Col_Blitzkrieger

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2) It was released too early in terms of development and in terms of game play.

[/ QUOTE ]It was already pushed back an issue to give us customizable bosses/mobs.

Also, to be fair, the EU community did have a Dev communicating with them for a brief while - BAB. The community "very eloquently" chased him away.

The reason we don't have this is because of the existence of internet cafes, and because players are stupid.

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People, read the entire post, not just the subordinate clause. I THINK the aurhor just meant that they kept firing (and hitting him), instead of being totally held, as normal mobs do.

[/ QUOTE ]Most Blast sets have Defiance, like Blasters. This means mobs with Blast sets will be able to use their tier 1 and 2 blasts while Held.

Ack, my bad, shouldn't post before coffee...

It is a known phenomenon that people tend to overuse mez protection when making custom mobs, though. Ran one the other day where just about every Minion (never mind the Lieuts) had Obsidian Shield.

We might get something similar in a Science Booster Pack someday, maybe.

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For those of you who don't see anything threatening about a bunch of fairies

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Anyone who doesn't see anything threatening in a bunch of fairies, doesn't know much about fairies...

[/ QUOTE ]Correct me if I'm wrong, but iirc they don't call them the "Fair Folk" because they're particularly nice... but to avoid the risk of offending them.



#Arc 48617, "Tower Demolition"
tl;dr: 5 stars. Offenses: No Souvenir, typos.



Since this arc is warned to be difficult and contain AVs, I used the Mastermind; this turned out to be a bad choice this time, more on this later.



Your contact is Dr. Light, I mean Dr. Brian K. Roberts, an author insert (the arc is full of them) who needs you to assist his agents in investigating a mysterious spree of destruction in Paragon City. The most recent attack was traced to a Crey facility. Crey being Crey, they're not letting anyone investigate, and would rather silence witnesses and do their own investigations.

You're sent to help Brigadier Leon Tasker, another of the Author's characters and an AR/Devices Blaster, to poke around anyway. The goals are to rescue an Ally (Leon Tasker) and a Captive (a Technician), on an Abandoned Lab map full of Crey. (Sidenote: The Author should consider making a custom Crey group with mobs from the Paragon Protectors faction included in it, for variety from the Tankfest.)

The Technician gave you a brief description of someone wearing powered armor, and the lab showed signs of smashing damage and electrical damage (I have no idea what electrical damage looks like, myself, but I'll take the author's word for it). Hm, smashing, electricity... Sound like anyone we know?

Yep, Dr. Roberts sends you after the Freakshow next. PPD have already been sent there, but they don't want to lose any more men to the aggressive Freaks, so that's where you (and another author insert) come in. Your goal is to meet up with Do Lo Might, a Something/Stone Melee Tanker who hits a little too hard, recover some bodies (one dead cop, one dead Freak), and beat up the Boss, who is a Sonic Freak named LoL Laz0r.

Turns out the Freaks were attacked too, hence the Freak in the body bag. LoL Laz0r tells you the attacker had dark gray and red armor, kinda like "those Spiders". Could it be an Arachnos operative? That's exactly what Dr. Roberts wants you to find out next.

You're sent to arrest Black Scorpion, who conveniently enough is out on an operation at the moment, though the map is an Arachnos Base map for some reason, regardless. On the way you pick up two more of the author's characters, Eleven and Adam Dennison (Black Dwarf). I'm not entirely sure what Eleven's powersets were, because the map was small and Black Scorpion was around the corner - don't see much through Gang War. One of them was Martial Arts, I think. Anyway, Scorpion went down easy enough (one of the weaker EBs/AVs in the game).

Scorpion doesn't know anything, and was actually trying to figure out of Longbow's got a new powersuit that they used to attack Arachnos with - you're not about to go beat up Longbow as a hero, so the trail seems to be cold. Until, conveniently enough, one of the Dunelm Group's archrivals, Senshu Hitoku (Hidden Tyrant in Japanese?), has contacted Dr. Roberts.

An Arachnos base is under attack by someone he believes is related to the attacks, and he's asking for help from his archenemies. Being a comic book world, said archenemies naturally agree to help, because it's the Good thing to do. Anyway, the attackers are Werewolves and Council(?) Vampyri, from a faction called "The Court".
The goal is to defeat the AV, The Blood Countess. So this is an insert from The Court of The Blood Countess, a RPVG on Union. I have no idea what powersets The Blood Countess was meant to be, because my pets and the three rescuable allies (DB/SR Senshu Hitoku, Energy Blast/Energy Manip Iron Works, and Claws/Something Steel House) overwhelmed her in seconds, despite conning as an AV. I saw a Dark Blast or two fly, though.

