sponazgul

Stationary Patrols When adding a patrol to a mission map, I'd like an option or flag to mark them as stationary so they don't wander about the map. (I have my reasons for this.)

Wanted to follow up a bit more - I hear you about that one character in mission 2, who might even be more of a challenge than Despoticus. I am married to the concept of having him there, largely for meta-reasons involving Clue Lass and Not Clue Lass. Reusing the Arachnos style maps was just the easiest way to present various creepy space tyrant locales, including his spaceship. I wish we had more variety of maps available. As for the one boss (that isn’t Despoticus) who has a very annoying power (I know exactly what you are talking about) - avoiding him and going for the objective to complete the mission is also an option. In theory, once you are at full power, you would eclipse them again. Although he is a fun opponent to bring down.

It is a challenge. I have an unspeaking character, Laconic Lord, and to communicate I usually use emotes i.e. “/e regrets he must leave the team” if someone is advertising a mission , I just send a /tell that shows up like this Laconic Lord: <———— emoticons can help.

Fun fact about the alien language text in the souvenir for the arc -

Thanks for running it! You ran through an updated version of the arc, which had the final mission heavily revamped (you probably experienced some weird typos too that I just fixed.) I need to go back and replay it with a bunch of my characters - in general, even though I intended it for a tank (for thematic reasons) my high end ranged characters tended to do pretty well being able to thin the Ultrahorde before having to deal with Despo. This is one of those arcs that I'll replay in the future just to see how well a character will do, or if I want a certain experience, you know, the Of Course I Must Have Defeated the Ultrahorde Amongst the Rings of Saturn One Time type of experience. I also made this arc largely for my SG colleague who plays Clue Lass, and who was the creator of the concept of her patron OMEGOD and the effects of Cosmic Unawareness.

I appreciate the suggestions, although I’m not sure how to pull some of that off. But I’m looking forward to revamping some things in the arc. I don’t think I say you’re depowered in the arc (if I do, I need to change that) you are usually referred to as weaker, or reduced in power, or underpowered. I know it tracks better if you are incarnate at the start, but I general I rely on your standing with the Ultrahorde as a relative power indicator. I am going to take some of your advice on the souvenir, btw. Another great bit of feedback

if you are re-reading your stuff and enjoying the read, it’s a big win.

I immediately went looking for any AE missions from Engineria after you clobbered Despoticus. I hope you make one one day. Your reviews are very engaging.

@Police Woman, I wanted to thank you again for the feedback. I think I can incorporate some specific suggestions of yours (not exactly what you suggested but in the same lines) to make mission 4 more memorable and have it tie back to a previous mission. Now I just need for my workday to end and for me to avoid household chores so I can fire up the mission editor. (I do need to fix the typos that you found as well, but the story element addition is what I am most interested in)

Great recap, especially how you avoided talking about some stuff My character (a level 50 Earth Domination/Martial Assault dominator) also got clocked by the final boss, a well built opponent.

this is joyous news!

@Police Woman - I do admit that you hit the nail on the head on the limitations I faced in trying to communicate that your character was de-powered in some way (other than my telling you via pop-up text and OMEGOD's comments) - for Incarnate folks it's easy - they lose the incarnates. For anyone else, the murderbots, xenomorphs, and meteoroid monsters going from underlings to bosses is how I relied on backing up that you've been reduced in power (relatively) I did think at one point about capping the final two missions in the 30s, but then I worried that the Ultrahorde who serve Despoticus would be too much of a slog in mission 3. Quick spoiler about when things happen, and why - I hear you on the anti-climactic sense of the final mission, since the big fight really happens in mission 3. I don't know if I can change that without breaking some other things I rely on (some of which I allude to in the notes above.) I like your comments that OMEGOD should probably have an excuse about not knowing everything in the moment, and I'll be sure to incorporate that. You've given me some other things to think about, and of course the detailed notes on typos and odd phrasings are extremely valuable. I appreciate all of that. Thank you for running the arc, I'm glad Poster Girl soundly defeated Despoticus and saved Xennocentia V - even if she doesn't remember doing that.

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on that element of the design! I felt that it worked.

I just ran your arc, with a level 50 Earth/Martial dominator. I found the arc very well-polished - I don’t think I found any typos, but typos are often invisible to me. I particularly enjoyed the framing done with the contact Storm Warning, the heart of the story. When I play these player-made stories, I keep in mind that I’ll want to play more than once - once slowly paced so I can read the story and hopefully additionally where I just beat up stuff. The arc is a full five missions but once one knows the larger map and objectives, could be played fairly quickly. The standard enemies are very punchable, and the custom enemies were kind of cool. I had to get used to how the mission text structure was different. Usually, the mission text is like this: Contact: [Provides mission intro, leading to a decision point by the character to proceed] Me: I accept. Contact: [Send off details, acknowledging the hero is going to do the thing] Your mission text was more like this - Contact: [Provides some assertions, action not yet articulated] Me: [Asks a question, or makes own statement] Contact: [Responds and then articulates the mission. Hero (me) is assumed to accept the mission without being able to explicitly do that] I’m not saying that this is bad, I played around with the standard Accept text in my Batman butler-assisted vigilante arc Allegedly, Your Death and it was called out in feedback but was largely forgiven. Just wanted you to be aware. I got used to it, and I felt that the story and interaction with Storm Warning was strong. I’ll be happy to play it again, particularly with my various Science Heroes who will like punching the final map enemies.

Zakur, I'll check it out, thanks for creating it and sharing it here in the forums.

As someone who only shows up every-so-often, these threads are great documents, when I'm in an AE mood and want to find arcs to play. I think new folks must wander in here and are helped out, much more so than the in-game interface.

Shame! Shame! LOL, you make it up by writing these incredible narratives from your character's perspective. You are above reproach.

Just wanted to say how helpful it is to have someone finding typos and presenting them in such a clean fashion for the author to easily find and correct.

As others have said, getting the Devs to change it is likely the only way, but you have a strong case for them to act.

Thank you so much for the playthrough and review. I greatly enjoyed reading about Engineria's cosmic adventure, just like that time she did that thing that was epic - OMEGOD: You mean, when she defeated the UNDEAD MOON? Me: Yeah! Did she do that? OMEGOD: Sure. I think.

Oh no, sorry! No, there's no doohickey in mission 3. You have to turn off Despoticus, you know. Arrest him with fire or bullets or claws, as one does...

Today is the day I learned that break frees work against that one effect! Had I only known that all the times I had to fight Sefu Tendaji in the Gaussian arc. OMEGOD: Wait, you didn't know that? Everyone knows that. Clue Lass: Duh.

Thank you for all of this! I appreciate this review, and i acknowledge that your experience with the Ultrahorde's leader, the Space Tyrant Despoticus is certainly relatable. I've thrown a bunch of tanks at Despo during testing, with a variety of results. (My ranged characters have a much easier time.) I have an Earth control dominator who had to pause just because watching his stone elemental rushing Despoticus over and over and over was too entertaining.

The system can't handle your truths.

I don’t really play the market, but dropped in here to say that this is probably more of a THEM problem than a YOU problem. You can hide being a marketeer if you don’t want to be chided by what is likely a very small member of the community, primed to be offended, but you’ll miss out on meeting like-minded folks. I am sorry that you had a bad experience