Zhym

Oooh. That is now officially my headcanon.

Good point. I was thinking of where the holodeck mission put this arc in the timeline, but I forgot that the holodeck mission itself was set in the past relative to the rest of the story arc.

Do you mean this, after the Holodeck mission? I guess that could be read as implying an understanding of what happened in Kellum's arc. But it could also be read as being the first anyone had ever heard of it. Hm. Also: this arc references Manticore's TF and the Revenant Hero Project (Gordon Stacy's arc). Odd that it wouldn't also mention Janet Kellum's arc, if it's meant to follow it. That reference to the Revenant Hero Project ("Project Locke") doesn't help us place this arc either. The reference treats the project as something that's ongoing, but Gordon Stacy's arc just ends with a lab being taken out and the lead scientist arrested. The project could easily still be going on later. Still, it seems more likely that this arc is best located in the lore either before Gordon Stacy's arc or at the same time. Speaking of missed opportunities, this would have been a great arc to insert a different opening dialog based on whether the character had done Janet Kellum's or Gordon Stacy's arcs. I think the timeline is (spoilers for a nearly 20 year-old story arc): Paragon City really needs to up their defenses against psychics. Put Penny Yin on it, okay? But Countess Crey's real challenge isn't getting out of prison, it's regaining control of Crey. Her assets are frozen, her crimes have been made public, and even if she's free there's a warrant out for her re-arrest. She can't run Crey anymore as if nothing happened. There at least needs to be a veneer of legitimacy. Or else Crey needs to shift to being a full-on criminal organization—in which case I doubt Hero Corps would be working with Crey anymore.

Fair. But it's hard to tell an arc where no one talks about who Countess Crey really is from an arc where no one knows yet who Countess Crey really is. Given other aspects of this arc (like that troll hunt), and that fact that even our contact—who wouldn't have any reason to hide who the Countess really is—doesn't say anything about Countess Crey's history, it seems more likely to me that this was meant to be pre-Kellum. True, no villain stays arrested. (The Zig is a turnstile.) But aside from a brief appearance in the Dr. Kahn TF, Janet Kellum's arc is the last we see of Countess Crey. So you'd think that if this mission were meant as a follow-on to Kellum's arc, there'd be at least a token explanation of what she's doing out in the world running Crey again. Speaking of the Zig, I do rather wish it weren't quite so easy for villains to pop in and out like it's a no-tell motel (or the prison version of Azuria's secure magical storage). Especially in the case of Countess Crey, who was not only arrested but exposed as an impostor. Having her back and running Crey again like nothing happened cheapens the Kellum story, IMO. All that work you did? Yeah, it was for nothing. Sorry about that. Such fatalism would be in keeping with this arc (unfortunately), but if that's intended, it should be addressed head-on. Come to think of it, this arc is kind of a missed opportunity. With Countess Crey exposed and arrested, there's a lot of potential for a story about what happens next. Does the "Countess" manage to re-assert control? If so, how does she manage that? Or do other forces within Crey fight each other to take it over? Does Crey disintegrate? Form an alliance with some other organization? See Arachnos as its best chance at continued profits, and go full rogue, but using its established presence in Paragon City for some advantage? So many ways that story could go. Maybe we'll get that story in a future update (or in AE, anyone?)

I wondered that too. The arc seems like it's written as if we haven't done Janet Kellum's arc, which is another reason I suspect this was originally intended as a lower-level arc.

Uh...yeah. That would be it. I think I got it from all the league Gladiator kills the first time I was in a Minotaur league, and didn't even notice I had the badge. No wonder I couldn't find a progress tracker! And yes, I've been referring to @Laucianna's guide extensively. Now if y'all will excuse me, I'm just going to run down to City Hall and turn in my "Observant" badge...

Yup. That's what the patch notes say. And yet I've defeated several Gladiators in the Fog, including at least a couple in one-on-one combat, and I don't see a badge progress tracker for it, either in the Defeats section or in the Closest to Completion section.

