Standing within the Mists, Arc ID 209473, @Liberal Conspiracy
Although recommended for 16-40, I will try with Darth Somnia, level 4 Dominator, mind/elec, difficulty 1.
CONCLUSION: A great arc, great story, recommend to every villain!
The contact certainly comes across as an addict seeking information money for her habit. Nice work.
Council in a warehouse - regular stuff. Curiously, two glowies appear very close to the entrance. I blast my way through to the third. Not much dialog going on, but clues are well described. Mission completed.
I know from this forum and the arc description that I plan to steal an urn, and now having an explosive may help. Normally I imagine the story starting at the first introduction by the contact, I just need to get my head around this bigger picture approach. Perhaps a popup on exiting the first mish could remind me of this greater objective.
Again, I like the contact. Poor thing.
Arc starts interesting, with a little ambush. I find a place for my explosives, and I'm done. A bit more dialog going on here, good atmosphere of an office.
More great contact dialog, then I'm off to detonate the explosive. From the clue, sounds like it worked perfectly! Time to go for the urn, I guess. I'm guessing I might be in a green fog office next...
Again, the contact doesn't let me down. Heh. Way to be an evil sod.
My final destination looks familiar... Great tooons, all with that recently-bombed, recently bioweaponed look. I make it a fair way in, before lag gets me killed. Blah. Returning, goes well, eventually getting my trophy!
And a great signoff by the contact.
Excellent souvenir. I'd imagined the contents of the urn would have been rendered useless by vulnix that got in through a crack, or perhaps it leaked into the carpet. Instead, I get to feel outrageously successful!
Great arc, thanks. 5 stars.
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Council in a warehouse - regular stuff. Curiously, two glowies appear very close to the entrance. I blast my way through to the third. Not much dialog going on, but clues are well described.
[/ QUOTE ]First off, thanks very much for the kind words. I was a little worried that the story as a whole would make sense to me in my head but not seem coherant to the player.
About Mission #1, I has the same thing happen once. I assume it's because I used the small warehouse so the spawn points are fairly packed. I intentionally chose Maps #1 & #3 to be small because I was forced into using the only office map in the MA that has both a normal and an "abandoned" look, which is a "Large" map. In a perfect world, I would have been able to use mediums for all 4 but, since the Council bits were just to drive the story along, I made them intentionally quick. It's a story about the bombing, not really a story about Council.
Based on any additional feedback, I might change Mission #1 to a slightly larger map which would let me add slightly more flavor text along the way.[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps a popup on exiting the first mish could remind me of this greater objective.
[/ QUOTE ]Easily added, thanks for the tip. Again, I want to make this about you, not Council, so this could help keep the story on the rails.
@GlaziusF
Running on a low 40s DB/Fire brute. Diff 2 so bosses is bosses. Mission Engineer. -_-
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Wow, that's long accept text. I generally don't think it's a good idea to get cute with accept text, just make it an objective statement of the goals and shunt any amusing dialogue to either the briefing or the "on mission acceptance" box afterward. That way team members can know what's up too.
I will say the premise is modestly interesting. Stealing crime gear from the criminals and all.
Mmm. Traditionally there's something you have to do in the last room - I'd suggest moving the gas itself to the back. As it is there are about three empty rooms at the back of the map I wind up on.
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Hmm. You got room for a little inner monologue in the briefing for the second mission? As it is I was a bit clueless what I was doing running through the security offices... well, until I got inside, anyway.
Once again, though, the objective shows up on the third floor of 5. Lot of nice little flavor bits in here, though, some stray arifacts to smash and civilians to kidnap. Managed to just run through everything and laugh at the puny guns.
It may be because I just ran a mission on the relevant map yesterday, but I see what you're going to pull here and I love it in advance.
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Once again, you could probably move/copy/paraphrase the mission intro text to some "inner monologue" in the briefing.
Any reason why this Council base isn't, uh, a Council base?
The sole objective shows up somewhere close to the back this time, and I guess it's in a "back" location since this is the top floor.
But... wait a second there, mission complete clue. Heroes? Emergency services? I thought this was the Rogue Isles. Have I been running around in Paragon City all this time? Nerva is the "good part" of the Rogue Isles, heavily patrolled by Longbow, so it wouldn't be unreasonable for something to get moved there, but a lone villain with a presence in Paragon City enough for a stable base of operations seems a little much.
Having the contact talk about the location of Maegwyn in the first briefing would help a little.
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There! The briefing for the finale has the kind of internal monologue I was asking for!
Heh. Yeah, this is about what I figured would happen.
...you'd think "may grant HIDEOUS BERESERKER FRENZY" would have been mentioned on the tin of this stuff. Ah well, wouldn't hardly be a challenge without SOME opposition.
...aw no. What's this I see on the second floor just upstairs from the elevator? After fighting a grand total of two spawns from this custom group?
Why yes, it DOES appear to be what I came here for!
I head up to the top floor anyway in search of something interesting, and yep, there's a nice chemicaled boss, but all his pathetic mewling doesn't change that this fight's really kind of an anticlimax at this point.
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Storyline - ****. It needs an explicit place to happen, a little more monologue since the contact's in her own little junkie world, and this monologue would include not only your immediate mission plans but maybe some explanation of how you two met in the first place, because she knows your name. (though we may be getting contact descriptions in I15 that'd take care of that.)
Design - ***. I was pretty impressed by the incidental spawns that made the first three missions feel populated. Can't think why they vanished in the fourth. (you can have a "boss" fight with any element of a custom group, if you want to do setpieces consisting only of people) But when the vital thing that I need to do shows up maybe a third of the way into the mission, that just doesn't make sense.
