New Dev Choice - A Mythos of Mystical Mysteries - By Lord Mayhem
By
Aura_Familia,
Posted on: 2010-01-20 11:28 in Mission Architect
Hmmm...never heard of this one. I'll have to load it up this week!
Grats to Lord Mayhem 
Craft your inventions in AE!!
Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!
Congratz on the Dev choice! 
Grats, Mayhem. Looking forward to giving your arc a spin.
@TURGENEV - Freedom Server / IRON / B.A.N.E / HORDE
Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine Acts III & IV coming 2012!
Turg Fiction: IX is now LIVE on Architect Entertainment!
Gratz! I'll have to find time to check this out.
Edit: Hmm, turns out I already played this arc before.
A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691 <- Dev's Choice'd by Dr. Aeon!
Submit your MA arc for review & my arcs thread
Gratz on the Dev's Choice! *loud whistles and applause*
Now say that arc title ten times fast.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)
First, gratz to Lord Mayhem!
Quote:
I just love Dr. Aeon. |
Originally Posted by Dr. Aeon
Magic. Seriously, I don't like it at all. It's unpredictable and far too ancient for my liking. Why did that spell not work? Oh, did you make sure to worship that being that existed for five minutes twenty thousand years ago? There's your problem!
Hmph. |
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
Gratz Lord Mayhem! Nice to see good arcs getting the recognition they deserve.
K5K - The Killbot 5000
A Spanner In The Works Part One, ArcID: 336662, A Spanner In The Works Part Two, ArcID: 336665, Enter Japes, ArcID: 96001
In The Darkness Creeping, ArcID: 347709, When Dimensions Collide, ArcID: 412416.
Gratz!
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
Oh my stars and garters!
I just got a single word text message on my phone from one of my friends (who also plays CoH), saying:
"Congrats!"
I almost didn't dare to think it was this, but I had to come check Dev Digest just in case... oh my!
This arc was pretty much a love-letter to my favourite CoH faction - the Banished Pantheon - and all the wonderful ancient backstory in the game that links them to the Mu, the Oranbegans (Circle of Thorns) and the origin of magic itself.
I've always thought the BP deserved more in-game content than they currently get - and more recognition as the global threat they truly are - so I decided to tackle that head-on myself. If it wasn't for the pesky size limit this arc would have had two more missions featuring the BP and the Death Cultists (even without them it was a tight fit and I had to trim 1 minion and 1 lieut from the custom faction) - I planned to fix that post-GR with the higher size limit, but now I guess I'll just create a sequel, in true Hollywood style - well, except that I'll try to make it better than the original - the Death Cult will return!
Despite getting lots of positive feedback from many of the first 50 or so people that played this arc last year - mostly due to word of mouth on the EU servers - this arc went several months without any further plays. The buzz it generated for my second arc dried up too and my third arc went pretty much ignored by the time I published it (only 4 playthroughs as at yesterday, not including test runs), which broke my little heart, as I spent longer making and testing it than the other two combined. That coincided with the fall in popularity of the AE and I honestly thought I'd missed my chance and wouldn't get enough plays to get noticed for anything like this, especially as all my arcs had dropped down to 4 stars. Then I injured my arm and haven't been able to play CoH much at all since late August 
So I just want to say thanks to Dr Aeon and the rest of the Dev Team for restoring my faith in the system - and for freeing up one of my architect slots so that I can create another arc! - and for giving me a burst of confidence in my storytelling ability - I may not be able to get a novel published (yet), but at least some people are enjoying stories I've created, and without your innovative architect system that just wouldn't be possible.
Also thanks to all the players who tested the arc for me in the early stages and gave me such great feedback and such kind comments, even the ones who just wanted to tell me they'd noticed the literary references in it Just to know that people are enjoying something I've created means so much. And thanks to @Soul Storm, who would have made me a poster for this arc, but I asked him to make one for my third arc instead as it needed publicising far more - he did such a great job.
And to all the arc creators out there who are in the position I was in yesterday - all arc slots full, but nobody playing their arcs - keep hoping, because you never know what can happen - next time it might be you. Just remember, even if only one person played and enjoyed your arc then it was worth the time you spent creating it.
