Thanks for reviewing my fourth "Galactic Protectorate" arc, GlaziusF 
I'm glad to see you enjoyed this installment more than the previous one. 
The general consensus (based on the feedback I've received) is that my "Galactic Protectorate" arcs contain enemies which are much more difficult than the usual enemy groups found in the main game (again, pre-Going Rogue). Some players enjoy the challenge, while others haven't. To be honest, I knew (even before I began working on the first arc in the series) that the difficulty of the Galactic Protectorate Divisions would be one of the most dividing aspects of my arcs. However, I also wanted to make sure that the enemies I was designing, while challenging, were not impossible for the average player. To this end, I made sure to label all of my arcs "Challenging"; I set the intended level range of all of the arcs to be between Levels 40-50 so the players' characters would have the appropriate build to deal with the increased challenge as best as possible; and (after some feedback I received shortly after I published my first arc) I removed the community-designated "unfair powers" from all but the named officers within the Galactic Protectorate.
Of course, the problem of stacking buffs/debuffs is still a problem, but it's hard to circumvent the issue while still maintaining the themes of the Divisions. 
Still, I'll see what I can do once I start revamping my arcs.
And, to answer your questions, the "Eden" map really didn't "fit" the 10th Division thematically, and there IS a flower in the hair of the Astral Azalea lieutenants.
Anyway, I look forward to your review of "The Galactic Protectorate - 05"!
Supplemental Galactic Protectorate Fanfic
Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project
@GlaziusF
Running this on the same mid-40s ice/axe tanker, +0/x2 with bosses on.
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Hmm. Thats odd. Swan isnt calling these people by their proper name. Is it out of a desire not to bow to propaganda?
Inside this building... its a wall of sound, man. Everybody in here has sonic blasts or sonic attack. Im seeing some pain dom, empathy, thermal, and thugs flying around.
Higher up theres some cold dom, but it looks like the main progression is just pure sonic/sonic. I dont believe that the boss had Dreadful Wail. Well see.
Poking around the main computer, it seems as though theyve hit Talos Island with their Instant Stage Beam.
All seven computers about Planetary Judgment seem to be in the boss room. I think this is a case of middle/back confusion. Interestingly, it seems as though theyre only here because Lord Cosmic has an axe to grind with Earth.
Perhaps this is a stable timeloop. Perhaps the GP is the Taiidan to our Kharak. No real answers there, yet.
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Find four bosses on Flooded Boomtown. Wow. Thats a pretty tall order, especially since some lieutenants and the bosses also pop sonic auras. Looks like fire assault/elec assault/earth assault on the elites I found on the south island. ...itd be nice if they were all here.
Nope. Ice assault on the north island. Man, its a real pain to find anything.
The bosses have some amusing bits as they fall down, especially the earth guy cracking a hammer upside my head and going on about how his music is... subtle.
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Dang. Im not really sure whats with this running trend of only saying invaders. Apparently its something Manticore is trying to browbeat into Swan? Maybe? Its never really explained exactly why she has this little tick.
Anyway. Now it is time to pleasantly dance in the club.
I stealth past the General and pop Mynx free, then go back to deal. She does have Dreadful Wail at the very end, but thats the sort of thing an end boss is supposed to pull out.
So it seems like the entire time theyve been letting us live to gather information, and now the attack dog gets to slip his chain. The outgoing briefing doesnt make things sound very pleasant in the near future.
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Storyline - ***. So every now and then a hero show does a filler episode. It follows the shows pattern but doesnt really reach with the characters or plot very much. Something exciting might happen in the end but itll show up in the next episode in the pre-credits sequence so you really dont need to bother with it.
The pattern of these protectorate arcs has been enemy group intro -- find lead, fight sub-commanders -- rescue hero, fight commander. And this is the filler episode. It occurs to me that it might be deliberate, given the closing comments about the counterintelligence the GP have been doing, but that doesnt work for a couple of reasons. For one, something thats deliberately boring is still boring. For two, nobody has ever seriously said this is typical. TOO typical -- if nothing weird is happening theres no real reason to question whats going on.
