Phoebe_Ponderas

Fixed up, the new ID# is 29825

If you get a chance, do let me know if you like the new version

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Arc Name: Shadowlight: Part I
Global: Phoebe Pondera
Arc: 20696
Length: Very Long
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 1-54

M1: Contains Boss (LT), Collection
M2: Contains Boss (Boss), Defeat All (It's a very tiny bank, not a lot of mobs to begin with)
M3: Contains Boss (Boss)
M4: Contains Boss (EB and Optional Boss, although the map layout can force you into fighting the Optional Boss)

Difficulty: Moderate (Bosses on M2, 3, and 4 are a little above the general difficulty curve)

Enemy Group(s): Shadowlight (Custom)

Summary: Time traveling thieves are stealing relics from the past. You need to retrieve those relics before they can be placed into the hands of King Staunton.

[/ QUOTE ]


Shadowlight, Part I review

Solo'd with a 50 AR/dev blaster.

Thanks for having the contact immediately explain who this new villain group is. Though ... how is this Time Crystal able to talk?

Mission 1

I'm a little surprised to immediately be placed in a Shadowlight base; with Shadowlight being a time travel organization, I was thinking a more logical story progression would have you time traveling to a time period where Shadowlight had been seen (or maybe recorded in history) and then trying to find a clue that would THEN point you to the Shadowlight base.

Pawn Swordsman description: "brunt force" I think should be "brute force"

I think it's odd that Rooks are described as having less defense than Pawns; since Rooks are "castles" in the game of chess, I would've expected them to have more resistance. Ironically, the pawns have a Rook symbol on their shields. I'm tempted to say switch the secondaries, but Rooks should really be resist based and not defense based; I picture a Rook as being a brute or tanker. If you had Knights I would give them shields though. You don't have to do any of this, it's just an idea.

High Rook Flarius: "High Rook" is an odd term, it breaks the chess motif you've got going. May I suggest you call him "King's Rook" or "Queen's Rook"?

I think I got two clues from this mission, both Data Files? Unless one of them was from killing the High Rook. If they were both from clicking the computer, maybe they should be combined to the same Data File; if one was from the High Rook, maybe it should be the High Rook telling you something.

Debriefing: "date file" should be "data file". "powerul" should be "powerful". "to dangerous" should be "too dangerous". The Time Crystal is able to read a data file? Seems a little odd. Maybe add some description for why a big crystal can interact with you like this (like the extra description the Radio has when you interact with it).


Mission 2

I don't think I understand why Shadowlight is robbing this bank. That seems a rather mundane crime for a time traveling organization. Since we are time traveling, rather than taking the artifact from the Knight who has it, consider having the hero go back in time just before when the Knight stole the orb, and foil the robbery. (Advanced Time Travel Technique, admittedly, but it makes sense, really!)

I notice that Lord Knight Tesla has the Orb of Tesla ... is he the rightful owner? If he stole it, probably it would be too much of a coincidence that they have the same name. Maybe call him Knight Electric or something?

I was worried about this being a defeat all but it seems a small map so it's not too bad.


Mission 3

Mission title: "Defeat the Knight" is a little too generic, since we just defeated a Knight in mission 2 also. Maybe change it to "Recover the Bow".

Again "Knight Robin" has a name that seems to too closely match the artifact he stole, Robin's Bow. Maybe call him Knight Archer?

Debriefing: Whoa, the giant Crystal took away my prisoner and is torturing him! Eep. I don't want to know how rocks torture people. This text seems kinda unheroic for a heroic arc also. Maybe just say that Sir Robin bravely confessed all he knew.

Mission 4

Briefing: The crystal keeps referring to the time gate but I'm getting the impression we'll never actually see it in this particular arc. So the crystal is sending me after the Arch Bishop in charge of the time gate, but he's not ACTUALLY at the time gate ... this description is a little awkward, may want to rephrase it some. Maybe something more direct like "Knight Robin has told us that the Arch Bishop will be at Such and Such a location at Such and Such a time. The Arch Bishop is one of the highest ranking members of the Shadowlight organization; if we can take him out, we'll deal them a serious blow." I'm not sure I'd mention the King and Queen if they aren't relevant to this particular mission or story arc. Also give some description of the location the hero is being sent to, the briefing as it stands tells you very little about where you're being sent. Maybe a little exposition about the magic pen would be useful too.

Popup as you enter mission: "Giant robots, mad scientists and a magic pen." Hmm, maybe I missed it but I haven't seen any references to giant robots or mad scientists yet?

I don't think I understand why the Bishop is holed up underground. It looks like he wants his worker drones to do some sort of work, but it's not quite clear to me what.

OK, after running into the Bishop, I now see he summons robots ... I'm not quite sure how having a magic pen lets him summon robots. Maybe it's something to do with Da Vinci. I think you maybe need some exposition from the Bishop explainining that he's drawing robots with his magic pen and they come to life, or something like that.

Yow, nasty Thunderous Blast from the Bishop killed me; I guess he is robots/elec blast! I think it's a fair death though, he IS the final boss of the story arc and the mission briefing was littered with warnings not to solo this. Managed to get him on my second try though.

I think this mission, as the final mission of this story arc, maybe needs a little more stuff to do in addition to just killing the boss. Maybe you could click some glowies (recovering other stolen artifacts) or something.

Debriefing: "commend you on your find work" find should be fine.


Overall: I like the new enemy group. They are so chess-themed though that I think they need a more chess-oriented name than Shadowlight. One complaint I do have is that for a story arc where you face time travelers, none of the missions seem to actually involve time travel! I think it would be nicer if you actually had to travel back to Robin Hood's time to stop the Shadowlights from stealing Robin's bow, and got to meet historical personalities and stuff. I think a little more explanation of what the artifacts are doing, via exposition from the NPCs or something, would be good too.

Liked it over all, I gave it 4 stars. Thanks!


----

I still owe a review to:

@Frozen Northman
@Benchpresser (2nd arc)
@Mylia Stenetch

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's see what I can counter, and what I can change.

The time crystal will actually be explained in a later Arc, but to sum it up for now. The crystal contains the united sentience of several people, hence why it refers to everything 'us' 'we' or 'our.' You'll also meet some of the people in that sentience in the second Arc.

As far as the base, I could change that by adding a new first mission to the Arc and having you intercept somebody on a time traveling run. That's not a bad idea at all actually, just didn't think of it. I'll go see about adding it...

Pawns having the shields was so that they would be a bit more dangerous in numbers and pretty much nothing else. I thought they would look good with weapons and that higher ranked mobs would have things better than weapons. Depending on further review though I could see switching things around a little. As is though I'm not sure I really want to oddly enough.

I could see giving Rooks a resistance set to make them tougher though. At the moment they use either:
Fire Assault/Fire Manipulation
Ice Assault/Ice Manipulation
Electric Assault/Electric Manipulation
I wanted to give them access to some elemental powers as well as AoE capability. They may end up getting a bit of an update though. Maybe give them matching elemental armor sets instead, and keep their assaults (or manipulations, not sure).

High Rook was all I could think of for a rank lol. I'll see about changing it to Queen's Rook, which makes more sense.

I have no idea why there is two data files actually. I'll have to go find where the second one comes from and remove it.

Robbing the bank is a bit mundane, I may switch it over to something else like selling a stolen artifact to another enemy group for cash. Again, something I wish I had thought of before.

As far as the Knights names, you don't know their names, so I just named them after the artifact they were carrying. I may actually give them some real names to avoid confusion.

As far as the tone for interrogating Robin...yea, that stays as is. It's done that way on purpose to show even the good guys may need to take harsh measures to ensure peoples safety. That, and the entity may not be as good as you think it is ~_^

You are right, you won't see the Time Gate in arc 1. The person behind it's creation is not at the base with the Gate because it's already done, he's working on a new project. In the briefing it does mention him building a new creation, as well as in his bio mentioning he is a scientist. The pen links in because it's magic gives him the inspiration to build the new giant robot (the pens power is inspiration to make new inventions). And yes, he is Bots/Electric Blast.

The Bots he summons are just more of those inventions. Checkmate being another (If you ran into him) and the giant robot being his big one. I can easily add some other things to the mission for people to do also, maybe getting rid of supplies or something.

Also, traveling back to stop him from getting Robin's bow might be interesting.

Basically I have a lot of work to do hehe.

Assuming your willing to re-run it sometime, I'll have it updated within the next 1-2 hours (maybe less). Thanks for the ideas!

[edit] Sadly I'm going to lose my current ratings, but I am changing enough of the missions around that I feel starting over (somewhat) is simply more appropriate than a normal re-pub. I'm going to be working on this one a while ~_^

Thanks, i'll see if I can find it

I didn't see that option anywhere...I must be blind. Where's that button hiding?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Also, if you really don't want to lower the difficulty of the AV, upgrading the allies to EB's (or maybe AV's) would significantly increase a solo's chances at survival.

