Coulrophobia (Fear of Clowns) Arc #1178 Feedback

Name: Coulrophobia (Fear of Clowns)
Arc ID: 1178
Poster 1
Poster 2
Heroic
Missions: 5
Difficulty: Group recommended. I have known some to solo this but it is rather difficult...find some friends. The arc is "difficulty setting sensitive" so if you want an easy ride or want to smell the roses more stay around Diff 1 but if you want to show off you and your friends awesome skills try cranking it up. It starts relatively tame and increases in length and difficulty as the missions progress. At the proper settings and team size you will see EBs and AVs in the last two missions.

Description: Positron hates clowns; so help the guy out! A famous scientist from Paragon City has gone missing and signs point to the Carnival of Shadows. Or could it be a mysterious new troupe that is trying to break into Carnie territory?

Note: The original feedback thread was eaten in a recent forum purge, but I have tweaked the arc based on feedback in the past (descriptions, tweaked some difficulties on certain mobs, etc). The arc had also suffered from some strange HTML error in a default decription for carnies and was unplayable without my knowledge for quite a while, which explains why the feedback thread ended up purged.

Anyway, I'm about ready to start a sequel and wanted to get this out for anymore feedback and just to share the arc with others. It's about clowns so it is a little silly but it also can serve your "challenge" needs as well. Hey, it has mimes with caltrops! What's not to love?

Enjoy.

One more time. This arc is very difficulty sensitive. Heroic (Lvl 1) will be rather normal but as you increase the difficulty it will get significantly harder. The mobs can be frustrating and challenging even in easy mode, be warned....they are clowns!

Edit- rolling edits due to feedback.

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@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff

Someone say Mimes? I'm in!
..Someone say caltrops? i'm out!

lol nah, I
ll give it a go now.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Oh dear.

Im terribly sorry, but I havent enjoyed myself as much as I'd hoped with your arc.

I just played through it for about an hour, writing a quite detailed review as i went, got to the last mission, used a Shivan on Barker, did 2 of the machines, and then I suffered a Mapserver disconnect and my computer crashed and I lost the review. None of that's the fault of the arc, of course, but let me explain in brief what I thought of it up till then.

Basically it started great and gradually got worse, for me. I played it on my 50 en/en/fire blaster. thank God for Rise of the Phoenix.

Your clowns look fantastic and I love their rhyming bios. but I hate their powersets. The three of them together were horrible. Too hard.

I think generally that's my biggest beef with the arc. I played at diff lvl 1 and i found the mobs irritatingly difficult. Webs, devices - can they see through stealth? By the end mission i hated them.

But I still kept on, because i liked the premise and there were often parts of the writing that made me laugh. I loved the idea of the Egg Registry - nice to see someone doing research for an arc - and was Olivia any relation to Francois?

But the damn difficulty is awful. Heaven knows what sort of hardcore uber player you're used to. At diff 1 I shouldn't be getting 2 shotted by orange bosses, which is what happened when i met Hobo Joe.

After the DC, I went back in, determined to finish and give you a fair rating - but then I met the player-killer that is Who's There. Maybe I'm a wimp, but it's impossible for me to beat him. I have to quit.

Others may differ, and that's fine, but in my opinion, a 50 en/en blaster should be able to solo any non-challenge match labelled story arc in the MA. I'd be very interested in knowing what you tested it with.

I'm gutted, because your customs look really nice, and if they were a little less hard, they'd be spot on (for my level, remember). The story is fine, too, although I sometimes felt that you added a bit too much stuff to the missions - The decoy books were unnecessary i thought, and the captives in the cave mission didnt add anything. There's a lot of objectives in the last mission too, that arent exactly connected. That said, Clowns vs Carnie is a no-brainer, really, and you delivered all that I could expect. Oh, I really liked the mission where you have to rescue the carnie illusionist. That was great.

So, to sum up: Customs look wonderful, they're a bit too hard, story fine to great, maybe needs a polish, bosses a brick wall for this player.

I'll still have a go at your next arc, even with my unfortunate experience here. Clowns rock.

Eco.

PS I didnt notice any caltrops lol

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

When I saw you step up and say you were running this (knowing you are a solo/duoist mostly) I almost warned you again.

[ QUOTE ]
Group recommended but can be solo'd.

[/ QUOTE ]

While I've known blasters to solo this arc, I personally don't think of them as solo toons, sorry blasters. And yeah the powersets can be frustrating (much like clowns) but a friend or two along for the ride (esp a controller) will really make a lot of those annoying powers...........well less annoying. But I give you tons of credit for getting far and thank you for the positive and negative feedback and will amend my OP just a bit to reflect some of your concers.

[ QUOTE ]
I loved the idea of the Egg Registry - nice to see someone doing research for an arc - and was Olivia any relation to Francois?


[/ QUOTE ]


Thanks, I did do some research on clowns and clown culture and all of the custom names are related to historical clowns and when I read about the clown registry I knew I had to use that concept in the arc. Thanks for noticing.


[ QUOTE ]
But the damn difficulty is awful. Heaven knows what sort of hardcore uber player you're used to. At diff 1 I shouldn't be getting 2 shotted by orange bosses, which is what happened when i met Hobo Joe.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah I do run with a crowd that likes a challenge; the harder the better. My first live trip through this arc was with 7 other regulars on my server the day MA went live and to be honest it was way way way too easy; I think we were on the last mission in under 30 minutes....I'm talking steamroller here. Not an optimised team, mostly people's mains looking for badges. I tested it with various versions of teams, and a bit through solo on my FF defender but to be honest that (solo) was just running through the mission to see if everything is where they should be.

The Hobo Joe issue- I'll definitely look into that after work. I dropped his diff down recently and will double check that it "stuck" or maybe even drop it down more if possible. To be fair he hasn't really been an issue before but I'll definitely look into it. Definitely not intended to 2 shot you as a boss.

Didn't see caltrops??? The mimes throwing the web grenades should have been tossing the 'trops as well....and yes they see through stealth with their targetting drones. Not intended but a side effect of their secondary.

Now I'll be honest, you aren't the first to complain about the difficulty but it seems to be more of a soloist thing than a "truely" hard issue. It is a challenge and I won't deny that one bit. I think maybe a little stronger warning and maybe a more accurate description will help, because I do like the challenge portion of the sets.

Thanks bunches for taking the time though. Any input is helpful.

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@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff

Qr - you know, now I see that 'group recommended' and realize I must have just blanked it out the first time lol. That's a solo mentality for you!

/sheepish grin

Tell you what, when I get MCM all purpled out I'll tale some more shivajs and some nukes in

Eco

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Ok, I did drop Hobo Joe down a notch so he won't have build up. I also took some of Who's There?'s defenses down a notch.

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@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff