Supicous Glenn

I would like to add

When The Words Stop - arc #494099

It is a very creative arc with a surreal feel to it.

This is a great surreal arc. I am not sure I got all the little metaphors or even completely understood what was going on. There isn't anything wrong with this arc. This arc has great dialogue, custom groups, story progression, and choice of maps. It felt unique. This is probably because it doesn't lean on CoH cannon and might not even take place in reality as we know it. But like a good a reviewer. I will always find some flaw. At the end of last mission when you are escorting the doll person to the ending once you destroy the obelisk in the text you spell around as aorund. Other then that it is an awesome arc.

Review Blowback

43 Dom

Deaths 6 all on EB's

This arc starts well. Your custom group is actually more fun to fight then the standard Malta with their gun turrets that don't give any exp or die when their summoner dies or well...sappers. The dialogue is well-written and very cannon. Then around mission 4, you forgot what you were doing. By mission 5, you have so many EBs/AV's hanging around that the mission becomes impossible. I know what you are thinking. This could arguably be a group mission arc or a task force but you fail at that. You see a task force will have EB's and AV's spread throughout the arc not just in final mission. Task force are also have dialogue acknowledging that you are a team and not just a single person.

You have created an arc that starts out solo friendly and then becomes a team arc at the end. In doing so, you do not cater to anyone. Teams will find the first few missions boring while solo people will find the last mission impossible. Another thing is you need to do is space out boss encounters and never ever put a boss in the front part of a mission. Titans are a prime example of this. They were spawning as Lieutenants for me. They were difficult to kill because I am a dominator. I need to warm up for a few fights to build domination.


I think you need answer the question. Who is this arc for? Then spend some time either building it as

A) A solo friendly arc with no EBs and possibly some more allies and pets to fight with in the last mission. If you do keep the final bosses, please add some Vanguard super pets to fight alongside you to make this easier.

or

B) A task force arc with more EB's in the beginning and text a dialogue written to acknowledge that more than one person is fighting in the arc.

I rated this arc a three. Up until mission 5, this arc was getting a 5 star rating. You dropped the ball at the last mission and really pissed me off. Sorry but difficulty curves need to be curves not walls.

I am going to be doing some tweaks to my arcs this week. My second arc has yet to be reviewed by the club so if you are looking for something to fill the rotation feel free to add my arc.

Arc ID: 480712
Title: Tangled Vines
Factions: Arachnos,Freakshow, Rogue Isle Villains, The Whispered Hand, Blackheart Pirates
Morality: Rogue
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 30-54
Description: Amanda Vines has finally discovered an Arachnos plot so insidious that she now has to flee the Isles. Can she survive long enough to escape with most of the Rogue Isles gunning for her? [SFMA/SLMA/FHMA/]
Note: This mission uses many custom characters. You also get to see pirates and ninjas fighting!

Review for Welcome to the Magi

Overall, I think this arc is good. It could fit easily within the main game since it matches the gameplay, story and general feel of most CoH story arcs. My review might be a bit a lacking since I played the arc over a week ago and it really does not make any big mistakes.

Text- Great use of text and dialogue. Hearing the enemies talk about eating people and then not running into them for a few minutes creeped me out. This is a great way to make those lame and confusing cave maps actually fun. The text throughout the arc is a bit too wordy at times but I do realize you did this to advance the plot so it is fine.

Enemies- Good variety of enemies and good use of animations. Brightbone was difficult to kill. You might want to tone him down a bit. Brightbone also felt a bit out of place. I understand he was being mind controlled and that is all good but I was hoping for some big twist or reveal. I remember when playing CoH that the Circle were souls of wizards that had taken over the soulless husks of sacrificed victims and that the lost were being genetically transformed into the Ritki who were once human. This kind of reveal excites me. Having him just being mentally dominated by magic seemed boring to me.

Objectives- The last mission seemed a bit too big.

I rated this map 5 star. It was varied enough to keep me interested. I did not particularly care for Brightbone's character in both the story and in fighting him but there was a dozen little moments where you made all the non-custom enemies say good dialogue and play interesting animations. This sold the arc.

