Prelude to the Coming Storm #31880

[billha65]

Starting the new year with something that may interest some.

 

This is the first part of my version of how the Coming Storm would be played out within the current limitations of MA.

 

The narrative advances with the clues which are numerically coded.

 

Comments are welcome, enjoy.

 

[Grindingsucks]

I'm quite curious to see your take on it.  I'll be sure to check it out.  Thanks!  

[Grindingsucks]

So, I just completed your AE arc.  Thanks for taking the time to create it and make it available for play.  I do have a few constructive (I hope!) comments for you, as per your OP.

 

I'll start with my view on the arc from a purely game-play/mechanics point of view.  To help place my comments in proper perspective, I think it is useful to share specifics on the character I was using to play the arc.  For this one, I chose my lvl 50 Beam Rifle/Radiation Armor Sentinel, Martian Commando.  Difficulty was set to the standard +0/1.  I reckoned this would be adequate for initial testing and feedback, since you assigned the mission an inherent lvl 54 difficulty.  Anyway, Martian Commando looks like this:

 

 

As you can see, Martian Commando has a lot of IO sets and plenty of procs and globals.  His Resistances are decent, but not exceptional.  His defense is quite low, in most respects.  He has no incarnate abilities nor any accolades.  I did not use an P2W abilities other than reveal, nor did I use temporary powers.  I died exactly once in the arc, this was during the very first mission, when some family thugs jumped out and ambushed me with their Tommy guns.  Very nasty fellows, those mobsters.

 

Apart from that incident, I didn't have any other deaths.  In fact, I took almost no damage at any other point in the arc.  How is this possible? 

 

Well,  your battalion have no ranged attacks and completely lack the ability to get vertical, via hover, fly, or other movement powers.  As a result, Martian Commando could hover-blast them with impunity.  There was a bit of effort involved in this, as the cat creatures would panic and run around in circles once combat was joined.  The scouts likewise posed little difficulty, apart from the fact that I had to chase them a bit and, of course, due to the fact that they could rez three times, so I had to chase them and gun them down 3 times in a row.

 

The problem with this is that the Battalion are supposed to be the BIG BADS of the "COMING STORM" (Dun, dun, dun!!!).  They didn't feel like a credible threat, at all.  In fact, I've had much tougher fights from run--of-the-mill gangs and villain groups.  Rikti at lvl 54 difficulty are orders of magnitude harder to fight.  It's no wonder they were able to beat back the Battalion, all those years ago.

 

The good news is that this can probably be fixed rather easily.  Simply give the battalion mobs ranged attacks, or the ability to get vertical (personally, I recommend both).  As presently designed, they do not provide a credible threat that would convince heroes and villains to team up together to repel their invasion.  I would not want to provide much more comment on the mechanical aspects of your arc, until I have played it again with the recommended changes, as I feel those two changes would likely solve my primary issues with the arc.

 

PLOT STRUCTURE/WRITING:  I did carefully read the dialogue and all of the clues that were provided.  I have some thoughts on these, if you will indulge me.  I do hope you will not take any of my comments personally.  I offer them only out of a desire to help you fine-tune your content.

 

Firstly, I would recommend getting someone to read and edit your writing before posting your arcs.  It's always very hard to edit one's own writing.   A second pair of eyes is always useful for catching grammar and spelling errors, awkward or incomplete sentences, and so on.  You do have some of these (Don't take it too hard.  Most people do- including myself.  It's one of the hazards of writing).

 

The grammar and spelling errors are easily addressed.  You can probably catch and edit most of these, yourself, if you go back over your content with a fine-toothed comb.  Apart from that, I noticed the following things that I felt were problematic and damaged my immersion in the story:

 

1) At certain point in the story, you project reactions and feelings onto the reader.  Examples of this are when it says that thinking about the suffering of the civilians distresses you, or that encountering magic always creeps you out, and so on.  It's always a bad idea to assume the feeling or reaction of a players character.  If the character is a mastermind who summons demons, they will probably not be particularly in awe of any magic that the CoT demonstrates.  Let the player decide how their character feels about the events in question, rather than projecting it onto them.  If your arc is exciting, the player will be excited.  If your arc is eerie, they will feel unsettled.  If it isn't, forcibly narrating these emotions onto their character won't make it so, and will feel intrusive, besides.

 

Also, keep in  mind that you created your arc as a Neutral morality arc.  This means that it may be played, not just by heroes, but also rogues, vigilantes, and villains.  Most villains (and, perhaps, many rogues) will not be distressed in the slightest by the suffering of civilians.  They view the mundane civilian as nothing more than a meal-ticket, or else weaklings to be enslaved and conquered.

 

Likewise, try to excise any general thoughts and/or internal monologues you think the character should have, other than logical connections to clues that help bind the story together.  One particularly jarring example I can think of is a reference to the police dispatcher telling you that Vanguard was joining the party.  In the next arc, the mission primer makes an incredibly cheesy joke as part of an internal monologue wondering if they brought tea and cakes and such.  I could infer that this was meant to be humorous, but I found it merely cringe inducing, as well as having the problem of making assumptions about how my character thinks and feels.  Again, it had the net effect of breaking my immersion.

 

I LOVE the idea of making an AE arc to address the COMING STORM plot that was left dangling after the live game closed.  So, bravo for taking a stab at that.  I'd love to see where you take the story, after making a few needed tweaks to your initial attempt.  I'll be very interested to see what you come up with next.

 

Thanks again, for sharing!  

Edited January 1, 2021 by Grindingsucks

[FrauleinMental]

I've just played it.  It seems solid enough, and I enjoyed playing it.  I have only a few minor comments:

• I found myself running around the maps a lot looking for objectives (and running into objectives I couldn't complete yet).  This may have been a limitation in MA, or it may have been a design choice to make it feel more detective-like.  I don't hate it, but I'm glad the maps weren't bigger.  Actually, I do like a lot of the detective feel of this arc.
• In the mission where you meet Twilight's Son at the end, the PPD and Vanguard probably don't play with Ouroboros enough (at all?) to know who Twilight's Son is, so it doesn't make sense for the contact to talk about him.
• In the last mission, 'dosier' should be 'dossier'.

[billha65]

3 hours ago, Grindingsucks said:

So, I just completed your AE arc.  Thanks for taking the time to create it and make it available for play.  I do have a few constructive (I hope!) comments for you, as per your OP.

 

I'll start with my view on the arc from a purely game-play/mechanics point of view.  To help place my comments in proper perspective, I think it is useful to share specifics on the character I was using to play the arc.  For this one, I chose my lvl 50 Beam Rifle/Radiation Armor Sentinel, Martian Commando.  Difficulty was set to the standard +0/1.  I reckoned this would be adequate for initial testing and feedback, since you assigned the mission an inherent lvl 54 difficulty.  Anyway, Martian Commando looks like this:

 

 

As you can see, Martian Commando has a lot of IO sets and plenty of procs and globals.  His Resistances are decent, but not exceptional.  His defense is quite low, in most respects.  He has no incarnate abilities nor any accolades.  I did not use an P2W abilities other than reveal, nor did I use temporary powers.  I died exactly once in the arc, this was during the very first mission, when some family thugs jumped out and ambushed me with their Tommy guns.  Very nasty fellows, those mobsters.

 

Apart from that incident, I didn't have any other deaths.  In fact, I took almost no damage at any other point in the arc.  How is this possible? 

 

Well,  your battalion have no ranged attacks and completely lack the ability to get vertical, via hover, fly, or other movement powers.  As a result, Martian Commando could hover-blast them with impunity.  There was a bit of effort involved in this, as the cat creatures would panic and run around in circles once combat was joined.  The scouts likewise posed little difficulty, apart from the fact that I had to chase them a bit and, of course, due to the fact that they could rez three times, so I had to chase them and gun them down 3 times in a row.

 

The problem with this is that the Battalion are supposed to be the BIG BADS of the "COMING STORM" (Dun, dun, dun!!!).  They didn't feel like a credible threat, at all.  In fact, I've had much tougher fights from run--of-the-mill gangs and villain groups.  Rikti at lvl 54 difficulty are orders of magnitude harder to fight.  It's no wonder they were able to beat back the Battalion, all those years ago.

