's Nemesis (#161865). I really need more feedback on it.
-D
Darkonne: Pinnacle's (unofficially) mighty Dark Miasma/Radiation Blast enthusiast!
Be sure to check out this mighty Arc:
#161865 - Aeon's Nemesis
Changes made:
- Maiden Justice changed from "Ms. Liberty (Signature Pet)" to "Ms. Liberty (40-54 AV)". (Note: this is NOT the one that needs the special Malta gun to kill.)
- Motivation for this change: the Signature Pet version didn't scale well. Pet version was disappointingly easy for every team I've played with on this mission, but was still quite hard for a soloer. She also looked like a full Hero to both soloers and teams, which gave people wrong information about how hard she really is.
- Using the 40-54 AV, Maiden Justice properly scales between EB and AV depending on difficulty.
- In order to test soloability, I fought the EB version of Maiden Justice (aka Ms Liberty) three times with my main villain, April Fool (50 thug/TA MM), on heroic, no temp powers, no allies, but I did freely use inspirations. I won two out of three; got clocked one out of three. I decided this was an acceptable ratio. However, I realize a MM may be better at soloing EBs than some other ATs. I think I could definitely do this on a high level brute, maybe could on a debuffy corruptor or a high DEF stalker/VEAT, probably couldn't on a dom (but, in fairness, I'm a terrible dom player).
- The actual mission has 5th Column allies who can help.
Responses to comments:
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On the positive side, I think this was a very well put together arc. The story is a straightforward classic, and it flows very well. Each mission 'felt' appropriate to the story thanks to the setup, map selection and some nice details. I particularly liked the design of the Allied military critters: each had a distinctive yet appropriate look. Given the limitations of the available MA artwork and file size, I don't think you can do much better.
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- Thanks much to Darkonne for a detailed review!
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What I don't understand is why Schadenfreude wants me to become the new Führer. We've known each other for a single mission when she gives more or less ultimate power over the cause to which she has clearly dedicated her life. I can't see how that would work.
If she really is devoted to the 5th Column, wouldn't she want to make Requiem the new Führer?
....
Basically, I think the arc glosses over exactly why I become the Führer.
...
A simpler solution would be to make someone else the Führer (either Schadenfreude or Requiem). ... This solution risks making the player feel less involved himself (since he's now a flunky ratter than the ruler of Germany)
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While this comment is valid, and makes some sense from a character motivation standpoint, the player is the star of the story arc and consequently I felt it would be more effective for the player to become the new Führer than for the player to help Requiem become Führer. The "loss of involvement due to being a flunky" you mention is the major reason I'd rather make the player the big boss. Conquering France and Russia for Requiem is much less cool than conquering France and Russia for yourself!
So for story coolness reasons, I felt it had to be this way.
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The "best" solution would be to make this arc the second part of a multi-arc story. In the first part, the player meets Schadenfreude and works with her to help preserve the 5th Column in the present day; at the end of the arc they find a way to go back in time, thus starting this arc. This would give the player time to bond with Schadenfreude. It would explain why she's willing to trust him as Führer, and make the player more invested in her story (as much as possible given the whole "Nazis win" premise). The problem with this solution is obvious: it's a massive amount of work and would require another story slot.
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That would be awesome if I had the ability to author lots more story arcs. With only 3 story arc slots allowed to me, though, I prefer to tell three different stories, in three different genres, over telling one extra long story that takes all three arc slots. Part of this is because I want to try different things in my different stories, and part of this is because I fear my sequels/prequels will inevitably be weaker than the main story I want to tell. Helping Schadenfreude build up the 5th Column in the present day in order to gain her trust might make logical sense, but the story behind that would be a lot less compelling than, say, Assassinating der Führer and Invading America.
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* In mission 1, the Führer is being guarded by 5th Column troops. AFAIK, the 5th Column never operated in Germany; they were Requiem's private army, and only operated in America. It would be nice if you could create a unique group for the mission (the Wehrmacht, SS or somesuch) instead of using the actual 5th Column.
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I actually tried making a Wehrmacht faction and just importing the humanoid 5th Column models, but in testing this did not work as well as I hoped. For arcane reasons, the Mission Architect wouldn't let me place standard models for "Boss" objectives from this custom Wehrmacht faction, and I couldn't afford to create a custom model for every German officer.
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* In Mission 2, Gen. Weygand says "Viva la France" upon seeing me. I think that should actually be "Vive la France."
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I think you're right. I'll change this.
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* In mission 2, the use of Energy Melee by the British Soldiers seems a little out of place. I know most of the likely candidates are already used by the other armies, but EM struck me as off. Perhaps you could just give them a minor defensive set instead?
