Arc 126582: "Two Households Alike"

Arc Name: "Two Households Alike"
Arc ID: 126582
Length: Very Long (5 mission)
First Published: 4/28/2009 01:52 AM
Morality: Heroic
Description: Feuding families, star-crossed lovers...you've heard this story before. The ending sucks. Maybe you can blue-pencil in a better one.

N.B: blatantly lifted tropes from any number of places; includes more than a few easter eggs as well.

Updated 5/1: fleshed out some NPC /info, fixed typos.

A few people have noted that the faux Family custom mobs are deceptively strong. Unfortunately I was not able to get regular Family to work for me. I tried making a custom faction for each of the two sub-Families stuffed with stock mobs, but they weren't spawning properly. I'd only get one or the other, and (e.g.) hostages with guards from the one that wasn't spawning would release as soon as you entered the map. The custom guys have their sets on Standard but that still gives them better attack chains and -Defense than regular Family get. The upshot is that despite the fact this is "just a Family arc" you might need to cut your difficulty.

Two Households Alike review

Premise appears to be a remake of Romeo and Juliet, recast as a Family mob drama.

Stated level range is 20-29 hero side; I played a 28 elec/inv brute (villainous, but right level range)

Possible spoilers ahead.

Mission 1
Briefing: I'm almost surprised that the contact isn't Commissioner Escalus or Police Captain Prince or something. The two households alike in dignity are the Bianchis and Polettis, so it seems we aren't trying to make the names too similar.

"There have been occasional clashes in the past but the violence just spiked." I think this would be better rephrased as something like "There have occasionally been clashes in the past, but just recently there's been an unusual spike in the violence."

"Where they're only shooting at each other, we contain them and mop up afterwards. I've got a report just in of a skirmish breaking out in an office with some innocent bystanders caught inside, though." sounds rather dry - think it would sound a little better as "Where they're only shooting at each other, we contain them and mop up afterwards. But innocent bystanders are being caught in their latest skirmish."

I like the mission title, "Break Up Family Violence", but it doesn't quite align with what the contact asked me to do, namely, get the bystanders out as my first priority.

I like the mission entrance popup and the tone it sets.

Bianchi Capo's description: "benefitted" should be "benefited".

Was it really necesary to make all custom mobs for the Bianchi Family faction? I'm wondering if you could've made one custom Bianchi Family faction and one custom Poletti Family faction, then repurposed a bunch of generic Family and Mook mobs by including them in both?

I remember reading that you tried using standard Family mobs but had some trouble, so I created a quicky test mission to see if this would work. I made two new custom factions, "Capulet" and "Montague" and added to each of them the "Random Family Minion", "Random Family Lieutenant" and "Random Family Boss", then authored a test mission with a boss objective and 3 Battles between Capulet and Montague. Going into this in test mode, I was able to get the generic Button Man Buckshots and Gunners and Muscle to shoot each other, because some were then Capulet and some were Montague. The only problem I found is that the mob names aren't changeable, so there's some potential for confusion because both sides will have guys named "Button Man Xxx". But, each WAS correctly labeled for which faction he was in, so it's doable.

If you do stick with custom mobs, I suggest that you make the respective Families more visually distinctive from each other; perhaps have some wear suit jackets and others use dress shirts, so there are more visual cues to distinguish them. I see the Bianchi foot soldiers have dark purple suits and the Poletti foot soldiers have dark maroon sutis, but bosses of both families have black suits and they're all dark suits that look similar enough in tone that they aren't that distinct. Maybe dark purple versus pure white suits would also give some contrast? Admittedly a minor nitpick, but it'd be nice to be able to instantly distinguish the two factions by sight.

I found Rollo Poletti, who was labeled as just "Family" - should maybe be "Poletti Family". Oddly, he was with Bianchi Family soldiers, and the Bianchi Soldato helped him attack me. I would've thought they would be fighting.

I defeated Rollo, but didn't get any sort of clue from him; based on what the contact said, I would've thought he'd tell me something about what's happening.

I found Sammy Bianchi; though it was odd that he had a black suit when all his men have purple suits. I thought it was odd that he didn't give a clue either, but upon completing the mission I got a "Settling Accounts" clue that nicely explained things. I'm not sure why defeating the two underbosses was listed as even an optional goal, though; they didn't seem to give any additional information beyond what was presented.

I never actually saw any Bianchi and Poletti fighting; not sure if you had some battles set up or not, maybe they ended before I got to them. If you have room, consider adding a couple patrols of Bianchi and Poletti family that are hostile towards each other; I've had good luck using this technique to set up a chaotic firefight situation.

Good debriefing for this mission.

Mission 2
Briefing: Not sure what the acronyms OCB and DC mean in this context; I suggest you use more common terminology. Otherwise a good briefing.

I thought the Freakshow and Tsoo made sense, being additional rival gangs, but the Banished Pantheon seemed a little out of place in this mission. Maybe use some Warriors instead? (Unless I missed them somewhere.)

Enrico's background story is great. But "he like Kelly Clarkson" should be "he likes Kelly Clarkson".

Louie's background story calls him "Leo" but should call him "Lou" or "Louie" ... Also "monicker" should be "moniker".

