Zamuel's Exciting Arcs of Adventure

Since the forum purge deleted my other thread, I've decided to create a new combined thread for my current and any future arcs created. While I'm blatantly advetising, I'm always open to feedback. The comments given have certainly helped improve my work over time. I have one arc Live as I await the changes I15 will bring.

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Arc Name: Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue
Arc ID: 163967
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Zamuel
Difficulty Level: Medium. Fluctuates a bit based on where certain enemies spawn and in which amounts.
Synopsis: [SFMA] Your best friend's father has been known throughout the neighborhood for the quality of his restaurant which is run inside the Lucky Six Casino. However, someone has a sinister plan to shut him down...permanently. -Originally created as a project for Simulation & Game Development @ CPCC-

Designed as a final for one of my courses in the Simulation & Game Development curriculum, it is a character story done in a way to put the player's character in a role that would have otherwise went to the character Chocolate Rage.

Feedback gladly appreciated.

My latest arc was part of a self imposed challenge to attempt to make an interesting arc with just one mission. If your villain is tired of the staff in the Rogue Isle's hospital talking trash, this is for you.

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Arc Name: Illpracticed Malpractice
Arc ID: 246459
Faction: Villainous
Creator Global: @Zamuel
Synopsis: Fed up with the audacity of the medics in the Rogue Isles, a law firm hires you to kidnap the Chief Resident so that he can't escape being sued for the shoddy treatment in the hospital.

Feedback gladly appreciated.

@GlaziusF

Alright, time for some light comedy on a busy day.

DB/fire brute in the mid 40s on diff 2 for real boss fightin'. Let's see what this is.

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Well, "kidnap some guy" is basically a paper mission. Let's see how this all shakes out.

Ah, the asylum. Interesting choice. A torture to lead someone through because of all the walls.

Hmm. The Arachnos rescue seems to spawn about four patrols that all say the same thing. I'd suggest one vocal and three silent, myself.

Similarly for the resident rescue. Unfortunately it's not as interesting as it could be as they all spawn out of line-of-sight.

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Storyline - ***. This is basically on the strength of the setpieces rather than the contact-presented plot, and there are basically two here, aside from the spawned patrols which just hammer the same thing over and over. I was kinda expecting more crazy crap, like cybersurgeons installing Windows ME into a robot villain for kicks, or somebody running a Superadine still on the side, or ritual sacrifice of a Snake to invoke the protection of Hermes on the next doomed operation, or hilarious and terrible patient files strewn all about the place. As it is I just get people standing around and snarking.

Design - ***. Points for the med staff, all of whom have credible but distinct powersets. I especially appreciate the nurse's Darting Hummingbird Work Avoidance style. Minus points for the asylum, since it's only three floors and some of them short ones I think it really restricted what you could bring to the table in terms of boss locations and other interactables. An office works fine as a hospital's administrative section.

Gameplay - ****. Popping a bunch of patrols in after the last rescue brought some system chug along with. Other than that, pretty simple.

Detail - ****. Minimal but serviceable descriptions on the customs and the boss. But I'll say again, this map really needed more stuff to do.

Overall - ***. Rounding down on this one. It feels like a modestly tweaked ordinary kidnap mission rather than a comedic look at the nefarious goings-on behind closed doors in the Rogue Isles medical system.

Both arcs have gotten a decent amount of edits and are awaiting anxious players to critique them.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a high 30s arch/energy blaster, diff 2 for actual boss fights, however inadvisable. Let's see how this solos.

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Okay, nice 80's movie setup here, let's have a look.

Fast-food-powered evildoers. i've seen weirder. And oh child, but that is a giant pile of takeout.

You got some duplicate clues goin' on with the coupons dropping. The end mission clue and the hostage rescue clue say almost the same thing.

Exit popup: "This dish is far from done with the scum that lingers." That's... that's definitely an 80's movie line of the terribad variety.

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Pretty standard warehouse rescue.

Getting a sense for how the enemy group works, since the three or so spawns in the first mission weren't really a representative sample.

There's unexpectedly a lot of variety among the assistant managers, and the minions have funny fast-food powersets. I don't quite get the psyblast on Sweetener, though. Maybe energy blasts (though I love the poison backup).

Though really it would be more hilarious if all the minions were assistant managers considering the average fast food structure.