Anyway, it turns out the Countess has opened some Sealed Evil In A Can in the form of Impervium Tower, a crazy evil robot built by Dr. Roberts' former student, Dr. Wily, I mean Neil Christopher Wilson. Dr. Roberts thought that the robot had been "buried at sea", never to be seen again. But this is a comic book world, nobody ever stays dead. Not even Uncle Ben.

The map is the burning Perez Park map, full of more Court werewolves and vampyri. Bass, I mean Zero, I mean Impervium Tower spawned not far from the entrance, Super Strength/Electric Armor Archvillain.
Okay, so it turns out my Mastermind can't solo an AV that has mez protection, and is pretty much immune to slows. Every time I dented the guy, he rocketed off into the sunset, only to return after his health had regenerated and debuffs worn off so he could oneshot one of my pets. Heck, oneshotting aside, this guy's Lightning Field was ticking for over 200 damage thanks to Rage. NOT RECOMMENDED FOR MASTERMINDS.
I've beaten this arc before on a lower setting, on my Brute, though, and you get a fairly standard happy end.



There really isn't anything wrong with this arc. There's no Souvenir, and there's a few typos (Rouge Isles), but overall the story is solid, consistent, and well written. The author inserts didn't steal the spotlight from the player at all, mostly providing (somewhat unnecessary) backup against the various bosses in the first 4 missions, and some witty banter.
The last mission will be hard. It's a generic Kill The Boss, but the boss is tough, and you don't get any Allies. You are warned, though, in red text no less, that you should definitely bring help
All things considered, one of the best self-insertion focused arcs I've seen so far. Doesn't hit you like an Ego Arc at all.

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Illusion Control Blind has no effect on accuracy. It never has done.

[/ QUOTE ]Technically there are no powers in the game (to my knowledge) that debuff Accuracy, but assuming you meant ToHit...

...really? Dang, goes to show what I know about Controllers. Wonder what made me miss so much when I was fighting that Illu/Mind Control AV yesterday. Must've been the parade of other customs around it.

Also, the person who mentioned blinded mobs could have been talking about Smoke Grenades or similar powers... Which, to my knowledge, don't work the same way against mobs as they do against players anyway (NPC Night Widows cause a "Blinded" status effect). Think they debuff ToHit, at least.

I slot the 4 pet aura IOs in mine.

It is not unlockable, it was made so Blue Steel, the developer/NPC, can appear in-game.

As I said in the beginning, I'm not trying to claim a monopoly. Anyone is free to do their own reviews in this thread or their own if they wish.

I'm loving the badge credit though, heh.



Anyway, my video card is telling me we both need a rest, so I'm off for the night. (I'm also unable to defeat the AV in the arc I'm on right now, which might have something to do with it. )

Robots seem more destructive in PvE than PvP if you ask me. AoE focused, and a major portion of the damage coming from one pet's burn patch which players will not stand in.

Ninjas and Necromancy seem to be the PvP focused primaries.

Web Grenade from Traps and Web Envelope from Mace Mastery have -Fly. I think Spirit Shark Jaws from Leviathan Mastery does, too, although that one is a Hold, not a Slow/Immobilize.

Um, twenty-something. Seems like each one I get done is replaced by one or two new ones! Should update the list, will do tomorrow.

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Putting 'An Exchange Of Words' back into the review list after the unfortunate mission 4 non spawn-appearance thing. Arc ID 5591

While I couldn't duplicate the bug I've ripped a bunch of stuff out to provide more "space" on the map. Also rechosen the first 3 maps to make things easier and nailed a few typos (I know I've not gotten them all, the damn things breed whenever you turn your back).

[/ QUOTE ]Will take a look once I work through the other ones on the list. I'm interested in finding out how it continues.

Arc #75015, "Fairyland Bites"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "Just a bunch of stuff that happens", no custom mob descriptions, no Souvenir, unbelievably frustrating AV, surprise timed large outdoor glowie hunt, large outdoor defeat-all.



Used the Brute, since he's my "default" for these.



Your contact is a girl wearing the Cabal hat named Tiffany, who needs your help in stopping the Fairy Queen from invading Paragon City. For those of you who don't see anything threatening about a bunch of fairies, I'd like to remind you you're playing a video game where Everything Is Tryng To Kill You. Tiffany doesn't exactly seem to have a lot of faith in your offer to help, though...

Anyway, your first task is to recover Tiffany's book of spells (strangely enough the mission title calls it "Elspeth's book") from her village, which turns out to be a Salamanca street map, overrun with Tuatha de Dannan. Tiffany mentioned that she doesn't remember where she put it, but her mother might know where it is, and sure enough, her mother is held hostage by the Tuatha. Freeing her earns you the book. Her father is also nearby, and both parents being freed, the mission ends.