"A Complete Mess" clue has the Polettis and Bianchis pointing fingers at each other. I think it would be helpful if you also had the various underbosses reinforce this in their dialog; maybe saying stuff like "Why're you bustin' me? It's those Bianchis who are to blame!" I saw a little bit of this when Sal says "They ain't gonna disrespect Leo like this!" which I liked, but I think you need more.

"Don Vittorio" is mentioned in "A Complete Mess" and either hasn't been introduced yet or I missed it in one of the earlier briefings. I'm guessing he is Vittorio Bianchi? Player needs a reminder here I think.

"A Complete Mess" specifically has "The Butcher" give one particular clue. This actually makes me think you should split this clue into four clues, one for each of the underbosses - each of them could give you one piece of the story (based on THEIR viewpoint) and a savvy player would be able to puzzle out what's REALLY going on once they try to fit the pieces together, while a less clue oriented player would just get told by the contact in the debriefing.

I think Sal's dying message, "my boys will get you" should be changed to "Diablo Navarra will get you" (or something similar) to reinforce the clue which says that, well, Sal tells you about Diablo Navarra is being called in. This then makes the debriefing make more sense.

Debriefing: at first this didn't make sense to me because the contact immediately starts talking about Diablo Navarra, and I didn't see the clue (which I think was awarded on mission complete) until after I started the debriefing.

"If he gets involved there is no limit to the body count" is kinda dry sounding, maybe "If he gets involved, we'll be wading hip deep in blood" or something similar.

It would've been nice if the player could find the "lead on Nicia's whereabouts" (maybe by finding a clue during the street fighting) instead of having the contact feed it to you.

Mission 3
Briefing is terse but the reason why seems sensible. Second part of briefing: "just stop the shooting" should maybe be "just to stop the shooting".

Nicia hasn't technically broken any laws that I'm aware of, so maybe "Take Nicia and "Friend" into custody" should be "into protective custody".

An immense number of dialog messages spouted off as soon as I entered the mission; not sure if this was intentional, probably should've generated the dialog when I got closer.

Popup message on entry immediately tells me soldiers of both Families are here already; I think maybe just a little exposition about how they got here before the player did would be helpful, since the informant reported only Nicia and "friend".

The mission objectives immediately include "Rescue Darrin", but Darrin has not been introduced yet. I suggest you change this to "Rescue Nicki's friend" or something similar.

Nice dialog and background info on Nicia Bianchi and her guards. Her clue is great. I like that she mentions she has a good lawyer.

The custom Family soldiers are surprisingly deadly; despite being an invuln (nominally very strong against lethal) they managed to beat me up once. Though I was being careless.

Darrin says "Hey, Millie Volt! Nicki's here somewhere!" on seeing me, and "You've gotta find her" after I rescue him, but in fact I've already freed Nicki (err, taken her into custody). I suppose he doesn't know that, though.

Darrin's Story begins "Darrin isn't quite as articulate as Nicki" ... which wouldn't make sense if I found Darrin first. Maybe should rephrase it so it makes sense regardless of which order you find them.

Debriefing: Very good explanation of the situation as it stands. I wonder why we can't just fly them out of the country or something though?

Mission 4
Briefing: very well written. You have an extra period after "Talos", though. And on thinking about it, why would Federico Poletti attack the Wavecrest? Don Vittorio wants Nicia to marry Leo, too, so I'm not sure why the two families would still be fighting. The only ones against the marriage are Nicia and Darrin themselves. It seems like it would be more logical for Vittorio to agree to the "shotgun wedding" that is being proposed.

Second part of briefing: "Commander Baker" is mentioned here but hasn't been introduced, so I have no idea who that is. Needs some background, or else you can just refer to him as "a police profiler" or something.

I'm not sure why getting touch with Wyvern is the key to finding Diablo Navarra, also. I guess because they are based in the Rogue Isles, where Navarra is from?

"coud" should be "could" in the last sentence.

Entering the mission, I'm quite puzzled why my objective is "Find Vittorio Bianchi" and not "Find Nicia Bianchi", which is what the contact asked me to do. Unless she's been killed already or something, but having her not among the mission objectives in that case would be a possible spoiler.

"Federico Poletti: It's gonna end here, one way of the other." .... "of the other" should maybe be "or another".

I thought it was pretty weird for Federico to be a robotics mastermind, it's rather out of theme for this mafia drama. Especially when Federico is labeled as the "Old School" don. Maybe he should be a thugs MM?

The amount of web grenade the Polettis put out is pretty ferocious, had my recharge floored at one point.

I like the clues that Federico and Vittorio both gave up. Found that Nicia had already taken off though... now how on earth did she slip away from an army of Polettis when every single other Bianchi was captured or killed, and the Polettis came here specifically looking for her? That seems to be a bit of a stretch; she's not a ninja or anything.

Vittorio saying that Darrin wasn't the only reason the marriage wouldn't happen is...interesting. Hope we find out more.

Mission 5
Briefing: Well, this sounds grim. Knowing the end to the play this is based on, I fear the worst. Good briefing though.

Mission title: "Defeat Diablo Navarre" should be "Diablo Navarra" based on every other reference to him so far.

The burning office: excellent map selection for this.

"Hector Bianchi: He's ours!" ... kind of ambiguous, may want to outright have him say "Get lost! Navarra's ours!"

