Gnaythan

Hmmmm. Alt-zone spawns make a LOT of sense... then you could see:

Atlas Park-1
Atlas Park-2 (overflow)
Atlas Park-3 (Rikti invasion)
Atlas Park-4 (Zombie invasion)
Atlas Park-5 (earthquake/fires)
Atlas Park-6 (Gnome infestation)


I'm not saying all of these would show at once... but having alt zones, and a brief description of WHY would solve an awful lot of annoyances for me.

Also... for the traveling invasion, have it affect only ONE zone at a time... with different phases.

1. objective phase... stop the rikti from blowing up the three mcGuffins: success=zone done, fail=phase2

2. fight off the invading rikti: success= zone done, fail= phase3

3. attack the entrenched rikti that are building ships: success=zone done, fail= phase4

4. watch as the rikti launch into the sky with ships that travel to a new zone... Maybe you can blow a few up before they leave.

Try Dorothy is Dangerous... she really is hard, but it's fun to try and take her down.

here's a way. Deathtraps.

Introduce a villain group with a penchant for elaborate puzzles... such as giant pinball machines where you are trapped in the ball, elaborate mazes with lots of pop up turrets and nasty little traps, living chess peices where you have to make the right moves or the captured NPC gets a trip to the hospital...

Make the death trap oponents completely optional, and normal xp for spawns. Treat them like minigames.

I'd love to see some of my toons spinning around in an unbreakable force bubble, careening into walls. or trying to punch my way out of a prison trap BEFORE it fills with water.... etc... such a staple in comics, but completely ignored in COH.

more "events" .... I want the carnival of shadows to come to town. I want giant robot invasions... Circle of thorns to summon a godzilla.....earthquakes.... tornados....... LEMMINGS!

judgment has custom AV's I made to test my own builds....


judgment 2 has All the signature AV's in the game on it... but haven't played it much.

A Hami raid involves a giant Jello mold located in the back end of an unused zone on the other end of another unused zone.

It's protected by a lot of mushrooms, trees and rocks that try really hard to kill you. You need to kill a lot of them first so they will drop enhancements that you can use to prevent the giant jello mold from killing you, but it wont. It will kill you anyway.

The jello mold will sit there not doing anything watching 40 or 50 level fifty characters gather on the hill next to it, and then the players charge in. The Jello mold then kills them all. Starting with the toughest and working down the list. This takes surprisingly little time.

THen the organizer of the raid will say "that didn't work, lets try another way." in which case, everyone will buff the heck out of some of the tanks... who will be backed up by healers, and they will charge in... while other teams go about dismantling the thicker "fruity-colored" bits of the jello mold. much thought will go into this, and a lot of effort.

The Jello mold won't notice, and proceed with its original plan again, killing all the players.... this takes slightly more time, but not by much.

THe organizer will then have everybody go and kill more mushrooms trees and rocks to get more things that are supposed to help, and try again...

But by then most of the players have said unkind things about the organizers mother, jello molds, and fruity bits, and have gone back to killing things that don't hit very hard in the MA building.

I recently built a VERY short mission called "How many ninja's can fit in a casino" designed to be played at almost any level.

I was able to fill the casino with a surpising number of invisible ninjas. A team should have a good time clearing the ninjas out, but I haven't fully tested it yet.

"Dorothy is Dangerous" has a tough AV at the end, and I'd reccomend it for a team of 20+

"Scary things", (my only arc)has a door ambush... so go in all at the same time, I'm still tweaking the creepy little girl in the second mission to be less dangerous, but its still pretty fun.

and Judgment is something I'd only recommend to a well thought out team of high level. its as tough as I can make it and still have reasonable chances to complete. every one of the ten AV's in that mission has succeeded at least once in team wiping, and I get messages all the time saying they loved it.

favorite one I ever created (not for COH)

Good=actions that help others at your own expense.
evil=actions that help yourself by harming others
stupid=actions that harm others with no benefit to yourself
Intelligent=actions that benefit both yourself and others.