Part of the reason this feels like filler is that giving a concert seems to be just something the commander likes to do, rather than a means to accomplishing any definite goal. If it were at least some kind of propaganda-through-omni-cosmo-pop thing Id have a reason to worry about it.
Design - **. Okay, so Ill admit to creating one myself. A singer who uses sonic powers. But heres something important to consider: you can be a conventional musician without sonic powers. The net effect of absolutely every mob having some sort of sonic power is a constant omnidirectional chorus that goes a little something like this:
VVVVEEEEE-DWAWAWA-AWOOOOOO-WOPWOPWOP-PTYEEEEOOOOW
When everybodys making the same sound it really adds to the sense of just being inside a giant homogeneous mass.
There are plenty of other roles these enemies could fill - backup dancer, pyrotechnician, lighting technician, mosher -- heck, even more drummers like the one sub-commander would help. And lets not forget that most vital of all band personnel: the roadie.
Gameplay - **. So heres the thing about sonic powersets: there arent any melee ones. Meaning combat is the same boring smack-one-enemy-at-a-time routine, over and over again. To say nothing of what sonics do to resistance; unlike the wailers and goldbrickers, even the simplest sonic blast powerset has two attacks cycles indefinitely that do -16% res each, or one long-lasting debuff that does -24%. Non-defense sets rapidly become non-resistance sets as well, under that kind of fire.
And then theres mission 2, which is trying to find four enemies scattered randomly around flooded Boomtown. Sure theyve all got sonic domes up, but so do half of the random spawns, easy.
Detail - ****. The subcommanders are kind of a bright spot here, having both interesting personal dialogue and powers that are in large part non-sonic. The giant infodump about planetary judgment is also a nice bit of backstory.
Individual minion backstories, however, still contain giant blocks of text that are way too much to get a handle on.
Overall - **. Ultimately the nice bits of detail dont matter much to the story, which adheres to form without really providing much motivation outside of the hero captured, you go save thats been a partial driver since the series started. The second mission is a long scavenger hunt on a sprawling outdoor map, which is bad enough on its own, but the enemy group is a homogeneous mass of sonic wopwop audio that never repositions voluntarily and can rapidly cascade and destroy you if youre not strong on defense.
Theres such a thing as taking a theme too far, and putting sonic powers on absolutely everything qualifies.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
Thanks for your review of my fifth "Galactic Protectorate" arc, GlaziusF! I'm sorry you didn't like the enemy group which appears in this installment of the series.
This arc really wasn't designed to be "filler", but I did take a more light-hearted approach with this arc, as kind of a counter-balance to the next arc. But I'll go into more detail about that after you've reviewed "The Galactic Protectorate -06"!
I understand your frustration with enemy groups who share largely the same powers, but there are certain reasons why I didn't use non-sonic based enemies in the 8th Division. I'm glad you enjoyed the Colonels, though.
As always, I enjoy your constructive criticism of my arcs, and I'l be sure to consider many of your points when I have enough free time to update my "Galactic Protectorate" arcs. I look forward to your review of "The Galactic Protectorate - 06"!
Supplemental Galactic Protectorate Fanfic
Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.
@GlaziusF
Running this on the same mid-40s ice/axe tanker, +0/x2 with bosses on.
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Oh! I actually get a chance to see some of the non-Vindicator resistance!
...shame it has to be under these circumstances.
Also Im betting Ill actually just be seeing body bags.
Ah, no. Im seeing some combat... unfortunately it looks like theyre pretty overmatched. So, not even bodybags, then.
Looks like everybodys theme this time is darkness. Because never hitting anything is so much fun. (Seriously, a boss-level mastermind with a lich can stack enough to give you a negative base to-hit.) It doesnt bother me too much with the defense, but Ive run on other characters who just basically gave up on hitting.
(and the minions get the name of important structural bones but the boss is some kind of vestigial bird thumb. Le what?)
Oh, Crimson is the spy. Thats a pretty good spy.
