I pulled out Welcome to Atlas Park on a level 4 Shield/SS tanker. Rereading Steele_Magnolia's comments about it, she admits that it's pretty much just a grind to get the first few levels out of the way. That's about all it is. You meet your contact who says (paraphrased) "Hey, welcome to Paragon City. Go beat stuff up in Atlas Park." Then you go to Atlas Park and beat stuff up. I noticed an Arachnos ship parked outside City Hall and was momentarily excited at the thought of some sort of raid or attack but... nope. Only crime Arachnos was guilty of today was double-parking.
Beyond that, there's a few patrol texts that are good for a chuckle and... that's it. It's a kill all with the stock newbie factions. If this was a "real" arc, I'd have given it 2 stars but, since it's just for grinding on, I'll refrain from judging it as I would a normal mission.
I would actually appreciate it if you gave mine a shot and left me a little critique. Look up # 216693. I've played it with a level 20, 12, and 5, and I feel that it works rather well. If you are interested in the story, it leaves at quite the cliffhanger, due to the fact that I am working on far more. It is 3 missions long, so shouldn't take too long, especially at low levels.
Please rate when you are finished. And again, I'd appreciate any critique as this is my first arc.
Things are a bit jumbled so here's my queue as I understand it:
Bricked Electronics
Trollbane
Tangle in Time
Dead & the Damned
Party Like It's 4940 Degrees
Also, without titles, there's a "Doctor Nadir" arc in there and #216693.
I'm going to try to handle those in roughly that order, exceptions being made for arc length vs how late it is at night. If I missed anyone, let me know. Right now, I'm sticking to arcs produced by the posters in this thread so the ones actively soliciting feedback can get some.
Also, this isn't a QPQ arrangement but all ya'll feel free to play my arcs anyway and let me know what you think 
Try #1945: Positron's Task Force: the Remix. The enemy groups are Hellions, Skulls, and CoT, so it's playable as low as level 1. Nothing higher than an Lt.
Plus, you can tell your friends, "Hey I soloed Posi at level 10!!!"
Knocked out Bricked Electronics (#2180), a heist story which begins with some reconditioned cellphones that your contact can mutantly feel vestiges of data within. Your investigation into the phones' origins leads you on an arc through pawnshops, warehouses, caves and offices up the big ending. I almost hate to get into it too much because I'd just be giving stuff away.
The few custom mobs are nifty to look at and, for good or ill, fell quickly before the wrath of my lvl 11 MA/LR scrapper. Flavor text was amusing when it came up. I noticed a few areas where it seemed to be sparse but, by about the time I was wondering "Hey, why is this place silent?", I'd bump into someone with something to say. I did spend a moment wondering why, if you have a potential threat which requires three components to become a real threat, you can't just call it a day after taking out one component. But I guess you can't go about hero'ing half-heartedly.
Really, I can't come up with any criticisms of this arc that wouldn't be extremely petty. It's an older arc judging from its number and has obviously been polished up over time. Five stars for it. I've no idea how long it took me to complete because my wife pulled me away part-way through but it's definately not quick at 5 missions length.
I ran through the Nadir arcs this evening as everything else on my plate was listed as a Long or a Very Long. There's actually three separate arcs: Dr. Nadir & the Hellion Heist (49661), Dr. Nadir & the Clockwork Conflict (125942) and Dr. Nadir & the Vahzilok Vivification (145051). I only intended to go through one but they were all fast, single mission maps and went down, one after the other, like popcorn. All played on a lvl 9 DB/Regen scrapper and totalling perhaps 35min between the three of them.
Each arc is very simple -- Dr. Nadir is attempting some scheme and you need to stop him. They're largely dependant upon stock critters although there's a couple customs including the good doctor himself. There's no deep plots or mysteries here, just a comic style villain with progressively more grandiose plans. While not really humor arcs, they have some chuckles and certainly aren't anything to take seriously.
The three maps had a few eyebrow raisers -- if I came across napalm in a burning building I'd either carry it out of there or else quietly leave and board up the door, waiting for the problem to take care of itself. Either way, I'm not convinced that breaking open the canisters would be such a great idea. The 2nd arc "warehouse" isn't really much of a warehouse at all unless we're in the 25th century and the 3rd arc has some amusing patrol set-ups which lead to unusually chatty zombies. But it's all pretty minor stuff.
I half wondered why these weren't made separate missions within a single arc but, in a way, I'm glad they're not. Each one stands alone and if you're low on time just play one or two. You'll probably be back to finish the rest.
All three arcs were rated at four stars. Good fun but nothing groundbreaking.
I'm still working on through this but took most of the weekend off to play my main and recharge. My current queue consists of...
