Cobalt Arachne

Becky was originally found in Vernon von Grun's Von Grun's Redemption arc in Grandville, specifically the 'Investigate Devouring Earth attack on Arachnos base' mission. She was a very memorable character and I thought she was a fun choice for inclusion in the ASF.

Hello Homecoming! It’s so exciting to see that in 2022, City of Heroes is thriving and there are still so many passionate players invested in the game that’s so beloved to us all! Now that the Dr. Aeon Strike Force (ASF) has been out a little while and I'm guessing that most people who were interested have given it a spin, it's time for a little look into the cogs that spin to turn ideas and stories into playable content for you guys! This dev diary will be a bit of an insight into the development and thought processes behind why we did what we did. Obviously, if you haven’t played the ASF, this post may contain spoilers! You’ve been warned! 😱 New Dev, Who This?: For those who are unfamiliar with me, I’ll introduce myself: I’m Cobalt Arachne, I was the primary designer behind the Dr. Aeon Strike Force! Before that, I was authoring a City of Heroes fan webcomic and became a writing contributor in late 2019 when I wrote the Tour Guide tip missions that were added with Issue 27, Page 2. Afterwards, I formally joined the developer team in early 2020 to help design and create new content. My previous experience working on video games is mostly comprised of unofficial mod work… Extensive map editor work for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, texture work for Unreal Tournament 2004, and scripting mods for Starbound. Random Fun Fact: I was working on a (now shelved) City of Heroes-themed Starbound mod when Homecoming launched! City of Heroes has served as a crucial creative catalyst for me in my life. It is truly humbling to have the opportunity to help give back to the game that has given me so much since I first played it nearly 17 (Wowza!) years ago! But enough about me, let’s talk about the primary topic at hand… Dr. Aeon’s Strike Force! Concepting the Content: "There's got to be some narrative intrigue hiding around here somewhere!" Around November in 2019, @Piecemeal asked me to pitch some ideas about a new villain-side Strike Force, as there was a noticeable gap there and Homecoming had been wanting to fill. City of Villains has more than a few potential unresolved threads, but what immediately jumped out to me was the opportunity to finally bring King Midas into the game. He maintained a heavy presence throughout the mission arcs in Cap Au Diable, and the Gold Brickers are a fun but underutilized villain group. As an adolescent, I often wondered about why we never got to face King Midas and what he’d be like if we did. I can say it’s quite surreal to be the one answering that question myself over 15 years later! I spent time studying the existing lore/details surrounding King Midas and his Gold Brickers, which elements were outstanding and made sense to utilize in the narrative, and then crafted my pitch. It went through a few revisions and rewrites with input from some of the other developers and then sat until after Issue 27, Page 2 was live. Around March, I was brought officially onto the team and was tasked with creating the ASF as my first project. Building on the pioneering work @Piecemeal did on suffering through unraveling the mission code and his mentorship/tutelage, I set off on learning the tools and building the content! Assembling the ASF: "You want to do WHAT now?! Well, I guess if AeonCorp is footing the bill..." One of the primary goals I had for the Dr. Aeon Strike Force was to subvert expectations/conventions while being a piece of group content that would cast a wide net on allowing you to choose how you played it… This included the creation of the Advanced Difficulty Settings (more on those later!). The first mission was built together with @Piecemeal’s oversight. It was the starting point of the ASF, but also his training me on the nuances of the City of Heroes map editor and scripting missions. His guidance, mentorship, and tutelage were pivotal in my getting up to speed as a developer. "The wisdom of Piecemeal-sensei's guidance." Things like fan-favorite Becky, the contestants at the Smelting Cauldron entrance, the Crey laser tripwires, or the alternative objectives in the Golden Roller ripples, etc. These types of mechanics were aimed at letting a team have some control over how they tackled objectives, allowing them to move faster or face an increased challenge depending on their preferences. We wanted to craft an experience where teams speeding through (and thus are often more experienced players) could face a challenge better suited to their level more organically within the mission itself by the style they played. This design philosophy influenced much of the decision-making, but we also looked at other elements found in popular content to see what it was that players enjoyed about them to attempt to craft something that hits those same high notes while maintaining its own identity and flavor. Things like: Lots of AVs to fight, big