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Yeah, I gave the British soldiers this to give them a sort of pugilism set, to match the French having martial arts and the Russians having super strength. It may be a little too shiny; I'd rather give them Fighting pool (with Boxing and stuff) but that isn't an option. Maybe I can just give them a nothing secondary like low regen.
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* In Mission 4, the soldiers guarding the Stormtroopers have a line to the effect of "There's one of them Krauts!" when they see me. The line feels appropriate to the time period, but given that I'm supposed to be the Führer of Germany at this point, I think they should recognize me personally.
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Hmm, I meant for them to be talking about the Stormtrooper, but I can see how the dialog as presented might be confusing. I'll look into rephrasing it better.
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* As far as I saw, none of the generals in missions 2-4 had a unique /info description. If this was done to save space it may be unavoidable But if you do have the space, a line or two about their (altered) history would be great.
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I'm very tight on space sadly (I used far too many custom characters)... but this is a fun idea, and I've had people wonder how MacArthur ended up in Paragon City. I'll see if I can make space for it.
Praise/Damnation from this thread:
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It just may be the most villainous arc I've yet played. It sets up, and forces the the player along for the ride, the complete victory of the Nazis and 5th Column, including the takeover of the US.
This concept has been used before in novels, films and comics. The Red Skull conquers the world in the current Avengers/Invaders series. But there is always a way out, or at least the suggestion that its possible to resist, an ominous hint of doom for the Reich. In this author's arc there is not even a whisper of that possibility. Total victory, period.
"Axis and Allies" badly needs to be opened up at the end. Or at least make it part 1 of a larger story.
Morally, its the darkest arc I've seen.
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I must say that I consider this high praise, I was absolutely shooting for an evil, world-conquering story arc.
Regarding the outcome being "total victory" for the Third Reich, my usual philosophy is that the protagonist should "win" at the end of a story arc. Since in this case, the protagonist is the villain, "winning" is crushing all opposition and conquering the world.
I could probably add a ray of hope in there somewhere; perhaps some of the heroes escape to fight a resistance against your tyranny. But I think this would actually be dissonant from the main narrative of the story arc. I mean, in final mission you are invading America, defeating the US Army, beating up the last Hero, capturing the President, and crushing Democracy to set up a 1000 year Reich. I think adding a teaser for some new hope might actually detract from the story.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I gave the British soldiers this to give them a sort of pugilism set, to match the French having martial arts and the Russians having super strength. It may be a little too shiny; I'd rather give them Fighting pool (with Boxing and stuff) but that isn't an option. Maybe I can just give them a nothing secondary like low regen.
[/ QUOTE ]
One of the problems CoH has always had is that there simply aren't many ways to make "non-powered" characters who both look like it *and* have diverse and interesting skills.
I've run against that myself, and I kind of lean toward rolling with it, even if the powers don't make complete sense, it's just part of the CoH environment. Better that than having everybody armed with a plausible but dull AR/Regen build or the like.
Changes made:
* Weygand now says "Vive la France" instead of "Viva la France".
* British soldiers no longer have energy melee. Thought about giving them AR/mace, but decided it was simpler to make them AR/regen.
* US Soldiers facing off against Stormtroopers now say "The Germans are coming!" and "Look out! It's $name $himherself!" instead of "It's one of those krauts over here!"
* Removed ambushes triggered by fighting generals (some players hated these) in order to make space.
* This gave me enough room to add some historical back story in the descriptions for General Patton, General MacArthur, Lord Gort, General Weygand, and General Paulus. Unfortunately, I ran out of space before I could add anything for the Soviet generals.
I've received some feedback that a stalker was unable to solo Maiden Justice in the final battle despite several attempts. 
Unstoppable seems to be the cause; I really think she'd be fine if she just didn't have that power.
Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for this yet. I really feel like the protagonist should crush some patriotic superhero in the last battle, and the only characters iconic enough for this in the WW2 era seem to be Maiden Justice and Statesman, both of whom are quite tough.
Theoretically, Lady Grey and Dark Watcher should be operating during this time period, but neither of them seems right for this role; I really need a red-white-and-blue hero to be the last defender of Freedom and Democracy.
I tested the RSF Ms Liberty to see if she'd be easier, since she doesn't have Unstoppable, but she has Liberty Belt instead, which is even worse. Also she didn't seem to downgrade properly to an EB.
Also tested the EB version of Ms Liberty, who would be reasonable (she doesn't have unstoppable) except that her level caps at 37, and I've had enough feedback about level ranges being too variable that I can't accept such a low level cap for the mission.
I considered beefing up the 5th Column Allies even more, but they're already bosses (lieutenants on heroic) so the next step would be EBs or AVs, which would seem rather excessive.
So leaving Maiden Justice at the current difficulty for now, until I can think of a better solution.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Came up with an idea for how to make Maiden Justice more manageable.
