Arc #475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
By
Burning_Brawler_NA,
Posted on: 2010-12-19 05:48 in Mission Architect
Review: Bringing a Lord to Power
Arc ID 475246
34 Energy Melee/Energy Aura
I found this arc very interesting. It feels like it is having a bit of a identity crisis. Still you mange to pull everything together by the end and the overall arc is enjoyable. I particularly liked how dark it was. You did not go into detail about what happens to the people when you defeat them. You hint at some pretty awful things. This meant I had to use my imagination a bit and this led me to some horrifying assumptions.
Story The story seems a bit scatter brained. Each mission has a different purpose that does not seem to be connected with the overall story. For example in second mission, you are going after a family of super heroes. This could have been a whole mission arc in and of itself. In fact, I rather expected it to be since you went into detail about the family and you encountered the meddling hero in the first mission. Then you switch things up and start attacking a super villain group. You completely changed direction that rather disappointed me a little bit.
Gameplay- The combat is fairly balanced throughout the entire arc. The exceptions are the two major boss fights Elitist and Blightlord. The boss Elitist hits way too hard for my brute to handle. I had to exit the mission to buy lucks then use a Shivan to beat him. Blightlord is overpowered. You gave him pets, a heal power, terrorize, debuffs and a strong DoT. He also gets an ambush to support him when he gets to around half health. Tone him down a lot. I had to use some very lame (possibly exploitive) hit and run tactics to whittle down his health to kill him. You have some tough optional elite bosses throughout the arc as well. I will not pick on them because they are optional. That was a good choice on your part.
Details- You really spent some time thinking about the unique heroes and villains in this arc. I suspect that they might be your personal characters in game. This led the hero and villain design to take a more menagerie approach. This is not a bad thing but they do seem to be lacking a common connection like why would a killer clown, necromancer, mad scientist work in the same super group. The X-men were all mutants and the Teen Titans well were all teens. They seem to be missing that special connection. I know I am being meticulous but that is because that is only thing odd about the details and descriptions.
I gave this arc 5 stars. The difficult boss encounters and awkward story progression makes me want to give it 4 stars. However, the effort put into this arc is clear. It is obvious that you were working on something much greater and then scaled it down to fit within the MA. This amount of over detailing made a great story that gives the player a glimpse of a larger story and for that, I think it earned 5 stars.
Thank you for the awesome review. I'm not entirely sure what I can do about how hard Elitist is hitting. I don't want to scale him down to Boss level, but perhaps there is a power or two that I can remove from his attack chain to make a hit from him a little less devastating.
I was curious how other people would handle Blightlord. I'll definitely give his powers a looksie and make some changes to make the encounter a little more player-friendly. I had tried fighting him alone with a Fire Blaster (the one from the first mission) and a MA Scrapper (the wife mentioned) as well as Blightlord vs. Blightlord and had pretty reasonable success, but only because I knew exactly what to expect from him. Yes, they are all in fact characters that belong to me with the exception of the bosses inside the Elitist mission (those belong to friends of mine.) That makes uniting them in some form of theme a little difficult, other than that they all belong to the same supergroup. I think I did comment on them seeming hard to hold together in a clue you get for defeating one of them, but it's easily missed and doesn't do much to solve the issue.
And yes, this arc has gone through a lot of polish, and was originally a much larger story from before the system was even announced. It first got written up in this thread. It went through a lot of shrinking and editing and then just this past week a lot of reworking. When I wrote it, it was for friends who are very familiar with the characters, so I felt a story about going after the family would have been just another bit of the same. I did have them make a return later in the arc. If there had been more missions, they probably would have gotten a little more time to be involved. Perhaps in the future they'll show up again in my arcs with a bit more importance.
Again, thank you for the awesome review and the high rating! Very much appreciated ^_^ I'd be happy to take a look at any arcs of yours in return.
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
Yeah if you would like to take a look at my arc that would be great. It could use some feedback.
Arc ID: 475777
Arc Title: One Night Bridge
Alrighty, starting the arc now and I'll have the review PM'ed to you
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
Arc ID: 475246
Keywords: Challenging, Custom Characters, Magic
Length: Very Long (5 missions)
First Published: 12/19/2010
Morality: Villainous
Level Range: 40-54
Enemy Groups: Circle of Thorns, PPD, Council, Two Custom Groups
Description: Blightlord is looking for aid in a new project. Do you have the skill necessary to get things done?
I first wrote this arc back before the MA system was even announced. Needless to say, it went through quite a bit of rewrites and reworks before it was able to 'fit the system.' I published the original version less than a week after the release of Architect Entertainment. Now, however long later, I have taken the old version down and replaced it with one more fitting the style of play we see in missions today. I like to think that I've gone beyond cramming an overtly complex arc into a large, though still limited system, and instead reached a point where it was able to flourish within what MA allows us to do.
I'm really curious about what everyone thinks of the dialogue and story, but more importantly, what they think of the bosses and custom groups. I've tried to make them soloable while still challenging, and for the powers of the groups to work together in some fashion. Although I've done a lot of extensive (and I mean extensive) solo testing,this arc hasn't gotten any real team testing yet, so that would be big as well.
Let me know what you think, here or in-game. Enjoy!
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell