I'll try yours if you'll try mine

Well, with Two Tickets To Westerly taken care of, I suppose it'd only be fair to ask for a review of Malta: Impossible (378274).

You don't actually fight Malta and it's not impossible, so two words, two lies. New personal record!

I played Two Tickets to Westerly, sent you a message about it i believe. If you have a spare ten minutes, I'd love to see what you think of

Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 by @MrCaptainMan

It's a one-mission, ten minute timed arc for lvl 5-10 Heroic characters (although higher level heroes are of course eligible too, it's not really doable on toons of lower than lvl 5 without faceplanting, which spoils the story somewhat.

If you could avoid spoiling the post-exit surprise, I'd appreciate it

Eco

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

The Galactic Protectorate - 05 review
Arc ID: 304290
Keywords: Challenging, Custom Characters, Save the World
Morality: Neutral
Level range: 40-54
Warnings: AVs, EBs, custom power selections

The premise is to help an alternate reality version of Swan battle alien invaders and rescue one of her teammates. I played a 50 MA/SR scrapper on default difficulty.

[5.0] points to start with.

Mission 1
Briefing: a couple of paragraphs of catch up on the story, then the contact says she wants me to investigate "another hidden base" where the patrols look like the group that captured Mynx. She wants me to investigate it.

[-0.01] Writing: "You're becoming something of a legend over here! Every day since I've joined the Olivia Q Freedom Fighters" ... considering they have renamed their resistance movement after me, isn't "you're becoming something of a legend" a strange (and maybe self-evident) thing to say? (It also feels weird to have the resistance organization named after me, when most of the Freedom Phalanx and Vindicators is also in it, and they seem to be the leaders.)

Inside the mission there are enemies in the group "GP - Division 8" which appears to have sonic powers as their theme.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "soundwaves that are so tantalizing and spicy" ... describing sound as "spicy" seems very peculiar. (In Planetary Pyrodancer's description.)

[-0.1] Costuming: The various mobs really don't have costumes that seem consistent with the idea that they are alien invaders belonging to a military organization. For example, Starlight Songherder is dressed as a cowgirl; most of the other mobs look like they're dressed to go out clubbing.


Some call her the space cowgirl

[-0.5] Game balance: all the mobs have sonic debuffs and a large number of them seem to have buffs (thermal, sonic, cold) and heals (thermal, empathy). As a result this enemy group seems much too powerful; against a mid to large sized team, their stacked buffs and debuffs would be devastating. I'd recommend removing the buff/debuff sets from the minions, at the very least.

Found Computer 1, which gave me "Planetary Judgement: Consideration" that gives me some back story about why the Galactic Protectorate has invaded.

[-0.01] Difficult to believe: While I appreciate the attempt at explaining Cosmic Crewmaster's thugs powers, her background info about recruiting random criminals while singing in underground cabarets, then bringing them on military duty, seems extremely implausible to me.

Found Computer 7, which gave me "Planetary Judgement: 'Earth': Irregularities" as a clue.

Found Computer 5, which gave me "Planetary Judgement: 'Earth': Lord Cosmic" as a clue.

Found Computer 4, which gave me "Planetary Judgement: Enactment (3/3)" as a clue.

Found Computer 2, which gave me "Planetary Judgement: Enactment (1/3)" as a clue.

Found Computer 6, which gave me "Planetary Judgement "Earth": Occupation" as a clue.

[-0.1] Editing: although I like getting some background information from these clues, I feel that the 7 clues present here ought to be edited down to be a bit tighter. For example, you have 3 separate clues from different glowies explaining the legal basis for motioning for consideration of Planetary Judgement, and 2 separate clues explaining the reasoning for the number of divisions sent in the invading force. I think this could be explained more briefly while still effectively communicating the idea that "Galactics decided your civilization sucks and needed to be invaded for your own good."

Found Main Computer, which gave me "General Sonica's Log". Apparently General Sonica is a valley girl-sounding person who is miffed at having to cancel a concert appearance due to being given a military assignment.

Found and defeated Base Commander, who spent the whole fight singing song lyrics.


The Base Commander

[-0.5] Thematic issues: OK, I get that Division 8 is sonic themed, but I feel like their obsession with musical lyrics and concerts really conflicts with the idea of the Galactic Protectorate invading Earth and keeping the Human Resistance under its iron heel. I think you could make a very funny and entertaining "Spacegirls gone wild" story arc with some of the ideas here, but I don't feel like this really works together with the more serious theme of the alien conquest and occupation of Earth.

[3.77] at end of mission 1.


Mission 2
Briefing: the contact basically wants me to beat up more Division 8 personnel in hopes of learning something about where Mynx is.

[-0.01] Motivation: the motivation behind this mission seems rather weak; I just defeated a whole mission of Division 8 enemies, what makes us think defeating another mission full of Division 8 people will do any good? However, the send-off message does add some urgency to the mission which helps motivate this better, so I reduced this to only -0.01. I do think the briefing could benefit by moving some of the "Oh no! Psyche and Manticore got ambushed!" text into the briefing, rather than leaving it for the send-off message.

[-0.1] Inconsistent: Mission title is "Discover Mynx's location", but Swan actually said we're going to Steel Canyon in order to give Manticore and Sister Psyche some backup. Also, why don't we have an objective to rescue Manticore and/or Sister Psyche when we enter the mission? That's what we're here to do, after all.

[-0.1] Mission objectives: I have "Defeat Col. Dore, Defeat Col. Mifa, Defeat Col. Sola, Defeat Col. Tido" as mission objectives, but none of these names have been mentioned before this; Swan didn't tell me these names. So why do I know I need to fight them? I'd recommend reducing this to something like "4 alien commanders to defeat" or something.