I found Diablo Navarra and managed to solo him (as an EB), though he was pretty tough; willpower secondary is nasty on an EB. I think I only got him because I drained all his END from elec melee. Probably appropriate difficulty for the end boss of a story arc though, and there was immense foreshadowing for Navarra being a badass, so I think it's fine. His mocking dialog made me hate him; by which I mean, his dialog was very good.

I searched the rest of the bodies with heavy heart; I was so hoping that it would turn out differently, but ultimately Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, so although I wasn't happy about it, I can't say I was surprised at the ending.

Debriefing: excellent debriefing that does remind the player that she accomplished something, even if it wasn't a total victory.

Souvenir: OK, I just read the souvenir. All I can say is YOU B@$+@RD! It's a really well written souvenir, though.

Overall
It was a good story overall, with good writing and dialog. The mission gameplay was okay but nothing too remarkable, I thought. The final mission was really good at setting a mood though; I really felt awful while the AV was taunting me and especially searching through the dead bodies afterwards, and talking to the contact at the end. For most of the story arc I was thinking it was around 4 stars-worthy, but the final mission and the souvenir pushed the story over the top for me.

I gave it 5 stars.

Thank you for the review, and the top rating.

Assistant Chief Pope^H^H^H^HBishop's dialog was meant to capture the voice of the character he's based on. DC stands for Deputy Chief; I don't know if the PPD has Deputy Chiefs (or Commanders) but I don't know they don't, either.... While I'm at it, Kyra Sedewick's middle name is Minturn (Minnie) and she's married to Kevin Bacon. "Baker" reads as "Taylor"; like his namesake usually is, he's wrong . All the other cops in the game come from cop shows, so I used some from my favorite, The Closer. OCB stands for Organized Crime Bureau, a term used often enough on cop shows that I thought people would recognize it.

I thought I had corrected the typos you pointed out, but evidently not. I had trouble with the arc updating earlier when I added bios to all the goons.

I can understand some frustration with the custom goons, but I doubt I'll try to do any more with them. Every time I tried putting standard Family in the mix I got funny results...like, I'd enter the first mission and all the hostages would spontaneously release. I know there's too much similarity between the mobs but there aren't enough weapons to go around for Mafia types. I'd have given the Polettis pistols if I could do that without also having them whip out Thugs. I'll see if I can make them more visually distinct.

I tried putting the Underboss model into the custom factions so the Boss spawns would have the right faction tag. No go...it wouldn't let me pick a non-custom character from the custom factions. Actually the Underboss models are still in the faction to satisfy the need for a Boss-level spawn in the event of large teams taking on the arc. I left Consliglieri out.

The two Underbosses in Act I give a little information in their Unaware text. There are Bianchi/Poletti battles but they tend to end quickly. The problem with patrols is if you set them to Rogue they will attack anything including mobs of their own faction. We really need a "faction standing editor" with a grid that lets you set the relationship between all the factions on a map, so A and B will shoot at C but not each other. I don't see that happening any time soon. Likewise with the dialog explosion in Act III, it's a technical problem and the only way I can deal with it is to not have dialog at all.

You can't "just fly them out of the country" because they won't have anything to do with the police. Nicia may not be a criminal but she is a Mafia princess and her boyfriend is a repeat offender. They're just not going to deal with cops. Arguably under the circumstances this is stupid of them, but I'd reply that it's reasonably stupid.

I thought it was pretty weird for Federico to be a robotics mastermind, it's rather out of theme for this mafia drama. Especially when Federico is labeled as the "Old School" don.

Deliberately set up against type to throw a curveball at the player. Federico's /info does say that his old-school attitudes don't extend to his choice of hardware.

Found that Nicia had already taken off though... now how on earth did she slip away from an army of Polettis when every single other Bianchi was captured or killed, and the Polettis came here specifically looking for her?

That army of Bianchis that got taken out was in between her and the Polettis.

I found Diablo Navarra and managed to solo him (as an EB), though he was pretty tough; willpower secondary is nasty on an EB.

I have gotten some comments about this. He's standing in for Vash the Stampede (with a dash of Luca Brasi) so I tried to make him tough.... I was able to take him out, after a few tries, with a level 30 Storm/Electric Defender (that's built for grouping and has very little set slotting) so personally I think he's within the line. I may change my opinion if a significant number of complaints come in later. I did keep his Willpower to Standard so he doesn't get the outrageous regen and certainly doesn't rez. I briefly considered going with Fire Control for the secondary but really, that would just totally screw squishies trying to solo him. (There is a surprise waiting for anyone who brings a large team into the mission, though...the Boss versions of those flame critters are Fire Control/Thermal.)

Souvenir: OK, I just read the souvenir. All I can say is YOU BA$+ARD! It's a really well written souvenir, though.

Why, thank you.

The true ending is foreshadowed in the last act. Proof left as an exercise for the player.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thanks again.

Made a few changes:

<ul type="square">[*]Made the Polettis a bit more visually distinct...gave them vests instead of jackets, used a lighter color[*]Poletti Capos changed to Dual Blades/Regen, both Standard[*]Poletti Underbosses all use the white suit/bald model now[*]Significant clues added to Acts II and IV[*]Assorted text changes; fixed typos, gave some extra details in a few places[/list]
Edit: Or maybe not. I just started playing the arc over (took a break for dinner first) and not one of the changes I made actually took effect. Trying again.

