Eva Destruction

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Oh my freaking god...

I wrote a long critique of the arc, and when I clicked Continue it told me that it had timed out or some such, and when I clicked back, my text was gone.


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Ouch.

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Fairly standard Malta story. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of standard Malta stories (I'm more interested in superhero stuff than superspy/global conspiracy stuff). Fans of the genre may enjoy this arc more.

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Thanks for mentioning that, it doesn't by any means invalidate your critique but it does put it in a different context.

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There's a body bag already in the map, in the same area as your two body bag glowies appear. You can't click it, it's just part of the map. Makes me wonder who else died, and why they have the body stashed in the office....

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I didn't notice that, it's kinda funny. The pawn shop maps are full of random stuff. It's like some civilian found a blinky and didn't know what else to do with it...

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Why Freakshow? I wouldn't think the KoA would put up with their contract being given to another group, and I can't think of any reason why Malta would hire the Freaks to conduct a hit when they already had the KoA on the payroll. We know the "suits" hired them, but that's it, and they are never mentioned again.

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Malta didn't hire them. Crey did. Perhaps I should clarify that more. And the KoA aren't happy about it, that's why the patrols are complaining.

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Mission 3: West Libertalia and Ambassador Alwani seem to be there for no reason other than to show your extensive knowledge of canon. Why does Malta have an interest? What do they hope to accomplish by kidnapping the people they have? Maybe I missed a clue or something.


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I used West Libertalia because I didn't want to use a real country, and I didn't see the point of making up a country when the game had already made one up and not told us what happened to it. We know they had a Sky Raider problem, and that's it. Malta doesn't agree with their government's policies, so they're going to change them, because that's what they do. Again, should probably be clarified in a clue.

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Mission 4: Nothing but Crey Tanks, and a sprinkling of Malta. Especially on a map this large, slogging through the Crey Tanks gets really old really fast. I suggest either levelcapping the arc below the "tanks-only" level (44?), or adding some custom Crey to liven things up.

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I have been giving some thought to adding some of the gun-toting suits we all know and love. I don't like the all-tanks Crey either. The only downside I see to that is they would look sort of out of place among the real gun-toting suits you get if you're playing through with a lower-level character. I'm probably going to do it anyway though.

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Mission 5: Large map, few objectives, timer. This is what I call a "Haystack" mission (as in "finding a needle in a..."). Of course, the people I was looking for were in obscure corners of the geography, under awnings or billboards so they can't be seen from above, which means I had to run all over the map at ground level slogging my way through endless Malta minions in order to find them.

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I would dearly love a smaller map. Or even just to be able to pick spawn points so the stuff you're looking for is out in the open. Unfortunately outdoor maps are huge for some reason.

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Having a neat story at the end, telling what happened with Alwani etc. after I saved the day, might have made it all worthwhile, but all I got was 1) I got some good press coverage, and 2) please come to the wake. What happened in West Libertalia? What global catastrophe did my actions prevent? Alas, it appears I will never know....


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I'm not happy with the final briefing either. I hate writing them. I have a tiny little box to sum everything up in....it's frustrating. I think I might change it to be in the form of another phone call, from someone who can give you some closure.

Thanks for slogging through, and offering a critique.

Custom minions and lieutenants can be used as "boss" objectives. Standard ones cannot.

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The first mission starts off straightforwardly enough, though I'd generally recommend shaving the interaction time for the glowing objects down by a second or two.

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Noted. I've been trying to find a happy balance between "hacking a computer takes time" and "this blinky takes forever."

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Dr. Jansen seems rather off his kilter, though. Given his ominous rantings, I feel like most heroes would ask, "Why are we letting this guy go, again?"

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Again, noted. I'm going to have to take a look at the dialogue around him again, I think he might be a little too crazy. I think I might go back to having him be an initial objective, so it's clear from the outset that he's been helping the good guys.

