Venture's Reviews II: The Nightmare Continues
By
Aisynia,
Posted on: 2009-05-16 24:40 in Mission Architect
So many responses to criticism end up sounding defensive or like so much hand-waving, that I'm never sure just how much is appropriate.
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defeat the "Central Processor", which was an Igneous named Core Dump.
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The original enemy group was a bunch of custom robots who were way too powerful for the level range. Noted for future editing. Sorry you didn't like Igneous. Hydra were overly powerful in other ways and I wanted something "alien" looking.
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and three copies of The Hood, described only as "a mysterious masked figure attempting to erase Galaxy Girl from history". These are numbered IV, III and II. There are a total of five Clues to find, four of which make it sound as if the real goal of the Hood is to erase Ms. Liberty. The last is from Mystery Letter Writing Guy who once again mocks you for having no freaking idea what you're really doing.
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There was a fourth version of the big bad (number one) whose dialog ought to have offered a slight clue about the Ms. Liberty business. Must have spawned in back or run away before you encountered him. Noted. In any case, it seems mission three was a big failure, story wise, since that's where the plot threads are nominally tied together. The Letter was a bad idea in retrospect. The Letter Writer follows a standard forumula - "I can find you. Here's some useful or interesting information. Here's something to make you suspicious of your handlers. Look for more information." Hard to do in 300 characters. I played an arc recently where the author put a Letter in the mission ending clue (1000 chars) but the trade-off was that the letter became a required objective, ruining the "flavor". Probably better to remove it entirely.
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Fortunately I was able to fly over the map and cherry-pick the objectives, taking out the Hood and Galaxy Girl's keepers with Seeds of Win.
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I don't blame you. The original script for mission four was pretty much tossed out because the only thing more tedious than a bunch of objectives on an outdoor city map was bunch of CHAINED objectives on an outdoor city map. This mission would play much better, IMO, if there was any kind of small two-square block city map that wasn't trashed or didn't have a meteor or a giant landmark statue smack in the middle of it.
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You don't get to find out who the Hood is or why exactly he wanted Ms. Liberty erased.
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You don't know who he is: purposeful. You don't know why he wanted Ms. Liberty erased: unintended. Mission Three failed for you, probably because none of the bosses are required objectives. In any case, you still would have had to extrapolate quite a bit so the point stands - Mission three failed. Out of curiosity, was it at least clear WHY there were multiple versions of the adversary?
Short of re-writing mission three (which might be best) some extrapolation in the mission text of mission four is in order, I guess.
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The arc suffers from the usual Timey Wimey Ball problems and has no closure. Twice in a four-mission Heroic arc you're sent up against law enforcement. You're left with no idea who you were up against, what was going on or even (as usual for Ouroboros) whether or not you're working for the right people. This means it's impossible to criticize the plot; it also means that's because there isn't one.
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I'm aware of what the trope means, but I confess I'm having problems imagining how it applies. Care to elucidate?
The law enforcement criticism surprised me, but that's my Longbow prejudice showing. I don't think of them as "law enforcement". They're a bunch of arrogant, supercilious bastiches acting as Ms. Liberty's private army. They're little better than mercenaries, coming into conflict with villain and hero alike. Depicting them as trigger-happy goons who "shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out" seemed perfectly in character. ;p There ought to have been dialog in which some of them at least questioned what response to give upon registering your hero's presence, but I might have removed it due to the business with $himher and $name not being expanded if the NPC's can't see you when they speak. Point taken, in any case.
Apparently some things were spelled out too much and others too little. So it goes. It's a balancing act trying to supply enough information for people who aren't up to speed on the backstory of Galaxy Girl and/or those who might miss a clue.
Well, thanks for the critique. Interesting to see what worked and what didn't.
Arc #67335, "Teen Phalanx Forever!"
tl;dr: 5 stars. Nits: overpowered allies, dissonance in narrative
Reviewed on: 5/26/2009
Level Range: 15-20/20-20/20-25/29-30
Character used: Ursus Minor/Freedom
N.B: This review was not requested, so it is jumping the queue, but I felt like playing the arc and decided to give it a full review. Call it professional courtesy, as its Architect is doing reviews herself.
