Talen Lee

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Damsel in Distress

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No, a Mary Sue would be causing distress for the would-be kidnappers.

[/ QUOTE ]Piffle. A mary sue can be a DiD by dint of being someone that everyone wants so badly that someone oversteps their boundaries and claims them by kidnapping. Then everyone in the world, no matter how disparate they are or how much they hate one another, will unite under the banner of Let's Rescue The Mary Sue because they all wuv her sooo much.

When they do finally rescue her they'll find that she'd just talked the kidnapper down from what he was going to do, and that she then stops the vicious sock-beating of the kidnapper from ensuing because:[ QUOTE ]
"He did what he did out of a love for me," Tyffani Picard-Rabbit said, sighing sadly for yet another man overwhelmed by the strange, down-to-earth, simple charm that she offered, as she hugged her wave board to her chest, glad to once more be in the company of friends, "Can you really blame him?"

Sonic, Riker, and Eddie Valant all stopped quiet at that, knowing, as they looked down at their feet, that they too could have been in Sylar's shoes... with just the wrong incentive.

[/ QUOTE ]I don't read fanfiction and that seems a fairly obvious and intuitive application of the trope.

I know. I'd like to think that because the writing in my arc is about twice as good as all but the very best stuff I've seen in the MA, it shouldn't need it. But alas, it does. And that's where the ego kicks in.

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I guess my only reason at this point for not doing it is ego. It sounds very self-serving to me.

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Well I'm happy that your free time is worth less to you than mine is. Forbid that someone ask for a little something in return, but that makes them egotistical apparently.

[/ QUOTE ]You just love your misinterpretation.

The only reason I DO NOT DO THE SAME THING is my OWN ego.

... I'm not saying it's a bad thing.

I guess my only reason at this point for not doing it is ego. It sounds very self-serving to me.

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The QPQ seems like a kind of automatic quality reassurant,

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I don't know what you're trying to imply there.

[/ QUOTE ]That you're only going to get people submitting their arc for trial who actually want to put forth the effort of doing YOUR arc, so you're going to get fewer trials from people who care more.

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You know, I'm honestly surprised, looking over it, how many of the review arcs have the caveat 'If you play my arc.'

Anyone else have an opinion on that? I'm kinda curious about the impact.

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It has two impacts:
1) It gets us more feedback on our own arcs as well.
2) It keeps our queues smaller as people essentially have to pay for their review rather than going around trying to get as many freebies as possible. It also means that once you give me feedback on one of mine your arc review is guaranteed to happen and won't get lost in a flood of submissions.

And even with the QPQ requirement I still have over a dozen arcs in my queue at a time. That doesn't include the list I'm building of arcs that were never requested but I might decide to review anyway if I think its great or could be great with some improvements.

[/ QUOTE ]I don't have to worry about my queue being large - I've noticed that after I called Vandem's arc a pile of self-indulgent [censored] people have been quietly reluctant to actually ask my opinion on things, and the Circuit Boy malarkey compounded that.

The QPQ seems like a kind of automatic quality reassurant, but then, so does the Queue system. I don't review as much as others because a lot of the time when I use MA I jump into an arc I haven't had thrown at my feet, and then decide if it can be useful to bring to people's attentions either how good or how awful it is. More often than not I find there's an incredible about of utter [censored] piled up in the tubes and that there's pretty much no reason to tell people that it's [censored] because to anyone but the nine utter idiots who 5-starred the arc it should be obvious. What do you do?

I'm opinionated and happy to be so, but I just as much have come to be of the opinion that an audience has to be considered when you spout, because as much as I want to tear apart certain arcs in what I think of as a wholly reasonable way - like, say, the two missions of Circuit Boy's I played, or that terrible (not Mr Squid's) religious arc which was all about rescuing satan from angels (heroic arc, no less) - it just doesn't seem the kind of thing that's worth bringing to people's attentions. In turn, I haven't been aggressively advertising any of my stuff - I've two arcs up right now, one because I haven't been arsed to take it down, the other because I like playing it - so I can hardly be surprised when they go un-run.

What that convinces me is that the rating system is completely useless for naturally supporting good arcs, since there is a lot of [censored] that's high-rated, and even DC'd or HoF'd. What is important in getting yourself at the top of the ladder, getting badges and tickets and a big fat ego, is just how shameless you want to be in pimping your arc to people.

