It's a Three-Star!...No, Four!...Wait, NO!....

El_Condor · 08-06-2009 02:24 PM

It's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma! The critics DON'T agree on my arc #55715, "Freaks and Geeks":

Police Woman: "...I ended up rating this story 3 stars. (I almost rated it 4 stars based on the first mission, but felt the later two missions weren't quite as good as the first one.)"

Baryonic Cell: "My Rating: 4 Stars. Well written throughout, some funny dialogue that fit the characters well. Good map choices as well, thematic and well varied."

Venture: "5 Stars... This is a fun arc, recommended."

Fire it up and decide for yourself! I say you'll have a blast! I must give big props to Baryonic Cell and Police Woman for giving me constructive, early feedback to help tune up the story. Any comments on my arc are most welcome, amigos.

EC

Read the full reviews:
Venture--->http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...=139872&page=8
Baryonic Cell--->http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...666#post960666
Police Woman--->http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...128310&page=11

FredrikSvanberg · 08-07-2009 12:29 AM

I played it based on a comment Venture made on the VU2009 channel. I was all like "Five stars? Who are you and what have you done with Venture?"

Since the Venture impostor didn't reply I assumed that the real Venture had gone to play your arc and had been cleverly trapped inside the MA by those evil Crey scientists, and a reprogrammed copy loyal to the Countess had been released to promote the arc in order to lure more people into the trap.

Yes, my powers of assumption are that great.

Anyway, I decided to risk entrapment myself by playing the arc and go looking for the real Venture. I figured if I rescued him from the MA file storage it would get my next story a better review. Unfortunately I was too late. The body bag... Well of course my contact told me it was some scientist nerd he knew called Lorenz or Lothar or something like that but I knew the truth. Those bastards. They had killed Venture!

Now it was personal. I went back inside, axe and burning skin aflame, and started chopping and burning every damn thing I could find. Those freaks kept getting back up and I kept smacking them back down. Some guy called The Orderly acted all tough but spent most of the time running when he wasn't on his back from one of my mighty attacks. Took his good time to die though. I found some nerds in there, probably other people who had tried the arc and got trapped just like Venture. I released them before they could be copied and we left. I felt just like Rambo releasing those P.O.Ws from the death camp, it was sweet.

My contact looked surprised to see me, a little nervous perhaps. I think he knew that I knew that he was in on it, and I was on to him. I put a little pressure on him and he revealed that the real mastermind behind all this was some Uber-Dork, and he was waiting for me in the next mission with all these machines designed to catch me and put me away for good. The next time you saw me it would be a loyal copy spouting Crey propaganda. Never!

I rushed inside, swinging my axe everywhere. A loyal sidekick waited to be rescued, so I did. She had almost got caught but the process had given her unexpected powers so she turned out to be very helpful once we found the uber-dork. We waited around for his Instant Healing to wear off, hitting him now and then just for show but of course it was pointless - he couldn't be damaged. While he was glowing and screaming about his grand scheme I ran around and killed his goons. Finally he stopped healing and together with Spunky Sidekick-lass I kicked his ***.

With the girl clinging to my manly arm I returned to my sweaty contact. He looked flustered, as if I had stolen his girlfriend or something, and mumbled something about dinner reservations. I was confused. "Was this it? This was worth five stars? No, my idea about Venture having been captured and replaced by a clone made more sense. This was three stars at most, and only because I can't give two and a half."

Now for the constructive criticism: uuuh... oh yeah, I didn't think the Uber-Dork needed all that Regen. I didn't quite understand why he had psychic powers either but that didn't bother me. With Instant Healing or whatever the power is called he is basically invulnerable for 3 minutes or so. If I had been on a squishy that would have been boring. The Orderly had similar problems with being slow to die but I don't think he used Regen. Willpower probably. He was just annoying because he kept running away instead of fighting. That's not your fault of course, unless you set him to prefer Range and gave him Melee powers, or something like that.

The custom Crey and Freakshow mobs were rather pointless. The Crey weren't explained very well. Some of them were apparently undead? Reanimated dead tissue? I didn't have time to read all their info before they died so I never quite got what they were about. And the custom Freaks only showed up as part of the boss spawn and maybe an ambush - a waste of custom mobs if you ask me. The entire last mission could have used those custom Freaks with perhaps a few normal Freaks scattered around instead. To be honest I prefer the real Freaks, but I didn't get a good look at the custom ones (except Uber-Dork, and he wasn't pretty), so if I had been fighting them for a whole mission I might have liked them better.

Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522

Venture · 08-07-2009 12:35 AM

Actually I'm not sure what Uber-Dork's secondary was, because he folded like a busted flush. I was using a Fire/Shield Scrapper with some decent (but incomplete) set slotting so I was hitting fairly hard.

Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"

El_Condor · 08-07-2009 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg

I was all like "Five stars? Who are you and what have you done with Venture?"

Boy, I had my flame-retards all strapped on after reading your title and intro, bud. As it turned out, I really enjoyed your imaginative re-tell; it was like reading the Harvard Lampoon send-up of my arc, and your criticism was very constructive.

I particularly appreciated your feedback because you touched upon a couple of major issues that I constantly wrestled with while designing "Freaks and Geeks", issues that I imagine other architects must be struggling with, also.

Quote:

I didn't think the Uber-Dork needed all that Regen. I didn't quite understand why he had psychic powers either but that didn't bother me. With Instant Healing or whatever the power is called he is basically invulnerable for 3 minutes or so. If I had been on a squishy that would have been boring.

Quote:

The Orderly had similar problems with being slow to die but I don't think he used Regen. Willpower probably. He was just annoying because he kept running away instead of fighting. That's not your fault of course, unless you set him to prefer Range and gave him Melee powers...

Exactly how tough should the end-game Big Bad in a story be? I don't yet know the answer to this, though I've received a lot of feedback and tinkered with the difficulty levels of both of my EBs a zillion times. T3h Ub3r-d0rk is the final boss of an arc, so I had to go with my instinct that he must be THE tough battle of the story. He is psychic blast/regen (psychic because, well, he's a nerd and is more likely to flex mind than muscle), and went through just about every permutation of diff levels over his brief lifespan. Not having messed with him since i15, I went in last night (probably before you played it) and added Instant Healing. Absent that, he might have presented to you as the push-over that Venture encountered. Would that have been good or bad? Likewise with the Orderly (who is a straight-up inv/ss), I added Unyielding. Are the two EBs too much now after adding one power each? Are they disappointing patsies if I take those powers back out? That's a different answer for each player, I suppose, but they are EBs and are supposed to be more work than the rest of the mobs.

Quote:

The custom Crey and Freakshow mobs were rather pointless. The Crey weren't explained very well. Some of them were apparently undead? Reanimated dead tissue? I didn't have time to read all their info before they died so I never quite got what they were about.

Does assuming canon knowledge make an arc too confusing for most players?. Again - dunno. The most important Keyword I clicked in the MA description is "Canon Related", 'cause I used a few specific (but not totally obscure) lore facts about the Freaks and Crey to build my story. Crey having been shrouded in shady business and caught using creepy biotech on dead bodies gave me license (IMHO) to create a splinter faction that uses creepy biotech and dead bodies for shady business. T3h Ub3r-d0rk is a straight-up reference to Dreck's back-story: he was one of the wannabe leaders that Dreck smacked down to become the Freak boss, and now he vows revenge with an army of fellow Geek-Freaks. All this is described within the mission text, although I know that character info is often hard to keep up with during gameplay.

Quote:

And the custom Freaks only showed up as part of the boss spawn and maybe an ambush - a waste of custom mobs if you ask me. The entire last mission could have used those custom Freaks with perhaps a few normal Freaks scattered around instead. To be honest I prefer the real Freaks, but I didn't get a good look at the custom ones (except Uber-Dork, and he wasn't pretty), so if I had been fighting them for a whole mission I might have liked them better.

Point taken, and you echo a criticism that Police Woman offered in her review. To me, custom mobs are effective not if they're used a lot, but if they fit the story logic. The whole premise of Ub3r-dOrk's final plan is that he can't produce enough Geek-Freaks quickly and needs the machine to do that. The small number of them that you encounter is deliberate, and meant to be a last minute twist on the typical Freaks you've been battling. T3h-Ub3rd0rk is ugly-lookin' because he's a GEEK! You noticed the sneakers and awful pants? That was no accident!!

I thank you for your feedback, Fredrik, and am sorry you didn't enjoy it as much as some have.

Keep the comments comin', muchachos!

EC

Venture · 08-07-2009 08:59 AM

While I agree the Big Bad should present a satisfying fight, Instant Healing doesn't do that. IH means a soloist can go grab a cold one because for the next 90 seconds you're just not going to make a dent.

IIRC, the Uber-Dork was only an EB. I'd recommend losing IH and moving him up to AV status.

Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"

Lazarus · 08-07-2009 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venture_NA

While I agree the Big Bad should present a satisfying fight, Instant Healing doesn't do that. IH means a soloist can go grab a cold one because for the next 90 seconds you're just not going to make a dent..

Agreed, I've knocked someone a few points just because of a EB having that power in a timed mission. Doing no damage while you, a teammate, and 6 allies are attacking is not fun at all.

On an unrelated note, this new censor filter is really stupid and incompetent. ******* is blocked but bastards isn't?

El_Condor · 08-07-2009 10:55 AM

Thanks, gents! I'm all about challenging fights, but have no interest in putting folks through a pointless grind. IH is out, but I added in some powers to the Geek-Freak minions, who are in on that final battle, to increase their interest factor. Haven't decided on AV status for Ub3r-d0rk, but I may yet go that way.