Coulomb2

Certainly a busy week in RL (and next week will be too), but I’ve found time to play Pro Payne off and on, and he is slowly moving up the ranks in his quest to reach level 50 through (legitimate) MA arcs.

And what an adventure it’s been so far! Pro Payne apparently has “fans” and was invited to speak at a convention (which turned out to be a lot more trouble than it was worth – he’s vowing to stay away from hero-cons now). He stopped a bunch of spoiled rich kids from trying to tear up the city with their new toys, and then tracked down and captured a deranged killer who believed himself to be a vampire hunter (much to the chagrin of the innocent people he was “staking”).

So far, as I’ve mentioned before, playing a character solely in MA (using “legit” missions – no farms) is proving to be an extremely viable way to play the game. One of the things I was expecting to happen was for the game to have a much more “disjointed” feel – in a sense, I’m not really “interacting” with the city, I’m just popping into one mission after another. But, honestly, that hasn’t been the case. It’s hard to describe, but the game feels “normal” – especially when authors use the “stock” villains in their arcs and do a good job of writing for them (which, by and large, has been happening). And most of the missions that use custom mobs have at least had elements of the standard ones in the arcs too. I’m really gaining an appreciation for how much using “standard mobs” helps connect custom mobs to the game-world. Oddly, the most disjointed feeling arcs are the ones that have nothing but the custom mobs – they’re the ones that feel most removed from the game.

Enhancements haven’t been a problem at all. It has been effortless keeping them up to date, and I’ve never even come close to running out of tickets. What is fairly stunning is the “investment difference” between the standard enhancements (TOs and DO’s at this point and the IO’s). A DO costs only 35 tickets – at the moment, totally replacing out my character’s DO’s (which I did at level 17) cost about 700 tickets (which is nothing considering that I had over 3,000), but each common IO I opt to make frequently runs me between 300-400 tickets – at least when you factor in the “start up” cost associated with making random rolls for the correct common salvage to make them. I’ve been surprised on more than one occasion that in order to get enough salvage “at random” to make the IO whose recipe I just bought, I’ve actually had to make 30-40 rolls (in the process totally filling up my capacity to carry the stuff). And it shouldn’t have been a surprise, when I consider how often in the “real” game that I had a full salvage inventory, but just happened to not have what I needed to make a particular common recipie. Still, it’s worth pointing out that the most expensive IO to make is always that first one. If your intention is to make more than one, you do get the benefit of all of that “spare” salvage you collected trying to get the ingredients for that first one.

Pro Payne, you fool! Why not just buy the salvage on the market (you might ask)? The answer relates to the most notable disadvantage of an all MA character. Pro Payne is probably the poorest level 18 character I’ve had in a long time. Granted, at the moment he’s got nearly a million influence, but that was a relatively recent development (gained mostly from selling off all that that spare salvage that wasn’t going to be used). So while buying from the market would be valid now, it wasn’t a few levels ago, when all he had was about 50,000 influence.

But I have not once really noticed or felt the pinch of “lack of funds” – the fact that tickets can get you almost everything influence once did (and more) means you hardly notice that you’re poor. And yes, I’m well aware of the fact I could probably be strategically buying up certain salvage and sell it on the market for a major influx of cash – but my point is I don’t NEED the cash. I’m totally content to hoard my tickets and use them to get what I need.

Of course, this project has highlighted two things that I’d consider my biggest “gripes” about MA at the moment:

1. The souvenirs: I don’t like that they’re account wide – surely there’s a way to put tags in the data file on the client’s computer telling it who the souvenir belongs to. And why is it limited to 15? I’ve played more arcs than that just getting to level 18. And I really, really wish they’d stop vanishing on me. Yes, I know what causes that, but it doesn’t keep it from being annoying.

2. Why oh why do the vendors not sell resist damage DO’s? That’s the reason I’ve been having to get IO’s… (well, not “having” to get … I could have just kept using TOs, but I didn’t wanna, okay?)

So, here’s how Pro Payne stands right now, just as a reference point.

He’s level 18.
Since starting, he’s earned a total of 6,743 tickets. He has 2,952 of them left (and over 1,000 were spent getting him those four IOs).
He’s got 34 MA badges so far:
4 of the 5 ticket badges.
3 of the 5 “glowie” badges.
3 of the 5 inspiration badges.
The badge for playing 10 hero arcs.
All 5 of the rescue badges.
3 of the 5 destroy objects badges.
2 of the 5 defeat custom foe badges.
All 5 of the complete optional objective badges.

He’s played 17 story arcs total since beginning.
He’s defeated 390 custom foes.
Filled up his salvage inventory twice trying to get the correct salvage for four IOs.
And selling the spoils of that has him standing at 987,044 influence.

It’s been fun getting him there. And he’s clearly still got a long way to go.


And speaking of long way to go … Pro Payne has now cleared every “lowbie” arc in his play queue. There are still at least 8 MA arcs on his “play list” (and I’m going to check out #1874 and #84420 pretty soon to see if they’re doable at level 18) – but they’re mostly for levels 25 and up. In general, I’m not going to auto-sk up past 22 because stuff at that level and higher is balanced for SOs, which I don’t have yet, so what I really need are more arcs suggestions to get me through the next four levels, up to 22.

Any more suggestions folks?

There’s more. I do have one review to post (that’ll be up shortly), and a reminder: don’t forget that if you’ve posted your arc, and you actually want feedback on it, you need to specifically ask me for feedback (and, no offense, but I have to trust you to be willing to give it to you).

This one may end up getting played by a much higher level character - Pro Payne is at 16 right now, and I want to keep him moving forward (but I'll check out and see if 15 is a hard limit or if it will scale up to a higher level).

But I did just put it in my queue of missions to be played!

I'll be happy to give yours a review - I've flagged it as such. Just FYI, it's about three missions down in my queue. Just like last weekend, I probably won't be on Pro Payne during the weekend, but I'm sure I'll get to your arc by very early next week.

Changes in how I'll be doing reviews:
In short, I won't be, unless you specifically request one be posted here, and I trust you to be fair and honest. While I will continute to play and rate arcs - in general I won't be giving feedback here or in game any more. I'm still accepting arcs to play (and welcome them), and queing them up to be in an order that will work well with Pro Payne's current level, but the basic thing I'll be be doing is giving them a play (to add to your talley) and an honest rating - for many I'm not comfortable giving them in-game feedback or a review. Here's why:

Pretty shortly before starting this arc, I got a tell from someone thanking me for posting one of my arcs and letting me know it had been given five stars. The player listed several arcs of their own and suggested I return the favor. I'm not interested in trading ratings (and I doubt the player even played through the arc - the only one that got an added rating was the second one in the trilogy, which really wouldn't have made much sense without playing the first one).

A bit later, I start this project (keep in mind my forum name is very different from my global, so the person who solicited a rating trade from me probably didn't realize I was one of the people that they'd asked for a 'rating trade' from when I posted here). I get a large number of people suggesting arcs, which I've been playing and rating.

