Coulomb2

Pro Payne's slow march to level 50 continues. He just reached level 35. Here are some of the recent arcs he's played, and my comments/notes:

Mentioned "One Last Time": Because I do not want my in-game ratings to decrease an arcs visibility (I want people to play and rate arcs; the more plays/ratings, the better), and because I want to counter the effects of griefers who 1 star arcs, in-game I always rate your arcs 1 higher than reported here, unless I've given you 5 stars here (I can't give you six in game), or 1 star here (It's very rare for me to give 1 star - the arc truly has to be horrible, IMO, and it's one of the very rare cases where I wouldn't want to subject others to the arc, and where I'd posit that any griefing isn't actually artificially lowering the rating of the arc.)

So remember, what I report below, you got one star higher in game!

(Oh, and in case you're wondering if I'm ever going to add Recommended to any of the more recent arcs I've played, the answer is yes - but sort of the 'trick' here is I like to wait a while, and then see which arcs really stand out in my memory, and go back and give them a recommendation.)

Drakule Armageddon 5 (Gotta update this one when an arc ID and its full title once the servers come back online. 5 stars.) The third in @LaserJesus's Drakule series, these arcs have been some of my favorate, played by both Pro Payne and some of my other characters. Although humor arcs, in my opinion they have just enough seriousness to keep you interested in the 'story', yet more than enough lighthearted humor to be very entertaining. On top of that, the custom mob design has been very, very good in all three arcs - this one is no different. This arc introduces the Drakule Hunters, and, like the other customs in the series, they are very well done visually, with good (albeit short) descriptions, and well chosen power sets - they've got variety, but never seemed overwhelming. My only criticisms are either minor nitpicks, or have already been addressed by the author. They were: there was a boss that spawned +5 in the final mission (beaten with copious inspiration use and a few trips to the hospital) - that's already been fixed by the author. The other is just a minor nitpick about mob design. While is certainly makes thematic sense for the vampire mobs (including Drakule) to be able to fly, my suggestion to the author would be to at least consider removing that ability, especially for Drakule himself, at least until the glorious day comes (if it ever comes) that the mob AI makes things a little more willing to stand and fight. The issue I ran into is that fly only seems to come into play, in practice, when the mob runs away, which just increases the annoyance factor that the mob just ran away from you (and can get really annoying with someone like Drakule who has a stealth power, and can easily vanish somewhere in the large, cavernous room he spawns into when he decides it's time to run like a little girly-vampire). For me one of the more anti-climactic parts of the whole arc was having to strap on a jet pack and fly around the room randomly until I "bumped into" Drakule so that I could resume the fight. But, like I said, a minor nit in an arc that I otherwise greatly enjoyed.

A Tangle In Time (#2622, 3 stars) With the exception of a battle in the final mission where two rather tough elite bosses spawned in right next to each other, the technical aspects of this arc, and even the basic aspects of the story were well done; I did enjoy playing the arc. So why three stars (four in game, of course)? This is one of those cases where, in my opinion, there seemed to be too many plot holes and omissions (and one "forced action" that I found distasteful) for my taste. Let me be more specific. (Warning, some spoilers as to the arc's plot follow...) In a nutshell, a rather minor Circle of Thorns functionary is using a magical artifact that traps people in a time loop. In essence, the CoT villain is "torturing" people with these time loops in order to bully them into "meeting his demands." What struck me as really unclear was what exactly these demands were - yes, he did want Pro Payne to beat up the Paragon Police who were harassing him, but was that it? Are his demands fairly petty, low-level stuff (beat up these cops for me, instead of helping them out)? That might actually make for an interesting plot point - the villain has all of this power, but lacks the imagination to really turn it into a major scheme and is just busying himself with petty bullying. Or is there a much grander, more sinister plot afoot here? Is he building up a whole army of "time slaves" - of heroes forced to become villains, driven insane by being trapped in these time loops - that he will later unleash on the city? Does he have any plans to do anything super-villain-like with said army of time slaves (assuming that's what he's up to)? The bottom line is the arc kind of hints that the villain's got "demands" and "big plans", but never really indicates what they are; perhaps that was by design, but, in my opinion it left a kind of "what was the point of the arc" gap? Note that in mission four, where you actually invade the guy's lair, there'd be a perfect place to put some collectable 'clues' that might give some insight into what the villain is really trying to accomplish by trapping heroes in time loops (or, perhaps, make it very clear that he's really far more of a small-time thug than he sees himself, and just doesn't have any real plans - he's too small minded to use these time loops for anything other than, in effect, bullying heroes into committing petty criminal acts).

The other issue I had here was in the third mission - here the CoT villain gives you his one and only demand of the arc: attack the police in the mission rather than the CoT. He claims it's the only way he'll let you out of the time loop. Here's the problem: beating on the police certainly gets Azuria's attention (she's the mission contact), but it isn't that that convinces her your in some sort of time loop - it's the fact you've got multiple copies of that amulet she keeps giving you. Which means you didn't actually need to beat up the police (which, in this context only serves an an excuse to create a sense of urgency for mission four - you've got to infiltrate the CoT villain's lair before the police find you and haul your butt in). It really has made me wonder if there's a way to set up mission three so that attacking and defeating the police is optional? For example, defeating the two police bosses gets you the "standard" mission complete, and triggers the story as is, but skipping them and "examining" the artifact spawns in the CoT villain, which gives you the idea to start a fight with him, but allow him to flee (he'll flee at 90% health, for example) rather than defeat him (since defeating him always prompts him to just go ahead and trigger the next time loop), and then follow him back to his lair after the mission "fails" (complete with plenty of text in the debriefing and the popup window making it very clear you didn't really fail the mission)? It's just an idea, but might make for an interesting addition since you'd have more 'choice' over your actions in mission three.

Okay, one last nit (certainly not a major issue for me) - in the first mission, the officer with the club actually says that he's going to 'stay put and keep an eye out for more trouble' - but he actually follows you around for the rest of the mission.

Again, overall I enjoyed the arc - it's just that what seemed to be plot omissions led to it feeling kind of incomplete for me...

...but if I had a few problems with the plot of A Tangle in Time, I certainly didn't with the author's next arc:

Eclipse over Paragon (#64609, 5 stars)
For this arc, I only had two minor nits - the rest I found to be fun, with a story that I really enjoyed.

So let me start out with everything I liked! Like I said - I thought it was a very well done, enjoyable story, and one that was very plausable even in context of the game's canon. Loved the custom mobs - from the 'weak' warwolves, to the deranged citizens and the 'warwolf' longbow, to the modified council robots intended to disperse the 'nictus mist.' I thought the mission design and pacing was very good, with an excellent mix of very short, easy missions (that still had a point in advancing the story) along with longer, more involved missions. Like I said, I very much enjoyed the arc and the story it told!

Here are the nits, and like I said, they're minor (minor enough that I still thought this arc deserved five stars).

In the second mission, the boss that spawned in was a Wolfpak robot, yet he was labelled Archon something-or-other. THAT seemed weird - I didn't know if this was supposed to be a nod to the plot masterminds abilities with mek technology and AI (the robot had a full-fledged, fully sentient AI and had risen through the ranks to become an Archon), or if it was just an oversight.

Then, in the third mission (I think it was the third one - it was the outdoor mission), I noticed in my clues list a reference to an archon that I'd defeated whose clothes were soaked with nictus serum, yet he hadn't shown any signs of mutation. Story wise, the intent was to make it clear the Council had an antidote (or vaccine) to their own serum - the problem was either that clue was attached to the wrong objective (I think I got it after defeating one of those modified robots, although it might have been after I beat the first of the longbow warwolves), or I actually managed to quickly fight and defeat a council archon and not even realize I was in a boss fight (seems unlikely, but I guess it's *possible* I wasn't paying enough attention and literally thought the boss was a lt or something)...


Okay, that's it for this week's update. In addition to monitoring this thread for any more suggestions, (and, ultimately, updating my master list of 'arcs played'), I'm going to play the History of Statesman arc, make a foray into trying out random arcs based on the results of keyword searches, and (when I get the chance) try out the arc Space Nut suggested.

Wow, yay for the much-relaxed editing of previous posts. Extreme boo for the limits on the numbers of images I can put in a post.

I've edited the above list to include new arcs Pro Payne has played - and replaced my old smilies with Recommended tags (as you can see, I missed a few). My plan is to update that list into the near future, rather than re-posting it over and over again.

Update
Pro Payne made it to 34 over the weekend. (See the above post if you want to know what his current queue is)

A few brief notes on the arcs that are 'recent additions' (and apologies for ones that I don't have an ID for - I'll correct that as soon as the servers come back up).

The Audition, Part II (5 stars, also gave 5 stars in game). I've actually very much enjoyed both parts of this series. Very well done - humor can always be 'iffy', but the author's humor certainly clicked with me. At the same time I really enjoyed the overall story. I thought the fact the humming mummers had thermal as their secondary was a bit odd - just couldn't think of an 'in story' reason for that (sonic resonance would have made more sense to me), but I didn't object to the choice in terms of gameplay: I actually hate the sonic resonance set because my character is resistance-based...

Pagkagising ng Kaluluwa (4 stars, gave 5 stars in game). Neat custom group - challenging, but not overwhelmingly so. Definitely not something you'd want to take on much below the posted level range, so be warned. My only real complaint was I did seem to have trouble following the story. Part of that may have just been me - who knows, perhaps I was having an off day. But I do think that the narrative style factored into it a bit as well: it's clear that you are playing an AE simululation of something that some other hero did in the game's 'real world' (or at least that's what I got from it). For some odd reason, the fact that the mission text kept switching between references to what you were supposed to be doing in the mission (and what the 'setup' of the mission was) and how that mission was handled in 'the real world' certainly contributed to my difficulty in following the story as well as I would have liked. One more technical issue: I love reading mob descriptions, but the author's choice to give the mobs super reflexes seriously interfered with that. The particular problem is the focused senses power that grants both ranged attack protection and a major perception boost. As a result the mobs would aggro onto me the moment I saw them: I'd have to fight and kill them (quickly - they're *not* pushovers), instead of reading their 'bios.' Mostly the bios I read were those of defeated minions who hadn't yet faded out - I ended up missing bios for nearly all the lt's, and all of the named bosses.

Ghost In The Machine, Act I: (5 stars, both for real and in game) This arc certainly lived up to the hype. I loved the story, loved the machine design and progression. It's worth saying that when the purpose of the arc is to find a way to 'save' someone who is a potential romantic interest for your character, making the character you're trying to save likeable is very important, and the author did an excellent job: I wanted to save Dani. Excellent arc!

