I'm really enjoying these reviews, so I'd like to step forward and take my lumps.
My arc is #67280, "Whatever Happened To The Cockroach Crusader?" Four missions, mostly unique maps, level 20 up. The villains are a mix of the Freakshow (for space saving purposes) and a mix of custom mobs.
There's something very wrong with Roachman and Roachgirl, a pair of not completely un-bat-like crime crushers. To make matters worse, their arch-nemesis, Day-Glo the Fluorescent Man, seems to have returned from the grave...
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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.
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You can use the main map enemy group to cap the level, even if you have filled up all the spawn points with other stuff, so the map enemy group never actually apear in the mission.
I really should do something about this signature.
Since I'm getting (a few) plays but not reviews I'll throw my arc as well for one of Col's vivisections.
'It's not easy to get started' - ID 80488
Began as a simple 'Damn non lowbie friendly MA maps. Hold on, why don't I do a simple map to help me level with a healer NPC' and then it snowballed into a real string of missions.
It's purpose tailored for lowbies (healer ally, Council faction, but with all the 'annoying' members removed (marskmen and their cryo rounds, wolves, mez using vampires, etc), somewhat easy custom bosses (except the last two which I bumped up a bit, at level 7-8 even with the healer it was touch and go for them but it's better giving a challenge IMO)) but I took the trouble of faction fiddling with it so it serves up to level 54.
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I'm really enjoying these reviews, so I'd like to step forward and take my lumps.
My arc is #67280, "Whatever Happened To The Cockroach Crusader?" Four missions, mostly unique maps, level 20 up. The villains are a mix of the Freakshow (for space saving purposes) and a mix of custom mobs.
There's something very wrong with Roachman and Roachgirl, a pair of not completely un-bat-like crime crushers. To make matters worse, their arch-nemesis, Day-Glo the Fluorescent Man, seems to have returned from the grave...
[/ QUOTE ]
I just gave this one a try and found it really enjoyable. Great story - obviously modelled on 60s-style Batman TV show that turns gloomy (nice HAL-9000 reference there at the end btw).
Only thing that irritated me at the time (but is understandable in retrospect):
tiny casino map + EB that's set to flee at 10% = recipe for mission failure. I almost had him, but got stuck on one of the gaming machines for a crucial 2 seconds, preventing me from firing off that last potentially decisive Air Superiority.
But then, it makes sense story-wise - in fact, the way the story unfolds, he has to get away somehow (I'm willing to bet that if you succeed in that mission, he's escaping after being taken in by the police or something).
...ouch.
ok, that 4th mission no-show is a bug, and one I've not come across (and no one else has reported any problem with that). It's a custom boss spawn.
Map sizes, as someone else also reported about an hour before this 
reworking those.
Will talk more ingame.
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;
Awsome Idea, Col
Don't know how I missed this thread.
Would love a review if ever possible
Temple of the Four Winds
ID: 16769
Morality: Heroic
Soloable: Yes, but some EBs/AVs
Missions: 3
Quest to save a future hero (Scirrocco makes a sneak appearence)
Drunkards and Dragons
ID: 55560
Morality: Heroic
Soloable: Yes, 1 EB/AV at the end
Missions: 3
Fantasy style adventure, Orcs and elves and all sorts of fantasy creatures
Reattempted that mission, bugged again, boss didn't show. Did a painful defeat-all (freaking Earth Casters) and still nothing.
Something's wrong with your mission. I'm going to quit it this time and not rate it. I'd be willing to retry it again another time if you manage to figure out what is causing this, and get it fixed.
I suspect it's broken because the spawn is set as "back" and you've probably got a few "Any" position patrols spawning on the map. When they spawn at the back, it seems to take up the space accomodatable for ambushes and patrols from the map selection screen and doesn't spawn the boss.
Took me a while to figure this out myself on my own arc - had 3 spawns in the final room including an ambush from one of those spawns which took up the 4 available "back" positions. Worked fine sometimes, failed to create a spawn at other times making arc unfinishable. Once I went through the patrols and set them for the middle rather than back, not had any problems at all with it.
Might not be what's causing your problem but would suggest looking at it - took me a while to figure out that's what the problem was. Since by their nature patrols move from their starting position, wasn't obvious to me at first.
Whelp. I'll put my neck out there on the chopping block. Here's my arc to go to the back of the pile.
Arc #2022, The Butcher's Telemetry. This is a holographic log containing some of my darker memories, displayed here for posterity. (A fairly challenging arc, with a very hard final mission. Is under constant improvement. Comments and suggestions welcome!)
The arc is designed to be hard. I see far too many high-level teams in CoH simply flatten all opposition without a challenge. It's got to the point where battles aren't battles anymore, but races to see who can kill the enemy first. I have tried to fill that niche, provide a challenge that will wake people out of their farming-induced stupors. And no, I'm not just talking about farmers being challenged, as a team of top-tier players who care about the plot and characters can defeat anything the game throws at them without contest.
However. What I haven't tried to do is make an arc that isn't fair. No Archvillains with /regen, no massed Psionic damage, no masses of unmezzable enemies. I want to encourage tactics; take this guy out first, make sure these guys don't swarm you, play it cautiously, and you'll come through.
So if you tell me the arc is hard, good. That's what I wanted. If you tell me it's hair-tearingly frustrating, I have failed, and it's back to the drawing board.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
Another one to add to your workload, Col.
ID 1444 The Twisted Tongue
Heroic 20-45
I can never remeber who I have coerced into trying an arc so I apologise if you have already had a look at it in your spare time but I believe you need to keep punting an arc out there in order to get the viewing figures much above 10. 
Cheers in advance
Currently playing "Exchange of Words". "late arrival" in mission 4 spawned without problem.
I think if the mission objective text appears, the mob must have spawned. It is possible it spawns under the map occasionally.
I really should do something about this signature.
Somehow I can't help feeling that we should have a web based feature like this connect to the game rather than what will be a very long thread. But the initiative is good though and I hope to be able to contrib' in it.
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Currently playing "Exchange of Words". "late arrival" in mission 4 spawned without problem.
I think if the mission objective text appears, the mob must have spawned. It is possible it spawns under the map occasionally.
[/ QUOTE ]Twice in a row for me, so either I'm extremely unlucky or it happens more than just 'occasionally'. 
I've had 100% successful spawns.
I've used that map myself (in Jefferies'), and spawned a boss of an objective, and tested it dozens of time, and the boss has never failed to spawn.
I really should do something about this signature.
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(I'm willing to bet that if you succeed in that mission, he's escaping after being taken in by the police or something).
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That's it exactly - it is possible to succeed in that mission, and I've done it, but afterwards he does manage to escape. It is possible to beat him, though - I knew people would get upset if there was no chance at all.
one of the missions in my Arc ( despite me testing it for over a week solid ) decided to throw several destroyable object ambushes, as well as battle ambushes for the first tester, so it was back into editing and tweaked. So please remember that there is always going to be different results for different people! :P
In-game and now on Twitter @Tsumiju Zero "The Nightmare of Dra'Gon"
"The flow of battle can only be influenced, not by realtime tactics, but by strategy."
Proud resident of the Union EU Server.
B.A.F. Trial Guide
Liking the reviews so I am gonna throw my head into the noose and put all 3 of my creations up here. Not all are meant to be soloable so will require a team to do without 'chronic death syndrome'. A couple of mishes include an ally in order to improve the plot and ease certain mishes becoming a grind. Generally, the foes have good AI so do play on their strategic factors (although none are set to run, they will fight you). With that in mind here they are.
GHOSTS OF PIRACY
Arc ID: 6982
Length: Very Long (not all maps are very large though)
Morality: Villainous (it could be legitamised Neutral if you really take a leap)
Level: 10-15 Arc (high rep and large team runs like a real TF)
Enemy factions: Custom group - The Sea Fiends, Arachnos, RIP, Coralax, Spectral Pirates.
