Col_Blitzkrieger

Could also use Hoodoo, if the boss is meant to be a witch doctor type magic user or something (I haven't played it yet but will be sure to take a look sometime). Voodoo is a religion, Hoodoo is a group of magical practices (though the two are often mistaken), but the similar spellings might make it less obscure to the average player than Vodoun.

I haven't experienced this, myself, but I've heard friends mention the issue.

Technically the least "super" secondary for a custom mob is Standard Regeneration.
This only gives them 3 powers: Resilience, Fast Healing, and Quick Recovery.

Resilience gives them some Stun protection and ~6% Smashing/Lethal resistance.
Fast Healing gives them ~75% Regeneration, which any Willpower player will tell you is close to nothing.
Quick Recovery gives them a bit of Endurance recovery.

All 3 are passives, so there's no green glowy effects going on either. It's basically the "No Secondary" option.

Would it be out of the question to change the limit of publishable content from 3 Arcs total per account to 300kb total per account? The maximum amount of data would still be the same as it is now, but it allows people who don't use as many custom mobs to upload more arcs.

I HATE THESE FORUMS SO MUCH AND I NEED TO GET USED TO COPYING MY TEXT BEFORE HITTING SUBMIT K THX BYE

Arc #75875, "Zero Breaker"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: Plot decay, no Clues, uber EB, typos and grammar.



On the Brute again, for badge cred-... er, forget I said anything.



The contact is Mender Roebuck, which is a nice choice by the author due to Roebuck currently having no lines in the game at all, yet still looking appropriate as an Ouroboros-themed contact. In the briefing he both Lampshades and plays straight several time travel related Stock Phrases. I feel a headache coming on because the concept of time travel is something my brain just can't seem to wrap itself around.

Anyway, he first sends you back in time to "extract" a certain someone, and warns you not to do anything else that'd interfere with the timestream. This someone turns out to be Tsumiju (with a string of numbers behind his name to indicate timeline), an apparent author insertion. But this smelled like an origin story from a mile away, so that's fine.
He's guarded by a bunch of Tsoo who mention an unsuccessful Black Ink Man experiment before being punched in the face. Another goal you were not told about (I must be psychic) is to remove a Temporal Anchor from the area, which looks like an inconspicuous recycle bin.
The map was the small linear city map, and had several battles between Tsoo and allied "1980s PPD", who were using Martial Arts and Super Strength, so the streets looked like something out of a camp kung fu movie. While cool, the SS cops felt like a bit much, since the PPD has not used metas until the very recently created Awakened division. And even that division is controversial.

After congratulating you on a job well done, Roebuck next sends you to... the same time and place. Only this time some of the cops are hostile and some of the Tsoo are friendly, and your goal is to save Tsumiju (different string of numbers) from some PPD guards, which triggers a very painful ambush. Bring purples and breakfrees if you're a squishy.
There's also another recyc-... Temporal Anchor to get rid of. Roebuck mentions in the outro text for this mission that you may or may not have run into a Temporal Anomaly (optional boss?) that represented you from your previous mission. I didn't. Roebuck says Tsumiju's future (present?) hero self stopped it anyway, resulting in Tsumiju being split apart from the timestream and creating two versions of him... or something... and one of which is apparently immune to Carbon Law from now on.

The next mission has you sent to a location during the Rikti War (not specified which one) to "persuade" evil-Tsumiju to help Roebuck in his plans. The map is the St. Martial Hard Way map, and full of various types of Rikti. There's a LOT of Rikti Bombs, and several familiar faces such as a Heavy Assault Suit and Dra'Gon, but none of those are necessary for mission completion.
Evil Tsumiju happens to be /Ninjitsu. Oh boy. For those of you who don't know, Ninjitsu is bugged and makes the mob in question deal double damage with EVERY attack. This became evident when I noticed something oneshotting Rikti in the distance - at least this made him easy to find on the outdoor map, since Ninjitsu would normally be stealthed.
Upon agro, Tsumiju cut me with Katana's weakish melee cone attack for around 850 damage, which prompted my hasty activation of Power Surge (godmode) and the consuming of a few Respites. He kept hitting me for 200-250 damage through 90% Lethal Resistance, so I had to use an Accolade for the first time in my reviewing so far. Demonic Aura won me enough time to take him down. No wonder this guy didn't need any help with the Rikti.

Next mission has Roebuck send you to prehistoric Primeva, through a portal maintained by whichever version of Tsumiju it was that was immune to Carbon Law. You're supposed to bring back shards of the original temporal pillars used by the original Circle of Thorns there, which is supposedly what Ouroboros crystals and stuff are based on/made of.
The map is the Primeva river map, which is a nice small underused outdoor map. The place is full of Behemoths, and some custom mobs named Troglodytes, who look like rather well designed hairy cavemen, and are promptly killed by the Behemoths. Aside from the pillars, you're also supposed to take out the Behemoth leader for some reason, who happens to be a Blade Prince.
For the record, a Blade Prince is a blue Behemoth Elite Boss, with some ice powers and Confuse, and a unique ability to summon a horde of floating ice swords to attack you, which is extremely cool. It's sad that these guys are so rare. They're pretty tough though - bring breakfrees and/or help. I managed to solo him and his blades with breakfrees with AoEs and endurance drain, but other ATs/builds might have more trouble.

