Mobius 4 up [ID: 53047]

[cranebump]

 

Notes:

• I'd call this the penultimate arc in the whole, damned thing. This assumes I'm smart enough to finish it in one more arc.:-)
• 4-mishes, rather than 5 (just fell out that way).
• Tried using an End Clue for last reading on The Mobius Strip (player finally gets the skinny on its nature). But mish ends, and it didn't pop, so I moved it to Mish Begin clue, which is weird, but preferred that to Souvenir (though souvenir makes mention of what the player reads in the mish).
• Callbacks to NPCs of earlier arcs (and one noteworthy boss).:-)
• Tried to keep objectives reasonable, thus made allies more or less optional, save where I needed them to trigger other things.
• Careful on the top floor of the finale (which, now that I think about it, I have to label as Finale). derrr

 

[Zhym]

I liked this one a lot, @cranebump.  It pulled a lot of the previous story together and moved really well.  And we finally learn what the heck the "Mobius Strip" is.

 

BTW, I ran it at -1/x8 so I could use my incarnate powers and have lots of mobs to shoot.  It was a fun way to run it, although it meant that the NPCs mostly went down within seconds of being "rescued" (so if they had any great dialogue that would have come up later, I missed it).  But I'm curious why the level range is set where it is.  Is that dictated by mob choice?  Because as long as I had my incarnate powers available, it would have been even better to play at +1/x8 or maybe even higher. 

 

It was made a bit more "interesting" by lots of the mobs having either enhanced perception or AoE attacks.  Whatever it was, it negated my stealth, which is totally cheating. ;)

 

A few other notes and nitpicks:

• The opening could probably use a reminder at the start of who the "Wards" are.  It had been a few days since I played Mobius 3 and I'd forgotten (was it a Supergroup?  A location?  I only really figured it out in one of the clues before the last mission).
• The first mission had a comment about "black is my color" or something—my toon's costume was '70s-style avocado green and brown.  Never assume. :)
• Typo in Part 2 intro: 'Gressman's the the "NG" in...'
• Mission 3 pre-acceptance says "see your Clues before moving on," but the Part 3 clue doesn't show up until mission accepted.  Maybe that text needs to be at start of post-acceptance message?  Or at end of mission 2?
• Galen and Dis still have generic Info text. (And maybe Aaron Ruegad?)
• Nitpicky pet peeve: "alright" in post-mission-3 text.  I know it's everywhere in CoX, but it's not a word.
• There may be a glitch with when the mission into/exit text mentions the last Mobius report file.  It shows up after Mission 3, but the "see your Clues screen" that seems to refer to it doesn't show up until speaking to the contact again after mission 4 (when all the clues have cleared).

• Okay, I could really do without the lieutenant rez+untouchable power.  :)

• All of the "top floor" stuff (i.e. bombs) was on the floor just below the top.  It took me while to find the third bomb—that's a pretty big map (OTOH, two of the bombs were right next to each other, so that made things easier)

• Some of the last-mission objectives weren't clear to me.  For example, what's "clear the top floor" require?  It was still showing as an objective after I'd "defeated" everyone (except Dis, who hadn't spawned yet).  And there was a "set off the bombs" after I'd clicked all three bomb glowies.  It remained until I completed the mission (by defeating Dis).  Was there something I was supposed to do for that? 

• So many Shadow Supers!  And they have backgrounds in their info text!  But no time to read the info text on each of them, alas.

• In text after 4th mission completion, there's a "see your Clues screen," but that dialog also clears out the clues for the mission. 

Looking forward to Part 5.

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Zhym

[cranebump]

Thanks for the run! Some comments/explanations:

The “black is your color” comment is because you and your team are “holo’ed up” in Arachnos garb. It’s mentioned in the entry pop. It might need to be somewhere else, too (maybe enemy text).

 

Level range is chosen based on where a character would start in Ordinary People. That one was driven by Skulls and Helliona mixed with customs. Subsequent arcs are just guesstimations by me about where the same character would be over the course of time. Some of the arcs are level-locked due to actual in game foes though (Crey, for example). Other than that, it’s just a preference (though ultimately the character level will have narrative significance in the finale [well, maybe]).
 

