[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you're going to put an AV or EB in your missions, make sure that you mention this in your description so that people who are actually interested in your content can be sure to turn down the challenge level.
[/ QUOTE ]I recommend taking the same approach to EBs/AVs that the canon missions do; the contact says something along the lines of "You should bring a team for this mission" before you accept it, and the text is in a different color to make it stand out. Exact phrasing can vary based on the contact's character and the mission in question.
[/ QUOTE ]
I would disagree with this. The AV/EB message should be in the Description as well as possibly in the contact's message. You don't see the contact's message until you start the TF or are part way through it. Even at level 1 AVs will be a problem and many will want to just avoid the mission.
Moreover if it is in the description hopefully we can come up with some "approved" descriptions like noAV/EB, AV/EB so that you can search on missions.
[/ QUOTE ]That's fine if you want to do that with your description. I'm not talking about the description, and frankly could care less if you put "AV" in your arc's description.
You don't get that in the canon game, not even when running something like A Hero's Hero where there's an AV in nearly every mission, sometimes more than one. The contact tells you to bring friends, and you can do that, even in an AE mission. Unlike other versions of TF mode, you can invite more people mid-arc.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
/Ninjitsu One Shot Kills
Currently /ninjitsu get 4x damage. Using /ninjitsu on anything higher level than a minion on standard results in one-shot kills. A big no-no in my book. If you want to use /ninjitsu minions, but don't want to many of them, pad your minions with other minion types or npc types to reduce the number of /nin to (1 in 4) or less.
Test your arc
Once you finish your arc, test it yourself solo. Take your biggest meanest toughest character (prefereably a melee) and test it. Then take your softest squishiest defender and test it. Now you've tested for ranged, melee, and squishy. If you didn't hit a brick wall with any of those three, then you're good to go. After publishing I suggest testing it with 8 man teams as well, to make sure the high end doesn't multiply out too hard, either. My first arc took dozens of solo runs to tone down and 4 or 5 eight-man runs to finish the job. You can make a custom MA too easy solo but impossible teamed, or to hard solo but too easy teamed.
Add an Ally
Once you have everything balanced out just the way you want it, add a custom combat defensive Lt Ally to further help those soft and squishies. I like an Elect Hd/FF Hd Lt, they help everyone and have minor self healing so they don't fall over dead too easily.
[ QUOTE ]
Add an Ally
Once you have everything balanced out just the way you want it, add a custom combat defensive Lt Ally to further help those soft and squishies. I like an Elect Hd/FF Hd Lt, they help everyone and have minor self healing so they don't fall over dead too easily.
[/ QUOTE ]I'll disagree with this. Only add an ally if your story demands one. Don't add an ally for the sole purpose of making your mission easier.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
[ QUOTE ]
Oh and I have to give kudos to my wife (not that I'm predjudiced) for finding the best use of in-game dialog that I've seen to date. She wanted to have the spawns around her destructible objects be invisible spirits, so of course she gave them Ninjitsu. Would've been a PIA but for one thing: she gave them dialogue. Their inactive dialogue was a placeholder when I first saw it, and was just "....." and when they attacked, they said "...from the darkness."
It. Was. Terrifying. The first time I saw speech bubbles appear on my screen with no mobs around I thought "How cute. Patrols." Then BLAMMO! Bonesmasher to the head=dead scrapper. From there on out, any time I saw "...." I jumped, backed out like mad and popped a yellow before proceding. Really made for a fun mission.
[/ QUOTE ]
I did that in an arc of mine. Outdoors graveyard, /Nin invisible mobs, patrols with "..." as dialog. There were a few optional glowies, and clicking them triggered a battle between Nemesis and the custom mobs. In that battle only the Nemesis talked, and usually the battle ended with the Nemesis dead before you could ever see it, so all you "heard" were cries of agony from the Nemmies without ever seeing them.
That and the invisible mobs in the graveyard made for a very creepy atmosphere I think. I still had to take the arc down because of all the whinning about Ninjitsu, even though you didn't have to defeat a single mob in that mission - it was a glowie hunt (by the way, you cannot get one-shot by anything in game, there's code to prevent that, no matter how big the hit you're always left at 1 HP).
