[IMG] #1013 - Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine

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Turg I just realized you dropped the ball.

There is no souvenier. An' now ya can't edit it!!
OH KNOEZ!!

Well it doesn't matter, 'cause witout a souvengier I've already fergottena bout ol' Dana.

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Dude. There's totally a souvenir. WTH are you smoking?

I'd go in and CHECK, but someone brought the servers down an hour early... ;( Seriously though, it's under Architect Souvenir as "Sunglare's HeroID" I think. Huge block of text too. It BETTER have carried off, cuz that's where most of my fricking writing went.

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Ran this last night >.< was too tired to come on the forums and review then; but I wanted to say:


Wow. <. .> Seriously - I was pretty well blown away. CoH has, in it's entirety, managed to choke me up 3 times - this arc was one of those.


For that, I can only say "Bravo!"










Also please make more >_<; <,< >.>

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A Warrior's Friend: ID 335212 - Help Infernal save Valkyrie from Battle Maiden.
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>.> My DA page, where I attempt to art.

qr I think it's too cool that your arc number for act 1 is 1013.

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@Quasadu

"We must prepare for DOOM and hope for FREEM." - SirFrederick

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Turg I just realized you dropped the ball.

There is no souvenier. An' now ya can't edit it!!
OH KNOEZ!!

Well it doesn't matter, 'cause witout a souvengier I've already fergottena bout ol' Dana.

[/ QUOTE ]

...

Dude. There's totally a souvenir. WTH are you smoking?

I'd go in and CHECK, but someone brought the servers down an hour early... ;( Seriously though, it's under Architect Souvenir as "Sunglare's HeroID" I think. Huge block of text too. It BETTER have carried off, cuz that's where most of my fricking writing went.

[/ QUOTE ] I got the Souvenir when I played it. It works just fine.

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Okay. I'm picking this comment out from a particular user (Knight_Equitable) because I feel it brings up a big "design challenge" in the arc and custom mobs. Posting with permission, of course.


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Just ran your arc with a lv 50 wp/ss tank, i liked it a lot, only one thing that i found frustrating was when on the timed mish she fights when escorting back, i think running with a full team on invc that might be hard to complete. ambushes and bosses where no problem for me. also are the one villian type suppose to have numbers for names, i might of missed that in the reading. over all very good going to run it later on invc.

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First, thanks for taking the time to msg me.

About that timed mish: Well, my "stress test" with that was running it on Invinc with a team of 6, and we did fairly well; the trick from what I'm reading on all the comments thus far (and I log all the msgs I get for review) is that people will see the timer, think "oh [censored]!", and run to the end to save her... which to a degree is the response I want. I want you to react, not act, even through the best recipe for success is thinking before acting.

I wanted that mission to be tough; frantic; with a high possibility of failure. That mission, I felt, accomplished it; but yeah, the biggest headache on that are the mobs themselves.

I think a change in balance for that Sys.Def group is what's called for, from what I've read. I've gone through all the comments people have offered (yes, I log them all to text file for review, and YES, it's a really frickin' text log... XD), and the most common complaint I've heard is from melee builds in combating the Sys.Def Lieutenant class. Right now, I've got this:

Minion: Nrg/nrg blaster
Lt: Illusion/FF
Boss: Nrg/Nrg brute

...and what's KILLING everyone are the Lt's when they throw down Spectral Terrors (and the live version has the weakest version I can give, and it still has ST) and when they stack their defense bubbles, it potentially makes the Sys.Defs near unhittable.

Some builds can manage this w/o issue, particularly controllers who can do ranged mezzings - then the mish becomes relatively easy. Melee builds? The tough-o-meter goes up considerably, especially with stacked Spectral Terrors. In a small hallway. With mobs who are otherwise very capable of smearing you on the tiles on their own, without their angry Lt. sister looking over their shoulder.

You get the drift.

What I intend to do is swap the Lt's and Bosses, to put the really nasty bits on the top level of the spawn chain, so, if you're on a full team, on Invinc, THEN they'll come out to play, but not in large quantities. Right now, even on a 6-team invinc, you risk getting 5 or 6 Spectral Terrors stacked.

...hysterical in hindsight, but I think I gave more than a few melee types a heart attack with that one.

After some similar commentaries during Test, I'd begun to rebalance the Sys.Def crew to match my suggestion above. I was going to republish it, but then the arc got locked for the Live migration. So, rest assured, this will be mollified a bit on a later version!

Lastly: Yes, the Sys.Defs are supposed to have numbers for names. Those are hexidecimal iterations of a number string I chose. You could try taking the #'s into hex and converting it to decimal, but it's not much of a spoiler.

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Turg you shouldn't be thinkin about editin nothing.

Yer mish is OBVIOUSLY good enuff fer the devs, that makes it more then good enuff fer the unclean masses.

What you SHOULD be thinkin about is yer pielovin second act.

Just because people whine about a mish bein too hard doesn't mean ya gotta cave in ta all of'm.

If people don't like it they kin go play the pharm missions an' leave all the real stuff ta us l33t kids.

pie

JFS
-The Legendary J-Man-

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Just ran this with my thug/dark mm on vicious was almost to easy. I am ready to do this with a 8 man mm team on relentless I think that would be insanity at its best.

On a side note I would have to agree with J-Man don't change anything at this point, I am ready for part two.

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Lastly: Yes, the Sys.Defs are supposed to have numbers for names. Those are hexidecimal iterations of a number string I chose. You could try taking the #'s into hex and converting it to decimal, but it's not much of a spoiler.

[/ QUOTE ] I actually converted them, and LoL'd.

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Just finished this on my lvl 38 claws/sr scrapper. I needed it set on heroic, I would not have wanted to play act 4 on invinc!

It was amazingly good. Seriously. If you haven't played it yet get in game and do yourself a favour.

I warn you though, if your an author yourself, you might want to skip it. This arc sets a new height for how good MA can be. I almost wish I could take the 5 stars I've given out back, cause in comparission to this they were obviously only worth 4.

Lucy Greenleaf.

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Yer mish is OBVIOUSLY good enuff fer the devs, that makes it more then good enuff fer the unclean masses.

[/ QUOTE ]Wow, I can't imagine how this attitude could be bad.

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Yer mish is OBVIOUSLY good enuff fer the devs, that makes it more then good enuff fer the unclean masses.

[/ QUOTE ]Wow, I can't imagine how this attitude could be bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

You don't know J. The man is a walking, absestos-eating flame thread with a mouth the size of the Mt. St. Helens caldera. Take it in stride. He's got a heart of gold, but man, he takes the skill of forum aggro to Incarnate level. XD

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Boy, that was a pretty good arc.

I burn with seething jealousy. Is there a cream for that?

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[ QUOTE ]
Boy, that was a pretty good arc.

I burn with seething jealousy. Is there a cream for that?

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Well, there's a name I haven't seen in a bit. Heya Luc. Glad you dug it!

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Jaw-droppingly good arc, Turg. I can't remember the last time I was able to shake my fist at my monitor shouting "Noo!" at an ending before realizing that its part 1 of 3. Five gold stars for you.

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[ QUOTE ]
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Lastly: Yes, the Sys.Defs are supposed to have numbers for names. Those are hexidecimal iterations of a number string I chose. You could try taking the #'s into hex and converting it to decimal, but it's not much of a spoiler.

[/ QUOTE ] I actually converted them, and LoL'd.

[/ QUOTE ]How sharing with us who have no idea what you are talking about?

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In the Arena of Logic, I fight unarmed.

Just have to jump on the bandwagon here - Fantastic story. I loved it. I've been doing nothing but MA stories since launch and this one stands out. I'd say on average 1 out of 10 are worthy of praise, and this one stands out among the praise-worthy. I can't wait for the 2nd installment. The bar has been raised, and I truly hope everyone strives to meet the challenge. I know I have a lot of work to do before I publish mine now. I can only hope everyone else takes pause before hitting that 'publish' button and ask themselves if it measures up. If just a fraction of the MA content in this game can siddle up along side this (in terms of quality and innovation), then this game has just had years added to it's shelf-life.

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Lastly: Yes, the Sys.Defs are supposed to have numbers for names. Those are hexidecimal iterations of a number string I chose. You could try taking the #'s into hex and converting it to decimal, but it's not much of a spoiler.

[/ QUOTE ] I actually converted them, and LoL'd.

[/ QUOTE ]How sharing with us who have no idea what you are talking about?

