Lowbie Arc Reviews by an Altaholic Couple

Big Trouble King's Row Style, Arc ID 259924

First, I'm going to be upfront about my personal tastes. I love street level crime stories. This is one of my favorite genres and one that I feel is under represented in the game. I siezed the opportunity to play this arc on my street hunting, natural level 14 Archery/Mental blaster.

The first thing I noticed was that the contact's name was "Det. Darcy Armand". The "Det." seems a bit odd here. I'm not sure if this is a real abbriviation for detective, but even if it is, it just looks a bit out of place. I suggest replacing the name with "Detective Armand." Also, the character's name in the intro text is orange, which isn't really necessary. I'd suggest changing the objective: "Would you mind helping me get to the bottom of this?", to orange instead.

In the first mission I noticed that every objective has an exclamation point. I would probably remove the punctuation for the objectives. I liked Detective Armand and thought the gun fight animations were a good touch. I thought her dialog was good, although I think you have some of it attached to the Skulls accidentally: "Gravedigger Brawler: I need back up! The Skulls have me cornered!" I also noticed that your glowies could use interract bar text.

As for clues in this mission, I only saw one clue which was "Processed Superadine!" (again probably overuse of exclamation points). The mission end pop up told me that this was a Superadine distribution hub, but I'm not sure how I figured that out. I'd suggest adding another clue, possibly an end mission clue that would lead to that conclusion.

On to mission two. The contact tells me that multiple gangs are forming an unusual coalition. I almost feel like the player should discover some hints of this in mission one, then the contact can expand upon it. Otherwise the information seems a bit out of the blue and handed to the player on a platter. Suggest adding some hints in a clue in mission one.

The mission was a pretty straightforward outdoor street sweep, with mobs from various gangs, now belonging to a group called West Side Coalition. I'm looking for a guy named Gravediggah or Gravedigga (spelled differently in the clues), who's been doing the organizing. I also noticed a typo in Armand's text: "picke". Also the end clue mentions Mama Yaya, and I haven't seen that name before. Suggest adding this to a clue.

On to mission three. I'm tracking down this Mama Yaya woman at a local club. I like the variation in mission size, a small mission following a large outdoor mission. I also like the voodoo motif and the zombies. Mama Yaya has good descriptive text, although she belongs to a group called Gangsters Inc., which I don't think I've seen before. She proved to be a bit much for my blaster the first time around (I think there was an ambush), but I came back and dispatched her quickly. She also had a good clue but refered to her boyfriend as "Gravedigger" this time. (Gravedigger, Gravedigga, Gravediggah?)

Time for mission four: Now I'm going to an abandoned medical facility to track down a Hellion named Kid Chango. At this point I'm wondering if we'll find out the secret behind the gang coalition. I was surprised to find a Face Reaper guarding the citizen, from the faction "Rouge Vahzilok" (I think you meant "Rogue"). In any case it seems a bit late in the story to be introducing yet another new faction. Couldn't this just be normal Vahzilok? Finally, Kid Chango told me about "Gravedigga", but I didn't have any clues about the Vahzilok or the experiments on citizens. I'd suggest adding a clue when you release the hostage.

Ok, next up mission five. Superadine X is a new compound and Gravedigga was sent to oversee its distribution. You mention that this is the pure Superadine compound the Family uses to give abilities to its officers. I'm having a hard time buying this as it's my understanding the Family keeps their "pure" Superadine heavily guarded, keeping it strictly for their most loyal made men. I'm doubting they would want to distribute it at all, let alone trust it to anyone outside the highest ranks of the Family. I would change this to say it's simply a new strain of Superadine with unusual side effects, and it's being tested on unsuspected citizens.

The mission was on a warehouse map that might have been a tad large. The objectives seemed a bit too spread out. I found Gravedigga, and I liked his dialog. The zombie ambush was interesting. I think it might of been a bit out of place considering that we've already dealt with Mama Yaga, and we should really be beyond that stage of the story now. I also felt like there should have been an end of mission clue to sort of tie things together. We still haven't seen a whole lot of explanation of why all the gangs agreed to work together. I thought the contact's end dialog was a little sparse, but overall was a decent ending.

There doesn't seem to be a souvenir. Including a souvenir could be a good place to summarize the events and tie up loose ends.

Overall, this has the makings of a good story and is a fun street level adventure. There are some places where the flow of the story could use some improvement. I think additional clues could help a lot in this area. I also think the Family connection needs to be reworked a bit; they're not going to give their most prized secret formula to a low level Skull gangster. Also, you seemed to loose focus on the idea of the coalition, and I think you need something at the end to explain and tie that up. There are a few little nitpicks above as well. The only other thing I will say here is, please cut back on the exclamation points. I was beginning to feel that everyone around me was on the edge of hysteria. Replacing them with periods would improve the tone of the story.

