Mission Architect Arc Club

Yeah, I figure that's the case. Since I have always agreed with the need for a change in the rating system, I don't feel hypocritical for being irritated at it now.

In any case, Casualties of War hasn't had quite as much scrutiny, especially since I re-did a couple of missions, so I see it as a sign. The only reason I didn't ask for it to be the MA Club arc to start off with was it's the second of two parts. Seeing as how it worked out okay for Laz, though... may as well.

And made the random roll for this week's arc:

Arc ID: 453091
Arc Name: A Clone of Your Own?
Author: @Bubbawheat
Morality: Rogue
Level Range: 35+
Description: Just when you thought you could make a quick honest buck selling some tissue samples for SCIENCE! It comes back and bites you in the butt. According to Dr. Mephit, the samples have been stolen and as long as you want to keep your involvement quiet, you better be the one to bring it back.

Even though I'm apparently an hour late, I ran through Breaking the Barrier today. I gave it 4 stars.

Pros: Well designed custom group, last couple of missions are really sold.
Cons: First mission is a rocky start for the arc, some of the characterization could use some punching up.

I feel like this isn't as strong as some of Lazarus' other arcs that I've played. The Nagans are a well designed custom group that manages to utilize some of the more off-the-wall powersets like ninjitsu and radiation emission without being overpowering as always (even though I was forced to turn down my difficulty because of Rularuu... damn cheating eyeballs) but I felt like the surrounding missions didn't have the same level of detail that, say, The Portal Bandits has, at least not until the last couple of missions. The last mission in particular has a neat part where it spawns battles between Rularuu and your allies to simulate them holding off the advancing horde, even if on x1 it was pretty much just 4 guys fighting 4 Rularuu monsters. But, that's because of DAMN EYEBALLS MAKING ME PLAY LIKE A SQUISHY.

Speaking of eyeballs, the first mission left me underwhelmed, which is not a good start for an arc. The mission has you fighting Rularuu almost exclusively, and lacks the level of detail that the later missions have, aside from some captive rescues, an ally, and dialogue from the Nagans at the end. This leads to most of the mission being a corridor crawl against one of the most hated enemy groups in the game, for the most part. Now, while I have no issue against using Rularuu, the fact that this mission is a slog through them for the most part can easily lead to people getting a bad taste in their mouth from the get go. Having more interesting things on the way to the final room, or varying up the Rularuu with some Nagan spawns could go a long way to making this mission a much stronger start.

Secondly, since this is one of I believe 5 arcs with the Nagans in them, the novelty of them has lost its luster, despite them being just as well designed (with some new varieties added since last I fought them) and funny at times. As this is a sequel, the player has likely fought them before, so the focus goes more towards the rest of the arc, the writing, the construction of the missions, etc. The mission construction, as I said, is nice towards the end. However, I feel like some of the characters could use some punching up with their characterization, with Iron Samurai being the most notable example. Personally, I feel that contact dialogue is really hard to pull off well. It's all too easy to have them just vomit out volumes of exposition. Lazarus does avoid that for the most part by having things in the contact dialogue other than just Iron Samurai saying "Go to X, do Y", but he still feels more like a device to make the plot happen rather than a character with motivations and a personality.

However, despite all that, it's still an arc worth playing. With some more polish and some work on the characters it could be really great.

Arc ID: 453091
Arc Name: A Clone of Your Own?

Hmm... I always like a good take on me fighting myself. That mechanism was a great addition to CoH, and a great addition to the MA. That said, as much as I've been a fan of Bubba's other work, this one seemed a little incomplete or rough around the edges to me.

I get the distinct impression that the good Doctor Mephit and my character are supposed to have met before. If so, I don't recall where. I do have senility issues that might account for it, but maybe using the first mission' begin clue to recap the circumstances (either as they happened in the past in game time or as the arc claims they happened if it's just an arc assumption) might flesh out the relationship a little and make it seem less jarring.

