CoHMR Aggregator (a review thread)

GlaziusF · 08-12-2012 11:57 AM

Quick reminder - I don't run CoHMR. But you should probably contact the site admin if something's gone that long without being put up.

Tonight's arc: A review of The Murders in the RWZ Morgue. (452144) Verdict - ****. Review below in this thread.

My current queue:

A review of Condemning Croatoa (245534)
Reviews for The Doctor Returns (1140), Et in Arcadia Ego (525441), and Project Dragon (522067)
I'm also open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. 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 · 08-12-2012 11:57 AM

@GlaziusF

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

I... have a feeling I know how this is going to end.

---

Agent G gives me the run down: a Vanguard agent (supposedly) murdered a researcher and her daughter in a fit of passion, Longbow was called in to make the arrest, and then the Rikti swarmed.

The agent doesn't think very highly of Vanguard's cross-faction nature, either.

Oh! The Vanguard briefing hall. Interesting setting.

Rikti are in force, and the Vanguard are firing at everything... except for our murder suspect, who is urging caution. Huh.

I lead him back to the saferoom and he begs me to actually, you know, investigate. I get some very general objectives.

Tracking down some glowies I find... yeah, about what I expected.

Interesting story behind it, though.

---

Storyline - ***. Really, I've waffled about this. Technically it's not a fault with the story itself. I guess my real issue with this is that it's presented as an investigation, but it's also a tribute to an Edgar Allen Poe story, and shares the same revelation about the actual murderer.

But... if you pick up on the title drop, which isn't hard, it kind of spoils the ending.

So yeah, with a different title this mystery story would have more mystery to it. Maybe eventually I'd have twigged to the tribute, considering that the story was about investigating, uh, murders in the RWZ morgue? But putting it front and center just brought things to mind immediately.

Design - *****. Good progression of the story through the mission, though. Really nice use of the Vanguard base map and placement to tell a story in the same staging area/active mission separation that the original Vanguard base mission does.

Gameplay - ***. Unfortunately, this has the same problems the original Vanguard base mission has, and a few more besides. The Vanguard base is tightly packed and honeycombed with passageways, making the mission map more of a suggestion than a reality. The enemies are stock, not hard to fight at all, but actually figuring out where to go to accomplish the objectives involves a lot of turning around.

Detail - *****. The contact's motivations are well set-up, and story progression is crystal-clear.

Overall - ****. Really, if you want to put this in the base, there's no way not to make it labyrinthine. There's wonderful work done with the nature of the map.

It really sounds odd to say that this would be a more successful story if only it had a different title, but in some ways a title sets expectations and serves as a touchstone.

GlaziusF · 08-22-2012 07:18 PM

Less than a month delay this time! How about that.

Tonight's arc: A review of Condemning Croatoa. (245534) Verdict - ****. Review below in this thread.

My current queue:

Reviews for The Doctor Returns (1140), Et in Arcadia Ego (525441), and Project Dragon (522067)
I'm also open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. 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 · 08-22-2012 07:20 PM

@GlaziusF

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

---

Arachnos has taken the position that if they can't get into Croatoa, nobody can, and are using contact nobody's ever seen Veluta Lunata (trap ghosts in Port Oakes to unlock her but you'll probably need to flashback to her arcs) to deniably accomplish just that aim.

But first, to steal the way in from the Midnighters.

Huh. I don't remember demonologists in the stock Midnighters. Then again they've probably been getting updates with the new power sets. Or is that your doing?

...pretty sure "Japanologist" is your doing. Ouch. Find another word for that, maybe? Shujenga?

---

Mission 2: throw down with a giant monster. Well, alright then!

...well. I've got like twenty boss lost souls to do it with, but the thing is, Eochai loves him some AoE. Can't crack his regen and keep them all up long enough on the first go-round. Restarting the arc to try again.

Fortunately things work out a bit better next time. I think because they got blown around by a bonfire summon so they weren't all getting picked off.

And my total contribution to the fight is worth about three minions of XP. Wow.

---

But with the Firbolg routed, now it's time to put paid to their allies in the Cabal.

...huh. Plant/poison control and electric control minions. Are you folding these in? I honestly can't tell.

Anyway, it's the Mary Mac map, with a single thing to bust up and then some bosses to fight. Pretty straightforward stuff, and the Red Caps do their own little Greek chorus of gloating.

---

And in the occasionally worthwhile "villain setup" fashion, we're setting up the Katie Hannon task force by running off with her soul.

I set up... wow, this is a pretty visually impressive Arachnos doodad.

About the only dead part of this all is running Katie up the twisty rooty passages to the exit. The big fight with Mary goes off pretty well.

---

And now to destroy the wards in Salamanca and some of the Midnight Squad's heavy hitters.

So... Monty, Ashley McKnight, and War Witch herself. Not a bad collection of end bosses, and the Red Caps showing up with hostages as things fall apart is a nice effect.

And hey. We... actually broke off Salamanca from reality? Go figure.

Aw man. That bug where if you log in and don't check an arc's clues before you finish it your entire souvenir history gets destroyed is still there.

---

Storyline - ****. So I'm a little bit confused here. Initially it looked like things were setting up to be the sort of "villain side of the story" you often get in CoV, breaking the stalemate in Croatoa and setting up for actual heroic intervention.

And then the end hits, and it turns out this entire thing was actually reacting to the hero arcs and now Salamanca's gone?

...maybe?

I mean, thematically the arcs are setting up the hero arcs, but the storytelling seems to indicate it's a response to them. It's just a little unclear.

Design - *****. I am almost entirely certain that the Midnighters and the Cabal received extra custom enemies, but the visual design was so similar that I'm still not entirely certain.

Consider that a tribute. You'd have to screw up map and objective selection to lose five stars after pulling something like that off, and thankfully nothing like that happens.

Gameplay - ***. Leading something out of cramped mine tunnels with extra cramp thanks to the root-cellar geometry isn't a fun time. Even less of a fun time is having to herd like twenty dudes all across a map in order to stand a chance against the giant monster.

The remaining challenges in the arc are all pretty reasonable, especially with the provided help, but those two moments are real lip-biters.

Detail - *****. All the dialogue and similar mesh pretty well with immediate events, and the custom enemy descriptions are terse and generally after the style of the official ones.

Overall - ****. The big picture's a little unclear, but that doesn't really come in until the very end, and there's some very fitting custom design to flesh out some of the underpopulated enemy groups.

But the big black mark here is the Eochai fight. There's just too much running around and keeping track of escorts beforehand, just to make it survivable, and as a result it really doesn't feel like I'm making much difference in the fight against the giant monster. At least the lost souls clip through each other; can't think what it would have been like otherwise.

Ankylosaur · 08-24-2012 02:39 PM

So glad you mostly enjoyed Condemning Croatoa. It has been through several iterations and a few big changes over its life.

The plot was not supposed to be a set up for the hero arc, per se, but rather a re-imagining of the hero arc from the villain-side. The hero arc is to stop the Red Caps plan to "subsume Croatoa into the Spirit Realm," and in Condeming Croatoa you instead help the Red Caps achieve their goal on behalf of Arachnos. Now exactly what "subsume Croatoa into the Spirit Realm" means is open to some interpretation, but that last mission and the resulting disappearance of Salamanca was my take.

THE MIDNIGHTERS
Thrilled that you liked my additions to the Midnighters. Theirs is an odd stock group in that they include Nerva Spectral Demons and Animated Living Armor as their bosses. I wanted to have people in these roles, and to focus on their magic (summoning and animating) in different ways. Taking the cue that they are a bit of a Victorian-esque or turn-of-the-century occult group, I thought having them summon things like spirits and undead and demons is in keeping with that and would be a fun way to expand the group. I also wanted to bolster the lower ranks because there were so few minion types.

I understand your umbrage at the term Japanologist, and I too feel it is a bit jarring and odd, but believe it or not, that was the term around the turn of the century for Europeans who studied Japan. So, ultimately I thought it fit in well with the Egyptologist and Demonologist and so I went with it--I might change it yet--it's not like they traditionally summoned Oni.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanes..._Japanologists

BTW, Monty is going to be /Time when that finally comes out in AE--what with his foresight and all.

