New mission: Love and Robots

[d4verman]

It's been awhile since I used the MA, but I've had this story written for some time. But I've made this as a heroic mission that is sort of an origin story for a red side alt. 

 

Love and Robots

" Queen Cyborg has been turning ordinary citizens into her robotic slaves. Now she's seeking the scientist that created her. But is she seeking his knowledge to transform more people into cyborgs or something more unsettling? (SFMA Looking for feedback)"

 

Arc ID 58834

 

I'd appreciate any feedback.

 

[Kyksie]

This one is really good! The player is tasked with hunting down "Queen Cyborg", and the story serves as an origin story for her. It's very plausible and well written; it could have fit right in as a 20-30 arc from Lou Pasterelli or Lars Hansen. It has a custom mob set with quite a few members, all with chess-themed names, bio, and varied powers. There are plenty of named bosses, none of which are too hard. My only gripes are a few itty-bitty spelling errors and a bit of Objective Overload.

Edited January 23 by Kyksie

[d4verman]

48 minutes ago, Kyksie said:

This one is really good! The player is tasked with hunting down "Queen Cyborg", and hte story serves as an origin story for her. It's very plausible and well written; it ould hae fit right in as a 20-30 arc from Lou Pasterelli or Lars Hansen. It has a custom mob set with quite a few members, all with chess-themed names, bio, and varied powers. There are plenty of named bosses, none of which are too hard. My only gripes are a few itty-bitty spelling errors and a bit of Objective Overload.

 

Thanks! I'm still going through to fix any spelling errors. (I spent a lot of time doing that but I knew I'd miss a few...guess I gotta recheck my work!)

 

I appreciate the input!

[Defeat All Snakes]

Made a fascinating discovery!

 

Spoiler

It turns out that caltrops count not just as enemy spawns, but as members of the assigned encounter group. Meaning that if that encounter's completion requirements are set to 'entire group needed to complete' instead of 'only boss needed to complete,' then the fight won't conclude -- and the mission won't progress -- until the caltrops despawn. Since just about every encounter in the arc featured caltrops, this got very confusing until I figured it out. I don't know if this is new or common knowledge or what, I've never seen it happen before. I'd recommend either switching out the encounter parameters to only watching the boss, or taking caltrops out of the powersets, which is probably the quicker solution. I was hunting all over for the fleeing enemies I must have missed, only for the objective to complete a minute later.

And speaking of our buddy King Gold, head to the enemy group he's a part of, right click and hit 'don't auto spawn' so he doesn't accidentally show up again in another encounter. Poor guy's had enough. Solid work either way.

[Clave Dark 5]

2 hours ago, Defeat All Snakes said:

Made a fascinating discovery!

That is interesting.  I've been thinking we (meaning anyone but me ha ha) really needs to compile a whole complete list of all the weird ins and out of the AE system like this as we stumble across them.

[d4verman]

9 hours ago, Defeat All Snakes said:

Made a fascinating discovery!

 

  Hide contents

It turns out that caltrops count not just as enemy spawns, but as members of the assigned encounter group. Meaning that if that encounter's completion requirements are set to 'entire group needed to complete' instead of 'only boss needed to complete,' then the fight won't conclude -- and the mission won't progress -- until the caltrops despawn. Since just about every encounter in the arc featured caltrops, this got very confusing until I figured it out. I don't know if this is new or common knowledge or what, I've never seen it happen before. I'd recommend either switching out the encounter parameters to only watching the boss, or taking caltrops out of the powersets, which is probably the quicker solution. I was hunting all over for the fleeing enemies I must have missed, only for the objective to complete a minute later.

And speaking of our buddy King Gold, head to the enemy group he's a part of, right click and hit 'don't auto spawn' so he doesn't accidentally show up again in another encounter. Poor guy's had enough. Solid work either way.

 

I didn't know that either! That actually explains what I "thought" was lag in a few play tests!

 

Thanks for the heads up about King Gold. The servers are down for maintenance, but as soon as they're back up I'll fix that! You should only have to beat him up once!

[Kyksie]

An easy way to avoid this is to never use "Must defeat entire group".

[cranebump]

It's great work, kemosabe. I'll feature it in my next batch of short reviews. Check your typos! In particular:

Spoiler

GREAT CAESER's GHOST! (I LOVED that, but it's spelled Ceas--got the two letters transposed.

 

[Kyksie]

One other little nitpick, it would be nice if there was some explanation for the Thing That Happens in the first mission.

[d4verman]

1 hour ago, Kyksie said:

One other little nitpick, it would be nice if there was some explanation for the Thing That Happens in the first mission.

 

I'm not sure what you mean. What is it?

[d4verman]

14 hours ago, cranebump said:

It's great work, kemosabe. I'll feature it in my next batch of short reviews. Check your typos! In particular:

  Hide contents

GREAT CAESER's GHOST! (I LOVED that, but it's spelled Ceas--got the two letters transposed.

 

Yikes. I should have double checked that. But I fixed it now. I also fixed a few minor dialogue quirks and tweaked mission one a bit. 

Edited January 24 by d4verman

[Kyksie]

12 hours ago, d4verman said:

 

I'm not sure what you mean. What is it?

 

 

Spoiler

In the first mission, the player encounters Queen Cyborg robbing a bank, but she's noncombatant; in grand supervillain style, she says "destroy him my minions!" and runs off. However, unless I missed something, there is no explanation for why the player cannot fight her. Being pummeled by heroes is usually non-optional.

 

[Darmian]

On 1/23/2024 at 4:47 AM, Defeat All Snakes said:

Made a fascinating discovery!

 

  Reveal hidden contents

It turns out that caltrops count not just as enemy spawns, but as members of the assigned encounter group. Meaning that if that encounter's completion requirements are set to 'entire group needed to complete' instead of 'only boss needed to complete,' then the fight won't conclude -- and the mission won't progress -- until the caltrops despawn. Since just about every encounter in the arc featured caltrops, this got very confusing until I figured it out. I don't know if this is new or common knowledge or what, I've never seen it happen before. I'd recommend either switching out the encounter parameters to only watching the boss, or taking caltrops out of the powersets, which is probably the quicker solution. I was hunting all over for the fleeing enemies I must have missed, only for the objective to complete a minute later.

And speaking of our buddy King Gold, head to the enemy group he's a part of, right click and hit 'don't auto spawn' so he doesn't accidentally show up again in another encounter. Poor guy's had enough. Solid work either way.

Oh, it's not just caltrops. Give an enemy Time Manipulation and if they get a time field up and then die, well, you're waiting for the mission to end.  Found that out in my very first mission of my very first AE!  Tested it over and over before I spotted what was happening.

[d4verman]

6 hours ago, Kyksie said:

 

 

  Hide contents

In the first mission, the player encounters Queen Cyborg robbing a bank, but she's noncombatant; in grand supervillain style, she says "destroy him my minions!" and runs off. However, unless I missed something, there is no explanation for why the player cannot fight her. Being pummeled by heroes is usually non-optional.

 

Ah, I see what you mean. The idea is supposed to be that she leaves before the player can stop her because the minions are attacking. But her escape won't trigger until the minions are defeated. I did do sort of a fix to that.

Spoiler

I changed it so as soon as you defeat the minions by her it triggers an ambush and more of them run in to attack you. I thought about letting the player fight her and setting her to run off when taking damage. (with the same dialogue) and then using an ambush. I'll have to test it though.)

 

Edited January 24 by d4verman