1 to 50 in MA: Part II (suggest arcs)

Granny Granite and the Senior Moment Gang
#139671

The premise: A doctor (with no bio) has tested an experimental rejuvenation formula on his elderly patients. There are some unforeseen side effects, including a susceptibility to mind control. And it turns out the formula activates a latent mutation in the Granny Granite of the title. She forms a crime gang. I have to stop them.

I walk into a bank full of heavily armed retirees. Nice costuming, although the bios are rather sparse. They seem to be worried about losing their powers...does this mean the formula isn't permanent? Dr. Reynolds has nothing to say about that.

This leads me to a jewelry store robbery, led by another latent mutant, who has a crush on Granny. From the stolen goods I find out where she's hiding.

Back to Reynolds for an infodump. Turns out that 1. it's not permanent, 2. Granny has the forumla, and 3. she's busted her henchmen out of jail. All of this is rather sudden, perhaps the information about the formula should be given out sooner. It's not like I can do anything about it until I find out where Granny is.

Overall this arc was rather sparse, very few clues and not much of a bio on most of the customs. With an arc like this there's always the problem of keeping it inoffensive; I am beating up senior citizens, albeit violent and rejuvenated ones. Perhaps add some concern for their well-being on the doctor's part, a simple "don't rough them up too much."

Also the susceptibility to mind control is a bit of a cop-out. No actual mind-control is being used, and if it's just a susceptibility to suggestion, wouldn't that also work the other way around? *Waves hand* "You don't want to shoot at me. You want to go home and rethink your life." It would be unnecessary if it were established earlier that the formula wasn't permanent, giving the gang an actual motivation to follow Granny. A typical side-effect of sudden rejuvenation is an exaggerated youthful recklessness, so you don't really need the "mind control" angle to motivate gang, or to motivate the doctor to stop producing the formula.

I didn't find any of the customs particularly difficult, and DD and the retired boxer were nicely done. The whole thing just felt somewhat...incomplete.

The Rule of Three - Finale
#1984

The Positron Task Force. Hours and hours of tedium, defeat alls, the most annoying enemy groups in this level range, traveling all over the city, zoning, zoning and more zoning, and more defeat alls. Just to end up providing a diversion so the Freedom Phalanx can save the day. I'll tell you what Posi, why don't you have the Freedom Phalanx just do the whole Task Force for us. All that crap is grey to you anyway.

This single-mission arc rewrites the final mission so that I actually get to save the day, while the Freedom Phalanx mops up. The title is, quite simply, "Save the Dam." Now to get the full effect I suppose I'd have to run the real Posi TF up until the final mission, but I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a spork so let's pretend I went through all that preliminary tedium and get on with saving the dam.

Posi is doing some weird emote when I come out of the mission. I've never seen it before, but it's kinda cool. Anyway, there really wasn't much going on in here. While the concept was nice, in that my "Task Force" got to be the real heroes, the real Posi TF had all three groups fighting each other at the end. There were no battles here, and very little boss dialogue. Also, the nav bar tells me to activate a shield...as the techy guy of the FP, wouldn't it make sense for Posi to tell me about the shield ahead of time?

So this rectifies two of the big problems with the Posi TF's final mission - the FP doing all the real heroics, while I slog through another overlong defeat all - while not rectifying the other one - it still feels anticlimactic.

Thanks for the feedback, especially the two grammar tips in game. I always struggle with those.


In my original version of the mission, I actually had a foreshadowing of the Faultline arcs, by having Arachnos arrive as the shield went up. I got some negative feedback about that, so pulled it.

The Posi emote is a bug, which I can't claim credit for

Thanks for the feedback on the Granny Granite arc. I haven't written anything in a long time; the AE is giving me the opportunity to go back and sharpen the old skills. Looks like there's still some sharpening to go.

I did find myself in a quandry about how much information to provide up front -- and had paired down the text a bit because there was a lot of reading initially. I completely overlooked the bio on Dr. Reynolds.

I did have a fourth mission mapped out for the arc, but space started to become an issue. This arc may get an overhaul when the size threshold increases.

