GlaziusF
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Posts
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Joined
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@GlaziusF
Running on a spine/regen scrapper exemplared down, diff 2 for real boss fights.
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Invading a Crey lab! This always goes well.
Nice setup for the dummy glowies, and some pretty straightforward investigation results.
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Straightforward setup here too. Time to ride to the rescue!
Huh. Everybody seems to think very highly of Piper, even the guy who betrayed him.
...I wonder if there's more to his powers.
Trekking out over four floors of empty with him in tow doesn't seem like a productive use of my time, though.
Heh. Yeah, thanks for confirming it, my elected official.
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Why reluctantly, mission 3 accept text? I've hardly spent any time around this guy and his mind woogie.
Stealth, huh? Can do. Let's see how well it works.
Surprisingly well, actually, as long as the captains and officers don't run Tactics.
Huh. Guess he just convinced the Crey, then? He's not one of their projects? Because he seems the type.
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Heh. Interesting various guards for this guy...
What, a Warhulk? Can't wait to see what this guy says... heh. Oh, that's a nice reason. Always easier to con the guys who think they're putting the screws to you.
Final boss has a pretty predictable powerset. I've long since started saving break frees for MAs.
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Storyline - *****. It sold the Crey plot hard enough that the undercurrent was a genuine twist. I wondered for a moment why Crey wasn't telling anybody else about their concerns, but then I realized they probably didn't care.
Design - ****. The last three missions are all in identical tilesets. They all fit, but even so a little variety wouldn't hurt. Even just blue office instead of red office, but it would be hilarious if Piper's campaign was headquartered in a sewer or something and nobody cared.
Gameplay - *****. Everything went pretty smoothly. No hunting around cleaning stuff up.
Detail - ****. Would've liked to see a little more incidental stuff, after the first mission played a nice trick with dummy glowies.
Overall - *****. But overall there's nothing too overpowering about my objections. This is solid work. -
Last night's random arc: Equal Representation (143912). Verdict - *****. Review below in this thread.
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Quote:AI's aren't stupid to make them easy, they're stupid to make them predictable. People don't understand what the AI is doing unless they know what the AI knows and how it acts on it.Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
Actually, the biggest problem is that players would LOSE to the AI. Gamers play these games in order to feel powerful. The worst thing you could do from a marketing standpoint is to make an AI that actually behaves intelligently. You'd have most of your players quitting because the game was "too hard".
Losing to an AI you don't understand isn't much different from losing to, say, a bugged enemy with 10 times the normal attack power. -
Tonight's random arc: All in the Family (128109). Verdict - ****. Review in MA Forums Thread.
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Quote:@GlaziusF.Originally Posted by Zereck_Goldmoon
A new arc has been made!
Arc Title: All in the Family
Running this on a merc/TA mastermind (former Wyvern, don't ask), level high enough to be exemplared down. Diff 3 for actual bosses though I may come to regret it.
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Hmm. Got a reluctant killer here. This could explore some interesting places.
Interesting little mid-boss, but I was expecting something more interesting on the way back than just a couple of ambushes. I guess it was just luck that some of the mission was empty.
...man, my inside lady pities him too. Any chance you could tell the people who actually bought your freedom what they're getting into, lady?
No?
You're a peach.
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More invading Paragon City to off people.
...man. SWAT Equalizers are just a giant pain in the pain.
Huh.
For a second I thought, given Hadley's clipboard, that Corleone was behind the initial heist.
But dropping Lucky disabused me of that notion.
Wow. Second person in a row who says the thing we're covering up was some kind of crime against humanity.
Makes a guy wonder.
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"Giovanni's threat" (mission 3 briefing)? Maybe that should be "Giovanni's no longer a threat".
Considering la familia does have its roots in protecting the people when the government don't give a damn, I can see where Marcello gets it.
But it's time to off some Longbow, looks like.
Looks like the commander has some mementos... and the dons are worried about my contact getting all soft on 'em.
So... what? A couple of former mutual acquaintances were in the wrong place at the wrong time and got gunned down? Is that what I'm meant to piece together from this mission?
Let's see what this guy says when I get back to him.
Ah. Not mutual friends.
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Vincenzo, let me explain something to you. Everybody I've iced has been somebody's flesh and blood. There are a lotta cryin' people at a lotta funerals because of me. Because of us.
This thing that is asked of me, it is no different. I won't be surprised if you try and stop me, Vincenzo, I really won't. But don't pretend this is somehow different.
So there's a warden, who's pretty interesting to put down...
