LaserJesus

Not sure why I haven't joined in on this yet, but I've made an Energy/Electric Blaster, Doctor Von Heksung, on Triumph for the MA team. I'll join you all on saturday if I can get myself awake around noon :P

I am very sorry to be reporting in late. I was busy rooting out the rebel threat. Needless to say I saved countless loyalist lives today.

Long live Emperor Cole!

A few things of note:

Fast Healing from either regen or willpower will give an AV 100% regen resistance when the purple triangles are up. If you make the AV willpower, you can add a higher degree of survivability without even resorting to rise to the challenge with fast healing, the auto +HP and resistance power, and the resistance and defense toggles.

Be careful with giving AVs nuke powers. Most nuke powers when put in the hands of custom critters will be treated by the critter as just any other PBAoE attacks. What I mean by this is, the AV will just use the nuke whenever it feels like if there is a target near them. The only exceptions I have found to this are Nova, Blackstar, and Thunderous Blast. These nukes will be used much in the same manner that AVs in the standard game will use them at 25% health.

A lot of melee powersets in the hands of custom critters act strange, with the AV picking one single target attack and spamming only it, and then occasionally using an AoE or Cone power, after which the custom critter will pick another ST attack and start using that.

Super strength, energy melee, stone melee, battle axe, and war mace all have incredibly hard hitting attacks. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the arc is planned for high levels, and the AV is meant to be a challenge, attacks like Knockout Blow or Seismic Smash are perfectly good attacks to give an AV. However, I agree with Eva, build up, aim, and rage are right out. AVs hit plenty hard enough and are plenty accurate without them, especially if they have heavy hitting powersets like the ones I listed.

Earth Assault is a powerset I'd avoid straight out. It currently deals far too much damage. I don't mean that in a "Oh no, my scrapper got oneshotted" kind of way. I mean the earth assault versions of stone melee powers deal much more damage than the stone melee versions of the same powers, especially in the hands of an AV.

If you want to completely forgo a defensive set, poison is rather nasty in the hands of an AV. It may seem a bit harsh to give a custom critter poison, but the Electric Assault/Poison AV that I made just as a test killed my friend's Bots/Traps MM that he solos AVs with.

I've been waiting patiently for you to open submissions again, since you're about at the right level for my heroic arc and my new Drakule arc. Well, and the heroic arc I've been working on for some time, but I have no idea when I'll finish that one.

But Hopkins has a big scary freeze gun!

*shudders*




... can't sleep... freeze gun's gonna get me

I also switched all enemies in the Drakule arcs who had confuse to mass confusion. The recharge time is longer, so it should be less of a hassle.

Thanks to that annoying bug where missions publish under your character's name instead of your global name, I'm republishing all of my missions as Laser Jesus. So essentially, searching @LaserJesus will no longer work, but searching Laser Jesus will.

Played Silent Hi- I mean, Astoria in D Minor. The writing was high quality, and the little details helped set the atmosphere. I especially liked the still busy text on the contact. Glad to see I'm not the only one who likes to find creative uses for that. I gave it 5 stars.

I have to know, however, where is the last line that Event Horizon says in the last mission from? I recognize it from somewhere, but I can't remember where. It's driving me nuts.

Played Pirates Quest. Story was amusing enough, with the only issue being with some difficulty problems with the custom boss, and a patrol of all banished pantheon masks in the second mission. I have informed the author of these problems, and gave the arc 4 stars.

That's a Dev's Choice right there if I ever heard one, man!

Played Tales of Croatoa. Story is very good, and the characterization is pitch perfect. Some of the clues and other non-dialogue text could get a little heavy-handed at times, but never into the realm of camp. The characters are sympathetic and never crossed the line into melodrama. 5 stars.

Played the Amulet of J'Gara. I liked the story, it pulls it's eventual climax off well, and makes each mission feel unique and yet still part of the same story. The difficulty was appropriate for the level range of the arc. There were a couple textual errors I found and notified the author of. All in all, I rated it 5 stars. It's definitely worth a play.

I'm really interested in the Arc of the Year nominees and winner, since the initial announcement said that Arc of the Year would be chosen from all of the submissions, meaning that it may or may not be one of the arcs nominated for other categories.

I guess since we're on the topic of reviewing and how blunt/harsh/mean/whatever one should be, I'll throw my two cents in.

Honestly? A critic, when criticizing a piece of work, can be as harsh as he or she wants to be. They can tear that thing to shreds. They can say things about the work that seem just downright mean. They can even go as far to say as "This is a heaping pile of ****." These are all well within their rights. If they say these things about the work that is being criticized, then they're not being mean to anyone. The creative work doesn't have feelings. The author is the one who has the feelings, and how affected they are by the critics words is entirely on them. If the critic says things like "Whoever made this should be shot." Then, they are taking it too far. Then they are attacking a person and not a creative work.

It's also well within the rights of a critic to say these things and offer absolutely no suggestions to make it better. Criticizing and critiquing are two different things. I personally take the critique approach, since MA arcs can be continually updated unless they become Dev's Choice, and thus always have a chance of becoming better. Some people might not take that approach, and are doing more straightforward reviews to try and help people know what and what not to play.

Long story short: everything's fine unless you call each other names. Then you're just being silly.

See you all with a reworded version of this post again in a month or two when this conversation restarts.

Played the Love Talker. I enjoyed the story, it had a nice fairie tale aesthetic, and was in general pretty well written. Some of the bosses are a tad too powerful, with the final AV especially dealing tons of damage with aim and fiery embrace. I rated it a 4, however, as the difficulty wasn't too out of hand to make me especially angry. The allies on the outdoor map were a bit annoying due to aggroing everything in sight, so I dropped those.

I also just published a new arc, 340316: Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers From Hell. It has a clue at the beginning to recap the events of the previous arcs, if you haven't played them. It's more parody of vampires with insane characters. It's designed to be played with a team, as the enemies can be pretty challenging. I'd love to hear feedback on it.

I'll post more feedback in this thread as I play more of these arcs.

New arc: #340316 - Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers From Hell

Realizing that I went three whole arcs without poking fun at the whole Vampires versus Werewolves thing, I decided to rectify that situation. Teaming is strongly recommended for this arc. Some of the enemies are pretty powerful, there are archvillains, and the mechanics for the first mission work better with a team. I just published it, so any feedback would be great, even if the arc has very little room for edits.