The Audition:Director's Cut - Arc ID 221240

My arc The Audition jumped mysteriously in filesize and became unplayable, so I took it down. Rather than make even more cuts to it, I decided to in fact expand it to 6 missions and then publish it in two 3-mission arcs. I've now finished it, and its up.

The Audition is a humorous arc designed for solo high level heroes. In it, Synapse contacts you with the news that the Freedom Phalanx have had their eye on you for some time with the intent of offering you a position in their team. All you have to do is succeed in the Six Heroic Tasks. I had in mind here something akin to the Three Piratey Trials in the classic point n Click adventure game The Secret of Monkey Island.

I also wanted the arc to not be seen as a simulation, so Synapse explains that he's tapped into the hologram projector just to communicate with the Player, and has adjusted the AE Array to act as a teleporter.

Each mission in The Audition has the Player attempting to succeed in one of the Tasks as instructed by Synapse. For one of the missions, for example, Synapse informs the player he will be teleported to Sirens Call to assist Statesman and Citadel in a fight against the Jade Spider. Things don't go exactly as planned, however (No doubt there will be some raised eyebrows at the suggestion that the Jade Spider is a critter you can use in the MA ).

I found that splitting it into 2 3-mission arcs allowed me a much freer rein with the memory. It was refreshing to not have to agonize over every letter. With less limits on memory, I could give a little love to things like the system messages and re-write standard bosses bios. Players who like to read everything won't be wasting their time.

The arc description includes 'VERY CHALLENGING', and I found it to be so. The last missions in each part are supposed to provide a finale to their respective sections, and contain EBs. I was unable to complete some missions in one go, since I found I needed a full tray of inspirs at some stages.

There are no random maps. All maps were carefully chosen to fit the theme and the mechanics of each mission. The mechanics themselves vary from mission to mission. I like to use objective chains and triggers to let the story progress during the mission rather than having everything set out in the Nav when you enter. Additionally, I think I found some neat tricks to use objectives in ways that differ from their normal use. Writing this arc taught me a lot, and i enjoyed creating it immensely.

There is one defeat all, but its on a tiny map (small bank map)and fits thematically.

One of the missions is a musical. By that I mean that all the story is sung at you by the mobs you encounter. If you faceplant because you're too busy singing along instead of fighting, you won't be the first.

I playtested it on a 50 en/en blaster, and in a duo with an Ill/Kin controller, also 50. I think she could solo it too. I advise taking a full tray of inspirs into the third mission in each part.

It is designed to be soloed, and some of the dialogues will look odd if the arc is played in a team.

There is one Known Issue with it: A certain animation sometimes doesn't happen on one of the entities encountered. I have no control over this, I am afraid. It has no effect on the mechanics or the difficulty of the arc.

The Audition Part One has the Arc ID 221240.

I hope you enjoy it. Feedback is welcomed.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Someone 1-starred it, but didnt leave any feedback. Negative feedback is possibly worth more to me than positive lol, so if anyone doesn't like it, please tell me why - I don't practice revenge downrating.

EDIT: Someone also 4-starred it lol. I guess i might as well mention that too.

Eco.

---

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Whoever gave you that 1-star apparently has beef with you. This thread got a 1-star as well, even though it's no different than most other arc promos.

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"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi

Characters

[ QUOTE ]
Whoever gave you that 1-star apparently has beef with you. This thread got a 1-star as well, even though it's no different than most other arc promos.

[/ QUOTE ]

really? ah lol.

Yiou know, I don't know how to rate a thread. What effect does it have on anything?

Eco.

---

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

None. It just shows whether someone had a positive or negative opinion of what the thread presents.

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"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi

Characters

Hi Eco,

This arc took me a couple of hours. I often get lag, which made the missions with lots of travel particularly tedious. Which was 2 out of 3. This travel involved retracing my steps, which I do in my own arcs, but these maps are bigger.

Despite the frustration level, I gradually found myself getting into this story.

