Kong_Fuu

It's not like there's an entrance exam for the Isolators or anything. We take anybody who is willing to show up once a week to play their character.

A pair of bosses should be possible, although probably not as an ambush. You can create a boss kill objective and then create a custom group that just has exactly 1 mob: the single other boss. then set that custom group as the escort for your first boss and set the spawn size to small.

Teams may still get multiple copies of the second boss, but them's the breaks with the MA system.

You can have the boss objective spawn after completing a different objective, and with careful map choice, you might be able to get him to spawn in the same room (this will take trial and error as the spawn at front/middle/back flags only work sometimes, so you'll have to play around with maps until you find one that works), but you won't be able to make them auto-aggro on the players.

[ QUOTE ]
Pain Doms been out for almost 6 months... and you are just learning about the buff from Share Pain the buff from the rez is insane.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, sorry for not rolling characters with every single new powerset the instant they're released Scooter.

It's not like you would notice it on teams, since only the caster gets the buff an they're not so big as to be immediately noticeable.

From what I've seen, a favorite farmer tactic is to make groups that have nothing but bosses. I'm not sure why (better ticket rewards over time maybe?). I haven't really investigated the farming stuff too much, just what I hit when I was trying for the early bird badge.

I noted with some amusement that the defeat-all Voodoo complained so bitterly about in my arc has maybe 10-12 spawns in it total.

I couldn't come up with a good story reason to make it not a defeat all though, so I hope it's not too onerous for everybody else (who isn't Voodoo).

Edit: Voodoo may have blinded me by causing my eyes to roll so violently with this post. vvvvvvvv

Any arc I give a 4 or 5 star rating to in here can be considered recommended.

Missions where you have to rescue Evil McEvil from something, and it turns out that shock they are evil and turn on you once you get to the mission door.

Well, I know the reviewers are swamped and may never get around to it, but I'd like to toss my mission into the pile for review:

Arc ID: 40686
Name: Go Go Chromatic Rangers
Alignment: Evil
Approximate Runtime: 30-45 minutes
Notes: 4 missions, 1 Kill-all, 1 EB/AV Fight
Description: Stop a world bending attack by some colorful heros

"Find 60 glowies", or "rescue 27 escorts" are defacto defeat alls IMHO. Sure you might be able to skip a few groups here and there, but in practice you're going to be fighting most of the mobs on the map.

I'm more worried about the "find lots of glowies on this huge Orenbenga map", because those are the ones that will find a new clever hiding spot for one of them and I'll spend 10 minutes combing the map from back to front looking for the stupid thing.

A story driven reason for 60 glowies? It had better be a damn good reason.

From what I've seen, the "players choice" and "dev choice" are pretty much just whichever missions were posted first. They are not of a lot of use finding good arcs.

The reverse of that statement is also true: When you got nothin' you got nothin' left to lose.

[ QUOTE ]
This entire thread makes me sad. Everyone is of course entitled to his or her own opinions and to state them publically if he/she chooses. However, I feel this thread is going to cause nothing but hard feelings for people who have put a lot of thought and effort into their work. Also, it is going to discourage people from playing certain arcs... oh it was only given a 2?!? I'll skip that one. I'd much rather see in depth critiques delivered to each person rather than in such a public way.

I'm sure other people feel this way, but I will probably be the only one to voice this. As a last thought, don't play my arc please, you won't like it.

[/ QUOTE ]

On the other hand, I don't want this thread to turn into DeviantArt, where everything, no matter how crappy, is praised and as a result even more crap is posted, praised, etc...

The end result is a site with a signal to noise ratio so low that it has to be expressed in scientific notation and a userbase that is, in short, full of itself.

As harsh as it sounds, sometimes the most accurate feedback is: Your work is terrible and you should be ashamed.

Also, don't be mistaken: My only goal in this thread is to tell you what I think of an arc, not to act as some sort of MA consultant. I'll give tips and hints if I feel like it, but I'm not going to try to rework every arc I play.

Another note: When testing your arc, try it with at least a couple of different characters. Sometimes you won't notice something on your first playthrough (or a bug won't manifest) because your character masks it.

I tend to go into arcs optimistic and work more on a demerit system:

Demerits can be awarded for:
1. 2 lines of text for the mission sendoffs "I need you to go kill some guys, ok? I think they're in a building or something."
2. Poorly thought out/incomplete custom groups (only one kind of minion? and it's just a PPD guy? No Lts at all? Custom mobs with jeans/t-shirt costumes, generic names, and no description?)
3. "Excessive" custom mobs. Oh wow, every LT can one-shot a stone tank and everybody has Rad and Dark debuffs...
4. Storylines that I can't figure out. I'm not a dumb guy (despite what some people may think), and if I can't figure out what you're trying to say in the mission text you're not going to get good marks. Frequently this appears to be a result of people trying out different things with the MA (different objectives, chain objectives, etc...) then trying to shoehorn in a story at the last minute. Farming missions get massive demarks in this area, although I've only run into one mission so far that I think was a farming mission (Nothing but bosses that had nothing but melee attacks on an outdoor mission and basically no text).
5. Excessive time wasting glowie hunts/hostages/escorts. If you're putting more than a handful of glowies in a mission stop and ask yourself "Are people going to enjoy playing a 'find 33 bombs in Orenbenga' mission?". These aren't TFs, there's no need to pad them out for length.

Basically, you are going to lose stars if at any point I go "this is bullcrap". Be it from the story, or from the mobs/map design.

