Night of the Vampires (45783)

[Darmian]

6 minutes ago, StorytellingMonkey said:

As many posts I see for farms and level 50's running the same-old Council scanner missions, one would figure they would like a chance of pace now and again that didn't have an overly complicated story, allowed some challenges if they wanted them, and allowed a team that found that they were over their head the chance to complete the arc by avoiding the most dangerous challenges

 

Alas, you might as well spend your time shouting at a mirror for all the good that will do!  I've had those exact same thoughts too and still the Council scanner missions continue.  Meh.

 

However, this is most definitely NOT saying you should stop writing AEs!  Yes, we might be attempting to mop up the incoming tide with about as much success, but ...well, I think it's worth it.  That's subjective too obviously.

Edited January 12 by Darmian

[cranebump]

“Time wasters” include having a bunch of collection glowies just to keep the player clicking stuff. We’re talking something like having a dozen when, say 2-3 will suffice. On the other hand, if the player is searching for something specific, say “Formula 309” hidden in a warehouse, then more than a few is probably justified. For me, a glowie with no text at all is a time waster, because it doesn’t contribute anything to the story. Those are sometimes just errors though.

 

You’re right about people’s expectations being frustrating sometimes. I had 2 comments on a recent play of a mish I saw streamed. The arc was written for soloists (most of my stories are). The team ran on higher settings and got their asses handed to them a couple times. Eventually, they figured it out and won the day. One of the comments said it was hard, but fair, and a good story. The other one said it seemed overly hard for the small number of XPs they got (which tells me what their priorities are [and makes me wonder why they were there, then]). I thanked them for the feedback, agreed it turned out hard, and added that my tests on default settings were much easier. I guess the expectation was that I should test on the highest settings. I’ve decided I’ll do a bit of that in the future. Just to get a gauge of it (even though the default story text warns players when there’s custom enemies). Of course, I can’t plan ahead for players who get butthurt when they die (more than once, evidently).:-)

Edited January 13 by cranebump

[Kyksie]

7 hours ago, StorytellingMonkey said:

What's a time waster?

 

 

I'm mostly looking at the second mission, which is located on a huge outdoor map. To complete it you have to defeat a particular spawn, but there's no way to know which it is, so you have to plow through and mop up every group until you hit the right one. Don't do this.

 

The third map is a defeat all, but it's tolerable because the map isn't huge.

[huang3721]

My hunch is that many players take a glance at their mission, run to their next objective, kill anything in between, and repeat until they complete the whole arc. Such way of problem solving often results in this gem:

1 hour ago, Kyksie said:

To complete it you have to defeat a particular spawn, but there's no way to know which it is, so you have to plow through and mop up every group until you hit the right one.

 

The time waster (Spoiler):

 

Spoiler

 

The dialogue hints at a captive "Ninja Grunt" rather than the usual hostile critters. Let's find him. /target_name is very helpful in this case.

 

Voila!

 

[cranebump]

10 minutes ago, huang3721 said:

My hunch is that many players take a glance at their mission, run to their next objective, kill anything in between, and repeat until they complete the whole arc.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The dialogue hints at a captive "Ninja Grunt" rather than the usual hostile critters. Let's find him. /target_name is very helpful in this case.

 

Voila!

 

Clues are important. I have a separate screen open during AE mishes, just for NPC text. I haven't run the mish, so I don't know what the map looks like as far as size (in the "Lake" mish I ran, above, I did have that city map from in-game missions like the one where you have to set or find multiple scanners -- that map is a pain in the ass for searches, though I now know the most common drop points.). 

 

That said, if I wanted to make sure the player could spot my NPC on a big map, I'd try to have them captured in the green, floating field, or have the bad guys using the tech scanner. Doesn't look like that would work in a ninja arc, though.:-)

[cranebump]

DELETED (see below)

Edited January 13 by cranebump

[cranebump]

I wanted to respond to some of Kyksie's observations, now that I ran the arc:

 

Kyks sez:...The player is greeted by Van Helsing, who tells the player that vampires have invaded Paragon, check it out pretty please? The player journeys to various locales and battles vampires, who are a custom group with varied powers, and are for some reason obsessed with Maemae van Whooters, a minor character form the Television arc.

 

Honestly, I couldn't figure out why they were obsessed by her, either. The arc's customs are pretty good. There's some nice diversity in maps and such. But the villains motivations eluded me all the way through. I thought maybe I missed a key clue somewhere. That said, if it IS key, I feel like it should be super obvious. Even so, I won't discount the possibility that I just missed it somewhere.

 

Kyks sez: EDIT: also, one mission has several EBs who are set to flee, making them almost impossible to defeat, which I found kinda annoying.

 

Including the big bad end boss. She ZOOMED off. With a burst of speed. The rescue objective was right next to the EB, so I stayed to clear everything and finish the rescue, and the mish. But...I had the boss whittled down and was going to kick her ass when she buzzed off, leaving me feeling unsatisfied as a player. Kyks has a legitimate observation here. Kyks also said the customs were good, and I agree. I just wonder why the designer wants me to chase bosses. It's like I have to "earn" the privilege of defeating them. If a player makes it that far, it feels unfair to snatch victory from them (and for no real reason -- unless the NPC is supposed to survive for a follow-up arc?).

 

P.S. Didn't see a lot of spelling errors. But there was a pervasive lack of carriage returns (no spaces between paragraphs). Easy Fix. It’s mechanically sound, and brisk, and has humor. Good for players looking for a light diversion.

Edited January 13 by cranebump

[Seed22]

On 1/2/2024 at 10:56 PM, cranebump said:

One thing I’ve learned from experience when it comes to hearing criticism of my writing: if I’m having to “explain” my logic to the reader, they’re not the problem. I am. Failure to fulfill basic expectations of clarity and entertainment is my job, not theirs. I can even fail on the second part, which is sometimes inevitable, since what entertains is often subjective. But I have no excuse for not being clear, and adhering to a very basic level of professionalism, if I’m sharing my work in the public sphere. Since you are sharing it, you can expect criticism. How you react to it will dictate whether you learn anything from the experience.
 

Lesson one is to try not to be defensive about what people say. If your immediate urge is to make excuses (I.e. “explain” your mistakes, rather than admitting you may have made them), you’ll learn absolutely nothing, because you’ve justified what you’ve done [to yourself], and therefore see no flaws or avenues for growth. I know this, because I’ve done it before, and gotten nowhere. When you get feedback, consider it. Whether you initially agree with it or not. This is a skill that goes far outside of just trying to write a silly superhero story. Sometimes, people are just trying to help us. It’s our job to know when this is happening, and to know how to use it.

 

On that:

(1) Interact text: You should put verbiage in every search bar because it’s an expectation derived from the actual game missions, which you are trying to emulate. Players expect it, so they notice it when it’s missing. They shouldn’t be thinking about why it’s not there. You’ll have to show me, by the way, the “some people” who don’t care for interact text. I’m betting it’s not many, and that none of them script.

 

(2j Basic grammar, spelling, punctuation: You want this to be tight as possible, so that you aren’t perceived as lazy (or worse, illiterate/stupid). Chalking off a failure to edit because you don’t get paid to write is a cop out that only harms your efforts. If a player is noticing the errors in my writing more than the story details, it’s a hindrance, plain and simple. Is it time consuming to, you know, edit the thing? Hell yes, it is. Its a pain in the ass, and the worst part of writing. It’s also the difference between doing a half-assed versus a stellar job. You can have the best idea in the world. Execute it with lazy writing, riddled with noticeable errors? You’ll hear about it, maybe even as the first thing. This isn’t just in AE scripting. It applies to all written communication, outside informal texting (well…for some of us…I personally maintain a modicum of proper execution. Habit, I guess).

 

(3) Annoying your players: if you get a comment concerning something a player didn’t like, you might chalk it off as a single instance, depending on who it is, and the nature of the complaint. If you hear the same thing from multiple sources, however, take it to heart. I’ve had critiques from single sources that I initially didn’t agree with, but later realized they were right (using timers, for example). As for latter, multiple instances, here’s one case in point: both Kyks and myself pointed out your blank interact bars, in two different arcs. It’s pervasive. We noticed. Your explanation for leaving them blank feels like an excuse to not go back and fix them. It’s lazy. I’d also suggest taking Kyksie’s advice about the running bosses being almost impossible to defeat, and change that, as well. Regardless of your intent, you’re actively diminishing a player’s enjoyment. Multiple times. He may have a point about that (especially when I think about how many “boss running away” missions there are in the actual game, and how I can’t recall really liking any of them). You just don’t want arbitrary player frustration, if you can help it. They’re your audience. You owe them a good time.