With surprisingly little thanks for saving her parents from an army of moss-covered moose men, Tiffany next sends you to enlist the aid of the "Little People" - by beating them up, naturally.

The Little People turn out to be blonde Smurf-like creatures in a Redcap Cave map. The goal is to defeat them all, and take down their leader, who is a Dual Blades/Willpower Elite Boss, and apparently the local Smurfette. After completing the mission, Tiffany claims the Smurf-like-creatures will aid you any time you need them, from now on.

Next, Tiffany says you need to enter the Fairies' realm itself, and find out what the Queen's plans are. The map is a rather huge Eden (Hive?) map, and surprisingly less full of fairies than I'd have expected. Indeed, instead of fairies, the Fairy Queen's realm seems to be populated entirely by Devouring Earth. The strange choice of map and mobs made this feel more like a flashback to Vernon von Grun's arc for me...
The really sad thing about this mission is that 1) It's a Surprise Timed Mission, 45 minutes, and 2) It's a glowie hunt. That's right, the huge Eden/Hive map, find 4 piles of rubble between all the stone pillars. One of the most unfortunate map choices I've seen so far, to be honest... Wish I could've used those Smurfs to help me search the place.
After wasting 30 of the 45 minutes running around looking for that one last pile of rubble, the fact that I had turned my speaker volume up to ridiculous levels paid off, and I found the last one. In these piles of rubble were four map pieces, which show that the Queen's set up camp in a parking lot somewhere in Paragon City...

In the finale, Tiffany sends you to stop the Queen. Or, well, beat her up anyway, since she's already in Paragon. Also, that book of spells you got for her, and those Smurfs you beat up? Forgotten. You get help from none of them. I guess she was just jerking you around to test your mettle or something. She still has the nerve to tell you you're probably going to die to the Queen anyway. How about helping me with that book and the Smurfs then, damn you.

The map is the Kings Row map, which many of you will remember for its size. Guess what, it's a Defeat All.
*cry of anguish*
Another goal is to defeat the Queen. After criss-crossing the entire damn map for her, I figured out why I couldn't find her.

One of her powersets is Illusion Control, so she has Superior Invisibility. Yeah.

Anyway, after I eventually accidentally bumped into her to agro her, she immediately Terrorized me, and then Confused me. Her other powerset? Mind Control. Illusion/Mind, Archvillain downranked to Elite Boss. Left completely helpless, my Brute was mercilessly slaughtered.
Attempt 2, popped a breakfree with another on hand. By the way, I haven't described the custom faction yet! They're all wearing Jester gear, minus the mask, and color coded based on abilities - and there's a LOT of variety, not necessarily in the good sense. You've got Plant Control, all sorts of Blasts, Ice Armor, Fire Armor... everything. Though, being magical fairies, I suppose this doesn't count as a random superpower lottery. It's still horrible to face, though.
Moreso when fighting the abovementioned EB Queen. While she confuses/terrorizes/holds/blinds/whatevers you, her illusions, phantasm, and surrounding mobs throw everything they can at you, and you can't hurt them back due to being Confused. Popping a Breakfree helped, but even so the incoming damage was just ridiculous. I took down most of her spawn (difficult due to Blind flooring my ToHit) and took another dirt nap.
Attempt 3, stocked up on breakfrees and lucks. Popping 4 lucks, I charged in and got hit with another Confuse somehow, then popped a breakfree and eventually took her down.
*Exhale.*
Not being masochistic, I quit the arc after that. Sorry, but I'm not going to clear an entire zone's worth of mobs for a Defeat All, and neither are most other sane players, so I can't share the epilogue with you.



The story is fairly random. The first few missions have you preparing for a big climactic fight, and then it turns out those two missions were actually useless wastes of time. It is never fully explained who or what the Fairy Queen is, and what her motivations and intentions are, or even if she's actually evil at all. Some chick in a hat just tells you to go beat stuff up.
The third and fourth missions are epic failures. Surprise Timed Mission is bad enough, but a glowie hunt on -that- map? Seriously? You could've at least picked something huge and noticeable, but you picked the Rubble. The fourth mission is worse - it's not timed, but it's even more frustrating due to being a gigantic defeat all, on a huge map famous for having mobs hide in the damnedest places imaginable within its criss-crossing alleyways. Plus the AV is a royal pain, and not in the fun sense.
Needs heavy polish. The concept is good, but the story fails to deliver. The "Go beat up blue people for no reason" mission, why was that even there? And the final two missions need a serious rethinking. The custom mobs need descriptions, and it needs a Souvenir. I might replay this sometime in the future when it's hopefully been thoroughly improved.

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Just in case it isnt mentioned anywhere Col. 75015 may contain an AV at the end!

[/ QUOTE ]I really wish you had told me earlier because your Mind Control/Illusion Control monster is making me tear my hair out as we speak..!

3 deaths and counting.

Arc #53149, "Whispers in the shadows"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: "Just a bunch of stuff that happens", uber Minions, no mob descriptions, superpower lottery.



The description mentions an AV, so I'll be using the Mastermind.



Your contact is Agent Sykes, a woman who look kind of like a Crey Agent, but she doesn't introduce herself, nor does she give you much information about the task at hand at all. What she does say is that she's investigating the disappearance of several scientists, the latest one being a personal friend. You're promptly directed to one of two warehouses (she'll be checking out the other one).

Sure enough, the map is an abandoned warehouse map. The enemies used are a custom faction named the Quorum of Shadows, which include such colorful characters as Minions with Mez Protection and Minions with Ninjitsu who hit for up to 700 damage at times, outdamaging the Axe-wielding Lieutenants. The Ninjitsu Minions really need to be removed or changed, and the other ones need to lose Obsidian Shield because some people actually play Controllers. Some Minions have Necromancy. Another annoyance is the Fallen Flame Lieutenants, who have relatively high-setting Fire Blast and Mez Protection.
Anyway, the goal is to rescue the Professor. You don't get a Clue or anything, and since the mobs don't have descriptions (the author did say they'd get to it though) you're completely in the dark about what's going on.
In any case, the Professor knew where the Quorum were planning on taking him, so Sykes sends you to investigate, still not telling you anything about who she is or what this is all about. Neither you nor her know anything about the Quorum. Heck, you still don't know anything about -her-, but whatever.

The next map is an abandoned office full of the same custom mobs (the entire arc uses them). The glowie seems to be set to spawn in Any location - the first time it was right around the corner from the entrance. Out of curiosity I tested it a few more times and it spawned in the middle once and in the back once. Should be set to Back, because it instantly completes the mission. Anyway, it's an Arachnos computer (odd choice) with schematics for a trans-dimensional portal on it.

Your contact figures this is what the Quorum (who look kinda like generic demons, by the way) wanted the professor for. However, she doesn't know why a bunch of extra-dimensional demons would possibly want a dimensional portal, of all things.
...
In any case, she has a lead on some place where they've got more captives, and you've got to rescue them. Upon entering you spot a surprise mission goal, "Find the Boss", on the navbar. Ah well. There's only one captive, who mentions that the others are all dead, and doesn't give you any Clues, even though you were meant to rescue him for information. Right...
Anyway, the Boss is Sorrow, an EB that looks sort of like a blue Succubus with wings. At first I thought her powersets were Dual Blades/Dark Blast, but halfway through the fight there was an Ambush. Two of the mobs were Ninjitsu minions, so I died before I could react and turn Bodyguard Mode on.
After coming back, Sorrow was surrounded by Necromancy pets, showing that I was mistaken about Dark Blast. As there were no more ambushes, the biggest threat in this fight was the Lich mezzing all my pets... Experience may vary per AT/build.

Once you take down Sorrow, you find a Clue, a bit of parchment with text you can't understand. Your contact, still not explaining anything about herself or her motivations (who the heck is she anyway?) or the Quorum, sends you to one of their hideouts, to find information on where their leader is holed up, and who's been helping them.
Finding information, it turns out, means a Defeat All on a map I've never seen before - it looks like a Skulls themed office, on fire, with some Hellion graffiti over the Skulls graffiti on the walls. Cool map, mentally noted for potential use.
The map is relatively small, and the boss is Anguish, an Ice-Something/Dark Armor Elite Boss who didn't really do much before faceplanting, therefore I can't accurately rate her difficulty... I saw a few ice blasts flying past the heads of my pets, in any case. She also has Dark Regeneration, which is EXTREMELY ANNOYING, and Soul Transfer, which is just plain annoying; her death line is fitting, though. She drops a signed document indicating the Carnies are helping them. The clue says all but the first pages are missing - aren't most signed documents signed on the final page?

