CoHMR Aggregator (a review thread)

@GlaziusF

Running this on a level 50 spine/regen scrapper, +0 x2 with bosses on.

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Okay, so we're picking up after Westin's last mission, with Recluse making an example of someone who helps people without being an informant.

And my contact wants to go and grab her out of the goodness of her heart. Which there is apparently a lot of, checking the description.

Unofficially going over to the Rogue Isles to probably walk into a trap because the show was just trolling for heroes? (Phipps would have come up with that, I bet.) Eh, whatever. It'll heal.

But first, into the base in Faultline to try to find some leads on native soil.

Huh. Luminary. Won't say no to some help there.

Some battles going on in the hangar, between Arachnos and Longbow. Battles have never actually started when I jumped into them -- they're always going right when they're triggered. So having the people involved in the battle assume that I'm there and have done something doesn't make much sense.

An interesting clue from Dr. Aeon, who has gone on holiday to sample our vast array of expanded cable channels.

And Sands. Ah, Sands. Missed that guy.

Anyway, there are two identical computer systems with a title in all lowercase - when you click a glowie its name shows up in your target window, so it's important to give it a name that makes sense - and they both drop the same clue Aeon gave me: where the show is edited.

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So now we're headed to Aeon Labs.

Oh! No. We're headed to the streets of Cap Au Diable.

...the Dr. Aeon Personal Safety System put a smile on my face, even if the giant ambush (and the one for damaging the records) was a handful. But hey, that's to be expected. We're on the home turf.

And now we know where the show is taped... though, uh, didn't Arbiter Sands also tell us that in the first mission?

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Okay. So the way to get to Miss Primm is...

Man, this took a couple reads, just because it's putting in so much detail into one paragraph. I don't think you even need to talk about the villain cleaning out the base, it doesn't seem relevant.

What's relevant is that Arachnoids webbed up the sub bay that my contact was planning to use to get in there.

She doesn't explicitly say that, but she probably should. Something like "There's an abandoned Longbow base under Grandville. I was going to bring the sub up there, but there's a problem. Luminary's finally gotten to the camera feed, and it looks like Arachnoids have moved in and webbed up the sub bay! We'll need to use their tunnels to get into the base... and to get Miss Primm out again."

Anyway, time to mow down some poor unfortunate souls.

Oh. There's the escapee my contact mentioned. Apparently she has a literal guardian angel.

Whatever level lock was supposed to be here didn't happen, though. Just as well, given the giant regen on Arachnoids. The ally is a decent bit of help.

Poor Biff. All he wanted to do was crack us open and pump toxic chemicals into our succulent organs. Was that so wrong?

Well, yes. But he looked so sad.

My contact is amusingly frustrated at her guardian angel.

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Okay, now we clear out the infested Longbow base. Works for me.

Wow. There's a battle (which creates a Tarantula Queen), a destructible, and an ally, all in this first tiny room.

Tarantula Queens are a bit cruel to the poor Freak I have with me. Psychic Wail at low health.

Still at 50 for this so the commander's 48 isn't as bad as it could have been. And now that THIS base is clear...

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PRISON BREAK!

Gonna be an Arachnomap. At least this one's not on fire.

My contact's armor attacks her guards, springing her dialogue early, but one of them's far enough away that she can't free herself. Ice/energy tanker. Interesting.

This is actually a prison map. One of the glowies is even in the prison room. Kinda nice, but I don't know if it's a map bug or what - my contact stops just inside the door and won't move again.

She was on low health when I lost sight of her, so maybe she just went into Hibernate and never came out? She's in that odd "frozen block" animation you get when you use it, though all I can see are her standard graphics.

Oh, Miss Primm. What have they done to you? Let's just get you gone and HOLY CRAP SILVER MANTIS OUT OF NOWHERE.

Miss Primm's damageable, too. If things get hectic here the mission can easily fail, but I manage to speed away and lose her, then pull Silver Mantis off. I'll come back for her once these other new guests are taken care of.

As an aside, Silver Mantis seems like a natural for reality TV. She mugs for the nonexistent cameras as she goes down.

Oh, the ninja/TA guy who captured her in the first place is one of them. He prattles on about honor and swears blood vengeance on me, and you know, that's cool. He's cool.

And then... some guy in a bandit mask. I won't spoil, but it's hilarious. AR/Dev, so no big surprises there.

We've done what no hero has ever done, exit text? Oh, I don't think so. Let me introduce you to my buddy, Blue Steel.

Still, joining the vaunted ranks of badasses alongside him isn't a bad prize.

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Storyline - *****. Simple but solid, incorporating the existing parts of Miss Primm's sad story in appropriate ways, and finding a good narrative reason to get a new ally in almost every mission and leave them behind for the next. Satsifying ending, though I would have expected one more letter at the end, from a guy with rather good penmanship considering he's got hammers for hands.

Design - ****. My contact needs to lose the Icicles so she doesn't slaughter her own guards, but aside from that, the sparsely used customs in this arc were pretty reasonable. Map choice is also reasonably solid -- honorable mention for using the Arachnoid caves, which are a visually interesting yet not confining cave set that really needs to get out more.

The level range doesn't lock as it should, and while I'm not complaining about knocking Super Duper Arachnoids all over the place as a result, it also wouldn't be a bad thing to lock this to, say, 41-45 now. Anybody higher who plays it will still be able to hold onto their full set of powers and get XP, so there's no reason to have the top step up and down.

Also, it seemed a little too unreasonable to have the only two extant EB Arachnoids in the third mission, especially since the only real difference between them that I could see is their appearance. Just Biff would be fine.

Gameplay - ****. For me, battles were pitched to be large enough to regularly create Super Arachnoids and Arachnos bosses. This led to them being a bit more frequent than you might have liked.

Watch out for putting too many objectives in one map location - the absolutely packed room at the start of mission 4 was a lot harder to clear than it should have been. And Silver Mantis probably shouldn't show up 10 feet away from Miss Primm. Surprise Silver Mantis is nobody's friend.

While I can appreciate the desire to give Miss Primm a moving health bar, Silver Mantis has Build Up and area attacks, and the other custom bosses and several Arachnos troops can also spread out the damage. The timer was honestly enough of a challenge as it was. Hoping the ally AI didn't wander into a bad place would just have been too much of a threat.

Detail - *****. The intro to mission 3 could stand to be clarified a little, as I've noted. The bosses in mission 2 and 5 talking about the horrible contusions I'm putting their bodies through tended a bit toward the overkill end of that spectrum. And it seems like Dr. Aeon and Arbiter Sands in the first mission give me the exact same information I get from the consoles in the first mission and the destructotruck in the second.

But the arc made me smile at several points. Pleasantly surprised me, really. So this gets bumped up.

Overall - *****. An arc in need of a quick edit in light of the new capabilities of the game, but even if it's wanting for some technical revisions, it's still a lot of fun to read and play.

Finally got around to posting all of my other arcs to the website, which include:

Drakule Armageddon 5: This Time, It's Personal! #257242
'Tis Nobler in the Mind: #257226
Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers From Hell: #340316
Holding Down the Fort: #379065
Made to Wave the Flag: #384776

Feel free to review whichever once they show up on the site. Alternatively, while we wait, you could re-review one of my earlier arcs. They've probably all had at least some changes since you played last, considering it's been a while.

Tonight's arc: Drakule Armageddon 5: This Time, It's Personal (257242). Verdict - ***. Review in MA Forums Thread.

My current queue:

• A re-review of The Skein of Fate (22740), no earlier than March 22.
• Reviews of the next two installments in the War Against the Undying One series, Drawing on the South (98754) and Striking at the Heart (139463), to be done as soon as the author finishes a revamp. (possibly also a re-review of the first arc, depending on how much has changed.
• Reviews of (randomly chosen) Tis Nobler in the Mind (257226), Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell! (340316), Holding Down the Fort (379065), Made to Wave the Flag (384776), starting no earlier than March 28.

First, thanks very much for playing and reviewing one of my arcs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlaziusF Some battles going on in the hangar, between Arachnos and Longbow. Battles have never actually started when I jumped into them -- they're always going right when they're triggered. So having the people involved in the battle assume that I'm there and have done something doesn't make much sense.

Intended as window dressing, but I never got them to work quite right. The mobs are supposed to be involved in their own thing already, and you (if you move fast enough) show up in time to help the Longbow guys. More than not, the player shows up once one side or the other has won, which may be what you saw. The battles are disposable, and may be disposed of given your feedback.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlaziusF Anyway, there are two identical computer systems with a title in all lowercase - when you click a glowie its name shows up in your target window, so it's important to give it a name that makes sense - and they both drop the same clue Aeon gave me: where the show is edited.

