Venture

Arc #1153, "Chocolatier Wars!"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: overpowered mobs for a joke arc

Reviewed on: 5/21/2009
Level Range: 1-54/1-54/45-54
Character used: Cat Stevie/Virtue

Maestro wants you to save the Fruit wing of the World Chocolate Exhibition from a Goldbrickers attack. It seems that chocolate is one of the few pleasures he still enjoys since losing his hearing, and who can blame him.... The Goldbrickers in question turn out to be Elite Goldbrickers, a custom faction with a variety of annoying powers. Expect massive debuffs -- I kept seeing resistance hit -90% or so and Defense down in the -20%s. There are three chocolatiers to rescue, Dutch, German and French, along with optional "samples" to try out. All three ask if they can put you down for a dozen boxes, in their own langauges. The samples are fairly exotic stuff like Dark Chocolate and Cayenne Pepper. (Which is quite good...I used to get something similar in a sugar free variety made by Vosges from the local Whole Foods; sadly they don't carry it any more.) In the debriefing Maestro complains that they've put the Gingered Pumpkin Pralines in the fruit section when pumpkin isn't a fruit under the exhibition rules, but also lets slip that the new company entering the chocolate market is Crey.

While Maestro has had his Council forces protect the Nut wing, it seems someone has made off with a prototype Praline Extruder. You're sent in to retrieve it. I almost immediately ran into a Midas Touched Goldbricker Super Strength/Sonic Resonance Boss at +2 that killed me in two shots (over 2300 points of damage in about four seconds...dead through Dull Pain and IH). I also spotted a custom Crey Concher unit with Dual Blades, didn't catch the secondary. Once you locate the Praline Extruder you have to return to Maestro to have his people transport it due to its weight, but not before it spits out a huge supply of Hazelnut Caramel Pralines for you.

Finally, Maestro discovers the Fruit wing was so overcrowded because of a new wing dedicated to artificial chocolates. Needless to say this is overrun by Crey products, which not only suck but Crey has altered the stimulants in the chocolate so that anyone who eats them will only be able to experience pleasure by eating Crey Chocolate. This has him hopping mad, of course, so in you go again. You have to destroy the machines being used to produce the vile stuff, free the 2 test subjects and deal with the Big Bad, with Maestro's help. Normally I skip allies until the end but by this point I was so fed up with the constant insane debuffs I just wanted everything to die in a fire already, so I sprung Maestro. He made short work of the Big Bad, a "Dr. Hershey" who was now composed entirely of Crey Chocolate thanks to a lab accident. He was Dark Melee/DiedTooFast. In the end, Maestro promises to have his researchers find a way to counteract the effects of Crey Chocolate on the test subjects, not out of concern for them but just to thwart Crey.

The arc is reasonably cute but the mobs are way too tough for the joke. It would work just as well, if not better, as a regular Goldbricker arc. (Unfortunately, the level 15-20 Crey mobs from Golden Roller's arc are not available in the Architect for some reason.) It might have been fun if it wasn't so annoying.

Twilight's Son says:

[ QUOTE ]

I will travel forward later to see if that had any effect.

I hate to say it was all for naught, but we have yet to be successful with this type of venture. Perhaps there is something we do not fully understand regarding the time line, some variable we haven't accurately calculated.


[/ QUOTE ]

which make is pretty clear to me: nothing you're doing on flashbacks is actually changing anything.

_Smoke and Mirrors_, for instance, is all about the idea that if you are ineffective then the CoT will win and the world will end (or be ruled by a demon).

The problem is that "Smoke and Mirrors" is a past event. It happened and the CoT lost. It doesn't matter, even from the immersed perspective, whether you run the TF and win or go home and have a sandwich instead.

At best Ouroboros might be a Set Right What Once Went Wrong deal, but for the villains that should really be reversed and it isn't. Really, the canon has a bad case of Timey Wimey Ball.

As I said, time travel is a plot device that never solves more problems than it causes. Just Say No.

Thank you for the feedback and review.

I think it's "nip it in the bud", not "snip", though.

Believe it or not, "nip" is filtered. You can say "frigging", which is a sexual reference, but not "nip". Evidently the profanity filter was calibrated by the Taliban...on crack.

Clickables are all in the back. Is that to facilitate ghosting?

I believe I have them set to "any", actually. The map generator tends to have other ideas.

It'd be kinda funny if he quoted the "official Longbow position" on matters Vanguard and then proceeded to nutpunch it, but that's just gravy.

I'm pretty sure that he did.

...I guess Director 13 was just being a petulant child when he sent the Kronos Titan over to tantrum on the walls if they could just have turned them off.

They didn't turn the walls off; they in essence dug a tunnel under them for the Rikti. The Rikti were able to teleport past the walls thanks to the temporary wormholes. Normally they can't do that.

A Vanguard patrol actually sprung one of the civvies, which makes me wonder why Crimson told me to get them out of there. Maybe "yeah, Vanguard can fight the Rikti. They'd also rather do PR than avoid collateral damage."

Vanguard wasn't going to get enough people on the scene fast enough to make a difference. The "early responders" do help out but they're toast if they wander into Ja'Dar or (gods forbid) Bluehawk Avenger.

You know, you'd think someone would object on the grounds of: working with the Rikti brings another multinational paramilitary organization (to wit, Vanguard) in direct conflict with Malta.

Had Crimson not picked up the scent, the Rikti would have been in and out and Vanguard would have been left scratching their heads wondering how it happened with no idea Malta had ever been involved. I would imagine that with Crimson's intel, they'd come up with a modification to the War Walls to keep anyone from using this trick again.

