Galaxy Schmalaxy: Constellation Row

[Forager]

Arc ID: 65609

Galaxy Schmalaxy: Constellation Row

Level 10-20

Alignment: Rogue (Unless you're very careful)

Challenging, Story Focused Content designed for solo or small groups of street-level heroes

WARNING: Difficult Alignment Choices

 

"During the attack on Galaxy City, a group of new heroes narrowly escaped with their lives. They were told to go find work that was appropriate for their security level. Most of them were happy to let the Phalanx handle the meteors and the monsters, but some are still fighting to get back in. [SFMA]"

 

WARNING: The first room is especially hazardous. There are targetable bystanders and cops, so be careful if alignment is important to you. Stealth and staying out of the crossfire is helpful. You can avoid the Trolls and police

 

The final mission is a bit of a deconstruction and hopefully a more realistic take on what a mission like this would look like. You are given a lot of freedom to choose, with only 2 required objectives.

 

The boss fights are hard and death is likely, though they can be avoided.

 

Spoiler

In the first mission you are only required to get the samples. You can choose to ignore the NPC's. It's more fun if you don't.

 

In the third mission, you are only required to get Daniels and the 5 Trolls. You can do this any number of ways. You can stealth in, stealth out. Stealth in, fight out. Or you can just fight your way through. There are several hostages you can save or ignore and several targetable NPC's you can try to avoid hurting. Bystanders will likely get in the way and the cops are not on your side. You can form a party with the NPCs or go solo.

 

There are a few times where death is very likely, but it also has a tendency to help clear the objectives by positioning you closer to them or getting you away from the chaos. In fact, it's very likely to finish the mission by dying.

 

Also, since the last mission is timed, I also put out a version with that mission by itself and the optional objectives given more clues and explanation. This is in case anyone particularly enjoys it or wants to try and find all the hostages, but doesn't want to do the first two missions in the arc. It's Arc ID 65610 and is called Constellation Row (Finale Mission Only, Challenge Mode)

Edited January 3 by Forager

[Forager]

Just to clarify...

 

This is difficult content. If you don't like difficult content, you shouldn't play it.

 

I explained it was difficult in the description. I marked it as challenging. I gave extra warnings in the post here. The description literally says that the heroes are in over their heads.

 

Some people prefer challenging content.

 

Sorry if this seems repetitive, but I never imagined that someone could see a mission marked challenging, click it, ,then give it a low rating because it was challenging. I don't know how to make this more clear and I would like to avoid wasting anyone's time.

[cranebump]

That was likely me. I had some issues with the "challenge" aspect" being unfair in M3 due to the timer, and the fact that, even if you beeline to Daniels, you just get another rescue objective. The timer is so short, you can't really enjoy the full 4 levels of design.

 

Some context: I initially ran this with an eye toward putting it in my short reviews. By the time I was done, I ended up with a really long review that I decided not to post because, despite some design strengths in the arc, there's one major issue I just can't get around (and is the main reason for the low rating). It's subjective, of course, but here's the tl;dr version of that review, for what it's worth.

Spoiler

tl;dr=Some good design chops are marred by a lack of any semblance of a logical story.

 

Outside that I wouldn't bother with responding to poor reviews. We've all gotten them. Taste is subjective. 

 

Keep writing,

Crane

Edited January 4 by cranebump

[Forager]

It's a frantic search during absolute chaos in a rapidly devolving scenario. It should have a timer. You're not even supposed to be there. It should be challenging.

 

You're a low level hero working with Daniels doing hero work and he goes missing. You go find him. That is a logical story.

 

To say there was no logical story is baseless. It was very clearly explained what you were doing in short paragraphs with small words.

[cranebump]

Well, guess I can post that review now.

[Forager]

I just looked at your stuff to try and figure out what it is you think missions are supposed to look like and I think I understand why you didn't like mine.

 

Carry on, sir lol.