After congratulating you on a job well done so far, Roebuck completely shuffles the plot around and sends you to help evil Tsumiju beat up his past self, who happens to be a Nemesis soldier. This is the part where my brain kind of fizzled and I didn't understand the story anymore. It had made sense to the point where Roebuck split Tsumiju off from the timestream to gain access to time travel much further back than normal, but this bit didn't seem to tie into it at all.

Oh well, off you go, and the map is a cargo ship full of Nemesis soldiers. You find evil Tsumiju as a captive - how the hell they subdued him is a mystery, because rescuing him results in the guy running towards the nearest enemies and hacking them for up to 3000 damage a hit.
As Tsumiju butchers his way through the ship with me casually strolling behind with my hands in my pockets, he runs behind a corner and Soaring Dragons something behind a crate - the body of a very dead Roebuck flying through the air explained what it was that he found so interesting. Roebuck mentions Nemesis is on the ship too, and for some reason he becomes a required mission goal.
Sure enough, deeper in the ship we find Nemesis, conning as an EB (AV?). This only means Tsumiju has to hack at him five or six times as opposed to once, and Nemesis drops dead, making a brief mention of Mender Silos which will be amusing for those of us who know the secret behind Silos' name.

After the finale, the outro has Roebuck thank you for all you've done, and claim he's going back to vending Insps, which are apparently implied to be made from those shards you collected in mission four by the Souvenir you get.



I have to admit, time travel tends to rub me the wrong way. The whole paradoxical nature of the very concept means that when Roebuck gave me a nice and vaguely-detailed lecture on how his plan will work, my eyes kind of just glazed over and I nodded to the whole thing. The Technobabble sounded convincing enough anyway, because the author had obviously done extensive research into canon and lore before writing this arc, so the terminology perfectly matches the usual Technobabble you hear in Ouroboros.
Still, the final mission felt rather random to me. Up to then, the story was interesting if a little confusing - the mindscrew with the first two missions was very well pulled off though, even though I didn't want to give myself a migraine by considering the logical or paradoxical contradictions in the whole thing - time travel can't make sense anyway, so why bother. Even so, I didn't understand why we had to beat up Nemesis-Roebuck and Nemesis, aside from Tsumiju wanting revenge for meddling with his past.
Funnily enough, in the briefing Roebuck mentioned that he was aware of Tsumiju's intentions and wanted you to -help- him do so. Since nothing bad happened to present-Roebuck due to this, I can imagine he was simply rubbing his palms together and muttering "Just as planned" while we were away. It's all a Mender Roebuck plot! I really wish the author had added Clues to explain things.
Overall though, it was pretty interesting, and kinda fun. I certainly don't consider it a waste of my time, in any case. The map choices were good, and the atmosphere in the third and fourth missions was great. The godlike EB should really be changed to Super Reflexes though, to not [censored] people off when he twoshots them due to a bugged secondary; also, he might be a huge pain to find if he ever by chance spawns away from the Rikti and doesn't agro them. There were also some typos and grammar errors, and one instance where an NPC says "I" and nothing more.
A decent, convincing addition to the list of Ouroboros pseudo-taskforces, in both theme and difficulty.

Voodoo is filtered!?

2 is 'mediocre'.

Congrats to @Muu and shame on any potential gankvoters.

[ QUOTE ]
* I realised after posting my 1st comment that there was a minor point that I'd wanted to mention but forgot.. wasn't worth a second review but would have been worth adding to the original.

* Part of the feedback process means that arcs may change - an updated review/rating may be better in this case than an additional review leaving the original (now erroneous) review.

* An author may want to question/clarify something raised in a review (e.g. one of my reviews stating it wasn't soloable due to an EB, where my main comeback is that the mob is an EB so can be downgraded to a boss if soloing by playing lowest challenge level).

[/ QUOTE ]Very good and valid points, great idea.

[ QUOTE ]
Frenzy does AoE, but a bit less damage, and more end cost.

[/ QUOTE ]PBAoE, light damage, heavy endurance cost, long animation. Not worth taking if you ask me.

Oh hell yes. Also, happy cakeday!

Heard of others having this problem as well.

Until further notice I advice all MArchitects to save their progress in a text file when editing arcs.

Arc #53951, "A Sleeping Star"
tl;dr: 5 stars.



The arc description mentions AVs, so I'll be using the Mastermind to try them out in their true form.



Your contact is Leese Stewart, who is most likely the author's character; she's in her civvies though. I promptly tuned my Mary Sue sensors up to high sensitivity upon seeing this, just in case. Leese asks you to find her friend who's gone missing on her way to pay Leese a visit. The last time she was seen was getting off the train (tram?) at Founders' Falls, so off you go.

