Who Dares Wins - Arc 454805 (3rd Aeon Challenge)
By
GlaziusF,
Posted on: 2010-10-03 01:22 in Mission Architect
I've added a souvenir and done some playtesting with my SGmates (+ solo on a low-20s MM and Fortunata), so I think the arc is kinda-sorta ready for primetime.
I'm very interested in feedback, so don't hold back!
thanks in advance,
-- Z.
Added Bubbawheat's review to the first post (many thanks for the review, btw!)
I'm also curious about how M4 plays in general (it's one of the outdoor factory maps). There is a lot of Z-axis action going on, and the map is unfortunately rather large. Does this map warrant the addition of 'flavor' boss groups / collectibles / etc (optional of course, just to mix up the enemies some), or would that make it too cluttered / busy?
Another possible point I'm wondering about is the difficulty of M5. The boss-level ally might be overkill; I don't want to make the arc too hard, but having a "too-easy" mission might just kill the enjoyment of some people. So far nobody complained about it, so I'll leave it as it is.. for now. 
As always, comments / input are welcome!
-- Z.
Review done as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.
@GlaziusF
Running this on an early-40s merc/TA mastermind, +0/x2 with bosses on.
---
Hmm. Okay, apparently Im living through somebodys memories of Terra Volta. Hes recolored interestingly but his portrait is still normal. Wonder if all enemies are like that when you use em for contacts.
Anyway, looks like I get some snatches of audiobook when I pick up my clues. ...and my inside man likes rattling off random philosophy when he gets tagged. Thats worth a chuckle.
Hoo boy. Last piece wound up in a lab room. Hate lab rooms. So easy to get crossfire.
Oh! Oh, no. It was in the same room as another glowie downstairs so I overlooked it and moved on. Color me silly.
So it looks like this is playing the villain side of the Terra Volta trial. I recognize this gear from the stuff we raid the Raiders for.
The pre-mission biographical info seems pretty interesting too.
---
Ah. Freakshow deterrence, best achieved by pointing and going LOL.
I pick up a wing raider officer, who obligingly parks himself in a four-way intersection and then flees every direction at once, bringing down a giant swarm of freaks and a Council boss, first on his head, then on mine.
As a result I miss some of the dialogue, but I get a good clean fight with the big boss. Im a little disappointed that we dont drop the hallucinogen right away so he rants entertainingly about bees, but the job gets done.
---
Huh. Looks like something is rotten in the state of Denmark. A stealth op, my narrator? Ill see what I can do.
Well, there arent any enemies in this office complex. Just some bodies, and a few clues. It looks like the new blood sold us out to... the RIKTI?
I dont know who else writes their name like that.
Apparently I have to defeat a boss to escape, somehow? Honestly this seems like a better manual exit required scenario, but that would mean no tickets. ...not that there are a lot on offer to begin with. This is definitely more of an atmosphere mission.
The hero is actually a lieut? Im betting theres a Yamahnri recolor or something.
Oh. Nope, just an original lieut-class hero, as is the second one who comes in to try and stop me.
Man, in addition to the execution, the traitors printed some cards to lure in the PPD to clean up the stragglers? Thats surprisingly thorough.
---
So, going into a giant factory tower to clean up the traitors. They all seem to have sky skiffs, which I counter with my own ally ambush.
So among the traitors are a pirate guy, arsenal guy, and the philosophy guy is quoting a dude from just before he got beheaded. Way to be stupid and foreshadowing at the same time!
Theres space at the top of the factory tower. I wonder if theres a mystery fourth factor?
Ah, no. Looks like the Rikti are in another reactor.
---
Huh. I thought the reactor map was actually in Architect. Sifting over the maps, looks like it wasnt.
Time to make my way up this tech lab, then. I find Byers in a much sturdier Jump Bot chassis and we start clearing out soldiers and mentalists on our way to the top. The end boss and his considerable escort rant about a bomb, which shows up in the same tiny room, and kind of in a bad position since I was standing back a ways to fight him.
Bomb casing off, but the cores still going. Looks like its time to be a hero.
---
Storyline - *****. Good execution and fleshing-out of a story Ive seen the basic form of many times before, usually dealing with organized crime. It ties in very nicely with the existing storylines on Terra Volta, too.
Only thing that bugs me a little - our narrator has the time to leave his last will and testament, but not time to teleport twice? I could understand his harness being drained by the emergency teleport, but the porters can snap off multiples in a combat pretty readily. Maybe make it a little more clear hes just got a one-shot?
Design - ****. The third mission is the real culprit here. Its pitched as a stealth mission, but theres actually not a single thing in it to dodge, up until the end... and somehow its mandatory to tangle with the PPD and their affiliated heroes to leave. It actually works pretty well as an exposition dump, because in the empty space theres generally some new detail to think about.
Honestly Id rather have it be a real stealth run, with the cops and notable heroes already there on account of the business cards. I dont think that fighting them would really detract from the moral of the story, as it were, since you fight them already.
Gameplay - ****. Byers pulling enemies left right and center in mission 2 was a bit of a pain, but I dont know if its something you can help. That factory tower in mission 4 is the real drain here. The bosses can show up anywhere, and as anybody whos played it can tell you, the maps full of places where you can just get jumped from a floor up or around the corner. Especially with high-mobility enemies like the Sky Raiders, theres just an awful lot of chaff to clear.
I dont think, if you want to use a factory map, theres really a better one for it. The catwalk-heavy map, with a warehouse surrounded by multiple rings of catwalks, might work as nothing tends to show up on the catwalks, but not many people would know that going in blind.
Detail - *****. Pretty much every description and clue keeps to the convention of the narrator, and the extra personalities who show up are great fun to interact with. Theres good reason to inspect everything you can just to find out what the narrator has to say.
Overall - *****. Ultimately the pull of the story is good enough to draw me through some of the deader spots in the missions.
Aeon Challenge Special Comment - Well, this is a great example of a character being a rogue by allegiance. Maybe in the very strictest sense it falls apart, in that conventional heroes and conventional villains both team up under the Vanguard banner to fight the Rikti back. But theres definitely a moral choice made here, and it does a good job of dodging around most of the problems that might arise in character motivation by putting that motivation in the hands of a narrator.
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)
Awesome, thanks for the review -- glad to hear you liked it!
I've been looking at M3 and M4 myself. I've actually been looking for a smaller map for M4 (there is a certain sense of epicness with the size, but... there aren't that many sky raiders ). Is the CaD power station map the one you're referring to?
I agree with you about making M3 a real stealth run and it won't need many changes: just set the bosses to spawn in with some distribution, add some extra ppd stuff / banter and make everything optional, then make the player have to run to the exit. I've also noticed Byers going crazy when being hit. I wonder if it's due to the type of mob I chose... will try other lts (captain, porter maybe?).
edit: I just checked: the power station map is out, sadly mobs spawn all over the place, including the really-high-up catwalks and building-tops. The other outdoor industrial map [city industrial 01] has mobs spawning on the surrounding catwalks as well [all levels], but not on the building-top itself. Hmmm....
edit 2: Looks like turning Byers into a standard Captain made him not run away, whew.
edit 3: I turned M3 into a more stealthy mission with pre-spawned enemies/patrols and an extra glowie. Made everything optional except for the desk in the last room, but didn't require the player to run back to the entrance -- that's what the teleportation harness is for! As a side effect, half of the harness' power is drained, thus causing the demise of our "hero" at the end of the arc...
thanks again,
-- Z.
I updated a few things in the arc -- thanks to all who sent me feedback!
- Byers in M2 is now a Captain instead of a Wing Raider Officer; this will make him not run away when wounded. Wing Raiders are cowards, who knew?!
- M3 redesigned. It is now a 'stealth mission' instead of a 'semi-creepy empty map mission': the PPD and the heroes are already present instead of appearing once the "key" collection item is found. About 1/2 of the spawns were turned into patrols to allow some stealth action even for non-stealth ATs. Subsequently, all collections except for the "key" in the last room are now optional goals, as is the defeat of the heroes (having any of them as required just wouldn't make sense).