I won't divulge exactly when this occured, or the details, but I played and rated this person's arc - along with the usual feedback (the global was very familiar, but at the time I didn't think to check my notes to see if this was a global I should be wary of). A very short time later, I get a message my arcs have been rated. I check them, and all three arcs now have rating reductions that make it clear each has been given a 1 or 0-star rating. But only the first and the third in the trilogy has the number of ratings go up, the second had the number of ratings stay the same - just the star value went down, telling me whomever did this had already rated the second arc some time ago. Since only three people have ever played the second arc, and I know two of them, it wasn't hard to figure out who did it, and exactly what happened - checking my records just confirmed it.

Anyway, I honestly think what happened is the player was not happy with my rating and feedback, did a quick search on my global to find my arcs, saw they'd given it 5-stars hoping for a rating trade, and 1 or 0 starred all three of my arcs in retaliation - probably not recognizing my global (since, as I said, it's very different from my forum name), and never realizing that I wasn't playing in the arc in response to the request for a rating trade, but rather I was playing it in response to a forum request.

Now before you all get worried that "I think it's you" - don't. That's the reason I told you all what happened. If you've never sent me a request to trade 5-star ratings, it's not you, and I'm aware it's not you, so don't be worried.

But let's face it, the reviews are hard work, and very time consuming, and having someone retaliate like this leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. So I'm going to change how I'm doing this.

Again, I've written down every single arc mentioned in this thread (typically I do it the moment you mention it). Just by mentioning it here, you've got at least one more person who will play and rate it, and it will be an honest rating (for the record, I did not in any way change the rating I gave the person who did this to me, and I have no plans to) - but I won't be giving feedback on it.

I will still post reviews however, but only if you request it from me, and only if I trust you.

Obviously, one (but not the only) way to make me think I can trust you is if you play and rate one or more of my arcs - give me an honest rating and feedback (And yes, "I played it, but I just didn't like it - the story was dumb and I got really bored, 1 star" is honest feedback - it's not constructive or helpful, but it's honest), and I'll return the favor, if you request it, when I get to your arc. But I want to make it clear that that's not the only way.

If other people have reviewed your arc on the forums, I'll look at how you responded to their feedback (if you want to linky it for me, that's helpful, but I can probably find your response on my own); if you were honest and level-headed about it, that's good enough for me - I'll give you feedback if you request it.

And, let's face it, sometimes fame helps. I've lurked here for years - and there are a select few people who have impressed me with their ability to be fair and level-headed. If you're one of those rare few, I'll give you feedback if you request it. (Helpful tip: if you're on my ignore list, you probably don't fall into this category )

Okay folks! Keep them coming! I will, of course, continue to update this thread with Pro Payne's continuing adventures. There's a lot in his queue, but it's still going to take a long time to get all the way to 50 in MA!

Due to an upsetting in-game incident, my reviews are going to be significantly curtailed - they'll still be available, but only under limited circumstances. I will explain in a post below.

Okay, Pro Payne is about midway through level 16, and still going strong. His latest adventures:

#1004: Welcome to Architect Entertainment. (3 stars; would have been 4 except for difficulty)
I'll keep this one fairly short, since I know it can't be edited, and any flaws in it are arguably no longer the author's fault.

FINALLY, Pro Payne's dedication to A.E. has been noticed, for Dr. Aeon himself took notice and offered to give him a personal tour/demo of the (virtual) facilities. Almost immediately, it was clear something was wrong: the 5th Column simulation had become partially corrupted with virus files - and, as a subsequent mission made clear - the viral code was spreading. Soon the virus would essentially hijack the entire system. It had to be stopped. Guess who rose to the task? Yep. Pro Payne. Guess to took all the credit. Yep. Dr. Aeon (well, not really, but I imagine he would...)

Pros: Cool idea, and the writing for Dr. Aeon seemed spot-on. The "virus-corrupted" 5th column were well done - they actually DID somehow seem to capture the profile of a 5th column soldier.
Cons: Not too terribly much in the way of a story (although what was there was tight and well presented). The biggest con, though, was difficulty. Obviously, this isn't so much feedback to the author (who can't do anything about it) as sort of a 'learning experience' to watch out for when making your own arcs: some power combos can be really vicious, especially to a lowbie.

In the case of the viruses (which are a good example of giving the elements of a custom group powers that work together a little TOO well), the minions and leutinents possesed combinations of force field, electric, and radiation powers. In practice, that meant the could seriously debuff my defense, so that every single end-draining electricity attack could hit me effortlessly, and what few attacks I could get off (when I was upright - thank you very much freakin' force bolts) were unlikely to hit (force fields + to-hit debuff from radiation). And that was for the approx six seconds I still had endurance.

It *didn't* make the mission undoable - but it was one of the rare times I gave up on fighting foes and just ran through the mission trying to find objectives - fighting only what was absolutely necessary.

(BTW, there is an AV at the end, but the author kindly warns you in big red letters in the briefing to be prepared - I didn't actually grade down on the AV per se).

I did rate and play one more arc, but my review would be a bit on the harsh side (In my opinion, there were some significant problems with the story - and some minor ones with the writing, although the writing itself was not a deal-breaker). If the author would like me to post a review, I will, but, given the circumstances, I'm reluctant.

I'll explain more below, along with changes in how I'll be doing this project.

Pro Payne's now up to level 15. One last review for the night (and possibly until Monday, as was true last week). I'm currently weighing a decision as to whether or not it is time to just post MA play experiences and go fully into "mini-review" mode - the issue being that I'm actually spending longer on the reviews than it takes to play the missions.

#84105 Duality (3 stars, on the weak side of 3)
The Paragon Police needed Pro Payne’s assistance with some disappearances. Some students at Paragon U had gone missing, and the police were willing to take all the help heroes were willing to offer in trying to find these missing persons, safe and sound. Pro Payne was assigned to search the engineering building. Inside, he found some very odd killers – identical, skull-faced men wielding a variety of slashing instruments. He also found one of the students within, but it was too late: the student had been murdered.

The detective in charge of the investigation (Rogers) also found a body in the building he searched, and made an important connection: the victim he found was twins with the one I found. And it was another hero searching a third building that gave us our next course of action. The missing person she was sent to find was still alive, and reported that he had a brother in the Outcasts, who was attending a rave the Outcasts like to keep running 24/7 across campus.

Pro Payne header over to the party, only to find more members of what was turning out to be a veritable army of murdering, blade-wielding psychopaths in conflict with the Outcasts. Taking advantage of the distraction, Pro Payne found the brother, and escorted him safely out of the party.

Rogers than sent Pro Payne an abandoned ‘warehouse’ (actually an office building) to recover some files that might shed light on who the killer was. The office was in the Hollows, so the involvement of the trolls wasn’t a surprise; the presence of the Vahzilok, however, was. Pro Payne did find a file, thought, that seemed to shed light on the situation – it talked about a killer named Double Edge, who died in the Zig a short time ago. Double Edge had a brother, and Rogers suspected he was continuing in his brother’s dark footsteps – perhaps in revenge for his brother’s death.

But that turned out not to be the case. Double Edge’s brother had been abducted by the Vahzilok, and once he was rescued, told Pro Payne the full story: Double Edge had had run-ins with the law his whole life, but had always been protective of his brother, who had become a successful doctor. Unfortunately, the brother had gotten mixed up with the Vahzilok, who were demanding ever increasing ‘deliveries’ of body parts. To protect his sibling, Double Edge did the dirty work – killing innocent people and delivering the parts to the Vahzilok. That arrangement lasted until Double Edge was caught, and locked away in the Zig. There he slowly picked up the power to replicate himself, and had gone utterly insane. Sacrificing one clone to appear as though he’d died in the Zig, the rest of this army of Double Edges resumed their murderous work – only this time with no purpose other than the misguided notion that his brother wanted him to kill people (twins, especially). Pro Payne had to put a stop to it, and Rogers had a lead. The Vahzilok appeared to be getting into conflicts with Skulls that were holed up in a hospital – only they weren’t Skulls, they were actually more Double Edge clones. Rogers and Pro Payne believed the “real” Double Edge was there.

He was, and Pro Payne defeated him (in addition to rescuing a pair of twin girls who were about to become his next victims), and returned him to the Zig. A pair of nullifier bracelets will (hopefully) prevent Double Edge from continuing to use his powers, and keep him from escaping again.

Pros: The story had an interesting premise.
Cons: Several things. There were a fair number of typos, and the pacing of the missions was schizophrenic (no pun intended): the early ones were remarkably short, but the later ones were longer than they needed to be (in part due to the need to escort “rescuees” back through rather long maps). The story could have been tighter – there were definitely a couple of “well, that kinda makes sense, I guess” moments in the story, along with premises that struck me as odd (like the suggestion that prisoners in the Zig often pick up superpowers for no apparent reason). Oddly the custom villain group actually lent itself to a rather odd Catch-22. I certainly understand that the whole point is they’re clones of each other, but having large numbers of identical things armed only with differing weapons seemed a bit repetitious. I wish there was some way to add a bit more variety to the custom foes, without hurting the premise that they’re copies of each other…

EDIT: Oh! One other totally random thing that I almost forgot ... count the decision to give some of the madmen the fireman's axe as a "Pro" - boy was there something creepy about a leering skull-face wild-haired leather clad psycho carrying a bright red axe.

At long last, it was time for Pro Payne to go up against the bikini-clad samurai vampiresses (from outer space).

#61013: Attack of the Bikini-Clad Samuri Vampiresses (from outer space) (5 stars)
It began with Ed Wood sending Pro Payne into a warehouse inhabited by mutants, seeking to detonate one of the most terrible weapons imaginable - the dreaded M-bomb. But things were not what they seemed. Evidently, Pro Payne had just been placed in the lead role in a movie - much to the surprise of the other actors in the movie, who weren't quite ready for his arrival on set. Still, being a lead in a movie was certainly entertaining enough, and Pro Payne was more than happy to play along.

Of course, the M-bomb went off. Pro Payne was fine, but everyone else was in danger of becoming atomic superzombies, and Pro Payne had to stop them, and their mastermind, the evil Dr. Goesoff, who was the brilliant mind behind the atomic superscience. In stopping Dr. Goesoff, Pro Payne learned that the evil doctor had the full support of the bikini-clad samurai vampiresses, who hoped to use his atomic superscience to conquer the universe. They had to be stopped.

Only ... (duh duh DUH) ... it was (perhaps) not a movie after all. See, the evil bikini-clad samuri vampiresses were REAL, but the only way Mr. Wood could warn the world was to make movies about them! His movies had already lead to nine plans of the bikini vampiresses being thwarted, but he needed my help to thwart plan 10. So Pro Payne heroically went in, intent on ensuring humanity (and the rest of the universe) wouldn't have to bow as slaves before the bikini-clad samurai vampiresses.

Still, would it really have been so bad?

Pros: Great humor - the descriptions for the foes were wonderful. Also, I wanted to offer props to the author - the easiest mistake to make in a humor arc is to sacrifice gameplay for the sake of the humor. That was not done here - the missions themselves were well-paced and fun to play!

Cons: Bikini-clad samurai vampiresses? How can there even be cons there? In all seriousness, the humor in this arc does loose some of its punch if you don't know who Ed Wood is. But that's not really the author's fault as much as it is a grevious gap in your education.

I'll give another report of Pro Payne's general progress in a few days. For now, it appears that this is going to be the evening of @TheDeepBlue (as his two lowbie hero arcs were slated as next on the play list - and with good reason, as I very nearly hit the maximum level allowed for them).

#61866: A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings (5 stars)
An orphanage is hit by a rapid series of raids from four villain groups, who steal away several children. Pro Payne joined the effort to rescue the children, and get to the bottom of what appeared to be an unhealthy congruance of villain activity. It quickly became apparent that something very sinister was going on: each villain group had in turn been hit by a 'man in black, weilding a pair of ancient daggers.' While Pro Payne was able to rescue one of the children, the others were spirited off by the man in black (a fact he slowly determined as he hit each villain group in turn, attempted to rescue the child they took). But the failed rescue attempts were not without value: Pro Payne also learned the identity of the man in black (Mr. Pitch) and that he had been using magic to cleverly manipulate the actions of the villains (and, as a 'meta' note: I did find the explanation of exactly how Mr. Pitch managed to pull this off very clever). Mr. Pitch intended to sacrifice the children in a dark ritual, but, luckily for the kids, Pro Payne put a stop to his plans.

Pros: A very well written and engaging story (of which I'm not doing justice to in my summary). Fun, well designed missions. This is another very good low level arc!

Cons: A couple of typos and minor errors. Here are the ones I noticed ...
In Mission 1, Sgt. Ryan's "rescue" text has an error. It reads "...the was guy coming...", but I suspect it should read "...the guy was coming...
In Mission 2, in Rollo's 'inactive' text, I think "arm fine" should be "arm's fine." Also, in this missions 'return success text' I think it should be "drop on all of them" (not "drop of all of them").
Finally, in Mission 3, it seemed like one of the required objectives was missing actual objective text (was showing up as 'Swiveljoint' -- not 'Defeat Swiveljoint' or something similar).

#1402: In the Shadow of the Towers (4 stars)
The PPD wanted Pro Payne to help out with a raid on a Skulls' warehouse. He readily agreed, and found evidence the Skulls were planning on using some serious explosives to break into a building. What made this particularly intriguing was the fact the building didn't actually have any (real) windows or doors - the Skulls reasoned there must be something really cool inside.