Thank you Jinken for reviewing my arc. The review can by as a bit scatterbrained but then I realized you are writing things down as you play it. That leads to my main problem with the arc. It has more twists then a pretzel wrapped in another pretzel. I did do some recent changes that make earlier parts confusing. I think I am going to make a flow chart and start cutting things that are unneeded to make room for what you said "foreshadowing". I'll take a look at some of the combat and see if I can wiggle those masks in on more of the cult. Thanks again for the feedback, I'll get started on my revamp soon.

For pictures, information and videos that have to do with Tangled Vines please visit my portfolio @

http://jgtogi.carbonmade.com/projects/3060183

Review: Viridian Awakening

Arc ID 457506

42 Fire/Inv Tank

No deaths

This is one of the few arcs that I felt deserved a 5 star rating. Not because of story but because the gameplay is extremely well done. You introduce something new and exciting with every mission. I like the progressive introduction of new enemies throughout the arc. Your objectives are always in the right place. The one main weakness of the arc is its story which I felt lacked character development and emotion.

Text: Color code Lyssa's text a different color then your player. I know you use the > sign to show that it is hers but this is way to subtle. You could also give your character and a Lyssa a chat name like you two are in chat room. ex

$Name: How did you find me?

Lyssa: that is not important right now.

Dark purple text is hard to read change this.

Story: You never seem to develop any sort of relationship with your contact and your contact lacks emotion and conflict. she doesn't seem to have any motivation for freedom. Your relationship is "Hey keep on paying me and I'll do stuff for you". By the end of the story arc you should have an idea of why she wants freedom. You mention first that she has a plan but it never develops as a plot point. The computer also becomes friends with you in the end but you decide to throw away the friendship for what arguably is no reason. Why have the player so detached from the contact and the contact so secretive about its goals? This single handled ruined the story for me and almost caused me to rate the arc down. Develop the story and characters more. This is your weakest link.

Enemies: Great use of progressive enemy design. Enemies were not hard and did not feel out of place. Your security guards especially feel well done. I hate seeing security guards throw fireballs or pick up large boulders and throw them at the player. Your last boss drains to much endurance.

Objectives: Great use of objectives. Some objectives in missions 3-4 seemed out of order but due to the limitations of AE this is understandable.

Locations: Lots of variety. Your maps seem to be to big at times. Mission 2 especially feels big. You could increase the amount of clues but I would just decrease the map size. Looking for 3 boxes in a large warehouse full of boxes is like looking for a piece of hay in a needle stack (yes, it is painful).

Overall, good work. Keep working on the story and this arc will truly shine. If you want to return the favor feel free to play and rate my arc. Post feedback here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=253977

Review

Arc #163274 - Return of the Three Fold King [SFMA]

42 Ice/Psi Dominator

I thought this arc was fun to play but also rather dull because of the cliche story and general lackluster look of the custom enemies.

Customs- You use the standard enemies quite well. there is a good variety in them but your custom group is lacking. The lemurians need more to differentiate themselves from each other. Your minions share the same head and similar robs. Why not vary their weight, height, clothes and dare I say make some of them female. I would make an additional 1-2 more costumes for each type of minion. this will add much more flavor to your custom group. Additionally consider making your lt.s and bosses larger so they stand above their peers.

The descriptions could use more details. Some are just recycled versions of another minions descriptions. It is boring to read the same sentence twice on a new enemy.

Mission 1's boss is invisible. Change this.

Text – You need more color coding. Some of your briefs are just walls of white text. I would color your heading blue and use green or orange to empathize certain parts of the briefs that you feel important. In the mission three text the words stones and hostages are needlessly capitalized. Mission 3's navigation has the hostages in lowercase while the rest of the navigation is capitalized. In the M4 intro the sentence with the orange text has two periods at the end of it.

Story - Your story is so horribly cliché that I rolled my eyes when I first read it. Get 4 runes and fight a evil threat to save the world. You need to rethink this whole concept. The runes need to be replaced with something else. 4 souls of the guardians of whatever. 4 crystals of each direction and element.( Stone of the Northern Cold, Western Sun, Eastern Wind, Southern Sea). 4 pieces of ancient sword that is the key ( the hilt, blade, scabbard, encrusted jewel). I mean you could think of anything more interesting than 4 runes. If anything fleshing out the items you are getting will make for far more interesting clue descriptions. Also it might be interesting if each rune had a unique boss. Perhaps the guardians of the runes have eternal life but they went on to support certain factions.

