Coulomb2

Confirm other bugs reported here:

Quick Reflexes doesn't seem to provide any boost - doesn't show up in combat monitor, and I don't notice powers recharging any faster.

Heightened Speed doesn't increase speed - doesn't show up in combat monitor, and I don't notice myself moving any faster.

Heightened Senses doesn't buff perception, although I did see the defense buffs working normally along with the accuracy buff (working normally = showing up in combat monitor).

Devolve - after I returned from Rikti Monkey form, Secondary Mutation had instantly recharged (may be WAI, but reporting it anyway). The activation graphic (that big light show that surrounded me as I devolved) kept playing about every 10 seconds the whole time I was in Rikti Monkey mode, and then kept playing (again every 10 seconds) after I'd returned to normal.

Also can confirm that I kept playing the power activation animation (body motions look like the hasten animation) every 5 seconds (usually would play it twice in rapid succession, followed by a 5 second pause). Did so on both male and huge models. Happened no matter what power I got.

Also confirm that temporary power lasts 20 minutes of in game time, allowing you to log off, log back on again after the secondary mutation power recharges, and use it to get a second temporary power. Didn't try for a third. It was a different temporary power, so I can't confirm if stacking the same temporary power has no effect.

As promised, the last of the three follow ups for the Pro Payne project. Beyond the unlikely event that people will post questions/comments that I would need to answer or address, this will be my final post to this thread.

I’ve already posted the full list of arcs Pro Payne has played, but I don’t think the project could ever really be complete without a “Top Ten.” Sort of.

These are not the arcs that I consider to be the best from among the list per se – and, as stated before, if I gave it 4 or 5 stars, I considered it good and had fun playing it (heck, in spite of some flaws, the odds are good I had fun playing arcs that I gave 3 stars to), so don’t in any way take not appearing on this list as any sort of snub.

What this list is are the top ten “most memorable” arcs that I played (and it’s really more than ten since you’ll see that I tend to count multi-parters or series as single arcs here). By “memorable” I mean these arcs really stood out to me for one reason or another – they had an idea I really liked, they were the first arc I played that did a particular thing that I thought was ‘neat’, etc.

They are not listed in any particular order, or with their ID number (if you want the ID numbers, just check the previous posts).

Teen Phalanx Forever
Why? Great ideas, wonderful and cute story. Most everyone here agrees this is a prime example of arc making at its best, and I agree.

The Drakule Series
Why? Great customs, neat stories, satire I actually find quite funny, and probably the most memorable single character I’ve come across. I suspect that long after I’m completely done with City of Heroes, I’ll still remember Anton. And, of course, this is one of the few well done coherent series in M.A.; in an environment where one plot has almost no relation to another, having a couple of arcs that are related to each other is a welcome thing.

The Galactic Protectorate
Why? Pretty much the same reasons as the previous, with the exception that I think this arc comes closest to writing a very complex ‘alternate world’ with detailed history that you have the option of uncovering as you play through the arcs of the series. I haven’t been shy about pointing out where I think the series has weaknesses (the chief one being that, especially in some of the ‘middle arcs’ the similarity in design gets repetitious), but it’s still a lot of fun.

The Night of a Thousand Nemeses
Why? It might not be the best arc I played, but I still liked the concept for whatever reason (and its inclusion in this list means I found the idea behind the arc to be intriguing enough to be quite memorable), and it has the distinction of being the single best arc I found in a random search versus suggestions in this thread.
Freaks, Geeks, and Men In Black
Why? When I think of well developed, endearing, and interesting characters woven into a great story, I think of this arc. Enough said. (Oh, and it has a reference to the K’tang.)

Fear and Loathing on Striga Isle
Why? First, I really like the idea of writing ‘alternate’ arcs (I really think of them as additional arcs) for the VEATs, and this is the best of the series that I’ve played so far. Good design, neat idea – really made me feel like a Arachnos operative working in the background, parallel to the activities of a group of heroes running the Striga task forces.

The Burning of Hearts
Why? I loved the writing and the story. This arc also has the distinction of really being the first one I played that just plain wowed me with its quality, with does make it stand out. And for a villainous arc this one came closest to making me feel like a complete jerk.

Matchstick Women
Why? Another example of an arc where I really loved the idea behind the custom group. I also thought the arc did a great (and memorable) job of making the player piece together the tragic history of the main antagonist, while maintaining suspense and keeping the arc interesting. Another reason it stood out – I’m not a fan of arcs where several missions in I still feel as though I don’t know that much more about what’s going on than I did at the start, but I liked this arc anyway: so it did a good job of doing something I don’t like, which is, at the very least, memorable.

Escalation
Why? Loved the idea behind the story and the villain. But the real reason this one is here? For some reason every time I think ‘what are some of the best arcs I’ve played in the system?’ it doesn’t take long for this arc to pop into my head. If that isn’t an example of “memorable”, I don’t know what is.

The Audition
Why? Again, loved the concept and the idea, and I found the jokes funny – but for whatever reason these two arcs really had some good ideas about alternate worlds. What do I mean by that? Almost every one of the alternate worlds you visit in the arc I wouldn’t have minded actually seeing fleshed out in its own separate arc (excepting well known worlds, like Pretoria); in an odd way, it felt like I was playing a bunch of story hooks, and the whole idea gave the arc a kind of “otherworldly” feel.

Where did this list come from? I quite literally, stream of consciousness-style, tried to think of the most memorable arcs I’ve played that I enjoyed, and these are the ones I thought of, which suggests they’re the most memorable. But there are several others that if you give me a few more minutes to remember arcs I liked, I’ll think of:

Ghost in the Machine, Splintered Shields, Blight, Of Papers and Paychecks, Rise of the MegaMech (too bad that one isn’t available any more), The Butterfly Effect series, the arcs featuring the Nagans (e.g. Portal Bandits, Breaking the Barrier), Celebrity Kidnapping, Whack a Mole, Trademark Infringement, the Fanboy Fleece, Dream Paper, Ctrl+Alt+Reset, The Golden Age Secret of the Paragon Society, Against the Wickerwork Kahn, Small Fears, Day Job Hell, and many, many more (I’ve played a lot of arcs, and could probably keep listing memorable ones for a long time).

And one more rather dubious distinction: of all of the arcs I played and reviewed (both by request and through a random search) the most memorable “bad” one:

Forging an Empire
Why? I’ve played arcs that were much, much worse – that’s for sure. But of all the arcs that had a coherent storyline and that weren’t flat out broken, this arc stands out for one reason: unless the Iron Chancellor were a character I created myself, and I wanted to write an homage arc to his greatness (which, to be fair, is *exactly* what I think this arc is), why the heck would I want to spend ten missions helping this jerk build his empire (of which, apparently I will not hold any sort of position of power) and conquer the world, all the while having him treat me like dirt?!

So now that the Pro Payne project is over, what have I got in mind for the future (and why should you care)?

The Continuing Adventures of Pro Payne
I plan to start this part of the project in about six weeks. It will be a review thread (just like this one was, but this thread was really to chronicle Pro Payne journey to fifty; that’s now over, hence the reason I’m shutting this one down) and set up much like this: I’ll open it to submissions, build up a queue (which will likely be very short), close the queue, and try to post a detailed review every 1 to 2 weeks. Then (much like I’m doing here), I’ll take a break (so as to avoid burnout), and open the queue again. Although ostensibly Pro Payne will be the character that plays most of these reviews, if I do have a character who’d be better suited for the arc I *might* play that one instead (but I will allow anyone making a request to also insist it be Pro Payne that plays the arc if you want).

And then, two projects involving characters in M.A. Neither will involving anything more than “mini-reviews” (and most likely I’ll list the arc played, put a note or two, and indicate the rating). Right now, though, my plan is to allow any “arc requests” to also include a “minimum star rating” – if I would be inclined to give an arc a rating lower than the minimum requested, I’ll simply leave it unrated in-game (I will indicate what I would have rated it in whatever thread I’m using for these projects):

The “Hybrid” Character
I’m (obviously) very interested in MA’s viability as an alternate means to level a character to 50, but I think the *intent* behind MA was more as something that “shares” the spotlight with the canon game. In other words, the “typical” character plays both regular and MA missions. My concept for this character: he’s a real hero who uses MA in his “off” time as an escape from reality. In that vein, for this character I’ll be giving preference to arcs that (1) feature completely original groups and worlds (“Tired after a long day of heroics? Why not escape to a fantasy world where you’re a brave knight fighting goblins, orcs, and dragons? Or a post-nuclear holocaust world where you’re fighting raiders and radioactive mutans?”) and/or (2) are not closely tied in to canon (“Tired of being a peon in the Arachnos Web? Well in this fantasy scenario you get to assassinate Recluse, Mako, Scorpion and Scirocco, take Ghost Widow as your evil bride, and conquer the world to boot!”). So where, then, am I likely to be interested in canon stories? Well…

From 1 to 50 in M.A., Take II (well, really IV if you count the other two arcs)
Same idea as Pro Payne, but using Eva Destruction and Rubber Dog’s model: actually see how long it “really” takes by not devoting significant amounts of time to having the character write long, detailed reviews. Like the above project, this one will mostly just involve a one or two sentence summary of the arc the character just played, and a record of his progress (and of the arcs he’s set to play in the future).

Neither new project will be started immediately – as yet, I’m not really even sure if they’ll start before I open up the Continuing Adventures thread, or a few feeks after, and there are more details I need to work out, but I’ll post in this forum when each one is ready to start. I do have little interest in cluttering up the forum with multiple threads (especially given that I might “resurrect” the one about my own arcs as I start making more of an effort to get them all updated), so at least for now I’ll probably focus on one or the other (very, very likely I’ll do the entire “hybrid” approach first, then 1 to 50 – or at the very least, let the “hybrid” thing get well underway before starting the next 1 to 50 in MA character).

And so that’s it. Pro Payne bids you farewell! At least from this thread. And for the next six weeks or so.

It’s been fun!

EDIT: Fixed the name of Bubbawheat's arc.

Okay! Time for Followup #2, of 3.

First, thanks to everyone who has been congratulating me and complimenting my work on this project. Things like that do mean a lot to me, and I appreciate it!

I've had kind of an "emergency situation" come up in real life; nothing related to life, limb, or health - just something that occupied a lot of my time today, and will probably do so until Wednesday, so it does look like my last followup will actually have to wait for Wednesday.

Today's followup is actually intended as a short one. In the previous followup I listed all of the arcs that had reviews of some sort in this thread. However, Pro Payne didn't necessarily review every arc that he played. Today's list are the arcs Pro Payne played, but didn't write a review for (I may or may not have had online comments, but there's nothing posted here).

A caveat: some of these arcs are from very early in the project, and may have changed substantially. And frankly, my tastes in arcs have likely changed over the last 14 months too - so the ratings given for this list likely have a bit more of the "human" element to them: There are probably some arcs I'd be much harsher to today, and others I'd be kinder to instead. And heck, if one of yours is one I was fairly harsh to, and you've made modifications to it - or just want me to try it again, feel free to ask when the time comes for me to solicit more arcs to play with different projects (more on that next week).

Okay, here it is (again, these *should* only be the arcs Pro Payne played, but didn't review). Because it is derived from the "search" function, keep in mind that the order listed here isn't terribly important, and the list could certainly be missing arcs that got unpublished after I played them.

4 1001 Johnny Sonata and the Hitmen
5 137561 Ctrl + Alt + Reset!
4 68930 Pandas vs. Rikti
5 2974 The Return of the Lizard People
5 88842 Cats and Lizards
5 1709 The Amulet of J'gara
4 30204 Gnomish Madness
4 35335 The "Easter Basket"
4 84420 Death to Disco!
4 89438 Facing the Darkness
5 91836 The Fanboy's Fleece
4 37636 The Missing
5 83574 Sewer Surprise
5 51357 Rise of the Drakule
2 79061 The Age of Aquarius
3 1541 Sub Hero Inc. - Technology Operation
5 13986 Save the Spiderlings!
5 2220 Trademark Infringement
3 17030 What Happens IN CyberSpace Stays In The Recycle Bin
3 12179 Sub Hero Inc. - Double Helix
3 5676 Welcome to the Legion of Valor
4 2646 To Serve Cookie
5 12285 Small Fears
3 1034 Getting to Know Crey Financial: The Teaser
3 1070 Rumble with Beef Cake
5 1033 The Wool Over One's Eyes Ver 2.91
5 221240 The Audition, Part I
1 364364 Dey, tuk, awr JAWBZ!
3 158629 Sukiyaki Rumble
5 119228 Hero Therapy! ™
5 134140 Santa's Workshop of Misfit Toys
3 188282 The Decryption
4 93574 The Crazy Clown
4 108335 Everlasting Life
3 174586 Assault on Aru Prime
5 177930 Fighting Freedom
3 139180 Adventures in Arkham
5 76190 King of Thieves Part 1: All Hell's Breaking Loose
1 14160 Intrigue in The Arcana
4 27861 The Monster Hop
5 84543 Return of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood
4 7415 PUG Hell
4 67566 The Paradox Raid
4 37724 Brokering the Brickers
3 22908 Zombies have the Cheerleaders!
2 6583 Hero Corps: To Russia… With INTRIGUE
3 91644 Shenanigans on Striga
4 18109 Hell Comes to Paragon
2 93272 Invasion of the Samurai
2 34399 What are we doing tonight Iggy?
3 1147 Found and Lost
4 1125 Sgt. Hoolihan and the Missing Pants
4 2085 In Her Own Image V 3.35
5 110465 Hunter of Beasts Part 1: It starts with a riot…
3 193782 KIT's Chaos
4 151099 Meet the Demon Spawn
2 35050 The Hijacking of the Kumo Maru
3 106283 Final Exam: a Chibi Strike Force
3 2965 The Butterfly Effect
2 4639 Finding The Lost Leaders
4 128476 Destined Champion of the Multiverse
4 199400 By Any Means
2 164437 Into the Screaming Void
4 3643 Cosplay Madness
4 17482 Collecting the Evil Doctor's Debt
1 50643 Defeat Liscku
1 333128 Battle Hardened Brawlers

By the way, if you add these arcs to the previous list, that's 195 story arcs, and the overall average rating is 3.8 stars (so hey, evidently I'm still 'kinder than average' overall).