Coyote is riding herd on the "Teen Phalanx", a supergroup full of kids. The arc assumes you are a teen sidekick of your character. Ursus Minor is 10 or so, meaning he'd be an older version of himself, so we'll just ignore that and assume Coyote is talking to Ursus directly.... He sends you to aid the Teens in their attack on Dr. Vahzilok, giving you some tactical advice on fighting the Vahz and warning you that Manticora has gone emo since Statesboy quit. The tactical advice is probably old news to the player but completely in character. Mission objectives including meeting up with Manticora, Kid Valkyrie, Back Alley Boy and Citadel XP, rescue 4 hostages and beat up Dr. Vahzilok. Manticora (Psychic Blast/Trick Arrow, daughter of Manticore and Sister Psyche; either they were fooling around long before the wedding or their kid's been aging in an alternate accelerated timeline...) was up first, accusing me of being a cheap knock-off of me...I can see this is going to be a recurring problem.... Kid Valkyrie was next, Broadsword/Regeneration, daughter of Valkyrie wearing a power suit built by Positron. Citadel XP, a combination of Citadel's hardware and Luminary's software (rimshot) and Back Alley Boy, adopted son of the Brawler, were next in the same room. I'm not sure what some of their powers were as mobs were dying way too quickly. XP gives you a "tactical update" on rescue, informing you that the not-so-good Doctor was running an internet dating site scam to attract victims. There were a couple of Vahzilok Brides in the last room, Claws/EvaporatedOnSight Minions. In the debriefing, Kid Valkyrie nominates you as a member and you're voted in.
Next, Coyote wants you to help the team with the Clockwork King. Actually he's been trying to get to you for hours, but Manticora forgot to give you a Teen Phalanx Communicator. Evidently it's OK to let kids run around with superpowers but cell phones are out.... Once again you're given some tactical advice on Clockwork and the King himself, and told there are two hostages in the mix. Once again you have to hook up with the other kids, and again XP fills you in: the Clockwork King has created "World of Clockwork", populated by fantasy MMO Clockworks (he was guarded by a Clockwork Mage and two Clockwork Rangers, who wanted to kill me because I had good drops...the rest of their dialog is along those lines) and kidnapped innocent people to serve as "beta testers". The King folded like a busted flush; there's just too much firepower. (BABy hits for 800+ with KO Blow and Rage...I have 774 HP.) As you leave Manticora gives you the communicator but runs off as if she's in a hurry. Kid Valkyrie thinks she's gone to make up with Statesboy.
Your next task is a stint on monitor duty. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? You get to rummage through your teammates' stuff before checking the monitor...to find Freaks attacking the base! You first have to deal with Freak Tank C4TS, whose dialog is pretty much what you expect. After that the kids spawn one by one, returning to deal with the alarm except for Manticora and XP. Clamor spawns after BABy is rescued, right on top of me as it happened, but since he punched off about 80% of her HP in one shot that wasn't a problem.... The Freaks appear to have been sent by a "Mr. V", who also sent XP a threatening note. Coyote is disturbed about the two absent members, and concludes someone is targeting the kids.
Sure enough, Citadel XP has been kidnapped by Council robots. You and the other kids are off to save him and (presumably) Manticora as well at an "abandoned" Council base in Striga. Manticora reveals that the note from Statesboy that had her off and running was a forgery that got her captures, and XP tells you he's met the Big Bad, a completely insane fusion of Citadel's and Council's technology calling itself Citadel Vista. As if we didn't know Vista was the result of Technology Gone Wrong already.... XP managed to get himself wedged into the geometry on the way to the last room, putting him out of the fight. Citadel Vista (Vandal) got in a lucky shot after calling an ambush wave of robot duplicates of the Phalanx (which spawned all RoboCora and RoboVal, maybe on purpose) and downed me on the first try. He went down quickly on the second. Coyote thanks you and is sorry your mentor is requesting more of your time now but reminds you you'll always be a member of the Teen Phalanx.
It's a cute arc that handles its motif well. Paralleling the first four TFs (well, subbing the Dr. Vahz mission for the horrid Positron TF) was a nice touch. There are some nits. For starters, for most of the arc the Teens are just too much firepower. The player is really just along for the ride once the kids join in. Both the Clockwork King and Clamor were ZOMGRANGERDOWNPWNED by BABy. The other is assuming the player is his teen sidekick when the player might just be a teen hero in his own right. It wouldn't be so bad if this was only mentioned in the opening briefing and never again. Other than that the arc is a good comedy, recommended.
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 so much for the kind words!
Regarding the overpowered ally issue, the allies are defined as Bosses, while the level boss for each mission is defined as an AV. As Boss allies against an AV, they seem about right. On Heroic as a soloer, the allies downgrade to Lieutenants and the AVs downgrade to EBs, which also feels about right.
Unfortunately, there are a few mid-range difficulty levels where the allies stay Bosses but the AVs downgrade to EBs. In this case, I agree the allies are much too powerful. I suspect this is what happened on your run. I am not sure what I can do to address this problem, though; I am hesitant to lower the allies too much in power, for fear that it will make the AV/EBs unsoloable, which I think would be a worse problem than the AVs/EBs being a little too easy. The ideal solution would be for AVs to downgrade to EBs exactly when EBs downgrade to Bosses, but for reasons I don't understand, it doesn't work that way.
Regarding the story dissonance when the player character is already a teen hero, I agree this is a problem, but unfortunately I have no good solution to this with the tools that we are given. Currently I always just use "Kid $name" whenever I'd normally use "$name" to signify your "teen" status, but this doesn't always work (especially if your toon is already named something like Kid Valkyrie). The ideal solution would be a $teenname substitution, which would convert your hero name into Teen Name form (possibly leaving the name alone for certain characters, like Ursus Minor) but alas, no such substitution currently exists.
Thanks again for the run through Teen Phalanx Forever! I'm glad that you enjoyed it!
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Arc #137561, "Time Loop"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened"
Reviewed on: 5/26/2009
Level Range: 15-30
Character used: Amarantia/Virtue
Foreshadow has detected a temporal anomaly that concerns him. It was located in the basement of a mad scientist recently busted by Wyvern and they've taken whatever is generating the anomaly to one of their bases. He's tried going through channels but they're not taking him seriously...so he wants someone who will "unofficially" obtain it for him. While Foreshadow has his weird reincarnation thing going on, he doesn't have any scientific skills or awareness of time distortions I know of in the canon, but whatever.... On entry to the warehouse map I immediately overheard a Wyvern patrol complaining of "flashbacks" to the arrest in question...not a good sign. The desired object is in the hands of an Agent Marx, who accidentally pushes its jolly candy-like button as you beat him up. There's also a computer you ignore as it doesn't seem important.
Until the next time Foreshadow asks you to go get the artifact. For whatever reason he doesn't believe you when you say you already have it and sends you off to get it again. This time you get a decryption code from Marx and have to take it back to the computer, which is now guarded. Also, somewhere along the way I picked up an ambush, making this "interesting", but I survived. The artifact now seems to be larger and has seven buttons arranged in a helix pattern. The computer says there's another artifact but before you can do anything about it you're back at Foreshadow.
A jump to the left and you're back in the warehouse.... The problem is, the place is bigger now. And there's 15 possible artifacts in it, according to the nav bar. None of the glowies are actually important or necessary, though at least some of them are recognizable from various stories involving time loops. The artifact is on Marx again, even bigger, and he says as you clobber him the other one is in the possession of a Wing Sting Agent named Steve. Then you're back at Foreshadow.
...and a twist to the right and you're back at the even larger warehouse. After finding and clobbering Steve you get a cube and push its jolly candy-like button. Off in the distance you hear a strange noise and your new objective is to destroy Marx's artifact. Marx's artifact is now a robot called "Time Shifter" with a Hydra Spawn for a guard. Its info said something about the artifact manipulating time to accelerate its own construction but I didn't really have time to read it, especially with the ambush of Spawn and Shivans it called. It did complain that it couldn't exist along with the "time splitter" as it died, its defeat text describing the cube launching itself at the robot and both melting into scrap metal. In the debriefing Foreshadow says you were trapped in the loop for three months. Eh?
There isn't much to say about this one. There's no theme, either you think this kind of thing is cute or you don't. I don't.
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"
Sorry it wasn't your thing, but thanks for reviewing it.
I'll admit, I picked Foreshadow because of the name and the look, didn't bother searching for info on him, most people don't notice. He is one of the lesser known heroes. Maybe if he got better press.
For whatever reason he doesn't believe you when you say you already have it and sends you off to get it again.
Good point, no one mentioned that before. You don't have the artifact because you've gone back in time. I'll add a note in the entry pop-up.
This time you get a decryption code from Marx and have to take it back to the computer, which is now guarded. Also, somewhere along the way I picked up an ambush, making this "interesting", but I survived.
To re-spawn the computer it had to be destructible, which doesn't make too much sense, or defendable, which also doesn't make sense, but it keeps the computer around, that's where the ambush comes from. I've been meaning to see if it works right without guards.
I suppose the ending is something that could use some work. Thanks again for the review.
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Current queue status is listed below. When requesting a review, please include morality and level range.
Hero: 161066, 81378, 170506, 163274, 57352, 149323, 137705, 171149, 161797, 79354, 75386, 59147, 15988, 1036, 55715, 37636, 17006, 174368, 60280, 178774, 100306, 181244, 91644, 167493, 149765, 118009, 191775
Villain: 162898, 77533, 161865, 32801, 97774, 153720
Neutral: 84420, 170547, 123675, 175675, 156389, 143017, 177826, 67356, 1296
Hero 13-20: 131780, 135563, 24926
Villain 13-20: 103878, 114284
Neutral 13-20: 137561
Rerun: 128109, 181165, 106553
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131780 is Neutral (Some might consider it Villain), and minimum level is 30, although best to run it at 40 as the last mission had a level 41+ enemy.
