okay, I've buffed the PPD and the mission fail text, and nerfed GG and the number of cars in the final mission (along with a few other tweeks).
Maybe the Col. could have a look at Total Domination, and someone else would go over Steel and Gold? I could do with help tracking down the typos.
I really should do something about this signature.
Col, go ahead and brutalise me! All my arcs are in my sig - and from what I've read so far I am guilty of a few cardinal sins - but hey, all's fair in reviewing and praising!
[ QUOTE ]
Col, go ahead and brutalise me!
[/ QUOTE ]
Get a room you two. 
A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691 <- Dev's Choice'd by Dr. Aeon!
Submit your MA arc for review & my arcs thread
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe the Col. could have a look at Total Domination, and someone else would go over Steel and Gold? I could do with help tracking down the typos.
[/ QUOTE ]You want to upload the mission file? It's much faster to proofread, and you're less likely to miss stuff.
I've already run it through Word, but dyslexia is a burger.
I really should do something about this signature.
hey Col, could you be so nice as to review my arc? Thanks!
Arc Name: Save the TV, Save the World!
Arc ID: 79690
Length: it says "Long" but the 4 mission maps are rather short.
Faction: Custom Group, Arachnos
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Arda
Difficulty Level:Easy-Medium
Estimated time to play: 20-40 minutes solo.
Poster
Synopsis:What happens when a reality warp crosses the fourth wall? Some anomalies are happening in the TV, and if no one finds what is going on and who is behind, our world as we know it can cease to exist.
For people who like pop culture references and the TV missions! For the gamers who love War Witch arcs! And cheerleaders, ninjas, vampires, zombies, ETs, time travellers, Spartans... all is here!
This arc is solo friendly and only has 1 EB/AV at the last miss. English is not my first language, so please bare with errors and don't hesitate to feed them back to me.
Arc "Save the TV, Save the World!"
Poster
Cheerleaders, ninjas, vampires, zombies, ETs, time travellers, Spartans... all is here!
ID - 79690
[ QUOTE ]
I've already run it through Word, but dyslexia is a burger.
[/ QUOTE ]
*directs PRAF to the Signature*
Would be happy to proof read if you were to do as Max said 
[ QUOTE ]
I've already run it through Word, but dyslexia is a burger.
[/ QUOTE ]Well, post it up somewhere and I'll take a look at it when I have a bit of time.
[ QUOTE ]
okay, I've buffed the PPD and the mission fail text, and nerfed GG
[/ QUOTE ]
You nerfed Golden Girl? You disabled her winky?
Zhaan, Chakyra, Fiorina 161, Aeryn, Polly Nation, Dee Pression, Shazanne, Night Jester and too many more to mention.
Network Hell 47640
Valley of the Harpies 74519
Green and Pleasant Land 75966
[ QUOTE ]
War Mace/Empathy. Where you playing this with a high level character? I didn't find this guy so easy.
[/ QUOTE ]That explains it, no ranged or defensive abilities; I just kept knocking him back with the Nova Form blasts. 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Clue 2 spawns after the Luddite boss dies. It's a spawn of Bat'Zul demons.
[/ QUOTE ]
Nope, that is not the trigger for this spawn.
[ QUOTE ]
Clue 3 spawns after the demons die, and is a spawn of Gold Brickers
[/ QUOTE ]
Again, not the trigger for this spawn. The Gold Brickers are there from the start.
[ QUOTE ]
The fact that these three Boss fights spawn one after another on an outdoor map isn't really a good thing,
[/ QUOTE ]
They don't spawn one another. 2 are in at the start, and as the other, you remember the "optional" possessed car?
[/ QUOTE ]Alright, fair enough, I must've missed the Brickers on the first few rounds.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
and some of the cars bugged
[/ QUOTE ]
In what way?
[/ QUOTE ]It's more of a MA thing than your fault, it's the bug where a destructible object is an "Invalid Target" for some reason until you attack its guards, which was annoying as I was trying to ghost this with aerial bombardments.
[ QUOTE ]
And do you think 30 minutes is too short, or are there too many cars to smash?
[/ QUOTE ]Too many cars. 30 minutes would normally be fine, I just had some bad luck with the car spawn locations (that's a map thing, not your fault, again) and estimating line of sight of guard spawns. I do play on Unyielding normally, though.
I've lowered the cars to 9, that should avarage 3 per section of the ship (I'm using the smallest ship map to try and make finding stuff easier).
I really should do something about this signature.
Hi there Col
I humbly submit my first arc for your consideration.
A new world order?
ID: 56881
Morality: Heroic
Soloable: Yes, but tough.
