Parts Unknown
Story Description: It’s not every day you get a request for a favor from a Freak. But this is no ordinary day, and before you are done you will see some extraordinary things. (This arc includes a couple of tough fights; it is likely not suitable for some archetypes to solo.)
Story Arc ID: 78964
Author’s Global Chat Handle: @Captain Meson
Length: Medium (4 missions)
Alignment: Neutral
Designer Notes:
This is a story-focused arc, but there is at least one encounter that may be challenging for solo players of solo-unfriendly archetypes. It was doable with a solo stalker and some work, easy with a solo brute.
The story was somewhat inspired by a plot I’m working on for one of my FTF RPG games, but putting into the CoH universe made it come out quite differently. I feel that it fits very well into the canonical world.
The level range is limited by the presence of Crey. They were the perfect group for their role, and that choice helped shape the details of the story.
The final boss in mission 2 can’t be made to work right for the story in the MA rules. Ambushes can’t be made required and can’t have a specific character in them (and are rude to Stalkers and illusionists), but I couldn’t find a small lab map where the spawn points did what I wanted. My compromise was to count on the players reading either the chat window text or the clue text for the glowy that triggered the boss.
Similar Missions:
- An Element of Danger, Parts 1 and 2
- Johnny Sonata and the Hitmen
- The Wretch’s Gift
- Paradox: Crisis on Infinite Girls
- Matchstick Women
Gynophage
Says:
This is a decent mission, challenging in places but not too hard. You fight Crey, then some well-made custom minions. The EB at the end could be hard if you don’t have mez protection.
However, the story is… meh. First you help a Freak get spare parts, then investigate Crey, then fight a demon to save Crey workers’ souls. Are you a hero or villain? It doesn’t feel like either.
Still, worth a look.
Posted on April 24th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Glazius
Says:
This arc seems to have been broken by a patch change or some other means, and not subsequently fixed.
Sadness.
Posted on June 3rd, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Glazius
Says:
@GlaziusF.
Running on a low-40s DB/fire brute, diff 2 so bosses is bosses, in search of mission engineer.
As a prelude, I wonder how many arcs in the system are just silently broken, with their authors wondering why no one ever comes to play them.
AE players, if you hit play and the contact remains a pulsing hologram and there is no “architect options” button in your HUD, please send a global tell to the author and let them know their arc is broken. Most people don’t think to check after every little patch.
—
…uh. You don’t need to warn me in the first mission that things are going to explode out of control, arc. I’m a big boy. I can punch things.
I wonder why this isn’t a shop, then I find out there’s a hostage rescue, then I wonder why, when there are radio missions on the pawn shop maps with captives to rescue, the game won’t let you put any captives on them.
Joe’s rescue dialogue tells me that he’s pointed me to a stash, which I guess is this glowing whiteboard, but it would be nice to get a little clue or something to that effect.
Also there’s an entire other floor to the little office. I guess that’s just map weirdness, I remember radios on this plot being a bit off too.
Also the glowie that triggers Joe can spawn in little nooks on the bottom floor so you just miss it, as I did on my second try at this. Maybe just make it optional and put him there to start?
—
Looks like more classic Crey blame-pushing. A lab doing something weird… with another empty last floor. I find an informative glowie on floor 1, the spawner glowie on floor 2, and back to floor 1 to fight the boss.
Magical artifact - oh, the runed thumb drive. I don’t consider it so much a magical artifact as a piece of technology with some magic painted on top of it. Maybe describe it as a piece of rock about the size of a thumb drive that’s been filed to fit in a standard slot or something?
—
Hmm. I’m not sure exactly what motivation Silverball has to be giving me this information. Ah well, we’ll see how it lies.
Maybe if he mentioned his buddy was captured by Arachnos first, and then brought up how it could help you out a bit later?
A few notable side investigables here, nothing major.
Rescue objective right in the middle of two other spawns. To the hospital I go. Coming back and springing the captive the system text says something about a forcefield, but he’s just hands-on-head kneeling.
…a thick data packet? Sounds weird, considering data packets aren’t actually physical objects.
—
Ah, now a demon’s after me. Not like that’s new, but at least I’m not a floating soul.
Oh. The drive was powering a portal to a spirit realm. Let’s see what it looks like!
…heh. Oh, that’s a nice justification.
I say the same thing to you as I have said before: battles can currently start without characters present. Do not assume they are when writing dialogue!
I say the same thing to you as I have said before: multiples of a given objective will display their complete text after every objective is completed! Do not assume complete text only displays once all the objectives are finished!
Oh. So it was a different demon that had the whammy on me than the demon I actually fought in the lab? Uh, alright.
Not so alright: THEY ALL USE MIND CONTROL WHAT THE HELL. Except, blessedly, the boss, so when I run out of break frees at least the confuse doesn’t get perma-applied.
Get juggled a bunch with stacked levitates, though.
—
Storyline - ***. My main complaints are that Silverball doesn’t have much incentive to be helping you after the second arc - what’s in it for him? - and the final boss and his enemy group just kinda come out of nowhere.
Design - ***. The “lines” of customs look pretty much identical, and the tendrils make it hard to pick out the different body shape of the brawler line. And do they all have to be spamming mind control?
Gameplay - ****. Seriously, do they all have to be spamming mind control? I can get confuse stacked even through a single break free and then I can’t do much of anything but watch as the psi damage takes its toll. I don’t actually die in the last mission but it comes close in a couple places.
Detail - ***. Notably missing from this arc is any kind of explanation as to the true nature of the drive before you dive inside it. Common mistakes also ruin the atmosphere details try to set up in the last mission.
Overall - ***. Figure out something for the customs to have that isn’t Mind Control, foreshadow the end mission a little bit, and fix the problems with text not fitting the events of the mission, and this goes up a bit.
Posted on June 4th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Captain Meson
Says:
I appreciate the feedback. I am hoping I can make the custom group much more what I want with the new controls in the next Issue - what I really wanted was something like the Stalker dark melee set, with a melee terror with a long cooldown to add a little spice. Maybe I need to just suck it up and make the minions not have any real terror-related powers to make it less hellish for a solo without any mez resistance. (The comment from my playtesting friends was that the multiple controllers were really tough but thematic, but that threesome also included a WIllpower Brute so they didn’t get entirely shut down in the fights.)
I particularly appreciate the feedback on story development. I will see what I can do with 5ilvera11’s text to make it clearer why he wants to help the player (mainly he wants his parts supplier to be able to come out of hiding). I’ll also take another shot at squeezing a better description of the techno-magical crossover nature of the artifact into the available character count.
The limitations on where you can put story and some of the arbitrary rules about goals hampered some of the things I wanted to do. Being able to make a glowy appear only after the rescue will fix the second-biggest frustration I hit in writing the thing, and that in turn will let me try to find a better map for the shop.
The “battle” encounter in the final mission is actually there only to work around a bug in the MA system - because I had Crey rescuees, but the enemies were all level 1-54, MA hit a hiccup and claimed the level range was incompatible. Adding some Crey that were actually fighting fixed this. It’s probably related to the big visual glitch in that mission, where the captive Crey souls which are supposed to be Crey are spawning as more Soul Trappers.
Posted on June 8th, 2009 at 2:55 pm