A Man on a Mission: Khonshu's Revamp of CoH
By
Arctic_Princess,
Posted on: 2010-03-02 14:41 in Mission Architect
I've just rlled up a fresh DP/Dev Blaster, and so I'll be happy to take him through all of these (I'm assuming that they'rer all Heroic).
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)
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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Not using the text is unbelievably limiting. An arc limited to what can be shown without text can't tell 10% of the story one that uses the text can.
| I'd like to see all new content from the devs adopt this design principle and try to make it so players can tell what's happening in the story even if they don't read the clues and contact exposition. |
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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And that's probably the same percentage of players that actually read all the text.
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Originally Posted by Venture
Not using the text is unbelievably limiting. An arc limited to what can be shown without text can't tell 10% of the story one that uses the text can.
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I was a player who started in 2005, so a lot of my early memories of the game involve Sprinting from door to door through The Hollows. 
The Hollows is a favorite zone, but one where I'd like to see the story retold in a way that brings more of the backstory to light in the form of action and dialog.
I decided that one way I could tackle the project was to associate each zone exploration badge with a contact. So in this case, I took the Parapsychologist badge and the contact "Talshak the Mystic" as my inspirations.
I had a lot of different goals for this particular arc.
One, I wanted to update the appearance of the mission contact, Talshak the Mystic. This may sound small or petty, but I've found that I respond strongly to the visual aspects of game characters and my own toons. If a character doesn't look right, it detracts. I've heard the same thing from other players, so "make it look good" is a design rule for me.
Old Talshak
One complaint I have about the CoH contacts from the first few issues is so many of them look sickly, poor, and beat down. Their shoulders hunch forward, they are disheveled, and they are usually hollow-eyed. Maybe they are all on drugs, I don't know. But I wanted my Talshak to look a little more successful, so I upgraded his look.
New Talshak
Two, I wanted to retell Talshak's story in a way that kept roughly the same entry and exit points, but dwelt more on a magical theme than the canon tale. In the canon version, Talshak primarily sends you to fight Trolls, with a little Igneous and Circle as garnish. You might remember this arc for the very long Atta mission and the ending which introduces you to Oranbega.
Since Trolls are of mutant / science origin, I didn't use them. I like the idea of maintaining a certain level of "origin purity" in arcs, so players can elect to play content that resonates with their own character's origin. I think it's more immersive that way.
Three, I wanted to expose the backstory of Talshak, the Cavern, and the Circle in a manner that is more clear, consistent, and concentrated than the version given in game. While I don't tell everything in that one arc, I think I was successful in laying out the basics.
Four, I customized my Circle group to feature primarily the human members and de-emphasize the demonic members. My rationale for this is that the demons are NOT Circle of Thorns, but are their own separate enemy group(s). So I have the canon Circle divided into 1) human Circle, 2) ghosts, and 3) demons - though the latter do not show up in this arc.
One exception to the rule is that I did put Lashers in with the humans, so this way blueside players get a little taste of redside Circle. 
I also pursued my general design rule of including females with the enemy groups when the opportunity presents. So in my arc you'll find a new female ghost (Spectral Queen) and a female mage (Kandelas). Unfortunately, we don't have options in the costume generator for mage robes or legless spectral daemon forms, so I did what I could.
Also, to round out the ranks I extended the concept of the Thorn Wielder - which is normally found only at level 5-13 - with the Thorn Lord. I think the Thorn Wielder is one of the best looking Circle foes; while my version doesn't quite do them justice (robes and sashes would help!), hopefully one day we'll see the devs expand the role of the Wielders.
If you're playing this arc you might want to know: This arc was aimed at level 5-15 for play, but it scales up to level 40 fairly well.
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Yup, we must use text for our stories; it can't be entirely eliminated. In fact, I often have longish contact expositions, even though I'd like to avoid it. And I do try to make good use of pop-ups and NPC dialog. But I do, as a rule, avoid placing clues.|
Originally Posted by Venture
Not using the text is unbelievably limiting. An arc limited to what can be shown without text can't tell 10% of the story one that uses the text can.
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It's not that clues are explicitly bad, but I do think they detract from the flow of action, and they can facilitate an unconscious tendency on the author's part to tell rather than show.
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I'll admit I'm one of the TL;DR crowd. In real life I'm a reader, but in the game I prefer to get my text in dialog balloons or tiny pop-ups that can be quickly closed so I can move on with the action.|
Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
And that's probably the same percentage of players that actually read all the text.
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Another thing I do for the TL;DR crowd is I try to find a sentence or two in each frame of contact exposition that encapsulates the movement of the story, and I highlight that in yellow.
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Played through this one. As requested, if not a 5, I did not rate, though if I'd rated normally, I would have given it a 4. It was an engaging arc that flowed naturally, but since it was derivative of content, (even not so good content), already written, I couldn't in good conscience say that it was the 'best of the best' per se.| The Hollows: PARAPSYCHOLOGIST (Talshak the Mystic, magic origin) |
As far as your experiment is concerned, I honestly didn't see much different from it than the majority of what the other known authors are producing right now stylistically. It appears as though a lot of the text that would normally appear in the clues is being placed in dialogue balloons, which tends to create really big dialogue balloons that may spawn so far away from the player that the player either needs to read them in his chat area or miss them entirely.
Everyone, for the most part, at least the authors who have really delved into this activity has taken to color coding text and everyone has his or her own system for color selection. Yours wasn't distracting, but until you pointed out in the above post that you were attempting to highlight specific plot points, I didn't really pick up on that this was what you were doing.
Overall, it was a good arc that played fairly well and I enjoyed it.
This sounds like a great concept and I love the thought process you've put into revamping the standard enemy groups. I'll be sure to suggest your arcs to the MA SuperTeam for this weekend's run.
Craft your inventions in AE!!
Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!
The first arc I did is "A South Side Story."
My inspiration was a badge few players get: "Negotiator." The goal: revamp Negotiator.
This badge is given as a consequence of a single mission where the player's character enters a warehouse and defeats Clockwork and Skull mobs. So far as I can tell, there is nothing about the mission that is particularly noteworthy, there's no build up to it, and ... at least to me, the notion of Clockwork and Skulls battling over turf doesn't make much sense. I mean, the Clocks want tech salvage, and the Skulls want human bodies and Dyne customers, so ... not a lot of overlap.
Also, I thought for a while about the notion of "negotiating" a truce between street gangs. While a negotiation might be possible to work out in a story, essentially it is the interest of the police to stop gang warfare by putting the gangs out of business. So finding a source of strife among the gangs and defusing it, and putting a lot of gang members in jail at the same time, seemed the way to go about it.
I decided to ditch the Clockwork as an adversary. They don't really work, do they? I don't really see them as a street gang; more as a persistent nuisance or incidental menace, as they are not really aimed at claiming turf or hurting people.
Also, I decided the logical source of the arc would be Det. Rachel Torres, as she is head of the PPD Gang Unit. You encounter her in plain clothes on the streets of Galaxy, but really ... she is the detective in charge of gangs. (See earlier rant on early issue CoH contacts.)
Det. Rachel Torres
I also decided the proper gangs to use for the story would be the Skulls and Hellions, with an admixture of Lost. The reason why the Lost are there is because Torres was nearly killed in an encounter with the Lost, and her partner was crippled by them. So it seemed natural to have her vendetta against the Lost show up in the arc.
However, I ended up creating a custom contact for the arc: a female Skull named Teardrop.
Teardrop
I did this for a couple of reasons. One, like many people, I saw an opportunity for a "West Side Story / Romeo & Juliet" angle on the Hellion / Skull street war. This type of story is easier to tell if the contact is one of the protagonists.
Another reason was that I wanted the arc to be about the Skulls and Hellions, and if I stuck with Torres the arc would be about the Lost, because that is her interest. If I tried to make Torres direct the player to take actions against the Skulls and Hellions, the arc would lack passion.
So what resulted was an arc where Teardrop is an informant for Det. Torres, and an arc that begins with concerns about the Lost turns into a conflagration between the Hellions and Skulls.
If you decide to play this arc, know that the level range is 5-20. Normally the Skulls peter out at level 14, but I managed to extend the Skulls to level 20 (the Hellion max) by adding customs to the standard enemy lists.
I thought I should say something quick about this arc (Hall of the Dancing Tigers), because if someone was to play this arc before the others ... well ... you should know this one stands out for difficulty. If you're in the mood for a challenge, this one is for you!
In general, players have liked it, but it is hard for different ATs / power sets, at different levels. If the devs ever permit us to add pool powers to our NPCs, I'll make some changes and the arc will become a lot easier.
Having said all that, I should point out that I did my early testing of the arc with a level 4 emp/dark def (using veteran powers) and I made it through on Unyielding. Yes, I did die a few times, but it was not unbearable death after death.
So ... warning taken? Good. 
I'll dish more on this arc a bit later.
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When I initially read this, I thought that perhaps what I was doing was being held to a different sort of standard than I'd intended. Then I thought, perhaps it's unclear what I'm doing when I say "revamp."|
Originally Posted by Sister_Twelve
Played through this one. As requested, if not a 5, I did not rate, though if I'd rated normally, I would have given it a 4. It was an engaging arc that flowed naturally, but since it was derivative of content, (even not so good content), already written, I couldn't in good conscience say that it was the 'best of the best' per se.
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So here's an explanation.
While we could have a total replacement of content in CoH, and enjoy it, I have to admit that I've become attached to a lot of the lore that already exists in the game. So in a revamp, my intention would be to try to keep the existing lore intact, but to tell the story in a fresh, different, and hopefully better way. So I wouldn't be getting rid of things like the Rikti invasion or the Hollowing Event; I would be taking the bits of lore in the same configuration, but view it all from a different angle.
In the Talshak arc ("The Hollows: PARAPSYCHOLOGIST"), it was important to me to keep the same basic story going in the Hollows, but to give the player a different experience.
Now, having said I'd like to keep the lore, I'd also like to point out there are places where the lore might be "fixed."
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Hrm, let me try to explain what I mean by that because I think you might be misinterpreting what I meant. I really wish that, in practice, the ratings were turning out to mean what they were originally intended to mean. Because I view something as a 4 out of 5, that doesn't mean that I think that it is bad. In fact, it means the exact opposite. On the flip side, I fully understand why you want to keep yourself out of the 4 star limbo that so many arcs fall into.|
Originally Posted by konshu
When I initially read this, I thought that perhaps what I was doing was being held to a different sort of standard than I'd intended. Then I thought, perhaps it's unclear what I'm doing when I say "revamp."
So here's an explanation. While we could have a total replacement of content in CoH, and enjoy it, I have to admit that I've become attached to a lot of the lore that already exists in the game. So in a revamp, my intention would be to try to keep the existing lore intact, but to tell the story in a fresh, different, and hopefully better way. So I wouldn't be getting rid of things like the Rikti invasion or the Hollowing Event; I would be taking the bits of lore in the same configuration, but view it all from a different angle. In the Talshak arc ("The Hollows: PARAPSYCHOLOGIST"), it was important to me to keep the same basic story going in the Hollows, but to give the player a different experience. Now, having said I'd like to keep the lore, I'd also like to point out there are places where the lore might be "fixed." |
However, what I meant...
Let's look at the recently recycled trend in Hollywood to remake every horror movie put out in the last 30 years. Some of these remakes were good. Some were not so good. In fact, when the director was remaking a film that was frankly quite bad, like the original Last House on the Left or the original The Hills Have Eyes, (Sorry, Mr. Craven, but in your earliest forays into film, you just weren't a good director yet), the resulting remake was often better in almost every way than the original film.
Yet they were derivatives.
And if you ask almost any horror movie afficionado, her or she would tell you that he or she prefers the original film for no other reason than the sentimentality that comes along with something being the original. Yes, I have actually had conversations where people tell me that they prefer the original Last House on the Left, even with the 2 stupid cops and all the screen time they sucked from the film, the poor acting, the even poorer technical aspects, the obvious and glaring audio errors, and the relatively thin script.
The Last House on the Left (1972) was just a bad film.
The original Hills Have Eyes was better, but still, the version that came out in 2006 (?) was still better in almost every facet of filmmaking. Not the sequel... the remake with the cop from Monk and so forth.
So what am I saying?
Only that in most regards, even if what you do is very good (4 - in our parlance), it won't be classic (5 - in our parlance), simply for no other reason that even if you clearly outperform the original arcs, your arcs will be derivative of material that has already been produced.
Again, it doesn't mean I won't like it... only that I probably won't view it a classic material.
Now, of course, for every line in the sand I draw, there are exceptions. The version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1978 is probably viewed as more of a classing than the original. The Thing that came out in 1982 is probably viewed as more of a classic than the original as well.
So it's not to say that I won't be so totally blown away by one of these arcs that I instantly rate it as a classic. (All critics are self-contradictory in that manner.)
However what I will say is that all things being equal, I will generally regard strong material that is original as stronger than strong material that is derivative.
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I have no problem with your rating. You did what I asked, and I appreciate it. |
Originally Posted by Sister_Twelve
Hrm, let me try to explain what I mean by that because I think you might be misinterpreting what I meant. I really wish that, in practice, the ratings were turning out to mean what they were originally intended to mean. Because I view something as a 4 out of 5, that doesn't mean that I think that it is bad.
( ... ) So it's not to say that I won't be so totally blown away by one of these arcs that I instantly rate it as a classic. (All critics are self-contradictory in that manner.) However what I will say is that all things being equal, I will generally regard strong material that is original as stronger than strong material that is derivative. |
As for whether something is derivative or not, I must ask, if someone writes an arc that makes use of existing characters and lore, is that automatically derivative? And accepting that we're working in the CoH AE, and my arcs are tagged with "Canon," is the use of existing characters and lore bad?
You thought the arc (PARAPSYCHOLOGIST) was derivative, yet it was a completely different story from the canon Talshak arc. Yes, it uses familiar characters and conforms to lore, but it is otherwise original.
In the canon arc, the Trolls had kidnapped Sam Wincott. How and why the Trolls did this is never explained. You are introduced to Talshak, who is fighting the Trolls. He is trying to prevent them from accidentally exposing the "magical gateway" that "calls to all of magic blood." Talshak divines the location of the Troll leader Atta, and sends you to defeat Atta and destroy some Superadine shipments. The player is looking for Sam Wincott as part of the larger story arc, but Talshak is not. Karsis is brought in at the end of the arc as a mind-dominated, but otherwise anonymous, Circle mage.
The new story uses Talshak, but he is matched against the Circle (magical foe), not the Trolls (science foe). Talshak seeks to rescue Sam, and is working with MAGI. The Circle looks and behaves a bit differently from how it appears in canon missions, yet the new look and behavior is more in line with lore. Karsis is a major figure throughout the new story. The major characters have clear motivations. Everything that happens in the arc is new, but the main lore points are matched, so you could play this arc instead of the canon arc and still be relatively in tune with the story of The Hollows.
(I should probably also point out that this arc was planned as part of a complete revamp of The Hollows. The story of Atta and the Superadine is not lost, but is shuttled to a different contact.)
I was on a 7-player team that tried A South Side Story but we were unable to complete it. I think we were playing at level 20 (the leader was high level) so we encountered a lot of the custom Skulls; these guys look terrific but seem much too tough for a low level opponent. They hit very hard and debuff accuracy. We had two team wipes during mission 3 (once due to aggroing too many custom Skulls, once due to getting hit by an ambush of the custom Skulls while fighting something else). This plus the fact that the mission was Defeat All on a large map discouraged the team and we ended up abandoning the arc. Since we quit the arc, I don't think most of us rated it.
I joined the team and the arc mid-stream so wasn't really able to follow the story. I did not see any clues during the time I was there; perhaps a few of those would help.
Although I think the custom Skulls have terrific costuming, they just seemed too hard. Personally I'd suggest reducing the level range to top out at 14 so you can use the normal Skulls instead of custom ones; failing that, lowering the power level of the custom Skulls might be a good idea.
Hope that helps!
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
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First, thank you for the positive feedback on the appearance of the Skulls NPCs! I think they look pretty spiffy too. |
Originally Posted by PoliceWoman
I was on a 7-player team that tried A South Side Story but we were unable to complete it. I think we were playing at level 20 (the leader was high level) so we encountered a lot of the custom Skulls; these guys look terrific but seem much too tough for a low level opponent. They hit very hard and debuff accuracy. We had two team wipes during mission 3 (once due to aggroing too many custom Skulls, once due to getting hit by an ambush of the custom Skulls while fighting something else). This plus the fact that the mission was Defeat All on a large map discouraged the team and we ended up abandoning the arc. Since we quit the arc, I don't think most of us rated it.
I joined the team and the arc mid-stream so wasn't really able to follow the story. I did not see any clues during the time I was there; perhaps a few of those would help. Although I think the custom Skulls have terrific costuming, they just seemed too hard. Personally I'd suggest reducing the level range to top out at 14 so you can use the normal Skulls instead of custom ones; failing that, lowering the power level of the custom Skulls might be a good idea. Hope that helps! |
As for the difficulty of the custom Skulls, when I played against them I thought they were fine. Also, there's not much I can do to weaken them. They are on standard difficulty.
I added the custom Skulls because of multiple player requests to boost the level of the arc past 14. Players wanted to have Stamina and other higher level powers, which they couldn't have with the arc capped at 14.
I did play test the arc at level 20, and had no difficulty, but I was playing solo. Perhaps the problems stack up when there's a larger team. I'll see if I can try it again with a larger team after double xp weekend has ended, though it may be a bit rough to assemble a team as virtually all of my friends have left to play STO.
If anyone here has a group that would like to play the arc, send me a tell - @Khonshu. I'm on every server, red and blue sides.
