I remember when ae first came out, some guy had a bunch of freakshow in the back of the map (office) they kept respawning. I had my fire/kin and like 5 other trollers, we were stuck in the room fighting freakshow nonstop for like 30 minutes lol, still don't know how the guy did it, but that that was a cool trick.
Something I'd like to see is a simple guide to getting colored text in the mission descriptions - what the html codes are, and what colors are used by the default game for things like "This is an objective", or "Warning, this mission may be a bit difficult."
And now, so I can actually add something constructive:
I needed to put level limits on a mission, but wanted to leave the main group as PPD rather than "custom". So I made a custom group that contained only PPD minions and lieutenants from the right level range and put it in as the guards for a "boss". Set the boss to a single custom character (ranked as lieutenant), and I got my level range, some extra speech, and all without actually making the mission any harder than it was before.
I'm sure that's not new to 95% of the people reading this - but it took me a while to figure out how to make it work, so here it is.
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Something I'd like to see is a simple guide to getting colored text in the mission descriptions - what the html codes are, and what colors are used by the default game for things like "This is an objective", or "Warning, this mission may be a bit difficult."
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There's a page for this on paragonwiki somewhere, but a short and simple method is to highlight the text you want to color or put in italics or bold and then right click it - a little menu will pop up giving you these options.
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and what colors are used by the default game for things like "This is an objective", or "Warning, this mission may be a bit difficult."
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I've noticed the default game isn't consistent in this regard. But, generally speaking...
Red = Warning.
Green or Orange = TLDR version of mission briefing.
Green = Options (accept mission, be introduced to new contact)
I think I've seen blue used, but I don't recall what it was used for.
My advice would be: aside from red being a warning color (that's all I've ever seen it used for in regular content), use what works for you. Just be internally consistent with it.
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I seem to recall orange being used for warnings in canon missions as well. I use it because I find it easier to read than red.
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
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I seem to recall orange being used for warnings in canon missions as well. I use it because I find it easier to read than red.
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Same here. There's just something about red text that is crazy hard to read.
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and what colors are used by the default game for things like "This is an objective", or "Warning, this mission may be a bit difficult."
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I've noticed the default game isn't consistent in this regard.
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I believe this topic came up right after AE launched and the consensus was that the dev-made stuff indeed wasn't consistent in it's use of color highlights - which means you can't do it wrong. 
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I seem to recall orange being used for warnings in canon missions as well. I use it because I find it easier to read than red.
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Same here. There's just something about red text that is crazy hard to read.
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Especially with the bright light of the datastream in the background.
And don't go crazy with the highlighting, I've seen some arcs where the author did a ton of highlighting for the tl;dr crowd and ended up making it unreadable for everyone else.
I find too much highlighted text breaks immersion. It's like you're trying too hard to make it "easy." It breaks the flow of the contact's dialogue for people who are actually trying to read everything.
Really, all the tl;dr crowd probably needs to know is "go in there, rescue the hostages and kick the boss's butt." If they want to know the whys and wherefores, they can read the unhighlighted part.
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
I don't even highlight that much. Unless I'm warning you about an EB/AV or that the arc is meant to be challenging, the only highlighted text will be the arc title and mission subtitle. I'm not going to indulge those with poor reading skill.
I share your philosophy Lazarus. People with a tl;dr mindset wouldn't like my arcs anyway. I only highlight the AV/EB warnings because it's expected; I always warn of them in the arc description, so that solo players can avoid the arc if they choose, and I don't think it's too much to expect people to remember that there's an AV in there somewhere, so if the contact says "the big bad is a tough customer, you might want to bring friends" it might just maybe be referring to the AV the description warned you about? But meh, spell it out in orange letters just to be on the safe side.
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
One trick I did to simulate an evolving boss, though it does use chained objectives which I plan on finding the right balance to have them spawn as close to in order as possible.
Boss 1: minion level, small and mono-colored. Defeating him spawns
Boss 2: lieutenant level, larger with a second colored highlight. Defeating him spawns
Boss 3: boss level, even larger with the second color and an aura. Defeating him spawns
Destructible object guarded by holo-versions of Boss 1, Boss 2, and Boss 3.
How it's done: Create holo-Boss 1, holo-Boss 2, and holo-Boss 3 all in the same group. For the objectives Boss 1, Boss 2, and Boss 3, I can rename them, and for the destructible object have it be guarded by the boss group.
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Tip #ilostcount: to get a boss with a mastermind type powerset to summon its henchmen early, place a rogue patrol of weak minions near it to make it aggro. That way, once the player arrives, the boss will already have henchmen out and ready, which can be used for a number of things, from making the boss fight more thematic to more challenging, as well as circumventing the 'does not summon henchmen while player is attacking' situation that sometimes pops up.
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Handy. I like that one. but will have to wait till I can choose spawn locations for that to work in the "Dorothy is Dangerous" mission. Rogue.... haven't used that as an option much... I'm seeing possiblilities.
It feels a little silly to post just to link to someone else's post, but I think it's warranted here. The original post is by The_Cheshire_Cat, can be found here - it's the sixth post down from the top - and is in reference to one of his story arcs: The Beating Heart of Astoria: A Play in Five Acts. Arc ID: 170547
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As much as I hate to give away my secrets, I honestly didn't think it was that much of a trick to begin with :P (I'm working on something fancier at the moment with er... less success so far).
You create an escort, set it to required. Set the surrounding enemy group to "Single" so that only the escort is there. Set enemy group alignment to "Rogue" (Which makes the escort hostile), and set combat abilities to "Pacifist" (So the escort won't aggro on the player). Now you've got an escort that the player can choose to fail, but it won't attack the player so they have a choice whether they want to complete/fail the mission.
Also, the glowie can't have you fail the mission. It actually doesn't fail you on the escort until the body fades for whatever reason, so really it was the escort that caused the fail and the timing was just a coincidence on the glowie.
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First, I like story and I like plot, I enjoy well written dialog and good character descriptions.
This has nothing to do with that.
I want a place to discuss clever things you can do with MA, how to make fun missions and how to throw surprises and fun into the mix.
examples:
Ambushes.
I love ambushes... and they add a strong dynamic element
Pop an ambush when the boss first takes damage, and you have a fight to remember:
pop a second ambush at 3/4 damage and a third at 1/2 damage, and now Dorothy fills the sky with flying monkeys.
If you tie an ambush to a boss defeat... and give that boss the power to rez... you get a "Round two" on the same boss... Appropriate dialog, and the players get the impression he's a completely different, and tougher, boss.
Set a "free a captive" to single only, and tie an ambush to him... and you get a "Hot Door" (ambush that hits the second the players zone in)
If you make a Hot Door anything but a minion level ambush, players won't forgive you.
If you make those same minions into masterminds ... you can get a MASSIVE wave of bad guys come at you like a wall of ninjas, thugs, undead or robots.. fun...
Things that DO NOT work. (unless this was part of your evil plan)
Never give an ambusher any status effect or hold powers... for instance a door ambush with ninjas who have caltops means most of your players will never be able to move from the door. While it may be mildly amusing at first to be frozen in place one step into the mission... its not really all that fun. So much for my "how many ninjas can fit in a casino" mission.
If you DO put something tough into an ambush.... remember to put minions in to mitigate it... I wanted ONE cyclops... I got TEN.
I wanted to make a mission called "Run like Hell" where a nasty hot door ambush full of impossible to kill critters comes at you, and your only escape is to find and click the glowie. no other critters in the mission. This did not work.. I tied three door ambushes together and ended up with all three spawning at the door, but just sat there doing nothing, untill you found the captive they were attached to. Any indoor mission... and the ambush gets you before you can run... any outdoor mission, and I couln't correctly pull off the hot door. ps. You can put the hamidon thingies into an ambush.... For the love of all things holy...do not do this unless your goal was instant party wipe.
I'm wanting war stories, clever tricks, and "well, THAT didn't work" What cool things have you done in YOUR missions?
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Wow, this is like a list of what gets 1 star
good luck
The more people I meet, the more I'm beginning to root for the zombies.
Qr - I used a combination of onbjectives, dialogue and animations to create sth I think is quite a neat trick in my latest arc The Audition.
The player finds a collection first - the clue explains he or she has found a device. Later, the instructions are to defeat some bad guys. The player encounters them, but no combat takes place.
I set the bad guy as an ally objective set to Do Nothing and Non Combat. This makes the mob stay where he is after being 'rescued'. Ally tecognises player dialogue should be sth like "aha, $name, i shall let my minions have a crack at you first!" becayse of course he or she won't attack . Ally stranded and Ally re-found animations are both set to Captured-energy field. The Ally Rescued dialogue says "no! Not the Entrapmentizer!" or sth. The system message for completing the objective says sth like "you use the device on Giant Head Man." or similar.
The result is that it seems that the plAyer has met the enemy and beaten him or Her without a fight. The mob stays where they are, stuck in an energy field. I have found sometimes that the anim doesn't work perfectly all the time but, well You can see it working in mission 3 of The Audition.
I've changed some details to avoid spoilers, but the mechanics are basically that.
I love playing with objectives and I think that mixing it up a little can produce some really interesting effects.