I will take another look to see where I can beef up the story a bit. Thank you again for playing and commenting. It's much appreciated.

With regard to concern for the seniors themselves; I think Reynolds mentions a couple of occasions that he doesn't want to see them hurt. Maybe I'd better go back through the text; it may be too subtle.

[edit]On going back through the text, there are four places where Dr. Reynolds expresses concern for his patients. I think I'm going to have to make it stand out a little more; perhaps add it into the opening mission text from the outset.

The Secret of NutriPaste
#343643

My contact is Marshall Brass and he wants me to save some hostages from the Luddites. They claim they've discovered the secret of NutriPaste, and are demanding a WSPDR reporter come and spread the word throughout the isles. Brass is worried that they might actually know something. I have 30 minutes before they start executing people, which seems a bit cold for this group, especially Amanda vines, who is known for speaking out against Aeon.

I sneak in disguised as a reporter, presumably so no one will associate me with Arachnos. The pop-up tells me Amanda slips by me...kinda confusing since Brass told me she's in there, and I still have to rescue her. I also rescue Dr. Shelley Percey, and find a list of NutriPaste ingredients providers on the Luddite leader...considering Percey's line of work, I'm starting to believe the old joke might be true. I do think the Luddites are a bit more cold-bloodedly homicidal here than they should.

Marshall Brass doesn't know what NutriPaste is made of either, and he wants me to find out. My first stop is a ship bringing some cargo from Port Noble. Well the ship belongs to...guess who? I walk into the middle of a mutiny of their Troll slave sailors, pick up some trolls who can't swim and decide to help me instead, and uncover a sinister zombie fertilizer-Superdine ring. The captain doesn't know what NutriPaste is made out of either, but he can tell me who he was selling the zombie fertilizer to...and, uh oh. If my modem hadn't been acting up that boss fight would have been a fun use of mechanics.

Now I'm off to Aeon Hydroponics, where they grow giant-sized food like in that Simpsons episode. Apparently by using zombies for fertilizer. Ewww. Here is what the Rogue Isles Protector has to say about Aeon Hydroponics:

"Aeon Hydroponics pretends to grow giant-sized foods to better the world, but that's just a front. Everyone knows it's actually a cloning farm."

Yeah. Eww. Anyway, the lab is now full of Luddites who are getting more and more with the cold-blooded murder. Hehehe, the safe word is banana. Fruits and vegetables. Yeah, I can live with that. It's all fruits and vegetables, albeit genetically modified ones. Marshall Brass isn't buying it though. It's too...not-sinister.

Ooh ooh, now he wants me to smash Aeon's stuff. Oh, sorry, right, I'm supposed to teach him a lesson, about bribing or tricking or coercing Arachnos troops to be loyal to him, and not rat him out to Arachnos. And, oh yeah, I'm supposed to try to find the secret ingredient too.

And now I know how he gets those Arachnos troops to be so loyal to him. Hey guys, they say video games are bad for you...I do find the recipe though, but it's coded. Brass can crack it though....

Aw crap. Stupid Luddites. I was about to find out the secret ingredient you jerks! Aeon's private security sucks, so I have to fire them too, as well as get rid of the Luddites. Not sure why Brass thinks he has the authority to fire them, since they work for Aeon, but anyway....all I can say is Brass better have the recipe decoded by the time I get back.

This NutriPaste Plant looks a lot like the PTS. Same architect? One of the NPCs' dialogue acknowledges this though, so I'll go with it and just assume they're making the NutriPaste in that big warehouse building over there. See, now this is why I took a travel power on a character that won't be doing much traveling: big outdoor map. Five objectives. Find, kill, rinse, repeat, done.

Ok, I saved the NutriPaste plant, now tell me the secret! You jerk, you're not going to tell me, are you? Oh, um...never mind. You just did.

So, what we have here is less an arc about NutriPaste and more about the Cap au Diable soap opera. Will Brass confront Aeon about his cheating ways? Will the head of Aeon's security force come out of his coma? Is Amanda Vines really Martin Henri's long-lost daughter? Find out next time on All My Spiderlings. As such it's not bad. It's another behind-the-scenes of the canon villain arcs, but unlike the first one in the series, there is more of a story connecting them all. Even though the revelation isn't unexpected, the ride is enjoyable.

