CoHMR Aggregator (a review thread)

GlaziusF · 01-13-2011 08:21 PM

Tonight's random arc: The Spoiler's Building Code Caper (249899). Verdict - *. Review lower in this thread.

My current queue:

Randoms!

If anybody 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.

GlaziusF · 01-13-2011 08:25 PM

@GlaziusF

Running this on a level 50 stone/ice tanker, +1/x1 with bosses on. Lookin for a little light nightcap.

---

Snow Owl (my contact) certainly looks the part, but he really needs some notation in the contact description noting the famous and outlandish stuff hes been responsible for.

Yeah, I was kinda expecting an elevator joke.

When I enter I immediately get a clue -- perhaps my ally was set to have no escorts, so he comes free immediately on entry? Even though allies dont start following or fighting until you tag them, the objective to free them will still complete immediately if they have no guards.

Anyway, I take the measure of the enemy group. Pretty believable period minion suits and powers, technicolor swords and all, but Im not seeing descriptions. (And some of these powers are kinda ridiculous scale for minions. Ten Thousand Blades? Dragons Tail? Rain of Arrows?)

One of the villains henchmen, an EB named Rain Delay, is apparently the next link in the chain. I find him on the fourth floor. Pretty clever concept, baseball bat/stormer, but a couple things. On somebody with KB resistance, Tornado can stack itself three or four times and lead to some seriously dire defense loss. Granite stands up to this, of course, but...

At low health, he drops a Freezing Rain and runs. I mean actually runs, as in stop this guy from escaping runs. No soundoff from him, no warning in the briefing or the navbar, and hes about 50 feet from an elevator. Mission failed. On a guy with multiple ways of slowing you, knocking you back, and making you miss, that just aint fair.

So, trying it again.

This time, I find Zed-boy on the third floor. No sign of Rain Delay yet.

...hes in a giant open room on the very bottom floor. (This map starts at floor 5 and goes down.) Oh lord.

Fortunately I can pull him into an enclosed office and block the door, and when hes not busy being pancaked against the walls, Zed-boy helps do enough damage to shut him down.

He mentions a hostage on an upper floor, so now I go back through the entire office looking.

...and the hostage is also on the very bottom floor. Well, now. Thats actually interesting. Explains why Snow Owl wanted us in the first place.

To add inanity to injury, the Spoiler himself is right next door. He spouts off... movie references from the modern era, for some reason. I figured hed be doing period stuff what with his opening quip.

...also, hes illusion/mind control, the man with two confuses. Good thing Ive got Minerals.

The Spoiler drops, and I wait around a bit for his pets to die too before the mission finishes. No longer will he haunt the Paragon City zoning board... but the future refused to change.

---

Storyline - ***. Well, I knew from the start this would dead-end. But Im always up for a little retro-camp, and near the end I had a little realization about why I was getting involved to begin with, which is always nice.

But things are pretty bare here. In particular theres really no reason for the Spoiler to be there. Im not asking for a good reason, just an entertaining one. I mean, like...

Ronnie Roberts was a humble ticket-taker and general dogsbody at the Paragon Cinemas. His only regret was that everyone always talked about the movies on their way out of the theater, so he never saw a movie he didnt already know everything about. One late night in the stockroom, a freak bolt of lightning energized years of film reels, fusing them with his body and twisting him into the Spoiler, a nefarious neer-do-well intent on using his mastery of images to ruin the enjoyment of others by any means possible!

Design - *. This map may be good for demonstrating the madness of in-game building codes, but its terrible for objective placement. Maps illustrate what they consider to be front, middle, and back now when youre choosing them, so if its important you can avoid picking maps that put the front deeper in than some of the locations in the middle, or have the back as a little stretch of corridor off in the corner of a floor with two giant open rooms.

In this case its definitely important.

The enemy group is a wonder in terrible technicolor, and the enemies generally have distinct ways of doing things to tell them apart.

Oh, and theres the surprise failable mission objective. There may be situations where this is appropriate, but this certainly isnt one of them.

Gameplay - *. The minions are sporting some crazy high-tier powers just on their own. The bosses... well. For Rain Delay, any one storm power would present a formidably challenging debuff, but he has, as it were, the perfect storm, and on top of that I basically had to exploit NPC pathing in order to prevent him from escaping. The Spoiler himself is, as noted, the man with two confuses, and he can put out a decent amount of fear as well. Many ATs dont really have much defense against these particular badstats, and as a result the final boss fight presents the equally attractive options of use break frees the entire time and wait to die.

Detail - *. The best parts of retro camp are the cornball conversations and outlandish stories, but the bosses rarely speak up (or do so inappropriately -- the Spoiler should be ruining period work that anybody playing the story would already know about) and the rank-and-file enemy group didnt even have any descriptions that I could see.

Overall - *. A good concept for a comedy arc, but with little to no amusing detail and rather lacking in execution.

GlaziusF · 01-17-2011 08:03 PM

Tonight's random arc: Red Typhoon (4912). Verdict - **. Review in MA Forums thread.

Random arcs I flipped through trying to find one I hadn't played before:

Crisis on Effeminate Earth (79316) -- no longer published
Signal:Noise (341194). Verdict - ****
Power Play (187269). Verdict - ****
The Sleeping Star (53951). Verdict - ****
Holding Down the Fort (379065). Verdict - *****.

My current queue:

Randoms!

If anybody 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.

GlaziusF · 01-18-2011 09:20 PM

Tonight's random arc: Die Macula Die! (10619). Verdict - *. Review below in this thread.

Random arcs I flipped through trying to find one I hadn't played before:

Get Ye Flask (36433). Verdict - **
TotTSM:EE (360243). Verdict - *

My current queue:

Randoms!

If anybody 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.

GlaziusF · 01-18-2011 09:23 PM

@GlaziusF

Running this on a level 50 stone/ice tank, +1/x2 with bosses on.

---

Ancient Egyptian blaxploitation, huh? Im down.

Oh. Interesting use of the arachnoid caves.

The mummies appear to be entirely composed of SS/Regen minions. (Also they mention being animated by the Scroll of Thoth, but I thought I was here after the scroll of Anubis.) I pop Brown Sugar, and head for the Scroll of Anubis... which is guarded entirely by DBlade/Dark Armor bosses, and summons even more of them when its damaged. As they have PBAoE attacks and Brown Sugar likes to scrap with them, I cant prevent them from mincing her in short order.

I run into Nefertiti while Im looking for Harlematic, originally mistaking her for him being captured, but nope, its Nefertiti wreathed in green flame.

My prestige quicksand helps overcome the dire -tohit from her DBlast/DMiasma self (locking down her dark servant helps too) and she goes down.