I had to kick his butt after he said this.

Defeated Dore, Mifa. Rescued Swan and Ms. Liberty; the mission is so large that I leave them behind, though, since otherwise I'd have to clear every single mob on the large outdoor map.

Defeated Sola; while fighting her she says:

[NPC] Col. Sola: Hey, do you really want to start a fight with me? I'm alot stronger than I look!
[NPC] Col. Sola: Geez, you sure can take alot of punishment, huh? Most of my enemies would be ashes by now!

[-0.01] Typo: "alot" -> "a lot" (twice in Sola's dialog)

Found and defeated Tido which finished the mission. Tido spoke with an unusual number of ellipses in his dialog, but I thought maybe this was intended to depict his manner of speaking. Completing the mission gave me the "Strange Media Device" clue. This clue shows a countdown to General Sonica's concert.

I had thought Sonica's concert was canceled due to having to guard Mynx, but reviewing the dialog and clues, they only said it might be canceled. But it looks like the Show Must Go On.

Oddly, never found Sister Psyche or Manticore, who the contact said I was supposed to be providing backup for. Possibly the briefing should be rewritten to match what happens during the mission. (Already flagged this under "Inconsistent" so didn't mark off points again.)

[3.55] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: General Sonica has been forewarned of our attack, but rather than cancel the concert she's beefed up security. So the human resistance will be battling the concert security while I break in, rescue Mynx, and assassinate the general.

[-0.01] Typo: "eminate" -> "emanate" (in mission entry popup)

Searching the dance rave map I find General Sonica and battle her.


Right before the concert was officially canceled due to a terrorist threat

I kinda like that she has delaying the concert until she can get revenge on me for beating up her friends, but really, how was she going to hold a concert when the rest of her band isn't here? She gives me "General Sonica's Parting Words" as a clue, which seems to foreshadow a great disaster about to occur to the human resistance.

Found and rescued Mynx, finishing the mission.

[-0.1] Gameplay: This mission really seemed too simple, especially for the finale of the arc. The boss and the hostage were the only objectives that I found and the only ones with any dialog.

Debriefing: decent conclusion, then lays groundwork for the next story. I like the way the distress call(s) are presented. I normally would consider this a dangling plotline that isn't resolved, but it is intriguing enough that I thought it was positive.

[+0.1] Neat final debriefing.

[3.54] at end of mission 3.

Overall
The arc mostly followed the formula for Galactic Protectorate arcs thus far; structurally it was very similar to the others. I did like the very end, which seemed to lay groundwork for the final arc.

For this arc in particular, I felt there were game balance issues with Division 8; in my opinion, the mobs have way too many overlapping buffs and debuffs that would be devastating to the average team.

I'm afraid I also found the spacegirl rockers theme to be a little silly. This isn't inherently a problem, but it's sharply at odds with the more serious tone of the GP's occupation and brutal suppression of the human resistance. It felt to me that the space rock star concept would've been better served in an independent story that could be a comedy that focuses on that idea; it seemed like an awkward fit with the alien occupation and hero extermination story.

Anyway, rounding 3.54 up, I gave this arc 4 stars.

----

My queue is now:

StyrofoamKing - one of Save the Villain #364597 (N1-54), Shadow of the Red Death #367071 (H5-40), Betrayal in Rome #369445 (N35-54)
@Gypsy Rose - Suppression #374481 (H5-10) (played, need to write up notes)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290 (N40-54)
@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54)
@Peregrine Falcon - The Hidden Hand #374410 (H30-54)
@GlaziusF - Malta Impossible #378274 (H46-50)
@MrCaptainMan - Storming Citadel #379488 (H5-10)

Thanks for the great review of "The Galactic Protectorate - 05", PoliceWoman

I never really intended for the 8th Division to come off as "silly space rockers", but I can see how you might come to that conclusion. To be honest, the 8th Division of the Galactic Protectorate WAS much more "traditional" in its dress code and internal policies when the previous general was in command, but (as I tried to establish in the brief amount of dialog she has in the arc) Sonica has much more of a "laid back" attitude with her subordinates. The result, of course, is the "lax" appearance and "shallowness" of all of the members of the current 8th Division. To be fair, I did try and design each enemy in the group to reflect a specific genre of music; I'm not sure if you caught that or not. I put references to all of this in the descriptions of the "Satellite Sirens" and the officers in the group, but I understand how easy that can be to overlook.

Oh, by the way, you seem to have the wrong Arc ID# for my next arc in your list. It should be Arc ID# 355068 for "The Galactic Protectorate - 06" I look forward to your review of my next arc!

Here's my arc:

Arc Name: Three (working title)
Arc ID: 382760
Faction: Heroic
Synopsis: 12/9/04. Paragon City suffers still from the Rikti attacks 3 years ago, many remain homeless, cowering from innumerable threats. This is the story of one such individual who lived in the darkest depths of Paragon, and through him how the populace's ignorance almost lead to their destruction.
Estimated Time to Play: Very Long (there is also a great deal of text to be read)
Notes: Read the Still Busy text if you can, I think it adds a great deal to the story. Well, in Missions 1 and 2 at least. After that you can probably leave it if you want. I especially wasn't a big fan of it in Mission 3. Also, because of the sheer volume of text - especially if you find all the optional clues - this may take some time.

I'll get on to playing Two Tickets to Westerly now.

I played Two Tickets to Waverly, enjoyed it thoroughly. Some niggling little bits about formatting and some confusion going into the last mission (who is doing what? Why are you at the apartment?). I also dislike level reduced scenarios. All that said, I still gave it 5 stars.

