CoHMR Aggregator (a review thread)

Thank you very much for the review!

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Originally Posted by GlaziusF @GlaziusF Running this on my low-20s Peacebringer, +0/x1 with bosses on for the old-style newbie experience.

Ah, excellent. I've taken a lot of test characters through this arc, and while I'm satisfied that non-squishy ATs hold up well - and so far the squishies I've taken through do well too - gameplay-wise I can always use more data points from how relatively squishy ATs are faring.

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Little typo in the intro - “Altas Park” for “Atlas”. The idea’s pretty solid, and this is part of ELITE’s parvenu, I imagine. Low-level not-necessarily-powered gangs.

Glad you caught that - I think I probably would have gone a few decades and never noticed that one.

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Alright, decent job of replicating the low-level powers. And it looks like XP is on-par, too.

The biggest thing that miffed me here is the fact that I can't combine weapon sets, so instead of giving them both a bat and a gun, I've got to go ahead and let them have those @#!$ throwing knives. I did deliberately make sure everyone would be worth 100% XP at level 5. Except for Hibold's meatshields - they're all around 40%. Which is fine by me because they're *supposed* to be a very low threat.

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Interesting idea here. I don’t think I’ll explore it, but I appreciate the nod to the alignment system, as new heroes/villains only find out about it much, much later.

I decided to add the vigilante objectives very early in the process of designing the arc because it struck me as odd that a character pretty much as to be a stand-up hero until level 20, and then, suddenly, at level 20 they have the option of going 'bad.' Even if you can't officially change your alignment until after level 20, at least this gives you the option of starting down that path from the beginning (granted, from a RP standpoint alone). It's actually been very well received by most people playing the arc, so I'm seriously considering incorporating it into some of the arcs I've got planned for the future.

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Huh. Seems like Crey is actually getting the better of the Blue Devils, which is surprising considering they’re actually, what, Rippers? Private security?

Yeah, they're repurposed Private security. And they beat the Devils well more than half the time in my playtests, but that was by design. I made sure they were on the 'side' of the battle detail that spawns the larger group; I figure numbers is a bigger advantage than the Devils' superior attack powers, and usually that works. And given that Azul's demon is the only thing that turned the tide in their favor on the raid, I wanted to give them impression that in a straight up fight with Crey security, typical Blue Devils are outmatched.

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Wow. I’m not sure how you got the assault bot to spawn in with these guys, but it’s a pretty spiffy effect.

I wish I could offer some insight, but I don't know how I got him to do that either. But I'm glad he does. It is a cool effect.

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Okay, Hibold’s a nice acrobatic-shootin’ cowboy-feelin’ gentleman. He calls in more ablatives as he goes down, but they’re not much threat. Apparently there’s another boss-type Devil guarding something that prevents us from getting out of here?

Good! Hibold's ambushes are the key to the design of the encounter - Hibold's just a lt. rank-wise, so he relies on the ambushes to make the fight a challenge. Even though Susan's text hints that the 'intended' strategy to fight him is to spawn each ambush in turn, and deal with them before continuing to take down Hibold, like a good D&D game, the players *never* do things the way the DM was intending - almost everybody who plays the arc just offs Hibold immediately and then deals with the ambush swarm afterward. Originally, Hibold had three ambushes, not the current two, and they were regular Blue Devils. Usually, I did just fine if I dealt with each ambush in turn - but letting all three mob you was certain death. So after both a non-forum commenter and (I believe) Fred complained about how punishing the ambush was, I reduced the number of ambushes by one, took away some of Hibold's attacks, and upped his defenses. The intent was to make it easier to put some time between the ambushes. Then when PW complained about the ambushes, I finally accepted the fact that I needed to redesign the whole encounter around the virtual certainty the player was going to off Hibold instantly, and have to deal with the ambushes all at once. Hence the concept of giving him a separate 'ambush' faction of very nerfed versions of the Blue Devils. Happily, I've had no complaints about the ambushes since then, so it seems to have worked.

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Storyline - ****. Part of this is due to the difference between Hero and Vigilante, as proper nouns. Is Mrs. Davies’ ordering of a covert mind-scan at the end the act of someone who believes good deeds should be done swiftly, even if it means bucking the system, or someone who’s risking her own career and that of a fledgling hero to bring in a defanged villain group just a bit faster? In a heroic arc, it’s the latter. In a vigilante arc, it’s the former. I realize you’re offering “vigilante options” but those can exist even in a vigilante arc, casting the player as someone willing to work outside the system but leaving them the decision whether or not to go full Punisher.

Very interesting point. For what it's worth, when writing the arc, the motivation I assigned her for ordering the mind scan was the second one. She's doing what she does because she's eager to swiftly and decisively get this gang off the street, and she's willing to do something she wouldn't normally to do so - even if it puts her (and your) career at risk. Truth to be told, she doesn't think it's likely she'll be caught, which makes the choice easier. But if she is, she's hoping that the authorities will see that the ends justified the means. Of course, at the moment, all of that's academic because it isn't spelled out in the arc (at least I don't think it is - I might need to go back and look), and it's very possible that someone playing the arc would assign the other motivation to her actions.

But I see your point - at least I think I do - I believe you saw the same motivation I gave her, and are arguing that even though her actions are being cast as 'vigilante' in the arc, they're actually heroic. If that's the case, I am inclined to agree.

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Also I realize it would probably not be practical to actually site a mission tracking the Crey convoy for various reasons, but it kind of bugs me that it’s presented as something that will inevitably happen rather than something that’s already happened but Crey’s covering it up.