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This mission got a little repetitive and annoying, what with the multiple clickable boxes that were red herrings. Especially on a Council base cave map, which has all sorts of nooks and crannies that can hide glowing objectives.

It was also a bit much to have the objective of "blowing up the base" accomplished by beating on a pile of explosives until it, well... exploded. I'm more used to setting bombs that will presumably detonate AFTER I've left the base.

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I was picturing it as you blow up the pile of explosives, it sets off a chain reaction with all the boxes of explosives, while you do the Demolition Man slow-motion run out of there. I am really not too happy with this mission in general. I has given me no end of problems.

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The final Archvillain is also quite soloable due to not having a Defensive Set. Naturally, I used inspirations to survive what were presumably hard-hitting attacks, but he went down without too much trouble.

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Yeah, the last patch gave him Total Focus, even at level 25. I'm worried that he might hit too hard now. Before the patch he was Hard/Standard, and was on par with Burkholder. I turned him down to Standard after the patch, and he hits harder than he did before.

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The final mission debriefing is a bit disconcerting, though. It prompts two reactions: 1) "What agency do you work for, again?" and 2) "So just why DO chicks dig giant robots?"


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She doesn't really work for an agency, per se. I was going for the idea that there are actually heroes hanging out in some of these zones, doing all the stuff that is too dangerous for non-powered contacts but too boring for player characters. Chicks dig giant robots because they are GIANT ROBOTS. However if the briefing gives the impression that you're helping out some shady agency I'll have to tweak it. The arc is supposed to be flat-out heroic, you're not being double-crossed or anything.

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Ultimately, the arc makes for a fun beatdown. But the cultlike activity of the group trying to activate the Giant Mech leaves me scratching my head, not sure if this arc is trying to be mostly serious, or mostly tongue-in-cheek. I guess part of that reaction is my not being used to seeing cults organized around worshiping an object of technology. I'm also uncertain how such a cultish subculture could develop within the Council without being noticed and stamped out BY the Council.

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It's supposed to be kinda tongue-in-cheek (they're worshipping a GIANT ROBOT), kinda serious (it's basically a personality cult. They're not stupid enough to actually worship a giant robot, the AV just uses the ritualistic aspects to get these guys to be loyal to him. A group like the Council would naturally attract a lot of people with the "follower" mindset, so he's exploiting that.) As for how they get away with it, I guess it's time to revise some more dialogue....the idea is that they've defected from the Council, and there aren't many of them.

Thank you for the feedback. Looks like it's time to revise this thing yet again.

Mission 1: Yeah, you might have to use a different map. I've had the same problem on some of the Tech maps.

Mission 2: I didn't consider not seeing the EB a problem. I was told he was there, I was told I could avoid him. Honestly having the blinky spawn nowhere near him avoids the possible problem of him spawning right next to it, which would make fighting him unavoidable.

Mission 3: It's not the psychic clockwork per se, it's the clockwork in general. They rely on the CWK to tell them what to do. It's mentioned that the clocks in Cap are weird, because they are too far away for him to exert any influence on them. The psi clocks are more powerful than the regular clocks because their CWK is sane, and therefore more powerful. They don't actually have any programming. They're not technically robots, they're the CWK's puppets.

Yes I ran this today. Dr. Radium's bio just said "Dr. Radium", which is what I meant by he could use one, even a single sentence. The variables didn't work on one of, I think it was a patrol, that said "get $name" or something like that (all I wrote down was "get $name," sorry I can't remember the rest of the text). The problem with Aeon #2 was when he spawned, and whatever patrol or his guards that spawned at the same time, they both said "$Name." They did spawn two floors down I think, they said the problematic text when they spawned, and I only grabbed Aeon #2 because I died.

You know, your assumption about most of us not being able to hack a secured mainframe is correct. However, the game assumes that along with the ability to shoot fire out of your hands you automatically acquire expert hacking abilities and anything else you might need in the course of your superheroing career. The game just assumes our characters have all kinds of skills. The humorous tone of these remarks does suit the tone of the arc (it's impossible to take any arc with Aeon in it entirely seriously) and him assuming you're stupid is completely in character. Simply changing stuff like "pay attention" to "are you paying attention?" would go a long way.

Edit: The psi clocks did end up in our dimension en masse once, but the fabric of the multiverse was unraveling at the time. Fighting that dimension's Babbage was supposed to stop that CWK from influencing our dimension.

And it's spelled RIDICULOUS. Seriously, if I see "rediculous" I am seriously temped to dock a star, even if the rest of your spelling is perfect. It's personal pet peeve.

Ok I'll bite.

I played through The Revenge of Dr. Radium, using a level 50 AR/Fire Blaster on difficulty level 2.

Overall, I thought it was good, solidly written Dr. Aeon story. Nothing particularly unexpected, but it was executed well. The contact dialogue was mostly very well done, with the techno-jargon really helping to set the tone, and the missions felt very alive and interesting with all the optional objectives and dialogue.

More detailed critique follows, may be spoileriffic.

Mission 1: Ok, I have to help Dr. Aeon save the world. Um, why would I trust Dr. Aeon to save the world? Fortunately, the dialogue takes this into account. Unfortunately, I think I might need a stronger motivation for going along with him anyway. Aeon talking down to me and assuming he is smarter than me is totally in character, but I did have a problem with the "Will you pay attention?" bit. I was paying attention! Maybe you can reword this so that it's Aeon thinking I don't understand, rather than me actually not understanding?

Again the problem pops up with one of the blinky dialogues, "Like you know how to hack a secure mainframe." Actually, according to dev-created content, I'm an expert hacker. And bomb specialist, and safe-cracker, and....speaking of safe-crackers, I got the combination to the safe after I'd already opened it. No problems with the boss though.

The custom Crey researchers are very much appreciated. Their bios are nice, further enhancing the techy aspect of the arc. However I'm not sure about their costumes, they're rather colorful and distinct while Crey are usually fairly generic, with little to visually differentiate one guy from another.

Mission 2: Easy. I didn't even see the EB.

Mission 3: Again I run into the "You're assuming this goes over my head" problem, with the pop-up dialogue. Also another one of the big problems I have with this arc is here. Clockwork don't self-replicate, without the CWK telling them what to do. The psi-clocks are run by the more powerful CWK of their dimension, the only time they show up in the real world is when our CWK suffers a momentary bout of sanity to save his "princess." So it's immersion-breaking, as nothing else in the arc directly violates canon.

Also I'm not sure if the final boss had an ambush or not. Something attacked me, but it may have been a patrol. I like the idea of him having an ambush, but it should say something.

Mission 4: The inevitable happens, fortunately the text implies that my character expected something like that. The pop-ups tell me Arachnos won't be happy, but they say they won't attack me if I don't attack them. It would be nice if the pop-up text instead gave me a good reason not to attack them. You have a few problems with the "$name" not being replaced by my name, possibly because they were too far away, but when the second ally spawned it was "$Name," so the capitalization might have been an issue also. The first AV could use a bio. The chained objectives were fun, and the way they were done totally fit an Aeon story.

So yeah, overall a fun, solid story, my two big problems being the assumption that my character doesn't understand all this techno-babble, and the total break from canon with the psi clocks.

I'd like to put up one of my two arcs for critique. Either

The Second Coming of the Mega Mech (#122274) A sequel of sorts to the Ernesto Hess TF. Level 25-32, if soloing I'd recommend a strong solo toon, as it contains two AVs.
or
Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black (#161629) A tale of shadowy conspiracies, deadly politics, and total pwnage. Level 41+, designed to be soloable, no AVs/EBs but does contain Malta.

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Anyhow, I wonder how much of the issue is due to all the "Complete X Mission" badges that the Devs put into the MA system. With there being dozens of those badges going from 10 missions to 100 missions and then X missions that are Heroic, X that are Villainous, etc... it's no wonder that short arcs get played so much more often.