Tangle in Time
Dead & the Damned
Party Like It's 4940 Degrees
I tried Trollbane this weekend and was having an all right time of it, wavering between three and four stars depending on the moment when I hit the final mission. The first boss I came across absolutely destroyed me (lvl 9 DB/Regen Scrapper on Heroic). Then I bought a bunch of Inspirations and tried again. This time, instead of dying with the boss at 90%, I died with him at 80%. I tried once more, equally unsuccessfully, and gave up on it. It wasn't due to ambushes or anything (funnily enough, I think there was an ambush the first time when he engaged but the boss destroyed the ambush critters 
) but the boss himself was impossible for me.
Since everyone knows there's custom critter issues and everyone is in something of a holding pattern waiting on I15, I declined to rate the game at all. Up until then, it was pretty good, needs a good going over for spelling & grammar and the plot can be tightened up slightly but the ending boss(es) were the killer. I never even saw the rest of the bosses so I can't comment on them.
Oh, it wasn't the Illusion boss either. It was another boss I had fought (and defeated) previously who suddenly seemed ramped up in power.
That's... more than a little odd, given that it's exactly the same critter (unless it was the Bonemason, in which case it's exactly the same critter as the Baron, except with a different skin and text >.>.
And yeah, the ambush being hostile to the boss is working as intended 
Any plot suggestions from what you saw?
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
It was the CF boss. Strangely, the first time I came across him in the arc, he beat me. then I grabbed some inspirations, went in knowing what to expect and thrashed him. I think he was an orange con (I did not level or anything in the arc).
The second time, he was a red con and just demolished me. I couldn't even get to the point where it was reasonable to think "With a slight change in tactics and some luck, I'll beat this". I didn't think it was working as intended and just gave up.
Plotwise, and I'm away from my notes, I really liked the idea of the wraiths of fallen heroes being pressed into service or that something wicked was tearing through Supatrolls and spreading panic but... maybe I missed something but the ending reason seemed to just be "Skulls like killin' stuff and the trolls were there." The buildup seemed to beg for a much more grandiose vision.
On edit, I recall that the Skulls had some bigger plans in regards to making their own Skull-y Shangri-la but the Skulls/Trolls conflict is what felt flat. And that was the thing that was driving the story to begin with.
I say this knowing that I never completed mission #5 so I may have missed some dramatic twist.
For nice lowbie action you'll also enjoy "Wicked, Wicked Wonderland" #1224. All mobs are custom so it scales to whatever level you're playing; it's never "too hard" and you can't outlevel it.
However, if playing it, please don't review it. It continues to get hits and I don't want to ruin the story for anyone. Thanks.
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All three arcs were rated at four stars. Good fun but nothing groundbreaking.
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I'm glad you enjoyed them. I'm not sure I've ever gotten anything but four stars on any of them. One of these days I'll get around to making something more ambitious, but for now "good fun" is good enough.
I've often had people suggest that I combine them into one arc. The main reason I haven't is because, as you said, they're like popcorn. I like popcorn. I often find that I can only play for half an hour, or even less. My missions are perfect for me.
I've changed the map on the second mission many times. I'll double check the text to make sure it matches the map again. Thanks for pointing it out.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
Played though A Tangle in Time (2622) tonight on my lvl 9/10 (leveled partway through) DB/Regen Scrapper. Azuria is after still more artifacts to fill her vaults and sends you off to locate some time portal and disable it for transport with an amulet. When you do so, though, things start going bad in a hurry. You find yourself stuck in a... wait for it... tangle in time and it's hard getting yourself out when everyone else things that the time stream is just dandy.
I was skeptical of a time travel arc and might have even subconsiously put off playing this one because of that. If so, my subconscious is stupid and doesn't know a great arc when it sees one. I'm loathe to review this in too much depth because I hate to give stuff away but it was a great story and well deserved the five stars I gave it. Mission #3 was well executed but, unfortunately, I went linkdead just as I completed it so I missed Azuria's "Complete Mission" text.
Minor issue: The patrols in Mission #3 weren't close enough to me to target me and so they referred to me as "$Name".
Anyway, good times. If you haven't yet, play this arc. Despite it's "Long" rating, it took me under an hour to complete.
Huh... you know, you're the very first person to tell me that they had trouble with CF, Jophiel. I was actually thinking about tweaking him so he was tougher, because most folks were just sort of splatting him and moving on O.o
What difficulty level were you running on? The "recommend difficulty 1" in the description text is there for a reason, neh?
Also, there wasn't much of a twist... or much of a conflict, either- it was a systematic murder campaign on the part of the Skulls.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
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What difficulty level were you running on? The "recommend difficulty 1" in the description text is there for a reason, neh?
