Paradox: Crisis on Infinite Girls
Apr
22
Story Description: Can you unwind the paradox and put things right? Paradox Girl has run into a personality snag with herself, and needs you to stop the bickering. Help her out, won’t you?
Story Arc ID: 97027
Author’s Global Chat Handle: @Paradox Girl
Length: Medium (3 missions)
Alignment: Neutral
Designer Notes: This mission is story based, and filled with fluff. It’s a sentimental story, and should be relatively easy (It’s been tested lots.) Lower levels may have more difficulty, and squishier archtypes may find the lieutenants running around to be a bit too much.
Similar Missions:
- Parts Unknown
- An Element of Danger, Parts 1 and 2
- Matchstick Women
- Imbalance of Power
- Test Dummy Rampage
Filed under: Reviews, Custom Critters, Length: Medium, Neutral
Peter
Says:
Paradox Girl is a time traveller who has rewritten her own past so many times she doesn’t even know where she got her time travelling powers from by this point. You’re called in to mediate a dispute between her and her temporal duplicates.
This is really a story about one girl’s preoccupation with time; the desire to change it, escape it, and even to see it end, as well as the nature of friendships that may occur backwards from the point of view of one of the participants. As such the storyline is simple, but potentially confusing nonetheless. There’s an undercurrent of humour provided by Paradox Girl’s inability to get along with herself.
The missions chain objectives very effectively, particularly the last one, and they are generally short, to the point, and move the story forward - no ‘kill all’ missions here. There isn’t much variety of mobs, but the custom enemies are good and not too difficult.
Recommended if you’re looking for a short, story-driven arc, or are a fan of time travel plots.
Posted on April 24th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Gynovore
Says:
Normally, arcs that say “Come join my toon for kewl missions!!!1″ are a sign to walk the other way, fast. Fortunately, Crisis on Infinite Girls is the exception. It follows the author’s eponymous character as she ponders her own odd behavior through time. The custom mobs are all temporal copies of that character, making for a surreal setting. The story is well worth reading as well.
The only problem occured during the second mission, when a required mob didn’t appear. This is most likely a fault of the map itself, not the mission: mobs tend to fall through the geometry on that one. (the arachnos prison map). Unfortunately, this bug has existed since CoX began, so I doubt it will be fixed soon.
Still a top-notch mission. Dev’s Choice material.
Posted on April 24th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Itomic
Says:
This is a story-driven arc that uses the impossibility of time travel to its advantage, and delivers a clever and immersive experience. I was intrigued by the quest and enjoyed having it unfold as I progressed through the short, targeted missions.
I especially liked the last mission, as new goals were added as other goals were completed. This clever touch delivered a welcome level of anticipation and a sense of urgency to the story, which kept me interested to the end. And, the ironic paradox of a story about time travel relying on sequential events added a whole other heady element that kept me entertained and amused.
My only gripe was that my WP/fire tank was unable to defeat the self-healing EB, as I had no holds or buffs. Fortunately that mission is timed, so the story was able to move forward despite the stalemate.
All in all this is a stellar mission, well planned and executed, and definitely worth a look.
Posted on April 28th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Perceptor II
Says:
Of all the story arcs that have been submitted in the Mission Architect, this is definitely my favorite concept. I found the creation of an entire villain group of one character, actually the same character time travelling from many different points in time, to be wonderfully creative. This one was perhaps the most fun I’ve had in the Mission Architect most of the time.
Most of the time.
There were two different times in the arc where I became very aware that I was not actually a superhero in an epic time-travel adventure, but a user trying to coerce a non-sentient computer into entertaining me. And that’s a cardinal sin in this sort of thing.
The first issue came in the second mission. I’d just freed up my ally, and ran around a bit trying to find the boss I needed to defeat. Unfortunately I took a wrong turn and found myself in the large room with all the prison cells, and my ally went nuts trying to destroy each and every last one of them. I absolutely could not get her to follow me out of the room until my time was almost up.
The second issue was in the third mission. One of the required five “recurring” enemies I had to defeat either fell out of the map or simply failed to show up. So the mission became impossible to complete.
In one sense these glitches are the fault of the CoH devs (who otherwise do a fantastic job, don’t get me wrong). The “ally A.I.” needs to be improved so they don’t go berserk in prison rooms, and holes need to be closed in certain maps. But a good mission architect also needs to learn to work around glitches like these. It may take a few more days or even weeks to work out the kinks, but those playing the arc will thank you.
Because the glitches in gameplay are things that I think the devs need to work on and others have indicated that these things haven’t happened to them, I’ll bring my “Gameplay” score up to 3. Some things I’d suggest would be to use a map without a prison room for the second mission and perhaps using less of the “recurring” enemies in the third mission to minimize the chance of losing one.
