Ok, typing this up as I go along:
Kin Tut doesn't seem to take the Circle of Thorn seriously as enemies, but he doesn't dare go by himself because he's a Defender? What does this say about him? I suggest that you rewrite it so he doesn't seem to think that the Circle is a bad joke, or that he doesn't downplay his own abilities. Perhaps he should just be busy with something only he can do, such as guarding the gate to hell that resides in one of his other artefacts, which prevents him from running around looking for non-magical items.
I clicked him again before going in and he says that he pays me well? The mission is set to heroic. Of course there might be heroes who get paid but this seems unusually mercenary. If it was a neutral arc I wouldn't have been bothered by it, but here it just seems out of place.
First mission: A blue cave map?!!? This is probably the first time I've seen anyone use these in the Mission Architect - everyone loves that they can avoid them now. What's wrong with you? Even though you didn't use one of the really annoying maps, It still took forever to find the glowie in a mostly empty cave. The spawns are really few and far between.
Second mission: The custom enemies seemed easy enough for my pimped-out level 50 scrapper.
Third mission: Kin Tut's lab is being invaded. Isn't he guarding it? He certainly wasn't in the mission with me. Perhaps you should put Kin Tut as an ally in mission 2 so his absence allows Kaison to invade his lab undisturbed. Oops, stealth timed mission. You should probably mention that the mission will be timed somewhere in the introduction.
Fourth mission: Now he's got time to join me? Ok... and he's just a lieutenant? I see why he doesn't dare to go on missions himself. He also failed to follow me around the very next corner where the boss who was no problem in mission 2 suddenly killed me without breaking a sweat. Weird.
Some patrol calls Kin Tut a "pansy". I don't know if this is some kind of inappropriate slur. Perhaps they can call him a wimp. True enough, he dies about halfway through the mission just by standing too close to all the enemies with damage auras. Since he doesn't stay at range despite having no melee attacks I'm sure he'll die every time someone plays this. I hope I don't need him to fight the boss.
I didn't. The boss quoted from "Dialogue for evil geniuses" part 1A while I destroyed him and the ambushes he spawned. I only died after the real fight because Unstoppable ended and I still had a few robots left to kill. Again, I don't know how well balanced these things are against something that isn't a level 50 scrapper with bells and whistles on. Oh yeah, I had to use Unstoppable in order to attack, because all the electric auras drained my endurance completely.
I just noticed that one of the objectives is wrong: "Detroy the generator". This is the only error I've found.
Debriefing: What the hell? If the contact really wants my help in the future he probably shouldn't tell me that he's going to tip off Malta to come and take over the laboratory we just cleared out just to slow down the return of his own arch-enemy. Siding with Malta makes this guy a villain, as far as I'm concerned. Either remove that part or mark the story as neutral/villainous.
General: The story was standard and straightforward without surprises; not necessarily a bad thing, it just doesn't make it very memorable and I'm not inclined to add a star for the story. I'm a little confused to why the Circle of Thorns would do what the rival wanted, even if he paid them - they aren't mercenaries after all. If they were sent to steal a specific non-magical artefact from Kin Tut, why didn't they steal everything else in his warehouse that wasn't nailed down while they were at it?
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
Ok, this is exactly what I needed! Thank you!
I'm agreeing with you on the story stuff, I need to reword a lot to make more sense out of it. Reading this also makes me see that my "hero" is a bit more neutral aligned. At first I was just thinking "take out the big bad guy... must be heroic."
The Thorns were used as a generic group that might have interest in magical relics. Perhaps they could have been lied too and stole something they thought was important? Maybe Dechs could have used some sort of extortion on them? "I stole this from you, get this for me and you get it back."
I made Tut an LT because of some advice stating that you don't want an ally to be a show stealer. I'm not trying to say my hero's better than yours, so I made sure he wasn't.
The cave map: Huh, I didn't know there were "new" cave maps. I have been out of CoH/V for over a year, just recently started playing again. I'll definitely change this.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Hey guys, I just published my first arc and I want some serious feedback on it. I love the idea of creating arcs and I want to do my best to make them enjoyable. The feedback I get here will not only affect this arc, but will shape my future arcs, including a villainous sequel to this one.
This is important to me because of how much time and effort I invested in this arc. I loaded as much content as I could squeeze, down to detailed backgrounds of the bosses, critter descriptions and a lengthy souvenir. The arc hit 98.5% when I finished.
The arc was designed for high level play, and I've only been able to test it with my 40 Bot/FF mastermind, and he can solo it, but I haven't seen the bosses of my custom group.
My questions are:
How does the arc play with regard to the enemies? Are the minions/LTs/Bosses too difficult or too easy? Do the minions have enough variety? Is it solo-able without being too easy for large groups?
How are the objectives? There are a few optional objectives; is it clear that they are optional? Is the time limit on the third mission too stringent or not even challenging? Is the last mission sized well?
What do you think of the story? Is it well developed enough? Is it interesting and original? Does anything seem overly cliche or contrived?
Grammar Nazis: Give this arc a good look. I pride myself in my writing ability, so I don't think you'll find anything. If you do find anything wrong, I would like to fix it.
I don't particularly like the title, but I couldn't think of anything better. Any suggestions?
Arc Name: A bad hand from a worse deck...
Arc ID: 186198
Morality: Heroic
Factions: CoT, Custom group.
Synopsis: A fellow hero, Kinetic Tut, needs your help recovering a unique artifact that was stolen from his collection. What appears to be a routine mission unfolds into a bitter rivalry.
Thanks in advance, I greatly appreciate it.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.