Lazarus
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Posts
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Joined
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Simply layering new content on top of old content and never revamping the old content just makes the old stuff look even worse. Especially the really old pre-CoV stuff from before the Dev learned their lessons on how players hate pointless zone travel, redundant missions (why are there three huge labs with a single computer each instead of one lab with three computers?), contacts who refuse to give out cell phones and pointless defeat all after defeat all.
Hell, the old hero TFs would be greatly improved with 1/3 to 1/2 of the missions cut out and the rest adjusted to consolidate the story better instead of making it pointlessly drawn out. Especially those damn shadow shard TFs and their 'your monument is in another cave' syndrome. -
Quote:Then tell that author to get their butt in here and to submit their group. If they can't be bothered to do so then so what?Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
What if I don't have an arc with a custom group that I would like to enter? What if I think another author has created a wonderful custom group that should be recognized? Shouldn't I be able to give this author some kudos?
Because the screenshots help get players interested in playing the arcs in the first place?Quote:Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
I would also suggest that screenshots of the custom group are far less important than actually playing through the arc in question and seeing how well-balanced and fun to fight the group is. -
Now this I can really get behind.
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Quote:CoT maps spawn the crystals randomly. I use non-random maps in my arcs and over many test runs I've seen times where a CoT map had no crystrals, a few crystals, or tons of them and it was the same maps every time.Originally Posted by Smash_Zone
It was a small map when I played it, so there weren't any crystals in my way. You should find a small map that's easy to maneuver around until the bug is fixed.
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Quote:It's even lampshaded by the civvies walking past it.Originally Posted by Redlynne
Especially the one in Faultline.
Frickin' Faultline has an AE building in it?!?
"Faultline has not improved at all but they were able to get this massive building built overnight?" -
Quote:It even has Vanguard turrets and HVAS units guarding it, how is that a good use of resources?Originally Posted by Lady Arete
/signed.
Why that Entertainment building, is in a ..... warzone and not destroyed yet is beyond me.
The co-op AE should have been in Pocket D right from the start. -
Quote:To quote what a friend of mine has said before, and it rings true as ever: "Gameplay should not compromise story and story should not compromise gameplay. If either is happening then you need to rethink what you're doing."Originally Posted by GlaziusF
So?Quote:Originally Posted by ReclusesPhantom
I would, but the character's sets are supposed to be like that..
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Quote:I'll agree that there was no need to have an AE building in nearly every damn zone, even more so on the heroside with all the extra zones that they have which are often empty (who hangs out in IP instead of Talos anyway?)Originally Posted by Smash_Zone
Yes, lots of people still use AE. I've actually noticed an increase in activity in the past week. The problem isn't that nobody is playing AE, it's the fact the since there's an AE building in every friggin' zone that all the players are spread out. This gives the illusion that all the AE buildings are empty.
Plus, what do you mainly do in the AE buildings? Play missions. People are still using AE, but you just can't see them.
I really don't like how spread out the buildings are, though. I would say have only a few for both sides. For heroes, have one in Atlas Park, Steel Canyon, and Peregrine Island. For villains, Have one in Mercy Island, Port Oakes, and Grandville. It would make the AE building a more universal place to gather, and would make it easier to get a team for AE missions.
It was quickly demonstrated in beta that most people gravitated to one or two AE buildings. They should have gone with that and had just an AE in a few "hub" zones but far enough away from the high-traffic areas like trains/ferrys and Wentworths/Black Market to cut down on the lag that they induced. One or two buildings in the out of the way zones would have sufficed for those who wanted to avoid the crowds, and an AE added on to Pocket D would have made much more sense than on in the RWZ anyway.
Super-sidekicking would have been a great boon to AE for the non-farmers. Not every arc had every mission compressed into a single-level range and the hardest part of getting teams going was making the level spread even by playing the mentor game. Plus people would complain if they'd get no XP, but at the same time not everyone wants to play just level 50 arcs with level 50 enemy groups all the time either.
Reversing or at least softening some of the nerfs will be critical to luring people back to AE. It would also help a lot if they'd go into the database and somehow clear out most of these old broken, duplicate arcs and abandoned nerfed farms. The search list is cluttered with so much garbage and noise, a recent attempt at using the random button turned up dozens of arcs that had never gotten a single rating since i14 launched, duplicate arcs that apparently resulted from someone hitting publish over and over and never unpublishing the extra copies, and lots of blatant copyright infringing arcs that have no ratings anyway. -
Vikki Vandale loves Christmas!
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Quote:You're warned before you even begin the arc if there are customs in it. If you don't like it then don't play the damn arc.Originally Posted by Shubbie
Yes but you choose to put them in there knowing they are bad rewards.
