Arc #163274 - Return of the Three Fold King [SFMA]
By
GlaziusF,
Posted on: 2009-05-17 24:12 in Mission Architect
Review done as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.
@GlaziusF
Playing this on a low-20s Peacebringer, +0/x1 with bosses on.
---
Hmm. No contact description. Might want to update that just a bit.
Hmmmm again. I have a feeling I know how this is going to end, but alright, lets go stop the CoT from taking over the world.
The boss is invisible (or at least less visible, as Steamy Mist doesnt seem to completely overwrite the standard perception radius) and responds to one of the many battles that starts up, so his voice seems to be coming out of nowhere. ...his description claims hes after a mace, but I came here looking for a runestone.
The minions represent the well-known trio of fire, death, and stabs, but the boss is some kind of ice/stormer and that means he has all the slows. All of them. Cant really go non-dwarf as he spams iceblock pretty well, and he doesnt really have any kind of damage output to speak of, so the fight is a protracted affair of staring at powder-blue pixels until they become slightly larger.
Huh. Okay, seems my contact wasnt being straight, but not in the way I thought. Im talking to the secret idea of a guy whose powers are pretty much ineffective against these guys.
---
Next stone. ...the opening popup mentions the sea, but the relevant parts of Salamanca are kinda landlocked and behind a war wall.
Man. Hate trying to find things on this map, but fortunately theyre all on the long curve by the large lake near Salamanca.
Hmm. Maybe my earlier premonition still holds. My contact seems to think were turning back the king, but I found a journal that indicates hes already been summoned.
---
Anyway, time to rescue some hostages.
The captive Legacy mention how lucky it is that I knew what to do. ...because apparently they didnt think to blast these underlizards in the face.
For some reason I also pick up a map from the Lemurians in addition to a stone from the safe? My contact doesnt really mention it.
---
So weve been doing stuff that might be set in Croatoa, and now its time for Arachnos in a Rikti bunker. Kind of weird to have something so out of place.
Anyway, it looks like you were trying to go for multiple crates with some distractions and some real elements. You can do this by naming all the plural entries for the glowie the same thing. (You may also want to name any notable single elements the same general thing, as in search the last crate as they can be unreliable when going to plurals.)
---
And now its time for the showdown. Teeny little map, not much to do other than head for the end room and fight the end boss. He seems to be a powerful melee combatant wielding a notable hammer -- is this the mace that description in the initial mission was referencing?
Anyway, I pop a Shivan and distract him with a large glowing lobster until he goes back to the grave.
---
Storyline - ***. Pretty standard - obtain power crunches, break evils face. It seems to hint at an eventual contact betrayal that never really materializes, mostly because my contact is keeping a couple things secret from me - first his hero identity, second the source of his power. And I can kind of understand the first, but not really the second.
I guess a bit of the problem is that Lemuria is kind of stepping on the Circles toes as the ancient underground civilization thats rising up. So Im looking at a complete blank slate and there really isnt anything in-world that my contact could use to vouch for himself. Id suggest finding some kind of hook so that I dont just have to trust a complete unknown.
Design - **. The customs are generally easy enough to tell apart. About the only odd wrinkle is that the low-level fire guys look a lot like the low-level stab guys.
But mission 4 is just drastically, drastically off-tone with what has so far been a mystical mission arc set in Croatoa. Arachnos in a Rikti bunker?
And the arc as a whole has kind of a ridiculous level range. At the very least, you can now set the lower bound for the arc to offer a more automatic indication of the minimum level.
Gameplay - ***. The boss fight in the first mission was a giant waitathon. I had no powers, he had no damage. Thats never fun. The stock opposition turned out fine, but be careful with Build Up and similar boosting powers on the bosses, especially the final boss, whos a pretty heavy bruiser even without the giant damage spike to open the fight.
Detail - **. The boss in the first mission has a description referencing some kind of mace hes looking for. That never materializes, though the Threefold King does fight with warmace style. We pick up a journal in the second mission indicating that the Threefold King is alive again and my contact never really notices. Theres a map as an exit clue for the third mission that doesnt seem to come into play at all. And I think all we get out of mission 4 is a statue, not the fourth runestone. It feels a lot like the story was rewritten at some point, but some of the map details and such were missed in the process.
Overall - ***. Im inclined to round up because some of these issues are related to things done after this arc was published, but even absent those, this arc needs a light pass for balance and a deeper pass for consistency.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
Review
Arc #163274 - Return of the Three Fold King [SFMA]
42 Ice/Psi Dominator
I thought this arc was fun to play but also rather dull because of the cliche story and general lackluster look of the custom enemies.
Customs- You use the standard enemies quite well. there is a good variety in them but your custom group is lacking. The lemurians need more to differentiate themselves from each other. Your minions share the same head and similar robs. Why not vary their weight, height, clothes and dare I say make some of them female. I would make an additional 1-2 more costumes for each type of minion. this will add much more flavor to your custom group. Additionally consider making your lt.s and bosses larger so they stand above their peers.
The descriptions could use more details. Some are just recycled versions of another minions descriptions. It is boring to read the same sentence twice on a new enemy.
Mission 1's boss is invisible. Change this.
Text – You need more color coding. Some of your briefs are just walls of white text. I would color your heading blue and use green or orange to empathize certain parts of the briefs that you feel important. In the mission three text the words stones and hostages are needlessly capitalized. Mission 3's navigation has the hostages in lowercase while the rest of the navigation is capitalized. In the M4 intro the sentence with the orange text has two periods at the end of it.
Story - Your story is so horribly cliché that I rolled my eyes when I first read it. Get 4 runes and fight a evil threat to save the world. You need to rethink this whole concept. The runes need to be replaced with something else. 4 souls of the guardians of whatever. 4 crystals of each direction and element.( Stone of the Northern Cold, Western Sun, Eastern Wind, Southern Sea). 4 pieces of ancient sword that is the key ( the hilt, blade, scabbard, encrusted jewel). I mean you could think of anything more interesting than 4 runes. If anything fleshing out the items you are getting will make for far more interesting clue descriptions. Also it might be interesting if each rune had a unique boss. Perhaps the guardians of the runes have eternal life but they went on to support certain factions.
Details- Missions 2 and 5 felt bland. there was nothing in them to make them feel particularly interesting. that being said, there wasn't anything that was particularly bad from them either. Mission three had its hostage all look the same and give the same sentence when rescues. Make these three different hostages and give each a unique look and sentence. it will feel less repetitive that way. Mission 4 would feel a lot better as an Arachnos lab rather than a Rikti cave. One the other hand if you changed the Arachnos spawns with Ritki it could work and it would make for a more interesting story.
I gave this arc a 3 star rating GOOD. I did enjoy playing through it and it was free from bugs and errors. The enemies were balanced decently for me and I wasn't overwhelmed or bored by the combat. I felt it lacked the attention to detail to really shine as a higher rated arc. I also felt the story needs more developing. It is too cliché as it is. if you any question about the review just ask and feel free to rate my arc Tangled Vines Arc ID: 480712.
This is the "offical" feedback thread for my main Story Focused Arc, Return of the Three Fold King.
Premise: Professor John Cramer has put out a call for heroes. He has found the location of a missing Lemurian artefact and needs the assistance of a real hero to retrieve it. However, this simple tasks unearths a much more dangerous event: The Return of the Three Fold King.
Enemies: Tuatha de Dannon, Arachnos, Custom Enemies (Lemurians)
Level Range: 1-54, but I suggest 20+ for Stamina / Mez Protection
Difficulty - Medium. 1 EB at the end.
Solo Friendly.
Current Updates -
1. Fixed Mission 2's map and in doing so, changed the objective.
2. Added ambushes where it made sense.
3. Added CoT to the first mission.
If you play this arc, please let me know what things you like and don't like! So far, I have 16 plays and a 4 star rating, so I must be doing something right!