Hmm ... that wouldn't be a terribly difficult rewrite, but I'm not sure I like the second idea more than the first. It is something worth thinking about, though.

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But when a mission completes the navbar vanishes, replaced by MISSION COMPLETE (exit). In at least one case (the Hibold mission) this clobbers a novel objective, and in the first mission it’s very easy to complete the mission before you even see any of the optional glowies. In an arc that’s about offering various options, having them up in the navbar is by far the easiest way to make players aware of them. Hibold’s the only case where it really rankles, though.

Yeah, it bugs me too. At the moment, the clues are meant to actually 'fill in' for the lack of an objective after the mission completes, but it isn't coming off that way (and you're not the first person to note this). I'm not sure how to fix it yet and still have the same end result (you've got the choice of just leaving the teleport supressor there to let your 'arrest' bleed to death, so to speak, or even just die in a fiery explosion if you set the bomb), but that's my problem.

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The fifth mission has a very nice and fitting map, but not one that makes freeing the ally optional if you don’t want to have enemies stabbing you in the back when you run by. I realize the objective may be technically optional, and ditching the ally at the entrance anyway is a nice touch, but in that case it’s ditching the ally alone that should be explicitly marked as optional.

Excellent point - I'll make it appear as though freeing him is a required objective (even though it's not), but leading him out is optional. I think the odds of somebody subbornly running by him and finding out that the mission completes even though a 'required objective' hasn't been met are exceedingly slim. Which means the next person who plays the arc will complain about that. But still, I like the idea better than the way I've currently got it set up.

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Gameplay - *****. Pretty reasonable low-level enemy group, and as far as I could tell they all awarded full XP. Their alpha-strike potential seems a bit high but that may just be a function of my squidly fragility. The problem is that genuine lowbies may not have a lot of ways to heal up, but this may not be so much a problem that you’re capable of addressing within the constraints you’ve set for yourself. Missions were generally pretty reasonable and didn’t have a lot in the way of backtracking “dead time” to them.

Actually, I've created a whole bunch of actual 1st level characters to take them through the arc, and it's less of a problem than you'd think. Most of the time when my health was much too low to risk starting the next fight, Rest was available. There were only a few times where I had to do the 'standing around waiting to heal' thing. Like you, I'm not fond of having to do that, but I did at least note I wasn't having to do it more often than I would in standard game content (at low levels).

Again, thank you very much for the review!

Tonight's random arc: Attack of the Angry Tarot (81701). Verdict - **. Review lower in this thread.

Randoms I'd played already: (hoo boy)

• The Greater Good (hero version) (350877) Verdict - **. (Vigilante version scored higher)
• In Pursuit of Liberty (revised) (344916) Verdict- ***.
• Cadence (466154) Verdict - **.
• Signal:Noise (341194) Verdict - ****.
• Black as Midnight (482914) Verdict - ** but author says it's revised. You can ask for a re-review if you'd like. It's okay, I'm clean.
• Operation Fair Trade (391172) Verdict - Abstained for obvious reasons
• Warriors' Three (64855) Verdict - ***.

• Randoms!

@GlaziusF

Running this on a max-level spine/regen scrapper, +1/x2 with bosses on (but not AVs).

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Ah, a little Shulkie-style comedy. Let’s rassle some cards!

(Watch that accept text. First, it’s long to the point of overlapping the window. Second, as accept text it’s only visible by the team leader, as upposed to comedy in the briefing which the whole team could see.)

Oh hey, it’s Swan, right at the start of this little Eleusis. Let’s get some help. She’s guarded by... entirely bosses. Oh dear. Seems to be dual-offense dual blades/dark melee.

...and she won’t stick around to help, either. Hoo boy.

...wait a second. All these AVs have an escort of Negative Thought bosses. Since I’m at x2 that means like three to five of them.

Okay. Resetting to +0/x1 no bosses as that’s the only way I’ll probably get through this.

So, let’s see. The Tower is strength/shields, with... rage. Aw lord, Rage. Extra 33% damage, boosted to-hit, lasts for-freakin-ever. Actually engaging during this time is not necessarily an option.

Strength is claws/regen. With Moment of Glory and... Instant Healing, which basically nullifies my damage output. Also she revives, but I don’t have to beat her a second time.

The Moon is grav/kin. Now this I can rassle with! Well, up until he dimension-shifts me for a little time-out.

Death is necro-dark. Like being terrorized and unable to do anything? Tired of positive to-hit percentages? Then you’ll like Death.

The Hermit likes to detention field me and then heal himself. Over, and over, and over.

The Empress... stacks Deceive rapid-fire. For when Fearsome Stare wasn’t quite enough not being able to do anything, though you can heal yourself, which is a boon of dubious worth. Gonna need some double-layered Break Frees for this one. She’s also got Trick Arrow going, which is nice for a patch that slows you and kills defenses so you get even more deceived.

The Emperor is Electric Blast/Axe, with both Aim and Buildup, and the voltaic sentinel at this enemy rank is like a Sapper you can never hit, dodge, or stop. Oh, and he uses Thunderous Blast on low health, just in case you though you were going to do something with your endurance.

The Fool is Mind/Psy. He doesn’t seem to pull out Terrify, but Confuse is there, though not as long-lasting or spammable as Deceive.

The Sun is a twisted firestarter. Also fire blast/fire melee with both Aim and Build Up for maximum alpha strike. Fortunately he’s just got damage on his side.

The Devil shows up on the same little island the Moon was on, but I know I didn’t see him there then. Looks like the old overspawn problem where an outdoor spawn doesn’t trigger until another one at about the same spot dies. He’s fire control/fire armor, with a lot of autodamage but not much else.