Galen, Aaron text: yeah, I must’ve dropped the ball on that. Shoot.
 

Alright is technically incorrect, but informally correct. In any case, it saves me 2 characters against text limit, so it ain’t goin’ nowhere.:-)

 

I can’t believe those bombs spawned lower! They were in the last room every single test run. They should not be able to spawn anywhere else. Wonder what happened? Hmm.

 

Clear the top floor is the Defeat All last room text. I made it that way to ensure the player saw the shadow supers, and also caught Dis’s long speech. I’ll have to check why it’s so wonky. Might just need to lower bomb count to 2.

 

Rezzing LTs: can’t recall which one of them has that. For the mobs, I basically brought over base minions of Fawkes Brigade, Saccos, and Chalikar. I then gave them a standard costume, and changed save file. I checked to make sure each have 100% XP at arc lvl cap. I’m wondering which one has the power now, since they look the same (except for Sacco-Vanzettis, who don’t all have helms). Rank structure is actually misleading. “Sergeants” are equivalent to LTs. LTs are Bosses. Captains are elite bosses. Maybe that’s sneaky? Anyway I didn’t have any rezzers in tests (that I recall) but at x8, the chances must be very high to get one.
 

”See your clues”: I need to fix those, for sure. Dropping in the Mobius info was a bit tough to do in a way that integrated well.

 

Shadow Supers text: oh, I suspect you’ll see them again.:-) 
 

I’m due for some vacation time, so hopefully I can clean up all of the arcs various issues. On the whole, I thought this one was pretty solid for a first draft. It’s hard staying ahead of you guys!

 

thanks again

Edited November 18, 2022 by cranebump

[Zhym]

36 minutes ago, cranebump said:

Rezzing LTs: can’t recall which one of them has that. For the mobs, I basically brought over base minions of Fawkes Brigade, Saccos, and Chalikar. I then gave them a standard costume, and changed save file. I checked to make sure each have 100% XP at arc lvl cap. I’m wondering which one has the power now, since they look the same (except for Sacco-Vanzettis, who don’t all have helms). Rank structure is actually misleading. “Sergeants” are equivalent to LTs. LTs are Bosses. Captains are elite bosses. Maybe that’s sneaky?

IIRC, the mob that had the rez+untouchable power was named "Lieutenant"—it wasn't just a lieutenant-rank mob.  But if there were multiple mobs named "Lieutenant," I don't know which one it was.  

[cranebump]

Fixes:

• Text added for Aaron Ruegad, Galen and Dis. Text for Dis contains a bit of a hint at finale.
• Changed "clear the top floor" to "Set off bombs. Make sure no one's around to shut them off (clear top floor)." FYI: The bombs are listed as "Remote Detonation Explosives." The idea is you put them in place, secure Dis, then blow the place up after you have her. I changed the single objective collection text to match the multiple collection text so it both now say "Remote detonation" as (hopefully) a reminder.
• Deleted the extra "the" in the Gressman text.
• Changed "See your clues before going on" to "see your clues screen after accepting mission.

 

BACKGROUND NOTE: Dempsey's Hard 8 was originally an arc where the Wards went to the Rogue Isles without coordination from Arachnos. They used villains they had captured in the a raid similar to the second Buzzsaw raid (namely Chigger, Plutoniman, and a couple others who became part of the narrative [i.e., Skullia, whom @Darmian may remember]). My favorite NPC of this group was one of the snakes, Adder Mortis, who did this really creepy "limmmboooooo" thing when emerging from elevators (while talking about "feasting" all the time).:-)

[Darmian]

Skullia is one of my faves of your NPCs.  She's got what it takes to make it big.

 

I also had a sneaking regard for ol' Chigger too actually!

[cranebump]

Inititial Scripting for Mobius 5 is done. Will be working on mishes tomorrow. Hoping to complete it in a couple weeks, depending on how much time I get to work on it. Before Christmas, though! That's the goal.