It's one of the small, elongated city maps; a map I wish more authors used, because it's an outdoor map with all the qualities of an indoor map, and thus not annoying. The mission is capped at level 44, and is full of Crey Agents.
The goals are to rescue find a glowie, which is a cardboard box with Alice's (Leese's friend's) suitcase in it. You take her belongings as clues. The captive is a Martial Arts/Invulnerability Ally named 'Leese' guarded by Council, who is your oontact in her Hero identity. She only conned as a Lieutenant even on Invincible, so she doesn't steal any of your spotlight.
Upon rescuing her, an objective to find 3 'Suspicious Men' appears, as Leese tells you she saw someone like that in the area. This spawns 4 bosses, one of which is a Carnie Ring Mistress who expresses annoyance at being accused of being a man if you attack her. Humorously enough she doesn't count for the objective, and is perfectly optional.
The ones that do count are a Freak Tank, a... boss I managed to forget due to not being important anyway, and the guy you're looking for: a Suspicious Void Slayer. Hope you're not a Kheldian, but you're warned about this in the arc description (as in 'bring purples'). This hints at what's to come further in the arc.

You don't find much info, but Alice's diary has had no new entries in about 3 months. Your contact is puzzled, and suggests checking the woods near Alice's home for clues.

The map is the croatoa forest map, which can be a bit of a maze for those who haven't experiened it much; this is Lampshaded by Leese (again here as an ally) if you lose her. The enemy mobs are a somewhat gratuitous custom faction called Galaxy Nictus, custom mobs with Dark powers mixed with Council Galaxy mobs and some Nictus bosses. Your goal is a named Dark Dwarf. Leese is puzzled by their presence, and you find a white crystal fragment on the Dwarf.

Anyway, since the Nictus and Council are involved, Leese seeks help from Sunstorm, who claims the crystal is from something similar to a Shadow Cyst that normal Kheldians use (canon nitpick: I'm not sure if this is entirely accurate, but Kheldian lore is very loose...). Sunstorm does some research and discovers 3 Council bases, and one of you goes to investigate each one.

An average Council map, your goal is to find information and take out the base leader. You learn that Alice has indeed been kidnapped by the Council under suspicion of being a Peacebringer, and sent to another base for testing and experimentation.

Sunstorm sends Leese off on a wild goose chase (to a supposedly understaffed unrelated Council base), telling you she's too young for this kind of danger. The two of you investigate the real base.
Sunstorm spawns near the entrance as an ally, and cons as an Arch-Villain, giving him attacks that deal upwards of 1000 damage (highest I saw was 1800). Needless to say, clearing my way to the objectives was not a challenge.
You're supposed to find 3 glowies, which are computers with clues revealing that Alice has a comatose Peacebringer inside her, which she allowed to bond with her after it crashlanded on Earth. She doesn't understand the nature of the merger though, and the Council is torturing her to get her to exhibit powers in an experiment to create Kheldian powers in soldiers without the mental merger 'side-effect'.
The base leader is Arakhn, the Arch-Villain. With Sunstorm's help I made short work of her, and the mission was complete. She revealed that the 5th Column stole Alice from them before you got there.

In the finale, it turns out that other base Leese was sent to was not exactly understaffed. She's been heavily injured and her mediporter is malfunctioning, so you have to go to the rescue (Sunstorm meanwhile assembles a task force of other Peacebringers to look for Alice).
The base turns out to be 5th Column, not Council. You find Leese in a bodybag - she's alive though. You activate her mediporter and send her off to the hospital, then resume your investigations. After finding the base leader (bonus points for spelling Übermensch with an umlaut) and defeating him, Alice spawns as a hostage nearby. You have to escort her out on a somewhat lengthy map.
The author has made a pretty exciting escort though. While this was likely coincidence, the first obstacle in the form of a Raserei Ubermenschen Oberst happened to spawn in one of the walled-off bunker things, who caught me by surprise at first. Taking him out spawns an ambush of 5th Column.
A bit further ahead is a Dark Nova surrounded by Galaxy Nictus. Taking him out spawns an ambush of more Galaxy Nictus.
The next obstacle is... Arakhn. Note, the navbar at this point states that defeating enemies is strictly optional, though this might be troublesome as Arakhn stopped me with an immobilize followed by a stun as I tried to run past. Accepting her challenge, I filled her full of bullets and continued on towards the door, which was guarded by a final obstacle in the form of a Dark Dwarf.

After escorting Alice to the door and exiting, you're presented with a nice debriefing in the form of a one-week timeskip. Leese is sittin on a park bench next to a pair of crutches, and is delighted to see that you've come to visit her. She assures you that her recovery is going smoothly and thanks you from the bottom of her heart. She also reveals that Alice and her Kheldian (named Solar Bloom) are doing fine - Solar Bloom was born in this galaxy and is too young to be extracted from its host safely, so Sunstorm is personally helping the two deal with their new life together. Happy end. The Souvenir is a cute and colorful thank-you letter from Alice.



I tried really hard to find something noticeably wrong with this arc, but failed. The writing is solid. The author insertion isn't annoying at all, because the author's character is only a lieutenant in the first two missions, completely missing in the next two, and is almost killed in the fifth, so you get to be the main hero of the story.
There's not really much else to say. I'd go as far as to say I think this arc could easily be turned into an enjoyable official Task Force with very few alterations. Heck, lower the level limit a little and it could replace the Citadel TF as the token Council TF, as a major improvement. I sincerely recommend this arc to everyone.

