Thanks for the feedback, The Many Lives of Lord Recluse is meant to be somewhat dark given that you're diving into the various possible ways Lord Recluse (the big bad of the primal universe) could have turned out. It's a big reason why your encounter with Lord Footloose, the most light hearted of them, is last. Thinking about it though I probably should list it as a vigilante, rather then as a heroic, mission arc. You're probably right though that the debriefing from #4 could be toned down, or at least made more subtle, and I think I might rewrite that section. I'll also take Fissionette's bio into consideration since the darkness there isn't necessary. While most of the characters you meet are variants of primal heroes/villains (White Scorpion, The Mantis Corp., Penelope Yang) Dungeoness is not meant to be based on any primal character but is one I made up myself. Sure the focus of the arc is on the different ways people we know could end up in alternate universes but I figured I had to have least one character that is a complete unknown.
Emily Van Helsong has no perception boost abilities, she's a corrupter with ice blast primary with thermal for the secondary. She's actually set to a pacifist setting allowing her to die but she's not supposed to actually fight even if she is attacked so I'm not certain why she was running off for you. Originally she was supposed to help you fight but she had a tendency to get into fights and die which is why I set her to pacifist. Maybe I should turn her aggressive and just make her an optional objective to avoid frustration?
Most of the "Recluse" fights aren't supposed to be fair. One of them is as absolutely *unfair* as I could make it without indirectly affecting the mandatory objectives. It's also why during the Lord Reclusive briefing you are advised to "request an emergency evac portal" (i.e. hit the exit button ASAP) after destroying the generator. During testing I also occasionally had issues with duplicated bosses and I blame AE limitations there. The AE allows you to create and add *groups* but not *characters*. Making multiple characters for the group helps, this is why Lord Reclusive turns out to have duplication powers at the end, no matter what I did I couldn't make him appear alone so I just ended up writing it in
but depending on the RNG duplications still sometimes happen. More so the higher your teamsize is.
You're absolutely right that the 3rd mission in The Search for Dillo is shoe-horned in and I'm not thrilled with it myself but I'm uncertain how to fix it. When I originally planned out the arc I had intended it being just the first two missions and with it ending after . However it felt unsatisfying to find and rescue Dillo but never get to even talk to him. If the AE wasn't so restricted I would have had Dillo help you take down Flambeaux while still under the spell. Then after Flambeaux is defeated the spell is automatically broken and you would have a short conversation with him while he's talking normally
. However since there is no way to despawn an NPC or allow a real conversation with an NPC in the AE the only other alternative was a 3rd mission. I did consider making the 3rd mission be teaming up with Dillo to get the urn back but that felt even *more* shoe-horned in and more the start of a completely different arc since it had nothing to do with rescuing Dillo. Again, I don't really like having the 3rd mission shoe-horned in like that but I think it's better then not really getting to see Dillo at all.
It seems like I always miss things while proofreading no matter how careful I am. Thanks for pointing them out, I'll go over the text more closely and try to fix them.