Eventually I find Harlematic in the depths of the cave, his dialogue seeming to indicate that Nefertiti was supposed to chain off him? Maybe?

---

And then suddenly its time to go to Romania! ...was the inscription on the ring in Romanian, or in some ancient language whose only speakers lived in Romania?

Hmm. I was actually expecting the mausoleum-to-caves map for this, but it probably wasnt available at the time this arc was made. (But just in case, Roman is not short for Romanian.)

The fire blastroller is free at the start, so her objective never shows up in the navbar. AR/will and broadsword/will minions walk the halls.

John Henry is guarded by the dark brides of Daddy Macula. Originally I figure them for energy melee but thats just their soul transfer animation. Dark melee/mind control! Thats not a very good surprise.

Anyway, with John up I go to search the coffins, and Macula spawns with a miniscule escort of gypsies. Because he and John are both EBs his health bar melts like he just stepped into the sunlight.

---

Storyline - **. This does feel like being a friend to another supergroup.

Specifically that part where they ask for help from their coalition to take on the tough fights in the punchy finales to two longer story arcs.

I mean, yes, theres something to be said for punchy finales, but at the same time theres a whole bunch of potentially exciting stuff thats just already assumed in the background. How did people realize Nefertiti was waking up? Did mummies crawl in search of blood to terrorize yalls neighborhood? How did they go about sourcing the ring? Was a distinguished professor of linguistics spirited from his bed in the middle of the night by the Counts merchant marine?

Abstracting out all the investigation and presenting just the finale is kind of an all-icing-no-cake experience. I realize this may have been done for space reasons because of the customs, but theres a lot more space now. A LOT more, especially for customs.

Design - *. So the enemy groups seem to fall into two distinct categories: entirely minions, and entirely bosses.

Entirely minions isnt really very challenging, as minions are basically speedbumps. Entirely bosses is entirely too challenging, as they can be quite resistant and are capable of large and sustained damage output.

Entirely minions may have happened because you were originally space-constrained. Well, thats gone now.

Entirely bosses... well, on the one hand I can understand wanting an increased challenge? On the other hand, with the advent of SRSLY and 4XP, people have a much broader range of increased challenge to choose from, so its likely theyre already running at a comfortable challenge level and one of the presets is all you need to do. Otherwise you might end up with a scenario where, say, the seven simultaneous bosses that cant be stopped from shredding your help are the toughest thing in the arc by far, and you fight them first thing.

The mission maps are also very small, and made to seem emptier through the heavy use of patrols. You might think that the patrols would be adding to its population, but this isnt the case - every mission objective involving NPCs, except for ambushes, takes up a spot on the map where a normal spawn might go. With enough patrols on a small map, the map itself is largely empty. Theyre bare enough that I barely get any idea how my allies operate before the next big notable challenge shows up.

And just as another kick in the pants, the entirely-boss sort of group, because of the modern Architects reward cuts, awards about the same as a normal group of minions, and the entirely-minion group awards chump change.

(My personal suggestion is to just mash the mummies and Anubis together and come up with a lieutenant, and mash the brides and gypsies together and come up with a lieutenant, maybe a lesser bride. You could get away probably with a light escort of lieutenant and boss brides on John Henry.)

Gameplay - *. The seven simultaneous bosses who unavoidably shredded my help were the toughest thing in this arc, with a combination of high damage output and considerable defense debuffs. It was all downhill from there. Nefertiti put out a ridiculous amount of -tohit, but the worst of it didnt connect aside from the autohit stuff, and I had an autohit defense debuff. Maculas brides were just a matter of endurance since they had far fewer 360-degree attacks to pulp my ally, and Ive commented on the end boss himself, who with an EB and a boss doing damage output didnt survive very long.

Detail - **. Patrols dont talk. Theres basically one clue in the entire arc. As Ive said its basically like coming in for a couple of arc cappers, which would be designed to resolve a lot of lingering issues, but there isnt any backing material that would put the two missions in this arc in context.

Overall - *. An arc that seems like its original idea was very adversely impacted by the original mission limit. But that limits since gone up, and as a result whats on display here is not so much the best of a bad situation as just a bad situation.

GlaziusF · 01-21-2011 12:48 PM

Tonight's random arc: Marketing Opportunity (83747). Verdict - ***. Review below in this thread.

My current queue:

Randoms!

If anybody 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.

GlaziusF · 01-21-2011 12:51 PM

@GlaziusF

Taking on this corporate slime with a high-20s stone/stone brute, +0/x2 with bosses on.

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Well well well. Go to another dimension and stomp around as a miniature giant monster in order to get them to outsource their security? Sounds right up my alley.

You want an incoherent screed about their various personal failings that prompted this rampage? Only those are extra.

(Executive could do with a description, by the by.)

Anyway, looks like these cops are a mix of stock PPD, RIP, and private security, which could do with a little renaming and rebackstorying now that thats possible.

Green Shield could use a little more bio than just her archetype.

The boosted perception range on the rippers combined with the swat and ghost gadgets (specifically the glue grenade and long-duration -hit -def flash grenade) actually make these cops a decent handful.

Maybe thats just a special consequence of playing it at 30.

---

And now a little more murder and kidnapping. Should be fun.

This building starts off pretty slowly. Two teeny little corridors before I get to anywhere where an actual objective might happen.

In an interesting touch I use some of the worlds native Council gear that I... uh... happened to loot in the prior mission? Im pretty sure that wasnt suggested.

Maybe it should be, since my contact seems to have a plan for mayhem.

Wow. Thats a teeny little bomb. If theres just one of it for this whole building it should probably be one of those big chemical drums.

Seriously, all the glowies in this mission are kinda rinky-dink. Its easy to lose sight of them behind potted plants and such.

I find a supposed member of The Five, Green Fingers, who is a 5th Column wolfpack bossbot. ...is this a dig at how there used to be 5th automatons everywhere? He makes plant jokes, but, uh, pretty clearly isnt.

I have to lead the secretary down five empty floors to the exit, save for a single ambush.

I completed the objectives in about the order the clues appear, but planted the fake evidence first. I dont know if it should be the first clue but it should definitely be up there with the bomb. Now that you can drag and drop objectives this is possible.

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Ahaha, great. Now Im sneaking a protector in to wreck the Council so Crey can run some guns to em.

I spring him (hes a custom DMelee/DArmor) and then I patch in the cameras and run him up to the base commander to say hi. With his skull.

The base commanders clue should probably show up after the video feed one, though.

Oddly, the commander doesnt say anything as he goes down.

---

And now its time to snuff out the major superpowers entirely.

Oh. The Black is some kind of supertech heroine. Not what I expected. Tech implies being capable of mass production, but I guess this last prototype will have to do.