1) You ought to make this more secure than requiring just a screenshot - I'm sure this could be faked somehow. Perhaps a mission complete clue with a code?

2) I trust/hope that by 'challenging' you don't simply mean things like an avalanche of mobs with Ninjitsu, which is just fake difficulty in the form of bug abuse.

[ QUOTE ]
Currently playing "Exchange of Words". "late arrival" in mission 4 spawned without problem.

I think if the mission objective text appears, the mob must have spawned. It is possible it spawns under the map occasionally.

[/ QUOTE ]Twice in a row for me, so either I'm extremely unlucky or it happens more than just 'occasionally'.

Reattempted that mission, bugged again, boss didn't show. Did a painful defeat-all (freaking Earth Casters) and still nothing.

Something's wrong with your mission. I'm going to quit it this time and not rate it. I'd be willing to retry it again another time if you manage to figure out what is causing this, and get it fixed.

1) Very useful.

2) Varies per person, some love it, some hate it. It's not a bad power choice if you treat it as an extra cone with a very lengthy animation (as in, counting draw time into the animation time).

3) It's pretty much the one melee power Crabs have that doesn't suck compared to the ranged ones. While a Crab should be far away from mobs most of the time, Arm Lash isn't a bad power if you have the space for it.

[ QUOTE ]
They also don't have funny accolades either.

[/ QUOTE ]For the record, I haven't used any yet. Expect me to state it in a review if I have to resort to an Accolade.

Anyway, the comfortable-for-all-levels thing is, of course, subjective, but may influence people's ratings - I'm assuming my viewpoint on this matter isn't unique to me alone. Just a tip, there. I've been considering inconsistent level caps a flaw in the arcs I've reviewed from the very beginning. In any case, a 'true lowbie' will have even MORE trouble with this arc than I did, as I already stated (read: warned about).



Arc #5591, "An Exchange of Words"
tl;dr: Rating withheld until I talk to the author. Offenses: Poor map choices, typos, annoying mobs (at level cap), mission 4 messed up.



Brute again. I'll be using the Brute a lot of the time for badge credit, unless mission format encourages me to try something else, though I'll be commenting from an AT-neutral point of view.



Anyway, your contact is Darrin Wade. The story starts off simple enough, he asks you to steal a magic book from an unnamed faction, and leave no witnesses. Fair enough, it's a defeat all then. His dialogue is fairly solid and well-written, though I noticed the occasional typo later in the arc.

Anyway, the map is a warehouse, and the so far unnamed faction in question is, as was expected, the Midnight Squad. They're fairly easy, and the ghost-type mobs seem to have either been removed for this mission, or simply didn't spawn at all when I played it.
The book is in a safe, though there's at least one fake glowie safe as well - Darrin Wade did say you're free to take whatever else you find in the warehouse for yourself.
Taking the book spawns patrols of Circle of Thorns, which also need to be defeated, meaning I had to trek back through cleared areas to find them wandering about. At least the map is smallish.

Darrin Wade seems overly puzzled by the presence of the Circle, as it turns out he had scrying protection cast on you. He sends you to a local Circle hideout to investigate, which turns out to be a much, much too large Orangebagel map. One boss and one captive could certainly use a smaller map.
Taking out the non-named Agony Mage boss (why you must do this is not made clear) spawns two ambushes, which grouped up and made up about 10 Earth Casters, who promptly used Stalagmites in unison, stunning me through mez protection and eventually killing me as I wobbled about defenselessly. Turns out the boss really was important, as he had an Arachnos security clearance card, which proves important in the next mission.
The captive is the Scrying Master, who runs off begging you not to hit him, and offers a clue which didn't seem to provide much information at all, other than confirming that the Circle were indeed scrying the warehouse before you stole the book.

Darrin Wade still maintanins his unhealthy curiosity in the Circle, and sends you to talk to the guy who asked him to steal it in the first place. The guy's also implied to have connections to the Circle, and he's currently under protection in an Arachnos base.

The base is overrun with Circle, and you find Wade's contractor in a body bag next to another ambush-happy Agony Mage. At least I -think- he summoned ambushes; he yelled the same "Minions, to me!" lines the first one did, so I quickly grabbed the body bag and exited.

Turns out the guy already gave the book to the Circle because they were holding his wife hostage - sadly they seem to have killed him anyway just for the trouble. Wade explains that the Circle are trying to summon a demon, a 'sibling' of sorts to the Envoy of Shadow (think Baphomet, if that name doesn't ring a bell). He and you come up with a plan to take control of the demon yourself, for unexplained purposes. But hey, a pet demon is cool, right?