Please check out my arc:
War Against the Undying One, Part 1/3: Challenge of the Dwarves.
ArcID: 91044, Author: @WillT

Epic fantasy arc, working to enlist the aid of the dwarves in fighting the Undying One. Soloable with a suitably tough character (I could solo it with mid-20s dual sword/willpower brute with 'bosses: yes, level +0, x2' difficulty)
Level range is generally 27-50 (first is 41-41 due to funky mob selection, didn't have much choice)

I just came back to CoX after a year's absence, so spent some time revamping this and the two sequels. Changes included expanding some of the groups (since I left before arcs were given more space to play with), and shortening some maps to give the feel of 'big rambly cave system' without actually, you know, being an annoyingly long rambly cave system.

Anyhow, please check it out. There are two sequels also on the table; I'll be getting around to two more of OP's arcs.

(note that the third Arc has a mission designed to fail. It's short and I think it suits the story, but if I get nothing but grumbles about it I might do a rewrite)

In Papers and Paychecks, is mission 4 supposed to spawn nothing but bosses? I'm at min level (33), maybe there's a group composition issue.

If so, well, that's '1 star' territory right there.

I think I mentioned it in another of your threads... Talos Vice, if I recall correctly, but I'd like to subject you to a re-review of Consequences of War - Part 2, now titled "Casualties of War." With "Two Tickets to Waverly" under my belt, I've now played each of your arcs at least once (Flower Knight and Teen Phalanx twice), so I don't feel guilty.

Besides, I think the Consequences I re-review was the last one you did before you instituted your public points system, so this way I'll at least have one of them done that way.

Do you do re-re-reviews? <ducks and darts away>

I really hope that's not a more general bug, since I use a lot of mixed groups, too. Eek.

I've given feedback on Talos Vice both in game and in its thread. The time has come yet again for me to subject one of my arcs to review, since I've just published one that I feel really needs a thorough looking over.

Arc #384776: Made To Wave the Flag by @LaserJesus (Hey, that's me!)

Trapped inside of a Malta facility, you and 4 other heroes must fight against all odds to escape a madman's grasp. A story about duty, loyalty, and what one must sacrifice for the two.

A few notes: The story assumes that the character playing it is a human(oid) with superpowers, with the superpowers not necessarily being as important as a living human analogue. The story is far more serious than any other I've written so far, even if I can't completely avoid comic relief. I'm mainly worried about the delivery, whether the characters are sympathetic, how easily the story is followed, and obviously the difficulty.

I patiently await to get an automatic -0.05 for not having any titles for the missions! (Damn you, filesize limits)

The author asked me to review any of his arcs, so I chose his least played one, which was:

Save the Villain
Arc ID: 364597
Morality: Neutral
Level range: 1-54
Warnings: EBs

The premise is to help some sort of evil mastermind against his robotic minions, that have turned against him. I'm rather skeptical of a 1-54 level range, it seems very hard to balance an arc so that it works both at level 1 and level 50. I played a 33 mace/shield brute, slotted with SOs, on +1 x1 difficulty (no AVs). The contact is a custom character in a red suit.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact is the henchman for a Lord Kill Them All who has built a robot army for nefarious reasons, but the robots are apparently rebelling against him. The contact wants me to save his boss.

[-0.01] Formatting: caption for the briefing should be in larger font or bold for emphasis.

Send off message: the contact seems surprised that I agree (but the story basically requires me to).

[-0.01] Formatting: there's an extraneous space between "First" and the comma after it (in send-off message).

[-0.1] Weak motivation: why should the player help with this? Lord K is apparently bent on invading Paragon City with robots, so why would a hero help? (There is some explanation that Lord K isn't all that bad so doesn't deserve to be killed by his own robots, but truthfully many heroes might think that was karmic justice.) I'm playing a brute, and there seems even less motivation for a villain to want to help.

Entering the mission, the mission is full of custom robots in a group called Robot Rebellion.

[-0.1] Duplicating an existing group: why not use Rogue Robots for the robot rebellion? Rogue Robots have exactly the same premise, i.e., robots who have turned against their masters.

[-0.5] Game balance: there is no way a level 1 player would be able to handle these custom mobs, but the arc is labeled level 1-54.

[-0.01] Typo: "occassionally obediant" -> "occasionally obedient" (Kill-Bot description)

[-0.01] Inconsistent punctuation: "Kill Bots" in Kill-Blasters' description, but the other mob is called "Kill-Bot" (note hyphen)

[-0.01] Wording: should "Kill-Blasters" actually be "Kill-Blaster"? Since it's a singular robot.

[-0.01] Typo: "desgin" -> "design" (Kill-Batant description)

[-0.01] Objectives: "Rescue Consume the Living!" should omit the trailing exclamation point, it looks wrong with a comma right after it.

I found and rescued Consume the Living and he started following me as a Boss ally. He has some lines like:

[NPC] Consume the Living: Owieee
[NPC] Consume the Living: Consume?
[NPC] Consume the Living: Uff

[-0.01] Punctuation: Owieeee, Uff should have a period at the end (or other punctuation).

Fighting some of the robots, the Kill-Batants seem quite nasty with their end drain, build up and melee attacks. Something was buffing sonic shields onto them also, maybe the Kill-Blasters. Not sure this is too tough, but something to keep an eye on.

Found and rescued Murderous Rage. Both Consume and Murderous seem pretty inarticulate, only able to say their own names and occasional grunting noises. Perhaps this is typical for evil mastermind pets though.

I found and rescued Lord Kill Them All. He continued the theme of NPCs that are only able to say their own name, although he did vary the emphasis of different words in his name....not sure what that signifies, but I noticed it.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: I'll buy that the henchmen are not very smart, but Lord Kill Them All is supposed to be an evil mastermind, shouldn't he be smart enough to say things other than his own name?

