Feedback: "Who Will Die?" Part 1

I really enjoyed this first installment. The new maps were really cool, the different mechanics vis a vis a "find and defeat" run were interesting (with a means to try and stop the hordes of pumicites), and of course the reward table was nice.

The thing that was very glaring to me were the grammatical errors and, most noticeably, a major NPC in the story having a different name in the end of scenario clue than he had in the entire arc up to that point (Lemkin mysteriously became "Menkin"). They may seem like small things, but for the anticipation and obvious effort that went into this story, they stuck out like sore thumbs for me.

(I've only done the Heroside arc thus far.)

I loved the new model for the Magmites, btw. (Is that a new model? Or have I just not been to the Hollows in a long, long, time?)

It was also my first run-in with the new CoT since the headstart began, and they turned out much better looking than I'd expected.

Calling it here, Citadel will die.

Heroic Sacrfaice with Self Destruct.



Then he come back all upgraded.

Overall, I liked this arc. Gameplay had some issues, but nothing major. Story was decent and left me wanting the next installment. Maps were neat.

Few points:

- Adding comic pages. I think this is a fantastic idea. It'd add distinctiveness to the SSAs. It'd also be helpful to the mission holder's teammates, who often miss out on story details. Finally, it really enhances the feel of playing in the superhero genre.

- Re: the exemping complaint. I understand some people don't like exemping. Okay. But some people do. And it's part of the game experience. Personally, I like building a character that's effective at all levels. I also like the challenge of having to work with what I got. We even have extra builds, partially to facilitate the option of designing exemped versions of our characters.

If this stuff doesn't flick your switch, nothing wrong with that, but this game is catering to a broader range of preferences than just your own. Frankly, if this arc had scaled for my 50s, I would've found the gameplay boring.

- Re: the lowbie arc complaint. Making this SSA a lowbie arc was just smart. It's the first SSA, so it should be as accessible as possible. That way, it can lasso in new folks. Scaling up future installments is also smart, as that will hopefully encourage those same new folks to level up in order to keep pace with the story. It's a cunning plan!

- Re: the villains got a perk that heroes didn't complaint. I play blueside, I play redside, and now I also play characters that can hop between red and blue. If you're someone who plays one side exclusively, that's your choice. Each side has its advantages and drawbacks. If you're going to stick to one side, that's just a dynamic you're going to have to deal with.

That said, 'heroism should be its own reward' doesn't really fly with me. That may be all well and good for the character... but not so much for the player. Players like having fun stuff, no matter what side they happen to be playing on. So those goodies shouldn't be exclusive to one side.

However, keep in mind that this SSA is one installment of a larger story. It could very well be that, in the next arc, blueside will get the extra goody.

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In general, I find the feedback in this thread to be largely informed by too short-term and too narrow a view of the content, the game, and the people who play it.

For this game, this is a new approach to storytelling. I'd encourage everyone to take a broader view of it.

All I have against this arc is it's too short.
It's pretty fun and I really like the last map (talking blueside, if there's a difference), but being able to run it twice in less than 15 minutes is a bit silly considering the rewards.

SPOILER: I know who dies!










It's Lady Sadako! She gets pounded into mush repeatedly by pumicites!

I enjoyed both the hero and villain arc!
While the story was good, I'd say that I really liked the game mechanics of it.
I understand that the timers may cause some unwanted panic amongst people, and not everyone enjoys that, but I do believe it was there to give a bit of that feeling and I, for one, appreciated it.
The maps are gorgeous.
And I loved the inclusion of the Igneous and especially enjoyed the way they were introduced (I happen to love the place is imploding... ESCAPE scenarios!)!!

I soloed this on a level 30 MA/SR Scrapper and a level 50 Mind/Psi Dominator.
I didn't have any problems on either.

Although, I, personally, do not enjoy exemp'ing. Just my personal preference, but hey what can ya do! No big deal.
I'd just enjoy this more, and run it more, if I could do it at my characters' higher levels. That is for sure.
Fortunately, the story and the play is fun enough that I'm going to do it some more with other characters (I failed to spot the exit both times and my villain's power trays are completely filled, so I want to free up some slots and check that out again).

I really enjoyed the villain version, perhaps a bit more. I'm curious if the dialog choices actually make a difference... going to find that out as well.
However, when I defeated whatshisname and received Synapse's powers, I actually did open my powers tab, while fighting, and searched through, but I didn't find any of these new powers.
I searched through the lists 2-3 times... But it is possible I somehow missed them.