This is as retarded as the guy who claimed he will 1-star any arc if he runs into a defeat all, ignoring the fact that he is warned ahead of time if he bothers to even read the arc info before hitting Play. -
Arc ID: 337333
Arc Title: Captain Skylark Shadowfancy and the Tomorrownauts of Today!
Author: @The Cheshire Cat
Morality: Heroic
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 30-34
Description: Join the Tomorrownauts as they battle against the nefarious Baron Doomsday and his legion of Doomsday Droids! Marvel at the great ocean we call OUTER SPACE! Strap on your jetpack and get ready for a completely accurate glimpse into the WORLD OF TOMORROW!
Rating: *****
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Character used: Tectonia, Level 34 Earth Control/Earth Assault Dominator
Difficulty: +0/x1/Yes Bosses/No AVs
Level for Arc Playthrough: 34
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Mission 1:
Red is quite overused in the mission text, this is always a peeve of mine as it really should be reserved for things like AV warnings. Amyhow, off to the Moon I go!
The Generators were using the Mainframe model, better fix that bug. The completion text for the computer also has a typo. Unfortunately due to the layout of the map, I ended up finding all the generators, computer, and defeated Baron Doomsday without coming across any of the captured Tomorrownauts. I eventually found them after clearing the map to see if there were any other neat surprises, like the mysterious Observer.
We will rock you!
But the Fear Ray was nowhere to be found!
Mission 2:
On noes, the Baron's true plot was to get captured so that he could gain entry to Tomorrownauts HQ! We must secure the UNIVAC!
Huh, two of those creepy Observer aliens. Not suspicious at all, nosiree.
Of course it was all a trap set by the dastardly Baron Doomsday! Now Void Hunters are overruning the base and I need to find a terminal to find out what happened.
Don't flip out too much, Baron Doomsday.
And the creepy Observer is following me now.
Ok, getting annoyed here. Where is this damn terminal, I've been all the way back to the beginning of the map. Finally found it after my 2nd trip back to the front of the map and now I have to fight this "Overlord" after my domination bar has run dry.
Mission 3:
Well the annoying glowie hunt in the previous mission took a lot of the wind out of my sails, let's see if the third mission can address that.
Enough with the red text already!
Looks like the UNIVAC is infested with giant mutant spiders, how did this happen? Regardless, Tecy makes them go squish!
You should move this glowy in the front room, it spawned in a hard to see spot and I almost missed it entirely.
Seems to be a lot more of these Observers now. How ominous.
It also seems that Baron Doomsday, like Drakule, always needs defeating.
Mission 4:
So apparently the UNIVAC itself is somehow creating the wormhole that is allowing the Nictus to invade the Earth and destroying it would leave us defenseless as it runs our entire defense network. Time to learn an important less about single points of failure, boys and girls!
However there is an alternative and it involves visiting the Flesh Temple on Deimos. Tomorrownauts, roll out!
And here I was expecting the author to use the Johnny's Hell map again.
It isn't long before I met the Cult Leader. Ah Cheshire Cat, you never fail to bring the creepy. Are all these Galaxies supposed to be cult members? I've seeing a lot of them and very little of this cult.
Defeat the Meat Golem, who could that be I wonder?
Time to find out what these Watchers are up to, a bit annoying that I had to backtrack to find them rather than them appearing in the same room as the Meat Golem.
Overseer mounting stand not included.
Finally some answers. I'm out of here, if the Baron really is somewhere I can't be bothered to backtrack through this long map to find him. It would have made more sense for him to have appeared along the way to begin with.
Mission 5:
Of course now the Baron has really done it and Nictus are invading the Earth en masse. It's time to put an end to this once and for all!
Have spacesuit, will travel.
If you have room you might want to replace some of the patrols in these missions with separate ones that have different dialog. It gets repetitive fast hearing the same lines over and over.
Now that I picked up Captain Shadowfancy and a couple of robo-buddies, it's time to beat down Baron Doomsday and I see that he has taken a level in badass since the last time we met. Giving him Dark Regen is a bit extreme as he healed over 1000 HP just off of one target!
Regardless the Tomorrownauts triumphed and broke the Baron's control of the Nictus. Still, a Tomorrownaut's job is never done...
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The Verdict:
This was a very fun arc, though it is not without it's flaws. Fortunately most of them can be easily addressed with the exception of the Void Hunters who will give any Kheld player a fit once they see so many of them. -
Quote:Which is what the rest of the artists wanted as well, and damn well told the Devs that this would happen if they had pushed through the issue 16 nerfs in their proposed state. The nerf to all-boss missions was more than enough to kill the majority of the farms, the custom critters nerf was just rubbing salt into the wounds and screwed over the non-farmers much worse.Originally Posted by UberGuy
I don't really give a damn what a little segment of "real" artists want; I want a tool the general CoH gamer wants.
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I got a new one that I'd like some feedback on.
Arc ID: 347029
Arc Title: Breaking The Barrier (And Putting It Back Together)
Factions: Soldiers of Rularuu, Malta Operatives, Nagans
Morality: Heroic
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 40-54
Description: A group of aliens may have bit off more than they can chew when an experiment with stolen portal technology threatens the stability of the Universe itself, allowing the soldiers of Rularuu free access to our dimension. (Sequel to arc# 3326 "The Portal Bandits") -
Changes made to "Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together)":
* Corrected some typos and grammatical errors.
* Overhauled the 4th mission, it is no longer possible to fail it. -
Changes made to "Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together)":
* Found a replacement map for mission 1 that had similar spawn placements to the ones that I required but didn't have a massive amount of enemies right at the front door.
* Beefed up some spawns in the 2nd mission that seemed too small and weak.
* Changed the Nagan Roboticist and Takala to have Willpower instead of Regen as their secondary. This makes them a bit tougher and more similar to Suziku. All other arcs using these critters have also been updated.
Still working on a replacement for mission 4. -
Quote:Fun story about dying videocards. I was playing the Resurrection of Evil add-on for Doom 3 and while fighting the final boss I was hit by a fireball.Originally Posted by Kheldarn
As for what killed your card, I'm surprised nobody threw out it being a Nemesis Plot. Personally, I say it's because your card didn't have enough bacon.
My screen suddenly went back and the computer died, turned out that the fans on the videocard had died earlier and the card had just finally had too much.
At least there was no smell of brimstone. -
Not many plays so far, but sounds like I might need to find an alternative objective for mission 4 as players are reporting problems with it being too easy to fail.
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Quote:/SignedOriginally Posted by Star_Seer
There should be a way to have a named boss (not lt.) at the end of a mission without having to slog your way through endless bosses to get there.
Bosses are like EBs and AVs, something that is fun time to time but gets old fast when they're thrown at you every other turn.
As for the -1 setting, I don't use it because I don't want to fight even weaker minions and LTs who will die even faster than normal. I want the option for more non-bosses without downgraded bosses either as they can still be a PITA even when a LT but I still want that named boss at the end like we used to get. -
Yes, as long as you have at least 1 of each rank.
Note that this is waived in boss details, you can have the boss be from an all-boss group and won't be penalized in that instance. -
Quote:The weirdest instance I've ever had of this was way back around issue 1 (back before we had any difficulty options at all and a +1 Boss at the front of the mission was not uncommon when soloing) when I got a Tsoo mission where the first room was all +1s and +2s. Then for some reason as I went up through the floors of the office building the levels kept dropping until finally at the end of the mission I found the named boss, who was a -2 LT.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
They even had what I can only assume were legitimately "front-loaded" and "back-loaded" missions. Anyone still remember those? You'd enter a mission and find the enemies all -2 and someone on the team would go "Oh, it's backloaded!" or you'd enter a mission, find all enemies +2 to +3 and someone would clasp his hands and go "Oh, GOD I hope this is frontloaded!" They removed this, but at least part of the idea behind it (provided it was intentional) seems to have been to add variety.
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Quote:Especially annoying in the really early levels when you're only using TOs, if even that, and every other mission seems to think that you're going to level 10 seconds in and fills with +1s like it's doing you a favor.Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
The #1 change I'd make to missions spawns in general is to remove the +1 spawns whatsoever. If I'm fighting enemies of my own level, it's usually because I can't fight, say, enemies +1 to my level... so why do mission maps have about half the spawns at +1 of what the mission's level happens to be? Does that work when you set the spawns to +5, and you get +6s instead?
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I just want Tenacious back, none of the new settings come even close to that now. Either the spawns are too big or too small, too many bosses or none at all.
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Quick Review:
Arc ID: 338380
Arc Title: Talos Vice
Author: @PW
Morality: Heroic
Length: 3 Missions
Level Range: 12-20
Description: An 80s instrumental blares as the camera pans over scenes of Talos Island: windsurfers on the water, the Talos statue, shoppers in Wentworth's, bikini babes, sports cars racing down the Argo Highway, a speedboat bouncing on the waves. A title card appears over the waters racing below: TALOS VICE.
Quick Review: While it seems odd that the arc is actually set below the level of Talos Island and features few of the enemies indigenous to that zone, it was still a fun bit of nostalgia for anyone who is familiar with Miami Vice and 80's TV shows in general.
Rating: ***** -
So are we only going to see the Freaks and Warriors if we play at the max level for the arc? I just played it at 18 and only saw Trolls, Outcasts, and Hellions in that group.
It just seems odd that "Talos" Vice features so few of the enemies who naturally occur in Talos Island.