Another round of edits on 5/19.
<ul type="square">[*]Mob selection significantly altered. The old customs are all gone. Both families use a mix of stock Family mobs with one custom minion and LT each. Bianchis get a unique custom Boss (Polettis keep unique custom EB Federico). New mobs reflect the Poletti's dedication to tradition and the Bianchi's more progressive attitude....[*]Bianchi patrols added to Act II to balance out spawn between the two families. This does add some immersion-breaking moments when Bianchis walk past Polettis without shooting at each other but it can't be helped without making each family shoot at its own people, which is even worse.[*]Additional optional encounter in act IV lampshading Federcio's use of unconventional weapons for mobsters.[*]Diablo Navarra's pseudo-Fire Imps gone. He hired some Freaks to cover his back instead.[/list]
That's about it, I think....

[ QUOTE ]
Diablo Navarra's pseudo-Fire Imps gone. He hired some Freaks to cover his back instead.

[/ QUOTE ]
Interesting change, what prompted it? The fire mobs looked good on that map, although they were a bit mundane to fight (on a small team at least).

Although the existence of the fire guys seemed at odds with the description of Navarra lacking magic of his own, even thought they were kind of explained as following him around for the joy of destruction. I guess their premise was kind of thin.

Interesting change, what prompted it? The fire mobs looked good on that map, although they were a bit mundane to fight (on a small team at least).

They probably would have been more fun on a large team.

Although the existence of the fire guys seemed at odds with the description of Navarra lacking magic of his own, even thought they were kind of explained as following him around for the joy of destruction. I guess their premise was kind of thin.

This was part of the reason. I did consider changing his origin to give him Magical powers instead, but it didn't feel right.

The real reason was to make room for the changes to the Bianchi and Poletti groups. That meant livening up the spawns in the other four acts and removing some mobs that were surprisingly problematic (though the new ones do have their surprises). It was a more than equitable trade.

I might have had enough room to keep the Minion and LT imps but that would have left the group without a proper Boss. I'm not sure what would have happened if a large group needed a Boss to spawn; potentially it could have spawned multiple copies of Diablo Navarra. Not good.

The Freaks don't make much more sense than the imps, really, but at least I was able to toss in some dialog lampshading the fact that they'd turned into some kind of warped Greek chorus.

[ QUOTE ]

I might have had enough room to keep the Minion and LT imps but that would have left the group without a proper Boss. I'm not sure what would have happened if a large group needed a Boss to spawn; potentially it could have spawned multiple copies of Diablo Navarra. Not good.

The Freaks don't make much more sense than the imps, really, but at least I was able to toss in some dialog lampshading the fact that they'd turned into some kind of warped Greek chorus.

[/ QUOTE ]

I kinda think Hellions would make more sense as backup, since in a lot of ways Navarra is the uber-Hellion, what with his fire powers and diabolic name. But Hellions would make the level cap on this mission way too low.

A possible workaround for the fire imp boss issue is that you could insert some of the standard CoT Behemoths and Behemoth Overlords into the custom faction? They have fire powers, look demonic, and have a wide level range, so I think they would kind of fit.

The other thing you could do is put Navarra into a different faction than the fire imps that follow him around; then you could guarantee that even if the game wants to spawn a fire imp boss, it won't spawn an extra Navarra (since he's not in the same villain group).

The Behemoths don't level down that far...IIRC, the LTs might be available but not the Minions.

In any case, any solution is inadequate. What I would really prefer to do is have the first floor of the map spawn some Bianchis, just trying to hold the line until their Don can get some real supervillains over to help, and have nothing upstairs except Diablo and a pile of bodies. The only reason this is a concern at all is because I've got to let something spawn alongside him. He really ought to be alone.

Apropos of the discussion about multiple Diablos spawning...today, someone tried this arc with large enough team to spawn Bosses in act II's Bianchi patrols...and got multiple Katrina Bianchis. Stupid mistake on my part, since I put her into the Bianchi Family faction.

I fixed it by creating a "Bianchi Streghe" faction with her and the other two "made women", the latter also being in Bianchi Family. That should keep Katrina as a unique as that faction is only used once, for her spawn in Act I.

IWBNI when adding a mob to a faction we could flag it as "never spawn this randomly 'coz it's a unique individual" but I don't see that happening any time soon. It would really rock if we could actually assign weights to each mob, e.g. "50% Minion A, 40% Minion B, 10% Minion C" but I'm betting that's even less likely.

Live feedback from a low 40s DB/Fire brute, getting exed down for this but the point is Mission Engineer, not ding gratz.

(oddly this isn't up on CoHMR unlike "Blowback")

---

Hmm. That's an odd order of priorities for Bishop. He's jumping around in scope a bit, now -&gt; history -&gt; speculation -&gt; now again.

"You heard of the Bianchis and Polettis? Two mob families who've been at each other's throats for a while now. When they go at it in private we set up a cordon and mop up the stragglers, but they've really ramped up the violence lately. Right now there's a shootout happening in civilian office space, and I need you to go in and get the innocents out of the line of fire before we drop the hammer on 'em."

Something like that. Set up the history, talk about usual practice, mention the new violence, introduce the current example.

