The Return of Despoticus - arc 68902, Heroic 4-mission arc (all short maps)

[sponazgul]

Colleagues,

 

I just published a 4 mission story-focused arc called The Return of Despoticus (arc 68902)

 

It is intended for upper-end characters, and probably thematically played with a heroic tank character.

 

 

 

Much like my vigilante story arc from last year, Allegedly, Your Death (arc 65297) was probably best played with a specific type of vigilante detective (with a butler) ... this latest arc should appeal to a certain classical heroic comics archetype.

 

 

And just like Allegedly, Your Death, I do break the Ocelot Rule (where the various mission text includes speech from the player -- I know that that's usually bad form, but it worked for me in A,YD and I think it'll work here in The Return of Despoticus. But you can let me know if that's the case.

 

This arc is out for feedback, I'm sure that there are typos and weird things that I'm too close to to notice. 

 

Thanks in advance to those who play it and give me constructive critical feedback (or any feedback, I'm just happy to publish story-arcs.)

 

 

[sponazgul]

Colleagues, I know I asked for feedback, but this morning at work I realized I wanted to make a simple but significant change that will effect the last two missions in the Despoticus arc

 

I’ll report back when I’ve made that change.

 

Happy Architecting to you all…

[sponazgul]

Okay, I made my change to arc 68902, The Return of Despoticus, a four-mission arc, all on small maps to make it relatively quick time. (No running about on huge maps, trying to find objectives, although maybe you have to run around small maps, trying to find objectives.)

 

The arc is probably best played by a heroic-minded character willing to go solo, for story reasons, but I assume a team would be just fine if you just want to smash stuff.

[sponazgul]

Some Architect Notes on the arc, for anyone interested.

 

Concept Behind the story:

 

Spoiler

I wanted to give people the sense of playing a Superman-style mission for their character, much like the arc Allegedly, Your Death was intended to give a Batman-style feel. At times in the story, you should feel extremely powerful (which has some drawbacks, as I'll get to) and then you should face a harder challenge. You can quit - AE Missions don't lock you in, or you can knuckle down and strive to prevail. Ideally, this was intended for someone with Incarnate Powers to try solo, and because of the level-enforcement done on the missions (I'll get to that in more detail) it probably isn't suitable for lower level characters, but I respect anyone attempting a challenge.

 

Mission 1:

 

Spoiler

The mysterious contact OMEGOD is directing you to save some of its captured champions. This poses no challenge to you, because the villains who are holding the powerless champions, the Ultrahorde, are all underling-class creatures. Gears, Rikti Monkeys, the Devouring Earth rubble. They've been renamed Murderbots, Xenomorphs, and Meteoroid Monsters, the renaming serves a purpose when you get to mission #2. Because they are very puny, you can just wipe them out. (They don't give XP though, which might cause people to rage quit, which is fair, but unfortunate, I guess.) The mission is to be a breeze, because the concept is that you're a Superman-level character, and these trash mobs are nothing to worry about. (Especially if you have Incarnates.)

 

The level for the mission was set to be 45 - 54, just to set the expectation that the entire arc was going to be high level. Without my adjusting it, it would be 1 - 54 and since the next mission was pinned by the system to be 51 - 51, I didn't want there to be a shock.

 

Mission 2:

 

Spoiler

OMEGOD sends you on another rescue, which is not as easy. The Mission Pop Up indicates that as you enter, you're hit by a RED BEAM and are feeling weakened. You still have all of your powers, of course - but the Murderbots, Xenomorphs, and Meteoroid Monsters are all much tougher (because they're represented by Psychic Clockwork Lords, Hydra Man-o-War, and Devoureds. They'll either be bosses or lieutenants, depending if your notoriety has you facing bosses or not.) There is a tough fight ahead - Arbiter Sands is on the map, he's can only be an ArchVillain when you select him (which will make him an Elite Boss in AE unless you want to take on an AV and have your notoriety set like that.) Arbiter Sands is why the mission level is set invariably at 51 - 51.

 

I didn't choose Sands to make that level mandatory, he's there for my own story reason, but I was happy to accept the level requirement being enforced.

 

He's a tough fight, but if you have Incarnate Powers, that's helpful. This mission is the last mission in this arc that you can rely on having Incarnates. Missions 3 and 4 have a max level cap of 44, so you won't have incarnates. You've been depowered by Despoticus Depowerment Ray, and you need to regain your powers at the end. If you are running this and aren't an incarnate, the fact that the enemies are now Boss level is the simulation of you being depowered, the cheap version.