But I digress.
Players' Choice Awards: Best Dual-Origin Level Range Arc!
It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...
The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013
[ QUOTE ]
(by the way, you cannot get one-shot by anything in game, there's code to prevent that, no matter how big the hit you're always left at 1 HP).
[/ QUOTE ]
I haven't tried this, but I think fire/nin would be able to oneshot you via DOT, no?
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
[ QUOTE ]
Test your arc
Once you finish your arc, test it yourself solo. Take your biggest meanest toughest character (prefereably a melee) and test it. Then take your softest squishiest defender and test it. Now you've tested for ranged, melee, and squishy. If you didn't hit a brick wall with any of those three, then you're good to go. After publishing I suggest testing it with 8 man teams as well, to make sure the high end doesn't multiply out too hard, either. My first arc took dozens of solo runs to tone down and 4 or 5 eight-man runs to finish the job. You can make a custom MA too easy solo but impossible teamed, or to hard solo but too easy teamed.
[/ QUOTE ]
This was probably the toughest job I had with my "Monsters under the Bed" arc, it took a LOT of testing to reach a balance between cakewalk and omigod! One example was the AV, I'd created her with Illusion and given her the whole set... several playtests by my SG had few problems, then I tried it with a PuG... and we got handed our heads, the AV kept spamming confuse on the melee and we didn't have the ranged DPS to compensate. So I went back in and pulled Deceive, and lost PA as a byproduct 
. That resulted in a tough AV, but one who didn't absolutely destroy a non-optimal team.
During other playtesting we found that most of the mobs were a bit too easy, so I added the Tanglers, a LT with Plant Control and Carrion Creepers. They added just about the right amount of challenge, and having 3 other LT types they never spawned in huge numbers.
Another problem I found was one minion type, I'd given them Trick Arrow at hard giving them Flash Arrow. I ran into the mission and got hit by 3 Flash Arrows... and was completely helpless. After that I pulled Flash Arrow from the lil' guys, they simply stacked it too fast.
I learned a lot about just how nasty seemingly minor powers could stack up with larger numbers. Currently the arc is solo-able on Unyielding with my BS/Regen scrapper, and solo-able with caution on Tenacious with my Archery/EM blaster, both characters are 50. 8 man teams ramp up the difficulty a bit, but it's doable with a decent team. I think it's pretty close to what I was aiming for now, a challenging but not brutal arc.
I'm still working on polishing dialogue in the arc, that's certainly something that's deceptively difficult. 
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
(by the way, you cannot get one-shot by anything in game, there's code to prevent that, no matter how big the hit you're always left at 1 HP).
[/ QUOTE ]
I haven't tried this, but I think fire/nin would be able to oneshot you via DOT, no?
[/ QUOTE ]
Attacks with more than one damage component still get treated by the one-shot-code (i.e., EM does both energy and smashing, but ET from an extreme EM/Nin AV still doesn't one-shot you), so I'm not sure.
If the dot is treated as a separate thing (%chance to happen, typically) then it may, but it shouldn't start applying until after the X seconds it takes for every tick, giving you time to react.
I, of course, could be completely wrong about how and when the DoT applies 
Players' Choice Awards: Best Dual-Origin Level Range Arc!
It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...
The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
(by the way, you cannot get one-shot by anything in game, there's code to prevent that, no matter how big the hit you're always left at 1 HP).
[/ QUOTE ]
I haven't tried this, but I think fire/nin would be able to oneshot you via DOT, no?
[/ QUOTE ]
Attacks with more than one damage component still get treated by the one-shot-code (i.e., EM does both energy and smashing, but ET from an extreme EM/Nin AV still doesn't one-shot you), so I'm not sure.
If the dot is treated as a separate thing (%chance to happen, typically) then it may, but it shouldn't start applying until after the X seconds it takes for every tick, giving you time to react.
I, of course, could be completely wrong about how and when the DoT applies
[/ QUOTE ]
DOT will one-shot you, I've been hit at 100% for a massive attack that one-shot-coded me to 1hp, then a tic of DOT at the end and my this carpet's tasty.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
I agree... where and how you include information is important. If you put too much in while someone is running around a mission, that can be a bad thing- it can be missed or drowned out. I prefer patrols, bosses, etc. to have text that adds flavor or a bit of knowledge to what is going on. Anything else can be missed or cause overload.
Doing a bit with each opportunity you have is probably the best. No walls of text, but enough detail so there is a story and flavor. It's certainly a balancing act, though.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Please do mention if your arc is solo friendly or not, and whether it is intended for low or high level characters. Custom group scaling is borked up right now, so this is especially important if you don't use stock critters. I have lost count of the number of missions I have had to cancel due to crazy numbers of orange con custom LTs spawning in arcs.
[/ QUOTE ]
It's not broken. Having a ton of lieutenants show up is what happens when the author doesn't put any minions in the custom group. All the minions are replaced by lieutenants.
It can make for fun solo times but a team is going to die, die, die, and die again.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think the poster is talking about bugs like that one where Carnies will spawn as low as 30 for a villain, but a hero playing the same arc will never see them spawning lower than 40, which can be a problem is the arc is only scaling the hero up to 30-35.
Anyhow, when you make custom critters, put something, anything in their description fields. Seeing "A minion is..." just screams laziness. Put a small amount of background on the custom group in there, or maybe some clues as to the nature of the critter's powers like Longbow does for each of its Wardens.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Add an Ally
Once you have everything balanced out just the way you want it, add a custom combat defensive Lt Ally to further help those soft and squishies. I like an Elect Hd/FF Hd Lt, they help everyone and have minor self healing so they don't fall over dead too easily.
[/ QUOTE ]I'll disagree with this. Only add an ally if your story demands one. Don't add an ally for the sole purpose of making your mission easier.
[/ QUOTE ]
If you're going up against EBs, make the Ally a Boss at the least. LT allies tend to die fast, even ones with defensive sets. It does the player no good if the ally dies before you even get to the boss fight and also adds an extra element of frustration.
Some really great posts in this thread.
[ QUOTE ]
DOT will one-shot you, I've been hit at 100% for a massive attack that one-shot-coded me to 1hp, then a tic of DOT at the end and my this carpet's tasty.
[/ QUOTE ]
As I said, it really depends how long that "then" is. I do think that attacks with follow-up DoTs (like Fire's) don't apply the first tick of the DoT at the same time they apply the attack itself.
Yes, there's not that MUCH time to react, but you can do something about it.
Players' Choice Awards: Best Dual-Origin Level Range Arc!
It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...
The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013
I've been seeing so much long "flavor" dialog in missions that I've added an "NPC Yap" tab and ripped it to it's own window.
Here's one I've died to a few times, kinda like the oriignal Firday the 13th movie. I've done the last objective and received the mission complete and exit option. So I decide to nap in the rowboat and catch up on the clue novels I didn't get around to reading while my end and health refill, and blammo Jason and his two buds jump me.
If the map has a clear finale', don't add an ambush to it. That's my last impression of the mission; I'm gonna bet it effects the rating I give.
[ QUOTE ]
As I said, it really depends how long that "then" is. I do think that attacks with follow-up DoTs (like Fire's) don't apply the first tick of the DoT at the same time they apply the attack itself.
Yes, there's not that MUCH time to react, but you can do something about it.
[/ QUOTE ]
It does put you at the mercy of the server tick.
And it doesn't apply to the DoTs which are basically one big chunk of damage split up into smaller bits that all hit you in less than a second (Sonic Blast's Scream, for example). It's not tick... tick... tick... or even tick-tick-tick, but tiktiktiktiktik.
Current main:
Schrodinger's Gun, Dual Pistols/Mental Blaster, Virtue
Avatar: Becky Miyamoto from Pani Poni Dash. Roulette roulette~
[ QUOTE ]
Some really great posts in this thread.
[/ QUOTE ]
Definitely. Being something of a perfectionist (and being short on time), I'm still working on my first arc to make it "just perfect" and I'm finding good advice in this thread.
[ QUOTE ]
I'm still working on my first arc to make it "just perfect" and I'm finding good advice in this thread.
[/ QUOTE ]
Glad to hear it.
