1 Response

1. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Running this on a genuine lowbie, sub-teens broadsword/shield scrapper. Diff 2 because I might be able to take a boss now and again.

   —

   Ah, sensible. Send someone who isn’t Superman after the Kryptonite.

   …uh.

   A long, featureless kill-all in a warehouse.

   And the enemies sap your recharge time by 20% every time one of those bolts connects.

   —

   Man, are these guys gonna be a regular feature? If all the minions connect that’s like the opposite of Hasten.

   …and as soon as I rescue the hostage I get five quantum guns to the face. Neither her nor I can move very much, and if I wasn’t using my veteran ranged powers she’d be dead.

   Also she has the system’s stock lieutenant description.

   Also I have to go through FIVE floor transitions (elevators, building door, cargo elevator) with her in tour, a couple of the rooms are a real pain to lead an escort back through (second floor of the building) and there’s nothing on the way out.

   —

   …okay, the equipment doesn’t need to say “boom” when it dies. I can see and hear it going “boom”.

   At the end of the objective bar I see another defeat all! That’s doubly bad (this is a pretty expansive cave) since destructibles still do that thing where a guy spawns inside the destructible. If the geometry doesn’t vanish, as it doesn’t with these experimentation tubes, it’s possible that guy can get stuck in there.

   For all the help Lady E is I’d rather she show up near the middle to give me a wrecking buddy.

   —

   A… a Nictus powered robot? How does that even work?

   But you know, okay, it’s not like the Council can’t build multiple giant robots.

   Not okay: two glowies to click down a side passage I missed at the very beginning of the map. (Also my ally is missing her description again.)

   Even worse: they spawn a boss.

   …and in some kind of transcendent weirdness the boss spawns a long way away from either the giant robot viewport or the pump room just before it.

   The way this map was set up I could clear it out without ever seeing the giant robot, and that’s rather sad.

   …I drop a warwolf Dr. Beckett and the clue refers to an… Archon Ziggy? What?

   Yeah, the system text calls him Ziggy, too.

   …Esc, am I playing another arc where you uploaded the wrong version of it?

   —

   …um, what? It’s not over?

   Lady E found a tracking device lab? But I thought mission 3 was her Last Mission or something.

   I just blew up a giant robot base, that’s a great place to end things!

   So, uh. Did the Rikti even HAVE Kheldians swing by their neck of the universe? How would their technology be useful to track Khelds?

   Also chained destructibles sometimes do this thing where you can’t target them until you aggro their guards. This is a problem when the guards spawn on the other side of a wall, as they can here.

   Since I basically did a second lap of the mission to date after hitting the glowie, why are they even spawning in at all? I’ve already got stuff to destroy and it didn’t seem like anything chained off the mainframes.

   Lady E is… at the end. Even after the Archon that spawns in.

   I take him down but the mission goal is still there. Maybe his ambushes?

   …nope.

   Ah, right, there’s a minion of his who spawned down a staircase behind a pile of crates. NOW the mission’s over.

   —

   Storyline - ***. Like I said, I really didn’t get the point of that last mission. Even if by proxy, I blew up a giant robot. The whole “I found the tracking system” just flies in out of left field, and it can’t be allowed to succeed because voids still show up for Kheldians.

   Design - *. Five elevators of backtracking with a hostage, two defeat alls, allies who in most cases I rescue largely after the mission is already over, some rather bizarre objective placements, and a custom group that really isn’t suitable for characters of all levels to fight.

   Gameplay - **. And here’s why. Shield doesn’t really factor into this, but a lot of defense sets don’t get the tools to deal with negative energy damage until later in their career. And for anybody who’s resistance-based, rather than defense-based, those bolts can seriously eat into the recharge rate. Lower-level characters don’t yet have a full attack chain, let alone one with enough padding to handle the large recharge debuffs quantum guns deal out.

   Detail - **. My non-Kheldian ally never had a description, and there was the matter of that confusion over the archon’s name in mission 4. Clues are supposed to make you feel less confused, not more.

   Overall - **. Esc, I strongly suspect this is another arc you uploaded an early, buggy version of, but if that’s the case I’m not giving this a re-review. You’ve had time to check. This whole thing just feels unfinished and untested.

   Posted on August 27th, 2009 at 10:54 pm