I was expecting a final clue about the state of the food supplies, like maybe they'd all been deep-fried and flash-frozen already.

Not what they mean when they say "irradiated food", I guess.

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Huh. This destruction makes passable burn marks.

...a minion? Man, I wonder if she'll even make it to the boss.

She does, actually. The boss is an apparently normal boss with a very mascotty costume, but I'm expecting a wrinkle after I find Rider. It seems like it's not over yet...

Ah, yep. Boss fight round 2.

For some reason she's harder than the King because of the massive -def from the henchmen and the controls coupled with the recharge slow.

Hmm. You might be able to put some ally cops into the mission after she goes down, to start in on the conversation.

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Storyline - ***. Something out of order here. You'd think the whole "irradiated crime against nature" thing would come up a little earlier, along with the power source of the many employee minions. My contact has a history with these people, right?

Design - ****. Pretty solid power work for the customs. Fire armor is pretty control-proof, though, so you might want to just turn that into a fire aura with another armor set. And consider different jackets for the managers? I'd like to be able to prioritize locking down the forcefield-chucker who can stun me.

Gameplay - ****. Did a lap around the map looking for the hostage. To be fair, I was expecting him to be in an otherwise empty room on the first floor so I overlooked him, but still.

Detail - ****. Simple but solid work.

Overall - ****. An interesting idea for an arc, needs a little more distinctiveness among the minions, maybe don't bother with chaining the rescue since you're not likely to have the chained boss jump you somehow.

Arc 163,967, Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue, @Zamuel

I've played this arc before. No great surprise, as it reminds me of one of mine - it has almost the same votes and rating, is a comedy, and has 3 maps (a medium length arc). I rated this arc a 4 last time, but that was a while ago, and I rated it a potential 5 since it has been updated. I felt there was still some polish to go around the edges, but it's a very enjoyable arc for the 20-25 level range. No EB or AV (but has some custom powers), just a homey, hero-worthy plot. It's definitely not for vegetarians, although both fast-food-fans and anti-fast-food zealots might find something in this one.

It has some great food references. They're not "whack over the head" puns, which is nice. "This dish is far from done with the scum that lingers." definitely put a bad taste in my mouth, although I couldn't say exactly why.

What can I say? It is a Fun Filled Family Feud Featuring Fried Food. I really enjoyed the story. The stuff below is nit-picks, the story actually runs pretty smoothly.

Cheers, airhead


It says that the warehouse secretary has "been through weirder..." - perhaps her description could indicate she appears to be the same woman who was caught up in the such-and-such heist last year (presumably explaining why her picture was in the papers). Otherwise, this is just a really strange thing to say.

The Cleaver is described as cutting large slabs of meat for burgers. Perhaps she'd be better suited to preparing ribs, since burgers are minced.
Disasta Recipe's liking for farm fresh tomatoes escapes me. It might be a reference to a fast food commercial, or it might just be 'one of those things' - which I found a lot of in this arc. Note, you don't have to go explaining all of these, I'm just mentioning them because they stood out.
The Family Rivalry clue says that Disasta sneered "cousin", so there was no way she's lying. About what? That she has the recipe for disaster? This could be a bit clearer. Indeed, the exit popup says that my contact has some explaining to do. The real confusion is that I'm supposed to know Disasta isn't lying because she sneered, but she didn't say who her cousin was at all.
Oh yeah. "Beefed up security". Heh.

Mission 3. Tira said rescuing her dad comes first, but once in the mission my only objective is to defeat King Colonel. The dad objective comes later. Perhaps tweak the mission introduction to allow for this?
I like the optional objective, Mega Grand Order of Explosive Chicken Combo (although the title runs off the side of the window somewhat)
If King Colonel's food glows, because KC is radioactive, perhaps you could give the KC toon a glow aura.

When M3 is completed, you get a clue. But the clue is not at the end of the list of clues, the Mega Grand Order comes after. You could have this be in a better order two ways: (1) change the clue to be an end-of-mission clue, instead of an objective clue, or (2) change the order of the objectives so the escort comes last (drag and drop now possible for the order of objectives in the mission editor).