groups of enemies, or grand stages upon which to do combat... We gave thoughts to each of these, given the time and effort to create a truly worthwhile experience, we wanted it to be something everyone could find enjoyment in. In those regards, I like to believe we managed to create something that, while imperfect (no content is or can be), does deliver the experience it was designed to be. More grand and complex, worthy of the moniker of Strike Force. Making the Maps: Personally, one of the best experiences in City of Heroes is entering a brand-new mission map, and not knowing what to expect and the joy of discovery in seeing new sights. Due to this, it was a personal goal of mine that excluding the first mission, every other mission map on the ASF had to be hand-crafted and avoid the use of any stock maps. Random Fun Fact: The entirety of the Smelting Cauldron arena encounter found in Mission 2 was originally inside Princess Zoe's cargo ship in Mission 4! This was not without its costs, however, as quality map making takes a lot of time, and a good portion of the ASF’s development was spent on creating the new locations that players visit during its runtime. Mission 5's ripple dimension sub-missions expanded in scope rapidly during development, causing the time investment to explode as well. The first map created was the Gold Bricker cargo ship map featured in the Homecoming anniversary teaser post. Most of my learning/experimenting with map creation was done on that mission's map, and where I quickly realized the freedom of the City of Heroes map tools included the freedom to make costly mistakes that could undo hours of work! Save often! "I swear if this map editor eats my work ONE more time... Grr..." The map tools include a real-time triangle count performance evaluator, which is utilized to ensure all mission maps can perform without issues on any machine that run the game. The initial version of the cargo ship had to have its detail work scaled back as we must ensure that City of Heroes remains a game that is as accessible as possible in terms of performance. "It has to run on EVERYTHING? Even the toaster?!" Aside from performance, I wanted to bake as much detail and love into these maps as I could. This includes things like the in-mission zone names/music, various clickable objects with flavor text on every map, and little things that players might not notice on their first run. As repeat content that would be run more than once, I wanted there to be things players could discover even after their first experience with the ASF. "Lots of hidden clickables throughout the ASF to be found for bonus flavor!" Each map was created by starting with the question ‘what kind of atmosphere should this environment convey?’ and built towards that goal. Later maps aimed to be chaotic and unstable as the dimensional craziness escalated and reached its climax. I've always been a believer that the identity of a villain group is just as much tied to their lairs as it is their members and so it was crucial to imbue soul and identity into the maps that these foes were faced on. "The 5th Column claim the moon zone landing was faked... Seems kind of suspicious to me..." As development progressed, we also implemented some advanced tech onto the later maps such as dynamic geometry phasing and collision (Big credit here to @Number Six and @Faultline!). This really helped sell the ‘unstable dimension’ vibes we wanted and are most noticeable on the finale map. If you haven’t seen them yet, go check it out! "What madness hide behind the curtains?" Everything was also designed to be as future-proofed as possible (this is a philosophy we apply to everything we do) so that the quality and capabilities of future content will be able to take full advantage of the efforts the ASF pioneered. Building the Brickers: "Stay in line bub! Who was up next for their powerset design?" As the content would range from level 35-50, it also meant that the Gold Brickers would need expanding, both visually and functionally to become a group worthy of max level and appropriately threatening. The approach taken for this was to evaluate what the Gold Brickers did well (stacking -resistance debuffs), what was their primary obstacle to doing this (high defense from players), and adding conditional assistance (-defense grenades and Smelter +tohit support) that the players would need to manage in order to maximize their odds against these flying foes. The goal was that the best way to foil these new foes would be via active counterplay, either by moving out of debuff fields or focus firing the dangerous bosses. The group was also lacking in damage type diversity, so the teleporting AU-Bricker enemy subtype was implemented with inverse energy attacks that inflicted Negative Energy damage. Designing these new units, they were given cues to visually connect the high-tech thieves back to Dr. Aeon, such as the Brickernaut elite bosses using jury-rigged versions of Aeon's own power suit. Princess Zoe: Early in development, I also knew I wanted to incorporate a female member of the group, and so I designed and