As for the map in mission 3, it is listed by the game as being "large," but in truth it is not. It's small or medium. It is an "abandoned office" variant of a standard map which we also see used as the unique "hospital" map. So it has a large lobby at the entrance with a winding hallway to the left on level 1, a short hallway between elevators on level 2, and just 2 encounters on level 3 before you reach the large, square boss room with the elevated office area in the center. There's a total of 14 spawns on the map, so it's not too onerous for a defeat all ... unless you are really, really lazy!
I try to be judicious about using defeat alls. I play the canon game, and in the past two days I have suffered through several large map defeat alls where I spent eons searching for stragglers, even calling a GM at one point. So I understand the difficulties associated with defeat alls and use them rarely and carefully.
As for clues ... there are no clues in any of my arcs. It's a design rule I follow. My goal is to show as much of the story as possible in the action, so it is readily available to all players. In "A South Side Story" a player should be able to get the gist of the story through pop-ups, dialog, and the action, although of course they'll get a bit more detail if they read the contact exposition.
I'll take another run-through of the arc, but I suspect the main problem has more to do with player expectations and habits of play as opposed to the foes being OP. My impression from watching people play my arcs is that some players are truly creatures of habit, and they treat the arc with a casual disrespect one might associate with a scanner mission or AE farm instead of testing, investigating, being cautious, and paying attention.
Actually, I was on that team with PW and I think the problem came from it being a large team. The Skulls' powers stack up pretty fast and what you think is a small map becomes HUGE when it spawns for a larger team.
Team wipes weren't limited to just mission 3, we had plenty of them from the get-go. Admittedly, our team was a bit on the squishy side, but we normally perform better than a random pug and a random pug would get eaten alive on this arc.
My thoughts on the arc were it's a good concept, but lacks execution.
Misison 1: the map is too big for a "filler" mission. When we rescued the "inside guy" he was dead before I even got a chance to see if he was wearing a 'no left turn' sign. I'm guessing an ambush took him out? I was still fighting my way thru the stacked mezzes when we got the big FAIL.
Mission 2: Hellion spawns were buggy. Some were at level 14 (5 levels below the group) and others were at the correct lvl: 19. There didn't seem to be a pattern as to why some groups were grey and others were right. Aside from that, this mish was fine.
Mission 3: As mentioned above, the custom Skulls hit really, really hard. The ambushes didn't help matters at all. I can't imagine a team of lowbies trying to take this misison on at all. I, personally, had extra insp slots and IOs since I was exemplared and still wound up sucking floor repeatedly. A single custom Bone Daddy was able to take me out with his alpha and we were facing groups with multiple bosses and LTs. Ick.
Also, as mentioned by PW, the map is too large for a defeat all, esp. considering you have more defeat alls to follow.
I was curious how the 'no clues' concept would play out and I found it was harder to follow the story without them. Often the dialogue happened off-screen so you have to keep an NPC Chat window open to follow it. And in the heat of battle you don't have time to read. Plus, we had PW join later and, without clues, was shut out of the story. I think it was a good experiment, but I don't think it works in a practical manner.
Finally, the contact needs some personality. The dialogue is very dry and expositionary. I understand it's neccessary, since you're not using clues, but Teardrop needs her own "voice." Is she a Jersey Girl? A valley girl? Emo? She didn't come off as street smart, sweet, or anything. Aside from her look (which was great BTW) she's completely forgettable.
Craft your inventions in AE!!
Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!
I was also on the team running your arc. I was an elec/dark Stalker and I noticed some things. I actually saw the hostage in the first mission but didn't realize that it would follow us and thus get killed. I think there's three different solutions to that problem. The first is to make a custom so he's both sturdier and he's more noticable amongst the crowd. The other is to do a recolor of a standard Lost mob but make him some sort of bright color that they don't use so that he's easier to find. The third is to make him a captive instead of an escort though that may clash on the undercover nature of the hostage.
A smaller sewer would help with the stacking issues and keep the mission to the point. The Galaxy City Science origin contact Rebecca Brinell has a rescue mission on one of the "Tiny" sewer maps. I think it can be argued for most content for lowbies is that it should trend towards making the maps short and to the point, especially with larger teams where multiple patrols are a team wipe waiting to happen. Mission three might not have been that big in reality but as a defeat all it felt that way.
I think you should slightly revamp your "no clues" stance. It's an admirable goal with merit but it clashes with people coming late to the arc or even a player who takes breaks between playing. Rather than doing zero clues, I'd say you should do a single clue at the end of each mission as a recap. Keep it short and to the point but note the events that take place. It's incredibly easy to miss dialogue due to the way things spawn and sometimes start up when you aren't near them. Also, I don't think you've achieved your "show, don't tell" goal yet. Part of that is not your fault since we are still lacking a conversation objective but a few more emotes and set groups would go a long way towards achieving your goal.