Has anyone gotten this badge yet? I've fought a couple of gladiators (in a league) and I don't see a badge tracker showing progress towards this one yet. Do you have to get the kill personally, or at least be on the team that does? Also, the patch notes say, "Each Gladiator will only interact with the same player once ever." What does that mean? Does that mean there are certain gladiators that spawn in specific positions, and if you fight that gladiator you'll never be able to fight them again—and if they gave you a clue, they'll never fight you? Or do gladiators spawn randomly, and that particular spawned gladiator will only interact with you once? ETA: I personally defeated a Gladiator in the Fog one-on-one and still don't see a badge progress tracker. But then, I didn't get the promised Draught of Fog inspiriations in those solo kills, either, even though I got the "You have defeated Gladiator in the Fog" message.

I don't want to be that guy who says, "You're playing the game wrong," but...I'll sort of be that guy. You've already missed some great stories. This game was designed to have story arcs played as you level. Most of them are easily soloable, especially now that the power level in Homecoming has increased over what was typical in the old days. You can play the arcs through Ouroboros, but it's not the same. I know it's not what you're looking for, but honestly? My advice would be to start a new character and play through the stories without worrying about whether you have a good build or not. There's a lot of lore and stories that you can miss if you don't start doing story arcs until level 40.

This arc plays sort of like it was originally intended as a level 15-19 arc, given that it starts in Steel Canyon and involves fighting Crey (who start showing up around level 15) and trolls. If so, I wonder what ended up pushing it to higher levels.

Speaking of the Law Offices of Chris Jenkins, is this the first time we've seen that map used for his offices in an official arc? I got a strong sense of déja vu when I started the last mission, then realized I'd seen those offices before in one of @Darmian's AE arcs. BTW, I still say those offices are too fancy for Chris Jenkins. And the Chris Jenkins who advertises in Steel Canyon ("Have YOU been injured in a superpower-related conflict? SOMEONE is responsible for your pain. Call now for a FREE Consultation: 1-555-GET-RICH") wouldn't have a bunch of supers hanging out in his office. The Chris Jenkins in that ad is clearly an ambulance-chasing plaintiffs' lawyer who sues supers. The only reason random supers would be hanging around his office would be if they're there to give depositions in the suits filed against them. And this post seems as good a place as any for me to rant about how that ending also made no sense at all:

That was mentioned in the Focused Feedback thread during beta, but a fix doesn't seem to have made it in time for the Page to go live. I don't know how the troll hunt worked for others, but when I ran the arc the previous mission was in Boomtown—which, because I was running the arc at level 44, meant that the trolls (most of which were conveniently congregated not far from the mission exit) conned very, very grey to me. I'm not sure whether to be glad that the hunt was so easily dispatched or slightly irked that I had to do it at all. @cranebump, your analysis is spot-on as usual. "Tepid cliffhanger" is the perfect description of the ending. OTOH, I do think the hero bios were worth reading; I thought most of them were very well done. I wish I could say the same about the dialogs with the heroes, which...well, look. My main is a vigilante. He's not above roughing up some D-list "heroes" who give him too much attitude.