Further info: Spectral Pirates have been running amok and Arbiter Sands has been assigned, but, has higher duties. He needs a group of powerful, and expendable, villains to eradicate modern day pirates trying to steal a piece of history. Contains 3 EBs and 1 AV at correct team size/difficulty. Can be soloed though on villainous rep.
DEMANUFACTURE
Arc ID: 6992
Length: Very Long
Morality: Villainous
Level: 46-50 Arc
Enemy factions: Custom group - The Predatars, Rikti, Arachnos, PPD.
Further info: This is an arc to introduce The Predatars. They have begun producing some new weapons that have serious potential to make our villainous lives much, much worse. Will some group of Destined One's come to fight? High-threat arc, with powerful EBs & AV. Note: This is an intro-arc for Predatar and Prey. This arc contains many EBs that are reasonably tough as well as a Hero (custom AV) thats a real 'shocker' at the end.
PREDATAR AND PREY
Arc ID: 7004
Length: Long
Morality: Villainous
Level: 1-54 TF (this was designed to be a very high threat challenge for high-lvl chars so low lvls will struggle)
Enemy factions: Custom group - The Predatars.
Further info: The global heroes known as The Predatars have begun a plot to cleanup the Rogue Isles and are hatching a plan to hinder the powers of The Destined Ones permanently. Surely there is a team of villains that can tackle this threat? This is an extreme-threat TF designed for team play with obscure AVs.
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Somehow I can't help feeling that we should have a web based feature like this connect to the game rather than what will be a very long thread. But the initiative is good though and I hope to be able to contrib' in it.
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You seen the cityofguides MA stuff? There is more on the way.
Arc #53951, "A Sleeping Star"
tl;dr: 5 stars.
The arc description mentions AVs, so I'll be using the Mastermind to try them out in their true form.
Your contact is Leese Stewart, who is most likely the author's character; she's in her civvies though. I promptly tuned my Mary Sue sensors up to high sensitivity upon seeing this, just in case. Leese asks you to find her friend who's gone missing on her way to pay Leese a visit. The last time she was seen was getting off the train (tram?) at Founders' Falls, so off you go.
It's one of the small, elongated city maps; a map I wish more authors used, because it's an outdoor map with all the qualities of an indoor map, and thus not annoying. The mission is capped at level 44, and is full of Crey Agents.
The goals are to rescue find a glowie, which is a cardboard box with Alice's (Leese's friend's) suitcase in it. You take her belongings as clues. The captive is a Martial Arts/Invulnerability Ally named 'Leese' guarded by Council, who is your oontact in her Hero identity. She only conned as a Lieutenant even on Invincible, so she doesn't steal any of your spotlight.
Upon rescuing her, an objective to find 3 'Suspicious Men' appears, as Leese tells you she saw someone like that in the area. This spawns 4 bosses, one of which is a Carnie Ring Mistress who expresses annoyance at being accused of being a man if you attack her. Humorously enough she doesn't count for the objective, and is perfectly optional.
The ones that do count are a Freak Tank, a... boss I managed to forget due to not being important anyway, and the guy you're looking for: a Suspicious Void Slayer. Hope you're not a Kheldian, but you're warned about this in the arc description (as in 'bring purples'). This hints at what's to come further in the arc.
You don't find much info, but Alice's diary has had no new entries in about 3 months. Your contact is puzzled, and suggests checking the woods near Alice's home for clues.
The map is the croatoa forest map, which can be a bit of a maze for those who haven't experiened it much; this is Lampshaded by Leese (again here as an ally) if you lose her. The enemy mobs are a somewhat gratuitous custom faction called Galaxy Nictus, custom mobs with Dark powers mixed with Council Galaxy mobs and some Nictus bosses. Your goal is a named Dark Dwarf. Leese is puzzled by their presence, and you find a white crystal fragment on the Dwarf.
Anyway, since the Nictus and Council are involved, Leese seeks help from Sunstorm, who claims the crystal is from something similar to a Shadow Cyst that normal Kheldians use (canon nitpick: I'm not sure if this is entirely accurate, but Kheldian lore is very loose...). Sunstorm does some research and discovers 3 Council bases, and one of you goes to investigate each one.
An average Council map, your goal is to find information and take out the base leader. You learn that Alice has indeed been kidnapped by the Council under suspicion of being a Peacebringer, and sent to another base for testing and experimentation.
Sunstorm sends Leese off on a wild goose chase (to a supposedly understaffed unrelated Council base), telling you she's too young for this kind of danger. The two of you investigate the real base.
Sunstorm spawns near the entrance as an ally, and cons as an Arch-Villain, giving him attacks that deal upwards of 1000 damage (highest I saw was 1800). Needless to say, clearing my way to the objectives was not a challenge.
You're supposed to find 3 glowies, which are computers with clues revealing that Alice has a comatose Peacebringer inside her, which she allowed to bond with her after it crashlanded on Earth. She doesn't understand the nature of the merger though, and the Council is torturing her to get her to exhibit powers in an experiment to create Kheldian powers in soldiers without the mental merger 'side-effect'.
The base leader is Arakhn, the Arch-Villain. With Sunstorm's help I made short work of her, and the mission was complete. She revealed that the 5th Column stole Alice from them before you got there.
In the finale, it turns out that other base Leese was sent to was not exactly understaffed. She's been heavily injured and her mediporter is malfunctioning, so you have to go to the rescue (Sunstorm meanwhile assembles a task force of other Peacebringers to look for Alice).
The base turns out to be 5th Column, not Council. You find Leese in a bodybag - she's alive though. You activate her mediporter and send her off to the hospital, then resume your investigations. After finding the base leader (bonus points for spelling Übermensch with an umlaut) and defeating him, Alice spawns as a hostage nearby. You have to escort her out on a somewhat lengthy map.
The author has made a pretty exciting escort though. While this was likely coincidence, the first obstacle in the form of a Raserei Ubermenschen Oberst happened to spawn in one of the walled-off bunker things, who caught me by surprise at first. Taking him out spawns an ambush of 5th Column.
A bit further ahead is a Dark Nova surrounded by Galaxy Nictus. Taking him out spawns an ambush of more Galaxy Nictus.
The next obstacle is... Arakhn. Note, the navbar at this point states that defeating enemies is strictly optional, though this might be troublesome as Arakhn stopped me with an immobilize followed by a stun as I tried to run past. Accepting her challenge, I filled her full of bullets and continued on towards the door, which was guarded by a final obstacle in the form of a Dark Dwarf.
After escorting Alice to the door and exiting, you're presented with a nice debriefing in the form of a one-week timeskip. Leese is sittin on a park bench next to a pair of crutches, and is delighted to see that you've come to visit her. She assures you that her recovery is going smoothly and thanks you from the bottom of her heart. She also reveals that Alice and her Kheldian (named Solar Bloom) are doing fine - Solar Bloom was born in this galaxy and is too young to be extracted from its host safely, so Sunstorm is personally helping the two deal with their new life together. Happy end. The Souvenir is a cute and colorful thank-you letter from Alice.
I tried really hard to find something noticeably wrong with this arc, but failed. The writing is solid. The author insertion isn't annoying at all, because the author's character is only a lieutenant in the first two missions, completely missing in the next two, and is almost killed in the fifth, so you get to be the main hero of the story.
There's not really much else to say. I'd go as far as to say I think this arc could easily be turned into an enjoyable official Task Force with very few alterations. Heck, lower the level limit a little and it could replace the Citadel TF as the token Council TF, as a major improvement. I sincerely recommend this arc to everyone.
My review request here, for some full reviewing;
Knife: In the Back
ID: 70658
Length: 3 missions
The Rikti are offering some of their tech and machinery to anyone who can do some dirty work for them. Given the nature of the problem, this is fairly repeatable (by different characters, anyway)
Give it a whirl when you have time =]
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Col, have pm'd you ingame but putting post also for the sake of completeness. Following comments of testers, I've taken down and republished 79300 as 92781 (Praetorian Earth Invasion).
Could you change in your list to replace 79300 with 92871 please. Looking forward to the review, all been very indepth and objective so far
TIA
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Arc #53951, "A Sleeping Star"
tl;dr: 5 stars.
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Thanks a LOT for this review. I really appreciate it, and I'm thrilled you enjoyed it.
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Anyway, since the Nictus and Council are involved, Leese seeks help from Sunstorm, who claims the crystal is from something similar to a Shadow Cyst that normal Kheldians use (canon nitpick: I'm not sure if this is entirely accurate, but Kheldian lore is very loose...).
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Indeed. I couldn't find any information about HOW Kheldians travel through space, so I just rigged up an explanation similar to how the Nictus do it.
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Sunstorm spawns near the entrance as an ally, and cons as an Arch-Villain, giving him attacks that deal upwards of 1000 damage (highest I saw was 1800). Needless to say, clearing my way to the objectives was not a challenge.
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I'd love to be able to tone down Sunstorm, actually, but won't be able to until Kheldian powersets become available in the critter creator. (also, I miss his yellow costume)
Though I do worry that Arakhn will be much harder if Sunstorm was a Boss or capped to an EB instead of an AV.
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You have to escort her out on a somewhat lengthy map.
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I'd pick a smaller map, but I needed a linear map with not very complicated rooms. This Large map was the only one that really fit the bill.
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The next obstacle is... Arakhn. Note, the navbar at this point states that defeating enemies is strictly optional, though this might be troublesome as Arakhn stopped me with an immobilize followed by a stun as I tried to run past.
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Every time I tested, my blasters/PB etc were able to get past Arakhn without being mezzed, but then I knew what was coming. I'd be interested to hear how other players fare here. I might try to finagle the spawns so she appears in a bigger room, but it's hard to make that work consistently.
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I sincerely recommend this arc to everyone.
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Damnit, now I need to go buy some bigger hats. Thank you once again.
"The Hamidon is a what what of what?" - Brian the mission guy.
I HATE THESE FORUMS SO MUCH AND I NEED TO GET USED TO COPYING MY TEXT BEFORE HITTING SUBMIT K THX BYE
Arc #75875, "Zero Breaker"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: Plot decay, no Clues, uber EB, typos and grammar.
On the Brute again, for badge cred-... er, forget I said anything.
The contact is Mender Roebuck, which is a nice choice by the author due to Roebuck currently having no lines in the game at all, yet still looking appropriate as an Ouroboros-themed contact. In the briefing he both Lampshades and plays straight several time travel related Stock Phrases. I feel a headache coming on because the concept of time travel is something my brain just can't seem to wrap itself around.
Anyway, he first sends you back in time to "extract" a certain someone, and warns you not to do anything else that'd interfere with the timestream. This someone turns out to be Tsumiju (with a string of numbers behind his name to indicate timeline), an apparent author insertion. But this smelled like an origin story from a mile away, so that's fine.
He's guarded by a bunch of Tsoo who mention an unsuccessful Black Ink Man experiment before being punched in the face. Another goal you were not told about (I must be psychic) is to remove a Temporal Anchor from the area, which looks like an inconspicuous recycle bin.
The map was the small linear city map, and had several battles between Tsoo and allied "1980s PPD", who were using Martial Arts and Super Strength, so the streets looked like something out of a camp kung fu movie. While cool, the SS cops felt like a bit much, since the PPD has not used metas until the very recently created Awakened division. And even that division is controversial.
After congratulating you on a job well done, Roebuck next sends you to... the same time and place. Only this time some of the cops are hostile and some of the Tsoo are friendly, and your goal is to save Tsumiju (different string of numbers) from some PPD guards, which triggers a very painful ambush. Bring purples and breakfrees if you're a squishy.
There's also another recyc-... Temporal Anchor to get rid of. Roebuck mentions in the outro text for this mission that you may or may not have run into a Temporal Anomaly (optional boss?) that represented you from your previous mission. I didn't. Roebuck says Tsumiju's future (present?) hero self stopped it anyway, resulting in Tsumiju being split apart from the timestream and creating two versions of him... or something... and one of which is apparently immune to Carbon Law from now on.
