New arc published! #384776: Made To Wave the Flag is intended for heroes of levels 45-50. I've spent a lot of time working on this arc, and it's probably my most ambitious one to date. This arc utilizes a lot of storytelling methods that were both incredibly hard to write, and could very easily not work altogether. Some of the things that I tried to do:
- Have the events of the arc unfold around the character instead of just being spit at them by a contact.
- Have multiple people in the different briefings, switching out cast members as necessary and attempt to make it clear who is talking without gratuitous use of "he said" and "she said".
- Have the missions happen out of chronological order.
- Try to have the character do things in the briefings so they are an active part of the plot without stepping over my bounds as an author.
So, yeah. There's a distinct possibility of none of that working as well as I intended, so any constructive feedback is incredibly welcome. Essentially, my main concerns are as follows:
Does the story make sense?
Are the characters and their emotions and reactions to events believable? Did I overstep any bounds with my involvement of the player as an active part of the story?
Is it too hard?
Plus, I want to know if the fourth mission seems "set up to fail", or if it's clear what you're supposed to do to succeed. Because yes, it is easy to fail that mission, but I do drop hints at exactly what you're supposed to do. My question is whether or not they're obvious enough for people to pick up on them.
So, please take the time to try out this arc (and all my other arcs, they're awesome, I assure you!) and any feedback you give me is greatly appreciated.
Quote:
Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.|
Originally Posted by LaserJesus
#257242: Drakule Armageddon 5: This Time, It's Personal!
Length: 4 missions Tags: Ideal for Teams, Custom Characters, Comedy Morality: Neutral |
@GlaziusF
Running this on a low-40s ice/axe tanker, +0 x2 with bosses on.
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So this is a Three Strikes And You're Drakule contingency? Diabolical. I suppose I'll have to do something about it before I have to chop my own head off.
And the only way to do it is to take it from the people who are trying to kill me. ...I wonder why they're not just using this? Does the ancient brotherhood of Drakule hunters only validate your parking if you actually kill Drakule?
Also I should probably get an opening clue for whatever spell Heksung puts on me.
...Ninja dudebro. Is the spell an ancient relic of the lost kingdom of Coldonesdry?
Anyway, he's illusion/DBlast, the huntress I have to off is Kat/EBlast, including a nova in desperation mode. Nice touch.
Of course, the system text when she falls seems to hint that she's going to be a future antagonist. Have to keep that franchise ticking!
The order seems somewhat subdued and conventional, though. Maybe toss in a couple of patrols or something -- I really like von Heksung's overblown style, but it doesn't really come out.
No clue for the ritual scroll seems a little odd, though.
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In order to kill Drakule, I must first kill Drakule. Very Zen.
Another rampage through a club. Well, one does what one must. The EB at the end is a psy/dark dual blaster, but his fatal flaw is mistaking passive aggression for the actual sort.
At the end, I now prosess Drakule's heart. I hope it doesn't attack.
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Oh. System text from the first mission came back to bite me a little. Though it seems odd. You'd think the hunters wouldn't use so many bladed weapons if blood was so dangerous to them.
The busy message is a laugh, though.
Anyway, my spawn serve as a workable distraction up to the point where I round on their leader. Kat/DBlast, with Blackstar on low health. I wonder if they have all the desperation moves working now.
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And now to purge my mind of the Drakule that lurks within. It's an Oranbega map, but it looks to be a pretty small one. Clearly Drakule has already begun to corrupt me.
My fear seems to be a normal death mage, with an escort of trembling CoT.
He acts as the gatekeeper for more mental aspects, all of whom pop in once his entire enemy group is subdued. (maybe it should just be him?)
Sorrow and Doubt are Ghosts and Hydra - again, especially for Sorrow (whose escorts can just run off into a corner and get stuck) they should probably be boss-only.
Rage is a Cimeroran, and Frustration... aw snap. I have dudebro on my mind.
The Drakule Within is a psy assault/DArmor EB. He summons an ambush haflway through which just means more defense for me.
When I drop him, he pops Soul Transfer to get back up, which unfortunately autostuns me and I get conked by his minions, meaning I wake up outside the MA with the mission completed but Drakule still in my mind. You should probably just turn that power off.
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Storyline - ***. I think I might rate this higher if I'd never played the Drakule arcs. Heksung keeps up the over-the-top cheesiness I've come to expect form him, but the story is very serious, even dark at points. Killing off one of my fellow victims... that's just cold, man. All the other missions are played fairly straight, too. (You could probably just have the third mission be to drop one of the past brides who just completely overslept.)
Design - ****. Aside from the whole "if getting blood on you is a bad thing, why are these hunters using bladed weapons?" angle, the customs were pretty reasonable. The missions were pretty empty, aside from some cliche battles and the required boss fights. The last mission was the busiest in that regard, which was fitting, but missions 2 and 3 were completely optional save for the boss fight. I might have liked to have a ranged ally in the last mission representing my own willpower or something -- it's nice to find your whole mind isn't against you.
Gameplay - ****. Even with the occasional novas the bosses were a good challenge. The only off move was the end boss's immediate revenge, which could lead to the scenario I described.
Well, that and the psychological spawns needing the entire entourage, which had me tracking around in search of what turned out to be one of the ghosts that had run away down a long corridor.
Detail - ***. The first mission would have been a bit better with some comedic reason why the Drakule hunters wouldn't just perform this ritual on me. The missions overall would have been a little more enjoyable with some incidental humorous setpieces, like the spawn trying out a recipe for soy-based hemoblood in the club or similar nonsense. More clues than just some dude's still beating heart would also have helped to lighten the mood a bit.
I don't know how you are on space, but it'd also be nice to see the figments of my imagination with their own enemy groups and names. Ninja dudebro could probably be "Despair", as he seems to be an incarnation of a lack of hope, and "Doubt" might actually be better as "Pride" or similar, seeing turning into a world-conquering monster as a positive development.
Overall - ***. This would probably be a star higher if I rated it on its own merits. But as an installment in the more light-hearted Drakule series it's a capable work but not very light-hearted.
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)
As far as space and how I'm doing, the answer is not good. Not good at all. I'm in the 99% range on this. To even get it published I had to cut a lot of text and side objectives, which is why the missions seem so dry at times. Trust me, if I had room I'd have far more little jokes and clues and such.
As for the humor, yeah, this one's not quite as light-hearted. I definitely went for far blacker humor with this one. Whether you find the scenario in the third mission funny or not really depends on how mean-spirited you like your comedy. I think it's great, other people have commented on it being funny, and yet others like yourself thought it was too serious.
As far as the Hunters not being over the top like Von Heksung, he is far more insane than they are. Hell, he's pretty much a serial killer that only targets monsters. The reasoning behind them not using the ritual is that they don't feel like taking any chances, and killing you would be far easier and less time consuming than using the ritual and fighting Drakule's soul. As Von Heksung states in Rise of the Drakule, every time they have to kill him they lose dozens and dozens of men. I'd explain this better in the arc, but space issues. Arrrgh.
Making the emotional aspects boss only is something I'll look into. In any case, I think you'll enjoy Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers From Hell more. It's probably more over the top than any of the others, and definitely one of my more recent ones, so it's better just due to the fact that I've gotten better at making these over time.
Quote:
Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.|
Originally Posted by LaserJesus
#379065: Holding Down the Fort
Length: 4 missions Tags: Challenging, Solo Friendly, Canon Related Morality: Heroic The arc I made for Dr. Aeon's second architect challenge. After Lord Recluse uses his Web device to steal the powers of the Freedom Phalanx, the call was put out to the powerful heroes of Paragon City to deal with the threat he now poses. Meanwhile, back in Paragon, only the rookie heroes and the police are left to deal with the chaos that ensues when all the villain groups of the city decide to capitalize on its weakened state. |
@GlaziusF
Playing this on a single-digit FF/energy defender, +0 x1 with bosses off, for the genuine lowbie experience.
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I have to say, I really appreciate this nod to the canon. It's a wonderful way to work in the contest theme.
Let's see how it plays out.
Mission 1: museum robbery. The detective warns me I may be batting above my level.
Well, well. Nods to the canon heroes and some cops at the entrance providing backup and cheering me on.
I jib the like of this arc's cut already. Or words to that effect.
Man. The problem with these higher-level enemies brought down to a lower level is that they really do bat above their weight. I've been taken down three times already, the last time taking No Mind down with me. (It was the room that's a clone of the entrance. Two captives and two normal spawns all within shooting distance of each other.)
Worse yet, No Mind is telling me that his partner seems to have been held up at the hospital.
Man, if I actually have to protect any of these exhibits I am going to fail this arc SO HARD.
Ah, good. They're all glowies. And after a couple deaths to three +1 minions (including a parasite. For some reason Gloom is like my kryptonite) the end room is clear and the artifacts are... safe, I hope. Let's see.
Priceless art: secure.
Ancient dagger: MIA.
Portal device: cannibalized.
Prognosis: oh god we're all gonna die.
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Oh man. Everything is going wrong that can go wrong, and I'm gonna go fight... Crey. Oh man I hope there aren't any volt tanks, the damn things could oneshot me.
And the experiments are loose! This just keeps getting better!
The Stricken work pretty well, but they could use custom descriptions. I mean, unless these guys were all flown in from Mercy Island. The boss's rant is wonderfully megalomaniacal.
The previously unmentioned hero is... a horrid punster. Much as could be expected.
Whoa. An emp/psi protector? Custom work, or actual relic of some Crey experiment? Colors looked alright, at least.
Ah. This place was a lab for testing Infected and they needed supers for control subjects.
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And now the Banished Pantheon are summoning a demon. I get a little dossier which seems to be similar to Akarist's collected notes on the process.
Anyway, the captives go free, and I find the dagger... but the demon is already here.
Hoo boy. What am I gonna find down in the cave?
Oh! A herald of Bat'zul! That's a good prize. Goes down pretty easily and he never even sees the dagger coming.
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For some reason, the natterlings in this group of scaled-down Rularuu aren't giving XP.
The soldiers are pretty nice, though. Both the mastermind summons who help me out and the recolored Malta who are already fighting.
Well, time to pit this code into this console and save the friggin' world.
Aw. I know it's the key to the city, but the souvenir's pretty short. I wanna luxuriate in my accomplishments!
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Storyline - *****. Little hero, you've had a busy day. The contact briefings keep up the sense of external pressure, and many of the missions seem to get worse after you've entered them. There's definitely a frantic feeling, working to put out brushfires, but because of the first mission's framing it doesn't feel arbitrary.