When he’s down, I break the altar, and summon the end boss Swan was talking about, and her escorts who have no descriptions. And her fancy hat! And her... odd similarity to my contact?

Anyway, her escorts spawn Carrion Creepers, which are kinda bugged in that they stick around for a while and continually spawn vines even after their originals are dead, and she’s a pretty standard storm-elec, but what that means in practice is that if you resist Knockback her tornado hugs you and triple-kicks your defense into the “always hit” range, and then you get sapped, and then you die.

Fortunately I make my own whirlwind, or she’d not only kick my *** but manage to get away on low health, which is a really nasty trick to pull when you’re running a power that kills both accuracy and attack range.

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Storyline - ***. This is a showcase for a big ol’ slugfest with custom bosses. If there was something made from the end boss’s resemblance to my contact, I didn’t really notice.

Design - ***. It’s a good choice of map for a generally free-roaming throwdown. The Emperor and Empress hung out right on top of each other, but that may just have been my bad luck - there’s generally enough space here for a good boss fight in more-or-less isolation.

The problem is that I make a lot out of the overspawn problem for outdoor maps, but this is really the only one I can remember it happening consistently, even dramatically, on. I’m not saying it will necessarily happen, but it’s worth considering, and perhaps picking a different map.

I wonder if it would work to replace the Negative Thoughts with, say, renamed Black Swan Shadows. They certainly fit the idea.

The Major Arcana designs are generally pretty nice, but I’d be careful with armor powers as even at max height the particle effects can be rather obscuring. And speaking of max-height, while I don’t like to comment on the deck when there have been so many visual iterations of the design, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Sun as anything other than a baby, or at best a young child. Max-height Sun seems a little strange.

Gameplay - *. I don’t have two to seven very best friends who are willing to hang out with me and put up with my stopping now and again to take notes. I don’t have the scratch for the really high-end inventions, to pull off soft-capped defense or permahasten. I go solo with what sets I can, and I think I may be on the high end of a generalized intended audience, and there are certain things that are just a little too much to deal with.

Aim and Build Up can be reasonable when they’re on a single marquee “end boss”. Not necessarily on boss after boss, and generally not in the long-lasting form that is Rage. Crazy survivability boosts like Unstoppable or Instant Healing can be worth powering through on bosses, but with the enhanced regen of an EB there’s pretty much no way to make headway and no reason to do anything other than disengage and wait for it to run down. Confuse and Fear are much more rarely resisted than other sorts of status effects and much more disabling, especially when they’re spammed as frequently as Deceive is. And the severe to-hit debuffs of the entirety of Necro/Dark connecting, or the defense debuffs of oil slick or a triple-stacked Tornado are no walk in the park either. And the combination of to-hit debuff and range debuff from Hurricane with the sapper thundercloud, when you’re trying to stop a boss who’s getting away, is just kind of cruel.

And intangibility powers against a solo hero are all the fun of Ascendant/Fake Nemesis intangibility with none of the catharsis of running around smacking other things while you wait for them to wear off. (I’m aware the Wisp bosses pull this off, but they generally only have the hit points to do it once.)

Overall, while turning powersets up to extreme may make for a single memorable end boss, when it’s done with a high number of “boss fights” in quick succession things get tedious rather fast.

Detail - ***. Good introduction of the idea of the Arcana and some common readings of the cards, but again, this is a big ol’ slugfest and any non-slugging is at best tangential.

Overall - **. Not an average. This arc is set up to stand or fall on the strength of its combat, and that’s pretty lacking.

Tonight's random arc: The Cracked Mirror (159922). Verdict - ***. Review in MA Forums thread.

Randoms I'd played already:

• Too Many Bunnygirls! (101165) Verdict - ****.
• Marketing Opportunity (83747) Verdict- ***.

• Randoms!

Tonight's random arc: Fine Literature (136522). Verdict - ****. Review lower in this thread.

Randoms I'd played already:

• Future Skulls (4727) Verdict: ****
• Two Households Alike (126582) Verdict: ***** (played but not reviewed on-site)
• Origin of the Mad Mummy (439265) Verdict: **
• A Tex-Mex Mess (127677) Verdict: ***
• Made to Wave the Flag (384776) Verdict: *****
• The History of Statesman (219484) Verdict: *****
• Return of the Threefold King (163274) Verdict: ***

• Randoms!

@GlaziusF

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

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Contact has no bio. That’s a thing you can give ‘em now.

Looks like this is gonna be an enemy group showcase mission, because the story the contact’s giving me is “villain here, go smash”.

And the enemy group are apparently a bunch of thugs who’ve been given period costume. No clue how common thugs got psyblasts (Austen) and dark melee (Chaucer), but the gunners are alright, as are the sword and shillelagh versions.

Literatura is... a super strength boss? I suppose since she doesn’t really have any facility with the written word sheer power is appropriate.

Apparently she’s snuck her books into the publisher’s shipments anyway.

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Pff. Okay, judging by the navbar there were some thesauruses in with this lot.

And... man, she doesn’t even come up with new beatdown quotes for the refight?

The terrible pun book titles show up in the interaction prompt, but they should really show up in the system text, especially since prompt text is kinda small and difficult to make out, and it only shows up once.

Well, at least they’re in the souvy.

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Storyline - ****. Very like the story of a less serious Batman villain, someone who tries to make up for deficiencies in merit (artistic or otherwise) with main force. Nothing earthshaking here, but nothing offensive either.

