Zamuel

If I crash into a wall enough times I'll either find a way around the wall or grab the keys to a bigger and badder truck...

I apologize for skipping your arc by accident. The story seemed decent at its base but the contact text seemed somewhat dry overall. Also, the first mission almost seemed to assume the player had heard of the custom group before though we haven't. Your contact still had "Contact Hologram" as their name. This is a bit SPOILERish, but the fact that the Komodo brothers were actual lizard guys instead of just using a fancy sounding name was surprising. They also fall into the category of "hard bosses are hard". They can be beaten but they pack a punch. They almost felt contradictory to the group since everyone else was obviously human unless I missed a detail with the story. Also, Nemesis's army shows up in the final mission but they didn't seem to have plot relevance. It might be better (your choice obviously) to remove them in favor of trying to strengthen the ties to the cloning storyline you started which seemed to fall off there.

Your customs seemed fine though I could see mild stacking issues from things like multiple Web Grenades and such. Generally, the bosses killed me from the ambushes whittling away at me as opposed to direct damage though they did hit hard. Your final mission had two MM EBs which could prove to be nasty for some or fine for others. I'm wondering if you should give a veil or mask for the Natsumis to better fit the ninja theme.

TYPOs (I'll full color editting later)

A number of times you had "heros" instead of "heroes".

Mission 1

"I need your help. The Yagyu Kage clan has setup operation in Paragon city. Which is strange normally they stay to the Rogue Isles." should be "I need your help. The Yagyu Kage clan has setup operation in Paragon city. This is strange, normally they stay to the Rogue Isles." <- rewording, comma

Ryuu Thorn bio
"The leaders of most assualt groups. They are most often promoted from the ranks of the Souta. Their magical powers are enhance and changed." should be "The leaders of most assault groups. They are most often promoted from the ranks of the Souta. Their magical powers are enhanced and changed." <- misspelling, past tense

Souta bio
"The Souta are some of the main assassians in the Yagyu clan. They attack with bows for silent kills. Their powers are magically based." should be "The Souta are some of the main assassins in the Yagyu clan. They attack with bows for silent kills. Their powers are magically based." <- misspelling

Boss fight dialog
"Ryuu Thorn: Ouch ok time to take this a little more seriouly." should be "Ryuu Thorn: Ouch, ok time to take this a little more seriously." <- comma, misspelling

Natsumi Rose bio
"The Natsumi are all females. They all have training in matial arts. These are the favored one of the Lady Yagyu." should be "The Natsumi are all females. They all have training in martial arts. These are the favored ones of the Lady Yagyu." <- misspelling, grammar

Boss fight dialog
"Natsumi Rose: Did you except it to easy." should be "Natsumi Rose: Did you expect it to easy?" <- misspelling, question mark
"Natsumi Rose: Is that the best you got." should be "Natsumi Rose: Is that the best you got?"

Clue -> A strange note
You have found a note. "It seems that Tsoo were ready for us. We may have a leak some where. The good new is we have capture one of the Tsoo bosses. We have drugged him and he should arrive shortly."
should be
You have found a note. "It seems that the Tsoo were ready for us. We may have a leak somewhere. The good news is we have capture one of the Tsoo bosses. We have drugged him and he should arrive shortly." <- "the", misspellings

outro
"So the Yagyu were fighting the Tsoo. Ok this makes no sense why are the Yagyu attacking the Tsoo and in Paragon CIty." should be "So the Yagyu were fighting the Tsoo. Ok this makes no sense, why are the Yagyu attacking the Tsoo and in Paragon City?" <- comma, caps, question mark

Mission 2

"I still need your help the Yagyu Kage clan in Paragon City. So far from the reports I have, the Yagyu have never engage in this kind of activity. This makes no sense why attack the Tsoo and in Paragon City, when you could attack them in the Rogue Isles." should be "I still need your help the Yagyu Kage clan in Paragon City. So far from the reports I have, the Yagyu have never engaged in this kind of activity. This makes no sense, why attack the Tsoo in Paragon City, when you could attack them in the Rogue Isles?" <- comma, spelling, comma, "the", question mark

Boss dialog
"Natsumi Aster: Ouch, you would hit a girl." sounded weird. It could either be asking a question "Natsumi Aster: Ouch, would you hit a girl?" or making an exclamation "Natsumi Aster: Ouch, you WOULD hit a girl."

"Natsumi Aster: Why won't you die." should be "Natsumi Aster: Why won't you die?" <- Question mark

clue ->
"Natsumi Aster orders were to capture as many of the Circle of Thorns as possible." should be "Natsumi Aster's orders were to capture as many of the Circle of Thorns as possible." <- grammar

Mission 3

"Ok from the test we have done it looks like all the new members of the Yagyu Kage clan are clones. So the question is if you can make clones of that quailty why attack and kidnap a Tsoo boss." should be "Ok from the tests we have done it looks like all the new members of the Yagyu Kage clan are clones. So the question is if you can make clones of that quailty why attack and kidnap a Tsoo boss?" <- plural, question mark

"Thanks for helping me with this problem. Now I getting word of a Yagyu attack at a Crey building. I would bring friends along. The reports I'm getting the Yagyu sent in one of their heavy hitters." should be "Thanks for helping me with this problem. Now I'm getting word of a Yagyu attack at a Crey building. I would bring friends along. From the reports I'm getting the Yagyu sent in one of their heavy hitters." <- spelling, rewording

Blue Komodo bio
"One of the komodo brothers. Blue Komodo is master of stealth. He is a expert assassian. He along with his bother Red Komodo he considers everyone not of the Yagyu Kage clan inferior." should be "One of the Komodo brothers. Blue Komodo is a master of stealth. He is a expert assassin. He along with his brother Red Komodo he considers everyone not of the Yagyu Kage clan inferior." <- caps, rewording, misspellings

Mission 4

"What I need you to do is help set off a trap. Who ever the leak is in the Yagyu has sent me some information. They are planning another raid. I need you to go and spring the trap. From the reports I'm getting the Yagyu have all ready sent in one team. I need you to still plant the information and draw out there big hitters. Be very cafeful and bring some friends along." should be "What I need you to do is help set off a trap. Whoever the leak is in the Yagyu has sent me some information. They are planning another raid. I need you to go and spring the trap. From the reports I'm getting the Yagyu have already sent in one team. I need you to plant the information and draw out their big hitters. Be very careful and bring some friends along." misspellings, rewording, misspellings

Red Komodo bio
"One of the Komodo bothers. He loves to fight. Like his bother Blue Komodo he considers everyone not of the Yagyu Kage clan to inferior. Red Komodo is one of the most feared as he tend to eat his defeated opponents." should be "One of the Komodo brothers. He loves to fight. Like his brother Blue Komodo he considers everyone not of the Yagyu Kage clan to inferior. Red Komodo is one of the most feared as he tend to eat his defeated opponents." <- misspellings

Boss dialog
"Red Komodo: It a trap, kill the all!" should be "Red Komodo: It's a trap, kill them all!" <- misspellings

NOTE: The "kill the all" typo is done a number of places in your arc but I didn't catch them all

Clue -> Another bites the dust
"Looks like Red komodo did not come along. His bother Black Fire Komodo is also searching this facility." should be "Looks like Red komodo did not come alone. His brother Black Fire Komodo is also searching this facility." <- misspellings

Black Fire Komodo
"One of the Komodo bothers. Black Fire Komodo is the leader of the komodos. He has more power and is more intelligent than his bothers. He is looking for the rest of his bothers that are rumored to exist. He does not share his other bothers opinion that other are inferior, just becasue they do not belong to the Yagyu Kage clan." should be "One of the Komodo brothers. Black Fire Komodo is the leader of the komodos. He has more power and is more intelligent than his brothers. He is looking for the rest of his brothers that are rumored to exist. He does not share his other brothers' opinion that others are inferior, just becasue they do not belong to the Yagyu Kage clan." <- misspellings

Boss dialog
"Black Fire Komodo: Ouch, this is just not going the way I had planed" should be "Black Fire Komodo: Ouch, this is just not going the way I had planned"
"Black Fire Komodo: You have been defeated Black Fire Komodo." should be "Black Fire Komodo: You have been defeated by Black Fire Komodo."
"Black Fire Komodo: That hurts you, time for you to die." should be "Black Fire Komodo: That hurts, time for you to die."

outro
"That worked better than we could have hope. Defeating both Red Komodo and Black Fire Komodo will hurt the Yagyu badly. I just hope they stay in the Zig for a long time." should be "That worked better than we could have hoped. Defeating both Red Komodo and Black Fire Komodo will hurt the Yagyu badly. I just hope they stay in the Zig for a long time." <- wording

Mission 5

"Gijan: Another gloris day the service of the Yagyu Kage clan." should be "Gijan: Another glorious day the service of the Yagyu Kage clan." <- misspelling

"Master Jin: Be quite you fools and search it has to be here somewhere." should be "Master Jin: Be quiet you fools and search, it has to be here somewhere." <- misspelling, comma

Lady Yagyu bio
"The mistress of clan Yagyu Kage clan. She is one of the last members of her clan. She to the dismay of others has started to recuit from the outside. This action has started to fill out the clan roster. She is the contoller of the magic side of the clan." should be "The mistress of the Yagyu Kage clan. She is one of the last members of her clan. She, to the dismay of others, has started to recuit from the outside. This action has started to fill out the clan roster. She is the controller of the magic side of the clan." <- wording, commas, misspelling

Clue -> A unexcepted clue
After defeating Lady Yagyu, you have pick up a transmission. "I thank you heros. Taking down the lady was to risky by myself. It took me a while to set all this up. I was surprise to see how well you managed. I will make sure next time we meet that my minions will be stronger. Once again I thank you, this is Master Jin signing off."
should be
An unexcepted clue
After defeating Lady Yagyu, you have picked up a transmission. "I thank you heroes. Taking down the lady was too risky by myself. It took me a while to set all this up. I was surprised to see how well you managed. I will make sure next time we meet that my minions will be stronger. Once again I thank you, this is Master Jin signing off." <- misspellings

outro popup
"You have end the threat of the Yagyu Kage clan." should be "You have ended the threat of the Yagyu Kage clan." <- wording

Here's an idea similar to the one with the clickie. Make it so that the enemy is only targetable as an actual enemy by the team that spawned it. For all outsiders, the enemy is targetable but cons as a civilian so it can't be attacked or buffed. Mix in multiple spawn points and the experience could work out pretty well. If all of the team logs off and stays off for 5 minutes, the enemy changes to a normal con and can be attacked by anyone but not count toward the objective. This will prevent spawned yet not defeated enemies from clogging up an area. Might even be best to simply make the "Defeat Archon Morrison" portion of the mission on a timer so not defeating him fails the mission and he despawns.

I'm not a dev and obviously don't know the true ins and outs of the system but from one specific thing I've seen this seems feasible. I discovered with the Defendable objective in MA that the ambush is based upon the player managing to agro the enemies around a Defendable. In theory, the objective would spawn an invincible and untargetable entity that would, in turn, spawn the Council boss. Actually, might not even need all that since it might be a way to base it off the coding from the ambushes from Mayhem missions or from the hero from the villain's cape mission.

This could be purely incorrect and a dev could say "nah" but considering that clickies can already acknowledge when someone else is clicking them, it would make sense if there was a way for someone outside of your team to act as if "clickie is already being interacted with". This would outright prevent ninja'ing from being possible.

Try the Unique Maps -> Outdoor Maps -> Nerva - Fountain Island

To my understanding, Nerva Archipelago is actually UN controlled instead of a direct part of the Rogue Isles. This is why the Longbow headquarters Agincourt is placed there. I think it'll work for your needs both in layout and it'll be more canonically kosher to intercept a villain group there.

Ah, found it: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...va#post1075862

Does the above text (top of the page) work better for you? I think I'll try to do the rest of my typo fixes in that style from now on.

Arguably, setting your arc keywords to "Challenging" or whatever it is will help and perhaps mentioning that in your arc description. While I still feel she shouldn't run in Arc 2: Mish 1 due to how small the space is, I retracted that for Arc 2: Mish 2 because it's a doable challenge even if soloed--just hard. So that Mish 1 is still failable, remove Lady's ability to run but add a 5 to 10 minute timer so there's still a bit of pressure on the player to act swiftly which will fit in with the urgency of the story.

It's interesting that I feel like devil's advocate for both ScooterTwo and Defenstrator's views. I feel that the good thing about the MA is that it allows you to make stories that you can't get in the main game so while it might need tweaking, a horror/tragedy arc is perfectly fine. I have two arc concepts I have planned that will break the mold slightly so while there may be frustrations, I'm more than willing to give different styled arcs my attention.

On the flip side, Defenstrator makes a valid point that people hate to lose and are more likely to complain than offer valid critique. It also has to do with setup and wording. Oddly, your arc may be hurt simply from MA's limitations that force you to have to split the arcs into two parts. I think with enough warning that "this is a tragic arc" people should have little room to complain since they will know beforehand that it will be darker and there is ample chance at failure.

Concerning ratings, I dunno. I tend not to tell people what I rate an arc though it's usually obvious. It's entirely possible that one of your arcs had mostly 4 stars and got 4 starred again which will eventually round down. Technically I feel like bad ratings can help IF they drive us to make improvements. After about a week's time, a player can re-rate an arc and it will override the original rating. Plus, I don't feel like 3 stars is truly a bad rating. Granted, it's preferable for it to be higher but it's not actually a bad rating. One of my arcs got 2 starred in two different review threads. One drove me to fix some things and the reviewer publicly noted that he raised the rating afterwards. The other is unfixable since it was a comedy arc and the author simply didn't find the arc funny.

My goal of the Handyman is to essentially force us all to raise the bar and to help spread our arc's publicity. Typos are easy to fix but story and gameplay is a bit more nebulous and is subject to taste. It's also subject to AT. I don't test my own arcs with my Scrapper anymore because there's things I don't notice as far as difficulty (which is ironic since my main arc is sort of meant for my Scrapper as far as story is concerned). I'm assuming you (ScooterTwo) tested this with your Dominator, correct? A control based AT would have a noticibly easier time with the arc and a Dom specifically would have a bit of status resistance if Domination is up. In fact, I've been testing your arcs with my Stalker but I plan on switching to my Dom to see how the gameplay experience changes. I look forward to seeing the end of the arc.

My bad. What color choices would work best for you? I know that having differnt forum settings affects text and background colors. Same question goes for everyone else, are there any color preferences y'all would suggest to make typo fixes and other things easier to fix?

Also, I was thinking, in Mission 2 of your second arc you just might be able to keep the running aspect of the Lady if you remove the ambush. Unique mechanics ARE nice but it takes a bit of fine tuning. The ambush caused a team wipe at the exact moment she had enough damage to start running and my load times are way too slow to try to go to the hospital, re-enter the mission, and then kick her in the head to stop her.