Design - *****. Great use of recoloring and downward enemy scaling. (How does that really work, anyway? It only shows up at the player level if all of the mission boundary levels are out of range?) It helps to get the sense that I'm batting above my weight when in a sense I really am.
Gameplay - ****. Maybe it was just my bad luck, but I died about half a dozen times to groups of +1 Council minions in the first mission. Maybe it's the extra power of their original range? Probably just bad luck to lose No Mind to a room with two hostages and two close-together enemy spawns, too. Still a little frustrating, though. And the actual portal room in the final mission is very tiny - the boss and a destructible spawned right on top of each other, though by then I had a large entourage.
Detail - *****. Pretty much worth my while to check everything. The only thing I'd suggest is to customize the description of the Stricken slightly, but that wasn't a real immersion-killer or anything.
Overall - *****. Even with that rating, it's not a typical lowbie arc, and because of the slightly higher damage scales on the downranged enemies, it might might not be appropriate for certain builds that really don't get a lot of stuff between 5 and 10. Still, if you've got a decent lowbie build, this one is definitely worth your while to play.
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)
Glad you enjoyed the arc, Glazius! I definitely put a ton of work into that and came out with something I was pretty happy with, so I decided to leave it up. To address a few things:
Downscaled enemies: I don't think that higher level enemies have a higher damage scale by default, with the rigorous work of testing this arc. (Most of my testing was done with a level 8 brute, by the way, at +0/x1 with bosses.) It seems like a level 1 gunshot is no different than a level 50 gunshot, except for the level difference. I think it's specific enemies that have higher damage, like warwolves. Speaking of which, it seems like the downscaled council that I grabbed from the 20s range is really the hardest part of the arc, something that I'm having trouble thinking of a way to fix to my satisfaction. I want to have the whole high level group represented, but not be too challenging to the player. Hmm, maybe if I take the minion wolves out of the group, leaving only the LT and the rarely seen boss? That way there'll be less knockback and stun.
By the way, I pulled off the downscaling by using cleverly named custom groups. Just make a custom group with enemies that only spawn above the levels your missions are specifically set to, or even just take a standard group above the level of the mission and make that the main group for the mission. If you've done it right the name of the group will be yellow and you'll have a warning up in the upper right corner saying that there are enemies outside of the level range of the mission, and may be too difficult. You can still publish your arc if you get that warning.
I have had it completely not work in the past, but for now it seems to be working just fine. For the purposes of this arc I tried to avoid really mean enemies that low level characters just are not equipped to handle outside of specific boss spawns. No minions with control powers outside of chances to stun and knockback or a long recharging sleep power, no minions with heals, no horribly annoying debuffs (Death Shamans are the only shamans in my custom Banished Pantheon group). The Paragon Protector in the second mission can be found in the regular Crey group as Psychic Defender Clone. It's in the 20s range and is featured in some CoV mission tucked away somewhere. I changed the name and the description to the stock. Wanted to give experienced players the shock of "OH ****, A PARAGON PROTECTOR AT LEVEL 5?" without actually making them suffer through some MoG or Total Focus. Same with the whole Rularuu mission. No eyeballs or wisps (aside from the boss in the last room). The regular Natterlings gave no XP you say? Damn. Must have picked a summoned version on accident or something. I'll have to fix that.
Infected: Infected spawn in small amounts in Galaxy City, giving out the same description. Space is really tight in this arc, so custom descriptions for 3 different enemies are right out, especially since I'd have to make a custom group for them as well.
Short Souvenir: I really hate writing out long recaps of my arc. I tried it for the first arc I made, and couldn't bring myself to do it. I tend to try to make my souvenirs something that you'd actually keep around or was given to you during the mission and write a short paragraph that has the general gist of what went down. Considering my bad luck with space constraints, that's probably a good thing.
Actually, I never got wrecked by a wolf spawn. It was the vampyri parasites that did it - Gloom was doing 10 a tick, which seems high, and I think their dark melee is pretty nasty too.
But that may, again, just be bad luck.
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)
As of the latest patch, Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers From Hell, Holding Down the Fort, and Made to Wave the Flag all have missions where the player will get considerably less experience than normal. I'm not going to change a damn thing about them, since I worked too hard on all of them and the missions won't be the same without the NPCs flagged as allies.
All versions of Drakule no longer self-rez. I personally never thought self-rezzing AVs was such a big deal, but with the current patch giving resurrected critters a big regen boost, which would be on top of his AV regen, and the fact that self-rezzing already makes an enemy unaffectable, it's now too much of a dick move in my opinion to leave them in.
Doesn't hurt that it's probably the biggest complaint about the Drakule AVs, either.
Quote:
I didn't worry too much about it when I played them, but with the new +regen, that's probably not a bad idea.
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Originally Posted by LaserJesus
All versions of Drakule no longer self-rez. I personally never thought self-rezzing AVs was such a big deal, but with the current patch giving resurrected critters a big regen boost, which would be on top of his AV regen, and the fact that self-rezzing already makes an enemy unaffectable, it's now too much of a dick move in my opinion to leave them in.