I did have a problem with the extremely bloodthirsty portrayal of the Luddites here. They hate the PTS, they hate Aeon, they hate Arachnos, but executing non-combatants? That seems out of character. The other part I had a problem with was the final EB. Not that he was difficult, but that he was there. He has never been seen, fighting him should be an arc all on its own. Instead, he comes out of hiding just because I beat up one of his goons? It's not like I'm actually threatening his deal with Aeon, since Aeon pretty much does whatever he wants anyway. One more rather minor issue: repeating objectives are repeating. Giving repeating objectives unique dialogue makes missions more interesting.

*****
Dawnrazor is now level 15 and sitting on 3630 tickets. So I'm going to roll a few.
Ten rolls later, I have a Karma: Knockback Protection (cha-ching) and a bunch of crap I throw on the market for 1 inf. Crafted the Karma, since the selling price is double that of the recipe, when it sells I'll have around 20 mil. Not bad for level 15.

Thanks for the review.

The only thing I'm going to comment on is the first mission. You are sent in along with Miss Vines disguised as part of her crew. She is the reporter the Luddites have been demanding comes down to interview them and to spread the truth about NutriPaste. When you enter the mission she slips away from you while you take out the guards at the door in order to do her interview without you knocking out her subject. She doesn't get that far though.

This arc is going to be retired soon and its replacement, "A Taste For Evil", was published a couple of weeks ago.

Okay, you just passed out of the range of the arc I'm trying to get some feedback on, but it should still be mostly in-range:

"The Hero of Kings Row" ID# 230187.

It's intended to be 1-14, though you may not even notice the one level downshift. The XP's the same either way.

"The Long Road Back" is pretty much where you are level-wise, but it's a villainous arc, so I'm not sure if you'd want to 'break character,' so to speak, to play it.

#340454

Ctrl + Alt + Reset
#137561

This arc is one of my favorites. It's got hundreds of plays, has been nominated for both the player's choice and official Arc awards, there is really no point in going into a long-winded rundown or critique, so I'm just going to give a few reasons why I like it.

The concept isn't new, or original. It's Groundhog Day. Star Trek TNG did it, the X-Files did it, Buffy did it, Stargate SG1 did it (some of which is referenced in one of the optional clues) it's pretty much inevitable that someone would do it in CoH. The danger here is that, in keeping with the concept, you are essentially playing the same mission over and over. The trick is to give the impression of reliving the same mission, while keeping the missions varied enough to make for an interesting experience, and to make the player feel like the arc is actually going somewhere.

So first off, the author used an enemy group (Wyvern) that doesn't show up all that often, so you don't mind fighting them over and over. When you use this concept you can't actually go through the same day over and over, you have to get to the point, and fast, and start figuring a way out. The maps start out small enough that it doesn't feel repetitive, and the tileset is easy to play through. The gameplay is quick and easy; even if you defeat everyone the mission is over before you have time to get bored. Things are added along the way that weren't there before. The single repeating mission is evolving. The evolution is nicely paced as well, with the final showdown mission, in keeping with the time manipulation theme, evolving before your eyes.

The idea behind the culprit is cool, and fitting, and its nature is actually reinforced through game mechanics (this is one custom critter that just begs for power customization); rather than the player just being told that yeah, it can do that, the player sees it do that. Then there is Steve. Poor Steve. I hope he'll be ok.

Most importantly, the arc doesn't try to take itself too seriously. It's fun and it plays to that strength.

So after over 100 days offline I've decided to come back to this project.

Why did I stop? Several reasons. For one, I am easily distracted by shiny objects. Like an Archery/Dev Blaster I could finally maintain interest in, and a Brute with enough survivability to tank. And my hero base. And accumulating more shinies for my 50s.

Another reason is I simply burned out. Writing lengthy reviews is more time-consuming than it seems. I was making a point of playing through every arc submitted, some of which frankly didn't appeal to me personally all that much: multi-parters for one, and sweeping epic tale after sweeping epic tale.

