Arc #534314 - Forsaken People: A Tale of Old Astoria

I announced these two arcs awhile back in the Creation thread, but they've both gone through a whole lot more polishing over the past month and now they're hopefully ready for a full release. The last one is...

Arc Name: Forsaken People: A Tale of Old Astoria
Arc ID: 534314
Creator Global: @Sparkly Soldier
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Horror
Length: Very Long (5 missions)
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 20 - 29
Enemy Groups: Custom, Circle of Thorns, Banished Pantheon
Difficulty Level: Fairly easy, very solo'able (no EB's or AV's)
Estimated Play Time: 45 to 90 minutes
Suggested Team Size: Solo
Description: When a district judge and the former deputy mayor both turn up dead, you're enlisted by MAGI seer Azuria to stop a phantasmal killer whose origins lie hidden in both the perpetual mists of Dark Astoria and the shadows of Paragon City's darkest hour.



My second AE arc, inspired by the news back in November that Dark Astoria's going to be changing soon, written as an origin story of sorts for a character I made as an homage to foggy Dark Astoria and as a way of giving closure to the ghosts that'll be gone once Astoria changes. I hadn't started on Miriam Bloechl's story when I wrote this, but having done so since, it also fits in pretty well as an epilogue to her "Scroll of Tielekku" arc. It'll hopefully also work as a prologue to Issue 22 and Mot's awakening down the road, and I also wanted to give Azuria and the MAGI department one last world-saving hurrah before the next issue.

I'm a first-time CoH and MMO player solo'ing as a blaster at the default difficulty, so, knowing next to nothing about the technical aspects of balancing (and really nothing at all about AE tickets, experience bonuses and so on), I used custom enemies with standard powersets and reasoned that anything I can survive as a level 20-30 blaster without inspirations is probably fine for more experienced players. The maps are mostly small, linear runs through the story, which is what the arc's really all about.

All feedback welcome, and let me know if you'd like me to try out an arc!

A few people pointed out a problem that can create multiple, random MM enemies... that is not supposed to happen! The enemy group's fixed so the MM boss should only appear when the story calls for her (one appearance in Mission 2, another in Mission 4, and never more than the one boss), and I also swapped out the powerset for another enemy whose holds were proving annoying.

(Edit: I tested the arc on +4/+8, and ye gods, it's a madhouse in there! But that's confirmed that the problem's truly fixed now - no more ghost summoning conventions. The problem's just that I'd included her as a boss in a custom group that also formed a patrol, and forgot that bosses spawn in those patrols on the right difficulty setting. She was never, ever supposed to be a random enemy. I also adjusted the final boss/rescue battle so there are high-difficulty minions and lieutenant versions as well as the bosses. That makes the fight potentially too easy on the lowest difficulties, where it spawns nothing but minions, but it also keeps a vast horde of bosses from filling up the room on the highest ones.)

Thanks for all the feedback so far, it's been a huge help!

If you have unique enemies, here's a useful guide: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=264830

Oh thanks - I had no idea about the "auto spawn" option! The way I finally solved it was to take the two custom bosses, put them in a separate enemy group and then use that group only for the boss objectives. Your way is much, much easier.