jbrass

I went away for a while and came back to see that my original "Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Boys" was well received.

Then I accidentally deleted it. Oops.

Anyway, I was planning to beef it up a bit, so it's now a three-mission arc.

ID 412378
Name: "Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Boys"
Villainous.
Recommended 25 and up.

Feedback encouraged. I have a hard time determining the difficulties of mobs. My villain is a mastermind. My hero is a SR scrapper. So it's hard to really tell how dangerous minions and such are.

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was going for "uber gay" not "super gay," so I may need to tweak it.

I've been focusing on the "serious" stories so I haven't done anything with the feedback on this one, but I may set it up so that the second and third objectives pop in a fixed area, if possible, and let the player know in mission text so they know where to go.

Amusingly, this mission has gotten more plays than the ones I've spent hours putting together. Of course. But everybody deserves a little eye candy. I'll probably end up doing an even gayer sequel to it eventually.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Since I was one of your early reviews, I thought you might be interested in the next chapter I've been working on and published tonight.

Arc Name: "Nothing Left to Lose"
Arc ID: 83170
Faction: Villain
Creator Global/Forum Name: @jbrass/jbrass
Difficulty Level: Medium (Optional AV at end)
Synopsis: Sequel to "Nobody of Consequence" (7780) -- You're asked to find the link between a new hero on Rogue Isles and Black Scorpion
Estimated Time to Play: Three missions -- 30 to 45 minutes

Only three missions for this one. Gave me a little more breathing room and able to more adequately explain what's going on without worrying about the memory limit.

I have issues that I don't believe the final mission works the way I want it to. I won't explain why so as to not direct your experience.

[/ QUOTE ]


Mission 1: We start off with an interesting premise: low level villains banding together to overtake their bosses, but then the plot seems to get overly complex bringing in some other groups. The mission itself is fine. there are 2 custom bosses to defeat, neither were very difficult - your standard boss. The clues and the wrap up text didn't reveal much.

Mission 2: Storywise, this mission is just something to do to distract Black Scorpion. The mission itself was pretty fun though, with a variety of objectives.

Mission 3: Well the story picks back up here and does a pretty good job of tying things up heading into the mission. It makes me want to find out more about the Undestined One. I don't know if it is me, you or a bug on the map, but I heard the glowie loud and clear and search for a good 10 minutes, never to find it. I had to quot the mission.

Overall, this had potential until I was unable to complete it. For now, I have to give it 3 stars. If it turns out to be a bug, or just my stupidity, I would give it 4. If you can fix this or give me some help here, it could very well be a 4 star arc.

[/ QUOTE ]

It would have to be a bug. I tested that mission many times to work out how the spawns should be. There are two glowies. One is mandatory, one is just for more info. I even used a fixed map, rather than random caves to try to avoid problem. I did notice that sometimes the computer would spawn right up against the central cave columns in dead ends and could be tough to see.

Not sure if this one has been noticed. I made an AV with Mind Control as her main power set in the MA, standard difficulty. I tested her with my level 50 super reflexes scrapper on the lowest difficulty (so she was an elite boss). Her mind control attacks seem to have a 100 percent hit rate, even with elude running. Her secondary set, fiery melee, missed every time. But mind control never missed. I tested a couple of times and never saw her mental attacks whiff.

I am pretty sure I've fought other mind control bosses on MA where this didn't happen, but I can't be sure. In fact I have an LT in another custom group with mind control as his main set and he seems to miss at the normal rate.

The arc with the uber-mental AV is 83170. Her name is Myriad, spawns in the third mission. Fortunately she's an optional boss.

Not sure if this one has been noticed. I made an AV with Mind Control as her main power set in the MA, standard difficulty. I tested her with my level 50 super reflexes scrapper on the lowest difficulty (so she was an elite boss). Her mind control attacks seem to have a 100 percent hit rate, even with elude running. Her secondary set, fiery melee, missed every time. But mind control never missed. I tested a couple of times and never saw her mental attacks whiff.

