Arc 501562: An EPIC Tale: Clown Capers

Bleak_Wanderer · 05-30-2011 03:12 PM

This is the first arc I'm posting on the boards for general feedback.

Please feel free to post any reviews/constructive criticism/questions in this thread - or at City of Heroes Mission Review.

(Thanks to CoHMR for posting the arc!: Link - http://cohmissionreview.com/2011/05/...ers/#more-1831)

The short and sweet synopsis:

Arc Name: An Epic Tale: Clown Capers
Arc ID: 501562
Faction: Family, Custom
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Apolinus
Difficulty Level: Low. Soloable.
Levels: 25 - 30
Synopsis:
El Presidente, the head of the El Presidente Investigation Corp (EPIC), has hired you for a simple job: Find dirt on a Burger Clown, a major multinational burger chain opening a franchise in Paragon City. Like nearly every story in Paragon, all is not as it seems at first.
Estimated Time to Play: ~ 1 hour (3 missions)

The gimmicky ad:

Come play an arc by world renowned mission architect @Apolinus*...

An Epic Tale: Clown Capers

Help former political dynamo and current private investigator El Presidente get to the bottom of a dangerous mystery in Paragon City!

Explore the exciting world of fast food and gunplay!

Learn what happens when you push a clown too far!

Free Donald McBurger toy with every playthrough**!

Lose weight and regrow lost hair follicles just by playing this arc***!

SEE El Presidente do battle with evildoers!

COMPLETE a diverse array of mission objectives!

EXPERIENCE intense battles with custom bosses and punch a clown in the face!

Last but not least:

....FIND a special guest character on loan from @SupaFreak (author of Black as Midnight (Arc ID# 482914))!

(Look for the special guest character toward the front of mission three!)

"A Triumph" - The New York Times ****

"@SupaFreak sez: "Play dis arc!" - @SupaFreak

Arc 501562: An Epic Tale: Clown Capers

You won't regret it! *****

Satisfaction or double your money back!

* Only two people have ever actually played anything written by @Apolinus.... but they live really far apart from each other.

** Not available in all areas. Void where prohibited. Prohibited everywhere.

*** Results may vary.

**** They were referencing the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, "Titanic" - not this arc..

***** You might regret it.

/end gimmicky ad.

Changelog:

5/31/2011: Incorporated generous feedback from @SupaFreak. Several modifications were made to mission text to resolve typographical errors and formatting issues. The guest character encounter has been revised with added custom text from @SupaFreak. Thanks, @SupaFreak for the feedback and assistance!

6/01/2011: Additional minion, lieutenant, and boss added to custom villain group.

My debut arc: "Nothing to Worry About Nothing to Worry About [SFMA][HLMA][CFMA][HGMA] ID # 500325

My second arc: An Epic Tale: Clown Capers ID # 501562 Arc Forum Thread (Feedback/Reviews/Constructive Criticism Welcome)

SupaFreak · 05-31-2011 08:58 AM

#1) This is a VERY FUN and QUICK arc to play!

#2) Knowing that someone I don't personally know linking me into their creation is an extremely good feeling and an honor. I'm looking forward to what I hope to be "An EPIC Tale" of my own when the Global Character Contest of mine ends and (hopefully) 30 "Tributes" will be seen over the course of 6 arcs by me with an undetermined amount of "Tips".

@SupaFreak sez: "Play dis arc!"

GlaziusF · 08-29-2011 08:50 PM

@GlaziusF

Running this on a mid-20s Peacebringer, +0/x2 with bosses on.

---

I don't suppose you could have gone with a generic President, put in to prevent the arc from becoming dated?

Or at least Michael Wilson.

Anyway. Place seems pretty empty, if disquietingly hi-technical. I don't suppose there are any single-floor labs out there? This is a little big for--

Oh, appearing patrols. Okay. Looks like this is a real family business. (Also you shouldn't spawn multiple patrols and have them all talk - NPC dialog has a huge radius these days and multiple patrols saying the same thing just clutter up the text window with copies. One patrol that talks and the rest silent.)

