Mr_Squid

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overuse of special maps

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I'm curious about this bit here, since one of my arcs ends up using nothing BUT special maps. Do you mean that using unique maps just for the hell of it is bad, but using them for story purposes is fine? Or do you mean that using nothing but special maps period is bad?

Alright Quincy...you've sat around in your ivory tower long enough!

*Whips out Magma rifle, goes Krakatoa on your [censored]*

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Dramatic description of you losing consciousness?

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Yep, that's what the debriefing is.

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Sounds like a bad Keanu Reeves movie..

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Even good Keanu Reeves movies sound like Bad Keanu Reeves Movies.

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There are a few good movies that had Keanu Reeves in them, but there are no good Keanu Reeves movies.

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Name three.

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Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.







c'mon. you know that's a good movie.

(edit: You can tell by how many other people say so. I'm sure he's so proud of that movie too.)

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Thats the only Keanu Reeves movie I have ever seen where he does not play the character I have nicknamed "sleepy".

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Can you enter one arc split into three parts?

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SOrry Squid. But due to the fact that MA limits their arcs in the MA to 5. I need to limit any story arc to 5. Partially due tot he fact that there will be so many that the judges have to run. Asking them to run one persons that only has 2 missions as opposed to one that has 15-20 missions is really a very tall task to request of them.

If there is a way to condense it into 5 then please by all means feel free to enter it. But I must say no to a multiple part arc.

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Sorry!

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It's okay!

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Can you enter one arc split into three parts?

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SOrry Squid. But due to the fact that MA limits their arcs in the MA to 5. I need to limit any story arc to 5. Partially due tot he fact that there will be so many that the judges have to run. Asking them to run one persons that only has 2 missions as opposed to one that has 15-20 missions is really a very tall task to request of them.

If there is a way to condense it into 5 then please by all means feel free to enter it. But I must say no to a multiple part arc.

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Can you enter one arc split into three parts?

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I still believe you to be a sadist, Mr. Squid.
Eleven Missions?
That isn't a Mission Arc, that's a Career!

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Oh come now. You don't have to run them all at once. Besides, most of the high end blueside content consists of arcs this length. The only difference is that those arcs are monotonous as all getout. My arc is awesome.

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Last I had hear Rularuu is just too big to use.

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And that's exactly why he should be in game!

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i take you have read the gnostic gospels and such stories?

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Actually, I have not. Although I did hear about them back during school...going to have to hunt those down.

Thanks for the heads up about tags as well. Be sure to add them in. I've honestly never been fond of tags, since they break immersion, but I recognize the necessity. Thankfully, I15 looks like it is going to correct this.

When you drive by a row of black and white mailboxes and reach for your tab key because you think they are skulls. (Happened to my dad)

When you come to a plaque and are surprised to not see a big blue hand appear over it. (happened to me)

Thanks for the glowing review! This arc was pretty much my way of taking the ten years of going to Catholic school I had to suffer through and making them worth something. I'm not Christian myself, but I respect the philosophy and recognize that I do have a heavy Christian background.

So in a way, this arc is a tribute to the religion I denied, yet respect.

Can you enter one arc split into three parts?

*GIGA...ASTERIX.....BREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!!!!!!!*

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The model for him is for the Cathedral of Pain Trial, in which you do fight Rularuu or at least an aspect thereof. That said, since it's been offline for a long time now and likely to remain so at least until base raids are fixed if not longer, perhaps it's time to use him for something else and revamp the Trial at a later date.

Interesting and creative notion, though.

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From what I've heard, that's just a renamed Ruludak. I want the BIG model seen in the above link.

So... Rularuu. We have a model for him in the game files, and we have a bit of backstory for him. But we never actually get to fight him. So what would a confrontation with Rularuu be like? This thread is for you to put forth your ideas on what this epic confrontation would be like.

