Arc 6788: Bad Bad Bad Bad Boys
Rating: 3/5
Notes: annoying map, way too many objectives, super gay.
Overall: Other than the overly gay themes it wasn't too bad. Decent use of multiple objectives for a mission, but the map was annoying. Clearly not aimed at my demographic, but otherwise reasonable.
Arc 8486: Save Voo.Doo Company
Rating: 2/5
Notes: Very limited custom group
Overall: Bare bones arc, disappointing.
Kong can you start giving out Kong Stars or something ....
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I give this arc 3.5 Kong Stars
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I was wondering what to do about our missions, actually. I was debating whether we should just have a review thread to compliment the MA list thread, or what?
But I dunno, I would encourage careful writing and receptions of reviews. On the receiving end, people can be altogether too defensive when they receive any feedback, even if it's being kind and helpful. It's also important to be careful of tone when you're writing feedback or a review. Do NOT follow the lead of those crappy movie reviewers that think it's their job to insult the maker as much and as wittily as possible.
I think following both guidelines will help review be helpful, rather than a bad/negative thing.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
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Arc 8486: Save Voo.Doo Company
Rating: 2/5
Notes: Very limited custom group
Overall: Bare bones arc, disappointing.
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wtf you mean my crappy slapped together in 3 minutes story arc wasn't GREAT?!
...seriously, I don't care. It's there as filler until I finish my third THC arc. And partly to amuse Fake Voodoo Company and the rest of the forum.
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Arc 8486: Save Voo.Doo Company
Rating: 2/5
Notes: Very limited custom group
Overall: Bare bones arc, disappointing.
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wtf you mean my crappy slapped together in 3 minutes story arc wasn't GREAT?!
...seriously, I don't care. It's there as filler until I finish my third THC arc. And partly to amuse Fake Voodoo Company and the rest of the forum.
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10 to 1 odds he thinks I did the arc 
I've already forgotten about most of you
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I was wondering what to do about our missions, actually. I was debating whether we should just have a review thread to compliment the MA list thread, or what?
But I dunno, I would encourage careful writing and receptions of reviews. On the receiving end, people can be altogether too defensive when they receive any feedback, even if it's being kind and helpful. It's also important to be careful of tone when you're writing feedback or a review. Do NOT follow the lead of those crappy movie reviewers that think it's their job to insult the maker as much and as wittily as possible.
I think following both guidelines will help review be helpful, rather than a bad/negative thing.
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I totally agree. "Feedback" threads can easily become flame threads. The two arcs I've got (yet to be posted on the boards) have gotten mixed feedback from two or three people, some loved them, some hated, but every sent feedback was at least civil and I've actually made a couple minor adjustments based on feedback.
The only problem with a thread like this is we may not understand someone's personal ranking system. Basically, my rating system judges whether an arc is incomplete/fits in the CoX universe. If it's got really poor writing, it usually doesn't fit in the CoX universe, for example.
I'll give anything five stars if it makes sense in the CoH world and is complete (i.e., explains everything that needs to be explained in the arc). If it's just one mission that says more to come later with a really creative premise that fits in with the major CoX characters, I'll mark it down to four, because imo, you shouldn't be publishing an arc until the arc is ready to be published. If it's complete, but forgets to mention something important to the plot, eg, you say "something" drove Statesman crazy enough to fight the Freedom Phalanx, but you never mention what in five mission, I'd also mark it down to four. Three if there's really a lot of other things missing (eg, no NPC descriptions, minimal dialog, etc...) or if it's fully flushed out but there's something that really just doesn't make sense in the CoX world (eg, the arc consists of Clockwork summoning demons to take out Penelope Yin). Two if the dialog is a bare minimum, but enough to make sense, etc....
When I get down to to marking three, I usually say it needs to be finished before I can judge it fully, and when we're talking about less than three, I wouldn't usually give any feedback, because we're talking about bare minimums in story line and I'd guess that I just wasn't understanding what they were getting at or that there wasn't any real purpose to the mission besides, say, fighting an entire army of EBs 
. When I gave out five stars, however, I'd tend to point out minor fixes that could help them, eg, typos, minor playability fixes, etc....
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Arc 6788: Bad Bad Bad Bad Boys
Rating: 3/5
Notes: annoying map, way too many objectives, super gay.
Overall: Other than the overly gay themes it wasn't too bad. Decent use of multiple objectives for a mission, but the map was annoying. Clearly not aimed at my demographic, but otherwise reasonable.
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My rating for the same arc: (I forget... probably a 5, might've been 4)
Notes: Lots of Incubi, but you'd know that from the start....
