Mission Architect Arc Club

Some more thoughts on the arc.

I think you just have a lot of stuff going on at once. Hammer and Sickle both are defected soviets which isn’t really explored in much detail. I think the characters would have more weight if they were council villains turned hero. This would help tie in with the whole coup thing that goes on between the 5th column and the council. It would also help justify the third pet gun something (I can’t remember his name) for helping you. Maybe he wants to defect as well. As for the Drug and Toxic, this reminds of the vampyri, galaxy, warwolf style transformations. I would maybe see if that could be worked into the plot. Maybe Sickle did in fact want to defect but she was taken into one of these programs and is being mind controlled by the treatment. It might be a good a rescue this character before they turn into a monster ending.

Thank you! I'm not the MOST up to date on in-game lore and backstories, but these comments are definitely solid and can point me in a direction that can help me tie everything together a little better. I'll see what I can do!

Sorry I missed last week's arc, luckily I managed to squeeze in enough time to run this weeks.

Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City

Run by Magikman L35 Willpower/Energy Melee Tank

General Pros: I liked this arc as it felt like one you could plunk down in the game and not tell it from any dev-created arcs. Those are the ones I especially look for in AE. The custom bosses were well balanced, even the EB was a fun fight (which is saying alot for me, as I generally hate EB due to the mechanics of them).

General Cons: I really have none. My only issue in the entire arc were mission briefings with red words. Anything done in red in this game is extremely hard to read for me, and since I'm running pretty high-end graphics and monitor, I'd assume it is for others as well. (Although I'm sure part of it is my eyes aren't what they once were either...dang aging)

Mission 4: The mission end text box tells the player what his character does after completing the mission on the ship. I would suggest changing it to say what the character should do. It's usually better not taking over a character's actions even if what you describe is what most heroes would do.

...and that's it. Despite my usually verbose reviews I've nothing more to add. It's a very good arc that will go on my replay list, and I give it a Thumb's Up (5 stars).


Addendum: Having looked back over the previous review, I wanted to say that I did not encounter custom bosses as LTs as Glenn did, they spawned as bosses.

Also, on the subject of your fluctuating rating. When I started the arc an hour or so ago, it was still at 152 plays and 4 stars. When I finished, after rating it, I checked it again and it was at 157 plays and 4 stars. It would be interesting to know how many tickets are waiting for you now to see just what those other 4 plays rated you at, because if all you have are the 25 from my rating it sounds like someone is messing with you.

1-15-11, 1 am: 152 ratings, 5 stars.
1-16-11, 6 pm: 152 ratings, 4 stars, 25 tickets to claim.
1-17-11, between midnight and 3 AM: I asked 3 friends to rate it. At 154 ratings, it went to 5 stars. It went up to 155 ratings at 5 stars. One guy double-rated by mistake. 100 tickets claimed total. Within a half hour or so, it dropped to 156 at 4 stars, with the message "Someone has voted on 'Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City.'"
1-17-11: roughly 3 AM: Doctor_Gemini's rating as #157 on Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City. Currently 4-stars overall. 25 more tickets claimed.

As I've put in another thread on here. . . I REALLY hate AE ratings griefers.

And Doctor_Gemini: Thanks a million! I'll keep pushing, and I'll see if I can't do something about the text color some time.

Just a quick add on some things.

My settings were 1 x 2 no bosses and no AV's. What this means is that for patrol, ambushes and bosses the bosses are downgraded to lieutenants but for randomly generated mobs the bosses are kept in because I count as two players. So, the reason why it was wonky for me was totally a settings issue and not a problem with your arc.

Also, I think you mention at one time that the Council existed before the 5th column which isn’t true. The 5th Column existed first then they were overthrown by the Council. The 5th is now trying to retake their holdings from the Council. It’s weird I know but it was a huge PR issue back in the day to have Nazi’s running around the city so the devs took them out and now that nobody cares they wanted to put them back in.

I don't recall mentioning such, personally. I might have made a mistake somewhere. I'll double check.

Also, to Bubbawheat, I apologize. I really messed up and turned this page of the thread into my own personal junk regarding the ratings, which I shouldn't have done. That's definitely outside the spirit of what this thread is about; I really should've thought more before I typed in frustration. It won't happen again, sir.