Design - ****. Call this 6 - 2. Very in keeping with the story, these are hired thugs in funny suits -- in this case, period costume -- and the look’s rather solid. As are... most of the powersets, except for the dark melee and psy blast. To me, “hired thug” doesn’t fit very well with particle effects that don’t come from some sort of obvious weapon.

While I can understand the desire to go from 1-50 with the enemy group, generally you’re better off for picking a 5-level range and sticking with it. Exemplaring down even gets you full XP now. And if that level range is anything above level 25 or so Literatura could stand to be an elite boss at some point -- she’ll come down to a boss for people who can’t casually fight bosses so no worries there; it’s just a bit odd to think of her as anything special when because of my difficulty settings I’m mowing down ordinary bosses left and right.

Gameplay - *****. Hired thugs generally aren’t terribly difficult to carve through and these are no exception. There’s also not a lot of hunting around or backtracking.

Detail - ***. Generally pretty solid, though not really laugh-out-loud parodical. The book titles would be that, but since they show up in the interaction prompt and not the system text they take a bit of eyestrain to suss out.

Overall - ****. Pretty solid work that would benefit from a slight relocation of the interaction details, maybe a little power set reshuffling, and a narrower suggested level range.

Tonight's random arc: Legacy of the White Rose (181358). Verdict - **. Review lower in this thread.

My current queue:

• Randoms!

@GlaziusF

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

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Generic Warden contact. Nice idea. Needs a bio now that that’s possible.

Alright, so a visiting dignitary has been bum-rushed by the Council. I get informed of a time limit... after I accept the mission. Not the best time for it.

Also not the best color for it; the royal blue autocolor doesn’t show up very well against the black text outlines.

Hmm. Well, this is an interesting casualty of pacing: everyone cons green. Makes it rather difficult to not knock them all about the place.

Thanks to the vagaries of overworld spawning, both hostages spawn more or less adjacent to the exit. There’s an ambush that seems like it should be targeted when the princess is rescued, but instead fires off when her escort to the exit is complete.

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Now, off to Striga to find out why the Council wanted to do this, aside from the obvious high-value target.

Six computers to hack, but I get a clue after the first one. That’s a thing with glowies - if you have multiple glowies you get the clue after the first one. Since the only objective seems to be the glowies you might want to “maintain the suspense” by having a mission-complete clue instead.

Pacing puts greens in the entrance again.

Oh, now there’s something you don’t see every day, down in the basement - a flying jar of jam! Also an elec brawler. He does a credible job of running off, but I intercept him for the fun of it anyway. Don’t seem to get much in the way of clues from him, though. Pity

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Seems we’ve blundered into a bit of world politics gone bad, as the villain who was talking to the council is buddying up to an international megacorp.

Gunner minions, swordsman lieutenants. Looks like defense debuffs are the order of the day.

The man in charge is a mace/invuln job in a jester suit with a big wooden mallet.

All the computers seem to have found their way into the end room with him - this may be a case of the well-documented middle for back confusion in the MA. .

And once again I get a clue after the first of many hack attempts. Though the ambush doesn’t come until after the last of them, when there’s nothing more to do in the mission.

So this megacorp is trying to find another time to kidnap the princess. Oh joy.

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Anyway, circus tents at Talos Island. The last surviving element of the princess’s bodyguard mentions she was taken to the Black Sand Reserve.

Well, okay, let’s get out of-- no, still have a villain to defeat.

Somewhere on this giant outdoor map.

No obvious particle effects I can see.

Running up and down narrow featureless corridors full of minions with enhanced perception who don’t clump up on anything.

This is gonna take a while.

Oh, it’s the jamjar again. Round 2 goes much like Round 1.

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Seems to be some warning about not letting this boss escape. Can do, can do. ...maybe.

Looks like the Black Sand Reserve is much like Eleusis.

The Viceroy’s bodyguard... is SS/Will. With Rage.

Yeah, trying to deal with that hit-buff is just running into a hard wall of mathematics. Saving this for later when I can pop a Shivan.

The Viceroy himself is a downgraded grav/energy AV, who doesn’t make much of a move to run or spout any dialogue indicating he will do so, despite the warning in the briefing.

Anyway, the day is saved.

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Storyline - ****. The story of a sad, deluded man who believes that, even with the royalty being little more than ceremonial, restoring the proper dynasty to the throne will restore the British Empire to its former glory.

A sad, deluded man and his private army and villainous allies, including some faction of the Council.

What’s in it for all of them? Well, okay, his bodyguard is in many senses a Man Friday, a couple villains are easily explainable, as villains are an amoral and mercenary lot. The private army could be in it for the money or actually ‘round the bend enough to drink the kool-aid.

But what’s in it for the Council? Money? Technology? Most favored villain group status?

That’s about the only sticking point here.

Design - ***. The custom enemy group are utilitarian but distinctive, what few ranks there are of them. Though going up against just three enemies for three missions in a row is putting a little too much emphasis on too little variety. The villains are a bit more fancy free, and there’s a nice trick played with a fleeing “boss” to make it look like you’ve caught someone on the way out the door from negotiations.

There isn’t really a lot in the way of non-essential detail in any of the missions, though -- mostly it’s just the objectives that open up the next mission -- and one thing non-essential detail can really help with is fleshing out the story for people who might be curious about it.

It would help a bit, and probably open up your enemy group selection to boot, if you picked a level range for this arc. There’s really no downside anymore since exemplaring grants full XP and other rewards.

Also you should have a look at your pacing settings, unless you wanted green Council in the first two missions.

Gameplay - *. The customs aren’t very fun to fight for several reasons. (Not the use of Devices. Devices is used appropriately here on a boss-rank enemy. It’s a set with a control power and shouldn’t be spammed about by minions. I felt I should call this out.)

First, all the minions are ranged. This means they never clump up of their own volition. This means a lot of zipping around chipping down one target at a time, unless the geometry wants to cooperate, and there’s no guarantee it will on an overworld map.

Second, cascading defense debuffs. Even if you’re a set with defense debuff resistance, it’s possible that your base defense will get whittled so low by assault rifle and broadsword that all future attacks will hit and continue to debuff your defense so that future attacks will hit and so on.

Third, enhanced enemy group perception, especially bad on outdoor maps where there aren’t many walls about. Fighting more enemies at once means more chance of a permanent defense-buff cascade, and because all the minions hang back that means more running around cleaning things up.

The Viceroy’s bodyguard is a pain, too. On an elite boss or higher, a long-duration buff like Rage is basically an indication to go off and find something to do until it wears off. Short-duration bursts like Build Up might be acceptable, especially on elite bosses that are supposed to be climactic fights, but I’ve always found that just the straight mix of powers, without any temporary buffing powers, are enough to get a decent scrap out of an elite boss.

Outdoor maps are a pain to find objectives on, especially objectives without some sort of notable animation to them (usually involving particle effects). This is especially bad on the carnival map, where objectives can (and, for me, did) hide under overhangs.

So, animate notable mobs on outdoor maps, and consider some sort of alternate setup for the minions. Maybe add some with nightsticks. Maybe use the Robotics laser rifle instead of Assault Rifle. Maybe both! If you were space constrained before, there’s a lot more room now.

Detail - ***. The briefings talk up saving the Princess as the most important thing I have to do here, to the point that I wonder why I’m bothering with fighting the jester and the jam jar once I have the intel I need. Now, if there was, say, some sort of encrypted agenda they each had part of a key too, that’d be a good excuse to hunt them down and bring them in. But as it is the only reason to throw down with them is because the nav bar says so.

Also, just as a rule of thumb, try to keep character descriptions to four or five lines. Otherwise they all tend to run together.

Overall - **. Not intended as an average. On outdoor maps, the enemy fights had better be able to carry the map, since objectives are randomly placed and combat is the only thing you can count on. But this enemy group is monotonous, prone to defense debuff cascades, and worse when multiple groups aggro on you at once, which thanks to enhanced perception happens very often.

The plot is generally solid but could stand a few more details here and there; it’s dealing with the custom enemies that’s really frustrating, and the arc features them in great quantities.

Tonight's random arc: Out of the Gutters (68054). Verdict - ****. Review lower in this thread.

Randoms I'd played already:

• Galactic Protectorate - 01 (47143) Verdict: **

• Randoms!

@GlaziusF

Running this on a too-high ice/fire dominator, +0/x1 with bosses on for the old-school newbie experience.

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Well, this whiteboard wasn’t designed to be viewed from the other side, but it’s a nice conceit. Could use a contact description to complete the illusion.

Beating up a Destined One and taking their stuff. The same plan just about every two-bit schmoe in the Rogue Isles has. Let’s hope I’ve got more than two bits.

The operation goes off smoothly, though I’d at least like to get a gooey mediport device as a clue.

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Now to set myself up in an abandoned lab left behind when some group was disappeared for having ticked off Arachnos. ...you mean like I just did?

But... I’m not alone.

Ah! My next-door neighbor had the same idea... and tripped some old automatic security.

And now I have! ...this could really stand to be a single talky patrol and a bunch of other silent ones. As it is it clobbers the entire dialogue window.

I get a clue for tripping the alarm, but no clue what happens when it shuts down.

For some reason the debriefing thinks Arachnos is still paying attention to this base. Well, that would have been nice to find out in the mission itself.

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In fine villainous form, I send my neighbor after the active Arachnos intel site while I go after a backup. No prizes for guessing how this’ll turn out.

Er... am I hitting the backup? The accept text would seem to indicate that, but the briefings don’t have much to say on the subject.

In a bit of bad luck, both the Huntsmen spawn right outside the elevator. Fortunately I’ve got a bit of range.

I pick up some passcards and... apparently I can fake one up with a proper holder and a suitably shiny object? Is that what this clue is supposed to convey?

Anyhow, the bombs are set to take this place out.

Oh! It seems like my neighbor was successful after all. Arachnos is kind of a bunch of chumps in this level range, aren’t they?

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Alright, now to rub elbows with some of the other up-and-comers. Try to blend in. Punch out the spinal column of the idiot who burned my house down.

You know, villain stuff.

Mindwrack, as an ally, pops free immediately on entry and drops his clue in my tab.

I investigate an urn, drop some Longbow who came in and... mission over? Aw, I thought I’d get to see the rest of this junk.

Well, I’m looking at it anyway.

---

Well, the guy who burned my house down wants me as muscle for a bank job, so I’m just going to muscle in on him instead and get sweet revenge and a big payday.

The RIP storm in after I drop him. The Legacy Chain try to recover the artifact I pull from the vault. Neither one really succeeds. And now, the world is my mollusk.

Like all mollusks, it is impenetrable and slimy.

The souvenir ends with “to be continued...” Actually to be continued, or just segueing into a larger life of villainy?

---

Storyline - ****. Mercy Island is in many ways a crucible, full of giant vermin and people so desperate that drinking random effluent is a step up. Most villains just skim the surface, but when I saw this was a story about some random schmoe clawing out of the gutters, I expected to actually get dragged into the morass and make my way out. But nothing really went wrong.

I mean, before the story kicked off, something definitely went wrong in a big way. And certainly there are some surprising developments, but nothing that ever really registers as a setback to this plan.

Maybe that wasn’t what you’re going for? But if you were, you could write a mission about recovering from a setback -- splitting up to take out an Arachnos base is just begging for something to go south -- and maybe compress the first two missions into one to make room for it.

Design - ****. It’s kind of odd that in the two missions where you get a long-term ally there aren’t any bosses to fight. You don’t shy away from putting bosses in other missions, and the missions are ones that might benefit from bosses - to guarantee some non-minion opposition in mission 2 and actually provide a bit more satisfying boss punchdown in mission 5.

I can understand not wanting to exactly threaten your ally, who doesn’t canonically have a mediporter, but at the same time it feels a bit off that you get help when you least need it.

Gameplay - *****. There was really only one part where I had much trouble, and that was a real freaky-deak coincidence where two presumably arbitrary boss spawns managed to show up right on top of each other in the Arachnos map. Low-level, generally stock, enemies, and very reasonable customs.

Detail - ***. Clues are notable things you pick up or events to remember. Especially for the first couple of missions, important things are missing from the clue tab - the mediporter, and whatever piece of information that makes you think Arachnos is still monitoring the abandoned base. The funny details in the auction mission are worth looking at, but the fake passcard from the third mission just seems like a random meaningless detail -- it makes an impression that at some point you’ll be using one, maybe to spring your less fortunate partner, but it’s never referenced again.

Overall - ****. Definitely worth playing if you’re low-level and looking for something to do in Architect. The plot’s a bit shakier than the gameplay, but some of that may just be unreasonable expectations on my part.

Thanks for taking the time to review this.

As you can no doubt tell, it's a very old arc - there's a few things that could be made smoother with some of the newer options available in the AE.

I'd just like to address a couple of your quibbles re: clues

Mediporter - You aren't removing the mediporter yourself; just attacking Mimi when a medical contact is on shift to deal with her when she arrives at the port arrival.

Fake passcard - Mainly an in-joke for people who've worked at facilities that are supposed to be secure, but where you can just walk past the guards with an appropriately coloured bit of cardboard - probably a bit of self-indulgence that doesn't need to be there (or needs to be worked into a continuation arc)

Why Arachnos may still be monitoring the base - what I was aiming for wasn't that they are actively monitoring it, but that they knew where it was due to having wiped out the previous occupants, so it would be a good idea to remove it from their records.

--

re: Recovering from a set back, I see your point, but I didn't want to turn Alison into a damsel in distress type NPC - no one needs a villainous version of Fusionette, and it's difficult to write setbacks in arcs when you've got no way for the player to screw things up except by author fiat - You can't branch arcs except via the 'Choose your own adventure' method and you can't even do two different arc souveniers the way they do in some Dev arcs - since the player has no control over the outcome, I feel it very unfair to write bad decisions or PC instigated failures for the player unless you're upfront at the start about it.

re: Bosses

Point taken, something that has been brought up before. The arc does need a full re-edit at some point to make things clearer and adjust a couple of missions to take into account new stuff you can do with the AE. (I have a list of quibbles and suggested changes to go through).

re: To be continued...

That was the plan, I was intending a series of arcs for each 5 blocks of levels, but then RL happened.

Once again, thanks for the review.

Tonight's random arc: What Is An Imeco? (part 1) (27140). Verdict - *. Review lower in this thread.

My current queue:

• Randoms!

@GlaziusF

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

---

Ah. My contact is a... possibly recolored Penny Preston? No description and I can’t really make out colors with the harshest underlight in the world going on.

(Seriously, when are they going to turn that down?)

So this is pitched like some sort of demented children’s program. Let’s find out what an Imeco is by throwing a whole bunch of evil clones in a dumpster!

Or, uh, the dark corner of a nice open cave system? I suppose that works too.

So, let’s see here. Minions with Rain of Arrows and massively enhanced perception, Lieutenants with buildup and ever war mace power, an elite super strength boss with Rage. Yep. Good old wall o’ math. And either he calls a silent ambush or there’ve been some silent patrols, as when I backed into an area I cleared there were more minions waiting for me.

Elite energy melee boss with build up and Energy Transfer. And Overload. Good old wall o’ math.

Elite dark blast boss with rad emission. Wall o’ math in its alternate form of negative base to-hit. And I’m almost certain he calls a silent ambush.

So... none of these guys are dropping any clues, so far, or even any dialogue. The other elite dark blast boss with pain dom is much the same, calling another silent ambush.

---

And now I see the ordinary bosses in this enemy group. Focus Chi and Elude at low health. ...sure, why not?

Man, not even the feature EBs have descriptions anymore. I fight an ice armor/ice melee EB, who goes into Hibernate at low health, but the animation doesn’t play and... he doesn’t come out. Like, I’m still staring at him ten minutes later and I still can’t actually damage him, nor does he actually move.

Well, since he’s a required objective, this mission can’t be completed. What fun!

I’m going to review this anyway, because I don’t expect what came next would change this score.

---

Storyline - **. I don’t really mind a bunch of glorified boss fights so much, at least not a priori. There’s certainly space to do that kind of thing in the Mission Architect. What I do mind is an arc that tries to pretend a bunch of boss fights is something that isn’t a bunch of boss fights. There’s no investigation going on here. We both know that. It just makes the whole thing feel like a cheap fake.

Design - **. Arbitrary maps for arbitrary boss fights. No big deal there.

Actual big deal: if the various ranks of the custom enemy group were intended to look any different from one another, I certainly couldn’t make out the details. The minions and bosses even share particle effects. It’s very important to be able to get a visual sense of the opposition, because con colors can move up and down over the course of the mission.