Rating: 3 Stars - This has the makings of a good story, it just needs to be tightened and cleaned up

Thanks both of you for the reviews! Very good choice of characters for this propoganda. I'm glad you found it fun, and dug up lots of the hidden humor.

Dynamic was smart, because he had his writers writing for him. In-mission, he's not so smart, and regrets it. But I understand where you're coming from, there's nothing to indicate the writers are much smarter... I'll think on it.

Many of the Lost spawning should have been customs (custom Lost + Rikti group, wearing white-ish), with their own descriptions. Rikti never spawn less than level 30, aside from some bosses. But I just saw a bugged Rikti spawn in a group, way over the Lost level. Another reason to change the arc to levels 30-50. Nobody seems to find it randomly anyway, so having a narrower level range will be fine. Slippery can then be a (not too tough) EB.

The original plot (bust snakes; stop Great Face; help Great Face) is pretty dense, I tried to condense it a bit. The Snakes are there specifically so they will not be there when you go looking for them. I could lose "Boa" but one of you liked him The first mission is a shout out to the Captain Dynamic videos. It got you in the right frame of mind though, so I don't think I'll change it much.

I'll cut some crates. You are disturbed. I mean, uh, something must have hit/moved you.

One question: when was the "gotcha" moment, for you?

Cheers, airhead

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!

Well there were two really; first mission obviously and then the red text was the big one. Nice work!

I'd love to know what you guys think about Mercytown (6017), be warned that it is a villain-orientated arc though.

Teen Phalanx Forever!, Arc ID 67335 - by PoliceWoman

I played this on my 17 DM/FA brute (I know it's not a hero, but we can pretend right?). Right away, I'm liking the concept. A teen version of my hero... this is new and refreshing and it's the sort of stuff I'd never see from the devs. It's just the sort of thing the MA was made for IMHO.

I see Kid Valkyrie first. I like her description and flying power armor. Gosh her dialog is pretty chipper. Just what I'd expect from the "good girl" of the team. Next up is Manticora. She's the "bad girl" and doesn't hesitate to give me some attitude. She also seems to get lost a lot on our way through the sewers. At least the hostages are easy to find.

Along the way I find the other Teen Phalanx members, and then it's off to fight Doc Vahz, who goes down without much trouble. In fact I think the teen Phalanx guys showing off their prowess, but just about one shotting stuff befor I can get to it.

Excellent, now I'm a full member of the Teen Phalanx, but alas I was not given a standard issue Teen Phalanx communicator. Now I have to catch up with the rest of the team and fight the Clockwork King. He warns me about the King's archvillainy, and then I'm off.

On the one hand, I think it's a cool custom map, and I like the idea of being on a team of teen heroes fighting AVs. On the other hand, it's almost exactly like the first mission, except replacing vahzilok with clockwork. It drags a bit, even though I really do enjoy the concept. I guess part of me wishes the map were smaller, but then you'd loose the custom lair map and that would be a shame.

Manticora ran off to meet someone named Sta--Stacy. How strange... Also, I thought the World of Clockwork thing was silly and fun. The custom mobs helped to keep things interesting though, so it did help the momentum through a mission that might have felt too long otherwise. The King's dialog was great.

Alright, monitor duty next. This sounds like fun... er, I mean it sounds like a chore. Boy watching that monitor sure was boring. At least I got to sneak through the personal belongings of some of the Teen Phalanx. who knew that Val wore gold panties? And really, I probably shouldn't have touched those trick arrows with bizaare attachments. Then I got to beat up some intruders that sounded like they'd spent too much time around internet memes. After that I met up with Val and BABy, who weren't too happy that their stuff had been snooped in, but forgot about it promptly when Clamor showed up. This was a really awesome, colorful, engaging, and well scripted mission. Totally enjoyed it, and got a kick out of the clues.

Time to get to the bottom of this, and find out who this Mr. V is. The Council base is a tad large and sprawling, and I would be getting tired of meeting up with the Teen Phalanx by now, if their dialog wasn't so amusing. The main villain is great though, and well worth the long jog through the Council base. The ambush of robotic doubles was surprising and well executed.

Overall, excellent writing, highly polished and a fun unique story. You've created some of the most engaging and memorable NPCs I've seen in MA thus far. They do steal the show at times but I don't think there's any way around that, given the premise. I think the only thing I'd suggest is maybe remove buildup from the Teen Phalanx. Heavy hitters like Val could probably solo this whole thing.

