Add "Unkillable" option to Test Mode.
By
Aces_High,
Posted on: 2009-05-15 07:09 in Suggestions and Ideas
Why not just change your AV's rank to minion until you are read to publish? This will give you the opportunity to test the text and such without worry of being defeated.
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Why not just change your AV's rank to minion until you are read to publish? This will give you the opportunity to test the text and such without worry of being defeated.
[/ QUOTE ] Because being unkillable sounds like more fun(at least for a few minutes).
Hmm... I guess because that would be too hard.
Too hard? All you have to do to change a custom critter's rank is click a radio button. 
And then go through a few screens to hit 'save' of course, but seriously...
Also, how would being invincible help gauging how hard the mission is? If you take no damage, there's no way to judge this.
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Yeah I agree with the others. Sorry OP but I have to unsign this. There really is no need for a godmode while testing an arc.
/unsigned
Clearly my sarcasm in the last post was missed.
Well only reason is because it would help if you want to go through the mission and look for bugs.
/signed
especialy when your test character is lvl 2 and the difficulty is hard
I would have to say if you can't solo the mission then you should not publish it as is. This is a terrible idea since you would not be able to guage the difficulty by how many times you died trying to get through it yourself.
If you want to make insane to impossible missions to solo then you need to find a team to test it with. 
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Alright Devs. This is badly needed, especially if people are going to plan on placing AVs into their mission arcs.
[/ QUOTE ]No it really isn't. Change the AV to an LT and then test. Change back when done.
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Perhaps let our Health bar drop to 0, but don't allow us to die? We can also test out how hard our mission is then.
[/ QUOTE ]Here's a thought: If you the author of a mission are constantly dying while testing said mission, then maybe it's too hard and you should tone the mission down?
There's already to many missions filled full of overpowered minions. Your idea would just make it worse. Much worse.
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especialy when your test character is lvl 2 and the difficulty is hard
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Then simply lower the difficulty, or test it with a higher level character. Why you could even do both.
If you were "unkillable" how would you test the difficulty of the mission.
Sorry I disagree. People already don't read descriptions about teaming and complain that they cannot solo a mission. Now you want to add more complaints... no thanks.
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You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. Winston Churchill
I agree this would have been very useful when I was testing the flow, look-and-feel, etc. of my arc. Burning inspirations to survive the bigger fights seemed an irritating incidental expense. Not a real drain - I did my designing with high level characters, who could pick up more medium andlarge insps pretty much at will. Bit only if they went off to play something else or go shopping before going back to testing.
Running on heroic got around some of the issue, of course. But not having to worry about it until I was satisfied with the basic architecture of the mission would have been preferable.
/signed
PS - I see several "how do you know if it is too hard" objections, which would be valid if the author stayed in godmode through the whole design cycle. And one can argue that some authors would, as a negative to the suggestion. But it would speed up and simplify the process in some phases. I must admit, I didn't think of plugging in minion/lieut versions of the Big Bads during preliminary design walk throughs, which is certainly useful as a workaround. "AV stubs" as it were :-)
Though after-afterthought, doesn't that make it possible the Big Bad will pop up as a Joe Shmoe Foe during earlier stages of the mission, and can you still assign a demoted Boss/Elite/AV to a Boss Fight (might still be possible - just haven't tried it yet myself).
Of course I could keep the Big Bads in a Big Bad group all their own, and their goons in the general villain group. But now the tool seems to get unwieldy.
My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.
That is why I am saying "Add an option" to be unKillable. If you want to test the difficulty then leave it off, But if you are simply trying to look at vocabulary, mission flow, checking to make sure animations work correctly and all that other stuff, but you choose to put in AV into the mission, you should be able to test the stuff without having to take trips to the hospital.
Game developers walk around with invulnerabilty... why can't we when we're developing our stuff?
I'm all for this idea. More options is a good thing(usually).
I'm all for it, too. It shouldn't be a requirement to have a strong solo character to test out your missions. I'd even take it a step further and ask for a full debug toolboxt. God Mode, Invisibility, and Set Enemy Health to 100%, 75%, 50%, 25% and 0%.
First you check if the arc even works, then you balance for difficulty.
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Absolutely /signed.
