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.)

 

[cranebump]

I'll have a review up today. I didn't realize I could bypass Despoticus in M3. Got frustrated and quit. After reading your notes, went back in to wrap it up.

 

Reading is fundamental.:-)

 

Hold the phone. I'm on the map now, and I don't see any way to beat the guy straight up.

Edited Saturday at 12:04 PM by cranebump

[TerroirNoir3]

1 minute ago, cranebump said:

I'll have a review up today. I didn't realize I could bypass Despoticus in M3. Got frustrated and quit. After reading your notes, went back in to wrap it up.

 

Reading is fundamental.:-)

Snap!

This is literally the next thing I'm doing!  LOL.

[cranebump]

Yeah, I was wrong. There's no doohickey to turn off or anything. I misread that. Twice.:-)

 

Just need to use Break Free. Did not know that.:-)

Edited Saturday at 12:07 PM by cranebump

[sponazgul]

Oh no, sorry! No, there's no doohickey in mission 3. You have to turn off Despoticus, you know. Arrest him with fire or bullets or claws, as one does...

[Police Woman]

Poster Girl (a level 49 energy/SS tanker) versus Despoticus!

 

 

Neat ideas in this arc, and I love the Superman homage idea, but the plot could pull these ideas  together better. The enemy group reusing standard mobs was fun, I especially like how you played with their size.

 

Some story arc suggestions (these are all purely my opinion; feel free to use what you like, ignore anything you don't like):
 

Spoiler

The first mission was ALL Underlings, which meant I could walk over them easily, but it was disappointing that they were all 0 XP, since I was playing a level 49 and hoping to reach 50.  The fact that you are only crushing Underlings and there are no bosses or anything really challenging in mission 1 made it feel not very exciting to me, though reading your authors' notes it sounds like this may be intentional.

 

I liked the various heroes that you rescue in missions 1 and 2.  I was disappointed that none of them come back into the story later on - not even Clue Lass and her love triangle, which mission 2 makes a big deal of.  They all get rescued, leave, and never show up again.  This makes the missions not feel very connected to each other - both the first 2 missions are "Hey rescue some of these heroes that were captured" (why not rescue them all in a single mission?) and neither really logically leads to mission 3.  You might consider having Clue Lass or Invinci-Belle reappear in a later mission, perhaps sent by OMEGOD as backup for the de-powered player.

 

I never got the chance to show Invinci-Belle that I am not, in fact, a stoop

 

I saw this Wife of Despoticus run past me during mission 2 and get killed by NPCs ... I bet she has an interesting story but I never got to see what it was all about.   I think maybe there was an NPC battle that started before I got there?

 

 

The story tells me in text that I've been depowered by the red beam, but I don't FEEL depowered - I still have all my powers (except 1) and am just as powerful in combat.  Reading your author notes I see that the intention was to cancel out all incarnate abilities by lowering your level to 44 - but since I played a level 49 tanker, I had no incarnate abilities to lose.  Based on your advertising I brought a very strong, heavily IO'd tanker, and Poster Girl is still ludicrously powerful at level 43 (I was at +1 difficulty).  Maybe consider de-powering the player to level 20-ish instead of level 44?  That would definitely feel like being de-powered.

 

I thought it was weird to defeat Despoticus in mission 3, and then regain your powers in mission 4.  I know there is some exposition saying that there isn't time to get your powers back before something awful happens, but wouldn't it make more logical sense to try and regain your powers first, then fight the big bad in the final mission while at full strength?  It would feel more dramatic that way too. 

 

I was very fortunate against Despoticus - I was prepared for a tough fight where I'd have to rely on laser beam eyes, but Today I Learned that energy aura is entirely resistant to Repulsion Field, and I had no trouble punching him at all.

 

The $playername Revenge Squad was a fun concept, but I'd suggest mixing up their dialog a bit - both the Poster Girl Revenge Squad members that I fought had the exact same lines.

 

Consider leaning in, even more heavily, into the Superman homage references.  Name drop an intrepid reporter love interest, a hapless photographer sidekick, a CEO archenemy, sending arrested minions to the Phantom Zone, getting your powers removed or restored due to shiny meteor fragments, and so on.  Your player has already accepted the premise of being a Superman-esque hero by starting your story arc - go all in on it.

 

Some typos/suggestions:

Spoiler

"often affected by Cosmic Unawareness that affects their memories" seems awkward due to reuse of the word "affect".    I'd suggest you change one of them, e.g. "often affected by Cosmic Unawareness that scrambles their memories" or "often subject to Cosmic Unawareness that affects their memories".

 

"we've worked before" should be "we've worked together before".

 

"multidimension cosmic beings" should be "multidimensional cosmic beings".  You could also write some technobabble that handwaves away OMEGOD's limitations on Cosmic Awareness - OMEGOD strikes me as a being who doesn't like saying "I don't know" when it could blame sunspots, psychic jamming, the Uncertainty Principle etc.

