Trouble in Working with Dr. Aeon in the Architect
By
Carnal,
Posted on: 2009-04-12 15:05 in Mission Architect
The AV Dr. Aeon is the one from the STF that needs the temp power to kill him. I think he was supposed to have been removed since the only way to get the temp power is to run the STF, quit, then play the arc.
Maybe you can make the Dr. Aeon EB have more ambushes spawn at 3/4th, 1/2, and 1/4th health marks? That, or choose allies that are not as high level as he is, that it make it more of a challenge to kill him.
pohsyb: so of all people you must be most excited about the veats
Arachnos Commander: actually, I am
pohsyb: I mean you kinda were one already anyways ^_^
Arachnos Commander:
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For the Third attempt, I tried something more clever. I took the Pet Dr. Aeons and put some of them into Custom Groups. I then had them spawn as custom group ambushes to reinforce the Elite Boss Dr. Aeon at 3/4ths and 1/4th health (a group of minor custom group allies spawns at 1/2 heath just to add to the fray). This was more balanced than the first two attempts. This was not without ramifications though. The ambushes did spawn the Pet Dr. Aeons as EBs but it would spawn a minimum of 3 EB Dr. Aeons (all in different costumes, which was cool, even though it was all the same Pet Dr. Aeon powerset). This actually wasn't a huge problem because of the amount of allies involved, but the fresh Ambush spawns would focus on the Player Character first until one of the allies could grab its attention. This meant nearly garrantteed death every time the ambush spawned, unless the player knew what was coming down the pipe in advance. So even though it was doable, that pretty much failed the attempt in my own opinion right there.
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Sounds like you're on the right track...I would add an escort that is EB class, range-centric (with a melee powerset), and heals/buffs. Make sure the escort is set to follow and is defensive aggressive.
That should give the player some help during those ambushes. If it's not enough, add another healing (or possibly debuffing) escort.
The AV Dr. Aeon only spawns at 52, and he's got some hellacious EB-clone backup. I tried without success to create an ally team that would make it possible for the average competent soloist to defeat him.
My solution was to create my own AV Dr. Aeon, who obeys the normal spawn rules. It's actually not that hard to recreate his costume; everything on him is standard as far as I know. That way he spawned even-con to the player instead of at 52, and didn't have access to his ridiculous suite of reinforcements.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
Yeah, the only "AV" Dr. Aeon is the one from the STF. And the problem isn't the clone backup, but his uber forcefield bubble. Your best bet is to recreate him...but beware, he can become very deadly.
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I don't have a great piece of advice for you, but I thought you'd like to know that someone else out there feels your pain. I had the exact same issues and even with 20 (yes, 20) EB allies, I couldn't put a dent in Aeon in the arc I wanted him in. I'll be going through some of the same tweaks you have unless they recode him to spawn as an EB at the same level as the heroes.
The whole point was to have about a million NPC's fighting each other at once since I love the chaos that creates, but without being able to just plug Aeon in there unchanged, I'll be trying to think of something creative, too.
Good suggestions here, though.
I am still trying variations on attempt #4. The big problem I am having is that there are no Arachnos map that will support 4 Allies Total and 3 Boss spawns in Back. I need the Bosses to spawn in succession as to moderate the potential for overkill on the Player(s). The best I have been able to do is 2 successive Boss spawns in one room with the last Boss spawn being somewhere else in the base. This unfortunately breaks the "running battle" scenario. Being able to spawn only 2 Bosses in Back is pretty limiting. I strongly wish I could control some actual placement for them.
As a result I toned down the Ally spawns to just a LT, 2 Bosses, and an Elite Boss.
I am thinking of trying a different map set as a result. The problem with a different map set is that it would break the immersion as you would be invading an Arachnos Stronghold but that it looks like someone else's generic base (perhaps Longbow even 
) That could potentially ruin the story.
Still thinking about going back to attempt #3, but I would have to find some other way of moderating the carnage on the players.
I suppose another option would be to wait and see if the Devs will make a scaling version of AV Dr. Aeon (non-taskforce), where he would spawn as an EB Dr. Aeon and produce Boss Dr. Aeons at lower difficulties, an possibly even downgrade to a Boss Dr. Aeon that spawns Lt. Dr. Aeons at the very lowest challange rating when soloing. However, I am not holding my breath on that.
You could always go with one of the outdoor maps. Then you've found the base and are taking everyone in the surrounding area out or are preventing them from going through with their plan or whatever. That's what I did to accomodate my concept.
I finally managed to get a solution. I went with Tech Abandoned map #7 Large. It supported 3 bosses in Back in a single good size room without spreading them out too much to keep the battle chain running, and the four allies spawning in the Front and Middle of the mission. Just have to be careful not to allow anything else in Back that may compete with the bosses for spawn points.
Tech Abandoned map #7 Large is a bit deceptive on the name. I really think its more of a medium sized map as far as Tech Maps go. It has 4 Floors in it and each floor is rather small, with only one or two rooms max and not a lot of hallways so its quick to traverse. I just said in the mission text that this is an older style of Arachnos bases and that it had fallen into disuse, implying that it was not up to the current Arachnos achitectual style and was somewhat out of date.
