dugfromthearth

if you want the first map and second map to be similar for effect - call that out.

mission entry text, or a comment when you rescue her or something.

players are very bad at noticing what you want unless you spell it out for them - just do it with flavor.

if a level 22 can do them I'll check it out

my problem is that Praetoria is not a superhero game. It is a secret agent/resistance sci-fi game. Just like redside is not a comic book villain zone, it is a dystopian anarchist sci-fi zone.

I want a superhero game. Starting in Atlas provides that.

not mine, but I recommend

Level: 1-5, ID#: 468738, Name: The Blue Devils
Good storyline. The first mission is just okay, but the remaining missions are great. Some mix of villains and some nice power variety. Ties in nicely with lore. Good map selection - a few you don't normally see heroside.

Level: 1-10, ID#: 115935, Name: Cracking Skulls
Great storyline, lots of details. Skulls with normal maps.

Level: 1-10, ID#: 322480, Name: Day Job Hell: A Villain's First Day Job
Villainous. A humorous take on starting a villain career. You are a lackey but that is the point of the arc. Funny, lots of nice details, good variety of enemies you do not normally fight.

Level: 5-15, ID#:124906, Name: The Lazarus Project
Great story. Great details. A lot of clues – many just flavor. Two problems: you fight the same mobs a lot and it is tough (mostly Vahz). But it is really a great arc.

Level: 1-14, ID#:519044, Name: Grunty McFisterson's Two Step Guide to Winning Respect
Villainous arc. *Humorous but not silly. Face a variety of foes. Very short missions with a lot of humor. Read the NPC text and clues. Optional objectives add fun flavor. *

Level: 5-10, ID#: 378944, Name: Too Clever by Half
Villainous. Easy missions but fun. Humorous and semi-silly. The contact is great. Missions are fairly short. Lots of NPC dialog.

Level: 1-54, ID#: 54332, Name: Meet the Author
Hilarious, verging on silly. The contact is perfect. The plot is great. Mission details are good. Ending is surprisingly excellent. Some missions are a little long for the detail.

Level: 1-14, ID#: 540613, Name: 001-Bonefire:FREEDOM Style
The first in a remake of older real missions in AE, so it might be familiar. Contact is well done, with personality. Missions are good. Short but with some nice detail. The overall story is okay but each mission just sort of happens so it is a bit confusing.

Level: 25-50, ID#:497506, Name: A Mosaic of Shattered Dreams
Perfect intro text – easy to read, fairly short, dramatic and personal. Great story. Marred by a chain of glowie clicking on 4th mission that took forever – search the end room and ignore the others.

Level: 20-29, ID#:534314, Name: Forsaken People: A Tale of Old Astoria
Great plot. Little fighting. Amazing work of playing out the story in missions.

one issue I have with many arcs is that they just end and the ending is not satisfying.

I was wondering about having a final mission with no combat - just NPC's cheering or congratulating the hero.

Imagine rescuing 3 NPC's over 3 missions, then the 4th mission is all of them in a bar throwing you a little party.

Anyone seen or made something like that?

in the mess of melee, scrappers inherent of criticals is sometimes viewed as not exciting or not different enough. And their defense limits are lower than brutes. what can be done?

My understanding of scrappers has been that they focused on single target damage, and they could serve as an off-tank who would pick a boss or other big foe and solo them while others handled the rest.

So what about taking scrapper Confront which every set has and no one uses, and made it into a single target debuff (like bruise from tankers)?

Give confront a huge aggro affect so it guarantees the target will attack you, but then give a reduced to hit on the target, or make the scrapper have a higher critical chance on the target.

make the scrapper even better at selecting one target and duelling them.

sounds like someone should make a mini-respec guide

/respec works for X respecs
otherwise you have to talk to Wolfe who is now in the city hall in Atlas
select a power or slot and hit enter instead of clicking the button with your mouse
when done use /cleartray to remove the icons from your tray

anything else?

so you say "criticism of a powerset isn't criticism of a player, their characters, their playstyles, or their choices."

I say "criticism of a powerset is a criticism of their character and their choices"

and you ignore what I say and come back defending the two things I did not say you were wrong about.

I therefore conclude you know that it is a criticism of their character and their choices and you are hoping to change the subject.

Apology accepted, and I consider the matter closed.

it is simple - if a player asks it makes sense to rate their powerset
if a player does not ask, one should not tell them it is bad

just like you should tell people if their costume is cool
and if asked you should tell them your honest opinion
but you should not just volunteer to someone that their costume sucks unasked

people like compliments
otherwise if they want your opinion they will ask

it is possible that volunteering that their powerset sucks will help them, but the chance is very small and the chance that you will annoy them is great

I finally played this.

I really enjoyed the arc. It is not over the top important, but feels heroic. Good job integrating Manticore.

Typo in the clue from the Hellion in mission 4 or so - he says "everyting" instead of "everything"

Things I would like:

Change the first mission intro to make the plot bigger. The arc kind of rambles with "do this one thing" and then "another mission for you". It should start with "Manticore needs your help with a big gang problem, the first thing you can do to help is X".

The woman you rescue is not mentioned anywhere else. She just feels tacked on and unimportant. Have some Hellions earlier in that mission mention having her work for them. And ideally have a clue or mention of her in the first mission - find another minor artifact she made. That makes her feel like part of the story instead of just a random feature.

Get rid of defeat alls, they just are not fun. Hunting down the last minion hiding somewhere feels anticlimactic and drags it out.

Just played it. Generally enjoyed it but have some suggestions.

The contact varies between short comments and longer. I really like her mentioning other contacts from the game and working them in. I wish the first mission text were a bit longer. And I'd like to see a bit more of her personality in it.

Also I'd like the first mission text to set up the whole arc. The first mission is kind of dull - go clear out clockwork from a place and look for clues. A named boss or some other distinctive objective would help. It just feels generic.

And I believe the first mission is a defeat all. Avoid defeat all's. They feel like there is no real goal. I'd rather the first mission be searching for clues in a bunch of bins of tech junk.

I'd like to see the enemies doing more in the missions. I'm not sure if they are limited in emotes, but having them doing welding other emotes would be cool. You can set up a boss encounter, set the boss to be an lt - and that lets you set their emotes. Emotes I'd recommend:
- Being Repaired – standing bent over at waist, robot resting
- Carrying Pipe – holding a pipe
- Welding (low or medium) – welding, but there is nothing in front of you
- Tech Scanner – scanning with a device

Also you can set up defend an object encounter and have them attacking something as if they are dismantling it.

Or set up click on object objective and put cartons of tech bits and other such things. Adds flavor to the area.

The enemies do get repetitive, 4 missions of the same. It's hard to mix others with the clockwork, but a bit of variety goes a long way.

One thing you can do is to make subgroups of enemies. Make a group of Clockwork Oscillators. Then have spawns of them. I'm not sure if you can spawn gears directly, but that would be interesting.

Everyone presumably trains powers and adds enhancements
surprisingly many people never bother with inspirations
what else do you use?

1. crafted powers - envenomed dagger is big vs AV's, stun grenades give everyone an AoE mezz, lots of other powers as well

2. Safeguard temporary powers just for doing them - sure there is flight, but there is also END increase and Health increase

3. Safeguard temporary powers for side missions

4. Day Job buffs - recharge buff, regen buff, etc

5. Temp power from patrolling PvP zones - stealth or phasing

6. Temp powers from regular missions - wedding ring, holy shotgun

7. DfB and DiB temporary buffs - through level 20 or 30

8. Kal SF has a buff up to 50, +Max HP, +Regen, +Dmg

9. Buying better inspirations and emailing to self

10. Special buffs SG's can get from their base

11. Accolades with buffs/powers

I pretty much don't use any of the list. When I get one I always think I should remember to get more, then I don't.

it was weird being at an arachnos base, then walking 20 feet and arachnos there would attack you.

also, I like not doing the snake missions - they just seemed out of place. But I miss the snakes since they don't show up anywhere else

thank you Texas Justice for agreeing with me