I am pretty sure I've fought other mind control bosses on MA where this didn't happen, but I can't be sure. In fact I have an LT in another custom group with mind control as his main set and he seems to miss at the normal rate.

The arc with the uber-mental AV is 83170. Her name is Myriad, spawns in the third mission. Fortunately she's an optional boss.

Since I was one of your early reviews, I thought you might be interested in the next chapter I've been working on and published tonight.

Arc Name: "Nothing Left to Lose"
Arc ID: 83170
Faction: Villain
Creator Global/Forum Name: @jbrass/jbrass
Difficulty Level: Medium (Optional AV at end)
Synopsis: Sequel to "Nobody of Consequence" (7780) -- You're asked to find the link between a new hero on Rogue Isles and Black Scorpion
Estimated Time to Play: Three missions -- 30 to 45 minutes

Only three missions for this one. Gave me a little more breathing room and able to more adequately explain what's going on without worrying about the memory limit.

I have issues that I don't believe the final mission works the way I want it to. I won't explain why so as to not direct your experience.

Arc Name: "Nothing Left to Lose"
Arc ID: 83170
Faction: Villain
Creator Global/Forum Name: @jbrass/jbrass
Difficulty Level: Medium (Optional AV at end)
Synopsis: Sequel to "Nobody of Consequence" (7780) -- You're asked to find the link between a new hero on Rogue Isles and Black Scorpion
Estimated Time to Play: Three missions -- 30 to 45 minutes
Link to More Details or Feedback:

I just want to say, curse you for introducing me to TV Tropes. It almost makes me want to craft an arc with as many different tropes I can squeeze in.

Wow, thanks for all the analysis. I wasn't expecting that much.

As I suspect, the way it ends is all a bit confusing. The original concept for the arc had you being used as a sort of trojan horse to provide information to Longbow/Myriad without Loomis getting his own hands dirty in case things went wrong. He had you "installing viruses" on computers on the ship, but it was really loads of his data on the villain groups. I ended up having to cut that out for space (the arc is sitting at 99.74 percent full). It was also supposed to be clear that he decided to help Myriad after he read through the stuff you collect in Mission 3 and it struck a chord with him. But I'm afraid that wasn't presented too well. (Also, he wasn't betraying Myriad. I guess that was ambiguous too from Myriad's comments. You were the ally he was betraying to get in with Myriad's crew).

(Yes, Lamont was an ally for those who might not be able to solo Myriad)

I played PUG Hell. Thanks for the reminder as to why I play a scrapper on COH and mastermind on COV an have nearly no TF/SF badges.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'd like my villain arc "Nobody of Consequence" (ARC number in sig) reviewed if you have time. Your Brute should be able to solo it.

It's an arc introducing a new group of "heroes" in Rogue Isles who have (I hope) an interesting origin. You, or course, are there to stop them.

One annoyance -- the first mission pits you against Crey and for some reason when you do the mission at level 50 all you get are frost and voltaic tanks. It gets a little tedious, but I did the mission on a level 44 and it had much more variety.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mission 1: Good mission. Great boss and nice setup for the story

Mission 2: Typical council map with council enemies, but really annoying leading three hostages all over that fairly large map.

Mission 3: I love the medium sized maps, which I think this was. Just the right amount of work to complete a mission. Your custom group is great and fits the story perfectly. What's on that server?!?

Mission 4: OK, the final boss was very cool and it was a good battle. To be honest though, I defeated her and then did not finish the mission. Its a big cargo ship loaded with longbow and is a defeat all. Just being honest, but that is no fun at all.

Great story, great custom characters but the hostage part and the final mission were downers. I gave it a 3. then after I rated it, I wished I gave it a four because it was only 2 things that were bad out of the entire thing - and those things are maybe just my personal preferences.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now I shall have to destroy you! Just kidding of course.

Since you didn't finish, you never got the final encounter with the contact, which is somewhat relevant. But I realized now that with all my changes to the arc, there's actually no longer a reason to have a defeat all goal, so I can take that out.

I'd like my villain arc "Nobody of Consequence" (ARC number in sig) reviewed if you have time. Your Brute should be able to solo it.

It's an arc introducing a new group of "heroes" in Rogue Isles who have (I hope) an interesting origin. You, or course, are there to stop them.

One annoyance -- the first mission pits you against Crey and for some reason when you do the mission at level 50 all you get are frost and voltaic tanks. It gets a little tedious, but I did the mission on a level 44 and it had much more variety.

I would definitely like a review of my "Nobody of Consequence" villain arc if you're interested (Arc# in my sig).

My concerns are whether Mez effects are balanced in the custom mobs (I play a SR scrapper and a mastermind, so it's really hard for me to figure out balance there with testing).

Storywise, I'm curious as to whether the plot direction makes actual sense and whether the motivations of the custom heroes you fight are clear (Had to cut some stuff out to get it under max storage).

Arc Name: "Nobody of Consequence"
Arc ID: 7780
Faction: Villain
Creator Global/Forum Name: @JasonBrass/JBrass
Difficulty Level:Medium -- 1 EB, 1 AV (Ally on AV mission)
Synopsis: A raid between villain groups leads to an new, unexpected group of heroes on the Rogue Isles.
Estimated Time to Play: 4 missions, 75-90 minutes
Link to More Details or Feedback: Myriad and Perpetrators Unknown

Arc Name: "Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad, Boys ..."
Arc ID: 6788
Faction: Villain
Creator Global/Forum Name: @JasonBrass/JBrass
Difficulty Level: Easy (1 EB)
Synopsis: Forget those sleazy succubi. What about the incubi?
Estimated Time to Play: 1 mission, 45 minutes

(This fun one will likely be of particular interest on this server. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)

Arc Name: Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Boys ...
Arc ID: 13382
Faction: Villain
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Havoc Hunter1 / JBrass
Difficulty Level: Easy
Synopsis: Tired of the sexist attitudes of the Circle of Thorns, a sorceress offers you riches in exchange for helping her enslave the succubi's sexy, dangerous male counterparts, the incubi.
Estimated time to play: 1 mission, 30 minutes.

This one's for 90 percent of the ladies and 10 percent of the men, heh heh.

This one was just for fun, though I might expand it if people like it:
Arc Name: "Sexy Evil"
Arc ID: 9263
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @havoc hunter1/Jbrass
Difficulty Level: contains two triggered AV/EB. You'll be told of the triggers when you take mission so it's not an ambush.
Synopsis: A fun outdoor mission revolving a bunch of selfish supermodels who have turned to crime to get anything that can't get with their good looks.
Estimated Time to Play: 1 mission, outdoor Steel Canyon zone.

Fun for all orientations

In the event my arc is to long for you, I just added:

Arc Name: Myriad's Rebellion
Arc ID: #7935
Faction: Villainous
Creator Global/Forum Name: @havoc hunter1/jbrass
Difficulty Level: Don't know yet
Synopsis: Arachnos needs you to stop Myriad and her crew from raiding yet another base for equipment. Defeat all + EB + AV, but short map
Estimated Time to Play: 15-20 min.

Arc Name: Nobody of Consequence
Arc ID: 8835
Faction:Villain
Creator Global/Forum Name: Havoc Hunter1/Jbrass
Difficulty Level: Dunno yet.
Synopsis: "A typical case of Rogue Isles industrial subterfuge escalates into something completely unexpected when some start to realize that crime only pays for certain people."
Estimated Time to Play: Four missions, medium-sized

Level 30 up -- particularly looking for folks levels 30-40 to analyze balance of the custom heroes in mission 3. Theres one EB and one AV. I plan to use these guys for future arcs if I get good responses. I posted the arc last night but nobody has played yet. If it helps, the AV at the end is really sexy!

Edit: After some self-testing, I shortened the first map and republished. It was a little too long for that mission.

Perhaps they need to set up a different filter for custom critter names, because seriously, you can't copyright the word "gambit," nor any other word. Perhaps Marvel or DC will introduce a new hero named "The" and destroy fiction entirely.