Venture's Reviews II: The Nightmare Continues
By
Aisynia,
Posted on: 2009-05-16 24:40 in Mission Architect
Arc #158678 The Secret of Area 51
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: Killer GM, Wall Banger
Reviewed on: 5/16/2009
Level Range: 41-54
Character used: Venture/Virtue
Lemon, the station chief for Longbow intelligence in St. Martial, wants you to look into Malta activity in the Rogue Isles. Your tasks are to shut down Malta's security fence, download any computer files you find and avoid the Malta Prisoners. Lemon warns you that if Malta even suspected you were poking around their operations you'd never be safe again. Dude, it is way too late for that.... Act I takes place on one of the instanced St. Martial maps. The first Malta Prisoner I found was Sunshadow, whose info claims to be a third species of Kheldian...right. There are multiple instances of similar named characters, probably due to the Malta Prisoners custom faction containing nothing but, all of which say in their info they have impossible power combinations. I ended up having to take down a spawn of these guys due to their proximity to one of the fence controls. There are five of these, all destroyable objects guarded by Malta troops. This makes the mission very annoying as you have a map full of Bosses to contend with (I used stealth and flight to avoid almost all of them.) Needless to say there is no failure condition for not avoiding the prisoners, since there can't be (at least not yet). If there was any kind of computer glowie I never found it. An exit pop-up did say I downloaded 2.7 gigs of data.
For your next mission, Lemon asks you to rescue operative Pistachio from a Malta safehouse in the Hive. Malta built a safehouse in a region filled with 50 foot tall monsters and a world-devouring ooze? OK.... Oh, and you get a whole ten minutes to do this in, which the briefing doesn't tell you. I stealthed through the map to find Pistachio, a Radiation Blast/Empathy Boss whose info tells you she's an insert (Auntie Biotic on Infinity), and then had to take out a Master Gunslinger to complete.
Pistachio's intel says Malta is kidnapping supers from the RWZ and shipping them to Bradbury Island, 400 miles offshore from Paragon City, codenamed Area 51 because no one's ever heard of that before. Malta has been flying people out daily for the last six months, Lemon says, which makes me feel real confident about air security around Paragon City.... Today's flight has crashed into the cemetary in Dark Astoria and Synapse is already on the scene. You're sent in to rendezvous with him. You're warned that everyone is pretty much fighting everyone. He isn't kidding as not only are all the mobs fighting, but Synapse is hostile and has to be defeated. He claims he's the hero of this story and you're the villain. He triggers one ambush of Malta as his health declines (didn't make it to me) and says Statesman and Manticore are on the way when he falls. If they spawned I never saw them. The exit popup says You tell yourself, it was either defeat Synapse, or join the Malta Prisoners in "Area 51". What were you supposed to do? Surrender to Malta? Like, what?
In the final debriefing, Lemon tells you that Synapse and the Phalanx were out there to support Malta, not oppose them, because Area 51 is actually a prison for superheroes that reach security level 51. At this point they are reclassified as Threat Level 51 and imprisoned to keep the world safe from them. He says Venture, I advise you to forget what you learned today. Stay out of the Rikti War Zone. Stay away from Bradbury Island. Don't think about Area 51. Don't challenge authority. Trust the Freedom Phalanx to both know, and do, what's right for the rest of us...
That THUD! you heard was the sound of this arc hitting the wall. I do have to say this arc is a first: it is the only one I've seen so far that would be improved if it were revealed all the main NPCs were Nemesis Automatons.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Good to see you back in the game. Always enjoy reading your lambasting of people's arcs 
[ QUOTE ]
Arc #158678 The Secret of Area 51
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: Killer GM, Wall Banger
Reviewed on: 5/16/2009
Level Range: 41-54
Character used: Venture/Virtue
[/ QUOTE ]
I actually played this arc because I was taken in by the title where "Area 51" meant "Sci Fi" in my mind. Wrongo. And when I was sent to "rendevous" with Synapse I assumed that meant "meet up and join" not get my [censored] kicked before I could react by an AV level foe. I just quit at that point.
Arc #150854 Guns, Girls and Gills
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: Wall Banger, Random Events Plot, Killer GMing, others listed below....
Reviewed on: 5/16/2009
Level Range: 45-54/45-54/40-54/1-54/1-54
Character used: Venture/Virtue
Agent G, tired of being stuck at the Faultline dam, asks you to check out a hot tip for him in the hopes that it will lead to a new assignment and a raise. No, really. The tip takes you to a warehouse with Family and Arachnos slugging it out, evidently over a docking manifest you find in a filing cabinet. G gets some agents to head for the ship in question and sends you after them...seems another agent in Sharkhead is bucking for the same promotion he's after.
Immediately upon entering the ship I spotted some new players, Freyja's Shadow, which has Lieutenants with Ninjitsu.... The Longbow allies were required so I sprung them as I found them, hoping they'd snuff it quickly, which they did. The aforementioned Valkyrie Lts turned out to be Archery/Ninjitus; the Mystique Minions (no description on these) Dual Blades/Super Reflexes. Those are both +perception builds so forget about stealth. The Longbow allies were guarded by Arachnos and a Crey patrol wandered in soon, which was fired on by everyone else. I heard some Family mobs but never saw them. It turned out all the commotion was over a container of some kind of genetic alteration chemical and a captured Ballista, Captain Red, who took off when rescued. He dropped a red badge with a X gashed in it. G decides that none of this makes any sense and you should check out Crey next.
G sends you to check out a Crey lab at an address he pulls out of his butt. This really should be part of the Clues from the last Act. You're specifically told to look for a Dr. Wainstead and persuade him to talk. I'd say Longbow hasn't gotten the memo on extreme rendition but they're not an actual government agency, are they.... The map, a tech lab, is filled with Crey, Rogue Longbow (hostile) and more of the Freyja's Shadow girls. The latter are guarding a number of scientist hostages, all of whom claim to be the one you're looking for but just run off when rescued. An ambush of Freyja's Shadow was triggered when I recovered a small fish-like scale from a container, claiming HE needs that material! The mission actually completed when I can around a corner and OH HI THERE CAPTAIN MAKO. Even better, as his health declined he summoned an ambush of Vanguard which are hostile. I somehow managed to win this without using Elude. There was no sign of Wainstead, but defeating Mako gives you a Clue in which Wainstead confesses that the Knives have stolen Mako's genetic material and some catalysts. The mission exit popup tells you that Mako dropped a key to the locked room Wainstead was hiding in. Maybe that could have gone into the Boss Defeat or Mission End Clues instead....
G tells you the Shadow chicks are a Knives splinter group, and that they're probably the best lead now. He sends you to an abandoned Knives hideout in an old Council base. This map turns out to be empty (never a good sign) until you take down Edge, a Martial Arts/Broadsword EB. If she had info I never got to read it thanks to the ambush waves. When she falls her defeat text says she takes a cyanide pill rather than allow herself to be captured, and she shouts for her girls to destroy the files. This spawns two defend-object objectives. Clearing that gets you a short Clue about a Dr. Sturgeon. After the fact I found some Longbow agents, probably another ambush wave that got lost.
For the finale, G sends you after Dr. Sturgeon. Presumably there was an address in those papers.... You end up on a tech mab with objectives Erase Sturgeon's Database, 3 Chambers to Destroy and Defeat the Longbow Agent. Yes, this is a Heroic arc. The first chamber spawned up front. Taking it out immediately spawned an ambush of five Sturgeon's School Bosses, with a variety of powers, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies style. I got dropped instantly. On the rematch I discovered at least some of them had Regen turned up high enough to resurrect. The Longbow Agent you are supposed to defeat turns out to be an AV named Agent Crimson, only not that Agent Crimson. This one is an ex-agent fired for killing Mu Mystics that had already surrendered. Her info says she still has contacts in the company, though. She was Assault Rifle/Pain Domination and not that much trouble, except for the fact that the nearby party of high-perception Freyja's Shadow joined in. After that there was another capsule to destroy, with another five-Boss ambush. After that came erasing Sturgeon's database...which triggered him to spawn as a Radiation Blast/Radiation Emission AV/EB with Freyja's guards. As his health went down he spawned more objectives: three bombs to protect and 2 more stasis chambers. At least this time the spawn chambers had their Boss parties as guards and not ambushes. The bombs, however, not only had five Bosses around them but also spawned a wave of Freyja's Shadows. Just to make things worse two of them evidently spawned in the exact same spot. I took a death on that one, but managed to get all three cleared. The last chamber spawned at +2 so there were only two Bosses guarding it, both the Radiation Emission types that were much easier to kill. The entire debriefing: Awesome work! I'm calling them right now to report success.
Yeah.
So, my new series of reviews is off to a flying stop with another clunker. The storyline is a good example of a Random Events Plot. You encounter... *rolls dice* "...d8 Longbow agents..." *rolls dice* ..."5 and they are..." *rolls dice* ..."hostile!" Factions just appear without much in the way of rhyme or reason. It goes without saying the arc has no theme or moral, as a Random Events Plot transcends "just a bunch of stuff that happened". Agent G's voice is totally off, the depiction of Longbow is laughable, and don't even get me started on the insane amount of Killer GMing. This one is a candidate for Smite Arc.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Current queue: 15381,112548, 171693, 61156, 6143, 101681, 12774, 1153, 1044, 161066, 81378, 113956, 84420, 2050, 3369, 170547, 123675, 170506, 103878, 163274, 57352, 149323, 137705
I have no pending requests for reruns.
If you requested a review and don't see your number, please PM me.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Arc # 15381, "Heaven's Not Enough"
tl;dr: 4 stars.
Reviewed on: 5/16/2009
Level Range: 35-54/40-54/1-54/40-54/40-54
Character used: Venture/Virtue
Miriam Bloechl asks you to help another hero, Shadowflame, she'd sent to investigate Circle of Thorns activity. She's had a psychic feeling that Shadowflame is in over her head. The mission takes place in a Trolls cave map. Shadowflame is a Dark Melee/Thermal Radiation ally, front-spawned, and her rescue triggers a Boss defeat objective. "Archivist Lokken" warns you as you defeat him that things may not be as they seem. On your return Miriam explains that Shadowflame is an undead, killed by a fumbled spell in a fight between Skulls and Hellions. She retains her memories though and because of that fights as a hero.
In Act II, Miriam has discovered that the Circle activity you and Shadowflame stopped was directed towards the Banished Pantheon. You now have to go rescue the people the Pantheon kidnapped for their ritual. There are three hostages to rescue, which then triggers Shadowflame's spawn as an ally hostage. Then you have to destroy an altar. You recover a page with a spell for protection against incorporeal entities (which Shadowflame is). She asks you to give it to her so she can study it with Miriam later. On your return Miriam tells you there was an incident in a nearby building you'll have to investigate next.
It seems the Paragon Museum of Anthropology was attacked by strange creatures. They've stolen items, exactly what isn't known yet, and retreated to the target building. Miriam asks you to take them on, drive them away and learn what you can about them. All she knows now is they're some kind of undead. This one's an abandoned tech lab map. The enemies are "Dread Army", a custom faction. "Executioners" were Axe/Dark Armor Lieutenants; Dread Sages Radiation Blast/Pain Domination. The next level had "Apparitions" (Dark Blast/DiedTooFast), "Skeletal Archers" (Archery/Super Reflexes), "Feral Shadows" (Claws/Ninjitsu) and "Ghouls" (Dark Melee/Willpower), all Minions and mostly +perception types. The three clues include a golden locket (probably Shadowflame's) and some information about a machine that used to be housed here for drawing out spirits. In the debriefing Miriam tells you the Dread Army stole the Gem of Sacrifice which, when empowered with 100,000 souls, living or dead, can grant a single wish. This is the kind of item one usually attempts to pitch into a convenient volcano.... The machine you learned about would be perfect for acquiring these souls. Miriam also confirms that the locket was Shadowflame's and is able to use her psychometric ability to determine Shadowflame is still alive but weakened.
Shadowflame has to wait, though. The Dread Army has set up the siphoning devices in a section of the city. They've also set up a mystic object that cloaks the siphons, so you'll have to take that out first. And just to make it fun, both the Pantheon and the Circle are out in force as well. A "Banshee" Lieutenant, Sonic Blast/Illusion Control, joined the Dread Army's ranks on this map. The map is the narrow city map, and fortunately for me the "Shield Bearer" artifact spawned near the entrance. Its destruction triggered a new objective, 4 siphons. I was able to fly high enough, with stealth, to stay out of agro radius and scout for these from the air. Destroying the last one triggered a Banished Pantheon ambush. During the fighting you can hear some of the Dread Army say their master is "turning a hero", which as Miriam points out in the debriefing, implies they're after Shadowflame. Or...are they?
For Act V, Miriam sends you to the location she believes Shadowflame is at. Both the Circle and the Pantheon have been sighted making attacks there too, which to her confirms her suspicions that the Dread Army's "master" is working his spells there. She gives you Shadowflame's locket, adding a small bone fragment from her old body. The setting is an office-to-caves map. "Mind Pyre", a Fiery Melee/Mental Manipulation Boss, spawned up front, his info saying it wore the shredded remains of tights as if it was a hero in life. During the fight he says he has no control over his body and begs you to free him. He also says he shouldn't have gone to the abandoned lab alone.... In the caves, Archivist Lokken can be found as a hostage ally, willing just this once to aid you against the Big Bad...Shadowflame, willing to do anything to become human again, but we saw that coming. She was a Dark Melee/Fiery Aura AV/EB, which made her rather irritating to fight as Healing Flame comes up fairly often. She lets on during the fight that the bone fragment makes her vulnerable as it's a relic of her old body. Miriam holds on to it, just in case she returns.
I wouldn't say this one throws the Idiot Ball, but you do have a pretty dim bulb not to see the reveal coming a long way off. You're not quite "riding the slow train to stupidville" but it is a bit of a tedious haul to get to the money shot. The control effects are going to annoy some players, too -- I didn't have much trouble but for whatever reason the Banshee kept trying to Confuse me, which Super Reflexes is protected against. I only had one drop the Spectral Terror. Finally I'd complain about the "Gem of Sacrifice". Frankly, it seems (if I dare use this word) inconceivable that the city would leave something like that lying around at all, never mind in a museum. Maybe if they didn't know what it did, until the player recovered some old scroll from the Circle or Pantheon that let them identify it. On the plus side, the characters are well-written and the story does have a strong theme.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
A finger bone, huh? Reminds me of something I read in the Chronicles of Prydain =)
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
Arc #112548, "A Flame That Burns Bright"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: plot issues
Reviewed on: 5/16/2009
Level Range: 46-52/40-54/40-54/40-54/1-54
Character used: Venture/Virtue
Akane Matsuda, a Japanese schoolgirl by appearance, wants you to check up on her grandfather. He used to be a hero but his powers faded in old age. When he developed a rare heart condition the family couldn't afford proper medical treatment...but Crey offered to care for him in one of their hospitals free of charge. Akane had been visiting him regularly but starting last week the hospital claimed he was too ill for visitors. In the acceptance text she says she'll find a way to pay for a regular hospital if it's the only way she can see him, as he's her only surviving family. When you arrive at the address she provides you instantly realize it is not a hospital (tech map). Crey is, of course, as happy as ever to see you. Some computer files tell you Suzaku Matsuda was admitted here, and that his powers are not faded but are being deliberately suppressed through sheer willpower, something Crey's doctors think is related to his medical condition. On the upper floor some patrols say the base is under attack by ghosts, which you find guarding a cauldron, and that Suzaku KO'd his Protector and fled. The Protector in question, one of the demonic models, makes an amazing recovery on your approach and has to be re-subdued, claiming Matsuda's power is his power. The cauldron turns out to be a scrying artifact, giving visions of a graveyard.