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The badges really should have been based on individual missions completed, not storyarcs.

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Meh, I'm at about 90 arcs played, and I've done about 50/50 short vs long arcs. Those badges are nowhere near unattainable. Unlike some of the test badges, not to mention the ones for playing HoF arcs. Also, your auto-complete "missions completed in test mode" badge farm will count toward the "play x heroic" or "play x villainous" badges if you set it to the proper alignment.

Besides, all the "Want it NAO" badgers already have played some published auto-complete badge farm 100 times and are probably busy trying to kill a bazillion guys in test mode.

I now only play a longer arc if it has the SFMA tag or if I read about it on the forums. If I know the author is looking for feedback, I am more likely to play it, as it shows they actually care and I'm not going to be wasting my time on something someone threw together just because they could.

I've been trying to find arcs for my Scrapper to level on, it got tough when I got to 21. Plenty of good arcs before that, and I'm seeing lots that are 25+, but as was already stated, a lot of those contain enemies that might be tough before SOs. I've searched the SFMAs, and I think I've pretty much done all of the ones that start at 20.

21 is the sucky level for MA.

I would like to add my arc to the eventual queue.

The Second Coming of the Mega Mech ID #122274

It's level 25-32, I would advise holding off on it until the late 20s as it contains two AVs. They aren't designed to be too tough, a Scrapper should be able to take them with SOs and a couple of inspirations.

I appreciate any and all feedback, as I haven't gotten much on this arc.

I only wish I could get someone to proofread my stuff. My husband did it once, he went through all eleventy gajillion of my optional objectives, all with text, and from then on has shown a distinct lack of enthusiasm for proofreading my arcs.

Breakout starts at the other end though. Most people bust out of prison and never look back

Yep, agreed. Granted if I'm being lazy I don't take notes on arcs I'm playing. I do try to at least remember where there were errors in an otherwise well-proofread arc. If you tell me "typo in mission 3 complete clue" I at least know where to look.

The problem with short arcs is that no matter the length, you still get only three published arc slots. I put up a short arc that I made as a joke. It's gotten more plays than both my longer arcs put together (although it's also been up longer). I've gotten some badges out of it and it's made some people laugh. But it's not staying up, not while I have actual stories to tell and limited arc slots to tell them in.

Well, if I think your arc just plain sucks, I'm generally not going to bother offering feedback. If I say anything it generally means that I think it's good but could be even better. Of course I have to remind myself to also say what I liked about it before going into paragraphs of little nitpicky things I didn't like.

If it's in dialogue, I just assume bad grammar is deliberate unless the author has presented the speaker as educated, and the grammatical lapse seems out of character. In that case, whether it's deliberate or not it's a problem.

Is the transition from sewers to caves map (from the "Defeat all Tuatha in sewers" Croatoa mission) available in the Architect? I can't find it anywhere.

I'm looking to use transition maps to give the effect that my arc is essentially taking place on a single map, without making it repetitive. What transition maps are there? So far I've found:

Office to caves
Office to sewers
Office to Rikti
Caves to Rikti

Am I missing any?

I point out people's grammatical and spelling errors and typos when I catch them. I appreciate when people do the same for me, since there's always stuff you miss and if you go back in and edit dialogue the cursor does wonky things and you end up with random letters in weird places. I have had people thank me for pointing out stuff like that in feedback. However if I go to the trouble to point out all your spelling errors that means 1) you have few enough that I can point them all out and 2) you obviously cared enough about your arc to actually proofread, and I won't rate you lower because you missed something. If it's full of spelling and grammatical errors that shows me you just don't care, and I'll rate you lower.

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Another thing people miss is that when you pick a standard mob they may have more than one "look". There is an arrow to right of their picture in the editor so you can click it to get the one you want.

Citizens are the best example of this as there are tons of different Male and Female citizens.

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And I just learned something. Thank you, I've been wondering how to get the blond Malta Tac Ops boss.