The next mission has you sent to a location during the Rikti War (not specified which one) to "persuade" evil-Tsumiju to help Roebuck in his plans. The map is the St. Martial Hard Way map, and full of various types of Rikti. There's a LOT of Rikti Bombs, and several familiar faces such as a Heavy Assault Suit and Dra'Gon, but none of those are necessary for mission completion.
Evil Tsumiju happens to be /Ninjitsu. Oh boy. For those of you who don't know, Ninjitsu is bugged and makes the mob in question deal double damage with EVERY attack. This became evident when I noticed something oneshotting Rikti in the distance - at least this made him easy to find on the outdoor map, since Ninjitsu would normally be stealthed.
Upon agro, Tsumiju cut me with Katana's weakish melee cone attack for around 850 damage, which prompted my hasty activation of Power Surge (godmode) and the consuming of a few Respites. He kept hitting me for 200-250 damage through 90% Lethal Resistance, so I had to use an Accolade for the first time in my reviewing so far. Demonic Aura won me enough time to take him down. No wonder this guy didn't need any help with the Rikti.
Next mission has Roebuck send you to prehistoric Primeva, through a portal maintained by whichever version of Tsumiju it was that was immune to Carbon Law. You're supposed to bring back shards of the original temporal pillars used by the original Circle of Thorns there, which is supposedly what Ouroboros crystals and stuff are based on/made of.
The map is the Primeva river map, which is a nice small underused outdoor map. The place is full of Behemoths, and some custom mobs named Troglodytes, who look like rather well designed hairy cavemen, and are promptly killed by the Behemoths. Aside from the pillars, you're also supposed to take out the Behemoth leader for some reason, who happens to be a Blade Prince.
For the record, a Blade Prince is a blue Behemoth Elite Boss, with some ice powers and Confuse, and a unique ability to summon a horde of floating ice swords to attack you, which is extremely cool. It's sad that these guys are so rare. They're pretty tough though - bring breakfrees and/or help. I managed to solo him and his blades with breakfrees with AoEs and endurance drain, but other ATs/builds might have more trouble.
After congratulating you on a job well done so far, Roebuck completely shuffles the plot around and sends you to help evil Tsumiju beat up his past self, who happens to be a Nemesis soldier. This is the part where my brain kind of fizzled and I didn't understand the story anymore. It had made sense to the point where Roebuck split Tsumiju off from the timestream to gain access to time travel much further back than normal, but this bit didn't seem to tie into it at all.
Oh well, off you go, and the map is a cargo ship full of Nemesis soldiers. You find evil Tsumiju as a captive - how the hell they subdued him is a mystery, because rescuing him results in the guy running towards the nearest enemies and hacking them for up to 3000 damage a hit.
As Tsumiju butchers his way through the ship with me casually strolling behind with my hands in my pockets, he runs behind a corner and Soaring Dragons something behind a crate - the body of a very dead Roebuck flying through the air explained what it was that he found so interesting. Roebuck mentions Nemesis is on the ship too, and for some reason he becomes a required mission goal.
Sure enough, deeper in the ship we find Nemesis, conning as an EB (AV?). This only means Tsumiju has to hack at him five or six times as opposed to once, and Nemesis drops dead, making a brief mention of Mender Silos which will be amusing for those of us who know the secret behind Silos' name.
After the finale, the outro has Roebuck thank you for all you've done, and claim he's going back to vending Insps, which are apparently implied to be made from those shards you collected in mission four by the Souvenir you get.
I have to admit, time travel tends to rub me the wrong way. The whole paradoxical nature of the very concept means that when Roebuck gave me a nice and vaguely-detailed lecture on how his plan will work, my eyes kind of just glazed over and I nodded to the whole thing. The Technobabble sounded convincing enough anyway, because the author had obviously done extensive research into canon and lore before writing this arc, so the terminology perfectly matches the usual Technobabble you hear in Ouroboros.
