anachrodragon

With your restrictions in mind, here's what's on my recommended list so far:

Bricked Electronics - Arc 2180 - by GlaziusF
Probably the lowbie arc I've played most. An interesting story, along with an underused villain group, and great missions. One of my standard arcs for my lowbie alts.

Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces The Great Face - Arc 190069 - by Airhead
I confess, I actually played this twice for a review... then I might have just happened to play it again on my own. Amusing and absurd.

Rick Hall R[EVOL]UTION (Wake up, America!) - Arc 166081 - by Princess Bubblegum
I kind of regret putting this on this list. It's a seriously guilty pleasure, and blatant political satire. That said, I've played it several times and would gladly play it again (as would any freedom loving American). WE'LL DO IT LIVE!

Replay of:
BE Prologue: Gangs United (Arc#250480) - by OzzieArcane

We reran this arc on my 27 Shield/Fire tank and Londer's 27 Plant/Storm controller. It was a lot of fun, and right off the bat we noticed a lot more clarity and better story momentum compared to the last time we played it.



Stuff I Liked:

Dialog is great. "But.. my ambition" made me laugh.

I enjoyed the variety of mobs in each mission and I especially like how you've picked mobs to forshadow what's coming up in the next mission. The Evil Corp soldier guys show up in every mission, and you've recolored their uniforms so they don't look exactly like 5th column anymore. It all adds together to make a more cohesive feel for your story.

The map sizes are a lot smaller and tighter, and this helps to move the story right along.



Suggestions for Improvement:

Text hard to follow here, and there are a couple of typos ("he usually don't" and "they've throw"). Actually, I'm not sure what this is trying to say since I thought President Evil was already the president of this company... but you've said he's just thrown his lot in with Big Evil.

"Okay. So I dug up some more information. Apparently this President Evil guy is head of a corporation from the Rogue Isles known as Evil Incorporated. Gee that sure is blatantly obvious, but I guess he can normally get away with that since he usually don't leave the Rogue Isles. But now they've throw their lot in with this Big Evil group."

Could maybe use a couple more clues: one for the President Evil robot in the first mission, maybe also clues for any other mobs that give information important to the story progression.

The ninja bosses stand out as a bit odd for this paramilitary group. I would either offer clues to explain them, or maybe replace them with something that fits better with the soldiers.

Presence of clockwork isn't explained. Honestly, I would probably just remove them and use more Goldbrickers. You've got lots of mob variety already!



Overall:

You've put a lot of time into improving and revamping this arc and it shows. This is an excellent lowbie arc with a lot of mob variety to keep things interesting, and short missions that add to the story momentum and keep it short and sweet. There are still a few things that could be tightened up, but as it is, I think it's very playable, lowbie friendly, and fun. Recommended!

Rating: 5 Stars

Mercytown, Arc ID 6017 - by Tangler

I started out soloing this morning on my level 10 Claws/SR brute, which is my lowest level villain at this point. I was just starting the 3rd mission when Londer got up and joined me on his 10 Bots/FF MM. The difficulty seemed appropriate for solo or teamed lowbies, and the arc was a lot of fun.



Stuff I Liked:

Thick accents often look terrible when written, but it works here, and think it fits in this case. It's actually pretty funny. This was amusing: " They are like your American sea monkeys, only man-size and not as smiling like on packets."

First mission is short and sweet. I have to say this is refreshing, and a nice introduction. I can't tell you how many arcs I've played with lengthy first missions. In fact, all of the missions were on the short side, which really helped move the story along.

I like that you've got the player taking action on their own initiative, rather than always waiting for the contact to tell them what to do.

Clues are good, including optional objectives, like "President Evil"





Suggestions for Improvement:

"I am Doctor Dmitri Krylov, a researcher once part of former Soviet Union." Sounds awkward, like he may have been a former Soviet Bloc country. Suggest replacing "once part of" with "from the".

In the first mission, the mission title and the objective are the same "Get a Coralax specimen". Suggest replacing the title with "Investigate the Coralax Colony" and leave the mission objective "Get a Coralax specimen".

In the rave mission the Squealer boss was in the stairwell outside the last room, so we never got to the main rave room. Also the Hellion girlfriends were really easy--and by easy, I mean... er, nevermind...

Why am I collecting 6 more journals? This isn't clear. Maybe have the journal objectives appear after you rescue the hostage?



Overall:

An excellent starter arc, that would be a good alternative to the early Mercy content on a brand new villain. The mobs are good lowbie fodder (and better than Snakes!), the missions are short and to the point, the story comes together well, and it feels appropriately villainous.

Rating: 5 Stars

If you're open to exemping now that exemping gives XP, then you might be interested in some of the arcs from my review thread. I've got the reviewed arcs listed in the first post, with links to the reviews.

The Boneyard, Arc ID 253542 - by Captain_Zero

I soloed this one on my 27 DB/WP scrapper, exemplared down. The difficulty seemed appropriate for a lowbie, and my exemplared scrapper had no issues.



Stuff I liked

Nice intro, short and clear and to the point. The writing in general is very clean and clear.

There's some funny flavor dialog. "Does that rock look like Abe Lincoln to you?" was amusing on the second mission.

Good map choices that suit your story well.

I liked your custom bosses. They were nicely detailed, seemed to fit in the context, and had good descriptive text.



Suggestions for Improvement

There is no clue after finding book in the first mission.

In the second mission, Gabriel took some time to find. Maybe a more obvious animation? Also, could use a clue after finding Gabriel.

The contact says: "You'll have to destroy the altar the Skulls are using for the summoning and recover the book." But I just recovered the book in the first mission...

The Bone Lord took possession of Gabriel.. Woah... that seemed to come out of nowhere. I didn't find out about it until the end mission pop up. This could use a clue, and/or more obvious boss dialog. Plus why was Gabriel there?

Contact says: "He's quickly risen to a powerful position in the Skulls gang, and he seems to think he's a full-fledged supervillain now." This seems abrupt. He's risen to a powerful position over the past couple minutes? Maybe you could indicate some time passing here, like you're talking to the contact again after a week has passed or something...

Also, I have to say the contact seems remarkably unemotional considering what's happened to his brother. I don't know, I would expect some mixed feelings from him.



Overall

Solid lowbie story arc, with good map choices. It was enjoyable and pretty quick to play--although the outdoor mission did slow me down just a bit. The story is a bit uneven in some spots, but overall it's a good plot involving family drama.

Rating: 4 Stars

Trollbane, Arc ID 12669 - by TeChameleon

Londer and I played this on our brand new hero duo: my level 5 Earth/FF controller, and his 5 WP/SS tank. We had fun with the arc, and enjoyed the story.



Stuff I Liked:

I really thought the overall plot was very good and integrated well with the canon.

I liked the map choices and thought they worked well in the context of the story.

The clues were very detailed, well written, and thorough.

I also really liked the flavor dialog. I was kind of ammused by the fact that the Skulls and Trolls in the first mission seemed to have a lot to say to each other.

You may find this odd, but I really liked Baron Schwarzeherr. I know he's a minor side character, but he had a great costume and description, and clue. I could see him figuring prominently in his own arc, in fact.



Suggestions for Improvement:

The introduction of the problem in the first mission could use more clarity. I know what you're trying to say here, but the part explaining the premise is a bit awkward:

"Well... and I probably don't need to tell you this, but keep this quiet... they've got good reason to be a bit crazy right now; when you start finding dismembered SupaTrolls, it might be time to worry."

I think it's the switch in subject from "they've got good reason" to "you start finding" within the same sentence. Not a big deal as I get what you're saying, it just seems like dismembered Trolls are a big deal and the statement could stand out more.

You have several objectives that aren't clear: "A feeling of mystic energy pulls you..." and "The same mystic energy pulls you..., Follow the bouncing ball... " From a story standpoint, I feel like doing objectives like this is very cool and atmospheric. But from a gameplay perspective, I feel like it adds more time than necessary to the missions. It probably wouldn't be a big deal, but this arc runs long as it is, so you might consider adding a little more direction. Maybe something like "A feeling of mystic energy pulls you...toward the back of the building" (or whatever)

Also on that note, the "superball" seems really out of place. I have no idea what it is, and it's never explained. Honestly, I think it might be a good idea to just get rid of it. As a hero, I'd like to sometimes figure things out on my own without being led around by the established folks.