Typos:
M2 Forklift Driver captor dialogue: Explosive Chicken combo meal <-- needs a period on the end
M2 Warehouse secretary: description needs a period on the end
M2 return message: which why -> which is why
Family Rivalry Clue: remove period from Clue title (to be consistent with your other clues). Apparantly -> Apparently
King Colonel's description: and blames -> and he blames
In the final clue, Tyrone Rider is described as "Your best friend's father". It might not be in keeping with my backstory to assume Tira Rider is my best friend.
M3 exit pop-up: showing of mercy -> show of mercy

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
Massively.com opinion poll: Please Help Save CoH!

I had hoped to make a fancy invitation letter for this but never got a chance. Still, I hope you enjoy...

Arc Name: An Arachnos Slumber Party
Arc ID: 335317
Faction: Villainous
Creator Global: @Zamuel
Synopsis: You're invited to the first ever Arachnos Slumber Party! Get ready for a fun filled night of snacks, entertaining activities, and conversations about destruction and mayhem. Don't be late.

Illpracticed Malpractice is now using a new map which I think is structured a little better. A few tweaks with optional objectives have been made also.

@GlaziusF

Review done as part of the CoHMR Aggregator protect.

Taking this one on with my low-40s merc/TA mastermind, who fights bosses but is otherwise old diff 1.

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Ah, a giant new giant corrupt hospital in Mercy, and I get to fight through all of it. Keen.

Also keen: the little aside in the bug text. Very nice.

For some reason the mission caps me at 35. Ah, it's because of the repurposed Crey. Fair enough.

There's a little more incidental detail in here, which is nice, but the key to being funny is to be unnecessarily specific. Vague details like "things being done to Arachnos soldiers" or "a long list of grievances; some of it makes you angry" would fit pretty well in a more serious arc, but this is a joke.

The arrangement of the final room tucks the boss surgeon in a corner behind the captive, which is a rather problematic arrangement. He doesn't seem to be as important, so why not put him a bit more towards the middle?

Weirdness with the vengeful villains: they beat each other up. I guess they're all coded "rogue" so they'll fight the hospital staff, but that means they also tear each other apart.

And because I've got Tactics running the doc goes running off to wave hello at everybody. Fortunately I can grab aggro with a quickness.

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Storyline - ****. The thing I most want out of the story is more of it. Move of the malpracticed-on villain group, specifically. Since I encounter them in a situation where it's not really to my benefit to take my time looking at them/reading their descriptions, I never really get a sense for them. A second mission where they're raiding the law offices because their share of the settlement amounted to a coupon for a free Coal Burger would go over pretty well.

Design - ****. The derelict lab is a much nicer setting, with the only real quibbles here being the placement of the boss - as it is he has a chance to be in the same room as the doctor, which doesn't bode well for his survivability if the fights trigger together - and the rogue con on the vengeful villains, which means they can often clear each other out. I'd make them enemy con, and maybe have one of them shouting about how if the chief resident goes down that means promotions all around. Maybe put in an ally hospital worker who turns at that point too with a "they've got a point, doc" kind of sentiment.

Gameplay - ***. I didn't notice it before because I was playing on a rather resistant character, but you've got minions with control powers in the nurse (illusion) and sorceress (ice). Given that they can show up in duplicates, that's rather a pain.

Detail - ****. Generic details are informative, not funny. And the imported Crey need their descriptions rewritten, unless they're supposed to be "on loan from Crey".

Overall - ****. Moving the map made a pretty nice difference, and the extra detail helps realize the whole thing a little better. The only problem is now I want another mission.

Arc Name: Dhahabu Kingdom and the Indelible Curse of Hate
Arc ID: 367872
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global: @Zamuel
Synopsis: A hero's work with the Portal Corporation doesn't just spread through Paragon. Other dimensions need help as destiny has decreed you to be their savior. Aid Queen Auri as the Dhahabu Kingdom fights to stop an evil curse from destroying all she holds dear.

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I'd like to thank everyone who helped me test and edit this arc. It feels so good to finally have it finished. Hopefully those who tested it will rate it now that it's officially published

Biggest thing the arc has going for it is that I like the characters and the look of all the mobs, contact, etc. Unique and makes good use costumes and the maps.

1st Mission: Two of your hostages were not visible until I saved them, but the third was. One of the invisible ones was the king. Not sure if that's a regular occurrence, or what.