Since it's mentoned that our character can expect to find more clones because of what the first one was named, how is it that we know the clones' leet names? We know they believe they're our character (in my case, Spandex Dreamer) because they say so, but nothing is said that gives us their designated names.

I'm also curious as to why the clones had the wide variety of power sets they had. The masterminds drove me nuts, but that's probably just a personal quirk on my part. The Freaks involvement seemed weakly explained, and the Crey at the end seemed tacked on - though having Crey involved in any cloning scenario makes perfect sense given Revenant Hero and all.

I appreciate the fact that the arc was only three missions long. But, I feel as if it could have been fleshed out a little more, with more explanation given to some of this stuff -- either through the use of expanded text opportunities in the first three missions, or by expanding it one mission.

There were a few punctuation/grammer issues that jumped out at me, and I jotted a couple down:

Mission #1 Intro - "Since there is added risk involved." is a fragment.

Mephit's Files Clue - "Pages and pages of awkward handwriting..." is a fragment.

Return Success Dialogue should read - "...additional notes. You stand there, quickly..."

I'll definitely re-run this one after it's been fine tuned. Thanks, Bubabawheat.

Arc ID: 453091
Arc Name: A Clone of Your Own?

Pros: Short and sweet. Doesn't take itself too seriously, what with the names of the clones and their quips.

Cons: Seemed flat and forced, and it didn't answer many of the questions it made me ask. Could have used some more mission dialog / explanation.

This week's mission arc for the club is "A Clone Of Your Own?" by @Bubbawheat. I have to admit, I was excited to play someone else's take on the reflection characters the Mission Architect offers. Thus far, all I had seen were the Devs take on the doubles (or simulacrums, or clones). To be honest, this mission didn't quite deliver what I was hoping for. Not that it didn't have its peaks, but the valleys seemed to be more obvious.

Right from the start, the first mission ("I Think I'm A Clone Now" - nice nod to Weird Al) stuck out as a bit contrived. I helped this rube of a doctor somehow? Dr. Mephit claimed I had provided some DNA samples, but the character I was on, even if he had been a Rogue (the alignment to which the mission is set) would never have done such a thing. Especially not to this guy. Something stunk, and it wasn't just the good doctor's name. (Not picking on the name: Mephit is another word for "skunk". Indeed, the skunk family is Mephitidae.) Heading into the mission, I was almost immediately confronted by B4d c10ne T3st #1, followed by B4d c10ne T3st #2, and then N4m$_Er^0r. None of them used the same powersets as my character, which, I suspect, is the result of the failure, as were their horrible lines. The mission was short and to the point, however, and quickly done, then I was shunted out to speak with the doc again.

The doctor ignored me, but he said enough for me to figure out I needed to go bust some Freakshow heads. I knew there had to be a smart one amongst the bunch, or at least that's what the mission text claimed I knew, or they wouldn't have been able to make the clones. I went in, gathered a few clones of me (who had some pretty funny one-liners, mind you!) and kicked Freakshow tail. Again, a short mission, and just as quickly to the point. The helper NPCs seemed a little overpowered - especially the Super Strength one, but I suspect that works well if it's being soloed by a support character.

The last mission sent me in after Dr. Mephit himself, who I only just figured out was unstable or untrustworthy ("There's no way you can trust a doctor who carries around his own pistols." What, I trusted him before, didn't I?) The bad guys were an interesting hodge podge of members of different groups, followed by a mid-mission betrayal. The bad guy here was the toughest fought in the whole arc - an Extreme Elite Boss - and the betrayal was no surprise, so everything was kind of anticlimactic from there on out. Get a glowy. Fight one more clone (who was only a Lieutenant). My guess is that, in a group, those two become Archvillain and Boss, but who knows?

All in all, it was an interesting chance to see the reflection stuff in play, but the arc itself felt contrived and flat, almost as if the author wanted to have more fun with it, but felt constrained either by the character of Dr. Mephit or by the Architect system, or both. I would have loved to see more writing in the mission introductions and returns, as well as some depth to what you were actually doing. I'm also with Dalghryn concerning the Freaks and the Crey. I know Dr. Mephit makes mention of Crey in the third mission, but they seem just kind of suddenly there. Between that and the Freaks inexplicable involvement in the cloning business, and I'm left with more questions than answers.

A Clone of Your Own?

Overall, an enjoyable, quick romp through a lot of Freaks.

I ran Tubbius through this one, too, so he and his pet Planty are getting some money and tickets by being in this club.

Mission 1: Easy enough overall, with the clones being pretty simple to take down. I like the idea of color-swapping on the clones; the white and black is a nice touch!

Mission 2: Linear map makes this easy to follow and easy to run. Good job overall, here.

Mission 3: I figured out easily enough that Mephit was going to betray me; I didn't expect it would happen on going for his computer! Getting double-tapped for about 400 damage was painful; thank goodness for Healing Aura. This fight did take a good deal longer than anything else in the mission; it wasn't terribly painful except for when the EB got off a few shots. I figure if I were on something that couldn't drop so many holds and immobilizes I'd be in some serious trouble, though.

The sudden change up at the end to exploring the good stuff Mephit might have done does indeed feel a little out of place; it IS mentioned as you open the last filing cabinet in the third mission, but it's not really hinted at throughout the arc, unless I'm missing it.

Global positive: I love the lil' comments when you get to click the glowies! "I, J, K, L, M" has to take the cake.

Good overall--great for a fun, quick stomp, as noted above.

I was waiting for Paladin to do give his feedback on the arc he was actually supposed to play (though I really appreciate him playing the preceding arc in the series) but since people are already posting feedback on the next arc of the week I might as well provide my response to the feedback now.

Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together)

Some of the criticism for mission 1 are very reasonable and I'm considering ways to make that mission have some more punch. After all we're fully expecting to see the Nagans so having them all holed up at the back of a large map may not be such a good idea after all.

Mission 2 works just fine as far as I'm concerned, there will be no changes.

Mission 3 is right where I want it. If some people cannot understand that it is a deliberate bait-and-switch to set up later events in the arc then that's their problem. I won't be any nicer in saying that.

I very much disagree that mission 4 is filler and it seems that only one person really complained that it was so that will be disregarded.

Mission 5 is right about where I want it as well. If some people cannot read the objectives that tell them to meet up with the two allies, and run right past them when they both spawn in the first room and you should be unable to miss them, well there is nothing I can really do to help that.

I have however removed the Challenging tag and changed it to Solo-Friendly after reviewing all the comments concerning it. The arc is no longer as tough as it originally was and I like where it is now on the difficulty scale.

For those who don't get the whole thing with Aeon's clones ranging from Minion to Boss, you probably never ran the Statesman Task Force. If you had then you should have made the connection, especially after receiving the clue at the end of mission 3. These clones are the prototypes for the Elite Boss clones that Aeon uses in the STF.

Why do I not use the EBs from the STF here as well? Because they don't scale below level 45, have really annoying powersets and tier-9 powers, plus I personally don't enjoy fighting multiple EBs back to back myself much. I also find it more amusing to beat up a bunch of weak Aeon clones as well.

I will look into toning down Iron Samurai's damage output a bit. The problem is that I have to make sure he is balanced across two other arcs as well, I'd prefer not to have to make multiple copies of him and balance each one for separate arcs.

Thank you all for playing!

Here's a question for the club, would I be better served to try and play up the comedy elements more, or keep it as a more or less serious arc with comic relief thrown in?

Edit: decided to go ahead and try to punch up the comedy. In the process of updating now.

Changes made:

Tried to punch up the comedy. Especially in Mephit's dialog.
Added a Dr. Mephit Clone to the custom group in place of "The Green Guard"
Lowered Dr. Mephit from EB to Boss.
Removed morality fluff at the end, which I had put in to punch up the Going Rogue aspect for the Aeon Challenge.

i liked the comedic portions, arcs that are too serious make me less interested in reading the dialogue, comedic dialogue is fun to read though lol

A Clone of Your Own?

Liked: Decent use of Doppelgangers.

