City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

how do heroes succeed while failing?

AngryRedHerring

By AngryRedHerring,
Posted on: 2009-04-27 10:12 in Mission Architect

 

Posted

in comics the hero loses the first couple of fights with the villain. Then defeats the villain in the end - right before they can finish their plan.

in MA we can't have the player fail at all of the first missions - for one thing being beaten by the villain just means you go to the hospital and fight him again.

So how do you progress the story with the villain's plan succeeding and developing - with the hero succeeding at every mission?

 

Posted

Use failable mission objectives instead of just Defeat Boss.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt

 

Posted

Or have the hero arrive too late to stop the full realization of a plan. The generator is already operational, the impervium has already been stolen, you end up beating up the wrong guys, etc.

 

Posted

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Or have the hero arrive too late to stop the full realization of a plan. The generator is already operational, the impervium has already been stolen, you end up beating up the wrong guys, etc.

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can you do that in a mission - or do you just do that in the clue?

The devs can have the villain teleport out and escape - we can't.

I have had one boss in MA run out of a mission after being wounded.

 

Posted

In mine, I made an EB with Extreme Willpower who runs at 10% life. Even if you beat him, he immediately pops Resurgence and keeps running. The odds of a team killing him, from full health in the time it takes him to run (out of Blackbeard's Casino, no less) are practically zero. You still get the mission success and all it's rewards, and you still defeated his gang (he also runs at minion defeat), but alas, he got away to build the plot further.

All that is planned fails. All that is born dies.
All that is built crumbles. This will always be true.

But memories remain, And that is beautiful.

 

Posted

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A smart villain always has a plan B. And sometimes a plan C and plan D.

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And the smartest villains always succeed, with failure being part of their plan all along.

 

Posted

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If you have a "Defeat all" or "defeat all in final room" and there's a running boss, do you still succeed if he escapes?

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Not if "defeat boss" is a required objective.

Dec out.

 

Posted

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It isn't, and never mind, it doesn't cause failure in that case. Now if only I could make sure he does escape...

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Arch-villain rank with Extreme Super Reflexes. Makes him impossible to hit, he'll resists slows and immobilizes, and Elude will let him run away at 100 mph. Works for Crimson pretty well.

Arc #41077 - The Men of State
Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball

 

Posted

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It isn't, and never mind, it doesn't cause failure in that case. Now if only I could make sure he does escape...

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Arch-villain rank with Extreme Super Reflexes. Makes him impossible to hit, he'll resists slows and immobilizes, and Elude will let him run away at 100 mph. Works for Crimson pretty well.

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I need a specific standard enemy for purposes of the story though. Boss level. So a pretty good chance he can be stopped, even on a tiny map.

And even Crimson can be stopped, I've done it twice, although once was with a /traps Corruptor so that's kind of cheating, and the other time was with a Shivan and temp powers so that's totally cheating.

Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper

Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World

 

Posted

What would be the easy fix, and is on a lot of people's "wish list" is the simple "you didn't really beat me because I'm teleporting away at the last minute" death emote, ala the Widow in the Tremblor's Faultline arc. I really hope they give us that option.

Dec out.

 

Posted

I kind of have the opposite problem.

I want the first mission of an arc to be a sort of "training mission," in which you face the team that will be your allies for the rest of the arc - several bosses in sequence. I don't think it'll be *too* hard (they're just Bosses, not EBs), but don't want someone having to repeatedly beat their head against the wall if they fail. Plus, if they *do* get killed, it'd be nice to have that be an automatic "mission fails but no harm done, just a training mission."

Doesn't seem to be any easy way to do this, though.

 

Posted

Here's one way to do it:

The contact sends the hero to capture the evil Doctor Zed before he can put his dastardly plan into operation.

Put a "Collect an Object" mission completion objective in the mission. Make it the only objective necessary for mission complete. Write custom text for that collectible object that will appear on the nav bar. Instead of having it say something like "Collect the last clue" , have it say "Defeat Doctor Zed"

Player runs the mission. His contact sent him to get Dr. Zed. The Nav bar says he has to defeat Dr. Zed. But when he gets to the last room and finds the glowie.... Dr. Zed has already put the next phase of his plan into operation. The hero has failed!

True, the hero didn't necessarily get the snot kicked out of him by the villain, but there are lots of ways to be beaten by the bad guy.

Just one way to do it. Ymmv.

 

Posted

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I kind of have the opposite problem.

I want the first mission of an arc to be a sort of "training mission," in which you face the team that will be your allies for the rest of the arc - several bosses in sequence. I don't think it'll be *too* hard (they're just Bosses, not EBs), but don't want someone having to repeatedly beat their head against the wall if they fail. Plus, if they *do* get killed, it'd be nice to have that be an automatic "mission fails but no harm done, just a training mission."