...sadly, as the Council fights spawn bosses and a few of them range near her, I only get to watch her fight, not experience it myself.

...um. Im seeing some superelite Citadel model mech men here. Elite bosses. Were they part of the random spawn somehow?

Red Flame is a space alien... looks like fire/ice blaster. Unfortunately she too gets unceremoniously taken out by a warwolf before I can really make contact.

Wow. These lieutenant protectors have aim, short circuit, and electric manipulation. Pretty much a quick ticket to the bottom of the blue bar.

I swear, these PPD Ghost flashbangs are broken. -40% tohit and defense?

Having some real trouble finding where Doc Silver may be. Cant exactly pick him out from a crowd.

Finally I see him back near the entrance, and this time I actually get the chance to fight him before the Council do. Hes a robotics mastermind who spends most of the fight horizontal so I dont get much idea of his auxiliary power. He does actually seem to understand whats going on here, but too little, too late.

And there goes Crey, funding each side of a war against the other. Godspeed, you crazy plutocrats.

---

Storyline - ****. Im a little torn on this. On the one hand its a pretty systematic invasion and demolition of a bunch of chumps to set up a slow and fraudulent drain of their money and plunge their world into chaos, which is pretty well-done.

On the other hand, well, timelines. While its not a hard-and-fast rule what level band links up with what plot point, or who runs in sync with who and when, theres definitely a sense that time passes as your level rises. And in this range heroside, Crey are still getting the hang of mass-cloning Paragon Protectors, so its not like they can just press a button and send a whole bunch of them with novel powersets to another dimension.

I mean, if they want to use Tau Phi 7-1 as a testing ground for some new prototypes, thats great. If this was Sigma Psi 20-7 thatd be even better. (If theyre just going to use stock protectors for a little bit and later on clone the remains of the Five as Protectors in a symbolic gesture and this was Sigma Psi 20-7 thatd just be icing on the cake.)

The issue of where the Protectors came from isnt that much of a worry. I mean, making Protectors is what Crey does. But their operation isnt sophisticated enough that they can just pump clones with arbitrary powersets into an alternate dimension. Well, unless you say otherwise. But you have to say otherwise.

Design - **. The last mission, though its pretty good for atmosphere, is pretty terrible for payoff, both because the battles, while certainly atmosopheric and fitting, are pitched in the Councils favor and the winners can take out one of the remaining The Five all on their own, and because somehow the Council have an elite Citadel-copy mech on their team. Did you toss that into the random spawner or is it some kind of purpose-placed spawn?

Also the PPD dont mesh well with this being a low-tech low-power word. The equalizers and ghosts can lay down some pretty crippling debuffs, and when you get higher than them you get guys in powered armor firing off plasma bolts. The ordinary SWAT troopers fit the amalgam police, but they dont have much of a presence in the operational level range.

Speaking of the operational level range, you should probably make all the missions share a common range, ideally 30-35 since thats what the last mission is locked into.

Oh, and Im pretty sure Green Fingers shouldnt be a Wolfpack bot.

Gameplay - **. This arc has kind of an inverse difficulty progression. The big open first mission with lots of cops running Tactics in fairly close proximity to one another is a constant threat to run out of control. The second mission is a normal run against the amalgamated police forces. The third mission is a short council map with a boss ally for most of it. The fourth mission... well, its a wild card. It can pretty much complete itself under the right circumstances, but straight-up some of the Protector choices, especially the elec/elec with aim, can make things a real trial.

Also theres the bit about escorting a hostage over five floors of empty office. Thats not very exciting. And the bit in the last mission, roaming through an overworld filled with dozens of bosses to find the arbitrary spot where three specific boss groups with no distinguishing animations have shown up? Thats not so hot either, if you dont get lucky and have the battles pop the dialogue out.

Detail - ****. Now that you can put custom names and descriptions on stock characters, you should look into that, so the police and perhaps Council of Tau Phi 7-1 have their own, more fitting, names and descriptions.

And since The Five are basically one-and-done in their appearances, they could use a little more in the way of backstory. Creys got intel on these guys, right?

Overall - ***. Its a good plot idea. Very fitting of an amoral plutocracy. But the mechanical execution in terms of enemy, map, and objective choices is lacking.

SupaFreak · 01-28-2011 09:04 PM

Heya Glazius,

Since you're pretty much *the* source of reviews, I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd give a review of my first arc in over a year (and currently the only one published).

I was a huge supporter of AE before launch and all the exploits turned me off from it for a while, but I'm attempting to get back in the saddle and create and play story/caracter driven AE arcs again.

I submitted it to CoHMR once I got the "gallery image" finished (2 days ago, I believe), but I'm guessing real life is keeping them from updating/adding it.

Anyhoo... the arc is:
"Black as Midnight"
Arc #482914
Heroic / 22-27 / 5 Missions / @30-60 mins to play depending on AT and doing non-objectives (not taking into account reading everything including bios)

One small request is not to reveal the name of the final enemy (EB, unless settings to allow AV) and based off your former reviews, you do a great job being cryptic about those situations.

Thanx in advance, @SupaFreak

GlaziusF · 01-29-2011 10:35 PM

Tonight's random arc: My BFF Frostfire (122711). Verdict - **. Review below in this thread.

My current queue:

Randoms!

If anybody 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.

GlaziusF · 01-29-2011 10:37 PM

@GlaziusF

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

---

Flux is working with Indigo and reporting on an Outcast riot at the Zig. I go in to intervene.

Generally speaking I find it helpful to keep with the multiple existing examples on this, and include some kind of description of the mission goals in the briefing, highlighted in light screen, with the accept text an objective restatement of the mission goals, in this case stop the Outcast riot.

Heh. Thanks for telling me about Dr. Aeon, navbar. He would have stayed a mystery otherwise. (Its good to handle cases like this with a chained objective, or a generic navbar entry like arrest the instigator.)

So it looks like weve just got customs posing as normal outcasts with an attempt at appropriate custom sets. Certainly the costumes arent that hard to replicate. Ill comment on this later.

Dr. Aeon has found a timeline where Frostfire was never arrested and spliced it onto this one, creating super-powerful Outcasts. He laughs as he puts up a forcefield and runs away. (Nice use of the captive mechanic.) I fight Keystone to learn that Frostfire has escaped

...and get what I believe is a closing clue thats just captioned Dr. Aeon with no text in it.

---

Indigo isnt exactly an expert on the future. Shes an intelligence operative but prognostication isnt exactly her bag. Or temporal mechanics. Portal Corp and Tina MacIntyre might be good sources for this.

Oh, the portal corp lab where you zone in on the top. Indigos just outside the starting door for assistance, which is always fun.