To do this, you need certain magical things. Wade gives you a list and sends you off to a graveyard, where you're expected to find the stuff.
This is sadly where the arc goes downhill. The author makes the grave mistake of adding a whole bunch of objectives to the Dark Astoria graveyard map. This includes 4 glowies and a boss fight. Anyway, the boss was a Hellfrost who'll go down about as easily as they usually do for you.
And then a 'Find Late Arrivals' objective spawns. I have no idea what the hell I was supposed to do there, because I spent a good half an hour running around the entire map, searching for any glowies, objects, or boss fights. Nothing. And yes, I looked everywhere.
I lost my patience and ranted a little to whatever crazy people were still online on chat channels at the time, and got someone else to help me look. Still nothing. We defeated every freaking mob on the whole map. Still nothing. I then noticed it was close to 6 AM (past 6 AM right now), and resigned.



The only reason I bothered looking that long was, actually, because the story kept me sort of interested. While it wasn't exactly of epic proportions (Circle summons Demon, that's new and unexpected), the dialogue was well written and convincing, and I was curious what Wade had planned for the demon in the end. Also, somewhere in the back of my skull I was hoping it'd be one of the underused Blade Princes.
The arc is set in the level bracket where the Circle of Thorns are at their most annoying, most spawns consisting of Earth Casters (Stalagmites and Quicksand, hope you're not a squishy!) and a Behemoth Master lieutenant, who has Invincibility. Obviously easier for some ATs/builds than others, but not terribly fun to fight for 3 (4?) missions in a row.
I can't tell if I (and my helper) am blind, the author is a sadistic genius (I mean this in a bad sense), or the mission bugged. Currently I'm guessing it bugged, but I'll reserve judgement until I get to have a word with the author - and ask them what the hell the final objective was meant to be.

For now, I'm going to bed. 6:15 AM and I'm grumpy from that 4th mission. Never did find the damn objective.

[ QUOTE ]
I find it strange that you had trouble with the boss. He is on the weakest setting possible. And yes he runs, but only at 10% of his hitpoints.

[/ QUOTE ]I didn't notice the jump in level until after the mission (this is why consistent level caps are good; people shouldn't have to check for this kind of thing), so I didn't have mez protection on. He beaned me with a stun and killed me with his spawn while I was wobbling around. A level 10 or below would have more trouble, because custom mobs in general are -very- tough to handle for low-level toons. They're stronger than regular mobs whether you like it or not, and this one can stun.

I think Xemulas is offering proofreading services. The reason I don't bring out specific examples of errors is that English is not my primary language, either, and thus I don't feel I'm allowed to bicker -too- much about it. The lack of commas is somewhat disturbing, though.

You may disagree with this, but I believe arcs should be comfortable for characters of any level. People flashback Ouroboros arcs, you know. It could be done as easily as adding a random non-required encounter where some police officers are bringing in a Skull or something for arrest, limiting the arc to maximum level 14, as an example.



Also, I'm willing to re-review arcs after edits, if the author wishes me to do so. This still puts you at the back of the current list, though, for the sake of fairness.

Arc #1064, "Blackmarket wants you (level 1-10)"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: Loose plot... weak plot... was there a plot? Unnecessary defeat-all on large map, "Just a bunch of stuff that happened", overpowered boss, surprise failable mission, typos, punctuation, inconsistent level cap (especially the final mission).



Used the Brute again for the sake of comfort.



This is meant to be an alternative intro arc to Kalinda and Burke for lowbie villains. The story starts with an... error in the arc name. "Black Market" is two words.
That aside, the contact is a Shady Person, one of the various NPC models used for BM NPCs redside. Turns out you're interested in a fake ID for some unexplained reason, and can't afford it, so she expects you to pay in favors. She also seems to really hate commas.

Mission one has you recovering some goods they were transporting, that was intercepted by the RIP. The level cap is 14, not 10 as I was lead to believe. The map is a normal warehouse of average size, and you're supposed to find some glowies.
Most are just crates, one is a weapon rack, one was a bunch of cardboard boxes that were actually not needed, and one is an urn that for some reason spawns an ambush of... Tuatha de Dannan? Anyway, after exiting, your contact makes absolutely no mention of the Tuatha at all. Alrighty then.

You are rewarded with implied money? I thought I was doing this for a fake ID. Anyway, next mission has you clear out a warehouse of Snakes, and find an ally, who turns out to e a Death Head Buckshot with an unbearable desire to prove my theory that shotgun-using allies are useless.
The map is a rather huge warehouse, which is terrible because among the objectives is a Defeat All. A level 10 or lower player is not going to have fun defeating all Snakes in a huge warehouse - trust me, they're more likely to settle for "defeat the boss and the rest will run away in panic", or something similar.
Also, I hate snakes - why did it have to be snakes? We get more than enough Snakes in Kalinda and Burke's arcs. I thought this was supposed to be a refreshing alternative? Apparently not, because the next mission is... wait for it...

A Snake cave. You're supposed to place 3 bombs as revenge for the snakes raiding the warehouse (for eggs that were stolen from them, but you're a villain so you don't care).
You also find another urn here, which does nothing - the interact text mentions you remember what happened with the last urn, so you leave this one alone. Still no further elaboration on the Tuatha ambush, or their connection to the Snakes.
For some mind-boggling reason you're asked to leave a note stating who's behind the bombing - I'm just going to assume the note is on a plate of reinforced Impervium, and thus expected to survive the explosions. Anyway, that's it for the Snakes...