 

You eventually save the person you need to save (it is a small map, but you'll have to fight some Ultrahorde as you move about.)

 

Mission 3:

 

Spoiler

You've been depowered - especially if you're an Incarnate, since the level of the mission is set to 44. (If you weren't an incarnate, the toughness of the enemies in relation to the weakness of the enemies in mission 1 is simulating your lower power levels.)

 

You opt to defeat Despoticus rather than try to regain your powers, since the detour to find and destroy Despoticus' Depowerment Device which is keeping you weakened will allow Despoticus the time to commit some planetary-scale war crimes. 

 

This can be a challenging fight. Despoticus is an Elite Boss, and all of the Ultrahorde are Bosses. Despoticus is built using Dark Blast/Force Field. I find Sefu Tendaji and his Force Field in the Gaussian Arc an incredibly challening opponent prior to Incarnates, so I was using that as a benchmark. 

 

My Inv/Superstrong tank can defeat Despoticus, my Electric Armor/Psychic Melee tank has yet to do so - with Despoticus as an Elite Boss.

 

But my archery/devices blaster defeated him as a Boss (she had her notoriety set to not solo bosses, so the Ultrahorde spawn as lieutenants for her, and Despoticus does not spawn as an Elite Boss, just a boss.) It is still a good fight. My Electric Armor tank is going to adjust the notoriety, to his shame, and try Despoticus again as a boss. (Despoticus' repulsion field was a challenge, and that might just be the difference between Invulnerability and Electric.)

 

This fight, along with the fight against Arbiter Sands in mission 2 (although Incarnates help there) are expected to be challenging, and hopefully satisfying when you win, even if you have to plan ahead and have a Shivan on you to help, or load up on Purples and hope that prevents being hit by the repel (I have no idea if that helps, but Lucks help in general.)

 

Mission 4:

 

Spoiler

This is just a wrap-up, the climax happens in Mission 3 when you stop Despoticus and save the innocent planet of Xennocentia V from being invaded (and likely eaten or something.)

 

One could just quit the mission and discover that the depowerment was temporary, but it is more fun to actually destroy the depowerment device.

 

The map is mostly unguarded, since Despoticus brought most of his troops on the invasion, but on the map are three members of the [PLAYERNAME] Revenge Squad.

 

A quick aside - I wanted this to feel like a Superman-like story, and that meant including some Superman references (much like in Allegedly, Your Death, I had references to The Puffin and The 53rd Card and The Devil's Advocate as references to Batman villains)

 

I had first thought of making some non-infringing homages to a lesser-known Superman villain known as Terra-Man, and call him Cosmic Cowboy (Terra-Man was literally a Wild West outlaw's son who had been abducted by an alien) and maybe a homage to the Parasite, and call him Remora. But I just didn't want to.

 

Instead, I used the Doppleganger feature (I LOVE the Doppleganger feature) to make a member of the $name Revenge Squad. Superman on very rare occasions was bothered by the Superman Revenge Squad (and in World's Finest 175, Batman had his own Batman Revenge Squad. I think Ambush Bug had the Ambush Bug Revenge Squad too.)

 

You don't have your Incarnate powers, but Dopplegangers tend to not be that tough to defeat, you can even ignore them if you can and destroy the Depowerment Device.

 

When attacking the Device, an ambush spawns of Xenomorphs, Murderbots, and Meteoroid Monsters trying to stop you, but they're the underling versions, indicating that your attack on the Device has already allowed your full powers to start to return, and the dangerous Ultrahorde are once again no threat at all.

 

 

[sponazgul]

I discovered a way to cheat the limitations imposed by my own story arc.

 

Spoiler

As I mentioned in the post above - I set the default minimum and default maximum of the last 2 missions in The Return of Despoticus to be level 44, so your character will be right at the edge of not-having Incarnate powers. This is to reflect that the Despoticus Depowerment Device has sapped some of your power. BUT I discovered that if you set the mission difficulty to -1, since the enemies have to be level 44, that's the min and the max for them, the game will bump you up to level 45, which lets people with Incarnate abilities use them. So, if Despoticus is just abusing you in the 3rd mission, even if he's just a boss and not an Elite Boss (but especially as an Elite Boss) you can sneakily recover your Incarnate abilities to take him down.

 

We'll just assume that OMEGOD granted you some of his Power Cosmic to balance the scales between you and Despoticus.

 

(I discovered this because I had a character running The Return of Despoticus with +1 notoriety, and the game made him level 43 (since the enemies had to be +1 to him and also had to be level 44, the character was demoted a level to compensate. So I tried at -1 and the was level 45 and had his incarnates back.)