[/ QUOTE ]
I have to disagree with this, because I think having EB allies just makes them steal the show and do all the work. Fighting EBs solo is tough, true, but inspirations are there to level the playing field, plus you need a reason to empty out your tray so you can earn those insp badges. :P

[ QUOTE ]

Quantum Cowgirl's description, "apropriate" should be "appropriate"

[/ QUOTE ]
I'M SO MAD AT MYSELF I THOUGHT I FIXED THAT

But thanks for the glowing review! I appreciate it a lot!

[/ QUOTE ]

True, you do have a point that EB's could make the mission go from challenging to cakewalk. On the other hand, even emptying out inspirations I couldn't touch States once he hit unstoppable, and he still got to one-shot both allies. By the time his unstoppable wore off and I could hurt him again, he had almost full HP and I had no insps.

Nice to know the AV's were dropped down a bit. I'll pop back in there later to give it a redo.

I read that you can re-publish without losing ratings to update your mission to get rid of minor bugs. I only ask how to do it so I don't accidentally un-publish it and lose the reviews I've been given so far. I really don't want to mess this up.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You need to make one of two things happen in your final mission I think. Either your allies need to become EB/AV's, or you need to create a custom hero instead of using Statesman. While anybody at high level shouldn't have a huge problem, anybody below level 40 getting bumped up hurts way to much. All of your missions up until the last one were designed for all levels in mind, the last one being designed for 40+ sorta throws off the flow of the story completely.

While Statesman is an optional boss, he ended up right next to the mission objective for me and so I had no real way of actually getting to the objective once he one-shot both LT allies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm really torn on this. For awhile I had Statesman and Maiden Justice as the "pet" level critters that you see in the Mender Silos TF, to make them easier, but I had a 5-player team tell me these Heroes were pushovers in this form. So I upgraded them to AV level heroes, but then a solo character on heroic can't really solo them even if they're EB status, so then it's too hard.

I'm thinking I will downgrade them back to pet level critters; I'd rather keep the story arc soloable. I'll try to change that now. Though if I make them easier I think I should put them back as required objectives; you really ought to beat up all the Heroes to officially Conquer the World.


[ QUOTE ]
In the final mission, the dialogue for General MacAurthur comes up like this:

"I hear the $name is planning to attack us. I'd sure like a piece of $himher!"

[/ QUOTE ]

Ugh, that really should substitute the player's name there. I'll fix it though, thanks for the catch!


[ QUOTE ]
Also.. might I suggest for the French at Dunkirk giving them Kinetics? Makes it easier for them to run away lol!

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm, good idea! I don't want to give the regular soldiers kinetics though because stacked siphon speed would wreck the players, but I'll change the bosses to use that. I'll change the French general to run away at low life too.

[/ QUOTE ]

The french running away sounds hilarious.

Also, if you really don't want to lower the difficulty of the AV, upgrading the allies to EB's (or maybe AV's) would significantly increase a solo's chances at survival.

On the other hand, I'm always in the boat of "To easy is better than to hard." If for no other reason than it gives more people a chance to enjoy the story. Once you do an update (and I get some free time) I'll be re-playing your arc.

Eh, why not? I'll toss this in here since there's such great reviewing going on. I do hope you at least get some enjoyment out of it

-----

Arc Name: Shadowlight: Part I
Global: @Phoebe Pondera
Arc: 20696
Length: Very Long
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 1-54

M1: Contains Boss (LT), Collection
M2: Contains Boss (Boss), Defeat All (It's a very tiny bank, not a lot of mobs to begin with)
M3: Contains Boss (Boss)
M4: Contains Boss (EB and Optional Boss, although the map layout can force you into fighting the Optional Boss. It can also cause the EB to be nowhere near the back end...not sure how I can really fix this though)

Difficulty: Moderate (Bosses on M2, 3, and 4 are a little above the general difficulty curve)

Enemy Group(s): Shadowlight (Custom)

Summary: Time traveling thieves are stealing relics from the past. You need to retrieve those relics before they can be placed into the hands of King Staunton.

-----

As you can guess, there is meant to be a Part II and III eventually. No worries about it though, each Arc (including the first) is a self contained story. No cliff hangers or anything like that.

I have to say "thirded" for that one :P I've got plans to test a few Arcs in this thread myself in the nearish future.

I did post an Arc, it's on the first page Shadowlight is mine, I forgot to put my global there

I don't mean never be controlled, just harder to control. Thanks for the response, i'll just deal with him getting juggled a bit then.