Be honored, by the way, that Kyksie reviewed your stuff. It’s been a good while, and you were chosen to break the silence. You even got a compliment. Kyks won’t give you that unless you actually earn it. 
 

Other than that, I strongly suggest doing some clean up of easily fixable errors. Yeah, you’re not getting paid for your work (and frankly, intimating that we should only care about quality when one gets paid for it doesn’t reflect well—it sounds like an excuse I’d hear from one of the many HS students I’ve taught over the decades). But that’s immaterial. Because you do get “paid” by eliciting a basic level of respect from your audience by giving them a good effort. As with any paycheck, if you don’t put the time in, you won’t get jack.

Id listen to crane. This man(or woman, or…you get my point! :P) has the right idea when it comes to this kind of stuff. Also I used to think Ky was a bit rough of a critic but as time has allowed me to mature as a person, I see his criticism as necessary to be better. Hell, I’d be honored if he reviewed my arcs(only have one so far and another cooking) so I’d definitely listen to him.

 

When I received criticism for my arc Odd Stories, I didn’t just throw it away, I(hopefully, we’ll see in the review of this new arc) took it in stride and tried to incorporate feedback for my future arcs as best as I could. Sure you may not get paid, but maybe one day you’ll want to turn this into something(I know I want to write and get a show produced from the stories I put out here), so why not give it your best shot?

[Seed22]

I’ll give the arc a shot and leave my feedback after I finish my own arc(on the last mish then have a souvenir to create and i’ll be done. Along with some playtesting and another round with the spell checker/check for plot errors)

[cranebump]

Seed gives REALLY valuable advice, when it comes to writing and refining stories. Everything you do is practice that can affect other things you may do. For example, working within the confined space of AE text boxes and 5-chapter arcs is excellent training for plot development. You learn to whittle out the chaff and focus on the throughline. That sort of hyperfocus is essential to building tight plots in other styles/genres. “The Poetics” pushes “plot first” for a good reason. If the story makes no sense, nothing else I do can save it. 

[Darmian]

4 minutes ago, cranebump said:

whittle out the chaff and focus on the throughline

Is that a thing now?

[UltraAlt]

On 1/12/2024 at 8:13 PM, Kyksie said:

I'm mostly looking at the second mission, which is located on a huge outdoor map. To complete it you have to defeat a particular spawn, but there's no way to know which it is, so you have to plow through and mop up every group until you hit the right one. Don't do this.

 

This is in reference to @StorytellingMonkey 's Ninja mission?

 

That's a reconnaissance mission.

 

As @huang3721 points out, the targets you are search for even yell out.

 

Reconnaissance missions are fine. I don't find them to be a "time waster". It's just a different style of game play.

You don't even have to fight all the groups. You can scout out the targets and just fight the mobs around the target.

 

You can't please everyone ... most of the time.

[cranebump]

46 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Is that a thing now?

Sometimes?:-)

Edited January 16 by cranebump

[cranebump]

38 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

 

As @huang3721 points out, the targets you are search for even yell out.

  If it’s a typical AE mish, all of the targets’ text pops at once, unless they’re located in different floors (and even then, it no guarantee they won’t). This means that even the text isn’t always helpful, unfortunately. I wouldn’t know how it came out in this one, though.

[huang3721]

21 hours ago, cranebump said:

“The Poetics” pushes “plot first” for a good reason. If the story makes no sense, nothing else I do can save it. 

 

Even if the story makes no sense or barely exists, a good design can save it. I think this is where we differ in opinion. I (and probably some authors here) don't speak English. It is unfair for me to focus on storytelling (using a language I don't quite understand) while reviewing. 

 

A good level design, however, transcends storytelling. Anyone can appreciate a good design. A challenging design, IMO, is even better.

 

I don't believe in Kyksie's assessment because the "time waster" is, in my opinion, the best part of the second mission. The mission objective is similar enough to the previous objectives to give a sense of repetition. However, it throws a curve ball by putting clues in the dialogue instead of the mission objective. I rarely see authors using AE's bugs like this.

 

21 hours ago, cranebump said:

If it’s a typical AE mish, all of the targets’ text pops at once, unless they’re located in different floors (and even then, it no guarantee they won’t). This means that even the text isn’t always helpful, unfortunately. I wouldn’t know how it came out in this one, though.

Should the dialogue fail, we'll have a standard outdoor map scenario. It still gives a sense of progressive difficulty through the arc.