added Princess Zoe. The Gold Bricker's princess is based on the historical daughter of King Midas that was turned to gold from the myth/legend. She became the technological elbow that justified the group’s advancement in technology, a prodigy to rival Dr. Aeon himself in the engineering space. King Midas: King Midas’s design goal was to capture ‘regal’ while maintaining ‘sleek and modern’; Drawing some cues from Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin, he was given a large stature and ornate coat, but would shed it when he entered battle with the players. Early versions had him enter a unique golden Granite Armor form when he was invincible but this was dropped early on as it was less visually interesting than his final look during the finale battle. Mr. Rodney: Mr. Rodney also got an updated look for the ASF! He was one of the few notable Gold Brickers prior to the ASF. He was previously using a generic lieutenant model, so his new look was built using the unique pieces from his enemy group. Boss Encounter Mechanics: It was important to ensure that our first new endgame group content had exciting encounters with ways to stand out, especially compared to the quality of content the game saw later in its life. Arch-villains that stand in place until they’re defeated was too low a bar, and so we set out to create memorable battles against the major confrontations in the ASF with unique twists and advanced mechanics. This was made possible with the support of our team's lua/code developers, giving another round of props to @Faultline and @Number Six who were consistently lending their expertise in coding solutions to make every crazy idea I had possible, rather than ever insisting we rein in the scope of the mechanics. Crafting a Challenge: "Yowch! I'll remember to focus-fire those Shimmering Effusions next time..." The other major goal I had with the ASF was to deliver a new system of difficulty that could be widely applicable to other existing content later, as one of the most common complaints about the game in its current state was that no content was tailor-made to push a group of maxed out Incarnates using IO enhancements. It needed to be more engaging however than simply throwing stats around or reducing the players in any manner… One of Homecoming’s greatest strengths is its accessibility. For those who did not play the retail version of City of Heroes, the time and resource cost to build a character in the game was magnitudes higher than it is now (as is not uncommon for retail MMOs), and the game’s overall difficulty was generally tailored to the median power level that was achievable by most characters without extreme investment. With a different environmental context to design for, we needed to deliver an answer for the stagnant endgame that was unable to provide the desired degree of engagement for veteran players using characters built to their absolute strongest. The answer for this was the Advanced Difficulty Settings, which beyond just increasing the strength of the enemies, also gave them new powers and behaviors to truly make the mode more than just a stat race. It was a pioneering effort and one that we’ll be continuing to improve and tweak as we move forward into the future. I’m sure by now many of you have experienced the terror of the exploding Brickernauts! 😛 "I suppose I deserved this." The crux of the design for the ASF's challenge mode was to ensure that the experience changed enough that it felt distinct from the standard mode, and that players who chose the higher difficulty were sufficiently rewarded for the increased challenge. I believe that for a first new voyage into a post-shutdown endgame, the results we have achieved are a great first step into the future for the game. Originally, the advanced difficulty modes were triggered by spawning the enemies at level 52 or higher, but thanks to @Number Six’s rewrite of the entire challenge settings code, we were able to deliver a highly customizable experience that allows players to choose much of the nuance in how they play the ASF at max level. If you think the game is too easy, go toe-to-toe with some Relentless Gold Brickers and see if they’re more engaging for you! 😉 For those who have enjoyed the ASF in its higher-difficulty incarnations and want to see options like it on other content, stay tuned! Facing the Future: "What new exciting things lie in store I wonder?" I am truly humbled by the positive reception and excitement surrounding the Dr. Aeon Strike Force; It has exceeded my every expectation. Hearing the kind words of players who’ve enjoyed the content has been truly uplifting and I want to thank everyone who’s played, tested, and provided feedback to help us make this project the best it could be! Now that Issue 27, Page 3 is behind us, we’ll be looking towards the future, striving to do our best to continue delivering the best content we can for you, the players! Of course, that doesn’t mean we won’t continue to adjust/fix the ASF as needed to ensure it’s as great an experience as possible. Here’s to another great year of City of Heroes! -Cobalt Arachne