[sponazgul]

I ran through 65609 twice - once with a level 50 tank (who gets exemped down to 20) and once with a level 33 scrapper (with superspeed, also getting exemped down to 20)

 

The missions are listed as 10 - 20, and I think at level 10, that would be a REAL challenge (yes, I know you marked it as challenging) - especially for a mission arc also marked solo-friendly. Shivans are particularly rough due to debuffs, but I can appreciate their inclusion since it is story thematic and especially because there's a trick to the first mission for success.

Spoiler

The trick is that you don't have to fight anything, you just need to click objectives. The Detective tells you this BUT the detective's advice has to be ignored, since you must go underground against his advice. This puts all of his advice into a suspicious category.

 

Anyway, my tank got clobbered after spawning an ambush (I think) from the first collection of bones and trying to take on the Shivan boss near the front. After that, I just ran through, getting the objectives and avoiding the Shivans.

 

At the mission start, since I had been told not to go underground, but knowing that I had no other option really but to go underground, I exited the mission to see what the contact would say on my early return. He told me that there were other heroes available to help me. Well, they're underground, so the contact is sending mixed signals. I'd almost rather he say something like "Have you finished checking out that cemetery yet? No? Hey, I'm busy."

 

On my second attempt, I just supersped through. Since I already knew that I would have to explicitly find the exit again, I ignored the first collection of bones, but had to return to them since I couldn't complete the later objectives. I understand why that was done to facilitate the Mission Objective text changes.

 

I didn't mind mission 2, other than:

 

I didn't know what Rule Number Two was. I guess it was a rule against people entering the police station?

 

Spoiler

I would suggest that you change the mission objective text "Resupply" to be "Remember to get the ammo for the Detective" or something along those lines. Because I was still focused on what Rule Number Two might or might not be, and I knew that I had been sent to the police station to drop off supplies, but since I had been planning on meeting the detective, I wasn't necessarily thinking that I was supposed to get ammo for him, so Resupply had less meaning to me.

 

 

I didn't mind the overall nature of mission two. In some of my mission arcs, I'll have a mission that's minimal combat and exists to set a tone or provide some information or act as a an enrichment to the next mission.

 

Mission 3, without warning, kicks off a 15 minute timer. I appreciate that I've lost contact with the Detective, and he might not be able to explicitly warn me that by hitting Accept, I'm committing myself to the next 15 minutes to devote to the mission, but I would encourage you to think of some way to communicate that. You don't have to tell me what to think (although I wouldn't mind being given the explicit realization that Shivans breaching the Sea Wall is kicking off an in-game timer.) From a meta-perspective, there are many missions in-game that are not timed but have similar implied stakes.

 

The timer without a heads up will rub some people the wrong way.

 

Spoiler

In the mission, since I only have 15 minutes, my inclination was to rush and save the Detective, the stated objective. I was aware of people in danger, and this does track with the appearance of hard alignment choices - I don't mind being presented by a Kobayasha Maru type of scenario. 

 

The first time I ran it with my tank, I rushed to the end, saved the detective, and to my despair, triggered the Rescue Five Trolls objective. My problem: I literally didn't have time in the real world to finish this and wouldn't have started the mission otherwise, and would have waited for another time. Being out of time, I just logged and wrote it off.

 

When I next logged on, I talked to the contact to end the arc, and he was quite put out with me, which might be fair, or might not be fair, depending on how heroic I had been trying to be in the mission.

 

The second time, I saved the contact, and since I was moving at superspeed, found all trolls to rescue with two minutes left on the clock. During this time, the Frantic Mother had attacked me, and I had to knock her unconscious. I don't know if she was explicitly tagged to be an Enemy or a Rogue, but I don't hold it against her. With the mission completed, I could leisurely take the time to rescue the Trapped Resident, the Frightened Girl, Forager, Blue Spectrum, even that Gravedigger Skull.

 

This is somewhat a problem with the timed mission - once I complete the objective, the timer ends. But in theory, and I am guessing this, the reason there was a timer was because of the Shivans busting in via the breached Sea Wall, but saving the detective and the trolls (and not saving the innocent bystanders) isn't likely to resolve that situation.