(Note that I did attempt the second arc, but couldn't complete it. That's going to have to wait until either the end boss gets a bit of editing, or until I'm near level 50 and, potentially have more non fire based attacks. There are likely lots of builds out there that can take him, but a fire scrapper trying to take on a boss with a large fraction of the fire shield set - including the heal - just wasn't going to work out well. Sorry Dani ! I'm holding off rating this arc until I can complete it.)

Pro Payne is currently level 32, and is about to "ding" to level 33. Just got finished playing the Consequences of War duo: here's a very brief summary of my thoughts. WARNING: My thoughts are *not* spoiler free!

Pros: Great story, with lots of neat little touches that I really liked. The inability to understand the Rikti until you finally get a decoder was neat, and I found the NPC characters throughout entertaining. Kudos to the author for minimizing the amount of "NPC help" (only a fraction of the NPC heroes you interact with actually become allies, and, at least in my play experience, the ones who did usually were picked up near the end of a particular mission where they tended to not get in my way or 'steal the glory' - along with lots of XP and tickets). It was a great way to have plenty of NPC hero interaction without them consistently stealing the spotlight. And since they made frequent apparences without irritating me, I actually did care, and feel a tinge of regret, at the end, when they meet their ultimate fate. Good use of clues and in mission dialog, and interesting mission design: some got on the long side (again, as always, IMO), but overall I thought the pacing was very good. Very solid arcs overall! I definitely enjoyed playing them!

Cons: Most of these can honestly be chalked up to personal taste (and to be fair, many of these observations are no longer valid since the author has already made some changes to the missions); it's not hard to see at all that other players might very much enjoy the things that I didn't. First, the difficulty was a bit too high for me: that's not entirely the author's fault. One of my biggest pet peeves in this game overall is the inability to have bosses spawn as bosses unless you up the difficulty, which I do, because I like the challenge of not fighting bosses. I'm sincerely hoping that I16's new difficulty options include settings that let me have bosses on heroic. In any case the Rikti can be a tough group on tenacious or higher (either you get more of them, or they're higher level which makes the drones and anything with a guardian spawned shield an annoyance to hit). But none of that is really anything I held against the author - my difficulty setting is my own personal choice. However, one of my pet peeves in AE missions is the strong tendency by many, many authors to give really difficult foes ambush spawns (which can get *really* dicey with the rikti if comm officers show up in the ambush, and oh they do...) I'm certainly not adverse to challenge, but a Rikti Heavy Assault suit, or the EB version of an AV is already a fun challenge; it's just my opinion, but I find the addition of an ambush just kind of pushes it over the edge from 'fun challenge' to frustrating, especially if the ambush is the reason you were defeated in what would have otherwise been a narrow victory (which did happen once or twice). I did find one of the mission (#2 in arc 2) to be overly long, but that's also personal taste (but hey, they're my thoughts on the arc after all) - the author did say that plenty of players actually liked the length of that mission, and I certainly believe him. Finally, I did encounter one bug that is hopefully fixed - I quite suddenly failed mission #4 in arc 2, with no clear indication as to why I failed. It was a timed mission, but it had an hour long timer when I played it, and I'd maybe been in the mission five minutes before it failed. It was a pity too, because it actually seemed like it would have been a fun mission to play through!

Now for what might be a bit controversial, although I have seen others in these forums leaning toward this approach as well (albeit perhaps for different reasons). Unless the arc is just plain terrible, I've started giving it one extra star beyond what I would have given it. In my "play lists" I'll list the "true" star rating I gave the arc, but in game I rate them one higher (which, if you look at my voting record, means that from this point on, the majority of the arcs I play that are recommended to me will probably get five stars in game). This is partially because of my increasing frustration with the "effects" if you will of the rating system. Most of my own arcs have started out five starred, and through the action of hard graders (which I'm fine with), people who just didn't like the arc (which I'm also fine with), and griefers (which I'm not fine with), they end up with four stars. The problem is I've noticed the moment any of my own arcs hit four stars, the frequency with which they get played goes into the toilet. Even going through the list of arcs Pro Payne has played, I've noticed lots of arcs that I thought were very good, that just don't seem to have gotten many plays over the last few months, ostensibly because arcs that have maintained five stars get most of the attention. Perhaps others have had a different experience, but I go on my own experiences, and I'm finding that to be a very frustrating aspect of the effect of rating arcs. Yes, on one side, I really would like the rating system to mean something, but until they find a way to deal with griefing, and until they find a way (perhaps a modification of the search system) that encourages the *average* player to at least look at arcs that are not five starred (because it certainly seems like that's not the case right now), I'm feeling it is important to (1) do what I can to help counteract the effect of the griefers, and (2) do what I can to avoid having arcs I actually enjoyed playing vanish into obscurity. As much as I'd like to be able to give an arc that I think deserves 4 stars the rating I think it deserves, I don't want that rating to result in a drastic decrease in the number of people willing to play the arc. So, like I said, for now, I intend to give in game ratings one star higher than what I report their rating as here.

Alright, here's an updated version of my "play list" (in most cases I gave questionables five stars, after the feedback posts that suggested many of the arcs in my list that were not showing rating had probably been rated five stars - since, to be fair, in most cases if I replayed and re-rated an arc, it was to see if improvements posted by the author really would prompt me to increase my rating from 4 to 5 stars).

(“Officially 5 stars”)
Johnny Sonata and the Hitmen (1001, 4 stars)
The Butterfly Effect (2965, 3 stars)
Welcome to Architect Entertainment (1004, 3 stars)
The Footsteps Initiative (2291, 5 stars) Recommended Very funny and entertaining to play.
The Return of the Lizard People (2974, 4 stars)
The Perfect Brew (2007, 4 stars)
Cats and Lizards (88842, 4 stars)
Teen Phalanx Forever (67335, 5 stars) Recommended One of the best arcs I’ve played overall, IMO.
Speeding Through Time (51728, 5 stars) Recommended Very neat story!
The Burning of Hearts (2260, 5 stars) Recommended One of the best stories I’ve played overall, IMO.
A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings (61866, 5 stars)
The Consequences of War, Part II (241496, 4 stars)
Ghost In The Machine, Act I (????, 5 stars)

(“Officially 4 stars”)
Future Imperfect (10931, 4 stars*official rating)
The Invasion of the Bikini-Clad Samuri Vampiresses from Outer Space (61013, 5 stars)
Pandas vs. Rikti (68930, 4 stars) Recommended Interesting story and custom group.
Facing the Darkness (89438, 4 stars)
Death to Disco! (84420, 4 stars)
The Fanboy’s Fleece (91836, 5 stars)
Ctrl + Alt + Reset! Aka Time Loop (137561, 5 stars) Recommended Very neat story! Cool “gimmick”
The Age of Aquarius (79061, 2 stars)
Rise of the Drakule (51357, 5 stars) Recommended Very neat and funny story! Great custom foes!
Getting to Know Crey Financial: The Teaser (1034, 3 stars)
Sub Hero Inc. – Technology Operation (1541, 3 stars)
Rumble with Beef Cake (1070, 3 stars)
Gnomish Madness (30204, 4 stars)
The “Easter Basket” (35334, 4 stars)
Save the Spiderlings! (13986, 5 stars) Recommended Very quick story; found it surprisingly humorous for such a simple concept.
Trademark Infringement (2220, 5 stars)
What Happens IN CyberSpace Stays In The Recycle Bin!!! (17030, 3 stars)
Bricked Electronics (2180, 5 stars) Recommended Very good story!
The Missing (37636, 4 stars)
Dream Paper (1874, 5 stars) Recommended Very good story!
Sub Hero Inc. – Double Helix (12179, 3 stars)
Welcome to the Legion of Valor! (5676, 3 stars)
The Wool Over One’s Eyes ver 2.90 (1033, 5 stars)
To Serve Cookie (2646, 4 stars)
Small Fears (12285, 5 stars) Recommended Very good story!
The Decryption (188282, 3 stars)
Assault on Aru Prime (174586, 3 stars)
Fighting Freedom (177930, 5 stars)
The Audition Part One (221240, 5 stars) Recommended Very good story will well-done humor!
Duality (84105, 3 stars)
King of Thieves Part 1: All Hell’s Breaking Loose (76190, 5 stars) Recommended Very good story!
Hero Thearpy! ™ (119228, 5 stars) Recommended Very good story!
Sukiyaki Rumble (158629, 3 stars)
Santa’s Workshop of Misfit Toys (134140, 5 stars)
The Monster Hop (27861, 4 stars)
Ruturn of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood (84543, 4 stars) Recommended Very good story!
The Crazy Clown (93574, 4 stars)
The Lazarus Project* (124906, 4 stars*official rating) “Pseudo”Recommended (I wrote it! Don't take this recommendation too seriously!)
Everlasting Life (108335, 4 stars) Recommended Very interesting custom group!
Kiss Hello Goodbye (156389, 4 stars) Recommended Really liked the feel!
Brokering the Brikers (37724, 4 stars)
The Paradox Raid (67566, 4 stars)
Trollbane (106553, 3 stars)
Shenanigans on Striga (91644, 3 stars)
Cracking Skulls* (115935, 4 stars*official rating)
The Second Coming of the Mega Mech (122274, 5 stars) Recommended Good story mixed with very neat custom group!
What are we doing tonight Iggy? (34399, 2 stars)
Invasion of the Samurai (93272, 2 stars)
Adventures in Arkham (139180, 3 stars)
Intrigue in The Arcana (14160, 1 star)
Found and Lost (1147, 3 stars)
The Amulet of J’gara (1709, 5 stars)
Blowback (4643, 4 stars)
Matchstick Women (3369, 5 stars)
Jumping in feet first (1345, 4 stars)
Hero Corps: To Russia With Intrigue! (6583, 2 stars)
Sgt. Hoolihan and the Missing Pants (1125, 4 stars)
In Her Own Image V 3.35 (2085, 4 stars)
Zombies have the Cheerleaders! Something about Purify Sacrifice? (22908, 3 stars)
In The Shadow Of The Towers (1402, 4 stars)
Every Rose… (17702, 3 stars)
A Little RnR (17523, 3 stars) Recommended Interesting and complex custom group, but be prepared for a difficult fight!
Hell Comes to Paragon (18109, 4 stars) Recommended Interesting take on the Hellions.
KIT’s Chaos (193782, 3 stars)
Learning The Ropes* (100304, 4 stars*official rating)
Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons (100045, 5 stars) Wonderfully done custom group!
Meet the Demon Spawn (151099, 4 stars)
Hunter of Beasts: It starts with a riot… (110465, 5 stars)
The Hijacking of the Kumo Maru (35050, 2 stars)
Finding The Lost Leaders (4639, 2 stars)
Hall Hath No Fury (52817, 3 stars)
First Encounter (56311, 2 stars)
By Any Means (199400, 4 stars)
Final Exam: a Chibi Strike Force (106283, 3 stars)
Destined Champion of the Multiverse (128476, 4 stars)
Into the Screaming Void (164437, 2 stars)
Paragon City Sheriffs Department Qualifying Simulation-Part 3 (165788, 2 stars)
The Consequences of War, Part I (227331, 4 stars)
The Audition, Part II (????, 5 stars)
Pagkagising ng Kaluluwa (230100, 4 stars)
Drakule Armageddon 5: This Time It's Personal (257242, 5 stars)
A Tangle In Time (2622, 3 stars)
Eclipse Over Paragon (64609, 5 stars)
The History of Statesman (219484, 4 stars)
Celebrity Kidnapping (1388, 5 stars)
Of Papers and Paychecks (298290, 5 stars)
A Close Encounter (233720, 3 stars)
MacGuffin Delivery Service (1567, 5 stars)

(“Officially 3 stars”)
Low Tide (1154, 3 stars)
Cosplay Madness (3643, 4 stars) Recommended First time I saw a mission set to “spawn” mid-mission.
Collecting the Evil Doctor’s Debt (17482, 4 stars)
On the Streets (2947, 2 stars)
Defeat Liscku (50643, 1 star)

Current Queue:
2622, 219484, 64609, and the third "Rise of the Drakule" arc. Also I intend to play Space Nut's recommended arc, but that'll be on a different character.

Ratings listed here are my honest appraisal of how good I thought the arc was. In game ratings are one higher than listed here. This is to help combat two issues I have with the rating system: even three and four star arcs, which should be "good enough" to warrant attention seem to suffer a significant reduction in plays which is counter to the idea that more ratings gives you a more accurate picture of the true 'general appeal' of the arc, and 1-star griefing is far, far more common on good arcs than an arc getting 'five starred' without someone playing it - IMO something needs to be done to counter that and get an arc closer to its 'true' rating.

Finally, Recommended denotes arcs that really stood out for some reason or another (and yes, any arc that I gave a rating of 3 or more stars can potentially be 'recommended' - my overall rating is my impression of how much I enjoyed the story, the gameplay mechanics, the arc design, etc. But with 'recommended' there's something in the arc that I think is worth checking out, even if I thought other parts of the arc could have used a lot more polish. That said, there are plenty of arc's I've recommended that I did think were worth 5 stars.

I don't mean to be overly dense here, but which of the following is happening:

A. If I *changed* my rating for an arc, it will no longer display a rating (meaning it will neither display the old one nor the new one), but the number of plays *doesn't* tick up (e.g. I'm "changing the grade", *not* sneaking in two "plays" and "grades").

B. Under certain circumstances, if I replay an arc and give it a new grade, the system will actually count it as a second play: BOTH grades I gave the arc count toward its overall rating, and the author actually sees the number of plays go up. When this happens, I no longer see either rating I gave the arc.

Which option, A or B, is correct (or closest to correct)?

Wow, I hope that made sense...

Go ahead and recommend it! Granted, Pro Payne may not play it, but I do have other characters who might (Pro Payne is certainly not the *only* character I play).

Well, Pro Payne has just recently reached level 31 in his quest to level up to 50 in Mission Architect (with a very small number of caveats – check out his first post for those). In looking back on the past 31 levels, I’ve really wanted to put together a list of all the arcs Pro Payne has played to get to this point, not only to create a master list of the ratings I’ve given these arcs, but also as a reference for arcs that have really stood out for me, for some reason or another.

Pro Payne’s play experience to this point can best be described as “slow, but balanced by easy access to equipment,” which seems to be the developer design behind MA. I have absolutely no doubt that I could advance to 50 considerably faster doing main game content, but the “balancing factor” is that this is the easiest time I’ve ever had keeping a character equipped with enhancements. I traditionally “switch over” to IOs between levels 35 and 40 (meaning I start slotting in level 35 IOs at level 32), so we’ll see if the trend of keeping myself easily decked out in “standard” equipment (i.e. SOs and common IOs) continues – I’ll post my observations of that when the time comes. But, for now, keeping both Pro Payne’s primary and secondary builds totally up to date as far as SOs go has not been an issue, and I’ve always had tickets to spare.

But, as I mentioned at the beginning of the last paragraph, the tradeoff is the slowness of advancement. Early on, the lack of patrol experience, and the lack of a mission bonus was barely noticeable – but now it is certainly very obvious. I don’t have a truly objective measure, but it certainly feels like it takes Pro Payne about twice as long to gain a level here in the 30s than it does for one of my “outside” characters. I don’t intend that statement as criticism, by the way – simply an observation. In fact, I get the impression that is “working as intended.”

Sadly, long gone are the days where I could track things like total tickets earned, total missions played, etc. through the badge system. In fact, that’s been the biggest disappointment of the whole experience so far: slowly accumulating badges while I played through MA really did add to the experience for an all MA character. Now the MA badges are an unimportant and trivial part of the whole experience; their removal truly seems to have removed something fun from Pro Payne’s little adventure through the world of custom content.

One final caveat: I’m not a reviewer, or at least I don’t consider myself a “real” one (which is one of the reasons I’ve been so burned out on writing more reviews in this threat). While it’s certainly true that any reviewer's ratings are somewhat subjective, I would posit that mine are probably more subjective than average. My main “guideline” is really more a reference point: an arc that strikes me as “something that could be any old average arc in the main game” starts as 3 stars. And I go from there: things I really like (interesting custom foes, interesting story, lots of story, interesting mission design, etc.) cause me to increase my rating. Things I don’t like (overly hard custom foes, very little story overall, lack of custom mob descriptions, or lack of interesting variation among custom mobs, long and tedious mission design, bad spelling and grammer, etc.) cause me to reduce my rating. So with that said, on to “the list”:

List of arcs played by Pro Payne:
The arcs are arranged in order of their “official” rating (i.e. all of the arcs that are maintaining a five star rating overall are listed first, followed by the ones maintaining a four star rating, etc.). I’ve included the arc ID and the rating I gave the arc (but see the legend below).
Legend:
No question marks: Either the rating I gave this arc is visible to me when I look at the arc in the MA search window, or I’m absolutely positive this is the rating I gave the arc.
? – Although I completed this arc, I can no longer see the rating I gave it in the MA search window (I have no idea why I can see some of my ratings and not other, but there you go). However, I’m pretty sure that the rating I’m listing is the one I gave the arc.
?? – Same as one question mark, but in this case I’m considerably less sure the rating I’m reporting is the one I gave the arc. In some rare cases, if I absolutely can’t remember the rating I gave the arc, I’ve just put the “??” with no star rating.
These are Pro Payne’s “recommended” arcs. They are not necessarily the best arcs I think he played overall, and you’ll even notice they are not all arcs he gave five stars to, but they are all arcs that “stood out” for some reason as very memorable (really great story, the first time I saw a particular really interesting mechanic used, a very memorable custom group). Even if they’re not (necessarily) the pinnacle of what MA has to offer, in my opinion they are truly worth taking a look at. (I usually include a brief comment about what really stood out about the arc.) Of course, these recommended arcs are basically from memory. I certainly reserve the right to put the “smiley face” next to any arcs on this list that I later remember “hey, that *was* a memorable arc!”


(“Officially 5 stars”)
Johnny Sonata and the Hitmen (1001, 4 stars)
The Butterfly Effect (2965, 3 stars)
Welcome to Architect Entertainment (1004, 3 stars)
The Footsteps Initiative (2291, 5 stars) Very funny and entertaining to play.
The Return of the Lizard People (2974, 4 stars)
The Perfect Brew (2007, 4 stars)
Cats and Lizards (88842, 4 stars)
Teen Phalanx Forever (67335, 5 stars) One of the best arcs I’ve played overall, IMO.
Speeding Through Time (51728, 5 stars) Very neat story!
The Burning of Hearts (2260, 5 stars) One of the best stories I’ve played overall, IMO.
A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings (61866, 5 stars)
Future Imperfect (10931, 5 stars*official rating)

