Arc Reviews 3: The Final Dimension
By
Alexander81793,
Posted on: 2009-04-13 21:28 in Mission Architect
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Thanks again for the feedback, I'll work on making it less annoying. I particularly like your suggestion on the reasoning behind the mental scale intro mish.
If you have time, please look over Part 2 as well. I tried experimenting with some different things such as a mission that experiments with minion-lt-boss ally steamrolling as a mission/story mechanic. I also think it wraps up the story pretty well for the most part, but I also kind of feel that the last bit of dialog from the contact is a bit rushed too. Any additional thoughts would help me out in polishing it out.
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I'll probably play through it after I get through more of my queue. Only doing one arc at a time per person in order to get through more people and inject more variety into my MA experience.
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I don't have characters on those servers. But I eagerly anticipate the other missions being put out. Here's hoping you get more slots to put them in with.
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Ah. How about Virtue? I think I have a couple over there in range as well.
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I have a few on Virtue that could work. One's in the 15ish level range, one's a 50, and the rest are around level 10. They're all redside though.
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Admitted. I should just use Mu and Oranbega, although I thought they were both associated with Atlantis.
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As far as I'm aware, Atlantis is not mentioned in CoH lore except for a small mention in the ITF (one of the 5th Column mentions it in the final mission, saying something like "Atlantis? Is he serious?").
Mu and Oranbega are both ancient sunken civilizations that share a lot of similarities to Atlantis in real life legend. But in game, I believe they're only related in being enemies. Oranbega is beneath North America and Mu is beneath the Rogue Isles.
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I figured that the Circle would be using the 'standard method' to recruit the player if they could sense that their magical blood was of the proper type, so the assumption is that whether or not you qualify, the Contact can't sense that for some reason. Since you never know if a player has that in their backstory or not, you kind of have to assume it.
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Well, I assume the Thorn does not recruit them via the standard method because the "standard method" is not really recruiting. It's plunging a thorn into their chest and having an ancient Oranbegan's soul inhabit their body.
The Thorn could either believe the character is too strong for such an attempt to succeed. Or maybe they don't much mind having "fresh blood" join them.
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This is something I thought I'd try to help the player. Only one crate makes the 'glowy hum' and can't be targeted, making it a little easier to find among other crates.
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Fair enough. In the first mission, though, the crates are two different types.
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That's a bug. I have since altered the mission to work around that.
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I see. I'm curious how that happened anyway.
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Noted and will be changed It was chosen for the carnie tents, but someone suggested setting it in an apartment building and I'll try to find a map that fits that.
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Yes, I think an indoor mission would have worked better as well.
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Not random; the Chain are there to protect the hostages, the RIP are ther because they are the local police, and the Family is all over the isles ...and is there for the pun.
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Well, the obvious question is "How do the Chain know they need to protect these people?" Because as far as these people know, they're going to some sort of family reunion (a ruse the player set up).
And I just now got the Family pun, I can't believe I missed it before, and I absolutely insist you keep them in there now.
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Well, they have to do something for fun when they aren't out stabbing people with thorns. Seriously, though... I like the idea that many of these villains have relatively normal lives when they aren't out actively villaining. Villains are people too! Except when they aren't of course...
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True. But the Thorns never seemed much like "movie and a beer" people. Especially since they're either demons, ghosts, or 10000 year old body snatchers.
In fact, one of the Scirroco patron missions has you kidnapping a CoT Mage who is out partying with the Carnies and he's explicitly mentioned as being an unusual case.
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Fair enough. I think I'll just gently disagree on this point, though. If joining the Circle required some big specific plot, they wouldn't have level 1 members! But I will consider it.
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Actually, I've always considered their level 1 members to be mostly weaker Oranbegans put into limited bodies. And the difference is, of course, that in this case the player would be willingly going to the Thorns to join up, as opposed to being an ancient Oranbegan snatching some poor fop's Mu-blood-having body.
It doesn't have to be epic or anything... But I'd just like to see it be slightly more coherent, like how the opening arcs for CoV have you fighting the Snakes to prove yourself.
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I will reread my lore and try to tighten that up. And I figured that the CoT had to be a little forthcoming, or the PC would not realistically join them. But it's a very interesting and discussable point.
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I think they can be forthcoming, but I don't think they'd be sharing all their secrets. Have them tempt the players with promises of power and riches and immortality and all those good things. After all, for the low levels, they're just presented as a modern revival of a cult that Baron Zoria founded a few centuries ago.
Even if you reveal that's not true, I think it'd be better if you strung out the revelations a little more.
Anything that may be set up to play is gone so delete it form yoru list if it's there.
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Of mentors and Legacy.
Arc ID: 1589
Heroic, 5 missions. Levels 35-50.
EDIT: Blah, forgot the global: @Aliana Blue
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5 out of 5 stars.
Run with the BS/SR scrapper.
Our contact is running a simulation to see how the Freaks handle their new tech, which is surprisingly ex-military stuff. Seems simple enough, but when you enter the data stream, you find yourself in Oranbega!