Its better to act intelligent than good. and better to act evil than stupid.

Talisman by games workshop

I tend to make short and HARD missions... designed for full teams, but fun. these aren't farms. one with ten AV's, one with a really tough AV (dorothy) and one with creepy and scary written all over it... got more, but not tested them at all.

Bran McMuffin

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Tip #ilostcount: to get a boss with a mastermind type powerset to summon its henchmen early, place a rogue patrol of weak minions near it to make it aggro. That way, once the player arrives, the boss will already have henchmen out and ready, which can be used for a number of things, from making the boss fight more thematic to more challenging, as well as circumventing the 'does not summon henchmen while player is attacking' situation that sometimes pops up.

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Handy. I like that one. but will have to wait till I can choose spawn locations for that to work in the "Dorothy is Dangerous" mission. Rogue.... haven't used that as an option much... I'm seeing possiblilities.

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I'm a big fan of chained objectives. For example in one of my missions you have to get the "code" to open a computerized vault. The code is retrieved by kidnapping a hostage (i.e a rescue) that then spawns the glowie (a safe).

Of course opening the safe spawns the end boss. It's a nice way to control the story events somewhat. Thus keeping people from skipping through the mission and heading straight for the end boss.

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I hate this type of chained objective if it's not done the right way. Not because it's a terrible thing overall but because it kills my immersion. I've been through a room or hallway before and there was nothing there. Then I kidnap somebody and suddenly I notice a huge obelisk or tech doodad sitting in the middle of the floor. Now I have actually used this kind of chain in a mission I'm working on but I made it a whiteboard in an office map. That way it's something that somebody might legitimately overlooked on their first time through. Other examples would be file cabinets or trashcans or else crates in warehouse maps. I suppose a safe would be reasonable too if it were some kind of wall safe.

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I avoid these sort of things as much as possible. If we had locked doors it could be easier to make it work right as then you could prevent the "I just searched this room, where did those destructables all come from?" syndrome. The only time it works is when the spawns are enemies and you can write that they came in after you did.

But if the objective chaining causes me to run back and forth across the map over and over, then it's just plain annoying and not "clever" at all.

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hmmm, learning a lot here. First.. I was all proud of my hot door trick, till I found out some people hate it.... now when I start taking notes on another thing I like, turns out there are people who loathe that too.... I'll look at changing the hot door. after all, if people dislike it enough to call it a dick thing to do... I'd better rethink.

In Dorothy... I have a floating eyeball that is labeled "Poorly designed giant head". Defeating it spawns the wizard somewhere else. What I really want is for the wizard to spawn right there in same location. it's an outdoor map... any advice?

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Set a "free a captive" to single only, and tie an ambush to him... and you get a "Hot Door" (ambush that hits the second the players zone in)

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This should really be in the second section, i.e. don't do this. People with long load times could very well zone into the mission dead.


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It sounds like the OP wants their arc to be 1-stared by ragequitting Mastermind players.

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Heh, it's in "scary things 201596"... and in the very first mission. Minion level mechanical spiders from the Arachnos set attack... Even a soloing mastermind should be be able to get some defenses up long before they take you down. A full team will face a wall of these things.... but even still... more scary than lethal. Which was my intent. This ambush stays.... still trying to tweak the second mission though, so the zombie little girls aren't quite as tough

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You attempt to use a nearby computer terminal (glowie) and the voice of a security system (single ally ninjitsu non-combat runs to door w/ dialog) explains how someone has tampered with its programming..

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so putting a non-combat that triggers after an event JUST to insert dialog... clever.

First, I like story and I like plot, I enjoy well written dialog and good character descriptions.
This has nothing to do with that.

I want a place to discuss clever things you can do with MA, how to make fun missions and how to throw surprises and fun into the mix.

examples:
Ambushes.