I find one of the most important things in writing is knowing when to stop editing. I have never written, or drawn, anything that was 'perfect' or even good. Simply stuff that did enough of what I wanted it to, so that I felt it did what I wanted it to. By the time I am done with something, I have usually found so many different (and better) ways of doing it, that it would require almost starting completely from scratch to do it the new way.
In the spirit of the thread, I'll add a couple of snippets of advice.
1) Give yourself permission to create garbage.
This is maybe the best advice I can give to anyone doing anything creative. No one creates great material on the first try. And expecting that out of yourself is going to frustrate, and limit your creativity.
2) Don't get attached to your material.
Creativity is a learning process. And if you're doing it right, what you used to think was pretty good should start to look very flawed.
3) When creating a mission- always, always, always, start with what is most inflexible (i.e. this IS an arc about catgurls), and work your way down to what is most flexible (i.e. I'd really like for the final battle to be in an abandone warehouse). I prefer starting with creating the groups first.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Please do mention if your arc is solo friendly or not, and whether it is intended for low or high level characters. Custom group scaling is borked up right now, so this is especially important if you don't use stock critters. I have lost count of the number of missions I have had to cancel due to crazy numbers of orange con custom LTs spawning in arcs.
[/ QUOTE ]
It's not broken. Having a ton of lieutenants show up is what happens when the author doesn't put any minions in the custom group. All the minions are replaced by lieutenants.
It can make for fun solo times but a team is going to die, die, die, and die again.
[/ QUOTE ]
It's also a farming technique.
Dec out.
[ QUOTE ]
I would disagree with this. The AV/EB message should be in the Description as well as possibly in the contact's message. You don't see the contact's message until you start the TF or are part way through it. Even at level 1 AVs will be a problem and many will want to just avoid the mission.
[/ QUOTE ]
The problem with this is they may or may not be there, because of the settings. If you're soloing on Heroic, then even an EB becomes a regular boss.
Dec out.
[ QUOTE ]
(by the way, you cannot get one-shot by anything in game, there's code to prevent that, no matter how big the hit you're always left at 1 HP).
[/ QUOTE ]
Doesn't that only apply if you're absolutely at full HP?
Dec out.
[ QUOTE ]
1) Give yourself permission to create garbage.
This is maybe the best advice I can give to anyone doing anything creative. No one creates great material on the first try. And expecting that out of yourself is going to frustrate, and limit your creativity.
[/ QUOTE ]
Isn't there some old writer's saw that you have 10,000 bad stories in you that you have to get out of the way until you get to the good ones? 
Dec out.
Sometimes when I'm having trouble getting started, I instead write the ending first. Then I go backwards coming up with all of the events leading to the conclusion until I have the reason for the player getting involved in the arc to begin with. That's how I came up with "The Amulet of J'gara" (1709).
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I would disagree with this. The AV/EB message should be in the Description as well as possibly in the contact's message. You don't see the contact's message until you start the TF or are part way through it. Even at level 1 AVs will be a problem and many will want to just avoid the mission.
[/ QUOTE ]
The problem with this is they may or may not be there, because of the settings. If you're soloing on Heroic, then even an EB becomes a regular boss.
[/ QUOTE ]
It does still apply. If you're soloing on Heroic, you expect Bosses to be Lts. Seeing a Boss-rank (downgraded EB) or Elite Boss-rank (downgraded AV) when you're capable of soloing mainly Lts (low-levels, for example) is a nasty surprise.
For example, if I see that a mission has an AV, I know that I'll be facing at minimum an EB, and I cannot rely on controls (soft or hard) to mitigate damage due to the anti-mez triangles. That dictates the sort of inspiration loadout I might carry.
Current main:
Schrodinger's Gun, Dual Pistols/Mental Blaster, Virtue
Avatar: Becky Miyamoto from Pani Poni Dash. Roulette roulette~
QR
Adding another to the list:
For collection objectives which are required, never make the interact time longer than 10 seconds.
For non-required objectives it doesn't really matter, since the player can simply interrupt the interaction if it's taking too long. But for required objectives, the player is forced to sit through the entire timer, doing nothing, in order to complete the mission.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
[ QUOTE ]
don't the individual mission blurbs in the AE interface contain information like "Defeat all, escort hostage, boss, AV?"
[/ QUOTE ]
I wish.