Police Woman

I had fun beating up tons of Nazis! I thought the middle of the arc dragged a little bit pacing-wise, missions 2 and 3 both seemed to be "find the thingy... Nope, we lied, it's in the NEXT mission!" You might consider cutting one of those missions to make the story tighter, or else rewriting one of them to be different than "find the sarcophagus ... oops, sorry, it's not here!" to avoid being repetitive. You may also want to change the default "Accept" message to custom text, something that supports the story, like "I cleared the outside of the ship, I'm going in!" I had fun fighting all the custom bosses, but found the final encounter with the Nachzehrer to be pretty hard. It IS the final boss so maybe that's OK. However, the third time it spawns, it used both Unstoppable and Siphon Life, so it healed a LOT and dragged out the fight to be very long and annoying. I was able to solo it on a heavily IO'd level 50 brute, not sure how squishies will fare. Sounds like you know it's hard and intend it that way though! Overall I had fun. And now, screenshots of ... Action Girl versus the 5th Column! (Spoilers for the arc) Some minor typos:

Thanks much for running this contest and playing through my story arc! The history and LGBT themes were really fun - I learned a lot about 17th century Rhode Island while doing research for this story arc.

Thanks for organizing this contest! For your consideration, I'd like to submit: Arc ID: 68284 Arc Title: The Unexpected Witch Author Global: @PW Discord Handle (If relevant): yaj2 Number of Missions: 3 Level Range: 25-34 Description: In colonial America, Abigail McCollum asks you to find her missing nephew, who has gotten lost in the magical woods outside of old Salamanca.

I vaguely remember seeing something similar when a patch invalidated some of the custom NPC groups or custom characters that I used to have, due to powersets changing or something, resulting in the story arc becoming broken without any obvious change on my part. You might try re-checking any custom characters you have to make sure they are still working, or removing custom characters from your arc until it becomes testable.

Thanks for the play-through! I'm sorry you had to restart the last mission. I can't fix soft spots in the terrain, but I've now removed Fran's ability to fly, in hopes of reducing the chance that they get stuck - I think the "walking" logic seems to do a better job of staying above ground on uneven terrain. Thanks again!

The Unexpected Witch (arc #68284) In colonial America, Abigail McCollum asks you to find her missing nephew, who has gotten lost in the magical woods outside of old Salamanca. This is a first-playable draft of a story arc that I plan to submit to the LGBT+ Histories contest. I like getting player feedback and often make changes based on input, so any feedback on the story, the gameplay and/or the writing would be welcome! I'm planning to submit to the contest on Wed 6/25/2025, but I'll be sure to incorporate any suggestions or corrections that I get before then.

Yeah, there are some in game, but as mentioned above I think they are usually NPC hostages. They look something like this:

Is there any chance of adding one of the female PPD officers as a costume option? (For admittedly selfish reasons.)

I write a lot of low level arcs and I agree that custom characters are often too hard for characters under level 20 - especially when the arc has factions that are entirely custom characters. But custom characters are a big part of the fun of Mission Architect, so I try to use a few to give a story arc more flavor. For a low level arc I'll try to make the custom character's powers fairly weak; avoid giving them two attack sets, or defensive powers giving high perception. I also try to use a mix of custom characters and low level standard characters to make missions more balanced. A technique I like to use is to make a custom character that's member of a standard enemy group, then treat the custom character as a "boss" objective, like this: This spawns exactly 4 "Vahzilok Bride" enemies (and despite being a "Boss" objective they are still only "minion" difficulty); they're optional objectives, so the player doesn't have to track down every single one, but there's enough that the player will definitely see them. They are surrounded by regular Vahzilok so the player character doesn't get overwhelmed by the custom characters. This can also let you give your NPC fewer powers that award less than 100% xp without it being too noticeable, since the standard mobs will still award full xp. Another trick I use is to construct a "custom group" out of mostly recolored/renamed standard NPCs, like this: These Corrupted LARPers are actually a mix of Luddites, Warriors and Circle of Thorns. Since they are canon NPCs, they are already balanced against their respective level ranges, and award full xp. The major downside is that most NPCs are very recognizable as belonging to a particular faction, so it may be hard to get the exact look that you want by doing this. Hope that helps, and happy architecting!

So I really liked @ZamuelNow's suggestion to link the mediporter mission with Roy Cooling's arc, and I made some changes to incorporate that idea. Changes based on feedback: Thanks for the play-through and the ideas!