Doesn't hurt that it's probably the biggest complaint about the Drakule AVs, either. |
Quote:
Done as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.|
Originally Posted by LaserJesus
#384776: Made To Wave the Flag
Length: 5 missions Tags: Solo Friendly, Drama, Horror Morality: Heroic Trapped inside of a Malta facility, you and 4 other heroes must fight against all odds to escape a madman's grasp. A story about duty, loyalty, and what one must sacrifice for the two. This arc assumes that the player character is a human(oid) character with superpowers. The arc description doesn't state it explicitly, but Malta is the main enemy you'll fight in this arc. |
@GlaziusF
Running this on a low-40s It Ain't Me/No Senator's Son, er, ice/axe tanker, +0 x2 with bosses on.
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Well.
This is an interesting start. Hello, amnesia protagonist, it's nice to be you.
Malta. They seem hostile. Then, they seem unconscious.
Up ahead, the guy who saved me. His backstory is tangy, with hints of a fine aged Captain America, but as an amnesia protagonist I probably shouldn't know too much about him.
Another guy, War Shaman, with another backstory I probably shouldn't know.
Beachhead is 19, War Shaman is 26, I am apparently 37.
Lot of missing numbers there. Ominous.
Deeper in I meet Professor Improbable (subject 33) and Corona (subject 23). All of them seem to be just brawlers, unless I'm missing something.
After the base leader goes down Beachhead spills some more of the beans. Looks like this is gonna be a regular Left 4 Lab Rats, or something to that effect.
The briefing is nice. I wonder who's going to die first. At least that seems to be the way this is going.
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Oh. Now it's a flashback. Amnesia Protagonist's best friend.
Looks like this is the inside of a conditioning simulator. I easily dispatch the vile Nazis, but now I've got World War II following me around. Don't you hate when that happens?
And now the Reds. Now there are two wars on my shoulders.
And an invasion. I do like the propaganda, but I wonder why they're following me.
...oh. That's why.
Well, while I appreciate what you're trying to go for here? The problem with an enemy with no attack powers is that it bolts very, very easily. Trying to chase the big sack of hit points up and down the corridors with the crate on was probably the opposite of what you intended here -- maybe just giving him the Robotics laser rifle and one attack with it would be enough. After all, he does talk about me bowing down at his feet, and some of the laser rifles look impressively sci-fi.
So we're going to split into two teams. Team A will be the experienced SEAL and the hero with powers. Team B will be three people who may never have held guns before.
Uh.
Well, this would make sense if Beachhead were actually worried that I'd been brainwashed, and as none of the others object, perhaps this is actually the case.
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Anyway! Blowin' up a generator in time-honored fashion.
Mmm. Bad luck with some spawns puts two generators (and consequently two sappers) right next to each other. This is was it was like in the old days, all the time. Ah, memories.
According to one file there's still a brainwash victim in the base somewhere.
According to another one, I'm not it. Dodged a bullet there.
And I get some anti-super juice. Well, that's nice.
Interesting choice for the generator room. I would have picked the one with the big pillar in the middle surrounded by plasma jets, but this one's nice too.
Anyway, the dude just before me -- some kind of fire controller, I think? -- was turned. And now he's down, complaining bitterly that heroes like himself can't be trusted.
I have to wonder if that epically low morale is a desired outcome or an unfortunate consequence.
...we're taking him with us? Beachhead, that never works. The zombie always wakes up and sabotages everything at the last second.
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Hmm. Another flashback. This one promises to be grimmer.
I can see I'm already beginning to see red. Wonder if I can fail this one? Let's leave my bff Dr. Brainwash behind and scout around.
Oh dang. He's everywhere.
Maybe he could mention the meteor in his opening briefing. Like, heroes crashed it down into Atlas in a show of force.
It does show up whenever I try to lock onto an enemy, which presents a rather amusing image really.
Well, what do you know? I can break the frame here. Poor little civilian program. It only wanted to do its job. Let's see what's opened up.
Finally, a boss fight! He doesn't do the giant hordes of clones thing this time, though, which is a pity.
Well. The three effective noncoms have predictably gotten themselves in over their heads, and Beachhead is going to hold off pursuit as long as he can.
Somehow I think I'll be the only person getting out of this.
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Well. I guess he stayed out in the open to catch the generator boom, unlike the others who were sheltered from the blast? Anyway, some of the others seem to have made it, so I guess it's time to grab a sub.
War Shaman doesn't seem to understand predators very well, though. I mean, what are tiger stripes for?
Oh hey. Dude's alive and of normal limb count. I would not have predicted this. Anyway, I lead him back to a bend in the tunnel and dash off. Not letting a stray bullet ruin this.
I find the lockdown code he was talking about by beating a boss. "Find" is a bit of a keyword for a glowie click, at least to me, so you might want to reword that to "take out the base cryptographer".
Like the justification for and reference to the Arachnos hangar with the Recluse video.
I lift the lockdown... and O'Brien comes out to say goodbye. Aww. I'll miss you too, you big silly. But my axe won't.
Mind control? I would not have predicted this. Fortunately I always cart around a break free or two for Architect purposes, and it does make sense if he's an evil psychologist. Just a boss, though? I wouldn't have minded an EB.
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Storyline - ****. Interesting interleave of modestly head-trippy brainwash sessions with the main plot. I don't mind the in medias res style much - the mission summary makes it pretty clear what I'm getting into.
My one problem is Beachhead's choice of the team split, basically putting the only two combat-capable people together even though there's no guarantee on the strength of forces. This makes sense if he's worried that I may be a Malta sleeper agent, but he never lets on about anything like that so it just looks like he makes a pretty big blunder and ultimately dies needlessly.