 

The good news is that this can probably be fixed rather easily.  Simply give the battalion mobs ranged attacks, or the ability to get vertical (personally, I recommend both).  As presently designed, they do not provide a credible threat that would convince heroes and villains to team up together to repel their invasion.  I would not want to provide much more comment on the mechanical aspects of your arc, until I have played it again with the recommended changes, as I feel those two changes would likely solve my primary issues with the arc.

 

PLOT STRUCTURE/WRITING:  I did carefully read the dialogue and all of the clues that were provided.  I have some thoughts on these, if you will indulge me.  I do hope you will not take any of my comments personally.  I offer them only out of a desire to help you fine-tune your content.

 

Firstly, I would recommend getting someone to read and edit your writing before posting your arcs.  It's always very hard to edit one's own writing.   A second pair of eyes is always useful for catching grammar and spelling errors, awkward or incomplete sentences, and so on.  You do have some of these (Don't take it too hard.  Most people do- including myself.  It's one of the hazards of writing).

 

The grammar and spelling errors are easily addressed.  You can probably catch and edit most of these, yourself, if you go back over your content with a fine-toothed comb.  Apart from that, I noticed the following things that I felt were problematic and damaged my immersion in the story:

 

1) At certain point in the story, you project reactions and feelings onto the reader.  Examples of this are when it says that thinking about the suffering of the civilians distresses you, or that encountering magic always creeps you out, and so on.  It's always a bad idea to assume the feeling or reaction of a players character.  If the character is a mastermind who summons demons, they will probably not be particularly in awe of any magic that the CoT demonstrates.  Let the player decide how their character feels about the events in question, rather than projecting it onto them.  If your arc is exciting, the player will be excited.  If your arc is eerie, they will feel unsettled.  If it isn't, forcibly narrating these emotions onto their character won't make it so, and will feel intrusive, besides.

 

Also, keep in  mind that you created your arc as a Neutral morality arc.  This means that it may be played, not just by heroes, but also rogues, vigilantes, and villains.  Most villains (and, perhaps, many rogues) will not be distressed in the slightest by the suffering of civilians.  They view the mundane civilian as nothing more than a meal-ticket, or else weaklings to be enslaved and conquered.

 

Likewise, try to excise any general thoughts and/or internal monologues you think the character should have, other than logical connections to clues that help bind the story together.  One particularly jarring example I can think of is a reference to the police dispatcher telling you that Vanguard was joining the party.  In the next arc, the mission primer makes an incredibly cheesy joke as part of an internal monologue wondering if they brought tea and cakes and such.  I could infer that this was meant to be humorous, but I found it merely cringe inducing, as well as having the problem of making assumptions about how my character thinks and feels.  Again, it had the net effect of breaking my immersion.

 

I LOVE the idea of making an AE arc to address the COMING STORM plot that was left dangling after the live game closed.  So, bravo for taking a stab at that.  I'd love to see where you take the story, after making a few needed tweaks to your initial attempt.  I'll be very interested to see what you come up with next.

 

Thanks again, for sharing!  

Thanks for the comments- 

 

The design of the members of the Battalion were the hardest decisions. If I were at Dev Level, those that you encountered are only a fraction of what already has been designed/tested. More details on the forces of the Battalion will be made clear in further installments. 

 

My design of the Battalion is 5 Separate Companies- The enemies encountered represent 1 faction of the Scout Company.

 

Some of the stilted syntax is due to the limitations of MA - again if I were at Dev Level, it would read better...curious you did not comment on the story itself.

 

Good catch on the Neutral Morality Arc...it went through many changes since I started it. Thanks for the input on that often overlooked detail.

 

Interesting comment on narrative focus...I experimented with different perspectives in writing the narrative and it was one of many decisions that had to be made given the tools at hand with their limitations.

 

Firstly, I wanted to tell a rich story with lots of interesting flavors and it is up to others to assess that.

 

I finally chose the "over the shoulder" POV as it seemed easier. I know this decision to put "ideas/history" into the perspective of each character that plays through the Arc which may be contrary to the design by the player, would be negatively perceived and that broke your immersion, others have commented the opposite.

 

I feel a good narrative is like a good rollercoaster. Strap yourself in and experience it.

 

There is more to come - wish I could implement the Incarnate Trial I have designed for the end of Part 2. 

[billha65]

3 hours ago, FrauleinMental said:

I've just played it.  It seems solid enough, and I enjoyed playing it.  I have only a few minor comments:

• I found myself running around the maps a lot looking for objectives (and running into objectives I couldn't complete yet).  This may have been a limitation in MA, or it may have been a design choice to make it feel more detective-like.  I don't hate it, but I'm glad the maps weren't bigger.  Actually, I do like a lot of the detective feel of this arc.
• In the mission where you meet Twilight's Son at the end, the PPD and Vanguard probably don't play with Ouroboros enough (at all?) to know who Twilight's Son is, so it doesn't make sense for the contact to talk about him.
• In the last mission, 'dosier' should be 'dossier'.

Thanks for the critique, There are limitations to MA on where / when things spawn and yes one of my intentions was the detective feel which I am glad you liked.

 

The arc is told from perspective that the player has experienced all the pre-existing narrative content. Twilight's Son is important to the complete arc. More will be revealed

 

Good catch on dossier...will correct asap.

 

Was the narrative interesting for you?

[FrauleinMental]

5 minutes ago, billha65 said:

Was the narrative interesting for you?

Yes, I enjoyed it.  It's cool to see a narrative toward the whole Battalion long-arc that was supposed to be coming before shutdown.  I think, overall, you managed to get in a good story within the confines of the MA system.

[billha65]

9 minutes ago, FrauleinMental said:

Yes, I enjoyed it.  It's cool to see a narrative toward the whole Battalion long-arc that was supposed to be coming before shutdown.  I think, overall, you managed to get in a good story within the confines of the MA system.

That is the goal. 

 

There is much more narrative building going on.

 

I will postscript the first impending Incarnate Trial I designed a couple years after sunset. That will be an interesting writing exercise. 

[cranebump]

I'll have to check this one. I used a scenario in my Mobius arcs (see sig) wherein Battalion came, conquered, and, through a desperate act, was imprisoned in a "time loop." Unfortunately, the loop had consequences that were worse. I was toying with the idea that, once the "bigger" threat was ended, they might be freed again.  Of course, now I need more arc slots.:-/ Thanks for the work, and keep it up! I'll jump on sometime and check it out, maybe as an "under the radar review."

 

Cheers,

C

[Grindingsucks]

T

Quote

he design of the members of the Battalion were the hardest decisions. If I were at Dev Level, those that you encountered are only a fraction of what already has been designed/tested. More details on the forces of the Battalion will be made clear in further installments. 

 

I did gather that this was sort of the force recon of Battalion and imagine there will be greater threats introduced later in the series.  None-the-less, I still feel strongly that you need to consider well-rounded combat encounters if you want to interest people enough to follow up on later installments.  Story, however engaging, is not sufficient to compel someone to play through a series on its own merit.  I love the Shining Stars story in Atlas Park, for example, but I find the gameplay so frustrating (chasing contacts all over atlas for 10  minutes just to retrieve bits of information) that I simply won't play through it any more.  This is a comic book action game, so you really do need well designed and exciting combat encounters.

 

Quote

Some of the stilted syntax is due to the limitations of MA - again if I were at Dev Level, it would read better...curious you did not comment on the story itself.

 

That's a fair observation.  I was waxing a bit long and the missus was asking me to make some food when I got towards the end there, so I wrapped it up a bit more abruptly than I might have.  To address the overall story:

 

It was pretty solid, with logical connections to move you from one mission to another.  You also wrapped up the ending neatly, leaving room to segue into the next installment that you write, so I thought the overall story structure was  mostly good.  There were a few things that jumped out at me.  I'll try to explain more fully, below:

 

1) Twilight's Son.  He pops in once, to relate information to you, then you don't see him again.  Given that you learn about the Coming Storm from Prometheus, I might have expected Prometheus to be the one to deliver the information.  That's a minor quibble, really.  Any of the menders could have been the one tasked to deliver the information for Prometheus, so Twilight's Son is a as good a choice as any.  I might have liked to have seen more involvement of that character (and of the Menders and Ouroboros, generally), but that could simply be due to the fact that you mean to involve them more fully in later arcs.

 

2) In the final mission, you just go to Manticore's Mansion and talk to the CoT mage, then Lady Grey, then Manticore, gathering bits of information that provide the rest of the missing details.  I've never been a fan of missions that consist solely of running from point to point, talking to once character after another.  This is particularly anti-climactic when it's the last mission of the arc.  Ideally, you want to ramp up the action and adrenaline in the last arc, and deliver the information that was provided by the three NPC's in a mission debriefing afterwards.

