Heart of Words (ID 25906)-Mini-Review

[cranebump]

Hey, all. Running an @TerroirNoir recommended arc. After scanning the level ranges, I decide to go in with an incarnate, the KR Devil (you may have seen him this week, completely stupiding up a Pos2 via indiscrimminate tab-targeting and peeking too far over the rim during the last barrel fest of the TF). Derrrr….

 

I’ll try not to spoiler anything particularly wicked. Which I can’t do if I start with what’s public knowledge:

First off, great premise. Really great. Second: tag this with SFMA. We want you on OUR team, kemosabe!:-)

 

Again, not spoilering and this is a mini, so general stuff: This is the first part of a series, so you're going to be introduced to an adversary you're sure to meet sometime later in the metaplot. It's fairly easy for an incarnate (most of the time), but there are some sneaky threats in there where, if you don't watch your booty, you'll get curbed-stomped (esp. the finale, where I did - twice). The author has strong scripting skills. It reads like an in-game mish. It also has a variety of threats, so, depending on what AT you take in there, you could find yourself sailing one minute, faceplanting the next. A L50+ is recommended, due to the bosses (and if you're a puny blaster without a maxed out build, you're gonna need some insps and pets here and there). 

 

Kudos:

• Clean. No typos I could see.
• Nice, clean flow of one mish to the next.
• Map choices, enemies, and challenges were varied.
• Really enjoyed the boss fights. Had to drag out my pets for several, which is rare.
• Finale fight is excellent. I had to incorporate some maneuver and judicious use of Insps.
• Okay, one spoiler: having Synapse for an ally, you’re not likely to lose him:-) (though somehow I found a way to get him stuck for a hot second.
• Doesn't bombard with clues (like that butthead @cranebump sometimes does).:-)
• EXCELLENT use of in-game personalities, both bad guys and allies. 
• I **kinda** wanted an ally in the last boss fight, but I kinda didn't.:-) (does that make sense?) it was RIGHT there on the brink of being overly hard, but, since I handled it (with 2 faceplants in the finale [one because I rezzed too damned close to the boss]), I'd have to say the author does a really good job of making the big challenges actually challenging without being unreasonable.

 

Tweaks and Fixes:

• Color code your mish titles (set them apart from the mish text).
• Not sure why the contact name and info are different? If there’s a connection I missed it.
• M4: Search text is missing from Primal Codex objective (the one that appears on the bar when you click).
• Extra carriage return in the finale mish success text. (you've got a needless space between paragraphs)
• The final mish had me bouncing back and forth a bit to find rescues. The map is small and fairly straight, so this isn't a deal-breaker, but forward momentum is always nice. 
• It goes without saying that there's a LOT of psionic threats in this story. I had my hands full at times. Use of customs to add a variety of powersets is a great idea, but you want to be careful of it being a one-trick pony. That said, I'm thinking greater variety comes in when the other chapters are complete.
• Kyksie might accuse you of having a few too many glowies.:-)
• It needs timers (KIDDING! [that was for @Zhym):-)

 

Verdict: Play it!

I searched the author's sig to see if they'd done anything else, and didn't find anything. So, if this is a first shot at AE, it's exceptionally good. Better than a lot of my early stuff, I must say (not that I'm a pro or anything, but I know my own early-stage suckage). Regardless, it's a strong effort. And, since it's a series, I look forward to seeing it among @TerroirNoir's reviews when he adds it to his list of 3,462 missions.:-)

 

Nice work!

 

 

Edited February 10 by cranebump

[LordRassilon]

I've seen the color coding as used by others...first time arc, wasn't sure how to do that.  Will make the adjustments...thanks for the feedback!

 

Cheers,

Valeyard

[Darmian]

Yeah, nice to see another "one of us" surface! I enjoyed that a lot.  Great first arc!

[TerroirNoir2]

9 hours ago, cranebump said:

Okay, one spoiler: having Synapse for an ally, you’re not likely to lose him:-) (though somehow I found a way to get him stuck for a hot second.

Engineria slapped some Kinetics Speed Boost on him for funsies.  OH MY!

[Darmian]

3 hours ago, LordRassilon said:

I've seen the color coding as used by others...first time arc, wasn't sure how to do that

The easiest way is to highlight the part of your text that you want coloured and then a dropdown should appear and you simply select it.  Same for bolding and so on.  Now, you CAN do it manually with HTML tags and so on, but that uses up your character allowance, and that is a precious commodity.  The one thing about doing it manually is you can use (mostly) colours not available in the small dropdown list.  Similar things in there for bolding and italics and so on.

 

With the select option it is possible to go OVER your character allowance safely but you better hope you have no typos because you have to edit it manually if there is, and it will throw up an error message that you have too many characters. So, it's remove all of that nice formatting and check for errors and then reapply.  It's a pain in the ass but now you know.

Edited February 10 by Darmian

[TerroirNoir2]

10 hours ago, cranebump said:

I know my own early-stage suckage

I disagree on the suckage (though I could do with less timers, or more of a heads up that a timer is about to happen maybe!). I'm remembering your comparisons of directors to you and the other two, so yeah.

[Zhym]

On 2/10/2023 at 12:23 AM, cranebump said:

It needs timers (KIDDING! [that was for @Zhym):-)

 

Great.  I've got a Thing now. :)

[Ankylosaur]

Just to connect some dots -

If @LordRassilon. who posted above is Valeyard, the author of this arc, well, Valeyard is also MollyMauk76 on Twitch...

 

And you can watch the color updates in the lastest SundAE https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1736854952

 

I enjoyed it too - a fun run - looking forward to the rest!

Edited February 14 by Ankylosaur

[Ankylosaur]

15 hours ago, Zhym said:

 

Great.  I've got a Thing now. 🙂

 

No - I think it was @cranebump who had a thing. 🙂

 

And I recognize now one of my things is bombarding with clues. Oh and errant typos.

Edited February 14 by Ankylosaur

[Darmian]

22 minutes ago, Ankylosaur said:

 

No - I think it was @cranebump who had a thing. 🙂

 

And I recognize now one of my things is bombarding with clues. Oh and errant typos.

I don't know if I have a thing, beyond obscure Lore maybe.

[cranebump]

2 hours ago, Darmian said:

I don't know if I have a thing, beyond obscure Lore maybe.

You're the reason I bother to look at signage in the city.:-)

[cranebump]

3 hours ago, Ankylosaur said:

 

No - I think it was @cranebump who had a thing. 🙂

When I say "hurry up!" I mean hurrythef***upgditbeforeitstoolate!:-)

[Darmian]

On 2/14/2023 at 4:03 PM, cranebump said:

You're the reason I bother to look at signage in the city.:-)

Now you know where you're going at least!

[cranebump]

2 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Now you know where you're going at least!

Sez you, buddy. I'm always flying blind, even with my eyes wide open.:-)