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Various replies:
Various notes on Nemesis technology
It is explicitly described as steam-powered in a number of places, ranging from old base salvage descriptions (still available in the CH window and on ParagonWiki) to character /info panels to mission text. It's not cold fusion and it's not using steam just for show.
No, superhero stories aren't allowed to do completely stupid things just because they're superhero stories. The stories still work if you do things right.
This sounds like the character Fujin from Final Fantasy 8; the author may be using an Expy or homage to that character.
I have never played any games in that series and don't intend to. If there's supposed to be something important in the plot of "Gamble for Oakes" that hinges on the player recognizing Fujin it was lost on me.
The original enemy group was a bunch of custom robots who were way too powerful for the level range. Noted for future editing. Sorry you didn't like Igneous. Hydra were overly powerful in other ways and I wanted something "alien" looking.
The problem with Pumicites/Igneous are they're resistant to immoblization and run like the wind. This makes them problematic for anyone who relies on range to stay alive.
The Letter was a bad idea in retrospect.
True of the canon instances as well....
Out of curiosity, was it at least clear WHY there were multiple versions of the adversary?
Nope. Not in the least.
I'm aware of what the trope means, but I confess I'm having problems imagining how it applies. Care to elucidate?
Arbitrary rules of time travel are never explicitly stated but applied or not as convenient for the plot. If the Big Bad can multiply incarnate, why not send himself back to the same event forty times? Because then he'd win. Why go after Galaxy Girl at these obvious crisis moments instead of putting a bomb under her bed or poisoning her coffee a year before the mugging? Because it would work. If the Menders can track this guy at all why can't they track him to his origin, determine his identity or stop him before he even starts? Because there'd be no story.
And so on. This kind of thing is pretty much unavoidable in any time travel story.
The law enforcement criticism surprised me, but that's my Longbow prejudice showing. I don't think of them as "law enforcement". They're a bunch of arrogant, supercilious bastiches acting as Ms. Liberty's private army.
While I agree with you that Longbow is an illegal private army engaged in an unconstitutional private war, the fact is that in canon they're treated as being part of law enforcement. There is only one mission in which Longbow comes into conflict with heroes and in that mission the player is the instigator.
I am not sure what I can do to address this problem, though; I am hesitant to lower the allies too much in power, for fear that it will make the AV/EBs unsoloable, which I think would be a worse problem than the AVs/EBs being a little too easy.
Don't throw the entire Phalanx at each mission, save that for the last.
The ideal solution would be for AVs to downgrade to EBs exactly when EBs downgrade to Bosses, but for reasons I don't understand, it doesn't work that way.
Elites downgrading to Bosses is something that was only instituted for Architect. It doesn't happen in regular missions. It doesn't happen under the same rules as the AV downgrade because the difference in power between a Boss and an Elite is much smaller than the difference between an Arch Villain and an Elite.
Regarding the story dissonance when the player character is already a teen hero, I agree this is a problem, but unfortunately I have no good solution to this with the tools that we are given. Currently I always just use "Kid $name" whenever I'd normally use "$name" to signify your "teen" status, but this doesn't always work (especially if your toon is already named something like Kid Valkyrie).
Just don't do it. There are as many instances of kid sidekicks without "kid" or "lad" names as there are with: Batman/Robin, Green Arrow/Speedy, Captain America/Bucky, etc. Just have the arc note at the start it's assumed your character is a teen hero, with or without an explicit adult mentor.
131780 is Neutral (Some might consider it Villain), and minimum level is 30, although best to run it at 40 as the last mission had a level 41+ enemy.
I see from the author's thread that it was changed recently, which might explain the discrepancy. I'll run it in its proper place in the sequence but with an appropriate character.
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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for most of the arc the Teens are just too much firepower. ... Both the Clockwork King and Clamor were ZOMGRANGERDOWNPWNED by BABy.
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I figured out something I could do to help address this! I adjusted Back Alley Boy's Super Strength powerset so that he wouldn't have Rage (needed to drop it down to Standard to accomplish this). That should lower his DPS a good bit. Going to hold off on any more nerfage than that until I see how that turns out, though.
If you get hate emails from BABy for nerfing him, though, you'll know why. 
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
You may want to put off any changes for a while. There's a lot of new MA stuff on Test. Among the changes, you'll be able to custom-select what powers a mob gets from each of its sets.
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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Various replies:
Various notes on Nemesis technology
It is explicitly described as steam-powered in a number of places, ranging from old base salvage descriptions (still available in the CH window and on ParagonWiki) to character /info panels to mission text. It's not cold fusion and it's not using steam just for show.