Design - *****. Aside from the meteor, everything makes a decent amount of sense, and the meteor really only needs minimal justification to work. The hero designs, though they don't get a lot of mileage, are pretty evocative, and using the nightvision goggles to unify the Malta-aligned customs is a nice touch as well.
Gameplay - ****. The customs are reasonable to fight... when they fight. Chasing the doc all over the top floor of an Arachnos base in mission 2 was a real pain. I can understand why you don't want him to have a lot of attack powers, but giving him just one wouldn't compel him to run all over the place.
I can understand why even the Malta missions are mostly empty - giant piles of gun drones are nobody's friend - but when there's a mission detail Malta's Sappers come out to play a lot more.
This isn't to suggest you should take a different tack necessarily. But a bit of bad luck can bring Sappers together on a map, which is never a good time. I suppose it'd be worse if there were normal Malta spawns at the same time.
Detail - *****. Everything I inspected seemed pretty reasonable, though you might want to retool the hero descriptions in the first mission when I'm still groggy. Make them more personal introductions, perhaps?
I expect mission 4 would be satisfying no matter which way I decided to run with it, but I'm glad you put in a little more support for the way I chose to take it.
Overall - *****. This arc isn't for everybody. It's definitely something you play for the experience more than for the XP. Missions 2 and 4 are almost purely atmospheric, and the remainder are against what for that map is reduced opposition. But it uses the tools of Mission Architect well to tell the story it sets out to tell.
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)
Thanks for the review!
If I were to make the descriptions of the people not give out their backgrounds, you'd never see the background of Corona and Professor Improbable, since they only appear as allies in the first mission, instead of just NPCs with dialogue in briefings and such.
Going light on the spawns was to try and prevent the issue of ally spawns happening right on top of a default spawn, causing double malta agony. Also, making Beachhead just standing around waiting for you in the middle of a bunch of dudes. The last mission could stand to have more people, perhaps.
Unfortunately Dr. O'Brien attacking would ruin it. I realize most people just go nuts and attack everything the moment they see them, but Dr. O'Brien's dialogue implies that he thinks that his brainwashing is going well, and that he's coming to do the whole "JOIN ME AND WE SHALL RULE THE GALAXY AS FATHER AND SON" bit. If he ran at you pulse rifle blazing, it'd ruin that effect, no? The purpose of the objective is that your character is giving Malta the middle finger and refusing to give in to their warped ideology, making you the instigator of the fight, and not him.
Regardless, I may make him a boss instead of an EB so it doesn't take as long to kill him.
Changed the elite boss in mission 2 of Made to Wave the Flag into a boss. I figure high damage characters killing him too fast and getting multiple ambushes quickly is a better situation than low damage characters not killing him quick enough and having him run all over the damn place. Also, this makes it easier for control characters to lock him down, preventing the running.
No, giving him attacks is not an option. I'm standing my ground on this one.
Quote:
Well, the info screen is supposed to represent what "I know". It doesn't make sense to have something so in-depth when I'm too doped up to remember much except how to cast the spells that make the peoples fall down, but you could make their description more of a personal introduction spoken in-character than an objective description, and it would work out fine.
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Originally Posted by LaserJesus
Thanks for the review!
If I were to make the descriptions of the people not give out their backgrounds, you'd never see the background of Corona and Professor Improbable, since they only appear as allies in the first mission, instead of just NPCs with dialogue in briefings and such. |
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)
Quote:
Review done as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.|
Originally Posted by LaserJesus
#340316: Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers From Hell
Length: 3 missions Tags: Challenging, Ideal for Teams, Comedy Morality: Neutral The fourth arc in the Drakule series, the now freelance Doctor Von Heksung has been investigating reports of a werewolf biker gang in the city. He asks you for your help yet again, and leads you into another ridiculous adventure. |
@GlaziusF
Concluding the Drakule run with my ice/axe tanker, mid-40s +0 x3 (as x3 was suggested).
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So Heksung is trying to rekindle that old killin' spark with other monsters. Such as werewolves. So here I go~!
I make my way through the dancing civilians. I take out a named boss and get an ambush... literally right on top of me. Okay.
And then there's "The Aberrance". Who seems to be... a minion of Drakule who drank werewolf blood.
This is worrying.
The vampire boss doesn't spawn much of note, though.
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Oh, says Heksung in the next briefing, it was actually a werewolf who drank hemoblood.
Which means there may be more. Which means more vampires.
So, killin' some more wolves.
...and, uh. Ashton. Who apparently was so annoying he got kicked out of the netherworld.
After hearing about Drakule the werewolves are after hemoblood... but, uh, didn't Heksung say they've been mortal enemies?
Or was it more that Father Grendel heard Drakule wasn't there to kick around anymore?
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No answers from Heksung. Just more imminent killing.
In the Center's danger room!
Oh wait. No. Fire lab.
Do all the special maps share a set of loading screens?
Father Grendel is apparently right by the entrance here. This should be ugly.
Oh. He's... apparently got plant control powers? Though he only uses the stone melee on me. Description is a real hoot. It hints that he'll be back. Maybe in this mission?
There are giant fights in here that leave behind multiple bosses. I fight the remnants of one which is, like, three pack leaders all clumped together.