Mission 1:
The concept of "this is real even though it feels fake" is necessary, I guess, but it is also complicated.
The mission is very long. The serial objectives on this map mean there is a lot of covering ground multiple times. The ambushes at the end, with mezzes, are just annoying. Perhaps each node could announce its arrival to speed up the endless searching. The atmosphere, with the increasing presence, is well written.

Mission 2:
Synapse's intro doesn't sound very Synapse. He's usually morose. I'd thought he might be a fake, but that didn't prove out.
The mismatched intro/in-mish is interesting but my response to Synapse for mission 2 is not very heroic. I'd either quit the mission or go along willingly rather than go along begrudgingly.
A lazy Recluse. Again, at odds with what I know of him.
He doesn't help, but with my lag I cannot outrun him. Annoying.
Finally lost him. At least that process provided the first clue why I'm here, for some reason Recluse thinks I'm in the middle of an escape attempt (although that's not what the Nav says).
I put up my defences and run through to the end. Yet another destructible. It happens I can't hit this one, often a bug with destructibles. This then requires luring another creature near the destructible and using an area-effect attack to toggle the object to destructible. Given its placement high on some containers this was difficult, and I killed quite a few Arachnos before I finally got one that went near the target.
Synapse's attitude on my return doesn't have me interested in continuing this arc. Perhaps if he'd listen to me a little and have some doubt.

Mission 3:
The introduction is interesting, but I already expect I will have a completely different task to the introduction.
With the help of two accolades, I took out Chimera. Didn't know I could do that.
Unusual to have the big bad on the first floor. Level 2 had a destructible. Now level 3 is just a glowie hunt. And then floor 4. Eventually find glowies, all were in same room... and then more objectives arrive. Weary, I plough on. Floor 4 was quite vacant so no doubt my new targets spawned there.
On the way I found a destructible, and BaB/Marauder. I defeated BaB/Marauder by defeating his guards, then he goes into a strange magic hold animation, I don't understand. Perhaps it is the object I found being used, but text should indicate this.
Mother Mayhem says something appropriate, but then doesn't go into the magic hold animation.
Ahh, but she's an ally. I leave her, she doesn't follow, but makes a comment, so I return, and she follows. Maybe she was in some sort of long animation that didn't show.
Neuron's comments are clear about the Immobilizer.
But when Mother Mayhem meets Neuron, he's freed, and becomes an ally! This is weird behaviour, very interesting. Is it deliberate?
It's making more and more sense (aside from the behaviour of my non-combat "allies"). I finally get someone I can take on, Tyrant.
So glad you didn't make all the reinforcements into ambushes. They're pretty cool creations too. But now I have another pass of this 4-floor map to find and slay them all.
I do that, and eventually I'm done! My lag has strangely gone away, so this becomes a lot less tedious.

Hopefully in Part 2, Synapse will be more on my side and make it feel more worthwhile. 5-starred - perhaps not quite, but nobody deserves the childish 1-starring (on both parts of the arc!). This happens usually when an arc makes the first search page, not before it's even been voted. So immature.

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Qr

Thanks v much for playing my arc and for the feedback. The 5 stars in response to my one-starring wasn't necessary, but it's appreciated anyway.

Some resonses to your comments.

Mission 1. I think your lag was a big factor here. Structurally , the player only had to find one glowie (a stasis tube, so it's quite big) and then destroy 4 objects (that are also large, and glow and make a noise too). During testing, I can do that mission in about 10 mind tops (admittedly I know what to look for). I will however look at the possibility of unchaining the nodes - maybe then it'll seem less back and forth.

2. Synapse. He's out of character for sure. This is a comedy arc, and I'm aware he comes over as an exasperated buffoon somewhat. Some testers told me they wanted to slap him-at least they cared LOL. I'd rather that than 'meh'

3. Mission 2. I advised you to clear on your way and I know that the lastcroom can be a bit manic. With lag it must have been grim. I'm sorry about that and thanks v much for persevering. The 'lured' critter us the operator of the object and gas dialogue to mark him out. I find the last room can be an exciting kill fest. Also, the story works better if LR accompanies you. The end clue explains why.