On an unrelated matter, the next mission. Yet another warehouse rumble, this time one of the clients of the Black Market is trying to destroy a shipment meant for another client - they want you to take care of it, so they don't lose favor with the clients currently tearing up their warehouse and breaking their things.

Said client turns out to be Arachnos, fighting... the Skulls. I'm not sure why the Skulls are here, because the shipment is a crate of schoolbooks. Defending this objective spawns a boss, a Mace/Shield that might probably give trouble to a normal level 10 player. He's said to be sent by "Phipps", in a shout-out to a certain level 40-44 redside arc, which, unfortunately, made me subconciously contrast the quality of writing between these two arcs.

And, on yet another unrelated note - mission five! Out of the blue, you're asked to raid a RIP station to find information on the new boss, who's been refusing bribes and has proven impossible to blackmail so far. Your contact creates a diversion, which should thin the number of cops in the building for about half an hour. Timed mission, here we go.

The clean cop she mentioned is still here, and one of the mission goals. This is unfortunate for two reasons - one, he's extremely tough even for me, and killed me in the first encounter, because I didn't notice the level cap randomly jumped to 40(!), and was stunned because my mez protection was not on (at level 10 I wouldn't even HAVE mez protection, though). Mace/Invulnerability.
Two, and this was an unpleasant surprise - he runs away at low HP. Being a Brute without any viable means of keeping him still, I failed the mission, which the contact seems to disregard as she gave me the ID anyway. What the heck you do with this ID is only mentioned in the Souvenir. Loosely.



Um, where do I begin. This isn't really an arc, it's a series of stand-alone missions. Well, okay, the two Snake missions are tied together, but that's about it. Nothing of consequence or interest happens - I dare say I've seen newspaper missions with more intriguing plots.
There is no excuse for a defeat all on any map set bigger than "Small". Especially at level 10, with the high-damage-dealing Snakes, whom a lot of lowbies are sick of anyway. I understand the author feels Snakes are integral to the Mercy Island theme, but we have two lowbie arcs with Snakes in the spotlight - I'm sure we'd all be happy if they had only been given a minor role in an ambush or two.
The Tuatha de Dannan ambush is totally random, and a bizarre sight in the Rogue Isles, and is not explained or even mentioned by the contact. Why was a similar urn in the Snake cave? Maybe the author meant to have the ambush be Snakes, and misclicked factions?
There's some noticeable typos, and a distinct lack of commas. I'd also mention the Snakes' lines being inaccurate (They talk more like a mix of Gollum and Jar-Jar Binks than CoV Snakes), but that's mostly just a nitpick.

Honest opinion? I prefer Kalinda and Burke, I'm sorry. This is just the same old stuff with a weaker story and overpowering custom bosses.

Do you do helmets and rubber tights?

But Jay hates furries.

Maybe his new female sidekick would be nice enough, though...

Current list: 1934/1064, 5760/5591, 53951, 75875, 53149, 75015, 48617, 63175, 79274, 23256, 74519, 2505, 79763, 27552, 82059, 60092, 22433 , one of AP's many arcs, 79690, 56881, 83744/83747, 9831/81348, 79300

23 arcs to go, not counting re-listings for people with multiple submissions. Phew! Let me know if I've accidentally missed anyone!



Arc #47625, "Shadows in Your Mind"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: Annoying custom faction, lack of character development.



The description mentions this arc was designed to challenge a team, so I'll be using my personal team... of Thugs.
Thugs/Dark Mastermind, that is, set to Invincible so AVs are AVs. Also, I played an earlier version of this arc once before.



Though the arc is Heroic, my choice of a villain AT didn't feel as unsuitable after I noticed the contact is Hardcase. You know, the Villainside contact from St. Martial who makes you want to punch him in the throat. How he'd contact a Hero is not explained.
Hardcase's dialogue is rather well-written, and has descriptive flavor text to describe his motions and expressions (in dark green text). He tells you people have been getting abducted by mysterious forces, and sends you to investigate such a recent occurence in a graveyard.

It's the normal foggy Dark Astoria graveyard map, the goal is to rescue 3 captives and defeat the 'Urgal' - I can't tell whether this is meant to be a reference to the Inheritance Cycle, or simply a similar name. The captives are easy to spot, as the guards use the green fire casting animation.
The mobs are of the default Ghosts faction, except the hostage guards, who are custom mobs named 'Possessed Soul' and the like, with various abilities. The boss is another custom mob, Super Strength/Dark Miasma - a potentially nasty combo for non-Masterminds.

The captives make brief mention of a scary demon, which confirms Hardcase's (somewhat vague) suspicions. He sends you after 'The Kuller', who seems to either be the demon they mentioned, or its servant (this is left unclear). He also mentions having sent 3 other heroes before you, which is worrying.
The map is the small Hellion Office one, with more Ghosts.
The Kuller is a custom EB, Super Strength/Invulnerability. A somewhat questionable design choice was giving a relatively minor plot character Extreme Invulnerability, which resulted in it popping Unstoppable and running around for a few minutes while I waited impatiently.
You also have an Ally named Knight Scar in this mission, a Fire Blast/Electric Blast custom mob (author insertion?) who seems to be set to Aggressive, not unlike a typical pick-up-group Blaster. He wasn't very helpful due to AI issues resulting in him getting locked into spamming the [Fire Blast] power, and nothing else.

