1) almost no one will play this arc
2) even if the arc were level 1-54 almost no one would play it - because there are maybe 50 arcs with 200+ plays and then thousands with 50 or less.
at the end of the day you have to accept that you are making an arc you like, and that it won't get us much play as you would like. I personally make only 1-54 arcs so that my niche market is at least slightly larger (and my arc out since I14 went live and advertised on the boards and other sites has only 65 reviews). But it's a choice everyone has to make for themselves.
It's possible to balance a story arc around a lower target level than the missions are actually fixed at. Frankly, the psychic clockwork aren't that dangerous to midlevel characters, so you could reasonably balance the final mission around level 30ish players, IMHO. The glaring exception to this is AVs. The purple triangle power scales so dramatically between 25 and 50 that even con AVs are probably three times harder at 50 than at 25. However, you can balance against single AV fights by adding custom allies if need be.
The only problem I see with that is the first mission still causes your players to have to exemplar down to play. I'm not sure I have a suggestion to get around that.
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
I could certainly do custom critters for the third mission. I've used them sparingly in the first two (only one per mission) so hopefully I'll have room for several of them in the third mission.
There's no way to use standard critter sins (i.e. Clockwork or Mechmen) on custom critters is there?
And yes, good points, dugfromthearth. I don't expect anyone to find and play my arc out of the hundreds of thousands out there, but I'd still like for it to be an enjoyable experience for the friends I coerce into playing it.
(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon
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There's no way to use standard critter sins (i.e. Clockwork or Mechmen) on custom critters is there?
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No, and it's unlikely ever to happen because animations are skeleton-dependent. Try to picture a Sprocket wielding dual blades - it's just not going to look good.
What we have been requesting, and what I think is reasonable, is to be able to re-label and re-describe stock critters for our missions. So a Sprocket would have all its normal powers but would be called a NanoWidget or whatever. But of course that doesn't solve your level problems.
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 ]
I could certainly do custom critters for the third mission. I've used them sparingly in the first two (only one per mission) so hopefully I'll have room for several of them in the third mission.
There's no way to use standard critter sins (i.e. Clockwork or Mechmen) on custom critters is there?
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What you can do is add standard critters to a custom group. So you could get regular mech men from the council, for example, and put them in your own "robots" custom group. This might allow you to narrow your level ranges considerably.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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That doesn't narrow the level range of the mission, it expands the level range at which the group is available. This can create situations where a level 20 character will see completely different enemies than a level 40 character, and can be very confusing to manage.
As an example, I created a mission once with a custom group containing some 33-45 critters and some 35-45 critters. When I ran the mission as a 50 I saw the mix I expected. When I ran it as a 25, the mission spawned at 33, and only the 33-45 critters showed up - which made for very monotonous combat and wasn't at all what I had intended. I had to add a boss battle with an explicit 35-45 critter to get the mission itself to spawn at a minimum level of 35 and avoid the issue.
I don't think this is what the OP is going for, though I guess it's worth mentioning.
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
For the first mission, I wanted the robots everywhere; for the second mission, and probably for the third, I only want them around the boss - I have/will have non-robotic lvl 1-54 mobs throughout the rest of the 2nd and 3rd missions. That one little spawn around the boss is dictating the level of the second mission, which is what I was hoping to avoid. I don't want to narrow the level range any further; I'd actually prefer to expand it as much as possible.
(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon
You could just make a custom group that has robots from all the different level ranges you know? Custom groups don't have to have custom critters.
I'm working on a three-mission arc and I'm concerned about the levels of the missions.
The first mission is lvl 1-20 because I'm using Clockwork for the main NPC group. This is supposed to be the easiest of the three progressively harder missions, so I don't have too much concern about it even though people have told me they wished it was higher level. This mission includes a custom boss.
The second mission revolves around a level 1-54 group, but also includes one spawn of a group called renegade robots or something that only spawn from level 29-35 IIRC. This of course forces the second mission into that level range. This mission includes a custom EB.
For the third mission, which isn't written yet, I plan to use another 1-54 group as the main bad guys, but I also want to use more robots. Since this is supposed to be the hardest mission, I was thinking about psychic clockwork, but that would crank the level of the mission to like 40+ I think. This mission would ideally include a custom AV, as well as a few custom bosses.
Robots are essential to the story, but my problem is that there isn't a level 1-54 robot group in CoX, so short of creating a bunch of custom robots, I keep getting pigeon-holed into these odd level ranges, and it makes me think no one will ever play the arc. I have run the first two missions successfully with a lvl 15 blaster. The second mission was a pain, but it was doable, but I don't know about the third mission.
Any suggestions or advice? Am I overlooking a robot group that I could use throughout without getting pigeon-holed? Do I need to just forget the standard robot NPCs in missions 2 and 3, and use custom mobs instead? Thanks in advance.
(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon