Lazarus

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've gotten caught up in leveling a new character and frankly, most of the arcs submitted here are not lowbie friendly. That and I wanted to get in my favorite arcs before outleveling them, plus I needed the merits.

Since I've hit a point where I have run out of contacts just shy of level 25, I might as well run The Bravuran Jobs.

Arc: The Bravuran Jobs
Arc ID: 5073
Author: @GlaziusF
Morality: Villainous
Number of Missions: 5
Description: The tiny nation of Bravura rose after the Rikti War. It claims an ancient ruling dynasty, but is famous more for its military prowest. Sounds like your kind of place, and they're looking for freelancers.
Rating: ****

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Character used: Raikou Shingai, Level 24 Electric Melee/Dark Armor Stalker
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 24

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Mission 1:
I meet up with the contact, Lloyd Frederickson, who is recruiting superpowered help for his country. He tells me that the Contessa has taken an interest in me and wishes to see my skills in action. As long as the money's good, I'm in.

I was sent to follow the Contessa's motorcade, which was ambushed by Wyvernn agents for reasons unknown. According to the intro pop-up, I followed them to this industrial park, which I recognize to be in Mercy Island. I dispatched the guards outside and snuck into a warehouse to extract the Contessa.

Contessa Bravura certainly dressed well for travel in the Rogue Isles. Turns out that the armor suit was not just for show as she followed me despite my hidden status and fought back when we were ambushed on the way to the getaway vehicle.

After the mission was over I figured out that this was all a setup, that Wyvernn had been paid to detain her so that I could beat them up.

Mission 2:
The next mission confuses me a bit as I don't know if it is set in Bravura or not. Regardless, for some reason the Legacy Chain have abducted some Bravuran farmers who were conducting harvest rituals. They also somehow took the Harvest Spirit, Mazapegul, who often demonstrates his powers by making gems from raw earth. Hmmm.

Ok, I get it know from the previous mission debriefing. Lloyd mentioned the embassy helicopter and reading from the paper out loud often. He's reading while I'm within earshot during my visits to the embassy. So that's how he's handling plausible deniability.

The fields of Croatoa stand in for the fields of Bravura in this mission. Legacy Chain are everywhere and somewhere there are 4 farmers to rescue, if I should wish. Also there is a Legacy Chain boss to confront, if I should wish. What I definitely wish to do is meet the Harvest Spirit.

I freed the farmers and beat up Archivist Parker. According to his notes, something is concentrating the Earth's vital energies beneath the crop fields. I then found Mazapegul, who appears to be a Red Cap.

Upon freeing him, the spirit clears up a spell that the Legacy Chain were casting, revealing three warding spires that I need to smash. Even the description on the spires lampshades it with a "how did you miss this?" comment.

As useful as Mazapegul was, I had to ditch him in order to find the spires in a decent amount of time on this large map. At least he didn't complain about me leaving him. Upon smashing the last spire the mission ended and according to the clue, Mazapegul changed into his true form and then used the fragments of the spires to make some rough gems as my reward.

Mission 3:
A new day and a new newspaper. Today a Sergeant in the Bravuran Military has staged a coup and is raiding one of the Contessa's laboratories. Thinking that if I go in and save the lab, no one will notice if a few things go missing at the same time...

The Bravuran Military look pretty good, but I was surprised to see the Contessa here until I realized that it was a LT unit in the military. Apparently the Contessa doesn't have a unique model!

Of the required objectives there are three test subjects to rescue, and the first one that I came across was a Rikti. A short time after freeing him I got a surprise ambush. No speech at all, they just arrived out of nowhere. Very annoying for a Stalker when you're already in the middle of a battle.

However, upon freeing the 2nd Test Subject I realized what had happened. When this one ran off, he went past a group and got attacked despite fleeing and not fighting back. Somehow this sent aggro back in my direction. Apparently these are not Captive Details but Allies set to run.

However, apparently the Defendables that I saved to have silent ambushes. I ran into such a team on my way back out of one room. After that I left the rest of the optional defendables alone.

What annoyed me most was the Bravuran Military itself. Here we had Minions with Thermal and Kinetics, LTs with Sonics and Shields, and a Mastermind Boss. Not only was it annoying for my archetype, but it seems excessive for a level 20-30 group. I could see this being very annoying for a team, especially when the Mastermind Boss and all his henchmen ends up being hit with Siphon Power from a nearby minion that I had to ignore because the Shield LT was a more important target for assassination.

Mission 4:
A group of Italian dignitaries are visiting Bravura but have decided to bring their own bodyguards instead of making use of the local military police. This mission also bumps me up to level 30, somewhat annoyingly as I dislike uneven level ranges.

Arriving to steal from the hotel safes, I find out that the reason for that is that the visiting guests are...Carnies. They also seem to be harassing the hotel guards.

The glowies in this mission are a bit odd. Treasure chests instead of safes, and the one that triggered the arrival of the Ring Mistress (Duchess Benezzia) at the front door was a mystic portal for reasons that I don't understand.

Apparently the Duchess was trying to raid the hotel and embarass the Comte Bravura somehow. I still don't get why this was going on and didn't find out any of this until after defeating the Duchess.

Mission 5:
The opening for mission 5 is a bit wierd and even your character acknowledges it in their thoughts. Lloyd is flat out letting you know that security will be gone for fifteen minutes today during a temporary bank closure. Does he really want you to raid the vaults or is it an obvious trap?

I decided to go for it even though the Nav Text makes it apparent that this mission is purely optional. However, if this is the minimal security that is in the bank, how big is the normal contigent?

I'm really starting to hate those Vulcan Cadets. Minion healers suck almost as much as minion kineticists.

I get to the vault and find that there really was gold. The objective changes to fight my way out and as I reach the lobby I find the Contessa waiting for me in her brand new suit of power armor, telling me about how I had just collected my hazard pay and that my last job was to help her test out the new suit.

It wasn't that rough of a fight, but was a bit dicey as I had to spend my initial assassin strike on another one of those damn Vulcan Cadets. Those girls are bad enough at dragging out fights with LTs, much less Elite Bosses.

The souvenir was a simple bronze medal from the Contessa and a recap of the entire arc.

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The Verdict:
While it is a good arc for the most part and rather creative I only give it four stars for a few reasons. First there is the level range issue, it may seem spiteful but it really annoys me when level jumps occur for no good story reason. If the arc is designed to be played between the levels of 20-30, make sure that every mission is like that. There is also a lack of a upper cap in some missions, so if I had been playing a 50 I'd be bouncing all over the range.

Mission 4 rather fell flat and added almost nothing to the story in my opinion. I think that one needs to be reworked a bit.

Ambushes need to have dialog to announce that they are coming.

The Bravuran Military is rather overpowered for a 20-30 group. It is especially annoying for a Stalker as rather than one or two annoying foes that are priority targets, it is more of a roulette as every one of them can be a serious threat. While some players will appreciate the challenge, others will be annoyed and frustrated that they need kill all the minions in the spawn while dodging that boss that they could not attack right away as the rest of the mobs will just keep healing and buffing him.

For a villain arc, it is rather unfriendly to the Stalker AT in general. Especially because of the custom enemies.

Regardless I would love to have such information available to myself and have asked the Devs for it before.

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Or it's you from the future leaving notes to yourself...

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That's always been my thought.

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I thought that once since one of my characters is the crazy prepared type, but then realized that she'd sign her name on the letters as well.

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I can go through custom character, but there are certain costume parts signature heroes carry that is not available in costume maker.

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It also eats up a significant amount of filespace that you otherwise could have used for many other things.

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What we're badges originally intended for?


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Personally, I see Badges as a record of what each character has done. Kind of giving a snapshot of their personality and past experiences. I have hopes that eventually, the context sensitive dialogue system will evolve into a system so that characters and storys can behave differently to characters depending on which badges the character has.

I do realise that is not the view of everyone, of course, just my perspective.

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That's how I see them and it's why I like to check the badges that players possess when looking at their info.

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So defeat badges are grinding? Then all of the defeat badges should be removed? I dont think there was anything wrong with most AE badges but some needed to be changed or removed but not as many as they are doing. Does everyone not want to work for anything anymore want everything handed to them?

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Yes they are lowering the bar so that everyone can wear a badge. Making the meaning behind the badge valueless.

Why remove the badge to rescue 50 hostages? That takes some time but certainly a lot less time and energy than killing 200 toxic tarantulas. They are making MA badges meaningless because everyone will have all of them. Most players dont badge so trying to find and kill 200 toxic tarantulas isn't important, but MA is super popular so all of a sudden those badges must be very very easy to get so everyone playing MA will have them.

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Because unlike those 200 Toxic Tarantulas (which is an absurd number anyway), you could just make an MA arc with dozens of hostages in each mission and have the badge by the end. It's not like it was worth anything to begin with and just encouraged farming.

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If it IS an emergency shutdown, don't you think their time would be better spent fixing the issue, instead of writing about it here?

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How much time really do you think it would take to post such information?

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I also did an article on this for the Scoop ages ago. That might help, here you go.

Part 1

Part 2

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I tried to read the article but was distracted by the picture there next to it.

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Another question: Who gives the high-level villain arc where you have to kidnap the rogue Fortunata who then "volunteers" to be turned into a Tarantula Mistress?

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Who else, but Westin Phipps.

[/ QUOTE ]Its sad when he is the only contact that actually gives "Evil" missions. My hope is that going forward the devs have a more darkerside for villain content.

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Must...resist...urge...to argue...

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I just hate how he is such cliche evil most of the time, especially his abuse of "you have outlived your purpose". Someone should write an arc where he tries to pull that stunt on you and have it backfire on him horrifically.

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<.< I'm doing fine as dark/regen without stamina.

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Oh wow, a Secondary that has a Stamina duplicate (Quick Recovery) within it doesn't Stamina. Who would have thought?

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I've "been here" for 60 months, but I lapsed my account for a month or three over that time period. So I don't get my City Traveler badge for another three months... ARGH! August can't come soon enough, I tell ya!

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Same here. I'll stand by my Reg Date instead.

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I don't know if the AE farms are to blame for this, but I have recently started a few alts and while I am doing the tutorial mission, people ask me VERY newbish questions about the game. (like how to use powers, etc.) It's almost like they don't READ the instructions provided! I did answer the questions, but it's still kinda irritating!

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Like the Winter Lord Babies, eventually the AE PL Babies will die out as well. Unfortunately we have to put up with them in the meantime.

If the writer really could force it so that I cannot use a villain to play a hero arc and vice versa then I would just skip their missions. I'll play whatever character I want to use, thank you very much.

Don't mention more than what the first mission is about in the promo, maybe some mention of it not being what it seems, etc...

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Why did they let Villains play Heroic arcs, and vice vesra?

It would surely be more appropriate, and be better for immersion, storyline, ratings even ("Why'd you make my Brute save all those grannies? Fail! 1 star, dude!') to make Heroic-named arcs only playable by heroes, Villainous only playable by Villains, and Neutral cross-faction.



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Because we can and most people like to have fun without silly restrictions. Besides, this is all supposed to be VIRTUAL after all.

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1) Don't micromanage. Just because a player isn't playing their AT to *your* expectations, doesn't mean you can kick 'em as a result.

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There is a difference between not playing the AT as per someone else's expectations and not playing the AT properly at all. Rocking the aura on follow is never an acceptable practice.

I see this problem mostly when the MM has a buffing secondary or something with a lot of ranged clicks like Trick Arrow. When the MM is set to Ranged and has a secondary that is all toggles and passives they tend to summon right away upon seeing you. Mine use Regen on Standard, giving them no choice but to summon really.

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Also make sure you have him set to at least hard to make sure he can summon pets.

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All MM sets have at least the tier-1 Henchmen at Standard. There is no pet-less MM option in AE.

Well when we only get three slots each, many authors want to make each one count. Personally a single-mission arc feels like a waste of a slot to me. If we didn't have that limitation then I would make some short ones as well.

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Wait a sec, I was playing someone's arc and the bank vault didn't have a door. Are all of them like that?

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Yep, the door is an entity that we don't have a way of spawning yet. Same thing with the Reinforced Door that is supposed to be in the back of the Pawn Shop maps.

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It's also not available until you enter the mission. So you have to wait for the leader to read, and then they have to wait for everybody else to read.

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If you open your mission window before entering the mission, you can select it (I don't know why it isn't set as active already) and read the dialog.

Problem is that you still can't read the Mission Debriefings, which often have a lot of information as well.

The AE in Cap au Diable on Virtue looks as full as ever.

Thanks for the review, PoliceWoman. I've corrected the grammar errors that you pointed out as well as a few others things that I noticed when I was poking around in there. I also made some changes to make mission 3 more fun and less tedious as some people were not enjoying the glowy hunt no matter what and it made little sense to force them to run around really as the book you need was always in the last room anyways.

I don't play Dev Choice missions much at all anymore. I played some of them during beta and had no desire to play them again on live. Also many of my favorite DCs from beta didn't get to keep their status on live anyways.

The lack of tickets is part of the reason that I don't play them, but the other is that many of them are rather poor in my opinion. These are far from the "best of the best", many of them just got lucky in early beta and have been long surpassed by many non-DC arcs. Especially those on the SFMA list.

Many of the DCs would get no more than 3 stars from me and many of the other reviewers if you look at the sort of criteria that we tend to judge upon. They make all sorts of mistakes (lack of level ranges, lots of defeat alls, etc..) and it's even worse that they are frozen and cannot be fixed. Or at least if they can, the authors haven't bothered to do so. Some were broken in open beta and were never fixed before being brought live even!

It's also because of this frozen nature that I don't review or rate DC arcs. What really is the feedback going to accomplish for an arc that cannot be edited? What good is rating an arc that is set to be 5-star anyway no matter what? If the ratings griefers didn't exist (and I bet they target DC arcs anyway the same that they do with HoF arcs), I think it'd be very interesting to see what the public really thinks about the current DC choices.

Thanks for the review, PoliceWoman.

Changes made to "MacGuffin Delivery Service":
* Various spelling and grammar fixes.
* Moved all of the book items in mission 3 to the last room in the back of the map. This is now the Library that the new mission intro pop-up mentions.
* Added some more non-required collectables, a destructible, and a bonus boss fight to mission 3. All non-required, just there to add extra flavour.

I can't think of an appropriate symbol so I'll just use my own.

Capricorn: The economy has been hard on villains everywhere, but you might score big in "MacGuffin Delivery Service" (Arc #3326). Look out for mysterious green birds.

Check my personal feedback thread (not my reviews thread) for reviews on it. PoliceWoman just did one today.

Interface reviewed it in his own thread as well.