[/ QUOTE ]

Gin'zago is Dani's father.

...oh, wait, that's not right. No, seriously, converting the hex just gives you "1111111111111111" for the minion name, "22222 etc" for the Lt, and "33333 etc" for the boss. I was horribly tired the night I named the Sys.Defs. There. Spoiler revealed. I TOLD you it wasn't much, just a funny peek at how my mind works.

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Lastly: Yes, the Sys.Defs are supposed to have numbers for names. Those are hexidecimal iterations of a number string I chose. You could try taking the #'s into hex and converting it to decimal, but it's not much of a spoiler.

[/ QUOTE ] I actually converted them, and LoL'd.

[/ QUOTE ]How sharing with us who have no idea what you are talking about?

[/ QUOTE ] I figured you could run the arc and convert it yourself if you were curious enough about it.

I didn't want to spoil it for Turg.

As you can see, he just gave you the spoiler himself in the previous post anyway. The seemingly random numbers the foes have is really a repeated string when translated from hex to decimal.

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Mateo: Not a spoiler really, like I said, it's just more insight on how I shorthand stuff. Maybe I should do intentional easter eggs in my arcs?

Update: I'm kinda concerned about a bunch of comments I got yesterday on the first boss (mish 1, at the end) being too hard (causing the players to walk away). I got about 5 of them yesterday, but nothing else was mentioned at all last week (mostly it's about the Lieutenants).

I haven't played it yet to confirm, but anyone have opinions with their boss fight on the first map? I tested with 3 different toons (controller, blaster, scrapper), and I did fine each time, but I was also on Heroic to Unyielding at the time.

Lemme know, I have an update finalized excepting this bit, more feedback would be good.

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[ QUOTE ]
Mateo: Not a spoiler really, like I said, it's just more insight on how I shorthand stuff. Maybe I should do intentional easter eggs in my arcs?

Update: I'm kinda concerned about a bunch of comments I got yesterday on the first boss (mish 1, at the end) being too hard (causing the players to walk away). I got about 5 of them yesterday, but nothing else was mentioned at all last week (mostly it's about the Lieutenants).

I haven't played it yet to confirm, but anyone have opinions with their boss fight on the first map? I tested with 3 different toons (controller, blaster, scrapper), and I did fine each time, but I was also on Heroic to Unyielding at the time.

Lemme know, I have an update finalized excepting this bit, more feedback would be good.

[/ QUOTE ]

The final boss on mission 1 only gave me a problem one time (I think I've played your arc about 3-4 times so far?). The one time I had a problem, I was on a squishy toon with my husband on his tank. He aggro'd a patrol in that room, and I aggro'd the boss. I went to help him w/ the patrol (I was higher level and he was having a hard time). By the time we got to the boss, he had all his buddies out to play with, and they slaughtered us. I'm pretty sure we were on Heroic.

Still not bad though. Just make sure you concentrate on the boss first, and leave surrounding mobs for later...

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46 Toons on Freedom, 1988+ Levels, 17 Level 50's
The Freedom Horde on Facebook
Globals: @Luna de Nocturne & @Luna Moone
Luna on Facebook (Feel Free to Add!)

[ QUOTE ]
Mateo: Not a spoiler really, like I said, it's just more insight on how I shorthand stuff. Maybe I should do intentional easter eggs in my arcs?

Update: I'm kinda concerned about a bunch of comments I got yesterday on the first boss (mish 1, at the end) being too hard (causing the players to walk away). I got about 5 of them yesterday, but nothing else was mentioned at all last week (mostly it's about the Lieutenants).

I haven't played it yet to confirm, but anyone have opinions with their boss fight on the first map? I tested with 3 different toons (controller, blaster, scrapper), and I did fine each time, but I was also on Heroic to Unyielding at the time.

Lemme know, I have an update finalized excepting this bit, more feedback would be good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey Turg... true life confession, here. I ran through it again on Live and the boss on mission #1 handed me my [censored] like seven times in a row. I was on 'Rugged' with my 50 Dom. I had to walk away 'cuz I couldn't get through it or find teammates. I've made it before, but I can totally understand some casual players having trouble with him and never being able to enjoy the rest of the arc.

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DB background
DB at the bookstore
DB in the movies
DB is wanted by FBI

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Mateo: Not a spoiler really, like I said, it's just more insight on how I shorthand stuff. Maybe I should do intentional easter eggs in my arcs?