In addition there needs to be an invisible option, infinite in-mission rezzes, and a /kill option for enemies. There is nothing more annoying than changing one small piece of a mission, like a broken goal chain, and having to spend 2 hours running the entire mission to make sure it works correctly, which in turns requires you to own a solo character powerful enough to even survive accomplish it.
I think, clearly, that when the developers build missions for us they are not doing it with a player character who they then have to run through the entire mission.
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Then simply lower the difficulty, or test it with a higher level character. Why you could even do both.
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You cannot "simply lower the difficulty." Lowering the difficulty causes bosses not to spawn and AVs to spawn differently than intended. It also prevents you from seeing what the mission would look like to a player who did attempt the mission at that difficulty. Just because your character isn't capable of soloing the mission at that difficulty doesnt mean you shouldnt spawn into the mission to get an idea of what it would look like for those characters who do.
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My only concern with this is that there are *already* so many missions out there where the author seems to have just thrown something "cool" in without regard to difficulty.
"Your mission's getting one starred because it's just impossible."
"But I didn't die when I tested it."
"Were you using Unkillable mode?"
"Well, yeah..."
"Hello, McFly!"
... should not be a conversation that needs to be had.
Not sure quite how to get around that, though, as on the other hand, checking for scripting and such would be very useful.
That depends on the person using the option. Like anything, people would abuse it, or use when they don't need to. That's with anything though.
QR
There's no downside to giving this as an option. This would allow an author to see how the mission plays at different difficulties, how the pacing works, and how a mob set as an AV works.
As an option, I really don't see why people think it's a bad idea and feel the need to down the OP. Oh wait...this is the suggestion forum, that's what they do here. 
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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As an option, I really don't see why people think it's a bad idea and feel the need to down the OP. Oh wait...this is the suggestion forum, that's what they do here.
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You want a downside? Ok, Here ya go.
Because there are badges and rewards you get while running missions in test mode before publishing them, and an unkillable mode would allow them to exploit and farm them with no risk involved.
Virtual Victor
Virtual Destroyer
Virtual Warrior
Virtual Soldier
Virtual Slayer
Virtually Impulsive
Virtual Button Masher
Virtually Curious
Virtually Unpredictable
Virtually Erratic
Mission Seeker
Mission Investigator
Mission Detective
Mission Inquisitor
Mission High Inquisitor
Virtual Ticket Taker
Virtual Ticket Hound
Virtual Ticket Fiend
Virtual Ticket Master
Virtual Golden Ticket
Bug fixer
Virtual Destruction
Virtual Decimation
Virtual Obliteration
Virtual Marauder
Virtual Cataclysm
Payoff
Of course your snarky attitude could be because your still feeling butthurt over the Rikti Comm Officer exploit getting fixed.
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As an option, I really don't see why people think it's a bad idea and feel the need to down the OP. Oh wait...this is the suggestion forum, that's what they do here.
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You want a downside? Ok, Here ya go.
Because there are badges and rewards you get while running missions in test mode before publishing them, and an unkillable mode would allow them to exploit and farm them with no risk involved.
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... so have kills not count when in that mode. *shrug*
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You want a downside? Ok, Here ya go.
Because there are badges and rewards you get while running missions in test mode before publishing them, and an unkillable mode would allow them to exploit and farm them with no risk involved.
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That's their fault for putting badges in a test mode, sorry to say. Test mode is meant for testing things out ((working)), not playing a game. That's what the final product is for. I'm more interested in getting my arc to work properly and coming out with something of high quality more then trying to get some badge. But, of course I'm speaking for myself.
There is of course the fact that even if you would be unkillable, those badges would be on an equal playing field, plus you would still have to work to get them. So it's not like it would be that big of a deal.
Alright Devs. This is badly needed, especially if people are going to plan on placing AVs into their mission arcs.
We need an option in test mode to allow players to be invincible. This allows us to test out text and mission flow without having to go through the agonizing process of killing AVs whilst trying to test the product out.
I might add that since you don't earn Inspirations in Test mode, nor do you earn experience or the like, It wouldn't be a problem give us this option.
Perhaps let our Health bar drop to 0, but don't allow us to die? We can also test out how hard our mission is then.