Early on, you fight Demonbinder Alueien, a Death Mage. He says a few things that seem innocuous at first, they hint that something "isn't quite right". You also come across an Asoulx the Hungry, a custom Fire Blast/Fire Armor boss who is described as an aspect of Baphomet.
You eventually find a dead body with a letter from Mender Paelin on it. Paelin explains that the body belongs to a hero named Phillip. He tells you that the world you're in is actually the future and you have to save Phillip in order to keep it from occurring. This starts by saving his parents.
Despite the misgivings of your contact, he agrees to run the simulation again and let you go back in. He mentions he'll be monitoring it for any anomalies. Inside, you're in a cave full of Devouring Earth being controlled by CoT Mages. You have to kill their leader, called a Beast Herder, find another letter from the Mender, and rescue a heroine, Mist.
None of the clues really provide much interesting information, but they are well done. Your contact says he has discovered one of the points of time dilation, but he needs another in order to block of the interference. It's not readily apparently why he wants to at this point, since even he admits you are probably helping to keep the CoT from taking over the future.
But once again, you enter the stream and come out in a graveyard with CoT and ghosts inside. You have to free a hero, fight the Soul Master, and find the Mender's next letter.
The letter thanks you for a job well done and the Mender says he'll clear up the loose ends. You and your contact agree it'd be best to check out how you changed the future, so he adjusts the portal to send you into the future, about 50 years distant from your original jump.
You arrive in a base filled with Nemesis troops. Inside, you find 4 clues: a journal from an Archmage that mentions that Phillip and Baron Zoria destroyed each other in a cataclysmic fight, a historical archive that mentioned Phillip let the Thorns capture him so he could get at Zoria, a military journal that mentions Phillip's father and mother were killed in a CoT Raid right in front of Phillip's face, and pictures of his mother which implies that she was tortured by the Thorns before she died.
Since Nemesis being in charge obviously isn't any better than the Thorns being in charge (Well, maybe. I mean, Nemesis doesn't eat souls. He probably just runs a dictatorship where people are constantly forced to build monuments to him), your contact talks with Tina McIntyre and the two crack the temporal code and they send you into the future where all the bad stuff happened.
Inside, you quickly find Mist and Edge and free them from the CoT, who mention that the "Mender has betrayed" them. Both are bosses and when you free them, you get the objective to Rescue Phillip. You run into Asoulx again on the way.
Freeing Phillip (who is another Boss who tags along with you) spawns Demon Master Oluretnep, a custom Fire Melee/Ice Armor EB. Once you beat him, Mender Paelin spawns and attacks, he's a SS/Didn't Notice AV (spawned to EB for me, he went down pretty quick so I doubt it was a defensive set).
In the aftermath, you are given a letter from Paelin by your contact (which serves as the souvenir). The letter sums what Paelin had planned and says that - due to your interference - things turned out better than he had hoped. Rather than rage and hate, Phillip was inspired by your struggle to change the future and grew to become even a better hero, able to stop the Circle without allowing Nemesis the chance to take over the world.
This arc just worked. The writing was all good, the plot was well executed and never required the player or contact to be idiots, and even though you were being used there was never the feeling that you were being railroaded into it. Plus, you got payback and managed to make things even better because of it.
All in all, I highly recommend this arc to anyone. It's really what the MA needs more of.
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Name: The Descender
ID: 33034
Morality: Villainous. If your not comfortable with world domination, steer clear.
Length: Very Long, around an hour to two hours, depending on team makeup and build.
Difficulty: Moderate. Plenty of AV's, but plenty of help with them. One of the few arcs that is actually easier solo, due to the difference between AV's and EB's. (And it makes a better story solo)
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2 out of 5 stars.
Run with my level 50 Dark/Dark Brute.
Captain Mako wants you to go destroy the Leviathan to stop anyone else from trying to harness its power. He tried, but failed due to betrayal (a reference to his Patron arc), leaving the Leviathan drained and useless to him. It doesn't make much sense as to why he considers someone else draining it to be a threat, seeing as it apparently can't be drained enough to be useful to him...
Mako sent in a strike force, but it's gone missing, so now he wants you to go check on them and see why. A whole SF goes missing and he wants one guy to go check it out? Why, thanks for the compliment Mr. Mako.
I am sent to the Coralax Leviathan Cave map, one I despise because it is so huge. I'm also exemped down to level 30. Immediately, a Coralax patrol mentions the Virtea are guarding the Leviathan and are "fierce fighters", a group mentioned in the Coralax's background as not overly violent.
I quickly run into one of the Virtea. It has demonic wings and a grin mask and black and white color scheme that I think is trying to evoke an Orca or maybe a manta ray (it was called a Virtea Manta) but really looks nothing like one. The wings especially throw off the look. I quickly run into another one, a Torpedo, without wings that looks much better.
Quickly in, I find the bones of the Task Force leader. Mako wants to make the Virtea pay for what they did to the Task Force. Mako sends you off to a Circle library to find tomes on the Virtea first. He warns that the Circle have been known to burn their libraries rather than let them fall into enemy hands, something I can't say I've ever actually seen before.
This mission once again exemps me to level 30, which is in my opinion the most annoying level area to fight the CoT because of the Spectral Demons. Anyway, you find the tome on a glowie that the Thorns don't try to destroy (the ones they do try to destroy aren't required objectives) and you have to fight a Tome Keeper, who spawned as a Behemoth.
The Tome contains a passage in it called the "Prophecy of the Descender" which essentially says the player will betray Mako and take the power of the Leviathan for his own and lead the Virtea to conquer the surface.
You naturally decide that telling Mako about this would be a bad idea, so you tell him the Thorns burned the place down. Ah, so that's why he mentions it earlier despite the Thorns never actually being seen doing this anywhere else. So you can tell him they did it and he'll believe you. He doesn't seem too upset over this and says he and Barracuda are going to do their own research.
Odd, but Mako doesn't seem to be the book readin' type. The next mission is an inner monologue of the player where you decide to do more research on the Virtea.
Once again, you're sent into the coral caves and are exemped to 30.There are numerous Virtea patrols who are friendly to you. There are also fights between them and the Coralax where they praise you as the Descender. You have to rescue 3 Virtea chieftains and then defeat Calystix.
Each of the chieftains tells you something of the Virtea's history when you free them. One mentions that the prophecy of the Descender has given them hope for 60 million years. Another says they were born from the Leviathan well before the dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
Calystix kicked my [censored] the first time I fought him thanks to his slows (at level 30, I only have two "real" attacks: Smite and Siphon Life). The Virtea Chieftans were no help and in fact made the fight harder by running off and aggroing the rest of the room then dying like pansies.
So I loaded up on Inspirations and came back and took him down. He yelled at me as he died, using a hilarious number of exclamation points in the process. When you kill him, he tells you the Virtea consider you more powerful than the "Levithan" (spelled wrong) and that the only way the Coralax took control of the Virtea in the first place was because they used mind control on the "Levithan".
Oh, and Barracuda spawned and now I need to kill her. Oh, and she spawned with two Fortunata Mistresses. Yay.
Luckily, Barracuda does next to no Lethal/Smashing (unlike the Coral Golems that Calystix spawns) so I was able to wear her down easily enough. During the fight she says the Leviathan will destroy all mankind if I wake it and calls me mad for allowing my entire race to die (though my character isn't actually human. The number of villain characters who don't play humans is huge enough that this seems to be a pretty big assumption on the part of the author).
Anyway, with her dead, you go back to Mako, who waxes poetic on Barracuda's life and warns you the Leviathan is about to attack the Rogue Isles and only you and the leaders of Arachnos can stop it. An inner monologue tells you Arachnos is blind to your intent.
You wind up in the flooded city outdoor map (one of the outdoor maps I truly hate, because of its size, the random placement of objectives on it, and the way it looks the same at every place). You have to free the Virtea Khan and defeat 3 Coralax Shapers. Once again you're down to level 30, by the way. The Khan is a Katana/Regen EB who flies for some inexplicable reason.
Of course, the dummy got stuck in the map geometry for no discernible reason (he was just waist deep in trash) and couldn't help me. Naturally, the 3 Shapers are just Calystix clones and they are surrounded by 4 Coralax Black Hybrids each, which are custom bosses who have pain dom powers and heal like crazy. Guh.
Suffice to say, I got destroyed by them. And there's no way possible I can ever kill them. They heal each other way faster than I can damage and the Shapers spawn a huge group of Coral golems that deal a silly amount of Smashing damage. In an effort to actually beat the mission, I lowered my difficulty to Villainous and reset the mission.
The Khan once again got stuck. And once again I could not defeat a Shaper because of the Golem spam and slows. Back to stock up on Lucks. It was still annoying and difficult.
The final mission begins with the Khan explaining that the Coralax have things called Abyss Wells that let them summon people through it just by saying their names. So you are going to go summon the leaders of Arachnos and kill them.
You have the help of the Khan again. Of course, the wells don't actually spawn the AVs on top of them when you use them and they're all front loaded, while the AVs all spawn in a room in the back of the map.
They should have, like, told me that before I went in.
Luckily, they were far enough apart that I didn't aggro them all at once. Still, I died once fighting Recluse (hooray for 20 Bane Spider Executioners!) and twice fighting Ghost Widow (hooray for her uber hold). Mako and Black Scorpion went down without much of a fight, while Scirroco seemed to have been killed by either a patrol or Virtea Khan when I wasn't looking. All of them yell things at you that have multiple insane punctuation abuses and more than one typo.
With Arachnos defeated, you're told that you take over the Rogue Isles.
The tedious difficulty of this arc pretty much sucked any fun out of it. I had numerous deaths on most missions because of the multitude of AV spawns who were given multiple boss guardians. Even on the lowest difficulty, they were difficult to fight. The help given was mostly useless because of the poor AI it has.
And the story wasn't even that good. Nothing the player does is very clever or intelligent. It's mostly a story of you lucking into great power than achieving it through any scheme or plot.