Crimsons also hanging out on the top floor, so now I have Longbows intelligence division along with me.

Next floor down I find about half a dozen bookshelf glowies, all of which are linked to one brief summary clue, and all of which take like fifteen seconds to finish up.

More notes on the next floor down, along with Dr. Aeon. The defeat clue mentions clones, but Dr. Aeons more about the temporal replicsimiles.

For some reason the control computer chains off Frostfire (who drops some terribly meta lines about his original fight) even though he doesnt seem to do anything on death that would mean Id be aware of it when I wasnt before.

I go back a couple floors to find the computer, which is kind of odd. And with that I get a couple of largely identical clues about how the experiment cant continue and the missions over.

---

Storyline - **. Well, the idea is sound. Dr. Aeon is working on some kind of time-splicing technology and is using the Outcasts as a beta test. I guess to see if it can affect superpowered beings? So after we contain them at the Zig, Indigo locates his lab and we run in and take down Frostfire, who... is working for Dr. Aeon out of gratitude? Anyway, experiment stopped, world saved.

I have a feeling this arc may have been kept down due to size reasons, just because Im using all those question marks.

Actually going through the process of finding out about what Dr. Aeon did to make the Outcasts so powerful, possibly in conjunction with the Menders or Portal Corp, would make for some good missioning, especially if it involved some of Aeons earlier, lesser-scale prototypes.

Design - ***. While the Outcasts are pretty faithful recreations of their original versions costume-wise, the actual composition of the enemy group feels weird. I saw ice and stone minions, shock and stone bosses, and the lieutenants were shock and stone and for some reason two different flavors of fire.

I appreciate that this arc may have been created under space restrictions, but even so this is kind of a weird breakup of enemy types, because the bulk of the opposition for any given solo or, likely, team running the mission is going to be minions, yet theyve wound up with the least variety. Somebody taking this mission at base difficulty will see a lieutenant now and again but never a boss. (This is incidentally why I try to run Architect missions with characters who are better at handling multiple weaker targets than single stronger ones -- more lieutenants come out, with a chance of bosses.)

As for map choice, well. The prison map was a prison and the lab map was a lab. You should be aware that you come into that lab through a portal, not through the front door, and theres currently a problem with the automap where the large room on the top floor doesnt show there. You should also be aware that people generally expect to complete maps by going forward, and forcing backtracking for no reason at all kind of breaks the rhythm, because usually backtracking is over empty ground. You should also also be aware that the bookcases had way too long an interaction time.

Gameplay - **. All the lieutenant-class and higher Outcasts have Aim or Build Up if they have a set that has it. For the blaster-types with a blast set and a manipulation set, this gives them access to both, which is kind of a ridiculous amount of burst damage. You can probably get full experience off these custom Outcasts just by dropping those powers, since custom XP on things with two attack sets tends to be full even if theyre just a custom with the standard powers.

Detail - **. The blank clue in the first mission and the duplicated clues (one objective, one mission complete) in the second mission should be addressed.

And while on one level I appreciate putting the stock Outcast descriptions on the new Outcasts, on another level... well, they arent the stock Outcasts anymore because of the time shenanigans, so maybe they should have different descriptions.

Lastly theres the matter of Crimson and Indigo. While they are high-ranking Longbow operatives, theyre high-ranking Longbow intelligence operatives, and it doesnt seem like this is a particularly secretive or clandestine operation. If you want Longbow allies, there are probably plenty of Wardens whod be happy to put down a prison riot. Indigos also billed as some sort of prognosticator or possibly from the future, but shes not really either of these things.

Overall - **. This seems like an arc thats cut out a lot of stuff to come in under the size limit. Unfortunately most of the stuff its cut out seems pretty vital, and there are burst-damage problems and rank-allocation problems in what remains.

Venture · 01-30-2011 05:01 PM

"Cole In Your Stocking" (#474611) finally showed up on CoHMR, only about a month after Christmas. Have at it, please.

Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"

GlaziusF · 02-01-2011 11:59 PM

Tonight's arc: Black As Midnight (482914). Verdict - **. Review below in this thread.

My current queue:

Cole in Your Stocking (474611).

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 hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

GlaziusF · 02-02-2011 12:04 AM

@GlaziusF

Running this on a low-20s broadsword/shield scrapper, +0/x2 with bosses on.

---

Okay. The Midnight Squad is investigating Dark Astoria and Im being called on as a team player, going after a couple of people who went to investigate an abandoned radio station.

Huh. Tsoo. A couple of patrols of them make their way toward the entrance and thats a little more odds than I can handle. Maybe you should seed them deeper?

Oh, I see why you cant. Death-flavored Banished Pantheon seem to be the primary enemy group here. (watch the spelling on stench on the minions) Some nice work with leading an illusion decoy to the top floor to rescue somebody.

...so I rescue a lieutenant martial arts scrapper who runs into combat on the bottom floor with the dark Tsoo ambush leader and gets promptly shredded. Mission failed.

Well, I knew it was coming at least. Lets see if a second go is any better.

Ah, the patrols actually seem to be located randomly. That can cram you into the opening room something fierce.

Finding glowies in a three-layer ring is kind of a sonic nightmare.

Theres also a weird allied hostage in a death mask being kept back by some kind of beneficial spirits -- they look like CoT, but that doesnt mean anything as their description is more mysterious.

I abandon my allies and manage to take out the boss that way. Seriously, hes capable of brutal melee bursts with shadow maul.

Apparently the boss was doing some kind of initiation, and was pointed to the Midnighters by a Circle mage.

(The clues for this are all out of order, which is weird. You can drag and drop objectives to put the associated clues in their proper order.)

---

One of my rescuees was bitten by a death zombie. How much grody stuff gets into the mouth over a century in the earth? Thats got to hurt.

So now, of course, I go to bash that Circle mages face in.

For a moment I worry when my escort dies before he reaches his goal, taken down by a combination of suicide explosion and PBAoE damage aura. He doesnt seem to have been essential, and the mage coughs up the info when he goes down.

I am then beset by some sort of disciples of shadow. Archers, punchers, and psykers. After I find the tome I see another guarded shadow mask. Hmm.

Apparently this alternate dimension has a laundry list of people they want to die and are willing to trade a lot of power for doing so.

Im not sure where you pulled simulacrum from as a key to this Circles power. It means some sort of visual representation or perhaps superficial copy. That doesnt really say shadow being to me.

---

And now I take the tome and stride off into the darkness. My radio starts spouting static, an air raid siren sounds, and the fog closes in.

And now, the Otherworld Midnighters Club. Kind of a shame as its rather a small map to begin with.

Ah. Nice use of powersets on the minions. Makes the masks pronunciations grim indeed.

...the summary is a bit odd, though. I was attacked by these things and fended them off. Youd think that would be important. And nothing the mask said really indicated free them.They will come for you. Do not destroy yourself as he did. Where am I getting--

Ah! He said that as I headed for the door. Alright.

Debrief should be spelled adversaries.

---

Im still incommunicado for this next mission.

I free some Shamans from the Shadow Circle, and the Pantheon mask from the Disciples of Shadow. ...though the clue I get from freeing him seems to indicate the Shadow Circle.

Anyway, time to rip up this tome Tormas lifted from the alternate dimension, and step through the portal into the Far Realm.

---

Still incommunicado. The contact has been a very minimal presence in this arc-- whats there is a touchpoint in between several small linked missions that are set up entirely in previous missions, which is a fairly novel structure but works pretty well.

...aw, road apples. The Ruladak cave.

Double road apples. Elite boss right at the entrance. And you cant manually leave this cave to get inspirations, so time for a suicide run! Looks like necro/dark armor.

Anyway, the usual problem with this cave is a bit subverted as its full of Death Pantheon, who have glowy amulets on and are thus visible in the darkness.

Oh, sorry. Not Death Pantheon. Recolored scrawny Pantheon. Looks like the enemy group is only minions judging by the meager XP.

Also looks like theyre not the main group. In addition to the invisible spectrals there are Disciples of Shadow, who are generally much less visible than the Pantheon, because their main decorator effects are black.

These shadow servants, who look like melee forms of the Spectral Demons, have enough Dark Miasma to spam up Darkest Night on you. This is a terrible thing to happen because it torpedoes to-hit and damage and its a click power in the AIs hands, so you cant crowd-control them to shut it off. Multiple stacks on a character who hasnt even hit SO level accuracy is a bad joke.

Also a bad joke is a Spectral Terror, which can stack multiple fears that also reduce accuracy.

For some reason the shadow servants also have terrible reward scales - Im guessing theyre in the same just-minions custom group?

Hmm. Oh, alright. Looking at the end bosss description, it seems like simulacrum is a generic category noun for this inhabitants of this dimension. Shadow simulacrum, where shadow is the important adjective.

Anyway. I decide hes got some more shadow guardians around him, pop a Shivan, am right, and mow him down. Obligingly, the dimension starts to collapse.

And then, theres only the report to give.

---

Storyline - **. The arc is billed as an introduction to some new enemy group. It certainly serves as a simple physical introduction in the heres the group and their powers sense, but it does about squadoo otherwise. Most of the motivation seems to be inherited from the end boss, but if the Disciples of Shadow exist without him Ive got no clue what they might be up to in the future, largely because Ive got no clue what they are.

And its not just them. I counted about four separate new enemy groups in this mission: the Disciples of Shadow, the undead summoners and their walking dead, the death cult pantheon, and the Spectral Demon-looking adversaries. Are the summoners supposed to be part of the Disciples, or are they just coincidentally operating in the same place and generally hostile? The Spectral Demon group seem to be more along the lines of absolute guardians of the barrier between the worlds, and will try to dissuade all outsiders, regardless of who they are, but then again they seem to be serving the end boss whos thrown his lot in with the Disciples. The death cult pantheon... are they supposed to be taken by shadow, or are they supposed to be the servitors of the notable Spirit of Death? Are they working with the Spectral Demon-likes to preserve the barrier between the worlds?

The souvenir makes reference to a netherworld. Is this intended as the common noun, or the proper capital-N Netherworld that is the notional source of the dark powersets in CoX? Itd be interesting if it were the latter. We dont really hear an awful lot about it, and an arc or series of arcs heavily involving the Midnighters seems like a good place to raise the issue of what it is and what goes on there, but I didnt necessarily come away with that impression - the souvenir struck me with a thought, because Id just considered what happened as a kind of generic shadow dimension.

And lastly, theres the issue of portraying the Banished Pantheon as somewhat sympathetic characters in all this, which is kind of a tough label to stick on malicious cannibal gods. I mean, okay, the gods are as malleable as belief in them, maybe at some point in the past a plague cult petitioned the ancient forgotten gods to grant them at least a merciful death, bringing the Pantheon into mystic communion with the Netherworld and mellowing out some aspect of them, represented here by the death mask. But thats a bit of a stretch from the usual role of the Pantheon as cannibal doom gods who want to blanket the world in fear and chaos.

This may seem a bit nitpicky on my part. You may even have explanations that youre planning to set up in later arcs. There is one definite thread of motivation, but its resolved at the end of the arc. Certainly heroes dont operate with complete knowledge of the various enemy groups from the start. But the problem here is that these four groups are all following their own mysterious agendas, so the product of those agendas -- the events in this arc -- are just one big undifferentiated mass..If I could eliminate some events by understanding a groups motivation, I could make guesses about what remains. But as it is theres just this mush.

Design - ****. Call this 6 - 2. Theres some really great work with chaining objectives and NPC powersets to create notable moments and convey the plot in the absence of a contact whos clued-in about whats going on.

The only thing that brings it down is that the major new enemy group, through a combination of costuming color choices and lighting conditions on the maps where they appear, are basically undifferentiated. Its mitigated somewhat by the thematically distinct power selections, but this still raises the problem that if I get psyblasted, or see a heal come, from behind me and spin around Ive got no idea who just did that until it gets fired off again.

Gameplay - **. The arc starts off a bit rocky, with a mission asking you to find one glowie among multiple distractions in a three-layer room and then lead a lieutenant escort through a narrow passageway past a boss who I believe can one-shot her with Shadow Maul. Or if he cant, he can come near enough. The next few missions are reasonable, but then theres the finale.

Oh, the finale.

The Ruladak caves are a nightmare to fight in because of the artificially terrible visibility. On the Rularuu, or enemies like the Pantheon with a particle effect, its easy enough to actually see whats ahead of you, but with the primary custom group here its easy to lose track. Top that off with an enemy group that is both practically invisible under normal circumstances and can tank your accuracy if it gets the jump on you and youve got a recipe for serious frustration.

Detail - ***. Most of the fuzziness with the story is in how the various players actions tie together, not what theyre actually doing. Thats generally pretty clear. But it doesnt help any that the descriptions of the various enemies either explicitly call them out as mysterious and unknown, or in the case of the Disciples of Shadow reveal details of them which, while they help flesh out the philosophy behind the enemy group, give absolutely no clue about their overarching motive.

I also have a bit of a problem with the use of the word simulacrum. As its brought out in the arc it seems to be used to indicate what is necessarily a shadow clone of some description, but I dont associate simulacrum with shadow clone per se. For me the word doesnt necessarily imply any material or particular sinister nature. (If pushed for a material it implies, my first instinct is actually snow.) I read it as copy, so walking through a mission full of CoT enhanced by copy magic just left me confused rather than curious.