Unless the mission contains an AV, EB, or a multiple-boss spawn, there is no need for an ally above Lt, unless the story requires them to be beefier, in which case they could be a boss. I find that creating allies with an attack primary (set to standard) and a defensive or buffing secondary (cranked up as high as you want it) lets them survive without KSing too much. An earth control/thermal should be ok as a boss, but if people are just complaining because they want the free buffs and there isn't a particularly tough fight that they might actually need the free buffs for, then I'd say leave him as a Lt.

Go to "Edit custom group"
From the list on the left, add whatever standard critters you want.
Save the group as "Bob's Discount Mercs" or whatever. The standard critters will appear in your custom group.
Yes you can mix and match PvE critters, however they won't appear together unless their level ranges overlap. So Freaks and Trolls would only appear together at exactly level 20, although a custom group that contains Freaks and Trolls would go from 5-54 since it would contain critters that fit all those level ranges. If you were below 20 you would get only Trolls, over 20 it would be only Freaks.

The only true Giant Robot we currently have available is unfortunately not attackable. But it is giant. All hail the Mega Mech!

Ooops, just noticed that you were one of the guys who reviewed my arc in that critique thread. So run the other one if you feel like it, or just take the above post as a freebie.

Hi there, I hope the offer is still good, cause I played yours and I'd like you to play mine. Either

The Second Coming of the Mega Mech (#122274) Heroic, 25-32, strong soloer or team recommended, as there are two AVs.
or
Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black (#161629) Heroic, 41-54, designed to be soloable if you can handle Malta.

Now on to the I'll play yours part.

I chose to play Cutthroat Competition. I used a level 20 DM/Shield Scrapper (pretending to be a villain since it's a villainous arc)

What is wrong with this arc: well nothing, really. There is nothing majorly wrong with this arc. There are some minor things, but overall it's a well-written, solid arc. The Facemaker dialogue is spot-on as far as I can tell, it lives up to the "villainous" tag (that's important to me, I like villainous arcs that are actually evil), and the scope of the story is appropriate to the level range.

The Facemaker's opening dialogue is gross, it's nasty, it's fabulous. Love it. I get into the first mission, and right away I'm being a jerk. I cringe a bit when I see three rescues, but two of them are right by the door so it's not too bad. And the captives themselves are well-done. Especially Maemae's daughter. Minor quibble: I'm not sure about having the boss's name in the nav bar. It sort of implies that I know who I'm going to fight, when in fact my character doesn't.

Mission two, again only some minor issues. The wording "take retribution on the circle" doesn't ring right. Picking up the allies is a nice touch, but the one ally's dialogue, stating that the spectral minions are "not worth breaking down" doesn't make sense, since they don't have a corporeal form to even try to break down. Also, this mission suffers from a loooooong lead-out. Leroy himself was clever, but he would have worked equally well as an ally, IMO (since you had to put him at the back for his dialogue to be funny).

Mission 3: The custom enemies fit right in, my only quibble with this one is that I saw the boss hit build-up and had an "eeek" moment. This might be too much for the level range in question, especially if you're not on heroic and he's actually a boss.

Mission 4: Ok, now we're at war. This mission had the biggest problems of the whole arc, in that one ally was ridiculously overpowered. I'm not a fan of EB-level allies in general. Also, the explanation you gave for using that model just sounded like a flimsy excuse to use that model. And the fourth-wall breaking just fell flat. The rest of the allies were nicely done though, with some cute dialogue. The EB was a tough fight, even scaled down to boss (I ditched the EB-level ally as soon as I found him), but I was warned, so that's ok.

So overall...yeah, it's good. I enjoyed it, for the most part.

Too many to list. The Wannabes were hilarious. I've also run into sentient pandas that talk in emoticons (so cute), martian chimpanzees from a sci-fi B-movie (introduced by Captain Uranus), "prawn" stars, dirty hippies, and a geek's attempt to out-steampunk Nemesis. And those are just the ones that immediately come to mind.