I'm going to go ahead and extend this arc another week. With only two reviews, let's give some more people a shot to play this arc. I played it a while back and it has been my favorite so far of those I've played from Tubbius. I'd also like to have a chance to play it again this week.

The Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City (5 stars)

What I liked: Hey, it's a fun arc. The missions are straightforward and put together well; several missions make good use of chained objectives (didn't even have to backtrack once). The whole arc has a kind of 'campy' feel to it that I really enjoyed. I liked the use of custom bosses to add variety to the 5th Column and the Council. Well done! Very good arc!

I guess if I have to complain: Not much to complain about - and everything I can think of is minor, nitpicky type stuff. The Professor's dialog at the very beginning seemed a bit strange (it had an almost 'newscast/narrator' type quality to it, but then he gets somewhat more conversational as the arc moves on). The whole setup with Pistola was a bit confusing, but only until I got to the end of the mission - I'm not sure I'm correct about this, but is it right to call him a Council 'rogue agent'? Doesn't that imply he used to be Council then went rogue? I figured he was really more like a mercinary working with the Council, and had rather questionable loyalty... And one last nitpick - the Prof. refers to the 5th having the chemical weapons as 'making the Black Death look like chicken pox'. I know it's stupidly nitpicky, but Black Death (or any 'pox') would imply biological, not chemical warfare - and the story implies chemical arms. Seems like it'd be better to say something more like 'makes Sarin seem like pepper spray' ... or something like that.

Again, great job! Enjoyed the arc!

Hey, minor, nitpicky stuff works, too! Thank you, Coulomb! As for Pistola, he's as you've put it: a man working with the Council mainly to further his own ends if the chance arises. He's willing to do what it takes to move up his ladder, and if working with the Council AND the heroes at the same time does that for him, he will.

It just backfires a little for him.

I'll see what I can do to rework the Professor's dialog once I get time. Thank you!

This week's arc is from Suspicious Glenn:

Arc ID: 477906
Arc Title: One Night Bridge
Factions: Council, Crey, Cult of Stars, Awakened Division
Morality: Vigilante
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 30-54
Description: The Peacebringer Tracer Brightstar is looking for Vigilantes to help her bring a rogue Warshade to justice. [SFMA][SLMA]

You may have noticed my lack of participation lately. I'm sure this is true for many people as well, but I've become a bit burnt out on the MA, and my short attention span has drawn itself to other projects - Arc videos (a little bit of arc playing, and a lot of video editing), fan art stuff, and trying out DCUO to help bring a fresh look at CoH when I'm done. I'm passing on arc posting duties to Tubbius if he'll have it.

The authors whose arcs haven't been chosen yet are: Doctor Gemini, Burning Brawler, and the Hound. Apologies if I missed anyone.

I'll gladly fill in for Bubbawheat while he rests up and gets some brain power back for this. Anyone looking to submit an arc for this thread. . . I reckon post here or send me a private message on these forums, and jump right in when the new arc for this week goes up!

And Bubbawheat, I can't edit that first post or two to keep the list of arcs updated. So, I reckon I'll need to start a new list from whatever page we get to on this thread when starting next week's section.

Might want to keep the current one up for two weeks (effectively taking a hiatus for this week) given that this is x2 XP weekend. I know I, for one, won't be able to play it unless they actually do end the event on midnight Sunday (which would be a first).

That extension is actually a good idea, given that most folks playing double XP weren't touching MA with a ten foot pole. So, here's to another week for this week's arc! I'll get around to playing it soon!

Awesome, my arc was picked. I didn’t notice until now. This last two weeks have been really hectic for me. I was traveling cross-country from Florida to Arizona, dealing with the move and working on a content design test while visiting family. I have also finished my own beta testing on my new arc.

Arc ID: 480712
Title: Tangled Vines
Factions: Arachnos,Freakshow, Rogue Isle Villains, The Whispered Hand, Blackheart Pirates
Morality: Rogue
Length: 5 Missions
Level Range: 30-54
Description: Amanda Vines has finally discovered an Arachnos plot so insidious that she now has to flee the Isles. Can she survive long enough to escape with most of the Rogue Isles gunning for her? [SFMA/SLMA/FHMA/]
Note: This mission uses many custom characters. You also get to see pirates and ninjas fighting!