What was inside was the Arachnos - and they'd become convinced Pro Payne had command codes they 'wanted back' - he didn't, but when have you ever known Arachnos to listen to reason? Pro Payne had to fight off multiple attempts by Arachnos to ambush and kill him in their attempt to get the codes back. Fortunately, for all involved, it did ultimately become apparent to Arachnos that Pro Payne didn't have what they thought he did.

Pros: While the writing and mission design itself is the very high quality I've come to appreciate from this author... (and I certainly did like the Chief Bochco reference)

Cons: ...the overall plot just struck me as a bit lackluster this time. While it wasn't bad, it didn't seem to be quite as focused - or have the closure - the others did. You never do get to figure out why Arachnos thinks you have the codes (beyond the implication that they're just flat out mistaken, which, while oddly humorous, did strike me as a 'poor sell' of a central point in the plot), or what actually in is the towers. (I actually thought there's some real potential there - I really wanted that very short 'find out what went wrong with the skull attack' mission to be combined with the next sewer mission, so we could have a mission to infiltrate the tower and see what's there.)

Yes, yes, I do see the irony of me falling into the exact same trap the Skulls did. But I'm more important than they are, so it's okay if I do it

[ QUOTE ]

what I meant to be clear was that the ghosts pretty much went after the Trolls on their own, at first- both had a strong hatred of 'dyne dealers, and if they couldn't go after the Skulls, the Trolls would be their biggest targets. And the Trolls, of course, are fairly primal- if they're attacked, they need someone to vent on. So they'd do their best to go after whatever target presented itself.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm certainly always willing to admit that perhaps I was just slow on the uptake, but, just FYI, I do think your explanation here does make sense, and would have been useful to 'sell' me on the basic premise of the arc - and I absolutely did not pick up on it while playing the arc.

[ QUOTE ]

The Regulators were a combination of 'hey, we know these guys are tough', 'they have an anger we can use', and 'let's humiliate old enemies'. That and the Skulls just aren't that bright >.>

[/ QUOTE ]

In this case, I did kind of figure that was the reason - this was a clear example that I wanted a bit more of 'what I was suspecting' confirmed by the story.


[ QUOTE ]

... wait, EBs? What difficulty were you running on? O.o

I may slip a recommendation in there for dialing rep down a bit on the final mission (thankfully, with Brawler's mode of speech, it's pretty easy to sneak in... something to the effect of "I know you've already got a bit of a rep, newbie, but I'd recommend you dial it down a bit this time- you're going into a war.")- I'm reluctant to lose the EBs, since they're the only thing that would even slow a team down. As bosses, they're not nearly as tough.

The ambushes (and yup, they're ambushes- I had patrols, but they triggered things too early >.&lt... yeah. If you're clearing straight through, they're going to do nasty things to you. If not, though, they get tangled up in the Skull spawns and beat them up for you

But yeh, noted.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, this is a part where I wasn't being terribly clear in my review. I was running on heroic - they were spawning in as bosses (I just know that they're *really* EBs, which is why I put that in there). They were still cutting me down with surprising speed under heavy inspiration - actually Bone Mason in particular seemed to be able to do this. I'd whole-heartedly agree that putting a warning in BABs text would be very good (in my case it would have been more to mentally prep me going into the mission that I might be facing a boss that'll cut me down two or three times before I manage to win the fight - boy am I happy for the inspiration 'store' next to the data stream.)

Oddly, Trollbane fit best in my sequence as the next arc for Pro Payne to play. So...

Trollbane (In its current state, I considered this a very solid 3 stars - very much on the verge of being four, which was consistent with the author mentioning the arc was still a big rough around the edges.)
Arc #106553

Pro Payne was enlisted by the Back Alley Brawler to investigate the circumstances around a gang war between the Skulls and the Trolls. It seemed as though the Trolls were really eager to raid Skull drug labs to get lots of free 'dyne, and the Skulls themselves were up to something far more sinister: they'd given in fully to their necromantic urges, and were dabbling in magics that had best not be dabbled in. What follows is a rising tide of violence as the Skulls train an increasingly powerful army of the restless dead on the Trolls. Why? Because it's easiest to cause the most damage when you betray former allies, especially when the goal is to increase your power by killing as many of said former allies as possible (thereby increasing all of the necromantic power you're channeling). Needless to say, Pro Payne put an end to the Skull plot (in what was easily his most challenging task yet), and earned the esteem of the Back Alley Brawler in the process.

Pros: I'll sum it up in one word: potential. This arc has the potential to become a great story, and a very fun arc. Early on the missions are very short and very simple - some seem almost too short, even. The challenges are *exactly* appropriate to a character at Pro Payne's level (11). TC's a good writer, although a lot of the text does still have that rough draft feel (that's easy enough to fix with a few rounds of proofreading), and that means the story is engaging to follow as you play through the missions...

Cons: ...for the most part. Frankly, there are parts of the story that need to be 'sold' a bit more: the two biggest ones being I wanted to be more 'convinced' that the Skulls really would start a gang war with their biggest customers (or was it the Trolls that started it? Early on it seemed like it was the Trolls picking the fight, but then it seemed more liek the Skulls were the instigators, perceiving the Trolls as easy targets). And I also wanted to know more of the reasons why the Skulls would be so keen on binding the spirits of dead Regulators - I almost wanted there to be a much darker and more sinister reason to bring back dead Regulators than "just because they can" (which is kind of what it seemed like).

The last mission is where the difficulty level seems out of whack - I'll admit that Atta's map is not my favorate, just because it ends up being so *long* to play through (unless you're willing to just run past lots and lots of foes), but some of those EB fights were very difficult - I honestly don't see how being level 14 would make the fights any easier: sure I'd have DO's instead of TO's, but the fact is getting through them required very heavy inspiration use - the bonuses from the inspies were considerably higher than anything my enhancements were providing. For some of those fights, I was using 2-3 reds to max out damage, 3-4 purples to minimize hits, and *still* either losing the fight or just barely pulling out a victory. (The skull EB was the hardest - in part because he actually spawned in with a Bone Daddy partner, which just put him over the top) I really would recommend getting rid of the troll ambushes after the EB fights (assuming I didn't just get really unlucky and have patrols run in to fight me right after defeating each EB) - I was already just barely hanging on after each fight: a troll ambush just added insult to injury.

Another minor 'bug': much of the patrol and rescue dialog was written as though the patrol would say the first thing when you were still far away, and then say the next thing once you got close. In reality, they pretty much spam all of their dialog the moment they spawn in - and even seem to trigger "encounter dialog" in ally or rescue objectives that happen to fall nearby. That led to a LOT of "pull me out of the story moments" where groups halfway across the map were acting like I'd just arrived on the scene to beat the tar out of them.

The bottom line: this story idea's got a LOT of potential, and is already close to a four-star arc, certianly with potential to even become a five. But (as the author warned) it is still a bit rough, and needs some polish to get it really good.