Still, the final mission felt rather random to me. Up to then, the story was interesting if a little confusing - the mindscrew with the first two missions was very well pulled off though, even though I didn't want to give myself a migraine by considering the logical or paradoxical contradictions in the whole thing - time travel can't make sense anyway, so why bother. Even so, I didn't understand why we had to beat up Nemesis-Roebuck and Nemesis, aside from Tsumiju wanting revenge for meddling with his past.
Funnily enough, in the briefing Roebuck mentioned that he was aware of Tsumiju's intentions and wanted you to -help- him do so. Since nothing bad happened to present-Roebuck due to this, I can imagine he was simply rubbing his palms together and muttering "Just as planned" while we were away. It's all a Mender Roebuck plot! I really wish the author had added Clues to explain things.
Overall though, it was pretty interesting, and kinda fun. I certainly don't consider it a waste of my time, in any case. The map choices were good, and the atmosphere in the third and fourth missions was great. The godlike EB should really be changed to Super Reflexes though, to not [censored] people off when he twoshots them due to a bugged secondary; also, he might be a huge pain to find if he ever by chance spawns away from the Rikti and doesn't agro them. There were also some typos and grammar errors, and one instance where an NPC says "I" and nothing more.
A decent, convincing addition to the list of Ouroboros pseudo-taskforces, in both theme and difficulty.
Cheers Col for reviewing, can you please let me know which NPC says I lol?
As for the final mission, the idea was to close the loop of events, by going back and giving Nemesis and Mender Roebuck the idea of looping time in the first place, perhaps the EB ally carved Nem up a little too quickly to trigger the HP based dialogue that suggests this. Mission 4 was supposed to be the "ooh" mission to try and represent a period of time unavailiable in the game thus far, with mission 5 tying up the plot.
Am kinda confused on the glowies from mission 1-2 as they are mentioned in mission brief as removing evidence of tampering with time, ( and loosely covered it being a waste bin with the chat panel dialogue inferring it is enclosed in a hologram when interacting with it )any suggestions how to improve this for further plays?
As for the Ninjitsu bug, wasn't aware of it on playtesting, but will switch to SR for the time being and tone back the settings on the ally damage output for mission 5.
Overall I'm glad you enjoyed it and I WILL be looking at pretty much every point you've raised to improve the arc further, only one that really stumps me so far is what to change the 80's PPD to as I couldnt find a set that wasnt overly super as a secondary ( plus the whole 80's kung fu movie does look quite amusing on my play throughs )
again, suggestions from all welcome!!!
In-game and now on Twitter @Tsumiju Zero "The Nightmare of Dra'Gon"
"The flow of battle can only be influenced, not by realtime tactics, but by strategy."
Proud resident of the Union EU Server.
B.A.F. Trial Guide
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They also don't have funny accolades either.
[/ QUOTE ]For the record, I haven't used any yet. Expect me to state it in a review if I have to resort to an Accolade.
Anyway, the comfortable-for-all-levels thing is, of course, subjective, but may influence people's ratings - I'm assuming my viewpoint on this matter isn't unique to me alone. Just a tip, there. I've been considering inconsistent level caps a flaw in the arcs I've reviewed from the very beginning. In any case, a 'true lowbie' will have even MORE trouble with this arc than I did, as I already stated (read: warned about).
Arc #5591, "An Exchange of Words"
tl;dr: Rating withheld until I talk to the author. Offenses: Poor map choices, typos, annoying mobs (at level cap), mission 4 messed up.
Brute again. I'll be using the Brute a lot of the time for badge credit, unless mission format encourages me to try something else, though I'll be commenting from an AT-neutral point of view.
Anyway, your contact is Darrin Wade. The story starts off simple enough, he asks you to steal a magic book from an unnamed faction, and leave no witnesses. Fair enough, it's a defeat all then. His dialogue is fairly solid and well-written, though I noticed the occasional typo later in the arc.
Anyway, the map is a warehouse, and the so far unnamed faction in question is, as was expected, the Midnight Squad. They're fairly easy, and the ghost-type mobs seem to have either been removed for this mission, or simply didn't spawn at all when I played it.
The book is in a safe, though there's at least one fake glowie safe as well - Darrin Wade did say you're free to take whatever else you find in the warehouse for yourself.
Taking the book spawns patrols of Circle of Thorns, which also need to be defeated, meaning I had to trek back through cleared areas to find them wandering about. At least the map is smallish.
Darrin Wade seems overly puzzled by the presence of the Circle, as it turns out he had scrying protection cast on you. He sends you to a local Circle hideout to investigate, which turns out to be a much, much too large Orangebagel map. One boss and one captive could certainly use a smaller map.
Taking out the non-named Agony Mage boss (why you must do this is not made clear) spawns two ambushes, which grouped up and made up about 10 Earth Casters, who promptly used Stalagmites in unison, stunning me through mez protection and eventually killing me as I wobbled about defenselessly. Turns out the boss really was important, as he had an Arachnos security clearance card, which proves important in the next mission.
The captive is the Scrying Master, who runs off begging you not to hit him, and offers a clue which didn't seem to provide much information at all, other than confirming that the Circle were indeed scrying the warehouse before you stole the book.
Darrin Wade still maintanins his unhealthy curiosity in the Circle, and sends you to talk to the guy who asked him to steal it in the first place. The guy's also implied to have connections to the Circle, and he's currently under protection in an Arachnos base.
The base is overrun with Circle, and you find Wade's contractor in a body bag next to another ambush-happy Agony Mage. At least I -think- he summoned ambushes; he yelled the same "Minions, to me!" lines the first one did, so I quickly grabbed the body bag and exited.
Turns out the guy already gave the book to the Circle because they were holding his wife hostage - sadly they seem to have killed him anyway just for the trouble. Wade explains that the Circle are trying to summon a demon, a 'sibling' of sorts to the Envoy of Shadow (think Baphomet, if that name doesn't ring a bell). He and you come up with a plan to take control of the demon yourself, for unexplained purposes. But hey, a pet demon is cool, right?
To do this, you need certain magical things. Wade gives you a list and sends you off to a graveyard, where you're expected to find the stuff.
This is sadly where the arc goes downhill. The author makes the grave mistake of adding a whole bunch of objectives to the Dark Astoria graveyard map. This includes 4 glowies and a boss fight. Anyway, the boss was a Hellfrost who'll go down about as easily as they usually do for you.
And then a 'Find Late Arrivals' objective spawns. I have no idea what the hell I was supposed to do there, because I spent a good half an hour running around the entire map, searching for any glowies, objects, or boss fights. Nothing. And yes, I looked everywhere.
I lost my patience and ranted a little to whatever crazy people were still online on chat channels at the time, and got someone else to help me look. Still nothing. We defeated every freaking mob on the whole map. Still nothing. I then noticed it was close to 6 AM (past 6 AM right now), and resigned.
The only reason I bothered looking that long was, actually, because the story kept me sort of interested. While it wasn't exactly of epic proportions (Circle summons Demon, that's new and unexpected), the dialogue was well written and convincing, and I was curious what Wade had planned for the demon in the end. Also, somewhere in the back of my skull I was hoping it'd be one of the underused Blade Princes.
The arc is set in the level bracket where the Circle of Thorns are at their most annoying, most spawns consisting of Earth Casters (Stalagmites and Quicksand, hope you're not a squishy!) and a Behemoth Master lieutenant, who has Invincibility. Obviously easier for some ATs/builds than others, but not terribly fun to fight for 3 (4?) missions in a row.
I can't tell if I (and my helper) am blind, the author is a sadistic genius (I mean this in a bad sense), or the mission bugged. Currently I'm guessing it bugged, but I'll reserve judgement until I get to have a word with the author - and ask them what the hell the final objective was meant to be.
For now, I'm going to bed. 6:15 AM and I'm grumpy from that 4th mission. Never did find the damn objective.