...or Ja'Dar could have put on his big boy pants. That works too. What is that, the Herodotus model?

Yep. I would rather have used an Elite Boss version of a Chief Soldier -- one AV would have been enough -- but there isn't one. I didn't want to have him climb into a Heavy Assault Suit or make him a Magus.

I do wonder if fly is counter-productive on him, though. Can he summon his robots while he's flying? It doesn't seem so. After I phoenixed I was able to pull off and mow down his bot squad and he never resummoned while I was jumpslashing him.

Mastermind summons do seem to have some quirks on custom mobs. Neither 6-3 nor Federico Poletti over in "Two Households Alike" will summon if you put a toggle debuff on them, for instance.

Thanks again!

Arc #171203, "The Nemesis Theory"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", Random Events Plot, Canon Defilement, Significant Anagrams

Reviewed on: 5/21/2009
Level Range: 40-54/25-54/35-54/33-54/33-54
Character used: Amelia Escobar/Virtue

"Magenta Rogue", a spiffy-looking custom Contact, wants your help in proving or disproving a theory about Lord Nemesis. He says the test needs to be conducted in a "double blind" format which technically means he doesn't know what he's doing, either. This is either an Architect slip-up or foreshadowing of a twist ending. Anyway, he's offering a briefcase full of cash up front, so what the heck.... Your first task is to go to the "Reed Milsons" warehouse and use a bar code scanner to identify and then destroy certain crates, then upload some software onto the warehouse's computers. Finally, you're to grab a souvenir, anything that catches your eye. The warehouse is infested with Psychic Clockwork with no real explanation as to what they're doing here. There are also some vagrants (unguarded rescues) who don't seem to mind maniacal robots but draw the line at Arachnos Widows; they just run for the door on your approach. "Crazy Old Griswold", on the other hand, is a Mace/Shield Boss who twice dropped me in two hits. None of the crates check positive. While uploading the software you swipe a Back Alley Brawler bobble-head as your souvenir. Magenta is not suprised at your findings and spills the beans on his hypothesis: he thinks Nemesis is a time traveler from the future, and that his "plans within plans within plans" is just him going back in time and trying again. That's not really compatible with the canon but the characters wouldn't know that, so onward we go....

Magenta wants you to do the same with an abandoned factory next. The place used to be a secret Council robotics facility and was purchased two years ago by the "Mynas Diesel Corporation", which is an interesting change in the anagram. Magenta explains in the acceptance text that all of this is to set a trap for Nemesis when he jumps back after his next plan fails. The map, the robotics factory from the Hess TF, is filled with Rogue Robots, including some new designs not used by the Council (typo in Mk VI info: "Counsil"). Since I was on a Widow with Lethal and Psi attacks I stealthed past anything I didn't need to kill. You have to alter 3 computers, destroy 4 fuel stores, and there are some optional objectives as well, 2 generators and a Factory Boss. The base commander turned out to be a Council Archon who claimed to know nothing about Nemesis. There is no explanation as to why a Rogue Robots facility has a Council Archon in charge of it. When you upload the software to the last computer, the whole place shuts down. Magenta tells you on your return that the whole "Prussian Prince of Automatons" is just a cover identity Nemesis set up 180 years ago, and that his "quests for immortality" and archaic-looking technology are just misdirection.

The next job is at attack at a possible Nemesis plan. Nemesis automatons have infiltrated Crey and authorized manufacture of a line of espresso machines that can actually be converted into Nemesis steam engines. You're to take a fake Paragon Protector disguise and ID card and infiltrate the manufacturing plant yourself. Magenta has phoned in a fake anonymous tip to Longbow, which will be attacking the place. When you "check in" you're to do what the check-in computer tells you to do, which will result in you either exposing or protecting the automatons. You're told after acceptance there will be a Hero leading the Longbow forces. When you enter the map the pop-up says you're to fight off the Longbow forces. There are six employees to evacuate, some of which give a Definitely Not a Nemesis Automaton speech when freed, and a "Grace Lightning" to defeat. She turned out to be a Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Boss. Afterward Magenta spits some more technobabble at you about time travel and alternate realities.

Magenta's next move is to have you destroy a historical archive building. He's already seen to it that the computer backups that will be used to reconstruct the lost records are compromised. This should result in Nemesis having an incorrect historical record to work with, assuming Magenta's theory is true. The place is staffed by automatons, all of which have to be destroyed, along with bombs to set and a few other glowies. It's a small map so not too tedious. Afterward, Magenta tells you that under his hypothesis, major Nemesis plans like the Rikti War and Brass Monday were likely the work of his other-dimensional counterparts trying to prevent the creation of this world's Nemesis, and that it's entirely possible we've never seen an actual plot from our own Nemesis.

Finally you are sent to the Miss Eyeland Optics Warehouse to defeat Nemesis, thus throwing his current plan into disarray and forcing him to skip back to the past, where/when presumably the sabotage you've committed will trap him. Notice the anagram again. Rogue starts ranting hysterically after you accept, which is not a good sign. Once in, there are 6 crates of Jaeger parts to destroy and, hopefully you've been paying attention and saw this coming, Lady Nemesis to defeat, a Energy Blast/Force Field custom AV/EB. She runs at low health, too, which is always fun on mobs with PToDs. I managed to bag her but it was pretty close. The exit popup says "As you leave the warehouse, you feel an indescribable, nearly physical shift, but in what? Something is intangibly different than what it used to be...." Magenta thinks that the fact that you found a Lady Nemesis is curious but doesn't matter. He goes on to say that "our" Nemesis is our only protection against all the other extra-dimensional Nemeses, and that he has no knowledge of the now-altered history and asks you to tell him everything. The souvenir recounts a different history from what you just played, basically leaving you with no freaking idea what the hell happened.

The arc commits a litany of offenses. It has no theme. There is nothing connecting one act to the next. It discards as false a history of Nemesis that is given in the narrative in The Web of Arachnos (IE, not given by any character but by the "omniscient narrator"). The ending is almost incomprehensible -- I think it's saying that Magenta Rogue's theory was true, but I can't be sure. This arc is an excellent example of why any fictional universe that is intended to make sense must completely and utterly avoid any use of either parallel universes or time travel, never mind both. And the anagrams...people, it is not the 1950s any more, villains "hiding" their plans behind obvious anagrams is not clever, funny or anything but tragically stupid and trite. Yes, the devs do it. They shouldn't. Don't assume the devs do no wrong.

I gave it one extra star for avoiding the usual pitfalls in a Nemesis story. Unfortunately it went out and grabbed a whole bunch of new ones.

If the Mender interventions really are completely ineffective, why bother with the whole setup at all? Do you regard the whole arc-set surrounding Issue 11 to be one big shaggy dog story?

The utter contempt I have for the entire Ouroboros affair cannot be expressed using the words available in the English language.

Ouroboros exists because completists wanted to be able to run every story arc on every character. The whole thing is just a mechanism to explain an ability that shouldn't exist in the first place. If (e.g.) the Suits handed down an order to implement "flashback" I'd have done it with something like the Architect, a "holodeck" system for re-experiencing old cases for training or research purposes.

Time travel is a story element that, frankly, should never be used. It always causes more plot problems than it solves and doesn't allow you to tell any stories you couldn't tell without it (keeping in mind that the story is the theme and the characters, not the FX and costume departments). Adding it to an MMO where Status Quo is Mandatory is just setting yourself up for the whole line of Failure Is The Only Option/Shaggy Dog/Yank The Dog's Chain/etc. line of negative tropes. The devs then compounded the error by wrapping flashback up not only in time travel, but in an obvious Nemesis plot so if you want to actually use flashback you have to either entirely discard any pretense of roleplaying or immersion or cast your character as being a complete gorram moron. (N.B. they did the same thing with the Architect.) Then, just to rub salt and lemon juice in the wound, they added the Mystery Letter Writer thing just to lampshade the fact that you're being played for a sap and there's nothing you can do about it.

It's just one huge seething, festering mass of Epic Fail.

That's right, it's not on a plaque, it was something a pedestrian said. Meaning it's even less of a secret....

Arc #1044, "The Empire - One Alliance"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", plot hole, gratuitous geography

Reviewed on: 5/21/2009
Level Range: 1-54/41-54/41-54/41-54
Character used: Venture/Virtue

"Betty Sizzle", who is talking to you over the phone from half a world away she says, asks you to check into a "random" break-in at one of her old friend's auto repair shops. He saw men in "black military clothing" around the place as he was driving up and just went past. That made me suspect Malta, but the mention of opera music playing in the background in the entry pop-up screamed Council, which is who it was. A patrol mentioned finding parts for a dimensional portal generator, which reveals this is more than an auto repair shop. Records on some computers claim the Council is trying to interfere with Malta efforts to form an alliance with some extra-dimensional group referred to as "the Empire". The likely suspect here would be the Council Empire but why would they be allying with Malta and not our Council.... The debriefing mentions the repair shop owner is named "Lou", possibly a reference to "The Clockwork Captive". Betty says she just finished busting up a Knives of Artemis cell that was experiencing some infighting, evidently over a letter from this "Empire" trying to solict the Knives' allegiance.

The computer records you found say Malta troops recently took over a Council base. While Betty is aware this might be a trick by the Council to get heroes to clear out their base for them, she wants you to hit that base while she tries to retrieve the portal tech stolen from Lou's. She says she hid the stuff there a while ago...the hell? Dimensional portal technology is not something you stash under some civilian's mattress.... But anyway, once more unto the breach. Immediately upon entry you get spammed with battle messages, Council vs. Council Empire vs. Malta. Whee. Oh, and there go the Knives. The last room contains an Ascendant Archon preaching the virtues of joining the Council Empire, a Malta TacOps name Grey Knight 06-Delta (called "Mark" by one of his captors, whom he addresses as "Susan") being held hostage by Knives, and assorted other nasties. There were at least two ambush waves, one from releasing the hostage (who bolts) and one when the Archon got low enough to pop his shield. After the dust settles Grey slips you his findings, which are that the Empire has made inroads into our world's Council, Malta and the Knives, inciting members from all to defect to them. Betty congratulates you on recovering the intel but came up dry herself; she had suspected Burkholder for the portal tech theft but it wasn't him.

Fortunately, in act III it turns out you learned something about Malta and Knives chasing Council agents into Oranbega. Betty joins you in an effort to track them down. You have to retrieve three crates and destroy two portal components. The Circle had the good sense to leave town until the wild party stopped.... An exit Clue reveals the Council goons trying to set up the portal had a list of the "Quadrumvirs", four Council Empire leaders pushing for expansion into other dimensions.

They, of course, are your targets for the last act. You are to portal over to the Council Empire world and take out the Quadrumvirs while Betty deals with the Council, Malta and Knives on our world supporting the Empire. On entry into the usual Council Empire outdoor map, you are tasked with destroying 3 portal generators and taking down "Messe, Graziani, Gambelli and Vaerst", the Quadrumvirs, along with a Knives Coordinator. Vaerst is singing a Nazi war song when you find him, and repeats an order from a French Revolutionist. Messe spits out a wall of text quoting Mussolini on approach, Gambelli quotes Alfredo Rocco, Graziani goes for Mussolini again. Most of these guys call down ambushes as they perish. Betty thanks you for another villainous plot broken up, case closed.

There isn't anything terribly wrong with this arc. There isn't anything terribly right with it, either. There is no theme, at least not one I can discern. Having the portal tech hidden in Lou's garage is a darling that really, really needs to be shot in the head. The side trip to Oranbega feels wedged in too, as if it's just there to provide a change in scenery. Except for the pretentious quotes at the end, though, the dialog is reasonably well-written. The result is a fairly middle-of-the-road arc.

I never liked Malta. I never found any arcs for them that really explained what they are and why I'm fighting them, which doesn't help. (Is there such an arc? I'm mostly redside, so probably missed it.)


Indigo and Crimson's arcs blueside spell out the big points. Crimson's one-off missions explain a lot of the small stuff.

Malta is probably the most well-designed organization in the game. Their guys look too low-tech for the most part, IMO, and we need to see more of these pet supers they're supposed to have (which is why I put one in "Blowback"), but the history and organization of the group is great. Dunno what went wrong between the creation of Malta and the creation of Arachnos.

So it should. I still have a copy of the old queue and moved it to its proper place in the new queue.

One of the arcs I have listed, #137651, is not coming up for me. This probably means I copied it down wrong. If you own this arc, or a number reasonably similar to it which is not appearing on the queue, PM me please.

As you can see I've reorganized things a bit. I've set up multiple queues separating arcs by faction, with preferred queues for the level range I'm currently bringing characters up in, and a reruns queue. My plan is to round-robin the queues, hitting the reruns queue on every third pass. I may hit the preferred queues more often; if I feel like levelling up a character and there's an appropriate mission in the queue may as well.

If you feel I've miscategorized your arc PM me. I went by the stated level range and morality listings in the AE browser.

---

Hero: 1044, 161066, 81378, 170506, 163274, 57352, 137705, 171149, 161797, 179354, 75386, 59147, 15988, 1036, 55715, 37636, 17006, 174368, 60280, 178774, 100306, 181244

Villain: 171203, 174586, 162898, 77533, 161865, 32801,

Neutral: 1153, 113956, 84420, 170547, 123675, 149323, 175675, 156389, 143017,

Hero 13-20: 49035, 132673

Villain 13-20: 103878, 114284

Neutral 13-20:

Rerun: 128109, 181165, 106553

Apropos of the discussion about multiple Diablos spawning...today, someone tried this arc with large enough team to spawn Bosses in act II's Bianchi patrols...and got multiple Katrina Bianchis. Stupid mistake on my part, since I put her into the Bianchi Family faction.

I fixed it by creating a "Bianchi Streghe" faction with her and the other two "made women", the latter also being in Bianchi Family. That should keep Katrina as a unique as that faction is only used once, for her spawn in Act I.

IWBNI when adding a mob to a faction we could flag it as "never spawn this randomly 'coz it's a unique individual" but I don't see that happening any time soon. It would really rock if we could actually assign weights to each mob, e.g. "50% Minion A, 40% Minion B, 10% Minion C" but I'm betting that's even less likely.

Can you elaborate on this? What do (did) we know about Bane Spiders that would make this scene impossible?

In "Bane of the Heart" the Bane Spiders are described as having a group mind that essentially mind-controls all Banes. They have no individuality. Of course, everything that arc says about Banes is completely and utterly subverted by the existence of VEATs so, as I said, we really have no gorram idea what to believe about them at this point.

They don't? I thought that was the point of the whole arc. You do end up with a newspaper clipping that says "Assassin unknown".

You are told early on in the tutorial that Ourboros' "interventions" don't actually change history. It has to be this way since they can't go back and edit the history plaques or Ghost Widow's patron arc to remove references to the Red Widow.

Arc #2050, 'The Outcast Outcasts"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: weak theme, telegraphed trap

Reviewed on: 5/20/2009
Level Range: 5-20/5-20/15-20/5-20
Character used: Amarantia/Virtue

An "Arachnos Arbiter" (no name given) tells you some Outcasts have moved over to the Isles from Paragon City. He's hoping to bring them into Arachnos' sphere of influence by having you smack them around a little so they'll be looking for protection. Things aren't quite so straightforward though. Poking around the warehouse you find a note about the Outcasts' plans to interfere with some villains planning to rob a nearby bank...and turn them over to Longbow. The group's leader, "Below Zero" (nice /info) tries to get you to join these "Outcast Heroes" and reform. The Arbiter thinks this is going to be a real problem and wants you to handle it.

The logical next move is to show up at that bank robbery. You've got two raid leaders to defeat and two optional villain allies to rescue. One of the leaders is carrying a map of all the other Outcast Hero bases (the clue points out this wasn't very bright) and the other rants about how they're going to overthrow Arachnos and turn the Rogue Isles into a paradise of truth and justice. The fact that Ghost Widow can probably solo their entire gang doesn't seem to factor into their calculations.

The Arbiter is pleased with your results, but it's not quite enough. He feels that if you start attacking the Outcast Heroes hideouts at random you'll tip off whoever's in charge. Fortunately, he's been contacted by a gang member who thinks this hero thing is for the birds and wants out. You're sent to bring him in. The defector's crew has just "liberated" an office building from another gang. Heading in, I smelled a trap...and I was right. The entire map was empty except for the "informant's" hostage group...and once you "rescue" him he runs for it, the map fills with patrols and two (required) Bosses spawn. The first of these was Below Zero again, and the text implies he's Killed Off For Real. The other was "Electrical Impulse". None of these really got much of a chance to use their powers. The mission complete Clue tells you that one of the Outcast Heroes gave up the name of the leader: Lightning Saint. The Arbiter apologizes for sending you into a trap and admits he should have seen it coming himself. Ideally, I think, he'd have said he knew it was a likely trap but figured either you'd get some useful information anyway or you'd get taken out and he'd know he needed someone tougher, in keeping with Arachnos' social Darwinism policies.

Time for the Fight Scene. The Arbiter figures out which of the hideouts Lightning Saint is holed up at and sends you in (with a bring-friends warning specifying he's an EB). It's a tech map; you only have to take him out. I really don't know what he was, maybe Electric Blast/Electric Manipulation; he was Confused, smacked down his own guard instantly, then got chain held and killed. (Since I was on CL1 he spawned as a Boss.) His dialog was kind of cheesy but I suspect deliberately so. The Arbiter congratulates you on nipping this outbreak of goodness and decency in the bud.

The arc does have a theme, though it doesn't really do much with it. On the other hand, the Bosses' info panels are nicely done and do convey something of their plight. The trap in Act III is badly telegraphed; even if the player isn't Genre Savvy enough to see it coming from the briefing the empty map is a giveaway. It might benefit from a fifth act.

The Behemoths don't level down that far...IIRC, the LTs might be available but not the Minions.

In any case, any solution is inadequate. What I would really prefer to do is have the first floor of the map spawn some Bianchis, just trying to hold the line until their Don can get some real supervillains over to help, and have nothing upstairs except Diablo and a pile of bodies. The only reason this is a concern at all is because I've got to let something spawn alongside him. He really ought to be alone.

Arc #101681
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", plot issues, canon issues, borderline Shaggy Dog ending

Reviewed on: 5/20/2009
Level Range: 40-54/1-54/31-54/40-54/40-54
Character used: Amelia Escobar/Virtue

You get tipped off to "Elspeth Winters", a nondescript old lady, by another villain who claims she's a goldmine. What she mainly appears to be is nearsighted: she thinks you're Manticore. She tells you she knows about a stash of valuables hidden by President Marchand before the coup and asks you to retrieve them for safekeeping in Paragon City. Why, sure.... The mission takes place in an Arachnoid cave, which unfortunately is not devoid of actual Arachnoids. There are also a few Arachnos troops not doing very well, including a "Bane Spider Coward" hostage to rescue from other Arachnos. I'd make a comment about how this shouldn't be possible given what we know about the Bane Spiders but frankly since the VEAT rollout their lore has been such a mess it's hard to say what's supposed to be true about them now. Anyway, there are two stashes to find, one of which is in the possession of "Barclay", the self-styled "King" by virtue of his having "the Shiny". He also has a ring with the name "Elspeth" engraved on it which might be worth looking into....

When you get back to Elspeth she says a horrible villain named YourNameHere already made off with the stash before you could get there, "Manticore". She's glad you found the ring, though, which is hers. She was one of Marchand's "confidants" and knows where he hid a lot of money, documents, etc. It's been forty years though (typo: "fourty") and most of the stashes have been discovered by Arachnos. There are a few left, though, including one Marchand said was very important. She just hopes you can get there before, um, you do. It's another Arachnoid cave, and once again Arachnos is already on the scene. There are three "treasures" to find but unfortunately they are all a bust. The papers are water-damaged and unreadable, the spools of magnetic tape are ruined and there's a strange computer you can't access because you don't have the security codes for "Project Ragnarok".

Elsbeth wants to send you on another pointless art hunt, but instead you pump her for information about Marchand's journals. She tells you they're being held in an Arachnos facility but it would be great if a "hero" like "you" were to liberate them. She also says she was there the night Marchand was killed and remember seeing the assassin, that no one knows what happened to him or her afterwards. I'm not sure what to make of this. Historically Marchand was killed by the Red Widow, which is written on history plaques so presumably isn't much of a secret. This might be a reference to the Ouroboros mission but those missions don't actually change history. The Arachnos facility you're directed to has four parts of Marchand's journal to find, along with an Archivist (optional Webmaster Boss) who summons two ambush waves, one Arachnos and one Longbow. There are other Longbow ambushes and battles too...this is the third time in a row you've gotten to one of these sites only to find someone else already there, in addition to the occupants, which is suspicious. The journal fragments say Project Ragnarok was a set of nuclear weapons hidden around the islands to be used as a last-ditch scorched-earth measure. It requires Marchand's DNA to activate. Arachnos knows about it but hasn't been able to find the bombs. The journals also make a reference to Marchand getting help from Miss Liberty, which makes me think the Architect may have based this mission off the Ouroboros version of history and Did Not Do The Research. In any case, Marchand's DNA isn't preserved anywhere....

...except in Elspeth's son. Whom Arachnos is now gunning for. This one comes with a bring-a-team warning. That's for Black Scorpion, who had the indecency to spawn at +1 level. I took five defeats trying to bring him down, thanks to his ability to hit regularly through Defense near or sometimes over the cap. After that there was a long stretch of empty map, which usually means spawn points consumed by triggered patrols and the like. Sure enough, after rescuing Wallace, you get Arachnos and Longbow patrols to deal with now that you've got an escort and no stealth. I still managed to slip past most of them. Once you get Wallace out you take a blood sample from him in the hopes that it will fool the Ragnarok control computer. The debriefing has you mull over what to do with him, basically letting you insert your own decision, and moves on.

The next mission's briefing says you don't bother returning to Elspeth, that the last thing to do is return to the computer and see if Wallace's blood lets you activate it. You get another bring-a-team warning. Longbow and Arachnos have already beaten you to it, of couse, and you have to take down both team's leaders. The Arachnos leader is a Bane Executioner, not a big deal, but the Longbow one is Manticore himself, who spawned at +1 for me. I somehow managed to get him on the first try, despite him debuffing away almost all my Defense immediately. His defeat text was pretty lame. Unfortunately, as expected, Failure Is The Only Option: the Arachnos team has already destroyed the network connection for the Ragnarok computer. It allows you access but can't contact the nukes. You do remember that there are other access points, though, which might pay off in the future. When you return to Elspeth (why?) there's an ending narrative that again implies the Architect is assuming you've done the Tesseract arc in Ouroboros, which is reinforced by the souvenir.

The arc has no real theme to it and borders on a Shaggy Dog ending -- you do get some loot in the first mission and the souvenir says that Manticore gets some bad PR from losing to you five times (even if it was really just once), but as far as the main plot goes, it's all for nothing. Everywhere you go someone has beaten you to the punch, which suggests that you're being ratted out or something because otherwise it's a lot of coincidences to swallow. There's no indication of the former, though, so you're left with the latter. Finally the involvement of the Tesseract arc is very problematic. The arc does have decent gameplay (if you don't mind two AVs) and the characters are mostly well-wrtten (with a few blemishes).

A while ago Castle made changes to mob AI that prevented mobs from effectively using their attacks due to range. Thus, Malta mobs are now using attacks they used to completely avoid.

I was still able to solo my Malta/Rikti arc "Blowback" on a Peacebringer so I'm not too worried.

I did spot a comment from Allen Varney in the Slashdot follow-up, whom I remember from SJGames/Space Gamer days....

Let me just make sure I'm understanding this. Are you basicly saying that no one should EVER use an AV in their story arc, not even the standard ones? Because a lot of AVs aren't solo friendly for a lot of ATs, even if they're scaled down.

Any competent build should be capable of handling an EB in the general case, at least above, say, level 20. (AVs at level 10 are Killer GMing.) There are likely to be corner cases where certain builds may have trouble with specific AVs, even downgraded, but that's not the Architect's responsibility. At five years into the game the relative power of the various ATs as soloists is received wisdom.

Excessive or gratuitious use of AVs is another matter. Excessive use would be something like that "Praetorian Civil War" arc that throws 14 AVs at you in the last mission, or maps I've seen that spawn nothing but AVs. Gratuitious use would be casting mobs as AVs simply to prevent them from spawning as Bosses at low difficulty if cast as EBs, which I've seen done in two recently-reviewed arcs.

Just because anyone may walk up and attempt your arc does not mean you must make it so that anyone can complete it.

As a matter of fact, it does. More properly, if you are offering your arc to groups of size X then you are implicitly stating that competent groups of size X have a reasonable chance at success. That does not mean that a group of (e.g.) Empathy Defenders with one attack each is going to be able to clear it, as that is clearly not the general case. For our purposes X can vary from 1 to 8, so there is an imperative to accomodate that entire range.

Designing with the intent to kill teams (including teams of size 1) legally able to access the arc is Killer GMing. Writing "this is a Killer GM arc" on the label does not make it not killer GMing. If and when we get the ability to gate access by team size then you can start throwing battleships at people. If soloists game the system to hop over the fence whatever happens to them is their problem. But as long as a solo player can start your arc normally you have an onus to respect the game's scaling mechanisms and give him a reasonable opportunity to win.

I completely disagree. There's a huge difference between "Impossible for anyone to solo" and "More fun to play on a team."

Nothing in the game is more fun to play on a team, except in the degenerate case of unsoloable content like Hami or mothership raids, or maybe one or two others. (I remember people were trying to solo the ITF, don't know if any succeeded.)

Teams are broken. I know it, you know, my cat knows it, small potted ferns know it. Castle even admitted it. Unless your definition of "fun" is "mercilessly destroy anything in your path", which is pathological, the primary effect of teaming is to trivialize content. Fixing this requires making changes the devs aren't willing to make. It's not something you can overcome with the tools in the Architect. Even those maps with nothing but AVs can be steamrollered by a decent team.

Nope, there's more. A good deal more.

No, there isn't. Put up or shut up.

He's not talking about arcs that don't scale properly to group size and difficulty (i.e. require a team to complete) - he's talking about arcs that require a team to fully appreciate (i.e. get the most out of them).

There is no difference between the two.

I definetely like this idea, having written my arcs to give teams things soloers don't see when playing them (and having designated one of them a TF ), changing the experience for the team for each person added.

There is nothing of any real consequence that can be added to an MA project that will only be seen by teams and not soloists. You could include a Boss in a custom faction and then not place any spawns of that Boss, thus preventing anyone from seeing one unless they bring in a team of sufficient size as to spawn Bosses at regular points. I had one of these in one of my arcs but removed it. That's about it.

There are mobs available that don't scale down properly for some inane reason (the DE monsters, which do scale properly in canon missions), and you could do things with time limits that might make it mathematically impossible or nearly so for a soloist to complete a mission. Neither of these really meets the condition specified. You could put in (e.g.) a DE Monster and then link the spawn of another objective to its defeat, but really, what would be accomplished by this?

I feel the opposite. I wish I could make a MA arc that did not scale at all and required 6+ people to start.

If the devs chose to include that feature I would not object to it. I'd even welcome it. Until such time as they do, though, it is part of the specification for all MA projects that they are accessible to groups of all sizes, including size 1, and should scale reasonably to both group size and difficulty setting. Attempting to subvert that is simply bad design, whether or not the intent to do is printed on the label.

