Hi!
I'll say first up that I note that your arc is "best with a team" and that I should "Expect some tough fights and plenty of ambushes at inopportune moments", so my experience is largely my fault for even attempting to play your arc in the first place.
However, you do also say "All feedback is welcome", so:
I took a lvl 5 Kin/DP Defender in at default difficulty. I wasn't overly enamoured with the contact's dismissive tone towards me, but the first mission was v nice to start with. I like your trick with the barrel to help people who might not know about the sewer entrance very much. The Fifth are a bit annoying at that level, because i don't have acro yet so their KD is irksome, but it was fun enough until Hollow Point's ambush. After dying almost immediately, I loaded up on lucks and went back in to beat him and complete.
Mission 2 was interesting until I'd completed all the nav instructions apart from 'Draw the security forces out onto the streets', whereupon i stood on a rooftop overlooking the sea of Fifth and said 'riiight. what does that mean?' I settled on trying to maybe defeat the boss to see if that was what I was supposed tro do, but upon hitting this custom wearwolf he immediately spawned an ambush of 6 warwolves, and two deaths later I was forced to admit defeat and quit.
I didn't rate, I'm certainly not going to downrate you based on my experience, becuase as you say it's not an arc designed for solo players. It IS a shame, however, because i was enjoying the story. I would like purely out of interest to see what it was like scaled up for a team. Perhaps the MA Super Team can run it this weekend.
Eco.
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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Hey thanks for the feedback. I truly appreciate it. I will need to rewrite missions 2 to make it clearer I think, based upon your feedback.
I have also made some difficulty changes to the mission since you played it. Hollow Point has been reduced to 'standard' as opposed to 'hard'. His ambushes have also been decreased from 'hard' to medium'. Basically considering its the first mission, If felt like it was a bit too hard. I have also increased the first mission's time limit to 1 hour, because in testing I noticed some groups wanted to kill everything in site before finding the traitor.
Oh, and Agent Deacon starts out dismissive with you, because he hasn't gotten to know you yet. But as you progress through the Arc, he warms up to you. 
Again, thanks for trying it out and giving me feedback. This is my first arc ever, and I am still tweaking it. Hopefully I can get it nice and tight.
UPDATE: Mission 2 has been reworked from the ground up. Dialogue, mission text, and clues are now clearer. Map has been changed to Empty (no enemies), with the exception of enemies on patrols, battles, and objectives, making this map a much tighter experience.
The first 3 missions are now soloable; they can be completed without killing the main bosses. Mission 4 requires a descent team for the final boss.
Recommended level range is now: 20-50
UPDATE: Mission 3 has been removed and mission 4 has been moved to the mission 3 slot. Mission 3 wasn't all that great, and I needed room for a custom enemy group. The Arc is very tight now, and ready for your team to tear into it.
Feedback needed on the custom enemies, including Omega Labs security and all custom bosses/AVs. Too tough? Not tough enough? Look cool? Look bad? All feedback is good feedback. Thank you!
Despite warnings to bring a team and what not I decided to just go at it alone because I'm awesome.
I'll be giving feedback after each mission to keep it fresh in my mind.
I'll start off by saying that it reads pretty well, which is important in CoH since most of your story options are text based. The general plot is good if not a bit generic, but what can you do. The only thing that feels a bit gimmicky is that it's decided I have to kill whatever his name was in a place where it would make all logical sense to arrest him instead. We're already AT a jail, I can just bop him on the head and leave him there.
Besides that, the story seems to be selling me on some gritty angle, which is fine, but I feel it's the wrong approach to steal my likely developed character and have him do things that fit into that element of the story. I realize I'm nitpicking, because the probability of you fitting a scenario that cleanly fits into everyone spectrum of acceptable RP is absurdly small, but I did feel somewhat shoe-horned into fitting a particular role which I feel should have been filled by characters *you* establish.
I also dislike the opening message where I ponder my own mortality. In short, the first mission has a bit too much assumption upon my character.
Balance seemed fine, but them I'm pretty bad-***, routinely soloing group sized spawns of whatever-have-you's, so clearing a bunch of level 50 minions was as simple as using 2 aoe attacks, and I can't hold that against you (again, way too many variables). The one custom boss was unmemorable and I couldn't really figure out what his costume was before he was trying to run away until I inadvertently crushed his jugular, or whatever was causing him to make gasping weezing noises, through no fault of my own.
Overall your writing is well done, but nothing really pops out about the first mission. But then it's not fair to judge everything from the prologue, is it? So onto mission 2!
Mission Two:
The Architect Generator seemed to realize that I had turned my difficulty setting up by the second mission and decided to oblige me, which I graciously accepted. The 5th Column itself remains nothing special, but I was actually moderately challenged by your custom enemies this go around. Combining a bunch of psychic's with a big ice boss demon thing is a very evil trick, and required I pick out a target of interest. After figuring out that the boss was the most engaging threat, however, the remaining battles were little more than gleeful carnage, but I do have to give props to an enemy group that forces me to hit some of my regen powers now and again without simultaneously just killing me immediately. So Kudos, you seem to have found that important balance.