Overall: Annoying objectives had me running back and forth from one end to the other. Now that I think about it, might have been better split up into multiple missions than having to re-hunt down objectives.
Arc ID 36974: V'kta A'cha Vox'm
Rating: 5/5
Notes: My biggest complaint was supposedly fixed. Note to all - if you want your NPC allies to follow you around, don't give them Earth Armor: Rooted where they may spawn in a ditch.
Overall: Really enjoyable story that fits well in the CoH universe.
Arc ID 17747: A Most Precious Cargo
Rating: 5/5
Notes: Ran it twice, once on test
Overall: Decent use of a mix of enemies, standard and custom.
Arc 18911: What the Vudu?!?!
Rating: 2/5
Notes: "A minion is not a challenge...", Most of the MA mobs appear to be set on Hard or Extreme, including the Dark Miasma users.
Overall: Brutal. Between the stacked Fearsome stares, the Elite Bosses set on Extreme (self rezzing), and the rather large ambushes by mobs with debuff powers this is a tough arc to solo. You get help, but the help is mostly useless sadly. None of this would have been a huge problem, but the text was spartan and many of the mobs didn't even have descriptions filled in. With a bit more fleshing out and perhaps some rebalancing of the custom mobs it could be a good arc.
Ok, question. How many of us actually DO fill out the character descriptions? Does it matter THAT MUCH that it's an immersion-breaking thing?
That's the problem with this whole rating thing, people clearly have different ideas of what makes a good arc, enemy group, etc. Some people are being serious, some goofy, etc. when making their mission. And from what I can tell, they don't always describe their arc well, or it may not even be read well by the audience playing the arc.
However, what I think most are looking for from MA missions (unless they're a farmer) is not all that different from dev created missions. They don't mind a challenge if they're warned, but people will also want missions that can be soloable.
Though to your question, Viv, if I'm going to consider an arc well done and thought out, it does need detail everywhere. I'd be a bit annoyed with the devs if they put out an arc with a new group that didn't have a good story, descriptions for the bosses and characters, etc. Anything else shows something that was slapped together or at least not as much thought was put into it.
That doesn't mean no one will play it, but with how much content is out there, I think people not willing to put that work in and missions without that kind of detail are going to go by the wayside. I think there will still be room for fun little one-off missions, though. Like your little arc about roleplayers on Virtue, you probably don't need to have descriptions that are super detailed. However, you had such great humor with that final catgirl boss's dialogue that I think you could add a description that would be quite hilarious.
One last little example. Yuuden picked up on the overall storyline/point of my arc last night, but there is a lot more details that can make you think about the line between justice and vengeance. You don't NEED to seem them to have fun beating up the Warriors and getting the overall story, but having good details there do make an arc better (though I'll let others say whether my details and arc are "good"). CoX is full of great details the devs added in: passing citizens cheer on my heroes ("You rock, Swedish Fury!"), give humor (says a Nemesis soldier to another mob "Nemesis is down with the hood, as it were"), etc.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
I don't consider an arc "done" until you've filled out all of the details, fleshed out groups, played it a few times and balanced it well, asked yourself "do the extra 10 glowies add anything to this mission?" IMHO, it should take at least an hour to make a mission good enough that I would advertise it for other people.
Also, please don't take my ratings personally, I'll try to be honest, but these are only my ratings. My style may differ entirely from yours.
Anyway:
Arc 9028: The Rise Of Evil Part I
Rating: 3/5
Notes: First Mission: The custom group consists of only a single type of mob (Paragon Police Officer), which is a LT that stacks cascading def debuffs at level 13.
Second mission: Just Minions and mostly Bosses in this one, still level 13. You had better have your mez protection on this map, all of the bosses are mezzers. You'll get an ally though, and the ally can solo the entire map if need be.
Fourth mission: Just because a map can handle a lot of glowies doesn't mean it's a good idea to max it out.
Overall: There's at least some storytelling, and there are some interesting maps, but it feels like it needs the hand of an editor. Do we really need the last two missions to end in the same way? Why am I forced to hold the idiot ball to keep the story going? I would have liked the custom groups to have a little more variety (at least one minion, lt, and boss), especially if you're just using pre-build mobs.
Next up: Part II!
Edit: Venture reviewed the same arc and gave it a much harsher review.
For some reason Part II is not showing up in the MA list. This space reserved for it when I figure out how to locate it.
Arc 6015: Coming Unglued
Rating: 4/5 stars
Notes: Minor nit: The green text should be what I'm saying back to the contact, not what they're telling me.
Another Minor nit: It is weird to have a box tell me how I'm feeling.
I really don't need a dialog box telling me to go back and talk to the contact after every mission.
Overall: I really liked this arc. The storyline is straightforward and the challenge level is quite reasonable. With a couple of edits here and there I would rate this a 5 star mission.
Thanks for the feedback - it's late now, but I will fix some of the things you mentioned. (actually fixed some... see next post)
One question - how would you simulate player immersion? The 'how you're feeling' text was there to let the player know what seemed to be happening around them and to them, and to put the player 'inside' the experience and give a little (emotional) weight.
I found this pretty effective in the "Revelations" arc, though I wouldn't recommend that one for some frustrating factors (maps, too many kill-alls)...
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
I fixed the obvious mistake (the sendoff dialog). (I wouldn't call that a minor nit - thanks for pointing it out... Forgot the Point of View there!) I also rephrased the mission exit dialog, but left them in because I like the feedback feeling they give.
As for the "how you're feeling" text - I left that in there, because I think it provides a helpful connection for the player to feel as though that they are affecting the world in some way, and as though something is happening to them.
We all know that that is an illusion, but that is the point of telling a story with this MMORPG medium - to provide an illusory personal experience, rather than to just watch a story from the outside, and I think that helps.
If that's not your take on it, well, I know I can't please everyone, so I'll have to take my lumps where they come.
Thanks very much to you for playing my arc and taking the time to critique it.
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
A 2 cuz I don't have mob description, no control over mob AI, and you had trouble soloing it????? Take a team, way more fun. Mobs powers have been tweaked to make it more than doable with a team; soloing isn't a requirment and the arc has warning what to expect.
Also for note, take a look at what minions and LTs get between the levels of difficulty. You're SR got slammed because you were expecting to cap defense against everything like usual. I'm going to go ahead and make the leap of assumption you didn't like not being able to game the system off the bat.
I solo'd it fine (with tactics - the ability not the power - and inspirs) with EBs on my Regen on level 4. The ally is for story flavor, not to save the day. And no comment on the actual story, just the difficulty for one person to solo and lack of mob description? dot dot dot
I did expect more from you if you're going to bother with this review stuff. I'll gladly take the 2 knowing it gave you a challenge.
I've already forgotten about most of you
Arc 17006: End Game - Final Moves
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Notes: Nice theme on the custom group
Overall: This is a great arc. Good balance, good storyline. The last mission is quite exciting too.
You might try putting it in the blue text. It's less obvious that way, but it's also not as weird. Downside is that blue text shows up in the combat spam window and people will likely miss it, but since it shows up 4 different times maybe not.
Voodoo: Sorry, but the storyline wasn't really notable either. Serviceable I guess. BTW: you know you can restrict the powers mobs use by setting the difficulty, right? In many cases the difference between Hard and Extreme is the self rez and maybe one other power.
Also, if you want your missions to be reasonable don't give too many of the mobs Buff/Debuff powers, and certainly don't set those mobs on extreme. Just like how an 8 man all defender team will steamroller over most content in the game, a villian group where large numbers of the mobs have buff/debuff powersets will completely crush players. It's up to the mission architect to keep the challenge reasonable unless they're building something like the Arcaniaville scrapper challenge.
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Voodoo: Sorry, but the storyline wasn't really notable either. Serviceable I guess. BTW: you know you can restrict the powers mobs use by setting the difficulty, right? In many cases the difference between Hard and Extreme is the self rez and maybe one other power.
Also, if you want your missions to be reasonable don't give too many of the mobs Buff/Debuff powers, and certainly don't set those mobs on extreme. Just like how an 8 man all defender team will steamroller over most content in the game, a villian group where large numbers of the mobs have buff/debuff powersets will completely crush players. It's up to the mission architect to keep the challenge reasonable unless they're building something like the Arcaniaville scrapper challenge.
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Kong, if you bother to read, I mention the exact same thing about limiting powers. Try to actually check out the difference between the 3 tiers of difficulty for minions and LTs in what is availabe for them to use. The only rezzer is the final EB/AV; once he's dead, you're done. Fighting him again is optional. Sorry that took you off guard.....but that was the point of keeping it in. Hamster solo'd him on his fire blaster for crying out loud and complained how *easy* it was. The rez killed him and I laughed of course. The mobs are more than reasonable if you actually pay attention to what you're doing while playing.
The mobs *were* tweaked to make them manageable; I originally had the miinions use Dark Miasma, but having 3+ tar patches tossed down every group was a little too much. The minions do lower your accuracy, but it's MINOR because they are minions. The LT with Dark Miasma is there to fill out the role as "support character" and he does his job *and* he's limited in his spawning per group. You didn't even get to play with the Boss mobs I would love to team with you and listen to you [censored] about them....they actually offer you a fight as a boss should and don't rely on "god mode" powers as so many other MA creators are relying on.
