I just published a new mission and am looking for feedback.
The title is "Flashbacks" and the mission ID is 321541.
The mission is geared toward low-level characters, is intended to be solo-friendly, and is intended as an alternative for some of the existing low-level missions.
Please let me know what you think. If you see something that needs to be changed, or if the mission seems too difficult for a low-level character, please reply here or in-game with your suggestions.
Rain's Stream of Consciousness Review
Toon used: 46 Fire/Fire Scrapper
(please keep in mind this as he has SOs slotted and may not be an accurate judge of challenge level, but what I did do was keep my challenge level at 4 to compensate)
Mission 1
Not always a fan of "helpers" (allies) on my missions. I do however understand this is for the story's sake. Powerdrive is a cool looking character and well designed.
Powerdrive, at this level has only one attack and ends up standing in front of enemies a fair bit.
Powerdrive hits the Drug Lab with hurl boulder and makes it untargettable by melee attacks.... bugged this. It then takes 2 minutes to kill the drug lab because he gets in melee range and can't hit it again so I had to keep hitting it with Blackwand.
Bonechiller is a nice combo of power sets. Enjoyed fighting him
SECOND MISSION
Second mission starts with a patrol. The problem with patrols at this point of the game is that they easily run into areas and help draw other aggro back on you. Not a problem, and in fact alot of fun at level 30.... not so much at level 11.
Ummmmm.... no Powerdrive?.... I thought he was remembering stuff we did together, not stuff I did alone.
MISSION 3
Mission Three objective says simply "crate"
Nice with the animations of the clocks breaking the crate
MISSION 4
Easily the best mission of the arc. Feels like you are in a battle between factions. Chained objectives are logical and make sense. Had the rest of the arc given me the feel of what I got from this mission I would have given you 5 stars.
MISSION 5
No Comments other than Story issues below
STORY ISSUES
-If Powerdrive was there in mission 3 and 4 As he said he was, then where was he?
-What do the first three missions have to do with the plot? Why was the girl in the second mission Kidnapped?
:spoiler:
-Ebony and Shadowspider are the same person and now she wants to have me do a mission for her?... After lying to me? No way dude... what's my motivation.
Overall it was a decent arc. It played well to it's level.
That said it's got some issues with the story that keep it from being great. I mean I did three unconnected missions that were meant to be "Flashbacks" but in reality had nothing to do with anything. I saved a girl... man if I had a Numina Proc for every girl I saved in Paragon city....
Thanks for the feedback, Rain! I appreciate it.
My basic goal was to put together a set of alternate missions for the low-level characters. I wanted something that a beginning hero could jump in and do and I wanted some variety. I guess if I have to explain anything though, the arc needs more design work. Spoilers follow:
Spoiler
The arc was tested with a level 4 blaster. I should have run a melee type through it as well, but I don't have a lot of time to work on these and cut a corner there.
There are two missions (2,4) where Powerdrive was not supposed to be there. In Mission 2, Powerdrive is asking the player to tell him about a rescue mission he'd heard about. In Mission 4, the player finds a clue that leads into Mission 5 (where Powerdrive IS present).
I'll have to look at the dialogue and see if I can make it more plain. Or maybe rewrite Mission 2 altogether...
The first three missions don't have anything to do with the last two. It's really about the hero "remembering" some of the missions he/she supposedly did in the past. I'll have to think about connecting them. I can rewrite missions 2 and 3 completely and tie the whole thing together (somehow!).
I'll have to look at the bit with Shadowspider and see what I can do with it. Fitting in the necessary dialog in the limited space was a challenge, and I obviously need to work on it some more.
Again, thanks for the feedback. I will definitely keep it in mind when I re-work the arc.
If anyone else has other feedback, I welcome it.
The mission has been revised, republished with a new ID, and hopefully improved. Please let me know what you think. I'll update the ID number when I get a chance.