 

3) Two other things that occurred to me:  I don't think Lady Grey would lower herself to deliver information to you- even very important information.  She has high-level field agents to do that sort of thing.  It's a subjective opinion, I know, but it didn't feel consistent with her character to me.  Also, when you find Manticore, he's kneeling on the ground with his arms behind his back, as though he's being held hostage.  What's up with that?  Did I miss something that would explain it?

 

If you really feel wedded to the idea of having the last mission be meeting the NPC's at Manticore's Mansion, I recommend just placing all of the NPC's in the study with the secret door and giving each of them dialogue trees to deliver the relevant information.  It saves time, provides the same narrative purpose, and feels more coherent than having the NPC's scattered all over different areas of the mansion.

 

Again, all of the above is just my subjective opinion.  I'm sure other people will have different views and offer a lot of helpful criticism that didn't occur to me.  Also, having played through the mission with a ranged character, it seems logical to try it again with a melee toon and compare the difference in experience.  I might also pick up a few details that I missed the first time around.  No matter how closely you read the clues, one always seems to miss something.

 

P.S.  I reran the mission with my StJ/SR Scrapper set to +4/4.  The mission plays quite differently with a melee toon (and, also, set to higher difficulty).  It's much more challenging and fun to play through.  While I would still recommend giving the mobs hover and/or ranged attacks, if you don't want to do that I would add a note in the mission primer that it's intended to be played by melee AT's, otherwise you're going to have disappointed players. 

 

I also took this screenshot of Manticore, so you could see what I was talking about.  He's in a sort of "I surrender" pose:   

Edited January 2, 2021 by Grindingsucks

[billha65]

Interesting observations.

 

You got part of the function of the Glawrra and their Minders as an operational element. Not exactly a recon in force, more like a tide to sweep the weak leaving the "strong" to be isolated and handled, by specialist.

This is part of my concept of "what" the Battalion really is. As the arcs progress more will be revealed concerning the Battalion. The posted lore did not go into much detail on the hows/whys of the Battalion, so I came up with something unique that does not conflict with existing canon.

 

Twilight's Son has a lot more to do. Afterall per the lore, he betrayed his race...there is more to that story as well as how/why Silos recruited him. This will unfold in future installments. If I had Dev Powers there would be more interesting things I would like to be able to do, but with the MA as is, I can tell that story and I think players will like the ramifications.

 

Lady Grey is also key to going forward in the overall narrative, but she is not necessarily acting as a free agent. Other factions are at work and she being the leader of Vanguard has the responsibility of dealing with Alien Threats. The Rikti are still a problem and the arrival of the Battalion are a bigger one. 

 

Manticore's Mansion was a hard one to get right with the MA limitations. The npc's and collections spawn randomly and I think most players understand that. Manticore himself also plays a big part in the narrative. I posed him like that to show his frustrations (there is no existing pose that I felt communicated the emotion as well). Per the Lore - Manticore and Countess Crey are destined to become romantic partners and that is part of the narrative to unfold - unless something has already sparked between them...I won't spoil it further.

 

As for your comments on the composition / power choices - I did consider adding ranges/vertical movement - but that did not fit into my concept of the Battalion as a whole as an operational entity. As the arcs progress additional forces of the Battalion will be introduced. 

[cranebump]

One of the lore nuggets (can't remember the Dev said it) was that Batt was going to look like amalgam humanoids. Like they pulled elements from everywhere and smusched them together

 

[cranebump]

Mispost. Moved

Edited January 3, 2021 by cranebump

[billha65]

48 minutes ago, cranebump said:

One of the lore nuggets (can't remember the Dev said it) was that Batt was going to look like amalgam humanoids. Like they pulled elements from everywhere and smusched them together

 

That is how they were going to randomize the look of the Battalion Minions. 

 

Unfortunately with the limits of MA I will not be able to reproduce that. 

 

Much of the existing lore does not deal with the inner workings of the Battalion, I had to come up with something unique. 

 

It will unfold as the arcs get published.

[cranebump]

Wrong thread. Moved.

