I'll Review and Rate, Part II

After a 2 month break from reviewing arcs, I am ready to start back up. I know that I missed some from my last thread, but there have been a lot of changes to the MA since then, so I am not going to go back to that list. We'll start fresh here.

A few ground rules first:

1) I am playing these arcs solo. If your arc is not meant to be played solo, don't post it here.

2) My review is based first on "Fun Factor." If your story is just OK, but the missions are fun, then you can still get 5 stars. If your story is amazing, but the missions are tedious, you won't get 5 stars.

So, what makes for fun missions? I love a well done custom character group. I hate long maps without a reason. I hate outdoor maps without a GOOD reason to have them. Most of the time these seem to be tedious hunts for a boss or a number of glowies. If it fits the story, fine. I like use of bosses and don't like overuse of EB/AV's. I really hate embedded objectives that make me retrace my steps through a map.

3) Spelling and Grammar. I don't really care, and won't point this out unless it is really bad and it distracts from the arc.

4) I won't review in strict order that requests are made. Preference is given to shorter arcs, as well as to those who play one of my arcs and leave me a bit if feedback. Playing one of my arcs is not necessary though.

5) I'm pretty easy to please. My last time doing this I averaged just under 4 stars.

6) Mission levels: I am more apt to get to your arc if it has a wide level range. I am not big on exemping, so those level 1-15 arcs my hang around for a while if you request a review, as will the ones with specific ranges like 20-29, etc...

That should cover it for now...

I'd like you to try Illpracticed Malpractice *points at sig*

If you would, try Arachnos of the Ages(sig)
The level range is about 25-34 for most of it, if that's ok.

Nice to see you back reviewing again, Beach_Lifeguard!

You've already played two of the arcs in my "Galactic Protectorate" storyline; I've come out with two more since then (the latest was just released yesterday), so if you'd like to continue your reviews of my arcs, your feedback is always appreciated

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I'd like you to try Illpracticed Malpractice *points at sig*

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Level 38 Axe/Fire Brute.

Mission 1: Our contact lays the plan out in front of us....we are going to sue the hospital for malpractice and to keep the chief resident from skipping town, we need to go in there and kidnap him. Seems simple enough.

The custom enemy group looked pretty good and were fair and balanced. The mission uses the hospital map, of course, which is always a good one. I found the chief resident and defeated his captors, and then things went really strange. Arachnos showed up and I had to fight them. I thought I was helping them? And then a Snake, 10 levels above me (as well as one about 5 levels below me) show up and almost tear us to pieces. I barely manage to escape.

With that, the arc is over. It started off promising, but things went haywire after the rescue on on the way back to the front door. You might want to check on what is actually triggering after I kidnap the doc. I hate to start off the review thread with a low score, but a 2 is all I can do right now because the mechanics seem broken. I would clean up the part I just mentioned. Maybe a better ambush would make this more fun. Also, the story could use a more interesting angle and/or conclusion.

Interesting. I've never had a huge gap in the enemy level spawns before. I'll have to check it out a few times and if still problematic I may be forced to make a new custom group. I've got just a little extra space in case that's needed. I had selected several groups with full spawn ranges from 1-54 and I've tested lower than level 25 and SKed to level 50. You do make a valid case for removing Arachnos from the spawn groups though due to both the initial plan and the obviously displeased non-required captive at the start. The 2 doesn't bug me since it's valid feedback of something I didn't catch during testing but quirks with ambushes/patrols are annoying.

If you'd like to review one of my arcs, that'd be awesome.

Marked Man - 3463

The Perfect Drug - 244209

I would love it if you would review my arc:

In Pursuit of Liberty - ID 221702

A few things to note:

I can solo this arc even on fairly low level heroes. The warnings are bogus and I believe based on the fact that I made my ally a high level.

Also it says Very Long. Again I believe this is based on the fact that there are five missions. The first 2 are fairly short. The third, fourth and fifth can also be completed fairly quickly if you go for the objectives.

A few people have found a frustation in mission 4. If you do read what Statesman says. It should help.

I hope you enjoy it!

I will play one of yours when I get a chance.