What are everyone's thoughts on the new story arc? In some ways, it seems really old school—which isn't necessarily a good thing. It starts with a mission where the contact says, "Get in, get the data, and get out," but it turns out to be a defeat all. Later, there's a zone hunt. (Fortunately, the hunt seems to have been turned down to 10 trolls instead of the original 20.) It also hopped zones quite a bit, including a "go talk to this person" cross-zone mission. All it needed was an escort mission and a timed mission to perfectly replicate an Issue 0 arc. But there is at lot to like. The third mission, while basically walking around and watching the story (although you can get some combat in if you try), has a really cool, unique environment, and the story is worth watching. The last mission is also mostly non-combat, but it has lots of heroes with great bios that are worth reading. There are also some dialog trees in that last mission that led nowhere for me; I don't know if I chose the wrong options or if the dialogs are purely flavor (I could replay the arc to find out, but I don't want to go through that defeat-all at the beginning to do it). The whole thing ends on a down-note cliffhanger. Combined with the lack of combat in the last mission (unless you want to knock a few lawyers around early on), when it was all over my main thought was, "That's it?" (Also, like so much in this game, the ending depends on a plot contrivance that forgets that time travel exists.) There are also some parts of the story where you can get a Vigilante alignment point or two, but they're entirely incidental to the story and not really talked about at all. I also didn't see a way to get Hero alignment points. If you're expecting something like The Graveyard Shift, with its different choices that affect both your alignment points and the direction of the story—well, this is not that. In short, there are some cool bits in this arc, but for me most part it seems like it was half finished. What does everyone else think? (Tagging @cranebump and @Kyksie, since I'm curious what they'd say about this if it were an AE arc.)

"Let it defeat you" was the part I wasn't able to get to, though. If I just clicked once every few seconds, I only took minor DoT of about -1 per second. I had to basically click repeatedly and quickly to get it to do the big damage attack.

Has anyone else defeated the minotaur in the labyrinth and not gotten the Slayer of the Minotaur badge? I was in a league tonight that managed to defeat him, got the Aether and Monstrous Aether awards...but no badge.

So is the idea just to keep clicking on Blarf until it...what, does massive damage and kills you? I've been clicking on it for like 15 minutes, seen others get killed, but so far nothing. I'm on a DP/MC blaster, FWIW. Ah, never mind. Finally got it. At least in my case, it involved clicking on Blarf a lot in rapid succession.

I agree with you on at least one point: that should be "breathe," not "breath." If I had secretly found a login to the CoX dev servers—oh, the number of grammar corrections I'd make.

Fun little mini-arc! A couple of notes: Overall—well, it does sort of feel half-finished. I'm so used to five-mission AE arcs that I wasn't prepared for it to end after three missions—especially not with a cliffhanger. In a five-mission arc, I figure a cliffhanger is just a necessity because an AE arc can't be longer. With three missions, there's more of a sense (fair or not) of wondering why, if you have more story to tell, you don't just tell it instead of having a short arc with cliffhanger? Although it sounds like you're not sure where this is going yet, so maybe the arc really is just incomplete as opposed to a cliffhanger?

Well, okay. But there are plenty of shared spaces. Every city zone is a shared space, including the ones that are currently used for raids, like the Abyss, The Hive, and the Rikti War Zone. They all have maps. As for the "vibe" building anxiety—well, that's '80s game design. The lack of an in-game map doesn't heighten anxiety or excitement, and it's not a puzzle that anyone but the most hardcore of maze devotees finds remotely fun. In-game maps are now standard for a reason: they're really useful. No one is expected to map out the space by hand anymore like they're playing Wizardry I. And no one is going to be encouraged to team up more because there's no in-game map. And if specific locations don't matter for the raiding...what's the harm in including a map? If it's that the map is 3D and it's impossible to make a map that's at all functional for that layout, that's a legitimate issue. Although I'm sure I've seen some other in-game maps for spaces with multiple layers—even if those maps aren't incredibly helpful (looking at you, layer cake cave map).

I'm a bit confused about why the labyrinth won't have a zone map. Is the idea that the labyrinth map will change dynamically, or at least from time to time? Or is there just a static map that will be "secret" until someone maps it out and posts it on the forums? Wait. I used the future tense there, didn't I? Sorry about that. I guess maybe the intended effect of there being no zone map is that you can't see where other players are. But I thought that "figure out the map!" labyrinth puzzles went out of style in the '80s (for good reason).

He's not quite that good—43% s/l, 37% fire/cold, 17.7% energy, 19% psi, 23.7% toxic. The Bane is at 27.1% s/l, 35.3% fire/cold, 21.8% energy, 44.6% psi, and 42% toxic. Maybe it's just that the blaster is really good at taking down his enemies before they can do any damage. :) (Plus, he has all the incarnate powers at T4 and the Bane is just starting out.)