Rather than having the king give a clue about hiding away as he feels the curse, I wonder if it might be better to have him say it via dialogue upon saving him? Might work better, but it could get buried in a team, I suppose.

Might also be good to work on the dialogue in the clues from the two hostages... feels a bit more like showing rather than telling... I'd like to hear the hostages say it somehow. Will give it more color.

Mission 2: I assume you want the boss to be at the front and lower level than the character? Just checking to be sure.

I think your map choice is as good as it can be for this one. I always wish we could get more of a jungle map without having to swim, though.

Mission 3: Opening one of the chests was pretty long... I like it to be a little faster, but that's up to you. The mobs that came after that didn't give any rewards, either (gravity mobs... they phased me at first, too... just making sure you want that). So... I'm not sure about this mission. You have no rewards at all for the little fighting you do, and running around a blue cave looking for glowies isn't usually a good idea of fun, heh. Might be worth having more mobs and ambushes in there, just to liven it up a bit. I can see other people not liking this for the lack of rewards.

I like having glowies unlock other glowies, but I wonder if the "portal avatar" shouldn't ambush after you make the incantation. I had to hunt around for a glowie again after that, and it seemed like it should have been a reaction to that that brought the avatar out.

Mission 4: Wonder if Chuikzu (sp?) should be a little different. He mostly just took a long while to kill. Ambushes are tried and true, of course, but there might be other options.

Mission 5: I like the use of this map (as well as your other ones, other than maybe the 3rd one, heh)... the soul freeing/killing map, eh? Pretty good encounter for what it was, too. The king was an okay challenge, but maybe there are some other things you could do to make him tougher as well. Hard to balance that, though, but it feels like he should be a rougher fight, given what the queen said earlier.

Overall, it was good! I don't have too much time to comment right now, but those were the biggest things.

Wasn't trying to ignore you, was just a little busy.

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Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim Mission 3: Opening one of the chests was pretty long... I like it to be a little faster, but that's up to you. The mobs that came after that didn't give any rewards, either (gravity mobs... they phased me at first, too... just making sure you want that). So... I'm not sure about this mission. You have no rewards at all for the little fighting you do, and running around a blue cave looking for glowies isn't usually a good idea of fun, heh. Might be worth having more mobs and ambushes in there, just to liven it up a bit. I can see other people not liking this for the lack of rewards. I like having glowies unlock other glowies, but I wonder if the "portal avatar" shouldn't ambush after you make the incantation. I had to hunt around for a glowie again after that, and it seemed like it should have been a reaction to that that brought the avatar out.

Some of the clickies are effectively a wrong choice and the timer is to reflect that and give the player a chance to break away instead of getting the ambush. So the ambush not giving rewards but not actually being that dangerous either is WAI. I may need to tweak things in the mission though it is purposely supposed to be a cooldown/quiet mission of sorts.

In other news, I've got a banner for Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue and am thus featured over at http://www.cohmissionreview.com for all would like to post their opinions of it over there as well.

Heh, I was thrown off by the long click on one of the chests, though. I didn't want to fight the mob again, but it turned out I needed to click on that one to get the Avatar to come after me... so I'd still tweak that somehow.

I wonder if you could do a bit more story with the clickies in that mission... Grossman's new arc delivers some interesting stuff in the dialogue from glowies, so it might be worth giving that a try.

Wish me luck: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=208098

Dhahabu Kingdom and the Indelible Curse of Hate has received some changes in the final missions. Part of it is enemy buffing while another part is thematic changes to select customs. I'd like to see what people's opinion of these will be, especially on teams. I don't think either will be that big of a deal solo unless you're running with x9 spawns.

Part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a mid-20s stone/stone brute. 2 villains with boss fights, even level and no AVs.

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Kalinda wants to make sure everybody's ready to fight before they party down. ...guess I better use the soft mallets then.

Huh. Purple widows and fortunatas? Are these Aeon University school colors?

Anyway, looks like I get to deliver a rough initiation to an SR custom in red armor, and restock the base fridge for free.

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And now to investigate these odd premonitions Kalinda's been having.

Prank call! ...uh, I look into the clues tab for who I might have called, but just get a little comment about being careful. Did I accidentally ring security?

Nice costumes on them, though. Cage or RIP?