Akane tells you in Act II the graveyard you saw must be a place Suzaku had taken her when she was younger, a place he called the home of those who once held the power of the four guardian spirits. He also told her he was evidently one of these, the Vermilion Bird. Your next stop is that graveyard. There, you find three more guardians, all being attacked by ghosts claiming to want their power for their master, along with any number of graves for a Suzaku Matsuda, none of them with a recent time of death. The guardians tell you that when it is their time to die they go to that graveyard. Akane's grandfather isn't there, though.
Akane believe he's gone to see the Circle of Thorns. She says that years ago the four Guardians gave the Circle a tome about them as a peace offering...um, yeah...and that he's probably gone to get it back. So you're off to see the wizards. This mission uses the Spirit City map, which is nice and linear at least but is rapidly approaching overused status. The elusive Suzaku shows up here as an ally rescue, Fire Blast/Regen (maybe), and tells you there is a fifth guardian, Kukan, whose power was too great so (it is implied) he was sealed away. A "Disciple of Kukan" ghost Boss drops a map to the Cave of the Void when defeated, more or less stating that this is deliberate so Kukan himself can deal with you...and Suzaku collapses on the way out. He needs you to go to the cave and deal with Kukan. Akane is not happy to hear you had to leave him behind, and why should she be....
So, in Act iV, there is nothing else for you to do but head to the Cave of the Void, a Cimerora cave map. After battling your way through a small army of ghosts, you reach Kukan, a Dark Blast/Pain Domination EB. He gets all emo on you as you beat him down, complaining that he just wanted to use his power to protect the world and it wasn't fair for his peers, the other guardians, to reject him in this way. After his defeat he says he'll never give up.
On your return Akane tells you the other guardians are meeting Suzaku on his way out of Oranbega. She gives you a cell phone, which conveniently rings as one of the other guardians calls to ask you to join them. When you arrive, Suzaku's power has grown out of control and he must be stopped. The woods are full of "Spark" creatures born from his power. (This looks familiar. 
)Suzaku is a Fire Blast/Fiery Melee AV/EB, meaning the usual: Aim/95%ToHit/Inferno/Dead. He went down fairly quickly on the rematch. During the fight he says he is seeking an honorable death in battle and wants you to tell Akane he loves her. When you return, the guardian spirit has taken Akane as its new host, and claims Suzaku was trying to keep it contained to prevent her from becoming the next Vermilion Bird. Akane seems to accept this as she uses her new power to travel to the graveyard and honor her grandfather.
The arc is well-written in many ways but the plot is disjointed. Kukan's part in the plot seems extraneous and the whole trip to Oranbega has a Your Princess Is In Another Castle feel to it as a result. Kukan and his ghosts only attack the guardians against whom he seems to have a legitimate grievance (well, and Crey, but they got in the way when the ghosts went after Suzaku and besides, they deserved it.) We are never shown or told of any villainy he has perpetrated. We might infer from Suzaku's fate that things could be Even Worse if that happened to Kukan, but Suzaku brings that fate upon himself by trying to subvert the natural order of the guardian spirit's progression. It is not only not clear whether the player has done the right thing by the end of the arc, but it isn't even clear what the questions are. This could easily be a five-star arc if the plot was cleaned up.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Not to clutter up your thread too much I will keep it short.
Thanks for the review gonna work on it even harder now try to shore up the plot.
Virtue
--Blazing Tiger-- 50 Invulrn/Fire Tank
<<Virtues Tankiest Kitty>>
Try my Arcs: #4892 and #112548
@Blazing Tiger and @Aqua Fox
Another queue update: 171693, 61156, 6143, 101681, 171203, 1153, 1044, 161066, 81378, 113956, 84420, 2050, 3369, 170547, 123675, 170506, 103878, 163274, 57352, 149323, 137705, 171149, 174586, 161797, 175675, 50271, 162898, 106553
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Obviously need more information on Crimson. Captain Red in the second one is supposed to reveal more info about Crimson, but the escort with betrayal never worked so it turned into a basic rescue so he could drop the badge. All the rogue longbow are supposed to be agents of Crimson. G's longbow rescues aren't required, they're just listed in the objectives.
If you let the longbow live long enough they fight Mako as well, they're all set to Rogue so they should have been fighting absolutely everything they ran into.
Totally surprised the end encounter worked right for you, one of crimson or sturgeon hasn't spawned for me every single time so I've never gotten to the bomb/chambers spawn bits to even test it correctly.
