Looking for Feedback: [#479013] The Rise of the Immortal King - A Tale of the First Invasion
By
Supicous Glenn,
Posted on: 2011-01-09 18:50 in Mission Architect
Review: The Rise of the Immortal King - A Tale of the First Invasion
Arc ID #479013
39 Ice/Psi Dominator
Deaths 3: Lt. with Electric Powers, The first encounter with the large mech, fighting the emperor
I have to say this is arc is challenging but doable. This arc suffers from an odd enemy set, bland story and severe pacing issues.
Story I did not really understand the story. The aliens seem to lack motivation. They are not trying to kill, enslave or conquer the world they are just there. To me it felt like the aliens just appeared one day and nobody cared. This is most likely because of a lack of scripted events like battles, patrols and ambushes. It also might be your map choices as well. You might need more maps that look more damaged. Overall, though I think your story lacks a cohesive theme. What is the point of this story? What did I learn from playing this arc?
I would play some alien invasion arcs to try to get a better a feel for your story. Casualties of War Arc ID 241496 is an excellent place to start and the Apex Task force is another good example.
There is a typo on your cover page. It reads, drive back the ir invasion. If the ir is invading than it should read Ir Invasion if not that, it is just a junk word. In addition, Moment of Silences dialogue should be written as
and not a blank space. That way players dont think his text is bugged.
Gameplay-The gameplay is awkward. It was frustratingly hard at times while at other times almost quit boring. The hard parts are mostly the large amount of elite boss encounters. This is particularly true of the third mission when you have an elite boss chained to a lt. chained to an elite boss. Why would I want to fight two elite bosses in a row? They are supposed to be difficult challenges that drain a player of resources (Inspirations, tier 9 powers, pets, etc.). So having two practically right after each other means I am facing the later elite boss with very little to tip the fight in my favor. The large Longbow mech has serious pathing issues and at times will shoot through walls or get stuck in doors. He really is not meant to be used in an indoor map. In fact he really isnt meant to be used as boss but as pet for players to use to break bases in Recluse Victory. Why not just replace him with a PPD Mech or Malta Mech. He also is well way too hard in my opinion to take on alone without help. The last boss is difficult as well but since you can take with you some elite boss pets with you into battle its not a big deal. I still felt relatively useless throughout the final battle.
Honestly, I would like this arc a lot more if you just downgraded all the elite bosses to bosses. I understand you are making a challenge arc but you can reach wider audience if you can reduce the amount of orange flags on your arc.
The enemies lack details. Some enemies are just reskinned versions of other enemies. I do understand that aliens would have similar uniforms especially if they were in a military but there really isnt anything to differentiate them from each other. Their names are quite confusing as well. I have no idea what what a WN, SJ, etc means without looking at the descriptions. Why not just call them common names like medic, commando, etc. It does not even make sense story wise. Why would I know aliens rank and honorifics if they were well aliens?
I would vary the size, costume pieces and overall look of the aliens. Look at the Rikti. They have armored aliens, unarmored aliens, small drones, monkeys, floating mechs, etc. You need that kind of variety to help the player immediately understand the threat they are facing.
Objectives- Your objectives are all over the place. If you are going to chain objectives off each other make sure you have them marked as front, middle, rear, etc. A great deal of the boredom in this arc comes from having to look through a cleared map for a newly revealed objective. I would have allies spawn in the front. That way they can help you with the numerous boss fights. Have secondary boss fights in the middle and your final boss fights in the rear. I would also consider making the lay dynamite in mission 2 optional. Finding 5 places to lay them in a large office building took me 40 minutes of running around the map. I almost quit because of it. I would also make some of the elite boss encounters optional. Also always give the player the ability to be able to exit the mission at the end of a mission. That is unless you put some ambushes or patrols to fight on the way back. Backtracking 3-4 floors with nothing happening is well dull.
Well this is probably my longest review. A good two hours of writing
sheesh. This arc has potential but it seems to fall short in many areas. I originally rated it two stars but since it looks like you are going for a challenge arc, I upped the rating to three stars. If you dont like the rating republish the arc. I am your first rating so you wont lose any numbers.
Duly noted. Thanks.
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There are plenty of scripted events like those you mentioned, but the maps can only handle so much, I'm afraid. Not only that, but Patrols remove actual spawns from the mission maps in order to work. The first map could be more damaged, I'm sure, but my options here are "not damaged at all" and "completely fraggin' destroyed" and I didn't want to go the latter route. The last map is the only outdoor map with a Front, Middle and Back distinction, so until I get more to work with, it stays.|
Originally Posted by Supicous Glenn
Review: The Rise of the Immortal King - A Tale of the First Invasion
Arc ID #479013 39 Ice/Psi Dominator Deaths 3: Lt. with Electric Powers, The first encounter with the large mech, fighting the emperor I have to say this is arc is challenging but doable. This arc suffers from an odd enemy set, bland story and severe pacing issues. Story – I did not really understand the story. The aliens seem to lack motivation. They are not trying to kill, enslave or conquer the world they are just there. To me it felt like the aliens just appeared one day and nobody cared. This is most likely because of a lack of scripted events like battles, patrols and ambushes. It also might be your map choices as well. You might need more maps that look more damaged. Overall, though I think your story lacks a cohesive theme. What is the point of this story? What did I learn from playing this arc? |
The story bit I won't disagree with. I'll work on tweaking that.
Quote:
|
I would play some alien invasion arcs to try to get a better a feel for your story. Casualties of War Arc ID 241496 is an excellent place to start and the Apex Task force is another good example. There is a typo on your cover page. It reads, “drive back the ir invasion”. If the ir is invading than it should read Ir Invasion if not that, it is just a junk word. In addition, Moment of Silence’s dialogue should be written as … and not a blank space. That way players don’t think his text is bugged. |
I was a bit sad about the invisible space having no height to it, so it looks bugged. The blank space is supposed to be the joke, but that part ruins it.