Here's my idea:

The raid takes place in a special instanced zone called the palace of rularuu, which accomadates a maximum of 24 players at a time (enough for three full teams). Both heroes and villains can join. The raid begins by dropping players into a massive labyrinthine map, resembling the Rularuu caves in layout, but looking more like the interior of the Chantry on the inside. On this map would be placed the Seven aspects of Rularuu (see the above link for descriptions of all of them), scattered throughout the map. Once all seven aspects are defeated, a portal opens up in the center of the map. Clicking this portal warps players up to an open air area. Once all players on the map have passed through the portal, Rularuu himself spawns.

Rularuu himself only has three powers, detailed below.

Deific Blast: This is an autohit, aoe, INSTANT KILL. Any players hit with it are dinged for one point of damage to negate the one-shot code, then slammed for over a million points of damage. It is on a thirty second timer.

Aura of madness: A PBAOE aura that does high psychic damage DoT, and has a chance for confuse.

Immortality: Rularuu is completely immune to all damage and effects. Period.

However, Rularuu is also surrounded by seven "Psyche fragments" which resemble large white orbs of energy that follow him around. Each of these orbs is an archvillain. There is a Strength fragment, a Cruetly fragment, a Greed fragment, a Foresight fragment, a memory fragment, a Madness fragment, and a Kindness fragment. Each of these fragments will constantly spawn mobs corresponding to the enemies it represents (Brutes for strength, Wisps for cruelty, Natterlings for Greed, Eyeballs for Foresight, Reflections for Memory, Storm elementals for madness, and "Empathics" for kindness, which are pretty much little white blobs that spam empathy powers).

Now when all seven of the fragments have been defeated, Rularuu splits into his seven aspects. Players then have thirty seconds to kill as many of the aspects as possible before he reforms, at which point Rularuu loses 1/7th of his HP for each aspect defeated. The process then repeats until Rularuu is defeated.

So whats the basic strategy you ask? Well players split into three teams. A taunt team, a mob team, and a fragment team. The taunt team should be composed of tankers and players with rez powers. Their job is to well, taunt Rularuu. Every thirty seconds though, rularuu will instantly kill the player taunting him, so it is imperitive that everyone stays away from that player, and that he is ressurected posthaste.

The Mob team's job is to clear the mobs as they spawn from the fragments. They should ideally consist of players with control effects and heavy aoe's to ensure the mobs fall as quickly as possible, and that they don't harm the members of the fragment team, as the mobs spawned automattically aggro onto anyone attacking a fragment.

The fragment team's job is to clear the fragments. They can pretty much consist of anyone who can do enough damage. One or two bubblers should also be in here to keep the confuse effect from aura of madness off everyone.

Once Rularuu goes down, you get your merits, or some other little token prize...I don't know...a special IO or something which is part of an incredibly powerful set.

Given the opening of part two. It would make NO sense at all for your contact to talk to you. For clarifications sake I'm going to spoil it right here. Since part one ends with the destruction of Atlas Park and you getting knocked out cold, part two opens with you in the destroyed atlas park map waking up 3 days later. Now how could you contact talk to you then?

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As for lack of closure...well it's really supposed to be one arc that's just been split into three parts. I really don't know what else to tell you here, but I just hope players will recognize that...


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Having run this arc I think I know what the problem is: the "closure" or "what happens" explanation appears in a clue after you defeat the boss. Lots of people miss those (and I noticed the last sentence in the clue is in dark purple, which is very hard to see against the game background). I would suggest repeating what happened in an end-of-mission popup, or in the contact's return text.

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I read the clues for sure. My main point is that the lack of something along the lines of even a "Good job, $name! But we're not finished yet!" in the return dialogue of the last mission just kind of leaves it hanging. Like I said earlier, a lot of people aren't going to sit down and play through all three at once. The separate arcs should be treated like chapters of a novel or episodes of a television show. A sense of closure on the events of the chapter or episode, but with the plot still open for development in the later parts.

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Well...you kind of get put in a minor coma...Kind of hard for your contact to talk to you when your braindead...

*Pulls out my nerf vulcan. Hits the next poster with 25 nerf darts in 8 seconds.*

Full list of changes can be found in the feedback thread.

List of changes. 5/5/09.