Like I said, story-wise this is the best one I’ve played. I really wish I could have finished it.
Posted on May 5th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Keldros
Says:
I won’t bother writing all the details of what this story is about as the above posters have done it very well. What I will comment on, however, is how very clever and well written this arc was. I found myself absolutely intrigued by what the fuss was about over such a simple little item.
The maps were very well selected for every mission, and it never felt tedious to me. The mobs presented just the right amount of challenge and much of the dialog was just great.
This is a great arc, that I thoroughly enjoyed and would (and have) recommend to anyone.
Posted on May 13th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Perceptor II
Says:
I thought I’d pop back in to say that after the author assured me that some modifications were made to correct some of the issues I had, I played this arc a second time. Things did work a whole lot better. I can now give this arc my highest recommendation without any reservations.
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Glazius
Says:
High-40s spine/regen scrapper in search of engineer accolade “the hard way”.
Here’s to live feedback!
—
The contact voice is very nice, the “time as a place” convention works well.
…aw geez, I hate this map. There’s no minimap and the giant broken terrain is a pain to navigate. Maybe another ruined outdoor map?
Oh well, let’s meet the customs.
Not bad. Very understated. Most people would tend to go crazy, but this is a reasonable group.
..love the crazy battles that erupt as the boss gets whittled down, but maybe you could space them out more? Make them sound increasingly desperate?
—
And now it’s time for my reservation at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Huh. Interesting. I might have gone with the Clockwork warehouse, myself, but the base works.
The giant swarms of lieutenants, less so. Wow they’re dangerous in numbers.
The chained fights actually go off. Nice. But the clues are a little off. The first one for the mission talks about the hero in the second person, which is customary. The second one talks about the hero in the first person, which is less so, and even odder.
…the watch is an interesting idea. But it seems to be coming with me through time just fine. I guess I can’t copy myself though so there’s no risk.
—
Huh. Sounds like this next mission is some kind of 5-minute deadline thing? Alright, let’s stock up.
What? No timer? Aw, okay.
Hmm. Collection clue’s a bit off. You get a clue when you complete the first part of a plural collection, so saying “all the parts” doesn’t make sense.
At first the robot’s reaction didn’t make any sense and then I saw what happened after the boss fights were over.
Kind of an anticlimax to the arc, though, springing a hostage and then that’s it.
—
Not sure I entirely buy the explanation here, either. If they wanted the watch because it was tied to me, then wouldn’t at least a few of the insaniacs after the watch recognize me? Call me a ghost or something similar? As it is that kinda just comes out of nowhere.
Nothing worth getting upset over. The customs were a decent challenge but there was always help, and the story at least had me going up until the end.
Posted on May 17th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
@Saunik
Says:
It’s hard to read grey titles on a black background (wish they’d give us ability to use any html safe color); interesting premise. The custom group is well balanced; story has good “temporal voice”.
Mish 1: Crying Paradox Girl isn’t crying, she’s taunting… did they not have the crying emote for you?
Mish 2: Good use of cascading ambushes and objectives. Minor quibble w/ mish end text:
“Which would make that Paradox Girl unique certainly. But not being able to drag it through time would frustrate me. I can see why I’m fighting with myself over it.” <– if you can’t take it through time, how could I take it to Time’s End in this mish? Is it something specific to the Paradox Girls? I think this needs clarification. It gave me a “huh?” moment. Clear this up and you’ll have a 5 in storyline.
(minor typo: syncronize <– synchronize) oh and ” If we can find a way to syncronize this watch the temporal wake that myselves and I share” <– are you missing a “with” in there?
Mish 3:Another good use of chainged objectives. The story develops pretty well here as well.
Ending is good. Dropping the other shoe sounds like some sort of a hook to another arc. I like souviners that sum up the arc’s story as the dev ones do and you did a good job on that here. The only other comment is the same as the first one. The colors on the souviner are a bit too dark to easily read.
Overall very fun! minor issues (w/ the emote, the 2nd mish end text and a couple of typo issues; fix them and you have a 5 star across the board)…
Ingame rating: 5 stars
Posted on May 18th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Paradox Girl
Says:
Thanks for the feedback! A couple of notes:
Regarding the boss emote? It seems like no matter what i’ve put in there (i’ve used probably 4 or five different emotes) she ends up just doing the taunting. If anyone knows a way to fix this, I’d love to know.
I’ll fix those typos for sure, clarify the language and clean up the colors as well.