Dangit! Going to have to fix that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlaziusF And now we know where the show is taped... though, uh, didn't Arbiter Sands also tell us that in the first mission?

Sands should have said something about where the show is edited, not where it's taped, but it's a subtle distinction. I'll take another whack at the clues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlaziusF Man, this took a couple reads, just because it's putting in so much detail into one paragraph. I don't think you even need to talk about the villain cleaning out the base, it doesn't seem relevant. What's relevant is that Arachnoids webbed up the sub bay that my contact was planning to use to get in there. She doesn't explicitly say that, but she probably should.

Good call.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlaziusF Whatever level lock was supposed to be here didn't happen, though. Just as well, given the giant regen on Arachnoids.

Grr! One more thing to fix! /e weldingtorch

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlaziusF We've done what no hero has ever done, exit text? Oh, I don't think so. Let me introduce you to my buddy, Blue Steel. Still, joining the vaunted ranks of badasses alongside him isn't a bad prize.

Hmm? Is there some Blue Steel fluff that I missed? Please enlighten me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlaziusF Overall - *****. An arc in need of a quick edit in light of the new capabilities of the game, but even if it's wanting for some technical revisions, it's still a lot of fun to read and play.

Many of the things you didn't like can now be fixed. They couldn't before. Removing Icicles, for example, simply wasn't an option at first, and it bothered me because the contact is one of my toons and I didn't take that power! Level lock combined with the +5 level power change should fix level disparities. Placement still bedevils me. I'd like to put Silver Mantis somewhere where she isn't a surprise, and I'd like to have the allies show up in the same spot every time, but not every map allows for that level of control. To be honest, no map allows the level of placement control that I'd like to have. I think I can keep the last mission tense while making the hostage unkillable, though the more drama-minded players should fail the last mission just to see what happens. Mua ha ha haa!

Most, if not all of the glowies were placed so players could work on their AE count badges while enjoying the story. This, too, has changed (grumble grumble yes I'm still bitter about that grumble), so I'm sure I can safely remove the ones redundant to the story. Back to the editor!

Thanks again for playing my arc and taking the time to write detailed feedback.

Grog the Big

My trilogy is revamped and looking for trouble.

May want to redo the first arc: 1.1 is relatively unchanged, 1.2 is somewhat changed, and then it's rather different after that.

Tonight's arc: A re-review of The Skein of Fate (22740). Verdict - ***. Review lower in this thread.

My current queue:

• Reviews of the War Against the Undying One series: Challenge of the Dwarves (91044), Drawing on the South (98754) and Striking at the Heart (139463).
• Reviews of (randomly chosen) Tis Nobler in the Mind (257226), Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell! (340316), Holding Down the Fort (379065), Made to Wave the Flag (384776), starting no earlier than March 28.

@GlaziusF

Re-reviewing this on the same low-40s ice/axe tanker, still +0 x2 with bosses on.

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Little grammar harf in the opening: "And in fact, the first of which has surfaced recently.". Should be something like "the first of these".

And in the accept text. "And remember, we're doing this not only for the Midnighters." Should probably by "we're not only doing this for the Midnighters". It's probably technically accurate the way it is but it sounds awkward.

Some objective placement weirdness - I'm glad I went and explored the prison room on this Arachnos map, as the glowie was hanging out there. I'm guessing you meant to put it in the back? I'll say it again - a lot of maps confuse "middle" for "back" when it comes to glowie placement.

The boss calls down an ambush, and the patrols are a little more vocal. Is Ghost Widow looking to change her fate, I wonder?

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Step 2: da rod.

Council base, this time with some patrols on alert and a commander with orders to deliver it to Requiem. Once again the rod winds up in a middling chamber some distance away from the commander.

You may be trying to do this, but consider the alternative: if we meet the commander in the middle of the map, there's still the artifact to retrieve, but if the artifact is retrieved early, why stick around and pound on the commander?

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And into Oranbega.

You don't need to worry about the zero-activation period on the glowie. There shouldn't be any glowie spots in Oranbega where you can't park yourself somewhere out of the range of a crystal to hit them.

(also, the glowie's down a side passage near the start, again.)

You may also want to check the pacing on this map. Still seeing green Circle in the entrance, which don't make me and my knockdown happy. I'm like my own personal repulsion field!

I rescue one of the Moirae at the end, which is a good lead, but how do I know she's there? Maybe I hear someone calling for help as I enter, just as she gets dragged through that portal at the entrance.