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Without using something like cold fusion or even fission, steam-powered technology makes no sense. Otherwise it's just you'd get a better return on your energy just by burning the fuel directly rather than using it to heat the water.
The other half of Nemesis' core technology is high-developed mechcanics to the point of it being robotics. He started out making very sophisticated toys which eventually evolved into the Jaegers and the Automotons.
I suppose this is all moot, Nemesis technology works because it does, but at least the above make it sound plausible for people who want more than BANNG! ZOOM! out of there comics.
"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)
I just wanted to mention in reference to steam power that it has been used to run mechs and various other things throughout scifi/fantasy. In general, the idea behind steam in these instances is that some brilliant-insane person has discovered a way to get it to work in impossible ways according to conventional belief. How does it work? why steam? These are questions that some stories try to answer, which controverts the whole use to me. The idea is that only the scientist type makes it work. It is not even certain they know how it works. It could be like the clockwork king with psionic puppetry dressed up, it could be magic, it could be the reality bending madness of the creator.
This is acceptable to me as any other science fiction deus ex machina. Annilation of antimatter with matter to power a craft amongst the stars that can push itself apparently across the galaxy by using a warp field to reduce its mass, does not come across very different to me. Especially, when somehow said vessel must travel light years, but in at least one presentation was only moving at fractions of the speed of light.
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Regarding the story dissonance when the player character is already a teen hero, I agree this is a problem, but unfortunately I have no good solution to this with the tools that we are given. Currently I always just use "Kid $name" whenever I'd normally use "$name" to signify your "teen" status, but this doesn't always work (especially if your toon is already named something like Kid Valkyrie).
Just don't do it. There are as many instances of kid sidekicks without "kid" or "lad" names as there are with: Batman/Robin, Green Arrow/Speedy, Captain America/Bucky, etc. Just have the arc note at the start it's assumed your character is a teen hero, with or without an explicit adult mentor.
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I disagree. Kid $name is brilliant.
What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?
PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes
In general, the idea behind steam in these instances is that some brilliant-insane person has discovered a way to get it to work in impossible ways according to conventional belief.
Yeah, we get that, I just don't buy it.
It could be like the clockwork king with psionic puppetry dressed up, it could be magic, it could be the reality bending madness of the creator.
Not only are none of these tropes invoked, as you allude to do so would be to repeat the Clockwork King. Do we really need two brains-in-a-jar riding around in brass robots psychically animating other brass robots? I don't think so.
Annilation of antimatter with matter to power a craft amongst the stars that can push itself apparently across the galaxy by using a warp field to reduce its mass, does not come across very different to me.
All that uses hypothetical physics that doesn't really exist to the best of our knowledge, but it's easy to suspend disbelief to accept that it could be science we just haven't discovered yet.
Steam engines, on the other hand, are something we know really, really well. The theoretical limits to the technology are understood and extremely strict. Believing in Nemesis' technology is tantamount to belief in magic, and if that's the way they want to go with it why the facade? Declare Nemesis to be a technomage who likes steampunk and have done with it.
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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In general, the idea behind steam in these instances is that some brilliant-insane person has discovered a way to get it to work in impossible ways according to conventional belief.
Yeah, we get that, I just don't buy it.
It could be like the clockwork king with psionic puppetry dressed up, it could be magic, it could be the reality bending madness of the creator.
Not only are none of these tropes invoked, as you allude to do so would be to repeat the Clockwork King. Do we really need two brains-in-a-jar riding around in brass robots psychically animating other brass robots? I don't think so.
Annilation of antimatter with matter to power a craft amongst the stars that can push itself apparently across the galaxy by using a warp field to reduce its mass, does not come across very different to me.
All that uses hypothetical physics that doesn't really exist to the best of our knowledge, but it's easy to suspend disbelief to accept that it could be science we just haven't discovered yet.
Steam engines, on the other hand, are something we know really, really well. The theoretical limits to the technology are understood and extremely strict. Believing in Nemesis' technology is tantamount to belief in magic, and if that's the way they want to go with it why the facade? Declare Nemesis to be a technomage who likes steampunk and have done with it.
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But the MA is for non-canon stories... why isn't it ok for someone to non-canonically declare the steam-nonsense to be something more sensible? Just because it is believed that Nem's tech is steam in the in-game lore doesn't mean that can't be based on misunderstanding. Just like most folks in-game believes Silos to be up to no-good.
To say that you have to stick with canon, and then point out canon's flaws doesn't make sense to me. I mean in my opinion that's reason to ignore canon right there, and I view all MA content as elseworlds. Strictly my opinion mind, so to each their own.
*sigh* Come on, Venture. Hurry up and tear 162898 to pieces so I can make my final decision as to whether it should stay up or not. In fact, I'd like that to be part of the review.
"Well, Gamron, or A-N, or whoever the heck you are...I would leave it up because of reasons A, B & C." Or, "Gods above and below, this tripe shouldn't have seen the light of day, and we are sending the Obvious Plot Police to arrest you! Don't try to run...you'll just be tired when you're caught."
Why do I ask that you give the final word? Well, for the 12 times it's been rated, I've been getting between 5 and 4 stars. Almost no one leaves a comment, and one would think that no news is good news...but then those comments that have come my way - rare thought they may be - have players telling me, "I had it figured out by the first mission...but I loved the writing, so I rated it high." That's great...but did they actually ENJOY PLAYING THE ARC? I have no idea. One would think there's an enherent message in the high ratings, but that message is conflicted when the comments come in. It's kind of like listening to someone critique an Anne Rice novel. "She's a spectacular writer, if you can get through the agonizingly slow pace of her stories." (Of course, the usual non-reading-type-person says, "It had words with more than two syllables, so I hated it." 
)
So let's move it along, shall we? 
Arc #162898, "To Be Incarnate."
+Gamron (AKA: A-N)
"The acquisition of any knowledge is of use to the intellect, for nothing can be loved or hated until it is first known."
Leonardo da Vinci
Reviews are likely to be scarce while I tweak my arcs to account for issue 15's changes. I've been getting requests to review the two new TFs but frankly I don't see a percentage in that. Having run the villain TF and from what I've heard of the hero one, both need to be rethought from Square One and that is simply not going to happen.
Or, maybe not, as AE on Test is down again, so I guess I'll hop over to Live and run one or two there.... :-P
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# 128109, All in the Family
tl;dr: 5 stars. Nits: NONE
RE-Reviewed on: 5/29/2009
Level Range: 21-30; author recommends 25-30
Character used: Eva Knight/Champion
This is a re-review. I'll only be commenting on changes from the version originally reviewed.
The first act now has some patrols that tip you off to the fact that a Longbow agent works at the building, explaining the high security and massive PPD response, instead of an anonymous tip being responsible for Hanna's capture. Hanna now says she was busted before she could get anything, but does know where the inspector in charge of the case is heading, as before.
References to the Family as a "Robin Hood" organization have been purged. Coreleone is said to have had some very misguided ideas about the Family, which eventually led him to turn to Longbow.
I let the old folks escape this time just to see the other ending, even though Eva would have shivved them for the lulz...I took out Agent McCain on the way in just for laughs. Raffaelli tells you how angry Barzini is, but there are no threats thrown your way. He says Longbow has gotten his parents into hiding and he's going on the lam himself, but he doesn't expect to get away, that he'll be caught, tortured and killed.
All the flaws in the original arc have been repaired. I upped my rating to five stars. This arc is highly recommended.
The original review is preserved below the line.
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Arc# 128109, All in the Family
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: Did Not Do The Research, plot holes
Reviewed on: 5/2/2009
Level Range: 21-30; author recommends 25-30
Character used: Mother Night/Virtue
Vincenzo Raffaelli has been asked by his superiors to take care of some troublesome witnesses to a recent Family heist. He's been promised a promotion to consigliere if he does. I don't think that's the way wethey normally do it here in Jersey but it sounds passable for CoH. He thinks this job is going to require a lot of work and feels a villain would be more reliable than his usual crew. You're told up front the job is going to require killing and isn't for an honorable villain. The first step is to rescue the operative who was looking into the witnesses for them, Hanna the Ghost, whom we may remember from the last review.
You're sent to an office map with PPD mobs. Yes, Ghost and Equalizers...fun. There's one PPD Boss, and Hanna who needs to be escorted out. The Boss calls one ambush, you get one when Hanna is sprung and another right on your heels as you hit the door. Hanna unfortunately doesn't have the information any more, her notes having been confiscated by an Inspector Rosa Hadley. You'd think someone in the information business would have a bit of a memory, but, moving on.... She also implies that Raffaelli has no idea what he's doing.
Hanna's leads on Hadley take you to a warehouse being used by her PPD Family task force as a safehouse. Raffaelli thinks at least one of the witnesses may be stashed there as well. You are to kill Hadley and any witnessess. The witness turns out to be Giovanni Lucky Scalia, a Super Strength/Willpower (I think) Boss. His dialog indicates he knows Raffaelli is after him. Hadley is an Assault Rifle/Devices Boss who summons one wave of PPD, so expect stacked control effects. Unfortunately the information is not here either, Hadley has uploaded the files to the PPD network. You do get a name from her paper notes and from Scalia, Marcello Corleone (movie reference collision!). When you tell this to Raffaelli, along with Scalia's identity, he freaks out a bit.