The boss guy wasn't very challenging again, despite being an elite boss and being surrounded by other little were-creatures. Hit Mog, Kill Allies, Parry to victory, ignore back-up ambush. I did enjoy his tauntish little speech bubbles as I made an utter fool out of him however.
The civilians were a bit... Odd. There was one guy who looked like a Tsoo member, but otherwise everything is perky as normal.
Finally the AI of who is an ally is wonky. Often the 5th would be fighting the Omega Guards, and occassionally themselves. I assume they had a heated discussion before I got there, and I just had the uncanny ability to arrive when everything had reached a boiling point.
The Longbow were also about as affective as a flimsy piece of toilet paper aggressively assaulting my enemies with strongly worded insults, which is to say they died before I even realized they were there, often becoming victim of the 5th who decided to pack a boss or two that day.
The mission also feels a bit too ambitions for the limitations of the AE system. I don't feel like I'm trying to pick and choose targets really as I'm just trying to find targets, and oh there's some 5th column over there which you can kill or not, nobody really cares. The 5th column hardly felt swarmy, and the Longbow hardly felt... Alive, so it just winds up coming off as another "Go find all this crap" mission, instead of something unique or strategic.
Mission 3: Quite a number of things to do in this mission, which is slightly annoying but whatever.
Agent Deacon was about as useful as the after-mentioned Longbow, but I guess that makes sense considering his squad was smattered into little bitty things before I got there. I would have preferred it if he had just left, however, instead of running around for a spawn or two embarrassing himself.
The enemies were fun. I am glad you added another boss so that it wasn't constant ice-queen-slow-everything the entire mission as that would have gotten *very* annoying really quickly. Again, Kudos on your character design.
Hallow Point once again comes back to haunt me as a constant reminder of what swinging around a 5 foot sword can do when it isn't done carefully, but was otherwise about as memorable as he was last time.
Dr. Vladimir was actually challenging, I felt, but only because of the Dark Servent. I had to fly about the room spastically for a bit to try and separate them, kill his pet, and then after that he wasn't much of a challenge, but then I have parry and soft-capped melee defense. I had difficulty with him at the start because the combined to-hit was flooring my accuracy and I couldn't build my defense to dodge his attacks and he hits like a friggin' panzer tank that likes to ram forks up your eye sockets instead of having the decency to shoot you. Still, a fun fight which required some thinking, so you definitely win some points.
While the enemies are well balanced with an emphasis on challenge, I can't help but feel the story is still rather generic. You have a good hold over the english language, but nothing that was going on was really original feeling, and in fact I felt like I was playing the cliffnotes of the Dr.Vahzilok story arc at a much higher level. Room for improvement should be focused there, as I think your enemies are about where they need to be as far as balanced combat is concerned.
Thank you. Finally, someone who completed the entire arc. Your feedback is well taken. The story is a bit generic, I agree. It's my first arc, and I really didn't sit down to craft a compelling story before I started it. I just wrote as I went, learning how to use the AE system as I did. This whole thing was more of an experiment than an attempt at a top notch story. (Though I will mention that I have had a few others tell me the story was very well done - but everyone's opinion is different.)
That being said, you mentioned quite a few things I have to agree with. The AE system is very limited. I wanted to do more, but I was constrained by the maximum size (100 kb) very quickly. Having a custom mob group and custom bosses put huge strain on the file size, and I was forced to cut text and dialogue down, as I went over budget rather quickly. The tools just wouldn't let me do some things, and some things were problematic. For instance, originally I put destructable truck bombs in mission 2, instead of glowies that went "Boom" when you clicked them. Problem was though, that sometimes Longbow would blow up a truck bomb while fighting a battle with the 5th Column, and the missions would then be bugged and uncompleteable. I was forced to settle for the glowie bomb objects. And as for civilians looking strange on mission 2 - I chose "Random", which pretty much leaves their 3D models to the mercy of whatever the AE system chooses. Otherwise, I have two options - have them all identical in appearance, or create 4 separate rescue objectives and choose each model individually.
Finally, yes, there are bugs where enemy AI would fight each other for no reason, and Longbow would even fight you for no reason in mission two. I have no idea why, but , as far as I can tell, it's a bug with the system, and not my AE specifically. My explanation is that the chaos being created by the player and of the ensuing battles simply causes sporadic friendly fire.
Thank you for the kudos on the boss and encounter design. I'll look into revamping Hollow Point's costume, and his powers, as well as Captain Ivanov's powers. In the groups I tested with, about a dozen or so, most groups had trouble with both of them, and died several times before taking them out. It is hard to know if he is balanced or not, when some people such as yourself have no problems with him, while other entire groups are obliterated by him. Some players are obviously better than others. Do I tweak them for the best players to have a memorable challenge? Or do I make them easier so the not so good players don't get frustrated and quit the AE? It's a fine line to walk.