(“Officially 4 stars”)
The Invasion of the Bikini-Clad Samuri Vampiresses from Outer Space (61013, 5 stars)
Pandas vs. Rikti (68930, 4 stars) Interesting story and custom group.
Facing the Darkness (89438, 4 stars)
Death to Disco! (84420, 4 stars)
The Fanboy’s Fleece (91836, 5 stars)
Ctrl + Alt + Reset! Aka Time Loop (137561, 5 stars?) Very neat story! Cool “gimmick”
The Age of Aquarius (79061, 2 stars)
Rise of the Drakule (51357, 5 stars) Very neat and funny story! Great custom foes!
Getting to Know Crey Financial: The Teaser (1034, 3 stars)
Sub Hero Inc. – Technology Operation (1541, 3 stars)
Rumble with Beef Cake (1070, 3 stars)
Gnomish Madness (30204, 4 stars)
The “Easter Basket” (35334, 4 stars)
Save the Spiderlings! (13986, 5 stars?) Very quick story; found it surprisingly humorous for such a simple concept.
Trademark Infringement (2220, ??)
What Happens IN CyberSpace Stays In The Recycle Bin!!! (17030, 3 stars)
Bricked Electronics (2180, 5 stars) Very good story!
The Missing (37636, 4 stars)
Dream Paper (1874, 5 stars) Very good story!
Sub Hero Inc. – Double Helix (12179, 3 stars)
Welcome to the Legion of Valor! (5676, 3 stars)
The Wool Over One’s Eyes ver 2.90 (1033, ??)
To Serve Cookie (2646, 4 stars)
Small Fears (12285, 5 stars?) Very good story!
The Decryption (188282, 3 stars)
Assault on Aru Prime (174586, 3 stars)
Fighting Freedom (177930, 4 stars?)
The Audition Part One (221240, 5 stars?) Very good story will well-done humor!
Duality (84105, 3 stars)
King of Thieves Part 1: All Hell’s Breaking Loose (76190, 5 stars?) Very good story!
Hero Thearpy! ™ (119228, 5 stars?) Very good story!
Sukiyaki Rumble (158629, 3 stars)
Santa’s Workshop of Misfit Toys (134140, ??)
The Monster Hop (27861, 4 stars)
Ruturn of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood (84543, 4 stars) Very good story!
The Crazy Clown (93574, 4 stars)
The Lazarus Project* (124906, 4 stars*official rating) “Pseudo” (I wrote it! Don't take this recommendation too seriously!)
Everlasting Life (108335, 4 stars) Very interesting custom group!
Kiss Hello Goodbye (156389, 4 stars) Really liked the feel!
Brokering the Brikers (37724, 4 stars)
The Paradox Raid (67566, 4 stars)
Trollbane (106553, 3 stars)
Shenanigans on Striga (91644, 3 stars)
Cracking Skulls* (115935, 4 stars*official rating)
The Second Coming of the Mega Mech (122274, ??) Good story mixed with very neat custom group!
What are we doing tonight Iggy? (34399, 2 stars)
Invasion of the Samurai (93272, 2 stars)
Adventures in Arkham (139180, 3 stars)
Intrigue in The Arcana (14160, 1 star)
Found and Lost (1147, 3 stars)
The Amulet of J’gara (1709, ??)
Blowback (4643, 4 stars)
Matchstick Women (3369, ??)
Jumping in feet first (1345, 4 stars)
Hero Corps: To Russia With Intrigue! (6583, 2 stars)
Sgt. Hoolihan and the Missing Pants (1125, 4 stars)
In Her Own Image V 3.35 (2085, 4 stars)
Zombies have the Cheerleaders! Something about Purify Sacrifice? (22908, 3 stars)
In The Shadow Of The Towers (1402, 4 stars)
Every Rose… (17702, 3 stars)
A Little RnR (17523, 3 stars) Interesting and complex custom group, but be prepared for a difficult fight!
Hell Comes to Paragon (18109, 4 stars) Interesting take on the Hellions.
KIT’s Chaos (193782, 3 stars)
Learning The Ropes* (100304, 4 stars*official rating)
Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons (100045, 5 stars?) Wonderfully done custom group!
Meet the Demon Spawn (151099, 4 stars)
Hunter of Beasts: It starts with a riot… (110465, 3 stars??)
The Hijacking of the Kumo Maru (35050, 2 stars)
Finding The Lost Leaders (4639, 2 stars)
Hall Hath No Fury (52817, 3 stars)
First Encounter (56311, 2 stars)
By Any Means (199400, 4 stars)
Final Exam: a Chibi Strike Force (106283, 3 stars)
Destined Champion of the Multiverse (128476, 4 stars)
Into the Screaming Void (164437, 2 stars)
Paragon City Sheriffs Department Qualifying Simulation-Part 3 (165788, 2 stars)

(“Officially 3 stars”)
Low Tide (1154, 3 stars)
Cosplay Madness (3643, 4 stars) First time I saw a mission set to “spawn” mid-mission.
Collecting the Evil Doctor’s Debt (17482, 4 stars)
On the Streets (2947, 2 stars)
Defeat Liscku (50643, 1 star)

*official rating = this is an arc I wrote myself, and so the rating is the current official rating, not the rating I gave it.

That’s it for now! I look forward to more updates as Pro Payne slowly works toward 50.

Current “Projects”: Use the new search features, and see how easily I can now find “good” arcs that match the kind of arcs I’m looking to play in a given session.

Also, go back and edit some of the ratings - there are a few where I've still got the rating written down in my notes (or earlier in this thread), even though it's not visible in MA. When I get a chance, I'll go back through those to 'correct' as many uncertain ratings as I can.

And, as always, I’m always open to suggestions (and am still, slowly, working through arcs that have been recommended).

*This particular post is just to preserve this arc (I don't want it to get pruned).

I'm working on an update for Pro Payne, and his quest to get to level 30 in Mission Architect.

The short version: he's almost level 31, and at this point, I've played through nearly every arc that has been recommended in previous posts in this thread. I'm currently trying out the new search features and the keywords too, so I'll post my impressions of that as well. And, as always, feel free to throw out arcs you'd like for me to try. More next week (including a listing of every arc that I've played, that's still up, so you can see if Pro Payne has played your creation or not).

*EDIT: Just got told (see below) that this forum doesn't get pruned any more, so I won't be making a post like this again. Apologies. (And good to know, so thank you.)

The very first character I ever played to 50 was exactly this build. Here are my impressions:

*The character was very easy to solo, as long as you were smart about it. Heavy use of the snipe plus the holds meant that most of the time foes couldn't fight back. The E3 build definitely trades raw damage for more control.

*The endurance drain aspect was, for me, most useful in battles with bosses, I actually didn't use it so much in normal fights: I'd hit a boss with tesla cage and shocking grasp (or, later, shocking bolt), run up and drain out all his or her end, and then just keep attacking normally to keep the boss' end floored.

*My build did use stamina - without it, it was too easy to run out of endurance before power sink recharged, especially because I very frequently fired off ball lightning - almost treating it as a single target attack (it is very fast animating, but since it's an AOE it isn't endurance efficient), since you actually lack the third single target blast found in many other blaster sets. I certainly would never make the claim that was the best or most efficient way to play, but it was fun, and helped me defeat things faster than just alternating charged bolts and lightning bolt over and over again.

Hope this helps!

It stands for "Mid-Level Mission Architect" or "Medium-Level Mission Architect." It specifically refers to MA missions written to be playable by characters in the 20-40 level range (although, as a caveat, some characters in the early 20s may have trouble with some missions that auto-SK you up into the high 30s)...

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I'll add them to my list!

Just a very quick update:

Pro Payne is "back" - been playing him off and on most of the week. He just recently reached level 28, and just now got the golden ticket badge (not that it counts for much now that so many of the badges are going away ).

I'm actually pleased to report that, by and large, doing searches on "MLMA" arcs is giving me some pretty good arcs to keep Pro Payne occipied with.

I'm putting off writing another review until next week (trying to keep those to a minimum - frankly, they're so time consuming, and my attention is split between several characters and games) - but the plan is to write up my note's on Telstar's Slash DeMento arc (the actual story arc, not the one mission "intro" arc).

I also re-played PW's Teen Phalanx arc! I just wanted to mention here that I love the rewrites! With the new additions, this arc is a solid 5-star arc (in my opinion, of course), no questions asked!

I'd be happy to try out the arc again, if for no other reason than to see than changes for the first two missions (and possibly change the rating based on that).

One 'fair warning' sort of thing: if I don't get to it this week, it'll probably be about three to four weeks.

(And in fact, Pro Payne is going to be absent for nearly all of next week, as I've got a three day observing run next week, and just plain won't have time to get online.)

And, for what it's worth, one of the easiest ways to deal with the "non-canon" problem definitively is to put the NCMA tag in your description (at least, hopefully, until I15 makes tagging an arc's 'genre' part of the MA system).

Granted, not everybody is wild about the 'tags', but I've found them very useful overall. There's actually something very intriguing about looking at a "standard" group through the lens of "what if this is the way they were set up?"

What if the Clockwork really *were* a brillaintly engeneered, elecrically powered AI collective?

What if the Circle of Thorns were a direct result of a surge in magical energies that gave modern people access to magical powers that had been lacking for the past 1,000 years?

What if all of the members of the Devouring Earth were mutated humans, not just the Devoured?

It's something that an author could really have a lot of fun with.

(I don't have a particular point I'm trying to make - I'm just musing...)

He's level 24, about to be 25. I'm going to play the "expanded" version of the Slash DeMento arc next, and then I'll play the Drakule arcs after that - I'll let you know about what I found the challenge to be (although you won't see the number of plays change, since I've already played them on my level 50 brute. Just for the record, I gave both five stars, and don't intend to chance the rating based on how Pro Payne does - if the arcs are giving him trouble, I'll just let you know)

Okay, the next review request was for:

#113615: Deal with the Devil’s Pawn (4 stars)

A young lady by the name of Angelique Pio approached Pro Payne with dire news: a Circle of Thorns mage named “the Devil’s Pawn” had stolen an artifact called Lucifer’s Scroll, with the intent of performing a ritual with it that would unleash the forces of evil and darkness on Paragon City and even the world. But these forces of darkness would be more than mere demon hordes – the scroll could plant the seeds of evil in the whole of humanity, twisted the whole human race into darkness, and making us all slaves to evil.
Pro Payne quickly infiltrated the lair of the Devil’s Pawn – a section of Orenbega. There he retrieved Lucifer’s Scroll, and defeated the Devil’s Pawn.

Pros: This is a single mission arc, which is a pro if you’re looking for quick action without getting involved in a long arc (and I have a special appreciation for one or two mission arcs that are not farms. Personally, I like variety in arc length, and the fact I get to intersperse “epic” 5 mission arcs with much shorter single mission ones is a good thing. Also, the mission itself is well done – the text is good, the mission goals clear, and nice use of color formatting. Make no mistake: the mission is well done, and fun. So why four stars?

Cons: Well, before I answer that, let me first list a few things that had no bearing on my rating. First, it’s worth mentioning that some folks may get a little leery of such direct references to the devil and satanic artifacts. Personally, I don’t see a problem at all, and I’m not suggesting a change to something more ‘sanitized’ (I think that gets done too often anyway), but it’s worth mentioning so the author can get a bit of a head start on thinking of how to handle the situation in the event you do see a complaint show up under the mission (I sincerely hope it won’t). Second, personally, the Circle of Thorns (and Orenbega) are not my favorite villain group, especially pre-30, when the spectrals can get to be such a huge pain in the butt (especially if you are resistance-based, rather than defense-based, which makes it easier for them to stack those irritating to-hit debuffs on you). I’m not at all sure if the map was a chosen one, or a random map (e.g. random medium, random large, etc.) – the teleport portals on the map I got were only mildly obnoxious: not bad enough to really raise my hackles, but enough to delay mission completion. Yeah, it sucks, since, as the author, you didn’t get to design the faction or the map, but I list it as a “con” because you’re certain to run across folks who will poorly rate the mission just based on the choice of the Circle of Thorns, and Orenbega. (Yes, you can make that arguments for any villain group and map – you can’t please everyone – but you’re probably going to draw slightly more than average in this case.)
Also, another minor “nit” (again, not related to the rating at all) – the use of the Circle here is a little “non-canon:” not egregious, but just as an FYI. Specifically, the mission set up treats the Circle as a cabal of mages (which they are), but implies that they are “modern day folks” dabbling in the black arts. They’re not: (warning, spoiler coming: the Circle are mostly the discorporated spirits of the ancient Orenbegans – literally the original Circle of Thorns – possessing the bodies of “modern day folks” who were either lured into or forced into a ritual that effectively kills them and allows the Orenbegan spirit to possess the body. So, most of the Circle are not modern-day people who have been inducted into the Circle and taught the magical arcs: they’re actually long-dead mages possessing the bodies of the living. (And this does violate the description given for “the Devil’s Pawn.”) Now, to be fair, there game does at least hint that some Circle members are modern-day mages, and, for reasons that were convenient to the Circle, were allowed to “keep their souls and bodies” rather than becoming a vessel to house a “reborn Orenbegan mage” – but these are evidently so rare that I can’t think of any main “named” characters in the game that fall into this category. But the net result is that if you treat a Circle mage as anything other than a long-dead Orenbegan possessing a hijacked “modern-day” body, then people who are familiar with the game’s canon are very likely to see that as non-canonical.

Okay, though, so why 4 stars? Well, I have to be completely honest – it has to do with the fundamentals of how I decide on a rating (which is useful to list here, since most of the people who are reviewing arcs at least make a mention of their ‘criteria’). This isn’t exhaustive, by the way:

My baseline for any arc is 3 stars, and my base expectation is that “it should be as good as a newspaper or police scanner mission.” So if you write an arc with a fairly short, but coherent, briefing and send-off, is one mission long, has objectives similar to what is found in ‘paper missions (for example, get the glowie, and defeat the boss ‘guarding it’), and minimal text (a clue for the glowie, and dialog for the boss), that’s three stars (or at least what I’d rate it – other reviews certainly have differing criteria). Okay, now do that really well: add a patrol or two, with some text. Add formatting and coloring. Expand a bit what the boss says – well, that’s a definitely improvement, and that bumps the arc up to four stars.

So, for a single mission arc, what would I suggest to bump it up even more? Well, honestly, there are probably several things: multiple interesting characters, possibly part of a custom group (Slash DeMento did this well), is one. But, in my opinion, the easiest one is just to use mission objects to tell a more substantial “story” that unfolds as you play through the mission.

Of course, I can’t write that story for you, but I can tell you there’s a lot of potential for one built into your idea for the mission: you’ve got a deranged Circle mage in possession of a powerful magical artifact (apparently one that belongs to or was made by the devil himself). Perhaps clues in the mission could tell us more about how he came to acquire it, or what the ritual entails – perhaps there’s a sub-boss, a demon or something (or another Circle mage) whose been summoned in and has filled the Devil’s Pawn with promises of glory and power if he’ll just complete the ritual. Honestly, I don’t want to brainstorm too many, because your other arcs make it clear you’ve got good creative potential for writing interesting, character-driven stories, and I’d like to see where you can take this.

So, the bottom line: as is, it’s a “jazzed up” newspaper mission (which I’d typically rate 4 stars, which is exactly what I did) – the next step would be fleshing out and expanding the story, which really boils down to giving the player more to do in the mission to drive an expanded story forward.

(Note, I’m certainly not suggesting it needs to be spread out over multiple missions – but, to me, a 5-star single mission arc actually needs to tell an unfolding, “mini-story-arc” as the mission progresses.

Finally, just a few typos and notes: very minor.

One, one of your patrols makes a statement to the effect of “enter our Circle” when referring to my invasion of their lair. It just struck me as a little weird, because it made it sound like I was trying to actually join them – it’d probably make a little more sense for them to refer to me as “entering their lair” or “invading their lair” (or something similar).
Also, Devil’s Pawn (whose dialog I really liked – good job of evil archmage “over the top” blustering) accuses me of an “interuption of my work.” (the typo being that there are two r’s in interruption.)


Whew! And now, back to the game! Pro Payne will probably take a short break from posting reviews for a very simple reason – they’re very time consuming, and as he gets to higher and higher levels, I’ve got to sink more and more time into playing him to keep his advancement reasonably fast. That doesn’t mean that I’m not taking any new review requests. I’m still looking for arc suggestions, and if you’d like a review, as opposed to a simple playthrough, feel free to ask. But I’m probably going to limit myself to one per week, which means either I might post a review for you after a delay (as happened with Geek Boy) or I might shuffle your arc around in my queue to try to have only about one “review request” per week.

Pro Payne’s continuing adventures have brought him to the cusp of level 25, and finally earned him a knockback protection IO. He’s sure to actually reach level 25 today.

Pro Payne’s latest adventures have led to a rematch with Slash DeMento (in a much improved version of Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons that I can heartily recommend; in my opinions the improvements made the one-mission “mini-arc” worth a rerate as 5-stars.) He also helped save Panda Earth from a Rikti Invasion (a very well done and fun arc; my only gripe: too many mission goals set to spawn in the final room, which made the final battle a frustrating “death fest.”), and helped a hero named Shadowrush hunt down his missing mentor (with, unfortunately, tragic results). He also wrested a dangerous magical scroll from the clutches of the circle of thorns (in addition to a few other adventures that he’s likely not remembering off the top of his head).

Now, naturally, I do have a few reviews to post, that were solicited by the authors of some of the arcs in Pro Payne’s queue.

#51728 – Speeding Through Time. (5 stars)
It started with Pro Payne being contacted by a hero called the “Red Blur.” Blur claimed to be a member of the Freedom Phalanx, although nobody knew anything about him, and even claimed that this was not the first time we’d met. Obviously, Pro Payne was a bit skeptical, but Blur was expecting that, and asked for patience, and the chance to prove his story was true.

The Red Blur transported Pro Payne into the past (the 60s, specifically) in order to rescue his past self from a “might have been” mission where he had been captured by the 5th Column. By rescuing him, Pro Payne not only prevented what might have been the end of the Red Blur’s career, he also established a bond of trust (at least on Red Blur’s side; Pro Payne wasn’t yet sure if he trusted the speedster or his story). But “future” Red Blur’s instructions were a bit on the strange side: Pro Payne was to escort the past Red Blur to the entrance to the base, and then transport him forward into the present.

It was quickly clear that the Red Blur was up to something – he was trying to prevent a tragedy from occurring, or rather, trying to prevent a tragedy that had already occurred (it had already been prevented, which is why the present was “fine” – or at least that what Pro Payne thought was going on). Red Blur knew Pro Payne would have some trouble believing the story, so he wanted to show Pro Payne the “past future” we were fighting to prevent. He actually took Pro Payne into the past, but it was an “alternate past” that would have occurred if the Red Blur didn’t succeed in his mission: it was a post-apocalyptic version of Paragon City. It appeared to be the victim of a massive nuclear strike, and was populated by the radioactive zombies, including a reanimated Miss Liberty. Pro Payne’s task was simple: rescue the one remaining, living hero in this time: Statesman. Red Blur made it clear that that was all he needed to accomplish (beyond simply “taking in” what we were fighting to prevent), but Pro Payne couldn’t resist exploring. He battled the atomic zombies, and even made an ill-advised attempt to defeat the zombie Miss Liberty (which resulted in a very fast trip back to a present-day AE hospital, and a resolution that there were some foes Pro Payne just isn’t ready to face). After rescuing Statesman, Pro Payne was ready to believe Red Blur, having seen what would have become of Paragon City if he failed.

It was now that Pro Payne found out the truth about what Red Blur was trying to prevent: apparently the 5th Column had obtained a “super-nuke” (from a source Red Blur had yet to figure out), and were going to set it off. Even they had no idea just how powerful the weapon was. All of this had occurred in the past (not long after initially rescuing Red Blur, actually). Of the members of the Freedom Phalanx, Red Blur was the only one who discovered the plan, and even then, he didn’t discover it in time to stop it: so he made time. Running so fast that he broke through the time barrier, Red Blur spent a lifetime snatching up past versions of himself, and depositing them at the moment in time just before the 5th Column attack. Although he claimed he needed me to turn the tide of the coming battle, Pro Payne was amazed at the firepower Red Blur had gathered to prevent the attack: an army of perhaps twenty or more Red Blurs had been deposited where the Column was about to detonate the bomb. Pro Payne rounded them up, also finding the “old” version of Red Blur he’d been working with all along.

As an aside, it was quite something seeing an army of powerful superheroes cut a swath through the 5th Column, but the real reason we needed the “Red Blur Army” became very clear when we tracked down the bomb, for the bomb had been supplied to the 5th Column by Dr. Aeon himself.

Normally, an army of heroes would have been more than a match for Aeon, but Aeon had, essentially, picked up the same track as Red Blur – he escaped into time, gathering up future versions of himself that had been “hiding out” in various parts of the world, waiting for the chance to “fulfill this master scheme of his.” Before long, Pro Payne and the Blurs were facing an army of “Aeons through time” trying to keep us from destroying the bomb and saving the city.

We prevailed, but at a terrible cost. In effect, by transporting past and future versions of himself to the moment in time when the bomb went off, Red Blur had effectively removed himself from history. He’d spent a lifetime focusing himself into a single moment in time, and then preventing that moment from ever happening: in effect, wiping himself out in the process. So thorough was the foiling of the plan, that nobody knew Red Blur even existed, or that there had ever been a 5th Column plan to set off a nuclear bomb.

Truthfully, Pro Payne was not needed at all in that battle. But he came to realize that he served another purpose. There was a critical difference between Red Blur, and Dr. Aeon: Red Blur was essentially pulled from the past, but Dr. Aeon was effectively from the future. So, even though Red Blur had vanished without a trace, Dr. Aeon still existed, and there was still the threat that he would one day conceive of his plan to equip the 5th Column with an overpowered nuke in a mad attempt to destroy the world’s heroes.

So Pro Payne went to Aeon’s lab, alone, for a final showdown. The Dr. Aeon he met was not the hardened, murderous, “time fugitive” he’d fought in the past – and if fact, had no idea why Pro Payne was on such a rampage: destroying this research base while hunting the mad scientist down. But he got the point: in lieu of any further beat downs by Pro Payne, Dr. Aeon agreed to never pursue any more experiments with radiation (and, presumably, nuclear bombs).

Pros: Frankly, I loved the story. I actually found it a little hard to follow exactly what was going on, but, in an odd way, the very fast pacing kind of put me in an “along for the ride” feel. It was a very rare instance of me not totally following what’s going on, but I didn’t really care because it was a lot of fun getting to the conclusion – and I was at least following it well enough to find it very interesting and entertaining. Also on the “Pros” side – you’ve got an example of an overpowered (EB class) ally actually done really well (again, IMO). In a very odd way, where one overpowered ally would have been annoying, twenty of them pushed it right past the envelope into ludicrously entertaining: the spectacle of the army of Red Blurs cutting a swath of destruction through the 5th Column more than made up for the massive experience and ticket loss (and, for the record, I actually did gain about a bubble and a half of XP and about 80 tickets or so in that mission anyway – in a strange way, having that much help meant I could clear the map with exceptional speed, and being able to run into the next group and fire off a fire sword circle before the rain of red electric death slaughtered them would get me ‘nips’ and ‘bits’ of XP at a relatively rapid pace – and ultimately it did add up). And, of course, because you had to collect the heroes from all around the map, the mission design actually encouraged you to use your growing firepower to clear the map.

Cons: I really only had two complaints. First, the one place were the army of Red Blurs was a problem was in the actual fight with Aeon – the author actually appeared to design “Aeons around the world” as massive reinforcements to spawn in a save the bomb. The problem is I barely got to see or enjoy them in the massive sea of Red Blurs taking them down almost as fast as they appeared. It presented an odd Catch-22: to fully enjoy that aspect of the story, I’d either need to recruit a team (and teams tend to want to rush through anyway, also keeping you from really sitting back and taking in the story), or not recruit very many Red Blurs, which would have left me open to rapid defeat by the powerful Aeon clones. Not sure if there’s a workable solution.
Also, although the version of Dr. Aeon you take on alone at the end of the arc is a “standard game model” – it’s apparently a version that uses heavy radiation powers (I even commented to the author that this was the hardest version of Aeon I’ve even faced: I thought I was pretty familiar with the game, but I don’t remember ever facing down this version before – most of my previous encounters with Aeon have involved battling the power suited, energy and shield throwing version). Even though it makes perfect sense for Aeon to be using radiation powers, the debuffs you end up getting saddled with make the fight hard to the point of frustration. It didn’t cause the arc to lose a star (in part because the author warned that this arc might be better suited for a higher level than when I played it, so I resolved that if I was unable to finish the arc, I’d quit out without rating and wait to gain a few levels), but it definitely was something I noted and jotted down as something I didn’t like about the arc.

Overall, very well done!

Updates:

"The Will of the Primus" (#25966)
and
"The Rise of the Primus" (#71636)
are no longer available (actually, Will of the Primus still is, but only until I finish an arc to replace it, so I'm effectively not advertisting it any more and pretending like it isn't available)

A new arc is available: Freakshow U (#189073) - a short (one mission), very fun, and humorous look at the Freakshow's answer to Francine Primm's "School for the Freakshow." Have fun!

Worry not - your other missions are most certainly on Pro Payne's list!

(Sorry I'm being terse here - I feel like I've been spending more time on the forums lately than in the game. I'll be back to my old, verbose self once I've had a little break )

Latest round of edits:

*Added warning text for the optional EB in mission 4. (Oversight - makes no sense to warn about an EB in 3, but not in 4, even if both are optional)

*Minor text change in one of the Assault Leader's dialog to better reflect his contempt for heroes.

*Added a bit of text to the mission three sendoff indicating 'someone' will take care of any 5th column you opt to leave behind in the base in mission 3.

*Added at least a minor hint to Vandals dialog - trying to make it more clear he's still officially affiliated with the Council, but secretly working with the 5th Column.

*Expanded the Contact's 'analysis' in the mission two briefing to make it clear the Rebels are from the future, not an alternate dimension.

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For me it's more like "gah, mah powerz! They is gone!" For the record, I do not avoid MA arcs that contain Vahz, when I am playing a character who actually is below level 20.


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Point taken. That does make you, so far, the only one whose complaint about that particular mission actually focuses on the loss of powers - other folks comments have actually seemed more focused on the fact its the Vahzilok in the mission, for ill or for worse. Well, at least so far.

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I think it's worth at least making the effort to rework as a stand-alone. Even if just for the fact that you actually do have to save a member of the Freedom Phalanx, as opposed to a "Oooh, Statesman needs me to save him!" mission where Statesman one-shots everything and is way tougher than you are.

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Oh I certainly will. My priority for pulling an arc is based on popularity and ratings more than anything - when I need another slot, either the least active or lowest rated arc is the one that gets pulled. I doubt I'll pull 'Future' until it hits those criteria, but I have no doubt it'll get pulled some day. Only way to make an arc permanent is to get it voted into HoF (or Dev's Choice, but I'm not holding my breath), and none of these arcs are headed there. Frankly, how long it stays up is directly related to how good of a job I do making it stand-alone, since ultimately, it's everyone else's votes/interest that makes the deciding call.

Note: I've added a few of my own responses to this - strikes me as more economical than replying to my own repost...

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Definately a matter of personal taste. I've gotten more people who like the bios versus those who didn't, but at the moment my collective feedback is exteremly lopsided in favor of keeping them (and, like all authors, I can be very stubborn about some things, and, to be honest, I just like the long bios).


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I notice a lot of people do this, so I guess it is a matter of personal taste.

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It's largely addressed by mission three of arc two, although there's a little bit more that you can piece together from the clues in arc three if you *really* want all of the i's dotted and t's crossed. But it does have to be "that huge" (although why isn't supposed to be obvious until later).


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Ok, so it does have to be that huge. Still leaves the question of why an environmental extremist would use an atomic bomb. Could you be any more environmentally unfriendly?

Sneak in a response from me: for anyone else reading this, there is an answer to Eva's question, and I PM'ed it to her, but I don't want to post it here. However, her point was extremely valid. Originally, the answer was revealed in the second arc, but, especially if eventually this arc will be stand alone, it has to be revealed in this arc too. One of today's edits does that.

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Good point. Originally, the fact they up and attacked you, no questions asked, in the first mission was supposed to indicate that they were hostile to you. But you're right ... their motivation in the first mission is to get the Enforcer's portal spawner - that *doesn't* really establish they hate metas on principle. I'll see if I can clear enough space to add a patrol with some "meta-bashing" dialog at the beginning of mission two...


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The attack in the first mission could have been a misunderstanding. They literally appeared right on top of me and started attacking. The boss dialogue in the second mission does establish that you do, in fact, need to beat these guys up to continue.

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In the Fall of the 5th Column arc, three of the 5th AVs stay loyal to the end: Requiem, Vandal, and Maestro. Requiem charges the 5th Column loyal to go underground and work under the scenes to subvert the Council. It's possible to imply that all three AVs are not particularly loyal to the Council, and have been working behind the scenes on schemes that will eventually return the 5th Column to power. That's what Vandal is doing there: I've always seen him as more loyal to Requiem than the Center.


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The dialogue doesn't say this though, that Vandal is secretly loyal to the 5th. The way it's worded, he's just back with the 5th and working to take down the Council with no explanation, even though he's been established as a Council villain. (Note that I started playing after the Council takeover of the 5th...but then so did a lot of other people. I did beat up Vandal to convince him to join the Council though, so some indication that he's loyal to the 5th but shhh, it's a secret would be nice.)

Me again: Excellent point. I'll see if I can squeeze something like that in.

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On the other hand, if it's a Council base, the whole thing boils down to "the Council just happens to be working on a computer virus to shut down Citadel, which is really convienient because the Rebels need a computer virus to shut down Citadel."


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It's been a while, but isn't Citadel's task force based around the fact that Vandal's using the same tech as was used to build Citadel? There is definitely a Vandal-Citadel connection. As soon as I saw Vandal was involved it removed the "how convenient!" element.

Me again: Hmmm ... originally, when and if I made the edit to made this arc stand alone, I was going to remove Vandal (since I erroneously didn't see a reason for him to be there any more) - but you just pointed out a reason for his involvement that I hadn't thought of. Nice - I appreciate it.

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Incidentally, everyone seems to think Biggs and Wedge are a Star Wars reference ... ultimately, they are, but I'm curious, did you catch on to the real source of all of the Assault Leader's names?


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(I'm surpressing Eva's answer here. But, for the record, she got it right.)

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I haven't decided yet exactly how to recast the mission in a stand-alone version: I'm considering a full-scale rebel assault on a Freedom Corps base where Citadel is, with the Enforcers fighting to defend him. But we'll see.


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The time-travel aspect does make sense, since the last mission has you traveling in time also, which you normally don't do without Ouroboros being involved somehow. There's also the aspect of going back to when Citadel was Bastion. I do think being dropped to such a low level, and fighting Vahz, probably discourages a lot of random people from trying the arc.

Me: It does seem to bother some more than others. I've gotten feedback ranging from "Cool! Vahzilok!" to "Oh dear God, why do I have to fight the *bleepity bleep* Vahz!!!!"

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The first rule of tyranny is control all the information. Primus has done just that - the Rebels have very limited knowledge of the past, just bits and pieces they've managed to piece together from their attemps to scavange in the wreckage of Paragon City.


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I thought it might be something like that. If you know they're from a possible future of ours, it's the logical explanation. However, Tina does hint in the beginning that they are from another dimension, and it's never clearly stated that nope, it's ours. Maybe having her flat out confirm that in one of the briefings would eliminate all confusion.

Me: I see your point. I'll see if I can find a place to squeeze it into her text.

Oh and Primus is a good name, nothing wrong with it. Looks like there are bunch of obscure nerd references attached to it, which is a plus in my book, I like catching these little references in people's arcs.

Me: Again, thank you very much for the critique. I do appreciate the consideration about PM'ing me the review since it does contain spoilers, and the permission to post your PMs here in the thread. And with regard to your statement as to reviewing the arc as though it were stand alone (since it won't be long before it effectively is), I do appreciate you did it that way. A significant majority of your critiques make the arc (IMO) even better as part of a trilogy. They'll be invaluable to help me 'tweak' it once it is stand along -- and honestly they do make me worry that I might not be able to actually make it stand alone very effectively. I'll do my best, but it may only be a matter of time before I yank 'Future' as well.

Thanks again for all of the valuable input, Eva, I really appreciate it!

Okay, here's a review for Telstar's arc:

#100045: SlashDeMento and the Stolen Weapons! (4 stars; I was teetering between 3 and 4, but went with 4 cause I did have a good time overall in the arc.)

Apparently, a new gang was trying to make its name known. I believe their name was the Demon Spawn, although I might be mistaken (Pro Payne suffered brain damage and temporary amnesia from the generous beating he received at the hands of the gang's leader). The Demon Spawn were evidently mostly ex-Outcasts (although there were ex-Hellions in the mix too) who had not managed to make it very high in their original organization, and were looking for something newer (and more violent). A former Outcast minion - Slash DeMento, and his brother 'The Lacerator,' had splintered away and formed their own gang. Eager to prove themselves the next big thing on the streets of Paragon, they'd stolen some weapons, along with a massive bomb (that probably would have leveled the whole city block).