* Added 2 ambushes to Invasion America mission, triggered when Maiden Justice is at 50% life and 25% life. However, these ambushes are friendlies -- 5th Column who rush to the aid of the player. Effectively, the player is a "boss" fight for Maiden Justice now, with ambushes helping the villain.
* Had to remove 2 ambushes from Stalingrad mission in order to add 2 ambushes to the America mission.
* Adjusted Maiden Justice's dialog to be a little more heroic:
- Unaware: "No matter what happens today, we must have hope! America will survive!"
- Attack: "So, $name. It's you. I won't let you take Paragon City without a fight!"
- 1/4 health: "No! I won't let you win! FOR LIBERTY!" (Unstoppable goes off)
- Death: "No! Please! It can't end this way!"
* Changed "Schadenfreude" ally from "Extreme" Assault Rifle to "Standard" Assault Rifle, and from "Standard" Pain Domination to "Extreme" Pain Domination. I was hoping this would make her shoot less and buff/debuff more, but in my testing so far the NPC AI doesn't seem to want to do that.
* Added "Munitions" destructible objects to Dunkirk mission and "Troop Transport" destructible objects to Stalingrad mission, for the sake of making the missions have more stuff in them other than enemy soldiers. I made destroying the 3 Troop Transports a required objective, but didn't think it should be required to destroy the munitions the Allies were about to abandon anyway.
* Deleted "Goebbels" enemy from Wolf's Lair mission and "Panzer" ally from Stalingrad mission to make room. Formerly these were used to lock the level range on those missions, but I needed the room and I15 should eventually give me tools to predefine a level range.
* Changed General Paulus to be a Raserei Ubermenschen Oberst (formerly he was a Krieger) to make Stalingrad a 25-54 mission.
Testing:
In two trials with my 50 AR/dev blaster, I was able to defeat the EB Maiden Justice both times, with the help of NPCs. Some of the NPC ambushes tend to get lost (due to bad terrain/bad pathfinding) before getting all the way to Maiden Justice, though, and Schadenfreude's AI is a lot less healy/buffy/debuffy than I was hoping. But having some NPC help spawn right as Maiden Justice goes Unstoppable seemed immensely helpful for keeping steady DPS on her, so I felt like it was an improvement.
I also like how the extra destructible objects looked. Adding 3 required trucks to destroy in Stalingrad makes it take a little longer, but I'm hoping more objectives will make it feel like you have more to do. I had several people complain about having to hunt the Soviet generals on a big map; adding more objectives on the map may sound counterintuitive, but I'm hoping it will mean it's easier to find those objectives. Especially because the transport trucks are pretty big and should be easy to see.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
[ QUOTE ]
I've received some feedback that a stalker was unable to solo Maiden Justice in the final battle despite several attempts. Unstoppable seems to be the cause; I really think she'd be fine if she just didn't have that power.
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/raises battered head from the dirt 'bleh, that's me...'
Don't change the mob from Mauden Justice-she's a perfect thematic fit. It's more than likely my fault, I'm no hardass combat Titan.
I'll try again now you've added friendly ambushes -that's an awesome way of solving the problem, and also fits the theme v well too I think - summoning more minions to crush the plucky heroine Neath the jackboots of the Reich!
Great arc.
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
|
Yet more changes.
* I concluded that Maiden Justice (aka Ms Liberty) having Unstoppable was simply unacceptable. Unstoppable sucks!
* I made a new custom Maiden Justice AV. She is MA/invuln and has a similar but slightly different costume, which makes sense since she's not really Ms. Liberty.
* I normally hesitate to make custom AVs because it's too easy to make them overpowered, but it's looking like a custom AV may actually be easier than the canon AV in this case.
* I considered making her an EB but decided that would be too underwhelming for the end boss of the arc.
* MA is on Standard so as to avoid giving her Focus Chi.
* Invuln is on Hard so as to avoid giving her Unyielding and Unstoppable. However, she still has Dull Pain, because I don't want her to be a total pushover.
* I deleted the two 5th Column ambushes that come to help the player; should not be needed now.
* I gave Maiden Justice a small escort of US Army soldiers.
* I had to remove the US Army Sergeant in order to make room for this new custom model. (Didn't delete him, he may come back in I15 if I have more space to play with then.)
* Maiden Justice now has, as her unaware text:
[NPC] Maiden Justice: Why, Marcus? Why would you leave me to fight this battle alone? What could have possibly been more important?
