CoHMR Aggregator (a review thread)


Aisynia

 

Posted

@GlaziusF

Running this on my level 50 stone/ice tanker, +1 x1 with bosses on.

---

Okay, an illegal salvage operation trying to remove Rikti UXBs. That can't possibly go wrong. My contact shares my skepticism and she wants to know why people are sending a man out to do a Clockwork's job.

Ah. Human supremacists. Mostly mundane weapons, though they do have some Vanguard sympathizers who are a little more of a challenge.

---

The opening briefing seems a bit circuitous. I don't think Borea needs to tell me exactly how they planned this whole sting, only the specific part that's gone wrong -- their token resistence got pocketed.

Dammit, Fusionette! Okay, time to go be a hero.

Interesting: Humanity First seems to have converted some Rikti drones, who try to reacquire Fusionette.

Not so interesting: I find Fusionette in the sewer and have to lead her out through the tunnels and office parts of this tripartite map.

...oh wait, that's all? There's nothing in the big room at the end? Kind of a letdown.

---

Now time to break into a building and destroy the junk inside.

Hmm. These Burners aren't worth any XP. Just flamethrowers? I'll give you the same advice I gave some other guy with the same exact setup: use fire blast instead. You could probably give him some gauntlets or something.

And Gadgeteers. Rad/rad defender types, which isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think "Gadgeteer".

So taking out this surprise heavy assault suit (seriously, it's an EB, drop a warning) completes the "salvaged machinery" but not "kitbashed machinery" objective, even though it had kitbashed in its title.

A boss and her escort spawn inside of a sheet-metal column. Fortunately they pop out when they start fighting me. And just short of the Freaklympics award room is the "kitbashed machinery" - a Robotics boss henchman. I was expecting an HVAS, so this is pleasant.

The human boss talked about shipping things out to the Isles. Looks like I'm going on a road trip.

---

Be nice to get some warning about the timer before I accepted the mission.

Also since you seem to favor verbose briefings, might I suggest highlighting the important parts in color? You can do it even if you've maxed out the text, as long as you're using stock colors -- just select and apply.

Two more Lieutenants, a Medic with some Empathy, and a... more different Gadgeteer? This one's an elec/elec tanker.

The (elite) boss is a DB/Ninja, who again I would appreciate a warning about, but who isn't a bad fight.

There's mention of someone named Partisan, who I guess is a teaser for some kind of sequel. I'd certainly be interested in playing one.

---

Storyline - *****. Simple, but solid. About the only complaint I have is that mission 2 seems to be more reactionary -- it doesn't really show off much of the enemy group, and it doesn't leave anything in the way of persistent clues. I might want to know what they took, at least, assuming they weren't just grabbing everything they could.

Overall it's a decent first part to what I suspect will be an ongoing story. It sets up some activities of a group without necessarily giving us the whole picture, because it only dealt with a small part of them.

Design - ****. You have two options with the Burners - fire blast, or wait for I17. Either or both, really.

The second mission is kind of a letdown. There's Fusionette to rescue but the end room is empty, though I was expecting some kind of boss fight. If all that you've got in the custom group are male and female version of the same boss, I can understand not wanting to do that three missions in a row. Rogue Vanguard or Longbow maybe?

Gameplay - ***. Leading Fusionette back through three layers of mission was a bit boring. But the two surprise EBs and the surprise timer were the real offenders here.

The DBlade/Nin not so much, but the heavy assault suit can eliminate regen and send any non-defense set into a cascading -defense loop of undodgeable pain.

Detail - ****. All the rank-and-file enemies in the new group start out with a giant block of information about Humanity First in general, and then a single line at the end specific to the enemy. Seems a bit of overkill. We could get some general enemy information as an opening/ending clue to some mission, with shorter descriptions on the rank and file.

There's also a lot of text in the briefings, so in addition to adding warnings about elite bosses and the timer, you should call out important information with color highlighting. Biggest offender is Borea's detailing the trap the Vanguard laid in mission 2 - it might be nice to know, but the important elements to the mission are how it went wrong and what I need to fix.

Overall - ****. Nothing major wrong with the story or the enemy group. It just needs a little more in the way of warning and highlighting and a little better end to mission 2 than just going through the whole place backwards.