I'm surprised you criticize it for being labeled as heroic when you're wiping the database and destroying the equipment of a megalomaniac geneticist trying to clone an army out of one of the most ruthless Arachnos elite. (Mako) I'll try and get more information in there about what's going on with Mako. It's impossible to include Mako himself as anything but a kill boss objective, though, without incurring multiple Makos (last try had 7 and then 24 of them together) showing up at once which is really, really silly.
It's supposed to have the "killer GM" aspect to it, though. It warns you at the getgo it wasn't built to be soloed.
I have updated All in the Family (ID 128109) after your review of it, and would appreciate a re-rate (or just opinions on the plot changes). Hopefully they don't come off as Wall Banger-ish.
The only downside is that the latest patch caused the "Only Boss needed to complete" detail on the elderly Raffaellis to get bugged, and all of their bodyguards need to perish with them. That's the MA's fault and not mine, though.
Perhaps you'll consider letting at least one go this time? They do run at 1/4 HP or if they're the only ones left standing.
Virtue: The X-Patriots
Characters include Firewinter, Olive Branch, Maltese Spider... and more!
@Firewinter
Arc 37724: Brokering the Brickers
Arc 128109: All in the Family
It's in the rerun queue, but please PM future requests.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Arc # 106553, "Trollbane"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: plot issues, overpowered mobs
Reviewed on: 5/17/2009
Level Range: 5-14/5-14/10-14/5-14/5-14
Character used: Amy Sunflower/Virtue
N.B: Yes, I pulled this one off the end of the queue. I'm levelling up a newbie Plant/Thermal and this was the right level range.
Back Alley Brawler calls upon you to help deal with a surge in Troll violence. Something is killing them off and they're lashing out at random, this time at a Skull 'dyne lab. On entering the burning Skulls lair you sense something mystic nearby.... As soon as you enter you come across Trolls and Skulls slugging it out. I didn't have to bother with Seeds of Confusion until the pack thinned down a bit. During the fighting you can hear some of the Skulls say "that ectoplasmic idiot got loose and attacked the Trolls!", which dovetails nicely with the remains of a necromantic ritual found after the shooting stops. It looks like the Skulls have whipped up something they couldn't quite control.
The carnage continues in Act II as one of the Trolls managed to grab a list of addresses at the last fight. He'd already passed it on before being arrested, but Brawler "convinces" him (with a stern look) to blab about the ones he remembers. You're sent to the first one on the list, which is almost certainly where the Trolls will go first. Brawler also gives you a "superball" from Numina that will lead you to anything mystical at the site. Once again, Skulls and Trolls are duking it out...but I also heard a bark from "The Crimson Fist". He turned out to be a Boss (on Heroic, meaning he should "really" be an EB), Energy Blast/Mental Manipulation from the looks of it. His info points out he was a Midnighter who died during the Rikti war and really shouldn't be walking around now. The ectoplasmic residue the Fist was composed of dissolved upon its defeat, and a little farther in there was a coffin with the Fist's real name, John Knox, on it. Brawler has to think about what you've found.
What you found was actually enough to scare Numina. She won't talk about it until she's sure of her findings. For some reason that isn't really clear waiting for that isn't an option. Brawler sends you to Oranbega, saying that if he goes personally it would trigger a massive reprisal from the Circle. There just doesn't seem to be any reason for you to go either, but, it's in the script, so.... After you accept Brawler tells you that Numina thinks there might be answers there, which is still kind of vague and probably should get moved up front anyway. He also fills you in a bit on Knox's history which is a matter of canon. Oranbega offers the usual Circle smackdown, along with a "Baron Schwarzeherr", Necromancy/Dark Miasma Boss and self-proclaimed elite necromancer. He won the first match thanks to a lag spike. After a retaliatory beatdown, he gave up a list of rituals the Skulls stole from him, spells intended to summon spirits of anger. This explains why whatever they've called up, using Crimson Fist's remains as a focus, hates the Trolls.
For Act IV the Skulls are out to summon another ghost, this time from a graveyard in Kings Row. Brawler wants you to take care of it while he deals with Troll reprisals in Skyway. He also tells you Numina put the scrolls you were given in the "please steal me" section of the MAGI vaults, booby-trapped with incantations that will destroy every zombie within half a mile. When you hit the streets in Kings Row, the Trolls are on the warpath...and so is the Illustrated Woman's ghost as an Illusion Control/Pain Domination Boss. I might have taken the first fall if I hadn't gotten shot in the back by an ambush wave. On her defeat you get a Clue saying you took a photo of her to show Brawler, presumably assuming your character doesn't know who she is from history (which most should, IMO), and another saying one of the Skulls gave up the name of the one in charge of this project, "the Bonemason". Brawler's response to the photo is to go beat more information out of the Baron. Um, yeah.