On the other hand, make the second mission objective easier, and we'll have three similar objectives back to back, spanning two outdoor maps. Not good. 

 

Also, the author made an unfortunate error on the first mission. IMO, this error made Kyksie's time-waster statement baffling. By all means, Kyksie should spend more time on the first mission than the second.

 

21 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

You can't please everyone ... most of the time.

It's true, but this one is weird.

 

 

On 1/13/2024 at 11:26 AM, cranebump said:

Kyks sez: EDIT: also, one mission has several EBs who are set to flee, making them almost impossible to defeat, which I found kinda annoying.

 

Including the big bad end boss. She ZOOMED off. With a burst of speed. The rescue objective was right next to the EB, so I stayed to clear everything and finish the rescue, and the mish. But...I had the boss whittled down and was going to kick her ass when she buzzed off, leaving me feeling unsatisfied as a player.

Why do people want to defeat all objectives in a single run? Some objectives are optional and more challenging, so a failure or two should not be a big deal.

Feel unsatisfied? Try again next time! Bring more friends! Bring their friends' friends! Lower the difficulty settings! (The last one is more effective than complaining in the forum.)

[cranebump]

1 hour ago, huang3721 said:

Why do people want to defeat all objectives in a single run? Some objectives are optional and more challenging, so a failure or two should not be a big deal.

Feel unsatisfied? Try again next time! Bring more friends! Bring their friends' friends! Lower the difficulty settings! (The last one is more effective than complaining in the forum.)

I can understand and accept your counterpoints to story vs. level design (though, if you get the former right, in addition to the latter, I feel the end product is superior). There are some arcs out there that are design experiments. That's not how I approach it, though, so any advice I give is going to focus on what I think I know, versus what I can't speak to. Anyhoo, that stuff all makes sense to me.

 

On the one above, though? I'm going to have to hold to my original criticism.  The boss fight occurs at the tail end of the entire arc. We're talking THE big boss. Yet, to fully defeat them, the designer wants me to chase them through the hallways. While they're speeded buffed. Through Oranbega's twists and turns. And I'd have to detach myself from her mob that's attacking me to go into a tactically disadvantageous position (as they're likely to follow and hit me from behind [which would be a BIG concern if I were running, say, my blaster).

 

THAT's the issue. It isn't like I failed, per se. The boss didn't hurt me at all. And if they'd stayed on the map somewhere, or not turned Barry Allen on me, I'd have tracked them down and finished the job. But they didn't. They just ran like hell to the nearest exit. POOF! 

 

I assume the designer wanted to give me some sort of challenge. But it doesn't work that way, as designed, because they're gone before I can catch them. I'm not even sure using an AT with holds would help all that much, since they're a boss, and likely to be immune anyway (or let's say I hold them, but then I can't damage them enough with a control AT to bring them down so...same effect [and anyway, I shouldn't have to switch ATs just to complete the arc). In the end, it felt like the designer just didn't want me to "win," so I didn't. Technically, I succeeded, because I accomplished the mish objectives. But putting a big boss in the mish in the first place signals to me that you want me to battle. So sending them off the map in the finale (the finale) is just, well, it's both a poor story and design choice (bear in mind I'm talking specifically about the Vampire story, not the ninja one -- haven't run that one).

 

And just to be clear about how I run these things: I usually run on default settings. I also don't get all butthurt if I just fail. If I have failed, and it the situation merits it, I'll stock up on big insps before I go back in, just to finish off a tough fight. If I thought I needed help, or needed to reduce settings, I would do so. For this one, though, I was running an exemplared Incarnate Tank at +0/x2. I was never in danger. I wasn't going to fail the boss fight. That said, there was just no way I could navigate the hallways as fast as the boss did when she ran off with her speed buff. I'm just not that good at flying fullspeed through maps (esp. tunnel-type ones).

 

Failure? It's no biggy to me. I'm not so puffed up on superiority that it's an affront to lose. A real challenge is good sometimes (as in the last Pos1 team I was on, when we got wiped by our dupes, our leader bailed out, and the rest of us remained to chip away at it till we were victorious).  That said, there's a difference between me just failing and the Kobayashi Maru. I'm generally not running AE mishes to build character (nor are many other players, I believe). While I respect your suggestions, I still think this arc would be better served if the ultimate big bad guy didn't wuss out and run off. Let the wookie man, man.:-)

 

 

Edited January 17 by cranebump