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by cranebump

[cranebump]

1 hour ago, billha65 said:

That is how they were going to randomize the look of the Battalion Minions. 

 

Unfortunately with the limits of MA I will not be able to reproduce that. 

 

Much of the existing lore does not deal with the inner workings of the Battalion, I had to come up with something unique. 

 

It will unfold as the arcs get published.

I wrote an arc with amalgam "spirits" of heroes that perished at FL. Used the randomizer to create various minions. But AE has its favs, so it kept spawning the weird cowhead thing (Thugs/DP). I think designers who've worked on this have kept things fairly uniform, because, really, there isn't much to work with lore wise (except all the Kheldians have been devoured). Course, I never had to develop Batt, since it was buried in the backstory (that's my get around for not knowing every scrap of game lore--I write around it).:-)

[cranebump]

Just realized I posted to wrong thread. Moving material

[Grindingsucks]

I was reading in the wiki today and discovered that there is speculation that the Battalion may be the race that wipes out the Kheldians, in the future, and uses them to power their starships.  In this respect, I think Twilight's Son should fit into your story very nicely.

[Kyksie]

I gave this a spin today. The people before me covered most of the bases, but let me rehash:

 

• Mob levels are locked at 54. Why? This makes the arc unplayable by anyone except an Incarnate 50.
• The overall story is pretty good, and ties into unused backstory about the Battalion. It uses several characters you don't see often, like Twilight's Son.
• Props to the author for avoiding time-wasters. No kill-alls, no massive glowie hunts, no huge maps. Even when you rescue a hostage, you don't have to escort him to the exit.
• There's a lot of spelling and grammar errors... a lot. The one that really made me ram my head into the desk was the repeated use of "was'nt".
• In quite a few places, the clues tell you what your character thinks and feels. This is generally considered a no-no.
• The dialog is sometimes... odd. Mob barks are any of a dozen variations of "I will eat you now". At one point, you rescue a hostage named Harold, who replies "Harold has been saved". Is he the sort of person who narrates his life in the third person? "Harold is going to City of Gyros for lunch." "Harold is happy that his Beam Rifle Baklava is still warm." "Harold is wondering if he should take a whiz here or back at the office."
• At another point, an NPC makes an offhand comment that Vanguard is joining the party. Then, in a clue, the author runs the joke into the ground by telling how your character wonders whether Vanguard will be bringing balloons and cake and ice cream.

This is a very hard arc to evaluate. The story is deep and consistent; the author clearly knows a lot about the game, as evidenced by the use of unused lore, and a joke about how Azuria tends to lose things. On the other hand, the many spelling/grammar errors and the almost... childish? dialog make me wonder if the author is a Very Special Person.

[billha65]

11 hours ago, Grindingsucks said:

I was reading in the wiki today and discovered that there is speculation that the Battalion may be the race that wipes out the Kheldians, in the future, and uses them to power their starships.  In this respect, I think Twilight's Son should fit into your story very nicely.

Per the lore, the Kheldians were betrayed by Twilight's Son to be used as fuel for their ships....but there is more to this lore to explore.

[billha65]

9 hours ago, Kyksie said:

I gave this a spin today. The people before me covered most of the bases, but let me rehash:

 

• Mob levels are locked at 54. Why? This makes the arc unplayable by anyone except an Incarnate 50.
• The overall story is pretty good, and ties into unused backstory about the Battalion. It uses several characters you don't see often, like Twilight's Son.
• Props to the author for avoiding time-wasters. No kill-alls, no massive glowie hunts, no huge maps. Even when you rescue a hostage, you don't have to escort him to the exit.
• There's a lot of spelling and grammar errors... a lot. The one that really made me ram my head into the desk was the repeated use of "was'nt".
• In quite a few places, the clues tell you what your character thinks and feels. This is generally considered a no-no.
• The dialog is sometimes... odd. Mob barks are any of a dozen variations of "I will eat you now". At one point, you rescue a hostage named Harold, who replies "Harold has been saved". Is he the sort of person who narrates his life in the third person? "Harold is going to City of Gyros for lunch." "Harold is happy that his Beam Rifle Baklava is still warm." "Harold is wondering if he should take a whiz here or back at the office."
• At another point, an NPC makes an offhand comment that Vanguard is joining the party. Then, in a clue, the author runs the joke into the ground by telling how your character wonders whether Vanguard will be bringing balloons and cake and ice cream.