4. Mission 3. I wanted to get the story over through the dialogue as much as possible. That said, if you read everything (including the clue that neuron drops) then all the plot elements do have an explanation. I've noted yr points about the immobilizer ray needing a system message though and I'll put them in. Nice catch, thanks.

All the protoclones should spawn in the last room btw. If you had to go back to other floors then it's bugged.

Thanks v much for playing despite the problems you encountered. I hope you enjoy Part Two if you decide to continue.

Eco

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Qr

One more thing, about the mother mayhem/neuron meeting. That was a bug. MM should have been immobilized like the others, as should neuron. They all initially treat you as an ally because they mistake you forvypur evil double. As do 'your' minions. That's the gag that this mission is based on. Maybe I need to put more pointers to this, but I thought the photo of 'you' at tyrants barbecue would be enough. I'll have a think.

Eco

---

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Ah yes, the gag is clear enough, the picture does the trick there. It explains the weird message on entering the mission, which at that point just seemed like it could have been just a melodramatic personality (but it wasn't).

The ally/captive behaviour was the weird thing. Perhaps they're captives, set to "follow" instead of standing still? Still doesn't explain why they only start following a little later on. Very weird.

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[ QUOTE ]
Ah yes, the gag is clear enough, the picture does the trick there. It explains the weird message on entering the mission, which at that point just seemed like it could have been just a melodramatic personality (but it wasn't).

The ally/captive behaviour was the weird thing. Perhaps they're captives, set to "follow" instead of standing still? Still doesn't explain why they only start following a little later on. Very weird.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think its a bug, tbh. They're all set exactly the same. They're supposed to cycle the same animation over and over for 'ally rescued' and 'ally stranded', and often it does work, and sometimes it doesn't for some reason. It's maddening, but I decided to live with it and take any complaints/downrates.

The popup at the start mentions 'the Cato Initiative' - Cato was Inspector Clueso's manservant in the Peter Sellers Pink Panther films of the seventies. Clueso instructed Cato to attack him at any opportune moment as he thought it would train him in anticipation of genuine surprise attacks from villains' - In the movies, Cato was always attacking him in his own flat, jumping out of the fridge, his wardrobe, etc, at exactly the moments when he DIDN'T want him to attack. Clueso would invariably shout 'Not now, Cato!' during these fights. Lol I'm probably a bit too ambitious to hope that the majority of the playerbase will know who Cato is or recognise the gag here, but a.you never know lol and b. it does explain 'your' minions behaviour. And of course, I think it's hilarious

Eco.

---

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

QR - made a few small changes.

Based on feedback, added a warning to the briefing for mission 3 of part 2 to the effect that its timed. My bad.

I also found in the briefing for the third Heroic task the following unfortunate line "So here's your Fourth Heroic Task" - ah..heh.

its now correct. Can't believe nobody noticed that yet lol.

I also tried to unchain teh Four Focus Nodes in mission 1 of part 1, but there's no real way to do it without opening up the possibility that the one intended to be the final one (which has the ambushes) will be completed first, which would present the player with the climactic (and as it stands avoidable if the plasyeer just concentrates on the node and then exits) big end fight, and then he or she would still have to deal with more (ambusheless) nodes, which I think would be a bit anticlimactic. So the chain stays. Ill just have to hope folk dont mind a bit of back and forth. The objects themselves are very big.

Eco.

---

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

QR - I just discovered that in Mission 3, Mother Mayhem wasnt set for the correct animation! No Freaking Idea how that happened

It's been rectified, anyway. There still might be hiccups with that animation, though, but i live in hope of a perfect playthrough.

Eco.

---

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

I need to point out that this arc is designed to be played at Difficulty lvl ONE. The description does say this, but i think i need to CAPS that. Please don't play it at a higher level, or you won't be experiencing the arc I designed. If you do choose to play it at a higher difficulty level, you need to take that into consideration if you gave amy difficulties with mobs or ambushes or length or time taken etc.

