Ominous Horizons (arc #16613)

[BretC]

Hey all!

 

I just posted the first of a series of arcs I've had in my head since AE was first announced. The description reads:

 

"Double Mint, the face of Comiskey Gum, normally basks in the glow of camera lights and the calls of fans for autographs or one of her iconic bubble-gum shields. However, today she seems on edge. Something big has happened and she's looking for super-powered allies to help her out."

 

It's built for 50+ and ideal for teams. I've set it as neutral, though it has a slight hero bent since you're saving the world.

 

I'll post the second arc later this month or early next month. Let me know what you think!

[BretC]

To the one person who played Ominous Horizons (thank you for the five stars!), part 2 is now posted! Arc #18086 #18203 titled Red Sky at Morning.

 

"Double Mint is back! With the Circle still a threat to supers and citizens alike, it's time to search for a way to get those affected by the Circle's new daggers back on their feet. It seems Double Mint's found a lead from another dimension..."

 

As before, it's built for 50+, ideal for teams, and set to neutral. If you're interested, I highly recommend playing them in order since the second arc assumes you've played the first. Let me know what you think!

Edited November 4, 2019 by BretC

[Kyksie]

I was the one who played the first arc. It was pretty well written, although it's hard to tell what the contact was saying. Also, the arc didn't run with the concept of a hero who is also the spokesman for a gum company. She could, say, capture a bank robber and shout her catchphrase 'Hope the charges STICK this time!"

 

Ominous Horizons starts out the same way, although Double Mint is wearing a different costume. The Circle is up to something, so we go into the Shadow Shard and talk to Dr. Huxley. who tells us that she has discovered a new variety of Kora Fruit which is orange.

 

Upon seeing the fruit, Double Mint forgets all about the Circle and begins planning a new flavor of gum, Orange Kora Blast, and assigns the player to go around Paragon City putting up billboards for it. At least I assume that's what she does, because I couldn't get to the final missions. The third mission sends the player to the Nemesis Shadow Shard map and tasks them with destroying a sensor, but I couldn't find it anywhere, and gave up after 15 minutes of scouring the map. I found the cave and rescued a nameless mystic, but no glowie. Please, people, don't use any of the Shadow Shard maps in AE, they're all poorly designed and hard to navigate.

 

Anyway, Ominous Horizons probably concludes with the player battling a hundred foot tall Incarnate powered Gum Golem in the middle of Steel Canyon while a fleet of Rikti dropships fly overhead and Ride of the Valkyries plays, so I'll give it five stars for having such a badass ending.

Edited November 2, 2019 by Kyksie

[BretC]

Yeah, I wasn't sure how that mission was going to play out. I tried to telegraph the actual mission objective as best as I could, but I also knew what to look for as I was testing it.  I just didn't want it to be five missions of Rularuu caves and that was the only outdoor shard map available. I'll look at other possible maps in the next couple of days and try a different approach. Thanks for the feedback!

 

That said, there's a thought in the back of my head that I should just leave it as is. I don't think the current end lives up to the hype. 🤣

[BretC]

Replaced mission three with the Nerva Primeva map and made some tweaks to the objectives/briefing to accommodate. Played through it a couple times and the spawns were good. It should no longer include a 15 minute scavenger hunt. Apologies!

 

Arc is now #18203.

 

As always, hope you enjoy!

[Kyksie]

Tried this again yesterday. The first two arcs are the same; the third is the jungle map with the ziggurat in the center, where Chimera appears in the Maria Jenkins mission. Here, the player is tasked with destroying a sensor, which appears to be a stone spire.

 

However, after slaughtering all mobs and smashing all the other spires, I was left with the "Active" one, which gave me 'Invalid Target' when I tried to zap it, and could not be damaged by AoEs or any other means. I tried it *twice*, with different characters, and the result was the same.

 

At this point, it is obvious that the author does not playtest his arcs at all. I have zero interest in playing whatever comes next and neither should anyone else.

[BretC]

I am so sorry you're having a difficult time with my arc! It's not my intention to cause frustration.

 

I hoped back in to check and see what was going on and it looks like the enemies meant to defend that object weren't spawning for some reason, which was causing the game to flag that object as invulnerable (also for some reason). Realistically under this circumstance the game should either flag the arc as invalid or simply allow the player to defeat the object regardless. Either way, I reset the enemies and ran it again and it should be working fine now.

 

I promise that I tested this mission multiple times. In this case that number was three. In those three tests everything worked perfectly. Do you have a suggestion for how many times I should test my arcs in the future?

 

Also, do you have any tips or tricks for testing my arcs? I generally run on invincibility to make the process easier and occasionally turn on invisibility, especially when I'm dealing with enemies that slow, as invincibility doesn't seem to protect against that effect. Once I have tested a mission normally a few times, I sometimes choose to simply defeat enemies that I believe are working correctly to expedite the process (especially when I'm editing for grammar and spelling, because I always find I've missed something).

 

I'd also like to mention that I run into strange errors all the time. From custom enemies flagging as 'out of range' to character names changing between saves. The game has broken entire missions because of this and forced me to start from scratch. Game is buggy and no amount of testing will fix that.

[WhiteNightingale]

Don't use Invisible Mode, NPCs won't react to your proximity if you do, which means you have no means to experience how the game will behave to regular players.