I feel that Tangled Vines is a better arc then my first arc. If you people want to provide feedback on that, I would appreciate it. Sorry if I am breaking any rules but Tangled Vines is a brand new arc and needs feedback badly. My One Night Bridge got an additional play over the last two weeks that isn’t stellar. I do realize the last two weeks have been crazy for CoH (More Alpha Stuff, double xp, server downtime) and people need a break from the club but any feedback on either arc would be great.

In any event, I am looking for forward to next week’s arc.

Well crud, I didn't see Gren's request to switch the arc until after I'd played it and written up feedback. Sorry about that.

Well, hopefully the feedback will help make the next couple of plays on the arc more positive - I did think the arc had problems, but they're very fixable problems. I hope this helps.

One Night Bridge (Arc ID#477906, 2 stars; would have given 3 stars in game, but that’s against the club rules, so I left it unrated.)

What I liked: I think the overall concept behind the story is good – the idea of a group of renegade Kheldians wanting to flee to another dimension to escape the coming storm (and the potential death of their race) is a neat one. I thought it lead to a neat concept embodied in the custom group, the Cult of the Stars.

Things I thought could use improvement: The arc seems unfinished – it could really benefit from a lot more detail, I think. For example, all of the mission objectives in the 3rd mission (or perhaps it’s the second?) are just the defaults that display when objectives aren’t actually entered in. I also think the clues need to be expanded (and the arc could use more of them to help drive the story along). I was a little confused when Brightstar referred to a friend of hers as directing the Crey lab that I raid, and worried that Voidfire would raid the lab – yet during the mission, it appears that the lab was working with Voidfire all along (that was a big, ‘wait, huh?’).

The Cult of the Stars seems like a neat idea, but there’s very little development of the group in the arc other than presenting them as “Voidfire’s followers.” And the whole ‘reveal’ at the end of mission three had an ‘out of the blue’ feel to it – almost like “oh, and by the way, Voidfire’s my daughter.” That’s more a matter of taste, granted, but it seemed jarring to me.

Another thing I considered a major issue: if the arc is going to be for level 30-54, then the custom group needs to *at least* give 75% XP at level 50 (otherwise the arc needs a lower level limit). So either the customs need to have more attacks added, or the arc’s level range should be tweaked. (IMO, aiming for 90% XP at level 50 is what I prefer). For what it’s worth, I was using a level 50 brute (level shifted to 51), and set to 0/x5, and the custom group was *very* easy. Granted, part of that is the character’s power level, but keep in mind that you’ve got a lot of stuff with negative energy powers in the custom group, and that’s a weakness in my character’s defenses – but, since they all only seemed to have one or two attacks tops, they could never even make a dent in my health. I wasn’t totally clear on why are they all wearing joker masks… is that a ‘Cult thing’?

And then one other thing that I considered fairly major: To be honest, I just didn’t buy into one of the main elements of the arc: that opening a dimensional portal would spell doom to earth. Presumably with all of this money, and all of these research scientists at her disposal, Voidfire would have researched the dimension she intended to open the portal to before doing so – after all, wouldn’t she need to make sure the dimension her followers were fleeing to wouldn’t have some property that was inherently toxic to Kheldians? So it’s very hard to buy Brightstar’s assertion that Voidfire’s portal tech represents a deadly threat to us simply because it opens the risk of a dimensional invasion (again, I don’t buy she’d go to all this trouble, but then blindly open a portal to a random dimension and ‘hope it works out for the best.’) I think there really needs to be some other in-story reason why the portal is a bad idea. For example: Brightstar shows the schematics to Portal Corp, and they determine that the method being used to open the portal could cause some serious local instabilities in the space-time continuum, and if a very large number of people went through, it could actually collapse into a black hole that would destroy the Earth – that’d actually give even more motivation to stop Voidfire, to be honest; her motivations go from relatively neutral (which makes the motivation to stop her somewhat lacking) to much darker (she doesn’t care what happens to all of us, just as long as her people escape).

So, in summary, I think the story is actually a neat idea for an arc (and the custom group has a lot of promise), but, in my opinion, it needs some improvements to get there.