Gameplay - *. I’ve seen the Hibernate bug before on an ally. It is a bug, and needs to be fixed, but a mission that’s uncompleteable unless you manage to hold an AV-class enemy so the bugged power doesn’t go off is just plain uncompleteable.

But even without this bug I don’t think I’d be marking this up too much. Minions with stuns and tier-9 offensive powers. Lieutenants with Build Up. Bosses with Build Up and elude. And that’s not getting into the feature bosses.

An elite boss is challenging just by virtue of being an elite boss. Notable self-offense buffs like Build Up are challenging. Long-term defense buffs are challenging. Long-term offense buffs like Rage or effective offense buffs like Anguishing Cry or the twin radiation or poison debuffs are double challenging.

The rank and file enemies should generally not have any of these challenging elements. They’re there to let long-duration powers recharge and build up inspirations for the tough fights. It’s good to face a single challenging element maybe two or three times a map at the outside, possibly a combination of two challenging elements once a map and maybe three to cap off an arc or present an especially notable fight.

There’s just way too much challenge in this arc and absolutely no breathing room ever, which makes it feel more like headbutting a wall of math than doing anything exciting.

Detail - *. No descriptions on the rank and file. Not even necessarily on the feature bosses. No callouts from ambushes either, which is the worst part. Four rain of arrow patches are probably the worst way to find out there are minions coming up behind you.

Overall - *. An unplayably broken arc that needs more than a trivial power adjustment to be entertaining.

Tonight's random arc: To Aid the Future (59346). Verdict - ***. Review lower in this thread.

Randoms I'd played already:

• Idol Hands (141376) Verdict: *****
• Galactic Protectorate - 04 (269714) Verdict: ***
• Fine Literature (136522) Verdict: ****
• Unbearable Funk (3573) Verdict: ***
• Becky's Revenge (60197) Verdict: ***** (not a full review)

• Randoms!

@GlaziusF

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

---

My contact is very... blue. Makes me wonder why. Why not give her a description?

Especially since she’s talking like somebody’s cool grandma.

Anyway, goin’ to bail the next generation out of an Outcast-related mess at her insistence.

The popup message wonders where the Coolers are. I... uh, press tab and highlight one. Were they supposed to be missing from this mix?

Anyway, hero sprung, Outcast dropped.

---

Now apparently the Watchers want me to reassert the cosmic balance by setting up a villain to score some cash.

Spring the ninja/TA right at the entrance. This should be fun.

Heh. Just a compulsively-hoarding Coralax of very little brain guarding an ancient jar full of hunny. Them’s the low-level villain breaks.

---

And now for the future.

Okay, while red plus blue does equal purple, the royal purple autocolor is pretty terrible, because it’s rather low-contrast with the black text outline, making the whole look rather muddled.

Anyway. Shivans! With my previous allies to help.

I don’t know why, but this shield scrapper likes to stare down his defeated foes for way too long. I must leave him behind half a dozen times.

Unfortunately the end boss Shivan has a lot of area attacks and completely wipes my allies out, leaving me to go it alone for the last sliver of health. Oh well.

---

Storyline - ***. So I did a bunch of stuff for some of the vaguest reasons possible, but my contact assures me everything’s turned out alright in the end.

Now, there are several scenarios in-game where heroes and villains have to work together - to drive back the Rikti, or protect the integrity of the timestream - but it’s not out of some desire for “neutrality” but to confront an external threat that doesn’t discriminate between hero and villain. The Coming Storm is certainly such a threat, but the storyline doesn’t seem to take the obvious tack: in the future these two people will survive to fight the aftermath of the storm, and it doesn’t matter what they are now, we need to see they survive. Saving a hero and a villain are set up as some sort of... karmic necessity, which really doesn’t have a lot of weight behind it.

It’s not really clear to what degree we’re boogieing through time, either. The final mission obviously takes place in the future beyond the Coming Storm, but do the other two take place in the present-day? The recent past? The imminent future? And why exactly is the apparently arbitrary throw-down with the Shivans at the end so all-fired important?

Design - ***. Not that the allies aren’t sensibly powered, as they are, or the maps don’t make sense, as they do.

But this arc is, on the surface, about helping the next generation. Except it caps me at an average level of 20. At that point in my development I AM the next generation, and the allies I spring in the first couple missions are eminently capable of holding their own, so it feels more like helping out a couple of my peers.

Also, the missions are very sparse, which would be fine if I had a clearer picture of when and why they were happening, but I don’t, so it’s not.

Gameplay - ****. The only real hangups are probably engine bugs - the shield defense ally’s propensity to stare down an already-defeated enemy, and the by-now familiar overspawn problem on the Eleusis final map, which spawns in normal enemies behind you after you’ve defeated another set of enemies that are already there.

It doesn’t help my allies’ general fragility that they get hung up in a couple of these overspawns and batted around for a bit before I realize what’s up and head back for them.

Detail - **. There isn’t really much in the way of meaningful clues. Mostly they just say that you rescued the people you just rescued, which should generally be kind of obvious. Clues would be an excellent way of keeping events and rationales straight, but they’re just wasted here.

Overall - ***. Some decent low-level combat with modestly useful helpers. It doesn’t really make any sense but the missions are simple enough that that’s no impediment to getting them done.

Tonight's random arc: Invasion On Earth BX1132! (98943). Verdict - ****. Review in MA Forums Thread.

Randoms I'd played already:

• The Galactic Protectorate - 02 (117281) Verdict: ***

• Randoms!

Thanks for the re-review of Invasion! More specific reply in the arc thread.