Alright, it’s just a tad bittersweet (for me), but what follows is going to be the first of what I intend to be the final three posts for the Pro Payne project.

The first post (this one) will include an overview of the project, including all of the actual reviews posted in this thread (in the order in which they were originally posted) – which serve as something of a chronicle of Pro Payne’s journey to level 50.

The second post (which will likely be tomorrow) will list every arc I believe Pro Payne has played, but for which no review was posted here (with the caveat that the arc still has to exist in the MA system for me to know about it).

The third post (possibly tomorrow, or possibly Tuesday of next week) will be future projects involving MA (in other words, how I plan to “continue” what I started here). Why would you, gentle reader, ever care about such self-serving “Coulomb2 thinks he’s important and you should be interested in his future plans” b.s.? For one and only one reason: because once again I’ll be needing arcs to play – so you can at the very least get another “tick mark” added to your arc (or if you weren’t happy with my earlier rating, but have made improvements, you can get me to upgrade the arc’s rating). Plus, sooner or later, I do plan on returning to doing the detailed reviews I ultimately ended this project with – although I will absolutely be taking a break from that for now.

This post it itself really divided into two parts.

1. My impressions of the whole level 1 to 50 MA experience.
2. A complete listing of every arc I’ve posted a review or mini-review in this thread, in the order reviewed. Included is the “official” rating I gave the arc – that might differ from the in game rating (which may be higher).

So if all you’re interested in is the “bullet point” summary of Pro Payne’s conclusions regarding his MA experience and the listing of arcs that have reviews, scroll down to the part of the post where you see the big, long list, and then look a bit above that.

Okay, on to the meat of the post.

The Pro Payne project started on April 22nd, 2009. Here’s a feel for about how he progressed through the levels (I have no doubt that some of these dates could be off by a few days, but it still gives a pretty good impression).

April 29th, 2009, after 7 days, I made it to level 10.

May 13th, 2009, after 21 days, and 14 days after level 10, I made it to level 20. Which meant I had spent about 67% of my total play time thus far in the 10 to 20 range.

July 9th, 2009, after 91 days, and 70 days after level 20, I made it to level 30. Which means I’d spent 77% of my total play time to this point in the 20 to 30 range.

October 2nd, 2009, after 185 days, and 94 days after level 30, I made it to level 40. So I’d spent only about 51% of my total play time to this point in the 30 to 40 range.

And finally, May 17th, 2010, after 414 days, and 229 days after level 40, I made it to level 50. So I’d spent 55% of my total play time in the 40 to 50 range. Interestingly, that’s very much on par with the assumption that the typical player spends about half of their total play time in the 40 to 50 range.

Here’s another way to look at it – the percentage of the total time I spent in each of the major “blocks of 10” level ranges.

1 through 10: 1.7%
10 through 20: 3.4%
20 through 30: 16.9%
30 through 40: 22.7%
40 through 50: 55.3%

I’ve read elsewhere on the forums that level 25 typically is about one-fourth to one-fifth of the way through your “career” (that isn’t based on experience total, but more on what a lot of veteran players “feel” as they play through the game). Based on my own experience here, it seemed to be reasonably accurate.

Over the course of the project, Pro Payne was able to use the ticket system to keep two builds reasonably up to date – one was always decked out in nothing but SOs, while the other, the main build, tried to use the best IOs available.

It’s more just my impression than anything else, but I felt like, compared to a non-MA character, in the lower level range it was easier to keep Pro Payne totally up to date enhancement wise (just using tickets, in spite of the fact buying salvage to sell on the market would have probably netted me more than enough influence to just buy each set). And in the higher level ranges Pro Payne’s “equipment” was pretty much on par with what I’d normally have: I usually start working on IOs after level 35 (which I did here), and start equipping full sets in the very early 40s. I typically have a character using mostly sets by the early mid 40s – which is exactly how it played out with Pro Payne.

Right now, Pro Payne has 48,881,365 influence, and is sitting on 9,515 tickets. If you assume that I could, without a whole lot of effort, net about 2 million inf per 540 tickets (the cost of a rare), Pro Payne’s “net worth” is likely about 84 million inf. What would be interesting is that bronze rolls are about 70 a pop, so I could literally make about 135 bronze rolls. Most of the time I can’t sell those for squat, but if you “win the lottery” you can potentially get a big windfall.

Another interesting stat would be just how many tickets Pro Payne earned using MA legitimately from levels 1 through 50. Ever since the badge change, that’s been pretty hard to get a firm handle on. Based on about when I got to 25,000 tickets total, I’d estimate I’ve earned about 90,000 tickets. As stated before, I’ve played approximately 200 arcs, totaling probably about 800 missions. If you assume an average of 100 tickets per mission (which I think is a decent compromise between the larger number of sub-100 missions versus the missions where I earned 300-500 tickets in a single mission), that comes to about 80,000 tickets, so that’s probably about the right range.

In any case, I really don’t have a great feel for how Pro Payne’s wealth would stand up to the “average” character who’d just made it to level 50, but the bottom line is that it’s far more “wealth” than I’d ever possibly *need* for anything else – and given that I’ve made very little effort to build his wealth, where he stands now strikes me as, at least, acceptable.

One thing that is certainly a difference between Pro Payne and a “non MA” character is the amount of time it took me to pull this off. The in-game hours measure is fairly dubious, but I can get a good idea based on the number of days of real time it took.

For my solo characters, I tend to try out different ones until I “lock on” to one that I really enjoy, and then take him to level 50. For most of my solo characters, it usually takes me about 9 months of solo play to get the character to 50 (using mostly “weekday free time” play – it’s rare for me to play them on weekends; I’m usually teaming with friends). Pro Payne took closer to 14 months. So, tentatively, I’d say getting to level 50 with legitimate MA play takes about 50% to 60% longer than with normal play – which, frankly, doesn’t really strike me as that totally unreasonable (although, just “gut feeling” on this, I think if I was a dev – which I’m not, obviously – I’d have aimed more in the 10% to 20% range). But there’s a huge issue: the sheer amount of time it took me to do the reviews. I have no really good way of accounting for that particular time sink – except to say that it was a very, very real effect: there were times where I wouldn’t play Pro Payne when I normally would have because I wanted to play CoH, not write a review, but I didn’t want Pro Payne’s backlog to get too large.

It occurs to me that one of the only ways to really get a feel for how much slower an MA character levels versus a “canon” character would be to literally do that, without writing reviews. One approach would be to play them side by side, scrupulously allotting the same time of play for each, and watch how fast they level relative to each other. A second would be to do one, then the other, and compare real-life time to get to 50. My instincts are the 1st idea would probably give a more accurate result, but the 2nd is closer to my preferred style of play. Picking one or the other is a potential new project (and I’ll talk more about that in a later post – followup #3 actually), but it’s something I’ve been batting around.

But here’re the bullet points for anyone who just wants the basic summary:

1. Leveling a character from 1 to 50 in Mission Architect, playing legit, non-farm arcs has been a very fun experience overall. If you’ve been considering giving it a try, but just needed a “push” to get you started, consider this an attempt at a push.
2. Resources-wise, an all MA character was easier to keep equipped at lower levels, and at least as easy as a “canon arc” character at higher levels.
3. Time-wise, I felt getting to 50 in MA was significantly slower, but not unreasonably so. A lot of that is likely the time spent reviewing arcs, though – so I’d treat this conclusion with a grain of salt. There are at least two other active “to 50” MA projects I’m aware of (Eva Destruction’s and Rubber Dog’s) that come much closer to the “play them without putting lots of time into reviews” approach that’s better for judging this. I plan on keeping a close watch on their efforts in addition to potentially conducting my own experiment here.

The final list of reviews for arcs in this thread

As a wrap up to this post (and because I’ve gotten a few PMs from people who wanted to see this. Okay, actually just one, but I wanted to see it myself), what follows is a list of every arc that’s gotten a review in this thread, along with the “official” rating I gave it (the in game rating might differ, and is frequently at least one star higher, but you’ll have to click back to that arc to see what it was given in game).

These do include the “mini-reviews” – although arcs mentioned only “in passing” in this thread don’t appear in this list (they will in the next one). The arcs here are listed in the exact same order their reviews were posted. Re-reviews *are* listed twice (so if you’re looking for a particular review or re-review, you can find it).

The listed Arc ID number is what the ID was at the time I played the arc; some arcs have since been yanked and republished under different IDs – or are simply not in the system anymore. They’re still listed here because this is just as much an index to the contents of this thread (sort of) as it is a way to find this arcs in game. For what it’s worth, anything I rating 4 or 5 stars I think you’ll probably enjoy playing – unless you’re a very picky player (in which case only some of the ones I gave 5 stars would be up your alley). If I rated it 3 stars, I’d say if the description looks interesting to you, you’ll probably enjoy it. If it’s 1 or 2 stars, I don’t really think you’d enjoy it that much even if the description sounds interesting to you.

I apologize that this list is ugly - the actual list is in Excel (to make it easier for me to arrange/manipulate it for my own purposes), and I have yet to find a way to import it as a table or anything that doesn't just have AWFUL formatting on these forums. But it'll at least get the information across, until I can find some way to make it look pretty.

The first number listed is the "star rating", the second is the arc ID, and the third is the name of the arc.

4 1345 Jumping In Feet First
3 17702 Every Rose
5 2260 The Burning Of Hearts
5 2180 Bricked Electronics
3 1154 Low Tide
3 106553 Trollbane
5 61866 A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings
4 1402 In the Shadow of the Towers
5 61013 Attack of the Bikini-Clad Samurai Vampiresses
3 84105 Duality
3 1004 Welcome to Architect Entertainment
3 17523 A Little RnR
5 1874 Dream Paper
4 67335 Teen Phalanx Forever
4 156389 Kiss Hello Goodbye
5 122274 The Second Coming of the Mega Mech
4 100045 SlashDeMento and the Stolen Weapons
5 51728 Speeding Through Time
4 113615 Deal with the Devil's Pawn
5 1874 Teen Phalanx re-play
4 227331 Consequences of War, Part 1
4 241496 Consequences of War, Part 2
5 221242 The Audition, Part II
4 230100 Pagkagising ng Kaluluwa
5 1013 Ghost In The Machine, Act I
5 257242 Drakule Armageddon 5
3 2622 A Tangle In Time
5 64609 Eclipse over Paragon
4 219484 The History of Statesman
5 1388 Celebrity Kidnapping
5 298290 Of Papers and Paychecks
3 233720 A Close Encounter
5 1567 MacGuffin Delivery Service
4 1526 The Bestest Radio Mission Ever
4 1589 Of Mentors and Legacy
4 296884 A Show of Hands
3 314798 Two Great Tastes
5 299972 The Coldest of Wars
5 190069 Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces the Great Face
3 221702 In Pursuit of Liberty
4 2711 Whack A Mole
3 321834 The Daybreak Patrol Needs Help!
5 262739 The Superadine Revolution
5 278757 The Rikti Accession
4 328789 The Glory of Moment
5 161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
5 101165 Too Many Bunnygirls
4 143476 AE's Premium Quality Mission
5 322480 Day Job Hell: A Villain's First Day Job
5 53951 A Sleeping Star
5 47143 The Galactic Protectorate
2 112877 Something Stinks
1 153802 Attack of the fluffies
4 117281 The Galactic Protectorate - 02
2 227138 Robotic Scavenger Hunt
2 300007 Still Here…
5 174352 The Galactic Protectorate - 03
3 337438 Mission Awesome
4 337436 The Great Face Off!
5 337435 OMG it's the LOLBAT
5 337434 Quest for Magic
5 269714 The Galactic Protectorate - 04
1 163731 Royal Rumble 2
2 304244 A Link To The Wild
4 202907 Night of a Thousand Nemeses!
1 298348 Be the Sidekick!
4 304290 The Galactic Protectorate - 05
5 28470 15+ Minute Tutorial - Knowledge is Power
5 6017 Mercytown, the one with the fish
4 58363 Nuclear 90: the Fusionette Task Force
3 178278 The Marconeville Horror
5 259920 In Poor Taste
4 115174 Vernon Von Grun's Extraordinary Extradimsional Excursions
3 169114 Seeking Men
5 260284 A Warrior's Journey, the Flower Knight Task Force
4 266877 The Most Important Thing
4 2019 Have a Blap, Blap, Blap Happy Day Kids!
4 171031 The Fracturing of Time
5 71933 One Million Eyes
4 4829 Chains of Blood
5 8925 Forget the Rose, send me the Thorns
5 60197 Becky's Revenge
4 13107 Of Sound Mind and Body
4 29205 Polar Emergence Neutral Government User Interface
5 6143 Escalation
2 1934 Love Spurned
5 41565 Astoria in D Minor
5 1444 The Tongue Twiser
5 140423 Blight
4 47550 Kharmic Exchange
2 10665 Enter the Wildfire
3 181972 Dreamweaver
3 160373 Mangini's Carnival (Part One)
3 160477 Mangini's Carnival (Part Two)
4 108614 Archetect Mission
5 253991 Splintered Shields
- 287432 Pumpkins Fight Back
1 137705 Rage Within the Machine
2 unknown The Search for Bad Hat
5 1237 Sabrina's Tale
4 174557 Ghost In The Machine, Act II
4 12647 Tales of Cimorera, Vol 1: Of Feathers and Fur
1 266131 Tough Stuff
4 242127 An Error In Architect Entertainment
- 292389 Tales of Cimorera, Vol 2: From Tartarus with Love
5 344596 The Golden Age Secret of the Paragon Society
2 333593 Roundup In Paragon
5 4643 Blowback
2 304263 Ghosts Gone Bad
2 257335 Cliff Em All
4 257226 Tis Nobler in the Mind
2 297471 Forging an Empire, pt. 1
2 297472 Forging an Empire, pt. 2
5 347029 Breaking The Barrier (And Putting It Back Together)
5 340316 Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell
5 3369 Matchstick Women
3 338575 A Tangled Weave
3 230187 The Hero of King's Row
4 349034 A Taste For Evil
4 350877 The Greater Good
5 350552 Fear and Loathing on Striga Isle
5 292389 Tales of Cimorera, Vol 2 re-play
5 352400 The Union of the Mask
3 349298 The Better Part of Valor
4 355068 The Galactic Protectorate - 06
4 1044 The Empire - One Alliance
4 302196 Waddle's Revenge
5 346904 Against the WickerWork Khan
5 3326 The Portal Bandits

In case you were curious, that means this thread contains 129 reviews of 127 different story arcs. My average rating amounts to 3.9 stars, which, I think, makes me one of the “kindest” reviewers in terms of official ratings (which doesn’t surprise me). That average’ll go down when I add the non reviewed arcs, though.

