Arc 67335: Teen Phalanx Forever!

Okay, I chose Teen Phalanx Forever, mostly because I have a toon in a Teen themed group, with an alliance to another SG called the "Teen Phalanx". I originally assumed that it was something of a vanity arc for the SG - an assumption which was quickly squashed within the first paragraph of the mission.

I had this arc solo on Selene Dioscura 30 MA/SR scrapper, fresh from a respec that left her enhancements about half empty. So, if that's not a handicap than I don't know what the heck is. And to top that off, I ran her on diff 3.

A lot of arcs are enhanced by the cohesion between the toon being played and the story itself, which caused a slight disconnect on Selene. She is NOT the Teen alt I have (she's an emp/psi defender and really completely unsuitable for soloing), and it was sort of a mind twist to consider her having a kid or taking on a teen protege (being as she's utterly looped & is pretty much a Heroic Sociopath). That's not a comment on the arc itself, just a comment on where my head was.

So. Teen Phalanx Forever.

Kid, potentially future kid, versions of many of our Signature heroes. This is classic comic book fare, although not my perferred flavor of story, but on top of that this arc has another classic theme of teen hero stories: SHIPPING! Oh, not just the kids themselves but their progenitors. Manti/Sister Psy, Citadel/Luminary, Valk/Valk (asexual parthenogenesis, I *knew* it!), and BAB/No One! Seriously, can't BABsey get any love? He's a handsome black man with big hands. Trust me, I know people who would line up around the block to get at that. Ah well...

The story ran smoothly throughout the entire arc, so there's really no moment that I felt was broken here or there or that I had exceptional problems with. Obviously the allies pretty much carried the missions once they were assembled (another theme brought to the fore: Teamwork conquers all). It was good to see those low level AVs, since I primarily play redside, so I'd actually never seen Dr. Vahz before and my experience on the Synapse TF was pretty late at night so I never really got a good look at the Clockwork King.

Monitor Duty Mish was one of the most clever missions I've yet seen executed, definitely in the top five.

Was the final mission's boss a redesign of Vandal or one of the Vandal models? I could see that was what you were going for, but I didn't quite see whether or not it had his cannon-hand. If it was a redesign from the MA critter creator, it was very well done. Oh, the RoboTP ambush took quite some time to get to us, so we had already beaten the boss by the time they got there. I don't know if you want to "re-place" where they spawn from.

All in all, a great arc and I will probably recommend it to a number of folks in my SG/VGs for people to play. I think folks who really enjoy classic teen hero flavor will enjoy it more than I, but that's no criticism.

On the issue of the allies, I really wasn't in the mish for the tickets or the XP (which is pretty much not an issue in the first two missions anyway), but I can see that some people have been upset with "kill steals" or whatever. My only complaint on the members of the TP is that there is no buffer. Given Cora's parentage, I think maybe it would be thematically reasonable to switch her secondary to Force Field. Two offensive sets on her seem to be really unnecessary since we have plenty of DPS kicking out when the whole team gets together. Actually, I guess she is a debuffer with the TA, but still, I wasn't feeling the debuffs at the time.

Anyway, a very enjoyable Arc, runs fast, and great for the solo! I can see why the arc is getting a lot of positive buzz and is appearing on a lot of 5 Star lists.

Changes made:
* Changed all Teen Phalanxers to Lieutenants (formerly were Bosses) as a result of consistent feedback from multiple players that they hit too hard and do too much damage.
* Most of my testing has been on Heroic difficulty where they were nerfed to Lieutenants anyway, and they are unchanged at this difficulty level, so I'm hoping Heroic missions will remain the same while the Tenacious through Unyielding missions will be better balanced.
* I think the allies as lieutenants will work well against enemies up to EB level, but may die too easily against enemies who spawn as AVs. None of the bosses should be AVs while solo unless playing at Invincible (which I figure players do at their own risk).
* Will be testing at various difficulty levels on various toons throughout the week.
* Please let me know if you find this arc too difficult now! It's tricky to balance between not making this too hard and not making it too easy, so any input on play balance would be appreciated.


Thanks also to twelfth for the detailed review! I love the comments on the themes of kid sidekicks, hero 'shipping, and teamwork. I was definitely trying to reinforce the idea that working as a team would let you do stuff that you couldn't do alone (thus all the AVs in a solo arc).

I hadn't even thought of the 'shipping theme as a real theme until you pointed it out, but yeah, I do pair off a lot of the adult heroes as "parents" for the sidekicks. Kid Valkyrie's description actually mentions that Positron designed her armor, so she sort-of has two parents, but yes, poor Back Alley Boy doesn't have a mom. This is because Back Alley Brawler doesn't have a female hero traditionally associated with him (that I know of, anyway), and BAB and BABy are both "street" heroes, and I thought it would be more "street" for BABy to be an abandoned street kid that got adopted.

Anyway, thanks much for the run through and the kind words!

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My only complaint on the members of the TP is that there is no buffer. Given Cora's parentage, I think maybe it would be thematically reasonable to switch her secondary to Force Field. Two offensive sets on her seem to be really unnecessary since we have plenty of DPS kicking out when the whole team gets together. Actually, I guess she is a debuffer with the TA, but still, I wasn't feeling the debuffs at the time.

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Archery/FF could make sense for her too, but Cora just has too much attitude to really be a "buffer", and that attitude is what makes her Manticora and not Kid Psyche. Both psy blast and TA have some nice debuffs attached, though, and the AI seems to handle her pretty well (melee AI tends to be screwy, and I still can't get my */pain ally to regularly buff, but Cora pretty reliably fires off debuff arrows and psy blasts), so I actually think she is one of the more helpful allies.

AI seems to handle her pretty well ...

It occurred to me that the AI issues might be why the decision was made, but yeah. Kid Psyche she's not. I also forgot about Posi in Kid Valk's bio. Maybe some laboratory assistance was used? I mean, all that radiation has to be bad for Posi's swimmers.

Teen Phalanx Forever! won 1st place in Projectionist's Mission Architect Contest!! I'm so psyched!



Projectionist wrote:
"An absolute blast to experience this arc with the brilliant premise; that you are not even playing your own character. With its well written humor and clever use of AE mechanics, the whole arc manages to be a tribute to your character and to the game itself. It’s an arc every one of my high level heroes will play. Every mission is a mini-adventure in itself."

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Changes made:
* Changed all Teen Phalanxers to Lieutenants (formerly were Bosses) as a result of consistent feedback from multiple players that they hit too hard and do too much damage.

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I ended up reverting this change out. I did two test runs, one with the Teen Phalanx characters created as lieutenants, and one with the Teen Phalanx characters created as bosses (but nerfed to lieutenant level due to Heroic difficulty).

Ran both on the same character [EDIT: a level 8 SS/SR brute with TOs; admittedly low level, but I felt it a valid test as I want this to be doable by players who are on the low end of the power scale] and found the arc was much more playable in the latter test. Despite both sets of Teens being labeled lieutenants, the downgraded bosses were significantly tougher and had better power selections and seemed to have better AI.

I was able to get through the arc and defeat all the EBs in both tests, but it was quite straightforward with the downgraded bosses, while the lieutenant versions were extremely squishy, frequently dying to exploding Embalmed Cadavers or getting 1-shotted by EBs; in that test I frequently ended the mission at low life and having lost 1 or 2 team members.

Since one of the themes of the arc is that teamwork makes you stronger, I felt that barely winning with most of your team dead would send the wrong message. So I've decided I can accept having the allies make things a little too easy, in order to maintain this theme.

Teen Phalanx on the forums!

Bubbawheat's Review of Teen Phalanx Forever!: "I had a lot of fun playing this arc, I enjoyed all the in-jokes, and the mechanics of it, and I rated it 5 stars."

LaserJesus cites Teen Phalanx as an example in response to someone's wishlist request in "Things You'll Never Be Able To Make in the MA".

ProPayne re-plays Teen Phalanx and says "I also re-played PW's Teen Phalanx arc! I just wanted to mention here that I love the rewrites! With the new additions, this arc is a solid 5-star arc (in my opinion, of course), no questions asked!"

EvaDestruction mentions The kind of awesomeness "Teen Phalanx" has.

I won't post a lengthy review, just wanted to say I just ran this with my lvl 50 Inv/SS tanker and it was a lot of fun. One of the most fun arcs I've played, and I've run a lot of 'em. Certainly better than some of the DC arcs. 5 stars.

@GlaziusF

Playin' on a mid-20s mind/kin controller, diff 3 not that it'll make much difference. Just wonder how it's all going to shake out this second time through.

Just to get a little meta in here, this kid's a very rough take on somebody from the Teen Titans cartoon.

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Thanks for not putting me into the training room, Coyote... but the malfunctioning training room is practically a staple of these sorts of things. How much space you got?

I don't know if it's something about her power set or what, but Manticora is first to get left behind and last to actually hit anything. Maybe it's just luck on my part.

Oof. This is a twisted little scheme here. I was going to make a joke about SZM seeks SLF for life-changing experience but then I saw the customs in the last room. Actual morbidity tends to put a damper on black humor.

Can they be boss-class? Lieutenant-class, at least? Miss Valk likes to put a throwing knife through their eyeballs at 50 paces and that has a way of turning a minion into a rapidly vanishing speed bump.

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Coyote needs a contact description, by the way.

Aw, Valk. I'm in a supergroup that I like too! :3

Shame these guys haven't farmed up enough Mechanical Lords faction to get their anti-mez trinkets.

Penny needs to mention her aura somehow. "Look guys, I know I'm glowing, but that doesn't make me an NPC!"

Kingy also needs to dip into the miasma a bit. "ZONE QUEST! 100 psychobrass pieces to whoever rids me of this bothersome Teen Phalanx!"

Loved the poster.

Hmm though. If this is supposed to be a Teen Phalanx arc, then aren't we in the future? Hasn't Penny grown up a bit by now? (I didn't check her description though.)

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Ah, monitor duty.

I still think that something in the base should be trying to eat me alive, though.

(Also think the note for Citadel 2.0 shouldn't seem to come from Kid Valk in the most bizarre team infighting ever. Maybe sign it "Longhorn"? That was the internal beta name for Vista.)

Irony Alert: Staring at the monitor for an interminable amount of time gave me the "Poor Impulse Control" badge.

(The clue from the monitor should probably also "come after" the contents of the lockers and fridge. I checked all of 'em first.)

...huh. Guess this is another bug with timed missions. When Clamor mowed down Kid Valk, the mission failed. Hoping they fix this soon.

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I didn't exactly see Clamor's confession, but in I go... and the first thing I wonder is, how much can you recolor these enemies to be "Citadel" blue and black?

Tactics + speed boost now that I have access to both of 'em is producing hilarious results in some of these big rooms - when I control a spawn the Phalanx just zips over to the next run.

And now Cora's a lot more eager to get into scraps. It's probably just the Tactics talking but it feels right for story purposes.

Vista himself gets shredded between the allies. I drop a Mass Hyp on his help and wait for everyone else to shred through 'em.

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Storyline - *****. My suggestions for things to add are... well, things to add. A mission where the training room goes hilariously wrong, a little more "in-world commentary" from NPCs in the World of Clockwork, the combined detritus of the base trying to rip my face off. The story as it is doesn't suffer from their absence.

Design - ****. Little things here and there.- Penny Yin's model not changing, the custom group of Vista's supporters being basically a brushed-aside afterthought with the Phalanx in full fury, the Vahz brides being too speedbumpy to really get a fix on (same's true of the roboPhalanx to be honest).

Gameplay - *****. Smooth. No backtracking. Interesting fights. What else is there?

Detail - *****. This is pretty solid too. About the only thing I'd ask for are more interesting bug texts from Coyote.

Overall - *****. No reason to pull it down from this, though. The idea's definitely made me want to see more of it get fleshed out, but there aren't really words for how stupid it would be to hold that against you.

Thanks for the nice review!

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Coyote needs a contact description, by the way.


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I've now cut and pasted in the canonical "Coyote" description. (This text field didn't exist when this arc was originally published.)

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Kingy also needs to dip into the miasma a bit. "ZONE QUEST! 100 psychobrass pieces to whoever rids me of this bothersome Teen Phalanx!"

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I love this idea. I'm replacing his "Boss 1/2 Health" line with something close to this line. The clockwork ambush that is triggered at this time is changed from regular clockwork to Clockwork Adventurers, and they now say:

Clockwork Range: ZOMG! It's a dynamic zone quest! Let's get 'em!

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Loved the poster.

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Haha, this clue was fun to make.

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Guess this is another bug with timed missions. When Clamor mowed down Kid Valk, the mission failed. Hoping they fix this soon.

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Ugh, I think that IS a bug. That didn't used to happen. I'm going to leave it as is for now (I think removing the timer would cause the mission to make less sense) and hope it gets fixed.

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the custom group of Vista's supporters being basically a brushed-aside afterthought with the Phalanx in full fury, the Vahz brides being too speedbumpy to really get a fix on (same's true of the roboPhalanx to be honest).

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Truthfully, I have purposely made all the custom mobs as easy as possible (minion level with few powers). I'm hesitant to make them much stronger, because the level range for the arc is 15+ and it's way too easy to make a custom mob that overpowers low level characters.

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Overall - *****.

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Thanks much! I've just republished with a couple of the changes you suggested (contact info, funnier line for the clockwork ambush).

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Guess this is another bug with timed missions. When Clamor mowed down Kid Valk, the mission failed. Hoping they fix this soon.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ugh, I think that IS a bug. That didn't used to happen. I'm going to leave it as is for now (I think removing the timer would cause the mission to make less sense) and hope it gets fixed.

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Yep, bug. Allies who die on timed missions cause it to fail. In an admittedly quick and unscientific test it didn't happen with an ally who was not a required objective though, so that might be a possible workaround.

[ QUOTE ]
Yep, bug. Allies who die on timed missions cause it to fail. In an admittedly quick and unscientific test it didn't happen with an ally who was not a required objective though, so that might be a possible workaround.

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I don't think you can chain off an non-required objective. That would mess up the flow of that particular mission.