But after all that the actual people here are minions, protected by a single Longbow minion each.
Man, you could sneeze and blow 'em down. To the point that I have to check NPC dialog for what they say because their health just drops so fast.
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Storyline - ***. Honestly, I was expecting Vinnie to show up in that last mission. Or... do anything except wring his hands and whine about how he can't do anything. This is what they make a consigliere these days?
Design - ****. The nandful of customs that show outside the last mission are pretty well-realized, and the plot advances nicely through incidental details. But flyswatting the last mission's objectives doesn't feel right. Maybe there's some Longbow magician who encases them inside ice golems or something of the sort, just so they're something less than a speedbump and they have time to plead for their lives.
Gameplay - ****. SWAT Equalizer web grenades. PPD Ghost flashbangs. I know it's just the standard spawns but even so.
Detail - *****. Very solid here. Really drives in the stake.
Overall - ****. Mostly for the contact, who whines and worries and doesn't do anything, even though he ought to have the motivation one way or the other. -
Dream Paper (1874) and Bricked Electronics (2180) are both sub-20.
The Bravuran Jobs (5073) would be 20-30 except that for some reason the 30-39 villain variant Carnies aren't spawning. So they're the full-powered 40+ versions until that gets sorted out. -
For the Gentleman, you could probably get by alright with Dream Paper (1874) or Bricked Electronics (2180). Bricked seems more his style.
Lady Zelara ought to be in the sweet spot for The Bravuran Jobs (5073). -
@GlaziusF
Running on a level 49 spine/regen scrapper, looking to AE to 50 because why not.
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Hey Crimson. Terse as usual. Okay, let's see what's up here.
Longbow base. Pretty standard. Malta lead operatives are named "two NATO phonetics number-number-number". Like Kilo Xray 4-3-4.
Some data remains. Some data's gone. What data's gone? I dunno, let's see what Crimson says.
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Huh. Wonder what was in there about Ms. Liberty. Alright, let's go mow down s'more Malta.
Ah good, it's the little narrow Steel Canyon, not the big northeast quadrant.
So who ordered this op? Dr. Aeon? The banner seems about his sense of aesthetics.
No real information as to what's going on, just that Arachnos and Malta are both interested in Miss Lib for different reasons...
Arachnos, as it shakes out, because someone's nabbed Krylov.
Huh.
I would have figured him for a B-lister given that he's on par with the Spetznaz, but I guess he knows a guy who knows a guy who knows Lord Recluse, or something.
...wait a minute. Silver Mantis's order mentions Krylov and the clue says Arachnos isn't there for the disks, but Crimson and the system message both seem to think they are.
Oh! Okay. Krylov had the disks. I didn't necessarily make that link, just because a lot of people get captured by Longbow.
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So in I go after him.
Huh. Old soviet projects sold to Malta. Okay. But the only text in the navbar for Krylov is his name. Seems like a default result, really.
I think you want to reconsider the ambush - it seems like it should spawn on Krylov's rescue, not on the objective complete.
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And now into a Malta lab. The Data Centers are called out by number instead of being grouped together, might want to collapse them since the navbar's looking rather crowded.
...okay. I find File C in Data Center A, File B In Data Center C (though it's also labeled File C), and File A in Data Center B. Uh. That's... that's a thing.
Huh. Okay, secret Soviet project to destroy Statesman... that worked... but was never actually dispatched to defeat Statesman. Uh. Why, exactly?
Apparently Malta wants to make the next generation of powerful people into threats to Paragon City.
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Something you should know - allies you have to rescue on timed missions currently have to stay alive or the mission will fail. I manage to ditch the lieut so he doesn't ruin this.
Aside from that, pretty nice hunt over the the plains here for way more allies than I really need to take out a tac ops commander.
I wonder why the past is supposed to be kept secret from these people. Is there some secret codephrase that'll make them flamesplode?
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Storyline - ***. Three missions to set the whole project up and two to resolve it, one of which is just investigation? Uh. That's kind of wonky pacing there, really. Among other things it doesn't actually give time to set these people up as a threat or whatever their secret power that wipes out the Freedom Phalanx is.
Design - ****. Generally solid maps with the occasional fight for flavor, and a pretty good likeness of Krylov. Some of the timing on chains seems a bit suspect though and that Malta base was just a land of confusion with the files not showing up where I'd expect them to.
Gameplay - ****. Trying to find a safe place to ditch the more breakable members in the last mission was the main sidetracker. I know it's a bug, but even so.
