TerroirNoir's "Cable Channel of AE!" Reviews. Part 1.

[Zhym]

On 11/8/2022 at 3:13 AM, Ankylosaur said:

 

Ah - the spirit guide conversation with @Zhym has cropped up again. 🙂

 

That map has a lot of "rescue" spots. I sometimes use local friendly escorts to help you pinpoint a target and save the endless wandering.

 

@cranebump - if you want to try it, set the map to empty and the escorts to empty/non-combat with the destination of Positron. If the player stumbles into one of the escorts, they get a waypoint marker.

 

End of the world? Use the ghosts mob and you get random dead spirits who want to get vengeance by pointing the way for you.

I'm now in the opening mission of Mobius 2, which is another outdoor spawn hunt (mercifully, without a timer this time).  @cranebump, I'd suggest giving this escort/target trick a try.  It may be just the thing you need for these outdoor missions.

[cranebump]

1 hour ago, Zhym said:

I'm now in the opening mission of Mobius 2, which is another outdoor spawn hunt (mercifully, without a timer this time).  @cranebump, I'd suggest giving this escort/target trick a try.  It may be just the thing you need for these outdoor missions.

if that’s the skyway map, it’s pretty easy. Any halfway patient player should get through that quickly enough.
 

Now, there’s  a Croatoa map in a later mish that would actually be helpful for.

Edited November 11, 2022 by cranebump

[Zhym]

45 minutes ago, cranebump said:

if that’s the skyway map, it’s pretty easy. 

The hunt is easy, or adding the escort trick is easy?   Because I did spend quite a while looking for the spawns.  
 

Part of the confusion was that the initial objective was something about checking in with the PPD and there were two groups of PPD who didn’t respond in any way.  I spent a lot of time hopping around wondering what I was missing.  (Oh, and I rescued a couple of civilians while I was at it.  I’m a hero.  It’s what I do.)  Eventually, I realized I was thinking two-dimensionally on a three-dimensional map.  Up top, I found Westbrush up one of Skyway’s namesake roadways.  I cleared his “captors” then had to fight Vider…but I had to find him first.  More scanning the map.  I finally locate him, shoot arrest his Viking butt, and get someone else I need to find.  Another hunt, and (eventually) another butt-kicking.  That gets me one more thing to find—this time, the spike.  By this point, I’ve cleared the map so my target shows up on my minimap, so yay.  Shoot it and its guards, boom, mission over.

 

I wasn’t annoyed by it or anything, but the spawns may be harder to find on that map than you think (unless you treat it as a defeat-all mission).

 

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Zhym

[cranebump]

20 minutes ago, cranebump said:

if that’s the skyway map, it’s pretty easy. Any halfway patient player should get through that quickly enough.
 

Now, there’s  a Croatoa map in a later mish that would actually be helpful for.

The overpass. Yup. Westbrush pops in the square, below, about 3/4s of the time in tests. I think the simplest thing is just say “check in with Lt. Westbrush,” if PPD is confusing. That will specify who the player is looking for, if they don’t feel like fighting spawns.

[TerroirNoir2]

15 hours ago, cranebump said:

“check in with Lt. Westbrush

I was lucky.  He appeared in front of the train station. (tram station?  I'm never sure about which it is)

[Ankylosaur]

Sometimes just a mission entry pop-up can help too. "You grit your teeth and resolve yourself to the manhunt ahead. Vinny could be anywhere from the highways above to the byways below." to remind people of places that might not occur to them. I certainly rarely use the spirit guide trick - it's not often it can fit in story-wise, I recently did use it on the Atlas map mentioned earlier.

 

The Skyway map is deceptive because it is quite large. Because of the multi-tier level of it, I ended up using it in a higher level mission - not that anyone doesn't have travel powers at low levels - just they usually feel safer with defense or have more tools like stealth at higher levels to turn unexpected corners.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Ankylosaur

[cranebump]

49 minutes ago, Ankylosaur said:

Sometimes just a mission entry pop-up can help too. "You grit your teeth and resolve yourself to the manhunt ahead. Vinny could be anywhere from the highways above to the byways below." to remind people of places that might not occur to them. I certainly rarely use the spirit guide trick - it's not often it can fit in story-wise, I recently did use it on the Atlas map mentioned earlier.

 

The Skyway map is deceptive because it is quite large. Because of the multi-tier level of it, I ended up using it in a higher level mission - not that anyone doesn't have travel powers at low levels - just they usually feel safer with defense or have more tools like stealth at higher levels to turn unexpected corners.

Westbrush reminds them to check the overpasses. I guess I need to tell them to check in with Westbrush specifically, though you can't access a battle. Then again, it's probably a bad idea to assume everyone knos who Westbrush is.