Update: I'm kinda concerned about a bunch of comments I got yesterday on the first boss (mish 1, at the end) being too hard (causing the players to walk away). I got about 5 of them yesterday, but nothing else was mentioned at all last week (mostly it's about the Lieutenants).

I haven't played it yet to confirm, but anyone have opinions with their boss fight on the first map? I tested with 3 different toons (controller, blaster, scrapper), and I did fine each time, but I was also on Heroic to Unyielding at the time.

Lemme know, I have an update finalized excepting this bit, more feedback would be good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey Turg... true life confession, here. I ran through it again on Live and the boss on mission #1 handed me my [censored] like seven times in a row. I was on 'Rugged' with my 50 Dom. I had to walk away 'cuz I couldn't get through it or find teammates. I've made it before, but I can totally understand some casual players having trouble with him and never being able to enjoy the rest of the arc.

[/ QUOTE ]

*scratches head*

Huh. I can see how Luna's encounter would have gone awry if they didn't do some reasonable flanking work for the fight; but even with your Dominator? Can you try running him on Villainous for comparison?

I honestly didn't take villain ATs into account (I thought at the time that flagging an arc as "Heroic" was enough to lock out villains, but I was wrong) when I built the AVs. The stock classes are pretty even keel though...

Hrm. Testing this tonight then, I can borrow a bud's Dominator and try it on that difficulty for comparison. Can you try it on the default Challenge: 1 setting?

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*scratches head*

Huh. I can see how Luna's encounter would have gone awry if they didn't do some reasonable flanking work for the fight; but even with your Dominator? Can you try running him on Villainous for comparison?

I honestly didn't take villain ATs into account (I thought at the time that flagging an arc as "Heroic" was enough to lock out villains, but I was wrong) when I built the AVs. The stock classes are pretty even keel though...

Hrm. Testing this tonight then, I can borrow a bud's Dominator and try it on that difficulty for comparison. Can you try it on the default Challenge: 1 setting?

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Hey Turg... I think I'd just left the setting on Rugged by accident and was too lazy to change it. Usually my Dom eats anything Rugged, however. Dom's are a fairly good test toon because they have so few HPs and defense/damage resist options... and well hey what can I say I love Doms.

**SPOILER ALERT (but probably nothin' major)**






I can't recall exactly but I may also not have done a full clear. I remember that my Singularity pet was definitely giving me random aggro problems and I was turning him on/off. I'm pretty sure Ginzago was a +2 EB. The first time I went down I am pretty sure I ignored my Accolades and could've Phase Shifted... but was just testing. The next time I did the same thing, but I got mad. The third time he beat me down I was angry and definitely used (abused?) some Accolade and Temp powers... but he still got me.... then got me again... then I realized there was a kind of horrible inequity in the fight that I couldn't figure out how to overcome... and, reluctantly, I had to give up and leave unrated. When I ran it on Test, I don't recall any major issues with the first mission boss.

I don't want to give you inaccurate feedback so will test again right now on... Malicious. I'll let you know how that goes and if it doesn't go well I'll actually listen to the author's note and run solo on the lowest difficutly. I've already played/rated your arc on Test so please know that ignoring MA authors' instructions (a new habit I'm developing) would never affect my rating ... hopefully just help test, etc. Anyhow... I love the dialogue and scale of this arc... here we go!

EDIT: or not, the servers are locked right now following the publication of today's patch

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DB background
DB at the bookstore
DB in the movies
DB is wanted by FBI

<QR>
I've got a mid 30's dom I've been wanting to work on, so I'll run this arc either tonight or tomorrow afternoon on the villian equivalent of Rugged to see what happens. I'll probably die some, cause that tends to happen to me, but she's an Earth Dom, so I should be able to lock that boss down and get him taken care of. I'll let you know the results.

Luna

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46 Toons on Freedom, 1988+ Levels, 17 Level 50's
The Freedom Horde on Facebook
Globals: @Luna de Nocturne & @Luna Moone
Luna on Facebook (Feel Free to Add!)

Heya Luna:

If you can do that on Villainous and Rugged for a back-to-back comparison, I'd be grateful. My access to Doms of 20+ is now restricted (account cancelled). =/

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