Col_Blitzkrieger

I use orange highlights for the important stuff, normal white text for the fluff. Best of both worlds, just read the orange bits.

I swear there's an arc from Harvey Maylor where you, the player, are sent to educate civilians on the fact that the Carnies are bad people.

I guess they have great parties.

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oh and can we get Poison for corruptors too? I have an idea for a mad scientist themes if that would be implemented

[/ QUOTE ]Got any ideas for a new Tier 9 power?

May or may not do any reviewing today because I feel so sick I'm about to barf my guts out...

Arc #79763, "The Wizard of O.S."
tl;dr: 5 stars. Offenses: Needs more commas.



Freaks = Brute for capped Energy resistance.



Your contact is Samuel L. Jackson in a pimp suit... Well, not really, but that's what The Word On The Street made me think of when I first laid eyes on him. Anyway, he lets you know the Freakshow have access to some fancy new virus that lets them eat through any security system, and encourages you to steal it (probably for a cut of whatever profits you make from it after this).

The first mission takes place on the Mother Mayhem hospital map, which somehow manages to add a creepy vibe even to the normally amusing Freakshow. Your task is to defeat Scarecrow (spelled in l33t I'm not about to copy here), the first of many obvious references to That Movie.
Pretty straightforward, though there's a handful of Dark Melee/Katana custom Fear Freaks about. They look more like the default Sinister costume set with Wild hair though, rather than actual Freaks, but their description kinda-sorta justifies this. Powersets are a little odd though. The EB, Scarecrow, is Dark Melee/Dark Miasma - not the easiest thing in the world to solo, I'll tell you. He ponders replacing his brain with a "scarier brain" before agro, and keeps asking you if you're scared during the fight, but ends up disappointed. You loot a damaged CD off him, with YBR.exe written on it. Guess what it stands for.

Well, okay, you're not meant to know yet, so your contact sends you after another Freak boss, The Tinman (in l33t again). Another straightforward boss fight map - all but the fourth and final mission are, actually - this time with no custom mobs that I could see. Tinman is Battleaxe/Willpower; I was expecting Invulnerability, myself. The "heartless killer" ends the fight by claiming his heart wasn't really in it. Yep, the arc's full of these gags.

Sadly he's not too informative, so you check out a Freakshow raid on a Crey genetic engineering lab... to find furry Freaks. That's right, FurFreaks. I kinda stared at them for a while. Freakshow with bunny ears and claws. G'damn.
Well, their descriptions at least referenced the fact that Freaks will do -anything- to enhance themselves, though I felt the bunny ears were a bit much. Their leader, The Lion (again in l33t) turned out to be dangerously furry, the only hint at his former self being the fact that he stood upright and his forearms were still robotic, with metal Claws (and Super Reflexes). He was anything but Cowardly, though, his dialogue more resembling Scrappy Doo.

However, his cowardice shows after you beat him into submission, as he tells you where their leader, D0r07-... Dorothy is hiding. Dorothy is implied to be a child prodigy computer genius grown up to be a 20-something insane hacker genius gang leader, which sounds just like every Robotics Mastermind EVER.

The final mission, set in an abandoned lab map, has a few more objectives. One, you're going to have to destroy her computer, so she can't invalidate the virus the moment you try to use it (this is why you keep backups of your failsafes). The Freaks guarding the computer provide a witty reference to the Iron Man movie in their banter. Two, you grab a copy of the virus - remember, the CD from mission 1 was busted.
Three, defeat Dorothy, who looks like a schoolgirl with Vanguard gloves and a big gun. Dorothy's powersets are Assault Rifle/Energy Aura. The autohit AoE endurance drain might be nasty against some players - good thing I'm Elec Armor! At half health, she calls for Toto, and you can hear an ambush named 7070 (witty) barking something from behind. Dorothy dropped dead before Toto got there, but I stuck around out of curiosity - it was an ambush of four little black werewolf-midget things with Sonic attacks. You don't need to fight them, obviously.
In the epilogue, The Word On The Street (is that name available to players?) congratulates you on recovering the Yellow Brick Road virus (just upload it into the system and follow the yellow brick road), and enthusiastically asks you what your first target will be. Fade to black, story over.