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)

 

Posted

Thanks for checking out 'Salvage Rights' arc#366579, your feedback is greatly appreciated on this. A few points I'd like to respond to...

Highlighting of key text. This is something I wanted to do in the first place, but on a couple of the text fields I maxed out available characters. It's for this reason I didn't use it as I felt if I couldn't do it everywhere I needed to I shouldn't do it at all. I never realised you could still apply coloured text highlights if you used stock colours. Excellent piece of info there!

Quote:
Not so interesting: I find Fusionette in the sewer and have to lead her out through the tunnels and office parts of this tripartite map.
A change of placement setting easily sort's that.

Quote:
...oh wait, that's all? There's nothing in the big room at the end? Kind of a letdown.
Once I17 hits with it's mission file size doubling im sure I can throw in an extra surprise. Although considering how some of the end rooms on maps don't like spawning enemies I can't guarantee they'd be in the end room.

Quote:
Hmm. These Burners aren't worth any XP. Just flamethrowers? I'll give you the same advice I gave some other guy with the same exact setup: use fire blast instead. You could probably give him some gauntlets or something.
I plan to keep the Burners mostly as they are. The reason being is that I want the bulk of Humanity First using conventional weaponry. I17 will at least make them worth some xp, and although they will give less than the other critters they are not a common spawn so that shouldn't be noticeable.

the Instigator's are another critter type sharing the same problem, but again once I17 hits they will have their (Pet-less) Thugs power set swapped for Dual Pistols making them worth full xp again.

Quote:
And Gadgeteers. Rad/rad defender types, which isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think "Gadgeteer".
The Gadgeteers are supposed to be fairly individual in what they bring to the field. At the moment there are three versions Rad (Using weaponry powered by pirated uranium), Electricity, and Sonic (Not in arc yet due to file size shortage). Again I17 file size doubling will help out here. The only other likely change being that I will probably change them to 'do not auto spawn' so as to even further support the idea of them being rare specialist troops. I figure making them optional objectives gives me a good way of getting extra flavour dialog in the arc.

Quote:
(seriously, it's an EB, drop a warning)
The arc select part of the AE UI states that it includes EB's. I personally find it strange that people need further warning when they already know they are in there somewhere. I suppose I could highlight words like 'leader' or 'commander' in briefings, but i'm not a fan of just spelling everything out when it comes to game play. In fact the first time I published the arc people actually loved the sort of "Oh $&*£" kind of shock of running into a Rikti Heavy. It makes for an intense battle.

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A boss and her escort spawn inside of a sheet-metal column.
Not seen this happen before. A new bug?

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Be nice to get some warning about the timer before I accepted the mission.
Again, timers are an aspect of game play that I personally feel have more impact if you don't know they are coming. However a couple of people have made this point so I might put a warning in future edits.

Quote:
There's mention of someone named Partisan, who I guess is a teaser for some kind of sequel. I'd certainly be interested in playing one.
He is Humanity First's founder and overall leader. he doesn't get his hands dirty scavenging battlefields. I’m trying to brainstorm an arc that includes him, but is also epic enough to justify his presence.

Quote:
About the only complaint I have is that mission 2 seems to be more reactionary -- it doesn't really show off much of the enemy group
With I17 I have a couple of optional clues, and enemy encounters planned which should add extra flavour, as well as better highlighting Humanity First's feelings about super powered beings.

Quote:
Overall it's a decent first part to what I suspect will be an ongoing story. It sets up some activities of a group without necessarily giving us the whole picture, because it only dealt with a small part of them.
Very much what I was going for. This arc essentially just focuses on one of Humanity First's methods of resource gathering.

Quote:
All the rank-and-file enemies in the new group start out with a giant block of information about Humanity First in general, and then a single line at the end specific to the enemy. Seems a bit of overkill. We could get some general enemy information as an opening/ending clue to some mission, with shorter descriptions on the rank and file.
I made the mistake of using a RP wiki entry as the basis of the critter bios. Shorter more concise bios are in the works.

Again, big thank you for trying my arc. You have given me some great pointers to work with.


 

Posted

I'd like for you to review Dhahabu Kingdom and the Indelible Curse of Hate #367872. It's on CoHMR and the link in my sig has the thread here.


 

Posted

Tonight's arc: Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell! (340316). Verdict - ***. Review in MA Forums thread.

My current queue:


And if anybody else wants in, the instructions are in the first post.


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)

 

Posted

Was looking to get some feedback on Twisted Knives, the arc in my sig! You really ought to be over level 45, but you should be able to handle yourself with a slightly lower level character.

Forum thread here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=217140


-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)

 

Posted

Tonight's arc: The Casualties of War (241496). Verdict - ****. Review in MA Forums thread.

My current queue:


And if anybody else wants in, the instructions are in the first post.


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)

 

Posted

Tonight's arc: Dhahabu Kingdom and the Indelible Curse of Hate (367872). Verdict - ****. Review in MA Forums thread.

My current queue:


And if anybody else wants in, the instructions are in the first post.


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)

 

Posted

Wow. Been a while. A mix of work pressure, monster heartburn, and, uh, Civ IV on sale for ten bucks has left me without much time to run mission reviews. But here's an old one that finally got written up:

The Labors of Rustam II: Rustam and Sohrab (59243). Verdict - **. Review lower in this thread.

My current queue:

And if anybody else wants in, the instructions are in the first post.


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)

 

Posted

@GlaziusF

Running this on the DBlade/Fire brute, +1 x2 with bosses on.

---

Wow. That's a giant block of text to kick this all off. So there's this guy's rebellious son turned by some dude. The Wormtongue here is called an archvillain but I have no idea how he'll show up.

And I've got to go into this giant running battle and make sure he only backstabs on his father once.

What is the stage of history this time? Oh. Salamanca. Not bad.

...TEN seedlings of Pyre Blossom. Sweet monkey pants.

Man. Elec/storm bosses on the main custom group, with voltaic sentinel. That little guy is a sapper all on its own and Hurricane on a boss is about a -40% to-hit debuff. So I get Lightning Storm and Voltaic Sentinel draining my end. And I can't stop them and I can't actually hit the guy who's producing them because I can't get in-range and still be able to hit him.

Oh. And he's got freezing rain, which takes my defense down, and Tornado, which triple-stacks a -10% defense debuff, so I'm basically being hit all the time unless I eat half my inspiration tray in lucks.

And Short Circuit, so while I can't get away from flopping over with freezing rain and the terrible chill of snow-storm I lose the entire blue bar because I can't dodge a thing.

Okay. I basically have absolutely no hope of defeating this guy. Better go somewhere else.

I can at least take down Pyre Blossom with judicious inspiration use, but I have no hope against these stormers.

The fire blast/ice manip lieutenants with Aim and Build Up aren't exactly walks in the meadow either, but at least I can hit them.

I find Rustam up on some rocks and lead him down to fight his son. ...at which point he betrays me. Swell. Dude, you were in your son's face taking him down, why take it out on me? Ah well, I'll just avoid you when I get back from the hospital.

The Wormtongue is a ninja/fire control, who slows me down a bit, but who is because of my armor the easiest fight on the map so far.

And there are only 8 more copies of the same EB fight with the same dialogue to go!

I get a clue for an apparent data crystal in the Wormtongue's ring, but there's no followup. I guess he teleports out with it or something? (Ah, souvenir. Got it. Might help to call it out in the debrief.)

And the hell you saying, exit popup? Is this about Sohrab? Uh, dude was a rebel, of the age of maturity, or at least in armor as beefy as his old man's. Maybe he got his fool self mind-controlled but killin' a dude who was actually dead on the stage of history (or, uh, watching Rustam do it) isn't really big on the "sick sense of horror" scale.

Also he was about the second dude to go down in my grand rampage across the stage, so I stopped thinking about him after the sixth identical clone of Pyre Blossom.

---

Storyline - ***. The cliffhanger's alright. I guess the single mission is due to the giant amount of customs? But trying to twist the knife about Sohrab's death seems to be reaching a little. I mean, at this point I've carved my way through two entire armies of normal mortals - this one, and the one that abducted Rustam's king back in the first arc. Sohrab's death is certainly more important to Rustam than any of the armies, but he hardly even registers.

Or if the "sick sense of horror" is about the giant field of Pyre Blossoms, you should probably call that out.

Design - ***. The problem with the single mission is that the task of "come to grips with new enemy group" is kinda overshadowed by the two custom bosses to fight and the ten normal (but elite) bosses to fight. And the large amount of Aim and Build Up among the lieutenants doesn't exactly encourage idle contemplation of the very similar enemies. I can respect that as an army they need a similar uniform, and the yellow haze isn't doing any favors for distinguishing one from another, but I can't remember any real distinguishing features.

Gameplay - *. Talking of the enemy group, I've spoken in other reviews about how off-mark Aim and Build Up actually are. Enemies have a base chance to hit around 50%, and Aim and Build Up essentially double that -- also, their damage isn't enhanced like hero damage is, so what would be a functional 30% to 50% bump in damage for a hero is another 100% for a custom enemy. That's basically a short-term quadrupling of damage.

Adding to this is the general disparity in numbers. A hero fights through hundreds of villains in a mission, a handful at a time. Aim and Build Up are designed to help even these odds, with the caveat that they're often not available in every fight. So is the incidental debuff on many attacks, and the "force multipliers" of buffs and debuffs in general. But with a custom enemy group, any given hero is already outnumbered. Applying a force multiplier of any sort to that can often create a rather painful imbalance. A storm/elec defender could lock down and sap one target. Out of a handful of enemies, that's not such a big deal. But a custom doing it to me often has backup - and even without it, I'm still locked down.

I realize this is, what, a Repeat Offenders production? As a big team challenge map it works just fine, but the normal spawns in the custom group can easily overwhelm a solo hero.

Detail - **. 10 identical fights against Devoured Pyriss, right down to the dialogue, is a bit of a slog. I might have liked a smaller number, with actual variety to what they said. And the descriptions of the customs are rather terribly short. I realize this was probably a limitation of the filesize, and you haven't had time to expand them yet. The extremely clipped descriptions aren't misleading, but they don't really help distinguish the army types from each other.

Also, while having Rustam go mad with grief made narrative sense, it was kinda a kick in the teeth that while I was already depleted from trying to weather Sohrab I was up against basically a clone of him right away and also lost my only ally. Part of it was that I thought Rustam had taken his own son out originally so I didn't see anything wrong with it. Maybe the Mender could say something about Rustam going mad with grief when his son died?

Overall - **. For a single-mission arc, the attraction is in the unique mechanics or the combat, not necessarily the plot. Not much in the way of mechanics here, as it seems a pretty standard fightin' map. And the combat, for reasons detailed in "Gameplay" above, often turned into short periods of excitement followed by long periods of being dead. At least against most of the customs. Devoured Pyriss was alright (but a little boring after the third time or so), Sohrab was a wreckin' machine, and funnily enough the Wormtongue here went down the easiest of all.

I can appreciate that the size and complexity of the enemy group probably prevented anything more than a single mission. (Or for that matter, a very cursory description, which in most cases was fine but I really didn't get the sonic blast on the healers. Maybe archery?)

Overall this arc would probably greatly benefit from the new changes and the compression of critter files specially. Having a mission to come to terms with the customs would be very helpful, as they're rather overshadowed by the mass (and mandatory) duplicates of Devoured Pyriss, and the two custom bosses are challenging enough (well, one of them is) without also having to decipher who in their entourage I should bother with.


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)

 

Posted

Okay. I think I've gotten myself in a position where I can get reviews out just a leeeetle more quickly than once every two weeks.

Knock on wood.

Review for this arbitrary time period: Tis Nobler in the Mind (257226). Verdict - ***. Review in MA Forums Thread.

My current queue:

And if anybody else wants in, the instructions are in the first post.


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)

 

Posted

Review for this arbitrary time period: last installment of the Labors of Rustam trilogy, Rustam III: The Longest Day (78130). Verdict - **. Review lower in this thread.

My current queue:

And if anybody else wants in, the instructions are in the first post.


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)

 

Posted

@GlaziusF

Running the final chapter of Labors of Rustam on the same DBlade/Fire brute, +1 x2 with bosses on.

---

Man, Mobius is still dropping her wall of text on us. Paragraph breaks are everyone's friend.

So apparently the Cold and the Dark are trying to cut off our beaker supply and abduct Great Scientists and Workers. Well, this can't stand. We almost won the space race!

And I'm going back in time to exist simultaneously at all fronts of the attack. Well, I'm glad she thinks so highly of me.

Oh what the hell, 8 more seedlings? And I'll bet they all say exactly the same thing. Again.

Well, Rustam seems to have recovered from the death of his son. ...unless this is a copy of him from before then.