A Teen Phalanx update!



Projectionist sent me a concept drawing for the Teen Phalanx art he is working on:



With this sketch, he wrote:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Projectionist "I've struggled with composition trying to fit the phalanx and all the enemies in the same cover shot. I finally managed a rather simple composition sketch that I'm rather psyched about so I've attached it for your approval. The phalanx will be in the middle like a strong central pillar with Valkyrie's wings like an overshadowing ornament. Surrounded by Clamor (and some Freaks hopefully), Dr Vahz, a bride and some zombies in front and Clockwork King and some sprockets. I haven't decided how to make the interaction between the logo and Val's wings/sword but there should be some cool options. A couple of text boxes are planned at the bottom like before. A bit reminiscent of Star Wars but hopefully I'll make it somewhat original "

I really rather like it. Looking forward to seeing the finished result.





Teen Phalanx Forever! won 1st place for "Best Single Origin Level Arc" in the Players' Choice Awards, against some very tough competition. The voting looked very close for most of the voting period, but a groundswell of support near the end put Teen Phalanx over the top. Thanks for the support, everyone!


Teen Phalanx Forever! was a nominee for "Best Hero Arc" at the Architect Awards at HeroCon, also against some pretty tough competition. Didn't win, but got some nice publicity as a result.


The Sisterhood SG on Liberty server ran a Teen Phalanx supergroup event. Two teams with a total of fifteen players ran through the story arc; people seemed to really like it. This was really cool.


Finally, I did some minor tweaking of the "Robotic Teen Phalanx" enemy group. This enemy group is purely a throwaway joke ambush in the final fight, and was originally all minions, so was heavily exp-penalized. I promoted "RoboBABy" to be lieutenant rank, and added "Citadel ME", a recolored Siege Android boss, at the boss rank; this gives the group at least one mob of each rank, so should no longer be exp penalized.

Minor tweaks:

1. Reworded the first line of mission 1 briefing to:

[NOTE: For this story arc, you are playing a teen sidekick of your hero.]

Hopefully this is clearer than the previous text ("a teen version of your hero") in setting up expectations. May still have anomalous results when playing a teen player character, but I figure this text works better for the 90% of the player characters who are adults.

2. Added a level 11-20 Clockwork boss to the "Clockwork Adventurers" custom faction in order to improve their exp. (Testing showed this faction was awarding reduced exp; I tracked this down to the fact that I had mistakenly added a level 1-10 Clockwork boss, who couldn't spawn at level 20 and so didn't count.)

3. Changed level ranges to 15-20, 15-20, 20-25, 25-30 (was 15-20, 20-20, 20-25, 29-30), to more closely mirror the equivalent story arcs and task forces that the individual missions are modeled on.


Projectionist also sent me this update of the Teen Phalanx art he is working on:



I really like it.

That's a very snazzy cover, gj on Projectionist for that one. I especially like how CK looks angry despite just being a brain with two eyeballs.

Change log:
- Clockwork Mage, Clockwork Ranger changed to use custom exp scales. They have the exact same powers, but now award 85% exp instead of 75% exp.
- Vahzilok Bride changed to use custom exp scales, added Strike. Now awards 100% exp instead of 75% exp.
- Fixed RoboCora's costume (messed up due to metallic textures changing), changed to use custom exp, added Fistful of Arrows. Now awards 100% exp instead of 75% exp.
- Fixed RoboVal's costume (messed up due to metallic textures changing), changed to use custom exp, added Hack. Now awards 95% exp instead of 75% exp.
- Changed RoboBABy to use custom exp, added Haymaker. Now awards 91% exp instead of 75% exp.

Exp in general is still fairly nerfed due to the patch that punishes you for having allies, hostages or objects, but can't really address that yet.

Projectionist sent me this terrific cover for the Teen Phalanx comic book. I really like it, especially the amount of detail. (This is a 20% size version of the original...)

Thanks so much, Projectionist!

Awesome cover PW, congrats! Has TPF hit HoF yet? It so needs to!

That is AWESOME, PW! Great work, Projectionist!

I'm pleased to report that Teen Phalanx Forever! has reached Hall of Fame status. It was a long road and I wasn't sure it would ever quite make it, but always hoped.

Many thanks to everyone who sent their teen sidekicks to play the arc, especially those who rated it, reviewed it and/or left feedback. Player feedback, over time, improved this arc a lot.


Teen Phalanx Forever!

Congratulations!

Congratz! Now this means I should start and play it too

I wish there was a way to get rid of the bogus Arcs sitting on high rates.... But that is for another thread.

Congratz, PW!

At long last. This arc certainly deserves it!

Mega-gratz!! Long overdue, PW and very well-deserved

Congrats PW! A well-deserved honor on an arc that literally should have been HoF years ago.