I hope everyone who plays this arc as a result of this Dev Choice enjoys it - please leave a comment as I love to read your feedback. If you like this arc, well, give my other arcs a try, especially 220049 - it's better! [/shameless plug] - though I might be a tad biased
Enjoy!
Come on, you weren't expecting a short post from me, were you? 
Ttfn.
Lord Mayhem,
I just played the first two parts on my DM/DA scrapper set to 0/x4/bosses, and the second mission was one of the most challenging solo experiences I've had in the game without feeling overwhelmed.The mu spawns were almost too much, but not quite. Fighting a mu spawn and a cult spawn at the same time was exciting times.
Good stuff. I'll be doing part 3 tomorrow.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
Does having a Dev Choice remove any xp penalties for custom mobs?
Not saying this arc does, but I always avoid custom mobs in MA arcs. So, if Dev Choice would fix that concern of mine, that would be nice.
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I'm happy you're enjoying it, especially challenge-wise, and I hope you enjoyed the final mission tonight... errr yesterday. Pitching difficulty is the hardest part of making an arc, imho, and is the main reason I test so much pre-publish - there are just so many powerset/archetype combos, soloers or teams of varying sizes/make-ups, customisable difficulty settings, varied spawn combinations, etc. to allow for - plus you may have noticed I like patrols |
Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
Lord Mayhem,
I just played the first two parts on my DM/DA scrapper set to 0/x4/bosses, and the second mission was one of the most challenging solo experiences I've had in the game without feeling overwhelmed.The mu spawns were almost too much, but not quite. Fighting a mu spawn and a cult spawn at the same time was exciting times. Good stuff. I'll be doing part 3 tomorrow. |
- you just can't test for every possibility - though I test widely for soloability with my L50s (at the difficulties they use for Dev content), then drag in friends to test in a team setting, so that I have at least a broad idea how to balance a specific arc. I like a tough challenge too, but I try to balance my arcs for moderate challenge to allow for edge cases and so that players can tweak difficulty to taste with their own settings. I'm just glad you had fun.When I get feedback about relative difficulty of my arcs I'm always aware that certain powersets may struggle more than others according to resists - like in your case with Mu doing Energy-typed damage when DA is so weak to that (my SS/DA struggles with Mu too). With your DM/ primary just be thankful most of the Death Cult don't still have Dark Armour
- several of them did pre-publish, but I changed them to either Regen (on the caster Cultists, to balance their difficulty) or to Shield Defence (on the melee Cultists, mainly for aesthetic reasons as I wanted to use those cool tribal shields).I've had a couple of players complain that the Death Cult were too tough, but more said the arc was fun and pitched just right - nobody complained it was too easy (but would anyone complain about that? - something else to think about). The only Mu complaints were about the final fight of the second mission - a few people said it was too tough, solo and teamed, so I did tone the difficulty down post-publish. In those cases the feedback wasn't tainted by "this is what I'd do different" or too vaguely subjective (e.g. not telling you which character they used, solo or teamed, what part was difficult, etc.) - plus I could only get comments from EU servers back then, being an EU player, so I often got more detailed feedback by /tell as well.
That brings up another point - feedback is important, but how many players giving the same feedback do you need before you consider it a trend rather than an edge case? With my arcs getting so few playthroughs (60+ for this one pre- Dev Choice, 45+ on my 2nd arc, only 4 on my 3rd arc) I only made major balance changes when more than 2 players said the same thing. That's partly why I'm so desperate for more playthroughs of my 3rd arc, Overshadowed by History - one commenter has pointed out something they found difficult/frustrating, but with only 4 post-publish playthroughs (and none of my testers nor I having the same issue that person did) I want to be absolutely sure they're an edge case.
The Mission Architect has been a fascinating insight into what things must be like for professional developers, especially on this arc as it was my first attempt, plus it had a custom faction to get feedback on as well - my other arcs only have custom bosses, or custom factions made from Dev-created mobs, but that's more because of size constraints than balancing difficulties, so I cannot wait for GR to double the total arc size:
Iirc the Death Cult has 2/3/5 bosses/lieuts/minions now (plus an EB in his own custom faction) as I wanted a similar range of enemies that larger Dev-created factions have, so that spawn variety would increase replayability, but I also wanted Cult minions/lieuts to interact in meaningful ways (healing each other, debuffing for each other) so that players would assess a Cult spawn before charging in (like I do with Malta) and would target minions/lieuts in a different order depending what character they were playing (like I do with Arachnos). That desire cost me around three-quarters of the arc size, only leaving enough space left for 3 missions (the 2 planned missions I had to trim out featured the BP more heavily). With double the space post-GR I should be able to do a 5 mission arc with 2 custom factions at least as varied as the Death Cult.
