Zhym

Maybe I need an Invisiclues™ hint book for that set of missions. There were some things I thought might have been Easter eggs: But darned if I can find the Easter Egg in Mission 5 of The House of Gaunt Saints. Is it a placed object? Something that can be clicked that isn't a glowy? I'm not sure what the limitations are in AE.

If there is, I wasn't able to track it down—or didn't recognize it. You're talking about the final mission in The House of Gaunt Saints, right?

Okay, that's cool. And I totally missed that on my play-through. I'm surprised that Lord Recluse cons as orange instead of solid purple, though.

Oh, that map! Yes, that makes a lot more sense than the Cimerora...whatever that is map.

In my opinion, it fit quite well. Quite well. And there's a lot of lore there in Praetoria to be explored (and filled in), IMO.

Wait—there are Easter eggs? Well, now I've got to run the whole arc again...

Aha! That makes some sense. I remember that map being surprising, but figured it was just because I'd seen it in ITF so many times. What's the correct map?

Maybe I'm a hopeless optimist, but I usually figure this is the other way around: people want to see everyone else's costumes up close, and the only way to do that is to kind of get in their faces.

I just did @Darmian's Loyalist Praetorian arc, and I hope you do review it. It's great, IMO. Although, now that I've done this one and the "Dark" series..

One suggestion on this, too: in 1.1, I found the multi-character mission text boxes kind of jarring for some reason. I'm not sure if it was having "said <character>" in the mission text—which kind of breaks from the comic-book style usually seen in CoX—or that the dialog wasn't in quotes. There's definitely an art to working multi-NPC dialog into one box, though. Let's take this as an example: Here's one alternate take on that: You get the idea. The colors code who's talking, so not every line needs a "says Hornet" or "says Burke," which can get distracting as more characters get involved. Just something to think about (and I hope I'm not nitpicking too much).

That's why my Superman...er, "homage"...didn't take Rage. It's optional. I opted out.

I'm starting to worry that @TerroirNoir is going to hit the image upload limit...

Now that's a main. First time I recall needing a "wow" emjoi reaction on these forums. 'Cause...wow. How many vet levels does that toon have?

Some powerset combos immediately make me think of certain classic superheroes. For example: Invuln/SS Tanker: Superman Shield/SS Tanker: Captain America Claws/Regen Scrapper: Wolverine And so forth. What other AT and powerset combos make you think, "Oh, this is totally [insert superhero here]?"

Okay—I'm gradually figuring this out. The markers I saw appeared when I "rescued" the guides (or met up with them—I actually can't remember if I defeated mobs or not). That makes sense. And it's a pretty clever mechanic. FWIW, that mechanic might be clearer with some objective text (e.g., "Lead the Spirit Guide to the summoning stone"). ETA: Although "Lead the guide to the summoning stone" would imply that there's an escort requirement, when that's not actually the case. So I don't know—something else to indicate that the guide just put a marker on the map?

Or maybe call it "Farmville." But it would be a forum for farmers (where farmers don't have to be lonely). Suitable topics would include farm-fresh builds, which AE arcs are best to farm, and—entirely incidentally—complaining about farming nerfs.

I guess I'm not seeing how they were supposed to work. In the first map, the "guides" just floated around and followed me. They didn't lead me anywhere. In the second map, the wolves (it's the wolves who are supposed to be the guides, right?) just stayed where they were. Were their locations supposed to lead me somewhere? My character has 85 ft stealth, though, so maybe that was a factor? Also, one (but, for some reason, not both) of the glowies was marked on each map. In the second map, I just found the second glowy by looking around for it and listening. They are novel! I like the idea. But in the mission, the lichen colonies spawned so many lichens so quickly that I was practically swimming in lichens in no time.

I ran through the first couple of missions of this arc and have a few more thoughts: I do think these would be fine (better, actually, IMO) without the escort aspect. The missions already involve finding glowies to summon the AVs and then "free" them. At that point, leading them to the exit is at best anticlimactic and at worst a PITA. (And while the first map is short—a good change, IMO—the second is very much not.) The "helpers" (or "guides") don't seem to offer much help or guidance. From what I can tell, all they do is follow you around and clutter the map. In the second mission, I thought it was bugged for a while there, with two AVs to "rescue" and lead to the exit. Clearly I didn't read closely enough, but making the objective text have two different goals (like "Rescue the Life Spirit" and "Rescue the Earth Spirit") could have made things clearer. And oh gods...that Baby New Year Croatoa map. Ugh. Just...ugh. Too many memories of escorting an ugly-ass BNY in that map. I suspect that the Lichen colonies may be part of the rating you're getting. Those things are annoying! If you must have escort missions, fighting escorts are definitely worse than non-fighting escorts in the second mission, IMO. All those lichens that spawn? The Finn MacCools both want to stop and fight them all. Dragging those guys to the exit point was a pain, IMO. They also seem to have a low perception radius and their "Hey, I'm lost" text is just a grunt. Those are just my opinions, obviously, based on my own preferences. But some of those might be part of why someone gave this a not-so-great rating.

A quick note on "All That Glitters" by @Ankylosaur, as I just started it. The description says, "Best played in the Mercy AE so you feel like you're there." I actually took that advice, went to Mercy, looked around for AE, checked the map...then remembered that Mercy AE went aspode in Page 4. No Mercy AE anymore. So maybe the description could use a small edit.

Oh, BTW? I love that Chris Jenkins is part of this arc.

Awesome! I have those other arcs on my to-do list. As for The Meteors, I actually did that one first, not having noticed the publication order.

I just finished it in the past day or two! It's a great arc. It does get a bit complicated, though. I need a recap. Heyyyyyy, look at this thread! Handy! Anyway, I'll save further comment until you're done with "Darkest Before the Dawn" pt. 3, except to say that there are still some threads that @Darmian left open for a sequel. So when's that gonna happen? ;) I may do @Ankylosaur's stories next. I'll be honest, the timed missions are putting me off of @cranebump's arc. I'm just not a fan of timed missions.

Look for "Nemesis Rex" under "Justice Incarnate (Level 40-49)." Personally, I find this much better for Nemesis farming than Pandora's Box ep. 5. Three runs should get you the badge. Just have good defense and resistance and avoid killing the minions and lieutenants so their vengeance buffs don't sack up and get you killed.

Well this is my mind, blown. I had no idea that the "rule of 5" was based on anything other than the bonus amount. And now I'm wondering about all those builds where I didn't bother taking a fifth (or even fourth) LotG +rech because I had 7.5% recharge bonuses elsewhere...

I took RoP on one character and got annoyed by the cooldown time since I can't just set it on auto-fire like I do with Practiced Brawler or Kuji-In Rin on my scrappers and stalkers. I later remade that character as a Defender instead of a Controller and haven't taken RoP since. I haven't missed it, really.