Once again, I solo'd the arc on unyielding without too much issue. I've also ran it 3 times (once as a duo with a blaster) and twice on full teams; at diff level 2 it was WAY too easy as the bosses didn't even spawn as bosses and on level 4 there was some death, but that was because most of the team tried to rush it like they would the general original content. At no time during the above were the teams "crushed" in any capacity.
As for story being "serviceable", I can't help you with that. It covers all the basics, no glaring holes that you're bothering to comment on, and the mission structure is fluid. It's an intro arc to give a taste of the group. There is only so much text to use.
I suggest you try different tactics or use a character that maybe you can play a little better. I have ZERO intention of making MA missions anywhere close to the boring ad-nauseum of what's already available in the game.
Maybe I'll just cut you some slack because you are miffed you couldn't game the system and your currently published arc relies on those wonderfully creative "defeat alls" and ripping off Power Rangers. :rolls eyes: Srsly?
Don't get me wrong: I'm not taking this "criticism" personally and don't expect anyone to like what I put out there, but the *reasons* behind those dislikes is what irks me. Reasons such as "it's too hard" and lacking character descriptions in a rating is asinine IMO. For me, the ENTIRE POINT of the MA system is to provide something DIFFERENT to play against that isn't currently in the game. If I wanted to fight the same damn predictable mobs, I'd just do the usual rigamarole *already* in the game.
I base stuff off of fun factor and fluidity firstmost, story and mechanical mission construction secondly. And in this case, I apparently enjoy mobs that give a challenege as fun....as long as they don't rely on quirky game mechanics as constant healing/god mods/endless ambushes/etc.
I'm sure it won't break your heart to know that your thread (in it's entirety and not just for this instance) has caused me to completely lower any merit I have in your opinion. As I said, I did expect more from you.
I've already forgotten about most of you
The middle EB (AV?) also rezzed.
Also, please don't take it personally, like I said, it's just my opinion based on my solo playthrough. You'll notice in the "official" MA review missions that what's 1 star to one playtester will be 5 stars to the next. I would be delighted if someone came in after me an did a second opinion playthrough of all of the arcs.
Also: I play all of the arcs at Difficulty 4, just because many of them come with basic groups and my build is a little too powerful for basic groups at level 1. This means sometimes the missions are too hard (5 lts in every spawn at level 13...), but that's the way it goes.
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The middle EB (AV?) also rezzed.
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Either a bug or a setting that isn't saving. I've specifically changed him 3 time to tweak his secondary to be more fitting; the last time I specifically made sure he didn't get the rez. I'll gladly check that and put it to what I want it to be.
That's part of my point why I hate reviews/reviewers. By all means, point out specifities that don't seem right and/or ask questions. Case in point, Penny tried my Forum mission 3+ times on a particular character (solo I believe) and the final boss would never spawn for her at all. No one else has shown to have any problem with that. She did it again on a different character and had no problems. That's beyond my control.
Trust me, and I'll repeat, I'm not taking your critique personally. What bothers me is the lack of reasoning behind it, just like with most reviews/reviewers. I'm a stickler for explaining my opinions/reasons behind everything. I honestly thought you'd be more thorough in your reviews/reasons, is all.
And again, if you only run at a certain difficulty, and you're having a problem, I don't personally think that's a valid reason to lower an opinion on something published if you're unwilling to try a lower setting. MA missions are *supposed* to be different; I seriously suggest you treat them differently or you're going to be routinely disappointed.
I'm done harping on this but I hope my points were made. Sorry you didn't like the missions and thought it wasn't thought our or tested before publishing.
edit: What's funny is that I've been worried the mobs/misisons as a whole were too easy. Sure am glad I did tweak stuff from before then. 
I've already forgotten about most of you
Before the list gets too long I figured I'd better start a review thread for the missions in there. Just because it's from Victory doesn't mean it's awesome (this was a surprise to me), and I figure now is as good of a time as any for my own reviews. I'm going to go down the list in order. Caveat: these are all my own opinions, if you don't like them you can put your complaints where the sun does not shine.
When I talk about the difficulty, I'm going to refer to the difficulty to solo with my relatively high power MA/SR scrapper. Your mileage may vary.
Arc 7780 "Nobody of Consequence"
Rating: 4/5
Notes: Well filled out, with a storyline. Problems: Slightly generic storyline and custom villians. Some annoying missions (HOW many glowies...?)
Overall: Worthwhile. I'd play it again, but nothing outstanding.