Frequently Asked Questions about Mission Design
By
Amarsir,
Posted on: 2009-03-17 19:54 in Mission Architect
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I more mean if it's possible to make something like Lady Jane - a combat ally NPC whom you rescue, they fight alongside you, but when you bring them to a specific, otherwise-untouchabe objec (like Lady Jane's chest) they activate it, THEN turn around and leave the map altogether. I haven't looked at allies closely enough to know, but if that's doable, I'll dance a polka.
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You want a "Lead to object" detail, which isn't current possible. You can only lead allies to the door.
I really hope they add that capability soon after launch, though.
Also,
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(like Lady Jane's chest)
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lol
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenth ur-
nuk!
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Ok I created a seperate thread about this question, but after reading this I figured I should just ask here (edited from original post):
I created a thugs/MM as the mish's boss. I was set to vicous (challenge lvl 3) and he was set as an EB. When he summoned his Henchmen, they were 49-51. I went back, set him to extreme AV, set my challenge lvl to 5 (relentless) and now he's a 50 AV, but the henchman summoned are 48-50.
How do I make the AV's and henchmen lvls higher? I know "I'm doing it wrong", I just don't know why.
Gaheris
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I think the question you're asking is "why did my Elite Boss spawn at level 51, but when I bumped him up to an AV he spawned at level 50?" And I think the answer to that question is that except for special case critters (and custom critters aren't) AVs will spawn at the player's level, not the level dictated by the difficulty scaler. I believe that is a spawn rule the MA inherited from the regular PvE game where AVs in instanced missions generally spawn at the player's level, not the level the mission is instancing spawns at.
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Ok, that makes sense, thank you for that.
Now I'm wondering if there's anyway to get the henchmen to be harder to defeat? They're easy enough to kill as it is, and I was kinda disappointed in my custom MM's performance. I took my Axe/WP brute and just stood there letting all the pets + AV Ninja MM wail on me, and my health was actually going back *up* (I'd lost some health initially from the mob around the MM AV, but nothing notable at all from the MM itself, especially if the pets were down.)
Any way to make the henchmen, and the MM critter overall, more challenging to fight?
Gaheris
"I know that will get glossed over and 6 months from now someone here on the forums will make a statement like "Remember back when walk was crashing the mapservers" and someone else will say "Oh yeah, I remember that" and I will drop my face into my palm and die a little bit more inside." - BABs
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Any way to make the henchmen, and the MM critter overall, more challenging to fight?
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Sonic is a good secondary, because of the resistance buffs.
Pain Domination is another one, because of the AoE buffs in general.
Plant Control is the psycho option: carrion creepers means every pet you kill, you'll get another thing to fight. Even if you kill the creepers you get more creepers.
Also, in general MMs have lower offense because their primary is tied up in the pets. You could give the AV another offensive set with more teeth, like Fire blast or Energy Melee. But you may place the AV outside the ability for a large percentage of the players if you do.
If you're just looking to make it tough for yourself, you could also add Radiation Emission. You won't be regenerating nearly as fast anymore I can tell you that much.
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Can I take this as an implicit thumbs up that this behavior is intended and not going away? If so, huzzah! I was afraid that empty maps would be frowned upon.
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I don't know if "intended" is the right word. "Unavoidable" is the right word: they really couldn't change it much even if they wanted to.
Given that we're only rewarded for killing things, empty maps have limited exploit potential, so I don't think they are worried about it too much.
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Can I take this as an implicit thumbs up that this behavior is intended and not going away? If so, huzzah! I was afraid that empty maps would be frowned upon.
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I don't know if "intended" is the right word. "Unavoidable" is the right word: they really couldn't change it much even if they wanted to.
Given that we're only rewarded for killing things, empty maps have limited exploit potential, so I don't think they are worried about it too much.
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Agreed. Since the end-of-mission ticket bonus is directly based upon he number of tickets accrued from defeating enemies during the mission, it will be more beneficial to actually defeat enemies during the mission than to ghost to an objective.
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Given that we're only rewarded for killing things, empty maps have limited exploit potential, so I don't think they are worried about it too much.
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yeah, that's what I was thinking. So it seems like letting 'None' be a valid enemy group setting shouldn't be a problem.
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
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I know there's some arcs in the actual game that you need somebody you rescued to 'activate'.
Is there a way in the architect to do this?
As well, can you have a way that you can only use a glowie once you beat a boss (say he has the key, or the password), or that you can only use the glowie once you activated another one? (Search the trash for the key, the key unlocks the safe, the safe has the password?)
ATs to 50 - TA/A Def, Nrg/Nrg Blaster, EM/EA Brute, WS,ELM/ELA Stalker
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As well, can you have a way that you can only use a glowie once you beat a boss (say he has the key, or the password), or that you can only use the glowie once you activated another one? (Search the trash for the key, the key unlocks the safe, the safe has the password?)
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You can't chain collection details on to other details right now, but I'd love it if you could. Hero 1 said in closed beta that he wanted to be able to do it as well, so maybe that means they'll open it up in a few updates after launch.
Chaining collection objectives onto each other, in particular, has some good potential.
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenth ur-
nuk!
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So, all spawning locations are divided into two kinds, then? So if I want all of my spawn locations to be empty until triggered, I will need to use both ambushes AND battles? Hmm... That might be problematic if the mission doesn't entail enemies battling each other or any allies to be had. I was really looking at an ambush mission like the Protect Lady Grey or Ambush Nocturne ones. Have to play around with it, I suppose.
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There are some maps that only have one type or the other, but you could also do things like optional defend object objectives? Although those seem to spawn an immediate automatic ambush when you trigger them, so they're dangerous to have scattered around.
Are we able to put in freaked out civvies running all haywire in our maps (to help fill it out and add a little personality)?
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
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Are we able to put in freaked out civvies running all haywire in our maps (to help fill it out and add a little personality)?
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Not at the moment.
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Are we able to put in freaked out civvies running all haywire in our maps (to help fill it out and add a little personality)?
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Eeegh no! I already wish they would go change all the Heroside missions with those to the mayhem-like "freak em and they leave" kind. I don't like the feeling of being in a room full of sentient dodgeballs that are trying to bounce my camera around. 
"I think you're confused. This is /b, not /b/."
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Now I'm wondering if there's anyway to get the henchmen to be harder to defeat? They're easy enough to kill as it is, and I was kinda disappointed in my custom MM's performance. I took my Axe/WP brute and just stood there letting all the pets + AV Ninja MM wail on me, and my health was actually going back *up* (I'd lost some health initially from the mob around the MM AV, but nothing notable at all from the MM itself, especially if the pets were down.)
Any way to make the henchmen, and the MM critter overall, more challenging to fight?
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You could add ambushes at 75%, 50%, 25% health (after all, he is supposed to summon minions, is he not?). If your Brute is making quick work of the MM, those ambushes will arrive in rapid succession (or they should, ambush bugs aside) and make things quite a bit more difficult. Unfortunately we're not given pets as an option for custom groups, which is really unfortunate. Most of the pets are pretty easily recreated though in the character creator, certainly Ninjas are. Thugs and Mercenaries are about as easy, Necromancy is a bit more difficult. And then we have Robotics, bane of my existence. Sigh.
"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
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Q1.3: What's the purpose of the difficulty setting anyway?
A1.3: Seriously, you need to make some critters and find out for yourself. Originally, critters just used everything, and I mean everything. This means every Thugs minion spammed Gang War, and every Willpower critter rezzed at the end of the fight - with no way for the player to have any say in the matter. Also, Bosses would be hitting far harder than players expected, because they now had *our* powers. Critter powers are generally limited to Scale 2.0 damage - even the critter version of total focus hits for only Scale 2.0 damage. But now they have our version, which hits at 3.56 scale. This means critters are capable of hitting 70% harder than ever before. On top of that, they now have Build Up with alarming frequency: a critter that uses BU + TF can hit nearly four times harder than any other critter of the same rank generally hits with *any* attack in the standard PvE game.
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Unfortunately, I disagree with this 'try it and see' approach. Any other design tool or creator software is very specific in informing you on how it works and this should be absolutely no different.
If the software itself cannot inform you of what the difficulty setting means and you have to test it by playing the mission/fighting the boss in question, then you are wasting time in designing your overall mission to test ONE feature. Something seriously lacking as I have suggested is more tooltips to help guide novice mission builders with this.
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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No. There is no way to customize a map, or make custom maps, at this time. Part of the stated problem is spawn points.
The devs have already been having enough issues with their own maps and spawn points. Map construction doesn't seem to be at the point where a system could be created be allowed players to make custom maps with non-exploitable spawn point placement - not yet at least.