Doesn't seem to be any easy way to do this, though.

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"Touch the VR console to end the simulation."

Put it in the front of the map on a decently long timer, and the (all entirely optional) bosses in the middle and back.

Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?

My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I kind of have the opposite problem.

I want the first mission of an arc to be a sort of "training mission," in which you face the team that will be your allies for the rest of the arc - several bosses in sequence. I don't think it'll be *too* hard (they're just Bosses, not EBs), but don't want someone having to repeatedly beat their head against the wall if they fail. Plus, if they *do* get killed, it'd be nice to have that be an automatic "mission fails but no harm done, just a training mission."

Doesn't seem to be any easy way to do this, though.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Touch the VR console to end the simulation."

Put it in the front of the map on a decently long timer, and the (all entirely optional) bosses in the middle and back.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm, that's not a bad idea, I might do that. Thanks!

 

Posted

If you want the boss to always run away successfully, set him as a captive. He won't even be attackable, and when you get to him, he'll run to the door. Sure, he didn't beat you up, but he got away, which is what you were trying to stop from happenening, so you failed.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Here's one way to do it:

The contact sends the hero to capture the evil Doctor Zed before he can put his dastardly plan into operation.

Put a "Collect an Object" mission completion objective in the mission. Make it the only objective necessary for mission complete. Write custom text for that collectible object that will appear on the nav bar. Instead of having it say something like "Collect the last clue" , have it say "Defeat Doctor Zed"

Player runs the mission. His contact sent him to get Dr. Zed. The Nav bar says he has to defeat Dr. Zed. But when he gets to the last room and finds the glowie.... Dr. Zed has already put the next phase of his plan into operation. The hero has failed!

True, the hero didn't necessarily get the snot kicked out of him by the villain, but there are lots of ways to be beaten by the bad guy.

Just one way to do it. Ymmv.

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I did exactly this in my arc "Hunting the Dark Dragon". In one mission, you go after the big bad, but once you get to the mission end, you find a message instead. It's a fairly common staple in comic books, so I don't see anything bad about using it.

"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi

Characters

 

Posted

If it makes sense for the character/story, he could always be "phased," a la Phase/Shift powers. Nemesis, for instance, could plausibly do something like that.

 

Posted

Umm, just a thought but you can control what it says after you defeat a boss.

"You have defeated Captain Ketchup"
"Ronald Reagan teleported away at the last minute, leaving him free to "Reagan Smash!" the city again."

I just recently played through the Temblor storyline with an alt. Nocturne, Sands and Captain Skyraider McGee don't really teleport away at any point. They just fall down like all the other bosses do, and it says they teleported away.

Defeat doesn't always mean "removed the feet" it can also mean that by beating them up and causing them to leave, you stopped the plan. You don't need to explain that to the player, most will get it and accept it.

 

Posted

Like i said before, Small map+run at 10% HP+Regen, Dark Armor, or Willpower on Extreme (granted, ouch...) means the boss WILL get away, even if they're defeated, without failing the mission (you only have to defeat the boss the first time to get the objective).

Yes, when a bodd uses a self-res, they automatically keep running, even if they're at full health.

Note, this also worked great on a team with controls, we broke through his mez protection before he started running, but all that stacked mez was gone when he popped Resurgence. Even with five controllers, we couldn't keep him in the mission after he rezzed. It was huge fun, and quite hardcore, but at the same time, not too much danger to solo with my Stalker.

All that is planned fails. All that is born dies.
All that is built crumbles. This will always be true.

But memories remain, And that is beautiful.

 

Posted

some really nice idea's.. I accually have something along these lines i wanna do, the only problem is i dont want him to kill the heroes, or even attack them

One way to get missions to fail is a very short time limit, that could be one way to make sure they get a fail, only the best teams would beable to do some missions with out failing, or perhaps there is just too much to do in the mission? Not sure if you want the mission to Be a fail, as part of your story




But i have a thing i wanna do. basically there is a weapon rack collection in the final area. its a weapon to be used for a ritual. I want to make a custom boss ambush, bascially steal the weapon and then run outta the mission with out hurting the players. basically the entire senario is a set up for my next Arc, Tsoo/family/cot. Its not a big map he is on, and he would probly make it outta the cave as he is only gonig against at tops lvl 14's, But i dont want him to die. Grab the sword, say some stuff and vanish. any idea for a good way to do this for lowbies? Id think putting SR or WP up to exteme might make him just impossible to damage to get to a damage run point.