It was a bit later than expected (needed more cash to pay those MA access bills), but Pro Payne's back, and ready for more MA fun! With apologies to any still following this thread, Pro Payne was actually on hiatus for just a bit while I was publishing two more lowbie arcs that I wanted him to be able to play before getting too much further in the game.

I did, and the arcs got him to level 11. After finishing Trollbane (see my post below), I'm now level 12, and have replaced all my TO's with DO's. I was very surprised to learn that apparently Resist Damage DO's have totally been left out of the vendor lists. I ended up actually purchasing a Resist Damage IO recipie and making random rolls for Common Arcane Salvage until I could build it.

You might be interested to know in where the character stands, resource-wise, after all of this. Before "the outfitting" I had about 2700 tickets, and 15,000 influence (i.e. a MISERABLE amount for a level 12 character). But after outfitting, Pro Payne still has 1,911 tickets, and 110,000 influence (from selling the salvage he didn't need; his first excursion to WW, by the way) - heck, by the time I log back on, I expect he'll be above 200,000 inf. Frankly, I don't consider that too shabby at all for a character who hasn't even TRIED to spend more than the bare minimum of tickets, and made no actual attempts to play the market. Put another way, I get the distinct impression that I could have a LOT more influence if I wasn't hoarding tickets - and don't forget that hoarding tickets has not in any way kept me from being totally outfitted with DOs. I even suspect that I could have a fairly large proportion of IOs by now, if I'd wanted them. But I'm totally content to go the DO and SO route until I'm high enough level for IOs and sets to give me an advantage over SOs. We'll see where this goes...

Here's another observation I found quite interesting. Apparently, for custom characters powers "unlock" in a manner similar to what happens as a hero or villain PC levels up. At the end of one of my arcs, I faced a character who was very weak on offense, but whom I'd given the *entire* regen set. Yet, the character did not make use of integration, instant healing, moment of glory, or the self-rez (or, as near as I could tell, any other power that wouldn't normally be available to a 10th level character with regen as their secondary). So apparently there IS a de-facto scaling with level in the power level of custom foes given sets above the 'standard' setting. Don't forget, though - you can open up a LOT of powers in those first 12 to 16 levels, so custom foes set to hard or extreme apparently will ramp up in power very, very quickly as they level.

Pro Payne once again needs to go back to the "real world" and chase some villain plots via his police scanner (it's time to get the zero-g pack), but then it'll be back to MA arcs.

So keep the suggestions coming!

I've put it in the queue, it's currently right around several other arcs where the author has claimed 10-14 should be a good level range, so I'll pay special attention to how it seems to play (difficulty-wise) on a true lowbie and give you what feedback I can.

To all who are following this thread: today and this weekend are likely to be fairly busy. I *might* get to one arc today, but that's iffy, and I'm positive Pro Payne will be "putting in long hours at his real job" this weekend. Just wanted to let everyone know so that you all don't think he's given up - Pro Payne will be back, trying out your arcs on Monday (and, like I said, perhaps one last one today)!

I don’t have much in the way of comment about MA-only that wouldn’t be reiterating what I said yesterday: the pacing, advancement-wise seems a bit slow (which really only proves that the mission and story arc bonuses, along with patrol XP, do add quite a bit to the pace of the game – so be glad for them folks!), but as long as I can effectively keep myself in the best enhancements available for my level, it seems at least a reasonable trade off. I honestly don’t know when I’m going to start looking into IOs – I suspect perhaps at level 12, when I can see what, if anything, I could buy once I’m totally outfitted with DO’s. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have an ample ticket surplus. I’m about midway through level 9, and have well over a thousand tickets. I’m now positive I’m going to have plenty left over when it comes time to change out to DO’s, so the only question is what, if anything, to get with my surplus. If you guys have got anything you’d like me to try out, I’ll take it under advisement.

I am still finding it a fun way to play the game – I don’t think anyone wanting to focus on MA arcs would at least be disappointed in the first 10 levels. And I am happy to see that there are plenty of good “offerings” in this level range.

Okay, now to tonight’s mini reviews (and they really will be “mini” this time):

#2180 Bricked Electronics (5 stars; honestly was teetering between four and five, and decided to go with five).

Pros: This arc is well written, with an intriguing twist at the end. I actually liked the organization system for clues the author came up with – I didn’t think it was strictly necessary, but it certainly didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the arc. The custom foes were well done and well balanced (always worth bonus points from me, since custom foes do add variety, and I’m always pleased when an author includes them while resisting the urge to “power them up” and thereby make them unfun). By and large, I enjoyed the plot, and thought the story was good.

Cons: There were points where the story got hard to follow. To me, the weakest point was the “stumbling across the Council sub-plot” in the third mission: it doesn’t tie in that well to the rest of the arc, but I honestly didn’t find it so far out in left field that it ruined the arc for me either. The last mission did strike me as kind of a risk on the author’s part: if it goes well, you don’t seriously annoy the player, and you get to keep the rating he or she has been forming as they’ve been playing the arc. If it results in a mission failure, I can certainly see a player being miffed enough to rate it lower (let’s face it – making the last mission in an arc fail-able always risks irritating a player who has invested in playing through the arc.) That said, the premise behind the last mission is certainly logical, and the time limit did make it exciting for me.

#1154 Low Tide (3 stars)
This absolutely struck me as a “MA newspaper mission” – go in, collect a (rather vague) clue, and defeat a boss (it’s a rarer form of newspaper mission, but it is a setup I *have* seen). Granted, there’s just a tad more story (I infer that the “infestation” transformed the crew into Hydra … although I have no idea why). It was very playable at my level (although, occasionally, the patrols got a bit hairy for me, but I am NOT inclined to complain about difficulty in a mission where I actually succeeded and didn’t even die once). There’s nothing really wrong with it – and there’s nothing exceptional about it either, hence 3 stars – completely average, IMO. The only error I noticed is that while all of the minion and lt. Hydra were part of the “Low Tide” faction, the Big Bad was actually “Hydra.” However, that did not affect my rating in any way…

More later! This is still a very fun project for me! And again, thank you to all for offering up arcs for me to play!

Random fact: there are 11 known stars at or closer than 3 parsecs (12 if you count the sun). The only ones that *aren't* extremely faint red dwarf stars are Alpha Centauri A and B (C - "Proxima" is a red dwarf), and the two stars of the Sirius system. And the one closest to exactly 3 pc is Ross 154 (which is a red dwarf at 2.9 pc). So apparently the home star of that alien race is Ross 154 - sucks to be them.

I'll stop now.

I'm just happy that people are seeming to find the feedback useful. By the way, what I'm doing here should be fairly rare in this thread: a rebuttal to a rebuttal. In general once I've posted a review, I think that if the arc author wants it, they should be free to have the last word about their arc. I'm going to try to make it a habit to only respond to a rebuttal if it involves offering up actual feedback or information that the author might find useful.

