Lazarus

Arc ID: 47143
Arc Name: The Galactic Protectorate
Author: Unknown Hero
Description: An alternate-reality Synapse contacts you to help him fight a new enemy who threatens his world and may one day threaten yours.
(Oddly, the description given in MA doesn't mention any of that. Better fix that as right now it's not anything that would grab someone's interest.)
Rating: ***

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Character used: Zetsumei Mitsukai, Level 50 Dual Blades/Dark Armor Scrapper
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

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Mission 1:
Synapse appears as the contact and seems to be confused. Apparently he is from an alternate universe and is not happy that he connected to an arcade system. Anyhow, he has reprogrammed the AE system to somehow teleport me into his universe so that I can help him fight some unknown threat to it. Sure, why not?

I arrive in a demolish, burning Atlas Park and am tasked with rescuing 4 people of whom I've never heard of before. I also see some enemies from a group called "GP - Division 0" of which I assume is this Galactic Protectorate mentioned in the title.

Already I am going to tell the author something: don't give Energy Drain Energy Aura LTs! Made that mistake myself once and it is not a power that should be used on common enemies. It drains a lot of endurance, is auto-hit, and teams will lynch you when a couple LTs can sap the entire team dry in seconds. Even solo I am running into pairs of them and if I didn't have some resistance to end drain I'd already be quitting this arc.

Fortunately the author was nice enough to trap the hostages inside energy fields so that they could be spotted from a distance. After freeing all 4 I find a clue, a newspaper dated from the future showing the signature heroes in from of a demolished Grandville, yet they don't look happy.

There is a lot of dialog in this mission and descriptions on all the enemies and hostages, I can't really summarize it all but apparently this Protectorate is not here to protect us as far as I can tell.

Anyhow, from the debriefing I get the impression that the heroes are really the bad guys in this reality. (Subtle as a truck, that Synapse, accidentally referring to the people I rescued as prisoners before stopping himself mid-word.)

Mission 2:
Now Synapse is asking me to infiltrate one of the GP's bases. It's a communications hub and he wants me to copy whatever information I can and destroy anything that I cannot. Simple enough.

I decide to stealth this mission, mostly because of how annoying some of the enemies can be. Especially those Energy Dancers, Gravity users, and Stormies. Another thing, giving enemies Energy Melee and then giving them Build Up is not that good of an idea either. I'm not sure if you're going for a challenge arc here or not.

Then there is the objective-fest in the nav bar. This is where the plural nav text is nice to have. It should be "3 Computers to find, 3 Mainframes to destroy" not "Find Computer, Find Computer, Find..." Also, don't turn up the interact time on a glowy unless you have some good reason to do so. I just makes things take longer.

So after running through that base I found four clues: the location of a GP base, access codes for that base, some classified orders that for some reason I cannot read, and a log entry mentioning that Earth is a Level 5 Occupation and that resistance is expected.

Mission 3:
Turns out this other base is right in the center of the former "Arachnos Empire" and that the GP is about to execute Manticore in the next 30 minutes. Off to the rescue I go.

Synapse is in debt to Manticore for his life? I wonder what happened in that Universe as I don't remember these two ever getting along in ours.

Stealthing through, first thing I do is find the computer that I can use to falsify the report of Manticore's execution. (Why is this computer so slow?) I got a good feeling that without Stealth I would not finish this mission in time.

I get up to the top floor and find Manticore in a very crowded room. After using Blackwand to pull out a couple groups I'm able to go in and free him. Fortunately he is not an escort, and oddly says that he owes me one...again.

The clue Manticore gives says that he knows where the GP general is hiding (I was looking for one?) but the mission is over. There is also a non-required and thankfully not-so-slow computer that gives a partial recording of the Last Battle of Arachnos. I get the impression from it that Positron may have exploded, given that he doesn't appear in that newspaper picture.

With that the arc ends and Synapse tells me that they might have more need of me in the future.

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The Verdict:
I have a few issues with this arc as it stands right now. There is definitely a story, but not really enough to get me hooked and if this is meant to be part 1 in a multi-arc story then it really needs more work to get you interested in seeing the rest. Right now I wonder if there really is enough story to make more than one arc when there was barely enough to last three missions here. It would help if we were at least given some background on the Galactic Protectorate and the circumstances of how they arrived. It seems odd that the arc is named after them yet we find out nothing about them.

Then there is the Galactic Protectorate itself. Nice visual designs, though I wonder why they're all female. Problem is the selection of powers and their settings. Two Energy Melee LTs set to Extreme? Dark Miasma minions? Storm LTs? Three different types of healers? Extreme Energy Aura LTs? They definitely can use quite a bit of rebalancing otherwise they will prove to be very annoying enemies to fight, especially for a squishy player.

For now I can only give it 3-stars. It's just not finished enough in its current state.

Arc ID: 28450
Arc Name: The Doom That Came to Paragon City
Author: @Tokamak
Description: Azuria sends you to investigae a magic related accident at a warehouse, but what you uncover is far more sinister than a stray spell or two...
Rating: ****

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Character used: Zetsumei Mitsukai, Level 50 Dual Blades/Dark Armor Scrapper
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

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Mission 1:
I've always been a bit of a sucker for H.P. Lovecraft, so this arc title caught my eye right away. Azuria tells me that someone reported hearing sounds of screaming and breaking glass coming from a nearby warehouse, as well as the stench of "an open grave in summer." The Hazmat teams cannot enter for some reason, so they ask me to check it out.

When Azuria tell you that she has a bad feeling about something, it's not a good sign.

This warehouse is filthy and smells of decay. It is also inhabited by a lot of identical zombified people called "Defiled Slaves" who like to talk about rot and decay and also happen to all be Dark Melee/Dark Armor Scrappers. There is also a LT (Corrupted Shell) that appears to be Dark Blast/Dark Misama.

Already I can see some annoyance potential from this. That's a lot of to-hit debuffing to throw around and there seems to be only 1 type of minion in this "Defiled" group. At least they do have a description. Regardless, I rather like the concept and think that they simply need more variety in their ranks, preferably some that are not Dark-something as it gets old fast seeing your To-hit dropping to 30% and your damage at -30%.

I quickly find an inscribed tablet, one of those kind where the runes are so terrible that they hurt your eyes. I manage to make a copy of them for Azuria to look at later as I cannot read them myself (nice touch).

In the back of the warehouse I find a survivor, Howard Phillips. He tells me that he was moving a crate when it fell over and broke open. Another worker read the tablet that they found inside, aloud apparently, and then all hell broke lose. The crate was addressed to Crawford Industries.

The Hazmat team is able to get in now and clean up. Azuria tells little of the tablet other than how unholy the description was and that it was missing a piece, the piece that tells you just what it was meant to summon.

Mission 2:
As expected, I'm off to Crawford Industries to find out just what they were having that tablet shipped to them for. As soon as I arrive that their offices I am detected by some odd cultists who have no intention of letting me leave alive. First time I've been attacked by office workers with Dual Blades and Willpower.

A note on using Willpower for custom critters, be careful. I see that the minions are onyl on Standard and lack status resist and Rise to the Challenge, but the LTs do appear to have those powers. Rise to the Challenge being a to-hit debuff, and one of the LTs being Dark Blast/Willpower, might be a bit to much for many players.

During my search of the offices I found a shipping manifest and learned that there are more of those tablets (obelisks?) being stored at another warehouse. Then I found the man in charge, Arthur Jermyn.

Arthur is a Dark Melee/Invuln Boss, and apparently an extreme one at that as he threw every power in the book at me. It was a bit annoying that he could use Unstoppable, but at the same time it was fitting as he did it at 25% HP and also did a "I call on the power of..." speech when he did it.

After his defeat, he told me that Paragon was already doomed and then...dissolved. So much for evidence.

The Cult in the office was that of Uzurthelex, of whom Azuria informs me is an ancient deity of pain, suffering, and disease. Sounds like a fun guy, and totally lovecraftian.

Mission 3:
I set off to secure the other obelisks. Azuria gives me some tags that I can put on them so that she can teleport them away (another nice touch) so that I don't have to try to carry them all out myself.


I arrive at the warehouse and find a bunch of members of the Family guarding the crates, clueless as to what horrors they contain. I throw on some stealth and quickly grab all 6 crates. (Slight nitpick, these are high-tech crates, which look a bit out of place in this warehouse.)

So I've captured the obelisks and we're all safe now and...what is it Azuria? Don't tell me it's the MAGI vault.

Mission 4:
Five of the obelisks arrived safely, but somehow the 6th got teleported to the Atlas Park hospital and "went off". This is not going to pretty.

I enter the Charles Dexter Ward (/rimshot) of the hospital, which has been turned into a pretty ugly and scary place. It's filled with Defiled, so we're back to debuff city. I have orders to defeat the manifestation of Uzurthelex and clear the infestation, I hope the second part doesn't mean "Defeat All". To test that theory, I stealth to the end of the map and face Uzurthelex. I find him and he is not happy that only one obelisk was used, but it does mean that he is weakened and only an elite boss.

At least on solo, I then saw some purple triangles. You really need to put a warning in the description then.

So Uzurthelex is a Necro/Dark Miasma AV and puts up a decent fight. I thankfully brought a lot of Insights and Enrages along to counter-attack some of his debuffing and took him down. The somewhat odd thing was that he knew me by name, I don't know if it's a deity power or what.

The mission didn't end with him and his spawn down, so I cleaned out the rest of the room that I had found him in. That didn't end the mission so I went backwards and cleared the entire map of Defiled. That ended the mission.

In a way a clear all for this sort of even is justified, it's just that it does get a bit tough finding them all in this map as there are so many bits of scenery to hide behind. Maybe change it so it's only clear the last room instead.

Unfortunately while I am told that I saved the city, I am not told just how that obelisk got teleported there by mistake. (Plot Hole)

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The Verdict:
I do like this arc, it has a nice story and good enemy designs for the most part but those Defiled do drag the rating down a bit. The author went a bit overboard with the Dark powers, as well as setting them a bit too high (those Corrupted Shells were obviously using Dark Miasma on the Hard setting). I think tweaking those Defiled to be a bit less debuff heavy would be a welcome change, especially for characters who are not IO'ed for extra accuracy and to-hit like Zetsu is. Overall rating is 4-stars.

Arc: Death to Disco!
Arc ID: 84420
Author: @Wrong Number
Number of Missions: 2
Description: It's 2009; Dr. Disco Fever has somehow altered the timeline so that Disco never died. The Star Spangled Banner is played to a Disco beat! Sporting events start with people standing up and "getting down" for our national anthem. Restore the timeline or be stuck Boogie Oggie-ing forever!
Rating: ****

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Character used: Zetsumei Mitsukai, Level 50 Dual Blades/Dark Armor Scrapper
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

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Mission 1:
This began rather amusingly when I got summoned by the Deity of Rock to the Hall of Rock in order to save Rock and Roll! That's a lot of Rock and I like it!

Anyhow, Dr. Disco Fever has somehow altered the timeline and is attempting to erase Rock and Roll, the Deity (I'm just gonna call him Rock) has pinpointed the beginning of this change to 1977. On a day in that year President Carter mysteriously introduced a bill to re-theme the nation anthem (should be "national") to a disco beat.

Examing the President's schedule, Rock found that Carter made an unexpected stop that day on the way to give a speech. I'm teleporting to that location to check out what happened at that stop.

(Debriefing typo: should be "For the love of Rock...")

I arrive at a dingy abandoned lab and have to find President Carter and defeat a man named Sauer. To my surprise when I opened the front door, I came face to face with a squad of Crey tanks. I wonder what they have to profit from this change to the timeline.

I clear my way through a couple floors of Crey with the assumption that I may have to escort the President out, but fortunately I don't have to one I free him from the energy field he is contained in. Nearby I find Crey Mad-Scientist-for-Hire Sauer, who is surprised by his instructions to reprogram President Carter to love Disco.

Unfortunately, Sauer nor President Carter gave me any clues as to what was going on. I had hoped for some monologuing from Sauer at least. At least Rock knows that Dr. Disco paid Crey to somehow go back in time and brainwash President Carter.

Mission 2:
The timeline is restored, but Dr. Disco Fever is making another attempt by going back with some henchmen to prevent the Disco Demolition event and the beginning of the "Disco Sucks!" movement. I have to follow him back through time and defeat him, as well as destroying every Disco record, cassette, and 8-track tape. That last part sounds a bit extreme if you ask me.

Whatever, DEATH TO DISCO!

I arrive in an outdoor area and see some crates surrounded by the foes with the names: Diva, Disco Prince, Disco Queen, Disco DJ, Kung Fu Fightin, and...Disco Granny? Diva and Kung Fu Fightin are self-explanatory and nicely designed, however I wonder why Granny has a bow, DJ has a frankengun, and Prince carries a katana.

I saw a few fighting with Hard Rockers, who carried Axes. /rimshot

After smashing several crates of Disco music, Dr. Disco Fever himself arrived to try and stop me. After a quick search I found him. According to his backstory, he was a big name back in the days of disco until it ended and fell on hard times. Working as a janitor at Crey, he got his hands on some super serum and hopped into an Ouroboros portal that some hero carelessly left open. Still doesn't explain the Crey troops in mission 1 really.

The battle with the Doc was pretty easy for a Scrapper despite him being Gravity Control/Electric Armor. (Maybe crank up his secondary, he could use some Knockback protection but then he might be too annoying with the end drain aura.) He does have some fun battle dialog though.

Anyhow, the history of Rock and Roll was safe again!

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The Verdict:
This arc was obviously designed to be a short, comedic romp and it mostly delivers on that. I still have a few nitpicks, like how did all those Crey get back to 1977 and how did Dr. Disco Fever hire them? Why didn't any of those followers of his appear in mission 1 at all? Some of the powers of the Disco followers were a bit random and didn't seem justified at all.

I'll still give it a 4 for fun but not something I'd run again or share with friends often. With some more polish it might bump up to a 5.

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The final mission felt like a little bit of a letdown. It was just a find the glowy mish, and it kind of paled after the creativity of the first two missions. Maybe it might have been more of a challenge if I hadn't ghosted most of it with my Stalker, but it still felt like it was lacking something.

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That is rather the point really. Everyone is so busy fighting that you have the option to avoid them all and ditch the artifact. The real twist is in the debriefing and souvenir.

Just a reminder, feedback on my arcs goes here so as to keep this thread organized.

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Sorry - please take me off the list Lazarus; I'm probably going to be quitting CoH again in the near future and am not in a good state of mind to be doing critiquing.

I'd planned to do it; but other things have interfered.

Sorry.

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Sorry to hear that, your arc looked interesting.

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My guess for the unfinished, yet published, arcs is that they want to earn tickets while testing -- perhaps to unlock more content for other arcs.

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Exactly. Why test in test mode after you have all the badges? You can test a published arc AND get rewards at the same time. At least the authors are polite enough to let you know up front what they are doing.

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That's assuming people do all their arc building and testing with just a single character, which is not very good as it reduces the chances of finding balance issues.

I decided in one arc to have the AV appear in the first mission and the last mission. That way the 2nd time feels like a rematch and you also find out what you're up against very early on.

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The tags aren't a bad idea, but how do you define your missions? I have an arc with an EB/AV in 4 of the 5 missions, but it's very story-based and not meant as a pro challenge (you always have an ally along to help). Is it tough if you go after that optional AV at the end? Absolutely, but that's for story-based reasons and you can skip him anyway.

That's why I'd like to see a dev system, too. Otherwise it's going to be like "[blah][blah][blah]oh crap i'm out of room for my arc's actual name"

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You have an EB/AV in four out of the five missions and you don't consider it a pro challenge?

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All but one are really easy to beat and you have an ally for every one of them.

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Yeah, I wouldn't consider that a Pro Challenge either. Two of my Arcs have AVs and every time there are optional Allies designed to help you fight them.

If there were no Allies then it'd be considered a Pro Challenge.

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[VFHA] Villain-for-Hire Arc. Your character is brought in to work for the contact as hired help.

[VMMA] Villainous Mastermind Arc. (this needs a better name.) Your character is self-directed with their own goals, contact helps you instead.

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How about [VSMA] for Villainous Self-Motivated Arc. Your character is their own contact!
It also doesn't return any results right now.

Edit: Missed that post on [SMVA].

Also, the following submitters still owe me feedback on any one of my arcs:
@Rampager
@Yumii
@Inazuma

Arc ID: 2922
Arc Title: Hunting the Dark Dragon
Author: @Acid Zero
Description: The Circle of Thorns attempt to bring powerful dragons into this world to aid them against the heroes of Paragon. However, they might get more than they bargained for. In the end, the decision will be yours to make.
Rating: **

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Character used: Kathode, Level 50 Electric Melee/Electric Armor Brute
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

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Mission 1:
Ah, Peter Stemitz. I haven't seen him for a long time and the author did do their homework a bit in getting his dialog pretty right. However I never liked this guy, mainly because he hung out in a spot where Nemesis snipers often spawned on the rooftops right above him.

So anyway, Pete tells me that the CoT are summoning dragons. I tell him I'll check it out.

I immediately recognize this map as the Vaults of Mu, after all Kathode is the second villain I have to choose Scirocco as their patron. I also know right away that this mission is going to take a little while. Better get the Fury rolling right away.

I also run into the first dragon right away, who looks rather small and humanoid. Also wears a red shirt and jeans, is named Rynn, and has a biography full of info that somehow I know. I wonder how she gets that shirt on and off with those big wings.

Regardless, the Thorns seem to be just as puzzled as I am. At least Rynn is friendly.

She's also an Elec/Elec Brute and a bit of a leeroy, at least the author had the sense to make her boss-rank.

Next I find another dragon, Office Blake, who is apparently a cop and both Fire Melee and Mind Control. Then I ran into Player, who has Super Strength. What makes him annoying is his use of Handclap.

I also really start wishing a small map had been used. I had already found 3 of the 4 dragons listed and was nowhere near the end yet.

I reached the end and fought Hollister, who was an Archmage of Madness. Even with the three allies he took a while to kill, mostly because of the buggy melee ally AI which made them often stand there and do nothing or take turns fighting. He ranted on about needing dragons to fight "The Dark Dragon" for him.

I also was at the end and missing a dragon, so I had to backtrack. Don't know how I missed him on a map this linear, but back near the beginning I found Pik in a pool of water. He ran off to try and get a cellphone signal, good luck with that buddy.

Turns out that all 4 of the dragons were accidentally summoned from a rock concert, 2 of which were in the band, 1 was a guard, and the last was in the audience. No wonder Archmage Rollister was pissed.

Apparently one of them gave me his guitar, I must have missed that because Pete didn't.

Mission 2:
Now oddly Pete doesn't tell me anything about the 4 dragons after the end of mission 1. Did they get sent home or what? Are they still hanging around? Inquiring minds want to know.

So Pete wants me to get out to Thorn Island in Nerva and check out the Thorn Tree as apparently the Circle like to summon things there as its magic field covers things up, or something. Then suddenly Pete can no longer sense the Thorn Tree (wait, since when could he do that?) and I have to run out and check on it.

Of course if you're a villain, the mission subtitle "Operation Weedkiller" should be a huge giveaway as to what you're going to run into.

Of course it's Malta, and the main reason I brought Kathode. I was in the mood to laugh as Sappers poked their sap-stick at me impotently. The Assault Bots hanging out without a Mastermind nearby was a bit of a novelty though.

So I have a survivor to find and soon enough I find a CoT Guide being held hostage. I free him and he tells me about how they summoned the Dark Dragon here, and the Dark Dragon decided to somehow call Malta down on them and then left. Anyway, I got some Malta to wipe out still.

Along the way I take out a Gunslinger and find a clue telling me what I already know but what heroes probably won't, that Operation Weedkiller was often thwarted in the past by villain groups but somehow succeeded this time. I also found a book on dragons along the way, saying something about how they long ago left out world and went to 'Lanerbalan'. Hmm, that was the name of the place those 4 dragons said that they came from.

Anyway, I now have the annoying task of finding the raid leader inside the thorn tree room. However, I don't find a single boss in there.

If this is really a defeat all, you'll be finding a severed dragon head in your bed in the morning.

After circling the room for the 4th time I finally triggered the boss's unaware text and found him. Problem was I defeated him and the mission did not end. I defeated his guards and ambush, it didn't end. I defeated all other Malta I could find in the room, ANNOYING as they were hard to see in the dark areas of this room. No mission end.

Finally I decided to kill all those Auto Turrets I always ignore, and the mission finally ended.

Do everyone a favour and set that condition to "Kill just the boss".

Anyway, stars are already being deducted. The rest of this arc better be damn good to make up for this aggravating mission.

Oh by the way, the Tac Ops boss said that the Dark Dragon had technology and told them he has spaceships and will hire out some of this mercs to them, or something like that. I kind of forgot that detail with all the frustration I was experiencing in the Thorn Tree room.

Pete Stemitz thinks it all sounds preposterous too, until he remembered the dragon rock band. Once again, what happened to them?

Mission 3:
Pete called up Crimson and Crimson tells me to go to Warburg and check out the Malta base there for info. Sure, ok. I get to ride in a stolen Arachnos Flier as well, they're so neat and shiny!

I arrive to see Malta and Knives of Artemis, nothing special or challenging so far for this Brute. I smash around for a bit outside until I find the door into the warehouse and head on in. I hear a Malta patrol say something about creepy armored guys, they I beat up Sister Hecate and take some security code from her after she tells me that the Dark Dragon is already gone.

Down the hallway I start hearing some foreign language from some guys called Space Pirates. Looks like things finally might get interesting.

I see Ninjistu Stalkers, good thing I have a +perception IO. What will probably be more annoying is those Force Fielders, as there is no defense again Detention Field.

I decided since it is the last room to just pop Hasten and Power Surge and charge them all. Fortunately none of them think to use Detention Field, but if you ever wanted to be reminded how annoying it can be to enter a room and already see triple-stacked Dispersion Bubbles, here's an example for you. Good think I carry the big Insights.

I enter the security code into the safe and find the blueprints of the Arachnos sub base under Faultline. Guess where I'm headed to next.

Mission 4:
The thing I always hated about this map is that while it has a cool final room, the tunnel leading up to is so long, drab, and boring. Along the way I freed an Arachnos Commander who was being cornered by Space Pirates and mention Mako was coming. He took off once freed. At least this mission had a little warning in the briefing about an upcoming AV.

Anyway, the objective still says to find the Dark Dragon. I get to the sub room and see a glowing console, so of course I clear the entire room of Malta first before clicking on it. I get a message from the Dark Dragon saying "go ahead and arrest the Malta, as I don't need them anymore. Oh and take on Mako as well." Then Mako spawned right next to me, oh joy.

Actually, he's rather a wimp in EB form. With Power Surge up he could hardly scratch me. Even funnier was that he thought that this was meant to be a trap for me, until I stomped him into sushi.

Mission 5:
Ok, so the Circle is weakened, Arachnos's plans are foiled (though I have no idea really what the plan was ) and the Dark Dragon is still eluding me. He's used Malta to weaken the Circle and Arachnos and then me to weaken Malta.

Well, apparently he has finally been tracked to an old building in Faultline and a beacon that somehow means that he will be leaving in 30 minutes. Do I go get him or not.

Of course I go and get him, [censored] played me after all.

And walk into the most utterly aggravating boss battle of all time.

First a question, if he has no use for Malta anymore, what the heck are they doing here defending him on the first two floors of the building?

Then there is the boss room itself. I lost count but I think it was 7 or 8 of those Bots/FF LTs. There was also some LT guard I killed so fast I didn't notice him. Then there was Commander Arek, a Ice Melee/Willpower boss who has INFINITE REZZES! Then the Dark Dragon himself, a Bots/Ninjistu boss.

This entire battle was a parade of WTF.

So after popping Power Surge and Hasten, then eating all my Insights, Lucks and Enrages, and popping Force of Nature I find that I still need Build Up to even TOUCH the bosses with all the stacking Dispersion Bubbles around the room. I give up on them directly and go taking out all the Force Fielders and then turn my attention on Commander Arek. I killed him, Power Surge crashes, and he rezzes and kills me.

Ok, at least the mission is not failed yet. I hit the ticket vendor and stock up on inspirations, hit Hasten again to get Power Surge back up and re-enter the mission. I get back to the boss room, get Arek alone, and kill him again. He rezzes AGAIN. I kill him for the third time and finally he stays down.

Most annoying was that even with +Perception I have to get at least halfway into the room to even see the Dark Dragon. I use some Mu Lightning to pull him to the far side of the room, away from the elevators in case he runs. I then Lightning Rod around him, pop all my inspirations and do my best to keep him cornered. At 1/4 HP he hits smoke flash and starts running, but I already had Thunderstike queued and smashed his scaly face into the floor.

Pete had nothing to say about me beating the Dark Dragon really. No resolution whatsoever. It's like he didn't even care. To hell with you Pete.

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The Verdict:
Let's see. We got plot holes: Where did the dragons from mission 1 go? Why are Malta still helping the Dark Dragon in mission 5 if he left them for me to defeat in mission 4? What was the Arachnos plot?
We have annoying critters: Claws/Ninjistu, Bots/FF, and Extreme Willpower boss, and a Bots/Ninjitsu boss.
We have some maps that are much larger than they need to be: Was there really any reason to use the Vaults of Mu over any other Oranbega map?
We have an annoying boss hunt in an annoying room: Malta just blend into the dark areas of the Thorn Tree room so well.
Malta may not have been an annoyance to me (more like pushovers) but you know squishies will hate them as they always do. Not much that can be done about that.
Including note-taking time, it took me nearly 2 hours to finish this arc and I have no intention of spending any time on it again.

Final score: 2 Stars

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Despite the 'tude, your read of the MA database is accurate. I'll edit my post to reflect it.

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Or you could have checked your facts ahead of time and saved yourself any embarrassment.

Changes made to "The Amulet of J'gara":
* Rewrote some of the briefings, debriefings, clues, and objectives for missions 1 and 2. Story should flow better and have less plot holes.
* Journal clue in mission 2 is now optional. Apparently it wasn't always spawning with the boss and people were having to go look for it to end the mission. The information in it wasn't very important, just a little foreshadowing.

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If I'm seeing 3s the arc gets pulled.

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So you don't want to know why it's only getting 3's and what might get it 4's and 5's? How curious.

I suggest that we rebury it, in a concrete-filled coffin, dropped into Mariana's Trench.

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Only a Hard Regen LT can revive. The minions don't get that power no matter what.

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It might have been another powerset (Willpower?) - I had lots of fireworks going off, and at the time, I assumed it was Regen. The last time I ran into the multiple revives, I'm certain it was a group of minions. Very, very annoying.

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Only a Hard Willpower LT can revive. The Rezz powers are tier-8s and tier-9s, Minions don't get those.

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They were minions. I remember checking their difficulty level, and being very frustrated. The powerset I was unsure about, but not the rank.

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You want to know how I'm so sure they were not? A way that is simple for you to check for yourself?

Go to MA.
Create New Character.
Select Minion.
Select whatever primary.
Select Willpower or Regen for secondary, set it to Extreme.

Oh look at that, neither one will give a Minion a self-resurrect power.

Try for a LT.
Regen on Extreme gives Revive.
Willpower on Extreme does not give Resurgence.

Therefore, your self-rezzing foes could not have been minions, they had to be at least LT-rank with Regen.

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Only a Hard Regen LT can revive. The minions don't get that power no matter what.

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It might have been another powerset (Willpower?) - I had lots of fireworks going off, and at the time, I assumed it was Regen. The last time I ran into the multiple revives, I'm certain it was a group of minions. Very, very annoying.

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Only a Hard Willpower LT can revive. The Rezz powers are tier-8s and tier-9s, Minions don't get those.

The problem with that is that the more full-word descriptions you have to use, the less and less room you have left for an actual description.

Well for those who have trouble seeing all the details, here they are without weapons and auras.

Nagans

From left to right, from top to bottom: Naga Obscura (AV), Archer (LT), Brawler (Minion), Centurion (Boss), Duelist (LT), Engineer (Boss), Powerfist (Minion), Shockfist (LT), Talon (Minion).

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I know I am not the only one who goes through countless revisions of my story as feedback comes in.

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It's be nice if the arc information included the date it was last republished rather than just the initial publish date.

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I love getting feedback on my MArcs and have always tried to correct bugs quickly when testing didn't reveal them.

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It's just so hard to get some decent feedback. Only yesterday someone finally pointed out all sorts of things that I had missed in the whole three weeks (counting test) that the arc had been up, and that no one else had ever mentioned to me.

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On the other hand, they want you to know if they gave you a 5 star, cause they hope you will return the favor.

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I don't return the favor, as in if I can tell that someone didn't actually play my arc and just wants a free 5-star, I don't even look at their arc. Give me at least a coherent sentence of feedback, tell me at least one imperfection and I'll go give your arc a look.

And I rate mostly as a recommendation. 4-stars means I'd play it again, 5 means I'll tell all my friends to play it.

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- Trick Arrow: huh? Yep. Flash arrow goes off **constantly**

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Only it you set them to Standard so that is one of the only powers they use. On Hard and Extreme they use it much less often as they have a large list to cycle through, and even then I never get blinded unless it's 2 or more arrows at once and I am not using any +perception at the time.

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- Defense-based armor sets (e.g., energy, shield, SR); on minions, the fights take forever, and on EBs+, the fights are almost impossible without an ungodly amount of acc or to-hit buffs. If you must use them, I'd suggest limiting the use to a few lieutenants or a rare boss, but please don't overdo it. See my example below, too.

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Funny, I have an large villain group where nearly every one of them has Energy Aura, including the minions. Usually I get complaints that they die too easily.

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- Regen: please, never, never, never put on minions. One mission arc I went on with my controller had wandering patrols of regen minions. The status protection was bad enough, but then these mobs revived when they finally went down. After a few rounds of this, I quit in frustration.

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Only a Hard Regen LT can revive. The minions don't get that power no matter what.

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They have lizard tails and digigrade legs and I always read their name as "Naga". (Even though they're, like, "nogan" or something? Kinda hard to pick out in the game font.) You'll forgive me if I jumped from there to snake-people.

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The names are mostly a case of translation convention, as to why they all speak English as well. I'd like to drop a clue somewhere that contains a "What we know so far:" briefing but I'm already at 99.9%. If I ever get around to doing Naga's Virtueverse page finally the player could just look it all up there if they really want to know.

Anyway, here's the word of god on them: they're somewhat scaly reptile-like mammalian humanoids who come from a warmer planet with a lot more UV exposure that if it existed, would be known to us as Beta Hydri V. Those suits they wear are to keep them warm in the relatively cold climate that Paragon City is located in.

I guess when you put all those details together up above, you didn't ask the question "why do all these lizard girls have breasts?"

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I did a little more thinking about this, trying to come up with something helpful. And it hit me that my beef was more that it seemed like everyone knew everyone else, and I was on the outside, not knowing anyone.

It might help with that if the contact was, say, a Vanguard Helm Commander, with imperfect knowledge of the various people involved - only a little about the turncoat and not much about Anna and the thief. He could still send Iron Samurai to help you in the final mission.

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Vanguard as a contact would turn it into a more neutral story rather than a hero arc. If only they had the "Ask about this Contact" button there, but when you get Iron Samurai as an ally his description does explain that he works for Portal Corp and acts as a liaison with Vanguard.

Nice review, you picked up a lot of things I missed and that so far nobody has mentioned or pointed out.

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"Hello $name, it's been awhile." Even if I were blue side, a 27 wouldn't have ever gotten to talk to Buck before since he's a 30+ contact.

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Oversight. Maybe I'll just replace him with Montague or something but my options were limited as there are only two Midnight members in Croatoa, which is were this was meant to be taking place.

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Luis is acting like an ally; he can use some background info beyond the default Midnight Squad boilerplate. He spawned as a minion for me, which made him incredibly fragile (he got KO'd by a Tuatha's thrown branch before long); that's fine if it was intentional, but I'm not sure if it was.

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Yes, Midnight Spirit Masters are minions. He doesn't get a background as there is nothing special about him, we don't give backgrounds to every single named boss and ally after all.

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"Find Jeremiah Jones" felt rather bait and switch to me; I searched the whole cave for him hoping not to have to clear all, but he was nowhere to be seen, and it turned out defeating the named boss, Sitrix, completed the "Find Jeremiah Jones" objective instead.

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I have a hard time "idiot-proofing" things. I figured it wouldn't take long for people to figure out "Hmm, the CoT were holding this one guy, the other is nowhere to be found and there is a CoT boss standing there." I suppose i can make it more obvious.

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It also seems a little odd that Buck would be so alarmed at this text when this Amulet is already in his hands, in the Midnighter's Vault. As an NPC he should be supremely confident that the amulet is safe there. Not quite sure what the plot requires, but I wonder if it would be better if the amulet were buried in some crypt under no one's control; that would help justify him being worried about it falling in the wrong hands, and later he can send the player spelunking for it.

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The idea was to give the impression that they didn't know what the Amulet even did until now or that someone might be after it. I guess I need to word it much better.

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Accept mission: "Yes" is too short, suggest you replace with "Rescue Jeremiah".

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I treat that Accept text as your actual response to the contact. Hence why the briefings tend to end with a question.

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Found Jeremiah, he could use a description (other than the default Midnight Squad boilerplate).

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Once again, he's not important enough to have one in my opinion.

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Interestingly, Buck told me Jeremiah would help "fight your way back out", but I don't seem to have "lead Jeremiah out" as a goal; in fact, Jeremiah is helping me fight my way deeper in. May want to reword Buck's briefing or add a "lead Jeremiah out" as a goal. Preferably the former, having him die and force the mission to fail probably would mess up the plot. Jeremiah DOES seem very helpful in a fight, with earth control's -def doing a good job of canceling the annoying -acc dark melee effects from ghsots.

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Idea was you were supposed to just rescue him, but Jeremiah refused to leave right away after he tells you what's going on.

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Found Polentes' Journal; the info there seems a little redundant with the Polentes Gloats and Jeremiah Jones' Story clues though.

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Except for the last line.

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Briefing needs to be a little longer and more descriptive. I know it may seem clear from the mission 2 debriefing, but if you're not the team leader, you won't have seen that, so reiterate here that the CoT have launched a huge attack on the Midnight Club.

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I could shift some of the previous mission debriefing over.

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It's a defeat all, but the map isn't too big, so it's not too bad.

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This is one of those times when you're not allowed to complain about a Defeat All. In fact it wouldn't make any sense to not defeat all of the CoT inside that little area.

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Although this is described as a pitched battle between CoT and Midnight Squad, there's no actual fighting that I can find; it's all CoT standing around in static spawns. Suggest you set up several "battles" between CoT and Midnight Squad, and maybe a patrol or two of each, to add to the chaos. Flag the Midnight Squad as being friendly and the heroes can jump into these fights to beat up the CoTs and save the Midnight Squad people.

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If you've never worked with that map before, you might be surprised that it only allows 4 details total. Chris also tells you that you've missed most of the action.

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if the Living Armor must be silent, have the CoT fighting it at least say something

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Actually they do but it's nothing important so you probably forgot it.

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I'm actually surprised you don't have an object you need to rescue from the CoT in this mission, representing the Amulet of J'Gara. Consider adding one.

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Not going to happen, because Mindskewer already states twice (in the unaware, and attack dialogs) that she already has the amulet. I also cannot control the location of a glowie so it could very well spawn after her, only telling you what you already know, that she has it.

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Debriefing: Huh? Buck starts talking then is cut off by (I assume) Mindskewer, who claims she had the amulet in her possession already and was using its powers. This is not hinted at during the actual mission; with the Amulet being portrayed as being so dangerous, and something the bad guys are so hot to get at, if Mindskewer had already captured it, there should definitely be a clue to that effect.

Also Mindskewer claims that I never left the Midnight Club. If this is to be taken at face value, there is no reason Buck should even get one sentence of dialog here, since you never should even get to him. Maybe you could delete Buck's dialog and instead open with something like,

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That's because it's Mindskewer screwing with you. She likes to play with her food, apparently.

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I like the list of mission goals in the nav tool of this mission, very cool sounding. Not sure what the blue color means, if anything, though.

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Meant to signify "optional" since space is already limited.

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I like that Nomaris is so desperate that he asks you for help, AND you get to actually save him. I'm a little puzzled why Nomaris and Chris McNeil are here though. I guess we're not inside my subconscious, but somewhere inside Mindskewer herself?

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They're there to make sure the arc stays levels 25-33. For some reason the Devs didn't think being able to set a level range was a feature worth having in issue 14.

Also think of it if you had a team, you're all in the same place. Mindskewer's powers are so amplified that she cast an epic mass sleep, hold or something on you all and you're sharing the same delusion. However the two-way nature of the amulet is letting you fight back once you realize that.


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It's in "Animus and Anima" faction instead of "Void Demons", is that intentional? Avatar of Strength is in "Animus and Anima", guessing that faction is meant to be "your" traits?

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Don't know what you saw because I went into MA and confirmed that Pain Elementals are in the Void Demons group.

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Avatar of Strength and its guards should have some dialog as you come up on them; even someting small, like "Avatar of Strength: Must...stay...strong...!" while the demons taunt it with "Shadowman: Your strength is useless now!"

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The captors do talk, I don't know how you keep missing these dialogs to be honest.

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Avatar of Initiative buffed Avatar of Strength with clear mind, increasing his perception by a lot, making him Leeroy into mobs even pretty far away. It's OK if that's what you want, but not sure if that was intentional or not. The fortitude she's giving out is REALLY nice though!

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Because Empathy is the only buffing set that friggin' works right now on Allies really. She was originally a /Thermal but she was ridiculously stingy with the buffs unlike she is with /Empathy. I tested Cold and Pain as well and had the same issues.

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Wow, Mindskewer in this mission seems to be a nearly completely different mob, even being one rank higher (spawned as EB for me). I nearly got fried by her alpha strike but some quick inspiration popping kept me in the game until my 3 allies started helping, letting me beat her.

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Well the impression should be that she was feeding off of you and the captured Avatars represent that. May also mean that the previous fight only seemed to be so easy because you didn't finish it on the physical plane. You also noticed that her appearance completely changes in this mission? Did you get a chance to read her description as well?

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I really like the set up for the last mission, with the smoky map and fiery prisons and the murky shadow demons it is VERY moody and atmospheric, and I thought rescuing your various positive attributes, which then buff you, was a cool mechanic.

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This arc was designed backwards. I took that map in the last mission, designed the Void Demons specifically for it, put Mindskewer in there, then had to come up with a reason for the player to be there and worked backwards to the beginning.

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Debriefing: Maybe have a brief note here saying that you come to and you're talking to Buck now, like normal. (Maybe this is implied by the normal font, but I think making it clear would be good, since you weren't talking to Buck the last time.)

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Well he talks to you like nothing odd happened and asks why you look all shaken up. It's implied that the entire last mission happened in a span of seconds during the fight in mission 3. I guess I can try to make it more obvious.