 

When down to the last hostage it shows "OMEGOD Champion" as the objective in the nav tool.  Should be "Free the last OMEGOD Champion" or similar.

 

Having Clue Lass? talk about Clue Lass! was very confusing when I first read it, but in hindsight maybe this is intentional.  Sands also seems confused as to which one he is in love with, but maybe that's intentional too.

 

Also, OMEGOD gave me a picture of Clue Lass, but its Cosmic Awareness is supposed to make it know everything (terms apply).  Shouldn't OMEGOD know that Clue Lass has a twin sister and tell me?

 

"put through the ringer" should be "put through the wringer".

 

"when you were hit by that Red Beam when you entered Despoticus' facility" uses the word "when" too many times.  Suggest rephrasing to "as you entered".

 

"must of taken" should be "must have taken"

 

I think forgetting the whole story arc is kind of disappointing - you want your story arc to be memorable, and your souvenir could have some writing that reminds the player of the events of the arc, perhaps encoded into a Kryptonian memory crystal or the CoH equivalent.

 

Edited Monday at 06:39 AM by Police Woman

[sponazgul]

@Police Woman - I do admit that you hit the nail on the head on the limitations I faced in trying to communicate that your character was de-powered in some way (other than my telling you via pop-up text and OMEGOD's comments) - for Incarnate folks it's easy - they lose the incarnates. For anyone else, the murderbots, xenomorphs, and meteoroid monsters going from underlings to bosses is how I relied on backing up that you've been reduced in power (relatively)

 

I did think at one point about capping the final two missions in the 30s, but then I worried that the Ultrahorde who serve Despoticus would be too much of a slog in mission 3.

 

Quick spoiler about when things happen, and why -

 

Spoiler

I really want the character to fight Despoticus before getting their powers back to full (i.e. either getting incarnates back or having all of Despoticus' Ultrahorde be underlings again.) The fight against Despoticus is usually won or lost by how a player clears out the Ultrahorde around Despo, at least in my test runs. So I wanted the Ultrahorde to be tough, and in the conceit I set up in the first mission, the player is nigh untouchable by the Ultrahorde.

 

Mission 4's purpose is really just to spawn an ambush of underling Ultrahorde when the Disempowerment Device is damaged, to indicate that power is returning to the character, since the Ultrahorde members are no longer relatively tough. (This is why there aren't any big Ultrahorde goons around, since the player might not fight them going to the device, and we'd have underling Ultrahorde on the map and also Boss Ultrahorde at the same time, and I wanted to avoid that.) It might feel like a let-down, but I just wanted to straight-forwardly wrap up the power situation. I could make 3 individual dopplegangers with separate dialog, but I went the lazy route and made one instance with a quantity of 3. I'll acknowledge that could be better of me.

 

The reason there's more than one rescue mission - mission 1 is to establish how the Ultrahorde are puny, mission 2 is there it elevate them to bosses as a means of showing that you've been weakened. I'm sorry the NPCs don't return - but they've been depowered and are not as heroic as the player. I'm glad you wanted more Clue Lass and Invinci-Belle - their presence in mission 2 and this unexplored soap opera with Arbiter Sands was there mostly to differentiate the mission from the by-the-numbers rescue in mission 1. (I'm lying, this mission had them because I wanted to entertain my Supergroup friend who plays Clue Lass)

 

I hear you on the anti-climactic sense of the final mission, since the big fight really happens in mission 3. I don't know if I can change that without breaking some other things I rely on (some of which I allude to in the notes above.)

 

I like your comments that OMEGOD should probably have an excuse about not knowing everything in the moment, and I'll be sure to incorporate that.

 

You've given me some other things to think about, and of course the detailed notes on typos and odd phrasings are extremely valuable. I appreciate all of that.

 

Thank you for running the arc, I'm glad Poster Girl soundly defeated Despoticus and saved Xennocentia V - even if she doesn't remember doing that.

 

 

[sponazgul]

@Police Woman, I wanted to thank you again for the feedback. I think I can incorporate some specific suggestions of yours (not exactly what you suggested but in the same lines) to make mission 4 more memorable and have it tie back to a previous mission.

 

Now I just need for my workday to end and for me to avoid household chores so I can fire up the mission editor. (I do need to fix the typos that you found as well, but the story element addition is what I am most interested in)

[Police Woman]

8 hours ago, sponazgul said:

I really want the character to fight Despoticus before getting their powers back to full (i.e. either getting incarnates back or having all of Despoticus' Ultrahorde be underlings again.) The fight against Despoticus is usually won or lost by how a player clears out the Ultrahorde

 

If you want the player to defeat the big bad guy while de-powered, instead of a head-to-head fight while depowered consider having the player either outwit the bad guy (e.g. the bad guy overreaches by absorbing too much power and dies of hubris), or have the player somehow win due to the power of friendship (allies or common people show up to help).  I think those would be the most tropey ways for a super-person to handle being depowered, though it might be tricky to represent in Mission Architect.  Still, thought I'd throw it out there in case it sparks any ideas.