Overall - **. Overall, this arc reminds me less of an introduction and more of a hazing. After a bit of a rocky start, theres some great use of mechanics, good use of nonstandard arc structure, careful setup of consistent themes, and the presentation of some threads of a greater purpose.

And when I pulled on those threads, I was dropped into the inescapable darkness, heckled and assailed from all sides, and the only thing left was to endure it through to the end. Everything else was forgotten.

My immediate advice is twofold: dont use the Ruladak caves to cap the arc without some major changes to the enemy design, and flesh out the motivations of the supporting enemy/NPC cast more so that your primary enemys motivations can stay hidden, or at least no longer be one unknown among many.

SupaFreak · 02-02-2011 05:16 AM

Thanx for the review Glaz. Surprised you ran this +2/x0 in the low 20s, but I suppose you had your reasons. All I really have to test missions at this time are 50s and I'm out of character slots on my server, so I really have no idea what type of challenge someone in their low 20s faces.

I am going to be diligently working on this arc when I can and perhaps I shouldn't have marked it as Final, tho I feel for the most part there's not going to be any major overhaul in the story or mechanics (maybe custom groups - trying to find a way to add without going over the top on difficulty)

I fully expected a 2-3 rating because this is my first attempt in over a year (and it shows, eh?). I know some will hate the end mission, while me... I love the challenge and the feeling of it.

I'll take your advice to mind as I move forward to improve the arc... thanx again!

EDIT: Also wanted to say why I didn't start a new thread promoting this arc (per instructions) is because while I feel it is "playable" and "legible", I knew it had room for improvement in some areas and I wanted to find out what an outsider would suggest and I very much value your opinion in your reviews.

GlaziusF · 02-02-2011 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SupaFreak

Thanx for the review Glaz. Surprised you ran this +2/x0 in the low 20s, but I suppose you had your reasons.

Oh, haha, whoops.

+0/x2, so I could occasionally see lieuts and bosses in the custom groups.

GlaziusF · 02-03-2011 11:42 PM

Tonight's arc: Cole in Your Stocking (474611). Verdict - ****. Review in MA Forums thread.

A random arc that came up in my preparation for next time: An Arachnos Slumber Party (335317). Verdict - ****.

My current queue:

Randoms!

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 hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

GlaziusF · 02-08-2011 09:33 PM

Tonight's arc: Name Recognition (1976). Verdict - ***. Review lower in this thread.

My current queue:

Randoms!

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 hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

GlaziusF · 02-08-2011 09:34 PM

@GlaziusF

Running this on a mid-20s stone/stone brute, +0/x2 with bosses on.

---

Got some kind of slick-looking fellow as my contact. He could do with a bio now that you can do that.

Anyway.

Apparently a bunch of do-gooders are starting to organize against me. Thanks for the tip! Now Ill show them what a bad idea that was.

Anyway, there are some crates of propaganda and an Arachnos operative captive, but the only required objective is to defeat the organizer.

And, apparently, his entourage, as the mission doesnt complete until I hammer a Nullifier into a sparky pylon.

It seems like some group of Paragon Heroes is trying to spread something called demo-cracy over to the Rogue Isles. One Man, One Vote, kind of thing.

Well, weve got that. Recluse is The Man, and he has The Vote. Nothing fairer than that.

---

So these guys are apparently raiding an Arachnos base and trying to blame it on me now.

I take out a white ninja and hear some weirdness from within. I can only conclude that the Arachnos boss and whatever Alliance operative was supposed to be in the end room have decided to take each other out. (The operative is just named Voice.)

The operative is a little scratched up, but he and his entourage just blew the heck out of the Alliance member. And an ambush? Maybe? I wasn't really there.

---

And now its time to drop them all.

...strangely enough, this is the second bug Ive encountered where a boss (Liberty Lass) spawns as a 5th column Wolfpack robot. The escorts were 5th too. Strange.

Anyway, this Nerva plaza has pretty much every vaguely hero-aligned group in the Isles from the appropriate level range pacing around.

...oh. Apparently all this time this has been an operation from a local boy trying to make good. That might have actually been interesting to explore.

As is the reason my contact has actually been doing this. He seems to just have been some random image consultant looking to drum up business, judging by the souvy.

---

Storyline - ***. This is a small step up from some arbitrary paper missions. This is supposed to be a hero group agitating against... me? Or trying to establish a foothold in the Rogue Isles? Or maybe both? But I really dont get a feel for what motivates them until I read the leaders bio in the end, and I never get a sense for how theyre organized, except theyre a supergroup. Are people just doing what they feel like? Do they have specialties? Did some people used to work for Arachnos so they went to the base, for example? Howd they get in touch with everybody? Does Longbow just have a bunch of cell phones going?

I dont know if you kept things limited out of concern for arc size, but thats not as much of a concern anymore.

Design - **. I think because of some enemy/rogue alignments, the second mission is pretty much defused by boss infighting. The 5th Column showing up in the last mission are probably not your fault, but theyve even clobbered whatever bio you may have intended for Liberty Lass. There are some nice incidental bits in the first mission, but theres pretty much nothing in the second mission, and all the patrols in the third mission just feel kind of random. Theyre good for giving the impression that these guys have rallied everybody for a stand, but thats the only thing that gives that impression -- they just all come in out of nowhere.

Gameplay - ***. The custom bosses are all sufficiently difficult to pop their relevant buildup or aim equivalent, which leads to a lot of burst damage. Several of them also have perception-boosting powers, which means they engage from a bit farther away than you might expect - Galactic Boy definitely has this aspect to him. This can basically lead to getting blindsided and killed before you can react, which is never fun.

Aside from that, the stock mobs showed up in generally reasonable configurations.

Detail - ***. There are some nice bios on the Alliance members that arent Wolfpack robots. Unfortunately they dont really seem to relate to what any of them except for the ultimate leader are trying to accomplish in the Rogue Isles. There are some hints at larger purposes in the first and third missions, but these really arent followed up on.

Overall - ***. A decent punchup, except for the one mission that short-circuited, but there are hints at a larger purpose that go largely unfulfilled, and I really think this arc would benefit from more of a backstory.

I mean, as it is this is the little brother to Westin Phipps excursions against the Civic Squad, which is pretty much the ultimate in off-hand hero stomping. Youve got these guys actually organizing offscreen so they may as well organize onscreen.

GlaziusF · 02-10-2011 10:30 PM

Tonight's arc: Johnny Sonata and the Hitmen (1001). Verdict - **. Review lower in this thread.

A random arc that came up in my preparation for next time: A Clone of Your Own? (453091). Verdict - ***.

My current queue:

Randoms!

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 hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

GlaziusF · 02-10-2011 10:31 PM

@GlaziusF

Running this on a max-level DBlade/Fire brute, +1/x2 with bosses on.

For architect rewards. Second Dev Choice Ive run that was on CoHMR anyway.

---

Ah. Johnnys flexing his old-school mob muscles and trying to get the band back together. Unfortunately free tickets and groupie privileges arent convincing the new warden. So its time for free stabbings and burning privileges.

The warden is a grav/AR custom. Lockdown indeed.

But other than that its a pretty normal PPD throwdown to get in, get the drummer, and bolt back to the flier. Dude appears to be noncombatant so hes in no danger of dying.

---

And now, an old bluesman who ran from the music biz when things turned sour and apparently joined the Family.

You should be aware that, vanilla as they are, in this level range Family only work at about 33% XP. Not that you can change this, but hey, its out there for anybody else whos curious.

I crack some safes and find... some jewels. No clues. Just jewels. Because this is the only thing that appears in safes.

Anyway, the big boy has willpower and strong enough SS to have Rage, which makes the opening of the fight fun. And then all of a sudden he bolts.

Its a well-sold bolt, he definitely spouts off something that makes me aware hes bolting. But there was no indication in the navbar or the mission briefing that it might happen. Dont let Bobby get away in the navbar and some highlighting when Johnnys talking about his tendency to bolt in the initial briefing would help sell this.

But I catch up to him in time.

---

And now the CoT have absconded with his brass section, because they went dancing and some Succubus thought there was magic in their music.

Or somesuch.

...Im seeing an Arch-Mage of Death in here. Are these guys part of the standard Architect CoT spawn? Because they reeeeeeeeeeally shouldnt be. They were an early attempt at elite bosses that had like maxed resistances.

Anyway, the brassmen are randomly scattered and they drop a single mystic threats name as the man responsible.

---

...in a weird reflection of Johnnys own personal arc, his last member sold his soul for musical talent to some demon summoned by the CoT and is now trapped in his own personal hell: CUUUUUUBE FAAAAAAAAARM.

Oh. Cube farm on fire.

Regular kind would have worked okay too. Better, even.

Johnnys... misspelled in the navbar. The H is missing from his name.

Hes also a Lieutenant, which means random crossfire can melt him.

And Woodsons soul is still using its stock Lieutenant description. Nice look, though. Very corporate drone.

Standard fire/fire armor end boss. His attacks pretty much roll off me like water. Johnny and nearly Woodson get pulped on his aura, though.

And the bands back together. And I get a souvenir with next to no description and a title that runs off the edge of the clue window.

---

Storyline - **. There is a very narrow time window in the canon where this story could have taken place. Its a great story to put in that time window, with good motivations and an ending that can be played off as both bittersweet and cruelly ironic. But outside that time window its kind of nonsensical.

Johnny only learns that his soul wound up in his own personal hell toward the end of his single canon mission arc, and in this arc hes drawing parallels between Woodsons fate and his own. And at the end of that arc, well, his soul would sooner die than come back, and he has no passion for anything, let alone for music.

This is a great story to set specifically then. Johnny wants to get the old firm back together and do a gig, in case things go too far wrong. And hey, when Woodson just waltzes out of his personal hell, thats a good omen, right? (And somewhere Fate looks at her cards with no expression at all, and calls the raise.)

But if its not set then it makes no sense, because it either uses knowledge or a motivation that Johnny cant have, and as far as I could tell, this arc is just set at any old time at all.

Design - *. Surprise failable mission objectives, my old nemesis. At least Bobby gives a verbal clue hes bolting, and the Family arent real threats even if you havent cleared them out.

Speaking of the Family, at the upper end of this arcs generous operational range the Family are basically Prisoners in sharp tuxes. Bosses award like Lieutenants, lieuts like minions, minions like underlings.

Speaking of operational range, wowsers but this arc has a big one. Id suggest restricting it to Johnnys arcs level range (35-40) to keep it contemporaneous.

I liked the look and powerset choices of the new Zig warden. I didnt much like the last mission, though. I was expecting more of a literal boring office, maybe with some Nemesis automata though you couldnt actually give those any other names when this arc was written. Palette choice aside, this particular map and the resulting extremely tight quarters the end boss will probably be fought in are likely to result in Johnny and Woodson getting charbroiled by Blazing Aura and the flamesplash from various area moves, just from trying to establish line of sight.

Gameplay - *** In large part, stock mobs with stock fights. The Rage boss in the second mission and the Circle Archmage in the third are a bit out of true in this regard.

Detail - **. All of one clue crops up through the whole thing. The last mission has a typo in the nav text and a stock description on one of your allies, and several of the stock models like the civilian captives still have their default description when theyre supposed to be specific people. And the souvenir is a little two-line nothing with a title that overflows the clue window.

Overall - **. Architect has come a long way, baby. Its gotten more capable, and Ive gotten used to arcs exploiting its new capabilities. And this arc has suffered, not just because my expectations have risen, but because in the early, heady days of Architect we were all still learning and there was a lot more fudging of level ranges and enemy groups that I was willing to forgive.

If its at all possible, could you address these issues somehow? At least the strictly mechanical ones.

Mr_Right · 02-11-2011 12:34 PM

It's been a long time since I played and tested my arc, but I went in and revamped it to my liking. This means that while most of the feedback I've received from others in the past is still relevant (and incorporated) some of it isn't.

So to you, I submit my arc for a review. It's still a work in progress, so no stars is good with me, and any feedback you can give would be well worth it. Depending on your review, I mat go ahead and call it finished!

The arc is listed in my signature, so you can't miss it!

GlaziusF · 02-15-2011 10:38 PM

Tonight's arc: The Clockwork Crusade (126073). Critique requested, no rating. Review lower in this thread.

My current queue:

Randoms!

If anybody 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 hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

GlaziusF · 02-15-2011 10:39 PM

@GlaziusF

Running this lowbie arc on a too-high Peacebringer, +0/x1 with bosses on.

---

Contacts got no description. You can do that these days, and as the contacts supposed to be a little weird you can get that across.

Working with... oh, Hero Corps? Theyre the Freedom Corps for-pay alternative bankrolled by those good and upstanding sorts at the Crey Corporation. Still innocuous this low, though. Anyway. Im going to be undercover investigating why the Clockwork are working with vigilante types.

The clockwork cog I speak to tells me theyre interested in getting some Arachnos scrap, so they want me to wreck an Arachnos base.

Seems... pretty bland. A base leader is spouting off some generic stuff but he doesnt have a custom description. He goes down, rambling about generic revenge.