- (optional) clue added to M3 regarding communication with the Sky Raider main base.
- Patrol banter added to M3.
- M4 spawns were made more sparse (base group set to "Empty", and I force spawn about 15 groups in via an optional objective, as opposed to the 46 total spawns if I just let the zone spawn groups normally). This makes the number of Sky Raiders present more logical from a story perspective. It will hopefully also remove some of the annoyance wrt Z-axis shenanigans and make the map easier to stomach*. Sadly changing maps was not really an option. Believe me, I've tried. :/
- M4 briefing modified: added a hint that the player should seek out the sky skiffs. Only the 3 'main' boss groups have sky skiffs; the only 'normal' bosses spawning in the mission are jump bots. This should make the bosses easier to pick out from afar (along with their voice cues).
- M5 complete text slightly modified to make the ending more obvious.
- Arc is now Final; I submitted it to the challenge. Note that this doesn't mean I won't change the arc ever after feedback, but all updates are on hold until the challenge is over.
Thanks again to all who played the arc, especially FredrikSvanberg, Lord of Storms and Wrong Number for feedback and especially especially (!) Bubbawheat and GlaziusF for their reviews!
* anecdote: when testing this arc, I used two super-speeder characters with no flight / jump temp powers whatsoever. It's not as bad as it seems at first!
-- Z.
Added feedback by the MA Super Team (see first post). Thanks for playing the arc and giving feedback!
A slight aside about the 'lots of text' issue (it has come up 3 times now): all of my arcs are pretty text-heavy, it's a blessing (or curse )... actually it's probably because English is not my first language and it makes me want to have everything sound fancy. I make use of the 'exposition as begin clue' technique pretty heavily in my other arcs as well. I tried to make it so that reading clue text (along with enemy descriptions) is optional, ie. the story remains "intact" if the player only reads the [de]briefings.
There was also the problem of presenting the character the player is "possessing" (it's a first-person arc after all... haven't seen many of those). I could not really find ways to reveal enough information about the captain via ingame mission text, so I had to stick to clues (begin clues have a 1000 char limit). Is there another way to do this that doesn't cause the "wall of text" effect?
Feedback/comments welcome as usual,
-- Z.
'Eyall,
I've finished the first "draft" version of my challenge arc; it is basically done except for fancy text formatting. It has now received some testing from SG-mates, but I am curious as to its solo-friendliness and whatnot. I'm very interested in feedback, good and bad; I'm open to suggestions as well!
** WARNING ** I wrote this arc as a first-person "flashback" from the POV of a Sky Raider captain (in MA terms, it is a holographic memory instead of the usual VR simulation). This means that you, the player, are playing as the captain. If you don't like your character being hijacked like this (understandable), this arc is probably not your cup of tea. Sorry, but this is the only way I could get the story of this arc to work!
Arc name: Who Dares Wins
Arc ID: 454805
Faction: Rogue
Creator: @Zaphir
Level range: 30-35
Difficulty: Easy. No customs to speak of, no EBs, no timed missions. You have an ally in 3 of the 5 missions, and other sources of help in the fourth (you ARE a Sky Raider captain after all).
Length: Fairly long; it has 5 missions, but 3 of the maps are Small. The other two are a Medium map and an outdoor map.
Enemy groups: Crey, Rikti, Freakshow; some Council, PPD and Sky Raider cameos. Two custom "bosses" (LT-level).
Synopsis: You are the leader of a Sky Raider strike force working directly under Duray's command. You've been planning a daring attack on Terra Volta for nearly a year. Nothing can get between you and your prize now -- or so you think.
Notes: I built fairly heavily on 'early' Sky Raider lore (ie. the origins), but since I haven't played the later arcs, I only had Paragonwiki as my main information source. If you see any inaccuracies, please mention them in your feedback; thanks! Similarly, it has been a while since I've done the Sky Raider TV trial, so if anyone knows the exact map used for the second mission, it would be much appreciated.
Reviews:
Bubbawheat (Dr. Aeon's Challenge -- A Player's Perspective) link
GlaziusF (later in this thread)
MA Super Team link
-- Z.