I did not use the lava or anything. I just beat them on the rock where they were. So, I should have had these powers. Again, it is entirely possible I missed spotting them in that damned long list of powers.
I keep thinking that something different needs to be done for such things.
Maybe a task window, like we get on the Incarnate Trials, that could include the temporary powers.
That or it'd be really nice if such powers would recognize open slots in other power trays. I have my first 3 filled. And then I have other free floating ones that I'd put the temp powers into it and I'd love it if the game would do that automatically.

Anyway... that's not feedback specific to this arc, but it reminded me about it.

I'm happy that the arc was a fun ride, in terms of gaming... except for having to exemp down though. Bonus points for it being fun despite that. That means a lot coming from me, as someone who rarely enjoys bringing a 50 that far down.

More Feedback:

For the last mission, the obelisk's draw distance needs to be increased. It's really odd that you can't see it upon log-in and doesn't get drawn until you get halfway there.

Some feedback - I don't understand the initial motivation to work with Alastor. I could have overlooked it, but Alastor is absolutely wanting to get the obelisk for himself. I'm just a means to an end, and he doesn't give me a single good reason to want to work with him.

I mostly liked the arc. It was short, yes, I do understand part of that is because it's on two sides [even though the missions were largely mirrors of each other].

But I can't say the Arc is worth 400 points. I'm ok with it being included as part of a VIP sub, but it's not worth 400 points. I can see maybe 400 points for all 7 [then it'd be a bit more comparable to First Ward -- 600 points].

My first impressions of the villain-side "Who will die?" arc are mixed.

On the one hand, I like the settings of the first mission. The lava is very pretty and though it does a bit too little damage, it's cool to have such a unique map, and on too floors no less. The spare door right next to the entrance kind of telegraphed that I'd use it, though.

On the other hand, I think the written text needed to pass by an editor a couple more times. I spotted at least two instances of suspect grammar that just jar me out of the experience.

I like that I'm able to speak with the mage at the end, though I wonder why he's so polite. Being able to get on his bad side and fight him anyway was a nice benefit, though I wonder why his companion spawn disappears when he dies. Is this some kind of spawn replacement to accommodate the Igneous? Still, I liked it.

Alistor is odd as a character, though. He looks like a CoT Spectral and sounds like one, too, but I don't think he's supposed to be one. He's just supposed to be dead. Also, he contradicts himself. On the debriefing of the first mission, he talks about "unseating the gods from their thrones" and then on the briefing for the second one he makes fun of Skyway City because it constitutes some kind of hubris. Hello, pot. Meet kettle. I guess maybe that's the point?

Why did this "arc" have to be a TF, though? So we could exemplar down to it even if we're level 50? Can't say it's a big problem once you actually know where the contact is, but it was hard to get to that point in the first place. Alistor introduced himself to me in the middle of another arc, and by the time I was finished I no longer remembered where he was. Some helpful people pointed me in the right direction, though.

If I have one thing to complain about, it's this: You can't sap me with a 2 minute timer and then throw three paragraphs of text at me at the same time. I can't read this much text on a good day, and you're asking me to read it as I'm rushing to escape a collapsing cave? Not cool, guys. Not cool.

After all of one mission, I'm hopeful. There are gimmicks in the "arc," but there aren't too many and there's still a good deal of fighting to be had. Typos notwithstanding, the story appears to be solid. It somewhat lacks context, but I assume that will get filled in on later stages. At least I know what I'm after in this one, which I didn't really appreciate until I lost it. Having a non-nebulous goal is always a good thing.

We'll see how my opinion develops with the following missions, which I may end up doing tomorrow.

MASSIVE bonus points for using the word "abscond." Nicely done!

The Minions of Igneous still have their index fingers extended in their idle stance. How many times do I have to /bug this?

The second mission captions fly by far too fast for me to read them AND I have to read about five paragraphs of captions while fighting waves of PPD. The only way to tell what's being said is to watch the Captions channel, but that doesn't have names on it so it's very hard to tell who's supposed to be talking.

The waves of PPD every 30 seconds regardless of how many I kill are a good idea. Normally, they'd be a horrible idea if I could only stop them by activating the glowies, but since they time out after five minutes even without me, that's a BIG saving grace. As is my style, I chose to hold my ground and last 5 minutes, fighting 10 ambushes of 5 PPD each, overlapping a lot of the time. That was fun fight Of course, I expect I could have simply walked out of the mission and let the 5 minutes count down without me, but that ain't my style.

The second mission instance map is kind of bugged. A lot of the rooms aren't shown and you can get "Map unavailable" in a lot of places.

Why is it that every time I travel to Paragon City, I must use a different vessel around the dock? How is Alistor chartering these vessels? Or am I supposed to be handling this on my own?

The final instance is REALLY cool. I love the pathways of lava. They kind of remind me of the demonic structures from Darksiders, particularly Smael's prison. Having such a large area filled with lava is also very impressive. I have to ask, though - if I run this mission, swap sides and head to the follows, will I see Grendel's Gulch still clear of lava and with all the buildings and roads and water intact? Because molten lava isn't one of the easiest things to just clean up, especially after it hardens into solid rock.

I agree that the Obelisk needs to be visible from ANYWHERE on the map. This is the centrepiece to the whole arc. I need to enter the mission and go "Holy hell! Is that thing in the distance what I've been after? It's huge! And awesome!" Instead, between having to stare at my feet to make the jumps across lava pits and the enemies I have to fight, I almost bumped into the thing without even knowing it's there and I didn't realise it was supposed to be tall until way too late.

Also, Lepkin or whatever his name is has the opposite problem of the first boss - I have to defeat him AND his entire spawn to proceed, only his spawn appears all around the obelisk and doesn't aggro when I fight the boss. As such, I beat the boss but didn't advance the objective. Turns out there was an Anathema on the other end of the Obelisk I just hadn't seen. Also, why are elite bosses in newer arcs conning purple? Or is that a con change across the board? They're not any harder than they used to be, so I'm not really complaining, and I guess it was a bit odd to have an elite boss con the same as a boss, but... Is that how it's going to be from here on out?

The fight with the heroes was fun. I'm really happy to see bosses spawn in the mission even though I had bosses turned off. It makes sense, when I have the power of Synapse. I think I fought some costumed heroes whom I hadn't seen before, meaning they weren't just pulled out of the Mayhem Mission roster, and that's a good thing. I spurned the CoT so I fought some of them. It was cool to fight them all, but them coming in alternating waves was a bit cheap.

Synapse's power doesn't have graphics for its icon under my health bar. It showed up a small white square. This needs to be fixed.

Having the Freedom Phalanx show up at the end of the mission was really cool. Totally makes sense they'd do that. I'm not sure why they're level 35, but that's sufficiently higher than my level 20 to be dangerous, and it seems they're all AV/Hero arc. Beating them down should be next to impossible. I'm also glad they don't show up as an ambush to chase me, but instead show up where Synapse is. It makes sense - they want to save Synapse, so they wouldn't just abandon his side to chase some fleeing villain. Plus, it let me had a look at them, which I like.

But again - I'm given a rather lengthy clue and 60 seconds to read it as a one-minute timer starts counting down. Stop it, guys! I can't read that fast, and I DON'T WANT to read that fast.

Someone mentioned this being the first time when a cutscene was use right, and I agree. All the game's other cutscenes are very irritating, but this one was very well done and very cinematic. Alistor did mention multiple Obelisks, and the hidden guy was just sufficiently mysterious. My guess is the letter writer, but we'll see. Be kind of daft to have two shadowy figures operating in the game at the same time.

Overall, the arc impressed me, mostly with its visuals. All of the instances are unique, all of them have a cool lava motif and I LOOOVE the huge obelisk. The writing was kind of hit and miss. I really liked Alistor's antics, as I could imagine him stomping on his hat in frustration. "At... every... step! Must we be interrupted!" Love it. You can just tell the guy is just almost out of his skin with every word he says

The actual plot left me a bit cold, though. Find the obelisk, then find the obelisk, then kill a Pariah and find the obelisk, then fade to black. Few things irritate me more than missions where I go to do something and I completely fail do it. The second mission, in particular, feels like a wasted trip. Alistor can track the Obelisk himself, so all I learned is that someone will be using it to draw someone else's powers. Considering that's why the thing was made, this didn't really need me to discover it.

I think what disappoints me the most is the arc is so, so short, though. Three missions is all there is to it. I know this may be an unpopular opinion, but I would have loved to have a few defeat-alls or kill-boss missions throw in there to give the story a bit of room to develop, and to introduce a bit more complexity to the plot. Right now, I'm reminded of Yahtzee's description of Infamous' story: "Magic ball give super powers, everyone want magic ball, psychic trash robots..." I assume this will come off like a much less of an eclectic experience once all parts are in there, but on its own, it's just three missions with a very basic plot to string them along, selling themselves on a total of ONE very good character and on unique maps. It's definitely great to play through as part of my VIP subscription, but I don't think I'd want to pay for it if I were a Premium player. Unique maps on their own aren't enough to justify three missions. Well, that depends on what it actually costs, of course.

Just checked: 400 Paragon Points, or $5. Yeah, definitely not something I want to buy for $5. I'll pay $10 for a full costume set, but $5 for three missions is just too much. Good thing I'm staying VIP

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Question for those who think 5 dollars is too much:

What if there was more comicbook content at the beginning of these arcs?