Ad after I get his information out of the base he brings it down around everybodys heads.
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Well, now its time to go after the leader of the pack.
...well, this is a fine state of affairs. Somehow I wind up standing near four customs who can all put Darkest Night on me.
Darkest Night in the hands of the Architect is a click power that does not miss. Four of them stacking give me a negative base to-hit.
Fortunately I can use a combination of Taunt and geometry to pull off part of them when I return.
Indigo is kind of a poor choice for this map, given that it features sheer drops and both knockback and the random scatter from Caltrops will cause people to jump down there. And Indigo to chase them. And theres only one way back up.
According to the clues, Recluse was trying to use some artifact of darkness to ruin Paragon, but it somehow exploded and took out his own troops.
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And now our main base is under attack. Well.
If the bombs didnt take ten seconds each I might have a chance here, but as the end boss has a self-rez and I cant actually deal with more than one spawn of enemies at a time, as the ones who drop the Darkest Nights are minions...
Still, four bombs with seconds left on the clock. Not bad. And judging by the arc souvenir, what ended up in that encrypted file was I prepared Explosive Runes today.
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Storyline - ****. Id be a bit more satisfied with the ending if there was another part to this up, but as an end of season one installment its pretty nice. Definitely sets up a cliffhanger for the season premiere, which I cant help but imagine will focus on a different group of heroes or even villains entirely.
Design - **. Monolithic darkness is worse than monolithic sound, mostly because theres a lot more variety among powersets, and therefore a lot more variety among animations, when youre trying to work out what does what. And half the enemies are not only spitting out shadowy splodges but also covered in shadowy splodges to make it harder to see what theyre doing.
The naming conventions arent really much of a help here, since as far as I could tell they just took the form (cosmic phenomenon) (random bone). But even if I could build that convention, theres still the problem as with many of the other custom groups where even if I know which enemy does what Ive got pretty much no chance of picking them out of a crowd. Aside from the bosses who have obsidian-shield haloes and I believe wings, but there only seemed to be one boss type to begin with.
Gameplay - *. Theres a difference between being challenged and being bludgeoned with math. Let me see if I can explain the difference.
Superstrength boss: challenging. Fast-firing offensive set which may be commonly resisted but has boss numbers behind it. Superstrength boss with rage: bludgeoned with math. Rage just improves too many parameters to make it a good idea to stick around while its running.
Invulnerability EB: challenging. Generally good resists, a self-heal, status protection. Invulnerability EB with unstoppable: bludgeoned with math. For most common damage types theres no way to deal damage to the boss faster than they regenerate.
Accident of spawns and patrols that result in fighting an aggro caps worth of Freakshow: challenging. Accident of spawns and patrols that result in getting quad-stacked with Darkest Night: bludgeoned with math.
Its not that this much dark actually represents much of a threat. I think I may have died once when the unavoidable stun from Soul Transfer got me. But if enough of it gets through (and heck, darkest night cant help BUT get through) and my base to-hit goes negative theres no chance I can actually do damage to the crowd around me, and they win that stalemate on account of they cant get bored.
Detail - ***. The standard entirely-too-much information bios on the enemy group make a triumphant return. The big background info about the MacGuffin Recluse was using, while intellectually interesting, would be a bit better with a little more relevance to the current scenario. Is this just this generals big dark bag, or is it related to some phenomenon on Eden?
Overall - **. The vagaries of combat have the potential to put you in an immensely frustrating.situation, generally unharmed but unable to do any significant damage. On the big outdoor maps that isnt so much a chance as an inevitability.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
Thanks for reviewing my sixth "Galactic Protectorate" arc, GlaziusF! I had a feeling you wouldn't be too happy with the enemy group in this arc, but I'm glad you enjoyed the storyline of the arc, at least.
To be honest, the 7th Division of the Galactic Protectorate has undergone the most changes of any of the divisions I've designed thusfar in part because I know how aggravating the debuffs can be. I've got a few more changes which I'd like to implement to the 7th Division when I revamp the "Galactic Protectorate" arcs which will hopefully help in the "math" regard.