These guys may have once been mere minions, but they were an object lesson in what a little bit of individual attention from a dedicated gang leader can accomplish - even the ones that were still minions (and likely did include new recruits off the streets in addition to ex-Outcasts) tended to be rougher than any Outcast or Hellion. DeMento had managed to forge his gang into a group as lethal as the Warriors.

Pro Payne managed to arrest DeMento, confiscate the weapons, and take out one of DeMento's chief asides (again, don't remember his name any more. Brain damage.) Unfortunately, the Lacerator remains at large; the gang is weakened, but certainly hasn't been eliminated yet.

Pros: With the exception of the bosses, the custom group is balanced and generally fun to fight (the one exception for me was if a lot of axe wielders would happen to spawn in, which resulted in lots of knockdown - but that was fairly rare, and the occasionally challenging fight is not a mark against a story arc; I only grade down when every single fight is very challenging). The custom character descriptions, when present, actually tell the story of how the gang was put together, which is a neat touch. The custom group combines very good variety without resorting to the common technique of giving lots of the minions a debuff - this group didn't get boring (or particularly frustrating) to fight. And I didn't notice typos, grammer, or awkward-sounding phrasing: in short, the writing is good writing. And good use of color and text formatting. Finally, I like the idea of using MA to add minor 'custom gangs' to the low and mid level game - the up and comers trying to become the next big thing, and just might succeed if not nipped in the bud.

Cons: As a one-mission intro arc, there isn't much of a plot (beyond the option to learn about the gang's history through the bios). I did notice something odd: the "objective" text had a formatted color, but seemed to be the generic text (e.g. 5 Stolen Weapons, Slash DeMento - or something like that - rather than 5 Racks of stolen weapons to recover, Arrest Slash DeMento); I'm definately one of those folks who likes "custom formatted" mission objectives - it adds a feel of polish (IMO) above and beyond the generic text. But here are my biggest three bits of constructive criticism:

1. I did think there needed to be more variety in the appearance of the gang members. They certainly should look similar to each other, but minor changes in costume pieces from one to the other would definately improve the custom group as a whole (they didn't all have the same face, hair style, and hair color - but a little bit of variety in what they're wearing will make them seem more like a street gang, and less like "mad supervillain Slash DeMento's nameless, faceless - not literally - army of underlings and minions.")

2. The sluggers, Fire bugs, and Tiger Paw minions had no descriptive text at all (well, other than the default). Everyone else had very individual descriptive text, which worked great to tell the gang's story, but gave the odd impression that I was fighting an army of clones. In other words, it didn't feel like "Chills" was a class a minion just learning to use their ice powers. It felt like I was battling clones of the character Chills over and over again. My suggestion: use copy-paste to "capture" your 'long' descriptions to something like a word document (or whatever). Then redo the 'generic' gang members with short, generic descriptions (e.g. 'The Chill Spawn are former outcasts with cold powers who joined the Demon Spawn.'), and, where needed, more generic names. Then scatter a bunch of boss encounters (they should NOT be required objectives) through the mission, using everybody who has a more individual description as a boss (takes advantage of the fact that, among a custom group, you can use even minions as a "boss" - they don't scale up or anything - you just get a "boss fight" where you're fighting a minion or a lt. instead.) In the 'description' in the boss detail, then paste in the more complete description for that character. Viola! You now have a mission filled mostly with the 'standard' minions and lts, but you also get to run across a specific 'Chill Spawn' (or whatever) named Chills who has his own unique bio. You can even give him flavor text to say when you fight him in combat. That way, all of that hard work on individual character descriptions gets used, but doesn't make it seem like Slash DeMento managed to steal some sort of advanced cloning vat. Well, unless he did.

3. My suggestion: be very, very leery of giving bosses access to build up (or lt's for that matter). It's just my opinion, but if there are mobs in the mission that are capable of using build up, that's pretty much an automatic give the players full fledged red or orange warning text recommending a team for the mission (I don't *think* you had that - I do think you had some text that hinted that a team would work well in the mission, but that's a far cry from bright, lurid text actually recommending a team.) It's not that I would have gotten a team, but that's a clear warning there's going to be a very hard mob in this mission, and I should be prepared.

Oh, and why is buildup so hard to deal with? Bosses already do lots of damage - when you set them to hard, you get a boss that has higher damage scale attacks than most of the standard bosses, coupled with an 80% damage boost. You quickly go from a "typical" boss whose "heavy hitter" attack might knock of one half to one third of your hit points, to a boss that can practically one shot you. (To give you an idea, Slash actually hit me with a single attack for 660 damage - that's at least 90% of my hit points at max).

Think of it as your revenge on Pro Payne for Vandal beating you over and over again in my arc

(A few things that are severe spoilers - I flat out answered several questions that are answered by the later arcs - and other things that would be out of context here.)

Eva,

Thank you very much for the feedback!

Okay, to respond to some of your observations:
For the first arc of a multi-part story, it does stand alone. You avoided the "Fellowship of the Ring" ending, there was a sense that I had accomplished something while still leaving a hook to lead in to the subsequent arcs.

Oddly, I seem to be getting a lot more credit than I deserve for making the arc 'stand alone.' My intent was to give each arc some sense of closure, in case the player just ends up hating the story and doesn't want to play the sequel. But your chief complaint - there's too much story and too many loose ends - is a direct result of what the arc is: a 14 mission story arc, divided into 3 parts. The story's only a third done, so only about a third of the "threads" are really 'wrapped up' at this point (if that). So your critique is dead on: there *is* too much story for five missions. It's still an open question though as to whether or not I really needed nine more to finish telling it, but I haven't gotten any feedback on that one way or the other.

Heh, the huge miscalculation on my part is that anyone wanted to play an epic, fourteen mission story! Trust me, you're not alone in wanting to treat the first arc as stand-alone (something, that as you pointed out, it does do, but rather poorly). Just look at the plays on the other two - taking into account the fact one rating is my wife, and the other is the drive by 0-star who never even played the arc, there are five times as many plays on the first arc, versus the other two.

The one thing I didn't like was their wall-of-text bios that gave out too much information and were spoilerish if you read them in the first mission.
Definately a matter of personal taste. I've gotten more people who like the bios versus those who didn't, but at the moment my collective feedback is exteremly lopsided in favor of keeping them (and, like all authors, I can be very stubborn about some things, and, to be honest, I just like the long bios). A agree with your point that the bios reveal too much info too quickly, though. Trust me, though, if file sizes could have been 135 KB, I wouldn't have hesitated to make a "clone" copy of the Temporal Rebel group with their group ID and descriptions obscured for the first two missions. That was the original plan, actually, until open beta and the realization that file size was severely limited.

But an atomic bomb? For an eco-terrorist? Based out of a pawn shop? Maybe something less huge, less environmentally destructive but still fancy enough for the Freaks to take interest.
It's largely addressed by mission three of arc two, although there's a little bit more that you can piece together from the clues in arc three if you *really* want all of the i's dotted and t's crossed. But it does have to be "that huge" (although why isn't supposed to be obvious until later).

Also, he was arrested awfully fast. Perhaps if the return dialogue mentioned that the evidence was enough to get a warrant, and the next mission briefing had the contact mention he'd been arrested, to give a sense that some time had passed.

Hmm ... interesting point. I need to see if I can make this work in the dialog the way you suggest. But you're right, the pawn shop owner doesn't play any other role in the story, so how quickly he gets arrested doesn't affect the rest of the story: making it seem like it takes longer for all of that to 'go down' off stage seems better than his 'instant arrest...'

Also, unless I missed something, I never did find out how the Freaks got the portal thingy. Some NPC dialogue would fix that.
You won't until the end of the trilogy. It's a loose end with an answer, but one that you have to piece together from the clues that span the whole thing. Your criticism might still apply though - I don't know for sure if it's clear why the Freaks know what they know by the end of the trilogy. I think it is, but you never know until somebody else plays through.

This is where I ran into a slight problem with the morality of what I am doing. I just bust into a warehouse and start cracking these guys' heads, just because they're there.
Good point. Originally, the fact they up and attacked you, no questions asked, in the first mission was supposed to indicate that they were hostile to you. But you're right ... their motivation in the first mission is to get the Enforcer's portal spawner - that *doesn't* really establish they hate metas on principle. I'll see if I can clear enough space to add a patrol with some "meta-bashing" dialog at the beginning of mission two...

Then I find the blinky that portrays Primus as an evil dictator (I thought he was the Transformers' god? Not sure if that was intentional)
Now that you mention it, he is. I hadn't thought of that ... no, it's not intentional. Here's where the name came from: in the earliest stages of writing, internally I just referred to the character as 'The Emperor' - but it'd be way to easy to think that was a deliberate Star Wars reference (and calling him "King", "Ruler", "The Leader", "The Potentate", or several other things I brainstormed, just seemed lame). In the original AD&D cosmology, the Primus is the ruler of the Modrons, a mechanical race from the clockwork plane of Nirvana. It's also the leader of ComStar in the BattleTech universe. I liked it as a name for a powerful leader, so that's what I decided to call the character. The Transformers reference never came to mind, but you're right - Primus was their god.

Speaking of the boss, his unaware dialogue was a bit too "I am going to loudly shout my evil plan so the hero can overhear." Slightly more ambiguous dialogue would be more believable while still allowing the player to piece together the plan from clues. And he has a typo, he says "I can see why you become such as threat."
That's gotta be the most amusing way I've seen that put. Actually got a laugh from me. Oddly, that makes me want to keep it that way ... but you're right. Maybe a minor tone down would work well... And thanks for pointing out the typo - I get to quash a few with each new set of feedback.

Um, when did Vandal rejoin the 5th? Unneccessary complication #1. Ok, beating up Nazis is fun, but using Council would have worked just as well, with a change to one of the clues. Also, the presence of an AV should really be in the description. I know he's not required, but there's a chance he could spawn in the way of a required objective. Which would suck if you were on Invincible. Again, a bit of a morality quibble: no, it shouldn't be a defeat all, but at least something from the contact that suggests someone will deal with the nazis would be nice.
In the Fall of the 5th Column arc, three of the 5th AVs stay loyal to the end: Requiem, Vandal, and Maestro. Requiem charges the 5th Column loyal to go underground and work under the scenes to subvert the Council. It's possible to imply that all three AVs are not particularly loyal to the Council, and have been working behind the scenes on schemes that will eventually return the 5th Column to power. That's what Vandal is doing there: I've always seen him as more loyal to Requiem than the Center.