Hmm. You can actually lead NPCs to glowies these days, there's no need to try to pretend I've found my escort when I'm clicking on the glowie.

Oh, I see. I think you may want to chain the glowie off of Skeeter being led to it, rather than it being interactable right off the bat, since I found it before I found him.

...assuming that works. I remember some weirdness with glowie chains, no clue if they've sorted that out yet.

I realize you're trying to make a reference with the debriefing, but I'm pretty sure there's a little NBC in the mix here at least.

---

Hmm. Willpower minions. Do they have enhanced perception? I got a bit swarmed in the opening room.

And pretty much everywhere else. Wow. Fortunately I can lobster up and let my pistolero buddy do some damage.

Some heroes have already fallen to the squeaky-nose side - martial arts and illusion control lieuts, and a fire/rad dual blast boss. Or maybe he was fire melee/manip?

Anyway, the end boss is a macer who again seems to spot me from a decent distance away.

Ah! But it seems it's not over yet.

---

What's better than mutant clowns? Mutant cyborg clowns!

Most of the lower ranks seem to be borgified versions of higher-ranking unroboticized Burger Clown employees, which is a nice touch.

Not such a nice touch - I don't know where you expected the alteration pods to wind up, but two of them spawned earlier in the map than I found the glowie that triggered them.

This meant a decent amount of empty backtracking before I could trip the boss fight.

Anyhow, just for reference's sake, the Rikti mutation drug has the street name "Shift".

The souvenir mentions something that was never really touched on in the mission, that the mad cyborg clown blew himself up rather than be brought in. His death rattle was a malfunction sound and I never saw anything like a clue about a horrendous explosion either.

---

Storyline - ****. A parody piece that doesn't try to be more complicated than it has to be.

Though it does make an effort at establishing a timeline, I have to say I'm a little confused. It seems to go: 1) discover Rikti wreckage 2) found Burger Clown 3) establish 60-year reputation for quality and service 4) MUTANT CYBORG CLOWN ARMY! There's some indication that the founder has been dipping into his own mix for a while, and that he's recently made some poor business decisions, but these are awfully grounded concerns for the sort of comedic tone you can't help but get with mutant cyborg clowns.

Design - ****. There's some good design work here, making an enemy group that does the Crey thing where the bosses and lieutenants of one level band are the lieutenants and minions of the next. The powers are varied enough that it's easy enough to come to grips with a battle when you're in the middle of it.

...not so much the actual color choices, though. You'd think in decades of the burger business the guy would have settled on a better scheme than electric yellow and neon green. I understand the intent is to portray a Z-grade burger franchise, dubious coloration and all, but that doesn't make the low contrast between the bright colors any less garish.

You could always go with purple. For some reason everything looks more fake with purple.

Gameplay - ***. I don't know whether it was my bad luck or whether your customs actually kept the +perception powers from Willpower, but while it's fun to manage a spawn and an ally, it's not so much fun to manage a spawn and an ally and brace for impact when the next group over spots you.

Also, be careful about placement of objectives on that final map. Some maps, like the one you chose, tell a little story in themselves: a company office built on top of an alien bunker. When I find out about alien conversion pods I expect them to be in the "alien bunker" part, especially when I can see the hole leading down when I activate the console that tells me about them. Clearing the entire bunker out only to find nothing means at worst a bugged mission and at best a lot of dead air while backtracking, and this isn't the sort of deep immersion or suspense arc that might benefit from some down time.

Detail - **. There's a point at which people and events leave the realm of political satire and enter the realm of historical parody -- not so much in authorial intent, necessarily, but in the reader's interpretation. I must confess that I can't tell you when it is, exactly, but it's closer to the point at which everyone involved is dead than the point at which everyone involved is still in the living memory of a grade-schooler.

Depiction of such recent people and events in a parodic fashion, which is a sizable portion of this arc's comedy, runs the risk of backfiring. And for me, it did.

Overall - ***. I'm ignoring the detail here because it's just subjective on my part. Ultimately the arc stands or falls on how fun the mobs are to fight and how fun the missions are to do, and this is generally okay but could be better, mostly due to perception and backtracking issues... and my needing the allies to be a little more than just occasional color.