Details- Missions 2 and 5 felt bland. there was nothing in them to make them feel particularly interesting. that being said, there wasn't anything that was particularly bad from them either. Mission three had its hostage all look the same and give the same sentence when rescues. Make these three different hostages and give each a unique look and sentence. it will feel less repetitive that way. Mission 4 would feel a lot better as an Arachnos lab rather than a Rikti cave. One the other hand if you changed the Arachnos spawns with Ritki it could work and it would make for a more interesting story.

I gave this arc a 3 star rating GOOD. I did enjoy playing through it and it was free from bugs and errors. The enemies were balanced decently for me and I wasn't overwhelmed or bored by the combat. I felt it lacked the attention to detail to really shine as a higher rated arc. I also felt the story needs more developing. It is too cliché as it is. if you any question about the review just ask and feel free to rate my arc Tangled Vines Arc ID: 480712.

I have had this happen when I spam clicking the edit box. Try clicking once and wait for awhile. I have also had a problem with me saving an arc then going back into an arc to find what I did gone. This also went away when I just waited for little bit after updating.

Review: Spawning Chaos

Level 36 brute

Deaths none

Overall, I thought this was a fun mission. It did not do much to impress me but since I have played many MA arcs it happens. I did enjoy the writing of the contact. He sounded freaky enough without being too confusing. One thing I would change is the dark purple text. It is hard to see. In addition, the Freakshow tend to steal the show a bit. I would consider lessening them. They need a presence but they are a bit too numerous now. One other thing I would like to mention is that the places where these events are happening seem to jump back and forth from the Rogue Isles to Paragon City. Arcs do not really do this and it felt awkward playing through it. You might want to change the location of the second map from Sharkhead to somewhere in Paragon City.

Mission 1 – I ghosted through it so it was really abrupt for me. My suggestion would be to have an escort freak at the beginning that you had to take to the end to beat a boss. Then you could write in the story that you have freak usurping control. Heck you could even throw in your contact as the escort. It would make him more active in the story.

Mission 2- The red coral thing makes sense for freaks. I would add Shock Treatment, Doc Buzzsaw or the t3H S00p4rFr34k here as a surprise boss but other than that the mission is good.

Mission 3-Add Ritki patrols and battles here. You are in RWZ and need to show it. Take a walk around that area of the Mothership in RWZ to get a feel for what belongs there. You could say that the Vanguard took the area but it is the RWZ and the Vanguard should never be able to take the area hence all the RWZ raids. I would add several patrols of other groups such as Malta, Nemesis, Knives, Crey and/or The Council as well. If you give them some good patrol dialogue, this level would be fantastic.

Mission 4- This map felt entirely too large. Try making it a medium sized Tech Lab.

Mission 5- I thought it was well done. The freakshow boss helped immensely with final battle and the general feel of the level was great.
I thought this was a good 4 star arc. It is missing that extra flare to make it shine as a five star arc. The arc could fit within the main game easily. If you do those things I mentioned above, I feel this arc would easily be a 5 star arc. The missions could use a bit more detailing.

This is my second arc. I went for something very cannon and not so serious. I hope you all enjoy the arc and would love to hear what you think of it.

Arc ID: 480712
Title: Tangled Vines
Factions: Arachnos,Freakshow, Rogue Isle Villains, The Whispered Hand, Blackheart Pirates
Morality: Rogue
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 30-54
Description: Amanda Vines has finally discovered an Arachnos plot so insidious that she now has to flee the Isles. Can she survive long enough to escape with most of the Rogue Isles gunning for her? [SFMA/SLMA/FHMA/]
Note: This mission uses many custom characters. You also get to see pirates and ninjas fighting!

As far as I know you can't just make an ally appear wherever you want. You instead have to choose a map with a very specific front, middle, back area and then chain your glowie to a rescue objective with no enemies set to get it to work.

I reviewed this arc and left a review in the initial forum post so I guess I'll set this one out.