Gameplay - ***. I never thought I'd have to mark down for being too easy, but if "frustratingly easy" made any sense at all it would apply here. In the first mission I found the necessary glowies all clumped in a hallway, figured one of them had to be a trap, fought all the way to the end of the mission looking for the real one, and nope, that was them. There's a total of one boss-level fight in this arc and it's optional. I want my 15 minutes of sweaty-palmed button-mashing boss fight before I call it a caper!
Detail - *****. The contact's very well-realized, there's a nice variety of customs in the final battle, and most of the objectives have fitting if plain descriptions.
Overall - ***. By the later levels of CoV characters either can handle bosses or run on a difficulty where they don't encounter them. A fight with a normal boss now and then is exciting and perhaps a good marker of a significant objective or installation. As it is, even if this is a jar of water from the Well of the Furies, I think all I had to do to get it was click six glowies. It just doesn't feel like it means anything.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
I'll start off by saying thanks for the run through. It's unfortunate that a quirk seems to have appeared for your trek through my arc.
I'm exceptionally surprised that the mission ended with the collect item right near the front. It's set to be in the rear of the map and I've had it appear on the 4th floor but never on the 2nd.
I've noticed strange item clumping in the first mission as well. Maybe I just need to set everything for the rear of the map. I had hoped to get more of a front-middle-rear situation but it doesn't seem to be working.
I had imagined the story taking place in Paragon City given the inclusion of MAGI. If it makes you feel better, I see that "Lily" chick walking down the streets all the time 
Although, I would hope that even Nerva has emergancy services for when things catch on fire 
Council Base coulda-shoulda-woulda been a Council Base but I liked the shortness of the one I had selected. I hate those long tunnel bases. Still, you have a valid point.
The mission texts are apparently an item of opinion. I've received a lot of feedback from people saying they loved them and, obviously, that's not a universally held opinion. I've been playing with the various text bits trying to ensure that the central plot doesn't get lost.
In any event, I thank you again for your opinions and wish the item placements hadn't quirked out on you since that seems to have played a role in your disappointment.
Edit: As for overall difficulty, you're probably right. I've walked through it in testing on my Defender which isn't exactly the sign of an exceptional challenge. I may add in a couple boss type spawns along the way (where appropriate, obviously) and perhaps up the difficulty of some of the patrols/ambushes. That plus trying to force the glowies further to the rear should help make it more of a challenge.
Revisions made to this arc:
-- Made sure that object spawn points were set to "Back" where appropriate.
-- Changed Mission #3 considerably. Moved Council into a more appropriate dwelling and gave them a boss who must be defeated before the plan can come to fruition.
-- Added some flavor encounters to Mission #4. Moved the boss encounter to "Middle" to help ensure that players will come across him even if he isn't required. Unfortunately, it seems that I can't make a "collect" objective conditional upon some other objective (i.e. can't make the collect only spawn once the boss is down).
-- Some tweaking of patrol/ambush sizes to increase the difficulty a touch.
I may give the dialogue a going over but, beyond that, this one'll be about where it is until I15 and I'll take it from there. Overall the reaction I've gotten in game has been very positive so I think it's getting to where I want it to be.
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Unfortunately, it seems that I can't make a "collect" objective conditional upon some other objective (i.e. can't make the collect only spawn once the boss is down).
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FYI, you can do this in I15.
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenth ur-
nuk!
Excellent news and that'll be the first change I make
This almost makes up for losing my MA badges.
Almost.
Ok... not really. But it's still good news.
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Unfortunately, it seems that I can't make a "collect" objective conditional upon some other objective (i.e. can't make the collect only spawn once the boss is down).
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FYI, you can do this in I15.
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And until then you can put it "inside" a destructible object. Those are still chainable.
As far as dialogue goes, I don't mind the contact's rambling as it is. I'd just like some inner-monologue stuff such as prefaces the fourth mission to make it clearer what I'm planning to do before I frob the datastream.
Though it's not a perfect example, my own Bravuran Jobs has several missions where the contact's talking about one thing and you decide to do something else.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
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And until then you can put it "inside" a destructible object. Those are still chainable.
[/ QUOTE ]I'm not in love with that solution although it may be the best one possible at the moment. I think the real answer is that any heavy revisions beyond those made last night are going to wait until I15. Having greater control over spawn points should really help the "Trip over the glowie as you enter, nevermind the 'Back' setting" issue.[ QUOTE ]
As far as dialogue goes, I don't mind the contact's rambling as it is. I'd just like some inner-monologue stuff such as prefaces the fourth mission to make it clearer what I'm planning to do before I frob the datastream.
[/ QUOTE ]I gotcha. That should be easily addable.
That was one of the difficulties in writing the arc -- I want the player to feel like they're in control rather than just running for their contact. Of course, the only way to do this is to take the entire thing out of their control through designer fiat and say "You're going to rob a zoo now, got it?! It was ALL YOUR IDEA!!". Some "monologue" text at the bottoms of the contact screens could help keep you mentally focused on the prize.
Note to self: Add zoo robbery mission.
Arc Name: Standing Within the Mists
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Arc ID: 209473
Faction: Council, Private Security, Custom
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Liberal Conspiracy
Difficulty Level: Easy-Moderate (soloed with a lvl 28 Rad/Rad Defender.)
Villainous Arc
Synopsis: MAGI is moving the magical urn containing water from the Well of Furies from Atlas Park to Magewyn Arcane Research for study. This presents an excellent opportunity for you to steal it if you can come up with the right plan [SFMA]
Estimated Time to Play: 1-2 hours. (45min timed mission at the end)
This is my first real plot-driven arc so I'd appreciate any feedback or criticisms (or praise!