So I'm doing things a little differently now. Short reviews, and I'm mostly picking what to play based on forum threads and whatever looks interesting. I'll still take suggestions, I'll still point out spelling errors and such, and leave feedback, but I won't guarantee I'll play them all.

So on to the next batch of arcs. With my new, more relaxed way of doing things I got through three arcs in an afternoon, where before I would be pretty much limited to one, and had more fun doing it.

Suppression: #374481

Why I chose it: The author started the "Excellent arcs" thread, which got me a few plays on my arc, so I decided it was time to pay it back.

It's a CoH adaptation of the Wizard of Oz, perhaps too true to the original in places, but still a neat interpretation of Aeon's challenge. The mission design was a little bare-bones though, could have used some more flavor details.

The Long Road Back: #340454

Why I chose it: I've been meaning to play an arc by this author for a while. This one was the right level.

Prelude to going Rogue? The premise is that I'm sick of the life of a lowbie villain, and would like to make good. A possible Nick Fury tribute offers me the chance, through a shadowy agency that (he claims) is affiliated with the CIA. This is an extremely dark and cynical arc, not that there's anything wrong with that. The final mission was a let-down unfortunately, it felt like a random, forced conclusion to an otherwise excellent arc.

Sibling Rivalry: #118690

Why I chose it: Because I wanted to see what kind of arc an 8-year-old would come up with.

It isn't deep or profound, it doesn't delve into some obscure corner of lore, or try to make you question what it is to be a hero...it's just made to be fun. It's one of those arcs you can tell someone had fun making. It's refreshing. And there are Disco Trolls.


Dawnrazor vs Fodor...in the end the polyester leisure suit was no match for my blade.

These three arcs got me from level 16.9 to 18.5. The first mission of "Suppression" got nailed hard by the ally patch and all the arcs had some small maps ("The Long Road Back" was all small maps), so the leveling wasn't as slow as it might seem.

You're 18.5? Hmmmm. "City of Ho Ho Ho, or A Claus in Paragon," can give you a light-hearted romp through a lil' of a level or so. Three missions, levels 5-20, with Outcasts, Trolls, and a toon who's a dead ringer for Santa Claus. Try it if you like. Arc 18775.

If you're looking for arcs to play, "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" (#114284) is level 15-20 and recently updated to actually give rewards. I hope you'll like it.

#245042: The Next War on Drugs

Why I chose it: PW's list.

It's an investigative street crime story, just as it sounds. It's not super-fancy but it's well put together, the missions are kept interesting, there's some good dialogue, and the non-combat investigative mission is done well.

#114284: Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

Why I chose it: PW's list, author suggested it.

Although Impervium is THIS girl's best friend (cause you can make swords out of it), Desdemona really likes her diamonds. she likes them so much she sends me on a long convoluted quest to get her some. It's a solid "heist" arc, although the mission design is somewhat bare-bones (some of which may be due to cutting allies due to the nerf). And now I have that song stuck in my head.

I'm now level 19.5, a large part of which was due to clearing a large outdoor map in the last arc.

Next I'll be trying "City of Ho Ho Ho," and then...??? Maybe I'll re-run "Teen Phalanx" and "A Penny for your Thoughts," then once I hit 20 I have a few more I'm looking to run.

Thanks for playing my arc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction It's a solid "heist" arc, although the mission design is somewhat bare-bones (some of which may be due to cutting allies due to the nerf).

Correct, it has been "issue 17 improved" for your convenience. I added some more details to the last mission today to make it seem more alive, without killing the rewards.

#18775: City of Ho Ho Ho, or A Claus in Paragon


Why I chose it: Author's suggestion.

I see where you're going with this, but it's not quite there. The arc keeps flipping between "flashback mode" and a more conventional style. I like the flashback idea better, it's a meta-game use of the Architect system but it makes sense. It has the potential to be a very charming holiday-themed arc.

