how tough can a normal story mission be?
By
Clave_Dark_5,
Posted on: 2009-05-18 17:13 in Mission Architect
I'm fine with running all-lt or all-boss maps if the description makes it clear what I'm in for... but I like challenges. Some people might not like it, particularly if the lts are customs and hit harder than normal lts.
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
You can also change the challenge level by giving one group better defenses or something. I wouldn't worry so much about rank.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
In all honesty, I'd avoid any custom enemy group that lacks minions, LTs, or bosses. Doing so is likely to get your arc flagged for review as a farm, and possibly removed by the GMs that review it. Even if the first GM to look at it OKs the arc, any time you edit it (likely every patch that effects the MA), your arc would likely be flagged for review again.
What you could do is create a second enemy group specifically for your capture the flag encounter. Your primary group would contain minions, LTs, and bosses, but you'd only put the mobs you wanted for the challenge objective in the second group.
no one is going to flag an arc where you have 3 one room missions where you solve riddles as a farm.
Yeah, but people who might normally think an arc where you solve riddles is cool might automatically skip any arc flagged as a "challenge." And if you don't flag it as a challenge and then throw in an ambush with multiple bosses a lot of people will rate it low.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
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Yeah, but people who might normally think an arc where you solve riddles is cool might automatically skip any arc flagged as a "challenge." And if you don't flag it as a challenge and then throw in an ambush with multiple bosses a lot of people will rate it low.
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I agree - I think that mixing riddles and challenge will appeal to a very tiny niche.
so Lt's seem a decent compromise.
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In all honesty, I'd avoid any custom enemy group that lacks minions, LTs, or bosses. Doing so is likely to get your arc flagged for review as a farm, and possibly removed by the GMs that review it. Even if the first GM to look at it OKs the arc, any time you edit it (likely every patch that effects the MA), your arc would likely be flagged for review again.
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Due to some long story details I won't bother with, the first mish of my first arc listed in my sig has no bosses, just minions and Lt.s and so far hasn't been touched once by the banhammer. I am going to be taking care of that soon though (the lack of bosses, not the banhammer).
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I have an arc where you aid the Aesir by challenging the Jotunn to defeat their champions.
It's basically king of the hill - defendible object, if you defend it you win.
To make Jotunn (giants) tough, I have made them all lieutenants. Which makes defending the object tough but doable.
It makes the Jotunn on the rest of the map lt's as well. I could make minions and lt's - but this is supposed to be epic, and having the Jotunn be no tougher than the dwarves you faced in the earlier mission seems wrong.
But then having the normal Jotunn be lt's and the champions lt's (the champions are currently the same mobs) seems wrong.
But upping the champions to all bosses seems over the top.
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Well, you could make a normal group of Jotun minions, lieuts, and bosses, then create another group called "Jotun Champions" which just includes the lieuts and bosses from the first group. Have the object surrounded by Jotun Champions.
Oh, wait.
Does the ambush for a destructible object come from the map mobs?
In that case, make the map Jotun Champion faction but fill it up with optional "boss" objectives, where the "boss" is a Jotun minion or lieutenant, with no dialogue or plural text, and give them an escort of Jotun. That should make the general fights in the mission be mostly normal Jotun with the occasional group of champions, but still get the destructible object attacked by champions.
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)
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In all honesty, I'd avoid any custom enemy group that lacks minions, LTs, or bosses. Doing so is likely to get your arc flagged for review as a farm, and possibly removed by the GMs that review it.
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We need to educate the playerbase then, because custom all-lieutenant or all-boss groups are not an exploit. The devs had plenty of warning about that construct in closed beta and the general agreement was that the ability to create such groups was a way to give mission designers more flexibility.
The only reason that there's an issue with these groups is that they arguably give disproportionate reward rates. I say "arguably" because those critters are actually harder to fight than normal (unlike, say, the RCO meow farm groups). Synapse and/or Positron may want to revisit the xp and drop rates for lieutenants and bosses now that we have data on what happens when you fight nothing but those ranks, but I hope to $deity that they never lose their sanity enough to yank the feature entirely.
PS. I like GlaziusF's idea for how to balance the map.
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
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Well, you could make a normal group of Jotun minions, lieuts, and bosses, then create another group called "Jotun Champions" which just includes the lieuts and bosses from the first group. Have the object surrounded by Jotun Champions.
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I don't want any Jotunn minions. Jotunn are supposed to be extremely tough. In theory each should be tougher than the player - but that doesn't make for a good mission.
So I made them lt's - so every Jotunn feels tough.
If I add in bosses, then it will be a mixed group of bosses and lt's - which seems too tough.
Of course I play on heroic so I wouldn't see bosses.
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Well, you could make a normal group of Jotun minions, lieuts, and bosses, then create another group called "Jotun Champions" which just includes the lieuts and bosses from the first group. Have the object surrounded by Jotun Champions.
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I don't want any Jotunn minions. Jotunn are supposed to be extremely tough. In theory each should be tougher than the player - but that doesn't make for a good mission.
So I made them lt's - so every Jotunn feels tough.
If I add in bosses, then it will be a mixed group of bosses and lt's - which seems too tough.
Of course I play on heroic so I wouldn't see bosses.
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Okay. Make some servants to the Jotun, and those are minions. That way the lieuts still feel challenging but spawn in reasonable numbers.
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)
I have an arc where you aid the Aesir by challenging the Jotunn to defeat their champions.
It's basically king of the hill - defendible object, if you defend it you win.
To make Jotunn (giants) tough, I have made them all lieutenants. Which makes defending the object tough but doable.
It makes the Jotunn on the rest of the map lt's as well. I could make minions and lt's - but this is supposed to be epic, and having the Jotunn be no tougher than the dwarves you faced in the earlier mission seems wrong.
But then having the normal Jotunn be lt's and the champions lt's (the champions are currently the same mobs) seems wrong.
But upping the champions to all bosses seems over the top.