Disliked: Poor motivation for the player, much of the humor falls flat, does not feel like it belongs in the level range it is designed for.

Notes:

• The arc description does not match up with the first mission briefing at all. Mephit says that he asked the player to come meet him, not that we showed up to talk to him.
• Missions 1 and 2 feel like they could (and maybe should) be merged together. Really it's rather stupid for the player to give any of these clone notes back to Dr. Mephit, plus in this version of the arc the explanation of how he (or the Freaks) got your DNA to begin with has gone missing.
• Why does the custom freak change his name between missions 2 and 3? Also does he really need to have a self-rezz that works 100% of the time and heals him to full? Fighting him a second time along with an ambush was rather annoying.
• Was the glowie in mission 3 only supposed after we "confront" Dr. Mephit? It shows up on the objectives before you meet him and he follows you there for no reason, only to get mad after he stood by and watched you delete his files. How 'bout we fight him before the terminal is active and get the pass phrase off him that way?
• What was the point of the Dr. Mephit clones? They're just there and don't have any dialog.
• Where did Dr. Mephit's assistants go?
• I still don't know why you insist on shoehorning this arc into the 40-50 range. As I have said before after playing previous versions, this does not feel like a high-level story nor does Dr. Mephit feel "big time" in any way. I really think this arc should take place in the late 20's to 30's at most.

How on earth did I miss this? Sign me up Mr. Bubbawheat!

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'll get around to reviewing A Clone of Your Own as soon as I can.

Just wanted to give a quick mention because I went back through the thread and upgraded several members to Silver Level Members. A big thank you and congratulations to Dalghyrn - hope your hand gets better soon, but glad you've already done more than just two arcs a month, FredrikSvanberg, Hero Prime, and Tubbius. Monday I will be making another roll at random.org, and you will each have double the chance for your arc to be picked over the Bronze level members.

Also, I decided to add just a little bonus if you would care to accept it - a free silver ticket recipe roll on me (not bragging, but I have more tickets than I know what to do with). Just send me an in-game global /tell with your preferred level range and I'll send it to you through gleemail.

Honest question about A Clone of Your Own?

In an arc about cloning, with a bunch of clones in it, is it out of place for Dr. Mephit's lab to have a bunch of his own lieutenant-level clones running around without giving them any specific dialog?

I think it would be perfectly acceptable. Maybe you could create a couple that have dialogue, just to add to the comedic entertainment value, and have the rest just wandering about.

A Clone of Your Own? Review.

Mission One: A'ight. Liking this so far. Dr. Mephit's quite fun, I especially got a chuckle out of his opening line in the Mission Acceptance text. Although I was hoping for a bit of a better introduction rather then just going straight into the thick of message. That's not enough to detract from the story though! So let's move on.

Nice use of the doppelgangers, liked the 'l33t' touch to their names even if I did have to take two seconds out to read them properly.

Mission one ends, and Dr. Mephit unleashes some more of his stereotype humour! On to mission two!

Mission Two: So the smart Freak who designed those clones is still out there, and he still has what he needs to clone my evil mastermind! That ain't gonna fly. It's off to the sewer lab to beat 'em in! After fighting through a handful of Freaks, I reach the end room where the Freaks seem to be haggling over a mirror... oh wait, that's just my clone! A friendly clone, too. After I rescue him, I move on to the '5mart 1' who is... German? I couldn't quite place the accent.

After beating him down, I found the lab equipment which was just around the corner. Easy enough to destroy. I liked the sudden wave of confusion that came over the Freaks here too. On to Mission Threeee!!

Mission Three: As it turns out, Mephit still has his research and it's up to me to stop him from potentially coming after everyone with an army of clones!

The mobs in this mission are known as 'Mephit's Experiments' and from what I've seen consist of renamed Banished Pantheon minions and lieutenant ranked Mephit Clones. After a short while, I come across Mephit himself... though he doesn't seem all that interested in attacking me. So, I've found Mephit, and then I come across both his notes and the German/Russian/Accent of an unknown nature Freak, who has had his name changed to Wily Freak. Apparently he's leading a group into Mephit's lab to recover the notes! Can't let that happen.

