The Nictus Invasion...

[SeraphimKensai]

Is it just me, or do Shadow Cysts not spawn anywhere besides in the ITF? 

 

Any chance we can get an event to have a Nictus Invasion (similar to a rikti invasion, but with free floating nictus, crystals, dark/bright Nova's, and black/white dwarves). Perhaps the Council can spawn in forces led by Requiem and Arkhan to welcome the invasion, giving us opportunity to lead expeditions to steal temporary power quantum gun arrays to players, and maybe a quantum nullifier (new temp power idea to give player Kheldians extra protection from the Negative Energy of the Quantum guns).

 

The Nictus could try and set up Cyst Seeds to bring in more of their invasion force and flood a zone, and players could band together to fight them back. If a zone is being invaded, standard 100% debt protection like they do during rikti dropship, Halloween events, etc.

 

Any thoughts?

Edited October 17, 2019 by SeraphimKensai

[SeraphimKensai]

Could even bring in Sunstorm, Shadowstar, Moonfire, the Awakened PPD, etc. to lead players to fight back the invasion via objectives and such. Could be a fun event.

 

Examples of possible objectives:

1. Raid Council Outposts/Bases for Quantum weapon temp powers, nictus fragments, etc.

2. Fight off localized assaults (Atlas Park City Hall, Portal Corp, the Vanguard Base, etc.) in zones to prevent Shadow Cysts from portaling in tons of unbound nictus.

3. Nictus infused monster hunting. What happens when Lusca, Kraken, Jack In Irons, Sally, Death Surge, Paladin, etc. get infected with a Nictus? They become more of a threat with new powers for us to fight off.

4. Arkhan/Requiem have achieved nigh ultimate power and fighting over leadership of the Nictus Invasion Force. Stand with heroes, villains, vigilantes, and rogues to decimate the invading force's leadership.

 

Edited October 17, 2019 by SeraphimKensai

[Galaxy Brain]

That'd be neat 🙂

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

Why would the council help fight the nictus, the council is ruled by the nictus.

 

Aside from that honestly imo we could just use the nictus threat as the true big bad of the game.  We know from the path of the dark they have been intent on earth for a very long time.

 

Imagine how easy it would be to create new nicti units by simply taking all the old enemies and adding various nicti abilities to them. Imagine Rikti mentalists possessed by nicti for example. Hell imagine how terrifying it would be if sally suddenly became a host to a power nicti in croatoa now a rampaging monster of darkness spamming dark tentacles that cover a vast area, that breathes a cone of darkness comparable to a judgement nuke etc.

 

The fact is the possessive evil alient sentient energy entity is likely the most powerful and terrifying thing in comicdom. Even coporeal parasites like the daemonites from the Wildcats comics where easily more terrifying then anything in marvel except perhaps possessive psychic entities like apocalypse and the shadow king. And unlike say trying to create the battalion etc and needing to model and build them from the ground up, the Oncoming Storm being re imagined as a mass assault from a swarm of nicti possessing all sorts of the old factions, would allow for old models, and already made powers to be re used in new creative ways and not be nearly as demanding as building a new faction from scratch would be.

[SeraphimKensai]

Ah I had read the Council invented the quantum guns and void hunters, but since they are led by Arkhan and Requiem (their goal being to infect the whole world), it would probably need missions by player teams to assault a base and steal the quantum guns to help them fight the invasion.

 

You're absolutely right about existing mobs getting infected, although the lore says the host typically has to be willing unless they are weakened (albeit getting blasted by a horse of unbound nictus would definitely weaken something), so it's definitely possible I suppose that Sally or Hamidon could get infected with a Nictus.

[Honest Abe]

My name is AIB and I approve this event.

[Lazarillo]

24 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Ah I had read the Council invented the quantum guns and void hunters

They did, to kill the Peacebringer-type Kheldians, particularly.  That they work on Warshades (which are basically Nictus traitors) is mostly just a bonus.

That said, while Arakhn is pretty much loyal to the Nictus race as a faction, Requiem seems to see the source of his powers as a tool at best, so even if the Council wouldn't fight the Nictus, per se, the 5th...actually might.  I'm not sure I'd be too eager to team up with the nazis, though, so maybe turn the event into an outright three-way war?