Detail - ***. Crimson's got a fairly solid voice to him, I have to give you points there. But the mixed-up files in the Malta base and the breakdown in the Liberty vs. Mantis mission both confused me about the direction you were taking the plot.
Overall - ***. Most of this is down to the off-kilter pacing. It doesn't so much end in the fifth mission as run out of space allotted and slam into a wall. -
Tonight's mission is a random one from CoH Mission Review, To Catch a Firebird (105889). Verdict - ***. Since I couldn't find a thread on these boards for the arc, the review gets dumped into the thread below.
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Okay, I've gone through the past review links in the thread, which didn't convert when the boards converted, and fixed them to work with the new boards.
Also I've only got one guy's arcs in the queue, so I'm pulling some random ones for future days. -
Quote:It helps to be descriptive in your tells, too. Tell people what mission you're doing (or what contact you're planning), what the team level is, and if you have SK slots or not.Originally Posted by weiyau
I'm slowly learning that Broadcasting just isn't worthwhile. I've met some success, usually in Steel Canyon, when I run the Midnighter Arc for the ump-teenth time. But, for the most part, I don't get much.
To be fair, I usually form teams in the 10-20 range, since I've got a lot of lowbie alts. It seems to me that a lot of people are levelling past this range via AE.
Still, I've got to try using the Search and sending Tells more often. It seems that is the most effective way, since it's direct communication. I just got to get over the notion that sending tells to someone who isn't "Looking For Any" is rude. I need to remember that most players don't even change their flags at all.
Say hi to people when they join. Ask them if they know anybody who wants on.
Above all, have a plan. You have the star, people will look to you for what needs to be done. -
@GlaziusF
Huh. Little leery since the description calls it a sequel to 2 other arcs, but they're more like prequels, am I right?
Running this on diff 2 on a high-40s spine/regen scrapper.
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Heh. The lighting makes it look like the contact has a big A insignia. But okay. Dude got abducted probably by Malta, my turn to be a hero's hero.
Huh. Freakshow? Well, a warehouse, anyway.
Nope, not Freakshow. Hello, customs.
Hello, Psion. You don't have a description.
Hello, E. Man, your bio's a tall drink of water. I think paragraphs work now.
You gonna actually fight stuff here? No? S'cool, s'cool.
Oh, I'm escorting you. Man, that was some tough terrain, but OK I'll just---
Hi mysterious enemy. ...your description, however, is less mysterious.
Hi guy named Rad who spawned because the MA likes to give bosses on diff 2 now! ...you sound like you shouldn't be a random in-mission boss but somebody important.
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Man. Time travel. Eventually it just becomes a giant flurry of one-upsmanship. Wonder how it's gonna get caught up this time out.
Hey there, intro text. Last mission wasn't in a cave, so why are you talking about the last one?
Hi again E. You fightin' this time! That's good. That's good.
Hi glowie at the front of the cave. ...you've got just what I came for? Well, that was nice of you. And there's nothing between us and the exit, either! Is that a mistake in placement?
Well, let's find this leader, then.
(also I would like a clue about the sword please)
...whoa, what? I thought this was when he got his sword, and here we are running into a submarine base?
Ah, there's the mysterious boss who is Rad from the first mission. He also needs a mysterious description.
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...wow, that's a giant exposition dump there. All in one paragraph, too. Impressive.
Maybe spread that out a little, there are at least a couple separate ideas at work there.
Aw, man, the Shaper cave? Like two-thirds of this thing is special spawns for the task force and therefore empty in MA.
Hi there, portal. You're a portent.
Huh. Kinglyman is actually down one of the side chambers, not in one of the big open rooms. The Law Cast is a help there.
You should probably rewrite the clue for the glowie now that it's a chained objective.
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Man, it never feels right using time travel to mess things up.
...whoa.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa.
Whoa.
I have to wreck the Honoree's chance to escape from the Rikti for this guy?
...um.
Wait a second.
Per the contact, this is during the Rikti invasion.
Hero One went into the Rikti homeworld to seal it off from our reality at the very end of the Rikti invasion.
He hasn't had a chance to come back until recently.
There is a slight problem here.
Also vanguard bosses (colonels, I think) can give you Curse of Weariness, which someone doing AE runs is not guaranteed to have any way to lift, or the means to buy said way.
Why am I still starting up the Rikti generators when Escalon is down and his sword is shattered?
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Awwwww geez. Red Atlas/Agony Hall. Broken terrain, bosses hiding in little tiny rooms surrounded by broken walls and covered with smoke.