Hmm. The Streghe really need pumps, not sneakers. Chucks don't go too well with their businesslike attire.

Fights start up long before heroes show, so any fight dialogue that talks about heroic intervention is kinda out of place. Weirdly enough one of them starts near Rollo and afterwards he and his escort stand around the surviving Bianchis like it ain't no thing.

Not sure how to work the fight so that the right side ends up aligned with Rollo, though.

Oh dear. Two hostage spawns with a Bianchi boss hiding off in the corner of the same room. This won't go well.

So this looks like the part of superadine that gives you tremendous strength vs. the part of superadine that lets you see other dimensions. Power-wise, at least.

---

The street battles are pretty hectic. Had to laugh at some Red Ink Men just slipping into a group of Family and carving them up. Yeah, that's who really owns the streets in Paragon.

But because of the hecticity, pretty much every boss fight triggered early. You might want to reword your mobster dialogue so it's not talking about heroes when the actual heroes are on the opposite side of a skyscraper.

The little backstories behind the nicknames are amusing.

And... interesting. Well, this is what happens when old-school meets new sensibilities.

---

Same little nits with the third mission. Battles start and bosses are triggered early because of all the in-fighting. I've got no problem taking the lovebirds in but I wonder what the brass are going to say about this whole thing.

Yeah, pretty much what I figured.

I"m not exactly convinced they wouldn't accept protective custody, though, on the face of it? Maybe have Bishop say something like "they'd be open to protective custody, but given how hot tempers are right now that'd be more of a life sentence". Because I can't see a way out from here where they'd stop being targets before the end of their respective natural lives.

---

You know, you'd figure as progressive as Bianchi is, he'd ask his little girl what she had going on before agreeing to this marraige thing.

He seems to be pretty chill about how things have shaken out so far, though.

Ah, okay. Nicia had her secrets, I can buy that. But it looks like someone's decided to go nuclear.

---

And the bomb hits. Well, we know what happens when somebody starts arson around in Paragon City, don't we?

I'm a little afraid of what I'll find in this building, honestly.

Heh. Thanks for the description on the Bianchi boss. Yeah, I can understand the dude. Still gotta sword him, though. ...and he should probably say something more than "he's ours". Like, "where were you when this was all happening, huh?"

Ah, Freakshow. If you need a stand-in, just promise them a good time.

...bah. I'm too late. Again.

But ouch. Looks like modernity gave old man Poletti an axehandle to the junk there.

---

Usually I don't say anything about the souvenir. Not a lot of people do a lot with it.

But that souvie tanked my opinion of the arc, because what it boiled down to when I read it was "You couldn't do anything. Aren't you glad the NPC did it for you?"

And no. No, I'm not.

Maybe this is just me playing as a villain, but I really want to play this arc from the point of view of the "nuclear option" guy. His life sounds way more interesting than always showing up too late to matter.

Hmm. The Streghe really need pumps, not sneakers. Chucks don't go too well with their businesslike attire.

They've learned it's best to wear sensible shoes on the job.

Had to laugh at some Red Ink Men just slipping into a group of Family and carving them up. Yeah, that's who really owns the streets in Paragon.

Hey, with the old custom mobs, the Red Inks got ZOMGRANGERDOWNPWNED all the time.


But that souvie tanked my opinion of the arc, because what it boiled down to when I read it was "You couldn't do anything. Aren't you glad the NPC did it for you?"

And no. No, I'm not.

I knew that was a possible reaction. So far you're the only one to express it.

The player does do quite a bit in the story. You rescue innocents from harm's way in Act I, contain a mob war in Act II, rescue Nicki and Darrin in Act III, busted a Family Don in Act IV and put an archvillain in the Zig in Act V (however briefly, of course). If you hadn't rescued the lovebirds in Act III, the story would have ended there, most likely with them and Leo dead after he finally faced the music with his father.

I could have written Act V to trigger Nicki and Darrin as captive rescues after Diablo faceplants, and then had the mission end Clue narrate the player and the kids accepting Diablo's offer to fake their deaths. That would have meant powerposing the player in an ethical decision, which to me is a far worse sin than having an NPC provide the happy ending. I can see a lot of character types who would have problems going along with that.

End of the day, it's an artistic decision that's going to work for some people and not work for others. If you're in the latter camp, I respect your preference, but we disagree.

[ QUOTE ]
Hmm. The Streghe really need pumps, not sneakers. Chucks don't go too well with their businesslike attire.

They've learned it's best to wear sensible shoes on the job.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, found what I was looking for in the character editor. "Slip On 1", the shoe that goes with the kung fu outfit. Goes well with business casual and kicking dudes in the face.

[ QUOTE ]
But that souvie tanked my opinion of the arc, because what it boiled down to when I read it was "You couldn't do anything. Aren't you glad the NPC did it for you?"

And no. No, I'm not.

I knew that was a possible reaction. So far you're the only one to express it.

The player does do quite a bit in the story. You rescue innocents from harm's way in Act I, contain a mob war in Act II, rescue Nicki and Darrin in Act III, busted a Family Don in Act IV and put an archvillain in the Zig in Act V (however briefly, of course). If you hadn't rescued the lovebirds in Act III, the story would have ended there, most likely with them and Leo dead after he finally faced the music with his father.