Hardcase next sends you after... The Kuller. Deja vu. It is not explained whether the Kuller is a unique being or a rank, so I don't know if it's the same EB you just beat up or not. Either way, the fight is pretty much the same, only on the Croatoa Street map this time, and with The Harvester (Claws/SR) as an ally - a more useful one than Knight Scar was. He used to be Ninjitsu, but was changed after I told the author he could solo the EB before it had the time to pop Unstoppable.
This map is also fully populated by the Possessed Shade custom faction, which includes rather annoying examples such as minions with mez protection, minions that quadruple stack endurance-draining electric immobilizes, lieutenants with battleaxe/kinetics, and lieutenants who self-rez.

Neither of the previous missions produced many useful clues other than what was mostly flavor text, but Hardcase manages to piece together the location of the missing third hero and Azur, the demon we've been hunting.

The final mission is a mercifully small Orangebagel map full of more Shades. Halfway through you find Rike, who's been possessed, and is a Thorny Assault/Dark Armor AV, and one of the most annoying things I have ever fought on my Mastermind.
Not only did it take forever to die (the author seems to have had the sense not to give it Dark Regeneration or Soul Tranfer), but it kept spamming Thorntrops and oneshotting my Bruiser with attacks with DoT components. The damage aura helped too. Luckily he's vulnerable to immobilization. He went down after a good 5-10 minutes or so, and thanked me for releasing him.
Finally, we have Azur, who has apparently been changed from Broadsword/Fire Armor to Broadsword/Cold Domination since I last played this arc. Sadly Cold Domination didn't seem to really do anything useful when I fought him, though this might vary based on AT/build. The Broadsword was very useful for twoshotting my pets before my slow-animating heal could help them, though, so I popped Gang War to give him decoys to smack around. Kept him immobilized in the Arsonist's burn patch and took him down rather quickly - Rike was much more difficult and required many more pet resummons than this guy, so he's a bit of an anticlimax boss in comparison. The ambush at 50% health was annoying because the minions perma-immobilized me and drained my endurance.

The arc ends with Azur's host thanking you before he dies, and the demon that possessed him perishing. Hardcase is implied to hide the fact that he's glad you're alive, and congratulates you on a job well done.



The story gets a little random during the two Kuller missions, as the Kuller's nature and purpose isn't explained very well, aside from being someone for you to smack around and an implied lackey to Azur. The fact that you fight him twice is a little odd, but it may be that it's not the same Kuller - this ought to be explained.
The custom mobs were somewhat frustrating to fight and didn't have a distinct theme to their abilities - mobs should be kept consistent, not a random superpower lottery.
Azur is a lot weaker than Rike, which is a little funny considering he's constantly said to be an uber-powerful elite demon as you hear about him during the arc, and Rike is a freshly-possessed lackey of his. Consider changing their secondaries a little. Azur also needs more character depth than "big scary demon".
Overall a pretty solid arc. Needs a bit of tying-together in the middle, but Hardcase's lines were well-written despite it being a little odd that he'd associate with heroes. It's a rather challenging arc with tricky mobs though, I don't recommend attempting it solo.

[ QUOTE ]
War Mace/Empathy. Where you playing this with a high level character? I didn't find this guy so easy.

[/ QUOTE ]That explains it, no ranged or defensive abilities; I just kept knocking him back with the Nova Form blasts.

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[ QUOTE ]
Clue 2 spawns after the Luddite boss dies. It's a spawn of Bat'Zul demons.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope, that is not the trigger for this spawn.

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Clue 3 spawns after the demons die, and is a spawn of Gold Brickers

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, not the trigger for this spawn. The Gold Brickers are there from the start.

[ QUOTE ]
The fact that these three Boss fights spawn one after another on an outdoor map isn't really a good thing,

[/ QUOTE ]

They don't spawn one another. 2 are in at the start, and as the other, you remember the "optional" possessed car?

[/ QUOTE ]Alright, fair enough, I must've missed the Brickers on the first few rounds.


[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
and some of the cars bugged

[/ QUOTE ]

In what way?

[/ QUOTE ]It's more of a MA thing than your fault, it's the bug where a destructible object is an "Invalid Target" for some reason until you attack its guards, which was annoying as I was trying to ghost this with aerial bombardments.

[ QUOTE ]
And do you think 30 minutes is too short, or are there too many cars to smash?

[/ QUOTE ]Too many cars. 30 minutes would normally be fine, I just had some bad luck with the car spawn locations (that's a map thing, not your fault, again) and estimating line of sight of guard spawns. I do play on Unyielding normally, though.

Ate my post AGAIN... When are we getting that new forum software anyway?

Arc #80349, "The Steel and Gold Affair"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: Typos, loose plot, frustrating missions, lack of Mission Failure outro text for final mission and resulting anticlimax ending.



Using the Warshade again. For some obscure unforgivable reason, I don't have Dwarf Form at level 20, so this counts as a Squishy Run.