So why the 5th, and not the Council? Two reasons actually: one, I needed the first example of your character actually foiling a major plot (that comes into play later in the story). Second (Minor spoiler alert: in the future, when the Rebels are searching the ruins for clues as to who the Primus originally was (and the reason their records are so incomplete is another loose end that is tied up by the end of the trilogy), *this* is the 5th Column base they stumbled across. The base isn't functional in the future, but they do find hard copy files on an andoid hero of the Freedom Phalanx named Bastion (the 5th Column fell before Bastion got his upgrade), and a reference to the fact this base had a computer virus designed to shut Bastion down - which is why they start off going around calling him Bastion, and how they know the base's physical location even here in the past.

On the other hand, if it's a Council base, the whole thing boils down to "the Council just happens to be working on a computer virus to shut down Citadel, which is really convienient because the Rebels need a computer virus to shut down Citadel." Still, for the record, I do find the feedback very useful - I do have tentative plans to re-write this arc extensively as a true stand alone arc once the rest of the trilogy is taken off the mission servers, and in a true stand-alone re-write, there's no need for this mission to use the 5th Column, since many of the story elements related to that would never be revealed. In that context, the Council works better (incidentally, the fact the Rebels start off referring to Citadel as Bastion, or even that they're records of the past are very, very sketchy, are also unnecessary in a stand-alone version, and they'll almost certainly be calling him Citadel right form the start).

You're absolutely right about the AV warning, though. I actually had a player quit out of the arc because they didn't realize Vandal was optional. It seems an explicit warning he's there, and a straight-out statement that he's optional, is needed.

"x defeat patrols" when it would sound better as "x patrols to defeat" and Wedge (heh, Biggs and Wedge) calls me a hero, which should probably be in quotes considering his stance on metas.
I agree completely. I've had others make that comment too, and I just keep forgetting to make the change. That's my mistake completely. Incidentally, everyone seems to think Biggs and Wedge are a Star Wars reference ... ultimately, they are, but I'm curious, did you catch on to the real source of all of the Assault Leader's names?

Mission 4: Overcomplication #2. What do the vahz have to do with anything? Was there something I missed with the optional patrols? The massive level drop is, frankly, always annoying, I won't fault your explanation for it because at least it's canon. But I didn't get what this mission had to do with anything. I did get one of the optional objectives, it didn't explain much. The vahz are working on a super virus...so? Aren't they always? Does it relate to Primus's origin somehow? Possibly I missed something because I failed when the escort bit it. (At which point the return to contact text told me that just before he died the boss said Citadel wasn't Primus....he did?)
The short answer (since you're probably getting really tired of reading my comments anyway) - yes, the Vahz are vital to the plot. Yes, the virus is very instrumental in Primus' rise to power. Up to this point the only clue to this effect you've been given was the fact that one of the reasons Citadel is a "suspect" is that he would have been immune to "the virus" (that proved so devastating to other Metas). But it's not totally clear yet - it isn't supposed to be. This story is developed more in the next two arcs.

But again, there's no reason for this bit of "foreshadowing" if the arc is stand alone, and your feedback makes this very clear. I haven't decided yet exactly how to recast the mission in a stand-alone version: I'm considering a full-scale rebel assault on a Freedom Corps base where Citadel is, with the Enforcers fighting to defend him. But we'll see.

The fact that stupid boss can die at all just needs to be taken out of the arc. I'm very sorry he got killed, but I'm glad he did - it certainly contributed to your lack of fun in the arc, but it served a good purpose: your feedback pointed out that the mission text that tries to do "damage control" should the boss die is out of date - it was from before the last mission got a big overhaul, and just plain reveals too much too fast. I'm going to make the boss a non-combatant. It'll even free up some space for other tweaks (like, hopefully, that mission two patrol ).

Minor quibble: The guards around the escort were attacking the other rebels.
Argh! It's not the first time I've seen this "rampant hostility" bug show up. I'm not sure I know exactly how to fix this one...

Mission 5: No real problems here, fairly straightforward. For once, a use of this map that actually fits the story. It would have made slightly more sense I think for Citadel to be still recovering from the virus and set to non-combat, since it's a bit of a stretch that an AV needs my help fighting past minions.
Excellent point. I'm not fond of him helping you out either, so why it didn't occur to me to just make him non-combat is beyond me. Chalk that up to a designer "brain-fart" moment. There really is no reason for him to be a combatant. I'll change this.

Unanswered questions: Do the Freaks have the bomb? Why do the rebels refer to Citadel as Bastion? Are they from an alternate dimension, or a possible future of our dimension? (The ending suggests it's ours, but some earlier hints suggest otherwise) What does the vahz virus have to do with it? How did the Freaks get the portal thingy in the first place?

(In my PM response I answered these directly - but they are answered in the next two arcs of the trilogy.)

EvaDestruction PM'ed me a response, but technically I haven't gotten permission to post it here, so I won't (at least unless or until she says it's okay to do so).

I'm reposting a PM critique I received from EvaDestruction, along with my responses (with her permission, of course).

There are spoilers in this review (and in my responses, although some of the most egregous ones have been removed), so if you don't want to see them, don't read the review until after you've played the arcs.

(The next two lines were added by me. The rest is Eva's critique.)
Future Imperfect (#10931)
Rating: 3 stars

First off, some general impressions.
The basis of the story was interesting to me, I like those "alternate future" type stories. The "save Citadel" hook was nicely pulled off as well, you managed to find a logical way for a player character to help out an A-list hero. I've seen too many "Freedom Phalanx sidekick" arcs, in this one the player is definitely the star.

For the first arc of a multi-part story, it does stand alone. You avoided the "Fellowship of the Ring" ending, there was a sense that I had accomplished something while still leaving a hook to lead in to the subsequent arcs.

I liked your custom group. Good balance, not hard (can't say if they're too easy or not, I played with a fairly-decently IOd SS/Invul Brute so they should be easy). Nice costumes, kinda reminiscent of Wyvern actually, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since they have the same "training and technology" powers and a similar grey morality. The one thing I didn't like was their wall-of-text bios that gave out too much information and were spoilerish if you read them in the first mission.

Ok now the biggest thing I didn't like: You tried to cram too much in I thought. You overcomplicated the story, and left too many loose ends.

More specifics:
Mission 1: Yay Freaks. Smashy smashy. Sux2bJOO's dialogue was appropriately amusing. The ambush spawning right on my head actually made sense for once. But an atomic bomb? For an eco-terrorist? Based out of a pawn shop? Maybe something less huge, less environmentally destructive but still fancy enough for the Freaks to take interest. Also, he was arrested awfully fast. Perhaps if the return dialogue mentioned that the evidence was enough to get a warrant, and the next mission briefing had the contact mention he'd been arrested, to give a sense that some time had passed.

Also, unless I missed something, I never did find out how the Freaks got the portal thingy. Some NPC dialogue would fix that.

Mission 2: This is where I ran into a slight problem with the morality of what I am doing. I just bust into a warehouse and start cracking these guys' heads, just because they're there. It doesn't help that I'm beating up two rival groups, both of whom are hostile to me. Then I find the blinky that portrays Primus as an evil dictator (I thought he was the Transformers' god? Not sure if that was intentional) which makes the rebels more sympathetic. Then I get to the boss, ok, fine, they hate me and attack metas on principle. So now it's ok to beat them up. A bit of patrol, battle or optional boss dialogue near the beginning would help establish that sooner though.

Speaking of the boss, his unaware dialogue was a bit too "I am going to loudly shout my evil plan so the hero can overhear." Slightly more ambiguous dialogue would be more believable while still allowing the player to piece together the plan from clues. And he has a typo, he says "I can see why you become such as threat."

Mission 3: Um, when did Vandal rejoin the 5th? Unneccessary complication #1. Ok, beating up Nazis is fun, but using Council would have worked just as well, with a change to one of the clues. Also, the presence of an AV should really be in the description. I know he's not required, but there's a chance he could spawn in the way of a required objective. Which would suck if you were on Invincible. Again, a bit of a morality quibble: no, it shouldn't be a defeat all, but at least something from the contact that suggests someone will deal with the nazis would be nice.

Minor quibbles: The nav bar reads "x defeat patrols" when it would sound better as "x patrols to defeat" and Wedge (heh, Biggs and Wedge) calls me a hero, which should probably be in quotes considering his stance on metas.

Mission 4: Overcomplication #2. What do the vahz have to do with anything? Was there something I missed with the optional patrols? The massive level drop is, frankly, always annoying, I won't fault your explanation for it because at least it's canon. But I didn't get what this mission had to do with anything. I did get one of the optional objectives, it didn't explain much. The vahz are working on a super virus...so? Aren't they always? Does it relate to Primus's origin somehow? Possibly I missed something because I failed when the escort bit it. (At which point the return to contact text told me that just before he died the boss said Citadel wasn't Primus....he did?)

Ok, the one thing it does do is get more into the time-travel aspect, since it starts me doing it. Otherwise...I suck and I have no powers and I'm fighting vahz. And I'm never told why.

Minor quibble: The guards around the escort were attacking the other rebels.

Mission 5: No real problems here, fairly straightforward. For once, a use of this map that actually fits the story. It would have made slightly more sense I think for Citadel to be still recovering from the virus and set to non-combat, since it's a bit of a stretch that an AV needs my help fighting past minions.

Unanswered questions: Do the Freaks have the bomb? Why do the rebels refer to Citadel as Bastion? Are they from an alternate dimension, or a possible future of our dimension? (The ending suggests it's ours, but some earlier hints suggest otherwise) What does the vahz virus have to do with it? How did the Freaks get the portal thingy in the first place? The things that were explained were done well, your clues and dialogue were well-written, and again, the "to be continued..." was established through the finishing dialogue, as well as the final boss's dialogue, which again nicely establishes the grey morality of the group...makes me think that if they stopped blaming metas for all their problems they could be useful allies.

Phew, that was long.

(My responses follow. And I do want to add here as well that I very much appreciate the critique and feedback.)

Actually, I like puns.

It's not just MA - if you log off in the middle of any mission that gives you a clue, you'll still have the clue when logging back in, but you'll have to replay the whole thing.

Oh, and here's a nice tip. If you don't ever open your clues between when you log in and when you finish a MA arc, you'll lose all of your Architect Souviners. I've done that one to myself countless times.