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So if I read this correctly, we can't actually position anyone. We can't put a Nemesis sniper on a balcony, or a Sky Raider engineer by the computer bank, or a Crey Researcher by the lab equipment? I can't put an ally inside one of the jail cells?
And we can't take a warehouse map and dress it up Freak-style, or even change the lighting in a council base? I can't ensure that an objective will be the first thing seen, only that it's kinda-sorta near the front?
Because if that's a "no", then I have to say this pretty much fails on what I consider the basic definition of "creating a mission."
What about this I don't think I've seen discussed: Can I make triggers involving doors? Make a back door locked with the key in a front objective. Or spawn an ambush triggered on a door being opened? Ideally I would like to trigger off stepping to a certain position, but I'd settle for using existing doors.
On the Enemy Creator (which is logically a different thing from a mission creator) I saw that I could import player powersets. Can we import NPC powersets? For example, there's no player power I'm aware of that looks and works like a Malta sapper. Is it possible to import that power (even bundled with all the sapper's powers)? Because I know we can't just reskin him, but I hope the power isn't forever limited to that one guy.
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Q1.3: What's the purpose of the difficulty setting anyway?
A1.3: Seriously, you need to make some critters and find out for yourself. Originally, critters just used everything, and I mean everything. This means every Thugs minion spammed Gang War, and every Willpower critter rezzed at the end of the fight - with no way for the player to have any say in the matter. Also, Bosses would be hitting far harder than players expected, because they now had *our* powers. Critter powers are generally limited to Scale 2.0 damage - even the critter version of total focus hits for only Scale 2.0 damage. But now they have our version, which hits at 3.56 scale. This means critters are capable of hitting 70% harder than ever before. On top of that, they now have Build Up with alarming frequency: a critter that uses BU + TF can hit nearly four times harder than any other critter of the same rank generally hits with *any* attack in the standard PvE game.
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Unfortunately, I disagree with this 'try it and see' approach. Any other design tool or creator software is very specific in informing you on how it works and this should be absolutely no different.
If the software itself cannot inform you of what the difficulty setting means and you have to test it by playing the mission/fighting the boss in question, then you are wasting time in designing your overall mission to test ONE feature. Something seriously lacking as I have suggested is more tooltips to help guide novice mission builders with this.
S.
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Except for one interface design oversight, the difficulty slider is trivial to explain: it adjusts the set of powers a custom critter will get in a manner that is specific to each mission maker powerset (each powerset is individually configured as to which of its powers are standard, hard, or extreme).
But the issue I was highlighting was the question of *why* it was *needed* and that is not a user interface issue: its a question of understanding that custom critters are intrinsicly more powerful than standard critters. I could give you a three page numerical explanation, but actually seeing custom critters' performance on extreme for yourself will answer that question much more directly.
What a setting does and why its there are two completely different questions. Saying that setting is to adjust critter difficulty is literally correct, but totally worthless without context.
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Q1.3: What's the purpose of the difficulty setting anyway?
A1.3: Seriously, you need to make some critters and find out for yourself. Originally, critters just used everything, and I mean everything. This means every Thugs minion spammed Gang War, and every Willpower critter rezzed at the end of the fight - with no way for the player to have any say in the matter. Also, Bosses would be hitting far harder than players expected, because they now had *our* powers. Critter powers are generally limited to Scale 2.0 damage - even the critter version of total focus hits for only Scale 2.0 damage. But now they have our version, which hits at 3.56 scale. This means critters are capable of hitting 70% harder than ever before. On top of that, they now have Build Up with alarming frequency: a critter that uses BU + TF can hit nearly four times harder than any other critter of the same rank generally hits with *any* attack in the standard PvE game.
[/ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately, I disagree with this 'try it and see' approach. Any other design tool or creator software is very specific in informing you on how it works and this should be absolutely no different.
If the software itself cannot inform you of what the difficulty setting means and you have to test it by playing the mission/fighting the boss in question, then you are wasting time in designing your overall mission to test ONE feature. Something seriously lacking as I have suggested is more tooltips to help guide novice mission builders with this.
S.
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Except for one interface design oversight, the difficulty slider is trivial to explain: it adjusts the set of powers a custom critter will get in a manner that is specific to each mission maker powerset (each powerset is individually configured as to which of its powers are standard, hard, or extreme).
But the issue I was highlighting was the question of *why* it was *needed* and that is not a user interface issue: its a question of understanding that custom critters are intrinsicly more powerful than standard critters. I could give you a three page numerical explanation, but actually seeing custom critters' performance on extreme for yourself will answer that question much more directly.
What a setting does and why its there are two completely different questions. Saying that setting is to adjust critter difficulty is literally correct, but totally worthless without context.
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Again, I'll have to disagree there. Not everyone will want to (such as myself) go into the mission and evaluate the performance of the given NPC in action. The only context to explain the difficulty is to see it in action, which requires you to encounter it in a way that wouldn't be indicative of how it'd truly perform in a group. It makes more sense to have an explanation of how this works; I understand the concepts of Lieutenants, Bosses, Elite Bosses and Arch-Villains; so would anyone who's played the game to some extent. I'm not going to go in and playtest every single boss under every single setting; if you have that much time on your hands you should be working for NCSoft. I already suggested a test setting where you ride along with a generic group to see how it plays out if you want the 'practical example' of play, but having a guideline beyond some generic terms is equally as useful. I don't consider ANY aspect of a powerful design tool to be trivial to explain when the point is to make it as understandable and user-friendly as possible.
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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Except for one interface design oversight, the difficulty slider is trivial to explain: it adjusts the set of powers a custom critter will get in a manner that is specific to each mission maker powerset (each powerset is individually configured as to which of its powers are standard, hard, or extreme).
But the issue I was highlighting was the question of *why* it was *needed* and that is not a user interface issue: its a question of understanding that custom critters are intrinsicly more powerful than standard critters. I could give you a three page numerical explanation, but actually seeing custom critters' performance on extreme for yourself will answer that question much more directly.
What a setting does and why its there are two completely different questions. Saying that setting is to adjust critter difficulty is literally correct, but totally worthless without context.
[/ QUOTE ]
Again, I'll have to disagree there. Not everyone will want to (such as myself) go into the mission and evaluate the performance of the given NPC in action. The only context to explain the difficulty is to see it in action, which requires you to encounter it in a way that wouldn't be indicative of how it'd truly perform in a group. It makes more sense to have an explanation of how this works; I understand the concepts of Lieutenants, Bosses, Elite Bosses and Arch-Villains; so would anyone who's played the game to some extent. I'm not going to go in and playtest every single boss under every single setting; if you have that much time on your hands you should be working for NCSoft. I already suggested a test setting where you ride along with a generic group to see how it plays out if you want the 'practical example' of play, but having a guideline beyond some generic terms is equally as useful. I don't consider ANY aspect of a powerful design tool to be trivial to explain when the point is to make it as understandable and user-friendly as possible.
S.
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How it works is when you click the setting, that setting is checked against a set of values in the powerset definition and turns powers off and on. There's no general rule like "hard is always powers one through six" so there is literally no rule for a tooltip to tell you. You have to set the setting and actually *look* at the powerset power listing to see what "Hard" means for powerset X.
But that's still irrelevant, because I'm not describing what the setting does, I'm describing why the setting was deemed necessary, because I've been asked several times why the devs chose to complicate the critter interface by adding another setting to adjust difficulty besides just minion/LT/Boss. Let me repeat: this is not a UI issue. The question is more properly stated (in more nit-picky bulletproof terms) why was the decision made to add such a setting to the user interface at all, regardless of how it works mechanically.
Why I added this question to the FAQ is specifically because I've been asked why its there several times, but only once asked what it actually does. In the next version of the FAQ, I'm adding the question of what it does to avoid further confusion.
As to the issue of a "test group" mode, while it came up in closed beta that testers should have a way to spawn a map for any number of players on the team to see what it looks like, it would be impractical to actually program a literal AI controlled group to test a mission given the limits of the critter AI. However, I'm not sure what that has to do with the difficulty setting, because the difficulty setting does not affect the number of spawns in a mission regardless of team size. Just to make sure you and I are even talking about the same thing, as previously mentioned the only thing that setting does is turn off and on the powers of the custom critter you're making. It is not a mission spawn setting. Basically, it does things like turn off Energy Transfer on a critter if you don't want it to have that power.
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Hm, is there a way to rename/rewrite the description for the currently existing NPCs?
Could I make a few unique monsters for my "Killer Tomato" group, and then drag/drop some DE into it. THEN give them all the same background info and theme names?
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I have been trying to do this, to no avail. I need Mu strikers, guardians, etc, who are not Arachnos, and there seems to be no way to change their names, or their identifying text. If there is, it is certainly not appearing clearly to me. And no one else on test has known how to do it...