I may just be in a bad mood right now.

You know, I'm honestly surprised, looking over it, how many of the review arcs have the caveat 'If you play my arc.'

Anyone else have an opinion on that? I'm kinda curious about the impact.

I don't have a queue. I have a heap. A little heap right now.

Arc 36861 - Heroes No More?
Rating: ****

I'm just diving in this time.

The hitlist from my notes runs as follow: There are custom NPCs, there are dialogue problems and a few elements of typo. The enemy groupes are known, predictable and honestly kinda boring. There are some holy-[censored] rooms where everything goes wrong. This arc is, using my experience as a baseline, difficult. It's also got a plot that will probably leave some really smart or psychic characters frustrated, and the level range isn't fixed. Plus, the crescendo of the arc, due to the nature of the Mission Architect is basically a no-XP zone.

I ran this arc on Saxon Valiant, a level 29 Shield/Super Strength tanker. He has only SOs in his powers. He is, in my opinion, a good example of a solo character. His damage is best focused in single targets, which means smaller spawns are good. He doesn't have a travel power, he's quite survivable, and he moves at his own pace. I play him on the second or third difficulty, because that gives me latitude to turn it down if it's a problem. The arc recommends being played on difficulty 2 or more. There is your field of comparison. Using just Sos, on a solo tanker, solo difficulty, I found this arc difficult. I did die a few times.

The nature of the mission architect is to hand to a storytelling public the means to tell stories. Some of those stories are going to be determined as good or bad based on individual tastes, and some are going to be determined as good or bad based on arbitary techincal guidelines. Sometimes those ratings can be weird, or arbitary, and this rating is no different.

This is a hard arc that's a well-done example of something I didn't enjoy. That's weird to say, since I four-starred it, right? The thing is, the arc has a lot of good elements to it. There are a lot of bosses to fight. There's a difficulty modifier for an arc element that is, by definition, over an individual's head. While I'm not a fan of that element, certainly not for solo play, it's still there, and still handled well. Some of the difficulty was coincidental, I know. A slow on a shield tanker with just SOs can lead to mez protection being dropped. That's just a fact I deal with, and that hole leads to a chance to be mezzed. If I'd known I was facing that, I'd have packed Break Frees. And the arc does, properly, build to a crescendo.

Due to the arc being a Mission Architect arc, there's an unfortunate twist, though. Without giving too much away, this arc has a lot of stuff I like that would, conventionally get a lot of XP, that unfortunately, doesn't. Saxon was not great at getting in quickly enough to get 'his share' of the XP, which meant that for the last mission, I really did feel like I was carting things around and watching them unfold. There was nonetheless, a feeling of drama, a feeling of tension.

Despite all this, it was easy to feel the arc had worn me out - I did actually take hours at it, discussing minor things with the author. Nonetheless, a fun arc with clear characters that suffers some power issues and focuses in a design mindset that's not bad, just different. If you want a challenge and a plot at the same time, with a big, dramatic conclusion? This is a great place to go.

I really am sorry about the rating. It's clearly not a badly done arc, a bad arc or features bad themes. I just don't enjoy that kind of theme and I think that the reason I find a problem with it is because well, as I said, horror and superhero don't blend together well because they play on utterly different fundamental bases.

As far as caring more about the contact, I really think the first step is going to be in giving him more of a name, making him more than just what he does.

Arc 12285 - Small Fears
Rating: ***, with caveats

I really agonised about this arc review, and its rating. As I write this, the 'submit a rating' window is still open.

Giving a rating for me, is not a simple matter of weighing pros and cons. There are factors. Silly as it sounds, a reasonable author is a factor in itself. If I've spoken to the author about problems in the arc beforehand, and then played a (fixed?) arc, it weighs on my mind. In that case, it means small problems will wind up going away. It means that, for the most part, the author will take quickly to improve things. In the sense of due diligence, I'd go through and re-play the arc to bring its rating back up. Good and admirable sentiment, but when I'm doing this for fun, that level of journalistic integrity means I have to play through something again only to find I might not like it much at the end?

This means that an arc's author is a factor to me. If I feel I can trust the author to make good changes based on feedback, or at least to have a well-reasoned attitude regarding the rating I offered and principled reasons for why they choose what they do what they do. If the author comes across as needing a lot of guidance, then I'm willing to offer it and try again later. If they're a jerk, chances are they're not going to care one way or another about my opinion. I guess this is basically another point indicating that my personal application of the rating system is bad.

This makes it hard to rate. There's some stuff that I wouldn't do in this arc, but that doesn't make it flawed. So let's set some stuff on the table outright. The arc doesn't do anything with level ranges beyond what I'd call an agnostic treatment; that is, nothing in this arc cares about your level range except the stuff that has to. While I could pick this arc as being important, being of a particular range, there's nothing that anchors it there. The compass text gets all mankey, and there are some typos and bugbears drifting through the arc. So, the arc has problems - as you can probably affirm with the 3 star rating.

The arc is a horror arc, a genre that I think doesn't form a solid pastiche with superhero stories. Superhero stories are generally about an empowered individual taking on odds that are beyond the scale of mortals. Horror stories are generally about a feeling of helplessness and weakness, a sensation of facing down a threat that disempowers. These two elements might sound like they should contrast well, but they tend not to, in my mind; rather, one overwhelms the other. In this arc, the horror elements are all directed towards a third party, a third party who, while interesting, I didn't find empathetic. Basically, the person you should be scared for is someone you might not like. Well, I didn't like him all that much. So it was something of a wash there. I felt this is a shame, because, much like in I Know What You Did Last Summer, everything else was well-phrased and well-handled. The bad guy was menacing, the settings were well-done, the scenes were well-acted, I just happened in that case to hate every single person I was supposed to fear for. This arc had the same problem: The suffering party was just humdrum to me, which meant the other elements of the arc suffered.

The custom enemy group is well designed. The maps are well chosen. The dialogue is, for the most part, solid, and most of the improper English feels appropriate because it comes from the mouth of unnatural elements. So why the agony about the arc?

Because there's a line as a reviewer you have to draw between 'I liked the arc' and 'I didn't.' I didn't like the arc much. There are elements that are, as I have come to consider them, stylistic choices, that I simply don't enjoy. So yes, I give the arc three stars, but I think that a lot of its problems that are anything but stylistic are going to be worked out in time. The author gives me the impression he cares enough about the elements that make this arc that, maddening as they are, he's going to make what's technically wrong right, and will hone what he has, rather than discard it to move on to other projects.

So, the short list: Good maps, good mission variety, good use of triggered events, good custom enemies, good monster info. Unforunate choice of plot type, surprise EBs, and the compass text needs a lot of work.

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Um, yes it is. Just because someone else can do something does not mean you can.

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No, it's not an answer.

[/ QUOTE ]Yes, it is. It's not the answer you like, but it's the answer for the question you asked.

'The devs did it' does not make it good writing.

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Since you seem incapable of reading or basic comprehension skills,

[/ QUOTE ]Now, now, you know that's not true.

I answered a simple question in isolation that I feel needs reiteration, and still do. Do not use the writing of the devs as justification for your own.

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Um, yes it is. Just because someone else can do something does not mean you can.

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No, it's not an answer.

[/ QUOTE ]Yes, it is. It's not the answer you like, but it's the answer for the question you asked.

'The devs did it' does not make it good writing.

It's telling us they're important rather than making them important. It's telling us they're cool rather than making them cool. It's telling us to like them, rather than making them likable.

And many things besides.

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If they can do it, then why can't I?

[/ QUOTE ]Precedence is not justification.

[/ QUOTE ]That's not an answer.

[/ QUOTE ]Um, yes it is. Just because someone else can do something does not mean you can.

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If they can do it, then why can't I?

[/ QUOTE ]Precedence is not justification.

Due to my reviewer mood being thrown so hard, I was actually going to go through the whole thread and pick up numbers once more. Today I got nothing to do so I was figuring I'd get some arc on once I'd done some roleplayin' with friends.

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Council Marksmen have these horrible Cryo round bullets that slow you down a lot. If you get 2 or three of these in a spawn and can't manage to stop one or two of them quickly, they can all but shut down your recharge. They really should be limited to only one Marksman per spawn, like Sappers are.

[/ QUOTE ]... Because we all know how difficult council are.

*nod* 32 and 38 can often be very big difference 'flash points.' But good to know.

Before we deal with the other possible sources of fuss, Squid, would you say these arcs are soloable by, say, a Bane? An SO'd scrapper? And what's their level range?