The enemy group here seems to be some kind of undead fifth column. Medics are elec blast/also elec blast? (I see both blue and red lightning.) Engineers are melee fighters with Dark Armor. Stormtroopers are perhaps the most sensible, being AR/dark blast, but I could swear I saw them firing off Blackstar.

Continuing to rise I find Dr. Aeon and a bunch of Frostling patrols with identical dialogue. Once again: 1 talky patrol, N-1 silent ones. Less dialogue balloon spam, same amount of information.

All 5 seedlings of Pyre Blossom have had identical talking so far, and I have no reason to believe this will stop.

Ah, wait, no. The "doctors" from the Column were tossing Blackstar. That's a bit more reasonable than having it on minions, but still painful.

Pyre Blossom's objectives don't complete until her spawn goes down, which given that it includes the DE rubble who can just run off somewhere and get lost is probably a bad idea.

I find Tina Mac. Her guards talk about some new Archon leading them. Wonder if Burhkolder's switched sides. Again.

I find the last identical Pyre Blossom in the same room as some "Mender Prime" who is apparently different from Silos?

Anyway. No clues from this mission, but at least everyone went free.

---

And now into the Zig to drop a few more ounces of prevention. I can see Requiem being obsessed with time-travel, but the Center? I never figured him for being much of one to live in the past.

I don't know if the pet scaling is off or what but these minion-dropped Voltaic Sentinels, in addition to being powerful sappers, seem to do a whole lot of damage.

And the undead column are led by zombie masterminds, who promptly zero out my hit rate since my minions are buffed while the Grave Knights slowly but surely debuff my defense to the always-hit point.

Ah, and undead scientists. ...with EM Pulse. ...AND Blackstar.

Of the two notable bosses here (both in the courtyard), one is up on a catwalk and not readily visible from the ground. (I only know because I hit another boss spawning there in another map.)

Rustam is in one of the cells. I can understand the Center and Requiem (though really, the dynamic after I rescue them is more Requiem and Arakhn) but Rustam would really be more useful outside.

Though I don't know if that's even possible on this map.

The Doom Magus can bypass one-shot protection with the Dreadful Wail he pops at low health. Given that he has multiple ways to debuff resistance it's pretty much guaranteed to wreck a melee character.

And once again the stock Adamastor is far and away the easiest thing on the map.

---

So we've found out where the Cold and the Dark live... somehow. Even though in the first arc they were messing with time somewhere close to the modern day to bring the modern CoT and DE back.

I don't actually remember if Mender Mobius put the trace on, but this seems like a good idea for clues in the missions -- we can be doing the tracing ourselves while we whittle down the vast numbers of people available.

But didn't we hit them where they lived last time, too? How do we know it's over this time? Perhaps I haven't been paying good enough attention and somewhere in the blocks of text is the reason why this, and not the bunker transplanted to Persia, is their actual real base.

It's full of the undead Column. And I have to kill them all, and hunt down any patrols that may have wandered into a little nook somewhere.

I'm going to die repeatedly and helplessly.

Yeah, I'm doing the math here. With Enervating Field on, these scientists can do more than my entire health bar in damage with Blackstar. And with Rad Infection on they'll hardly ever miss... and I'll hardly ever hit, especially since the -defense helps with stacking dark blasts.

The frostlings guarding the cauldron, in contrast, have about as much chance as a modestly cold thing in a very hot place, even with the ambush. (It's kind of funny that the patrol goes on about "softskins", considering they're MADE OF SNOW.)

I get about to the top floor, dodging around bosses, and can't find Rustam anywhere. As it turns out, he's on the bottom floor and has got himself sealed in the middle of an opening lab door that leads to a dead-end room.

I know you can't help the spawning, but sometimes I think it's out to get me.

Wow. Blackstar from lieutenants (at +2) imposes a to-hit penalty of like -60%. I can only imagine what it does from bosses.

When I finally collect Rustam and start mowing down the bosses, they start talking about some terrible kind of thing that's going to await me, and I don't know if they're quoting Nietzsche or actually foreshadowing. Judging by how the end boss is talking about his babies or something, I wonder.

Just to add insult to injury the docs don't even bottom out end when they Blackstar, leaving me with like a 10% base to-hit chance and still able to blast their little undead hearts out.