Nothing has changed with the fight that I'm aware of, the dev team is on break for December. Due to some streams being crossed by mistake, Dark Watcher does unintentionally have two of Hero 1's resistance powers right now, meaning he takes a little longer to kill than designed. That will be fixed in January, so the fight will become slightly easier, but Gaussian has always summoned Vanguard Sword reinforcements once he becomes active, and continues to do so periodically even if not engaged with players.

There's no fall damage at all on Mission 5, 6, or 7's maps (this is controlled by a per-map variable), so no cause for concern. Rippled does like 6 damage and is just a flavor effect to demonstrate the AU technology is not clean like something Portal Corp would use and it stings a little bit to use it (AU Gold Brickers are damaging their atoms slowly using this incomplete tech). I'd recommend doing this badge on the Reichsman TF/SF as they can spawn two per mob (one boss and one LT) and it's generally far faster/more consistent. That defeat badge is not ASF-exclusive. Plenty of people had this idea previously or that the Golden Roller WAS King Midas himself. Him being a driver doesn't contradict lore anywhere and the Gold Brickers having a fully self-aware and sentient AI car, years before Zoe had joined or even Arachnos themselves had such tech, would've been far more lore contradictory in my opinion. He's one of the few ASF NPCs who 100% always survives, and that was intentional. Don't expect any ASF retcons. We thoroughly did our homework on the pieces of existing canon it touched.

There will be Tour Guides for Cimerora (and all remaining qualifying zones), they just got pushed back to Page 4 since building the Dr. Aeon Strike Force occupied almost all my time this year. @.@;;

I've explained it a number of times to other testers during runs and whatnot, but ultimately the game is an MMO, and the team space is important element of that... Currently at maxed out endgame, teams play more like eight individuals all soloing the same content together. Choices are irrelevant, there is no risk of failure, mistakes have no consequences. The trick with the advanced difficulty will be players having to relearn what it means to play as a team again, and I realize some people might not like that, but that's why they are options, and not the default version of the content. Overpulling will be dangerous, going off alone might get you killed, and team splits could lead to wipes; But this is how MMOs usually work in team settings. People who like see things explode, do big numbers, and have no burden of responsibility to their team can continue to do so without any problem in the existing, lower difficulty settings. I suspect players who favor characters that are much more team-oriented, like Control and Support, will find the new difficulty options extremely rewarding to play as they're allowed to really shine on the team again. They can help cover mistakes, contain the threat, and do what they were designed to do in a way that contributes to success of the win. Edit: I don't think it'll usher in an era of 'l33t 0n1y', but my hope is it will usher in an era of people who want a team experience where they are working together to win. This may lead to more SG scheduled runs, planned things, etc, but that's good for longevity and community in an MMO.

I'm hoping that this won't be the case. The ASF with advanced difficulty options cranked up is a very different experience, enough so that I suspect some people may not find it to their liking and yet others may only want to run content like it as it becomes more widely available. My expectation is there will be healthy interest in both versions depending on the type of player, the time availability, and character type (Tank, Control, and Support roles are very much more involved and actively contributing in advanced difficulty). If people are looking for easy merits-per-effort, they're likely not going to find a home within the upper tiers of advanced difficulty... It does pay out a fair bit more, yes, but you work hard to earn that additional payout.

A. Late Going Rogue era writing detail consistency is a very low bar to hold ourselves to, I think we can do better moving forward. 😉 B. This is entirely an out-of-character system thing... Are you requesting "please remove LFG contact teleports"? I can read it that way if you'd like... 😛 C. Every character also had access to a system that teleports them to a hospital so they can't die in 2004, why are other destinations so hard to believe as the technology improved?

Faultline has a special hatred for the Praetorian enemies showing up in places that happened before Praetoria and we already have a method figured out to limit them. The question of when that will be implemented I am not certain, but you can expect those enemies to not be in places they canonically shouldn't sooner or later.

This is something we could likely look into further with the requirement tied to the badge that gives access to the Midnight Club; I'll bring it up for discussion internally. Nice suggestion!

Intentional. If you're going to Cimerora it's not 'teleporting' at that point anymore, it's 'time traveling'. This is the same reason why the base beacons for the Echo zones were removed, as it doesn't make sense for teleporters to inexplicably have time travel capabilities, so these zones were restricted to their Ouroboros-related entry methods as canonically they're the only accessible method players have to time travel.

This is correct, the badge is specifically referring to the LTs and Bosses that transform into Warwolves at under 25% health.