So after defeating the Freaks and destroying his notes, Dr. Mephit turns against me. This makes me think that if he was going to turn against me anyway, why not do it from the start? Oh well, li'l nitpick, not enough to get me to thumb the arc right down. After defeating Mephit I come across the last of my clones; he has all my powers and my devilishly good looks and, therefore, was an easy fight. It's easy to kill a Mastermind before he gets all his pets out.


All in all, an enjoyable arc! I liked Dr. Mephit and the... well, let's call him the foreign Freak. Lovely use of the doppelganger system like someone else said and some good humour in there too. Five stars!

A Clone of your Own

Note that I try very hard to not read others’ comments before playing the arc and writing my own. I'll go back and read what's being said after posting this.

Mission One – Cute title! Gave me a laugh. Mission itself is straightforward. I like that the clones are using random powers. But why would Mephit contact me, and not some other villain? Wouldn’t he be afraid I’d become enraged that he’d cloned me without my permission – as opposed to some other villain, who might not care he was fighting clones of me? Mephit’s files do seem to have a typo (a double period – either it’s supposed to be single, or it’s supposed to be an ellipsis). Where’d Mephit even manage to get my DNA?

I take it Mephit sold my DNA (and perhaps a cloning formula) to the Freakshow, but, again, where’d he get it? And how exactly do I know where their lab is?

Mission Two – the pop up when you enter is actually a comma-splice; it should be two complete sentences. When you rescue your clone, in the clue it probably should read “you’ll take them for a nice walk down…” (rather than “down a nice walk down”).

The mission ‘completed’ right after the lab equipment was destroyed, but the clone pod was still there – based on the objectives (and the clue) it almost seems like this should be part of ‘destroy any equipment you can find.’

The debriefing, and the intro for the third mission make it sound like I go to Mephit’s lab for something, but then just leave when he ignores me. Doesn’t make much sense to me why I’d do that…

So then I just decide to take him down and destroy his lab? Not sure I follow…

And I didn’t quite get the remark about carrying his own pistols. I take it he’s dual pistols, and now I (the player) am aware of this. But it seems like a very abrupt way to reveal that information – like you’re making a joke based on something I didn’t even know about until you made the joke.

Why would me taking orders from myself dissuade me from using Mephit’s cloning research for my own purposes? It seems like I’m saying that I’d be afraid of one of my own clones ‘taking over’ for me and becoming the boss – but I don’t buy I’d be afraid of that (This, IMO, is just a case where the author is projecting thoughts and motivations onto the character; if they match what I, as the player, expect, there’s not a problem. If they don’t, it comes off as “bad” – this is one of those cases where it didn’t). It might work better to turn the last mission into a ‘Destroy Dr. Mephit’s research lab in retaliation for his interference’ and make it an optional objective as to whether or not you should actually destroy all of his research (versus using it for your own gain).

Mission Three – Wait, after ‘rescuing’ Dr. Mephit, I totally forgot what exactly the objective involving him was… (I just kind of assumed I’d be beating the tar out of him, but it seems more like I just leave him there – and there’s no clue that gives any additional information; yeah, I should have paid more attention, but sometimes it’s useful to know if a player will still follow what’s going on, even if they’re not as focused on the story as they should be.)

You know, “Perfected Clone” may sound a bit better than Perfect Clone – but that just opinion. I was hoping my clone would have more dialog. Kind of liked what he opens with, but he just doesn’t say much through most of the fight. The battle with him is pretty much the climax of the arc, so it seems like he should say more…

I actually missed the computer with the files on the second floor – moved forward and defeated my clone (obviously), then went back and got the files. But that ended the mission, even though it was clear Mephit spawned in somewhere to stop me. It seems like he should be a required objective, since taking him down seems important to the story.

EDIT: Okay, the souvenir does actually explain several elements of the story that I had questions about; now if they were just incorporated into the arc a little more completely? Also, that code that was supposed to make the title red didn't work; I just saw the code itself with no change in what the incorporated text looks like...