So here's some hilarity: in the battles, Longbow have enough presence to have Wardens. Wardens are freakin' wrecking machines, so basically the entire map fills up with my allies and entire other spawns just get completely wrecked. I kinda half-heartedly join the battle to drop Medea, and i kite Arrow into a couple of spawns and he drops...
Then I rescue Escalus. And then I try to hunt down the last coordinator in a map full of bosses already.
Man, that doesn't make any sense. Longbow have handled these dudes and the big bosses are down.
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Storyline - **. It started out promising! But then there was the part where I had to sacrifice the Honoree (who shouldn't actually have existed yet) to save this guy and I'm like, wouldn't Hero 1 be more useful on balance? And then in the final battle he can basically sit on the sidelines while Longbow cleans up.
Design - **. Don't get me wrong, the enemy designs are pretty nice, and the custom powers are satisfying to deal with. But the submarine base and Shaper cave are somewhat questionable choices, objectives show up weirdly clumped together, important commanders show up with the rank and file, the final battle ends up greatly in favor of Longbow, and I have to hunt down the small fry to finish the final battle.
Gameplay - ****. Hunting down bosses through Red Atlas is always a chore. More so if I get "false positives" from other bosses showing up.
Detail - ***. Accept texts and bug texts are pretty perfunctory, one of the customs is missing a description entirely, and a lot of the arc text assumes I've been able to read and remember Escalus's giant description - for example the legend of the original king and his sword.
Overall - **. A pretty good setup that takes a hard left into a giant continuity snarl and ends on an anticlimax. -
Tonight's arc: Time's Arrow (2567). Verdict - **. Review below in this thread.
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Quote:Well, I know how gutpunchingly hard you can make customs in the MA. When I walked into the final mission and the navbar said getting Statesman as an ally was highly recommended I grabbed everyone I could.Originally Posted by ArrowRose
As a general comment on the Allies, if you dont like them dont use them. They are there for people who need them.
The people who need the allies are the people least likely to be able to handle a situation where, thanks to excessive knockback and vigorous pursuit, they come under fire from three spawns' worth of dudes at once.
Well... how do I put this? It starts off seriously. The Family kidnapping a little girl isn't exactly gumdrop parties on rainbow alley. And Ms. Liberty's a top-tier crime-stomper, so I expect serious stuff from her. And then there's the Agony Hall map.Quote:I cant take it seriously. But I dont know if Im supposed to. I would not be surprised at all to find that this is a bedtime story being told to Rose Jones.
BINGO, in fact you almost hit the nail on the head here. One reviewer who really liked it called it A Modern Day Fairy Tale. The mission description now says WARNING: This arc may contain some humor. Play at your own risk!. The intent of the arc is an origin story that doesnt take itself SO seriously. Honestly, serious arcs at times are VERY boring. The risk with humor is not everyone gets it.
It really needs a Princess Bride treatment - a narrator who accentuates the light-hearted aspect.
Well, detail's more than how much is there, it's how you use it. I want to know more about the top tier of the villain group than the minions, so when space gets tight, I'd expect their descriptions to suffer. I want the bug text to either reflect the story or at least not contradict it, and I honestly got the impression that I was working for some draconian taskmaster supervillain disguised as Ms. Liberty when I bugged her.Quote:The above is what I take the most exception to; like it or not, the mission is full of detail, in fact 99% full. You contradict yourself by saying the "The smallest mook in MALs army of evil has a longer bio than MAL himself". With a statement like this, how can the arc deserve the 2 on detail? -
@GlaziusF
Running this on an ice/axe tanker, high 30s, diff 2 for real boss fights.
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Man, either it's the lighting in the portrait window or that contact needs a better dye job.
Hmm. Interesting ally, certainly, makes some of the things the contact says make sense. But can she not have flight? Flight allies do this thing where they clip through the ground, get stuck, and stop following you.
Also I think from a narrative perspective all the suspicious people should show up after you spring the ally. Because I mowed down two of 'em on the way there, so it wasn't much of a search.
Void Slayer, though? This ain't good.
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Looks like a recurring ally. Not a bad gimmick.
Huh. Guess it's got to be spirit world, hydra world, or Eden for forested places. Makes it feel strange and mystical, at least.
Interesting customs here. Guess you're going for a sort of "half-dwarf" or "half nova" feel?
Boss goes down easily enough... and I wonder which girl he was talking about. I was expecting my ally from mission 1 here, but...
