Fighting Freedom
Story Description: A group of young heroes has been causing trouble for the villains of the isles in the name of freedom from Arachnos rule. Arachnos wants your help with bringing their organization down.
Story Arc ID: 177930
Author’s Global Chat Handle: @LaserJesus
Length: Long (5 missions)
Alignment: Villainous
Designer Notes: Suggested for levels 21-30. Contains an Elite Boss. The arc is designed to be solo friendly, though obviously some builds may have trouble if they’re not built to solo. The fourth mission doesn’t have a level range, so if you attempt it below level 21 or above level 30, you’ll be playing at your real level. However, the custom enemies should be fairly decently balanced for most levels. The ally in the final mission isn’t necessary, but can be a big help, as the Elite Boss can dish out some damage. Heroic/Villainous difficulty suggested for most players.
Glazius
Says:
@GlaziusF
Playing as a low 40s DB/Fire brute on diff 2, so bosses is bosses. Mission Engineer draws closer with every passing moment.
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Ah, smacking down homegrown justice. One of the most satisfying parts of the late game. Let’s see how this goes.
Hmm. The first two-three sentences of the custom enemy description aren’t really necessary, except for the boss. Nice power design, interesting objectives (is saving the destructibles optional?)
I’m not sure about some photos and a manifest meaning outside help. I mean, there was probably a manifest in the warehouse and cameras aren’t a controlled technology.
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Hey, I’d probably enjoy smacking around a leader just for the hell of it, at this point.
Intro text, these guys may be young but it’s not like none of them had a voice drop yet.
So it was supposed to be a trap set by the puny men with bows. Works out about as well as anything else they do.
Really this sounds more like a Longbow thing. Wyvern are just Manti’s private army, and spending money funding guerillas… actually, never mind.
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And we’re going to discourage them with total destruction. I can get behind that.
The two terminals I have to access are literally right next to each other. Random placement weirdness? The interact text for the second one is “access the last terminal”.
Short little base all in all. I was expecting more actual destruction but I guess the aftermath is nice.
And I guess we get to put some guy’s girlfriend in a refrigerator now or something?
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You’d think LS would take his girlfriend with him, wherever he was going.
Interesting presence though. I would have expected a boss, but she’s just behind two of them from the custom group as an effective noncombatant. …why not just an “ally” following you around, though? I guess you’d have to knock her out to stop her calling for help or somesuch.
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And now it’s the end. Please don’t be on fire, base, you do my framerate an awful turn.
Ah, dear, you are. At least you don’t have the obvious geometry hole you used to have.
The Huntsman is good help doing enough damage to him though he does shrug off a lot of it being as S/L tolerant.
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Storyline - ***. Ordinarily this’d be a bit higher but I was struck by something near the end of the Wyvern base - this is a gender-swapped version of Lorenz Ansaldo’s Sea Witch arc. Chop off the first two setup missions and it’s pretty much the same structure, and the first two setup missions don’t really establish much of a link to the “helper group” within the missions.
Design - ****. The customs are very “street” looking, with more specialized attire for the one-off bosses. The missions take place in generally appropriate and modestly full settings, though I kinda lament the lack of stuff to break when I’m invading enemy bases.
Gameplay - *****. No problems working through, but I’m glad I saved up inspirations for the end boss. Also thank you from the bottom of my withered little heart for not giving him Rage.
Detail - ***. I didn’t really get much of a sense of personality from the customs aside from “generic do-gooder”. We don’t get any real background on Liberty’s Son so whatever he says about his oath or whatever doesn’t really have much impact to it.
Overall - ****. It’s pretty much a competently executed canon mission with the names changed, and a decently-realized new custom group.
Posted on June 4th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
@PW
Says:
I like the premise, the dialog from both Freedom Militia and Arachnos, and the coldhearted yet detailed style of the mission briefings and debriefings. The design of the Freedom Militia enemies is quite nice. I would’ve liked a few more clues linking the plot together and/or providing flavor text. I liked the gameplay of the first 2 missions, but the last 3 missions were a bit on the mundane side in terms of gameplay, and could be spiced up a bit, especially the final mission. I never had a “wow, this is awesome!” moment. But it was a good arc overall.
Posted on June 16th, 2009 at 1:14 pm