[Ankylosaur]

In Wonderland, on one of those Croatoa maps you mentioned, I'm even more direct. 🙂

 

 [Note: It's a big map with optional encounters. Bring patience and be ready to explore. Rescue The White Knight to help you fight The Jabberwock; avoid The Caterpillar's Toadstool!]

[Zhym]

On 11/11/2022 at 9:25 PM, cranebump said:

Westbrush reminds them to check the overpasses. I guess I need to tell them to check in with Westbrush specifically, though you can't access a battle. Then again, it's probably a bad idea to assume everyone knos who Westbrush is.

That would at least solve the issue I had of not knowing whether "Check in with the PPD" meant I was looking for anyone in particular.  And if it's Westbrook who's on the overpass...

[TerroirNoir2]

I'm going to leave this link here.  It's a handy thing to have 🙂  Thanks again @Zhym.

 

 

 

[TerroirNoir2]

Jeez Louise. With the Holiday Specials I've passed the 200 mission mark!  

[Zhym]

8 hours ago, TerroirNoir2 said:

Jeez Louise. With the Holiday Specials I've passed the 200 mission mark!  

 

This made me curious how that compares to official story content in the game.  My main (70s Man, the guy in the picture over there to the left) has done every mission arc, blue side, red side, and gold side—almost all of it (except gold side) while leveling, switching alignments through tip missions.  The Information terminal tells me that he's completed 2,898 tasks, failed 11, completed 198 flashback arcs, and run a total of 54 AE story arcs. (I'm surprised he's run that many AE arcs—I didn't really get into AE at all until recently.)  Oddly enough, I don't see anywhere that says how many AE missions he's run. 

 

Anyway, that 2,898 tasks probably includes lots of non-story arc missions (he's currently vet level 231 and Michal in Atlas Park tells me he's spent 1127 hours on patrol, so all those iTrials and general crimefighting after finishing the regular content are probably a large number of those 2,898 tasks).

 

A different character, who did all the red side content before switching to blue, has completed 1,312 tasks.   But it says that another character, who leveled up the "fast way" (for me) by just doing the Task Force Commander task forces and Maria Jenkins arc and generally just teaming, has only completed 67 tasks—which doesn't seem like enough to have included everything he did while teaming. 

 

Where was I going with this, again?  Oh, yeah, something about how many missions are in the official story content in the game.  And, yeah, I guess I have no idea.  I mean, I could go to the wiki and add them all up, but...no.

 

Frankly, what amazes me is not the number of missions Engineria has done—it's the number of screenshots you've posted!

[Kyksie]

On 11/7/2022 at 10:36 AM, Zhym said:

I'm not familiar with this.  What's the ocelot rule?

 

Basically, the story should not tell you how your character thinks or feels. For example, if the arc starts with Positron telling you to go into the sewers and beat up Dr. Vahzilok, the mission pop-up should not say "You stride into the darkness with grim determination, determined to bring the foul doctor to justice." Maybe your character is rather timid and prefers to skulk than to stride. Maybe your character is a medical researcher who admired Dr. V's work but objects to his lack of ethics. Maybe you're a mercenary who's just in it for the money. Maybe you're a robot.

 

I call it the "ocelot rule" because the people who feel strongly about this are all named Lady Shy'll'a Ravenhair, and all of them are eight-breasted ocelots who spend 14 hours a day in Pocket D, and have a bio telling you how they walk with effortless grace and smell like French perfume. Oh and they're a vampire sorceress too.

 

There are some cases where it's okay to break the ocelot rule. If the description of your arc plainly states something, it's okay to make assumptions about the player. For example, if the above arc starts with "Your intrepid hero boldly joins Positron on a valiant quest to rid the city of evil!!!!", you can assume that anyone playing it is on the side of good. Also, IMHO it's okay to do that in an arc that's for comedy. My "Trilogy of Moderate Evil" constantly tells you what your character thinks and says, to make the jokes work.

[TerroirNoir2]

Ok, hit 217 missions at the end of the Holiday Specials.  I'll be back to regular channels shortly 😄

 

 

[TerroirNoir2]

Hopefully I'll get some more traction going here.

 

[Darmian]

It just keeps on going, doesn't it?  Thanks for all the plays!

[TerroirNoir2]

On 8/24/2023 at 2:54 AM, Darmian said:

It just keeps on going, doesn't it?  Thanks for all the plays!

And whose fault is THAT?  It's definitely NOT me.  Looks askance at @Ankylosaur, @cranebump and @Darmian. Taps foot.

[TerroirNoir2]

Again, apologies for real life eating my time!