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So we're all stupid?

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I said nothing about anyone being stupid or even suggested that in any way. If you feel stupid that is your own thought. This is just my opinion on the set.

[/ QUOTE ]The argument runs:

A: Here is proof that Energy Assault is not as good as the other assault sets
B: You just don't know how to use it
A: ... Uh, okay?

If you need your assault set to provide you mitigation, you're not paying attention to your primary.

I actually think that the heroic arcs offer the right frame for things, but most of the content used to fill those frames suffers from a lot of flaws.

15976 - Glory Days
Rating: ****

I'm beginning to think I should make a compilation of threads about arcs that people should play, just to steal from them. When I was more active in the modding community for various video games, I was always impressed with some of the changes people made, not because they made the game fun but because they used the game in unexpected ways, like changing the genre wholesale, or adding an element to the game mechanisms that had previously been completely neglected. I remember a beloved quake patch that turned Quake from a side-scrolling shooter into a brutal pit-fight against monsters, where you could fight them for upgrades to your very self. I thought that that was brilliant even if, in hindsight, it was prodigiously easy.

I think it's things like this that show me that I perhaps overvalue ingenuity. Sometimes arcs will latch on and give me something in them that I really enjoy and appreciate, even if the arc as a whole has things in it that I wouldn't generally see as a good thing. This meandering trip down memory lane of a sad boy who can still remember Quake mods from 1995 but didn't learn about World War 2 until he'd left school brings us sharply back as a framing device to this arc. Not coincidentally, the entire reason I use that phrase is because that's what this arc has - a framing device.

Now, let's get the warning bells ringing good and loud from the outset: You're tasked with talking to X, and every mission you do happens to feature X except the last one. The mission arc culminates with a bank job, which can be very down-scope for some people. I imagine as a level 50 hero this would be quite the anticlimax. The mission arc features enemies used before and enemies that are not exceptionally interesting barring for a custom NPC boss. The mission features a custom NPC boss who may or may not be a massive pain in the [censored]. I don't know - I wiped the floor with him using Operative Gallows, a level 31 Bane Spider. Clues aren't really used, and finally, the arc's level ranges are pretty much completely untouched.

Okay? Yes, I know these are things I've railed against in the past, but this arc uses them well, or at least, not conspicuously. For a start, the NPC is useful, but not overwhelming. He can't do everything without me. Indeed, without my help, it would probably be a long, hard mission for the guy. The groups being boring is secondary to the plot at large, because this really isn't an arc where you're trying to go over every detail. Clues aren't used because they're totally unnecessary. The plot is like a...

You know what it is? This is like a clip show. This is like the episode of Spiderman where he relates about Uncle Ben, three or four short story-lets from his past that let him focus on the task at hand. It's that framing mechanism that I love in this arc.

The stuff that's bad in this arc is generally inoffensively bad. Dialogue isn't bad enough to be memorable at being bad. Characterisation is memorable enough that I can describe the characters easily but not so nuanced that I really felt affection for them. The characters really heeded the advice in Ocean's Eleven: 'He has to like you, then forget you, the second you leave his sight.'

The one sticking point of the (minor) flaws with this arc is that the level range is mostly unheeded. For once I found myself in an arc where I was hoping for something to play with the level range; low-level when you start out, medium level as it progresses, high at the obvious point, and your 'real' level when you finish. Given the scope of such things, though, I'm not sure how appropriate that could be - after all, 'back then' most of the high-level threats didn't exist. Malta, Longbow, Rularuu... not even Arachnos really existed in those days. Certainly not any of our usable, handy enemy-bandwidth groups. I could even imagine a way to do it.

Anyway. The arc is fun; it's well-put together, it's well-written and if you like the kind of story, it works well as an arc that's part of a career. There is too much writing in the mission architect that seems to assume it's either the most important thing you've been presented with, or that your hero is somehow bouncing from crisis to crisis. This piece presented to me a much more workday option for a hero. Someone who does some detecting when they're not just kicking faces in. Someone who has to stop bank jobs, who understands hostage situations. Somehow, when the stakes are shy of 'The entire planet' there's a lot more ability to connect to them.

Run it. It's good.

You should not be surprised when you receive a response of an overwhelming 'meh.'

SOs are the public transport of city.