Thanks Coulomb2,

You make some good points especially with the progression of the story. When I get some time I am going to add some more clues to help flesh out the middle missions. I’ll also change the 3rd mission a bit to seem more like a raid on a lab. I’ll also take a look at the custom group as well. Alpha slots add a lot of power to a character but some of the regular groups like Crey and PPD for example are more fleshed out in the level 30-40 bracket. I still want to cater to 50’s as well since there are more of them but I cannot make a story arc that is balanced for both a level 30 and a fully slotted level 50.

Again thanks for the feedback.

I'd like to add my new arc.

Arc ID: Coming Soon (Servers Down)
Title: Tangled Vines
Factions: Arachnos,Freakshow, Rogue Isle Villains, The Whispered Hand, Blackheart Pirates
Morality: Rogue
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 30-54
Description: Amanda Vines has finally discovered an Arachnos plot so insidious that she now has to flee the Isles. Can she survive long enough to escape with most of the Rogue Isles gunning for her? [SFMA/SLMA/FHMA/]
Note: This mission uses many custom characters. You also get to see pirates and ninjas fighting!

Awesome, my arc was picked. I didn’t notice until now. This last two weeks have been really hectic for me. I was traveling cross-country from Florida to Arizona, dealing with the move and working on a content design test while visiting family. I have also finished my own beta testing on my new arc.

Arc ID: 480712
Title: Tangled Vines
Factions: Arachnos,Freakshow, Rogue Isle Villains, The Whispered Hand, Blackheart Pirates
Morality: Rogue
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 30-54
Description: Amanda Vines has finally discovered an Arachnos plot so insidious that she now has to flee the Isles. Can she survive long enough to escape with most of the Rogue Isles gunning for her? [SFMA/SLMA/FHMA/]
Note: This mission uses many custom characters. You also get to see pirates and ninjas fighting!

I feel that Tangled Vines is a better arc then my first arc. If you people want to provide feedback on that, I would appreciate it. Sorry if I am breaking any rules but Tangled Vines is a brand new arc and needs feedback badly. My One Night Bridge got an additional play over the last two weeks that isn’t stellar. I do realize the last two weeks have been crazy for CoH (More Alpha Stuff, double xp, server downtime) and people need a break from the club but any feedback on either arc would be great.

In any event, I am looking for forward to next week’s arc.

Mission Review: That Stinging Sensation

Arc ID: 482183

41 Ice/Psi Dom

Deaths 1 – One hit kill last boss

I do like the direction of this arc particularly the use of nonviolent missions. However, the severe lack of details makes the arc lackluster. The nonviolent parts need to be as engaging as the combat parts and the custom enemies need to be balanced to make them fun.

Nonviolent Parts- Add more details to the nonviolent parts! Clicking on 13 body bags isn’t fun. PPD Patrols could help immensely with this. Give them callouts as well that reveal details of what is going on. A PPD officer saying something like “There was no sign of struggle” or “It’s like they all died at once” could really add to the flavor of the arc. Make sure that not all the bodies look bagged and tagged. Replace some of the glowies with allied creeps playing the unconscious animation. Murder investigations include looking at the entire scene. Desks, computers and trashcans make investigating the glowies more interesting. You also need more clues. Ones that describe the scene better.

Combat- Your custom ally and boss are excessively hard. Downgrade them to regular bosses. The first time I fought the assassin he killed me in one strike. Not fun. He also is immune to any type of hold and can pop a tier 9 to make the battle go on for an additional 5 minutes. Not fun. I could only beat him by using the pet that you provided but the first time I encountered the boss I had not rescued the pet. Try chaining the rescue of the pet before the boss so that you have the appropriate back up for the boss.

In addition, the last mission takes place in the RWZ. This is wonky. Try putting it in one of the city maps.

Overall, I gave this arc a 3 star rating. It needs more detailing with its clues/descriptions and its combat needs balancing. It has potential to be a fun arc but to me it feels unfinished.

Just a quick add on some things.

My settings were 1 x 2 no bosses and no AV's. What this means is that for patrol, ambushes and bosses the bosses are downgraded to lieutenants but for randomly generated mobs the bosses are kept in because I count as two players. So, the reason why it was wonky for me was totally a settings issue and not a problem with your arc.