Freakshow are always fun, particularly custom Freaks. The arc was evenly paced (though could possibly use more objectives in the first 3 missions), the dialogue was well-written (if a little grammar/punctuation-challenged in some places), and the bosses were challenging yet beatable - though in my opinion, their strength decreased as the arc went on, the Dark/Dark boss in mission 1 being the hardest. YMMV.
I swear "Steal the Virus from the Freakshow" is a generic newspaper mission you see at some point, but this takes that plot, and uses a witty, funny theme to draw it out into a not-too-long-not-too-short humor arc (let's face it, even if it was meant to be serious... Freaks with bunny ears?). The FurFreaks made me raise an eyebrow or two, but they weren't overly imposing, and outnumbered by the normal Freaks in the mission.
An enjoyable way to spend a half-hour in the evening (well, night) before going to sleep, for me. I hope everyone else enjoys it as much as I did.

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Larger file sizes would be nice, but I would rather see buyable arc slot like we can buy character slots.

Why buyable? I think that if people pay 5€ for the priviledge to publish an extra story, they will put effort into creating a good story. Sure we might get some vanity published arcs but I think we will survive that.

And more money to Paragon Studio hopefully translates into an even better future for CoH.

[/ QUOTE ]Actually, I like this idea better than mine.

(I've been accused of rating too generously... But most of the arcs I get my hands on really aren't -bad-, per se. )



Arc #2505, "Rise of the Nile"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: Typos, grammar, lack of character development, waaaaaay too many glowies, surprise timed/failable mission.



The arc recommends a team, so I used my MM at first... except this turned out to be a bad idea after coming against the custom faction in mission one, so I switched to my Brute.



The story appears to be set in the 1920s, London (at least at first). Your contact is Sir James Barringer, a member of the Royal Society. Turns out the Society has poor security, and is presently being robbed by "a group of individuals with a most foul reputation", who seek an ancient stone tablet dating back to ancient Egypt, that could reveal the location of a lost tomb yet unknown to science. As the artifacts would be lost forever if they should succeed, you're tasked with stopping them.

The map used for mission one is an abandoned warehouse. It's full of a custom faction of Beduin Warriors (their description labels them as villains bringing shame to their people), the minions use the Broadsword powerset (Arabian Scimitar), and the lieuts use Archery, high enough to have Explosive Arrow - that particular attack feels a little bit out of place. Your goal is to recover the tablet, but there's two other optional goals - a CoT Ruin Mage named Archmage Trasis (spawns frontloaded and escaped after I attacked him), and a MA/WP ally named Sir Lionel Trevellia, who spawns without any guards and says "Nicely done"(?) when you meet him.

Turns out Tarsis tampered with the tablet and copied it, escaping to Cairo, Egypt with the copy. You take the Oriental Express and a ship to catch up to him, and agree to meet up in an office - which turns out to be taken over by Beduin Warriors. The mission has a 30 minute timer, which you're not warned about, and Tarsis tries to flee at low HP (I got him this time though). Sir Lionel Trevellia makes another appearance, again with possibly messed up text lines.

You finally make it to the tomb, only to find it's already being looted by villains - your goal is to recover the artifacts and subdue the leader of the tomb raiders. The raiders are from a faction humorously named the League of Scoundrels, and look rather appropriate for soldiers on a desert operation. They have typical soldier powersets, AR, Martial Arts, etc. There's some Bedouin around, too.
Your goal is to collect... 21 glowies, on a large Orangebagel map. I didn't believe my eyes at first. This is a long mission. Luckily enough, none of the glowies turned out to be particularly tricky to find, but I suspect luck to have played a role in that. You also meet Tarsis' (rebellious) apprentice as an optional boss, and your mysterious friend Sir Lionel Trevellia, held hostage this time.
The (Elite) boss is just called 'Commander', and wears a black outfit with a cape and military hat, in contrast to the light beige outfits and barrets the normal soldiers wear. He's Broadsword/Invulnerability, and killed me pretty good the first time due to being exemped below my godmode. The second time I had Lionel with me, and it went better. No Unstoppable, thank you to the author.