Huh. Okay, the duchess is a mind control/pain dom (man, anguishing cry is -30% def/res which just hurts no matter WHAT AT you are, but insps make it all better) and it looks like she's picked up the pieces of Elukard and is using him to sustain herself.
And that's it. Another source of hemoblood out of the way.
I'm starting to feel more like an exterminator than some sort of legendary champion.
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Storyline - ***. I have to say, if you were going for the "cash-in direct-to-video sequel" feel here, you pretty much nailed it. The series mainstays show up, a danging plot thread from an earlier movie is grabbed onto and pulled, and there's some new innovation that really doesn't work out too well.
The driver for the plot is supposed to be the werewolves finding out about hemoblood from Ashton and getting themselves some of that, but it has never really seemed as though the existence and nature of Drakule was that much of a closely guarded secret. Granted, I've been working with the guy who wrote the handsome set of leatherbound volumes on killing Drakule, so perhaps my perspective is a bit biased.
Part of the problem is that werewolf bikers don't feel as offbeat as emo vampires. Bikers have some humor potential to them, as Full Throttle proves, but the potential is in the gratuitous use of violence in situations where other means of conflict resolution are generally called for. I don't think gratuitous violence is actually possible in CoX, seeing as how I was regularly locking my enemies in seven-foot blocks of ice and sending them across the room with big, sweeping arcs of my giant alien axe.
I mean, why not use the natural enemy of the emo kid: the frat boy? Ashton is finally among his own people.
Design - ***. The story comes out in three missions that are really more like two, given that mission 1 is a bunch of setting fluff and three boss fights. It feels a little cramped together. And then the werewolf boss shows up in the first room, meaning the rest of the mission is basically coasting on the remnants of Drakule.
I was kind of expecting a werewolf final boss coming in, hopped up on hemoblood. The actual end boss gets approximately zero setup, as Drakule's faction haven't had much presence to date.
Okay, so you've probably got space issues here with at least 9 customs that I know of running around, but seriously, the end boss comes out of nowhere, which is never a good feature.
Gameplay - *****. Pretty solid opposition. The only notable speedbump is the end boss, and that mostly for Anguishing Cry, but really, if you can't make the end boss tough who CAN you?
Detail - ****. There was plenty to see in the missions, and the various details certainly conveyed what was supposed to be going on. (Ravers: renamed Malaise Maniacs or customs?) It's just that what was going on wasn't very interesting -- and yes, I realize I'm saying this about running battles between werewolves and vampires in the burning ruins of a techno lab.
But I expected those, though that's partly a tribute to easy, evocative scene-setting. And the descriptions were, as always, a treat to read.
Overall - ***. There's plenty of stuff to do in the missions, and the fights are fun, but the story is compressed into about two and maybe a half missions. And as a result, the plot progression feels more like random oddness than anything sensical. This is on the high end of three, but ultimately it feels rather disconnected.
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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I'm going to let you think really hard about why that sentence makes no sense, Glazius.
| I don't think gratuitous violence is actually possible in CoX, seeing as how I was regularly locking my enemies in seven-foot blocks of ice and sending them across the room with big, sweeping arcs of my giant alien axe. |
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We're thinking of the same gratuitous, right? "Without apparent reason, cause, or justification"? |
Originally Posted by LaserJesus
I'm going to let you think really hard about why that sentence makes no sense, Glazius.
|
Over-the-top violence kind of falls flat in CoX because there isn't really a top to go over. Cosmic level characters (such as the level 45+ ones this arc mandates) can pull out all forms of insane violence on each other as a matter of course. There's nothing unreasonable about freezing a werewolf in a seven-foot block of ice and whacking him across the room with a giant alien axe; the reason is, because otherwise he was going to claw my face off.
Violence is practically required for the werewolves to accomplish their goal here - acquire hemoblood from the vampires to increase their own power. So the potential for amusingly gratuitous violence just isn't there.
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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Arguments about semantics are the worst, so I'll play your game re: gratuitous.|
Originally Posted by GlaziusF
We're thinking of the same gratuitous, right? "Without apparent reason, cause, or justification"?
Over-the-top violence kind of falls flat in CoX because there isn't really a top to go over. Cosmic level characters (such as the level 45+ ones this arc mandates) can pull out all forms of insane violence on each other as a matter of course. There's nothing unreasonable about freezing a werewolf in a seven-foot block of ice and whacking him across the room with a giant alien axe; the reason is, because otherwise he was going to claw my face off. Violence is practically required for the werewolves to accomplish their goal here - acquire hemoblood from the vampires to increase their own power. So the potential for amusingly gratuitous violence just isn't there. |
The first mission has the potential for gratuitous violence, with all the allied crazed standing around. It works only about 50% of the time due to spawn points being random, but I've had multiple playthroughs where the werewolf ambush will just start mowing down the civilians, or the battle in the back will get out of control and bleed over to the civilian boss back there, who spawns an ambush of allied PPD who are there to contain the violence. They never stand a chance, obviously. I've been toying around in my head with ideas on how to make those events more guaranteed, but the limited filesize and the amount of spawn points on the map makes that troublesome. Whatever. My head is thick, it can take some more repeated smashes against brick walls.
If you didn't find the werewolf dialogue in the second mission entertaining, (I do hope you went searching around for random side bits instead of barreling towards the end) then I guess there's nothing to be done for that.
In other news: I changed the first mission of Rise of the Drakule to (finally) fix the issue of the objective Kill the Seduccubus making little to no sense, considering you're never given a reason to and that Seduccubi will regularly spawn if you're on a team, which the arc was made in mind for. Added some more text in Doctor Von Heksung's briefings to say why you're killing it (and more jokes, never can have enough jokes) and changed the boss' name to something that made me cringe as I typed it.
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Yeah, none of that actually happened. The ambush, like I said, showed up right on top of me (Mad Dog was up on the catwalk "outside the loading dock") and the battle was on the catwalk "inside the loading dock". So yeah, kinda unfortunate there.|
Originally Posted by LaserJesus
The first mission has the potential for gratuitous violence, with all the allied crazed standing around. It works only about 50% of the time due to spawn points being random, but I've had multiple playthroughs where the werewolf ambush will just start mowing down the civilians, or the battle in the back will get out of control and bleed over to the civilian boss back there, who spawns an ambush of allied PPD who are there to contain the violence. They never stand a chance, obviously. I've been toying around in my head with ideas on how to make those events more guaranteed, but the limited filesize and the amount of spawn points on the map makes that troublesome. Whatever. My head is thick, it can take some more repeated smashes against brick walls.
|
Quote:
| If you didn't find the werewolf dialogue in the second mission entertaining, (I do hope you went searching around for random side bits instead of barreling towards the end) then I guess there's nothing to be done for that. |
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)
Quote:
If you blew up Ashton's sweet ride then you've seen half of the optional stuff you really need to see there. The other was the werewolf who was making the probies drink and his callous dialogue about the unfortunate fate of Steve.
|
Originally Posted by GlaziusF
Weirdly enough the part of that mission I remember most was trashing Ashton's sweet ride, and its ludicrous license plate. I saw about half a dozen special bosses or other events, but didn't bother taking the left fork at the end since taking all three branches was kind of tiring (lethal damage takes a while to stack up on the wolves).
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There's probably going to be a lot of changes to my arcs pretty soon here, considering it's Issue 17 time now, dawg.
Rise of the Drakule and Return of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood have been updated with a more fully fleshed out custom group. There should be less dark powers flying around to debuff people's accuracy now. I also changed the level range for Rise of the Drakule to 40-50 due to the way that custom power selections work now.
Quote:
@GlaziusF|
Originally Posted by LaserJesus
#257226: 'Tis Nobler in the Mind
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Reviewing this on a mid-40s ice/axe tanker, +0 x3 with bosses on.
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So I'm working for someone I don't know much about, who the briefing makes it clear that I don't necessarily trust.
But walking into a building in Boomtown doesn't sound so dangerous.
Of course, now I'm set to level 45 and trying to find a way around a security captain, as I'm expecting giant ambush waves or something if I confront him.
The end room seems full of enemies but empty of glowies -- the glowies are back toward the beginning of the second floor. More location confusion, or does "middle" actually mean "middle" now?
And I pick up the hypno device, along with some notes about how its victims are generally easily controllable, except for occasional moments of lucidity.
I hope this is just my paranoia, but I have a feeling that I'm already under this device's control.
(Also after the mission's over I head down to rumble with the security captain. Yep, whole buncha ambushes.)
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So I guess finding the device was enough to establish this guy's bona fides, and now I'm going to try and break other samples of this device through the city.
The entry popup feeds my paranoia a little more, telling me there's something I just can't remember.
I hear one vocal patrol, find some weapons which just gives me an "Illegal Weapons" clue that calls them a variety of illegal weapons. That's distressingly generic.
The boss is a recolored Transcendent, who is supposedly a traitor to Paragon but the occasional line that slips through makes it pretty clear that my paranoia is justified.
Either that or he was hypnotized into painting himself, which seems less likely.
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Hmm. The accept test for the next mission says "upload the program into the Hypnometric Inducer", which doesn't seem to have anything to do with the mission as described. Editing error, or hint at the true nature of what's going on here?
Ah, okay. It only applies to something my contact tells me after I accept the mission. Generally I expect the accept text to relate to something in the initial briefing.
No mission open clue for the disc I'm supposed to have? That's fine, but I'd expect one.
Invis on for this one, since these guys are presented as Longbow. They're talking about some hero who's gone rogue. Gee. I wonder who that could be.
...wait, what? I have to beat Manticore to leave the mission? That's completely unexpected. At least he's the pet version since he's conning Hero.
Okay, he was just trying to distract me so Sister Psyche could get inside my head and tell me I was the brainwashed drone I always thought I was.
Fortunately they have a plan to get me out of this, though they're not giving me the details.
---
Next mission, my contact is sending me after the scientists who developed the hypno machine to begin with.
Of course, I half suspect what's really going on, and the schlocky hero, time-cop, and eyewitness report all confirm it to various degrees.
I fight some more pet versions of Manticore and Sister Psyche, and the fog finally lifts.
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The opening clue to the next mission should probably have some kind of callout in the send-off. As it is I've never actually seen LOKI's base.
Manticore is right inside the entrance, right next to an unheralded elite boss.
The doc apparently has some toys as well, ones he didn't think to turn on me to defend himself. ...for a reason.
