PW searches for level 12-20 story-focused mission arcs

[Police Woman]

Meet Arrow Girl, a level 12 blaster! 

I've decided to try to level her up through level 20 via story-focused mission arcs in Mission Architect.

 

The rules of engagement:

• I will use the AE interface to search for the keyword "SFMA" and "my level". 
• I'll skip over any story arc where the max level range is above level 20.  Arrow Girl is a good soloer, but she won't do well in those level 1-54 story arcs.
• I'll be solo, with XP and double XP on, and earning architect tickets.
• I'll try to keep this project going until Arrow Girl hits level 21.  (We'll see if I keep going after that.)
• Interestingly, the first two SFMA story arcs that show up in my search at "my level" of 12 are written by me.  I'll skip over those too, but I'm going to go ahead and plug them in this forum post.  Talos Vice (arc #1337) and Two Tickets to Westerly (arc #1678), please check them out!

 

[Police Woman]

Arrow Girl's first story arc to play through is The Lazarus Project (arc #6554) by @Coulomb.  I think I may have played this on the live servers, but I didn't really remember any details (it would've been around 15 years ago?).

 

The Lazarus Project was a terrific story arc where you investigate some Vahzilok-related disappearances.  Arrow Girl got to fight both Vahzilok and rich entitled jerks, both things I hate.  I was a little worried that it might be too long an arc with 5 full missions (I know most authors like to max out at 5 missions per arc, but I don't subscribe to that).  However, several of these missions were on small maps so it still felt very doable.

 

 

 

Missing newbie heroes, you say?  Arrow Girl is on the case!

 

 

And I thought Aid Other would be useless when soloing!

 

 

Sorry lady, but this really sounds like a First World problem to me.

 

 

OMG I hate this guy so much.  Rich, entitled Vahzilok!!

 

 

The final boss!  The dialog throughout this whole arc was excellent.

 

 

I gave The Lazarus Project 5 stars.  Arrow Girl finished the story arc at level 13.

[cranebump]

I may have ran Lazarus, as well. Can't recall. In any case, you're doing something I started doing and dropped -- running from l level 1 on up. Inspires me to try to do it again.

 

Keep it up! This is cool stuff! Maybe we should make it a community challenge?

[Police Woman]

51 minutes ago, cranebump said:

In any case, you're doing something I started doing and dropped -- running from l level 1 on up. Inspires me to try to do it again.

 

Keep it up! This is cool stuff! Maybe we should make it a community challenge?

Thanks for the support!  Yeah, I had been semi-dormant on AE stuff for awhile, but reading in another thread about how hard it is to find good story arcs for lower level toons inspired me to give this a try.

[Police Woman]

My next story arc to play through was Rewarded as a Loyalist Deserves (arc #37325).

 

In this Loyalist faction story arc you're initially tasked to rescue some civilians and police from the Resistance, but it gets complicated and you end up fighting through a rogues gallery of most of the various Praetorian factions.

 

 

 

 

A Syndicate boss hints that the person I'm trying to rescue may not be who she seems.

 

Arrow Girl stumbles over a Destroyer rave in a helicopter hangar.  This was a cool visual.

 

 

 

Oooh, foreshadowing!  They're gonna get me!

 

 

I finally found her, the missing hostage that I had been trying to rescue for 4 (!) straight missions.  Despite that, she didn't have much to say.

 

 

Oh no, they really are out to get me!  (Seriously, this set of ambushes was ridiculous at level 13.)

 

 

Overall I thought trying to rescue the same hostage for 4 missions straight was a bit repetitive; one of the NPCs even lampshades this by saying "Sorry, your princess is in another castle."  It was also rather confusing to figure out what side Nishimura was really on - I got the impression that she was a triple agent?  But I could've used some clues or dialog that more clearly spelled this out.  There were way too many ambushes - it was dramatic if I could manage to survive them, but as a level 13 squishy blaster, facing 3 ambushes at a time felt like too much.  It was nice getting to see Praetorian lore and enemy groups explored, though.

 

I gave the arc 3 stars.  Despite suffering 2 defeats, Arrow Girl made it to level 14.

[Police Woman]

Arrow Girl's next arc was Test for the Destined Ones (arc #19492), a villainous story arc where you get assigned to a buggy virtual reality training simulation. It starts out pretty slow with fairly generic missions fighting low level enemies, but then there's an interesting twist.