So the boss is in an abandoned Crey cloning facility. ...I get the feeling I'm gonna be jumped by about ten of him when he's damaged, but oh well, in I go.

Oh. Okay. He's cloned Rustam's son. ...this won't end well. For me.

Dark Sohrab seems to have One With The Shield, judging by how Rustam whiffs on him for a couple minutes while my lucks drop and I die, die, die, and die again. I didn't know the AI had the scripting to trigger One With The Shield on low health. But at least Rustam isn't turning on me while Sohrab's health drops.

Or when he's down. I guess this is postwar Rustam and he's had a good mourn and got over it.

And that's the end of everything. The clues continue their absence, so I have no idea how this is different from the first arc's ending.

The ending popup box talks about "the Howling Night they referred to so much", but I've gone back through the NPC dialogue from that mission and nobody mentioned the Howling Night at all.

As for the final sendoff... well, I'll address that.

---

Storyline - **. The story is basically an amalgam of the first and second arcs in this series: we track the Cold and the Dark through time to their lair, and Rustam cuts down his son and has a sad.

It's better in one respect: the Cold and the Dark's leaders are more spread out over the arc. But otherwise it's pretty much the same, which given that this is the third part -- and judging from my Mender contact, the final part -- makes it a bit worse. This is supposed to be some decisive blow to the Cold and the Dark, but it ends in the same way as the first arc and I have no idea why that victory counts and this one doesn't. Rustam is supposed to be somehow devastated by the loss of a hideous monster clone of his son, but he offed the original article in the second arc, had a cathartic rampage, and seems to be breaking faces with his usual enthusiasm, discounting that thing where his AI likes to stand five feet away and toss throwing knives.

Exactly how we managed to track down the Cold and the Dark this time doesn't really seem to be explained. We just stop them and then suddenly we know where they are.

And I thought the first arc was basically the Cold and the Dark breaking into the mythic confrontation of Rustam and Div the Insipid there, but it turns out that he and his lackey were an essential part of the alliance? I was expecting some new revelation about how this amalgam worked, but it turns out that in the end there was nothing new.

Design - ***. The new custom enemies were fairly distinct in my head, probably because they were all such distinct flavors of punishing. But unless I missed something they all seemed to be solid black. I remember that back in the day using solid black was a trick to save on file space, but they could really do with some colors to get a quick perception of a group's strength from a distance.

As far as maps go, all three make sense in terms of what they're trying to be, but Rustam is rather inconveniently positioned on the last two. He's in the back of the jail map, behind the bosses, and off in some forgotten corner of the cloning lab. And as noted, defeat alls with patrols going around are a bit worrying as they can get lost, though the helper arrows on the map can assist there, and bosses can be hidden up on the catwalks in the jail.

The jail could be a Longbow holding facility, but then it'd be rather similar to the last map. Not sure what to say there.

Gameplay - *. The least punishing members of the custom enemy group are the stormtrooper minions, and they've got freakin' full auto. Voltaic Sentinel is a sapper that can't be mezzed, one lieutenant has Build Up which as I've noted can increase lethality by a factor of 4, and the other one pops Blackstar. One boss is a full-featured necro mastermind, whose minions can bottom out your base to-hit (suggestion: drop the lich) and the other boss both has Blackstar and can fire off EM Pulse and all three of the core radiation debuffs, when one of Infection, Enervation, and Lingering Rad would be plenty sufficient to be irritating. And the de facto final boss pops a tier 9 on low health, just in case you felt like watching Rustam die again.

Detail - **. Impeding my understanding of what's going on is a complete lack of any persistent clues or substantive descriptions. I can appreciate that the original arc may have been very, very tight on space, but there's room now. Room to explain why things are different from the first confrontation. Or heck, even why they're not. I'd take that over not knowing anything.

Just putting some extra spacing and highlighting in the Mender's text might even suffice.

Overall - **. Punishing enemies and a plot that feels very much rehashed from the first two parts of the arc don't combine for a very good experience.


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)

 

Posted

Review for this arbitrary time period: Twisted Knives (397769). Verdict - **. Review in MA Forums Thread.

My queue is currently empty, and so I'll be pulling random arcs from CoHMR unless I get submissions. If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post.