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I'll double check, but if I remember correctly, they are all set to Easy. They are indeed set to spawn in Front.

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Here's the specific reason that made me wonder what the difficulty was. I'm still set to heroic - at that level easy ambush spawns are usually two minions, and occasionally three (or occasionally one minion and one lt). The ambush spawn I got was four minions and one lt. After your response, I did think of an alternate explanation: I was actually carrying two kidnapping victims back to the door, and they arrived at exactly the same time. Two easy ambush spawns popping up right on top of me might look like a single medium or hard ambush.

Of course, that might be a consideration for a character squishier than a brute. I can imagine that if I was a mastermind with my one minion out at level 4 or something, and got all three kidnap victims to the door at the same time, it might show up as a pretty impressive ambush popping up on top of me, all keyed to attack me directly (rather than the minion) as ambushes frequently do. I'd imagine my life expectancy would be measured in seconds at that point. Granted, at level four, it would basically mean I was exiting the mission through the hospital rather than the front door - debt free, but it might raise an eyebrow. I wonder if setting the ambush at the "rescue" rather than the "delivery" would work a bit better?

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Good luck with your character, and I think your concept is an awesome idea! Be careful on the way to those trainers and in those Safeguards.

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Thank you! In the comedy department, I've actually built a few macros around brawl that have him saying things like "Freem!" and "Scrooosh!" (and other "visual sounds") when he punches in the outside world - as though he's imagining using his powers while punching bad guys. I'd give it under a minute before getting kicked from a team that invited me without reading my description or search comment...

Pro Payne had one more arc in him tonight, and so he moved down next on the list (arranged to make the most of the level ranges offered up in the arcs suggested so far).

Feh. Another villain arc. But I figured I'd give it a try:

Arc Id #2260 (5 stars. And I don't mean 'it just barely made the grade.' This was a *solid* 5 stars, IMO)

I've just been hired by Harrier Payne (ironic, no?) to prove to his girl that Harrier is the only man for her. What happens as a result is something you're going to (and *should*) see for yourself.

First, I felt dirty for playing this as a hero. Very good sign it's a good villain arc. The mission design and pacing is top notch. Here's what I liked:

I'm being evil - and I mean *really* evil - in a story that casts me in the major role, yet does not require me to be attempting to take over the planet, destroy all mankind, etc., at level 8 (again, I'm all for world domination - villain side, of course - but I figure I should be much higher level before 'slaughter all mankind' becomes a viable goal.)

Here are my nitpicks.

The crates in the first mission disappear when you "collect" them - that didn't quite click (no pun intended): I'm stealing the stuff in the crate, not the crate itself. Well, I guess I *could* be sealing the crate, but the messages in the mission (for whatever reason) were more suggestive of me tearing open the crates and taking anything valuable I found inside, rather than actually just hoisting them on a soulder and making off with them.

And that's pretty much it - my only nitpick is "I don't like the fact the crates disappear." Get the point? It's just my opinion, but it's a very, very good arc.

Okay, that's it for Pro Payne until the end of work tomorrow, but keep the suggestions coming in and I'll keep playing through the arcs (and posting my impressions).

First, many, many thanks for offering up arcs to play. I appreciate the interest in my little project here. I’ve been arranging them in an order that I hope will work best (at the moment I’m focusing most on arcs designed specifically for very low level characters, and will progress to higher level arcs with time – be patient! I want to get to everyone’s arc).

Pro Payne decided to try his first foray into a “villain fantasy” tonight. The review is below. The arc got me from level six almost through level seven – and I’m still more than up-to-date enhancement wise: I’ve got the best tickets can buy (granted they *are* TOs), and many hundreds of tickets to spare. The advancement is feeling slower than average, but I’m really feeling (at least so far) like the ticket system is making up for my slower advancement my letting me feel “maxed out” for my level with tickets to spare. It’s a fine line, but I’m pleased with it so far – it’s just enough of a reward to keep me from feeling like I’m being “gypped” by the slower level advancement.

Now to the review (not into “mini-review” mode yet, so please forgive the length of the feedback – I hope you find it useful, or at least amusing, Kitsune…)

#17702 “Every Rose” (3 stars; a solid premise and good ideas – I really think this arc could get higher ratings with some editing work)

The player performs a series of tasks with the ultimate goal of become a “secret agent” for the Circle of Thorns in the Rogue Isles. The arc starts with a test of your merits, and proceeds to the Circle doing a favor for you (in the form of casting a spell intended for your benefit). Of course, nothing’s free, and the Circle asks for you to do a favor in return – when you succeed, you are inducted into their ranks.
I think this is an example of an arc that’s got really good ideas, and just needs some work to fully realize its potential (man, that sounds cheesy, but it’s true). I liked the basic idea behind each mission, and the basic idea behind the arc. It’s just the implementation, in my opinion, that needs work.

First, the pacing and difficulty level were good for the character levels the arc was aimed toward. The only deviation I could see were in a few of the ambushes in the later missions, particularly the one or ones associated with the kidnappings in the fourth mission: they appeared to be set to medium or hard with a front spawn in. As a scrapper, Pro Payne dealt with them just fine, but I can easily see how a low level villain (other than a brute, who’d probably be okay) might find the ambush overwhelming – I’d always advise that when aiming at content for low levels, go with ‘easy’ on the settings. Also, I can vouch for the fact that medium or hard ambushes get surprisingly brutal in bigger groups, or when you’re set to level 2 or 4 difficulty. The ambush literally appearing next to me was a little jarring, but I can see how that might be a necessity (they showed up at mission complete, and if they hadn’t been set to ‘front’ I might not have even known they were coming for me).

Also on the good side: I really liked the final mission. Sure it wasn’t exactly action packed, but the whole feel of Orenbega as a stronghold, with roaming bands of Circle mages slaughtering any foolish enough to disrupt my initiation ceremony worked well for me.

Here are my (hopefully constructive) criticisms:

Mission One. In the mission briefing, perhaps referring to my “magical potential” would be better than “magical ability.” If I’m going to role play, it’s more acceptable to suggest that my character might have a potential for magic, rather than declaring he’s got actual magical abilities. (Yes, I know – M.A., and the whole premise of my character is that he doesn’t even really have abilities, but I’m trying to approach this from the standpoint of how a character with a newly created villain might react. And, presumably, if I want to join the Circle, I’m a magical character – but that little change certainly could make the story more “accessible” to characters who just want to try out the arc, while having barely any impact to the story in the eyes of a character who is genuinely magic origin). In this mission and the next, the end of mission clue was an almost exact copy of the clue I got by actually getting the mission objective – it was a little redundant, especially because I got them at exactly the same time. It might work better to erase the “objective clue” in favor of the mission complete clue. It did seem a little like the contact sort of “forgot” about the book I was sent to get once I got back – I was trying to pay careful attention to the text, but maybe I missed something.