Unfortunately, it isn't over. Deeper in the tombs, the League and its enigmatic leader (whose name I sadly forgot... not in the souvenir either) are working on a necromantic ritual to bring to life some sort of creature trapped in the tomb. You're sent to stop them. Your contact tells you that to do this, you need to take out the two Necromancers, and keep four pillars from being destroyed.
...strangely enough, once you're actually -in- the mission, one of your objectives is to destroy the pillars. I suspect the author picked the wrong objective type by accident. The two Necromancers are Necromancy/Dark Miasma EBs - could be tough for some, but the arc did warn you to bring a team. I think Tarsis was in this mission too.
The leader of the League is also present, though his name eludes me at the moment. I'm terrible with names, sorry. He fills the role of a third Necromancer, and throws undead minions at you. He conned as an EB, and wasn't much tougher than the other two in the mission.
Destroying the pillars spawned a new objective - what looked like a young girl dressed in faux Egyptian garb named Nile. She mutters something in what I suspect is meant to be Egyptian, but I was unsuccessful in translating it. Granted, the first word she uttered resembled gibberish more than anything like a word... Escorting her out of the tomb ended the mission, and the arc.



This was pretty fun to play, hardly anything to snark about. The custom mob designs were well done, and conveyed the concept of travelling to Egypt rather well, despite the arc taking place entirely indoors due to lack of desert maps. I definitely got some Indiana Jones vibes from the whole thing. The presence of the CoT was not strange either, because the 1920s were a golden age for the group - naturally, they'd be active, though I'm unsure if they still had a strong presence in Europe by then.
The arc is set in the past, though not in the form of an Ouroboros flashback, so it might be difficult to do in-character for those who enjoy that sort of thing. Unless you pretend it's a flashback.
The second mission has a surprise time limit and the boss objective tries to flee, neither of which you're warned about. The third mission is a huge Oranbega map, which is bad enough already - the 21 glowies is pushing the limit just a bit. I did like it how the (non-named)* EB didn't make it more annoying by having Unstoppable, though.
Sadly, the biggest flaw in this arc is the lack of backstory. Your contact, the random guy who helps you in the missions, and the League are not introduced properly to the player. Nile's nature or fate are barely alluded to at all, and even then far too vaguely. I was hoping for an explanation in the Souvenir, but it turned out to simply be a semi-cryptic poem...
I do recommend this one to play, though. It just needs some work to make it more presentable. Also, the EBs are tough, the description wasn't kidding when it said to bring a team, especially due to the level cap (24).

The Prisoners are back, apparently.

Super Speed lowers your threat modifier (normally 4 for Brutes) by 1 while running it.

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Thanks in advance, devs, for considering this humble suggestion from an EU player.

[/ QUOTE ]Subtle.

Still, a slight space increase to make up for the unforseen faction removals - even as a temporary solution - would not be a bad move. From what I recall reading here and there (talks with Hero-1 and such), space isn't even that much of an issue.

Zero defense and zero health management (the two go hand-in-hand in teams, as you can't use Aid Self with 16 mobs punching you with no defense) does a squishy make indeed. Also, I was talking about Tankers - it works for Brute DPS due to playstyle and AT design differences. It's still the squishiest Brute secondary without counting primaries or pool powers (Elec/Elec/Mu suddenly becomes very survivable due to being a very effective sapper). Look at Stalker Elec Armor to see that it just doesn't work on other ATs.
Heck, Power Surge would add less to a Tanker than it does to a Brute. They share the same caps, but a Tanker has higher normal resistance. While this sounds like an advantage, it just means they gain less of a mitigation increase. Their roles are different, too - villains don't need much tanking. Heroside, a Tanker is expected to take pretty much all the hits, and in a large team Elec will get chipped down very fast without being able to do anything about it.
Buffs and heals don't fix it, since they're outside effects - with enough buffs and heals, anyone capable of taking agro can tank even without an armor powerset.