The result of his extreme rendition is a massive Circle offensive in Founders, leaving you to deal with the real problem: the Bonemason is leading the Skulls and more of the ghosts in an attack on the Hollows. It turns out he doesn't care about the Trolls in particular, he just needs lots of deaths to turn the Hollows into New Dark Astoria. Brawler and the Phalanx have to face the Circle, leaving the city's fate in the hands of a hero under security level 14...OK.... You get a bring-friends warning after accepting. Once again, the map is full of Skull-Troll battles. Your objective: four Skull leaders, the first of which is the Crimson Fist again. He inconveniently spawned at +1 too, but I dropped him in one try. The Illustrated Woman took three, and a full tray each time. This mob is way overpowered. Illusion and Mind Control need to be avoided until the Confuse powers can be dropped...at a +1 spawn she was able to keep my Controller permanently unable to attack as soon as the BFs ran out with Deceive alone. Next up was the Bonemason himself, who also spawned as a +1 Boss. This one was Necromancy/Dark Blast, meaning he has Dark Blast, Gloom and (probably) Siphon Life twice each -- think about what that means for his attack chain. It took about half a dozen tries, a full tray of insps each time, to take him down. The last of the Skull leaders was Tombstone, a regular Bone Daddy. The briefing is a typical congratulations from the Brawler, and a note from the author about the in-game monuments for John Knox and Mina "Illustrated Woman" Horne.
The arc has a good story up until the end, when Brawler decides to go street hunting in Founders' instead of dealing with a potential city-destroying threat. If the Contact is going to be someone so prestigious then either the threat has to be dialed down or its magnitude needs to be sprung on the player during the mission so there's no opportunity to call in the big guns. The trip to Oranbega in Act III is kind of wedged in as well. Finally the arc really has too many Elites for one that caps at 14...as in, any. There are only a few Elites at that level in the stock missions and they're pretty vanilla mobs. Custom Elites are way, way more nasty. On the plus side the mission does work well with the canon.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Thanks for the review, Venture!
Hmm- lesse-
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What you found was actually enough to scare Numina. She won't talk about it until she's sure of her findings. For some reason that isn't really clear waiting for that isn't an option. Brawler sends you to Oranbega, saying that if he goes personally it would trigger a massive reprisal from the Circle. There just doesn't seem to be any reason for you to go either, but, it's in the script, so....
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Oop- writer fail. Guess I need to make it clearer that at least some of the magic involved is Oranbegan in origin (the Baron's info mentions that he seems to use both Mu and Oranbegan magic), which is why you went down there.
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On her defeat you get a Clue saying you took a photo of her to show Brawler, presumably assuming your character doesn't know who she is from history (which most should, IMO)
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Actually, you could also infer that you're just taking the photo as confirmation- after all, would you want to believe that your close friends had been zombified? I didn't actually say one way or another, so...
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Brawler's response to the photo is to go beat more information out of the Baron. Um, yeah.
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Hmm... writer fail again, I guess- what I intended to convey as happening was that the Brawler simply lost his temper, and the Baron provided the most convenient 'face' for that anger- thus his invasion of Oranbega despite having just said that it's a really, really bad idea for him to do so.
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Brawler and the Phalanx have to face the Circle, leaving the city's fate in the hands of a hero under security level 14...OK....
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There is precedent for this- the Caverns of Transcendence Trial (admittedly, that leaves the city's fate in the hands of a bunch of heroes under level 15, but whatever), along with the Vahzilok Pollutant Plot ("... bad news for everyone with a faucet"). That, and, at the end of the day... they're still just Skulls.
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The arc has a good story up until the end, when Brawler decides to go street hunting in Founders' instead of dealing with a potential city-destroying threat. If the Contact is going to be someone so prestigious then either the threat has to be dialed down or its magnitude needs to be sprung on the player during the mission so there's no opportunity to call in the big guns.
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Honesty time? If I could have included the Brawler as an ally in here, I would have- I may just give up and fake-up a copy of him (not too hard, since all I really need is some excuse for him not to have his usual gloves, I suppose), but I'm not sure. Unfortunately, he's level-limited out. Also- prestigious or not, the Brawler is still the Newbie trainer, and a pretty street-level kind of guy.
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The trip to Oranbega in Act III is kind of wedged in as well.
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It's partially a search for clues, and partially a break from fighting nothing but Skulls and Trolls, honestly. And there is a (apparently poorly conveyed, unfortunately >.< story reason for it.
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Finally the arc really has too many Elites for one that caps at 14...as in, any.
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And here, I have a bit of a problem- the difficulty spikes you encountered are irregular at best- the two instances of the Illustrated Woman you faced were identical, yet the second fight was an order of magnitude more difficult, from what I can tell from your account. The AI is so erratic that the fight can range from forgettable to a horrific grind to a brick wall (as far as I remember, the Bonemason should have the same powers as the Baron, who you apparently didn't have much trouble with).
In fact, for the majority of my testing (on a variety of ATs), each and every boss was pretty much a pushover- I even lost one of them to a Troll/Skull battle before we ever got there (on a larger team). The crazy difficulty you encountered is an outlier case, which leaves me reluctant to play with things too much. Although that confuse is gone the second we get the ability to remove individual powers >.<
Also, I left them as EBs so that most players would be encountering them as bosses- I really kind of wanted to avoid the Dark/died too fast issue.
Anyhow, thanks again for the review- I'm going to poke the writing a bit more (clarify a couple of things), and also mess with the powersets again... although like I said, as far as I can tell, it's more an AI issue than anything else.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
There is precedent for this- the Caverns of Transcendence Trial (admittedly, that leaves the city's fate in the hands of a bunch of heroes under level 15, but whatever), along with the Vahzilok Pollutant Plot ("... bad news for everyone with a faucet"). That, and, at the end of the day... they're still just Skulls.
Neither one of those is handed off to the player by (e.g.) Statesman. You get the Cavern TF from some mystic guy who just hangs around the Hollows, whom we never see fight and may not even have combat powers. Likewise, the Vahzilok Pollutant Plot arc comes from a civilian Contact. It's easy to believe in these cases that they can't get in touch with anyone stronger in time and can't do it themselves. When it's Back Alley Brawler giving the mission, not so much.
And here, I have a bit of a problem- the difficulty spikes you encountered are irregular at best- the two instances of the Illustrated Woman you faced were identical, yet the second fight was an order of magnitude more difficult, from what I can tell from your account.
They were not; the second one was a +1 level spawn. That meant more damage, harder to hit, and longer-lasting control powers.
(as far as I remember, the Bonemason should have the same powers as the Baron, who you apparently didn't have much trouble with).
The Baron was (it seemed) Necromancy/Dark Miasma; the Bonemason was Necromancy/Dark Blast. That meant the Bonemason could fire the three attacks duplicated in his primary twice without waiting for a refresh. Biiiiiig boost in the attack chain there.
Also, I left them as EBs so that most players would be encountering them as bosses- I really kind of wanted to avoid the Dark/died too fast issue.
At this level that's not likely to be a problem with Boss-level Masterminds, I think. If they're left at Bosses most players will fight them as Bosses, as most players run above Heroic difficulty starting early. Only my Controllers are likely to still be on Heroic after level 6.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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When it's Back Alley Brawler giving the mission, not so much.
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Hrm... I did try to give BaBs a reason for absenting himself (and like I said, I was actually hoping to find some way to stick him in), even if it was his own rather stupid fault.
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The Baron was (it seemed) Necromancy/Dark Miasma; the Bonemason was Necromancy/Dark Blast. That meant the Bonemason could fire the three attacks duplicated in his primary twice without waiting for a refresh. Biiiiiig boost in the attack chain there.
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You could be right- a simple enough fix, if that's the case.
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They were not; the second one was a +1 level spawn. That meant more damage, harder to hit, and longer-lasting control powers.
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Except that that's really not something I have any control over- the mission options were set identically, and I'm not sure why she spawned as a +1.
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At this level that's not likely to be a problem with Boss-level Masterminds, I think. If they're left at Bosses most players will fight them as Bosses, as most players run above Heroic difficulty starting early. Only my Controllers are likely to still be on Heroic after level 6.
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Really? Most of those that I run with stay on heroic until at least the post-Stamina levels. Difference in personal experience, I guess.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
Except that that's really not something I have any control over- the mission options were set identically, and I'm not sure why she spawned as a +1.
Even on Heroic, mobs can spawn at +1 to the mission holder's level. Something to keep in mind when balancing.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Arc #61156, "Grim and the Green"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: overpowered mob, Shaggy Dog ending
Reviewed on: 5/17/2009
Level Range: 1-14
Character used: Amy Sunflower/Virtue
Jose Brogan calls on you to respond to a tip about a Skull attack on a club in Atlas. Simple enough to start with... When you arrive the attack is in full swing, and you are to arrest all partycrashers (i.e., clear all.) Fortunately this is the dance club map so that's not hard. The lead Bone Daddy, Ashes, tells you after his pummeling that they were strapped for cash and had to make a payment to someone named "Grimoire", who threatened to sell them to "the Doc" if they couldn't come up with their fare. There's also one non-escort hostage to rescue.
A note you found on Ashes turns out to be a map, which Brogan uses to identify the gang's base, a warehouse in Galaxy City. You're sent there to take it down, and to look for Miguel Ferris, the agent who tipped Brogan off to the raid in the first place. Ferris is seemingly posing as a Deaths Head Buckshot ally hostage (there's an HTML error in his keepers' dialog.) You're to look for clues and take out the warehouse Boss, which ended up being pretty much a clear-all anyway. At least it wasn't too big of a map. The Boss turned out to be a "Businessman" from the Family looking to talk to Grimoire. He refuses to talk even after his slap-down. Nearby there's a pile of loot: electronics, military-grade weapons, etc. In the debriefing Brogan identifies the Family goomba as Johnny Five-Rings whom, unfortunately, has a pack of "witnesses" who will swear in court he was an innocent person kidnapped by the Skulls. On the plus side the loot you recovered represented about a months' worth of stealing so it's a major loss for the Skulls.
In Act III, Brogan briefs you a bit on what his undercover guy found. It looks like the Skulls might have gotten their hands on a new designer drug, which they're hoping to monopolize. He's got a good idea where it's stashed, though. Unfortunately it's the sewers. You are sent in to retrieve five crates of drugs and bust the leader, an unnamed Bone Daddy. The "new designer drug" turns out to be Superadine...this arc gives no indication that it's a historical mission up-front. The Skulls you just busted turn out to be in the early stages of Troll mutation due to sampling their own stuff.