I find it intriguing that
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mildly clashes with...or is affirmed by| some players are truly creatures of habit, and they treat the arc with a casual disrespect one might associate with a scanner mission or AE farm |
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| Players wanted to have Stamina and other higher level powers, which they couldn't have with the arc capped at 14. |
And that brings us to the customs. First up, they look very good and I commend you for that. Noticed a few key problems with their strength. I think one of your minions or LTs has Dark Armor. Problem there is that it seems to have a perception boost that makes pulling much harder. While I'd actually advocate higher perception for high level mobs, I'd advise against it with lowbies. Switching it with Regen or Willpower should do the trick. Next up is your bosses who were AR/Dark Melee which caused two key problems. I believe Dark Melee is actually one of the higher burst damage melee sets and most player shields have limited resistance to Negative Energy damage. I know that this was done to match the canon Bone Daddy mobs but MA critters are on a higher damage scale than canon enemies. With Assault Rifle it seemed to be using Ignite (correct me if he doesn't have that power) which causes a burn patch on top of the other damage.
I'd suggest that you use canon enemies for your regular spawns and customs for named bosses and your EB. Use Dark Blast instead of Dark Melee. Experiment with defense secondaries. I think your project has potential but it'll take a fair amount of fine tuning to get it just right. I actually plan to try to run this solo at some point so that I can give better feedback on the overall storyline.
Just wanted to add my two inf to this project:
I heartily commend some aspects of it, specifically updating the look of various contacts. Yes, it's only a cosmetic change BUT with additions like Ultra Mode on the horizon now I don't see why our existing contacts don't deserve a bit of glamour. I especially liked Talshak's new cossie.
As for 'rewriting' arcs, the lowbie ones (imho) aren't the ones that necessarily need all that much of an update*. Hollows arcs, in particular, are pretty well-designed for teams which was the original intention for a hazard zone - dealing with stronger enemies and in a larger quantity, especially on the streets themselves.
My beef is with the 30-35 and 35-40 arcs. But mainly the 30-35 ones: Maxwell Christopher in particular but also the other missions at that level that were designed way back when, when having a 'Click 50 glowies' (seriously) objective was considered challenging.
* Of course, having MORE lowbie content is what I'm lobbying for here. The lowbie content will naturally become stale because, whenever we roll a new character (especially blueside), the same tired 'introductory' arcs are available to us. Redside is becoming more like that too because of age. But the arcs on Redside are, imho (again), better written. All of them are. They were written after the initial blueside arcs after all.
So, to summarise:
- Cosmetic changes are very welcome
- More new lowbie content please
- An update of 30-40 content, please (if anything this may well reduce the size of files due to a reduction in several missions which do the same thing (Destroy this generator in Perez, Destroy the next generator in Skyway, Destroy the next generator in Brickstown, Click 50 glowies and fight a boss in Crey's Folly, talk to someone in Indy Port, defeat 50 Crey, defeat 50 DE etc etc))
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While I do agree with you in several respects, I do believe the low level arcs need to be completely redone. They are every bit as terrible, at least from a storytelling perspective, as the upper or mid level arcs.|
Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess
As for 'rewriting' arcs, the lowbie ones (imho) aren't the ones that necessarily need all that much of an update*. Hollows arcs, in particular, are pretty well-designed for teams which was the original intention for a hazard zone - dealing with stronger enemies and in a larger quantity, especially on the streets themselves.
My beef is with the 30-35 and 35-40 arcs. But mainly the 30-35 ones: Maxwell Christopher in particular but also the other missions at that level that were designed way back when, when having a 'Click 50 glowies' (seriously) objective was considered challenging. |
Also, I think the game should preferably be redone in sequence, from low level to high, with lower level missions unlocking some of the higher level content.
For example, I'd like to see a lowbie arc like my "Dante's Inferno" (a remake of the starting arc from Azuria) unlock (or at least precede) one or two later arcs that continue the story.
"Live and Let Die" is also intended as a prequel to the story contained in the Sky Raider "Mysterious General Z" arc (25-29).
If you create the content in a linear fashion, from low level to high level, it is easier to create a cascading sequence of references, making for richer stories.
I strongly believe the whole content of CoH should be revamped, and that it's long overdue.
Okay ... I'm going to attempt a group response for the team that did "A South Side Story." I've decided to bullet the items for some added clarity.
Let me also say that while I do hear what people say in their comments, I don't always immediately agree, but I do think about it, and even if it may sometimes seem like it, I don't automatically dismiss criticisms and suggestions. They stick with me.
Again, thank you team for giving it a try and reporting back!
* I did go through and pull out all the custom Skulls minions, and I reset the arc to a cap of level 14. I hope you'll give it another go.
* For several reasons, I decided I didn't want to bother trying to assemble a team to test the arc at level 20. I did try playing through the first few missions, though, with a squishy toon - a blaster. Solo, with normal settings, I did not find the custom Skulls to be overpowering. I didn't need to use any inspirations, nor did I need to Rest. I believe my previous testing at level 20 was probably with a controller or dom, so I probably benefited from all the mitigation; that's why I used a blaster this time.
* The last patch we got bumped my arc (and I suspect all of my arcs) past the 100% mark, so I had to drop the custom Skulls to be able to make ANY changes in the arc.
* I'd assume that a person joining an arc in midstream would miss out on part of the story but be able to get the gist of it before long. I'd expect they'd be confused about a few points, just like when you miss out on half a movie or book. To get the complete story a person would have to play it from the start. Everyone is entitled to their opinion on this, but personally I don't consider a block of text in a clue to be a reasonable substitute for play.
* I don't believe AE missions should all use short maps. The canon game uses a lot of large maps, and I think we should use them on occasion as well. I'm not in the "all we want to do is tell story so let's use the smallest possible maps" club, although if other people want to create that type of arc that is fine. What I enjoy most is a balance between story and play; not something that is weighted too heavily to one side or the other.
Along these lines, I think the sewer map in mission 1 of "South Side" is entirely appropriate. There's about 3 or 4 rooms, with tunnels between them, and a relatively small number of encounters.
The undercover agent you rescue is armed and fights, but that is to make it realistic and more of a challenge to get him out. There is no consequence if you fail, it is just an additional challenge. Part of the rationale for this feature is to complicate stealthing the mission.
It is my opinion that a major part of storytelling in the game comes from the complications players face. If you ask players what they remember, it is rarely so much the exposition from the contact; it's as though that is stored in a different area of the player's mind. What players remember is a kinetic history of how they entered the mission and encountered difficulties, and what it took to resolve them.
The Mission Architect in its present form is EXTREMELY limited in this form of storytelling, but I still believe we should use the tools we have. In the canon game, the devs have many more tools at their disposal. Maybe some day we'll get more of them.
* I think players can sometimes outfox themselves by looking at the list / warnings that AE provides of map sizes, defeat alls, custom foes, and EB/AVs. They may build up preconceived ideas that color their experiences.
For instance, BackFire expressed a concern about a second defeat all in the final mission. Is this a real problem or just a projection? The map in the final mission only has 2 rooms.
* The reason why there were some level 14 Hellions appearing from time to time is that there is a bug in the MA (o rly?) where mobs spawned as part of the default map mobs don't follow the same spawning rules as the mobs spawned by objectives. I usually try to force a correction of levels for these mobs by backfilling them with patrols, but either A) I cut the patrols to get the arc to fit in a previous editing run, or B) some spawns can't be replaced by patrols, or C) I made an error and forgot to backfill with patrols.
I see there are a few points I missed or could answer better re: Zamuel's post.
Quote:
My original goal was to aim this arc at level 10-14. While I have tried to open the level ranges to accommodate a wider range of play, maybe this was a mistake.|
Originally Posted by Zamuel
The Galaxy City Science origin contact Rebecca Brinell has a rescue mission on one of the "Tiny" sewer maps ....
|
I've changed the range of play now to 10-14.
Quote:
| Also, I don't think you've achieved your "show, don't tell" goal yet. Part of that is not your fault since we are still lacking a conversation objective but a few more emotes and set groups would go a long way towards achieving your goal. |
It seems to me a dev could take an hour (or less) to create a template in MA to allow any event to trigger a narrative pop-up, not just mission enter and exit events.
Then they could take another few hours and create a template and code for dialog events. A dialog event would have the following fields: triggering event, NPC name, dialog, animation, wait.
Most of the programming time would be spent on developing the ability within MA to provide a list of non-anonymous NPCs that are active in the mission so these objects could be selected for dialog. There would also need to be a bit of code in the game that would locate a specific NPC in a mission so the dialog balloon could appear in the right place.
Once those two things are accomplished, the player is able to have any named NPC say something when an event occurs, do an animation, and then resume normal AI after the "wait" timer has elapsed.
Dialog events could be triggering events themselves, so you could have an NPC give a line of dialog with one animation, then chain to another line of dialog with a different animation. Or you could create a conversation between two NPCs.