For the finale, you find where their leader is hiding, and you learn that they finished a portal generator, which must be destroyed at all costs. Your contact mentions she's sent someone ahead to help you - who the heck do you work for anyway, woman?
Turns out she's PPD, not Crey as her outfit would have suggested. The ally is a custom PPD officer, AR/Super Reflexes. He uses the supersoaker, which is ruins the look a little. I think he conned as a Lieutenant.
The map is an Orangebagel map, but it seems to be a unique one as the walls were red, and it was full of pink fog. Halfway through, there's a big machine which you need to destroy - the portal generator. The boss is some small black feminine thing (couldn't see her very well due to lighting, size, and agro radius) named Twilight.
Twilight is Psionic Assault/Dark Miasma, and an Archvillain - I doubt this will be an easy fight for most people, though her lack of armor means she'll at least die fast, right?
Well, maybe if you're not a Mastermind. In a huge surprise for me, she popped Drain Psyche on her last shred of HP, and promptly started outregenerating my damage like crazy. This will not be as brutal for non-Masterminds, but it keeps the I-can-solo-anything Archetype from walking all over her too easily. She also spams Psychic Shockwave like crazy, which fortunately kept missing thanks to my debuffs.

She went down eventually, and your contact gives you a somewhat non-rewarding "We haven't seen the last of them" outro line.



Well, the story is solid, to say the least. You have your demons, and you have your planned demonic invasion, and you have to stop it. There's no background information on the demons at all, but I didn't downrank too much based on that, because the author said the missing descriptions are temporary...
The lack of contact character development is a little silly though. Some person who looks a LOT like a Crey Agent starts bossing you around randomly, and you go along with it without a question. Her dialogue was somewhat dry anyway, so that needs some work. Have her introduce herself and explain things better.
There were some problem mobs, and the faction seemed to have a semi-random assortment of powersets, which detracts from a consistent theme. The overuse of mez protection (Obsidian Shield) is a bad choice, as some ATs rely on controls for survival. The Ninjitsu Minions are horribly overpowered, because Ninjitsu is bugged - change their secondary, they're dealing twice the damage that the Axe Lieutenants are.
This is not an easy arc, but overall it's by no means a bad one. If the story were more in-depth about who the enemies and your contact are, and the mobs were fixed up a bit, it'd be great. Playable, but I don't recommend soloing it, especially if you're a Controller or Dominator.

I use the Port Oakes one because it's conveniently overshadowed by the two more popular zones, Cap au Diable and Mercy Island.

If you see me using the typing animation on one of the architect tables, I'm usually typing a review on the forums.

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An account becoming inactive

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Actually, exiting a MA mission removes all temporary buffs from the player. I'm not entirely sure why, but probably to prevent some sort of abuse with buffing custom allies.

I noticed this due to losing Practiced Brawler and Elude whenever I exit a mission, though the latter is almost handy because it also prevents me wasting time on the crash.

Choosing to play the game on the (optional) harder settings is a choice, as is mentioned in the game by relevant NPCs.

Reminds me of a storyline in Neverwinter Nights. The hero reads a book, and is absorbed into the story. Inside the story he finds another book, and is absorbed into another story. There are three stories you can visit like this, and the last one has a line starting "Deep in the dust-covered arcane libraries of the Undercity...", reading which puts you back in the library in the real world.

The stories all have tragic endings, and if your hero is Good, you have the option to use a magic quill and inkwell to rewrite the endings to be good. Doing so gives you allies (the characters from the books, who are now much better) in the 4th story, where you must fight a boss (the boss is the reason you're there in the first place).

The characters include a lame disfigured man whose one true love is kidnapped and sacrificed to demons - rewritten into a knight in shining armor who rescues his love, and a wizard tortured in hell for eternity - rewritten to be redeemed by heaven.

Of course, an evil character can leave them to their fates.

To fight the boss, you need to use the quill and inkwell to write a new story into the magical book, about how you set a trap for the boss, which absorbs you into the story and lets you fight it. A high Wisdom score lets you write the setting to be on a wrecked ship full of treasure, giving you some nice loot.

In that context it designates a short sentence meant to be the gist of the review and bring out key points, for readers who can't be bothered to read the whole thing; a "tl;dr version" of the text in question.

For example:

"tl;dr: 1 star, this arc sucks.

[More in-depth and thorough description of the arc follows for several paragraphs]"

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Dying in your own dream isn't a great idea when you're supposed to have some semblence of control over it.

[/ QUOTE ]If your ego gets in the way when doing author insertion, maybe you shouldn't do it at all. Just a friendly tip here.

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I can understand why they dont make single arcs bigger

[/ QUOTE ]Oh yes, nobody wants another Doc Q Task Force.

EBs scale down to Bosses on Villainous. You shouldn't complain about arcs being unsoloable if you're making them harder for yourself on purpose.

Now, if the EB is impossible even when downranked to Boss, then you have a valid complaint.