I don't mean to xriricise anyones chosen playstyle - I just want to stress one of the factors I had in mind when writing it.

Eco

---

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Got my first review, and I'm going to quote it here. It's from Wrong Number's Ha Ha Hut humor arc review thread, which is very worth reading for a heads up for the funnies in therMA. here's the review:

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Its 6 missions long, published in two 3-mission arcs:

Title: The Audition
Arc ID: Part One is 221240 - Part Two's arc ID is given at the end of Part One
Creator’s Global Name: MrCaptainMan
Mission Count: Part One - 3 missions. Part Two - 3 missions
Notes – Intended audience is HIGH LEVEL, SOLO and HEROIC. It's VERY CHALLENGING so take lots of inspirs. Lots of text and clues. Players who like to read EVERYTHING won't be disappointed. Oh, and its quite funny imo

[/ QUOTE ]


Lowdown – Take the warning to play this arc at diff. 1 because I made the mistake of doing the first half at a higher diff and it crimped the fun for me (totally my fault). I did go back and replay it and the 2nd part at diff 1 and it was great! LOADED and I mean LOADED with humor. It was a good decision to split this into 2 3 parters because it allowed for a lot more customs, story and fun to be packed in.

Funny Level – Very Humorous to I have to change my panties again!

Fun Level - Varies from mish to mish, but fun through out. Personal fav was mish 4 (Part 2, 1). Mish 6 is is also a killer.

Let’s up it to 11! – I think a few of the maps could stand to be smaller. The last custom group has dark and rad minions which was a bit much.

Overall Rating – A must play for anyone that likes humor arcs and easily one of the best humor arcs I have reviewed so far.


WN

[/ QUOTE ]

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

QR - I've amended the difficulty of the Protoclones at the end of Part 1, mission 3. they were originally Hard/Hard Bosses, but feedback suggested they were too difficult for some. I'm not sure if those who complained were running it at a higher difficulty setting than its intended level 1, but I've made them lieuts now anyway. I hope they're still challenge enough for the finale.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Lol Amended the difficulty of the critters in questiona gain, and made the font size of the warning before Mission 3 the biggest it'll go. I was STILL getting people playing it at difficulty lvl 4 and then complaining about it being too hard.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

So I ran this last night, and didn't post comments on here at first partly because I wasn't sure I had anything constructive to say. Hopefully that's changed after some contemplation...

To start off, I am generally a fan of all things funny. It doesn't generally take much to make me chuckle, or at least crack a smile, but this arc really fell flat for me and I think that had more to do with the non-humor related issues sucking the funny out of the rest of it.

So I'll try to take a stab at it...

Synapse
First off, he's not sounding all that in character, but that's forgivable and not really the point in this arc. The real issue I took with him was the fact we get talked down to enough in the canon by the Freedom Phalanx, making him consistently berate my character for failure and forcing my character to not explain what actually happened (at which point any sane hero would start to investigate what's going wrong with the teleporter) is sort of a one-two punch of suck here. If he was *just* belligerent, that would be annoying, but it's the mission forcing my character to not explain himself which really makes it sting.

Having the player fail every mission by design, isn't great, but it doesn't kill an arc in itself. Having the contact rub it in after every mission with your character not even defending himself is really a buzz kill no matter how you cut it.

Mission 1
So I was honestly a little excited going into this, I don't know why. I'm not a real fan of the FP, but it was a cute concept. So when I hit the first mission I actually started to get interested. If this wasn't a comedy, that first mission could have been a great springboard for a more serious plot, but instead the strange female clones and their dreamworld of sorts never gets fully explained and feels more like it just gets swept under the rug like the player is supposed to feel it was some dirty secret.

That said, there wasn't much funny in that mission, and since the arc doesn't go on to explain it further or even mention it. It really contributes nothing to the greater plot, or funny or whatever you might have been aiming for. I have to ask, what purpose this mission serves aside from being a failure for Synapse to berate you about.

Mission 2
This one is alright from a humor perspective, partly because it was a canon mob acting in a non-canon way. If you had started with something like this it might have set the stage better, but instead we go from "quasi-serious arc about hive mind clone women" to "emo recluse". Viewed in its own light this mission would be alright, possibly even pretty funny albeit brief, but as part of the greater whole it just hasn't been set up for and falls flat.

Mission 3
So first off we have the giant difficulty warning, and having done the mission I'm honestly confused. The mooks in the mission could have easily been less dangerous powersets (I didn't have any problem with them on unyielding, but I'm sure others might), in fact it would actually make more sense for them. All of the Praetorian minions got their powers from their masters, so why go with something way out there like dark and rad, instead of something simple and generic like AR or MA? Praetorians themselves are considered solo content in canon, so if you toned down the customs I don't think you'd need the ginormous warning, just a standard note about EBs/AVs. This didn't detract from my personal experience mind you, it just seemed strange and unnecessary.

That said, this mission started off on the wrong foot by making an assumption about my character which was incorrect. Infatum doesn't have a Praetorian double, and he's 100% certain of that. That *is* a bit out of left field for me though, and although I don't personally think authors should make such assumptions. This is a largely forgivable one.

I can't say how much of the fun was sucked out by that piece, but I know it wasn't the lion's share. That dubious honor came back to Synapse and more importantly my own player who continued to take the berating on the chin because he's apparently too scared to plant his boot in Synapse's electrically charged [censored], or at the very least explain what happened like a sensible adult. By this point I was no longer having fun, and knowing I'd take yet another tongue lashing because I had the audacity to take down the entire Praetorian Phalanx instead of going to Fite Club, just made things worse, and made this long objective stuffed mission a boring unfun chore spent being called an ugly hideous monster (Infatum is pretty normal looking, so this felt more forced than anything). The clones were creative, but weren't even enough to make me crack a smile by the time I reached them.


Humor in my opinion is all about setting up the audience for the joke. The arc feels very piecemeal currently, and Synapse does his best to humiliate you in between missions and suck any fun you might have gotten out of each of them. So a couple suggestions:

Mission 1
Could this be accomplished with canon mobs instead? Simply making it a bunch of Carnival or Nemesis or something else entirely would turn it back towards funnier waters in my opinion. Instead it feels rather serious, who are these strange clone ladies? Where have they trapped me? Who was this poor soul who died here before me? These questions end up half answered, which is fine for comedy, but it doesn't feel like comedy as is. Having canon mobs act humorously non-canon can lampoon a situation like this. Warwolves, hydra, basically anything else. It wouldn't be shooting for the proverbial comedy stars, but it would be comedy.

Synapse
Is there a reason we can't investigate what is going on instead of forcing the player to act like an idiot? If you want Synapse to be a jerk off that's fine, but don't drag the player along with him. Either have Synapse and the player work together to figure out what's going on, or have the player try only to be rebuffed by Synapse time and time again, perhaps building up to where we *do* get the chance to beat the stuffing out of him. It's fine for him to be an idiot, it's not fine for the player to be forced to be one.

Praetorians
This mission is alright on its own taken entirely separate from the rest of the arc, but given the difficulty issues you seem to be getting as feedback, I'd highly suggest changing the custom mobs to some easier power choices. There's nothing thematically requiring mooks that put all other Praetorian mooks to shame is there?


I gave this 2 stars, a rating that doesn't sit entirely well with me given the quality of the writing, but accurately represents the amount of fun I had as well as what I believe is the quality of the overall design. If you dramatically change the mission briefings and perhaps the first mission I'd be willing to give this another play through and rerate, but as is I was having so little fun by the end that I couldn't even bring myself to try the second part.

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Infatum on Virtueverse

Thank you sincerely for playing the first part of my arc and for the feedback. I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the half that you played.

It's possibly a pity that you didn't play the slightly shorter 5-mission version that existed before the filesize jump - at least then you'd gave got a fuller sense if what the arc is supposed to be.