I'm not really sure if this arc could be salvaged. The premise of a character gaining ultimate power is fine for the MA, I think. But to actually be satisfying, it really needs to be something the player does, rather than "Oh, you're the one spoken of in prophecy, so you win."
On the off-chance that my arc (#60280) made it onto your list, I thought I'd mention something real quick. There is now only one "defeat all" objective remaining. I managed to axe the other in a way that I can be satisfied with.
I still feel it's justified/acceptable to keep the first one.
<_<
That is all. We return you to your regularly-scheduled broadcast.
Rise of the Copper Legion (#60280; with soundtrack)
The Fractured Dreamer (#498588; with musical theme)
"Now Leaving: Paragon City": original composition for the end of CoH
I would like you try either A Tangle in Time (2622) or Eclipse Over Paragon (64609). They're both in the 30-50 range, soloable and very story driven. They also have 5 missions each but a good chunk of them use small or tiny maps.
Arc Name: Super Science Invasion
ID:9691
Global:@Device
Range: 30s-40s (plenty of EBs, not really meant for solo, but many have)
Negative comments appreciated
-Galth
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Try mine
"Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting"
arc#2517
short & fun 1 mish
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1 out of 5 stars
Run with my 50 BS/SR scrapper.
A guy named 70s Guy wants to send me back in time to 1974 to help some of his friends. He says they are Kung Fu fighting.
You have to free Funky Billy Chen and Little Sammy Chung from a bunch of martial arts enemies with names like Dragon and Snake. Then defeat Big Boss, a Dark Melee/Fire Melee EB.
That's it. You do that and the arc is over. It's very short, there's no story, there's no humor, there's no creative use of the game mechanics, there's nothing there.
There's nothing offensive about it other than it's utter lack of anything interesting. It's pretty much just a waste of an MA slot as far as I can see.
I have made some adjustments to my lowbie villain arc that you reviewed earlier, #17702, "Every Rose..."
I knit the story together a little more, eliminated a few bugs, and fixed my canon mistakes. Hopefully, I also retained the earlier tutorial flavor of the arc and made it a bit more fun to play.
One of the maps is indeed huge, but that is intentional; the target should be relatively easy to find if you just want to free them, and it should give you plenty of tough enemies to fight if that's your thing as well.
I am concerned about losing the Carnie tent map; I think it may be needed as a bit of decoration to get the family reunion to feel like one, but you tell me. I thought about setting the reunion in the Rave map, but it was too small.
When you have time.
Looking forward to the new review!
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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Arc # 45525 - Effrego Quartus Parietis
Levels 1-50, but I'd suggest at least lvl 20 or so.
It shows up as a Long arc but I didn't use any particularly large maps, so it shouldn't be TOO long.
Global - @Wintermutant
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2 out of 5 stars
Run with my 50 BS/SR Scrapper.
First note, please bold the mission title or make some other way to set it apart visually from the rest of the contact dialogue.
Anyway, Gerald Hawkins wants you to go check out an anomaly in the interdimensional barrier in the RWZ. Inside, you have to find Jeremy Scott and rescue him from Arachnos. He tells you he's not sure you really exist.
You next learn he's from another dimension and believes he's a character in a video game and has escaped from the hospital, having incapacitated several guards on the way. He's been spotted in Faultline and you're off to get him. The contact mentions an "old friend" has been spotted as well.
Inside, the Freakshow is attempting to blow up the dam. You have to stop them and save Jeremy again. When you free Jeremy, Arachnos ambushes you, saying that Recluse wants the boy unharmed. Jeremy appears to be a Grav/Assault Rifle Boss.
You also find Dreck in the mission and have to beat him. Seems kinda a throw away to put an AV in the second mission, but OK...
You learn that another anomaly has been found and more children from Jeremy's dimension. But Arachnos showed up and took them before anyone could stop them. Inside, you have to save 5 Cheerleaders (ugh), find Gravitrex, Confront a student, and find a Rogue Arachnos scientist.
The Rogue scientist ends up being a MM/?? boss who says you can't find out his true identity. But when you defeat him, no clue about it drops. Gravitrex ends up being Jeremy. The student is Crusher Peterson, a supposedly a football player/bully, who you have to defeat.
Apparently, the dimension Jeremy comes from has no super heroes and Lord Recluse wants to open up a portal to it so he can conquer it. If you destroy the dimensional anchors, apparently the people will fade back to their own dimension.
Jeremy doesn't want to go back, naturally, as he is a superhero here (he comically says he's special here, which is funny, since having super powers is fairly par for the course in Paragon City). You have to defeat him.
There's a crate that spawns a Electric Blast/Force Field EB called a Support Droid as an ally. It exists solely to help you fight Lord Recluse, who is a mission objective.
Once you finish, you learn that everyone got sent back to their home dimensions.
The major problem with this arc is it doesn't really have much of a unifying theme. It seems like it's supposed to be about Jeremy, but his existence is mostly secondary to the plot. It seems like there's supposed to be some sort of undercurrent of adolescent fantasy and becoming superpowered and being unwilling to let go of childhood, but it does this in only the most base and bland of terms.