 

 

Snakes, why'd it have to be snakes?

 

Wait ... is this not part of the training simulation?  Oops, Spoiler warning!

 

 

Though the first couple missions seemed kind of slow, the later missions more than made up for it.  I waffled between 4 and 5 stars on this arc, ended up giving it the benefit of the doubt and 5 stars.  Arrow Girl hit level 15.

 

Edited November 1 by Police Woman

[Police Woman]

Arrow Girl's next adventure was Of Guns and Asa Ronan (arc #41018), a level 15-20 villain story arc by @cranebumpwhere you do some dirty work for the Marcones and run into a  rival villain with a history of bad blood with your employer.

 

 

I ran into some weird glitches early in this story arc; a couple times I ran into doorways that looked like this:

 

Wha....?

 

 

This looked like a clip plane issue, which is likely the game's fault, not the arc's fault.  I could walk through them, but it was certainly disorienting.

 

As a Marcone triggerwoman I ran afoul of a PPD special forces unit full of custom characters that were very hard to fight.

 

Soon I had become rivals with the Multiple Man, who had illusions and clones everywhere. 

 

Ahhh!  Not in the face!

 

Fortunately I manage to defeat Multiple Man and break his equipment, so that he'll never be a problem for me again (...).  While smuggling the captured Multiple Man out of the city, I ran into the black berets again.  I'll mention again that they are REALLY hard for a level 15 - much harder than the canonical low level enemies.  Lots of them have mez protection, some of them can mez, and this boss actually popped Elude or something similar (note my 7.5% chance to hit ... this is not cool for a low level arc).

 

Finally in the last mission "somehow Multiple Man returned"... and even more powerful.  Nevertheless I managed to beat the upgraded Multiple Man and rescue my employer and his (?) family, so it had a happy ending for everyone but Multiple Man.

 

 

Overall I thought this arc was too difficult for a squishy character in the official level range of level 15-20.  I maybe would've had more success if I were playing a scrapper, brute, or a level 25+ character; as a blaster I suffered 4 defeats, but eventually got through it with several hospital runs and heavy use of inspirations. The custom characters, with high defenses and mez protection, felt overpowered; maybe you could reduce their defense powers and/or mix in some generic PPD with the custom PPD characters. 

 

Fighting a jillion clones and encountering one false lead after another was frustrating, but it was probably intended to be, considering Multiple Man's powerset.  I would've liked Multiple Man's clones to have a little more visual interest, though maybe they are based on the Phantom Army from Illusion powerset.  I didn't like that the clues told me I had put a stop to Multiple Man's powers, but later he came back even more powerful; that felt like cheating. 

 

The story itself was pretty decent, and I liked the formatting and the use of clues, but I felt that it was overshadowed by the difficulty.

 

I gave the story arc 3 stars.  Arrow Girl reached the top of level 15 by the end.

 

 

 

Edited November 4 by Police Woman

[Kyksie]

20 hours ago, Police Woman said:

Arrow Girl's next adventure was Of Guns and Asa Ronan (arc #41018), a level 15-20 villain story arc by @cranebumpwhere you do some dirty work for the Marcones and run into a  rival villain with a history of bad blood with your employer.

 

 

I ran into some weird glitches early in this story arc; a couple times I ran into doorways that looked like this:

 

 

 

 

 

I reviewed this arc myself, and I ran into the exact same glitch.

 

 

 

[cranebump]

Yeah, Asa Ronan is a real pain for squishies. Pretty sure you can cruise it with a tank (which is true of a lot content). As for him being more powerful later on, there's at least a narrative explanation for that: he lets himself get captured (by you) so that he can get close to his intended target. Once he has access to his old boss, he drops his guise to pull off the hit. I'm fairly certain that's explained somewhere in the arc, either by clues or via NPC verbiage somewhere.  

 

PPD: I can't remember what the Stinger's powersets are, but I'm sure they're no joke. They're elite troops. Temp powers help a lot with them (though I probably shouldn't expect most people to have purchased any). I didn't recall Skullia as a mandatory boss, but I guess she was. She's a tie-in to the Ordinary People arc. Not sure what her mez power is. It's been a long time since I've revisited that arc. I thought she was just a gun toter, but maybe she has darkness. I did see that the story was L5-15 originally, so I guess things just got tougher as I bumped it up. Can't recall why. I never overclock anything (critters rate at 100%,XP  gain according to the creature creator). I don't think I ever got killed 4 times during any test run of the arc, on any AT. But then, I know what's coming. And I tend to use exemplared toons, so that likely explains that. May have to revisit it with an on-level toon, just to see. 

 

Finally, I DID write the hallway glitch into the narrative, even after running it during tests and seeing it woudn't go away, I just kept it, and described it as some sort of security measure used by the Stingers. Thought it was a quirky surprise. I have no idea why it's that way, though.

 

Thanks for the run.

Edited November 4 by cranebump

[Police Woman]

Arrow Girl's next story arc was Spirals: Part One. (arc #55109), a Crusader-faction story arc by @Darmian where you're tasked with finding a mole that's been leaking info on the Resistance.

 

 

Arrow Girl rescued a crotchety old Resistance leader who wasn't real thrilled to see her.

 

 

Arrow Girl followed a lead into the Ministry of Information, where she encountered numerous Imperial bureaucrats and nearly got taken down by "friendly" fire from another group of Resistance fighters.

 

Later, Arrow Girl teamed up with the Resistance and had a tough battle against Powers Division.

 

 

One of her allies fell in battle and shouted encouragement with his dying breath.

 

 

Arrow Girl shares a quiet moment of introspection with the other Resistance members before the final battle.

 

Showdown with the Olympian guard.  (I really liked this visual, with the giant abstract sculpture framing the shot.)

 

 

This story arc was also a little hard for Arrow Girl as a level 15 blaster.  There were a number of custom mobs, but they were mostly not too bad, except that it seemed like all the bosses and elite bosses would self-rez after death, which was pretty annoying.  The custom mobs were mixed with standard mobs, and allies were provided in several missions which helped on the difficulty.  However, numerous ambushes did make it rough for Arrow Girl, and she suffered 2 defeats from those.

 

The missions themselves had very complex mechanics where objectives would trigger other objectives (and spawns of mobs) which would trigger yet more objectives.  It's easy to make this kind of mission annoying due to the amount of backtracking required, but the missions were set up with a natural progression of initial objectives in the front, and later objectives in the middle/back of the map, with each objective clearly labeled.  As a result, the complex daisy chain of objectives went off like a Swiss watch.

 

The writing was terrific, with the contact and the allies doing a good job of portraying the amorality of the Crusader faction, and plentiful clues explaining the plot details and even providing info for team members who aren't the leader and can't read the mission briefings and debriefings.  I loved the various connections to the in-game Praetorian lore.  I was disappointed that there were so many loose ends at the end of the story arc, but then decided that since I had willingly started an arc with "Part 1" in the name, I shouldn't be judgy about that.

 

So overall I thought the arc was a little high on difficulty for this level, but the writing and the mechanics outweighed that.  I gave it 5 stars.

 

Arrow Girl ended the arc at level 16 and picked up Glue Arrow.  I'm hoping that dropping a slow patch as a pseudo-control might help her survivability against the tough groups of mobs I'm starting to encounter.

[Darmian]

Thanks for playing my arc @Police Woman.  Much appreciated.  My goal with this trilogy (and two others with a final fourth long being planned) is to fill in a sort of gap between the end of the story for Neutropolis and the start of First Ward.  As you can probably tell I love Praetoria 🙂 but I'll advise Arrow Girl to do what I advise everyone to do when in Praetoria, and that's pick up a small supply of Hand Grenades or Plasmatic Taser from the START lady as they're very useful for getting enemies off you fast. Or Smoke Flash.  These arcs are all pitched at level 20 to 25, so I'd be wary of taking on the rest of them while still at Level 16, not that Arrow Girl didn't acquit herself admirably.

 

Though ambushes are part and parcel of the Praetorian experience so not finding them would in fact IMO be weird 🙂  

Edited November 5 by Darmian

[Police Woman]

Yeah, Spirals: Part One was level 1-24 so strictly speaking was too high level for Arrow Girl's rules of engagement, but I didn't catch that at the time.  The difficulty is probably fine.

 

Arrow Girl's next adventure was [Ordinary People 1] Standard Operating Procedure, a level 15-20 heroic story arc by @cranebump where you get tasked to stop some mayhem occurring in Kings' Row, and this leads you into fighting a new street gang.

 

 

 

Arrow Girl started off rescuing some hostages in a building in Kings Row.  The rescued hostages don't help out, but they sure have opinions about how I'm doing things.

