Feedback: New Story Arcs

[holymittens]

59 minutes ago, Rigged said:

Did the Rogue arc.

 

With respect, your writing is significantly better than your sense of game balance. I don't feel it is very reasonable to expect a lvl 25-29 character to solo a roomful of Legacy Chain (including a boss) all at once, especially since it wasn't actually the climatic fight - to clarify, I had set my difficulty at +0/x1. Now, I ran the arc with my only rogue toon, which happened to be an exemplar'ed lvl 50 TW/Bio scrapper with a billion inf IO build, so I just AoE'ed them all to bits while their rocks whiffed (Because of this, I may have missed how difficult it might have been to defeat the actual final boss, or the large number of PPD mobs in the earlier mission). However, if I had gone in with a squishy defender I suspect I would be cursing at you right now. Please do consider allowing the spawn system to handle mob balance, flawed as it may be.

To clarify, I did not handle any of the balancing. As far as I know, the spawn system does handle all of what spawns. I assume that room has too many spawn points set into it or something. If that spot turns out to be too difficult, I can look into having it toned down in future patches.

[holymittens]

1 hour ago, Rigged said:

Lastly, and this is a little off topic, but I do hope that future arcs that involve actual Villains won't solely be driven by a mere profit motive - this is perfectly fine for Rogues (in this case), but it annoyed me to no end that the vanilla CoV arcs were almost entirely about scoring some cash. CoX in general also suffers from having most stories feel rather impersonal for the player - we stumble into someone else's tragedy/stuggle/story and go in to meddle, and none of the stories are really about us. The signature story arcs started to go against this trend (at least redside), and I would like to see more of that sort of story.

Oh, and do not worry about this (at least from me). My view on the alignments is as follows:

Heroes - Do what is "right" even if it involves personal sacrifice. Will (generally) not bend their morals or break the rules of society

Vigilantes - Do what is "necessary" even if it involves breaking the rules. They're generally concerned about the greater good (as they see it)

Rogues - Do what gets them ahead, as long as it doesn't hurt others too much. They will break any rules and are generally selfish, but only hurt those who "deserve it" or can afford to be hurt

Villains - Do whatever gets them ahead, no matter the consequences. They will break any rule and if someone else gets hurt, too bad.

 

Now that is a very general outlook, but it's the general gist of what I go for with my writing. While I'm concentrating on writing rogue/vigilante content at the moment, my future villain arcs will be more about the player proactively trying to achieve their goals (whatever that may be).

[Widower]

1 hour ago, Rigged said:

Please do consider allowing the spawn system to handle mob balance, flawed as it may be.

What you are suggesting exists does not, in fact, exist; everything is manual. That particular map (with spawns inside!) was, I believe, pulled from Graham Easton's arc, and the spawns are what Paragon's "spawn system" picked.

[Chuckers]

12 hours ago, holymittens said:

Can you double check what dialogue option you chose to get that? The only one I see with "go" in it is him saying "Go on then."

 

 

We don't set how enemies con in the missions. If this happens, it was probably just bad luck for you.

If you mean Rider, I could not find him using the phrase "You didn't" at all. Could you double check and provide more details?

 

HolyMittens, I ran the arcs again and I can't find the errors.. I think I chose different branches and it didn't give me the dialog I want. They were minor, but if I find them again, I'll let you know 🙂 Still fun a second time! 🙂

[Fista]

Is there anyway to access her arc if you've out leveled her?

 

[justicebeliever]

2 hours ago, Fista said:

Is there anyway to access her arc if you've out leveled her?

 

The arcs are in Ouroboros.  You will need to be the appropriate alignment (Vig) to see her arc.  

[Gulbasaur]

On 10/2/2019 at 3:49 PM, Rigged said:

Did the Rogue arc.

 

With respect, your writing is significantly better than your sense of game balance. I don't feel it is very reasonable to expect a lvl 25-29 character to solo a roomful of Legacy Chain (including a boss) all at once, especially since it wasn't actually the climatic fight - to clarify, I had set my difficulty at +0/x1.

Rogues get a mass confuse power (after a little wait, I think - vigilantes get a fear power) and my first thought entering that room was well, now is the time to use it.That's the only way I made it out of that room in one piece. 

[MetaVileTerror]

Has enough time past yet that we may get the meaty insides of these missions revealed?  I'd really like to review all the content I may have missed in-game and see what's behind the curtain for the purposes of providing other would-be contributors within the community the tools to make their own works shine as much as these arcs do.

[Gulbasaur]

8 hours ago, MetaVileTerror said:

Has enough time past yet that we may get the meaty insides of these missions revealed?  I'd really like to review all the content I may have missed in-game and see what's behind the curtain for the purposes of providing other would-be contributors within the community the tools to make their own works shine as much as these arcs do.

Yes! I would definitely read that article. I've done some (very minor) game mods in the past and I'd love too see if it was something I could even think about doing, as well as knowing more about the writing process - I really enjoyed the mission arc. 

[holymittens]

There's work being done on a tutorial about how to put together content. It's actually pretty complex, so it may take a while.

[MrCuddles]

I really enjoyed throwing a corrupt capitalist out of a window and the cutscene genuinely made me smile. Thanks for this!

 

I'll try the rogue one and get back to you 🙂

[MetaVileTerror]

Thank you very much, holymittens.  In the meantime, is there any way that members of the community might help out in those efforts?

[StratoNexus]

I have run the vigilante arc twice, so I could see some different choices when talking to the officer as well as the end choice, of course.

 

First, let me say this was a fantastic arc. I loved the story and the tone had the perfect feel for a vigilante character. More like this please for all alignments. I am looking forward to the rogue arc.

 

My first run through was with my newest Rad/Martial blaster and I was in level for the arc, started 28 and dinged 29 early on and 30 on the last mission. That character in some ways was perfect for this arc as well. He has that kind of Iron Fist feel. I will say I very much felt like I was dealing with one of the Netflix Marvel stories due to the setting as well as my particular character. Since he is progressing through the game primarily with tips and will eventually fall villain (and I plan to turn him back Rogue at least, if not all the way to redemption), he might have been a good choice for the non-heroic ending, but at the last minute I stayed his hand, feeling it was too early in his turning to be that dark (but this ends up being a perfect moment he can look back on and regret not following through, helping push him down a darker path). I loved the cutscene and thought it played out well with Officer Davids and also the way my character was center stage. It really had a good feel, that moment when the hero gets to feel like they made the good choice, despite really wanting to end the villain. The followup with the disappointed contact was well done and highlights the oft-times lonely road of the hero.

Mechanically, I ran this at 0/x5. I was able to maintain just enough inspires to keep me moving, but I will say having Inner Will might have put me over the top considering the number of mezzing bosses I dealt with. That said, /x5 is my own issue. I only fell once, in the Vault, taking down the three doors was a bit difficult with the ambushes, but since they reset I was able to rez in the mission and get back moving and managed to finish the mission without needing to hospital. I was about to exit when a different type of ambush started, and I am glad I stayed then to the end to face the the final ambush. I kind of lucked out in the police mission, and managed to click the second glowy before I got overwhelmed. I fought a little, but used the mission exit button because I felt my character would not want to really hurt the police. The ambush in the final mission comes a bit suddenly, but was well telegraphed by the NPC, so I was prepared. So many Singularites at /x5, but I leveled during the first wave, so that really carried me through. A bit of luck, but set to a normal level I would not have seen so many bosses I expect. I liked the variety of enemies, fighting PPD, private security, longbow and, of course, gangsters (as well as one hero).

 

The second time, I ran it as a duo with my level 41 Arch/Bio Sentinel and my friends 50 Inv/SS Tanker. We were +1/x4 or 5. I was leading, so I got to choose the conversations. I was less respectful of the police, but more honest, and I really liked the dialogue of Davids here compared to the first run through where I basically lied to cover myself. Good work on the branches there. My friend had already run it once and also chose the more heroic ending, so we were obviously here for the darker ending. This character is definitely more prone to a final solution, while less prone than my blaster to outright villainy. Since we had both done it before, we took a bit more time to look around. He had not fought all the way through the ambushes in the vault mission, so I encouraged him to stay and we were happy to get that final ambush. We beat on more police this time, but still exited fairly early without facing too many police ambushes. After we cleared the final room in the last mission, we looked around and I happened to look out the window. At that point we were pretty sure how it was going to end, but it was no less satisfying when it played out. The final contact dialogue has the classic "is vengeance worth it" feeling, but also still more "happy" than the heroic ending, a distinction I liked here.

 

Well done.

 

One small critique. I thought the early clues were a bit generic and could have had some more depth. I liked the paragraph for each and thought that was a perfect way to start, but a second paragraph with more details might be nice for folks like me who enjoy the extra depth. One paragraph to summarize the clue at the beginning, so most folks can stop reading at that point, still get the gist of the story and move on with the game, but a second more detailed paragraph might be nice for future clues.

[holymittens]

7 hours ago, MetaVileTerror said:

Thank you very much, holymittens.  In the meantime, is there any way that members of the community might help out in those efforts?

Don't really think so. You kinda have to know how things work before you can really talk about it. It's not exactly the most elegantly put together system.

[MetaVileTerror]

Thanks for being so prompt with the replies, holymittens.  The dialogue is appreciated.
I've had my share of experience with scripting in various game engines and coding languages.  Even without a fully informative tutorial, a look at the source is often enough for me to start piecing the logic together in my head.  I suspect there are plenty of other members of the community who would feel similarly.  Is there any chance at seeing the source on your missions?

[holymittens]

No on the actual missions, for reasons. But I can probably get a genericized version out this weekend.

[MetaVileTerror]

I have some ideas as to what those reasons may be.