Well, we'll see what happens on return.
Huh. I figured she was coming with me into the forest, but I guess not.
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Hmm. From what I've seen of a cyst crystal, it's more of a gateway than just a big bag of Nictus. But hey, flying alien laser squids in crystal ships is alright by me.
Quick little interlude in a rather pedestrian Council base. It's kind of weird that the Archon in charge has no idea why the girl's so important when he's got so much information about her.
Maybe I could riffle through a long list of prisoner transfers and find her?
...hmm. Sunstorm seems to have forgotten about the "traitor Peacebringers" who are driven to exterminate Warshades at all costs. One of those probably wouldn't mind being off-radar.
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Hmm! Wonder what Sunstorm's going to look like, or does he actually have a real model?
Oh. A PPD awakened?
Wait, dude's actually PPD. This must be the version villains fight, since his AP civies look very different.
Oh. Hey there, AV.
Fortunately there aren't enough of us for her turbo heal to make her unfightable.
So, going through the clues, it looks like she... bonded to the most anemic Kheldian ever.
What, does she have eyes that can see the death of all things, or something?
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Oh. Okay. So the splinter 5th are going to get awesome space lasers. Well, maybe Galaxy-level awesome.
...I can't say that this is going to make them much of a threat? But given the sorts of things they'd do to get 'em I can see why Sunstorm is worried.
Heh. Oh, wow. I was expecting an ally to come with, and I cleared out the whole mission before I noticed the glowie tucked away in an alcove in the first room. Ouch.
...oh boy, it's a boss with rage. Autohit double damage for two minutes. That's a nice complement to my absolutely no resistances.
The walk out is really kinda harrowing. There's basically no room to dodge around the various enemies, the escort nukes any stealth you might have been running, and I was always worried that by going fast enough to not get mowed down I'd lose the kid.
It's definitely got the feel of an escape sequence, but if I wasn't running this solo some of those spawns would turn into a wall of human flesh.
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Storyline - ***. There are a couple things I have a problem with here. First, Sunstorm accidentally sends my contact into the exact camouflaged 5th Column base the raid comes from. That's some epic oops there. Second, I find it hard to believe that nobody in the Council or 5th has investigated what happens when the Kheldian a human bonds to is really, really weak, as that seems to be the only reason why anybody wants Alice to begin with.
Design - ****. The extra Galaxy troopers are a nice touch, but they only get used like once. I would've expected them to be working in Arakhn's base, at least. The 5th Column EB is a pretty nice clone of the 5th look.
Gameplay - ***. Rage is really just the "go stand somewhere else for 2 minutes" power for me, just because of how good the bonuses are to an NPC. That plus the missing an early glowie and clearing out the entire base looking for a hostage were the major frustrations. (maybe instead of a glowie, find her unconscious and escort her the 20 feet to the door?)
Detail - ****. Pretty solid, but I was expecting more of a custom bio on most of the boss spawns, like the "suspicious" freak and void slayer and the Dark Dwarf in the forest.
Overall - ****. Some of the gameplay harfs were just down to me missing something obvious, and the storyline isn't weak enough to pull this down too far. -
Tonight's arc: The Sleeping Star (53951). Verdict - ****. Review below in this thread.
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I kept writing arc reviews anyway.
And when I got back I updated the links in my sig so people can click them and refill my queue with more arcs to play. -
Quote:Quite possibly subjective, but the posts are defaulting to Arial.Originally Posted by TheOcho
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ARIAL.
It's cramped and tiny and hard to read. Can a brother get some font display options all up ins? -
@GlaziusF
Running on a high-40s brute who needs a couple bars. DB/Fire running on diff2 for actual bosses.
This really sounds more like Ouroboros material here. Especially since, uh, if this is so important, why keep it on ice for 7 years?
It makes sense if a time traveler recently intervened, though.
Im getting kind of a cheeseball 80s era vibe off the custom villains. Maybe because theyre led by the evil supercomputer from Captain Planet.
Really getting a cartoony vibe off this whole state of affairs, actually.
Hmm. Well, congratulations, youve got the second blue cave Ive ever seen in all the Architect missions Ive ever played.
are there other lieuts than the dark miasma guy? I only seem to see him around.
You know, if the ALL was hoping this would never be found, youd think someone in the mission would have said something to that effect.
Why does she want a book when the world is full of treasure? Why indeed, contact. Why indeed.
Man, if thats not a line leading into a Very Special Episode I dont know what is.