Something which didn't seem to cone across is the fact that you don't in fact fail the tasks you are set - the first task for example is to Succeed In The Face Of Overwhelming Odds. Synapse sends you up against 'ONE HUNDRED Frownobots!' to attempt this, but in fact you defeat a hive-mind with a million bodies. Likewise, in every task, synapse berated you for 'failing' when in fact you have succeeded, often beyond the requirements. My iPhones battery is quite low, so I'll continue in another post in case it dies before I can submit lol.

Eco

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Your point about maybe synapse helping you find out what's going wrong is a good idea, but doing that would negate a main element if the arc, which is precisely the fact that he is unaware that you're doing something else (saving the world, foiling supervillains, generally being a paragon of superheroism) when he thinks you're off skulking or avoiding your respnsibilities. The exasperation you felt at each 'fail!' from synapse is funny...to some people. Not all, of course, but that's life

Eco

---

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

[ QUOTE ]
The exasperation you felt at each 'fail!' from synapse is funny...to some people. Not all, of course, but that's life

[/ QUOTE ]

I see where you're going with this, but again it wasn't the failures or Synapse himself that were the main problem. It was my own character's enforced silence that really made it all come tumbling down. Why not have the character tell Synapse what happened only to have him retort dismissively.

"What do you mean you defeated an entire hivemind that threatened the whole city? I sent you to fight frowniebots, you have to follow orders if you want to be part of the Freedom Phalanx!"

"What do you mean you were fighting your way out of an Arachnos base? I needed you to give Statesman a pep talk!"

"What do you mean you took out Tyrant? That's Statesman's job, you were supposed to fight Dark Infatum!"

Little things like that would go a long way in my book, but mileage will vary of course.

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Infatum on Virtueverse

The minions in the praetorian mission are your evil doubles minions, and since $heshe's called Dark $Name, they have Dark powers. The 'agh! -it's a monster!' responses you find are part of a central point of that mission-that you are mistaken for your praetorian twin. It's not canon, so if you say you don't have a praetorian twin that's fine-the arc should be looked at in the same vein as Marvels Special Silly What Ifs.

I remind you that the mission features a clone of Citadel - that hopefully illustrates the level of seriousness I wished the arc to be played with.

Once again, thank you very much for the time you took to play the first half of The Audition, and also for taking the tome to post your feedback here.

Eco

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Hi,

Im back at home now, so i can answer some more of your specific points and questions in more detail.

[ QUOTE ]
So I ran this last night, and didn't post comments on here at first partly because I wasn't sure I had anything constructive to say. Hopefully that's changed after some contemplation...

To start off, I am generally a fan of all things funny. It doesn't generally take much to make me chuckle, or at least crack a smile, but this arc really fell flat for me and I think that had more to do with the non-humor related issues sucking the funny out of the rest of it.

So I'll try to take a stab at it...

Synapse
First off, he's not sounding all that in character, but that's forgivable and not really the point in this arc. The real issue I took with him was the fact we get talked down to enough in the canon by the Freedom Phalanx, making him consistently berate my character for failure and forcing my character to not explain what actually happened (at which point any sane hero would start to investigate what's going wrong with the teleporter) is sort of a one-two punch of suck here. If he was *just* belligerent, that would be annoying, but it's the mission forcing my character to not explain himself which really makes it sting.



[/ QUOTE ]

After the second time it happens, it's fairly obvious that every mission the teleporters going to take you somewhere other than where Synapse says you are (In fact, his briefing for misison 2 tells you you're going to Sirens Call to battle the Jade Spider! ). The player has to, I'm afraid, accept that that's going to happen. I did try as much as possible to not put any words at all in the player's mouth, aware as i am that lots of players dont like assumptions to be made about their characters.

[ QUOTE ]


Having the player fail every mission by design, isn't great, but it doesn't kill an arc in itself. Having the contact rub it in after every mission with your character not even defending himself is really a buzz kill no matter how you cut it.