Elite Bosses/Arch-villains:
1 EB in mish 2, 1 EB in mish 4
Missions: 4
I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it.
MA
__________________________________________________
A New world Order?
Arc ID: 56881
Incursion
Arc ID: TBA
A Dark Future
Arc ID: TBA
Posters by Soul Storm
You're doing a fine job here, Colonel, so I guess it's finally time to tentatively submit my own works for your consideration.
I'm eager to have my two serious arcs reviewed, although I obviously understand if a pair can't be done due to time constraints & fairness to other authors. However, if you do get chance... the arcs can be played in either order.
The arcs are:
arc name: To Save A Single World
arc id: 83744
morality: heroic
5 missions, lvl 29 to 40
It's rumoured that the Council is developing a new secret weapon, so you infiltrate a base to find out more - but soon things take a turn for the unexpected...
arc name: Marketing Opportunity
arc id: 83747
morality: villainous
4 missions, lvl 30 to 40
Discrete freelancer required to market Crey services to parallel dimension. Applicants with dynamic, go-getting moral framework preferred.
I stuck notes about these in another thread here...
Thanks in advance - I'm now off to nervously await news of all my.. err.. mess ups.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
Anyone who feels up to reviewing my arcs, go ahead, the numbers are in my sig, but bear in mind the spawning issue has the potential to screw up the first one
Second one works well because of the spawning issue though, talk about playing to the faults
We built this city on Rock and Roll!
Sounds like your going to be very busy but if you get time, I'd like some feedback on the following serious arc if possible -
79300
Heroic morality
4 missions:-
Mission 1 - EB no allies
Mission 2 - glowie pickup
Mission 3 - EB with numina ally
Mission 4 - 5 EB's but 3 buff/debuff EB allies
Soloable easy enough from the testing I've done so far.
TIA
Current list: 1934/1064, 5760/5591, 53951, 75875, 53149, 75015, 48617, 63175, 79274, 23256, 74519, 2505, 79763, 27552, 82059, 60092, 22433 , one of AP's many arcs, 79690, 56881, 83744/83747, 9831/81348, 79300
23 arcs to go, not counting re-listings for people with multiple submissions. Phew! Let me know if I've accidentally missed anyone!
Arc #47625, "Shadows in Your Mind"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: Annoying custom faction, lack of character development.
The description mentions this arc was designed to challenge a team, so I'll be using my personal team... of Thugs.
Thugs/Dark Mastermind, that is, set to Invincible so AVs are AVs. Also, I played an earlier version of this arc once before.
Though the arc is Heroic, my choice of a villain AT didn't feel as unsuitable after I noticed the contact is Hardcase. You know, the Villainside contact from St. Martial who makes you want to punch him in the throat. How he'd contact a Hero is not explained.
Hardcase's dialogue is rather well-written, and has descriptive flavor text to describe his motions and expressions (in dark green text). He tells you people have been getting abducted by mysterious forces, and sends you to investigate such a recent occurence in a graveyard.
It's the normal foggy Dark Astoria graveyard map, the goal is to rescue 3 captives and defeat the 'Urgal' - I can't tell whether this is meant to be a reference to the Inheritance Cycle, or simply a similar name. The captives are easy to spot, as the guards use the green fire casting animation.
The mobs are of the default Ghosts faction, except the hostage guards, who are custom mobs named 'Possessed Soul' and the like, with various abilities. The boss is another custom mob, Super Strength/Dark Miasma - a potentially nasty combo for non-Masterminds.
The captives make brief mention of a scary demon, which confirms Hardcase's (somewhat vague) suspicions. He sends you after 'The Kuller', who seems to either be the demon they mentioned, or its servant (this is left unclear). He also mentions having sent 3 other heroes before you, which is worrying.
The map is the small Hellion Office one, with more Ghosts.
The Kuller is a custom EB, Super Strength/Invulnerability. A somewhat questionable design choice was giving a relatively minor plot character Extreme Invulnerability, which resulted in it popping Unstoppable and running around for a few minutes while I waited impatiently.
You also have an Ally named Knight Scar in this mission, a Fire Blast/Electric Blast custom mob (author insertion?) who seems to be set to Aggressive, not unlike a typical pick-up-group Blaster. He wasn't very helpful due to AI issues resulting in him getting locked into spamming the [Fire Blast] power, and nothing else.
Hardcase next sends you after... The Kuller. Deja vu. It is not explained whether the Kuller is a unique being or a rank, so I don't know if it's the same EB you just beat up or not. Either way, the fight is pretty much the same, only on the Croatoa Street map this time, and with The Harvester (Claws/SR) as an ally - a more useful one than Knight Scar was. He used to be Ninjitsu, but was changed after I told the author he could solo the EB before it had the time to pop Unstoppable.
This map is also fully populated by the Possessed Shade custom faction, which includes rather annoying examples such as minions with mez protection, minions that quadruple stack endurance-draining electric immobilizes, lieutenants with battleaxe/kinetics, and lieutenants who self-rez.
Neither of the previous missions produced many useful clues other than what was mostly flavor text, but Hardcase manages to piece together the location of the missing third hero and Azur, the demon we've been hunting.
The final mission is a mercifully small Orangebagel map full of more Shades. Halfway through you find Rike, who's been possessed, and is a Thorny Assault/Dark Armor AV, and one of the most annoying things I have ever fought on my Mastermind.
Not only did it take forever to die (the author seems to have had the sense not to give it Dark Regeneration or Soul Tranfer), but it kept spamming Thorntrops and oneshotting my Bruiser with attacks with DoT components. The damage aura helped too. Luckily he's vulnerable to immobilization. He went down after a good 5-10 minutes or so, and thanked me for releasing him.
Finally, we have Azur, who has apparently been changed from Broadsword/Fire Armor to Broadsword/Cold Domination since I last played this arc. Sadly Cold Domination didn't seem to really do anything useful when I fought him, though this might vary based on AT/build. The Broadsword was very useful for twoshotting my pets before my slow-animating heal could help them, though, so I popped Gang War to give him decoys to smack around. Kept him immobilized in the Arsonist's burn patch and took him down rather quickly - Rike was much more difficult and required many more pet resummons than this guy, so he's a bit of an anticlimax boss in comparison. The ambush at 50% health was annoying because the minions perma-immobilized me and drained my endurance.
The arc ends with Azur's host thanking you before he dies, and the demon that possessed him perishing. Hardcase is implied to hide the fact that he's glad you're alive, and congratulates you on a job well done.
The story gets a little random during the two Kuller missions, as the Kuller's nature and purpose isn't explained very well, aside from being someone for you to smack around and an implied lackey to Azur. The fact that you fight him twice is a little odd, but it may be that it's not the same Kuller - this ought to be explained.
The custom mobs were somewhat frustrating to fight and didn't have a distinct theme to their abilities - mobs should be kept consistent, not a random superpower lottery.
Azur is a lot weaker than Rike, which is a little funny considering he's constantly said to be an uber-powerful elite demon as you hear about him during the arc, and Rike is a freshly-possessed lackey of his. Consider changing their secondaries a little. Azur also needs more character depth than "big scary demon".
Overall a pretty solid arc. Needs a bit of tying-together in the middle, but Hardcase's lines were well-written despite it being a little odd that he'd associate with heroes. It's a rather challenging arc with tricky mobs though, I don't recommend attempting it solo.
I find it more odd that Hardcase associates with villains myself!
I really should do something about this signature.
[ QUOTE ]
Current list: 1934/1064, 5760/5591, 53951, 75875, 53149, 75015, 48617, 63175, 79274, 23256, 74519, 2505, 79763, 27552, 82059, 60092, 22433 , one of AP's many arcs, 79690, 56881, 83744/83747, 9831/81348, 79300
23 arcs to go, not counting re-listings for people with multiple submissions. Phew! Let me know if I've accidentally missed anyone!
[/ QUOTE ]
Wow - you're not too short of things to do this weekend then!
I salute you sir, if you keep going through these and providing the type of review that you have been so far.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
He's a braver man than most, that's for sure!
Defiant 50: Blonde Justice inv/ss; Lady Aminta emp/elec; Sierra Colt merc/traps; Tess LaCoyle elec/elec (blaster); Powerstorm elec/elec (brute);
Union 50: @Steel Dancer WP/DB; Blast Pulse Fire/Rad (corr); Bitter Twilight Earth/Psi (dom); Compassionate Emp/Psi;
Freedom 50: Incandescent Blaze ElecAm/Fire;
Arc #1064, "Blackmarket wants you (level 1-10)"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: Loose plot... weak plot... was there a plot? Unnecessary defeat-all on large map, "Just a bunch of stuff that happened", overpowered boss, surprise failable mission, typos, punctuation, inconsistent level cap (especially the final mission).
Used the Brute again for the sake of comfort.
This is meant to be an alternative intro arc to Kalinda and Burke for lowbie villains. The story starts with an... error in the arc name. "Black Market" is two words.
That aside, the contact is a Shady Person, one of the various NPC models used for BM NPCs redside. Turns out you're interested in a fake ID for some unexplained reason, and can't afford it, so she expects you to pay in favors. She also seems to really hate commas.
Mission one has you recovering some goods they were transporting, that was intercepted by the RIP. The level cap is 14, not 10 as I was lead to believe. The map is a normal warehouse of average size, and you're supposed to find some glowies.
Most are just crates, one is a weapon rack, one was a bunch of cardboard boxes that were actually not needed, and one is an urn that for some reason spawns an ambush of... Tuatha de Dannan? Anyway, after exiting, your contact makes absolutely no mention of the Tuatha at all. Alrighty then.
You are rewarded with implied money? I thought I was doing this for a fake ID. Anyway, next mission has you clear out a warehouse of Snakes, and find an ally, who turns out to e a Death Head Buckshot with an unbearable desire to prove my theory that shotgun-using allies are useless.
The map is a rather huge warehouse, which is terrible because among the objectives is a Defeat All. A level 10 or lower player is not going to have fun defeating all Snakes in a huge warehouse - trust me, they're more likely to settle for "defeat the boss and the rest will run away in panic", or something similar.
Also, I hate snakes - why did it have to be snakes? We get more than enough Snakes in Kalinda and Burke's arcs. I thought this was supposed to be a refreshing alternative? Apparently not, because the next mission is... wait for it...
A Snake cave. You're supposed to place 3 bombs as revenge for the snakes raiding the warehouse (for eggs that were stolen from them, but you're a villain so you don't care).
You also find another urn here, which does nothing - the interact text mentions you remember what happened with the last urn, so you leave this one alone. Still no further elaboration on the Tuatha ambush, or their connection to the Snakes.
For some mind-boggling reason you're asked to leave a note stating who's behind the bombing - I'm just going to assume the note is on a plate of reinforced Impervium, and thus expected to survive the explosions. Anyway, that's it for the Snakes...
On an unrelated matter, the next mission. Yet another warehouse rumble, this time one of the clients of the Black Market is trying to destroy a shipment meant for another client - they want you to take care of it, so they don't lose favor with the clients currently tearing up their warehouse and breaking their things.
Said client turns out to be Arachnos, fighting... the Skulls. I'm not sure why the Skulls are here, because the shipment is a crate of schoolbooks. Defending this objective spawns a boss, a Mace/Shield that might probably give trouble to a normal level 10 player. He's said to be sent by "Phipps", in a shout-out to a certain level 40-44 redside arc, which, unfortunately, made me subconciously contrast the quality of writing between these two arcs.
And, on yet another unrelated note - mission five! Out of the blue, you're asked to raid a RIP station to find information on the new boss, who's been refusing bribes and has proven impossible to blackmail so far. Your contact creates a diversion, which should thin the number of cops in the building for about half an hour. Timed mission, here we go.
The clean cop she mentioned is still here, and one of the mission goals. This is unfortunate for two reasons - one, he's extremely tough even for me, and killed me in the first encounter, because I didn't notice the level cap randomly jumped to 40(!), and was stunned because my mez protection was not on (at level 10 I wouldn't even HAVE mez protection, though). Mace/Invulnerability.
Two, and this was an unpleasant surprise - he runs away at low HP. Being a Brute without any viable means of keeping him still, I failed the mission, which the contact seems to disregard as she gave me the ID anyway. What the heck you do with this ID is only mentioned in the Souvenir. Loosely.
Um, where do I begin. This isn't really an arc, it's a series of stand-alone missions. Well, okay, the two Snake missions are tied together, but that's about it. Nothing of consequence or interest happens - I dare say I've seen newspaper missions with more intriguing plots.
There is no excuse for a defeat all on any map set bigger than "Small". Especially at level 10, with the high-damage-dealing Snakes, whom a lot of lowbies are sick of anyway. I understand the author feels Snakes are integral to the Mercy Island theme, but we have two lowbie arcs with Snakes in the spotlight - I'm sure we'd all be happy if they had only been given a minor role in an ambush or two.
The Tuatha de Dannan ambush is totally random, and a bizarre sight in the Rogue Isles, and is not explained or even mentioned by the contact. Why was a similar urn in the Snake cave? Maybe the author meant to have the ambush be Snakes, and misclicked factions?
There's some noticeable typos, and a distinct lack of commas. I'd also mention the Snakes' lines being inaccurate (They talk more like a mix of Gollum and Jar-Jar Binks than CoV Snakes), but that's mostly just a nitpick.
Honest opinion? I prefer Kalinda and Burke, I'm sorry. This is just the same old stuff with a weaker story and overpowering custom bosses.
If you're still accepting arcs for review, Col, I'd be happy for feedback on my first attempt:
"Tooth and Claw" Arc ID 87206, it's listed from my Ibuprofen account.