 

Arrow Girl rescues another satisfied customer

 

While clearing the building, Arrow Girl ran into the "Skullions", a new street gang that apparently split off from the Skulls and Hellions.  They have a lot of custom characters but are mixed with regular Skulls and Hellions so don't seem too bad.

 

A lead from the Skullions causes my contact, Detective Freitag, to send me to Prince Kiros Nandelu's estate.  I'm excited to see Prince Kiros used in a story arc, but for some reason Freitag keeps talking about "Powers Division" on this arc, which seems weird to me ... as far as I know, "Powers Division" is strictly a Praetorian organization?

 

 

 

Arrow Girl manages to rescue Prince Kiros, but it turns out the villains have made off with his precious Cullinan diamond!

 

For the third mission, Freitag sends Arrow Girl to look for the missing diamond, along with another hero, Whipsmart, whose AI does not live up to his code name.

 

Arrow Girl heals one of Whipsmart's robots who was left parked in a burn patch while the mastermind charges the street gangers with a beam rifle.

 

We don't find the diamond, but we do find a clue leading us to Port Oakes (I think?  the fourth mission says we're going to Port Oakes in one place and Mercy Island in another).  There, Arrow Girl clears the docks and part of a ship, eventually defeating a Skullions boss.

 

I don't know who this Pyranna chick is, but she clearly knows Arrow Girl

 

After defeating Pyranna, we have to destroy the portal that she mentioned in dialog, which was guarded by the mysterious "Hats" faction that the story arc has been hinting at.  After that, we finally find the diamond laying around on the ground.  I feel like this could've been explained a little better; Freitag explicitly told me that finding the Cullinan diamond was my highest priority, but "Find the Cullinan diamond" didn't even become one of my objectives until near the end of the mission.  Instead I had to Defeat Pyranna (a villain who had never been mentioned before showing up in the nav bar), which then set off a series of chained objectives.  The teleporter objective was referenced in Pyranna's dialog, but it wasn't clear to me why the diamond just spawns as a clickable glowy after breaking the teleporter.  I noticed the first three missions had plentiful clues explaining every step of the way, but the fourth mission didn't seem to have any clues until the very end.  In the fourth mission I also noticed there was a "Link up with Acrobattle" objective that appeared in the nav bar when I entered the mission, but instantly completed within a few seconds (maybe because he had no guards?) - not sure if this was intentional.

 

 

Finding the Cullinan diamond finished the story arc, but Freitag tells me about some loose ends (another missing jewel, and the continuing mystery of the "Hats" faction) as teasers for "part 2" of the epic.

 

--

 

Overall I liked this story arc, and I liked the links to canon characters like Freitag and Nandelu. Freitag's voice in the mission briefings seemed just right.  The Skullions gang seemed interesting and not too overpowered. I liked the snarky dialog from the rescued captives in the first mission. I was confused by the references to "Powers Division" and I think the fourth mission needs some work, it doesn't seem quite as well-polished as the earlier missions.

 

I gave this arc 4 stars.  Arrow Girl ended the arc 45% through level 16.

 

 

 

Edited November 7 by Police Woman

[cranebump]

Thanks for the run. That’s the very first arc of the 50 I’ve written. Shoulda seen it before I tweaked it. It was rough. Very rough. Still looks like I could work on it, but at some point, you move on. Didn’t realize I was stealing Powers Division from Praetoria though. Sheesh. That’s what I get for not studying up on the lore.:-)

Edited November 7 by cranebump

[ZamuelNow]

Out of curiosity @Police Woman, what search terms do you use for finding arcs?

[Darmian]

8 hours ago, cranebump said:

That’s what I get for not studying up on the lore.:-)

ROFL.

[Darmian]

12 hours ago, Police Woman said:

Yeah, Spirals: Part One was level 1-24 so strictly speaking was too high level for Arrow Girl's rules of engagement, but I didn't catch that at the time.  The difficulty is probably fine.

Thanks to your play I've rejigged them to read as 20-24!  A thing I completely forgot! 

[TygerDarkstorm]

2 hours ago, ZamuelNow said:

Out of curiosity @Police Woman, what search terms do you use for finding arcs?

Oh yes, this is a good question as Police Woman's thread has inspired me to want to level one of my character this way as well.