Oh, yeah., Venom Grenade is definitely great—I just wish I had a better followup once I've used it to soften up the enemies. Mace Beam Blast is kind of disappointing in that regard. My usual attack pattern for groups of mobs is Build Up > Surveillance (if one of the mobs looks tougher than the others) > Wide Area Web Grenade > Venom Grenade > Mace Beam Blast, then run into melee and clean up whatever's left. It's very effective unless I'm up against a group of powerful mobs (like the Cyclopes and Minotaurs in that big Cimerora mission from the Dark Astoria arc). For smaller groups or individual mobs, I'll just go full stalker, run up close, hit Build Up > Surveillance > Shatter, which is usually good enough to one-shot many mobs. Then fire the Wide Area Web Grenade and cleanup. It's definitely fun to play, but also more fragile than, say, my DP/MC blaster, who also does more damage both up close and at range and can do it to more mobs at once, and also has better defense and DR than my Bane has. But then, comparing almost anything to that DP/MC blaster may not be fair. 🙂

I don't quite have the alt-itis that others have. I have a total of 36 characters right now, of which twenty are level 50 and six haven't made it past level 15 (and four of those are concept characters that didn't make it level 6). The rest sort of stalled in the mid levels as I realized that some characters just didn't grab me, either for powerset or theme reasons. Of those twenty level 50s, I'd estimate that I leveled about half of them mostly solo through story mode, with just enough TFs to get some reward merits and badges. At least a couple of those did nearly all the content, Blue and Red (and, in a couple of cases that started in Praetoria, Gold). The other half I leveled more quickly (for me) by doing DFB, TFs, MSRs, and other group content, but also with some solo mission time. None of them have been power-leveled. I'm here for the story content and the teaming up for missions. As an example, I created my most recent "slow mode" alt on May 23 and hit level 50 last week. Melta (a random Atlas Park citizen who seems to be kind of disturbingly well-informed about me) tells me that that character has been online for 99 hours. That includes running the Dark Astoria arc all the way through and about 8 hours or so sitting idle taking damage for a badge, so call it closer to 80 hours or so to level that one.

@Ukase, what did you use for a build? Based on this post, I made a Bane and leveled it through (some of) the red-side content. I used builds from @KaizenSoze (here) and @Burnt Umber (here) as guides, but basically just did whatever I felt like—which meant it's far from the most efficient build ever. For example, it has Cloaking Device and Stealth (for a stealth radius of 140 with the Celerity: Stealth slotted in Sprint), probably one or two more attack powers than it probably needs, both of the available pet powers (Summon Blaster and Call Reinforcements), and some of the attack powers are still slotted with cheap Uncommon enhancement sets (Thunderstrike, etc.), although it does have both Archetype sets, Hecatomb, and an Overwhelming Force set slotted. The result has been...not bad. It's quite fun as a sort of stalker with ranged attacks. But it's far from the strongest character I've played, and I don't know if that's because of the AT itself or just that I've built it poorly. (I don't have MIDS, so I can't post the build short of typing it out by hand.) I've considered respeccing to something more like @KaizenSoze's build, or just doing my usual and using incarnate abilities to make up for a sloppy build. But I'm curious what your "surprisingly fantastic" build was, and whether you continued to like it in the upper levels when the enemies can start laying down the debuffs (and when some of the missions really benefit from having a top-tier AoE attack, which IMO the Bane really doesn't). ETA: I went up typed up the build anyway. If I did a respec, at the very least I'd probably drop the Mace pool powers and the Call Reinforcements power (it's kind of fun and on theme to have the arachnobots, but I don't get full pet control over them and they're really, really fragile) and take some Leadership and/or the Fighting pool powers to make him a bit tougher. But a respec is such a PITA...

Mot? Is that you?