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Hmm. "something tells me you should look into it" -- is the contact being prophetic there, or just coy, given that we've already met the Moirae?

So, one boss to stop, and...

What's that, navbar?

Kill them all?

OKAY!

(actually, not that okay. On an outdoor map? Maybe use a fiew placed lieutenants as boss spawns to be "instigators" or something, give their escorts the rioting with placard animation.)

A kill all, especially on an outdoor map which can sometimes "overspawn" -- multiple spawns try to spawn in the same location, so the second spawn shows up after the first is dead and the hero has moved on -- is really more tedious than anything.

I really don't get anything more from comprehensively defeating the rioters than I do from dropping the boss.

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A little more of a tie to the past mission in the briefing for the next, though, explaining who the Moirae are, and Mnemosyne's clue earlier kinda explains that they were trying to go after the artifacts.

Still lost on how they thought it was a good idea to storm the Midnighters. (Maybe they collectively don't, but the instigators and the heir were pushing for violence?)

Defeat all here is a bit of a pain too, especially since patrols count and those things can wind up anywhere. The places where you have to place the artifacts are all up near the beginning of the map, too.

Maybe you could make it, like, "return artifacts to the funeraries of the Moirae" and there are three urns in the back room, then you only have to clear out the boss and the back room, and the wards you set up will take care of making sure the place isn't disturbed?

Placing all those wards in the cavern will be pretty close to defeat all anyway, given how much ground you have to cover.

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Storyline - ****. More solid establishing of the Moirae and 5th role in all this, which is good. I'm still wondering why the Moirae waited until the artifacts had been liberated from various villain strongholds to get all up in arms about things. I've kinda outlined a way that they might not actually all be riled, but that the leaders were just taking what they thought was appropriate intiative.

Design - **. Good step: the missions have more to do in them. Bad step: A lot of the more doesn't make sense. Why am I defeating the base commanders in the first two missions? They're not anywhere near the items they have to protect.

(I know this is a long-running bug in the mission architect where glowies set for "back" show up in the "middle" and vice-versa, but since it's so established just set the glowies you want to show up in the "back" to "middle". You can save a local copy and test your arcs basically in god-mode, zipping from objective to objective while invisible and invulnerable, killing with a touch; one quick pass should be all you need to verify that they're spawning where you want them to.)

For that matter, why am I looking for clues in the third mission? My contact hasn't said anything about doing research.

Also, as more of a minor peeve than a substantive complaint, there are lots of patrols with identical dialogue. You can get away with about one patrol per unique thing you want them to say, and make the bulk of the rest up with patrols that don't talk. NPC dialogue is "audible" in a far larger radius than it used to be, so you don't have to worry about people missing out on it.

Gameplay - **. Two missions in a row that are defeat all is a real spirit-breaker, though admittedly the first was a lot more tedious than the second, since I took out the only interesting part right at the beginning.

Like I said, you might be able to get away with one boss and several lieutenant instigators, which would spread out the total number of fights you needed to complete the mission without necessarily requiring that the whole map be cleared.

Likewise for the last map - placing glowies and emptying the boss room is enough to take out most of the map without bringing on the frustration of "no enemies in sight, mission still not complete".

Detail - ***. More going on in the missions, which is good. But the boss spiels are pretty generic (seriously, the first and second missions are basically cribbing off each other, with Ghost Widow/Arachnos in for Requiem/the Council) and I would like to see a little more justification by my contact for the various extra objectives.

Overall - ***. An improvement from the first go, but some of the changes need to be rethought a bit.

Tonight's arc: A re-review of Challenge of the Dwarves (91044). Verdict - ****. Review lower in this thread.

My current queue:

• Reviews of the remainder of the War Against the Undying One series: Drawing on the South (98754) and Striking at the Heart (139463), starting no earlier than March 30.
• Reviews of (randomly chosen) Tis Nobler in the Mind (257226), Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell! (340316), Holding Down the Fort (379065), Made to Wave the Flag (384776), starting no earlier than March 28.

@GlaziusF

Doing a rereview with the same high-40s DB/Fire brute, +1 x2 with bosses on.

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Opening clue, which is nice.

The creatures of the deep have much better descriptions, but you still might want to change the names on some of them to give people the impression they're different. Boulder -> Rock Troll, Sardonyx -> Crystal Troll?

It's not that any of the names are ill-fitting, save perhaps "Cobra Hatchling" for the "Naga" lieutenant.

Huh. All of the missions are locked at level 41 now? That's... honestly, I don't really understand that.

Oh wait, yes I do, that's when the Devouring Earth stop being anything but rock creatures.

It's a fair assessment of the power needed to take the arc on, but non-round numbers frighten and confuse me.

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Radiation blast isn't really an improvement over radiation emission, when paired with earth control. Still does defense debuffs, and Irradiate is pretty long-duration too.

...also for some reason both the Champions and Rune Maidens are missing some standard-difficulty power, and are therefore worth NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

What power(s) did you remove, out of curiosity?

Anyway, the King (who's an EB now) goes down, and I'd like to see some kind of clue about his reaction.

Or get a clue for the what these documents are. Ideally both!

Oh, okay, his reaction's an exit popup. Still, a clue for the documents, or at least the notification that they're sealed and I shouldn't bother.

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Ah, the successive missions are couched this time as vital impediments to the dwarves, rather than nits to pick for the King.

Wow. 14 glowies worth of armor and weapons. I guess somebody gave me a bag of holding.

14 glowies worth of armor and weapons in one teeny little cave bend. I guess you really can fit a lot of 'em in a little geometry, and while it does make it seem a lot like the goblins have made their own treasury, it really is a bit crowded.

The boss here is nice - looks like he's really using armor and weapons looted from the dwarves. He's just boss-rank, though, and he calls on someone named "Valentin". Who's that?

Let's find out! Sword-first!

A-ha. A Red Wizard!

Okay, two things.

One, fully upgraded minions from Necromancy can all debuff accuracy, especially the Lich with his manifold dark blasts. Stacking Dark Miasma on top of that is just a recipe for negative to-hits on my part.

Seriously. Had the combat monitors on and everything.

Second, even with all that hot missing action, he still wasn't worth any XP.

I'd suggest giving him something like Pain Domination. Appropriate SFX.

Actually, three things. His description mentions the Undying One, but I shouldn't know anything about that yet, as my contact hasn't told me. Call him a mysterious wizard and have him invoke the name of the Undying One as he tries to destroy me.

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Now the guy in the fourth mission, he's appropriately talking about the Undying One. Apparently it's going to go berserk and eat the world or something and they need to burn relics to keep it docile.

Also, surprise minotaur. Nice custom paint job and description.

Now, there's this ritual around this odd lump of rock in the end room. Seems to be about knee-high, embedded in the floor. I'm seeing something purple but I can't make it out, so after all the minions are down I can probably get a good WHY HELLO THERE SIR.

That was either amazing coincidence with the room type or the animation worked out that way naturally. Either way: impressive.

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And now, off to seal the invasion tunnel.

Reuse of the first map, but this time there's more reason for the king to be there himself.

He doesn't have any text to notify you that you've left him behind, though, which in these twisting tunnels is a real concern.

Anyway, CYCLOPS FINAL BOSS. The only real problem I have is that he and the minotaur have kinda the same gimmick - Unstoppable at low health. At least here I can kite him around the central rock until it wears off.

The way-marker should probably vanish when I "collect" it, considering I'm supposed to destroy it and it makes a whooshing sound.

I get a clue on destroying it, which seems more like something my contact should be telling me, as all this stuff about rune keys and way markers is Greek to me and not something I should be able to work out.

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Storyline - ****. The information on the dwarves and the runeways is kind of extraneous, honestly. Unless it becomes important later, if say there are things my contact isn't telling me. I have so far taken at face value that what he's telling me to do will actually work.

Because so far, it has.

Aside from that, the only story concern I have is my uncanny ability to tell exactly what one of those Red Wizards is when it shows up, and relay that information to my contact. It'd work better as a mysterious figure invoking the name of the Undying One. (name: "Valentin?" description: "You don't remember passing this figure on your way in. Is he the Valentin that warboss was calling for? What connection does he have with all this?" or something similar)

Design - ***. Call this 6 minus 3. The rescue in the fourth mission was pretty amazing, so there's a bonus point, but there are three fairly powerful enemies in this arc that don't grant any XP at all - the Champion, the Rune Maiden, and the red wizards - Czernobogs or whatever the name was. No XP means no other rewards, including no inspirations, which against the persistent customs is a bit of a punishment.

The recolors and renames of stock enemies are used to pretty good effect in the arc, and the customs are for the most part pretty distinctive, though the goblin minions could stand to be, say, significantly lighter than the rest of the goblins. As it is because of the general body shape and the rather poor lighting in the caves, it takes some tabbing to find the actual threats among the swarm.

Gameplay - ***. Runemaidens can still carve a decent chunk out of defense, basically stacking enough on me between earth control and radiation that the minions never missed, instead of whiffing half the time like they're supposed to.

And with the full necro/dark arsenal at their disposal, the red wizards can easily take my hit chance into the negatives.

These would be irksome enough, but the complete lack of rewards for taking down either of these targets turns them into rather cruel jokes.

Detail - ****. Aside from the odd sidebars about dwarves and runeways most of the added clues are used to good effect, and a decent effort has been made to give all the custom criters of the deep a fitting description.

Just as a pure aside here, I was expecting the Watchers to make more of an appearance in the Undying One's ranks, but I suppose there may very well be older and fouler things than it in the dark places of the earth.

Overall - ****. I'm rounding this one up because a lot of my substantive issues could be fixed by going back in and making those customs actually worth XP again. While you can customize powers, and they're changing the mechanism for how it works in the next issue, right now if you omit any power on the standard-difficulty list a critter is basically a damaging terrain feature for all the benefits you get from whomping one.

Thank you for the rereview!! I greatly appreciate it.

The restriction to level 41 came about after a LOT of wrangling with my entire trilogy. It comes out of several bands of enemies I wanted to use. The simplest exclusion is: Devouring Earth mushroom guys' max level is 41, Soldiers of Rularuu (which I HAD to have with those eyeballs!) are 41-54.
I contemplated eliminating the mushroom guys, but there were other mobs I wanted to use that didn't cap much higher. And mushroom folks, IMO, really help highlight the weirdness/fantasy element.
The secondary advantage of this is that when I'm making a custom group of standard enemies, I don't have to fill it with standard enemies at other level ranges, eating up space that isn't going to matter to any particular user.

A clue as to what the documents are. Der. I don't know why it didn't occur to me, thanks.

With respect to the custom power selection, I'm kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place with that one.
The Champions are missing Build Up and the shield powers Phalanx and Grant Power (from Hard, or extra power from Standard, depending).
The Rune Maidens have Irradiate instead of XRay Eyes.
Czarodziej have all Necro except life drain and soul extraction, powers 2-7 in dark miasma (no twilight grasp). Basically, avoiding the boss healing which makes a dark boss go from irritating to OMFG WHAT.

Unfortunately, I'm a little screwed here until I17: if I use the default standard/hard power lists, the enemies become stupidly hard because of the different way NPC versions of these powers work. If I use carefully selected powers, the enemies give little to no XP.
Right now I'm hoping the gameplay is better enough for people to stomach the XP until things improve.

As for Runemaidens in general... they are glass buff/debuffers. Basically, take them out first, which isn't hard, and the rest will fall more easily. Which I think is an acceptible role for a lt.
The red wizards, I may have to give a simple standard necro element. I fear that might make them a little toothless, but the to-hit penalties... mmm.

Comment about Valentin's desc: Good point! I'll make the mysterious stranger a bit more mysterious.

Fourth mission: Not a coincidence. Something cool I noticed with 'unconsciousness' animation.

Way marker vanishing: hmm, yeah. Good idea.

I like the idea of making goblin minions lighter. Will do!

Another thought, re: czarodziej... are they much more difficult than CoT death mages?

Random arcs until the 28th, unless someone wants to jump in.

Tonight's arc: Getting to Know Oneself (41625). Verdict - ***. Review lower in this thread.

My current queue:

• Reviews of the remainder of the War Against the Undying One series: Drawing on the South (98754) and Striking at the Heart (139463), starting no earlier than March 30.
• Reviews of (randomly chosen) Tis Nobler in the Mind (257226), Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell! (340316), Holding Down the Fort (379065), Made to Wave the Flag (384776), starting no earlier than March 28.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a low 40s ice/axe tanker, +0 x2 with bosses on.

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My contact gives me a spiel about the Midnight Squad finding some kind of outward link from mutants when they were investigating why visors work on them.

And she can't get near anybody she's linked to, so she's sending me out with a sensor of some type.

Well, the reason's obvious. If you ever meet your doppleganger, both of you die within a day and then your combined karma goes to the secret cabal of people who used to have two dopplegangers.

(might be nice to get whatever this artifact is as an opening clue.)

I save a Kheldian the Council have captured. Might be nice to have her surrounded by Void Hunters or something.

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Usually I expect a little more direction from a mission briefing. Like, where I'm going, what I can expect. Am I hunting down people in a specific order, or what, exactly?

Anyway, apparently there's this bizarre cult that's also trying to do something with these links, and it's a good thing I've dipped into my ancillary pool, as their melee lieutenant has Build Up.

Aside from that, they seem pretty reasonable.

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Yeah, this is the second one-line mission briefing in a row. The navbar gives me the name of whoever I'm going after, but the mission briefing is just my contact fuming that there's a villain linked to her somewhere.

And... the mission entry popup gives me some information about this guy? Wow.

Okay. Usually I expect to know where I'm going and roughly what I'm doing there from the briefing. The mission popup gives me some personal observations and helps to set the scene more than it establishes any threats.

This dude's undead army is composed of Pantheon zombies with custom upper ranks. The Harpies have no description at all.

Off in the distance I can hear battles between Unity and the undead, but they seem to be reading each other lines - the zombies talking about Unity, the cultists going "braaaaaains".

I confront the dude, who is a decent-looking skeletal necromancer with bone wings, and he wonders that I stopped the dead from walking the earth just to get him to take this litle existential survey.

He drops some lines about predestination and oversouls - these are the sorts of things whose names are unpronouncable because they all start with @, right?

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So last mission my contact was worrying about other bits of herself in the Rogue Isles, and this time out of nowhere somebody's trying to drown us in a flood of ravagers.

Er, create Rularuu.

I see the mages of the custom group in this mission. Dual control, plant/earth, just in case you didn't feel like getting held forever by ONE control set with defense debuffs on it.

The boss dumps the last line of his death scream into the system text ("Becoming" only takes one M.) "Boss defeated text" goes into the system tab. "Boss is defeated dialog" goes into NPC dialogue, and they should get text appropriate for those channels. I know it's not exactly clear which is which.

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Storyline - **. The story shifts gears kind of abruptly, from the more light investigation into these odd links to this terrible threat to the world. I don't find out about the cult's ultimate plan until right when they become a threat, and there's this kind of looming threat at the end.

Everyone's got an @ in front of their names. And there's nothing to indicate we've even taken a fraction out of this cult. Rularuu has weird monsters, each serving facets of his personality -- the cult members could be similar odd things with solid facemasks and weird protruding bits, summoned by the initial union they're looking to move forward. Maybe whatever elements of the cult the Midnighters take to study vanish after the last mission.

A little closure, rather than this threat of a new Rularuu at any time.

Design - ****. The missions are all pretty straightforward - two hostage rescues, two boss fights. The occasional patrol or battle provides a bit of flavor. The customs are all reasonably easy to tell apart.from each other - my one caveat is that it's not really possible to do good robes in the CoH engine yet. It would help the impression of robes a bit if the cultists were also hooded.

Gameplay - ***. The cultist lieutenants have Aim and Build Up, and their boss has two control sets. The end boss is a high-potency storm defender, which in enemy hands is like a Tsoo sorceror, an Avalanche shaman, and a Mu striker all rolled into one ball of pain. I'd suggest dropping Hurricane and either Snow Storm or Freezing Rain - an area slow and the endurance drain from Lightning Storm are enough of a challenge without another area slow and -tohit.

Detail - **. The first three missions are essentially surprises. The briefing doesn't tell me anything about them - I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing there until I step inside. There's a missing boss description on the corpse brides of the free undead. And most of the information about the cult and what they're trying to do is packed into the third debrief and the briefing for mission 4, instead of spread out a bit more gradually.

Overall - ***. An arc serving up serviceable light vignettes that hops the rails to set up its climactic boss fight.

Glazius, I recently upgraded the entries in CoH Mission Review to account for changes in my arcs. They've both changed quite a bit since you ran them and, since yours were one of the original reviews that helped inspire some of the changes, I'd be pleased if you could find time for re-reviews. If not, I understand, but I figured they could pass the time, anyway.

Info's in the sig. Thanks.

FWIW, I've adjusted my custom enemies to avoid all use of 'custom' power selection. I'm tinkering with czarodziej right now, moving to 'standard necro' and, probably, standard fiery aura. There will still be -tohit, but not as insane as it is now.