Interesting change, what prompted it? The fire mobs looked good on that map, although they were a bit mundane to fight (on a small team at least).

They probably would have been more fun on a large team.

Although the existence of the fire guys seemed at odds with the description of Navarra lacking magic of his own, even thought they were kind of explained as following him around for the joy of destruction. I guess their premise was kind of thin.

This was part of the reason. I did consider changing his origin to give him Magical powers instead, but it didn't feel right.

The real reason was to make room for the changes to the Bianchi and Poletti groups. That meant livening up the spawns in the other four acts and removing some mobs that were surprisingly problematic (though the new ones do have their surprises). It was a more than equitable trade.

I might have had enough room to keep the Minion and LT imps but that would have left the group without a proper Boss. I'm not sure what would have happened if a large group needed a Boss to spawn; potentially it could have spawned multiple copies of Diablo Navarra. Not good.

The Freaks don't make much more sense than the imps, really, but at least I was able to toss in some dialog lampshading the fact that they'd turned into some kind of warped Greek chorus.

Before I go setting this up as a real event, though, I thought I'd see what the MA story community thinks of the idea.

MA arcs that do not properly scale to group size and difficulty level are not "task forces"; they are simply broken.

Another round of edits on 5/19.
<ul type="square">[*]Mob selection significantly altered. The old customs are all gone. Both families use a mix of stock Family mobs with one custom minion and LT each. Bianchis get a unique custom Boss (Polettis keep unique custom EB Federico). New mobs reflect the Poletti's dedication to tradition and the Bianchi's more progressive attitude....[*]Bianchi patrols added to Act II to balance out spawn between the two families. This does add some immersion-breaking moments when Bianchis walk past Polettis without shooting at each other but it can't be helped without making each family shoot at its own people, which is even worse.[*]Additional optional encounter in act IV lampshading Federcio's use of unconventional weapons for mobsters.[*]Diablo Navarra's pseudo-Fire Imps gone. He hired some Freaks to cover his back instead.[/list]
That's about it, I think....

I'd submitted my arc(s) on Venture's thread, but it seems reviews may have ceased there

You probably asked on the wrong thread.

I threw your arc into my lowbie queue, which is getting some priority treatment 'coz I'm levelling up a new Plant/Thermal Controller (level 13 currently).

Arc #6143, "Escalation"
tl;dr: 5 stars. Nits: mob variety could be improved, ending a bit of a Deus Ex Machina

Reviewed on: 5/19/2009
Level Range: 1-54
Character used: Venture/Virtue

Detective Becktrees asks for your help in dealing with a Dr. Erica Lashion. She's a strictly small-time player, almost a joke villain -- he says Longbow has a pre-typed form for incidents involving her -- but her attack on Atlas Park comes when the PPD is already enaged elsewhere. He warns you that she does have the habit of transferring her mind to a new clone body (which she stops growing prematurely to increase the production rate, meaning they're all small and petite) every time she's defeated, so you may have to take her down three or four times. Four was the magic number this time as she respawns three times, one after the other, on defeat. She's just a Robotics/Devices Minion and fell before her robots finished spawning. The rest of the map is overrun by her diminutive robots with a variety of powers, only the Electrical Blast/Empathy Supportbots being noteworthy. On her last defeat, though, she takes it more personally than usual and says "you're on my list!"

Shortly thereafter, she takes hostages at a bank and threatens to blow the place up if you don't show up for a rematch. Since she'd only lose the one clone body it's a serious threat. Becktrees warns you that her voice sounds different somehow but dismisses that as "probably nothing". Of course it wasn't. She only brought the one body, but she's letting the grow longer and is doing her own fighting as Electric Melee (or maybe Assault)/Willpower. She's only a Lieutenant though and still falls quickly. You know what's coming up, though....

Yep, she's back, bigger and better, this time taking over a precinct station and defeating some PPD suited up for fighting superhumans. Once again, she demands a confrontation with you. Becktrees warns you she's been dealing with the Family and the Trolls. Immediately on entry you can hear her gloating about her new villain name, Escalation: "Beat me once, next time I just come back stronger in a better clone body." She's up to Boss rank now using War Mace/Invulnerability, having treated her clone with pure 'dyne. You find a nearly-dead cop (prematurely stuffed into a body bag) and a bomb to defuse. Escalation, of course, plans to come back with more power....

Act IV opens with Becktrees reporting that they've found Escalation's main lab and sent in heroes with Longbow support...and they're getting trashed. She's activated a bunch of clones in various stages of development. It's up to you to finish it. Right up front you can tell she's raised the ante, as a Boss-level "Perimeter Defense Bot" is front-loaded, Energy Blast/Energy Manipulation. You also find a container with hazardous biochemicals, some of them from Dr. Creed and other Rogue Isles loonies. Not a good sign. Moving up, you get to fight another of the Stage Three (Mace/Invul Boss) clones before running into Escalation 2.0, boasting that she's incorporated Crey gene therapy and Malta combat drugs into this model, making it a Super Stregth/Invulnerability Elite Boss (which has not only Taken a Level in Badass, but several in the Most Common Superpower, too). She landed a few KO Blows but I was able to juggle her and heal up between them. Before gnawing the linoleum she taunts you with the fact that she has lots of backup labs and clones. Afterwards a nearby bulletin board shows that she's completely obsessed with you, as it's full of photos of you that have been used as dartboards and have insulting comments written on them. This would be funny if it wasn't tragic....