[-0.1] Missing text: Lord Kill Them All needs a better description. Currently it's just a sentence fragment saying "The main man himself, Lord Kill Them All", which I already knew just by looking at his name, so is not very descriptive.

I think it's a little peculiar that Lord K is a boss and his henchmen, Murderous and Consume are both bosses too. Maybe the lackeys should be lower rank than Lord K? Lieutenants maybe?



Found and defeated the Kill-Boss, which completed the mission.

Debriefing: the contact seems grateful for my saving his boss and consequently his job.

[4.02] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: the contact suddenly says that the robots didn't malfunction, they were sabotaged! And someone named the Dynast is behind it. And only the Longbow know where she is.

[-0.5] Plot: all this new stuff seems to come from nowhere, which weakens the plot. This would make more sense if we found some clues during mission 1 that made us think the robots were sabotaged. And what makes us think Dynast is behind this? Or that Longbow knows where she is? There needs to be a reason why we think this. The briefing seems pretty short, perhaps some more text could be added that helps explain what is going on.

[-0.01] Mission accept message is just the default "Accept"; should change this to something relating to this particular mission, perhaps something the player would say.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: the contact tries to explain that if the player is a hero, beating up the Longbow to find Dynast's location is for the greater good. But if the player is a hero, why wouldn't she be able to just ask Longbow for Dynast's location instead of beating them up? I think there needs to be more motivation for the player to do this, as it would normally be very weird for a hero to fight Longbow.

[-0.01] Typo: "Distrupt" -> "Disrupt" (in mission title)

Inside the mission, some of the Longbow have dialog along the lines of:

[NPC] Longbow Flamethrower: C'mon, ask me... animal, vegetable, or mineral?
[NPC] Longbow Spec-Ops: I don't play with you, you cheat. 'Minions of Igneous' do NOT count as 'mineral'.

[-0.1] Confusing: I don't get what this dialog has to do with the mission? Perhaps it's meant purely as a joke; if so, I'm afraid I didn't think it was funny enough. Would be better if they had dialog pertaining to the mission.

Clicking a glowy labeled Mainframe C triggers an ambush, as does clicking a glowy labeled Mainframe A. I found Mainframe B, which was a destroyable object.

[-0.01] The fact that Mainframe B is destroyable and Mainframes A and C are clickable glowies kind of gives away which one is the "real" one. Maybe they should all be the same.

[-0.1] Don't understand: how is destroying the computer supposed to find Dynast's location? Hacking it would make more sense.

Destroying the computer, I get "The System is Down!" as a clue, which says that I've crashed the Longbow system and need to get back to the teleporter.

Backtracking a bit, I find the teleporter and click it, which completes the mission.

[-0.1] Don't understand: why couldn't I just exit out the front door (which is just past the teleporter) instead of getting teleported out?

Debriefing: the contact explains that my destroying the computer allowed us (the contact?) to find Dynast's location. So I guess the contact hacked into the computer after I destroyed it. I still think it would make more sense for the player to hack into the computer directly, and it would be better for player involvement.

[-0.1] The debriefing seems rather short and is rather dismissive of the player ("treat yourself to a cookie"?). Would be better if it were a bit longer; perhaps it should also explain the info that was found (i.e., Dynast's location).

[2.99] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: So the Dynast is holed up in an Arachnos lab and I'm supposed to go get her. Supposedly reinforcements will be available for me if needed.

Inside the mission: I ran into "Mr. Mephistopheles", a named custom lieutenant. I beat him up and he had some dandy-ish lines. He was okay, but encountering him seemed a little random.



[-0.1] Needs foreshadowing: Mr. Mephistopheles was important to give a name, but seems a little random; he was never mentioned or implied to even be here before I ran into him. He could stand to be mentioned earlier, or to be more closely tied to the story.

Inside the map, there are custom characters with a few standard models that are in "The Dynasty" enemy group.

[-0.1] Missing description: Dynast Gunner, Dynasty Grunt.

[-0.01] Typo: emply -> employ (in Dynast Phalanx's description; this description also seemed a little short to me, could use more material)

[-0.1] Don't understand: Crab Spider Slicer and Crab Spider Longfang were in "the Dynasty" but were obviously Arachnos models with the normal Arachnos names and description. Are they meant to be recruits from Arachnos? Or they just coincidentally look like Crab spiders that belong to the Dynasty? You may want to adjust their names and descriptions to explain this better.

Found Hacked Computer B and Hacked Computer A which spawned Murderous Rage, Consume the Living and some Kill-Bots as friendlies. Consume spawned nearby (reading a newspaper...weird emote choice for invading an enemy base) and I picked him up as an ally.

Found Razorback, a named custom lieutenant. As a named custom enemy, I think he also needs some foreshadowing. (Already marked some points off for Mr. Mephistopheles needing this, so will lump this in with that.)

[-0.01] Punctuation: "in his masters name" -> "in his master's name" (in Razorback's description)

Found Murderous Rage and he joined me as an ally.

Ran into The Dynast and was typing some notes and my two boss allies stomped the Dynast flat before I could attack. The Dynast only spawned as a lieutenant for me, while Murderous and Consume were both bosses, so this seemed very lopsided. However, they are allies that only spawn if you request them (by clicking the computers), so I didn't mark off any points for this.

Dynast did have a little dialog saying:

[NPC] The Dynast: Let me guess, my little brother sent you? I'm surprised you mae it this far.

[-0.01] Typo: "mae" -> "made" (Dynast's dialog)

Defeating the Dynast ended the mission and the story arc. I confess this seemed a little anticlimactic.

[-0.1] End of story seemed anticlimactic.

[-0.01] Typo: meglomaniac -> megalomaniac (in mission exit popup)

Debriefing: also seems very short, it should really give more detail that helps provide a logical end to the story.