[/ QUOTE ]Heroic. Maybe I just suck that much but there was a definite ramp-up between mission #2 & #5. And a lvl 9 scrapper isn't exactly a bag of tricks that you'd be playing him differently between the two missions. I mean, there's no good reason why I'd have smeared him in #2 and found him a brick wall in #5. Something certainly seemed to have been up, hence my deciding not to rate it so I can give it a fairer shake the next time around.
I'll have to try it again sometime soon and see if the problem repeats itself.
Aye, thanks Jophiel. That's odd- the only variance that should have been possible is he could have spawned at +1, which I wouldn't expect to make that big of a difference (the arc is also recommended for 10-14, but unless you have a very shiny power coming up at 10, it shouldn't make that big a difference either).
I may poke around the innards of the arc, see if anything's gone wonky with the Custom Critters- wouldn't be the first time that's happened, although I thought I had just checked them not long ago... hmm.
Sorry for this, I hadn't expected it to be a headache like this 
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
I've got a lvl 13 MA/SR Scrapper so maybe I'll try running it with her and see if it goes any smoother.
Dead & the Damned is on queue for tonight. I've about exhausted my list so if anyone has other lowbie arcs they'd like played, post 'em here.
Sounds like you're just about in range for my arc:
Ctrl + Alt + Reset
lvl range: 15-30
enemies: Wyvern, and one custom boss with varied minions.
Description: Somewhat similar to Tangle in Time, although developed independently of each other, you are sent to a Wyvern hideout to retrieve a temporal artifact and you end up getting caught in a time loop. Now you have to figure how to get out of it.
I just want to mention that I'm using this list for my "all-AE" SG team. So far, I like everything I've tried! (Dr. Nadirs, the Fireside Poet.) Going to try a couple more of the mentioned arcs tonight.
Any good threads for 15-25 or so?
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Dead & the Damned is on queue for tonight. I've about exhausted my list so if anyone has other lowbie arcs they'd like played, post 'em here.
[/ QUOTE ]I've been both busy and lazy the last two nights. Hope no one was waiting on the edge of their seat. This is legitimately on queue for tonight.
Since you seem to be getting into a better range for my arcs, I'll throw them into the mix. They're all listed in my sig.
"Deal with the Devil's Pawn" is a single CoT mission that has a couple of custom chars, including the boss. He needed to be a mage for the story, so 'random' CoT didn't work right at all levels. If you can handle CoT, you should be able to handle this one, fairly easily. The boss might be a little tough, but not horrible. (fire caster)
The other 2 feature my custom enemy group, the Demon Spawn. 'Stolen Weapons' is a single mission & 'Meet...' is 4 missions. There are some axers and others with KB in the mix, so they can be a pain if you have little/no resistance to it. All of these customs are set on standard/standard difficulty, though.
All of the missions can be played from level 5-54. There are no EB/AVs in any of them. I hope you like them.
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
It Lurks Below! [ARC ID: 192922]
One-shot mission for levels 5-10. It's getting unpublished on the 25th, so play it while it lasts! 
The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
DJ Enigma's Puzzle Factory: Co* Parody Commercials
"To Settle A Bet" by @BBQ_Pork.
It's lowbie-friendly, using factions that are available at all levels (Security Guards and Longbow).
Fairly quick, a fair number of glowies.
Soloable.
Plot: A mad scientist from the Rogue Isles wants to play a prank on Paragon City, by turning a resevoir into a giant pool of lime Jello.
(Keyword in the description "LFMA" should make it easy to find.)
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I enjoyed Future Skulls quite a bit, but I felt that Simple Times needed a little something else to feel less like an extended goose chase.
I am not sure why you think the contact and player were being incompetent. Talshak was casting spells to find the artifact, the location would be revealed to him, and he sent you off to get it.
[/ QUOTE ]The "incompetance" remark was more tongue-in-cheek but I felt like it was a lot of "Go here and get this... whoops, just missed it" over and over (even if the reason I just missed it wasn't my own fault). Maybe if one of the missions was an unqualified success -- you obviously can't get the thing to stop the end mission but maybe finding something else which was exactly what you came looking for (a book with information, whatever).[ QUOTE ]
On mission 4 it sounds like you just got lucky. Or unlucky, as the case may be. I don't know why it didn't spawn more for you to fight, but I really don't have any control over that part.
[/ QUOTE ]I know. It was more of an observation than a real criticism.[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for running the arc and your review of it. I am holding off on editing either of my arcs or putting up the 3rd one until after I15. But it is always good to get other POV.
[/ QUOTE ]I15 can't come quickly enough