Brogan next gives you the introduction to Superadine speech, then sends you back to the warehouse you just cleared to look for more clues...um, yeah. When you arrive the Skulls have moved back in. There are glowies all over the place, mostly boxes but one painting that pretty much screams Definitely Not The Important Glowie. You find a note behind it saying that "Spines" is going to be back at 10, and according to your watch that was two minutes ago. Your new objective is to interrogate him. He turns out to be "Spinesnap", a standard Bone Daddy, who has returned to grab anything the cops left behind on Grimoire's orders. Post-beatdown he admits that he didn't want to come because he knew there'd be nothing left but Grimoire insisted, and finger Grimoire's hideout for you. He also lets you know Grimoire's uncle is someone important in the Family.
Time for the Fight Scene: Brogan sends you after Grimoire. This one comes with a bring-friends warning. The mission takes place on a Troll caves map. There's a front-loaded glowie (a crate) that appears to spawn an ally if clicked....it says " Looking at the depleted Superadine vials, you consider calling your contact for help." and " You change your mind. Certainly you can defeat one criminal on your own." if interrupted. I eventually confirmed that it did summon a Mace/Shield Lieutenant, because Grimoire (or "Grimor" now) was a Mace/Invulnerability Elite Boss Troll (since I was on Heroic, that should mean he was normally an AV...really, AVs in level 14 arcs are over the top). His Clobber attack hit for 290, I had 274 HP...after three tries I picked up the ally. I expected the ally to snuff it instantly, but Grimor just kept throwing his silly little knives at me instead of hitting the guy what was pummeling him. When you return, Brogan drops a Shaggy Dog ending on you: all the evidence was stolen right out of the police vault. So, there's no case against the higher-ups.
It's a good arc up until the end, when the overpowered Big Bad and ending suck the life out of it. Also, it should be more explicit that this is a historical arc. Finally, the souvenir is a solid wall of text.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
You have issues with lots of writing or just lack of paragraph breaks? Honest question.
I'm only ladylike when compared to my sister.
I'd imagine it's the lack of paragraph breaks - souvenirs would logically be quite long if they summarize the entire arc in some fashion. The "wall of text" usually refers to that particular thing (no breaks). imo.
Thanks for the review, Venture. I should probably point out the root of the two problems you mentioned, though.
Regarding overpowered Grimoire {or Grimor, as Trolls have a predilection for vowel deficiency}; yes, he's designed as an AV, but in all the runs so far he's spawned as an AV only once, on an eight-man team running on Unyielding - in all the other cases, including a plethora of Heroic and Tenacious eight-men he resolutely stayed an EB. Also, if he's designed as an EB, on a solo he downscales to a mere Boss, which is a little underwhelming, so an EB with a couple of tank-build boss allies on your side should make him feasible. The glowy and the cops both are supposed to show up at the front of the map, by the way, but what with AE's glowy placement and all...
Regarding the Shaggy Dog ending, it wasn't my first choice, but seems to be the only way to stay with the canon, as it's not a historical arc; if the case did make it to the court, the Family's Dyne-through-Skulls operation would flounder, which would go against the canon you encounter later in the higher security levels. The missing evidence is also fairly easy to explain - a hired superninja vs. a crooked cop - which is more probable? There's also a hint to as who the culprit is - one undercover agent named Manual Ferrous whom you may encounter later on.
Current queue status....
Main: 171693, 6143, 101681, 171203, 1153, 1044, 161066, 81378, 113956, 84420, 3369, 170547, 123675, 170506, 103878, 163274, 57352, 149323, 137705, 171149, 174586, 161797, 175675, 179354, 162898, 75386, 77533, 59147, 114284, 15988, 1036, 55715, 37636, 17006, 161865, 156389
Lowbie: 2050
Reruns: 128109
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
When I worked on my arc I had issue with the mission creator when the souvenir was more that 1000 characters. I ended up going in the file and putting the HTML br, manually. If it's a wall of text it could be a bug.
"Steady as a mountain, attack like fire, still as a wood, swift as the wind.
In heaven and earth I alone am to be revered."
- Motto on the war banner of Takeda Shingen (1521-1573)
Now that I have time for it, I'm starting to review arcs again. I'm starting a new thread 'coz the old one is getting bloated.
I am not queueing up any of the requests from the old thread for two reasons. The first being that I said I wouldn't. The other is that with the recent changes to mobs and available maps I don't want to review something that was submitted a long time ago and may not have been updated.
You may read my earlier reviews and comments upon them here. Eventually I intend to post the reviews on my site, but that may take a while.
If you wish to request a review please do so through a PM, either here or in-game (my global is @Venture on the Live servers). I'd rather the thread wasn't cluttered with requests. I will only accept one arc per person at a time, meaning if you have written a multi-arc epic I will not be reviewing the entire thing, at least not all at once. I expect Architect projects to fit in the space provided, meaning every arc has to stand on its own.
If you have substantially altered an arc I have reviewed and would like it re-reviewed, you may submit it again but I will be placing such requests in a separate queue that will move slower, probably one re-review for every three or four new ones. On that note, I reserve the right to review arcs in whatever order I choose, though I will make an effort to be fair and timely.
Let the games begin....
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"