The variety makes the death cult better, yes. I think once I might have got two tar patches stacked on me, but I didn't really see the degenerate stacking I've seen in other custom groups (like entire spawns of minions with targeted heals and strong debuff attacks).
The mu weren't a problem because of their energy damage, but because they stacked so much end drain at once that I was constantly on the edge of not having enough. I had to leave fights a few times because my end dropped too low (after dark consumption and conserve power, and I had no blues or any way to make more) and I couldn't afford to keep trying to defeat the spawn and rely on dark regeneration. And yeah, this was through the 70% end drain resistance murky cloud provides, along with all the +rec IOs and set bonuses that I have. Also, I think that the Mu bosses have really high negative damage resistance.
I haven't done part three yet - I got into a long TF and wasn't really up for following that up, but I will get it tonight or tomorrow at the latest.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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Yeah Mu have both energy and negative energy resistance, iirc. |
Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
The variety makes the death cult better, yes. I think once I might have got two tar patches stacked on me, but I didn't really see the degenerate stacking I've seen in other custom groups (like entire spawns of minions with targeted heals and strong debuff attacks).
The mu weren't a problem because of their energy damage, but because they stacked so much end drain at once that I was constantly on the edge of not having enough. I had to leave fights a few times because my end dropped too low (after dark consumption and conserve power, and I had no blues or any way to make more) and I couldn't afford to keep trying to defeat the spawn and rely on dark regeneration. And yeah, this was through the 70% end drain resistance murky cloud provides, along with all the +rec IOs and set bonuses that I have. Also, I think that the Mu bosses have really high negative damage resistance. I haven't done part three yet - I got into a long TF and wasn't really up for following that up, but I will get it tonight or tomorrow at the latest. |
Sadly it's been so long since I was last able to play that I'd forgotten Mu can drain end pretty well if you're facing lots of them - admittedly this arc was created before the I16 difficulty changes, so I wasn't balancing with the idea that soloers would ever be facing spawns of Mu set for 4 people - just another example of how hard it is to balance these arcs. I just assumed it was the pure energy damage thing giving you problems because my /DA always struggled against large spawns of energy-damaging mobs (especially RWZ spawns of Rikti, but Mu spawns too).
Debuff stacking is one of the situations that can make the Cult particularly nasty if you underestimate them and fail to disrupt them, especially -ToHit debuffs combining with the +def on the Shield-users (especially nasty if you get two caster lieuts in a spawn with a melee boss) - which hopefully inspires certain builds to take a spawn apart in certain ways - rather like Longbow can become a handful if you don't deal with multiple Nullifiers quickly and get caught in two disruption fields without noticing (especially if you also have one or more Wardens of the nastier varieties on your case).
Sadly the lieut I had to trim out of the Cult at the last moment to fit the arc size was another caster lieut (hence why there are 2 melee lieuts but only 1 caster lieut now - originally the Cult had a 50/50 split of melee/caster mobs at every rank, and would have had a lot more minions too) which would have increased spawn variety, but I just couldn't bring myself to remove either of the melee lieuts, as those weapons and shields just look too cool together
I wanted the Cult to be interesting and variable, rather than straightforward, hence the robust "melee half" doing "common" smash/lethal, aided by a squishy "caster half" mostly doing "exotic" Negative Energy damage or debuffing/healing - I thought they'd scale up well as a challenge for teams too, where most mob types would be present so stacked debuffs might be nasty but the healing wouldn't get out of hand (as it was on the minions which would die fast to AEs), yet the faction could still be interesting while soloable due to the spawn variety. Plus each half's costumes are similar enough to tie them into the Cult theme, but you can learn to identify the different flavours and ranks of melee or caster by their face-paint and/or armour trim details, more so than by name.
Btw I hope you like BP Totems - I love them! I hope you enjoy the 3rd mission
Yeah, i didn't notice the to-hit debuffs much because of my focused accuracy + global accuracy set bonuses, but i could see they could be a real pain.