[sponazgul]

49 minutes ago, Police Woman said:

 

If you want the player to defeat the big bad guy while de-powered, instead of a head-to-head fight while depowered consider having the player either outwit the bad guy (e.g. the bad guy overreaches by absorbing too much power and dies of hubris), or have the player somehow win due to the power of friendship (allies or common people show up to help).  I think those would be the most tropey ways for a super-person to handle being depowered, though it might be tricky to represent in Mission Architect.  Still, thought I'd throw it out there in case it sparks any ideas.

I appreciate the suggestions, although I’m not sure how to pull some of that off. But I’m looking forward to revamping some things in the arc.

 

I don’t think I say you’re depowered in the arc (if I do, I need to change that) you are usually referred to as weaker, or reduced in power, or underpowered. I know it tracks better if you are incarnate at the start, but I general I rely on your standing with the Ultrahorde as a relative power indicator.
 

I am going to take some of your advice on the souvenir, btw. Another great bit of feedback

 

 

[Zakur]

I went ahead and gave the arc a try. It's quite funny, and it doesn't take itself too seriously (the fact that the contact is a floating painting pretty much immediately sets that tone.) Going in with a fully slotted Invuln tanker, I didn't have too much trouble playing through this, even with increased numbers and notoriety, but I also know that most of my other toons would not have handled it so gracefully (and even so, it took me a very long time to melt through some of those groups!)

The only major criticisms I have are below:

Spoiler

Some of the custom bosses are tough in somewhat frustrating ways (fighting any boss that can use Unstoppable or any of its similar abilities is always annoying, but it's something I've been guilty of adding to a custom boss or two in my own time), and throwing in Arbiter Sands on mission 2 definitely put up a hefty difficulty wall early on. Other than that, the Ultrahorde you fight can get somewhat repetitive after facing them in missions 2-4, and the fact that all three of these missions are Arachnos maps doesn't help the repetition, either.

That being said, I enjoyed the arc thoroughly and none of these issues ruined the experience for me at all, though that may be largely due to going in with a toon that fit the recommended playstyle. It had a quirky but fun pacing and a lot of different ideas thrown in the mix that made the experience largely unique, rather than one-note.
 

Spoiler

I also thought the main gimmick of the enemies growing stronger while you grow weaker was a cool idea!

Thanks for putting this arc together, it was a fun ride.

[sponazgul]

12 minutes ago, Zakur said:

I went ahead and gave the arc a try. It's quite funny, and it doesn't take itself too seriously (the fact that the contact is a floating painting pretty much immediately sets that tone.) Going in with a fully slotted Invuln tanker, I didn't have too much trouble playing through this, even with increased numbers and notoriety, but I also know that most of my other toons would not have handled it so gracefully (and even so, it took me a very long time to melt through some of those groups!)

 

 

Thanks for running it! You ran through an updated version of the arc, which had the final mission heavily revamped (you probably experienced some weird typos too that I just fixed.)

 

I need to go back and replay it with a bunch of my characters - in general, even though I intended it for a tank (for thematic reasons) my high end ranged characters tended to do pretty well being able to thin the Ultrahorde before having to deal with Despo.

 

This is one of those arcs that I'll replay in the future just to see how well a character will do, or if I want a certain experience, you know, the Of Course I Must Have Defeated the Ultrahorde Amongst the Rings of Saturn One Time type of experience.

 

I also made this arc largely for my SG colleague who plays Clue Lass, and who was the creator of the concept of her patron OMEGOD and the effects of Cosmic Unawareness.

[sponazgul]

Fun fact about the alien language text in the souvenir for the arc -

 

Spoiler

≠₪↑↕⌠ ↓∂∞ ⌐∂∩ ⌂≠∂℮℮•↕⌠ ◊○⌂℮∂≠•€∞⌂! ↓∂∞ ↑∩○ ≠∩∞∆↓ ⌂∞℮○∩ - ∂₡○⌠∂◊

 

Translates to "Thank you for stopping Despoticus! You are truly super - OMEGOD"

 

When I wrote the EXPLODING PLANET mission arc (arc 22784) that takes place on the last few hours of Krypton, except for the brief time that your character is gifted with the ability to understand alien language, all spoken text by characters on Krypton is in Kryptonian, using an alphabet made up of characters like the above. (It's just a one-for-one substitution, turning English text into those symbols. I wrote a Javascript program so I could write text and have it output Kryptonian.)

