Eva Destruction

If I were truly pessimistic I'd predict they would include Dominatrix, Diabolique, and the Praetorian version of Lt. Sefu Tendaji. All AVs, and they don't scale down.

lrn2search, seriously, there's about a million of them.

Regen buffs do not expire when the buffing critter dies. They expire when the duration expires. This makes them annoying. Having him spawn with healers will work, although if you set the healers as an ambush they might not use targeted heals on him, since he's not a member of their "group." He will be healed by their AoE heals though.

Having allies stop the boss's regen won't work, due to the Designated Helper system. Only one ally will use debuffs.

Basically, forget about trying to make an AE encounter anything like a trial. You can't do fancy gimmicks, you can't control where stuff spawns. The more complicated the fight, the greater the chance it will go wrong and at best not have the desired effect, and worst really annoy the player. If you do choose to use a complicated mechanic, make sure you test it, test it, then test it some more.

Oh yes, I also expect that the most efficient progression through the system will involve either stealth or lots of AoE. There will continue to be no point in playing a strong single-target specialist unless there are unscaleable AVs, which I honestly hope doesn't happen, and probably won't because the outcry will be HUGE (and rightly so, IMO), and they will be replaced with EBs with 90% S/L resistance. I expect huge amounts of S/L resistance either way.

I expect there to be very little content, that you will have to farm heavily in order to progress.

I expect said content to be heavily scripted and have unique maps, which will be used as an excuse for why there is so little of it. I expect many of the scripted encounters to be poorly tested and prone to bugs.

I expect it to be based in the evil goatee universe and involve the Puddle of Annoyance. I expect there to be plot holes, idiot balls, and character hijacking, which someone will point out and we'll argue about it for pages on the forums. Someone will call me names, and several people will post in a thread that is clearly about lore to proclaim that they don't care about lore, only shinies.

I expect typos and spelling and grammatical errors. These will be /bugged in beta but will go live anyway and remain until the servers shut down.

I expect someone to immediately complain that they can't solo the content with their SOd FF/Elec Defender or Blaster with no defense who doesn't bother with inspirations. Suggestions to use temp powers or inspirations will be met with "but I shouldn't have to, the game is balanced around SOs." I expect the solo Incarnate path to be balanced around IOs, but no dev to actually say so.

I expect it to be exclusively heroic in tone. Someone will complain. Someone else will imply that players who play villains are villains in real life

I expect cut scenes.

I expect it to be significantly slower than trial progression, even for a strong soloist.

In each thread that discusses the announced content, I expect a statement along the lines of "if you don't like to team why are you playing an MMO" on the first page.

Synapse: "Hey, watch this..."
Numina: "Klatu...barata..."

I really don't care about any of them as characters. Sure, I'd like Statesman to bite it, and no, this isn't creator hate projected onto the character. I don't like Superman either.

However, for reasons having nothing to do with the characters themselves, I hope they don't kill off BAB (partly because killing off the black guy is so cliche, partly because it would look petty considering his namesake's departure), or either of the women, because I'm sure it'll only be done to focus on how sad their boyfriends are. Also, whoever dies, I hope they replace them with BAB and not Captain Hotpants.

Best Heroic or Vigilante:

1: A Very Special Episode
2: Legacy of a Rogue

Arc Played: The Astral Prison.

I played this with Dawnrazor, level 41 Katana/Invul Scrapper set to +1/x4/Yes bosses/no AVs. No issues with the difficulty level.

Overall I felt this was a good concept for an arc, and the execution was well done, and flowed well. One big problem with a concept like this is the issue of character hijacking, and you managed to mostly avoid this. The enemies are well-chosen, and I didn't find the customs overpowered. No complaints regarding map choices or gameplay.

Now, the first problem is with the level range. By level 40 you've already shut down Project Locke, and you're cleaning up the left-overs. Canonically, this arc should cap out at level 40. The other canon issue is, where did Crey get sapper guns? If they had them, you'd think they'd use them in-game, no?

The other issue is the sense of "something doesn't add up here" that starts with the initial contact. I assume your intent was to have the player catch on early in the arc, but the contact doesn't need to be a part of it. Crey would make the effort to put together a logical, cohesive "cover story" that your character is likely to fall for. The optional objectives in mission 1 do a good job of tipping you off though, so I'd make some of them mandatory.

Overall though, good job, just has a few holes that bugged me.

I can honestly say I have never, in my six years of playing this game, popped inspirations before entering a mission, inside AE or out.

Hot doors are a separate issue and those spawn points need to be removed, as well as ambushes that trigger as soon as the player enters the map, but they have nothing to do with inspiration use and I've encountered far more of them outside AE than in.