Your contact is Detective Rogers of Steel Canyon, who asks you to stop vandals from blowing up cars. Pretty normal, considering the guy asks you to do the same in Safeguard missions.
The normality stops there, as the vandals in question are Luddites. After stopping a group of them from beating on a car, it's time to hunt for clues and rescue policemen.
The policemen are rather... unconvincing, telling the Luddites to put down their weapons and come quietly, while kneeling on the ground with hands behind their heads. An animation change would be appropriate, possibly giving the cops one of the Shotgun emotes, and the Luddites the Menace Crossbow emote, for a proper confrontation feel. The cops are largely useless against the high-damage Fortitude-spamming Luddites who can heal each other.
Speaking of high damage, Luddites are more painful than I imagined. Since they're used in a grand total of one or two missions in the game normally, I don't have much combat experience against them. Not a fun faction to fight, I assure you.
On with the clues. Clue 1 is a custom Luddite boss, whose powersets remained a mystery as it died before reaching me. The Clue it drops is an advertisement about Dr. Aeon's new electric cars based on PTS technology.
Uh-oh.
Clue 2 spawns after the Luddite boss dies. It's a spawn of Bat'Zul demons, the Boss promptly Holding me upon agro and killing me before it wore off. I brought breakfrees and got revenge. Strangely enough they count as a clue for the mission objectives, but don't drop an actual Clue.
Clue 3 spawns after the demons die, and is a spawn of Gold Brickers, who go down with the usual effort, mentioning that the Luddites are a diversion for Gold Bricker robberies.
The fact that these three Boss fights spawn one after another on an outdoor map isn't really a good thing, as the player has to scout the entire area after each boss defeat. The demon fight could easily be changed to an ambush, for example.
An optional encounter on the map was a Possessed Car being beaten by Luddites. The car screams a few lines about freedom and living, until you destroy it.

The detective next sends you to stop a Gold Bricker robbery on a 15 minute time limit (you're warned before accepting) and tells you not to let any robbers escape. The Boss in the mission flees immediately upon seeing me, and I can't stop it.
The ambush that you spawn by using the Phone in the middle of the map (clever) doesn't help - a few of the PPD that spawn bash the boss in the head with rifle butts, but most of them just stare at it run past them blankly. In hindsight I should've gone Human Form and stacked immobilizes on the guy.

Doesn't matter anyway, the detective gives one line of disappointment and moves on to the next mission, stopping another robbery and arresting Gold Galore, on a 10 minute timer (again, you're warned in advance). Gold Galore is a custom Gold Bricker boss, Energy Assault/Sonic Resonance.
With that power combo it's of course no wonder that she rendered me into a fine paste before I could fight back much. Coming back with a trayful of inspirations I managed to defeat her in the nick of time - just barely. The boss is set to Entire Encounter Needed, which really ought to be changed to Only Boss Needed.

And that's the Gold Brickers stopped for good in this arc, just like that.

The arc continues with the demon cars plot, and the Luddite leader you beat up in the first mission wants to meet you in an abandoned factory (appropriate or inappropriate for a Luddite?) on Mercy Island. Naturally, when the mission objective is just to 'meet' someone, it means trouble.
Basically, you save the guy from Arachnos captives and escort him out, upon which he mentions that the next shipment of demon cars is due to leave soon.

The detective defines "soon" as 30 minutes, which means the final mission is a timed one again. He mentions off-hand that he'd arrest you if you tried anything like destroying the shipment, but the Isles are conveniently out of his jurisdiction, and offers an off-the-record "good luck". I'm no law expert, but I'm not entirely sure how well a police officer encouraging that sort of thing works, off the record or not. But I wouldn't know.

Anyway, you've got 12 cars to destroy in a cargo ship, guarded by Security Guards. I admit I was distracted, and some of the cars bugged, so I ended up dying a few times; some of the cars were difficult to find, too. After destroying the last one in the nick of time, a Defeat Demons objective appeared, which I couldn't find in time, so the mission failed.
The detective asked me "So how were the Isles, did you see anything interesting?" and that was the end of the arc.



The story needs work. The Gold Brickers hog the spotlight for two whole missions and one boss battle in the first mission, despite plotwise only being transportation for the Luddites, and otherwise just robbing mostly unimportant places. The custom boss felt somewhat unnecessary, and rather powerful for a level 20 character to take on - NPC damage mods turn Energy Assault into something brutal.
The demon car plot isn't explained very well. How were these cars made, why, and what would the implied negative consequences be if a person drove a demon-fueled sedan? Would it spawn Gremlins in the back seat?
The detective's dialogue becomes more distant and uninvolved as the arc goes on, becoming downright jarringly apathetic if you fail the final mission. I wonder if this was just a spot the author accidentally missed during final tweaking, though - people tend to focus on success messages, but you have to take into account that people -will- fail a failable mission, sometimes.
The arc is definitely playable, but the story needs polish, the text needs a good going-over with a spellchecker, and the mobs are tough. The Luddites in the first mission took me totally off guard, and the custom boss hit like a truck. I'd recommend small groups for this, considering the overall mob difficulty, and time limits.