For the Oranbega mission, I'm not sure what required the level spread to become 10-14 (maybe the allies), but we found the change made for a pretty big jump in difficulty on our level 5 guys, at least until we freed the boss ally. We really felt like we were leaning on the ally a lot in this mission, and the EB was pretty tough at our level. Especially because the big jerk could heal himself.

There were a lot of elite bosses. I don't think I've seen this many elite bosses in a lowbie mission before, and honestly I don't think they're a good fit at this level. I think you could probably rework this to remove most (or all) of the EBs, and still have a solid story. Which brings me to...

BABs as an ally is overpowered in the final mission. He and the main boss show up early in that mission, and BABs could probably solo the rest of that mission on his own. He's powerful enough that he steals a bit of spotlight from the player. I think it might actually be a stronger final mission without BABs, and with boss level enemies rather than EBs.

Quick note: Tombstone has the objective text "Illustrated Woman"

One last thing, I thought BABs dialog was fine, but I did get a little tired of him calling me "newbie". I guess I would have preferred my $Name. It sounds a bit more personal.



Overall:

Nice arc with a strong, canon-based plot. It was a lot of fun to play through on our brand new hero duo, but rough in some spots due to EBs. I'm concerned about so many EBs in a lowbie arc as I think it doesn't really take into account the target audience. I think it would be fantastic to play on a higher level character exemplared down, but has the potential to be rough on a lowbie.

Rating: 4 Stars

After seeing a SG mate's earth controller with the new crystal animations, I'm being tempted to roll my first Earth controller. I've avoided Earth in the past, due to the animations, but damn the new options look nice.

I'm being tempted by Earth/FF or Earth/Storm as I haven't played those two secondary sets yet. This character would likely be about 95% teamed, either with my husband, my SG or possibly PuGs. I'm leaning toward Earth/FF right now. Any thoughts on that vs. Earth/Storm?

Yay! It's been a while since we did Sister Psyche.

If there's enough support on the team, I'll bring a Arch/MM blaster. If we need more support then I'll bring a Dark/Arch defender or Ice/Cold defender. Londer will likely bring a scrapper or blaster.

I just thought I'd respond here quickly, since I have the time:

Gang War - Arc 311187 - by Psychoti

Now for my short review follow up to Londer's long review.

As he said, we played this on my 27 Shield/Fire tank, and his 27 BS/FA scrapper. We had no problems with the difficulty, but found the variable level ranges of the missions to be a bit odd. Being exemplared as we were, it felt like the availability of certain powers kept fluctuating.

Stuff I Liked

Right off the bat, the intro text is highly personalized. It feels kind of lighthearted, and amusing that the contact takes objection to my AT. It's a unique touch.

Clues are nicely detailed. Summary clues like "Thus Far" are really helpful, especially when the plot is getting complicated or twisty.

Boss dialog was well done, and had a lot of flavor. I liked the variety of the boss dialog in the last mission especially, although some of it might have been a tad lighthearted for the tone of the mission at that point.



Suggestions for Improvement

I agree with all of the points Londer made, but I do want to stress that the big one is the violence toward cops. I'm fine with violence toward despicable, corrupt cops. My heroes can't get behind violence toward otherwise good cops who think they're just doing their job, or are following orders of a bad superior officer.

It probably doesn't help matters that we played this on our angelic duo who would have conceptually rigid ideas of justice. No, we're not RPers, but these characters feel like they'd be more black and white than most. I just don't see my guy accepting this contact's plea for a chance at redemption the way it's presented.

Ok, so I'm trying to think of some constructive ideas that might help here:

Try to make the beating up PPD part more palatable. Maybe they're bad cops (although that many bad cops would be kind of odd). Maybe they're not cops at all, but criminals pretending to be cops (ok, maybe far fetched). Maybe they were accidentally exposed to this new drug and are suffering crazy side effects that make it necessary to "subdue" them. It might take some thinking about, but if you're going to ask a typical hero to beat up scores of cops, you need to make it feel more justified.