This is a very hard arc to evaluate. The story is deep and consistent; the author clearly knows a lot about the game, as evidenced by the use of unused lore, and a joke about how Azuria tends to lose things. On the other hand, the many spelling/grammar errors and the almost... childish? dialog make me wonder if the author is a Very Special Person.

Thanks for the above comments.

 

This arc is supposed to be end game content just like the original developers intended.

 

My intent was to tell a story using the MA (with it's limitations) not to squander the players time.

 

I will make another pass through the text and seek/destroy grammar errors as others have commented. The character limit is really a hard limit to deal with, especially the 300 limited ones. 

 

The inclusion of the "thinks/feels" was a choice made in presenting the narrative - perhaps I will revisit that decision.

 

 

[FrauleinMental]

9 hours ago, Kyksie said:

• Mob levels are locked at 54. Why? This makes the arc unplayable by anyone except an Incarnate 50.

Anything related to Battalion is supposed to be Incarnate content (and perhaps even "progression" content, as it's done in other MMOs).  There's also a strange psuedo-balance that occurs here in that AE doesn't count as Incarnate content, so characters can't make use of their Incarnate Shifts (so 50+1 is the limit, not 50+3), but the max enemy level is 54 instead of scaling higher like the devs said about Battalion content.

 

To your point, though, 54 does limit the potential audience somewhat.  It not being true Incarnate content means that you only need a Tier-3 Alpha slotted to get maximum level.

[Grindingsucks]

@Kyksie Neither of the characters that I completed the arc with were incarnate.  They were both lvl 50, but neither had incarnate powers.  One didn't even have any IO sets- just procs and globals.  Given the nature of the enemy, I think one must expect challenging content.

 

Apart from that, I very much agree with your critique, with a single exception.  This...

 

Quote

On the other hand, the many spelling/grammar errors and the almost... childish? dialog make me wonder if the author is a Very Special Person.

This, I found inherently rude and do not view it as constructive criticism.  Your reply could have done without it, in my opinion.  Take that for what it's worth.

[billha65]

53 minutes ago, Grindingsucks said:

@Kyksie Neither of the characters that I completed the arc with were incarnate.  They were both lvl 50, but neither had incarnate powers.  One didn't even have any IO sets- just procs and globals.  Given the nature of the enemy, I think one must expect challenging content.

 

Apart from that, I very much agree with your critique, with a single exception.  This...

 

This, I found inherently rude and do not view it as constructive criticism.  Your reply could have done without it, in my opinion.  Take that for what it's worth.

Actually I smiled at the Very Special Person comment.

 

I am somewhat out of practice writing for a gamer audience, my last writing project was quite different -

 

This https://www.facebook.com/groups/1634000066825819/permalink/1634013870157772 progressed into 

 

 

My goal with the current project is ultimately to present my version of the Coming Store to the players using the only tool available to me the MA editor, which has limitations that impede creative expression - specifically the character limit. If there was something that I would modify if I had Dev Powers, would be to increase the limits significantly to allow authors a larger field to plow. It would also be very freeing to have the pre-defined entities available to be selected at all level ranges; Level 54 Shivans (both kinds) would be very useful to my narrative. Creating high level versions of lower level entities is doable, but comes at a the cost of file size limitation, which is always a potential concern given the scope of the story to be told. 

 

My outline of the Coming Storm is pretty lengthy and it will probably take publishing it incrementally as it is developed. There are interesting things just ahead.

[Grindingsucks]

Well, I'm glad you were able to take it in stride.  If you make something available for public critique, it's useful to have a thick skin.  Just the same, I still feel the comment was overly insulting and (for me, at least) soured what was otherwise a thorough and well-constructed critique.  I'm not even suggesting it was intentional; Kyksie also had several complimentary things to say about your arc.  I just think possibly they didn't pause to consider how the special person bit comes off, prior to hitting the submit button.

 

I haven't actually used the MA editor yet, so I've no idea what it involves.  I have felt significant levels of frustration with the bio field when creating a new character, as it can be quite buggy when attempting to edit what you've written (and also has a somewhat restrictive character limit), so I certainly have some sympathy for you there if the AE creator has similar issues.