 

(Well, mostly one-for-one. For no real reason, both Ks and Gs in Kryptonian use the same character ⌠ - no, I can't give a good reason for doing that. I just liked it at the time.)

 

I was just very pleased to do that, since I could embed Easter Eggs into the mission which otherwise could not be explicitly infringing.

 

Edited yesterday at 02:27 AM by sponazgul

[sponazgul]

11 hours ago, Zakur said:

The only major criticisms I have are below:

  Hide contents

 

  Hide contents

Wanted to follow up a bit more - I hear you about that one character in mission 2, who might even be more of a challenge than Despoticus. I am married to the concept of having him there, largely for meta-reasons involving Clue Lass and Not Clue Lass.

 

Reusing the Arachnos style maps was just the easiest way to present various creepy space tyrant locales, including his spaceship. I wish we had more variety of maps available.

 

As for the one boss (that isn’t Despoticus) who has a very annoying power (I know exactly what you are talking about) - avoiding him and going for the objective to complete the mission is also an option. In theory, once you are at full power, you would eclipse them again. Although he is a fun opponent to bring down.

 

 

[Zakur]

6 hours ago, sponazgul said:

Wanted to follow up a bit more - I hear you about that one character in mission 2, who might even be more of a challenge than Despoticus. I am married to the concept of having him there, largely for meta-reasons involving Clue Lass and Not Clue Lass.

 

Reusing the Arachnos style maps was just the easiest way to present various creepy space tyrant locales, including his spaceship. I wish we had more variety of maps available.

 

As for the one boss (that isn’t Despoticus) who has a very annoying power (I know exactly what you are talking about) - avoiding him and going for the objective to complete the mission is also an option. In theory, once you are at full power, you would eclipse them again. Although he is a fun opponent to bring down.

 

 

It's totally fine if you decide you absolutely want that enemy to be there, especially if it's for story reasons. What I might advise in similar situations in the future would be to include a decently strong ally to assist in fighting them, whether it be for heals, buffs, or extra damage, just to make facing an early enemy that strong a less demanding ordeal. People can get frustrated facing a powerful threat early into the arc, and it's best to avoid that if you can, but sometimes it just can't be helped with what you're trying to accomplish. The fact that there is an intended playstyle meant for this arc that is clearly stated and handles this enemy well does offset some of this issue, but it might be a good quality-of-life decision to make regardless.

In regards to the maps, I feel you there. You could consider using maps like darker Praetorian lab maps where the atmosphere doesn't need to be quite as specific, but they may not be what you're trying to go for. It is something to keep in mind when trying to make a series of missions that are interesting to play back-to-back, but repeated map types shouldn't be enough to ruin the experience. At worst, it keeps the arc from being perfect, but perfect isn't always what you need to be going for anyways. (Case in point, my most recent arc commits the cardinal sin of using a large Council Caves map, and it does also use two tech maps in a row.)

It is nice that some of these foes are optional and can be avoided if played carefully, and it certainly helps to know that, if that foe is too strong, you can simply play around them instead of being stopped hard by them. Just keep in mind that some people will see that enemy and assume, for one reason or another, that they have to be dealt with.

Again, I don't think any of the problems I listed are catastrophic, and the arc is still very solid and enjoyable.

[sponazgul]

1 hour ago, Zakur said:

It's totally fine if you decide you absolutely want that enemy to be there, especially if it's for story reasons. What I might advise in similar situations in the future would be to include a decently strong ally to assist in fighting them, whether it be for heals, buffs, or extra damage, just to make facing an early enemy that strong a less demanding ordeal. People can get frustrated facing a powerful threat early into the arc, and it's best to avoid that if you can, but sometimes it just can't be helped with what you're trying to accomplish. The fact that there is an intended playstyle meant for this arc that is clearly stated and handles this enemy well does offset some of this issue, but it might be a good quality-of-life decision to make regardless.

 

 

I appreciate this perspective - and I kind of understand that not everyone is going to enjoy one of my stories. (I've had people quit some arcs because they just weren't patient enough to complete the first mission - EXPLODING PLANET filters out the impatient, but once you've done it once, that mission is a breeze.)

 

I've been know to add strong allies on some mission maps - in Clash of the Communist Kaiju, the penultimate mission allows you to accumulate (optionally) two sets of 3 Canadian War Machines (3 Cataphracts, 3 re-skinned Sieges) and a reprogrammed Fake Nemesis as allies. But there's an opponent on that map that will destroy all of those allies. But it's an opponent you don't have to take down.

 

I like for there to be the potential for a spectacle (I mean, I'd suggest a team if one wants to do the hardmode for that mission and take out the giant monster) instead of everything being so tightly scripted that every element is essential. Sometimes it's fun just to do things.

 

Part of the joy of making an AE arc is making it so you enjoy playing it yourself. It should then be good for others, but only to a point. (For example, no farmer will enjoy any of my stories, I suspect.)