Liberty doesnt have a you lost me text, which is nice to have on a map thats slightly uneven like this outdoor one.
Fighting what looks to be a custom group thats some DE mixed with a splash of Rularuu - are you using specific DE or the random spawner? If its specific DE, you should probably be using the random spawner because there are some DE (I noticed some Deathblossoms and Granites) who dont give experience but still drop inspirations. Maybe theyre special trial spawns or something?
Anyway, the boss lady is a pretty nice fight though if she had elec armor as her aura suggested the anti-knockback part of it didnt seem to be working. But I have one suggestion for her powers. PLEASE drop Carrion Creepers. They stay up for a huge amount of time, even when the caster is dead, and never stop spawning little vines. I was five spawns away when I finally got the clue drop for her defeat.
Awwwww, not Red Atlas. Even though glowies are easy to find, bosses and allies like to hide in broken-walled chambers with smoke on top.
And the main enemy group is a bunch of high-level enemies, some of whom come from entirely different dimensions, thrown together for what the mission briefing as much as admits is no good reason.
Statesy, I know where the glowies are in Red Atlas, but just saying near the building doesnt mean much. Im surrounded by buildings! Some of them have fallen over! You can say near the ruins of City Hall and thatll work out fine!
oh, wait, this is modern-day Statesman jumped by these mooks? Not future implicitly-depowered Statesman? Last time anything held Statesman down it was an entire evil dimension.
So, last mission.
I really wish this custom group had another lieutenant. Stuff is packed so closely here that a hostage spawn has the very real possibility to put me up against more Fearsome Stares than I can carry Break Frees.
The stormer hostage is on the edge of a cliff. Because shes running Hurricane even though shes captured her guards are being blown down to the level below, and I have to act fast to wipe out the last one because his pathing back up only puts him not in range of Hurricane for about two seconds.
What can I say about the stormer? There are maps that ally stormers are good in. This is not one of them. Between the uncontrolled knockback and the sheer cliffs I wound up clearing out most of the valley even though absolutely no objectives were there, just because the stormer galed something down, all the allies chased it, and because of tornado/lightning storm/runners another group down below was alerted, and so on, and so on.
Her earth control primary doesnt necessarily bring that crazy knockback under control.
Given how much the nav bar wanted me to find Statesman, I was expecting something broken like extreme inv/extreme SS from the last boss. His actual powerset, I didnt really need Statesey to make much of a dent in his health bar.
Also, he gets flattened against the forcefield at the back of the graveyard by a gale in fine old Wile E. Coyote fashion.
Storyline - ***. And that kinda encapsulates my feelings about the arc in general and its story in particular. I cant take it seriously. But I dont know if Im supposed to. I would not be surprised at all to find that this is a bedtime story being told to Rose Jones, a 7-year old girl somewhere in Paragon City with a sparkly pink poster of Ms Liberty on her wall. It operates under its own brand of dream logic, which is the best way I can think of to explain MAL, an evil guy who sits around doing evil things and takes away the costume and swords from Rose Jones in the future so shell never grow up to be a superhero. (Theres a guy whos got a hate on for Statesman and put together his own band of nefarious no-goodniks and born malcontents in order to hand him his big red butt in a sling. His names Lord Recluse. And even if MAL has himself a time machine, he feels a little less than menacing next to our unfriendly neighborhood spider-man.) But if I am just a bit part in a bedtime story, Id like a contact who reflects that. Princess Bride-style, maybe?
Design - **. The lack of a second lieutenant in the custom group leads to waaaaayyyyy too much incoming fear. Most of the maps are pretty quiet as far as dialogue is concerned - the patrols dont talk, and even allies dont speak up when they get separated from you. And acknowledging that the future group is just a random mishmash doesnt really make it any less a random mishmash. Heres an idea for free - in the future there isnt any native life on this Earth. Visitors come to scavenge from other dimensions - the Rikti and Axis America and Praetorians and Rularuu and Psychic Clockwork and another dimensions Nemesis - but generally they dont fight because theres way more planet than any one group can salvage from.
Gameplay - ***. Pretty much down to the stormer adding 10 minutes of clearing in the valley by galing somebody off the edge and everyone chasing. Twice.
Detail - **. The smallest mook in MALs army of evil has a longer bio than MAL himself. That just aint right. Minions get a couple lines, the master has a history. A lot of the interactible objects are missing interrupt and completion text - the portal in the outdoor map has an empty interact bar. And Ms. Liberty flips back and forth between earnestly begging for my help in the pre-mission and snapping at me for not having finished yet when I bug her. It got to the point where I wondered if I was doing something nefarious for a villain wearing a clever disguise.