Tonight's random arc: Sidekicks Can Be A Pain In The Cape (28430). Verdict - ***. Review lower in this thread.

Randoms I'd played already:

• Dark Side of the Dance Floor (5008) Verdict: ****
• Project Parallel: The Alternate 5th Column Task Force (316325) Verdict: ***
• Chapter and Verse (26065) Verdict: **
• Dhahabu Kingdom and the Unfathomable Nightmare of Sand (453511) Verdict: ****

• Randoms!

@GlaziusF

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

---

Aw. Little shaver wants to run with the big boys. Let’s see if we can keep hope alive, then.

Also the picture I get from my contact might make a nice opening clue now that you can do that.

Fairly mundane mission, up until the part where I rescue a minion from the middle of three spawns and have to escort him to the mission door through an ambush. At my levels, Arachnos use a decent selection of area attacks, so the kid gets pretty unavoidably caught up in the spray.

I didn’t clear the area around him since I didn’t figure he’d be a combat helper. Yeah. Second time around I do, and he survives to the door.

Just a word of warning: if you’re expecting this mission to end successfully, a single minion is probably not going to be protectable against anything more than one hero’s worth of Arachnos.

Seems like the files I found were too small to fit into the objective clue. Maybe you could spare a little text in that clue saying something like “you’ll have time to look these over once you’re sure the kid is safe”?

Anyway, looks like Arachnos is abducting kids with powers, not satisfied with what Haven House is putting out I suppose.

---

And now, a Crey lab. They’re kind of boring at this level, but alright. Nothing interesting here aside from the very end room -- apparently a machine that overwrites brain patterns with villainous ones. Nasty.

The boss doctor (a mind/psy custom) says something about escaping at low health, but with all the slow I put out I don’t see her running. If she actually does try to escape the navbar should say something about preventing it.

Kyle’s an Omega mutant! And Aeon’s giving him some brainwash. This won’t end well.

---

I kind of like that the contact isn’t very well-informed about what’s going on and that we’re mostly following leads on our own, but that could stand with some appropriate internal narration in the mission briefings. Like, in a different color or something.

Oof. Arachnos base on fire. Goodbye, frame rate.

Full of advanced sidekicks, including a whole bunch of “Boom Boy” models. This was how my original rescuee styled himself so you might want to consider a different name.

Dr. Aeon’s experiments have predictably backfired on him, and now the sidekicks are running amuck under the leadership of “Killerwatt”, who is of course our Omega sparker.

I get quote marks from my contact when I come back, which is kind of odd.

---

And now he’s invaded the dam. Low marks for originality but I can’t fault his sense of style. (Actually surprisingly few MArcs I’ve played have used this map.)

After I pop a super strength/invuln boss ally, the kid’s just an elec melee EB so it’s just a matter of time before he drops. (His clue comes before Armory’s so you might want to rearrange them in the window.)

The souvenir is... a little odd here. It mentions Kyle’s idol as a hero named “Lightning Bold” and suggests that the final showdown takes place in Steel Canyon, rather than the Faultline Dam. Looks like plans for a future revision, or an incomplete past one.

---

Storyline - ****. A pretty interesting contact structure for a hero arc. My hero is the one who’s doing most of the investigation and the contact is a sort of Greek chorus, reacting to the events going on but not really contributing much.

The problem is that briefings serve both to sum up the plot to date and set up the next mission, and with only a contact who’s commenting on prior events that’s rather hard to do. We could stand to have some self-narration taking care of that.

Design - ***. The arc kind of needs a level range. One of the missions has a lower level bound, but the rest are all-levels. That’s not a good thing. Arachnos opposition changes wildly from level to level, and depending on what feel you want out of this arc you should set the range up so that players encounter street-level Arachnos or mid-range tech troops or high-test supervillains.

There are also a couple of objectives which are completely unheralded - keep the boy minion safe on his way to the door, and prevent the Crey researcher from escaping. Both of these benefit greatly from being forewarned, as a bit of special preparation is required to accomplish both successfully.

Gameplay - ****. The opposition itself is either stock or manageable. The enemy group is disproportionately ranged, which means combat tends toward mopping up after the hard targets go down. Fortunately they’re generally fought in environments with plenty of corners so they can be grouped up easily. The single elite boss has a required super strength ally with rage to help you, so really it’s just a question of surviving long enough for all the damage to connect.

Detail - ***. I was actually okay with most of the detail through the arc itself. Occasionally the arc pulls the understandable move of putting a long clue at the end of a mission, but in those cases you might just want a system message or clue saying that you’ve found something to look at later.

But the souvenir tells a completely different story. Literally, it tells a completely different story. The location of the final showdown is different, and the inspiration for our young Omega Shock is another hero rather than me, which makes it possible to include that hero’s reactions as part of the story.

Overall - ***. The missions pull out quite a few unwelcome surprises, and the final souvenir seems to be about a completely different story - a story that I find myself regretting that I can’t see.

Thanks for playing and thanks very much for the review. This was the first arc I wrote and I haven't revisited it in ages. Sounds like it really needs some polish, I appreciate the feedback.

Tonight's random arc: Faerie Gold (95553). Verdict - ***. Review lower in this thread.

Randoms I'd played already:

• Too Many Bunnygirls! (101165) Verdict: ****
• Dyne of the Times (6600) Verdict: ***
• Crossing Over (111352) Verdict: ****
• Looks Can Be Deceiving (137657) Verdict: ****
• My Will (136438) Verdict: **
• The Galactic Protectorate - 06 (355068) Verdict: **

• Reviews are currently on hold. Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter isn't going to have inexplicably replaced text or characters in it.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.