It ends back where it began: Escalation attacks Atlas again, smashing a huge boulder into the plaza (explaining why we're on the meteor map...), trashing some low-level heroes and demanding another fight with you. There are some optional hostages to rescue, which are worth it as some of them are pretty funny. "Escalation Extreme" rants on approach about how this "ultimate clone" incorporates Creed's biochemicals, Kora fruit extracts and every combat drug known to Malta, the Council and Arachnos. She killed over a dozen bodies getting it to work. We're up to AV/EB level now, Super Strength/Invulnerability both on Extreme. She took the first fall thanks to Rage. On the second I got her to trigger Unstoppable (at which point she discovers she can't transfer out) and held out as long as I could before hitting Elude. Result. she hit the concrete 9 seconds before Elude crashed. In the final debriefing, Becktrees congratulates you for finally putting a villain in the Zig no one thought they'd ever catch...and promises to call someone else the next time a minor villain causes him trouble.

The arc has a good theme and the characters are well-written. Picking a nit, it might be spruced up a bit if the mobs had a little more variety. Maybe some of the factions Escalation is dealing with could have representatives around, having just delivered her supplies or maybe just wanting to see how her work is progressing for their own reasons. Escalation Extreme's final defeat is kind of Deus Ex Machina-ish but it's hard to see how else it could be done. Actually I can think of a way to do it but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader..... In any case, it's a great arc, recommended.

Arc #171693, ":: 24 hours ::"
tl;dr: 5 stars. Nits: excessive custom mobs, no descriptions

Reviewed on: 5/19/2009
Level Range: 1-54
Character used: Venture/Virtue

The City Representative informs you that every hero who is capable must give one day of service to aid in the patrol and maintenance of the Paragon Transit Authority, and it's your turn. Your first task is to aid in the transport and security of a water company team heading to an outlying area near the city. The mission takes place on an abandoned tech map infested with "Ruin Dwellers", a custom faction. Two of these have +perception, the Lookouts (Thugs/Super Reflexes) and Survivors (Archery/Willpower). You have to find and activate the inactive teleport beacon. The map is one of the short ones used in Agent G's arc so it doesn't take long at all to find the beacon. When you reactivate it you discover it had been tampered with in such a way as to suggest whoever did so may have intended to use it for his own purposes. The City Rep isn't sure what to make of this.

Unfortunately the trouble is just beginning, as Act II opens with a dozen more beacons going offline. You're sent to the last one that did so, with a warning that while they'll do their best to keep a lock on your Medicom beacon they can't guarantee retrieval.... On arrival (abandoned office map) you can hear some Ruin Dwellers musing about whether or not to trust a "Bossman" who hunted down "alien scum". You also find some leaflets that say "Your not alon! Talk to a Bosman and join Teh Scorched!" OK.... Finding these gives you a new objective, to learn more about the Scorched. This is accomplished when you run into a "Quarter Boss" on the upper level, a Thugs/Willpower (I think) Lieutenant preaching for settlements to unite. The beacon proves to be troublesome: it won't come back online no matter what you do.

The City Rep speculates that if these "Scorched" are going to try to interfere with the waterworks in that area, they'll target the underground pumping and purification plant, which was build like a fortress presumably to serve as a fallout shelter or emergency command center or the like. A maintenance team sent to check the security cameras on the surface missed their teleport retrieval so you're going in to check up on them, advised to expect immediate hostilities just in case. More of the Scorched are here with the Ruin Dwellers, and they're much better armed. Another +perception type enters the mix, an Assault Rifle/Ninjitsu "Hunter". Those without status protection will also want to watch out for the Plant Control/Poison "Thicket Queens". You need to take down two "Bossmen" (Martial Arts/Assault Rifle), rescue four hostages (non-escort) and restart the security system. The first hostage rescued told of overhearing the Scorched planning to present the hostages as a gift to a "King" somewhere nearby. "Bossman Ripjack" says you're now the bossman after beating him....

While the City Rep admires the Scorched's dedication and even feels sorry for them, she reminds you that the government has a zero-tolerance policy towards this kind of thing and if you don't bring it to a close, the military will. So it is once more unto the breach to try to get to the bottom of things. She's identified an old factory complex linked to the sewers you were just in, making it a likely hideout. It's back to the sewers to interrogate three more Bossmen. The necessary Clue is given up by the first one you defeat but all three are required -- this is likely due to the bugged "objective completed Clue" feature. In any case, you learn where the accessway is for the factory complex.

With two hours left in your shift -- at the end of which military intervention will take place if you haven't resolved the problem -- you're off to the factory. The City Rep says they've got three satellites tracking your Medicom beacon...just in case. You have to take down the Scavenger King and 3 King's Guards (Bossmen). The King turned out to be an Elite Boss, Super Strength/Assault Rifle, and dropped me instantly with KO Blow (thanks to a few scratches from the surrounding legions). The rematch went much more smoothly, for me anyway. The final Clue says that the King fought to the death, and with the King down everyone else in the area is grabbing what few possessions they have and getting out of Dodge. In the end, you've probably saved lives by flushing the squatters out before the military did an ARCLIGHT number on them, but nothing has really been fixed, and that's the best you can do.

There are only a few nits to pick here. The arc is well written with a strong theme. The Architect did, however, use so many custom mobs that there was no room to provide any of them with a description. Between the Scrapyarders, Freaks, Lost and probably a few others a good "homeless" faction can be put together from stock mobs, if you're willing to accept a restricted level range. The best of the Ruin Dwellers/Scorched could still be added for flavor. Because there is no room for descriptions it isn't really clear how the cast of extras from The Road Warrior is suddenly able to stand up to seclevel 50 heroes, but that can be inferred from the background ('dyne, other mutagens, scavenged Rikti tech, etc.) These are small issues, though, and don't really detract from the arc's quality.