Likes: Short, fast-paced arc; frankly I wish there were more of these in the system (that aren’t just farms). Not that I’m not a fan of the long, involved ones – I am, but I also think there should be more that are still story-oriented, but fall into the short and sweet category. Mephit had a cool design. Giving most of the clones random powers was a nice touch – kept the fights with them from getting tedious. Basic story idea has a lot of promise. The clue on the computer, suggesting I *am* a clone was kind of neat.

Dislikes: *Way* too many holes and loose ends in the story for my taste. Where did Mephit get the DNA? (Might be helpful to make this connection more clear) – were the Freaks involved because Mephit sold them the research? It felt like the main characters (Mephit, and the Wily Freak) needed to be more developed – I feel like there’s a really neat story here, but it isn’t getting told: the player has to piece it together from fragments. Granted, some players like that kind of story-telling, but I’m not a huge fan. I suspect, though I don’t know, that a large fraction of the player base isn’t a huge fan of this style of ‘very detail sparse’ storytelling, so it is potentially reducing the arc’s appeal. In other words, to me, the arc felt very … incomplete.

Summary: Good foundation, and I like the general idea. But it feels like there needs to be more, IMO. The arc has a very ‘incomplete’ feel to me. Gave it 4 stars.

Score: 3.042

Sea creatures? Seems like there's been some changes...

Thanks for all the plays everyone, hopefully I'll be able to make another pass this next week or two to help tie up loose ends (one of the problems of my style of editing - lots of little edits). And congrats for another member that's made it to silver level - Coulomb2. Send me a global /tell with the level range for your silver recipe ticket roll. Also, if you want one of your arcs to be included in this club, be sure to post it here.

And now this week's random roll came up with:

Arc Info: The Murders in the RWZ Morgue #452144 by @FredrikSvanberg
Missions: 1
Level Range: 35+
Description: There has been a murder in the Vanguard base and Longbow needs your help to catch the killer.

Note: this arc is also up for this year's Player's Choice Awards. They're short arcs, check the others out too and vote for your favorite: http://tinyurl.com/PlayerChoiceVote

Coincidentally, I just played this arc last night, the only problems I had is that I had a few problems finding some of the chained objectives with all the little nooks and crannies of the Vanguard base. The end of the mission is a little bit confusing at first as well - SPOILERSI know the monkey did it, and I know the monkey belonged to a good Rikti diplomat, but it wasn't clear to me if it was set loose on purpose or if it was an accident. If it was accidental, there could be a few extra details so you can piece that bit together. But it's a really great single mission investigation. My twitter notes aka summary is below:

#CoHMA Playing Murders in the RWZ Morgue # 452144 by @FredrikSvanberg Nominated for Player's Choice Best Short Arc
#CoHMA Contact is Agent G from Faultline.
#CoHMA M1: Gaussian called in Longbow to investigate a couple murders in the Vanguard base when Rikti attacked. I'm to go get the culprit.
#CoHMA M1: I get into the first room and there's just a couple longbow and the two bodies ready for examination.
#CoHMA M1: The first body was attacked by an energy blade, the second, strangled by somewhat non-human looking hands.
#CoHMA M1: Adolphe (the suspect) claims he was set up by Longbow to make Vanguard look bad and wants me to find the real culprit.
#CoHMA M1: I found hints of some intelligent animal who could use an energy scalpel.
#CoHMA M1: The Vanguard base has a lot more nooks and crannies than I realized (P.S. the invention tables actually work in the AE)
#CoHMA M1: I found the real culprit - a Rikti Monkey (and not the farmable one) with blood all over its hands.
#CoHMA M1: I returned the pet to its owner... who was originally outraged when Vanguard called him a spy, then was happy to see his monkey.
#CoHMA M1: I know that the monkey committed the murders, but unsure if it was an accident or a conspiracy?
#CoHMA M1: DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY!!! Agent G's annoyed that I found the real threat, and he can't use it to his advantage at all. Shame.