Here, the plot pulls something of a Wall Banger. Raffaelli tells you that both men are ex-Family members. Corleone is said to have joined Longbow but Scalia was supposedly allowed to quit. No one quits organized crime. Ever. I might believe that someone defected to Longbow and was thus too well-protected to take out, but nobody just quits. They might be allowed to retire in some way but the only way out of cosa nostra is feet first. I'll chalk this up to Did Not Do The Research and move on.... You are sent to track down Corleone and find out what he knows. Raffaelli starts making noises here like he's looking for the door too, which does not bode well for his future.
Once inside, you quickly meet Mario Barzini, a Family Boss and ally. On being sprung he informs you that the Family is aware of Raffaelli's vacillations and that you are to eliminate the witnesses regardless. Failure to do so will be extremely unfortunate for you. A laptop belonging to Corleone has files revealing the heist that precipitated all this took place at Raffaelli Imports and all four witnesses are connected by a single individual. Hmm, now who could that be.... Corleone is a Longbow Warden, Martial Arts type. After his dirt nap you find a photograph on him of a young couple, obviously in love, and probably not long for this world.
Sure enough, Raffaelli identifies the couple as an old picture of his parents, the ones who were robbed. He's now stuck between two unpleasant alternatives: kill his parents or get rubbed out himself by Barzini and friends. The finale is a 30 minute timed mission in which you get to decide whether or not Raffaelli's parents live or die. He begs you to let them live, that he'll leave the Family himself and go underground. I didn't. I stealthed the majority of the base (passing an Agent McClain....) and took out both parents, Minion class mobs. Raffaelli actually gets his promotion, realizing he has nowhere else to go now.
This is a potential five-star arc, but it has some problems with its plot. There's the aforementioned bit about someone quitting the Family. The anonymous tip in the first act stands out as a seeming Chekhov's Gun violation. One obvious answer might seem to be that Raffaelli himself called it in, but that grinds up against the later reveal. Another problem is that Hanna, who is supposed to be a serious operative, conveniently catches the Idiot Ball by not being able to remember four names. Of course, that's because if we get the names in Act I the arc peaks too early. Raffaelli's promotion rubs me the wrong way but that's largely because of the difference between what a consigliere is in real life and what one is in City. If it were me I'd put a note in the success debriefing that his body is found a few weeks later.... There are a few references to what the mob used to be, an organization formed to protect powerless workers, but it hasn't been that for centuries and no one seriously tries to describe it that way any more. Aside from these problems the writing, particularly the dialog, is excellent. If the plot issues were corrected this would be a stellar example of what the Architect system is capable of.
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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Reviews are likely to be scarce while I tweak my arcs to account for issue 15's changes. I've been getting requests to review the two new TFs but frankly I don't see a percentage in that. Having run the villain TF and from what I've heard of the hero one, both need to be rethought from Square One and that is simply not going to happen.
Or, maybe not, as AE on Test is down again, so I guess I'll hop over to Live and run one or two there.... :-P
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Eh...I really didnt expect much...every TF/SF added since I10 has been the very definition of "A bunch of stuff that happens" (well maybe not some of the Ouro TF's). Then again, I've been trying to avoid spoilers for this one so maybe that's not the problem.
Actually it is, amongst a litany of sins.
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"
I was really hoping you would review the I15 task forces on the I15 threads so the developers would have a detailed and thoughtful basis from which to correct them. Your reviews are topnotch.
Please tear into my arc with a thresher when you get to it.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
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Eh...I really didnt expect much...every TF/SF added since I10 has been the very definition of "A bunch of stuff that happens" (well maybe not some of the Ouro TF's). Then again, I've been trying to avoid spoilers for this one so maybe that's not the problem.
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Can you explain "a bunch of stuff that happens" a bit more?
To me, labeling a mission arc (or a TF, or a SF, etc) just "a bunch of stuff that happened" means that the presence of your hero/villain didn't matter. While several arcs that I've played have had problems, few have been written in such a way that it didn't matter whether the character was there or not. The few that do either are written for humor (to varying degrees of success) or place too much focus on what NPCs are doing. Missions that are done to show the mission creator's pet character, or which assign Boss or higher level allies that end up doing most of the work.
Now, if your definition is "a bunch of stuff that happened" is that the status quo is maintained at the end of the arc...a LOT of arcs will fall into that category. It's a staple of the superhero genre. You stop the bad guy from taking over the world, and they skulk away to try again later. That's a staple of the genre. However, if the absence of your character means that something has changed for the worse, then you made a difference.
<QR>
I was really hoping you would review the I15 task forces on the I15 threads so the developers would have a detailed and thoughtful basis from which to correct them. Your reviews are topnotch.
The devs aren't going to correct those arcs, or even admit that they need correcting. To them, this is what the game is supposed to look like. That's why they keep doing it over and over. They think stories with seven different alternate versions of a character that wasn't interesting enough to warrant the original incarnation are cool. They think the players, hero or villain, should be portrayed as a bunch of cut-rate amateurs easily deceived by the flimsiest of pretenses. They can't understand why our heroes might not want to join the Freedom Phalanx, or even understand that they've portrayed the Phalanx characters are arrogant, unlikeable jerks at best and sociopathic fascists with delusions of godhood at worst. They can't fathom why players chafe at having their villians lick Recluse's boots, or why our villains don't aspire to take their "rightful places" as Recluse's favored underlings, or why the VEAT storyline is beyond absurd, or even that Arachnos is a complete joke of an organization (as Mr. Tow recently expressed better than I could.) They think Nemesis is a brilliant invincible mastermind and not a bumbling fossil with a 150 year track record of failure whose plans only get as far as they do because people around him do not merely catch the Idiot Ball but actually buy them from Costco by the crateload at discount rates. And I can't even imagine what they were thinking when they decided oft-requested features like player-designed content and flashbacks should be married in the canon to obvious villain plots.
The proof of all of this is the fact that, again, they just keep doing it. Look at the buildup we got over these TFs and look at what was delivered. They think this is what "the villains should be doing villainous things and feel more active in the cause and effect of the events that would unfold" looks like. We're supposed to be applauding now, and if the devs could understand why we're not they wouldn't have done this in the first place.
Which, of course, is the real tragedy. The sad truth is that players would be better served by ignoring the developers' content and sticking to Architect missions. I've reviewed (and frankly, written) better arcs than the new villain SF and haven't reviewed that many that were worse. There's no point in doing detailed reviews of either of the new TFs because the devs don't get it and don't want to get it, or they'd have gotten it a long time ago, and nothing can stop these festering abominations from oozing onto the live servers in any case. It's far too late in the development cycle for any meaningful changes. They can't even pull the plug and not publish them because they'd have to justify billing the development time to i15's budget and not delivering anything.
Failure Is The Only Option.
Can you explain "a bunch of stuff that happens" a bit more?
"Just a bunch of stuff that happened" means the story has no theme or moral to it. It's nothing but a meaningless string of events. It's just about some guys doing some stuff you don't like so you clobber them to make them stop. The plot doesn't say anything or teach anything, making it suitable for use by any of the most vapid Saturday-morning cartoons.
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"
Well what I meant is that there is no real connecting thread amongst the missions of those task forces. Lets look at the LGTF for an example.
Mission one asks you to go save Penelope Yin from the Rikti, as they are trying to use her as a psychic battery to power their portals. We can give this one the benefit of the doubt seeing as it is only the first mission, but none of the elements brought up in this mission are ever mentioned again. Penelope Yin never shows up again, and while the whole "using psychics as batteries to power portals bit" is mentioned a few more times, by the end of the TF that particular story thread just gets dropped.
Mission two: This mission asks you to go stop the riders. Now whats the problem here? The riders were never mentioned before, and after this mission, they are never mentioned again. You could remove this mission from the TF completely and there would be nothing lost.
Mission three: This mission asks you to go save some former omega team members from the rikti. Again, the same problems as mission two appear. Sure, you are also saving some human psychics the rikti were trying to use to power their portals, linking back to the first mission, but once again, after this mission you never hear about that thread again.
Mission four: So, the Rikti are trying to take out the Hamidon and "harness its power". Uh...why don't we just let them kill the hamidon and take out one of our greatest foes? It is mentioned that "harnessing the hamidon's power may be the key to defeating a powerful foe". Mind telling us why this guy is before we go do this? And what exactly does harnessing his power mean?
Mission five: Finally, we figure out that the Rikti are trying to bring over the Honoree. So why is this a big deal anyway? We have never seen this guy before, never heard of what he is capable of, and for all we know, he could just be a complete wimp!
*low whistle* Damn Venture, you tryin' to make War Witch cry?
-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)
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The other is that it's pretty clear, from the fact that she never speaks in sentences containing more than one word, that Fu is chipped or mind controlled or a Nemesis Automaton or something along those lines, and there's never any indication as to who she is really working for or what she really is.
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This sounds like the character Fujin from Final Fantasy 8; the author may be using an Expy or homage to that character.
If so, the Fujin from Final Fantasy was a normal human (bioengineered, I beleive, but it's a long story); the single-word-sentences was just an affectation of hers.
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!