Also trying to use various ghosts, as, well, ghosts. The text on them ties them to their various old groups, even though they are now in my custom group.
If this is changeable, it is not obvious.
Rend this space....
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I more mean if it's possible to make something like Lady Jane - a combat ally NPC whom you rescue, they fight alongside you, but when you bring them to a specific, otherwise-untouchabe objec (like Lady Jane's chest) they activate it, THEN turn around and leave the map altogether. I haven't looked at allies closely enough to know, but if that's doable, I'll dance a polka.
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You want a "Lead to object" detail, which isn't current possible. You can only lead allies to the door.
I really hope they add that capability soon after launch, though.
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Well, that answers that. Too bad, but at least I know what I want and what I should be campaigning for. Thanks
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Also,
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(like Lady Jane's chest)
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lol
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I specifically reworded that from "objective" to "untouchable object" for just that purpose
*edit*
OK, I give up: Ambushes are horribly screwy in how they play their dialogue, and the tips that explain what each line of dialogue does are badly non-informative. "The dialog spoken by one of the members of the battle" doesn't really tell me much. WHEN is it spoken? At the start of the battle, when the combatants are discovered or at some other time? The examples seem to suggest ones are for combatants taunting each other and the others are for combatants responding to being interrupted, but they seem to play them almost at random. Sometimes they'll play all four instantly, sometimes only one faction will speak, and sometimes only one faction will speak only one of its lines. What gives?
*edit*
It seems fights and patrols somehow interfere with each other. I had a mission that allowed no more than four fights (I tried more, it threw an error). I added as many patrols as it would allow me - 8, then attempted to remove the fights. It gave me an error that there were too many patrols. I had too many patrols with ZERO fights, but not too many patrols with four, or indeed EIGHT fights. Odd... Trying to run the mission with eight fights and eight patrols resulted in an error.
However, removing all fights and leaving the mission with 8 patrols keyed to appear off a boss fight and 0 fights produced a mission that was EMPTY, save for the boss at the end. Defeating the boss resulted in swarms of Arachnoids (picked at random off the top of the list) to swarm the entire map. Score!
Now here's the other question.
Question: Can I design a mission that you have to "escape" from? This mission would have a jail and not show the "Exit" button upon completion, like one of the Lilithu missions or the Rob the Midnight Squad mission? I'm not seeing an option for this.
Failing that, what would be a good way to approximate a "You have to fight your way out of here!" mission?
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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However, removing all fights and leaving the mission with 8 patrols keyed to appear off a boss fight and 0 fights produced a mission that was EMPTY, save for the boss at the end. Defeating the boss resulted in swarms of Arachnoids (picked at random off the top of the list) to swarm the entire map. Score!
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Excelsior. This is exactly the type of thing I wanted to do.
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Failing that, what would be a good way to approximate a "You have to fight your way out of here!" mission?
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I think you'll have to use an Escort objective so that you have to lead them back the entrance. I can't think of another way to do this right now.
I think at this point we should probably start a thread in Suggestions/Ideas that compiles all the new details and settings we want included in the MA. Although I'm sure the devs have wish lists of their own that are probably similar to ours.
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenth ur-
nuk!
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How it works is when you click the setting, that setting is checked against a set of values in the powerset definition and turns powers off and on. There's no general rule like "hard is always powers one through six" so there is literally no rule for a tooltip to tell you. You have to set the setting and actually *look* at the powerset power listing to see what "Hard" means for powerset X.
But that's still irrelevant, because I'm not describing what the setting does, I'm describing why the setting was deemed necessary, because I've been asked several times why the devs chose to complicate the critter interface by adding another setting to adjust difficulty besides just minion/LT/Boss. Let me repeat: this is not a UI issue. The question is more properly stated (in more nit-picky bulletproof terms) why was the decision made to add such a setting to the user interface at all, regardless of how it works mechanically.
Why I added this question to the FAQ is specifically because I've been asked why its there several times, but only once asked what it actually does. In the next version of the FAQ, I'm adding the question of what it does to avoid further confusion.