I've noticed this too. It does not seem like you can select a renamed/recolored standard character from a custom group as a boss. On my "Efficiency Council" arc, when I wanted to reuse a Council boss I had to select a "Council" Vortex Cor Leonis Archon as a boss and apply the customizations directly to that objective (renaming the boss and its group).

I guess it depends on whether you see the other players sitting around looking for farms as a noisy nuisance or an opportunity to lure them into a story focused arc. 🙂

Because I play CoH instead of going to therapy, I present for your consideration, ripped from the headlines: Content warnings: real life has made me want to beat up fascists in CoH, so this arc has a strong political slant. I marked it "Ideal for Teams" since I'm trying to make a story arc that would be interesting to do on a team - there's a couple AVs, there's lots of Council to stomp, and I'm experimenting with the "no clues" style suggested on this forum, to see if that helps the flow. However, there are NPC allies to help against AVs, and a decent soloer can certainly do this arc. I'd be interested in any feedback to make this story arc better, more fun, or more topical. Thanks in advance!

Most weekends I'm tied up in the daytime, but I stopped by the RWZ AE at 330pm Eastern last Sunday; I know it was way past the event time but I was hoping to catch anyone who was still running story arcs. Maybe another time!

How are people enjoying the "no clues" style? Is it making for better gameplay or do you feel like something is missing? I was pondering trying the "no clues" style in an upcoming story arc, but would be interested in peoples' reactions.

I noticed that my "Manticore Task Force" custom group had gotten broken, so I made some updates and republished this arc. Check it out if you like workplace comedy!

My current idea is that, because people like joining AE farms ... make something that looks like a farm, but sneak an actual story into it. It would basically be a Trojan horse story arc. It would need visually interesting custom characters, lots of stuff to kill for xp, have few or no clues, all story information revealed in NPC dialog that everyone can see. Not sure if this would work, but I'm thinking about trying it.

Thanks very much for this bug report! I was not aware that these arcs had gotten broken, and the root cause was as you suspected, a standard Warriors mob I had included in custom groups used by these story arcs had gotten invalidated. I tested all my other published arcs and found one other arc that was broken (although the third arc was broken due to a custom character somehow getting invalidated, I think because they changed the robotics powerset). FIXED: Talos Vice (arc #1337) Two Tickets to Westerly (arc #1678) Attack of the 50 Foot Villain (arc #46840) Thanks again and let me know if you notice any other problems!

Scenes from the MA team running Bricked Electronics:

Most of the AE story arcs I've played are heavy on mission briefing text, clues and linked objectives, all of which are pretty hard to follow when on a team, so story focused mission architect has seemed more like a solo activity to me. I'm not afraid to start teams, but the only (non-MA) story arcs I really go out of my way to start a team for are Tina McIntyre, Maria Jenkins and Flux's story arcs (because everyone loves beating up Praetorian arch villains, and everyone loves beating up Frostfire). So for solo SFMA content, I mostly post here on this forum to promote it. It's not a great way to reach new people though, because a player reading this forum is presumably already interested in Mission Architect. For team based SFMA content, not sure? What makes a good SFMA story arc for a team? I love doing the Frostfire mission on a big team, but it's closer to a farm (hordes of mobs to kill, lots of exp and levels) than a story (barely any text to read; I guess we have a cut scene where Frostfire tells you he's not just a regular villain, he's actually very Complicated?).

I mostly write comedy. I've dabbled in more serious stories but I'll tend to add easter eggs or in-jokes even in those. I'll play almost anything, but I especially love story arcs with a strong genre theme, and my hero is transported into this story and is immersed in it. I strive to do this in some of my own story arcs, and I'm happiest with the arcs I've written where I feel this is successful.

Our first SPOOOOKY story is Astro Adventures: The Scrapnoids from Outer Space (arc #71) - a retro sci-fi adventure from page 28 of the MA forum. Please note that in-game this is arc #71, not arc #3110 as mentioned in the original post. How do you unpublish an arc and republish it as a lower arc number? I have no idea! We join the astonishing Spacegirl being briefed by the Astro Bounder on a desperate mission to divert a meteor from hitting Paragon City! Arriving on the asteroid, Spacegirl is attacked by aliens! Or robots! Or maybe alien robots! It's the Scrapnoids! Fighting her way past the Scrapnoids, Spacegirl planted several scanners to gather scientific measurements, before returning to Earth. There, Astro Bounder briefs her on the alien Scrapnoid species, and the two of them come up with a plan to tractor beam the asteroid away so that it doesn't hit the Earth. The plan requires Spacegirl to plant some equipment that will distract the Scrapnoids away from Astro Bounder's tractor beaming equipment. Back to the asteroid we go! Only this time we're in caves deep inside the asteroid itself. There's a bunch of weird space junk, as well, that apparently are leftover tech that the Scrapnoids have been using for food, or salvage, or whatever it is that alien robots consume. (They're not really robots, there's some technobabble explaining that they're energy life forms that are animating space junk.) Spacegirl runs into the Vapourian Prime, the brain of the Scrapnoid hive mind! And it's got psychic attacks, which cut through Spacegirl's force fields like butter! Oh wait, no, it looks like force fields work against psychic blast now. Spacegirl is okay! Planting the last of the cannisters of Scrapnoid-bait, Spacegirl teleports back to Earth. Yay, Spacegirl saved the day! Overall impressions: I really liked the retro sci fi aesthetic, and I was glad I picked a character to play that fit right in. The story arc was short (just 2 missions) but it was enough, and the story made sense. Spacegirl had no problem fighting the custom enemy group, even as a solo defender, but she is also a level 50 and heavily IO'd; the arc's stated level range is 1-54, but I would not like to try this as a level 1. The writing for Astro Bounder was very good; there were no real other characters and minimal dialog from the Scrapnoids (since none of them could really talk except the Vapourian Prime). I got turned around a couple times in the cave network which made it frustrating to hunt down all the glowies, but TBH that is my fault for getting lost. There's some clues that are useful and some clues that are just mysterious and make me wonder, but don't appear to lead to anything I was on the fence between rating this 4 or 5; I ended up giving the arc 5 stars. The story arc has been published for over 5 years and had only been played 14 times before this, and would've been very hard to find in the search tool. Give it a try if you're in the mood for a quicky sci-fi adventure.

Answering this hypothetical, I’d say my criteria would be: There has to be a story, with a beginning, middle and end. The story should make sense (it can be magical/superhero/sci fi, but whatever's happening should still make sense) The story should make me care about what happens, or make me feel some kind of way (whether happy, sad, amused, or horrified) The game mechanics should not be tedious (e.g. forcing me to search huge maps repeatedly, defeat all on a huge map, collect 50 items, etc.) The game balance should not overpower or outright murder my character (e.g. multiple ambushes at low level, deadly custom characters, or unkillable AVs) Extra credit for clever writing or presentation.

Meet the Flying Fox! A flying rodent-inspired street vigilante battling the criminal underworld of Paragon City! Flying Fox's loyal butler gave her a list of possible leads, but in her usual brilliant way, she deduces that one of these leads is actually a distraction from the real danger, a Family ship smuggling weapons into Paragon City! Flying Fox is on the case! Left-Handed Leo was a known associate of the Puffin. This leads Flying Fox to search the Puffin's lair, where she finds another clue and gets ambushed by ... the Imperial Defense Force? Weird, but okay! The trail leads to a base on Striga Isle where Flying Fox rescues Full Birdman Junior, a hapless sidekick captured by the IDF. His writing is hilarious. The boy hostage tells me about some kind of portal device, which Flying Fox swiftly disables. By this point there are enough clues pointing to Praetoria that Flying Fox has no choice but to jury-rig another portal device to break into Praetoria and stop the smuggled weapons at the source. There, Flying Fox runs face-to-face with her evil twin! We are not so different, you and I Unfortunately for the evil twin, she has very low perception and Flying Fox starts the fight by sucker-punching her RIGHT in the face. Through some sort of evil cheat code, the evil twin gets back up after being defeated - then demonstrates her brilliant mental ability by running away as fast as she can. Until next time! Same Fox-time, same Fox-channel! After beating my evil twin, I discover she wasn't even the final boss ... the true powerhouse of the story arc is revealed: After defeating the last boss, Flying Fox sets some charges to blow up her evil twin's evil base, then goes home and gives the butler the night off, neatly wrapping up the case. Overall I thought this was amazing and fun. The story arc did a great job of setting the ambience for a Batman-ish adventure. As others have mentioned, it was a little weird to have so much of "my" dialog written for me, but doing this did help give the feeling of being a brilliant detective vigilante. I liked the name drops of alt-Batman-villains and the rivalry with Manticore. I liked how the hero learns from the story arc to give the butler some time off. I gave this story arc 5 stars. Some typos I noticed in the spoiler tag.