That said, there are some things that score bonus points for me, including witty or humorous text, particularly well designed storylines, and well designed custom groups. Good map selection also helps. Clever use of the objectives to actually make the mission exciting is nice as well: Case in point: The last mission of Calash's arc.

FWIW Voodoo, when I changed around my custom mobs I was forced to depublish and republish my arc to have the changes actually take effect. That's why its arc ID is so high, even though I originally published it on the day I14 went live. Changing the mobs in the mission and just republishing didn't do the trick for me.

The Middle EB was also a pain to fight because he kept popping his Tier 9, on his EB hitpoints. :/

Combined with the ambushes that would triple stack Fearsome Stare and an ally that died in literally 30 seconds it was a tough fight. I had to go back and stock up on breakfrees. It was kind of like fighting Hamidon. You'd get him down to a quarter and the big ambush (5 or 6 Lts, a few minions) would show up, and you'd have to stop to fight them, while you're doing that, RttC is healing the EB back to full so you have to beat him down again for the next ambush, and even when you're beating on him he's popping his Tier 9 regularly to drag the fight out even longer. It was a long fight.

The middle EB (AV?) also rezzed.

Also, please don't take it personally, like I said, it's just my opinion based on my solo playthrough. You'll notice in the "official" MA review missions that what's 1 star to one playtester will be 5 stars to the next. I would be delighted if someone came in after me an did a second opinion playthrough of all of the arcs.

Also: I play all of the arcs at Difficulty 4, just because many of them come with basic groups and my build is a little too powerful for basic groups at level 1. This means sometimes the missions are too hard (5 lts in every spawn at level 13...), but that's the way it goes.

You might try putting it in the blue text. It's less obvious that way, but it's also not as weird. Downside is that blue text shows up in the combat spam window and people will likely miss it, but since it shows up 4 different times maybe not.

Voodoo: Sorry, but the storyline wasn't really notable either. Serviceable I guess. BTW: you know you can restrict the powers mobs use by setting the difficulty, right? In many cases the difference between Hard and Extreme is the self rez and maybe one other power.

Also, if you want your missions to be reasonable don't give too many of the mobs Buff/Debuff powers, and certainly don't set those mobs on extreme. Just like how an 8 man all defender team will steamroller over most content in the game, a villian group where large numbers of the mobs have buff/debuff powersets will completely crush players. It's up to the mission architect to keep the challenge reasonable unless they're building something like the Arcaniaville scrapper challenge.

Arc 17006: End Game - Final Moves
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Notes: Nice theme on the custom group
Overall: This is a great arc. Good balance, good storyline. The last mission is quite exciting too.

Arc 6015: Coming Unglued
Rating: 4/5 stars
Notes: Minor nit: The green text should be what I'm saying back to the contact, not what they're telling me.
Another Minor nit: It is weird to have a box tell me how I'm feeling.
I really don't need a dialog box telling me to go back and talk to the contact after every mission.
Overall: I really liked this arc. The storyline is straightforward and the challenge level is quite reasonable. With a couple of edits here and there I would rate this a 5 star mission.

For some reason Part II is not showing up in the MA list. This space reserved for it when I figure out how to locate it.

I don't consider an arc "done" until you've filled out all of the details, fleshed out groups, played it a few times and balanced it well, asked yourself "do the extra 10 glowies add anything to this mission?" IMHO, it should take at least an hour to make a mission good enough that I would advertise it for other people.

Also, please don't take my ratings personally, I'll try to be honest, but these are only my ratings. My style may differ entirely from yours.

Anyway:
Arc 9028: The Rise Of Evil Part I
Rating: 3/5
Notes: First Mission: The custom group consists of only a single type of mob (Paragon Police Officer), which is a LT that stacks cascading def debuffs at level 13.
Second mission: Just Minions and mostly Bosses in this one, still level 13. You had better have your mez protection on this map, all of the bosses are mezzers. You'll get an ally though, and the ally can solo the entire map if need be.
Fourth mission: Just because a map can handle a lot of glowies doesn't mean it's a good idea to max it out.
Overall: There's at least some storytelling, and there are some interesting maps, but it feels like it needs the hand of an editor. Do we really need the last two missions to end in the same way? Why am I forced to hold the idiot ball to keep the story going? I would have liked the custom groups to have a little more variety (at least one minion, lt, and boss), especially if you're just using pre-build mobs.

Next up: Part II!

Edit: Venture reviewed the same arc and gave it a much harsher review.

Arc 18911: What the Vudu?!?!
Rating: 2/5
Notes: "A minion is not a challenge...", Most of the MA mobs appear to be set on Hard or Extreme, including the Dark Miasma users.
Overall: Brutal. Between the stacked Fearsome stares, the Elite Bosses set on Extreme (self rezzing), and the rather large ambushes by mobs with debuff powers this is a tough arc to solo. You get help, but the help is mostly useless sadly. None of this would have been a huge problem, but the text was spartan and many of the mobs didn't even have descriptions filled in. With a bit more fleshing out and perhaps some rebalancing of the custom mobs it could be a good arc.

Arc 8486: Save Voo.Doo Company
Rating: 2/5
Notes: Very limited custom group
Overall: Bare bones arc, disappointing.

Arc 6788: Bad Bad Bad Bad Boys
Rating: 3/5
Notes: annoying map, way too many objectives, super gay.
Overall: Other than the overly gay themes it wasn't too bad. Decent use of multiple objectives for a mission, but the map was annoying. Clearly not aimed at my demographic, but otherwise reasonable.