On the contact, and redemption... I think a lot of heroes may have an issue with the fact that this guy never faces consequences for his crimes. It isn't really enough that he feels sorry. I know my angelic themed character wasn't impressed with his tale, and was really itching for some Old Testament-style smiting. Or failing that, he probably would have been ok with the guy going to jail.

So anyway, I think one way to rework this would be if the contact actually does turn himself in, goes to jail, and then uses his one phone call to contact you again and ask you to finish this by taking out the gangs. Then you'd see some consequences along with the remorse. Then after that, you could have him released on a technicality or lack of evidence, or whatever. I guess I'm just trying to think of a way to get away from making assumptions about the player characters attitude towards him.



Overall

I really liked the way the story was going in the first couple of missions, but then it headed in a direction that was pretty hard to reconcile with being heroic. I think it's got a lot of good ideas going on, and the missions and objectives are structured well, but there are parts of the story that could be reworked to make them more accessible.

Rating: 3 Stars

What odd responses. Do you think that some of these people only just realized that they lost powers from exemplaring? I mean, perhaps they weren't very observant, but now that there's a popup to inform them they've realized it.

In Pursuit of Liberty - Arc 221702 - by ArrowRose

I'm going to appologize to ArrowRose in advance, because I ignored his advice. I looked at this arc and thought: "It doesn't really fit our criteria for a lowbie arc in terms of level range, so I'll just do it on my brute and kick it up a notch... or six." So not knowing what to expect at all, I hopped on my 50 EM/Elec brute and kicked the difficulty up to +2/x6. I hadn't tried him at all with the new difficulty settings, so things were interesting. Actually, things went really great, if a bit challenging, on the first mission. I got spanked pretty badly by the custom mobs in the second mission though (mostly due to fear), so I set the difficulty down to +2/x4 for the remainder, and that worked pretty well.

I also just want to say upfront that I'm not rating this based on difficulty at all, considering that I've modified it pretty drastically in this case.

Stuff I Liked:

Good detail and custom descriptions, and I especially liked the note clues, like the Thank You Note and Note From Little Liberty

I thought this popup was particularly amusing "You found the costume. No, you can't wear it! It will be given to Liberty Rose. Destiny demands this."``

I liked the progression, and seeing Liberty Rose Jones grow up, great description.

The overall writing is solid, the objectives were clear and well marked with animations in many cases

Payback in Spades sports his new dark red powers at the expense of the Family


Suggestions for Improvement

Intro text for the first mission seems a bit unfocused. I'd try to rework it to increase the urgency a bit:

"Why do I stand before you, asking for your help? Perhaps it is because I like her name. Perhaps I grew bored of standing in Atlas Park. Perhaps there is more to her than meets the eye. But I digress..."

Agent Liberty is too powerful. I even tried to get her killed, but her defensive auras (invulnerability?) made that difficult.

Some of the map choices are frustrating or less focused than I would have liked:

Blue cave - need I say more?
Outdoor
Ruined Atlas map
Another outdoor map, graveyard

There's nothing really wrong with all the outdoor maps. In fact the prominent animations helped a lot, but missions like this tend to put me in "hunt" mode moreso than "kill stuff" mode.

There were some level oddities. The DE on the forest outdoor map spawned at 45ish. The Dark Alliance mobs also had an odd level range. Some mid 40s mobs mixed in. I also have to question the purpose of the Dark Alliance guys. They were a really strange mix that was never explained.

Statesman ally was really too powerful, and somewhat annoying on a large outdoor map. Luckily I found the glowie fast.

Some of your custom mobs are pretty tough due to debuffs and fear. I found myself chain feared or unable to hit anything on several occasions. The fight with MAL was tough, with lots of debuffs from other mobs, etc... I'm not holding this against you in any way, as it was likely due to my difficulty settings, but it's something I should mention.

I really wish I'd gotten some better shots but most of them didn't turn out. Still these guys were fun and challenging custom mobs.


Overall:

Not really a lowbie arc in terms of stated level range, but very well written, and a fun challenge for my 50 EM/Elec brute with the new difficulty settings. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, but found some of the map choices to slow down the action in spots.

Rating: 4 Stars

ZAGMUK Act One: The Herald, Arc ID 266123 - by Sumericon

I think I'm going to try to stick with a quicker review structure when I can, in the interest of trying to get more reviews done. Also, in this case Londerwost already touched on most of the major points.