And the plot itself isn't very strong... "There's another dimension that Recluse wants to invade. We have to stop him." There's no particular reason Recluse wants to invade this dimension, as without super powers (which he presumably wouldn't have there, much like Jeremy won't when he goes back), he wouldn't really have too much of a shot at doing anything.
The inclusion of some AVs and EBs in the missions are just mostly random and seem like they're there for the hell of it.
On a whole, the arc lacks any unifying direction and theme. It's just fairly weak overall and probably needs to be rewritten and paced differently in order for it to work.
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Title: Blitzkrieg
Arc ID: 3416
CreatorÂ’s Global Name: @Mekkanos
Suggested Level Range: 45-50 (Although I suppose you could do it from 41-50, too, but you'll be bumped up to 45 for the last mission)
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3 out of 5 stars
Run once again with the level 50 BS/SR Scrapper.
Crimson wants you to go check out a new Malta base that has appeared in Steel Canyon. He thinks Malta is up to something big, so he wants you to look for clues. Inside, you find out they're already packing up to leave. You find some encrypted files on a computer and find the cipher on the base leader.
According to Crimson, their plan involves discrediting heroes. The files are incomplete, but they are able to pinpoint a supply base and you're sent in to fight them. You find it to be an Arachnos base, with some Rogue Arachnos as well as the Malta. The talk from the Rogue Arachnos patrols indicates they are selling the base to the Malta in return for something else.
The map is one I've never seen before, one with a giant pit with glowing green stuff at the bottom. That's somewhat appropriate, as you have to clear out 4 barrels of some explosive substance. In addition, once more you need to find some encrypted files and get the cipher from the base leader. It took me FOREVER to find the final glowie. This map is terrible.
Anyway, Crimson tells you the chemical is an explosive developed by Arachnos. According to the files, Malta wants to stage a fight between a hero and villain and, when the hero begins to lose, he will wire a Warburg Nuke that will detonate some concealed Arachnos explosives and reveal that "metas are bad!"
Crimson says they have figured out who Malta is targeting as their villain in this play, who is still in the Zig. You need to go to the Zig and convince them to relocate the villain. Naturally, when you get there you find the place under attack by Rogue Arachnos and Knives of Artemis. You have to recapture 2 villains and defeat the raid leader.
Unfortunately, the villain Malta was after, Isotope, has already escaped. They have tracked down the location of Fallout, the hero though, and are sent to help him. You're told to look out for more chemicals too and told about several tough enemies in the mission as well.
The tough enemy is Black Empress, a custom EM/Inv AV. She's an optional defeat. You also have to destroy a mainframe and beat Fallout, a Rad/Rad Boss. As you beat him, he reveals Malta has his family and are threatening them. Luckily, with the mainframe down, Malta doesn't know what you've done yet.
You have 2 hours to go save them, defeat Isotope, and then defeat the project leader. Indigo is inside to help you out. Isotope is an Energy Blast/Rad EB. The Black Monarch is a Grav/Psi AV. He was fairly easy to take down for me as an EB.
With him beaten, the Rogue Arachnos and Malta alliance begins to break down and everything is safe once again (for now).
The arc was actually pretty good. The problems it did have, though, were big ones that docked it down big.
The first issue is the sheer length of the maps. I've said I'm not a fan of large maps and this arc exemplified the reason why. I wasted a lot of time searching for a glowie I couldn't find. In the final mission, I got Indigo, one hostage, and Isotope really early, then had to slog through 3 more floors to get to the final hostage and Black Monarch.
Longer maps do not add to an epic feel in missions. The story and enemies you face should make it feel epic. Long maps just make it feel tedious (and even if you picked a Medium map, many of the tech maps especially are quite long, even on Medium). I think of all the missions, only the Zig map and combo Warburg map seemed to be of appropriate lengths. The other three missions seemed longer than necessary.
This really took away a lot of the fun I felt like I could have had with the arc. Shortening the maps would, I believe, easily bump the arc up a star.
The second big issue is the story. While it's solid, it makes a ton of sense, and there are more or less no plot holes, it's just not really original, even in CoH. It rehashes much of the Siren's Call backstory and another Malta arc about them trying to discredit a hero. As such, while it is solid, there's a lot of "been here before" territory.
Still, it's a solid arc and, if the length was altered, I'd have no issues bumping it up to a 4 star.
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I have made some adjustments to my lowbie villain arc that you reviewed earlier, #17702, "Every Rose..."
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I'll rerun it sooner or later! I'm getting through them quite fast now.
I'll toss one on the barbeque here:
Jenkins's Guide to Super-Villainy
Arc ID: 84008
Faction: Villainous
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Circuit Boy
Difficulty Level: Missions #1-3 1-50, Mission #4 20-29; easy to medium difficulty
Synopsis: Tired of Kalinda prattling on about searching for the "Destined One"? More than just a mercenary gun for hire? Tired of exterminating snakes for Mongoose? Not thrilled to be Doctor Creed's lab assistant? Want to know how to become a real super-villain? Jenkins has just the guide for you!