As to the issue of a "test group" mode, while it came up in closed beta that testers should have a way to spawn a map for any number of players on the team to see what it looks like, it would be impractical to actually program a literal AI controlled group to test a mission given the limits of the critter AI. However, I'm not sure what that has to do with the difficulty setting, because the difficulty setting does not affect the number of spawns in a mission regardless of team size. Just to make sure you and I are even talking about the same thing, as previously mentioned the only thing that setting does is turn off and on the powers of the custom critter you're making. It is not a mission spawn setting. Basically, it does things like turn off Energy Transfer on a critter if you don't want it to have that power.
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I think adding what it does in your next FAQ would be most welcome, because if you're like me and you're going to ask the question, you want some guideline to the answer. And I bear in mind that not everyone is going to get this right off the bat; you need this to be as user-friendly as possible. And if that means offering up an explanation for most of everything, then so be it. It might seem obvious to most people, but if you want people to fully utilise what this tool has to offer, then you explain as much as you humanly can.
I understand what you're saying about mission difficulty vs. critter difficulty and while that in itself is more or less clear (though I don't see why you couldn't use the same game settings of Heroic through Invincible, terms that people can instantly lock onto and recognise), and while some playtesting helps...you honestly can't guarantee you're always going to have a group to help you test your mission. That's an inevitability, and a fact of life. And I for one want that option to test not requiring a group at all. Even a 'god mode' where you can walk the map, making sure your NPC dialog and objects are working as you want them to WITHOUT having to fight the mission would be preferable to what we have now. Without that, I forsee a situation where test groups just won't be interested in playing the published version either due to word of mouth ('hey, we played this, it was okay') or they just won't test (a situation already occuring on the Test server) due to lack of interest or a desire to just play already published missions.
That needs to be addressed, or many budding authors (myself included) will be stuck wondering what tweaks if any have to be made to their story. Even simple tools to make sure the patrol spawns trigger would be appreciated. If we're going to create stories, then don't force us into the position of playing them to risk a defeat when all you want to do is see if the map and NPC's are working okay. It's self-defeating and a waste of time.
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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I think adding what it does in your next FAQ would be most welcome, because if you're like me and you're going to ask the question, you want some guideline to the answer. And I bear in mind that not everyone is going to get this right off the bat; you need this to be as user-friendly as possible. And if that means offering up an explanation for most of everything, then so be it. It might seem obvious to most people, but if you want people to fully utilise what this tool has to offer, then you explain as much as you humanly can.
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It's been my experience that Arcanaville is unusually good at explaining details in a comprehensible fashion. Still, I do think her explanation for the difficulty slider is a bit lacking. She explains why it was added and goes into detail about how dangerous unlimited power access can be, but the actual effect of the difficulty settings is alluded to rather than actually explained.
So I agree that a quick synopsis of the way the difficulty settings actually function (they remove most, some or none of the powers from the two sets; the powers removed are chosen automatically, and vary from powerset to powerset) would be a good addition to the FAQ. Even if that isn't technically the question being asked. :-p
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I understand what you're saying about mission difficulty vs. critter difficulty and while that in itself is more or less clear (though I don't see why you couldn't use the same game settings of Heroic through Invincible, terms that people can instantly lock onto and recognise),
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Given that these difficulty settings do something completely different than the reputation settings, I think it's for the best that they use different terminology.
-D
Darkonne: Pinnacle's (unofficially) mighty Dark Miasma/Radiation Blast enthusiast!
Be sure to check out this mighty Arc:
#161865 - Aeon's Nemesis
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As to the issue of a "test group" mode, while it came up in closed beta that testers should have a way to spawn a map for any number of players on the team to see what it looks like, it would be impractical to actually program a literal AI controlled group to test a mission given the limits of the critter AI.
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I'm not sure if I'm following you. Why would it be impractical to simply tell the system to spawn for 8 instead of 1? They're essentially doing this nowadays prevent softloading TFs. At least for testing purposes, this would give you a ballpark estimate of how the mission performs as team size varies.
I'm not that critical. I think the MA is off to a good start. The only glaring omission I see is that there's no arena mode where you can test a critter without having to design a mission.
If a mission arc becomes that magic third category past Devs Choice, and it contains custom critters, will those be available from the standard picklist. It could save some space of the MA files if that could happen.
Champion
Pillars of Might
Darc Ranger [Blas] / Darc Nebula [Cont]
The Bikini Patrol
Darc Lighter:51-[Blas] / Darc Lady:50-[Tank]
The Panty Raiders
Aegis Magnus [MM] / Atomic Spector [Cor] / Dominar Sefus [Dom]
MEGAFORCE
-Darc Ranger [Def]