Well, if you wanted a pedestrian start you certainly got one.

---

And now I wreck a Vahz base, save an incidental hero whos had some armor pried off, and take note of the scrap the Clockwork might want - bomb parts for the Embalmed and bits of hero armor.

The barrels of fluid seemed to just be auto-dumping their names into the navbar. You might want to give them an objective name.

---

Now its a fresh Council installation, just chock full of tech. Hero Corps is getting worried and suggests I drop some tracers in with the scrap. (Theyd make a good opening clue.)

Ah. Bits of Council robots. This was one stop on the supply chain to Striga.

Again, the boss seems to be dumping his name into the navbar. You may want to give him an objective name. ...and an actual name and, perhaps, bio.

---

My contact decides its time to nip the Clocks in the bud, before they get Rikti weapons.

Not sure why my contact Clock thinks Id make a good villain. Im still taking out threats to the city, Im just leaving them to pick up the pieces.

I engage... what is apparently the named boss and my sole objective. He pops Aim and takes out my health bar with two blasts. Hoo boy.

He chains into another one. Dark armor/rad blast, with Oppressive Gloom and Aim.

And that chains into a last one. Seems like energy melee with Build Up and... some poison?

When he goes down, thats the end of the extra parts. Hero Corps thanks me for my work and asks me to bring in the Clockwork cash. Evidence, you understand.

---

Storyline - Im a little put off by the direction you decided to take with this, mostly because the Clockwork arent really on anybodys side. Theyre just these weird scavengers that nobody paid attention to for a while until they started becoming threatening, and now theyre not welcome anywhere. NYC has rats, pigeons, and cockroaches, Paragon City has Clockwork. And at the 1-15 level range it might or might not be known that they dont actually work by any rational principle at all.

Hero Corps is just kind of a sidelight to this whole thing, aside from a nice little nudge at the end about giving up all the money. But really their only active canon presence, if you can call it that, are the difficulty adjustment NPCs in the various zones and a couple of low-level contacts who have to have the same spiel as every other set of low-level contacts anyway.

If I were writing this story, which Im not, Id write it from the Hero Corps perspective, maybe with Colleen Saramago as this bumps up against the lower end of her range. Hero Corps is contract protection, and when the Clockwork start showing up to scavenge the bases some informer is pointing them to, well, thats not in the contract. The second time it seems suspicious, and the third time the tracers come out. And the last time they follow the tracers to find some poor soul being coerced into recording tipoffs and the weird, strong new Clockwork.

Design - The maps are pretty reasonable, though you might want to watch the last one - if you were intending to put a Clockwork in the middle, there are some tunnels behind the end room that count as middle spawn. The Vazhilok warehouse is about the right level of detail - some glowies, some destructibles, a little incidental detail, and a boss whos at least kinda involved in whats going on. And has a name. Thats more important than youd think.

There arent many customs and the handful there are do are just unique bosses and easy enough to see through.

Gameplay. - Theres pretty much no way that characters who may not even have DOs yet are going to be able to handle a boss with Aim or Build Up. Let alone three of them. Just get that mess out of there.

Aside from that, not much I can comment on with the stock enemies.

Detail - Some non-stock descriptions on the notable bosses would go a long way toward making the missions feel less like arbitrary boxes full of enemies. Even the special Clockwork bosses seem to all share a rather generic description.

Clues are scarce but reasonable, though if youre going to stick with the clockwork contact Id suggest putting his buzzing noises in yellow or something so theyre easier to tell apart from the surrounding text.

Also if youre going to stick with this contact you should write it a description, and maybe include some opening clues representing various Hero Corps gadgets you get to do your thing.

Overall - One of the reasons Id suggest rotating the viewpoint is that as it is most of the action in the arc - the Hero Corps motivation and the clockwork scavenging - take place off-camera, with the actual fighting and conversations both being to establish a cover identity, up until the action of the last mission.

Even if the missions arent ultimately important, they can at least be interesting in their own right, overseen by bosses with their own hopes and dreams. And names. Thats something to look at regardless of what you do with the story.

Also no Aim and Build Up on the custom bosses. Seriously, thats kind of cruel in this level range.

GlaziusF · 02-17-2011 09:24 PM

Tonight's arc: A Tex-Mex Mess (127677). Verdict - ***. Review lower in this thread.

Other random arcs I hit up trying to find one I hadn't played before:
Cadence (466154). Verdict - **
Premium Quality Mission (148476). Verdict - ****
The Shadowy Way of Light (221466). Verdict - **
A Jaunt Into Dataspace (1438). Verdict - ***
Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City (351727). Verdict - ****
All In The Family (128109). Verdict - ****

My current queue:

Randoms!

If anybody 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 hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

GlaziusF · 02-17-2011 09:27 PM

@GlaziusF

Running this on a max-level spine/regen scrapper, +1/x2 with bosses on.

---

Contact needs a bio on him. Even if hes just a local boy tryin to make good.

So some military yahoos placed a take-out order at El Super Mexicano and liked it so much they decided to steal the franchise.

Oh hey! Its the 5th! Well, they fit the profile.

I begin to suspect this mission may be falling prey to the weird 5th Column replacement bug, as theyre all called Salsa Baddies, but a quick look at the boss (fire/fire blaster type) confirms that, nope, theyre all just stock 5th who are... supposed to be powering up their flamethrowers with salsa? Not that I could see, really.

Sounds like a recipe for a flamethrower/ignite custom enemy, now that you can make those things and theyre actually worth XP.

Anyway, boss goes down pretty easy once I weather her opening powered-up salvo. Frob a couple glowies and thats everything.

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Storyline - **. All the really interesting action seems to have happened offscreen. The bank robbery, the villains entire ludicrous backstory, and the experimental super-salsa flamethrowers or whatever. What we get to play through is just a little cleanup operation at the end of it all. Not really very exciting.

Design - ***. Pretty much a standard warehouse with 5th Column and a couple glowies. Nothing confusing but nothing really notable either. Id expect some kind of custom fire-spewing enemies.

Gameplay - ****. 5th column are stock as stock, but as custom enemies tend to open with Aim and other boosters its a bad idea to put those on an enemy thats intended to be all levels.

Detail - ***. Theres some amusing little detail in the presence of the bank gun and in what little we get of the contacts dialogue. But the bosss description just leaves me wishing wed actually sparred over some of these crimes.

Overall - ***. I expect more from single-mission arcs than I do of single missions in a multi-missin arc. I expect lots of interesting customs or unique or complicated mechanics. Things that might grate if they went on too long, but that are still fresh and new by the end of a single mission.

This is just a stock sweep of stock mobs with a fancy boss at the end. These days I can go outside Architect and get pretty much that just about anywhere.