Overall - **. A simple story that really needs a better framing device, and some tweaks to make a more evenly weighted custom group and a less frustrating final mission. -
Well, good news! I kept up with this thread while I was away, so here are two reviews for two arcs!
Arc I: All Consuming (261148). Verdict - ****. Review in MA Forums Thread.
Arc II: In Pursuit of Liberty (221702). Verdict - **. Review below in this thread.
And... bad news. I have no queue. This probably won't be a problem tonight as I can't generally run arcs on Friday, but if I come up empty I guess I'll just pull one from the random on CoHMR. -
@GlaziusF
Playing this, perhaps inadvisably, on a mid-teens Peacebringer on diff 2. Lets see how it goes.
Ooh, its a swat guy. Hi, swat guy! He needs a description.
Alright, time to climb aboard a non-responding ship. This always goes well!
Huh. The Sky Raiders are handling these guys pretty nice. The force fields help even with radiation.
Ships really deserted. I like that wrinkle in I15.
The boss himself is a nice visual, though the self heal is a little annoying.
Interesting setup. Lets see where it goes from here.
Warriors warehouse, Warriors, various magical artifacts looks pretty standard.
Oh! Its that one lady from that one arc! Im not going to go inside my head again, am I? That was an arc-specific powerup, I think.
But okay. Smuggling irradiated meteor fragments from Bloody Bay in the hopes of
I guess thats what the rest of the arcs going to find out, huh?
Oh! This is going to be an interesting little diversion.
Heh. Yep. Tiny little monster stomp. Good times, good times.
Hmm. Technically, the bodies you go after here should turn on when you free the Chain guy, not when you click the coffin.
Any chance you could either pick a different map or cut down on the body count? It was really quite frustrating poking around that three-tiered room trying to find things hidden inside offices, behind desks, and under stairs.
Huh. When they were talking Moth Cemetary I was thinking of that one cemetary map with the moat and the island. Guess its just a cave? Just as well, I suppose.
Oh, I get backup from the Legacy Chain and the Midnight Squad on this? Keen.
Huh. I see the spectral Midnighter and I get all excited, like this is some specific dude, but his bio is very generic-sounding. Ive never encountered these things fighting the Midnighters before.
Hmm. Shamans casting and mooks digging. Did you put this together specially or is it one of the new Banished Pantheon in-mission animations?
Some more of that guy from the first mission, and then a boss room thats basically three mask fights, which would be kinda interesting if I hadnt already busted through a bunch of masks just getting here. Go go diff 2!
Storyline - ****. Solid, no real problems, but the one overriding question I had was how do the Pantheon plan to CONTROL the army of Shivans, exactly? I get that the rituals involved somehow and I know a SWAT guy wouldnt have a clue. Maybe one of the guys in mission 5 can drop something off. Also, while its fun to take down a big guy with some backup in mission 3, I dont really gain anything for it, plot-wise, aside from finding out another villain is busting out of jail, which is pretty much de rigeur. Im aware the Shivans are involved, I fought them in mission 1.
Design - *****. Good use of allies and empty space, and an interesting custom enemy, though theres just the one of them. (Well, two counting Mindskewer but Ive seen her before.)
Gameplay - ****. Rummaging around that three-tier room was just tortuous. It has so many little tiny missable places to hide things!
Detail - ***. I know youve got room for em, so why not give all your special allies/talky enemies little bios? Not the BP masks so much, but the Legacy Chain guys who serve as allies/hostages, the Warrior troop commander, the SWAT sergeant
Overall - ****. A couple little gameplay frustrations, a solid story that needs a little more polish, and a cast of characters with stock descriptions that I wanted to find out more about. -
@GlaziusF
Playin' on a mid-20s mind/kin controller, diff 3 not that it'll make much difference. Just wonder how it's all going to shake out this second time through.
Just to get a little meta in here, this kid's a very rough take on somebody from the Teen Titans cartoon.
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Thanks for not putting me into the training room, Coyote... but the malfunctioning training room is practically a staple of these sorts of things. How much space you got?
I don't know if it's something about her power set or what, but Manticora is first to get left behind and last to actually hit anything. Maybe it's just luck on my part.
Oof. This is a twisted little scheme here. I was going to make a joke about SZM seeks SLF for life-changing experience but then I saw the customs in the last room. Actual morbidity tends to put a damper on black humor.