In any case, thank you for playing though all of my currently published "Galactic Protectorate" arcs, I appreciate the honest feedback! I look forward to your review of my entry into Dr. Aeon's Third Challenge, "The Icari"!
Supplemental Galactic Protectorate Fanfic
Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator review project.
@GlaziusF
Running this on the same mid-40s ice/axe tanker, +0/x2 with bosses on.
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Weird alien flower monsters have kidnapped Ms. Libertys BFF Swan. IM ON THE CASE.
(okay, probably not alien flower monsters)
Actually, there are a few alien flower monsters. Go figure.
Thorn Assault powers all debuff defense. Just tossing that out there.
Huh. Apparently everybody whos come to Earth has come here from just one planet.
Also, these space biologists put up a decent fight, for biologists.
So apparently Swans being held at another fortified point, and theres a crazy weirdly-social experimenter who likes disappearing people and a general whos so vain he probably thinks this review is about him.
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Ms. Liberty seems to be very concerned with putting up a front that she is not personally invested in saving this planet. Lady, its okay. The planet is where you keep your stuff.
Oh, a Thorn Tree map. Okay. So I rescue Psyche and drift through the caves, mowing down more space botanists. Not much here, aside from General Adoniss wanting to take Swan along to study some new plant.
Also in the heat of battle with Belladonna (plant/poison?) one of her experiments escapes. Not on-screen, but if you wanted to do that Ive seen it done as a captive with no guards to actually put something real on it.
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And now its the boss fight! On that tiny stretch of Perez forest map. Adonis, an even more plant controller, and Camellia, a spine assault/regen. But I blunder down the slope and into Adonis right at the start, before I can even pick up Liberty. This map isnt very good for putting bosses a ways in, unfortunately.
I have Libertys help for Camellia, though the Thorntrops keep her out of the fight most of the time.
And Swans a bit further in, triggered by Liberty. Its very straightforward.
But this is an interesting bit of plot: apparently life on Eden is very similar to Earth but centuries ahead of it. That doesnt happen accidentally. I wonder whats going on. Escape pod + time warp?
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Storyline - ****. For once, an arc that starts out with a complete plan and follows it through. The odd little teaser about the nature of Eden is nonetheless promising.
The subplot about the escaped experimental subject just feels kind of stapled on, though. Of all the places to run to, it goes to the same square mile as General Adonis? Theres potential there for something about the unintended consequences of this whole war. I mean, the GP have to be working on or with some pretty dangerous stuff. A crazy plant thing running free or maybe off to join the Devouring Earth might make for an interesting recurring villain.
Design - ***. Theres really nothing to hint at the crazy plant before it shows up in the last mission, considering it runs off offscreen. The last mission itself... well, on the one hand I cant really blame you for the extremely limited palette on offer. Not many outdoor forests -- does Eden work or does the map not support all the details you want?
But on the other hand, just running down the hill and into the end boss doesnt really feel right, especially when the hostages and the optional boss are deeper in.
The enemies are once again more or less indistinguishable from one another. They all seem to use thorn assault, plant control, and poison, except for the bosses who are a bit distinctive. I can barely tell the minion plant monsters from the lieutenants. (Is there a flower in the lieuts hair? Its only really visible from a small arc so I cant really size them up unless theyre facing a particular direction.)
Gameplay - **. Much as the last arc, this isnt so much for my experience, but this arc also has enemies that can impose giant slows and cascading -defense debuffs. Cutting back on the number of enemies with thorn assault and plant control would not only help them be more distinguishable from each other, itd also reduce the potential for this destructive cascade.
Detail - ****. Enemy descriptions are still a wall of text. But for once the detail that shows up in the mission, about the nature of Eden (the planet) in particular, offers some interesting potential for the future.
Overall - ***. The plot, while limited, is pulled off well. But while I understand the thematic motivation behind the largely monolithic enemy powersets, the associated effects (-defense and attack slow) make facing down the monolith pretty unreasonable for any of the large number of possible powersets that dont highly resist both of them.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)