Shadow of Grime Alley, arc #144415

Within a recent thread, I was impressed by a reviewer's detailed review of an AE arc in question, I requested they review some of my arcs, and they asked if I had forum threads for them. I didn't, but now I do.

I'd appreciate a review of arc #144416, Shadow of Grime Alley.

Best regards.

I was in a hurry yesterday when I posted this (obviously, since I messed up the arc number in the title), here are more details.

I'd appreciate feedback for this story-focused heroic arc.

Five missions, none play very long. All but two of the settings are 45-50, so it's intended for higher level characters. Nothing is timed.

Basically, Gordon Stacy is flashing the [insert your chest insignia] sign over Kings Row. What appears to be a gang war is escalating as the Family is moving in, and Kings Row PD resources are stretched to the limit. Stacy could use your help.

My first impression is "Oh man, [url=http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Gordon_Stacy]Gordon Stacy!" Because I still vaguely remember doing his arc when I made my first character years and years ago, with him being in an out of the way place. I already rate this arc +1 for convenience of not having to actually jog all the way out to Gordon Stacy's location in Brickstown.

Mission 1:

I hate finding hostages on this particular map. They can hide in all kinds of wacky places. But there's not much other choice! I like that the skulls gave fewer rewards than the Family, really helps it feel like they're even mookier than the family mooks. Never did find the optional objective, so I can't comment on it. So far I'm enjoying this arc, it feels kinda like old school CoH (which desperately needed an ARC about the family, not just lots of random one-off missions with them).

Mission 2:

Okay mission briefing and all that has me feeling kinda great. "Hey I'm helping out the cops in a pinch." I wish I'd brought my Sonic/Sonic defender on this, she's from King's Row and all and would feel personally invested in helping the cops out. Maybe I'll rerun this later.

I loved this bit, using both parts of the "spam the player's text window" to form a nice sentence:

You begin to scan the open files and emails on the laptop. Reading them, you find ...
- notes on recent murders of the Family, and similar attacks four years ago. Exactly four years ago.

Also the ambush of remade Mooks was great. I can't find anything I don't like yet, this is promising!

Actually I take that back, now that I've finished the mission I dislike how "Defeat Virelli's Entourage" was a kill-all without adding in parenthesis (Everyone in the Warehouse). Maybe it should say "Arrest" instead of Defeat? Or did it and I've already forgotten?

Mission 3:

"See you soon, and remember, the front door, not the Commisioner's office, not that secret entrance into the prison block I know you have, okay?" lol dang he's on to me. >.>

Uh. *where are* the family bosses I'm looking for? I don't see them anywhere on the map. Don't tell me I need to break doors to find them.

Okay not downstairs... I don't see any enemies left on the map. Just the PPD that spawned when I clicked the glowie. ...Or I could miss the glowie. *facepalm* Okay that was totally me being a goof. I was expecting to have to beat the family bosses back into submission while fighting mook ambushes.

Mission 4:

Nice! You spawned a Battle next to me when I saved the daughter? At least that's what it looked it.

The Gat went down pretty quickly, probably because I had bosses turned off when I did this. If I missed something cool by playing at a lower difficulty let me know. I just rolled at +0/x1 for convenience.

Mission 5:

I'm taking everyone down since it says "Defeat entourage", after my earlier experience. Hm, I'm not really seeing this mission add a whole lot to the experience. It would have been fine to wrap things up after mission 4, I think. On the other hand, "Gat-Shield, DEPLOY!" is great.

Overall:

I had a great time. Nothing to complain about. I'm not sure why you felt you needed someone else to run through this and give feedback. My only comments would be to clarify what "defeat entourage" means a little bit, to maybe give thought to shortening it to 4 missions, and to put the mission title in the text in something other than default white (I like light blue myself).

This easily met my criteria for a 5-star arc. Said criteria is "As good as the worst arc the devs put into the game." This arc was more like "Better than a lot of canon arcs from the devs." I'm sorry I don't feel the need to really get in there and nit picks or pick nits with the arc, but I just had too much fun with it to want to go looking for things I'll dislike about it.

Hm. One final thought: maybe lock the level to 35-40 like Stacy's Revenant Hero arc?

Demonic_Gerbil,

Thanks for running the arc and providing feedback, and thank you very much for your kind words in comparing the Grime Alley missions to dev-created arcs.

I'll adjust the entourage-defeat aspect of mission 2 and 5. Mission 2 isn't a defeat all, but it is a defeat everyone in the final room. I'll change that objective to just defeating Virelli. And the same for the Gat in mission 5. I can see why you felt obligated to defeat all the enemies on the way to the final fight, and I apologize for that, but defeating the Arachnos opponents in the final room would have sufficed.

I'll give some thought to making mission five a bit more interesting. I did want to have two encounters with the Gat, the first being part of his criminal operation in mission 4 and then secondly when you've tracked him to the Gat-cave. That mission features a few easter eggs that entertain me (like the decoy Gat-man found in the front of the mission), but I agree that it should provide a better experience overall, since it's the final mission and all. I'll work on that.

Glad you enjoyed the Gordon Stacy text, and I agree that I would have liked some high-end Family arcs in the game. I wrote this current arc mostly to give something for my level 50 scrapper to run over and over. He's a Batman-like character, and I got tired of running him against the same set of Carnies, Council, and Circle, when I really wanted to take on some mob wars, or save a heroic cop or honest judge from mob reprisals, that sort or thing.

Thanks again, I'm currently running Architect Club thread missions, but I'll make time to run the arcs in your signature.

Best regards -

Thanks for taking a look at that arc! I never got around to finishing up all the little details - and I see some things have broken since I made it like the enemy groups - for various reasons I won't get into in here. But I'll definitely see about tuning it up. (There's nothing like someone else's enthusiasm to get me working on things again )