And thus ends the saga of Pro Payne, the “fake” hero of Mission Architect. (This won’t be the last post in this thread, though – I’ve got some follow up posts planned.)

Pro Payne’s last adventure was…

The Portal Bandits: (Arc ID#3326, 5 stars)

I had just received an emergency call from a hero known as the Iron Samurai. He thanked me for my quick response, and told me that a group of ‘invaders’ had just hit a Portal Corps lab. One of the portal ‘techs had managed to get a portal deep in the lab operating: I was going to be sent from a portal in a safe location through that one. Once Iron Samurai managed to round up some PPD and Longbow, he’d then come in through the front door. Presumably, we’d meet in the middle.

Within the lab I found the invaders to be quite well-organized. They had taken several hostages, and were questioning them about portal technology. Furthermore, they had already downloaded several portal schematics from the computers in the lab. I also encountered several patrols doing sweeps of the lab (presumably acting both as lookouts, and also searching out any other technology these creatures could scavenge), along with some “heavy hitters” that had evidently been brought in to protect the “science team” as they searched for the portal technology.

I learned very quickly that the invaders were quite dangerous, with advanced technology giving them a very wide variety of abilities. They were referring to themselves as “Nagans” – and were calling us “Earthlings”, which suggested they were aliens. Whether or not they were from another dimension (like the Rikti) or actually from another planet in this universe remained to be seen. (Note: I actually already know which option they are – but I’m just playing along with the story here.)

Suggestion: I’d remove placate from the “stealth” Nagans (even the minions had it). In practice it was just annoying – it just made the fights longer without really making them more dangerous (the most common use I experienced would be when a minion would placate me, then get scared and run away, in effect making runners even *more* annoying than usual). Granted, I agree that it would be interesting if the AI were smart enough to make good tactical use of it – but it’s just not smart enough… (Oh, and apparently it’s the ‘smoke’ power that does it.)

I think my favorite so far are the Dreadnoughts: there’s something strangely funny about a tall, thin, rather slight-looking female being called a “Dreadnought.” And then funny turns to ironic as you watch her tear chucks of concrete out of the ground and pummel you into oblivion with vicious punches.

The hostage rescues went … okay. I did find Sgt. Witten, along with Doc. Kryten, but I never located Pvt. Collins (whom the Sgt. referred to).


Pro Payne has some of his first encounters with the Nagans… sort of.

And something must have held up the Iron Samauri, because I never saw hide nor hair of him. Fortunately I was able to defeat the raid leader, which prompted a quick retreat by the rest of the invaders.

The next time I had a chance to talk to Iron Samauri, he was quite impressed: apparently I had basically solved the problem just as he and the others were getting there (so, hey, points for consistency). He also confirmed my observation that Collins was nowhere to be found.

He was also very worried about these Nagans – if they really were aliens from another planet, why’d they come here specifically to steal portal technology? Especially when it looked like (based on how they got into the lab) that they already had portal technology. It looked like their next target was a Crey research facility (one of Iron’s informants worked in Crey, and tipped him off that that particular facility had just put in an emergency call for reinforcements) – perhaps I’d find out more about these Nagans there.

The Nagans were there all right, along with some Crey security. Neither were friendly – but what was very odd is that this lab only seemed to be working on a type of upgraded power armor, and that didn’t fit with the Nagans wanting portal technology.

I found both the raid leader, and the target of their raid – a dimensional stabilizer – deep in the lab. With the help of some inspiration I was able to defeat the raid leader (who, I found out later, was making references to a “Cobalt Stinger”) – but she called in an ambush that quickly defeated me. Even with Rise of the Pheonix, I simply couldn’t defeat the combined forces of the ambush plus all of the Nagans surrounding the Crey researcher, and guarding the stabilizer. Not really wanting to wait for RotF to return, I headed to the hospital.


Pro Payne makes the ambush useless by having the bad form to die before they can stop him from escaping.

What the?! Oh, this is funny. The whole base is filled in Nagans trying to keep me from escaping. Ironic, since I’m actually trying to get *in* - it’s pretty clear that the intent was for this to be an exciting fight out of the base, and by scanning the clues (something I typically don’t do in the middle of fights, which is why I hadn’t noticed it yet) I figured out the whole Crey raid was just a trap – the Nagans wanted me out of the picture after interfering with their portal operation earlier.

This would have been exceedingly dramatic – if it had happened the way it was planned. Here are some things that might make it more likely that the mission plays the way the author intended:

A whole bunch of suggestions:

One option is to put the stabilizer and the Crey technician in the middle of the map – it was the sheer number of Nagans all collected in one place that killed me twice in succession.

Another option – better IMO – is to actually make the “trap” trigger on the stabilizer, and keep it in the back room. It’s very unlikely a player is going to go clicking on a glowie in the middle of a fight – so it’s much more likely that if the glowie and the raid leader are in the same room, that it’ll be the glowy that gets triggered last.

Chaining the stabilizer to the raid leader, and triggering the trap on the stabilizer would also work, and would practically ensure the player will at least start working their way out of the base as intended.

Of course, anything that makes the battles in the final room easier also increases the chance the player won’t die and have to go to the hospital before the mission completes – easy settings, no ambush triggered on the boss, etc. The easier those fights are, the more likely the end of the mission will go off exactly as planned.

End of all the suggestions

Again, once the player is actually fighting their way out of the base – no need to pull any punches. After all, it’s supposed to be a lethal ambush. The trick is making sure the player doesn’t fight their way “backward” through it.

We needed more information about Cobalt Stinger, and Iron Samurai had some files – Stinger was actually a villain, and a member of a group called Smash, Inc. Two of his known associates were a pair of very rare female trolls known as Vikki and Tami Vandale. They had a safehouse in Faultline, and Iron had just received reports of increased activity there. I headed over there to interrogate the two: Iron was kind enough to give me a dossier on several of the major member of “Smash.”

Note: Iron Samurai made a reference to a character called “Naga Obscura” – who isn’t mentioned in the dossier or any of the clues. Given the author’s attention to detail, I’m assuming she was mentioned in dialog somewhere – but even at that (given dialog is very easy to miss), I’d suggest either the reference needs to be removed from Samurai’s text, or it needs to be added to a clue (so people playing the arc who see this and think “who is Naga Obscura?!” can file back through the clues and find a reference to her).

Even if there are no clues referencing her, the fact that the characters in the safehouse reference her is not an issue – they’d (presumably) know about her, and it’s completely believable that they’d talk about her even if I’m not yet sure who they’re talking about. But there’s nothing (well, nothing that I caught) that would explain how Samurai would have known about her and also just assume I’d have heard of her too.

Okay, anyway, I headed into the safehouse, and found it crawling with Nagans. They were definitely not expecting to see me – they were actually in the midst of being quite entertained by all of the “worldly pleasures” the trolls were showing them.

Almost immediately I ran across the leader of Smash, Inc. – a villain known as Anna Nemina. (And yes, I’m almost certainly misspelling the name. Sorry about that). Anna was one of the many villains who had joined the Vanguard, and wasn’t about to see *another* alien group become a threat to Earth. She was very angry that her fellow villain group member, Cobalt Stinger, was selling secrets to the Nagans, and also angry that Vikki and Tami were choosing to be “along for the ride” (hey, if you’re a villain, all to often money talks). She had no love for me, but was eager to beat some sense into her fellow villains, and I was willing to accept the help.

After freeing Anna, I also found a file that needed to be decrypted, along with a painting covering some sort of vault – that I needed the key to. I assumed that the “troll twins” would have both the decryption key and the actual key, so I redoubled my efforts to find and interrogate them.

I fought my way through a legion of Nagans to find the Vandale twins. They were tough, but not tough enough to face down both me and Anna. From them I was able to learn that they were actually providing a base of operations to the Nagan invaders! They were hiding out in a cave network below the safehouse – and the vault door I’d discovered behind the painting was the way in (Tami was kind enough to provide the key). Vikki also decrypted the file I’d found earlier – it was Cobalt Stinger’s notes on the Nagans (some interesting fiction explaining their origin, attributes, and appearance; no need to repeat it here, but I will comment that I’m very impressed with the flow of the story, and I do think this was a perfect place to basically fill in their “backstory”).

Note: I haven’t flat out said it – but I thought this third mission was just plain inspired. It added a lot of personality to the Nagans, was a lot of fun to play, and yet fit seamlessly into the story.

Given that the Nagans already were monitoring our communications lines (among all of the other things their advanced technology allowed), I opted not to call the Iron Samurai, and simply head into the Nagan’s hideout.

The base was filled with gear the Nagan’s had stolen from several villain groups – but my main task while in here was to destroy all of the equipment they were using to monitor communications. Once that was done, Iron Samurai and I could plan out the next move without needing to worry about the Nagan’s knowing exactly what we were up to.

Instrumental to that was defeating the base defender (actually a pretty fun fight), and also their Comm Officer, Susiku (who confirmed they’d been monitoring our communications, and begged me not to wreck all of her equipment – a request I ignored). Even though I’m playing these arcs where the Nagans show up ‘out of order’ it is always a good thing to see recurring characters.


Hey, it’s Suziku!

With the Nagan’s ability to monitor our communications now offline, we were ready to strike the blow that would put an end to their operation here on Earth.

Note: A very fun, very well designed mission – the attention to detail, and the fact that it is clear the author has gone to great lengths to make even every optional mission objective unique – yet still very much tied to the story – is very much leading to this being one of the most immersive arcs I’ve played. I’m pleased to say I’m finding this arc a very appropriate finale to the arcs I’ve played as Pro Payne. Very well done!

I was now free to call Iron Samurai. His connections in the Vanguard told him that the Nagans were launching a major raid against the Rikti. It was likely Naga Obscura herself would be there – defeating her would probably put a stop to the raids, at least for now.
The raid was occurring in the network of caves that lead below the Rikti Mothership. The Nagans were there in full force – as were the Rikti, and I witnessed (and interfered) in several battles between them.

The Nagans were not expecting to see me there either. Although still very well organized, they weren’t able to muster the sheer number of ambushes they had earlier, which was nice. The large rooms proved unusually challenging because the “stealth” Nagans have a huge agro range – often I’d be fighting just about every group in the room that had had a stealthy Nagan as part of the part in the spawn. A little annoying, but doable (and I didn’t die an excessive number of times).


Pro Payne battles his way into the cave network…

A ways in I managed to find Iron Samurai, who had gone in before me. He proved to be a very welcome ally, and make many of the fights easier thanks to his ability to draw agro off of me.


The Rikti were not terribly happy to see me either…

Not surprisingly, Naga Obscura was located in the giant cavernous room under the Mothership, surrounded by her raiding parties intent on plundering Rikti technology. I was positive Obscura wouldn’t stay put when the fight began, so I first swept the room, defeating all of her followers.


One of Obscura’s many raiders – and one of the aforementioned Dreadnoughts that amuse me so…

Then, with Iron Samauri’s help (and quite a lot of inspiration), I faced the powerful Naga Obscura herself. The fight was going quite well, until she seemed to toggle on Overload – either that or she turned one of her armors on. The fact that I suddenly just couldn’t hit her at all made me suspect the former.

If I was right about Overload, then I was basically going to need to “sit out” for about three minutes and wait for it to wear off. Which is exactly what I did – I was looking for her endurance to crash, but I didn’t see it. So after about three minutes I moved back in and the fight began again.


The least dramatic part of the fight, while I wait for Overload to wear off.

I just wasn’t as inspired this time, but there’s nothing like dying (and the short period of invulnerability that comes after that) to easily finish her off.

Naga did talk to me briefly after her defeat. She had a very interesting take on Earth – in spite of the Nagan’s ability to travel between the stars, portal technology had eluded them. She almost seemed amazed that our primitive race had managed to develop it before the Nagans. In any case, the reason the Nagans were stealing the technology rather than trading for it was based on their view that we were not mature enough as a species to even handle the technology we have, much less what they could give us. (Pretty ironic coming from the leader of one of the most brutal and violent factions I’ve faced…)

I was in no way surprised to hear that Naga had escaped before she could be incarcerated – none of the Nagans could be teleported to the Zig anyway thanks to the technology they had to tap our teleport grid and ‘intercept’ prisoners in transit.

And I knew for a fact that the Nagans would be back…

(…especially given that I played other arcs in this series)

And thus ended Pro Payne’s career as a hero; he’d reached level 50, and played the arcs he promised to play. He might not have been a real hero (see his backstory in the first post), but he certainly has had enough adventures in M.A. to feel like one. He’s not permanently retired, but I will be looking forward to new things.

And yes, a very well done arc to end on!

Pros: The mission design and the story are both excellent. There is so much detail in each mission that the whole arc just feels “alive” – I never once felt my interest flagging. The pacing of the story was very good, as was the use of clues. Of course, it goes without saying that the custom group is among the most well-thought out in MA, and have excellent designs. Make no mistake: they are hard (this is one of the few arcs I tagged with the challenging keyword) – but, with the exception of the super-long-range agro of the stealthy ones, they really remind me of Arachnos: they’re not hard because they’ve been given overpowered abilities, but because the group mixes lots of varied attacks and abilities. The difficulty curve does scale up pretty steeply in larger groups (or at least if you’re spawning for larger groups) – but they do feel easier and more balanced overall than in my earlier run-ins with them (which might be a combination of both the author’s tweaking and the fact my character is a lot stronger). And the liberal use of patrols and boss details (even ones spawning in things lower-ranked than bosses) really added a lot to the story, since the Nagan’s dialog was really well done.

