LaserJesus' Crucible of Unforgiving Criticism

If you're looking for stuff to do, LJ, Backwards Day and Malta: Impossible are out there, in addition to all the other arcs. Though they're both higher-level so any pistols character you might have made won't be much good at them.

Unless you only do one per author, in which case, please ignore.

That's okay. I'm wasn't too committed with them anyway. At least the silver lining in this is the whole review thing sparked up a couple of changes in the arc. A few minor rewrites here and there based on some of the stuff here. Some were kinda pre-existing ideas that I had considered but never really implemented. I took the arc down for a bit of work on it for now and hopefully I'll get it back up by the weekend.

I'd love some critique on my arc. I actually made it a fair while back when Architect was first introduced, but recently cleaned it up a tad and republished it.

Arc Title: Tea Time
Arc ID: 382636
Morality: Neutral
Range: 1-54
Length: 3 missions
Synopsis: A group of rather dapper gentlemen have decided to do the worst crime possible: Attempt to control tea time for both villains and heroes alike! If they are not stopped rather fast-like, this could spell the end of (tea) time itself!

Oh. I'm rather disappointed now. I thought it was a "Laser Crucible of Unforgiving Criticism", but now I see it's just a plain old Crucible of Unforgiving Criticism it seems a bit boring. Ah well, I suppose I should submit my arc regardless I'm looking forward to the unforgiving criticism, [mumble]but it doesn't have lasers...[/mumble]

Arc Name: Look Closer
Arc ID: 382760
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Beyond Reach
Synopsis: 12/9/04. Paragon City suffers still from the Rikti attacks 3 years ago, many remain homeless, cowering from innumerable threats. This is the story of one such individual who lived in the darkest depths of Paragon, and through him how the populace's ignorance almost lead to their destruction.
Estimated Time to Play: Very Long (there is also a great deal of text to be read)
Notes: LOOK CLOSER! Things are far from as simple as they appear. And in your review, please give your opinion on how you felt about the antagonist at the end.

Recently came back to City of Heroes after a year or so away, revamped my Epic Trilogy (cue dramatic music), which are set in a fantasy world. (Arc IDs in my sig)

I've soloed it with a 20s dual sword/willpower brute (and a 30s fire/dark scrapper) at: bosses yes, level +0, x2 difficulty.

I'd appreciate reviews and commentary, thank you!

Dhahabu Kingdom and the Indelible Curse of Hate
Arc ID: 367872
Author: @Zamuel
Rating: 5 stars

Short Version
An arc that has quite possibly the best title I've ever read and a really great aesthetic that eventually won me over completely despite some major and minor issues with difficulty.

Plot Synopsis
Queen Auri of the Dhahabu Kingdom from an alternate Earth has sent a message through dimensions asking for your help to save her people from a curse that is causing people to become filled with insane rage.

Story
The plot itself is good enough and makes sense; the overall arc of the story doesn't do anything mind-blowing, but does what it sets out to do. However, the style of the whole thing is great. I love the alternate Earth the arc is set in. None of this was explicitly stated, but this Earth's society seems to have evolved in such a manner that ancient African cultures remained dominant. Everyone you'll see has dark skin tones and are dressed like they're either from an Egypt-esque society or an ancient African tribe. The nerd in me started thinking of scenarios where this Earth gets more direct sunlight than Primal Earth, making it so the genetic mutation that caused people's skin to get lighter in areas further north of the equator never happened; the kingdoms of Africa never fell out of power and eventually took Europe and China's place as the societies that ended up conquering and colonizing much of the world, and more. Again, all of that is rampant speculation, and I think it's a good thing. There's really not a good way to lay out all this kind of stuff in an MA arc and have it not feel like I'm having exposition crammed down my throat. Plus, speculation is fun.


Then again, that's not necessarily a BAD thing...

The world's technology level seems to be a fantasy 1700s level; I don't want to say steampunk because it definitely is not that aesthetic; with magic being more common. The author uses custom enemies and recolored standard enemies to great effect to achieve the style, and the names of the enemies and their descriptions and just the whole thing in general is just really immersive and just plain cool. Only real hitches in the recolored enemies are due to limitations of the system (Arachnoid arms apparently don't inherit the skin color, the contact headshot in the window doesn't inherit the colors) or one very specific case where a dark-skinned Steel Strongman had dark red pants in low lighting, and well, from a far distance this occurred:


Okay, I am REALLY glad they invented pants. Though, that's not really much better.

Did I mention the title? God dammit, I really love that title.

Only typos that stuck out enough for me to notice and remember were a couple instances of missing punctuation in the accept text. Just stuff like periods missing on the end. However, speaking of that, at first I was confused why the accept text was also included in the send-off text but then I realized that it's there so a team can see it. The accept text is your character saying something, all pretty generic stuff that any hero would reasonably say like "Alright, I'll help you" or "Maybe Spider King Anansi has something to do with it." (Again, great names. Makes everything seem really awesome and pulpy.) A team wouldn't get to see that otherwise, so that's a pretty awesome touch. I wish I had the room to steal that for all of my arcs, but I have a bad habit of running up against the character limit. However, the Drakule arcs all have a bit of room, and some of that accept text is pretty funny...

Mission three was really light on the text. Two clues, like one or two things of system text, ambush dialogue, that's pretty much it. It feels like space might be an issue here, and there used to be things that got cut out. However the mission feels really dry, especially since the map spawns empty; as it should. System text on all of the glowies and dialogue for the boss would make it feel far more polished. Some of Queen Auri's dialogue could use some punching up as well. It's not bad, but she could use some more characterization. Right now she doesn't quite feel like a unique character with a unique personality.

Mechanics
All of the missions are relatively short with great map choices for all of them. Well, the third one was too easy, since it takes place in an abandoned mine, which CoH has about a thousand of. However, some of the custom enemies and custom groups are a recipe for aggravation. The first mission doesn't really have issues. None of those enemies are really bad in any manner. However, the second mission has a minion with web grenades, a minion with poison that has weaken, an LT with kinetics, and to top it off, one of the Arachnoid EBs as the mission's boss. That last one isn't really something I think should be changed, since it is a standard enemy (albeit an annoying one with all the regen) but the minions with web grenade and poison, though thematically appropriate, can easily get really damn annoying. Thankfully I was an SR scrapper so it never became an issue to me as I was dodging them, but someone with no defense who's playing on a big team or with higher difficulty settings is going to have some real issues with the constant heals, debuffs, and web grenade spam.

Mission 3's only enemies were a single renamed BP spirit mask and custom enemies that spawn as an ambush horde if you steal the sacred treasure from the treasure chests. You're warned not to do it by Queen Auri, and it gives you a long timer to change your mind, but due diligence and all that. The ambush is an all lieutenant group of gravity control/regen guys who had the reflections fly. Their gravity and regen are custom with some of their standard powers missing, but with some higher level powers that make them pretty beefy. Granted, they'd give out reduced XP anyway for being an all LT group, but fighting a tough enemy and not getting any rewards for it was a bit of a letdown. That's pretty nitpicky though, since you don't have to fight them all, but still. Something to think about.


Wait, did they throw one of their chests of sacred treasure at me? They don't revere it at all, they're just being dicks at this point.

Fourth mission has a custom group of all recolored enemies. The obvious choice, the Banished Pantheon Shaman shows up finally, but only Storm Shamans. The other LT is a recolored Steel Strongman, which will also drop some heavy -tohit on you. I'd suggest swapping out for an Avalanche Shaman instead. Still fits with the Corrupted Shaman's idea that they're nature shamans that have been magically compelled to do the villain's bidding and makes the -tohit less awful. The villain himself is Dark Blast/Willpower, willpower set to custom. He seems to just have the toggles, the autos, and strength of will. Unsure of whether he has the status protection or not. He does have blackstar, which I think is fine, since blackstar actually gets used at 25% health like a proper nuke tier 9, and at this high level I expect EBs and AVs to throw out some nukes every once in a bit.


Seriously man, I'm trying to do a thing here. Stop stealing my thunder.

Last mission also has issues. The only lieutenant in the custom group is mind control and has confuse. That will blast right through any positional defenses (like mine) and confuse on a lieutenant is pretty rough. Not a lot of people resist that, and there's going to be a lot of that flying around. The final EB in the arc is also way rough. Looks like he's dual blades/willpower, with what seems like every power but the self rez, thank god. This means he puts out tons of damage and has a ridiculous regen rate due to higher hit points from the first auto, +regen from the second, and then really dumb amounts of regen from rise to the challenge. He ate through both of the boss level allies you can optionally summon in the mission with no effort, and killed me a couple times thanks to his high amount of attacks and blinding feint and his mind control allies ignoring my defense. Had to bust out the archmage/geas combo on him to finally take him out. He should definitely be toned down. Rise to the challenge needs to go, and I'd take out blinding feint as well.