Estimated Time to Play: 4 missions, 60-90 minutes
40062: The World's Worst PUG
84008: Jenkins's Guide to Super-Villainy
230187: The Hero of Kings Row
No H8 - 08.04.10
@Circuit Boy - Moderator - Pride global chat channel
Here's my arcs, please be gentle! I'll look at your arcs as soon as I get done reviewing the others I've already committed to.
Arc Name: The Ideality - Part 1: A New Foe
Arc ID: 42436
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @parhaius
Level Range: 1-54
Synopsis: A mysterious and hostile new group is seizing territory all over Paragon City - but for what purpose?
Arc Name: The Ideality - Part 2: An Ideal Plan
Arc ID: 103737
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @parhaius
Level Range: 1-54 (Beware: AV at end)
Synopsis: Ideal's cybernetic thugs return to Paragon City in force. Will the work of just a few heroes be enough to stop their nefarious scheme?
I like to get many points of view on my arc so here's my request for a review. Hm... I notice that I had already requested it, but this time I'll add the proper information that you wanted, thus:
Arc ID: 1152
Title: The Doctor Returns
Global: @FredrikSvanberg
Recommended Level: Missions range from 35-50.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
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Title: Blitzkrieg
Arc ID: 3416
CreatorÂ’s Global Name: @Mekkanos
Suggested Level Range: 45-50 (Although I suppose you could do it from 41-50, too, but you'll be bumped up to 45 for the last mission)
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3 out of 5 stars
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I have talked to Mekkanos about this arc. He has altered the mission maps to be rather shorter. After checking them, they are much more manageable and far less tedious. As a result, I've bumped up the arc 1 star to a
4 out of 5.
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Author: Eryrex
ID: 62774
Title: A Dinosaur Dilemma
Level Range: 40-50
Number of Missions: 3
Subject: A villain is willing to give Longbow information on Arachnos in exchange for a favor from the heroes of Paragon.
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1 out of 5 stars.
Run on my 50 BS/SR Scrapper.
First off, Longbow is spelled "Longlong" in the arc description.
Anyway, Eryrex has agreed to give Longbow some info on Arachnos as long as he gets a hero to help him with some stuff. Longbow has apparently agreed. He assures you it isn't illegal.
First thing, he wants you to go take down a young villain and his patron, Captain Mako. Eryrex says he'll help you out on the mission since Mako is so tough. The entry text reinforces how badass Eryrex is and tells you not to show weakness. He is a Cold Dom/Thermal.
Aside from Mako, you have to take down Flamehowl, a Fire Blast/Pain EB. Flamehowl managed to hit me with Build Up + Inferno, so I dropped, but once I came back he was a pushover.
The exit text says you arrested "Captain Mako and his patron" which is wrong. Mako is the patron. Eryrex wonders why you didn't just kill them both.
Now it's apparently my turn to help him (er, wasn't I doing that already?) by going to Mercy Island and taking out the "NOMeRcY" gang (ugh), who are harassing new villains and Eryrex and his VG are apparently too busy to deal with (double ugh). They are on the outdoor Mercy map with the Arachnos Fliers. The gang are all apparently Thugs/WP on low settings.
When you get back, Eryrex says that Mako and his underling managed to escape and are wreaking havoc. Apparently, every hero in the city are trying to stop them, so Eryrex and his VG went to Atlas to "maintain order" and there has been some "accidents" with the citizens.
Naturally you have to go save Atlas Park. You have to defeat Eryrex and Clawscale. In the middle of the fight with Eryrex he spawns some ambushes. Many of the custom enemies have Electric powers. They seem to cut right through my defenses and drop me quickly.
After 5 deaths without making any progress on killing them (many times, I'd manage to hit Build Up + Headsplitter, which didn't kill anything), I gave up.
The arc is pretty bad. First, the story is nothing more than a "Look how awesome my character and his VG are!" It also requires both you, Freedom Corps, and Longbow to be morons and incompetent. And the final mission is full of unnecessarily difficult mobs.
The best thing I can say is at least there were no spelling or grammar errors.
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Arc Name: Dr. Dave and the Copper Legion
Arc ID: 60280
Author: @theHedoren
Length: Very Long
Level Range: highest minimum level is 41, and all missions cap at 54
Difficulty: Medium- Final mission contains 1 AV, but with Allies; many collections, some captives to rescue, an escort mission
Synopsis: An expedition to Cimerora uncovers and ancient weapon which -- in the wrong hand -- could destroy all of Paragon City. Plenty of mystery, some danger, and an obscure CoH villain.
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5 out of 5 stars.
Run on my 50 BS/SR Scrapper.
Dr. Dave Diaz is an archaeologist who was studying Cimeroa when one of his research assistants, Heather Glass, went missing. He asks you to go find her. It's a Cimeroan cave map with Cimeroan traitors. When you find Heather, she seems more interested in the artifacts than her being captured. I also happened to think she had an excellent character design.