We ran this on my new Claws/SR brute and his Bots/FF MM. Both were around level 9, and we did it on the lowest difficulty. It was a great story arc for our lowbies. The missions were on smallish maps, but filled with interesting chain objectives, and even though we don't really do this for the XP, it was great to see that our lowbies leveled (twice I think) over the course of this arc.

Stuff I Liked:

The use of color, text formatting, mission titles, were all excellent, and really helped to grab you right off the bat.

The writing was great, and the plot was really well structured. I appreciate how well you brought things together, while still leaving room for continuation. The clues and pop up messages were likewise well done.

I liked Helena Handbasket. It was an amusing pun, and her description was well done. I couldn't get irritated with her for griefing us (and she did grief us) because it was "in character" after all.

The choice of maps were also great. I wholeheartedly support keeping the maps small on a longer story arc. It keeps the overall time a lot more manageable from a player perspective.



Suggestions for Improvement:

You have a lot of chain objectives, and not all of them have clues describing the chain of events. In the first mission, we defeat the first boss and are then told to defeat the Inquisitor. I found myself confused because there wasn't a clue explaining who this guy was. Similarly with Ralph and "2 ceremonies". How do we know there are two ceremonies? There may have been some other instances of this too. I would go through again and make sure all your chains have clues.

I didn't get the impression that Hanish was very important, more like a random side character who shows up to offer some (not really needed) advice. You've already got a lot of characters introduced in this story, and plenty of ally action as well. Hanish doesn't seem to do anything except take the focus of the story away from the player character somewhat.

This is going to sound very strange, but I think the worst thing about this arc is the title. It's not that the title is bad, it's more that the arc is very very good, and the title doesn't seem to coincide with the story very well. I mean, I've played the story, I really like the story, but I still didn't know what a Zagmuk was (I had to look it up) or the significance of "The Herald". Also, if I was just an average player looking for something to play, I'd probably skip this based on the title just making it sound very esoteric and long... oh great, it's "act one" of something I don't recognize, and "the herald" is so neutral that it doesn't modify that perception at all. Anyway, I don't mean to bash on your title, I just really liked this arc and I'd like to see it draw more players.

Overall:

Great arc for lowbies. We had no problem with the difficulty, except for an unlucky bout with a Madness Mage. Nice, well written and tightly woven story, with a good twist. I'd play it again and recommend it to others.

Rating: 5 Stars


Also, here are a couple of silly screenshots, including the final boss who ran away like a madman and got stuck hanging upside down.

I'm actually a bit curious about the relative power of the secondaries (tiers if you prefer).

When would you say the "top tier" sets manage to fully mature? I can see Willpower being pretty strong even with SOs. It seems like SD and SR have a much bigger hurdle in terms of IOs to reach "top tier" status.

How would you guys rate the secondaries if you were, say, looking at a character in the 30s with SOs, as opposed to a level 50 character with IOs?

I would seriously not have a problem if they went the CO route and attached names to globals, to make them non-unique. I don't have a burning desire to monopolize any names myself, and I doubt that I'd be tripping over people with the same name. My names are usually quirky enough that I don't see them being popular choices.

Plus if they did attach names to globals, that would open up the possibility of future server merges, which could help the folks on servers with declining populations.

All of that being said, I'd be ok with things staying as they are too. I can't say that I've ever had a really hard time finding a name, and I don't feel unhappy with any of my current character names. I do recognize that I'm pretty flexible though, and in cases where my first choice wasn't available I was ok with moving on to something else that got the same point across.

Londer and I would like to join, but we've discovered that our local microbrewery has half price beer on Tuesdays, so it's been our one night out for a tasty drink...

... Ah screw it, what are you running next Tuesday?

Hey folks,
Just wanted to say that Londer and I are still around. We spent some time away from the game because of real life stuff, and then I managed to get sick for most of last week.

I'm feeling better now, and looking forward to trying out I16 and playing some arcs soon. Also, I think I may need to make some more alts.

I've always felt that Granite looked too much like Devouring Earth. I'd love to see something more unique and obviously customizable. I say change it, as long as the end result looks good and has plenty of options to suit various concepts.