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For the Third attempt, I tried something more clever. I took the Pet Dr. Aeons and put some of them into Custom Groups. I then had them spawn as custom group ambushes to reinforce the Elite Boss Dr. Aeon at 3/4ths and 1/4th health (a group of minor custom group allies spawns at 1/2 heath just to add to the fray). This was more balanced than the first two attempts. This was not without ramifications though. The ambushes did spawn the Pet Dr. Aeons as EBs but it would spawn a minimum of 3 EB Dr. Aeons (all in different costumes, which was cool, even though it was all the same Pet Dr. Aeon powerset).
[/ QUOTE ]Care to share the settings you used and what was the maximum spawn?
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Dr. Aeon is perhaps my most favorite villain in CoX. He certainly is not on the top of the food chain, but he does have a particular flair for mad science that I can really respect. He may loose more battles than he wins but that would never keep a True (Good or Evil) Mad Scientist down. After all, many of the best discoveries have come from analyzing failure.
As a result, I wanted to add him in an arc as the centerpiece to what is suppose to be a climatic battle in the 4th mission before the anticlimax of the 5th mission which ties the whole story arc together. This proved to be more difficult that I had initially thought and I have tried many different solutions, and not really satisfied with any of them. This is part of ARC ID: 34961 if anyone actually wants to know.
The scenario involves 4 allies which you (and your team if any) would pick up, Two Bosses, an Elite Boss, and an AV (Hero). This was all to help with the final battle at the end of Mission 4, though it does help immensely in getting there considering your battling Arachnos all the way.
In the First attempt, I plugged in Dr. Aeon the Archvillian, thinking that the added allies would help whomever was soloing the mission actually be able to take him on. This failed disasterously as Dr. Aeon spawned as an ACTUAL AV instead of merely an EB version of the AV like usually happens with AVs in a standard solo mission below Challenge Level 5. Dr. Aeon then proceeded to spawn 6 other Dr. Aeons like he was suppose to as EBs and proceeded to not only outright kill me, but wipe the floor with all four allies assisting myself. That made the mission basically unrealistic to accomplish.
The Second attempt was just putting in the Basic EB version that you find in several CoV mission. However, with the four allies, who were critical as story elements, it proved to easy, and he became just a road bump on the way to mission completion. In no way was that going to be a challange, and so I scraped that idea.
For the Third attempt, I tried something more clever. I took the Pet Dr. Aeons and put some of them into Custom Groups. I then had them spawn as custom group ambushes to reinforce the Elite Boss Dr. Aeon at 3/4ths and 1/4th health (a group of minor custom group allies spawns at 1/2 heath just to add to the fray). This was more balanced than the first two attempts. This was not without ramifications though. The ambushes did spawn the Pet Dr. Aeons as EBs but it would spawn a minimum of 3 EB Dr. Aeons (all in different costumes, which was cool, even though it was all the same Pet Dr. Aeon powerset). This actually wasn't a huge problem because of the amount of allies involved, but the fresh Ambush spawns would focus on the Player Character first until one of the allies could grab its attention. This meant nearly garrantteed death every time the ambush spawned, unless the player knew what was coming down the pipe in advance. So even though it was doable, that pretty much failed the attempt in my own opinion right there.
For the Fourth attempt, I replaced the Ambushes with Boss spawn events. Whenever the first EB Dr. Aeon got to 3/4ths health, it would spawn another EB Dr. Aeon with a group of Arachnos reinforcements. This is the method I am employing now, but it hasn't been a real success. It has the advantange that for every new Dr. Aeon that spawns, I can write in a few more lines of witty banter into combat. The disadvange has been that the new spawns don't necissarily spawn at or close to the battle point with the first EB Dr. Aeon (The last Dr. Aeon typically spawned somewhere far away even though it was set for BACK of mission.)
I can't create new Boss Level Dr. Aeons as those would be Custom Characters that would add to the Memory Buffer, which is pretty much maxed out already with 5 mission, a Custom Character group and several supporting Custom Characters already. Otherwise I would try doing that for a Fifth attempt.
I fully understand that I may be trying to set up something that is really not doable within the existing limits of the Mission Architect, and even if it is, with 4 fairly powerful allies, may be impossible to balance well (either the Allies win with minimal help from the Player Character, or the Dr. Aeons walk all over everyone and make the mission undoable). I want the Player's Character to be a factor in the battle, and not be displaced. I am toying with the idea of downgrading the allies status, but I'm a little worried it might take too much away that they just won't survive to the final battle in Mission 4, especially on large teams (if that ever would be an issue, I don't know, I can only test for solo myself, but my past experience with Boss Allies in CoX says that on large teams they tend to get wacked early if not cared for.)
Any advice, suggestions, ideas on how else this may be approached, or am I just trying too hard at something that really can't be done within the limits?