I maneuver through the halls, looking for interesting things to see, and I spot a lot of them... including a Tarantula Mistress with a hostile escort?

Oh, coffee to die for. I get that. But these are pretty empty halls. ...though I guess wandering ally patrols would spring the Tarantula.

Oh dear. Seance gone wrong. Nice skin color there, very Oz.

And a pillow fight with a Night Widow who seems unclear on the concept of "nonlethal".

The clues suggest that I'd meet her first, then Jenny, then the witch. I don't know how much ordering you did there, but I went Jenny/Witch/Widow.

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Oh god rumors and infighting. Time to show people the business end of my rumor stick.

Many of the same NPCs show up from last mission. Same map, too.

And at the end of it all... the Freakshow. Yeah, they're on parties like white on rice. Though this seems to be more of a splinter movement... within Arachnos? of people in cosmetic armor.

Nice design work there, by the by.

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Somebody called an abandoned base? ...oh, for the lovva Pete.

Oh. Okay, this wasn't my prank call gone way wrong. This was something else entirely. Though I do appreciate the help against the lady Freaks.

And... oh dear. It seems Kalinda has caused the very situation which she foresaw! Foresight's a real bear like that.

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Storyline - ****. If you can accept the idea of an Arachnos slumber party there's nothing in here that'll throw you. (And if not, the heck are you doing playing an arc called "An Arachnos Slumber Party"?) The tweest at the end is a pretty classic one, too. But I've got to wonder: where are the Freakshow in all this? Not the new Freak fan faction. The Freaks are basically cybernetic frat boys -- you'd think they'd be a little more enthusiastic crash this party than the one please-boss-don't-shoot-me specimen who shows up.

Design - *****. Mostly this is for the Freak fans, who are very well realized, with good use of tech armor to fake up cybernetics. The partying versions of various Arachnos personnel are passably done, though just a suggestion for the recolors -- if you're trying to represent pajamas with the alternate color, you might want to try making the top and bottom different colors. Don't know how possible that is, though.

Gameplay - ***. I don't know if this was just the stone melee speaking, but the Fortunata minion/lieutenants and Wolf lieutenants (with their web grenades) pretty much killed my attack chain. Pretty frustrating. No boss fights were that unreasonable, but with the wrong arrangement of enemies in the custom partiers I was pretty well stymied.

Detail - ****. Some nice humorous touches in the system text and description messages. Generally it was entertaining to pay a little more attention.

Overall - ****. The story's silly but self-awaredly so, so it's not much of a stumbling block, but the power mix on the initial customs can be a bit frustrating, and I don't know why the stock Freakshow don't have a better role.

Campus security was recolored RIP. I also changed the LTs from Devices to Willpower since it was mentioned a few other times that it might be a smidge too much -recharge. Thanks again for the review.

For those who have run Dhahabu Kingdom and the Indelible Curse of Hate, what do you think can be done to improve the third mission? The attempt to do something different makes it interesting but there's key things that can be problematic. I think the main thing is being as blatant as possible about the need to read the clues (and thus save yourself grief with the ambushes). Still, what else can be done to it?

Big thanks on the review and sorry for the delay in replying. Tweaking things for I17. Switched out the Storm Shaman for the Avalanche Shaman due to multiple requests. Removed Life Drain on Chikuzi and removed Blinding Feint from King Aurus. Made a lot of small tweaks here and there but a lot could not be done due to the way xp scales with the new custom options.

Some things were done rather deliberately within the story but I will be reviewing some of it due to your comments. Mainly tweaking the wording on the prophecy. Also, thanks for catching the typo on "essence". Don't think anyone else commented on that.

When more people complain about a boss than a blue cave things may need looking over.

Anansi has been lowered from an EB to a boss while the spawn around him has been buffed. This change actually allows me to raise the arc's max level to 50+ so those who find him too easy with this change have better options for buffing the mission. Plus, I tweaked the wording of one clue.

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Also, my Handyman thread is still open for submissions.

Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue has recently received revisions.

The End of Saturday Morning has been changed to Final. I almost don't want to but the changes I'd like to make involve things unavailable in the MA so it's done until then.

An Arachnos Slumber Party and Dhahabu Kingdom and the Indelible Curse of Hate have also been set to final. Really hope we get some useful features come I18 for tightening up our arcs.