I could have written Act V to trigger Nicki and Darrin as captive rescues after Diablo faceplants, and then had the mission end Clue narrate the player and the kids accepting Diablo's offer to fake their deaths. That would have meant powerposing the player in an ethical decision, which to me is a far worse sin than having an NPC provide the happy ending. I can see a lot of character types who would have problems going along with that.

End of the day, it's an artistic decision that's going to work for some people and not work for others. If you're in the latter camp, I respect your preference, but we disagree.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, the thing is, as far as I could understand, the seed of this whole affair was the Nicki/Darrin/Leo thing. While that was still up in the air the violence was going to escalate until somebody went nuclear and perhaps even after.

So even if I was saving people, metaphorically speaking I ran around evacuating the city while somebody else fought Galactus.

And I have a hard time figuring out what kind of hero would look askance on getting a couple of innocent people out of harm's way and stopping a blood feud running riot in the streets at the same time.

Maybe slip Nicki's dad the key to a safe deposit box to open in two years or something.

And I have a hard time figuring out what kind of hero would look askance on getting a couple of innocent people out of harm's way and stopping a blood feud running riot in the streets at the same time.


Serious law-and-order types are going to balk at letting someone walk into a court and cop to two crimes he didn't commit, under oath, regardless of how many he has committed.

The following changes apply only to the version on Test, incorporating Architect features from Issue 15 that may not go live.

The arc's ID on test is #22641. The following alterations have been made.

<ul type="square">[*]There has been an undocumented change in the calculation of file size (word through the grapevine is custom critters are now stored more efficiently). As a result, Diablo has gotten his imps back.[*]Assistant Chief Bishop now has "About this Contact" text. We just have to wait for the patch that lets people read it. :-P[*]The "Bianchi Streghe" faction now has a custom non-unique Boss, a "guest appearance" of sorts.... N.B. it is now possible to flag a mob to never auto-spawn; I decided to keep a separate faction for the chicks anyway. Streghe and Maghe still spawn as part of "Bianchi Family".[*]There is now a "Mission Start" clue in Act IV giving players a short briefing on Diablo Navarra.[*]The Bianchi in Act V are all Streghe faction.[*]Some small balance changes made. Maghe now have Psychic Assault primary and Martial Arts secondary with Range preference. Katrina no longer has Psychic Shockwave but gains Drain Psyche. Federico loses KO Blow but gains Foot Stomp.[*]Small text fixes here and there. I inadvertently used an old local file to republish on Test so old typoes may have crept back in. I'm pretty sure I've nabbed them all...again.[/list]
If you're checking out i15 I'd appreciate feedback on the changes. Thanks in advance!

The following changes apply only to the version on Test, incorporating Architect features from Issue 15 that may not go live.


Due to a resetting of the AE database the arc has been republished. The new ID is #215713.

<ul type="square">[*]Due to another round of changes to custom powers, Katrina has Psychic Shockwave again and not Drain Psyche. Federico no longer has Foot Stomp (but isn't forced into KO Blow). Diablo regained some of the more obnoxious powers in Willpower; considering cutting him to Regen secondary depending on future changes.[*]Darrin O'Mallory in Act III is now an combatant ally. He's using one of the Loyalist models meaning he's technically an Underling so don't expect him to last long in combat.... (Debriefing text assumes he gets beat up but survives.) His rescue now triggers Nicia's spawn. Nicia is technically an ally (non-com) as well but her rescue ends the mission -- she's set to Ally just to keep her from bolting to the door on rescue.[/list]

The following changes apply only to the version on Test, incorporating Architect features from Issue 15 that may not go live.

Thanks to another reset of the AE database, the arc's ID on Test has changed again to #225315.

<ul type="square">[*]Small changes to Act I spawns to help ensure Bianchis and Polettis actually fight each other. It is remotely possible that this could put Katrina at odds with a Bianchi patrol...obviously the raid is an inside job....[*]Changes to Act II's spawns for the same reason. Warriors added to patrols, with the map's spawns set to either patrols, a few Poletti spawns, or Bianchi/Poletti battles. It's not perfect (the other gangs have evidently declared a truce to pick on the Family, and occasionally Bianchis and Polettis come into contact without combat) but it's better.[*]All Bianchi and Poletti units recolored and renamed with a custom info field for each faction. This does make them more uniform in appearance but makes it easy to see who you're running into.[*]Poletti Crollo unit deleted -- never really liked them and needed the space for the above customization. Battitore given Jawbreaker to beef them up a bit.[*]Several small text edits to clean up a few points.[/list]
Feedback on the changes very much appreciated from those trying out i15 on Test.

OK, need some feedback from those who have played this either on live or Test.

The most recent version of i15 allows us to select "Empty" for map spawns and for Boss guards. This means, and I've tested to confirm it, that I now can spawn act V's map with just the Bianchi party on the first floor and Diablo alone upstairs.

So, imps: keep 'em, or feed 'em to the fishes? I'm not all that happy with the imps but people seem to like them. If I scrap the imps I should have enough room to give the Polettis their custom LT back (though it probably won't be the Crollo) and maybe give each faction one more custom mob each. It also occurred to me that I could have Diablo spawn alone but call imp ambushes during the fight, but I think he's a tough enough nut to crack without that.

tl;dr: if you don't want to read this, I don't want to summarise it

I ran through this, since it's on test, and has Family in it, something I'm also working on. Useful already - I'd forgotten about the Family-'Dyne connection.