Critters/custom groups:
-Changed primary powersets for the Nephilim, Seraphims, and Sephs to "hard", removing nuke powers.
-Name Change."Nephs" to "Sephs".
-Name Change. "Reason of Xhantranos" to "Mind of Xhantranos"

Text:
-Part 1: Mission 5: Removed mission completion clue, moved its text to the mission debriefing.
-Part 1: Mission 5: Changed "Kings Row" to "Atlas Park"
-Part 1: Mission 3: Removed nav text from Vanguard Sergeant allies.
-Part 2: Mission 5: Edited completion text.

Objectives:
-Part 1: Mission 3: Changed Sergeant Joan from "Non Combat" to "Agressive"
-Part 2: Mission 2: Changed ally placement from "Any" to "front"
-Part 2: Mission 4: Changed escort objective to release captive. Bug rendered mission impossible to complete when it was an escort.

Misc: Edited most of the Rikti dialogue to make it sound more "Rikti-ish"

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As for lack of closure...well it's really supposed to be one arc that's just been split into three parts. I really don't know what else to tell you here, but I just hope players will recognize that...


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Having run this arc I think I know what the problem is: the "closure" or "what happens" explanation appears in a clue after you defeat the boss. Lots of people miss those (and I noticed the last sentence in the clue is in dark purple, which is very hard to see against the game background). I would suggest repeating what happened in an end-of-mission popup, or in the contact's return text.

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Good idea, will do.

*sees what KC is doing to early_girl. Runs off screaming, smacks right into the next poster.*

Thanks for the review LaserJesus! Couple of points to touch on.

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I didn't see a single custom LT in the group.

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They had to be cut. Originally that mission was filled with nothing but Rularuu eyeballs, which fit the theme of "Infinite eyes" but were ridiculously overpowered. So I cooked up a little custom group to take their place. However, the filesize was REALLY tight at this point, and putting in the customs pushed it up to 105%. So I cut some objectives and clues, but only dented that number. So I just said screw it and removed the lieutenants.

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Unfortunately, the AI concerning nova style powers is really screwed up. I've only ever seen it used properly by custom enemies who are energy blast and dark blast. Every other time I've seen the custom enemies use it immediately as you fight them, meaning that as soon as you get up by them, there's an inferno in your face. The same problem exists with the bosses, who are extreme psychic blast. Psychic blast doesn't have aim, but it still has psychic wail, which can be a real problem for some ATs and powersets. For this reason alone, I would suggest putting the bosses and the Nephalim on hard difficulty for both of their blasts, as it's no fun to charge into a group of enemies and instantly get smashed with a nova. It's also especially bad on the bosses, because on a large team you're going to have multiple psychic blast enemies who will all hit the melee characters with a ton of psychic damage immediately. Goodbye, most tanks, and soon goodbye team.

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I noticed the Seraphim doing this when we ran it last night as part of an event on our server. I'll change it to hard.

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I would suggest changing Hro'Dtohz to a Rikti Priest in the third mission. A Rikti Priest attacking would make a lot of sense, as the job of the Rikti Priests is to ensure that abberant thoughts are crushed. Having one lead the purge of the religious sect would be more appropriate than a general.


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I wanted to do this, but since Rikti Priests only show up during Rikti invasions, they have a level range of 30-30. So using them would mean nerfing players down to level 30 with no real explanation.

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In the last mission, the intro text says that the hole opened over Kings Row, yet the nav bar, mission accept text, and map all say that it is Atlas Park where you are fighting.

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Lack of proofreading on my part. Originally that mission took place on that big outdoor king's row map, but I changed it to fit better with the beginning of part two.

As for lack of closure...well it's really supposed to be one arc that's just been split into three parts. I really don't know what else to tell you here, but I just hope players will recognize that...

Well thank you very much for the detailed review anyway, and I will be implementing some of your suggestions now.

*Deftly grabs Kheldarn in midair, spins him around, shoves a grenade down his throat, and hurls him at the next poster*

*Stomps back into thread with Madcat MK II, starts going crazy with the gauss rifles*