I love ambushes... and they add a strong dynamic element

Pop an ambush when the boss first takes damage, and you have a fight to remember:
pop a second ambush at 3/4 damage and a third at 1/2 damage, and now Dorothy fills the sky with flying monkeys.

If you tie an ambush to a boss defeat... and give that boss the power to rez... you get a "Round two" on the same boss... Appropriate dialog, and the players get the impression he's a completely different, and tougher, boss.

Set a "free a captive" to single only, and tie an ambush to him... and you get a "Hot Door" (ambush that hits the second the players zone in)
If you make a Hot Door anything but a minion level ambush, players won't forgive you.
If you make those same minions into masterminds ... you can get a MASSIVE wave of bad guys come at you like a wall of ninjas, thugs, undead or robots.. fun...


Things that DO NOT work. (unless this was part of your evil plan)

Never give an ambusher any status effect or hold powers... for instance a door ambush with ninjas who have caltops means most of your players will never be able to move from the door. While it may be mildly amusing at first to be frozen in place one step into the mission... its not really all that fun. So much for my "how many ninjas can fit in a casino" mission.

If you DO put something tough into an ambush.... remember to put minions in to mitigate it... I wanted ONE cyclops... I got TEN.

I wanted to make a mission called "Run like Hell" where a nasty hot door ambush full of impossible to kill critters comes at you, and your only escape is to find and click the glowie. no other critters in the mission. This did not work.. I tied three door ambushes together and ended up with all three spawning at the door, but just sat there doing nothing, untill you found the captive they were attached to. Any indoor mission... and the ambush gets you before you can run... any outdoor mission, and I couln't correctly pull off the hot door. ps. You can put the hamidon thingies into an ambush.... For the love of all things holy...do not do this unless your goal was instant party wipe.

I'm wanting war stories, clever tricks, and "well, THAT didn't work" What cool things have you done in YOUR missions?

Try to solo Judgment 154775, Ten AV's on one map... its designed to be fun and tough for a full team of high levels... if you do solo it, send me a tell, and I will put your name on the souvenir.

I have a mission called judgment (154775) I built with ten AV's on one map, and at the end an EB ambush.

I've been using it to test my own builds with different AV powers and combinations... With no purple triangles, It's not quite as tough as AV's in the various TF's, but they are pretty fun to take on with a full team at high level. I did not make this easy.

Right now, its got over a hundred rates and has a 4 star average.

If you solo it. and send me a tell. I will put your name on the souvenir.

Try Dorothy is Dangerous 98684. full team is best... or solo at high level... I just reworked the wizard last night. pretty balanced... any good team with levels around 20 should be able to do it.
Be warned, I designed Dorothy to be tough... and succeeded.

Ok then, review mine. Dorothy is Dangerous, 98685 one mission, not an arc. 4 EB's one AV, not easy. seriously fun for group play, and very short. over 100 reviews so far at 4+

why no love for the axe? all the builds with a few exceptions seem to avoid it...

Here is how I would fix the AE system. Regular drops for all AE critters, no tickets, and no chance of rare or super rare. ONly "real" missions get any chance at UBER stuff.

Exception, Tickets are for designers, not players. You can still level, but pointless to farm. And rewards go to good content, not farming missions. and get rid of "zero" stars

I've made two arcs... "Dorothy is Dangerous" 98685 which is a Wizard of Oz FUN mission where you take down Dorothy as a favor to the wicked witch. It's fun, and I've play tested it with about ten groups, listened to their suggestions, and tweaked things to make it better. I can't do that effectively with a long arc. A short arc is easier to debug.

My other one is Judgment 154775 I designed this as a test of skill. Ten AV's on one map, each as different as possible, with the idea being a test of teamwork and skill. I designed it for a full team at high level, but I'm getting comments from people who love trying to solo it. Its HARD, but I don't want it to be impossible, so I've tweaked every one of the AV's at least once, after reading the comments. That is hard to do on long mission arcs.