THE CABAL
Similar motivations for adding to the Cabal here. There are fewer Cabal minion types than there are LTs or Bosses in the stock group I think, so I wanted to bolster their minion ranks. Witches and nature seem a natural fit to me, and the elec control set is new since the Cabal came on the scene and had their same purple lightning.

THE EOCHAI
This was a bit of an exercise to execute. I wanted to see if I could come up with a way to take down a GM in an arc. The army of 20-odd Dark Servants worked in all my testing, mainly because a big group of them is constantly healing each other with their AOE heal, and over a little time, they win, but I think i was not testing with larger mobs with my soloers. I tried running this after your review with a larger mob and of course he also summons larger fir bolg mobs and the dark servants get blown away on those summons.

To correct it, I might consider making this fight optional. I could just the mission complete after you defeat the initial boss and perhaps have triggered battles as a result... Maybe even make Waylan activate your ring so the Dark Servants don't appear to you until after you free him. Which would mean I could include even more...

TRIGGERED EVENTS
In most arcs I try to explore some new things for me. In this one, those new things were fighting a GM and using a lot of triggered events to make the maps feel like they evolve. I felt that worked particularly well on the last map--glad you liked the Red Caps taking prisoners too.

LEADING KATIE
I hear ya. I am not sure what to do about leading her out to make it better. It is such a tiny map--but it is trapped with things for her to get gummed up on as you mention.

I could make a custom her and have her fly--that might not do much though. I could just have her run out into the Red Caps arms--but that feels pretty inauthentic/contrived. I could have you fight her perhaps? She is the point of M4 so its hard to imagine it without her. Not sure I have a solution for this one...

SUMMARY
Thanks again for the review! There is some great actionable feedback here that I can use to hopefully make it even better.

BTW, I did contact the cohmissionreview admin about Robolution not making it up on the site even after a month, but alas--no reply. I fear it may no longer be being supported.

Try out my AE Arcs! (solo friendly, canon related, & some contest winners)
| #529832 Rularularian - Heroic - 41-54 | #515140 The Serpent Beyond the Horizon - Heroic - 46-52 | #183832 Save the Diver, Save the World - Vigilante - 25-30 | #245534 Condemning Croatoa - Villainous - 25-33 | #540585 Robolution - Villainous - 25-34 |

GlaziusF · 08-31-2012 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ankylosaur

BTW, I did contact the cohmissionreview admin about Robolution not making it up on the site even after a month, but alas--no reply. I fear it may no longer be being supported.

Speaking of things that are no longer supported... yeah, too soon, sorry. This announcement has hit like a brick.

I'd rather make a clean break with the game, though, so I hope the people in my queue will be understanding when I say I don't see myself doing much more with Mission Architect.

It was a good run, though, for all that I flaked off at times.

Coulomb2 · 08-31-2012 08:17 PM

Glaz,

For what it's worth, I read your thread a lot, even when I felt no need to respond. Now I wish I had.

Just so that you know: you made a difference for me, and I'm glad you were here to do what you did.

M.A. Arcs
Intended for high level play: The Primus Trilogy (Arc #s 10931, 283821, 283825), "Freakshow U" (Arc #189073), Purification (Arc #352381, Dev's Choice!

)
Intended for low level play: "Learning the Ropes" (Arc #100304), "Cracking Skulls" (Arc #115935), "The Lazarus Project" (Arc #124906)

Clave_Dark_5 · 09-01-2012 05:52 AM

I appreciate all you did for the AE authors, Glaz. Thanks.

Ankylosaur · 09-02-2012 01:22 PM

Thanks for all the time spent helping us refine our arcs.

I know in my case, your feedback and efforts were immensely valuable. A shame that the stories end here.

Try out my AE Arcs! (solo friendly, canon related, & some contest winners)
| #529832 Rularularian - Heroic - 41-54 | #515140 The Serpent Beyond the Horizon - Heroic - 46-52 | #183832 Save the Diver, Save the World - Vigilante - 25-30 | #245534 Condemning Croatoa - Villainous - 25-33 | #540585 Robolution - Villainous - 25-34 |

First Son · 09-06-2012 08:45 PM

Thank you for your arc reviews. I enjoyed morning coffie while reading them.

@1st. Son

Help Agent Martin in: A Favor for Liberty
AE arc #381565
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