I have three low level arcs as of now. I tried to make them a true trilogy, each part telling its own story. No EB/AVs in any of the missions. If it takes a while to get to them, that is fine. I am still tinkering with them anyway, especially the last 1.

Fighting the Future

Title: Future Skulls
ID: 4727
Levels: 1-15
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Save The World
Description: The Skulls are just a street gang now. But they have big plans for the future. Mirror Spirit asks for your help to stop one of them. [SFMA/LBMA]

Title: Simple Times
ID: 70801
Levels: 5-14
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Save The World
Description: Talshak the Mystic has asked for your help with a minor clean up mission in a warehouse. Happens all the time, no big deal, just giving someone a quick helping hand. At least that was how it started. Sequel to Future Skulls, 4727. [SFMA/LBMA]

Title: Future's End
ID: 255895
Levels: 5-14
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Save The World
Description: Mirror Spirit has contacted you again. It is time to finish off the Future Skulls, and she thinks she know how. Can you stop the Future's End? Follow up to Future Skulls, 4727. and Simple Times, 70801. [SFMA/LBMA]

Feedback welcomed in the Fighting the Future Trilogy thread.

I recently finished updating my arc for i15 so if you would like, please give it a shot: "The Fracturing of Time" id 171031. Thanks, I really appreciate all feedback and comments!

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I have three low level arcs as of now. I tried to make them a true trilogy, each part telling its own story. No EB/AVs in any of the missions. If it takes a while to get to them, that is fine. I am still tinkering with them anyway, especially the last 1.

[u]Fighting the Future[u]

Title: Future Skulls
ID: 4727
Levels: 1-15
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Save The World
Description: The Skulls are just a street gang now. But they have big plans for the future. Mirror Spirit asks for your help to stop one of them. [SFMA/LBMA]


[/ QUOTE ]

I happen to be messing around with a lowbie right now, so....

Level 9 DM/SR Brute...

Mission 1: The story is setup by our contact, who can see the future. She sees a destroyed city and flooding. She sees that the Skulls are involved in a course of action that will lead to this. Off we go to investigate. The mission is on the burning building map and it is obviously against skulls. It is all pretty standard, good for a low level toon. We find a strange book with disturbing contents...

Mission 2: We find out that the Skulls are trying to awaken Merulina, the creator of the Coralax. The Skulls think that this deity will cause lots of death and destruction. We are sent to a Coralax liar to search for more information on the ritual. This is another good mission, this time against the Coralax. It is nice to fight a group you don't really see much in game. We recover nothing of use in the mission though.

Mission 3: None of the other heroes brought back anything of use, so our contact suggests a desperate measure: sending us to the future that she saw, to speak with somebody who might know something. The mission is on the outdoor/indoor Faultline map against the "Future Skulls" along with a couple of enemies from another custom group. These looked like florescent angels...but they look pretty cool. I liked them. I met with the person I was supposed to and after defeating her, she gave me a magical dagger that would be able to trace the location of the ceremony.

Mission 4: We are off to a location near Croatoa to stop the ceremony and defeat the Skull boss. When I saw the outdoor map and the objectives, I groaned. However, this mission makes SUPERB use of auras around the 2 hostages and the boss so the searching was minimal. A good finishing mission to the arc and the story, which I won't spoil here....

Overall, I enjoyed this arc. It was a good, fair challenge for a level 1-15 toon. The maps, enemies and the missions overall were fun and seemed to fit the level range nicely. The story was good, not great. Overall I give this a very solid 4 stars. I recommend for any new toons looking to level at AE.

Please check out my arc, The Boneyard, and let me know what you think. I really apprecaite it. If I have the time to review one of your arcs, I'll let you know. Thanks.

Arc Name: The Boneyard
Arc ID: 253542
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Gebsy/Captain Zero
Difficulty Level: Easy, Level 1-15
Synopsis: A local youth, Gabriel Rodriguez, is getting involved in gang activity with the Skulls. His older brother, Manuel, has asked you for your help bringing Gabriel back to the right side. Can you help save him from a life of violence?
Estimated Time to Play: 30-90 minutes

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Nice to see you back reviewing again, Beach_Lifeguard!