[-0.1] Debriefing needs more writing.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "You've done, taking care of Kill Them All's sister" doesn't quite make sense ... maybe you mean "You did it! Taking care of..." or "You've done it! Taking care of..."

[-0.1] The "Minion in Training" souvenir would probably work fine for a lowbie villain, but since the arc is labeled 1-54 and can be played by both heroes and villains, it has some problems (e.g. a level 50 hero would never be a "Minion in Training")

[2.34] at end of mission 3.

Overall
The game mechanics of the arc seemed basically okay, though the level range is much too broad, IMHO. For game balance reasons, I think you should narrow down the level range and more definitely decide whether this arc should be Heroic or Villainous. I'd suggest something like 25-54 villainous; I think you want to rule out lowbies since custom mobs are too hard for them, and fighting Longbow and rescuing an evil mastermind seem more villainous than heroic to me. As it is there are serious game balance problems if a level 1 plays the arc, and I think it's too much of a stretch for a hero to do some of the things presented here.

Plot-wise, I think the story needs more motivation for why Dynast is sabotaging Kill Them All's stuff. It's never really explained why we think she's the culprit (in mission 2) or why she did it (in mission 3) and I think having a reason for why this all happens would make the story a lot stronger. I think the end of the story could also benefit from some additional writing to make it more of a dramatic finish.

Anyway, rounding 2.34 off, I could only give this arc 2 stars in its present form. Sorry about that!

----

My queue is now:

@Gypsy Rose - Suppression #374481 (H5-10) (played, need to write up notes)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290 (N40-54)
@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54)
@Peregrine Falcon - The Hidden Hand #374410 (H30-54)
@GlaziusF - Malta Impossible #378274 (H46-50)
@MrCaptainMan - Storming Citadel #379488 (H5-10)
@Beyond Reach - Three #382760 (H5-30)
@WillT - War Against the Undying One, Part 1/3: Challenge of the Dwarves #91044 (H27-50)
@Dalghryn - Casualties of War #241496 (H40-54)
@LaserJesus - Made To Wave the Flag #384776 (H45-54)

Suppression review
Arc ID: 374481
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Save the World, Magic
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 5-10
Warnings: none

The premise is to investigate why heroes all over Paragon City are losing their powers. I played a 4 MA/willpower scrapper on default difficulty; I figure level 4 is close enough to level 5 (two slots of TOs won't make much difference). The contact is a custom model, a young girl in a blue dress.

(I actually played this way back on 2/23 and PM'd my notes to the author to try to get feedback in before the Aeon Challenge deadline. Just getting around to posting it now.)

[5.0] points to start with.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact asks me to rescue a superintelligent heroine named Cerebella, who apparently lost her superintelligent powers and then vanished. Briefing seems nicely formatted.

The map is full of Tuatha, who seem pretty scary for a level 5. There's also a bunch of "Minikins" who seem to be friendly but short statured refugees from the land of Oz.

[-0.01] Typo: "Minigirl Drlling" should be maybe "Minigirl Darling"?

[-0.01] Typo: "Miniman Vender" should be "Miniman Vendor"

I find Cerebella being guarded by "The Brood", a custom group containing a mix of miscellaneous monsters.

Cerebella, of course, says "if I only had a brain"...

[+0.1] Cute Oz references.

I find a Minigirl being held captive by more Brood; freeing her completes the mission. One of her guards says:

[NPC] Prototype Oscillator: She is ours. Find your own tastee treat.

[-0.01] Typo: "tastee" -> "tasty" (in dialog of Minigirl's guard)

I notice I have "Cerebella's note" as a clue; not sure if I got it from Cerebella herself or the mission completing. Seems to be a quote from the Scarecrow's song in Wizard of Oz.

[-0.01] Punctuation: need a period after "hatchin'" in Cerebella's note.

Ran into a few other interesting scenes with Minikins and monsters that made the map seem like it had more than just the objectives. What they were doing exactly was a little puzzling, but it was still kind of interesting.

[-0.1] Confusing: Some of the Minikins seemed to be flagged as enemies, but couldn't be attacked (due to being guarded by friendlies, I think).

[4.97] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: the contact asks me to go rescue Valentina, who apparently had the power of Heart, then lost it. (I think I see where this story is going. )

Inside the mission there are more Brood with more dialog hinting at a Wicked One and how cold it is. Then I found some Winter Horde which matched the "cold" dialog.

After freeing Valentina she gives me "Valentina's note" as a clue, repeating the Tin Man's song from Wizard of Oz.

[-0.01] Punctuation: need a period after "sparrows" in Valentina's note.

Searching around some more, I found "A desk" glowy, which gave me "Note from the desk" clue, and completed the mission.

[-0.01] Typo: "supressing" -> "suppressing", also "supressor" -> "suppressor" (in "Note from the desk")

Still don't really understand what is going on, but at least the "Note" represents some progress towards finding out.

[4.95] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: So now we need to rescue Captain Courageous, a hero who appears to be the cowardly lion analogue.

Inside the mission, the ship is full of Spectral Pirates.

Found a few glowy Chests with Treasure that didn't seem to do anything, but a bit later I found a Treasure Chest which did give me a "Pamphlet" clue and satisfied an objective.

[-0.1] Don't understand: The pamphlet mentions a "Master Marvel" magician, but why are we supposed to think this is significant? (The contact talks about it more in the debriefing and thinks it may be important, but it still seems a bit of a stretch to me.)

In the very back of the map I find Captain Courageous being held captive by some Brood. Freeing him gives me the "Captain's Note" clue and completes the mission.

I think "mowess" is supposed to be "mouse" in "Captain's Note", but this looks possibly intentional, so I didn't mark any points off.