Score: 2.25

Thanks Coulomb2,

You make some good points especially with the progression of the story. When I get some time I am going to add some more clues to help flesh out the middle missions. I’ll also change the 3rd mission a bit to seem more like a raid on a lab. I’ll also take a look at the custom group as well. Alpha slots add a lot of power to a character but some of the regular groups like Crey and PPD for example are more fleshed out in the level 30-40 bracket. I still want to cater to 50’s as well since there are more of them but I cannot make a story arc that is balanced for both a level 30 and a fully slotted level 50.

Again thanks for the feedback.

One Night Bridge: arc 477906
5-starred in-game. I like it for the most part. Thus, thumbs up.

Good stuff: Overall story is fairly solid. There's an interesting take on using the weak and sickly as hosts for Kheldians so as not to cull the best of the best from humanity and to save the lives of those they take.

Less awesome stuff: Like Coulomb2 notes, this arc could use a fair amount of polish. Clues could be emphasized and explained a bit more, especially in the early missions where minimal clues at all pop up. Also, the PPD minions were constantly blocking doors in the final battle, making it more difficult to navigate than it should have been. Lastly, the Cult is a nice touch, but, again, it feels very vague even if you go through and read all of their right-click info (which was, yes, spelled out very well!). Maybe some allusions to the Cult in the first mish or two might work?

Keep plugging away!

And now it's time for an update to the Mission Architect Arc Club!

This week's Arc of the Week is put out by Burning Brawler. It's arc ID # is 475246. Stats for the arc, from post 187 on this very thread, are as follows!

Name: Bringing A Lord to Power
Arc ID: 475246
Level: 40-54
Morality: Villainous
Length: Very Long
Description: Blightlord has a task for you. Can you rise above and prove yourself in a City of Villains?

Be a bad guy this week and let Burning Brawler know what you think!

I reviewed this arc and left a review in the initial forum post so I guess I'll set this one out.

Bringing a Lord to Power (My 'real' rating was 3 stars, but the score had me give it 4 stars in game)

Liked: The mission briefings are well done. Overall, I’d say the design of the missions is above average – specifically, while the first three were basically thematically related newspaper missions (defeat X and his cronies, with relatively little variation), they were also fast-paced and never really felt tedious. I actually thought that fourth mission was really quite good: fun to play with plenty of interesting foes and the timed aspect fit well with the story. It was really only the very end of that mission that had a real downer to it. The fifth mission didn’t stand out per se, but it did have more variety than the first three, and the little twist involving the Tormented was neat (I saw it coming, but it was still neat). By and large, the custom groups were good too, with a really good job of making Blightlord’s undead minions really reflect the pet models while still having an element of uniqueness to them.

Disliked: Two biggies: motivation, and power selection (especially for the AV characters). I can tell you this arc certainly comes off as a classic example of an ego arc (complete with the “bask in the glory of AV versions of all of my favorite characters). That might not be the case, but if it isn’t, it certainly has a lot of the elements ego arcs have: overpowered AVs built very much like player characters (including power choices that make sense for a PC, but really get obnoxious on an AV), the definite feel that you are not the central focus of the story – which is closely related to the fact that your character, with practically no reason given, is cast as the lackey for the supervillain (or hero) the story is really centered on.

The problem with this is that the motivation for the character to participate in the arc is very limited. See, I’m a level 50 villain. I’ve defeated Lord Recluse, single-handedly. Put down countless members of the Vindicators and the Freedom Phalanx. Witnessed (and facilitated) a future where I become a god. Etc. Blightlord just shows up and starts ordering me around, demanding that I prove myself. I’m not going to prove myself by going on his idiot errand. I’m going to prove myself by beating the tar out of him right then and there. But, then, of course, there’s no reason to do the actual arc.

So the only explanation for going along with this is that I’m totally cowed by my fear of Blightlord, and desperately hoping that his promises of giving me my “just reward” don’t involve me become one of his undead lackies. The former directly conflicts with my status as a villain at the pinnacle of my power. The latter requires me to be some sort of complete moron. Either way it’s bad.

On the other hand, if Blightlord approaches me with false humility, and offers me great power, and equal partnership in his grand schemes. And I decide to join forces with him (likely fully intending to betray him and take the power for myself – which I’m sure he’s also plotting). And as the story unfolds, the facades slowly come down, and it is clear that neither of us intend to share power – speeding us along to a climactic final confrontation. That casts the character as an equal participant in the story, with a more realistic motivation to play through the arc’s missions.

Sure, if the arc were, say prior to level 20 (everyone’s going to have a different cutoff), it would at least seem reasonable that my villain would be early enough in their villain career to play dutiful lacky. But the arc’s geared to include level 50 villains – and they have very, very different motivations (and are very unlikely to play ‘sidekick’).

Power Choices:
As I said before, I found the two custom groups (Blightlord’s minions and Techno-Tyrant’s army) to be pretty neat with good descriptions. In general I didn’t have a major problem with their powers beyond one nitpick that really stood out – frankly, given my build, giving the robot bosses a Tier 9 Godmode power is a risky design decision. I could frequently stun and take them down before they popped it – or delay its activation enough that I could do the tiny amount of damage needed to finish them off fairly quickly even with it on. But you play this with a lower damage AT, and I suspect the bosses would prove immensely frustrating.

To me, the problem related to power choices had to do with the AVs: as I mentioned before, they’re built like player characters, which is pretty risky when you scale their powers up to AV levels. (And sure, I played them as AVs, *but* I want to make it clear that even scaled down to EB status, the problems with some of the powers would be almost as bad.) Here are the specifics:

Burning Brawler – The Bad: Aim is really sucky on an AV; frankly, 10 seconds of getting to bypass my defenses with damage boosted attacks from an AV that actually has the top tier attacks in his set is not much fun. It’d be one thing if it was a ‘start the fight’ power, and then he didn’t get to use it again for the rest of the fight (two purples and some oranges to weather the storm); but he gets to use it again every 90 seconds. Good: He *is* optional, and easily skipped. Verdict: Overall it’s really not that big of a deal; it’s a sucky power choice, but at least you can avoid having to face it.

Elitist – Bad: Yee gads, where to begin. He’s got at least 35% S/L resistance (probably 45%). He’s got unyielding, so the only method I’ve got to shut down his resistances (stun him when the purple triangles go down) is useless. And then, once I did get him down to 20% life, he pops unstoppable. So for three minutes I basically can’t do a thing to him, and he gets to heal all the way back up to 80%. (And, evidently, AV-class foes don’t crash at the end.) And he’s a required foe, so you can’t just skip him. The Good: Well, actually, you *can* skip him. It’s a timed mission, so so long as you just fail the mission, you don’t have to deal with him – you only have to deal with Blightlord berating you (which further erodes the whole motivation issue). Theoretically, you actually have help for this fight too, as Blightlord provided rather powerful allies. In practice, the two ambushes Techno-Tyrant spawned in were enough to wipe the floor with my ‘helpers’. Verdict: Boo!

Blightlord – Bad: Since there’s no toxic defense, his poison-based debuffs can really only be avoided by using purples to boost my positional defense (or hitting my godmode power). Good: But, on the upside, that very same purple (or having godmode active) tended to negate the effect of the occasional lucky hit – the debuff wasn’t that much more than what the purple was giving me anyway. And, as an added bonus, his undead minions were great batteries for using power sink to heal and get back endurance. Verdict: This fight was a nice challenge, actually. It took awhile, but there was no one thing he could do that was overwhelming, and no tricks that fell into the “there’s no point in even continuing the fight for the next three minutes” category.

So this particular arc really struck me as ‘good balanced by bad’ – there were lots of times I was having a good time, paired with plenty of times were the arc wasn’t much fun to play (and I think you’d be surprised how much of that is exacerbated by the motivation thing making it harder to be invested in the story).

Score: 3.28

Just dropping a line to say I've not forgotten this! Life has had me running like mad.

This week's upcoming arc of awesome? The Hound/ @Royal: Spawning Chaos #469020

Arc ID: 469020
Arc Name: Spawning Chaos
Morality: Villainous
Length: Five Missions
Groups: Freakshow, Vanguard, Cage Consortium, Longbow
Description: The next Freaklympics is rolling around and you've got some free time. Form a band of loyal Freaks to cut, shoot, blast and smash your way to first place!

I liked the Freaklympics in game. I might just have to give this a shot if I can make time. This arc will remain up until NEXT FRIDAY MARCH 4th.

Got any more submissions for the club? I THINK we're out, but I wouldn't swear to it. Send 'em in, folks!

Actually, mine has yet to be played, but I'm having to take a little hiatus from the club due to CoH burnout.