Since several people have asked, I’m happy to explain why the watch can move with ‘you’ but not Paradox Girl. Paradox Girl doesn’t ‘leave’ her current time when she goes ’sometime’ else. She just keeps making temporal duplicates of herself (which can massively violate causality.)
I’m happy to have Future Paradox Girl give a better explanation though.
Thanks again for all the great feedback.
Posted on May 19th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Flamemaiden
Says:
I loved touches like the Girls all fighting with each other on their way to you, the oddities of dealing with time travel, and the desire for uniqueness. The concept as a whole reminded me of the game “US Patent Number 1″, as a realistic presentation of how hard it is to be “first” when everyone has a time machine. The ambushes get a little overwhelming in places — in the third mission, after I rescued Future, I was almost immediately run over by a team of Girls who came through a nearby door (didn’t know they could open those) — but in the first, after getting the watch, seeing a bazillion ambushes speak up throughout the map was admittedly amusing in an “eep!” way (although I was glad the mission was over and I could flee immediately). Finally, cascading ambushes work very well in Mission 2 where the map is small enough to find them easily.
Posted on June 26th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
twelfth
Says:
Soloed this on a 45/46 ice/EM blaster set on diff 3. I died a lot, but I sorta do in the regular PVE content too. What can I say, the toon is a glass cannon. I don’t let it get me down.
I can see why this arc is getting good buzz. Masterful use of chained objective, a good premise executed well, and a simple but engaging gameplay. I’ve already sent two of the folks from my SG toward this arc.
The defeat text event on the first mission was something I had not seen yet on MA, and it sold me on the arc. Wonderfully done.
I also had the “disappearing boss” error on mission 2. I attempted to quit out of the game and then go back into it to see if I could respawn them, but eventually ran out of time. I did waste about ten or more minutes to see if it would spawn at some predetermined time signature (I couldn’t recall if that was an option in the MA creator).
On mission three and on mission two, I had problems with the ally AI refusing to do more than just speed boost me if they weren’t attacking. Given my squishy status, I really needed some “hlz plz” from my /kin ally. Of course, that is an issue with the game AI, not really anything with the arc itself.
Great arc, I will recommend it to more of my SGs, but props to the CoHMR on the main CoX boards, ’cause I wouldn’t have found this arc without it.
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 7:08 am
RFKapoor
Says:
In “Crisis on Infinite Girls”, you must face an army of temporal duplicates of Paradox Girl, a super-character who has taken to squabbling with herselves past and future for possession of a pocket watch. This is the best use of a narrow character design set that I’ve seen. There’s a Paradox Girl minion, lieutenant, and boss, and nothing else — and it works. Gameplay is pretty solid, with good ambush triggers and successive bosses to defeat; it keeps players guessing! The only element that seemed out of place was the Stopwatch hungering for cake. There was no cake (it was a lie), and why would a Stopwatch want cake?
Recommended by six out of seven ninjas.
Posted on July 15th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Joe
Says:
Original storyline, design is very good too. I played this story arc with a very fast moving character which is fantastic for ripping through missions, unfortunately, game AI isn’t follow friendly. I spent more time than I wanted to ensuring my ally would follow me. This is more gamplay mechanics than anything else, and something the developers have to figure out a way around.
The time travel idea is welcome and appreciated, as is the opportunity to encounter multiple, yet different versions of self. I loved the massive self on self battle. That was fun to watch. And while at times, I did feel trapped in Robert Palmer Video on crack; I say thumbs up and would recommend doing this story arc..
Posted on July 19th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
El Bellaco
Says:
Very fun and entertaining story! The 30 min mission was tough, seeing as you sometimes had to fight 7 LT.’s at a time.
But it was well worth it.
The only thing which I think is disapointing is that there’s no other stories published by Paradox Girl, cause if there would be, I’d certainly play them!
Posted on May 12th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
PW
Says:
Neat premise for a time travel story; initially I was disconcerted at basically fighting a jillion Paradox Girl clones, but it makes sense in context. I felt the ending was a little anticlimactic, it felt like I was just fighting more Paradox Girls (basically what I’ve been doing all arc). In my opinion, the arc could really benefit from a stronger/more dramatic ending.
For gameplay, I felt the arc was too hard. I had a lot of trouble with the enemies in this story arc, who stack a lot of dark blast -ToHit debuffs and a few sonic and kin debuffs. The fact that there are multiple *large* ambushes also contributed to this. I played a 26 SS/fire brute on default difficulty; possibly this would be much easier for a higher level character. I’d suggest that you consider some combination of reducing the amount of debuff, reducing the size of the ambushes, and/or raising the min level for the arc to around 40.
Posted on July 29th, 2010 at 10:11 am