Also it'd suck horribly for a solo tank - for a solo Brute it provides unlimited endurance so they can maintain maximum Fury and destroy things before being killed. A Tanker has mediocre damage constantly. Fire Armor has Burn and Healing Flames for extra mitigation and health management, despite lower resist numbers.

Elec needs -something- before being proliferated to anyone expected to take a punch. Sure, my main can tank the LGTF due to damage being most energy/psi, but gets pasted in the ITF. They really ought to remove Conserve Power (from both Elec and Energy, and put it in Mu Mastery) and replace it with something for health management (a heal, a dull pain clone, a regen buff, anything), or at least a defense toggle or something.

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Claws for Brutes.

I love claws, I love the Fury mechanism. This would be lovely (but would probably mean I abandon two alts immediately)

[/ QUOTE ]I already have a concept or two or three planned.

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elec melee and armour for tanks and scrappers

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This.

Reason being, atm tankers do not have a specific set to resist energy damage better than other types of damage. Ok in pvp it doesnt make as much difference anymore, but its still a hole in my eyes.

The entire set could prove a godsend to tanks who have endurence issues.

[/ QUOTE ]It would also steal the position of "Squishiest Tanker primary ever" from Fire Armor. It'd suck horribly.

Hell, have more of my wishlist:

Dark/Dark Blasters
Dark/Dark Dominators
Dual Pistols
Ice/Ice Stalkers
/Martial Arts Blasters
Thermal/Fire Defenders
/Cold Controllers
Katana, Spines and Claws Brutes

The cheap and easy way to instantly gain all 5 Rescue badges simply by entering a mission?

CoX totally needs its own virtual band, to perform in Pocket D and other more frequented zones.

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Sirens and Harpies are technically the same thing.

[/ QUOTE ]This is a recent confusion not faithful to the original myths, akin to Valkyries riding winged horses and similar myth decay. Granted, common fiction and video games seem to have interchanged their appearances, turning Harpies into monsters and Sirens into beautiful women in many cases... I didn't downrank you based on this, though, since it's extremely common nowadays to the point it's become what people -expect- to see.

Title: Tidebringer
ID: 12590
Description: The Spectral Pirates of Fort Hades in Port Oakes have gotten stronger and more aggressive, and Arachnos needs a ghost buster; you've been contacted with a job offer. Level 40-50. Two EBs and an AV. Custom mobs can be deadly if you let them swarm you, and Lieuts can stun. Final AV can be... tough, or squishy, with varying results depending on AT/build/reputation. There are (optional) allies.
Link to City of Guides entry: http://www.cityofguides.com/ma/view-mission.php?id=28

Good luck with the reviews you'll be doing. :>

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And you seem to have completly missed any connection between "Fairyland Bites" and Terry Pratchett

[/ QUOTE ]I'll be honest, I haven't actually read any of Terry Pratchett's books (yet, call off the lynch mobs). I've been meaning to, honest.
Goldfinger reference? [censored] Galore? I got that one, it seemed pretty obvious at the time so I didn't call attention to it.

Call me thick, but I still don't get the whole car-destroying thing. This game? If it's a reference to a hero arc, I'm not likely to get it, I'm a villain player.

Another wishlist? Oh, why not.

Electric Control/Stone Assault for Dominators. <_<

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Or a 5th Column invasion complete with giant zeppelin's?

[/ QUOTE ]To hell with people whining about invasions, this would be too damn cool.

Actually, the Extraction power is stronger when used on higher-ranking henchmen. You could, at later levels, send the Lich into a spawn and Detonate him, then raise a Wraith, possibly.

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Your reviews are very good Col., but I do think you have a tendancy to miss the point/joke sometimes...

[/ QUOTE ]Entirely possible. If that was a reference to anything, it went over my head.

We need more inf sinks.

Mmm, right, forgot about the PvP rebalancing thing, my mistake.