Also, I think you mention at one time that the Council existed before the 5th column which isn’t true. The 5th Column existed first then they were overthrown by the Council. The 5th is now trying to retake their holdings from the Council. It’s weird I know but it was a huge PR issue back in the day to have Nazi’s running around the city so the devs took them out and now that nobody cares they wanted to put them back in.

Some more thoughts on the arc.

I think you just have a lot of stuff going on at once. Hammer and Sickle both are defected soviets which isn’t really explored in much detail. I think the characters would have more weight if they were council villains turned hero. This would help tie in with the whole coup thing that goes on between the 5th column and the council. It would also help justify the third pet gun something (I can’t remember his name) for helping you. Maybe he wants to defect as well. As for the Drug and Toxic, this reminds of the vampyri, galaxy, warwolf style transformations. I would maybe see if that could be worked into the plot. Maybe Sickle did in fact want to defect but she was taken into one of these programs and is being mind controlled by the treatment. It might be a good a rescue this character before they turn into a monster ending.

Review: Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City

Arc ID 351727

Level 41 Fire/Invulnerability Tank

I couldn’t really get into this arc. The story seemed lack luster, the objectives were not all that fantastic and you used council and 5th column enemies throughout the entire arc (Which is essentially the same villain group). However, everything that is in the arc came out polished and that counts for a lot.

Story- The story is interesting although confusing at times. I think the overall theme has to be duplicity. This naturally lends itself to a confusing story. Many of your characters are turncoats but seem to lack justification on why they took this path. You mention their motives at times but you don’t explore their motives in any detail. This may be because you have so many characters that you don’t have time to delve deeply into any of them or it might be because you never meet the characters before they decided to switch sides.

There are many style issues throughout your arc. The most common problem is the gratuitous use of commas. It makes your arc a bit hard to read times. Examples are:

“This was supposed to be a simple, routine act of heroism.” It could be changed to “This was supposed to be a simple routine act of heroism.”

“I have not heard from them yet, and all of the Omniscients are busy.” It could be changed “I have not heard from them yet and all of the Omniscients are busy.”

Here is a good read on comma use
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma

You also use present tense at times when you should be using future tense. This makes some of your sentences sound awkward. Example:

“American Hammer and New York Sickle await your rescuing them.” It could be changed to “American Hammer and New York Sickle await your rescue.”

Gameplay- The gameplay is balanced throughout the entire arc. This is because you used standard enemy groups instead of custom ones. This is both a weakness and strength so I won’t go much further into it. Your few custom bosses are all spawning as lieutenants that may be intended. I felt it made the signature characters weak since I have bosses enabled and it would spawn random bosses stronger then the lieutenant you were suppose to defeat to end the mission. You have good objective placing and great use of pets.

I would numerical label your mission in the title or subtitle so we know what mission it is.

Objectives- You used decent maps and objectives are chained in a well. Many of your clues get jumbled up and it is hard to find which clues go to what. You might want to cut down on some them and find ways for these clues to be written as dialogue from enemies and allies.

Overall, I rated this arc 5 stars. You didn’t try something exciting and unique. This made the arc not that exciting to play while at the same time not frustrating in the least.

Review: The Rise of the Immortal King - A Tale of the First Invasion

Arc ID #479013

39 Ice/Psi Dominator

Deaths 3: Lt. with Electric Powers, The first encounter with the large mech, fighting the emperor

I have to say this is arc is challenging but doable. This arc suffers from an odd enemy set, bland story and severe pacing issues.

Story – I did not really understand the story. The aliens seem to lack motivation. They are not trying to kill, enslave or conquer the world they are just there. To me it felt like the aliens just appeared one day and nobody cared. This is most likely because of a lack of scripted events like battles, patrols and ambushes. It also might be your map choices as well. You might need more maps that look more damaged. Overall, though I think your story lacks a cohesive theme. What is the point of this story? What did I learn from playing this arc?

I would play some alien invasion arcs to try to get a better a feel for your story. Casualties of War Arc ID 241496 is an excellent place to start and the Apex Task force is another good example.

There is a typo on your cover page. It reads, “drive back the ir invasion”. If the ir is invading than it should read Ir Invasion if not that, it is just a junk word. In addition, Moment of Silence’s dialogue should be written as … and not a blank space. That way players don’t think his text is bugged.