[Police Woman]

This is what my search looks like: "Text: SFMA; my level" (where my level has ranged from 12 to 16 on this run, so far).  Then I manually filter these search results further by skipping all the arcs that are "level 1-54" or otherwise have a level cap above 20, since most such arcs are poorly balanced for a level 16 character.  I've been trying to work through these from top to bottom in the search results, so highly rated arcs with lots of ratings (well, 20ish, anyway) show up for me first.  My search, despite being so simple, only comes up with 3 pages of results, which is actually a pretty manageable number of story arcs to look through.  Hope that helps!  Happy hunting!

 

Edited November 8 by Police Woman

[TygerDarkstorm]

Thanks @Police Woman!

[Police Woman]

Arrow Girl's next adventure was All That Glitters 1.3: Capitalism in Cap Au Diable (arc #36056), a Vigilante level 12-20 story arc where you help Wyvern stop demons from overrunning Cap au Diable.  This is the third story arc in a series.  I considered going back to play All That Glitters 1.1 first, but the earlier story arcs are lower level and wouldn't fit the rules of engagement that I set; so I decided to go ahead and start with 1.3 and see how it went.

 

 

 

Off to Cap au Diable to help with the demon invasion problem!

There were a lot of civilians and protestors roaming the streets, which I thought was a nice touch.

 

Ow ow hot hot hot!

 

After clearing the streets, my Wyvern contact sends me to the power palnt to deal with Bat'Zul himself.  Fortunately, Wyvern and the Legacy Chain provide me with backup.  Rounding up the various allies and leading them around caused me to clear most of the map, but it ended up being worthwhile when I finally track down Bat'Zul perched near the top of a smokestack. 

 

 

Getting my allies up the catwalks to reach Bat'Zul was a bit like parallel parking, but once the fight started, Arrow Girl promptly fell off the catwalk and the allies ended up doing most of the work while I ran back up.

 

Bat'zul revealed during the fight that Duke Mordrogar and the Hellions were behind releasing him, so Arrow Girl's next mission takes her into the interior of the power station to track down Mordrogar and rescue some power plant workers.

 

This has got to be a workplace safety violation

 

After defeating "Duke" Mordrogar, I find out the real mastermind behind this is "Duchess" Mordrogar, one of the literal Girlfriends from Hell.  We have a final showdown with her in the fourth mission.

 

 

The arc reaches a climax with the defeat of Duchess Mordrogar.  The Hellion plot is stopped, and everyone is happy! 

 

But wait, there's a fifth mission!  In the final mission, Arrow Girl joined up with some Wyvern agents and go after the Goldbrickers, the Langston Corporation and a bunch of evil scientists.

 

Archery power!!

 

To be honest the fourth mission felt like the "finale" mission, and the fifth mission felt more like a post-credits trailer for the next arc of the mega-epic.  Several characters and references from arcs 1.1 and 1.2 appear, and there's an explanation for how this particular story arc furthers the narrative of the overall epic.  The arc is clearly labeled as being the third in a series, though, so I can't blame it for that.  The Langston Corp custom NPCs looked good and didn't seem overpowered; the extra Wyvern allies certainly helped.  Defeating the various evil scientists and reading their notes finished the story arc - along with giving me copious plot hooks for later story arcs in the series.

 

--

 

I liked the large amount of detail in each mission and the ties to canon like how the PTS is powered and reusing Duke Mordrogar.  The map selection was perfect, using the Cap and PTS maps made it feel very immersive, and there were a lot of great visuals along the way.  I liked having allies to help with the AVs, though maybe the allies were a little too powerful against Bat'Zul; at my difficulty level, I had 2 EB allies and 1 boss ally that helped with the EB Bat'Zul.

 

I did think that mission 4 was a more natural ending to the story arc, but I kind of get why a fifth mission was necessary to tie-in to the rest of the mega-epic.

 

Overall I really liked this story arc.  I gave it 5 stars.  Arrow Girl reached level 17, and this arc also inspired me to give her a "Wyvern" costume.

Edited November 10 by Police Woman

[Police Woman]

Meet Arrow Girl, agent of Wyvern!

 

 

Arrow Girl's next adventure was Bricked Electronics (arc #6625), a heroic level 8-19 arc by @Zasani.  (I also played this arc once on the live servers.)

 

Mark Freeman, a hacker with mutant electronics sensing powers, finds something suspicious on a cell phone and sends Arrow Girl to investigate.  The reasoning behind this is a little vague, but sure. 

 

Soon:

 

The Goldbrickers are involved somehow!  This leads me to raid a nearby warehouse where... there aren't any Goldbrickers.  But there are some custom clockwork that have been refurbished by a local kid inventor! 

 

 

She figures I'm there to arrest her.  Yeah, putting refurbished clockworks on the street is probably against the law somehow.  But we come to an understanding, and she gives us a lead to the next location ... supposedly dumpster diving, but actually:

 

   

 

The dump turns out to be occupied by a Council base where they're plotting some ... completely unrelated attack on the city??  Fortunately I manage to stop them from releasing the poison gas, which sends me back to the main plot with the Goldbrickers. 

 

After a couple more missions, I discover that the Goldbrickers were planning to rob a bank, and Arrow Girl manages to stop them.

 

 

Overall, each mission was decently constructed with lots of clues detailing what's going on in that mission.  Mark Freeman's dialog was well-written and referencing his mutant powers was a nice dip into the lore.  The kid sidekick and her robots were fun.

 

However, I felt the plotting was on the weak side.  The initial incident "There's something weird about this phone" really didn't seem like something important enough that you'd call a hero to investigate, and I didn't feel like my character had a very strong motivation to follow up on the leads for the first 3 missions.  Then we accidentally stumble across the Council plot to poison gas the city.  This was interesting (if random), but it ends up being just a side quest.  This felt weird because poison gassing the city is a much more serious threat than either the cell phone investigation or the bank job at the end of the arc.

 

I gave this arc 4 stars.  Arrow Girl ended up 3/4ths of the way through level 17.

[Police Woman]

Arrow Girl's next adventure was All That Glitters 2.1: Boom Time in Boomtown (arc #34715), by @Ankylosaur.  This is a level 15-20 Vigilante arc, the direct sequel to All That Glitters 1.3: Capitalism in Cap Au Diable, where I'm sent into Boomtown to dig up evidence of a Goldbricker plot.

 

 

Matthew Burke is my contact, and he tells me that Langston Corp and the Goldbrickers are operating a seemingly legitimate operation in Boomtown, and won't I go beat up some of those Goldbrickers to find out what they're up to?  This seems like a rather weak reason to go beat people up, but Arrow Girl is an agent of Wyvern now, so of course she's in!

 

Hello, fellow Wyvern agents!

 

The Boomtown map is filled with optional Easter egg encounters which was pretty fun.

 

I somehow got on the Council's bad side?  Maybe this happened in an earlier episode?

 

This guy wasn't a required objective, but I couldn't resist shooting some arrows at him.  It didn't go well.

 

After messing with the side objectives a bit, I eventually get back onto the main plotline, which leads me to a construction site.  Langston Corp replaced a bunch of their human workers with robots, so on site are Goldbrickers, robots, and also angry fired workers who are protesting and/or rioting.

 

These workers were in a custom "Union" faction and ... I really didn't want to kill them, they had legitimate grievances - but they were flagged hostile.  (The story arc does go to some effort to explain why they are hostile - but I still felt like my character didn't want to fight them.)  So I tried to achieve the mission objective (rescuing 4 workers that were captured by the Goldbrickers) while avoiding aggro from the Union.  Since this was a large map with broken terrain, this was pretty hard and I had to backtrack over the terrain a few times before I could find all the hostages.

 

 

A couple of the hostages mention that "Demolition Dan", one of the union ringleaders, had been captured and taken away by company security (that is, Goldbrickers).

 

So in my next mission I find and rescue Demolition Dan, when suddenly...

 

 

Ohhh no, a SWAT team is here to arrest Demolition Dan, and I end up having to fight them to get Dan out of this jam.  So now Arrow Girl is wanted by the police!  Ack!

 

Meanwhile, Matthew Burke has sent another Wyvern team to investigate another lead in an underground Langston Corp base.  Since they had no player characters on their team, now they need a rescue.  Well, anything for a fellow Agent of Wyvern!

 

Wait, didn't I just see you in Cap?  (All that Glitters 1.3)

 

Hey!  What's wrong with attacking a villain base armed only with a bow and arrow?!

 

The Langston base is filled with mad scientists and corporate fatcats, and beating them all up completes the story arc, along with giving me clues for future story arcs.

 

 

Bold words for a guy that's been tied into a pretzel

 

 

Overall I enjoyed the story arc and the level of detail that was put into each mission.  There were a number of custom characters and custom factions, but they fit the story and none seemed overpowering for my young blaster.

 

I thought the adventure hook for the first mission was weak (Goldbrickers are acting legit, go beat some up!).  It was awkward and frustrating dodging the hostile construction workers; I suppose I could've heartlessly plowed through them, but it didn't feel right.  (Strangely, I didn't have a problem fighting the SWAT team; they were asking for it.)  The final mission where I got to rescue the Wyvern agents that I'd previously met in arc 1.3 was nice, but I felt like the arc ended in a weird place, with nothing really resolved.  At the end of the arc, my character is wanted by the law, but never really figured out what the Goldbrickers were up to, and while she beat up a lot of Goldbrickers and Langston suits, I don't have the impression that I stopped whatever it was they were doing.  All of this is probably developed further in the sequels to this story arc, but personally I think each story arc should be able to stand on its own, with its own beginning and end.  Even if I don't fix everything by the end of the story arc, it would be nice to give the player some sort of "win" at the end, like shutting down Langston Corp's expansion into Boomtown, or helping the workers who lost their jobs.

 

I also noticed a few continuity and spelling errors (all of these were minor, I'm just listing them here in case you want to fix them):

* In mission 5 a Rocketman says:

.... "they they" should be just one "they"

* Hornet says he hasn't seen me since Mercy Island, but I just saw him in the conclusion to arc 1.3 in Cap au Diable.

* The souvenir says that Delia Huntley sent me on the investigation, but when I played through the arc, Matthew Burke was the contact (he names drop Delia Huntley, but she doesn't really appear).

 

I gave the arc 4 stars.  Arrow Girl ended the arc a third of the way through level 18.

 

[Ankylosaur]

Exciting to see Arrow Girl dig into All That Glitters!

 

Love her Wyvern costume too - Ollerus and Hornet are glad you're part of the team and can talk archery with you.  

The series evolved A LOT from its beginnings as this was my first foray into mutiple arcs. It has been through a lot of rewrites and rejiggering, from

• me realizing more opportunities to bolster the Praetorian refugee presence in early missions (like Vagabond, Helix, et al) and then throughout as they find a home in the Gold Brickers (or council etc) to
• doing more call backs to the 1.1 Mercy mission (like Burke instead of Delia, and Dr. Creed finding a new home) to
• the introduction of higher-level Gold brickers with the Aeon Strike force (thankfully replacing my mediocre customs) to
• the Aeon Strike force - effectively changing the leaders in my story by fleshing out Mr. Rodney, introducingPrincess Zoe and changing my whole premise for who King Midas is - which meant a bit of a plot shift, to
• tightening the sprawling higher level arcs by consolidating three of them into one

 

So thanks for the continuity and typo catches! (As Mollymauk called them - "literary kidney stones" 🙂 ) The continuity issues are part of that constant evolution. (e.g. with Hornet in 2.1 - I decided you needed additional allies in 1.3 and forgot I had that line in there.) 

 

2.1 was actually the first of the series I wrote and leans heavily into the Vigilante role, which is why you were at odds with the Union - misperceptions of your role and all that. Was a challenge to balance what's "right" in that situation. There is less of that over time with some arcs really being much more Heroic - but as you are always tied to Wyvern in Glitters so there's always a little vigilante in it.

 

Once Arrow Girl gets into her twenties, multiple paths open up - though not sure she will want to pursue them all - it's a lot. 🙂

• Glitters is about Praetorian tech proliferation (and much more)
• Glimmers is about the First Warders and magic as they find a home in the now Mot-free Dark Astoria (and a bigger plot you uncover)
• Glints is about the Council bringing psionics into play through the Awakened after the Striga fiasco (and of course that goes well)
• Glows is about the 5th Column Nictus schism from the Council (and Nictus who are fed up with a lack of progress after 2,000 years of failed leadership) 
• Monkey Business is ancillary and uses some of the later folk from Glitters to to tie in the one group the others missed - the Syndicate. 

 

I wrote it all with someone playing through from 1-54 in mind, presuming that one day people would be looking for new content to level with. That has not really happened. 🙂 Most people who have been through it tend to play a series from beginning to end with a high-level toon and so they evolved to support that - often with very small gaps in timeline between arcs. For example, you'll see this in 2.1 and 2.2 - which is why the ending felt unresolved (often it is the x.3 that is a big finale to that sequence).

 

As someone leveling with it - will be interested in your take. What would have taken 2.1 to a five from a four for you?

 

Whatever bits you play - will be great to get your feedback on the journey. I really appreciate the feedback and typo catches! Helps me make it all just a bit better for the next person.

 

Thanks again!
 

Edited November 14 by Ankylosaur

[Police Woman]

4 hours ago, Ankylosaur said:

I wrote it all with someone playing through from 1-54 in mind, presuming that one day people would be looking for new content to level with. That has not really happened. 🙂 Most people who have been through it tend to play a series from beginning to end with a high-level toon and so they evolved to support that - often with very small gaps in timeline between arcs. For example, you'll see this in 2.1 and 2.2 - which is why the ending felt unresolved (often it is the x.3 that is a big finale to that sequence).

 

As someone leveling with it - will be interested in your take. What would have taken 2.1 to a five from a four for you?

 

Yeah, I think you're right that most people are playing their "main" or some other level 50 toon; that's one reason I thought it would be fun to try bringing a level-appropriate lowbie toon.  It's made me much more sensitive to mission difficulty, that's for sure.  My main character, a heavily IO'd level 50 blaster, would've beaten most of the enemies and ambushes that defeated Arrow Girl.

 

As for what would've taken All That Glitters 2.1 to 5 stars for me: the game mechanics were fine, but I would've liked the writing to give me a stronger motivation for the earlier missions, and a better sense of accomplishment at the end of the arc.  The arc starts with Burke telling me to go beat up Goldbrickers to find out what they're up to; I would've liked a reason why, some "probable cause" more than "They've villains".  After finishing the arc, I had beaten up the boss, but it wasn't clear if I had accomplished anything. It would've been nice to clear my name with the police, stop Langston's expansion into Boomtown, helped out the oppressed workers, and/or have more personal stakes for getting revenge on the boss (he had never killed my partner, kicked a puppy, or anything like that).  Ideally I should've solved whatever problem was presented as "the reason why we're doing this arc" in the earlier missions - a more definite climax to this episode (even if there are lots of loose threads leading to the sequels), rather than purely setting the stage for the next arc. 

 

I hope that helps!

[Ankylosaur]

It does, thanks - but as you say, some of what you are looking for does play out over the course of the series rather than in a single arc.

 

That does not mean there are not things I could improve within here. 

 

But, for example, being a little uneasy with the police is part of the intention for an arc or so - but such is being a Wyvern adjacent vigilante agent in Paragon - it'll happen from time to time.

 

Similarly - Langston, a legitimate business expanding into Hazard Zones to reclaim them, is something the city supports - since no one else is willing to put their redevelopment money there after 20 years - and if they need high-powered security in the form of Gold Brickers - well the city can turn a blind eye since its obviously a dangerous zone. That premise though is my conceit that justifies having a Gold Bricker series in Paragon at all - so can't be resolved in a single arc. (You'll notice by arc title that most of them are in a Hazard Zone.)

 

But, that does not mean there are not things that maybe could be resolved.

 

As to motivation, the x.3s tend to be where you get some closure (and motivation for the next set). I was hoping that coming off of 1.3 there was enough suspicion there to carry investigating Langston forward, but clearly, for you, that is not true - so something for me to think about how to improve.

The other thing here, in writing it for Vigilante, is that I was picturing the player generally being a bit more motivated to act based on what they already know of Langston and maybe needing a bit less justification in a "presumed guilty until proven innocent" sort of way. But maybe a bad premise. I can definitely try to build more motivation here and more context for stopping their expansion.

 

Fair warning though - it's not the only time you are cast in a role that has Langston doing some potentially good things for very questionable reasons and as we have no real decision options in AE - you are cast against them because of those questionable reasons.

 

Spoiler

(Kind of like in 1.3 where they out Aeon but enabled a demon onslaught of civilians to do so. Of course this also ultimately leads to a financial gain for langston by providing an alternative with Praetorian tech. Most folk believe Duke Mordrogar lead the demon onslaught (with no enablement from Langston).  In fact they see Langston as having saved the day with an alternate power source in Cap - but you - you know better - that they manipulated things to harm a tech rival, put the blame on someone else, and be the heroes while making money doing so.)

 

Lots to think about - and again - thanks for the feedback!

Edited November 15 by Ankylosaur