In testing, I felt as you did about my custom enemy group (Omega Labs Security). The riflemen would web me, and the vamps would sleep me, and the mistresses would slow me. They would make short work of me if I didn't use some strategy first in target selection and what not. I do believe I will up the challenge level of the minions though. They are set to Standard right now, and I think they could use a bump to Hard.
I have considered removing some objectives from the last mission. I think you are right that it feels like too much to do, but then again - I just did the Positron TF for the first time last night. It took 4 hours to do, and we had to get through some 20 missions, several of which included defeat all objectives in large maps! So, I don't feel so bad about that anymore. Then again, I hated the Positron TF, and shook my fist at the devs who built it when we finished it. That's a TF I will never do again with any other toon. I have also removed Agent Deacon from mission three since you played. I decided the surprise story element wasn't compelling enough, and preferred to have the free space for my custom enemy group.
Again, thank you for your feedback. I wish there were more options, as I had some great ideas I just couldn't implement due to limits of the system. But overall, my first experience with the system is favorable. And the reviews/ratings have been overall good. It started out with a few 5 stars, and is now sitting at 4 star with about 10 ratings so far. Your feedback however has been the best thus far, and I plan to implement some of it at my next opportunity.
UPDATE: Costume tweaks for Hollow Point, and the Omega Labs Security forces; Difficulty tweaks for Hollow Point, and Omega Labs Security forces; Minor text and dialogue revisions; Removed 1 objective from final mission; Revised power pools for Hollow Point, and a few of the Omega Labs Security mobs
About your EB's in general; It should be noted that I have a particular niche against them, in that parry gives me absurd defense to their attacks. As an Arch-Villain, in a sea of custom enemies, I can see how they could be threatening, but alone against a character who does well against such things, they aren't going to do much against me. Nevermind that my particular character is IO'd out to the gills.
I might advise against buffing up the minions. They should be reliable for that one trick they do, and then fairly unmemorable. Making them too powerful might result in not having any applicable strategy against the spawns, which is the quickest way to ensure nobody is playing your missions. Honestly I don't think anything needs changed about the way your enemies worked.
I'll play through it again if I find time to do such, but I really only think your story needs focus now.
Thanks again for the feedback. I've done some difficulty tuning to make the AE a little less frustrating for not-so-great teams to get through it.
But . . . I'm not going to be changing the story. There's no room to add any more text (I'm maxed at 100k nearly), and the story, while not an original epic masterpiece, is as good or bad as many of the stories done by the actual content devs of CoH (plenty of which are derivative, boring, or unmemorable). At this point, the story is pretty much set in stone. I appreciate your feelings about it, but I just don't have the time or desire to rewrite it. If anything, I'd rather move on to a new AE, with a new story altogether. Not to mention I've gotten many compliments from others who have played it. Can't please everyone I guess.
I'm not shooting for the moon with this AE; just trying to make something fun to play that has a descent story. My goal was not to create a completely original story, but what story truly is these days? Give me a story, any story that someone has written, and I can find a story from movies, books, TV, or video games that was done before it, and that is essentially the same plot. There are really only a few story archetypes out there. The rest are derivatives.
UPDATE: Mission 1 has been completely reworked - new map; new dialogue; new objectives; new plot twists; Difficulty tweaks; All Missions have had some minor text tweaks, spelling corrections, and the Omega Security forces have been altered slightly
Future Plans: To rework missions 2 & 3 to include new story ideas as well as objectives
UPDATE: Mission 3 reworks with new boss and new encounters
UPDATE: One of the bosses on Mission 3 has had some difficulty tweaking (downward) due to feedback. A few spelling corrections were made throughout the arc.
Questionable Ethics
Arc #393301
Morality: Hero
Faction: 5th Column, Omega Labs Security (custom group) + unique custom bosses and AVs
Your global/forum name: @Quantum Phant0m
Difficulty Level: Built for a team. DO NOT try to solo this, unless you are the ultimate EB/AV killing machine. Expect some tough fights and plenty of ambushes at inopportune moments. Includes custom elite bosses and arch villains.
Recommended Team Size: 4+ (You'll need a good solid team that works well together for this arc)
Level Range: Minimum 30+; Recommended 40+
Typical duration: "Long" - 1-3 hours (3 missions)
Arc Synopsis: A 5th column traitor has information leading to a eugenics facility, where inhuman testing is being conducted on heroes and civilian captives. Work with C.I.A. Section Chief Agent Deacon to locate the facility, rescue any captives, and level it to the ground.
WARNING: May contain elite bosses, arch-villains, and extreme arch-villains.
Mission One - Issue #1 - A Silver Tongue Tells No Tales
Mission Two - Issue #2 - Not For the Feint of Heart
Mission Three - Issue #3 - The Omega Man
All feedback is welcome.