Edit- It's a heroic arc, with custom mobs so it should work at any level.
The Purple Party Pagan of Paragon
Globals: @Morgana Fiolett / @Genevieve Moore
Altoholic with too many characters to count now I have all these shiny servers...
Thanks for the review. Honest and to the point. To say that I am disappointed with the results is a given. It is a good thing that there have been people who did enjoy it. So I guess that makes the arc Marmite. You like it or you hate it. Snakes is not for everybody.
For the language errors. English is not my home language and it shows. I did everything in my power to make the text as good as possible but to no avail apparently.
I admit the story is not very strong, it was more the idea to show how an organization like the BM could survive on the RI. I tried to make things more interesting by adding little side jokes and such.
The level cap you are talking about is set by the lowest cap in the arc which is 1-9. I made sure that the low end was kept at 1 and frankly the high end was of much less importance. This arc is designed for lowbies. The length of the whole arc is such that you can level from 2 to 5 with it.
I find it strange that you had trouble with the boss. He is on the weakest setting possible. And yes he runs, but only at 10% of his hitpoints.
[ QUOTE ]
I find it strange that you had trouble with the boss. He is on the weakest setting possible. And yes he runs, but only at 10% of his hitpoints.
[/ QUOTE ]I didn't notice the jump in level until after the mission (this is why consistent level caps are good; people shouldn't have to check for this kind of thing), so I didn't have mez protection on. He beaned me with a stun and killed me with his spawn while I was wobbling around. A level 10 or below would have more trouble, because custom mobs in general are -very- tough to handle for low-level toons. They're stronger than regular mobs whether you like it or not, and this one can stun.
I think Xemulas is offering proofreading services. The reason I don't bring out specific examples of errors is that English is not my primary language, either, and thus I don't feel I'm allowed to bicker -too- much about it. The lack of commas is somewhat disturbing, though.
You may disagree with this, but I believe arcs should be comfortable for characters of any level. People flashback Ouroboros arcs, you know. It could be done as easily as adding a random non-required encounter where some police officers are bringing in a Skull or something for arrest, limiting the arc to maximum level 14, as an example.
Also, I'm willing to re-review arcs after edits, if the author wishes me to do so. This still puts you at the back of the current list, though, for the sake of fairness.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I find it strange that you had trouble with the boss. He is on the weakest setting possible. And yes he runs, but only at 10% of his hitpoints.
[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't notice the jump in level until after the mission (this is why consistent level caps are good; people shouldn't have to check for this kind of thing), so I didn't have mez protection on. He beaned me with a stun and killed me with his spawn while I was wobbling around. A level 10 or below would have more trouble, because custom mobs in general are -very- tough to handle for low-level toons. They're stronger than regular mobs whether you like it or not, and this one can stun.
[/ QUOTE ]
Capping the level to 10 in that mission is hard. You only have two spawns to play with in the first place. It is a tiny map.
[ QUOTE ]
I think Xemulas is offering proofreading services. The reason I don't bring out specific examples of errors is that English is not my primary language, either, and thus I don't feel I'm allowed to bicker -too- much about it. The lack of commas is somewhat disturbing, though.
[/ QUOTE ]
I did not want to take to much of his time as he was friendly enough to do one of my arcs. I wanted to tweak this one more before letting him proofreading it. And yes adding a bit more story was part of the plan. But it will never become a full blown story though.
[ QUOTE ]
You may disagree with this, but I believe arcs should be comfortable for characters of any level. People flashback Ouroboros arcs, you know. It could be done as easily as adding a random non-required encounter where some police officers are bringing in a Skull or something for arrest, limiting the arc to maximum level 14, as an example.
[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree comnpletely with this. For one very important thing. Low levels have no IO's no SO's and if they have training enhancement, then they don't have 6 slots of it.
They also don't have funny accolades either.
There is a big difference between a true lowbie and a exemplared high level toon.
I might as well give it a shot, Col. :3
Supa Rumble in the Park
Arc ID: 60092
The Trolls have arisen from the depths of the Hollows! What is their master plan? EBs in almost every mission (especially the last, which also has an AV), may not be suitable for all ATs to solo (though two people who commented on my storyarc said they did it with tricked out blasters). Recommended level of play is 35+.
Note as always, you can turn Bosses into Lieutenants, Elite Bosses into Bosses, and AVs into EBs by playing on normal difficulty. :3
Ideon's Paragonwiki page
Member of Paragon/Rogue Knights
Arc: 60092 - Supa Rumble in the Park
"Keep living the dream, and never let any jerk tell you what to do."
-- High-Roller