Mission 1
So I was honestly a little excited going into this, I don't know why. I'm not a real fan of the FP, but it was a cute concept. So when I hit the first mission I actually started to get interested. If this wasn't a comedy, that first mission could have been a great springboard for a more serious plot, but instead the strange female clones and their dreamworld of sorts never gets fully explained and feels more like it just gets swept under the rug like the player is supposed to feel it was some dirty secret.



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They aren't clones, per se. Destiny is a hive mind with a million bodies, as the unfortunate Arachnos scientist who was her previous accidental companion explains. There are multiple moons in the sky; you are on a distant planet. I intend to come back to Destiny in a later arc. Discovering more about her in The Audition misison she features in wasn't the point. You just want to get back to Earth. [ QUOTE ]


That said, there wasn't much funny in that mission, and since the arc doesn't go on to explain it further or even mention it. It really contributes nothing to the greater plot, or funny or whatever you might have been aiming for. I have to ask, what purpose this mission serves aside from being a failure for Synapse to berate you about.


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It allows you to Succeed In The Face Of Overwhelming Odds, which is what Synapse has asked you to do. It also introduces the running gag about the teleporter not working properly.

The mission also ends in a slightly more poignant way than I intended it to, but it came out that way in the writing. I don't think drama and comedy should be always separate. Some of the best comedy includes quite serious drama. The Office, for example, is both hilarious and touching. The Audition isn't meant to be Pineapple Express. The arc has both humor and drama. Some missions are more funny than others. The humor in mission 1 comes in the briefing and debriefing. [ QUOTE ]


Mission 2
This one is alright from a humor perspective, partly because it was a canon mob acting in a non-canon way. If you had started with something like this it might have set the stage better, but instead we go from "quasi-serious arc about hive mind clone women" to "emo recluse". Viewed in its own light this mission would be alright, possibly even pretty funny albeit brief, but as part of the greater whole it just hasn't been set up for and falls flat.



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I think you were maybe expecting a more traditional arc where the missions were against the same villain group or what have you. The six missions in The Audition are each very different from each other. They feature different villain groups, different locations and sometimes different customs. The linking theme is the Six Heroic Tasks. Mission 2 you are asked to Inspire Another To Greatness - the someone in question is supposed to be Statesman, but you actually inspire Lord Recluse instead. That comes back in mission 6, where you have to Save the World from a recently mysteriously regalvanized LR [ QUOTE ]


Mission 3
So first off we have the giant difficulty warning, and having done the mission I'm honestly confused. The mooks in the mission could have easily been less dangerous powersets (I didn't have any problem with them on unyielding, but I'm sure others might)



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I intended this arc to be played at difficulty level one. With all due respect, if you want to play at a level other than the one i balanced the arc for, that's of course your perogative, but I can't really act on any comments you might have then on difficulty or balance.

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, in fact it would actually make more sense for them. All of the Praetorian minions got their powers from their masters, so why go with something way out there like dark and rad, instead of something simple and generic like AR or MA? Praetorians themselves are considered solo content in canon, so if you toned down the customs I don't think you'd need the ginormous warning, just a standard note about EBs/AVs. This didn't detract from my personal experience mind you, it just seemed strange and unnecessary.

That said, this mission started off on the wrong foot by making an assumption about my character which was incorrect. Infatum doesn't have a Praetorian double, and he's 100% certain of that. That *is* a bit out of left field for me though, and although I don't personally think authors should make such assumptions. This is a largely forgivable one.

I can't say how much of the fun was sucked out by that piece, but I know it wasn't the lion's share. That dubious honor came back to Synapse and more importantly my own player who continued to take the berating on the chin because he's apparently too scared to plant his boot in Synapse's electrically charged [censored], or at the very least explain what happened like a sensible adult. By this point I was no longer having fun, and knowing I'd take yet another tongue lashing because I had the audacity to take down the entire Praetorian Phalanx instead of going to Fite Club, just made things worse, and made this long objective stuffed mission a boring unfun chore spent being called an ugly hideous monster (Infatum is pretty normal looking, so this felt more forced than anything). The clones were creative, but weren't even enough to make me crack a smile by the time I reached them.



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That's a real shame, because I think this mission has the most humor in it. It was also the most mechanically complicated, and I'm quite proud of it tbh. The Heroic Task for this one is Defeat Your Evil Twin - an apparently impossible task for an AE misison to accomplish considering every player is going to be different. By the end of the mission, you've defeated 'approximately twenty-seven evil twins', including your own. I think perhaps you took your own character a little too seriously for this arc, and certainly for this mission (I really don't mean that to sound insulting or antagonistic, btw). [ QUOTE ]



Humor in my opinion is all about setting up the audience for the joke. The arc feels very piecemeal currently,



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You did only play half of it.

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and Synapse does his best to humiliate you in between missions and suck any fun you might have gotten out of each of them.



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He's an idiot, in this arc.
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So a couple suggestions:

Mission 1
Could this be accomplished with canon mobs instead? Simply making it a bunch of Carnival or Nemesis or something else entirely would turn it back towards funnier waters in my opinion. Instead it feels rather serious, who are these strange clone ladies? Where have they trapped me? Who was this poor soul who died here before me? These questions end up half answered, which is fine for comedy, but it doesn't feel like comedy as is. Having canon mobs act humorously non-canon can lampoon a situation like this. Warwolves, hydra, basically anything else. It wouldn't be shooting for the proverbial comedy stars, but it would be comedy.



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Thank you for the suggestion, but I'm very fond of Destiny, and as i said, i'm happy with drama and comedy being bedfellows. I've got some great feedback on mission 1 too. [ QUOTE ]


Synapse
Is there a reason we can't investigate what is going on instead of forcing the player to act like an idiot? If you want Synapse to be a jerk off that's fine, but don't drag the player along with him. Either have Synapse and the player work together to figure out what's going on



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Figuring out what's going wrong with the teleport is irrelevant to the arc, Im sorry, and would be a bit akin to Sam figuring out how to get back home in episode 2 of Quantum leap. The teleport-messup is just a device to get the player to the wrong, yet accidentally right place every misson.

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, or have the player try only to be rebuffed by Synapse time and time again, perhaps building up to where we *do* get the chance to beat the stuffing out of him.



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You do actually attempt to tell him what's going on in mission 4, but he scoffs at your 'unbelievable' story. beating him up wouldn't be very heroic, would it, even if he is being an idiot.

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It's fine for him to be an idiot, it's not fine for the player to be forced to be one.

Praetorians
This mission is alright on its own taken entirely separate from the rest of the arc, but given the difficulty issues you seem to be getting as feedback, I'd highly suggest changing the custom mobs to some easier power choices. There's nothing thematically requiring mooks that put all other Praetorian mooks to shame is there?



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I haven't got any feedback from anyone playing it at challenge level 1 that complains about the powersets or difficulty of the My Evil Empire mobs in mission 3. At challenge level 1, you should be encountering 15 protoclones in separate groups of 3. Apart from one ambush of 3, all spawn separate from each other. they are set as med/med bosses. They are sometimes challenging, but nowhere like as challenging as Tyrant, who the player fights first. I have toned them down from their original setting.

the reason mission 3 is such a challenge is because of the belief that some players have that each arc should stand up on its own. I beefed up the difficulty of mission 4 slightly to give players a Big Fight at the end of Part 1. Perhaps i was mistaken, but you could have been saying 'the last mission didnt feel climactic enough, so i didnt bother playing the second part'.



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I gave this 2 stars, a rating that doesn't sit entirely well with me given the quality of the writing, but accurately represents the amount of fun I had as well as what I believe is the quality of the overall design. If you dramatically change the mission briefings and perhaps the first mission I'd be willing to give this another play through and rerate, but as is I was having so little fun by the end that I couldn't even bring myself to try the second part.

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2 stars is better than 1

Thanks again, dude, not every arc is to everyone's tastes. Perhaps you might like to try my other arc, which is a much more traditional arc, with a single theme, story and resulution. It's also funny in places but has a tonal shift at the end, i warn you.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)