You've already played two of the arcs in my "Galactic Protectorate" storyline; I've come out with two more since then (the latest was just released yesterday), so if you'd like to continue your reviews of my arcs, your feedback is always appreciated

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Part 3 with a Lvl 38 Axe/Fire Brute

I admit that I don't remember the details from Part 1 and Part 2. I know I rated both arcs good and that I didn't trust the first contact, who was supposed to be Synapse. I believe we saved Manticore in this opening arc. In Part 2, Manticore was our contact and we saved Synapse. Let's see what Part 3 has in store for us.

Mission 1: Sister Psyche is our contact for this chapter of the story. Basically, the Protectorate has captured some longbow bases and turned them into hospitals for their soldiers. They seem to have Paragon City physicians working there - some of them SP knew before the invasion.

Once again we have an excellent looking custom group. The costumes and named are very well done. They are a tough challenge, but still very fair for the player. The mission is very fun, but if I can nit-pick just a bit: Having to lead back hostages through a pretty large map is a bit of a pain. Also, all the extra things to click are a bit of a nuisance. The excessive use of -recharge, slows and immobs gets annoying pretty quickly. I guess that last one is more than a nitpick too. The story takes an interesting turn here, as the doctors chose to work for the Protectorate, but only because the hospitals on Earth would only help heroes. One of the doctor's brothers needed help so she turned to the Protectorate....

Mission 2: Sister Psyche pulled some useful information from the doctors. We think we know where the leader of the division I just fought is located. We are off to a 5th council base where we find not 1, but 2 Elite Bosses to deal with. We have Manticore to help, and we needed all the help we could get against the robot MM. This turned out to be a long, very difficult fight. I didn't die, but it was close a few times. The other went down pretty easily though. A computer in the hideout had a note that indicated how cruel the Protectorate thinks the human race is and that a counter-attack is imminent.

Mission 3: We have to stop another General before she can attack any of "our" bases and strongholds. We are being sent to a zone where we are using all the manpower we have just to secure the perimeter. Sounds like a tough fight, so Sister Psyche is going to join me. We also pick up Ms. Liberty inside the mission and with both of them helping, we make quick work of the EB.

Overall I have to rate this arc a 4. The few annoyances in the first mission, particularly with the enemy group carried through the whole arc. After the second mission, they just were not very fun to fight, but more of a hassle to deal with their secondary effects. The story was solid, but not as entertaining as the first two acts of the 4 part story. Still, a very good effort and I plan on finishing this entire saga up shortly.

If you're interested. I could always use more feedback on this one.

BE Prologue: Gangs United
Arc ID: 250480
Author: @Ozzie Arcane
Morality: Heroic
Length: 4 Missions
Level Range: 10-20
Enemy Groups: Hellions, Trolls, Vahzilok, Custom
Description: An evil organization plots to bring several gangs together under their banner.

Thanks for your review, Beach_Lifeguard, your feedback is appreciated as always

You're not the first person to dislike the first map in this arc, so I'll probably go back and change it to a smaller version soon. I would have also liked lower the amount of Web Grenades the custom group has, but Web Grenade seems to be a required power for Devices, and given the theme of the custom group, there's not much I can do about it

Anyway, I'll go over the 3rd Arc and see what I can improve today. Thanks again for the review!

Hey Beach Lifeguard,

I would love if you checked out my short stories "The Legion of Mutants vs the Iron Agents" and "The Children of Astoria" in my signature.

I think both are a lot of fun, they are one mission short stories, and would love to hear your thoughts on them,

Red Warlock

PS: I'll check out yours and do a review soon...

Hi Beach Lifeguard,

If you have 20-ish minutes, you might try my Captain Dynamic arc (more details in my sig, below). Also, I looked at your Be a Villain arc, hope the review is useful.

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!

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Hi Beach Lifeguard,

If you have 20-ish minutes, you might try my Captain Dynamic arc (more details in my sig, below). Also, I looked at your Be a Villain arc, hope the review is useful.

Cheers, airhead

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the review. The updates to MA really wrecked that arc and I think it is about time that I take it down and work on something else. But still, I owe you a review now, so here we go with #190069.

Level 39 Axe/Fire Brute

Mission 1: Our contact is an entertaining guy, one Mr. Captain Dynamic, but I really don't follow what he is saying too well. I suspect there is some background I was supposed to read, particularly in regards to somebody named Great Face. Anyhow, it seems that Great Face is trying to recreate Rikti armor and is working with the snakes, so we are off to fight some snakes and see what we can find out.

Except, we don't fight snakes. We don't fight anything. We click a glowie and then lead out a girl that spawns. Then our contact acts like we just completed the mission he sent us on. Very confusing.

Mission 2: Our next mission is to stop Archon Burkholder from obtaining techie taffie. The mission is fairly straightforward and simple, pitting you against some Rikti, some council and a couple of custom guys. These guys didn't seem to have much reason to be in the mission, from my point of view. Also, I thought an objective was to beat the Archon, but I never saw him. Perhaps the battles between the factions in the mission did him in?

Mission 3: Honestly, I am having a lot of trouble following the story here. Into the mission we go and I'll try to see if it all makes sense at the end.

It doesn't. In fact, this was the most bizarre confusing mission I have played in a long time.

Either this arc was supposed to be funny and I didn't get it, or it is an inside joke, which I reeally didn't get, or your buddy has hacked your account for real and screwed this arc up. I am really confused.

I can only give it 2 stars, and that might be generous. Very sorry.

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I'd like you to try Illpracticed Malpractice *points at sig*

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Level 38 Axe/Fire Brute.

Mission 1: Our contact lays the plan out in front of us....we are going to sue the hospital for malpractice and to keep the chief resident from skipping town, we need to go in there and kidnap him. Seems simple enough.

The custom enemy group looked pretty good and were fair and balanced. The mission uses the hospital map, of course, which is always a good one. I found the chief resident and defeated his captors, and then things went really strange. Arachnos showed up and I had to fight them. I thought I was helping them? And then a Snake, 10 levels above me (as well as one about 5 levels below me) show up and almost tear us to pieces. I barely manage to escape.

With that, the arc is over. It started off promising, but things went haywire after the rescue on on the way back to the front door. You might want to check on what is actually triggering after I kidnap the doc. I hate to start off the review thread with a low score, but a 2 is all I can do right now because the mechanics seem broken. I would clean up the part I just mentioned. Maybe a better ambush would make this more fun. Also, the story could use a more interesting angle and/or conclusion.

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I have re-run this arc, since it is a short one. All of the issues have been corrected as far as I can tell. I have no problem bumping this one up to 3 stars. Its a good quick mission to run.

Hey BL,

No problem, I understand the arc isn't conventional. I try to pick reviewers for it that do well with unconventional arcs, like yourself, but then there's plenty of kinds of unconventional so I don't mind that it didn't work for you. I really appreciate you following up with tells to try to bridge the gap between us

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Except, we don't fight snakes. We don't fight anything. We click a glowie and then lead out a girl that spawns. Then our contact acts like we just completed the mission he sent us on. Very confusing.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is meant to be confusing. And get you thinking about what happened. The girl actually explains it, in the 100 characters she gets to speak at the end of that very short, deliberately harmeless mission.

I'd hoped to make this arc work fine independently of the videos, and I think I got the content to work that way (some jokes would be missed, but I never expect anyone to get all the jokes anyway - so they need to work as not-jokes too). However, the movies also set a scene of architects, who are in game, who email each other and such. Not quite immersion-breaking, but immersion on a different level. I think that might be also why the videos got mixed reviews (if it wasn't about the humor, or weird stuff like blaming the videos for the release date ).

My arc description mentions "This is a story about multiple architects". I'll write that twice... and recommend viewing the vids, instead of suggesting it. I doubt that'll solve this for you, but it might be in the right direction. Thanks for giving the arc a try!

Cheers, airhead

Edit: This is the lowest mark the arc's gotten so far. For someone chasing the elusive 4.5 star boundary between 4 and 5 stars showing, a 2 is equivalent to saying five 5-star responses were wrong. I get that many ratings in a month (often 4's), if I post like mad here. For anyone using ratings to determine anything (dev choice, hall of fame, random plays) the arc is now dead.

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!