 

I don't really hold it against the mission though, but it is one of the problems with mission timers.

 

I think the final mission is likely to fail, and I don't know if it works as an alignment test, because you are as likely to fail as someone who doesn't care about innocent civilians as you would being someone who spent too much time saving the girl, the resident, etc. and runs out of time trying to heroically save the trolls, and still the Detective would scold you, as much as he did me who just didn't have time to bother. I eventually got to save everyone by ignoring all the innocents in danger, which has a heroic result but not a heroic means.

 

I appreciated the challenge of the final mission (I'm glad I succeeded on the second time, since I knew the deal) and I don't mind a mission that invites a replay. My chance of success on the second run was much higher on the first run, and I have arcs that I feel are fun to replay. And I have arcs where missions can fail (and I've had people get mad at the failure, but that's part of the game we've signed up to try out.) I feel that the final mission was what you really wanted to do, and I feel that it had more on its mind than was necessarily earned. The contact gives a somewhat earnest speech on success, when I could get that speech while also having ignored optional elements in the final mission is somewhat out-of-step.

 

The mission alignment recommendation for the arc was Rogue, and I'm not sure that that tracks. I'm pretty clearly considered a young newbie hero, and there's no skullduggery or selfish motives afoot.

 

I don't want to get into the argument you are having with the other architects about story structure, but the story does feel light. In fact, you posted a standalone version of the final mission for challenge mode, and that does imply that missions 1 and 2 aren't necessarily impactful. I don't mind it, some people are here for stories, some are here for a romp. I have a mission arc that was 100% designed just for tanks to test their taunt auras on Vahzilok Embalmeds. For fun, there's a story, but I recognize that it's a thin story.

 

With this mission and your previous arc making references to Galaxy City, I appreciate you wanting to build up an arc or arcs that center on the experience of Galaxy City being once in the game, and that's commendable.

 

[Forager]

This is excellent feedback. It is so good that I have taken nearly every single line under advisement and made changes based on a lot of what you said.

 

Thank you for the time and care you took with it. I would like to address all of it individually, if you care to read my responses. But the TL:DR question I have is "What alignment would you set this as?"

 

Spoiler

-I usually write the Still Busy text to indicate what you're supposed to do. It had never occurred to me that someone might actually go back out to see what happens. I have a piece of dialog that will fit nicely.

 

-This was originally part 2 of something that much more clearly established that you, Forager and Spectrum were a bit of an F troop with Daniels trying to wrangle you. I have downplayed that a bit, but there are still references to it that didn't get cleaned up. Great catch.

 

The second mission is going to be a sticking point for a lot of people, but I believe that the best choice is almost always show, don't tell.

 

Spoiler

I want you to go in there and think "wtf am I doing in here... where is everybody... why are the cops freaking out" and I don't want to just write that it happened. I want it to happen to you.

 

Your guess about Rule #2 was pretty spot on, but I added the "Rules" as clues to the mission in case someone doesn't get it immediately.

 

As for the timer, I know that most people do not play to be tested in this way. I'm ok with it. The timer is supposed to induce stress. Same thing with the targetable bystanders. By the way, did that mom actually attack you? Or did she just run at you and you got scared lol?

 

Spoiler

She should not be attacking. I had considered having her do that at one time, but it seemed unfair to hijack too many mechanics at once. If she is actually using attacks, that's a malfunction.

 

Your notes about replay are very encouraging. A goal was to make it hard, but replayable so it wouldn't feel like a punishment.

 

Lastly, there's no argument about the story. I didn't create a version without the first two missions because I thought they were superfluous. I thought they lacked replay value.

Edited Friday at 08:28 PM by Forager

[sponazgul]

Thanks for the response! I'm not 100% sure the mom attacked me. I think I was in combat, she ran up and conned as an enemy (at least that much I remember) and I think I took her out, thinking that she was attacking me. 

 

So, your assessment that I might have been scared is not something that I can argue against.

 

I'm glad you found my feedback helpful, best regards.