Cons: I really only noticed a few things. As mentioned before, the “stealth” Nagans having the ability to placate proved to me more of a useless time sink than something that made them more difficult foes. And when you combine the difficulty of the group with how the second mission is put together (as discussed in my writeup above), it seems to me that there’s a good chance that the Nagans trying to stop you from getting out of the lab will actually be encountered while you are returning from a trip to the hospital. There’s got to be a way to make it more likely that’ll play out as intended, since it really would have been very cool if it had worked that way (and I certainly liked the idea). The fact that Iron Samurai was (if I recall) by mission three making references to Naga Obscura felt off – like I was supposed to have caught something I didn’t (most likely in the dialog). Putting a mention of her in one or two of the clues would work well (as would removing Samurai’s reference to her), since if you do happen to miss wherever she came up, you can scan the clues and go “oh, yeah – she was mentioned, and I just missed it.” I didn’t see any real need to have Samurai give you the dossier on her any earlier, though.

Naga possibly having Overload (which is very hard to counter if you’re not on a team or have the right powers) was annoying, but given the warning giving in the mission briefing certainly not “unfair.” But I can tell you that, in practice, what that power mostly accomplishes is just having to run away, and then wait for three minutes until it wears off. Not all that dangerous, but doesn’t really make the arc any more fun either. (Ironically, it would seem like popping a tier 9 would be a very suspenseful moment, but, much like Instant Healing, it actually ends up being the opposite.)

Again, in summary, an excellent and very entertaining arc!

Score: 5.225

What follows is a very rare progress report, as opposed to an actual post.

I just didn't have enough time to finish Portal Bandits today - this arc is so filled with stuff that it's taking longer to review than I'd anticipated...

Which is good, because unless the last mission just blows (which could happen, but I'm not expecting it to...), I can already put Lazarus' mind at ease in that this one's getting five stars.

In other words, so far I've found this arc to go beyond the normal five star experience - it's been exceptional. (In other words, the difference between a "high A" versus a 91 - both are very, very good, but there's something extremely special about the 98+ range...)

Most of this will get erased once the review is up. Especially if the last mission is just not any fun. Which I'm really, really, REALLY hoping won't be the case.

No pressure.

I've mentioned it before, but something that would improve the situation somewhat (perhaps as a stop-gap solution until a better one comes along) would be to sigma-clip the average. Without going into a lot of detail, it basically automatically removes ratings that are too "deviant" from the typical rating an arc has been getting (and yes, it does work the other way - if everybody playing it thinks it's cr*p, and is giving it 1 or 2 stars, and you get your buddy to give it 5, it would actually ignore the 5 star when computing the average).

Arrow Rose's experience here just illustrates the problem introduced by the non weighted average: It's very likely that about one rating in 25 will automatically be 1 star regardless of the quality of the arc because that's about the incidence of sociopathic personalities in the general population; a system that is set up to automatically ignore rare "deviant" ratings would at least be a step in the right direction.

EDIT: Oh, and one other thing I just thought of (apologies if it's already been suggested). Another way to give a 5 star rating equal weight to lower ratings is this:

As long as an arc has 1, 2, or 3 star ratings, then instead of going into the average, a 5 star rating simply "cancels" a 1, 2, or 3 star rating (obviously starting with 1 stars, and when there are no more of those left, 2 stars, etc.) - at least for purposes of calculating the average.

Example ('cause I like those): An arc has been played 10 times, and given these ratings.
1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5. Current system, Average is 3.7, so the arc would display as 4 stars. And you'd need 16 more consecutive 5 star ratings to get the average up to 4.5, and a 5 star display average.

New system: 1*, 2*, 3*, 3*, 4, 4, 5*, 5*, 5*, 5* (* = ignored when calculating the average). So (obviously) the average is now 4.0 - the arc still displays as 4 stars, but you'd only need 2 additional 5 star ratings to bring the average to 4.5 and get the arc up to five stars.

Of course (and this has been said many times), if the MA interface encouraged people to play 3 and 4 star arcs as much as 5 star arcs, none of this would be necessary.

After today’s arc, only one more to go in Pro Payne’s M.A. saga! (Shortly after I post that particular review, which will probably be tomorrow, I’ve got a few more posts planned to wrap up the project.)

The only remaining arc left in my queue is:

3326 The Portal Bandits

Which, if all goes according to plan, will be tomorrow’s review.

And now on to today’s Pro Payne adventure…

SPOILER ALERT: While *all* of my reviews have spoilers, this particular arc does have what I found to be a very cool “twist” (it’s not really a plot twist so much as a ‘something to figure out’) – if you’d like to avoid having it revealed, then don’t read any further. Or, even better, play through the arc, then come back and read the review.

Against the WickerWork Khan! (Arc ID#346904, 5 stars)

Making use of an ancient spell, a “Princess YinYin” appeared before Pro Payne, requesting help. She had been trapped by minions of an Arch Villian called the WickerWork Kahn – a major tyrant that ruled over much of her world.

Oh, and did I mention that YinYin was a sentient Panda? And that her world was Panda Earth, and alternate universe where Pandas had risen to become the dominant life forms, instead of primates?

Oddly, this state of affairs wasn’t alien to Pro Payne, who had already defended Panda Earth from the Rikti.

In any case, YinYin was able to send me a magical device – a pair of chopsticks – through her ‘communication portal’. If I broke one of them, I’d be able to transport myself to Panda Earth, and help rescue her.

Of course, that is exactly what I did.

I found myself in the Panda version of Orenbega; the ruins were crawling with some rather impressive Wicker constructs – evidently troops of the WickerWork Kahn. I fought my way past them – and also past some native Pandarans in the Kahn’s employ, until I located the princess.

I rescued her – leading her back to the entrance of the ruin was trivial, since I’d already basically cleared the way. (Actually she was just a “free the ally” if I recall correctly – she didn’t need to be led out.)



Pro Payne provides aid to the Princess of Pandas.

Needless to say, YinYin appreciated my help, and wanted to know if I’d be willing to help her overthrow the Kahn. I agreed.

Note: The Pandarans look very different from my previous visit to Panda earth, which struck me as just a bit odd. That prompted me to check a few things out. It *looks* like this arc is by a different author than Pandas vs. Rikti, which means it’s either the same author posting arcs to different accounts (which could include a friend hosting the story arc) – or, possibly, this is a new author writing in another author’s fictional universe. And the third possibility: the author independently conceived of a world filled with sentient Pandas, and this is their version of Panda World, which is not the same world as Pandas vs. Rikti (Seems unlikely…). This observation is literally just a note – I didn’t have a problem with it either way. But, I will be approaching this arc as an “independent” and “new” Panda World until I see something that convinces me that it really is the world from Pandas vs. Rikti.

The first mission was very simple and direct, with very little advancement of the story, but I do suspect (and hope) that things are going to get a lot more interesting very soon… Oh, and the Pandaran search party looking for YinYin was “led” by a 5th Column robot. I’m not clear on why that is – but I don’t think I’m supposed to be yet. Okay, enough notes … back to the story.

Intent on freeing the Pandan world from the tyranny of the WickerWork Kahn, I allowed YinYin’s magic to teleport me to the forests outside of the Kahn’s castle. Not surprisingly, I found a large number of WickerWork soldiers around, along with a few patrols of Pandan troops.


Pro Payne is evidently acting very un-heroically, attacking a helpless foe in the back…

The Pandans were saying some odd things – it seemed like there was some sort of relationship between YinYin and the Kahn. Even stranger, it seemed like the Kahn was actually intent on protecting her.

I actually found the Kahn very quickly, but continued to do some scouting around just to see if the patrols would drop any more clues (which included the dialog I mentioned above). I certainly admired the look of the Kahn though – he actually looked a lot like a thin, robotic “thing” with a huge brain (and his description hinted that his control over his WickerWork minions might not actually be magic, like the Kahn himself thought, along with hinting that he might have an equivalent back on Primal Earth).


Hmm … there’s something awfully familiar about all of this…

And then it dawned on me. Princess YinYin. Penelope Yin, the Clockwork Princess. So the WickerWork Kahn must actually be the Clockwork King! Duh.

Well played – and a very, very neat twist. I have to admit that I *really* didn’t catch on until pretty much right after I’d seen the Kahn and had to think about the clues.

Of course, now I suspected something was up with YinYin – but I defeated the Kahn anyway.

Sure enough, YinYin dropped the charade (and, apparently, the broken English was just part of the act). Like our world’s Penelope, she was no doubt a powerful psychic (and it fact the clues, and descriptions, in retrospect, made it pretty obvious that the Pandas of this world see psychic abilities as ‘magic.’) But unlike our world, she’s awfully evil, and had simply been using me to remove the only obstacle in her rise to power.

I’d replaced one tyrant with an even worse one. And, according to a boasting YinYin, I only had about a half hour to put things right again since she had sent troops to destroy the talisman that had transported me here. Once it was destroyed, I would snap back to my world never to return to Panda Earth.

Note: Based on this, it seems pretty clear to me now that this is a completely different “universe” than the Panda World from Pandas vs. Rikti.

YinYin’s “sent” a warning just moments before I used my remaining chopstick to teleport into the tunnels under the Castle: prior to the rise of the WickerWork Kahn, the Pandans had been a violent culture racked by infighting and civil war – my victory would no doubt return them to that state. So I was faced with a choice: allow YinYin to rise to power as a tyrant, or condemn the Pandan world to endless war (or at least war for a very long time).

A raced through the corridors of the ancient ruin, intent on two things: defeating YinYin and destroying her caches of firearms (which would greatly weaken her army). I found the first cache fairly quickly, and then ran into YinYin herself.


It actually surprised me how much the choice of the Nemesis rifles combined with the somewhat archaic looking garb made we think the Pandaran guards were this world’s equivalent of the Nemesis army… Oh, and YinYin is trying to kill me.


She was well guarded, and a powerful foe, but Pro Payne did prevail. Now I only needed to sweep the rest of the ruin for the other cache. It took a bit longer, but I found and destroyed it with plenty of time to spare.

A few moments later I was returned to my own world, where I saw a final glimpse of the image of a humbled YinYin. She lamented underestimating my powers and my resolve, but also made it clear that, thanks to my determination, the world was already falling into war.

Why did I make the choice I did? Under YinYin’s rule, it was unlikely a better, “less evil” ruler would ever be powerful enough to challenge her – the Pandans might have peace, but it would have come at a terrible price. Defeating YinYin and her army might lead to more fighting, but I was confident sooner or later another powerful being would rise – or they might even progress one day to a point where they could solve their differences diplomatically. Either way, at least it provided a chance for a world not ruled by an evil tyrant.

Pros: The arc was very fast-paced and entertaining, with excellent mission design, and good choice of maps overall. Of course what really stood out for me was how the author set the arc up for the player to be able to figure out the parallel between Panda world and ours – the WickerWork Kahn and Princess YinYin were distinct enough from their “Primate world” counterparts that I didn’t immediately see the connection, but when I did, everything was very obvious in retrospect. Sure, other players more on the ball than me might have picked up on it much earlier – but it was still a very cool twist that I thought was very well done: along with making YinYin evil (a nice surprise given that you’d likely assume otherwise given Penelope Yin’s personality here). And related to the neat twist were two very well designed custom groups – I did find them a bit on the challenging side, but I wasn’t being beaten down over and over again, so I was overall pleased with the difficulty. But more to the point, I really liked the visual designs (especially on the Kahn and YinYin), and the descriptions were, at the very least, pretty above-average. Overall, I found this to be a very well done arc.

Cons: The most notable problems here were technical – by the end of the arc, I strongly suspected the 5th Column robot was a bug; and in the last mission I did notice several of those Man ‘o War stand-ins for invalid bosses; both need to be corrected. While I certainly thought the clues were of above-average quality, I did think there could have been more – and some more detail in them, and that relates to what amounts to my biggest “gripe” (and I use the word in quotes because it’s really more a suggestion for improvement than a major flaw in the arc): the whole Panda World thing really did seem very, very abrupt. I really think that several optional clues in the first mission that give some backstory (e.g. an abbreviated ‘history’) would be very useful to make this particular “Panda dimension” come more alive. In other words, once it was obvious this wasn’t Panda vs. Rikti world, I really wanted to know more about it early in the arc – after all, that’s half the fun of exploring strange new worlds. And if this really is Panda vs. Rikti world (which I now doubt since that would introduce a whole host of serious inconsistencies), then I’d certainly say the arc needs to be clearer about that (but, again, I don’t think it is – I think this is an ‘independent’ world).

One final technical oddity: when I played the first mission, for some reason I was exemplared down to level 39 or 38, even though the level range for that particular mission said it went up to level 54. I have no idea why or how that happened, and if anyone else has noticed a bug like that in other arcs, but some of these bugs may be ‘squash able’ by the author with some edits to update the arc.

In summary, this was a very well done arc with a great twist that was a lot of fun to play! Well done!

Score: 4.58

Tomorrow (again, if all goes according to plan), will be the final review in my current queue. Stay tuned!

Alright, one last adventure for Pro Payne this week – and then next week I should be able to finish up my queue and draw a close to the Pro Payne project (I do have more M.A. related plans, and, after a break, I do plan on continuing to do reviews.)

Pro Payne’s still got two more arcs left to do:

346904 Against the WickerWork Khan!
254599 Of Futures Past

And now on to…

Waddle’s Revenge (Arc ID#302196, 4 stars, 5 stars given in game)

It seems like ages ago, but once upon a time Pro Payne helped rescue a little penguin named Waddle – the poor victim of a Crey experiment designed to create a biological weapon for use in very cold climates.