[-0.1] Don't understand: how are the Spectral Pirates connected to the story? It seems like the Brood are the actual agents of the Wicked One, so the Spectral Pirates are just sort of random. Why are they here and why do they cooperate with the Brood?

[4.75] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: the contact sends me off to see the wizard. I'm still quite confused as to what is going on in the story (aside from re-enacting the Wizard of Oz) but perhaps he will explain some things.

Found a Desk glowy, but clicking it didn't really do anything except generate a short message in my global chat box.

Got defeated a couple times by CoT, mostly because I was being too aggressive, but also leveled to 5 while fighting them.

Found an Ancient Pitcher glowy that didn't do anything (except it did dump a silly joke in the global message box).

In the back of the mission I found Master Marvel, a custom hostage in "The Wizards" enemy group.

Considering the source material, I was thinking it might be funny if Master Marvel started out as a gigantic Banished Pantheon totem, but once you defeat the Totem he should say "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" and spawn an ordinary looking human hostage who is the real Master Marvel. (Just a random idea, you don't have to do that if it doesn't work for your story.)

Freeing Master Marvel completed the mission. I'm a bit surprised it didn't give me a clue to free him.

[-0.01] Involvement: would be nicer if Master Marvel gave you a clue on defeating him that explains the story, rather than having him "talk to Dorothy" who then tells you the story.

[-0.1] Debriefing needs more writing: the debriefing seems too short (a line and a half). Also, the contact says Master Marvel has "provided all the answers", but doesn't actually say what any of them are.

[4.64] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: apparently the "Wicked One" has been poisoning our heroes and causing them to doubt their abilities. So the contact wants me to defeat the Wicked One; supposedly this will restore our heroes' powers somehow.

[-0.01] Typo: "supressed" -> "suppressed" (in briefing)

Initially I didn't understand how defeating the Wicked One restores powers, but the send-off message goes into more detail on this, which helps.

[-0.1] Need description: "The Brood" mobs could use custom descriptions reflecting their status as minions of the Wicked One. The default description may work for some, but not others; for example, Wolf Spider and Spiderling have descriptions specifically referring to Lord Recluse and Arachnos, Viper Fang's description talks about the Rogue Isles and Children of Enos, etc.

Found the Wicked One and fought her. She spawned as a lieutenant for me.


Your kung fu is no good, WITCH!"

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: why would a wicked witch be a martial artist?

Found "Captain Courageous' Courage" as a glowy which gave the "Captain Courageous' Courage" clue. Then found "Cerebella's Brain" as a glowy which gave the "Cerabella's Brain" clue.

[-0.01] Typo: "Cerabella" -> "Cerebella" (in clue title, and also in the clue text)

Found "Valentina's Heart" as a glowy that gave the "Valentina's Heart" clue. Then I found a cauldron labeled "The Wicked One's Brew"; destroying it completed the mission.



Decent souvenir. I was asked specifically "whether or not you think I should make the souvenir seem more like it was most likely as dream".... I'd be inclined to suggest making it a little ambiguous whether it was a dream or whether it was real, so that maybe the player could think either one.

[4.42] at end of mission 5.

Overall
I liked the Wizard of Oz theme of the arc, and the various analogs of the Oz characters. I liked recovering the various heroes' talismans and returning them to the heroes to re-power them. I liked that they never actually lost their powers, and that it was more about doubt/believing in themselves.

I thought the plot structure was a little weak early on; although the first three missions were kind of neat in depicting the various depowered heroes and some background scenery, it didn't seem like those missions actually advanced the plot very much. We don't really learn what is going on until we talk with the wizard at the end of mission 4, and the clue that leads us to the wizard seems like we almost found it by accident.

[-0.1] Plot: earlier missions don't seem like they advance the plot of the story.

I think I'd like to see the earlier missions contribute more directly to solving the mystery, with more clues found by the player earlier on as to what's going on and what can be done.

Total 4.32; I rated it 4 stars. Hope you think that's fair.

----

My queue is now:

Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290 (N40-54)
@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54)
@Peregrine Falcon - The Hidden Hand #374410 (H30-54)
@GlaziusF - Malta Impossible #378274 (H46-50)
@MrCaptainMan - Storming Citadel #379488 (H5-10)
@Beyond Reach - Three #382760 (H5-30)
@WillT - War Against the Undying One, Part 1/3: Challenge of the Dwarves #91044 (H27-50)
@Dalghryn - Casualties of War #241496 (H40-54)
@LaserJesus - Made To Wave the Flag #384776 (H45-54)

Please hold off on War Against the Undying One 1/3 if you see it in WiP status (I plan on doing some big changes with it, in light of GlaziusF's review)

Name: 30 Minute Hero
ID: 386310
Lenght: Medium
Allignment: Heroic
Level Range: 10 - 20
# of Missions: 4

Sometimes, 30 Minutes can last a lifetime.

Vs. Goldbrickers, Custom
Contains, Elite Boss

Just dropping by to say that "Three" is now called "Look Closer". You'd probably still find it due to the Arc ID, but this is just to make sure you don't get confused thinking it's the wrong ID because it has a different name.

The Galactic Protectorate - 06
Arc ID: 355068
Keywords: Challenging, Custom Characters, Save the World
Morality: Neutral
Level range: 40-54
Warnings: AVs, EBs, custom power selections.

The premise is to help an alternate dimension version of the Freedom Phalanx battle aliens who have occupied the earth (part 6). I played a 50 MA/SR scrapper with soft capped defense. The contact is Mynx.

Warning to readers: this review has some pretty big spoilers for the story of this arc.

[5.0] points to start with.