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)

 

Posted

I'll just leave this arbitrary time period's reviews here, then. From the random pool at CoH Mission Review come:


I'll keep pulling random stuff from CoH Mission Review, unless somebody wants to submit theirs. Again, details are in the first post.


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)

 

Posted

Well, if you're really out of arcs to review...

I just submitted my "Galactic Protectorate" arcs to cohmissionreview.com, so once they're up I'd greatly appreciate a review of one or all of them.

The arcs are designed for Level 40-50 Heroes or Villains (the arcs themselves are all labeled "Neutral"), are all three missions long, and while they were designed to be more or less stand-alone, there is an overarching plotline which would be best understood if you played them in numerical order.

While the custom enemies can be challenging, so long as you've set your difficulty so your Hero/Villain is equal to only one or two characters, you shouldn't have any trouble with any of the arcs.

The Arc ID#s are in my signature; if you decide to run even one of my "Galactic Protectorate" arcs, I look forward to your feedback.




Supplemental Galactic Protectorate Fanfic

 

Posted

I would love if you could review Unveiled Shadows! It's up on CoHMR and I've got a thread in my sig. It's arc number is 422173

Now I don't know if you'd be able to solo it, unless you have the ability to solo elite bosses. Good luck.



Claiming the Isles (The Nemesis Strike Force), Arc 448371 - Rogueish action from the Prussian Prince of Automatons himself!

 

Posted

Tonight's arc (post-hiatus again): Galactic Protectorate - 01 (47143). Verdict - **. Review in MA Forums Thread.

My current queue:

  • The remaining Galactic Protectorate arcs: 02 (117281), 03 (174352), 04 (269714), 05 (304290), 06 (355068), starting no earlier than July 14th.
  • Unveiled Shadows (421412).

If anybody else wants in, the instructions are in the first post. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.


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)

 

Posted

Tonight's arc: Unveiled Shadows (422173). Verdict - **. Review in MA Forums Thread.

My current queue:

  • The remaining Galactic Protectorate arcs: 02 (117281), 03 (174352), 04 (269714), 05 (304290), 06 (355068), starting no earlier than July 14th.

If anybody else wants in, the instructions are in the first post. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.


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)

 

Posted

Hello!

My arcs (the IDs are in my sig) were posted on COHMR a while ago but I forgot to ask you for a review.

So please add them to your queue!

Thanks!


[COLOR=darkorchid]Nebulhym's AE Arcs: Try them now![/COLOR]
# 12647: Of feathers and fur...[COLOR=yellow]Winner of [B]The American Legion[/B]'s January 2011 AE Author Contest![/COLOR]
# 292389: From Tartarus with love...
# 459592: Interdimensional Headache

 

Posted

Tonight's arc: The Galactic Protectorate - 02 (117281). Verdict - ***. Review in MA Forums Thread.

My current queue:


If anybody else wants in, the instructions are in the first post. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review and it doesn't have to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.


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)

 

Posted

Based on a lot of input from reviewers, including you, I reworked my Greater Good arc to create a new, and hopefully improved Vigilante Version which has been accepted on the mission review site.

So when you get a chance, I would love some feedback on:

Arc Name: The Greater Good (Vigilante Version)
Arc ID: # 395861

Thanks


@Gypsy Rose

In Pursuit of Liberty - 344916
The Vigilante - 395861
Suppression - 374481 - Winner of The American Legion's February 2011 AE Author Contest

 

Posted

I recently posted my arc The Soul Hunter (294431) on the mission review site. If you can add it to the review queue it would be appreciated.

It is exactly one year since it was published today and I noticed that it has received its first rating now, so I am happy for any feedback I can get.


[url="http://adingworld.wordpress.com/mission-architect-story-arcs/"][b]My Story arcs[/b][/url]: [i]The Siren Supremes[/i] ([b]1143[/b]), [i]The Missing Geneticist[/i] ([b]2542[/b]), [i]Elemental Jones[/i] ([b]263512[/b]), [i]The Soul Hunter[/i] ([b]294431[/b]), [i]Heart of Steel[/i] ([b]407104[/b]), [i]Project Serpens[/i] ([b]434082[/b])

 

Posted

Tonight's arc: Tales of Cimerora: Of Feathers and Fur (12647). Verdict - ***. Review in MA Forums Thread.

My current queue:


If anybody else wants in, the instructions are in the first post. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it doesn't even have to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.


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)