Rating: 5 Stars - Highly recommended.

The Superadine Revolution, Arc ID 262739 - by SpaceNut

Londer and I duoed this on my 21 Fire/SD Tank and his 21 BS/FA Scrapper, on the lowest difficulty.

Right away, I like the contact's dialog. It's well written and good flavor for the Family. In the intro text, you talk about the Skulls a lot, so upon entering the warehouse mission, I was expecting to find a mission full of Skulls. When I found Family I was a bit confused.

When I find Tommy he says "My orders come from the top! Sal is acting crazy! The Skulls are distributors, nothing more!" and then "Now that the truth is known, I'm getting out of here!" Does this mean the truth about the Skulls that we haven't even met yet? I'm confused because I don't think it's exactly a secret that the Skulls distribute Superadine for the Family.

Then I meet Sal the boss dude and find out that he's trying to use pure Superadine to make powerful Skulls that are loyal to him. So now I'm thinking that Sal is actually the big bad guy, and the skulls must be working for him.

Unfortunately the contact tells me that Sal was actually something of a dupe and the Skulls are perpetuating some kind of plot with other members of the Family in order to get more of the pure stuff. This really feels like we've changed gears again, after mostly ignoring the Skulls in the first mission. Alright, I'll roll with it, but the story has gotten off to kind of a rocky start.

I go into the next mission and the Skulls are saying "Forget the Dyne, take out $Name". This is also somewhat confusing as I thought they were really focused on getting all this Dyne. Also, it's a kill-all, argh...

So now I know that the Skulls are making a move on the Family. Good, this story is starting to pick up some momentum. The only problem is... ugh... another defeat all, on a large-ish map.

In the next mission I find Joey "Two Shoes" Denaro, a Family boss who's decided to join the Skulls. I thought this twist was good, and the story was holding its momentum here. Unfortunately, the map was another lengthy warehouse map. While not a defeat all, it had a lot of objectives and was time consuming to find them all.

Also, I was intrigued about Joey "Two Shoes" Denaro and read his descriptive text, but didn't find anything more than a standard description. In fact this is the case for all of your Family bosses. It's a shame that they have generic descriptions, because you've given them colorful, interesting names.

Finally I accompanied Tommy to Striga to stop an attack on the Don's office. I rescued Tommy and he immediately ran off across the map and suicided into a big pack of mobs. I wonder, do you have him on aggressive, or is this a bug?

We defeated Marrow Drinker and stopped the Skulls' attempted takeover. We rescued the Don... or was it? Well it turns out the Don left some clues. But they were ALL THE WAY DOWN ON THE FIRST FLOOR.

Sorry for the frustration there, but as we were painstakingly backtracking through this mission, I was lamenting how anticlimactic an ending this was. I told Londer this: "If the clues are on the first floor, I swear I am giving this arc 3 stars."

Well, they were on the first floor, but after I saw your well written contact end dialog, and excellent summary souvenir, I had to think about it for a while. Ultimately, I decided, like Londer, that this arc is too well written to get three stars, even if I found aspects of the gameplay frustrating.

Overall, very enjoyable writing. Starts off a bit confusing and ends a bit anticlimactic (due to the clue hunt), but the core of the plot is good. It just needs tightening up. Consider using smaller maps and removing kill all objectives, in order to shorten the necessary playtime. Also consider adding custom descriptions for all your Family guys with the cool names.

Rating: 4 Stars

Welcome back. I hope your vacation was good

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpaceNut This is a known issue and will be fixed soon. That's actually how I would like it to be. I want the player to constantly second-guessing themselves about who the bad guy is, and who is really in charge of things, and who they'll have to fight.

I can completely appreciate the intention here, but I think the way you've got it right now, your story doesn't know if it wants to be a mystery in the beginning, or more straightforward. And I think this is making for unevenness right at the start, which has the potential to turn people off.

I'm going to be honest and say that I found the straighforward parts of the overall story to be the most appealing, so my inclination would be to make the first mission reflect that.

However, if you want to go the mystery route then you'll probably need to rewrite a lot of it. You'd likely need to refrain from mentioning the Skulls in the initial dialog. Make the goings-on at the warehouse very ambiguous, and let the player discover everything that's going on. You'd probably want to go heavier on clues, and lighter on the information the contact gives you in general. I'm not suggesting you actually do this though, as it's probably way too much effort.

Quote:

Like I said above, this is a known issue and I'll be fixing it. (It has to do with map randomization.)