But, on behalf of all the other would-be community contributors (who would permit me to, at least):  I extend our appreciation for the generic version!

[Eva Destruction]

So, some feedback on the vigilante arc:

 

Overall a nice "day in the life" arc.  Nothing world-shaking, but in this level range they don't need to be.  I felt some of the contact dialogue and the clues could have used a bit of fleshing out.  It was a bit jarring to go from bog-standard "let's beat up the Family" to "now let's go rob a bank"; I think clues and dialogue could smooth the transition.  I liked the cop's dialogue, he had some personality, which is nice.

 

Said bank was not crawling with security like the pop-up says it is; there was only one spawn, presumably because the rest of the spawn points were reserved for ambushes.  I don't feel it needed quite so many, but that's a minor criticism; the map used doesn't make them nearly as tedious as some of the other ambush-heavy missions in the game.  Now as for the ambushes in the police station...yikes.  Both times I died trying to get out.  PPD in this level range are nasty in numbers, and with stacking glue grenades you can't just make a run for the door.

 

Good use of cut scenes, not too long and wrap the story up nicely.   Having Lusca in there was a nice touch; the poor GMs never get any love.

[holymittens]

Here's a link to a very, very stripped down arc. It doesn't have everything in it, because I don't understand how a lot of stuff works and there are apparently some converter tools that turn things into what actually need to be used by the system... I don't really understand it all, I'm just a writer! I can't promise it'll really teach anyone how to do anything, but it might help a little for some people.

[MetaVileTerror]

Thanks.
And to make sure that file accessible to everyone:  https://cloudconvert.com/rar-to-zip

[Paradox Fate]

On 10/2/2019 at 5:10 PM, Chuckers said:

I forgot to mention something in Bobby's arc.   In the council/swat mission, I really liked the optional save and how it affected the rest of the mission. I also liked that it wasn't part of the objectives. I think that's a cool idea that you run across something that's not mentioned and it will affect the mission or story. 

I had hoped more came out of that during the arc, really.

You know, 'one hand washes the other' and the kind.

 

Unless I missed it out, I wouldn't have bothered pulling him from the PPD when not getting a favor from the Council.

[Amarsir]

I did the vigilante arc for the Avenger badge and rouge for the Diamond in the Rough badge. The difficulty seemed in line to me. (Although I was exemplared so it's harder to say.)

 

Blue side, the tone felt exactly right. It's exactly what separates a vigilante from a hero. And the inclusion of Chain of Custody was a smart detail I never expected to see in a superhero story. Unfortunately I felt the overall story was obvious and cliche. Frankly I don't know why an office building was supposed to be so valuable when even the Clockwork can afford to rent dozens of them. ;)

 

The cutscene at the end made up for any weaknesses though. Appropriately epic.

 

Over on the red side, the conversation I picked with Amphitryon had me laugh out loud. Which does not come easily.

 

I did feel the casino dialogue was a little disjointed. I went there because someone mentioned the name "Bronte", but in the conversation Rancid didn't mention Bronte at all and only mentioned "Arc Flash". So how did the name Bronte get to my contact? It didn't line up. (Small detail though. Stories do that all the time.)

 

This plot was better than the previous one. The premise was very simple, but that works for a rogue. And then it took an unexpected path such that I was interested in the outcome. Plus a variety of enemies is always appreciated.

[holymittens]

7 hours ago, Paradox Fate said:

I had hoped more came out of that during the arc, really.

You know, 'one hand washes the other' and the kind.

 

Unless I missed it out, I wouldn't have bothered pulling him from the PPD when not getting a favor from the Council.

The Council turn friendly in the mission once you save him, meaning you can have them help you fight the PPD.

[MetaVileTerror]

I defeated all of the Ascendants before even realizing Maestro was in the mission on my second run.  I think it could have been funny to have him comment on where his friends had disappeared to after escorting him

[Eva Destruction]

So I just ran Bobby's arc.  I didn't save Maestro because there were just too many cops surrounding him.  I managed to sneak past the ones near the Miller and nuke his guards, but too many damn cops.

 

The false leads start to get tedious after a while.  I was kind of annoyed that the CoT guy didn't have my shiny rock.  Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure you don't know they're dead people wearing skin suits at this point in your career.  Villains learn this in Magus Mu'Drakhan's arc in the late 30s, iirc.  I also noticed that he turned friendly at low health and started helping me fight his former friends; I'm not sure if he can die but if he does die and the body fades out before you talk to him it might make the mission impossible to complete.  I've had this happen in tip missions.

 

Arc Flash's motivation just seemed really cliche to me.  Full disclosure, I'm not American, but you'd think a hero would be able to set up a GoFundMe or something instead of turning to crime.  Her being an elite boss isn't necessary and the Paragon Heroes are usually bosses.  I did kick her ass pretty easily, but I was exemped so I had a full insp tray and IOs out the wazoo.