I just added my Greater Good arc to Mission Review:

The Greater Good - 350877 - @Gypsy Rose

I would really appreciate your input on this arc. It was written for Dr. Aeon's challenge and so it has your hero doing evil for the greater good. Because of this, I think it is an arc that few MA players will enjoy. However I spent months working on it. If I am going to keep the arc, there are a few changes I would make, but I am really not sure that given the topic it is worth keeping.

I am not sure it is possible, but if you could put aside your dislike of your hero being hijacked when you rate that would be helpful.

Also, I am seriously considering unpublishing this arc given the topic, but I have been toying with the idea of changing it so that you the hero, don't actually perform evil in the end. Any input/suggestions on morphing this arc into something more people would enjoy would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Last night's arc that I fell asleep after playing: Lab Group 1 (65610). Verdict - **. Review lower in this thread.
Tonight's arc (which I only got around to running a few days later) - The Greater Good (350877). Verdict - **. Review in MA Forums Thread.

@GlaziusF

Working this one over with a strong team-support character, my high 20s mind/kin controller, +0 x0 with bosses on.

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Quick warning - purple text isn't very high-contrast against the standard fade.

But okay, let's go save some heroes.

I get clues for their ice leader and the dead guy, but not for the dark rebel or the electric fanboy.

Or for picking up the weapons, for that matter.

Anyway, time to report back.

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Something about missions - I often expect to see something like a rough overview of the mission in the pre-mission accept screen. Where I'm going, who I'm fighting, and what I can hope to accomplish.

Lament is completely silent when I go to rescue him. No clue either.

(The clue for Frozen Moment misspells Shin Faultline's name - it's actually "Temblor".)

I do like these clues as kind of "capsule updates" on the team.

Once again, though, I don't get a clue for the thing I'm supposed to be picking up.

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Hmm. Looks like Crey's doing a little opposition research. Okay, time to raid somebody.

Frozen Moment doesn't have guards around her. (I'm level 35.) Is she just distraught here, or what?

More updates on the team's story as I make my way to the top.

Yep. Crey was trying to steal the research and probably replicate it.

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And now, the person who's been trying to defect in every mission goes villain all on her own, and I and a Hero Corps strike team (who get filleted before I even see what they look like) are going to try to stop her.

I pick up the team again.

I think these little capsule summaries of their stories to date should all be prefaced with the heroes name, as for example "Lament: Focused and Faithful".

Oddly enough, I get the clue about Misery before Lament. You can drag and drop objectives to reorder them and the order the clues appear in.

And... lethal force, huh? She wanted freedom, got it, and used it... poorly.

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Storyline - *. I felt a bit like I was watching a recap episode of a show I'd never seen before. Misery talks about defecting all the time, but she never actually follows through until the last mission. Until then, it's just her quirk, like Frozen Moment's self-deprecation, Lament's stoicism, or Positive Field's comic books. Not until the last mission does it seem like she wants to be free enough to die for it.

I thought, entering the third mission, that something might have happened to someone from LG1. It might help here to have Misery gone from this mission and insert a fourth about her "defection" to Crey, which might not quite work out the way she intended.

I didn't really get a sense of progression out of anybody, despite the clues trying to point me that way. It wouldn't hurt to change the descriptions of LG1 from mission to mission - they all seemed the same for the first two missions, and after that I stopped looking.

Design - ***. The core group of customs, LG1, was pretty well-realized and looked generally distinct, at least until the ice and sonics went up. A lot of missions suffered from the same "glowie designated 'back' shows up in the middle" that plagues pretty much every MA mission, so that whatever important thing we were supposed to pick up was actually in some side chamber somewhere.

Some problems also with the many ally rescues - Lament's missing text in the second mission, Positive Field's damaging aura taking out his guards early in the fourth, Frozen Moment having no guards in the third.

Gameplay - ****. The allies weren't too overpowered on their own, but as I buffed them and they buffed each other, well. Not that I didn't expect it, though. Though it did make the final boss, such as she was, a bit of a pushover.

Detail - **. The vignettes on each character aren't labeled consistently, and I don't think there was a mission where everyone got one. With the fairly consistent patter from my allies, that didn't help the impression I got that LG1 wasn't really developing much.

Overall - **. An arc that tries to excerpt a much larger story to fit the MA limitations. Ultimately, it doesn't show enough of how LG1 changed from mission to mission, and that makes it difficult to accept the big change at the end.