Quote:
| And that brings us to the customs. First up, they look very good and I commend you for that. Noticed a few key problems with their strength. I think one of your minions or LTs has Dark Armor. Problem there is that it seems to have a perception boost that makes pulling much harder. While I'd actually advocate higher perception for high level mobs, I'd advise against it with lowbies. |
Quote:
| Next up is your bosses who were AR/Dark Melee which caused two key problems. I believe Dark Melee is actually one of the higher burst damage melee sets and most player shields have limited resistance to Negative Energy damage. I know that this was done to match the canon Bone Daddy mobs but MA critters are on a higher damage scale than canon enemies. With Assault Rifle it seemed to be using Ignite (correct me if he doesn't have that power) which causes a burn patch on top of the other damage. |
Hopefully someday soon we'll have the ability to custom select the powers for our NPCs. I'd also like to be able to select Pool powers, but I realize that may be a looooong way off.
These custom Skulls were originally developed for a revamp of the Synapse TF. Since the Skulls only go to 14, I wanted to extend the range of the Skulls to the 15-20 range, matching the range for Synapse.
In another thread I mentioned how it would be great if the devs would redesign their NPCs so that instead of existing for just a specially scripted range they'd exist across all ranges. That would make developing new content much easier. The idea would be to create a profile for each foe group that has divisions at every five levels. In this manner the offensive and defensive powers of each foe could be tailored to match the abilities of players at the same level ranges.
The same principle could be applied in MA.
Anyway, though I may be having some difficulties in my arc, in a revamp of the canon I believe it would be a trivial matter to extend the range of the Skulls from 1-14 to 1-20.
One of the things I believe is essential to a revamp of the content is the customization of the various named bosses in missions. I think even the visualization of the bosses helps to tell story.
For example, here is Toothbreaker Jones ... getting ready to ... y'know.
Here is Fire Fist, of the Hellions. He can throw fire AND kick butt.
And the maniacal Skullcracker (aka Chico).
The enigmatic mutant prophet, Shoeless Joe.
Cryptic, Skullcracker's top aide.
And something too horrible to contemplate!
Here's a group shot of the custom Skulls, which are - at the moment - no longer present in "A South Side Story."
As you might assume, that's a Bone Daddy in the foreground, with a Lt. in grey behind, and minions further back ... one of which is firing a Dark Blast.
Here are some more custom looks for canon bosses. You'll note I approve of variations in the canon powers for custom bosses as well.
Featured below are Hades (Hellions), Totenkopf (Skulls), Scorch (Hellions), Pandarus (Warriors), and FrostFire (Outcasts).
Pandarus is actually a Warrior boss of my own naming, but the idea of using eclectic retro and or futuristic fashion elements is how I'd handle some of the Warriors.
The Mission Architect is a wonderful tool. Players like to use it for all sorts of things: to make new stories, to tell stories about their own characters, to make humorous encounters, to create farms and challenges, etc.
Ratings Request: I consider the present method of rating arcs to be unhelpful for arc authors. If you play my arcs, I ask that you either give no stars as a rating, or give 5 stars. I'm not all that interested in tickets, so as far as I'm concerned ratings of 1-4 stars are really only damaging to an author's position in the search listings.What I've been using it for is to express my own vision of how to revamp the early game content.
I first began play in City of Heroes about 5 years ago. It's been fun, but one thing has bothered me from the beginning: the content. I think Paragon Studios should replace the content on heroside and preferably provide both new tools and new standards for storytelling.
What's different about my arcs? Well, I have several design principles which I try to follow which are aimed at making my arcs more enjoyable.
The primary design principle is: show the action. In my opinion, in virtually all of the canon arcs very little of the story is told through the things that you actually see and do. Most of the real story takes place in the background.
I'd like to see all new content from the devs adopt this design principle and try to make it so players can tell what's happening in the story even if they don't read the clues and contact exposition.
Another principle I'm following in my arcs is that I want to expose as much of the backstory as possible, so things that players maybe didn't know about the canon stories are now more prominently revealed.
Here's a quick list of my arcs as of this date. You can find them by searching for @Khonshu in the AE window. (Yes, my global name is spelled differently from my forum name; "Khonshu" was already taken in the forum when I joined.)
In general, these arcs are all aimed at the 1-20 level range of play, with a larger range available when possible. The degree of challenge varies from arc to arc, but they are all story-oriented and have all been playtested with lower level toons. If you find a mission or arc challenging on your particular AT / power set - which can happen - try changing your difficulty settings.
Of course, you don't have to take my suggestion. Rate as your conscience dictates!
Feedback: I'm always open to comments about what was good or bad about an arc. I may not always implement the specific changes you mention, but all the comments I receive go into my thought processes when I'm creating a new arc.