Once you escort her out, she tells you of Praenuntius, a former emperor of Cimeroa who sacrificed his own son to Vulcan in order to protect his rule. In return, Vulcan built him an army of metal men, but Praenuntius died before it was completed. In order to hide his secrets, Vulcan buried the army.
Apparently, Heather has discovered it is real. Dr. Diaz thinks the Circle knows where it's buried, so he sends you to one of their bases to look for clues (you're one of many teams hitting many possible locations, which is a nice touch). You're asked to find two books and, if you can't find them, defeat the Book-Keeper to find out the info.
Anyway, you do that and the book-keeper spills the beans. He also mentions that someone else has been looking for it. But before you can go looking for it, the Midnighter HQ is attacked. Inside, you find the Copper Legion, the army that was mentioned before. They are a very well designed group, visually. And they seem well balanced as well. They are visually based off the Cimeroans but made to look copper. Powerwise, they are similar as well, but a few have Elec powers as well.
You have to defeat all of them and find 5 clues. Heather Glass is also there again, this time as an ally. She has Ice Blast/Ice Melee powers and is an Lt.
Apparently, the tablet clues are coded instructions on how to control the army. Dr. Diaz says it's not them controlling the Legion, since it requires a special keystone to use, which they don't have.
Before you can do anything, the Legion invades Paragon City. You're sent to Steel Canyon, while other hero teams are sent to the other parts of the city. You have to rendezvous with Pyralis, another hero sent to help out Steel Canyon. He is oddly set to part of the Copper Legion custom group. I assume this is either a mistake or the "wrong group name" bug that's been popping up. He's an Energy Domination/Energy Aura boss. You also have to free 5 hostages.
Dr. Diaz wagers that the control unit for the Copper Legion is their resting place. You're sent in to either destroy or block it. The doctor says he and Heather will meet you there.
Inside, you have to destroy 7 mystic verticies (Portal clickables). Dr. Diaz is Sun Coyote, a Fire Blast/Thermal EB. Heather is Glass Dragon, now upgraded to EB.
And oh no, Malta is in the mission too!
Once you destroy the verticies, the leader of the Legion spawns. The leader is Moment, the Malta shapeshifter. He's taken the appearance of Scirroco for this fight. That seems logical, as he's a Magic villain, and this is a heavily magic-themed arc. During it, he expresses his disappointment in the vulnerability of the supposed invulnerable Copper Legion. He spawns two waves of ambushes as you fight him, but with the two custom EBs on your side, he was a pushover.
With the Legion stopped, the keystone is moved to a secure location, the entrance is sealed up, and Longbow places a permanent guard there. Moment, however, has escaped custody, as shapeshifters often do.
I loved this arc. It was totally fun, the custom mobs were extremely well designed, the challenge was appropriate, the writing was excellent, and the plot was intelligent and well-thought out.
My few suggestions are minor ones, and both deal with the final mission. First off, the map was TINY. I think aside from the 2 allies, 2 patrols, 2 ambushes, and boss, only 1 enemy spawned on the map. And all the verticies ended up grouped together, 3 in one room, 4 in the other.
So, for once, I'm going to suggest making the mission map larger. It'll help it out a lot, I think.
Secondly, I think two EBs as help was a bit much. Remember that custom EBs are much tougher than standard ones. I barely did anything to Moment, the two EBs took him down. I think one should have been more than enough, even for weaker characters. As it was, there wasn't much challenge there.
Still, excellent, excellent arc and I highly recommend it.
First off, I'm thrilled you liked my arc. I'm just gonna chalk this up as a rave review, try and stop me. 
Now that I think about it, I completely agree about the 5th mission's map. It does seem a bit cramped, and not at all the sort of "mystical command center" it ought to be. I will be bumping the size up soon.
And I'm assuming there are some bugs involved. Pyralis is listed in the SAC group (with Heather and Dr. Diaz), and Glass Dragon is supposed to be a regular Boss (who only survived half of my test runs). Maybe I'm just overlooking a setting somewhere....
I'm also glad you found the AV appropriate. IMO, Moment doesn't get the face time he deserves. And I figured I could easily swap out the AV model if Scirocco was a bad fit.
All that said, it seems my relentless testing and tweaking is paying off! Thanks again!
Rise of the Copper Legion (#60280; with soundtrack)
The Fractured Dreamer (#498588; with musical theme)
"Now Leaving: Paragon City": original composition for the end of CoH
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And I'm assuming there are some bugs involved. Pyralis is listed in the SAC group (with Heather and Dr. Diaz), and Glass Dragon is supposed to be a regular Boss (who only survived half of my test runs). Maybe I'm just overlooking a setting somewhere....
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This one is pretty rampant, I think. Custom mobs are showing up as being in the same group as their captors when hostages/allies/etc.
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I'm also glad you found the AV appropriate. IMO, Moment doesn't get the face time he deserves. And I figured I could easily swap out the AV model if Scirocco was a bad fit.
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I can't say I particularly find Moment that interesting. It's probably because his arc has him pop up as three fairly uninteresting bosses instead of anything tougher. A Rikti Chief, a Devoured, and... whatever he was the third time (he does appear in three missions, right?) were all very blah. They weren't even in the Malta group or have unique descriptions.
But he could use more face time to make him more interesting.
There are so many clever ways to use a shapeshifting villain. Espionage, betrayal, conspiracy... all sorts of shady shifty activities for a man with more than one face.
I kinda feel like I missed an opportunity.
Rise of the Copper Legion (#60280; with soundtrack)
The Fractured Dreamer (#498588; with musical theme)
"Now Leaving: Paragon City": original composition for the end of CoH
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Arc Name: Second Generation Hero
Arc ID: 41429
Global ID: @Rampager
Synopsis: You must help Rampager get his Mace and Armor back
Difficulty Level: 50 Boss, EB, AV, AV Allies
Faction: 5th column + custom
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0 stars
Run on my 50 BS/SR Scrapper.
Had to do a search on the name for this, as the ID has changed.
Anyway, Rampager tells me the 5th Column are back and I have to save Marcus from them. I have no idea who Rampager or Marcus are.
Oh, wait. Marcus is Statesman (really, you guys are on a first name basis?) Apparently, he's in the Axis Amerika dimension and we have to save him before the Reichman learns he's there. But Reichman is frozen under Boomtown in the old Freedom Phalanx base. And why is States in the Axis Amerika dimension in the first place?
Anyway, the enemies are mostly 5th Column enemies, not the Axis Amerika ones for some reason. There are also some custom enemies in the Protean group. None have any descriptions and their costume designs are fairly random and have no unifying theme. Besides freeing States, you have to defeat "Frostwolfe" another member of the Proteans, who talks with a terrible faux German accent. He is an Ice Melee/Something I Didn't See Boss. He spawns an ambush of Axis Amerika troops and 5th Column, both of whom also talk with the terrible accents.
When you get back, Rampager says Statesman says you have to go retrieve Rampager's grandfather's book in order to resolve some situation. Huh?
Apparently the Council has it and if they break its code, they might become unstoppable. Apparently, Manticore will be along to help since they might be behind the death of his parents (Protean was a person, not a villain group, but OK...) The mission is timed for 45 minutes, despite not warning me it would be.
Not only do you have to find the book, you have to kill an EB named Gargoyle as well. He's a Mace/Stone Melee EB. He hit build up and two shotted me. I really wish they'd remove/tone down the self-buffs for MA critters.
The mission also has Arachnos wandering around inside for some reason.
Now I need to go get the arms and armor of Rampager's grandfather back from the Circle of Thorns. You go into one of the longer Oranbega maps with no Circle to be found, just the All Custom Enemies group. You need to find 4 mace parts and 1 armor.
Finding the Mace spawns Baphomet as an objective. Getting the armor spawns an ambush.
Rampager says that Arachnos has been controlling both the 5th Column and Circle of Thorns via the Protean network. He wonders if Manticore knows. But before you can go see if he does, he's captured. And now I MUST rescue him.
Aside from Manticore (listed as Justin Sinclair in the nav bar) I have to defeat a custom SS/Elec Blast AV named Funnelweb. When you beat him, the objective "Mission Mainframe" appears. Oh, and when you free Manticore the objective "Manticore" appears. The second Manticore is once more Manticore, who you have to free.
The return text to the contact comically mentions defeating Gargoyle, which happened numerous missions ago. Rampager tells us the leadership behind everything has been cornered, but they apparently have a secret weapon, so you need to go stop them.
Inside, you have to 1) Disarm a bomb, 2) Rescue Manticore, 3) Rescue Captain Combustion (the contact's grandfather, I think), 4) Defeat Funnelweaver again 5) Defeat Requiem, 6) Clear the map.
I was going to slog through it all until A) Requiem, despite being Italian, started talking in the stupid German accent and B) I realized it was more than one floor. I quit upon realizing B. There's no way the ending of this is going to resolve the quagmire of a "plot" the arc has anyway.
This arc is quite frankly utterly awful. I don't really want to be mean, but it was just pure bad. Spelling and grammar errors were rife throughout the arc. Everything from no punctuation in entire paragraphs to missing apostrophes to random typos. The story, if there was one, was utterly incomprehensible. It seemed like someone pulled random pieces of paper out of a hat with names of villains on them and plot points in order to come up with it. I know the author said he has a backstory for it, but he says it's not needed for the arc. I don't know if it would have even mattered, the arc was so poorly written.
Add in long maps with nested mission objectives... Well, it was just a pain to get through.
I don't even feel like I can offer any advice other than to trash the arc completely then take a basic class in writing from someone.
Thanks again for the feedback, I'll work on making it less annoying. I particularly like your suggestion on the reasoning behind the mental scale intro mish.
If you have time, please look over Part 2 as well. I tried experimenting with some different things such as a mission that experiments with minion-lt-boss ally steamrolling as a mission/story mechanic. I also think it wraps up the story pretty well for the most part, but I also kind of feel that the last bit of dialog from the contact is a bit rushed too. Any additional thoughts would help me out in polishing it out.