Azuwezia

I've redone the OP to put my original ideas (and some new ones) into list format. Plus to hopefully get more discussion/support.

@Power_NA
I'm on Guardian. Hero side I need Skyway, Talos, Brickstown, and Founders.
Villian side I need all of them with the exception of Peregrine Island.

@Cursedsorcerer
Ah, I must be getting the Vindicators mixed up with the Vanguard then: as I was thinking about the Vanguard mobs, not 'hero' class NPCs.

Safeguard and Mayhem missions, a fun addition to the game where you go prevent a bank robbery (as a hero) or be the one to actually rob it (as a villain). Both have their pros and cons, but no matter which version you prefer, the biggest con they both suffer is at level cap: you always get the same map, with the same enemies and same goal, every, single, time.

It makes wanting to do them over and over again a bit tedious and cause loss of motivation to keep repeating them. It’s worse for heroes in this regard (IMO) as they don’t really have an ‘incentive’ to do the missions in the first place, beyond stopping the evil doer. Villains on the other hand, pretty much have no choice if they want new contacts (not to mention Mayhem missions, IMO, are a heck of a lot more fun in general: who doesn't like going around knocking over mailboxes/blowing up cars?).

So what can be done to remove the repetitiveness and hopefully put in more incentive to do these missions? To spice these up a bit and make them more fun over all? I have a few ideas: keep in mind, these ideas are intended just for level cap toons, for now (though some of these ideas could be applied to lower levels as well, I want to focus on level cap atm).

- Randomize the map you are given at level cap. Meaning you have just as much of a chance to get Altas Park as you would Peregrine Island as the place to protect/rob. This would also give the added bonus of badgers being able to get the Safeguard/Mayhem exploration badges they missed (eventually) without having to beg a lowbie to let them into their mission (this is the one reason I would like to see this, personally).

- Some different villains/heroes other than Critical Mass/Fallen Angel and Holo Man/Cacophony (granted, I've only ever soloed/duoed these missions, so this idea is mainly aimed at those group sizes). There’s plenty other Villians/Heroes you can throw in there (who wouldn’t want another chance to beat up our ‘favorite’ self-centered Flamebeax? Just an example.).

- New maps: how about raiding/protecting Rogue Island banks (heck, Villains already do this in normal missions/tips)? Or how about Praetoria banks (pre-kick the snot out of them, of course)? Why always banks for that matter: villains rob all sorts of places after all (jewelry stores, museums, warehouses, laboratories, etc). Or how about preventing/causing a breakout at the Zig?

- Randomize the villain groups you are up against, in general.
-- For heroes, it’s always Malta/Carnies (and who wants to keep having to deal with those annoying sappers every time?), when they are plenty of other villain groups you fight at level cap that can join in on the fun. (DE, CoT, Crey, Nemesis, BP, Council/5th Column, etc).
-- For Villains, it’s admittedly harder to randomize due to lack of ‘good’ mob groups to go up against. They already go up against Longbow/PPD and the only other ‘good’ group are the Vanguard: I don’t know if they would really be applicable for these type of missions. However, if we can get RI or Praetoria maps, we can use the RIP/Arachnos and IDF/Resistance on those maps.
-- For incarnates…incarnate level enemies, nuff said.

- (Got any ideas I didn't think of? Speak up!)

Tweaking for sure. I am still not happy about the object placements and whatnot on the maps and if the new text mode lets you actually see those points, that will make things a lot easier for me.
I'm also liking the word about custom power tweeking for the critters, but not the word that it seems to be only for bosses and up!

Here's my very recent personal idiot moment (an action, not a comment).

I'm playing my son/kin corr, lv 19 at the time, working on some badges/plagues in Cap au Diable, when I spot an orange con Ruin Mage. Now at the time I was also working on a 'kill 20 CoT' mish from Willy, so I needed to kill CoT anyway and thought, why not: I needed mages for the defeat badge anyway.

Now, I did see the second Ruin mage that was close by (also Orange Con), but I thought the one I was pulling would be far enough away. Wrong. Got both and I spent the next 30 secs or so perpentually locked down (immobilized and held) while they slowly killed me. Couldn't fly away to save myself and a break free didn't help at all. Needless to say I woke up in the hospital fairly quickly.

Now, you'd think I would have learned my lesson. Not. After just working off my debt, I spot another Ruin Mage, again orange con. This time he was completely alone, so I thought I had a chance this time.

Wrong.

Again, immoblized and intermittently held while he slowly killed me. I was able to get some hits on him this time, but the creep stayed just far enough away to where I wouldn't have been able to heal myself off him. You can guess where I ended up after about a minute of slow torture.

This time I have learned my lesson: avoid Ruin Mages like the plague until they are nice and grey to me. Then I'll have my revenage....

I actually tried that 'go to one side then the other' for the escort: didn't work. I eventually stopped trying and just quit the mission.
I hope they fix these bugs soon...

I found a couple new bugs. Before, hostages would run to the nearest exit not long after you kill the guards, now they just stand there. In fact, this just started happening today while testing my arcs. Unless captives that are in an outdoor map always just stood there.

Second, while trying out a published mission I had an issue with an escort objective. Cleared the rest of the map before rescuing the escort and proceeded to lead the escort to the exit. When I got there the objective/mission wouldn't clear: again, this is an outside map (one without a vehicle, but that glowing red square field as the exit point).

I think the 'random' on the civilians is bugged anyway. I tried using them as hostiages in an arc I am currently building a nd when I went to test every single one of them spawned as the Tsoo guy (and I double checked, tripled checked, what I had it set as). Finally gave in and made them all one of the Dr/scientists guys.

I ran into a similar problem earlier while working on a new arc. Went to test and it gave me a 'invalid level range' error (the error thing was greyed out). Turned out it didn't like me using 'random' for the boss objective (pulling from a standard mob group): it had to be specific, which bites because I wanted the arc to have as wide a level range as possible. Once I was specific, it allowed me to test.

So you might want to check for that on yours.

I have only played 'any' MA missions on my main, Asri, and they still vanish.

I've also noticed they like to give you doubles of the souvenirs...not that it helps keep them from disappearing any....

While building one of my missions, I found out the term 'Jester' is considered either profane or a copyright violation. WTF? I changed it to 'Clown' just to be on the safe side....