And yeah, if I had more energy resistance, i might not have needed to use Dark Regen as often, but I was still running low on endurance to handle everything.
And yeah, i didn't think you'd had people going x4 in that. I'd meant to reduce the difficulty as I do with custom groups and forgot. It made for a very fun experience, though.
And I love fighting BP in general. One of my favorite enemy groups.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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Yeah - it's a shame they haven't been expanded upon - especially redside where they have a very minor presence in Sharkhead that isn't really explained. |
Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
And I love fighting BP in general. One of my favorite enemy groups.
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Personally I think the BP are a global threat on par with Hamidon's DE, the Rikti, Rularuu, the Praetorians, and the Nictus threat, and thus they need the content to really exploit all the great lore behind them. Maybe one day they'll get it - even a single TF would help. The Coralax are in a similar situation, though their lore hasn't been developed quite as much and doesn't tie to the rest of the game quite as strongly (like the BP tie in with the Mu and the Circle of Thorns).
I think the Coralax were planned to be expanded as an epic AT, but that never got off the ground.
I can see why the devs might not want much EAT proliferation, too.
I did all of the game's story arcs from 1-50 prior to the addition of the Hollows, Striga, etc, and I seem to recall that several plot threads were dropped - the whole Family/Tsoo/Warriors thing felt like it was just dropped with no real conclusion. The Banished Pantheon didn't really go anywhere after the Wheel of Destruction, and so on - admittedly, the WoD was a pretty good arc.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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Yeah, Coralax Hybrid I think - probably dropped from the "possible additions list" when the other planned epic archetypes were: Avilans (winged race) and Blood of the Black Stream (ancient Egyptian shapechangers - maybe Warshades inherited part of their lore re Shadowstar) - I vaguely recall Avilans being officially canned when we got wings as a costume part. They were all rumoured by Jack Emmert when he was lead dev, iirc, so they likely never got past the ideas stage - long gone now.|
Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
I think the Coralax were planned to be expanded as an epic AT, but that never got off the ground.
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Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
I did all of the game's story arcs from 1-50 prior to the addition of the Hollows, Striga, etc, and I seem to recall that several plot threads were dropped - the whole Family/Tsoo/Warriors thing felt like it was just dropped with no real conclusion. The Banished Pantheon didn't really go anywhere after the Wheel of Destruction, and so on - admittedly, the WoD was a pretty good arc.
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Yeah the 3-way war/feud between the Family/Trolls/Skulls, the Warriors/Outcasts/Hellions and The Tsoo, over their smuggling/dealing operations (re Superadine and magic artefacts especially) really did seem to lack any dramatic moments or some kind of closure - good back-story set-up, but not much pay-off in how it was presented in-game - especially when compared to the nice lore developments with the Family/Mooks split in Port Oakes on redside (re the Verandi and Marcone families scheming for the Governorship) which really stamps its storyline onto that zone in just a couple of mini-arcs (on Billie Heck) and good flavour text from in-zone spawns.
Though if the BP got some love then I'd really like to see The Tsoo as next in line for more content and focus as they're such a characterful faction - but The Warriors probably need it most of all as they just seem somewhat bland - I don't even know what their agenda is, as the background info on the official website and what I've read in-game seem rather vague about their motives - heck, minor factions like The Goldbrickers on redside seem better fleshed out.
Magic. Seriously, I don't like it at all. It's unpredictable and far too ancient for my liking. Why did that spell not work? Oh, did you make sure to worship that being that existed for five minutes twenty thousand years ago? There's your problem!
Hmph.
However...I will applaud Lord Mayhem's arc, A Mythos of Mystical Mysteries. It starts on the interesting premise of the Mu finally finding peace with Oranbega, and the introduction of a powerful death cult getting in the middle of it. The members of the Death Cult are extremely well designed, with costumes that you can look at and clearly understand what their goal is. The story itself will make you curious, as it deals with figures that are often mentioned within the lore of the Circle and the Mu - and it has a twist that will make you go, "Ohhhh!", though I won't ruin it for you all here!
Luckily for us, I won't need to perform any fancy rituals in order to award Lord Mayhem with this week's Dev Choice. Congratulations!
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