Final Thoughts
Despite some areas with the potential for some real headaches, this arc won me over with pure style. With some tightening up of the difficulty this arc would definitely be one of the best arcs I've played in MA. Good work.

I have extensively revamped my trilogy. It is back in the 'looking for feedback' category. Thanks!

Very glad you enjoyed the arc and the title fluctuated a bit in my head before the final published version. Mission 3 has always been a bit of difficulty in design since it is supposed to be the "quiet" mission but that causes it's own sets of problems. The Gravity Control ambush was a bit unique in that it was an attempt to make a "wrong choice" group that could actually be a hinderance for melee without being an instant kill for squishies.

I removed Rise to the Challenge from the final EB. The thing with the mission 4 and 5 end bosses is that I had gotten used to teams curb stomping them in their original forms when testing that I started to slowly buff them and their encounters. Problem there is that I didn't account for how it might affect some soloists. Mission 4 is probably fine but I may need to scale back mission 5 a tad.

OK, here goes:

* Arc Title: 7662 - The Labors of Rustam: The Cold and the Dark
* Arc ID: 54293
* Player Faction: Neutral
* Enemy Factions: Circle of Thorns, Snakes, Banished Pantheon, Rularuu, Devouring Earth, "Romans", Hydra, Winter Horde
* Creator Global ID: @Swami Monsoon
* Difficulty Level: Moderate > Hard (Ramps up in later missions, last mission is multi-AV nasty) Stock mobs, custom bosses
* Recommended Team Size: 1-8, Level 45-50
* Typical duration: 1 - 1.5 hours (5-mission arc)
* Arc Synopsis: You've received a message from Mender Mobius. Ouroboros operatives have detected a disturbance in the time stream. The date is approximately 650 B.C. The location is Ancient Persia...

-Emphasis on occult enemies, reason why becomes clear as plot unfolds...
-Obligatory attempt at world conquest but with lots of extra vileness thrown in (even Villains will derive a lot of satisfaction from beating these guys down)
-Hints at even greater Lovecraft/Dr. Strange type horrors...
-NPC hero (guess who) in every mission. Just be aware that NPC AI has been pretty sketchy in MA missions. When he's paying attention, however, he hits like a bus.
-You may need the help on the last mission. Did I mention the multiple AV's?
-Be sure to read clues/souvenirs/other mission text
-Warning: Contains cave maps. (For spooky atmosphere and because there are few outdoor maps that are not in an obviously modern setting) (Note for Smurphy: ...but they are all pretty linear, except for perhaps the last one.)
-Management is not responsible for harm to CoX canon or Persian mythology.

* Arc Title: 7662 - The Labors of Rustam II: Rustam and Sohrab
* Arc ID: 59243
* Player Faction: Neutral
* Enemy Factions: Devouring Earth, Warriors of Turan (custom group: think swords and sorcery)
* Creator Global ID: @Swami Monsoon
* Difficulty Level: Hard
* Recommended Team Size: 4-8, Level 45-50
* Typical duration: < 1 hour (single mission)
* Arc Synopsis: You've received a message from Mender Mobius. There's been another disturbance in the time stream. The Cold and the Dark are up to new mischief...

-One big outdoor mission (took up 89% of arc memory)
-Tough but perhaps not quite as nasty as last mission of previous arc
-2 AV's, numerous EB's
-Diverse, fairly tough custom faction
-Your favorite hero is back.
-May take a while solo. (Hint: find the hero first.)
-Ends in a cliffhanger.

* Arc Title: 7662 - The Labors of Rustam III: The Longest Day
* Arc ID: 78130
* Player Faction: Neutral
* Enemy Factions: Circle of Thorns, Banished Pantheon, Rularuu, Devouring Earth, Winter Horde, Undead Column (custom group: think decaying Nazis)
* Creator Global ID: @Swami Monsoon
* Difficulty Level: Hard
* Recommended Team Size: 1-8, Level 45-50
* Typical duration: 1 hour (3-mission arc)
* Arc Synopsis: After their efforts to alter the past are foiled, the fiends of the Cold and the Dark strike back in the present. In a daring raid, they attempt to kidnap the world's leading experts on time travel...

-Hectic, crowded missions, each with at least one AV or multiple EB's (and the same ally)
-Many of the same foes, now in a modern setting
-Ends with a twist.