For both missions one and two, it did strike me as odd that the “decoys” were all destructible, while the real goal was clickable. It seemed like they should all be one or the other. Another idea would be to mix it up a bit: add some clickable glowies as additional decoys, and make the clickable the real target in one mission, and the destructable the real target in the other.

Mission Two. The reference to “walking cardboard boxes” totally threw me. The “elbow” for Longbow (L-bow, hehe) joke kinda fell flat for me – I think it might have worked a little better if I’d known Longbow were there (I think they were spawning in as battles, and often they were dead before I got there – so it took a bit for me to figure out the reference).

Mission Three. I like the fact that lots of different factions are getting brought in – I think that’s a strong point in any “introductory” arc: show what the game’s got to offer. It’s not that Vahzilok don’t fit in a graveyard, but I think it needed to be clearer to the player what exactly they were doing there (I imagine it was to dig up corpses for body parts – maybe a few “boss” spawns with them set to the digging emote? You wouldn’t want to overdo it, but it could fit them into the situation a little better).

Mission Four. The fact that the Circle are the spirits of dead wizards possessing the living is actually a major “reveal” in the later game, and there’s no reason a low level villain would know about it. The problem is one of the kidnap victims mentions it in their description text – IMO, mentioning that “you have, no doubt, a terrible fate awaiting you” for the kidnap victims without actually mentioning the true nature of the Circle would make this work a lot better as an intro arc. Also, at least one of the kidnap victims is listed in the “Normal II” faction – I wonder if you’d be willing to rename them to something like “Normal Citizens” or something?

Miscellaneous: I’d recommend checking some of your mission objective text for consistency. It’s really a tiny nitpick, but there are places where you’ve got a period, that it would just look better in the nav window if you’d omit the period.

Here are my observations on that bug: editing the custom mobs in the mission itself don't seem to work. Here's what's always worked for me (so far):

Apparently, custom mobs always display their base faction, regardless of whatever custom factions they've been added to. The only work around I've ever found is to directly edit the custom mob - on the last screen of the editor (the one with the description) you can actually set the base faction for the mob - it almost certainly says 'All' right now, but if you set to something else (or select New and type in Council, for example), it should reset the mob's base faction.

You don't want to know how long it took me to puzzle that one out. I hope it works for you.

Arc #1345 “Jumping In Feet First” (A very solid 4 stars, close to being 5)

This arc casts you as a new hero whose first set of missions has you foiling Council experiments trying to take Nictus fusion in new directions, ultimately leading to you dismantling the project, and a show down with the Archon in charge.

There are a lot of things I liked about this arc. First, it is exactly what it claims to be: an interesting and well-done “alternate start” for a new hero. The difficulty level was spot-on: at least played on heroic the arc never got so difficult as to be frustrating, or so easy it was boring. The text and dialog all had the right feel, and did a very good job of capturing the feel of being a neophyte hero on his or her first set of missions. The companion characters (and you have allies in all of the missions) were very reasonable – they were at lieutenant level, and it didn’t feel like they were stealing the show from me, with perhaps a minor exception at the very end. Finally, the plot of the arc was well done in terms of where it would fit in the game’s overall progression – it was a Council plot that needed to be stopped, not a desperate struggle to save the entire world from the greatest evil that has ever existed with Earth-shattering consequences should we fail. (Not that I mind the latter, but the former is far more logical for a new hero to be taking on). In short, this arc was better than most of the intro arcs in the real game (similar pacing, but better plot and more interesting missions) – arcs that I would give the “average” 3 star rating, and so this one deserved at least four stars (and I thought was on the cusp of deserving five).

Now, for a few criticisms. Several of the custom characters belonged to the “All Custom Characters” faction – I’d suggest simply creating a custom faction called “Council” (I can verify you can name custom factions after real ones in the game) and setting it as their base faction in the character editor. Although normally I’d be very wary of suggesting making something harder (I prefer to err on the side of easy) – the final fight was almost anti-climactic. The issue was that, since it was heroic, the character was a lieutenant, which would have been very appropriate if I was alone – but I had two other helpers with me, and with our combined firepower the end boss got taken down in about three seconds. Hard call, I know, but I’d suggest running a few tests on heroic with his rank scaled up to Elite Boss (operating on the assumption that he’ll downgrade to Boss if the arc is played as intended) and see how it plays. And, of course, like most MA arcs (mine included) it can always benefit from another round of proofreading – I’d suggest altering the first mission complete clue to read “in minute detail” rather than “minutely” (and “though” not “tho”). In the second mission briefing, “pop up” might be a little better than “pop out.” And the last sentence of Sigmur’s description didn’t make any sense to me.

Pro Payne has gotten his start! His first arc was actually one of my own design (so as promised, I will not discuss it here – it isn’t the ones posted in my sig, however) – five missions that over the course of an hour got Pro Payne up to level five (and certainly a “standard” game experience: he practically gained two levels in the first mission – which actually was on a small map – and then slowed down from there).

I did run across an interesting “issue” that my fellow architects should be aware of (if you’re not already): apparently if you set a boss objective to use “random” for the boss, it will potentially pick ANY boss that is in the correct level range for the MISSION, regardless of the level of the character playing the mission. As my mission’s level range was 5-14, I ended up with a level 14 boss facing down my level 5 character. The fact he was scaled down to a lieutenant certainly did not make the fight doable.

The most obvious result of this early experience with an MA only character is that it was actually noticeably easier to “fully-equip” my character with level appropriate stuff. Keeping him in +3 TOs has put barely a dent in my supply of tickets – it’s certainly not game-breaking, but I get the impression there will be absolutely no need to conserve resources for the day where I can give him SOs (again, through MA) – we’ll see if I’m correct. Conversely, my supply of “real” money is abnormally low right now, but I suspect that’s a pretty artificial low. The reality is if I converted all of my MA tickets into salvage rolls, I could probably pull in a few tens of thousands with the occasional “lucky” roll of a luck charm, etc – and that would put me at about where I’d be with a normal character right now (who almost certainly would have made about that much on normal salvage drops, and selling the tutorial inspiration). So, so far, the tickets seem reasonably well balanced – if I were to “cash out” I’d be about where I’d normally be.

At level five, I took on the first arc suggested here. You can read the review below (I wanted to get a good start, so I must confess it is longer than I think others will be). It got me just beyond level six, and it was time to get the raptor pack.

That involved a series of radio missions and the safeguard – without fire shield on, no use of my attacks or healing flames, and only using powers that were either natural (brawl, throwing knives, and sprint) or from “the uncle’s stash of veteran artifacts” (e.g. ghost slaying axe, blackwand, and nemesis staff). It was an interesting experience, to say the least – a lot of running around ignoring mobs while looking for the mission objective.

It didn’t get Pro Payne a level – but that was kind of the point: get the raptor pack with minimal impact on his quest to be “MA-only.” So now Pro Payne is back at A.E., gearing up for his next mission (which will have to be after work tonight).

It’s certainly too early to draw definitive conclusions, but so far an MA-only character is proving to be a lot of fun!

“Pro Payne” stems from a project I’ve been interested in since the live release of Mission Architect. One of the design goals of MA, as stated by the developers, was that it should be possible for a character to go from level 1 to level 50 doing nothing but MA content. So I have created a character with just this goal in mind (with a paltry number of caveats, mentioned below)!

Although I talk about it in more detail below, obviously I’m going to need an endless stream of good story arcs to play on my way to 50. I intend to occasionally update this post with my observations of what it’s like to play a MA only character, and in doing so I also intend to post mini-reviews of the arcs I’m playing along the way. So if you’re interested in having your arcs played by yet another character, and don’t mind seeing said mini-reviews posted here, then suggest arcs for me to play – the more the merrier!

Okay, now for more details about what exactly my plans are (and an “in-character” background too):

One, I do intend to play the safeguard missions with him. This is purely a selfish decision: I want him to have access to the temporary powers the safeguards make available. (But there will be restrictions to the safeguards and the radio missions that lead up to them, detailed later in this post.) All other missions will be played entirely in M.A.

Here’s Pro Payne’s character background, written in first person:

“Hi there! My real name is Johnny Payne, and I’m the nephew of one of Paragon City’s most veteran heroes – he did make me promise not to say who he was. Unlike most of you, I don’t have superpowers, but I’ve always looked up to you all and I’ve always wanted to be a superhero more than anything! Well, I didn’t think I’d ever get my chance, until that brilliant Dr. Aeon opened up Aeon Entertainment!

“See, I might not have real superpowers, but the geniuses at Aeon Entertainment made it so that when I’m playing one of the missions in their virtual reality simulation, the computer can make it seem like I’ve really got the superpowers I’ve always wanted. So now, at least when I’m not waiting tables at InFront, I can actually live my superhero fantasies, just like I was playing some kind of giant, ultra-cool superhero video game!

“Now, they said I kinda have to play by the rules. I can’t just start out as powerful as my uncle. They’ll pretend like I’m Security Level 1, and whenever I, um, “level up,” I get to take my frequent player punch card to one of those hero trainers, where they’ll help me figure out which new power I get to add to my Mission Architect profile, or which power I can make more powerful. I already took it to Back Alley Brawler, to get started. He was pretty cool about it; didn’t make fun of me for wanted to be like a hero or anything.

“I even selected what my first powers were going to be like in the simulation. I’m definitely going to go with being a fire scrapper all the way. I just think fire is such a cool power to have. And I read somewhere they can solo through missions really well, which I think is going to be important because all the real heroes kind of look at me weird when I ask for a team.

“Oh, and my uncle did give me a little bit of extra help. He’s actually semi-retired, and since he’s such a long-time vet, he had an undead slaying axe, a nemesis staff, and a blackwand to lend me. That’ll help in case any criminals pick on me on the way to and from the trainers, or when I need to go to a store to buy or sell things I get with my architect tickets. He even said I could use it if I wanted to stop any crimes I heard about when I’m listening on my police scanner, like if I wanted to stop a bank robbery or something. He did say to be really, really careful, though, and not bite off more than I can chew in the real world, since all my ultra cool fire powers won’t work in the real world.”

Now, back to being serious: my goal is to actually update this post from time to time with feedback on what it is like to play a (nearly) MA-only character. As hinted, Pro Payne’s main RP “quirk” is that I won’t use his fire powers outside of MA (i.e. in radio or safeguards – of which I intend to use only just enough to get the safeguard temporary powers); beyond that I certainly do intend to spend his tickets and influence normally, including my normal activities on the market, etc.

I will try to make about half of the arcs I play based on random searches (although I have no interest in arcs that look like farms), and half based on recommendations. Of course, in posting my feedback on what its like to play an MA-only character, I’ll also post my impressions of the arcs (these will tend to be fairly brief, however – I’m not really interested in giving full-fledged arc reviews here, but I will put up a few notes and the score I gave it.) Obviously, as a huge MA fan, I will certainly not hesitate to play my own arcs too – but I will not be mentioning those arcs in any feedback in this thread (well, beyond any IDs showing up in my signature).

One last thing for recommending arcs – obviously I want to have him gaining XP as much as possible, and in facing foes that are reasonably scaled to my current level, so if you post an arc here for me to try, understand that I won’t necessarily be playing them in the order I see them here; I will often be arranging them to play them in an order that is most appropriate to my level.

Oh, and it is okay to post villainous arcs for me to try. The best thing about Pro Payne not being a real hero is that he’s more than willing to try to see “what it’s like to be a villain, as long as real people don’t have to get hurt.”

Off to MA!

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I have had arcs that increased in size after publication. "Lawyers of Ghastly Horror", ID in my signature, is published and playable but not editable, because opening it in the editor puts it over the limit.

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Did you change any of the custom groups the arc uses (if any) between publish and your attempt to edit? I realize the answer is probably 'no', but I have done that and, as a result, the published arc goes over the size limit if I open it in the editor (of course, if you play the published arc, the custom group stays the way it was before you made the change).

Here are my three (current) arcs (note that for the live versions one custom foe has been removed versus the test versions to bring them in under the limit, since if I can't publish, I can't get an arc ID).

Test: 13751, Live: 1637
Test: 14900, Live: 1646
Test: 18797, Live: 10931

I had exactly the same thing happen to me. I had every single arc increase in size by a few percentage points when transferred from test to live. It made every one of them over the limit.

I reduced the sizes of two of them by cutting characters out of custom groups, but I'm really, really, REALLY hoping we'll get some sort of explanation as to what exactly is happening and if there's anything we can do to restore them to whatever thier "test" size was without cutting content back out of them.

(Frankly I just think they should establish, say, a 3% "grace size" until they can quash this bug).

Just to add my voice to the 'initial reaction' wave for the devs to read...

Put me down on the 'absolutely thrilled' side! I am *extremely* happy with the ported sets, for the most part! I can't wait to roll myself up a Psi/Psi blaster to go with my current plans to play with a Fire/Cold blaster (obviously the latter being nothing new) and LOVE the fact that I'm going to *finally* get to create the 'evil' version of my very first main (I couldn't have asked for a more perfect 'evil reflection' to my elec/elec blaster than an elec/storm corrupter -- short of you guys actually making elec manip available to corrupters, which absolutely does not make sense what with the latter not being a buff set), and I'm very much looking forward to playing around with an SR brute, something I've wanted to do for quite some time. Heck, I'm even curious about trying out a dark tank. Several of the other ports certainly interest me, but just going after all this new stuff you guys have added to my plate is going to take more time than I actually have!

Thank you very much devs! This is wonderful news, I'm thrilled at the new sets on both sides of the moral compass, and just wanted to shoot you guys a huge thumbs up amid what looks to be an awfully distressing amount of 'this sucks' posting going on!