[SeraphimKensai]

20 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

'm not sure I'd be too eager to team up with the nazis

I wouldn't want to team up with Nazi's either, but I figured there's other factions that might have an interest like the Awakened PPD that I mentioned.

[Rikmach]

3 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Is it just me, or do Shadow Cysts not spawn anywhere besides in the ITF?

If I recall correctly, if you have a very large team containing Kheldians, they have a small chance on showing up on *any* mission, similar to Quantum Gunners.

[Lazarillo]

1 hour ago, Rikmach said:

If I recall correctly, if you have a very large team containing Kheldians, they have a small chance on showing up on *any* mission, similar to Quantum Gunners.

That's how it used to be, but HC removed them as random spawns.

[SeraphimKensai]

I always liked the Cysts, because they presented a challenge to a regular team especially if they caught them unaware. I've always been one for having a decent challenge, and cysts were one of the toughest npc spawns in the game if they weren't dealt with right away.

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I always liked the Cysts, because they presented a challenge to a regular team especially if they caught them unaware. I've always been one for having a decent challenge, and cysts were one of the toughest npc spawns in the game if they weren't dealt with right away.

I"m actually glad they are gone. Makes teaming for my khelds much more fun.

[Justaris]

I liked them too, but they were a great enough challenge that I'd credit them as a primary reason behind backlash against Kheldians which still persists in some parts of the community.     There are many reasons why some players harbor negative opinions about Khelds - some due to unrealistic expecations, some due to disregard for lore-based options, some that don't care for a complex generalist as a playstyle.    The special spawns, especially the cysts, seems to have caused some in the community to fear failing missions / TFs due to those spawns.    I imagine most people don't know that the cysts don't spawn anymore and while personally I'm saddened by that it's likely a good change so we hopefully don't see Khelds being rejected for content based on fears of these kinds of spawns.

[Sidious]

I'd like to see an AE mission on this before it would get implemented as content.

 

yeah I know, use AE to rough draft content before it goes live and to test it's popularity. shocker, right?

[SeraphimKensai]

I had that thought as well to a degree, and have started trying my hand at making a mini taskforce via AE. Albeit, I'm not very experienced at making content on the AE, I suppose it would be a good opportunity to gain experience. For the AE taskforce, I'm aiming at making it a high level (I'm going to test whether to do lvl 50 or lvl 46, basically whether or not incarnate powers can be used), and hopefully difficult challenge for players.

 

I originally thought, and still think this would work as a great zone wide event like rikti dropship raids and such to have  another "raid like" event for our playerbase. 

 

AE content is hard capped at no more than 5 missions, but I've seen some good arcs have multiple parts, extending their overall length past 5 missions. That said the overall length should be long enough for storytelling purposes, but not unnecessarily artificially add to the length just to make it take longer. That said, I can open the discussion here towards possible mission ideas, as our community is a very creative and constructive one.

 

Story background, the Nictus led by Arkhan and Requiem have been preparing to launch an invasion on Earth for a long time, a lone Nictus refugee defects to join the Warshades and inform Shadowstar of the pending Invasion...

 

Mission Ideas I've thought up so far:

1. Investigate the Nictus Invasion, the refugee gave Shadowstar the location of one of the invasion cells that Arkhan had been working at, players arrive to investigate as Shadowstar rallies help in the rear.

 

2. Pursue Arkhan, the refugee was right Arkhan was there but narrowly escaped, pursue her to find out more about the pending invasion. Discover a clue to lead you to the next location.

 

3. Infiltrate the Base, steal the schematics for the Quantum Technology. Arkhan and Requiem are meeting, both retreat.

 

4. Defend Striga Isle, Arkhan has unleashed her Nictus expeditionary forces to take over Striga Isle,  by planting Shadow Cysts. Destroy them all.

 

5. Hold the Line, Arkhan has attacked Peregrine Island. Hold her forces at Bay until help arrives. Requiem arrives to assist Arkhan, and deals a cripplingly blow to the resistance. Retreat to regroup with Shadowstar.

 

 

Any thoughts? Mission ideas? Ultimately I'm looking to segue the AE arc to a point that would make sense for a possible zone wide invasion based event.

[egoprovince]

This would be interesting for a focus on Striga, get people out there doing things aside from the random Ernesto Hess or Moonfire TF.

 

Would be neat if we could see a triggered or semi-regularly event happen that brings players to zones that don't see a lot of action.