Eh, why not? I'll toss this in here since there's such great reviewing going on. I do hope you at least get some enjoyment out of it

-----

Arc Name: Shadowlight: Part I
Global: @Phoebe Pondera
Arc: 20696
Length: Very Long
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 1-54

M1: Contains Boss (LT), Collection
M2: Contains Boss (Boss), Defeat All (It's a very tiny bank, not a lot of mobs to begin with)
M3: Contains Boss (Boss)
M4: Contains Boss (EB and Optional Boss, although the map layout can force you into fighting the Optional Boss. It can also cause the EB to be nowhere near the back end...not sure how I can really fix this though)

Difficulty: Moderate (Bosses on M2, 3, and 4 are a little above the general difficulty curve)

Enemy Group(s): Shadowlight (Custom)

Summary: Time traveling thieves are stealing relics from the past. You need to retrieve those relics before they can be placed into the hands of King Staunton.

-----

As you can guess, there is meant to be a Part II and III eventually. No worries about it though, each Arc (including the first) is a self contained story. No cliff hangers or anything like that.

I made an EB in my arc and frankly, the guy gets his butt kicked by everybody. Short of giving him an armor power (which tends to make EB's very powerful from what I've seen) is there a way to prevent them from being completely controlled for the whole fight?

Well I played Axis vs Allies, here's what I got out of it.

A lot of fun, great story, costumes were appropriate if bland (but hey, it's the military so bland is accurate), and the mobs weren't to hard to take down. So just on the good points, it's easily a 4 star arc to me.

As far as some advice goes now.

You need to make one of two things happen in your final mission I think. Either your allies need to become EB/AV's, or you need to create a custom hero instead of using Statesman. While anybody at high level shouldn't have a huge problem, anybody below level 40 getting bumped up hurts way to much. All of your missions up until the last one were designed for all levels in mind, the last one being designed for 40+ sorta throws off the flow of the story completely.

While Statesman is an optional boss, he ended up right next to the mission objective for me and so I had no real way of actually getting to the objective once he one-shot both LT allies.

Also, Stalingrad is evil. Plain evil. Took 20-30 minutes to fly around the city and find the two people I was supposed to kill.

Still a lot of fun to play, but if your considering it, I recommend holding off until high level to play the Arc.

Arc Name: Shadowlight: Part I
Global: Phoebe Pondera
Arc: 20696
Length: Very Long
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 1-54

M1: Contains Boss (LT), Collection
M2: Contains Boss (Boss), Defeat All (It's a very tiny bank, not a lot of mobs to begin with)
M3: Contains Boss (Boss)
M4: Contains Boss (EB and Optional Boss, although the map layout can force you into fighting the Optional Boss)

Difficulty: Moderate (Bosses on M2, 3, and 4 are a little above the general difficulty curve)

Enemy Group(s): Shadowlight (Custom)

Summary: Time traveling thieves are stealing relics from the past. You need to retrieve those relics before they can be placed into the hands of King Staunton.

-----

As you can guess, there is meant to be a Part II and III eventually. No worries about it though, each Arc (including the first) is a self contained story. No cliff hangers or anything like that.

-----

I'll be checking out that Axis and Allies map pretty soon...that one sounds good right off the bat

I accidentally added some of the unique bosses into my normal custom group, so the mission likes to spawn when it has the option to spawn bosses in normal spawn points. Is there a way to remove the mob from my group? I currently have it in both my main group AND my unique bosses only group, so as far as I know it's even taking up double the space

I created a Super Strength/Martial Arts Extreme/Extreme EB, mostly for the purpose of self-testing what it would do. The thing hit like a truck (obviously) but without any defenses was pretty easy to kill oddly enough.

Mostly what I want to ask, do you consider bosses like this balanced? All offense no defense? Or is this a case of a mob causing almost no trouble for some, and endless trouble for others? I want my Arc to be a challenge, but frustration is no fun

I would love new zones to be added to villains. As is I have a massive amount of blueside alts and maybe...10 redside? It just feels like there isn't enough to do on the redside.

The big lesson I think the devs should have learned from blueside is not that we don't like having tons of zones, it's that we don't like having contacts who send us to different zones. Keep our missions all in one place and were quite happy to have lots of zones to play in.

At least that's how I see it anyway.

This is happening a lot with Werewolves for ToT right now. They will come out of the door, slap you across the face, then take off running. A few seconds later they come back, give you another slap, then take off again. Whatever they're slipping into their Kibbles I want some...

Very nice reward, only have to wait 30 months to get it. Not even sure why I look at these vet rewards anymore, I already know I won't be here two and a half more years

Still a really good reward though. I love vet rewards don't get me wrong but sometimes I wonder if they encourage people to keep playing or if they just crush our fragile little hopes :P

I'm all for the change. Anything that slows down farmers is fine in my book.

I'm all for PvP getting re-balanced to work for other ATs/Powersets, however it would have to make sure it did not harm the PvE game in the slightest.

PvE should never suffer because of PvP.