Can they be boss-class? Lieutenant-class, at least? Miss Valk likes to put a throwing knife through their eyeballs at 50 paces and that has a way of turning a minion into a rapidly vanishing speed bump.
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Coyote needs a contact description, by the way.
Aw, Valk. I'm in a supergroup that I like too! :3
Shame these guys haven't farmed up enough Mechanical Lords faction to get their anti-mez trinkets.
Penny needs to mention her aura somehow. "Look guys, I know I'm glowing, but that doesn't make me an NPC!"
Kingy also needs to dip into the miasma a bit. "ZONE QUEST! 100 psychobrass pieces to whoever rids me of this bothersome Teen Phalanx!"
Loved the poster.
Hmm though. If this is supposed to be a Teen Phalanx arc, then aren't we in the future? Hasn't Penny grown up a bit by now? (I didn't check her description though.)
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Ah, monitor duty.
I still think that something in the base should be trying to eat me alive, though.
(Also think the note for Citadel 2.0 shouldn't seem to come from Kid Valk in the most bizarre team infighting ever. Maybe sign it "Longhorn"? That was the internal beta name for Vista.)
Irony Alert: Staring at the monitor for an interminable amount of time gave me the "Poor Impulse Control" badge.
(The clue from the monitor should probably also "come after" the contents of the lockers and fridge. I checked all of 'em first.)
...huh. Guess this is another bug with timed missions. When Clamor mowed down Kid Valk, the mission failed. Hoping they fix this soon.
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I didn't exactly see Clamor's confession, but in I go... and the first thing I wonder is, how much can you recolor these enemies to be "Citadel" blue and black?
Tactics + speed boost now that I have access to both of 'em is producing hilarious results in some of these big rooms - when I control a spawn the Phalanx just zips over to the next run.
And now Cora's a lot more eager to get into scraps. It's probably just the Tactics talking but it feels right for story purposes.
Vista himself gets shredded between the allies. I drop a Mass Hyp on his help and wait for everyone else to shred through 'em.
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Storyline - *****. My suggestions for things to add are... well, things to add. A mission where the training room goes hilariously wrong, a little more "in-world commentary" from NPCs in the World of Clockwork, the combined detritus of the base trying to rip my face off. The story as it is doesn't suffer from their absence.
Design - ****. Little things here and there.- Penny Yin's model not changing, the custom group of Vista's supporters being basically a brushed-aside afterthought with the Phalanx in full fury, the Vahz brides being too speedbumpy to really get a fix on (same's true of the roboPhalanx to be honest).
Gameplay - *****. Smooth. No backtracking. Interesting fights. What else is there?
Detail - *****. This is pretty solid too. About the only thing I'd ask for are more interesting bug texts from Coyote.
Overall - *****. No reason to pull it down from this, though. The idea's definitely made me want to see more of it get fleshed out, but there aren't really words for how stupid it would be to hold that against you. -
Tonight's arc: Teen Phalanx Forever (67335). Verdict - *****. Review in MA Forums Thread.
The forums will be down for a couple days, and I have a couple arcs to play in the meantime - they'll go up on CoHMR and then in a backlog post here once everything lives again. -
[ QUOTE ]
The strangest objection from reviews I've read is to stories that don't follow canon lore. Those reviewers seem to forget that AE is presented as a virtual world w/in a a virtual world. All the missions are supposedly training, which supplies Posi's (weak) in-game rationale for letting heroes run a villain created system.
I couldn't care less about any discrepencies from canon, esp. since canon stories are not uniformly high quality. The more a story veers away from dev canon, the more elseworlds it becomes. An imaginative alternate story can be more fun than slavish conformity to existing canon.
As an example, try running PW's Teen Phalanx arc. You will be entertained.
[/ QUOTE ]
While the Teen Phalanx is certainly not CURRENT canon, part of the reason why it works so well is that it's a plausible extrapolation. If it was just about a random bunch of teen heroes fighting a random bunch of villains it wouldn't be nearly so funny. Teen Phalanx makes use of what people know about the canon, and it's not exactly like I can leave any of that behind.
I'll assume that any explanation in the arc that conflicts with what I know is evidence of either incomplete information on the explainer's part or that something more is going on than what seems to be. This may conflict with the arc's presentation of the explainer as a trusted authority, or the chain of events as being nothing more than what they seem. -
Well, your queue's less than five now. Don't know if that means you're up for new arcs, but if you are, check out my sig. 1874 and 2180 are for sub-20 heroes, 5073 is for 20-30 villains.