So you're using randomized maps? This actually makes more sense. Honestly, I would take the time to go through the maps (I know it's a pain) and select the one that's best for the story you want to tell. Hint: the best maps might actually be smaller, more compact maps.

When I was working on my arc, The Next War on Drugs, I think I spent hours finding the right map for my investigative glowie hunt mission. I mean I must have tested a dozen small maps, and it was super time consuming, but the one I wound up with is just about perfect for the story momentum. Just a thought.

Quote:

Thanks for the great feedback, you two. I have a number of little changes to make now that I think will wrap it up and make it into a consistently 4/5 star arc.

You're welcome! I hope the feedback was useful. I think you've got a good solid plot going, as I said in the review, but it just needs some tightening and playability improvements. Thanks for making an enjoyable story

airhead made changes to his arc and I've updated my rating with an edit at the bottom:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...2&postcount=99

Not sure if you two would be interested but my Lowbie arc that you reviewed before has went through a number of changes since being battered by a number of reviewers.

I actually have two lowbie arcs published at the moment. One for the heroes, and I recently released one for villains. Both are designed to be used as alternate starting arcs, and they are completely different stories so both could be enjoyed if you can get past the obvious alignment affiliation issues.

ARC ID: 270867 - This City Has Gone to the Snakes (Alternate Hero Starting Arc)
Level Range: 1 - 10

This arc takes place, obviously, within Paragon City. It can be easily soloed by most ATs, in fact I soloed it on my Empath Defender. The only enemy groups are Snakes and a few Skulls in one mission. There are no EBs. The AE system classifies it as "Very Long", but only 2 of the 5 missions requiring killing everything. In one of those you have a substantial amount of help so it goes quickly. In the other, the map is quite small, so it is not a time consuming affair. Still, it may be tight trying to squeeze this into one hour. I would estimate 1.5 hours to 2 hours on this arc.

It saw a bit of traffic early on, and was riding with a 5-star rating up until very recently. It has since stagnated as it fell from the 2nd page of the arc lists to much lower in the pile.


ARC ID: 300379 - A Twist of Destiny (Alternate Villain Starting Arc)
Level Range: 1 - 15

This arc is my favorite of the two, both story wise and playstyle wise. The primary enemy groups used in the arc are Longbow and Paragon Police, which make for some low-level fun. There is one custom EB in the final mission, but there is an ally to help you. She is NOT over powered at all, and I had success soloing this mission from level 1 without having to use the ally. It helps that she only spawns as a "Boss" if you are soloing at difficulty level 1. I ran the entire thing with a friend again last night to get some feedback. Even in a two-man team at Difficulty 1, she spawned as a boss for us, so I feel I can safely say this IS a soloable arc.

Like the hero arc, this one shows as Very Long. In the case of this arc, only the first mission requires clearing the map, and it is a very small map. If you just go in, complete the objective, and move on, this one can probably be done within the one hour time frame.

Note on both missions:

I have noticed that both of these arcs are more difficult in a team. This is because of the mechanics of how team spawn is calculated and not by design. The way the spawn is calculated by the game engine itself, sometimes it overcompensates for teams at the lower level. Bosses routinely spawn even with just a 2-man team. These are random spawns, and not spawns specifically placed into the arcs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

Feel free to take a look at Tales of the PPD: One Hell of a Deal (arc 55669). Designed as an alternative to your initial contact, it'll take a brand new character to level 5 or so, and takes less than an hour to run. Watch the commercial in my sig, and if it seems like your cup of tea, give it a whirl.

I figure I could throw my pen in the ring - arc 61156, "Grim and the Green". Mostly Skulls with a couple of custom bosses, Caps out at Lv14, but plays best at Lv1 onwards, less world-saving oriented and more focused on lore exposition.

An open letter to NCsoft

Sorry we haven't been updating this as regular as we'd like. I'm sure we'll have some time to run some arcs this evening and over the weekend. We'll update the queue as soon as we get home from work this evening.

I have a couple, though neither are 'finished' - I'm still tweaking.

Arc ID 299242
"Why Can't We All Just Get Along?"
Heroic arc for levels 1-15. Missions do get harder around mission 3, and I recommend that you at least duo the arc because the last mission has difficult EBs. I have managed to solo it (Cold/Sonic Defender, Kat/SR scrapper, AR/NRG blaster) but it is still hard.

There are known issues within this arc, some are very noticeable (Bosses in the second mission have spawned... erm, oddly on occasion), some are minor (still some typos around in there), and some affect the story's flow (Mission 4 return text, I'm looking right at you. Still tinkering with it, but it's there for a reason.)


Arc ID: 301688

Operation: Clean Streets
Arc for Heroes or Villains levels 1-15. Soloable, and duoable, but fourth mission is currently bugged to spawn EBs in place of bosses - working on that right now. This can be done in an hour, but I doubt it can be done in an hour solo or duo. There are some clear-alls.

Lord Recluse has been defeated and arrested, but he's made a plea bargain: In exchange for his freedom and a promise not to kill everybody, everywhere, he'll eliminate street crime in Paragon City. Since the heroes would not stand for Arachnos soldiers walking the streets of Paragon with impunity, he's hired independent security contractors, no matter their previous affiliations, to do his bidding in this matter.

This *can* be done solo (there are NPC allies in several missions) but I recommend a team for it until I fix the fourth mission. The story flows better in this arc and I rather enjoy it. I have played it solo and in a duo - strangely, I failed as a duo but completed it as a solo. Give it a shot if you have the time, hopefully I'll have fixed the EB issue.

Defying Fate by @Getsumei Kitsune
Arc ID: 110866

We only had time for a short arc, so we duoed this quick three mission arc on my 21 Fire/Shield tank and his 22 Spines/DA scrapper. It was nice and quick and had small maps, which I appreciated.

In the briefing for the first mission, the contact had a lot of information for me, perhaps too much. She told me very specifically to find a computer and hack into it. This is just a minor thing, but she could have been a bit ambiguous and let me figure a few things out on my own. Also, there were Council in the lab that were never fully explained. What significance to the story did they have? There was a almost too conveniently located disk with the computer. In fact, you point out that it's conveniently located enough, that I was wondering if that would have later significance. Did it contain a virus or something? Alas it was not to be a further part of the story.

Then we're on to an evil boss called Suoitigalf--which is unpronouncable, so you probably should have just left it Flagitious. And suddenly there are issues with demonic sacrifice. Now I'm confused, the demonic sacrifice doesn't seem to fit with a story of an evil biotech company. I liked the fact that the map was short and sweet, it's one of the few good Oranbega maps out there. I also liked the NPC dialog, and the detailed description on Seer Zenaku. However, I couldn't stop scratching my head wondering how this mission fit with the previous one.

Also there was a very long run-on sentence that I should point out:

"To keep the world safe from this menace, you'll need to defeat both Suoitigalf and the Circle of Thorns demon he was negotiating with, and rescue two of my colleagues and I after the Circle casts the summoning spell to bring us to them."

In the third mission I find we're killing scientists. This kind of rubs me the wrong way for a hero arc. I mean, are these evil scientists? Or are they hapless unwitting employees (like the contact herself and the other sacrifice victims). Their descriptive text said only that they were scientists... So I felt rather bad about killing them. Also, where are the bioroids we've been hearing about? I'd expected their appearance in the last mission. The other issue I had in this mission is that the ally is too powerful and too aggressive. She really steals the show in this mission, and the end boss is weak so it's anticlimactic.

Finally, plot twists don't belong in the end text of the last mission, the player should discover them through the course of the story.

Overall, I think you made great use of small maps and had good attention to descriptive text and other detail. This is one of the very few arcs I've played where I have no complaints about the presence of a kill all mission. The text was well written and flows well. I had no issues reading it aloud to Londer, except for that Suoitigalf name, who I just started refering to as "the dude with the name".

I think the story has some serious consistency problems, like you just tried to fit too much into one short arc without developing the various threads enough. The magic plus biotech thing is unusual and doesn't fit together naturally, so it's going to need more development to make those aspects mesh. Consider replacing the Council or adding some kind of demon foreshadowing in the first mission. Also it was a let down to be slaughtering scientists rather than demon-infused bioroids or something.

Rating: 3 Stars

Here is the current queue in rough order. I'm reserving the right to change up the order depending on our playtime or other factors. Also if you play one of our arcs and give feedback you'll get bumped up to the top of the list.

• ZAGMUK Act One: The Herald, Arc ID 266123 - by Sumericon (may have to wait until we can duo)
• The Boneyard, Arc ID 253542 - by Captain_Zero
• Strike!, Arc ID 18401 - by Geek_Boy
• Mercytown, Arc ID 6017 - by Tangler
• Why Can't We All Just Get Along?, Arc ID 299242 - by Psychoti *or* Operation: Clean Streets, Arc ID 301688 - by Psychoti (note we'll do both of these if you play ours)

Hmm... I've done some recent work on my 10-14 arc, "Trollbane" (number's in my sig); I'm not sure I've gotten all the mechanical bugs out (I changed a few things under i15, with the new options available), but I'd appreciate a run- see what you think!