Mission 1
Briefing: Mynx thanks me for saving her in the last installment, then goes into the current crisis. The human resistance is under attack and she wants me to go save one of their outposts.

[-0.01] Typo: "wating" -> "waiting" (in Mission Accept message).

[-0.1] Inconsistent: send off message says "We've set up some traps for these guys, so when they try and hit one of the outposts" but this seems inconsistent with the idea that the aliens launched a surprise attack that is already in progress. This makes it sound like the human resistance is still fortifying in preparation for the attack; I would find it more believable if you were sent to extract the spy from a pitched battle already in progress.

Inside the mission the map is full of GP - Division 7. With their dark powers, masks and obsession with bone-related names, I can't help but think of them as Skulls IN SPAAAAACE! A lot of dialog scrolls up as I enter the mission, triggered battles and such. A few lines in particular seem a little off-base:

[NPC] Horizon Humerus: Let's see how your abilities fare against ours, Olivia Q!
[NPC] Resistance Brawler: Olivia Q, is that really you?
[NPC] Fargate Femur: Oh, so this is the infamous Olivia Q? Let's see how good you really are!

[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: all 3 of the lines above get said even before any of the mobs actually see me (they appeared while I was still at the door). Probably enemy and friendly NPCs crossed paths and uttered their attack dialogs. (I only marked off -0.01 because this is partially a problem with how battles and such are handled by the game, but you may want to rephrase this dialog some to compensate.)

[-0.01] Typo: "Vortex Vertabrae" should be "Vortex Vertebrae" (or maybe Vertebrate? No, probably you mean Vertebrae)

[-0.01] Formatting: Horizon Humerus's description needs a paragraph break or two (12 lines of solid text on my screen). Likewise for Vortex Vertabrae (14 lines of text) and Starlight Sternum (13 lines of text) and the Raid Leader itself (14 lines of text). This wall-of-text effect tends to make my eyes glaze and discourages me from reading the description; formatting it a little would help a lot.


Could use some paragraph breaks.

[-0.01] Raid Leader's name seems awfully generic compared to the named officers in the rest of the arc and even the generic foot soldiers.

Found and rescued Agent Crimson, who is apparently the "Resistance's Best Spy".

[-0.01] Costuming: Agent Crimson should really be dressed in red. (This is really a signature thing for him.)

[-0.5] Game balance: every single thing I fight seems to throw dark blast or dark melee. With my capped defenses, I dodge most of this, but for many players this will mean their accuracy is debuffed to nothing and they won't be able to hit anything, which will be a frustrating experience for them. (For example, you may have noticed how much players hate CoT ghosts.) I realize dark powers are the "theme" of this group, but I'd recommend mixing the powersets up a bit to avoid stacking too many dark debuffs on players. (For example, the standard Skulls and CoT are dark-themed but are more varied than just dark on everything.)

Agent Crimson gives me "Agent Crimson's Final Words" as a clue, then asks me to get some info from a computer. Crimson was in the deepest room, and I had to backtrack a little over halfway across a fairly large map before I found the computer.

[-0.1] Excessive backtracking to find triggered objective. Would be nicer if either the computer could spawn nearer to Crimson, or if you found Crimson earlier in the mission, then had to go deeper into the mission to get the computer.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Crimson says he will "buy time" for me, and goes to a scripted death, but this seems unnecessary? Logically, the two of us together would have a better chance of recovering Crimson's files and getting them to the resistance. If the plot really requires Crimson to die here, consider having him die of wounds suffered under torture or something, instead. If he's healthy enough to fight bad guys, it doesn't make sense for him to go get himself killed rather than help me.

The computer gave me "Crimson's Files" as a clue and completed the mission.

[4.14] after mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: Crimson's Files combined with some interrogation of low level soldiers leads us to the next GP base, basically.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: why doesn't Mynx just tell me who my backup is, instead of referring to her as "the officer Manticore's sending" repeatedly?

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: why are my orders to "take out the highest-ranked officer in that base" and not "take out General Lucius"? Supposedly our intel says that it's his base, after all. (Of course, based on the plot structure Lucius won't be there, but the story so far should make the characters think that he is.)

Found and rescued Agent Indigo. She gives me "Agent Indigo's Wrath" as a clue.

[+0.1] I like the pact that Indigo made with Crimson, described in her clue. Neat character moment.

[-0.01] Costuming: Agent Indigo should really be dressed in purple. (This is really a signature thing for her.)

This mission being a large outdoor map, I end up ditching Agent Indigo (who would just fight everything) in order to search for the objectives.

Found Hidden Terminal 8, which gave me "The Dark Heart (8/8)" as a clue.

[-0.1] Hidden Terminals are inexplicably coffins. Despite Division 7's death obsession, I don't really buy having coffins as computer terminals.

Found Hidden Terminal 6, which gave me "The Dark Heart (6/8)" as a clue.

[+0.1] The story of the Dark Heart and the fall of Arachnos is interesting.

...but....

[-0.1] Don't understand: why would Galactic Protectorate computers have all this info about Arachnos, an organization that the story has established was destroyed before the arrival of the Galactic Protectorate?

Found Col. Tamora (spawned as a boss for me) and beat her up, completing the mission.

[-0.01] Formatting: Col. Tamora's info needs some paragraph breaks (14 lines of text).

Debriefing: kind of a non-debriefing as it basically just depicts that Mynx's base is under attack, but it fits with the story of the GP working to take down the human resistance.

[3.92] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: through the static Mynx asks me to come save them. The briefing is a little hard to read with all the "*static*" markers but it makes sense why those are there, and adds some atmosphere. The briefing warns I will only have 15 minutes to save them.

I quickly locate Gen. Lucius (spawned as a dark armor EB) and have a dramatic battle on the catwalks of the factory map.


Battle against Lucius on the catwalks

[-0.01] Formatting: Gen. Lucius's bio needs some paragraph breaks (14 lines of text).

I manage to defeat him, but then he rezzes and stuns me (presumably the dark armor tier 9 rez)! Argh. I manage to survive this and beat him up again, only now I have an objective of "50 Bombs to Disarm"! Ack!! With 6 minutes left!!

Saw some resistance soldiers roaming around that looked decent, and some heroes held hostage, but I had no time to do anything but click bombs. They kinda looked cool but there just wasn't enough time to investigate them.


Time is running out!

I found most of the bombs on the lower level of the map, but time ran out with 10 bombs left. I feel like my character is very strong for the task presented (defeating an AV/EB twice, then running around clicking glowies while dodging attacks) but it just did not seem to be possible in the time permitted.

[+0.1] Dramatic final mission. I thought the race against the clock was pretty cool.

[-0.5] Mission seems nearly impossible. Defeat an AV, then he rezzes and you have to defeat him again, THEN click 50 bombs that probably have mobs still guarding them, all in a 15 minute time limit? Have you actually been able to do this in your testing? It IS a cool ending but I think you may want to make the time limit longer and/or the number of bombs to click shorter.

Debriefing: the contact is gone, presumably killed as a result of the mission failing.

Looking at the "Fade to Black" mission title, and the writing in the souvenir, it seems the mission was deliberately set up to ensure failure, and consequently the destruction of the human resistance. This seems to end the arc (and the series) on a pretty big downer.

[-0.1] Ending is unsatisfying - player is scripted to fail.

[3.41] at end of mission 3.

Overall
I liked how this installment deviated from the standard formula for GP arcs. The final mission was particularly dramatic, but I found it disappointing that there was no way to succeed (in fact, the story seems to force you to fail). Consequently the player ends up failing the human resistance and getting them all killed, which is a huge downer of an ending. Admittedly I'm a fan of happier endings, but IMHO this would be a rather poor reward for any loyal GP fans out there who might've followed this epic through all 6 story arcs.

I liked the character moments between Crimson and Indigo. I felt the Division 7 custom enemy group stacked too much accuracy debuff.

Rounding 3.41 off, I gave this arc 3 stars. I hope you think that's fair!

----

My queue is now:

@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54)
@Peregrine Falcon - The Hidden Hand #374410 (H30-54)
@GlaziusF - Malta Impossible #378274 (H46-50)
@MrCaptainMan - Storming Citadel #379488 (H5-10)
@Beyond Reach - Look Closer #382760 (H5-30)
@WillT - War Against the Undying One, Part 1/3: Challenge of the Dwarves #91044 (H27-50)
@Dalghryn - Casualties of War #241496 (H40-54)
@LaserJesus - Made To Wave the Flag #384776 (H45-54)
@Aracade - 30 Minute Hero #386310 (H10-20)

Thank you, PoliceWoman, for being the first player to review "The Galactic Protectorate - 06"! The feedback was greatly need and I appreciate it.

In the first mission, "Raid Leader" isn't the usual name of the custom boss (lieutenant to you, being on default difficulty), it's the instanced name I gave the boss needed to complete the objective in case any teams ran this arc. I did the same thing with all of the "base leaders" since "The Galactic Protectorate - 02"

I had actually planned to put some backstory in this arc (in the form of clues) explaining why Agents Crimson and Indigo weren't in their signature colors, but this arc is "bursting at the seams" in terms of file size already, so I had to cut it

In the second mission, the computer terminals are hidden in coffins in order to appear inoccuous (it is a graveyard, after all). Hence why they're listed as "hidden terminals". Also, General Lucius was gathering information on the Dark Heart in order to further empower himself and his troops, which is why the computers have information regarding it, how the Dark Heart fell into Lord Recluse's hands, and the subsequent fall of Arachnos. This is all explained in the clues, but it looks like you didn't collect all of them

The design of the final mission was not something I came to lightly. I know many players hate "designed to fail" missions, but the destruction of the resistance's main base was necessary in order for the plot of "The Galactic Protectorate" arcs to continue. I tested the arc MANY times, but no matter how I wrote it, having the player succeed in disarming all of the bombs (or otherwise stop the 7th Division) only to tell them "congratulations, but the main base was destroyed anyway" in a text box just didn't have the same impact as having the player ACTUALLY fail to stop the bombing. The most difficult part was timing the mission: I wanted to give the player enough time to defeat General Lucius, but not enough time to disarm all of the bombs. Overall, I think 15 minutes fit that goal pretty well, though I can understand how some players might be "put off" by the final mission.

Oh, and one more thing... this wasn't the last arc in "The Galactic Protectorate" saga I don't want to reveal much about the next "chapter", but suffice it to say, neither the resistance nor the heroes are "all dead"

I'll be sure to request another review from you once I've finished "The Galactic Protectorate - 07"!

I'd better get myself into the queue now ... PW's feedback looks to be quite popular and quite complete. My feeble impressions of "Teen Phalanx Forever!" hardly do justice to the kind of attention you pay, PW, but you said yourself that you aren't really looking for a lot of feedback at this point. I'll owe you one, once a new PW-arc comes out, how 'bout?

I have two arcs up right now. Feedback on your choice of them would be greatly appreciated.

The Chronal Revision Engine (#117678)
- best played with a team at high level.
- multiple missions with multiple AV's.
- probably rougher and more difficult to follow.
- intent: "end-game Task Force" feel.

The Star-Dwellers (#380417)
- Solo-friendly, with the right character or lower difficulty settings.
- homage to the Cthulhu Mythos, but canon to CoH.
- the final mission is NOT impossible.
- it bodes well that I have to say that about the final mission, eh?