Quote:
| Gameplay-The gameplay is awkward. It was frustratingly hard at times while at other times almost quit boring. The hard parts are mostly the large amount of elite boss encounters. This is particularly true of the third mission when you have an elite boss chained to a lt. chained to an elite boss. Why would I want to fight two elite bosses in a row? They are supposed to be difficult challenges that drain a player of resources (Inspirations, tier 9 powers, pets, etc.). So having two practically right after each other means I am facing the later elite boss with very little to tip the fight in my favor. The large Longbow mech has serious pathing issues and at times will shoot through walls or get stuck in doors. He really is not meant to be used in an indoor map. In fact he really isn’t meant to be used as boss but as pet for players to use to break bases in Recluse Victory. Why not just replace him with a PPD Mech or Malta Mech. He also is well way too hard in my opinion to take on alone without help. The last boss is difficult as well but since you can take with you some elite boss pets with you into battle it’s not a big deal. I still felt relatively useless throughout the final battle. |
Quote:
| Honestly, I would like this arc a lot more if you just downgraded all the elite bosses to bosses. I understand you are making a challenge arc but you can reach wider audience if you can reduce the amount of orange flags on your arc. |
Quote:
| The enemies lack details. Some enemies are just reskinned versions of other enemies. I do understand that aliens would have similar uniforms especially if they were in a military but there really isn’t anything to differentiate them from each other. |
Quote:
| Their names are quite confusing as well. I have no idea what what a WN, SJ, etc means without looking at the descriptions. Why not just call them common names like medic, commando, etc. It does not even make sense story wise. Why would I know aliens rank and honorifics if they were well aliens? |
Quote:
| I would vary the size, costume pieces and overall look of the aliens. Look at the Rikti. They have armored aliens, unarmored aliens, small drones, monkeys, floating mechs, etc. You need that kind of variety to help the player immediately understand the threat they are facing. |
Quote:
| Objectives- Your objectives are all over the place. If you are going to chain objectives off each other make sure you have them marked as front, middle, rear, etc. |
Quote:
| A great deal of the boredom in this arc comes from having to look through a cleared map for a newly revealed objective. |
Quote:
| I would have allies spawn in the front. That way they can help you with the numerous boss fights. Have secondary boss fights in the middle and your final boss fights in the rear. |
Quote:
| I would also consider making the lay dynamite in mission 2 optional. Finding 5 places to lay them in a large office building took me 40 minutes of running around the map. I almost quit because of it. I would also make some of the elite boss encounters optional. |
I'll downgrade most of the EBs. I agree that the Longbow Heavy is way too powerful. The only way to beat it is to mez it or KB-lock it, and the latter option looks very buggy.
Quote:
| Also always give the player the ability to be able to exit the mission at the end of a mission. That is unless you put some ambushes or patrols to fight on the way back. Backtracking 3-4 floors with nothing happening is well dull. |
I swear to God, if a mob named Captain Beers is still in the final mission, I'm going to punch something. The MA server always seems to revert my changes even once I see that they took for two hours!
Quote:
| Well this is probably my longest review. A good two hours of writing…sheesh. This arc has potential but it seems to fall short in many areas. I originally rated it two stars but since it looks like you are going for a challenge arc, I upped the rating to three stars. If you don’t like the rating republish the arc. I am your first rating so you won’t lose any numbers. |
I just checked my missions. None of them have anything that says you can't exit right away. Maybe it was an old version on the server after all. I'll still have to do everything else you said, but maybe I don't have as much to do as I thought.
I have upgraded the costumes considerably. The minions, LTs and Bosses are now far, far more distinct. It was difficult to do it all without cutting anything! Surprisingly enough, a few of the changes I made look better and use LESS space than before.
I completely re-made the second mission, so there's more at stake, and you can actually care about the fact that the aliens are here. The end boss now makes more sense, as well.
Long name, I know. All the mobs are custom or custom versions of standard mobs, and there are so many of them that I can scarcely believe I fit all of them into a 4-mission arc! There were cuts, yes, but not to my favorites.
Unfortunately, I don't have one of every AT at the suitable level to test my arc (It's a 35-50 arc), so I can't account for every AT's weaknesses. It's designed to be soloable, but challenging for teams as well. So far it's been a blast to solo for my Emp/Psi Defender, SS/Inv Brute, my Rad/Sonic Defender, and Mind/Energy Dominator, so I think it's ready to go, but I need outside feedback.
Arc Name: The Rise of the Immortal King - A Tale of the First Invasion
Arc ID: #479013
Faction: Hero
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Vid-szhite
Difficulty Level: Challenging, but fair.
Synopsis: The unstoppable Veluszhi Empire has swept across the galaxy in a chain of one conquest after another. Earth is next. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to drive back their invasion, and make sure they'll think twice about ever coming back.
Estimated Time to Play: 15-45 minutes, depending on luck and reading.
Missions 1 and 3 are really good. Mission 2 I like, but I want feedback on the end boss. Mission 4 is the one that I want the most feedback on, since I need the opinion of someone that doesn't know the mission to determine whether it's too hard or not.
If anyone is willing, I'd like feedback on a few of the mobs as well, if you see them: SS-J Frostkeepers, SS-J Shadowstalkers, and VM Motion Captors. The formermost, I think I've finally balanced, but I want to know if they're too annoying to fight solo. The second, I haven't had a chance to test at length. The last are my favorite mobs, but I'm afraid that they might be too hard for Masterminds.