Gameplay-The gameplay is awkward. It was frustratingly hard at times while at other times almost quit boring. The hard parts are mostly the large amount of elite boss encounters. This is particularly true of the third mission when you have an elite boss chained to a lt. chained to an elite boss. Why would I want to fight two elite bosses in a row? They are supposed to be difficult challenges that drain a player of resources (Inspirations, tier 9 powers, pets, etc.). So having two practically right after each other means I am facing the later elite boss with very little to tip the fight in my favor. The large Longbow mech has serious pathing issues and at times will shoot through walls or get stuck in doors. He really is not meant to be used in an indoor map. In fact he really isn’t meant to be used as boss but as pet for players to use to break bases in Recluse Victory. Why not just replace him with a PPD Mech or Malta Mech. He also is well way too hard in my opinion to take on alone without help. The last boss is difficult as well but since you can take with you some elite boss pets with you into battle it’s not a big deal. I still felt relatively useless throughout the final battle.

Honestly, I would like this arc a lot more if you just downgraded all the elite bosses to bosses. I understand you are making a challenge arc but you can reach wider audience if you can reduce the amount of orange flags on your arc.

The enemies lack details. Some enemies are just reskinned versions of other enemies. I do understand that aliens would have similar uniforms especially if they were in a military but there really isn’t anything to differentiate them from each other. Their names are quite confusing as well. I have no idea what what a WN, SJ, etc means without looking at the descriptions. Why not just call them common names like medic, commando, etc. It does not even make sense story wise. Why would I know aliens rank and honorifics if they were well aliens?

I would vary the size, costume pieces and overall look of the aliens. Look at the Rikti. They have armored aliens, unarmored aliens, small drones, monkeys, floating mechs, etc. You need that kind of variety to help the player immediately understand the threat they are facing.

Objectives- Your objectives are all over the place. If you are going to chain objectives off each other make sure you have them marked as front, middle, rear, etc. A great deal of the boredom in this arc comes from having to look through a cleared map for a newly revealed objective. I would have allies spawn in the front. That way they can help you with the numerous boss fights. Have secondary boss fights in the middle and your final boss fights in the rear. I would also consider making the lay dynamite in mission 2 optional. Finding 5 places to lay them in a large office building took me 40 minutes of running around the map. I almost quit because of it. I would also make some of the elite boss encounters optional. Also always give the player the ability to be able to exit the mission at the end of a mission. That is unless you put some ambushes or patrols to fight on the way back. Backtracking 3-4 floors with nothing happening is well dull.

Well this is probably my longest review. A good two hours of writing…sheesh. This arc has potential but it seems to fall short in many areas. I originally rated it two stars but since it looks like you are going for a challenge arc, I upped the rating to three stars. If you don’t like the rating republish the arc. I am your first rating so you won’t lose any numbers.

Might as well.

Arc ID: 477906
Arc Title: One Night Bridge
Factions: Council, Crey, Cult of Stars, Awakened Division
Morality: Vigilante
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 30-54
Description: The Peacebringer Tracer Brightstar is looking for Vigilantes to help her bring a rogue Warshade to justice. [SFMA][SLMA]

The idea that I mentioned earlier is used in the last mission in the Lady Grey Task Force. When you first enter the building, all those Rikti and Longbow are laid out on the floor. Yes, it would not work with patrols set in the same location. However, if you put the unconscious spawns in front and used up all the spawn points allowed for the front. Enemies would not have spawn places to spawn and thus would not be there to draw aggro.

Feedback Reply

Yep I am new to the AE but I have been a level designer for years.

I love critics; they let me know my faults.

As for the cannon debate, I did mark my arc as cannon related so I expect every Red Shirt Guy out there to tear it to shreds. I did spend a considerable amount of time revamping my arc. I think I got rid of all the errata. Off your recommendation, I reworked the 4th mission. I reduced the map size and gave every boss a call out so the bosses are now harder to miss. The 5th mission has been completely redone as a choice mission. I have to say I have been having a blast play testing it. I did go through all of the dialogue several times. I rewrote whole sections of the dialogue to be clearer, added more color-coding and fixed numerous grammar and style errors.

As one of the first testers, your feedback is invaluable and has already helped with making this arc much better. Thank you.