Now I was being approached by Phineas White, reporter, with some startling news: a Crey office had been attacked, and was now covered in ice. Security cameras had seen a little penguin waddling around.

As well meaning as Waddle might be, he did need to learn that it’s not okay to go randomly attacking people and places who have wronged you (even if they are villains, and deserve it). But, for me, the first step was simply to investigate what exactly was going on: was this simple revenge on Waddle’s part – or was the office attacked because Crey was actually up to something?

The office had mostly recovered from Waddle’s attack, but the private security company Crey had hired to watch over the place was on edge – figuring I was also there to cause trouble, they attacked me on sight. I did my best to subdue them without causing any permanent injuries.

Oddly enough, I found a rather advanced looking computer there, which had security footage of Waddle going after some files in a filing cabinet upstairs. I quickly found the cabinet – and evidence that Waddle’s motive wasn’t completely without justification: there was some information there on a project FISHIE (part of PENGUIN).


Waddle was after something … something in this file cabinet. Fortunately for me, Waddle’s forte is cuteness, not brains, so he did leave a few files behind…

Hmm … so the experiments hadn’t stopped, eh? Or perhaps this was something I hadn’t stumbled across when I first encountered project PENGUIN. Either way, I was now determined to figure out what FISHIE was, and why Waddle would be keen on stealing files on it.

The files Waddle stole mentioned a Dr. Simons, and Phineas was able to tell me that Simons had spent the last few days deflecting media attention toward PENGUIN. He was working out of a lab in Crey’s Folly, and to get any more information I was going to need to talk to him face to face. Granted, it was unlikely Crey would let me just waltz in and start asking questions, so I figured I was about to have a fight on my hands.

I headed out to Crey’s Folly and made my way to the lab. What I found there was more chaotic that I was expecting. Waddle had attacked the facility overnight. As a result the place was now filled with Crey guards – but I also noticed a rather large number of Winter Horde moving about. The whole situation had unnerved another Crey scientist, Dr. Schroeder, who had had just about enough of all this craziness. Right after I rescued her from several Winter Horde snow creatures, she told me about a body Dr. Simons had been studying before he left. It was further back in the lab, so I moved forward to investigate.


You can’t really see it here, but I’m rescuing Dr. Schroeder from rampaging snow beasts. She can’t seem to get her mind past a frozen dead body Dr. Simons was researching. On the plus side, snow creatures are quite vulnerable to fire, with makes Pro Payne a happy camper.

I found the body right after taking an elevator down to the next level of the lab. It was the remains of a researcher who had been working with Simons, and was severely frostbitten, and withered-looking, but it wasn’t clear what exactly had killed him. Waddle was one possibility (although I didn’t think it likely). Of course the Winter Horde that had started to run amok in the lab might have been responsible too. And the third possibility was whatever the ‘end product’ of operation FISHIE was had done this.

I had little interest in fighting the remaining guards, so I did a quick sweep to look for anything else interesting, and then left the lab to see if Phineas had uncovered anything else (or could at least make more sense of what I’d found).

(Note that according to Phineas, I’d found frozen bodies everywhere – which didn’t seem to jive with what I actually found in the mission; that one body bag with one frozen body. It’s possible he was referring to the Winter Horde, but that wasn’t clear from the debriefing).

Phineas shared my desire to find Waddle. I wanted to believe he wasn’t responsible for the murder of the research scientist, but either way it looked bad. I needed to find him – and Simons – to figure out exactly what was going on. Thankfully, Phineas used his connections with the PPD to get into the morgue to examine the body. He found a 5th Column tattoo, and he knew about a 5th Column base near where the Crey Lab was. I wasn’t sure exactly what the 5th Column wanted with Crey’s research here, but it was a lead I couldn’t afford to pass up.

The troops in the base seemed intent on monitoring reports on Waddle’s whereabouts, but they weren’t interested in the little penguin hero so much as they were interested in finding Simons, whom Waddle seemed to be pursuing. In the base I found a computer whose files confirmed that the 5th Column had planted a spy into Crey’s research program, looking for the secrets of PENGUIN and FISHIE. The moment I found the file, a Column operative named Toxic moved in to block my escape. Toxic was a relative unknown, but seemed to have a peculiar obsession with Simons’ research projects that suggested a history between the two.

Oh wait. According to this, the villain’s name is Toxin, not Toxic. Aw well, chalk that one up to me not paying attention.

(I’m too lazy to correct Toxin’s name – since the odds are I’ll miss one and just confuse things even more. Suffice it to say Toxic = Toxin.)

Note: The hints that Toxic and Simons might have a past is an ‘after the fact’ reveal in the arc; Toxic just kind of ‘shows up’ (although he is foreshadowed in patrol dialog), and then his significance is explained after you defeat him. What I think might help here are some references to him in the previous two missions (optional clues) that actually play up the fact that I have no idea who this is, or what his involvement in any of this is. It seems to me that would make his role in the story far less abrupt (and seemingly arbitrary), while preserving what seems to be his backstory in the arc (almost nobody knows about him, but he’s very keen on learning as much as he can about PENGUIN and FISHIE).

While I’d been in the 5th Column base, the police had managed to track down Waddle; they’d “cornered” him in an warehouse in Brickstown but (for obvious reasons) were unwilling to actually move in. The 5th Column had no such hang up, and a large number or their troops had moved into the warehouse and taken the PPD out.

One way or another, Waddle was the key to all of this – if I was ever to find out exactly what was going on, I was going to need to rescue him. So I headed to Brickstown, and entered the warehouse.

Not surprisingly, it was filled with 5th Column goons. They were easy enough to deal with. I quickly found Waddle – and learned that, true to his relatively low intellect, he had merely been searching for the one he thought of as his father. Sadly, “daddy” (Dr. Simons) was a whole lot more focused on his research into FISHIE – a giant, mutated goldfish that was supposed to be a successor to the “failed” Waddle.


Okay, the concept of a giant, ripped, mutant goldfish is actually surprisingly amusing to me. He’s got some very familiar powers – it appears that Dr. Simons didn’t really stray too far from the mold here. Of course, the whole research project has an Arctic bent, so that’s not surprising…

Dr. Simons wasn’t terribly impressed at my rescue, and instead simply called for FISHIE’s assistance. With Waddle’s help, defeating FISHIE wasn’t much of an issue. Dr. Simons seemed more surprised than actually impressed, but Waddle’s desire to impress his “poppa” with his powers was a surprisingly poignant explanation for what had transpired in this arc.

Pros: After all this time it’s become quite clear (and is no surprise) that most authors certainly have a preferred style they use in their arcs – I’m certainly no exception. So the strengths of this arc are very similar to the previous one I played. Put simply, this is a very solid, simple, no-frills arc. The mission objectives are obvious, the story line is very direct and pretty easy to follow (and make no mistake, we need arcs like this, along with ones with very complex and deep stories, to round out those available in the system). It’s also surprisingly poignant and, well, cute – in this case, IMO, moreso than its predecessor, although I think I’d be at a loss to explain exactly why. I also get the feeling that this arc is actually deceptively simple – the arc made use of several chained objectives, but, at least in my play through, the author was able to get the objectives to spawn “in order” as you went through the mission – I almost never had to backtrack. While that certainly gives the impression the mission design is simple, I know from experience that is not always a trivial thing to do – so well done! In this arc the custom mobs were limited to named bosses, but I never noticed anything unbalanced or too difficult about any of them.

Cons: As with other arcs that have an outwardly simple design (although, like I said, the actual design ‘under the hood’ so to speak may very well be more complex than the player suspects), this arc’s simplicity also contributes to a common weakness, if you can call it that, to arcs of this type: there’s not a whole lot that really stands out – no complex custom groups, no extremely clever or creative use of MA’s mechanics, etc. The real challenge would be to jazz up the arc’s design, while maintaining the simple ‘playability’ that it’s got. I can’t give much more in the way of advice than that – and I’m aware that advice that vague isn’t often terribly helpful.

Aside from that, the main things that stood out to me fell into the category of loose ends. By and large, by the end of the arc it was pretty clear exactly what was going on, but Toxic’s role in all of this remained a little unclear (his appearance may be part of a larger story – but in this arc it seemed arbitrary, and, as mentioned before, his ‘backstory’ actually did feel like a ‘tacked on after the fact’ thing (since it literally came in a clue that I got after I defeated him). A little more foreshadowing might tie him into the story a bit more cleanly. Also, more of a reason for the 5th Column to be involved wouldn’t hurt; that actually relates to Toxic’s “missing story” – evidently he’s actually driving the Column’s interest in PENGUIN and FISHY, but what exactly his interest is isn’t really dealt with in the arc. While I suspect more will be revealed about that in later arcs, the average player might spend quite some time between playing different arcs in the author’s listings, so it really would strengthen the story to put more of Toxic’s story into this arc; he can still be a very mysterious figure, but his story as it pertains to what he’s up to in *this* arc did, I felt, need to be fleshed out more.

I’m fairly certain it was FISHIE who was responsible for killing that Crey research scientist – I honestly don’t remember if the arc ultimately spelled that out (and I missed it), or if you’re just supposed to figure that out, but if it’s not already there, that might be something else to add too.

In summary, this is a good solid arc with easy game play and a simple, easy to follow story – and that’s not a bad thing. The flip-side to that, though, is that there’s also nothing that really stands out either: I enjoyed the arc, and that’s certainly worth above average ratings – but likewise it didn’t totally blow me way (not that that should be a requirement for an arc to get good marks, versus the best possible marks), so I can’t give it top ratings.

Score: 4.005

(It’s been a while, so it’s worth reminding anybody reading these – “official” rating is the score rounded normally. In game rating always rounds up. And the fact the score is a number is just to fool you into thinking it’s an impartial ‘scientific’ grading system. That’s total BS, since I pretty much decide how much every plus is worth and how much every minus is worth.)

Hi PW - great idea, and I look forward to seeing the list grow!

Thanks for putting Cracking Skulls on the list too!

I made several corrections to that arc based on your in-game feedback (thank you again!), and, after several comments remarking on the difficulty of the final boss, I've:

Downgraded him from an elite boss to a standard boss (which means, depending on difficulty, he can be as low as a lieutenant).

I'm in the process of 'upgrading' all of my arcs to make use of the much-improved custom power options, and I just finished modifying the powers of the customs in this arc to be very appropriate to the arc's level range.

I play tested the arc with a level 2 controller, and had no problems at all with it (heck, I even chose a non-optimal controller - one that hadn't yet taken his single target hold power); with the modifications I'd *think* it's fair to say the arc really is balanced for even a level 1 character.

Ah, the queue gets ever smaller:

302196 Waddle's Revenge
346904 Against the WickerWork Khan!
254599 Of Futures Past

(As do the intros to these reviews.)

On to Pro Payne’s adventure for today:

The Empire – One Alliance (Arc ID#1044, 4 stars)

A Longbow officer by the name of Beatrice Kuscsinksi was halfway around the world when she got news of some weird stuff happening at Lou’s garage. A bunch of military-looking men dressed in black were converging on the place. Lou and his family were safe (Lou noticed the men while driving into work and wisely decided to just keep driving), but Officer Kuscinski’s instincts told her this would probably be a bit more than the PPD, or even Longbow, could handle. I agreed to help, while she made her way back to Paragon City…

I found the place overrun with Council, who had evidently dragged their computers over to the garage for me to hack into. How odd. What was even stranger is the fact that they were monitoring the computers, as evidenced by the ambush I had to fight off after attempting to see what files were on one of the machines.

Why the heck would the Council need to set up an entire computer network in some mechanic’s garage?! That was what I was going to try to find out. I did overhear a patrol grumbling about not having enough resources to set up whatever they were trying to set up here – and they referenced a portal schematic that they had found. What the heck would Lou be doing with a portal schematic?

Hacking into another computer, I found a file telling me the Council was attempting to scavenge portal components and technology out of a desire to bring down an “Empire” from another dimension that they were fearful of.

After finding out what the Council was looking for, the PPD took that as the cue to storm in and secure the place.


The cavalry has arrived, bravely rushing in to secure the building *after* I’ve cleared out most of the hostiles.

I decided to investigate some other Council computers to see if I could find anything else before returning to speak with Kuscinski. The effort was not wasted either – the Council also had some files on the Malta group. Council intelligence had determined the Malta were in the process of making an alliance with an extra-dimensional group. According to the records that group was the very same “Empire” the Council feared.

I already had strong suspicions this Empire was the Council Empire. Kuscinski had found yet more evidence of this Empire making alliances with villainous factions here – apparently the task that had taken her halfway around the world was breaking up a Knives of Artemis cell that was showing division within its ranks. One of the leaders actually had a letter from someone in this Empire further detailing their desire to make alliances.

Kuscinski also filled in another piece of the puzzle – she’d actually hidden some portal components in Lou’s Garage. That explained what they were doing there, although it didn’t indicate how the Council knew about it. She’d also just received word that the Malta group had forcibly taken over a Council base. That was almost certainly related to this potential alliance with the Empire – I was going to investigate the base for clues while Kuscinski tried to track down the portal technology the Council had taken from Lou’s Garage.

The Council base was not quite as thoroughly under Malta control as they would have liked – right after getting there I heard in the distance the sounds of Council troops trying to take back the base, and ran smack into a Knives of Artemis patrol as well. Further into the base, I found a group of Council Empire, confirming the identity of the “Empire” seeking an alliance with the Malta group and the Knives. I was interested in collecting more intelligence, so I went deeper into the base.

I located an Ascendant Archon who was actually from the Council Empire, and was evidently directing the operation to take over this base. The battle was a very difficult one – the Archon called down a massive ambush – but Pro Payne (eventually) prevailed.


Wow. This is a rather hefty ambush.


With each successive Rise of the Pheonix I manage to defeat a few more members of the ambush. The best part? They always manage to take me down again before the debt protection wears off, so only one ‘round’ of debt – all paid off by the time I’m finished with the ambush.

Not that debt matters at level 50…

On the defeated Archon I found notes detailing an alliance between the Council Empire and several splinter factions from the Knives of Artemis, the Malta Group, and even part of the Council. The latter possibly explained why the base here had fallen under attack: the Council cell trying to establish the alliance might have been based here, and offered the place up as a potential gathering point for the other factions.

I also found a Malta prisoner being watched over by Knives: a Tac Ops commander known as “Gray Knight.”


The Knives here are not really conducting themselves in a manner that befits an elite covert ops unit…

He wasn’t wild about the alliance with the Council Empire, and confirmed what I already suspected: that serious inroads were being made toward this alliance, and that the Council Empire was close to making a major move.

Officer Kuscinski made me aware of some rather frightening statistics on the Council Empire’s military strength. Their portal technology was still thankfully primitive, but should they develop the ability to send large armies through into our world, they’d likely have the manpower to be a very serious threat. Unfortunately, Kuscinski’s hunch that Archon Burkholder might have a hand in this turned out to be incorrect. He wasn’t behind the theft of the portal components, and I hadn’t found them in the base I’d just investigated either.

But, I quickly tipped Kuscinski off on something else I’d learned: the Council with the portal components had fled into Orenbega. (What?!!) I agreed with Kuscinski that it would be best to get those components out of Council hands, so we headed into the ruined city.

Note: This represented a major “where did this come from” moment in the story. Kuscinski’s dialog make it clear I was the one who was telling her about the Council in Orenbega, in spite of the fact that (as near as I can tell) I had absolutely no way of knowing what I did. The mission complete pop-up did mention a dossier that the Gray Knight had left me, but there was nothing specific that said I’d gotten the information from the Dossier.

The Council who had fled to Orenbega were fairly easily tracked down by the Alliance. The halls of the sunken city were filled with the two rival factions duking it out. In the chaos I made an attempt to meet up with Kuscinski, and then destroy or recover as much of the stolen portal technology as I could.

Fortunately we were successful (although I didn’t actually find Kuscinski until near the end of the mission). Getting the stolen portal technology out of Council hands would put a major damper on the Empire’s plans to invade our dimension. I also found information about four very powerful political figures within the Empire who were the masterminds behind the attempt to expand the Empire.

Note: Okay, soapbox time. Up to this point the arc has made fairly heavy use of the “medium” (or perhaps even “hard”) setting for several mission details (for example, the battles, ambushes, even groups spawning around bosses). While I’m not adverse to a challenge, the problem is that I’ve already set the challenge level I’m looking for through the +1/x2 setting. That’s honestly about as tough as I can handle with this character and still enjoy myself. The problem is “medium” and “hard” tend to produce larger, more dangerous spawns than the “average” spawn (and remember, I’ve set it so that “average” is at my limit). So, as expected, normal encounters in these missions are a fun challenge – but many of the actual mission details are frustratingly hard fights. Again, I strongly believe it should be exceptionally rare to use anything other than “easy” (and it’s especially important to stick to “easy” in places like Orenbega where spawn points are notoriously close together; two details set to medium spawning in next to each other, with a patrol walking by, make for miserable fights). I’m not saying authors should never use medium or hard – but I’m seeing that setting much too often in these missions, and in maps where you can’t necessarily skip an encounter that looks too difficult to be fun (as you can sometimes do in large outdoor maps). Okay, now, back to the story.

Not surprisingly, now that we had details on the location of the Council Empire’s world, it was time to take the fight to them. According to Kuscinski, they were setting up portal devices in their world to begin an invasion of ours – I was to travel to where the portals were being set up, destroy their equipment, and defeat their leaders – the four, high-ranking officers referred to earlier.

Off to the world of the Council Empire I went…

Spread about the staging point were the four Council officers, the leader of the Knives of Artemis splinter cell intent on joining the Empire, three portal control devices, and the Grey Knight. Thankfully, I located the Knight fairly early in the mission, since the challenge level was certainly going to be rather high – his aid was appreciated.

Most of the officers and the equipment I was able to dispatch with very little problem – only three times was the Council Empire able to muster a counterattack in response to my strikes against them. The counterattacks (ambushes, really) were doozies though.


I’d say something like “now THAT’s an ambush!” But actually this kind of thing was a very common sight, and I was getting used to it.

Fortunately, once the last officer was defeated, and the last portal control device destroyed, the threat of a Council Empire invasion was over.

Note: I did notice an odd typo in the souvenir: the text refers to the arc’s contact as a “Betty Sizzle” – even though she has a totally different name in the arc itself.

Pros: In the canon game, the Council Empire serves more or less as a poorly developed dimension for us to beat up on. This arc does a great job of casting them as the great potential threat that they are. It had never even really occurred to me that if they’d managed to conquer the world (or at least the US), they’d have a large enough army to be a serious threat to us should they ever get portal technology. Furthermore, the dialog of the Council Empire officers really added some flavor. Put simply, I thought this was a great idea for a story. I also liked how the contact interacted with the story line – there was a real feel that she wasn’t just standing there sending me to do her errands; she was actively helping out (albeit “off screen”).

Cons: For me, the two biggest flaws in the arc were the difficulty choices, and, as much as I liked the story, it really needs a lot more ‘attention to detail.’ Starting with the difficulty: there were two sources here. One was just the choice to use the medium or hard setting for lots of ambushes, guards for destructible objects, etc. I’ve already tried to make my point there, so no need to belabor it. The second issue, though, is something I’m not even sure the author would have thought of before hand: the custom group is just plain vicious. To be honest, grouping together Council, Malta, and Knives of Artemis into a single group would not have normally struck me as that big an issue as far as difficulty goes – until you have to actually face them down. The issue here is that each group is pretty tough on its own, but they synergize very well together – surprisingly well. Most noticeable is the fact that the Knives like to throw Caltrops. If you’re only facing the Knives its not as big a problem since they prefer melee anyway. But the Council and Malta like to attack from range, which can create a problem when you are a melee character and you’re mired in the middle of a triple stacked caltrop field. This got really bad for the ambushes, where you couldn’t even quickly take out a few of them by surprise.

In any case, what it boils down to is balance. The custom group is worth noting, but isn’t the biggest issue. The problem is that I couldn’t find a “happy medium” as far as the difficulty went. Either make the ‘average’ encounter the right (fun) level of challenge, which automatically resulted in the ‘medium’ and ‘hard’ objectives just being too much to handle. Or set the difficulty down so that the set objectives are at the right level of difficulty, at the cost of making the average encounters too easy (which, incidentally, is my response to anyone who would tell me to lower my difficulty – doing so just trades one balance issue for another).

The second issue is the attention to detail in the story. Put simply, there are places where you suddenly know something you have no real reason to know (e.g. suddenly knowing the Council had fled to Orenbega), and then there are loose ends that are never really explained (as mentioned before, it was explained why there were portal components in the garage, but I was never clear on how the Council first knew they were there).

Most of these details are mentioned in the write up. A few others I can think of are relatively minor omissions, but something to consider as a possible addition to the story: it’s never terribly clear why the Council Empire would seek out the Malta group and the Knives for an alliance, and it’s never really explained why some of them would agree. It doesn’t require a huge stretch of the imagination to come up with some reasons, and it’s fair to say these reasons are not completely critical to the plot, but they would make for nice “additional backstory” for the arc. Also, the custom group is labeled ‘Malta splinter’ – but it seems to me like calling them something like ‘Alliance’ or ‘Empire Alliance’ (or something similar) might make more sense, especially as the story develops.

And, finally, a few very minor nitpicks:

The contact needs a description.

The level range of the first mission is wildly different from the others – the lower bound should be set to 40, which is what it is for the other missions. As a minor aside, it would almost make sense to me to set an upper limit of 45 – the arc’s story line treats this almost as an introduction to the Council Empire, which suggests the arc should be in the 40-45 range, not the 45-50 range; but that’s very, very minor.

Score: 3.555

Pro Payne’s happy to be level 50, and is now working on finishing up the arcs in his queue. While these last few posts are the end of the project, I suspect it won’t be the last time Pro Payne makes an appearance on these forums.

The remaining arcs in Pro Payne’s queue are:

1044 The Empire – One Alliance
302196 Waddle's Revenge
346904 Against the WickerWork Khan!
254599 Of Futures Past

And now on to today’s arc:

The Galactic Protectorate – 06 (Arc ID#355068, 4 stars)

When last Pro Payne had helped an alternate dimension Paragon City in their battle against the Galactic Protectorate, the Protectorate had finally taken drastic action to suppress the Pro Payne Freedom Fighters once and for all: they had launched a brutal attack on a large number of resistance bases.

Mynx – whom I had rescued in the last installment – contacted me asking for assistance. I was willing to provide it, and she let me know that I was going into a Freedom Fighter base to rescue one of the resistance’s two best spies. It wouldn’t hurt to take down the leader of the attackers either.

The base used an office building as a front, but led into the sewer network. The attackers were the rather glum Protectorate Division 7 – whose specialty was the manipulation of negative energy. Pro Payne quickly learned that this division was not terribly difficult provided you attack from surprise (ironically, that was supposed to be their specialty) and cut them down before they could stack too many “to hit” de-buffs on you. But give them enough time to escalate their attacks, and a strategic retreat was almost always necessary if you want any hope of being able to hit your target.

I found the raid leader overseeing the torture of the spy, Agent Crimson (no, you don’t have the ability to attach a named boss to a rescue – she just happened to spawn in right next to Crimson’s ‘rescue’ objective). I’d already faced a few of her kind before (the necromancer bosses), so it wasn’t too much of a challenge to defeat her.

Pro Payne rescued an injured Agent Crimson (the spy), who told me to seek out the notes he’d gathered on a computer I’d passed earlier in the mission (not knowing it had important information on it). As spry and healthy as Crimson seemed to be, running ahead of me as I backtracked through the base, apparently he was on his last leg, as the mission clues kept referring to his final words – and the fact that he apparently died shortly after I rescued him, or was going on a suicide mission to cover the rest of the resistance fighters getting out of the base, or something. He also wanted me to tell Indigo that he “wouldn’t be able to keep his promise.”

Crimson’s notes referred to an attempt to track down General Lucius, leader of the 7th division – he had some leads, but hadn’t yet pinpointed his location. I returned to Mynx to deliver the (apparently) bad news.

Note: Allow me to be brutally honest, and please forgive my crass bluntness. I found the naming scheme for the 7th Division to be rather, well, goofy. Here’s the thing, though – I don’t think it would have been quite so noticeable if it wasn’t for a particular minion: the Planetary Pelvis. Here’s what I found strange – certain bones didn’t evoke a “this is just silly” response from me, while others did. The biggest offenders were the Pelvis (just doesn’t evoke any sense of creepiness or coolness), and the Mandibles. The Sternum was … okay … (the same could be said of the Humerus) but, well, none of them are really creepy bones – or at least they don’t sound very creepy to me (and I get the impression the division is supposed to come off as creepy). Best case scenario, IMO, would be just to find a different naming scheme that would evoke more creepiness, but, failing that, perhaps at least (as odd as this sounds) focusing on bones that have creepier or cooler sounding names than Pelvis, Ma… well, you get the idea. (My fear is that this is a personal taste thing – for example, I might not think ‘Cranium’ is a silly name for a ranking system, but someone else does, while I think ‘Vertebrae’ is actually pretty cool, but someone else thinks it’s just funny).

The other problem I’ve noticed is more of a writing issue – and that is Crimson’s death; right now, the clues you get when rescuing him are set up more like a foreshadowing of his death with very little reason given for why or how he’s going to die. I really think “killing off” Crimson would be a lot more effective (and his death more believable) if there were no references or hints to it until you completed the mission – set it up so that Crimson is going to cover our escape; make it clear the odds aren’t good, but also make it seem like there’s at least a chance he’ll come back alive (even go so far as to say “If I don’t make it back, tell Indigo that I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise). Then, when the mission completes, you can add the story of his death as the mission complete clue – perhaps you listen in on Crimson’s radio updates as he faces far worse odds than he was expecting; maybe he can even report that he’s just taken a mortal injury from the attackers, but he’ll hold out as long as he can to cover our escape.

Upon my return, Mynx was bragging about how the interrogations of Division 7 troops has managed to turn up the location of General Lucius himself. The base was in a graveyard (fitting, given the Division’s theme), and a “top agent” had been sent in to assist me, if I felt I needed the aid.

Not surprisingly, the top agent was Indigo, who was infuriated at Crimson’s death, and sought as much revenge as fate would allow her. She was actually a rather useful companion, until she just vanished on me. Basically, I heard her “you’ve gotten too far away from me, so I’m going to wait for you to come back” message – but I was never able to figure out what exactly happened to her.

In any case, I was surprised to see that the base was commanded by Lucius’ 2nd in command, not the General himself. No reason for this was “directly” given in story (and I was expecting to find Lucius leading the base), although the Colonel’s dialog did hint that Lucius has already left the base was personally spearheading a final assault on the resistance.


Figuring the Colonel’s gonna be a very tough foe, Pro Payne tries to quickly dispatch all of her debuffing minions whilst she wastes her time delivering her ArchVillain monologue. Sadly, upon looking back, the monologue did actually have clues as to why I *wasn’t* beating up on General Lucius.

Note: For what it’s worth, the Colonel (I forget her name at the moment) just seemed to come out of nowhere – sort of. I mean, I was expecting an underling since I’ve seen them in every other arc, but it was almost like she was there as a ‘placeholder’ for Lucius, since the story required him to already be gone. I think an optional “dossier” on her collected by the resistance and put in mission one might be helpful here – keep her appearance from seeming quite as ‘out of the blue.’

Moving on…


The 7th Division likes to hide computer terminals in wooden coffins.