The shortest explanation is that it is what happens to the map in Recluse's Victory when an area's control changes. We improved it and used it in the Dr. Aeon Strike Force to dynamically change the map in certain ways as you progress through it. Edit: Faultline beat me to the response. 😛

For those who want Void Hunters packed to go... Grab the Cloud of Odorous Smoke tip mission and get the new badge in one or two clears at x8: Otherwise, there are a few in the Dr. Aeon Strike Force and more will be found in some future arcs that feature them.

Thanks! I'll check on that... It's either because that version doesn't have a credit tracker or because he 'vanishes and escapes' instead of dying it's not rewarding properly; We'll dig into it.

I'm told there's an Alignment Tip mission that has nothing but Void Hunters in it as the mission's normal enemy group, which would be the instant-best way to get that badge, I need to go check which one that is though. This is correct, we're hoping to have her arc out in January's Page 3 small Panel update which will have the Incarnate Traitors to fight; That being said, it is odd that the Incarnate Elite Bosses aren't counting, I'll check on that, I would think they should be granting credit too.

If that happens and people use it to dodge the explosions, that's fine by me, you still moved to avoid it.

Not sure on that one... There are two powers at work, the one that counts down, and the explosion that fires at 0. The explosion power should be a one-time to-hit check, the individual elements within the power shouldn't be rolling separate checks if they are. My guess is any weirdness like that will be ironed out when it just auto-hits if you're within range when the explosion goes off vs. using a to-hit roll.

The Golden Brickernaut self-destruct explosion's range is 40 feet; But a warning indicator showing you exactly where that is was intentionally excluded, as the design intent was to break line of sight for surefire survival. If you've got the moxie to eyeball 40 feet in-game and stand outside of it to avoid the explosion, you certainly can! 😄

It'll be adjusted next build, but right now it has a x10 base accuracy modifier, which means it's almost guaranteed to hit you. It does a three-tick damage hit of 5-digit damage, that's basically guaranteed to kill anybody it hits. Golden Brickernauts are vulnerable to psionic damage, confuse, containment, phase, and teleport while counting down. The idea is you either break line of sight, kill them fast enough that they don't have a chance to explode, kill them during the countdown with psionic damage, or use one of the vulnerabilities to contain the blast. Next build it will just auto-hit you if you're in-range when they explode; This eliminates the 5% chance that you set-up everything perfectly for the 'Unfriendly Fire' badge against Zoe and then have it fail on a 5% chance. As I previously mentioned, we aren't using auto-hit anywhere as means to mitigate defense to create artificial difficulty, but telegraphed attacks that give you the chance to respond appropriately and completely nullify them will auto-hit if you don't move or react to them at all.

The required temp to kill the Hydra Head is not locked by the challenge, but the other one that kills the towers is.

I would give try Malicious difficulty (the second level, the minimum required to earn all the badges) a try, it is nowhere near the ballpark of difficulty of Really Hard Way, in any capacity. It is really very quite reasonable, despite the name. Malicious difficulty can be played at +0, at any team size, and the only difference is that the enemies are given the additional powers needed to complete the badge challenges. Enemies do not get the additional stats and you have no restrictions. This is the difficulty to choose if you want the badges.

The designed goal was that anybody who has the Rogue Alignment power can confuse the target and achieve the badge, as the content is red side. However, per feedback, we'll be adding a special +confuse component to the Golden Throwing Wrench temp power rewarded for completion of the ASF that can be used to confuse them specifically. Badges are always optional content; Anybody trying to collect all the badges already requires the player to touch all types of content, whether they enjoy it or not, such as PvP. Hard mode is no exception to that precedent that has existed almost as long as the game has. If you want every badge, expect to do every type of content that exists.

We've already had some internal discussions on a new 'Easy Mode' for TFs that allow them to be solo-able by any character for reduced rewards. Can't comment on any of the specifics, as it's not a Page 3 thing. At the very least we would have some details to nail down on the how's and what's before committing to it as a feature, but it's very possible to do and on our radar.

Assuming this is referring to the Golden Brickernaut's self-destruct. Telegraphed moves with a positioned warning indicator are not exactly auto-hit, they 'miss' by you moving out of the locations they are targeting. They also aren't doing special un-resistable damage, they just do unsurvivably large numbers. 😛 My statement still reads accurately. If any enemies have true auto-hit in any of their regular attack powers that are not telegraphed with a chance to avoid them by moving, that's likely a bug.