#103934: Dr. Thomas' First Day

Why I chose it: I was two bars to level 20 and Stamina, and wanted something short-ish. To the search feature! *cue Batman music* I checked off "medium," "4 stars," "my level," "not completed" "looking for feedback" and "Final." About 40 presses of the "random" button later, I had sifted through about 40 1-54 custom groups, with the usual completely level-inappropriate things like Extreme Archvillains. So I narrowed the search down by enemy group; "Trolls" and "Outcasts" each gave me a page of stuff with single-sentence descriptions and spelling errors, "Vahzilok" gave me more of the same, and this one arc, with a properly spelled actual description.

It's a D.A.T.A. employee's first day on the job, heroes he sent out on a mission go missing, you have to find them. The premise falls apart on canon issues, but it has an actual story and doesn't contain any of the gameplay atrocities that arcs found through random searches tend to be full of.

More importantly, I am level 20 and have Stamina. I'm up to 5926 tickets. Time for grocery shopping, then another batch of Bronze rolls.

#67335 - Teen Phalanx Forever

Why I chose it: Because it is awesome.

Do I really need to recommend this arc any more than it has already been recommended? Unfortunately the ally nerf hasn't been kind to it, but still, it could be worse.

#61013 - The Invasion of the Bikini-Clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space

Why I chose it: Because it is awesome.

B-movie parody/homage. I hate B-movies. It's still awesome.

The Bronze rolls are being kind and spewing out lovely shinies such as Steadfasts and Karmas, so I'm going to roll a few more at 20 once I clear up some market slots, since stuff seems to sell for more and faster at levels that are multiples of 5.

Since you're level 20... I just made an arc set to that level...

Arc Title: Scheduling Conflict
Arc ID: #411118
Contact: Senior Arachnos Secretary Joan
Factions: Freakshow, Luddites, Goldbrickers, Arachnos, custom patrols in one mission
Morality: Rogue

Nothing very difficult to the arc, just some comedy for low-level villains.

Congratulations on your renewed progress.

A reminder, since it's been a while: when you get to 25-30, you might check out "Glory Days."

Once you hit level 20, check out "All Consuming" (#261148)

Description: It begins with a derelict cargo ship on a collision course. For what sinister purpose would anyone want bring the Shivan to Paragon City?

Some more arcs I played over the weekend and was too lazy to post at the time:

#408672: Scheduling Conflict

Why I chose it: Author suggestion, and it hadn't received any plays yet, so, first.

It's flagged "work in progress" and still needs work, so I left some suggestions and didn't rate it. Comedy isn't easy.

#5073: The Bravuran Jobs

Why I chose it: I enjoyed other arcs by this author.

It's a villainous arc, more of a collection of tasks with a common thread running through them. Not bad at all, although the common thread could use some expansion.

#41565: Astoria in D Minor

Why I chose it: Because it is cool.

It's a creepy arc set in Dark Astoria. This arc is really more about atmosphere than anything else, and that it pulls off nicely.

I'll be running another one by The Cheshire Cat next, hopefully that'll get me to 22 for All-Consuming (because, you know, AV. SOs are shiny), then I'll have to do a more thorough search for more arcs in the low 20s.

Thanks a bunch for the feedback, I've made quite a few changes based on it. Still working on balancing some parts, though. :-)

EDIT: Updated the arc with some changes and a final mission that is more for atmosphere than xp. Tried to tie things together better and added more variety and personality to the missions.

#341196: Signal:Noise

Why I chose it: It's a Dark Astoria arc by The Cheshire Cat.

Well, um, it's a Dark Astoria arc by The Cheshire Cat. Which means it's more about atmosphere than anything else, makes clever use of mechanics, and is good at what it does. Whether you would like it or not depends entirely on whether you like what it does.

I am now 22, so AVs are yes, and bosses are on.

#261148: All Consuming

Why I chose it: Author suggestion.

This one has Dark Astoria in it, but it's more about the plot. As I played this I wondered to myself: why do the Shivans only go up to 25? There is so much potential for so much epicness with that group. This arc hints at some of it, but there is only so much epicness you can deal with at this level.

Now to find more low-20s arcs....