First mission, I meet the two families. All very familiar, but then, not. Good descriptions on the two factions. Curiously, two of the hostages were tattoo artists. Those guys really should get out less.
And on to the second mission. Plot starting to thicken - the families are arranging a marriage, yet the bride to be has gone missing, causing mayhem in a public place.
Enrico's description echoes the author's opinion too aggressively. Remove "ie" (breaking to a new sentence) and change 'know music' to 'know classical music'. [Even if this reviewer agrees with that author]
Neil: couldn't let -&gt; couldn't you let
Sal's Clue: LIps -&gt; Lips
Mish 2 exit pop-up: reduce elipsis to 3 dots...
Act 3: Tommy the Trasher was the second person I met in the mission! That was fast. Has he just arrived too? Unusual for a leader to be at the front, particularly for the mob.
Oh dear, an Irish boyfriend. No wonder they got troubles.
Entering Act 4, nice mission-entry Clue.
Diablo is a nice super- concept for this otherwise just-heroic campaign.
Mission 5 intro: Navarre -&gt; Navarra [in the red text]
Interesting how you've stacked all the optional goals up front. Considerable destruction in this 'wake'.
And the inevitable pyrrhic ending. As I'd expect, in the Ventureverse, crime doesn't pay! At least, not for the crime bosses. The souvenir then takes care of the "less criminal". Very well written.

I haven't played this arc previously so I can't compare its development, but I did enjoy this play-through. It got better throughout. Formulaic, but extremely well done. Cinque stelle.

The imps were a bit cliche-custom-critter - pity you can't get Bat'zuls to cover the level range, or something else un-human. Purple rikti monkeys?

Cheers, airhead

Edit: you asked for ideas for more unusual endings:
<ul type="square">[*]Darrin falls for the player-hero (gender be damned), but the player-hero doesn't reciprocate, Nicky is left with the Lurch (Diablo).[*]Diablo decides to kill Darrin with an overdose of 'Dyne (see floor in the ceiling room in the final hall) but it goes horribly wrong, per Reanimator.[*]It's all a trap to kill Diablo, room is full of destructibles, which must be destroyed within an (almost unreasonable) time limit, else everyone blows up. Hero is inclined to prevent the explosion because Darrin and Nicky are unwitting bait. Indeed, one of the destructibles (all identical) contains the unconscious couple.[*]The hero is Diablo. There is no real Diablo, it's a useful boogieman, but since the situation calls for Diablo to turn up, the bad guys circulate yon hero's picture around with a Diablo label. Wackiness ensues.[/list]Sorry.

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
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Thanks for the review and the typo catches. I imported an old version of the local file and thought I'd re-caught them all.

Curiously, two of the hostages were tattoo artists. Those guys really should get out less.

The "random" option on Civilian hostages isn't very random and overly draws from models that should be in a Unique pool. My options at this point are to use four of the exact same model, keep it as is or have no hostages at all. I don't have space to create four individual Release Captive details.

Enrico's description echoes the author's opinion too aggressively.

It stays, this is my soapbox. Hannah Montana's fans can get their own. :-P

Neil: couldn't let -&gt; couldn't you let

Colloquial speech.

Mish 2 exit pop-up: reduce elipsis to 3 dots...

Three for an ellipsis in the middle of a sentence, four for one at the end.

The imps were a bit cliche-custom-critter - pity you can't get Bat'zuls to cover the level range, or something else un-human.

I'm about 75% certain I'm going to delete the imps and go with an empty map.

Edit: you asked for ideas for more unusual endings:

"The ending sucks" is a reference to the original version. I'm satisfied with the arc's ending.

It's all a trap to kill Diablo, room is full of destructibles, which must be destroyed within an (almost unreasonable) time limit, else everyone blows up. Hero is inclined to prevent the explosion because Darrin and Nicky are unwitting bait. Indeed, one of the destructibles (all identical) contains the unconscious couple.

This is a cute idea, though it would pretty much mean Vittorio was running a Xanatos Roulette. It's not the way I want to go with the story but it could work.

The hero is Diablo. There is no real Diablo, it's a useful boogieman, but since the situation calls for Diablo to turn up, the bad guys circulate yon hero's picture around with a Diablo label. Wackiness ensues.

I could see this working too in a way for an episode of The Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt or such, but I'd never do it to a player character.

The changes from Test have been propagated to the Live version. I'm still on the fence about the imps; they're in for now but I may still remove them.

Feedback welcome.

Recent changes:

<ul type="square">[*]Level range changed to 25-29 because Darrin won't spawn under level 25[*]Hostages reworked in act I in a mostly-vain attempt to adjust mission pacing and deal with faction oddities. I may have to change to a larger map or make this a defeat-all[*]Rival gang patrols in act II reduced in strength, Boss guard parties bumped to Medium, both in an attempt to keep Bosses from getting ganked by the map[*]Minor text edits[/list]
Recent comments, names redacted:

<ul type="square">[*]"Very nice arc. Good story, enjoyable missions. 5 stars"[*]"Excellent arc, short, sweet and very fun. Nice work!"[*]"Mission 2 is too many gangs, too few mobsters. MIssion 4, Darrin refuses to scale down below 25. I'm curious, what's his base mob? Private Security? Vittorio is &lt;Family&gt;. Mish 5, glowie is 'fallen Streghe', while enemies are 'strega'. &gt; at end of last debrief. There's some problems with the theme (the perceived loss is order of magnitude different each side), and, well. Optimist in me saw the surprise happy ending. Still, I liked it. Only gripe is, the two groups are IMO insufficiently introduced." (Darrin is from the "Loyalist" faction, used in the Mender Tesseract TF. "Streghe" is the plural of "Strega", still I changed the label on the detail.)[*]"Diablo was a tough customer for my Katana/SR scrapper. I had to munch a lot of inspirations to hurt him, and to survive. He went down on the third try. I was a bit surprised that the cops didn't offer the kids witness protection and faked their deaths though, but on the other hand maybe that's what happened. Four stars." (I immediately asked if the player had read the souvenir; he hadn't.... I changed the pointer to it in the final debriefing to yellow, should be much more visible now.)[*]"Solo'd on lvl 50 SS/INV brute. Good interpretation of the tale, though I got a little frustrated when I thought you kept the original ending. Thankfully I read all the boxes. Nice arc."[/list]

Recent comments:

• "Fun Arc!"
• "A very well written arc! I am curious as to why I was given an ally in the 2nd to last mission which I didn't need at all and no ally to help fight the EB?" (I put in Allies when I feel the story requires them, not as "difficulty adjustors" -- if a player feels he needs help, he can always get a team.)

This is a belated reply to Mychyl's review of the arc.

Quote:

I like the fact that, even though they're obviously reskinned Family, they have unique group descriptions. Might do well with a little variation, but that's more nitpicky than anything.

The arc is at 99.87% space used. If/when we get the increase then perhaps I could fiddle with the text. I'm not sure what I'd change here, though. Maybe put in more behind-the-scenes nuggets about the families.

Quote:

Come around a corner, and see one of the goons hitting on his captive. OK, maybe not THAT much progress.

That was a Poletti, the family that doesn't allow women.

Quote:

Just noticed, only one of the Families is actually a reskin. The Polettis are custom appearance as well, just... highly similar. The women, of course, are completely unique but fit in well.

Both Family sub-factions are primarily reskins. The Bianchis are reskinned in blue with the Underboss model with the hat and no Capo Muscle unit. They gain the Streghe (Minion) and Maghe (LT) custom units and the named boss (Katrina), all of which (along with the custom Knives Mercenary boss) also go into the Bianchi Streghe sub-faction. The Polettis have all the usual Family Minion and LTs and the bald Underboss reskinned in red, plus the Battatori (Minion) custom unit and the named EB (Federico). They had a named LT as well but it was pulled for space.

Quote:

Hm... OK, I understand the Bianchi women having psychic powers (it's explained in their descriptions, so I get that), but why MA? Especially when a group of three of them start tossing shuriken my way... a bit odd. >.>

I wanted them to have a melee secondary (except for Katrina, who's grown powerful enough to no longer need to get her hands dirty). MA fit better than anything else, IMO. Yeah, the shuriken are annoying but you can't take them out.

Quote:

Wait, what? Freakshow? Are things so boring around Paragon that they needed to crash this little Family dispute?

Do Freakshow actually need an excuse?

b34v1s: Dude! All these guys are shooting at each other!
b0lThe4D: Cool!
b34v1s: So, who do we shoot?
b0lThe4D: EVERYONE!
b34v1s: heh heh heh heh

Quote:

No, he wants to follow me. But not to be led out. I... I don't get it. Is he some kind of sidekick now?

Ally, though he's only an Underling and "dies" easily (but gets better in the debriefing). He's one of the "Loyalist" models from the Mender Tesseract SF. If we ever get Dual Pistols I might try to remake him as a Minion, if I have space.

Quote:

And now I get to go arrest what sounds very suspiciously like a personal-villain-in-arc plug. But whatever, personal villains fall down too.

Diablo Navarra isn't one of my characters, or based on any of them. I will admit that he pushes the Mary-Sue-ness envelope, which is why I'll probably never use him again. (I briefly considered using him in "Splintered Shields" but quickly discarded the notion.)

Quote:

The addition of a Knives sister to the madness is... interesting, to say the least. Apparently, they really ARE for hire to more than just Malta. We just... never get to see that?

There's at least one canon arc in which the Knives are working for someone other than Malta. Of course, it's a Longbow agent, which makes less than zero sense....

Quote:

Round the corner, and I see Flame Devils and Flame Imps. I can only assume these were originally supposed to be the old fire imps (before they changed it in AE, due to people abusing them). Once DS goes live, using those henchmen might work, if you're not too attached to the current ideal; what you have now works quite well, as well.

No, they've always been customs. I've been on the fence as to whether or not to delete them. They were only added in the first place because it wasn't possible to have Diablo spawn by himself on an empty map when this was written. I've kept them because people seem to like them, even though they really don't make much sense.

Quote:

As I said before, there were a couple things I *might* change, were I you, but overall? This is quite possibly one of the best arcs I've ever seen in MA.

Thanks!