Anyway, the big boss is a claws/illusion, and fortunately I packed some break frees so perma-Deceive remained in the realm of theory. He and the machine with the blueprints are one room from the end of this tech map, though I have no idea if the terminus room here is actually the "last" room on the map.
The customs are horde o' machine gun minions, DB/ninja and bots/devices lieuts, and dark/dark bosses. Not that bad, if the minions don't trap you in a -def loop of eternal hits.
Everybody involved apologizes to me for the inconvenience, and unfortunately since tones of voice don't come across, Manticore and Sister Psyche sound just as insincere as the CEOaf who started this thing.
---
Storyline - ***. There's a philosophical concept called a "Cartesian Demon". Descartes imagined it as part of a philosophical experiment - what could he know about the world if there were some malevolent force twisting his perceptions to show him whatever it wanted? Including a Cartesian Demon-type figure, like that hypnosis device, is particularly troubling in the Architect, where we only have the mission text to convince us that the impressive display of particle effects we just put on actually accomplished what it set out to do.
Because what do you learn when you experience the defeat of your Cartesian Demon? Nothing. The defeat may just be the demon fooling you again -- in this case, the last mission would "actually" be me facilitating my contact's escape from Longbow custody. Once you let a Cartesian Demon out of the bottle it's not going to go back in; I'm encouraged to see flaws in what I'm being asked to do and I can't stop that.
I've enjoyed other arcs that messed with my perceptions before, but those mostly because it was in the service of establishing a mood, or even played for laughs. There's nothing wrong with this story, but the burden ahead of it is herculean if not unmanageable. It's kind of funny that the hardest thing to do with a gimmick that messes with your perception is write a story about it going away.
Design - ***. I realize that as a part of this arc there are heroes working to stop/help me and I don't, and in fact shouldn't, know anything about what they have planned. But I still don't like the idea that a decent part of the backstory and objectives for the last few missions are a mystery or a surprise, and especially in the third mission I don't have any reason (according to the briefing) to fight Manticore. Maybe he could activate some kind of jammer and disrupt the base computers, so I'd get the clue he was around. And likewise I could understand Manticore and Sister Psyche not telegraphing any of their actions in missions 4 and 5, but if my internal narration could speculate about their whereabouts that'd be a little heads-up at least.
Gameplay - ****. The surprise chained objectives are at least reasonable and not too far out of the way, but the customs have the potential to be nasty with cascading -def on the machine guns. Maybe take a page from Crey and mix in some martial artists or people with nightsticks. And the end boss, like all lieuts-and-higher with Deceive, can permanently apply it.
I wouldn't be adverse to just getting some permutation of the standard EB warning for the final mission, since I was half expecting the boss but his bodyguard just came out of nowhere. Maybe like I said since I was starting to break free Manticore or Psyche could give me a quick rundown on the enemies?
Detail - ***. So there was this one episode of the Batman animated series where the Riddler trapped Batman in a dream machine, putting him in a world where his parents were alive and he was just Bruce Wayne. But every time he tried to read something it turned into a psychedelic ransom note, and eventually he worked out that he was in a guided dream because of that consistent weakness.
When I read the clue about there being some weaknesses in the hypno machine, I was expecting something a little more subtle than it just occasionally failing to work and letting real spoken dialogue through. I thought the clue itself was some kind of hint from my subconscious that I was being controlled, and I'd be seeing the occasional odd out-of-place object in other missions to get myself up to speed. As it is, the control just feels like it's failing arbitrarily. There's no rhyme or reason to it. And I'd be happier with the end of the story if the hypno machine was malfunctioning in predictable ways and I could see that it wasn't anymore.
Overall - ***. Despite the twist, this is ultimately an arc that tells a simple story in a straightforward way. And that's kinda the problem I have with it. The story about mind control would be helped by having a control with a specific weakness or weirdness, rather than one that was just generally flaky. And while me-the-character understands why I'm being kept in the dark about the plan for resolution of this whole affair, me the player doesn't like it when things just show up out of nowhere, so some special effort needs to be made to bring me into the loop once Psyche's convinced I should be there.
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 completely forgot I was still on your queue.
This is the review where I say that pretty much every problem you have is valid. It should be noted that despite the higher arc number, this is the first arc I wrote, back in beta. It's had a few revisions, but nothing incredibly major. My proficiency with AE has grown considerably since then, and there are many more tools available to me now. I wrote the arc because I figured when AE was first announced that it would be the hardest concept to pull off (at least that I could think of, in making Made to Wave the Flag I discovered I was horribly wrong) and I was pretty much proven right, considering the usual distaste for mind control and contact betrayal stories. Honestly the fact that I still got 3 stars considering the incendiary premise and how anciend by AE standards the arc is surprises me. In a pleasant way.
This arc and Fighting Freedom are the arcs I would end up deleting if I ever write another one. The old Drakule arcs accomplish what I want from them, and I'm quite pleased with my newer arcs (even if they still need to be edited, Made to Wave the Flag needs tons of changes and free time is not my ally as of late). I could probably turn my old arcs into something good, but it'd pretty much mean making them from scratch, and I'd rather spend that time exploring new ideas.
Exciting arc! PM sent.
Forgot to mention my toon was a level 5, xp-locked, no-enhancements, katana-willpower scrapper. He only died once, and it was avoidable if I'd thought quicker (to make and use a break-free). Considering what you have in this arc, you've done a great job making it playable.
Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
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