This is partly to address a problem one player had with the Nazi victory being so overwhelming that there is no glimmer of hope for the good guys at all, partly to explain why you never have to fight Statesman, and partly to reinforce the characterization that Statesman is kind of a jerk.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Test results:
I ran through Axis and Allies on a 21 dual blades/ninjitsu stalker, on Heroic. I was able to defeat the new version of Maiden Justice (who spawned as an EB) after two tries. I did not use any temp powers, but I did eat 6 purple inspirations (two at a time) and had the assistance of Schadenfreude and 2 Stormtroopers. Without Unyielding, the new Maiden Justice was very vulnerable to knockback from the 5th Column allies, which helped mitigate damage by a lot. She did get to use her Dull Pain, which helped prolong things long enough to wear me out of all my purple inspirations, though.
My 21 stalker is slotted with DOs and normally runs at 20.77% defense to all positions when unhidden.
With those results, I think Maiden Justice should definitely be easy enough for most soloers to handle.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
[ QUOTE ]
I'll try again now you've added friendly ambushes...
[/ QUOTE ]
Wait, do friendly ambushes work now? For the longest time only one critter from the ambush would actually move from its spawn location.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
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Wait, do friendly ambushes work now? For the longest time only one critter from the ambush would actually move from its spawn location.
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Huh! That would explain a lot. In my testing, the friendly ambushes would act just like you describe. I had assumed they just had poor pathfinding on the ruined Atlas Park map due to the broken terrain.
I ended up removing them and putting in an easier AV instead.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
I know another reviewer is relying heavily on TVTropes terminology to describe story arcs, and I thought it would be a fun exercise to apply this method to my own story arc. And so:
Synopsis of Axis and Allies (arc id #1379)
with helpful links to TVTropes!
[SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS]
The story begins when our Villain Protagonist meets up with an archetypical Evil Blonde in Black Leather. The Baroness wants to send you back in time to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. Specifically, she wants you to assassinate Adolf Hitler, who has Outlived His Usefulness due to the fact that historically, he was a General Failure.
So you time travel to Nazi Germany in order to kill Hitler. Now, normally this would run afoul of Hitler's Time Travel Exemption, but since the goal of this endeavour is to create an Alternate History where the Axis wins World War II, Godwin's Law of Time Travel (i.e., "The more time travel the characters do, the chance of creating a universe in which the Nazis won World War II approaches one") ends up taking precedence.
And because Asskicking Equals Authority, once you defeat the Evil Overlord you discover that You Kill It You Bought It, and you become the Unexpected Successor to the Evil Overlord of the Third Reich. Your status as a Super Villain makes you Stupid Jetpack Hitler, the Superpowered Führer! You Are In Command Now!
In order to Set Right What Once Went Wrong for more General Failures, you head to Dunkirk on the Western Front, where as a One Man Army you take out The Brigadier, defeat the British Army and force The French to surrender.
In the next mission, you move to the Eastern Front as you are forced to rescue yet another General Failure from the Dirty Communists surrounding him at Stalingrad.
In the final mission, Invasion America begins as Nazis with Gnarly Weapons conduct a bombardment of Atlas Park to soften it up. You arrive on the scene and link up with your Stormtroopers, as well as your contact, the Dark Chick, who you end up having to rescue, proving that she's really just a Faux Action Girl.
Once you get your Red Shirt Army together, you fight through the US Army and ultimately confront the Hot Amazon who is the Last of Her Kind. It's democracy's Darkest Hour, but she declares You Shall Not Pass and makes a heroic Last Stand. Unfortunately for the Lady of War, the Villain is the Protagonist, and so The Bad Guy Wins.
You end up capturing the President and forcing him to Kneel Before Zod, and the arc finishes as you successfully Take Over the World.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
I love it! 
Dang, I should do this for my own arcs - I do abuse quite a few tropes on purpose there.
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
You missed one.
Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act
Also, to set Right What Once Went Wrong presupposes that Nazi Germany should have won WW2. If you're prepared to argue this then you are no longer playing w/ military tactical/strategic games. Like it or not, even though you think morality can be divorced from this subject, ANY Nazi winning WW2 and taking over the world, whether it's Hitler or you as the player after a power coup, is wrong. There is nothing to set right here.
I would recommend watching Mel brooks' The Producers to see how a very earnest Nazi playwright gets his "Springtime for Hitler" completely turned into a joke. That author seems as unaware that nothing positive emerge from glorifying Nazis.
If you had said in your arc that assasinating Hitler restores sanity to Germany, and then proceed to fight on purely military grounds, the arc might avoid a morality check. But you make the player the new Fuhrer, w/out denouncing the Nazi Party or its extermination policies.
As you reminded me, the devs are far more guilty of this w/ Axis America already in the game. And as I said in your blog, it looks like we'll see more of the same in the coming I15 TFs w/ the return of Reichsman, the Nazi Statesman/Superman.
Oh yeah. I figured since the proper name of the National Socialist Party gets flagged as a bad word, if I named my mob 'Der Fuehrer' I thought I'd get content based complaints. So that's why he's 'Furor' and not 'Fuehrer' or 'Hitler'.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"