Throughout the base were a series of hidden terminals as well where Lucius had gathered information about an artifact that interested him: a massive nexus of negative energy called the Dark Heart. According to the files, a ‘backfire’ of this artifact was actually what had taken Arachnos out of the picture shortly before the Protectorate’s arrival. In any case, hunting down all of the terminals was optional, but, as with previous arcs in this series, a great way to add interesting backstory for those who were looking for more than just a hack and slash. I do note, however, that, even though the story is a bit different, the basic structure of the arc is the same – initial mission that puts you on the trail of a division general. Follow the trail, but in the next mission you only get to find one or more Division colonels. Then, you finally get to face down the general. Interestingly, if you take fairly substantial breaks in between arcs in the series, the fact that the structure hasn’t changed that much in six arcs can be overlooked – but I do think that the author really needs to start changing up the overall structure of the arcs. For example, have the player face down the general in the first arc, and then spend the next two missions trying to foil the plot the general had put in motion (that the rest of the division is still trying to pull off), all while also fighting off attempts to free the captured general.

Okay, anyway, my contact with Mynx was mostly severed – all I was able to discern is that a massive attack against the resistance headquarters was underway, led by Lucius. Mynx made a mention of some bombs, and that there were only 15 minutes until detonation.

Immediately after teleporting into the base, it was clear that this wasn’t going to be easy. The base was actually a huge industrial facility where the resistance was duking it out (and losing) with the 7th Division. My main task: seek out and defeat Gen. Lucius. It took about half of the time I had available, but I did find Lucius, and defeated him (honestly, I wish I’d gotten some screen shots – but I was so … um … upset … during the fight that I totally forget to take any…). It was a close fight, though. I think there were less than 30 seconds left on the timer by the time I finished him off.

*There’d be a picture here, but I was too busy chasing General Lucius as he (literally) flew across the expanse of the map while I watched the timer count down.*

Unfortunately, by the time I took the general down, his troops had already managed to plant about fifty bombs – I didn’t have enough time to disable them, and so Synapse used the dimensional teleporter to yank me out of the base just before Resistance HQ became a huge smoking crater.

I’d failed – but the fact that it seemed pretty obvious to me that I was supposed to fail meant that it didn’t bother me. Still, in my opinion, I strongly feel that there are a few changes that need to happen here to pull off what I *think* the author is going for here.

In my opinion, the biggest mistake made in this arc is what I’ve hinted at time and time again – the author *really* likes to give the main villains the ability to fly – on huge outdoor maps. That’s annoying under normal circumstances – but becomes unforgivable in a timed mission versus a boss that can drain life to heal himself and debuff your chance to hit. See, here’s the thing: the 50 bombs make it abundantly clear I’m not supposed to be able to beat the mission. But “Defeat Gen. Lucius” isn’t quite as clear – and there was a good chance I wouldn’t have been able to beat him before the timer ran out. An obviously impossible task that I fail is part of the story – something I *think* I can do, but end up failing because of the design is most likely going to be taken as a giant middle finger from the author, and that’s usually not a good thing to do with an arc intended for others to play.

In other words, I would suggest that Lucius’ ability to fly crosses the line from annoying design decision to serious design flaw because it creates a very real chance the player will fail out of the arc not knowing he’s supposed to fail out… (although we’ll see what the final mission briefing says).

And I’m not even mentioning the fact that he’s got a stealth power. I’m pretty familiar with this map’s spawn patterns – and I know enough about M.A. to know that on an outdoor map a boss can literally spawn anywhere. But I do wonder if “average joe, the player” might need a bit more time to find Lucius.

All of that complaining aside, though, a cliffhanger ending where the player has a scripted failure in spite of his best efforts is, IMO, a nice change of pace, and one that I liked – it does address my concern that this arc was (before this mission) shaping up to be too much like the others. But, like I just said, the place where the arc can very seriously fail is if the player can’t beat Gen. Lucius.

Pros: The arc features some very well developed custom groups. On the up-side they’ve got some very well written descriptions. The down-side is in the ‘cons.’ As with the others in this series, the arc does a good job of accommodating different play styles – there are clues to seek out for players who like to gather backstory; but if you could care less about that, the missions could be cleared very quickly and easily by most any player. The author has done a good job of giving each contact a distinct ‘voice’ – and of making the details of this ‘mega-arc’ consistent from one story to the next.

Oh, and I had to look up what the heck an Alula was. I knew it was a bone, but had no idea which one. So the author made me learn something I didn’t know; always a plus, in my book.

Cons: Heavy use of dark powers can be very hard to balance – and I do think a bit of tweaking to division 7 could potentially help out. They’re beatable, but they do feel a bit out of balance – mostly due to the fact that just about every one of them stacks exactly the same debuff on you (i.e. “minus to-hit”). This isn’t the first custom group in this saga to do that, but this time around what is being debuffed is arguably one of the least fun things to be debuffed. Put another way: if my damage resistance or defense is in the toilet, that’s harsh, but at least I can still attack (and hope I can take out my opponents before my weakness lets them take me out) – but if I can’t hit a single thing, then it doesn’t matter if I’m able to survive the onslaught for minutes at a time; I’m no better off than I was a few dozen attacks ago.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, the naming of the mobs just doesn’t quite seem to jive with the “creepy” feel I think the author was going for – but that could be as easy as determining which bones of the human body have names that evoke a shudder, and which ones just make you giggle. I wish I could be more help with that, but that one might actually have a lot to do with individual tastes.

There are a few places where I think the story could use some tightening up – in effect, work them more solidly into the flow of the plot, versus them seeming a little arbitrary at the moment. The ones I noticed most were Crimson’s death, and the presence of the Colonel versus the General in mission two (including, perhaps, the need to forshadow her appearance a bit more in mission one).

And let me just drag out my dead horse here … the fact the Colonel could fly just annoyed me. But I can get past that. But watching Lucius fly off through a very large map filled with far more mobs than I could ever hope to defeat in the time allotted, all while the seconds counted down, was … more than annoying. The unstoppable number of bombs gets across the mission’s unbeatability – so anything that can be done to maximize the chance the player can beat Lucius would be a plus to the story.

Score: 3.895

One Final Note: Looking at the previous play and rating, I find myself really wishing I felt the arc was currently in a refined enough place to give it five stars in-game. My suggestion, that I hope the author will at least consider – solicit as much feedback as possible, cherry-pick the changes suggested that you also agree with, and then yank the arc to re-set the ratings. This is not the only time I intend to play this series, and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to change my opinion in the future. (Of course, none of that is to say that I would somehow be unwilling to upgrade my rating anyway when I get around to playing this series again.)

Oh, and I think this also needs to be said, because, sometimes in the course of giving feedback it gets lost: I enjoyed playing this arc; as the rating implies, I do think it is most certainly above-average, and just needs some work to get the rest of the way to excellent (or above).

And I *am* glad to hear that there are still more on the way. I'm going to be very cross with you if we've gotten this far, and I don't ever get to see any closure on this story!

I thought I would take a brief respite from the arc I'm currently playing through (The Galactic Protectorate - 06) for a rather poignant announcement (well, for me, anyway).

As of today, after one year and a little over three weeks, Pro Payne has met his goal: he has advanced to level 50, having played exclusively in Mission Architect (with the exception mentioned many times before of the "bare minimum" play through scanner and safeguard missions to get the temporary powers). So although there's certainly some "wrap up" to do - not the least of which are the remaining reviews in my queue - the Pro Payne project has officially met its goal.


Ding!

A few facts:

To get here, Pro Payne has played approximately 190 MA story arcs, totaling about 750 missions. He's been online for 2696 hours, although, to be fair, I do think a fair amount of that was him parked in the MA building while I was writing the reviews I've posted to this thread.

A special thanks to all of the players who suggested arcs, and, even more so, to all of the players that have participated in mission architect.

Cheers! (Certainly not the last you'll see of Pro Payne here, but today is definitely the 'terminal' milestone in the project.)

Eva was kind enough to mention one of my low level arcs, but if I do have two others designed specifically for low level play (the IDs are in my sig.)

Learning the Ropes (1-10, I think) is not only designed for low level play, it's actually intended as an alternative to the 'starting contact' arcs. It's a bit no-frills, but it's gotten a lot of positive feedback.

Cracking Skulls is level 1-14, and frankly, could use plays. I don't think it's bad at all (and I am more than willing to say that some of my arcs - granted I typically don't advertise them - I just made for fun, and aren't really 'good' in the grand scheme of things), but has been utterly unable to claw its way out of four-star-hell and, as a result, never gets played.

At the end of today’s arc, Pro Payne is a mere fraction of a bubble away from 50. After more than a year, my goal of getting a character from 1 to 50 on MA content is almost complete (and I have no doubt Pro Payne will hit 50 next week when I pick up the next mission in his queue). My original goal was to compare the experience in MA to that of the canon arcs, with the most basic question being “is the rate of advancement, and the relative power level of your character based on your relative wealth and enhancements remotely comparable with a character leveling up outside of MA?” That’s really two questions – the first is one that I cannot answer. I had no idea how much time, energy, and effort would go into effectively chronicling Pro Payne’s journey – and it’s fair to say in the process I’ve lost any sort of perspective as to how fast or slow his advancement really “felt” – it felt grindingly slow, but a lot of that is all of the time spent here, writing updates to the thread, rather than playing the character. I can honestly say that in terms of wealth and “enhancements”, though, he’s every bit as strong as any “average” character I’ve played through the game.

I’ll of course have more observations to make once the project comes to a close (after all, I do have some post-50 arcs to review, which will be a great opportunity to actually enjoy this character I’ve spent a year with as a level 50 hero).

Speaking of those arcs, Pro Payne’s remaining queue is:

355068 The Galactic Protectorate - 06
1044 The Empire – One Alliance
302196 Waddle's Revenge
346904 Against the WickerWork Khan!
254599 Of Futures Past

(I do find it rather fitting that, apparently, I will hit level 50 while playing a Galactic Protectorate arc. The significance is that that series is the closest thing to a long-running coherent story I’ve had during this year long experience; with LaserJesus’ Drukule series being a close second.)

And now, on to…

The Better Part of Valor (Arc ID#349298, 3 stars – unrated in game)

I’d gotten a “request for help” from a Lt. Suzanne Bernhard. She told me she’d been on the trail of some high-tech robberies that seemed to be linked to Arachnos, in spite of the fact that the Spiders really had little reason to go after the equipment that was being stolen (presumably having plenty of it already). Even more odd were reports that the robbery victims had been attacked by large “monsters.” Lt. Bernhard had been consulting with a colleague of hers who had worked many Arachnos cases, and had, in the process, been pointed to a warehouse they were known to be operating out of. Suspecting that things were about to escalate beyond her ability to handle them, the lieutenant asked if I would investigate the warehouse for leads in her place. Naturally, I accepted.

The warehouse was certainly an Arachnos base, but I was expected (sort of) – in fact, there was an ambush waiting for me. Based on what the ambusher (a Fortunata Mistress) was saying, the officer Lt. Bernhard had been working with was crooked, and had set up the ambush to remove her from the picture when she went to investigate the warehouse. Unfortunately, they weren’t planning on running into me instead; it was a hard fight, but I broke through the ambush, and hunted down the crooked cop (an officer “Cantor”, I believe).


Wow. Officer Cantor appears to have better equipment than I do. That’s a paddlin’…

After teaching Mr. Dirty Cop a lesson in why it is unwise to cross a superhero, I searched the on-site network for the location of a base in Crey’s Folly that the Arachnos here had referenced several times. Evidently, they were doing experiments involving something called “Venom II,” and the project lead, a Dr. Karansky, had actually injected himself with the serum. Apparently, after that, all hell had broken loose. Arachnos’ stake in all of this was to cover up both the problem, and the research. (At least that seemed to be their stake in it at the moment.)

Editor’s Note: The story’s off to an interesting start, with good use of patrols who, in my play through, were spaced far enough apart as to not just spam me with a massive wall of dialogue (not always the author’s fault, but there are steps that can be taken to minimize that, and it’s at least possible the author did so). I was just a little confused at the beginning as to what exactly was going on. It took me to the point where I was doing my writeup of the first mission to figure out that the ambush was for Lt. Bernhard and I’d shown up instead – perhaps a clue dropped by the boss would clarify what was going on a bit. Granted, it’s all there in the dialog, but it can be easy to miss it in the heat of combat, and a clue would clarify the situation.

It didn’t take long for Lt. Bernhard to get a warrant to investigate the lab in Crey’s Folly. It did turn out to be a Crey lab, and Crey actually dispatched a contingent to meet me there and assist my investigation. The lab itself had devolved into chaos – there were Devouring Earth monsters roaming about, along with a large number of Arachnoids. Arachnos was there as well, lamenting the fact the Arachnoids had “gone rogue” (at this point in the story I’m not totally sure what that’s all about). And, finally, Crey rounded out the contingent. Thankfully, they were on my side, and helped me to battle my way into the lab. The rest were both hostile to me, and each other (although the sheer combat strength of the Arachnoids pretty much assured that it didn’t take long for them to be pretty much the *only* things left in the lab).

In any case, once in the lab, I sought out whatever research records, and other evidence, I could find. I found a cross between a Devoured and a human (Note: that struck me as very odd way to describe it given that the Devoured are just mutated humans – but by the end of the mission I gathered that the “reversion” had taken a Devoured and partially changed it back into a human; still, I’d recommend finding a way to change the wording in a way that doesn’t conjure the idea of a Devoured having been “crossed” with a human. Perhaps even calling it a “human caught midway into being mutated into a Devoured – or are you looking at the opposite: a Devoured partially returned its original human form?”), a wide variety of chemicals that appeared to be aimed at giving those injected powers – or simply mutating them into something else entirely, and a deranged record from Dr. Karansky complaining about how foolish his superiors were not to see the potential breakthroughs inherent in the lines of research he was pursuing.

The research materials were certainly focused on mutations, or, to a lesser extent, things that would introduce massive physical change in the recipient while granting great power. There were notes on the Arachnoids and the Devouring Earth – both known to incorporate humans mutated into monsters in their twisted ranks. I was definitely onto something.

Lt. Bernhard did a background check on Karansky, determining that he was a once promising medical doctor who had disappeared after a scandal involving providing steroids to athletes. He resurfaced in the Rogue Isles, working with Arachnos for a while, but, for some reason, had then returned to Paragon. In any case, it seemed like he was now going to be the problem of Longbow and the PPD – at least until Bernhard sent me an urgent text message (about three weeks later) telling me she’d been kidnapped while visiting the offices of her sister Corinne.

Bernhard wasn’t hard to rescue, but I also found a Webmaster Hamon there, guarded by some pretty seriously mutated … things. Hamon offered to help me access some sensitive files on a computer in return for escorting him from the premises, safe from arrest by Longbow (who were closing in on the building to arrest Hamon).

Hamon lived up to his word, providing me with lots of useful information, taken from the Arachnos ‘net (at least I think all he was doing was using a normal office computer to access the Arachnos network – I can’t think of why Connie Bernhard’s office would be storing a bunch of Arachnos files on their computers).

Karansky was planning an attack on the Fortunatas at Mercy Island. Three weeks ago Lt. Bernhard had told me that when Karansky had first surfaced in the Rogue Isles, he was seeking membership in the Fortunatas, but had been rejected because this was before they were accepting men into their ranks. Based on the files Hamon had given me access to, Karansky had instead been recruited to work on Project FURY, developing drugs that would help the Soldiers of Arachnos meet their peak potential. Karansky had wanted the drugs he was working on to be a regular part of the Arachnos regimen, but the others he was working with wanted them to be used far more sparingly – for example, as a way to help wounded Soldiers recover faster. Evidently, Karansky’s frustration at Arachnos was getting a bit out of hand – he’d returned to Paragon City to continue his research, and (for reasons that I could only attribute to revenge) was now ready to strike back at those in Arachnos who had dared stand in his way. Since, evidently, he was particularly annoyed at being denied membership in the Fortunatas, destroying them would be (in his mind) a good way to make his point.

In any case, I kept my promise, and let Hamon go. He made it clear his next task was to protect the Fortunatas that were about to come under attack on Mercy Isle – I figured I would probably soon be helping him with that.

Editor’s Note: I’m liking the arc overall, but there are aspects of the story that really seem pretty murky to me at this point. I’m not clear on what Perfectly Plastic (or Corinne) has to do with any of this yet – if anything. Or what Webmaster Hamon would be doing there. Or even why it was necessary, from the standpoint of the story, to insert a three week break in the action. At the moment this is just part of the running commentary, but I’m hoping that some of these loose ends will be tied up by the end of the arc…

Oh! Hmm … according to Bernhart, Connie was actually kidnapped. And since Dr. Karansky is prepping to attack the Isles, his minions must have dragged her back there. I guess.

Editor’s Note: I’m supposing the reference to Connie’s kidnapping was part of Lt. Bernhart’s dialog as I rescued her in the last mission; I’m pretty sure it wasn’t among any of the clues I saw. In general, I’d strongly recommend that anything that is important to the plot (which, among other things, includes stuff that is being mentioned in mission briefings “like I should know about it”, and is a major motivator behind what my contact wants me to do) be put into a clue, rather than (I guess) in mission dialogue. It’s amazingly easy to miss dialogue, but a clue can always bring you up to speed. And all of that is assuming I’m right about having missed it in the dialogue.

So anyway, Bernhard, working with Hamon, let me know that a safehouse had been set up in the Rogue Isles for my use. Once there, I tagged some of Karansky’s monsters, and trailed them to an Arachnos base where they were attempting to set up a chemical attack aimed specifically at the Fortunatas in the base. Evidently the drug had a particularly nasty effect on “users” with psychic abilities – and Karansky was interested in exploring this effect in more depth. In other words, he’d found something that could really give the Fortunatas grief, and wanted to watch it hurt them. Sometimes even the best minds among us can be awfully, awfully petty.

I made my way into the base, disabled the gas canisters set to release the drug into the ventilation system, and rescued a Fortunata being held captive by Karansky’s mutants. In return for my help, the captured Fortunata told me that I was fated to defeat Karansky, but I may be faced with some morally grey options in the process (Dr. Aeon’s first Architect Challenge, I presume?).


When you are a Fire Scrapper playing only in MA, creative use of your blue bar to power your Tier 9 is just a must. In this case, though, the Fortunate One is fortunate indeed, as I am waiting for Rise of the Phoenix to recharge, and (as you can see from the timer), just don’t have the time to wait. This defeat actually required a trip to the hospital. (No worries, though, I did complete the mission.)

With Karansky’s plot against the Fortunata’s foiled, it was now time to stop his attempt to ‘infect’ the population of Grandville with this Serums. This would also be my chance to save Connie; Bernhart warned me that the attack would be coming from the Grandville beaches, and that the Arachnoids and Dr. Karansky’s followers might be using secret cave networks to move men and materials around. At first I thought that might be a reference to look for hidden tunnels if I was faced with mission objectives I couldn’t get to – but ultimately my searches of the map proved fruitless, and I concluded the author was simply using that as a way to explain how new objectives could appear out of nowhere.


Pro Payne has assumed his characteristic position. Unwisely, Constance has decided to taunt him, not realizing that that little, wonderful button that gives him fifteen seconds of uninterrupted kick-assery is ready to go.

In any case, I quickly found Connie, who had been injected with the serum and was now a mutated monster under Karansky’s control. I defeated her, and then moved to defeat Karansky himself, and two ‘crystals’ that contained his serums (presumably to be dissolved into the water supply or ground up and spread via wind currents). One of the crystals actually spawned inside a rock – fortunately my flame aura and PBAoEs could still affect it.


Karansky prepares to order the SLDF to make a series of jumps out of the Inner Sphere, to parts unknown. No, wait. That’s Kerensky. And not even this game. Still this guy’s got a whole group of followers patterned after animals. Only in this case, it’s a bit more … literal.

Next, for some reason that really didn’t make a lot of sense to me I had to rescue two more crystals from attacking members of Karansky’s faction. Originally I thought it was just one, but for some reason a little white ‘2’ suddenly appeared next to the huge green objective text – then quickly vanished again along with a message telling me an Arachnoid had defeated the crystal. (I did manage to fight off whatever ambush was heading for my crystal.)

I had no idea why I was defending the crystal, or why they were now being attacked. The mission didn’t fail or end, and I couldn’t find anything else on the map. I figured I’d try to give the mission one last shot (this time with XP turned off and the diff. turned all the way down to speed things up – the XP was off because I’m almost to 50, and it just struck me as ‘artificial’ to double up on this missions’ XP; I was curious to see where – which arc – I would hit 50 without needing to do ‘replays’ due to bugs).

On the second attempt of this mission, the 2nd “enemy” crystal didn’t spawn inside a rock, and I was able to successfully “save” the two “ally” crystals. But the mission still wouldn’t complete. With no idea what to do next, I quit out of the arc, and will move on to the next one. In game I didn’t rate the arc – but I do feel I have enough information to be able to give it a tentative “non-in-game” rating.

Pros: The story’s got some real potential; with some hefty clean-up work, I think this could be a very good arc. I did like the story tie-ins to canon, and I do have to admit that I’m something of a fan of good “mad-science” stories. I rather liked the customs, and there really was something about the opening of the arc that really grabbed me.

Caveat: Some, although not all, of the issues I had with this arc can probably be blamed on when it came up in the queue – I very well might have played it when the author was in the process of making some I17 related changes, and hasn’t had a chance to totally debug everything. For that reason I’m trying to make a clear distinction between literally what I’d be rating the arc right now if this was the final version, and the potential I think the arc has. The “game breaking” bugs are accounted for in the score, but since I didn’t rate it in-game, the score here is pretty meaningless. But the bugs came late enough that I did feel like I was able to see most of the arc, and had plenty more to actually “grade” that wasn’t related to technical problems.

Cons: The most obvious ones are the bugs that kept me from finishing the arc. But that aside, I felt the arc really needed to tighten up the writing (and story). While it’s not at all unusual for many arcs to begin with the player kind of “in the dark” as to what’s going on, there were just too many things that seemed out of left field for me in this arc. I suspect the biggest error here is “dialog reliance” – if it’s really important to the plot, it’s best to put it in a clue, since it can be very easy to miss something critical to the plot in dialog. But I do get the distinct impression there were some cases of the author figuring “what’s going on here is so clear that explaining it to the player will just make them feel like I’m insulting their intelligence, so there’s no need for me to put any more explanation in.” My response: please, feel free to insult my intelligence.

While I did get the Karansky plot (mostly) – and that was a solid part of the story – there was plenty that I just didn’t follow, or (to put it bluntly) see why it was part of the story. What is Connie’s role in all of this – why was she kidnapped? Was it just to bring Suzanne back into the story? Everything with the office building and Connie almost seemed like it was there to explain why the author inserted a three week “break” into the storyline. I’m guessing all of that was to give Karansky time to set up the attacks that occur later in the plot, but, to be honest, without that break – or the whole Connie subplot – I would simply have assumed that at the point where I got involved Karansky was already almost ready to make his move. In other words, at least right now, it seems to me like the Connie subplot is there to explain something that doesn’t need explaining.

And what’s with the allied crystals? While I’m almost positive that the idea is that if I “defend” them, I will have control over whatever monsters are made using them. But why the heck would I want to do that – is the idea that I could use these monsters to launch an attack on Grandville? But wouldn’t I mostly just be killing the poor folks confined to the slums? I’m just not sure why I’d choose to take control of Karansky’s monsters (plus, I got the impression his natural psychic abilities were helping him control them as a kind of ‘hive mind’ – but I don’t have psychic abilities; while it’s really a minor nitpick, it does seem like an oversight, albeit one I could explain away by simply saying Karansky’s monsters were impressed with my strength). And it made no sense to me why those same monsters would be attacking the crystals just because Karansky was defeated. It would seem to make more sense to me if it was Arachnos leading those attacks – they have a much more obvious reason to want to see those crystals destroyed.

What it boils down to is that by the end of the arc, the plot was just not making much sense to me. Since some of it might have been explained by completing the mission the issue may not be quite as severe as what it seemed like when I quit out of the arc – but at the very least what I’ve written here will give the author an idea of what I was wondering as the arc drew to a close, so he can make a judgement call as to whether or not the mission debriefing and any remaining clues explain enough of what I was confused about.

In summary, the arc’s got a good start, and seems to really have a good foundation in place for a very interesting story – but I did think that there was still a lot of work that could be done to tighten the story, and make things clearer to the player (including some elements that, if removed, might accomplish exactly what I’m talking about – giving the arc a tighter, clearer story).
One final, minor nitpick (didn’t factor into the score): every so often the mission objective in the compass window would show up as huge, highlighted lettering. Is that supposed to indicate urgency? An extra important objective? It didn’t necessarily seem to me that the objective was unusually important. Oddly, it felt more like the author’s response to previous feedback: After arrest crooked cop, you need to access the computer. But some moron player arrested the cop and was genuinely surprised the mission didn’t end, and somehow completely missed that the objective had changed. So he or she quit out and told the author he didn’t know what to do after arresting the cop. So the author’s response was “you idiot, why don’t you actually do what the objective says and ACCESS THE DANG COMPUTER!” Baseless (and likely wrong) speculation aside, the massive increase in font size for some of the objectives did (obviously) strike me as … odd.

Score: 2.83 (Note, however, that with some work – and likely repeated testing – to quash some of the bugs – assuming they *are* bugs, and also some TLC to tighten the story, especially in the latter half of the arc, this arc would have netted a five-star rating.)

Very good points, WN. Some questions probably worth discussing: just how many HoF arcs should there be compared to the number of DC arcs? Roughly the same? Half as many? Twice as many? One-tenth? Should there be no relationship between them at all. While some on these forums may argue that - I personally think the system should be set up so that HoF grants authors "free slots" about as often as DC does?

Or, another way to phrase the question independent of DC arcs would be what should be the average rate HoF arcs are appearing? One a month? Six a year? One a year?

Depending on the answer to the above questions, then what requirements would be needed to get HoF to DC to about the correct ratio - and do they seem to be reasonable requirements?

Actually, if you really want a "QoL" change that doesn't alter any of the existing game rules, just "streamlines" the process of unslotting your character and keeping your IOs, here's something I'd like to see:

A "version" of respec that we can call "respec lite" (just to call it something). Performing it costs a respec, just like doing a full respec would, but:

1. A "respec lite" assumes you intend to keep exactly the same powers at exactly the same level you got them before, with exactly the same slotting.

2. It "starts" by opening up the "place enhancements" screen you see at the end of a full respec, but...

3. Unlike a full respec, it leaves your enhancement in their original slots. As is normal for the place enhancements screen, though, you can move slotted enhancements around (e.g. to your enhancement tray, the "still to place or they'll get sold" window below).

The benefit? It lets you manipulate your enhancements in exactly the same way going through the full respec process would. But it skips you having to rechoose powers and slots if all you are using the respec for is to move around enhancements - or free some up (or even "mass sell" a bunch of them).

Again, you can't do anything a normal respec wouldn't let you do (enhancement wise) - you still cannot "unslot and keep" more than 10. It'd still cost you six of your respecs to fully unslot your character at level 50. It just lets you do what you were planning on doing in a much faster, much less tedious way, with exactly the same "costs" as are currently in the game.

Allow me my characteristically terse replies. I've got papers to grade and all, but I do very much appreciate the responses and would like to reply...

Sister_Twelve: For what it's worth, I thought the story absolutely carried it. That was some of the best writing in mission briefing and debriefing dialogue I've seen. *That's* the way I think Nemesis should talk. And it says something that your "cardinal sins" (for the most part) didn't bother me in the least. Timed missions? No problem - I knew they were coming. Defeat alls? Not an issue - they made sense, and you used small maps that made completing the objective just second nature to normal mission play. The "biggie" was exactly what (apparently) your other commentors pointed out - I don't think I can name a single player who thinks the fact our foes run is actually fun. Realstic perhaps. But not fun. Tack that onto a foe that you need to make the mission a success ... and, well, ugh. And (as mentioned) I'd be in favor of setting any mission details that aren't at easy to easy. Beyond that, I do want to let you know that I most certainly did enjoy playing through the arc. Even when I was pissed at the design decisions. Well done!

Tubbius: And I look forward to getting to your arc!

(It'll still be next week before I have any hope of hitting the next arc...)