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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Then, I'll usually have the contact say something like; "Don't forget to call in, if you need some help." Make those letters in orange or bright yellow. In the mission have a nonrequired item right up front, name it: "You could use this to call Wonderlad!" Have the ally spawn once the glowie is completed. That way the player has the choice to have an ally or not.
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Lots of great ideas here... this one in particular. 
El Furioso - Inv/SS Tanker .:. Chlorostorm - Plant/Thorn Dominator {Virtue}
Proud member of the Repeat Offenders Network
City of Heroes Mission Review .:. MA arcs submitted and reviewed by the CoX community
Not sure if this is clever, but the fave mission that I've made so far was Exploding Planet, #200411. The initial mission contact and much of the NPC dialog in the first mission is in an alien language (it looks alien, I used unicode chars for circles, triangles, musical notes, etc to convey alieness). The goal of the first mission is not explicitly spelled out, until you find someone on the map that can grant you the ability to understand the language (and ends the mission, although more NPCs spawn at that moment who are non-combative, but speak your lingo and can give supplemental but not-essential context.)
The ability to understand begins to fade over time with the alien language making a return after your character has a more concrete idea what is going on, and what has to be done.
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MA: (All SFMA, all technically long/very long, but all play quickly)
#200411 "Exploding Planet" (I apologize in advance for the final mission, but in all likelihood, the planet will explode.)
#144416 "Shadow of Grime Alley"
#161003 "You Don't Know Beanstalk, Jack"
I use a method of spawning in everything (including standard spawns) after you complete a lone objective on a map. Technically, it's supposed to be like a sort of 'air drop' but willing suspension and all that is a little necessary due to system limitations.
It's amusing to see the mission server nearly keel over when you 'signal the drop'.
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
Do you use patrols or something else to do this?
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
utilising the 'single objective triggers lots' trick can give some cool effects. Set a Collection objective using the wallsafe object at the Back of a map, and off that trigger loads of patrols and a Defeat Boss set to Front, and you've got your basic bank/safecracking mission. The player enters a completely empty map, goes to the end, breaks the safe, the alarm goers off and his way out will be a fight against the swarms of mobs that are now everywhere, finishing woth a fight against the Captain of the cops or what have you.
Patrols can also give a much more organic (or mayhemic) feel to a map when used in massive quantities than normal spawns. If you set loads of patrols they'll encounter a full map but all the mobs will be on the move, which can add challenge.
Eco.
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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I'm not sure if these qualifies as "clever" or not, but I used what I think are interesting mechanics several missions of arc #175660, "The Heart of Talos." While I created it because I liked the story, I also meant it to be technically interesting.
First, I'm pleased with how I handled the final AV fight.
Most AV fights in Architect missions tend to fall into one of two groups. Either the AV doesn't have a defense set, in which case it goes down at a reasonable pace on a small team or in the blink of an eye on a large team, or it has a defense set, making the mission impossible for a small team and time-consuming for a large one. I've also seen too many teams where a character with mez protection, usually a scrapper, can shred an AV in seconds without breaking a sweat.
To get around this problem and to try something I've never seen in a dev mission (though the Romulus fight is vaguely similar), I decided to make the challenge more the combination of the AV and his surrounding spawn. The AV himself is damage and debuff-based, meaning he has a lot of attacks but no special defense. He is surrounded by a spawn of all-lieutenant Shield characters with Phalanx Fighting, Grant Cover, and the Shield damage debuff power. The idea is that you can use a variety of strategies depending on team makeup (or a solo character's abilities, for that matter). Scrappers may want to wipe out the lieutenants first to ensure that so many of them don't floor their damage against the AV. Controllers can easily render the lieutenants harmless with AoE mezzes and take out the AV directly, blasters can nuke the entire lieutenant spawn and kite the AV, etc.
So far, the only times I've had trouble with this mission have been on my attempts solo the encounter where I've made the wrong tactical choice. I've done a LOT of testing with different team sizes and makeups, so it seems pretty balanced. If anyone is interested, the mission that uses this is the finale of arc #1754660, "Heart of Talos."
Turning to "clever tricks" to HELP player characters, the same arc has a mission to defeat an Elite Boss (stock, not custom). The EB's there for flavor as much as challenge, and I wanted to ensure that any kind of character or small team could get past it.
Accordingly, I created an ally who's Broadsword (standard)/Empathy (extreme) set to "ranged," which means he prefers buffing. This has worked out splendidly. For squishy characters, the ally acts as a tank. For hard-hitting types, his Fortitude and Clear Mind turn them into dynamos.
Finally, in another mission in the same arc, there is an Elite Boss who has to be defeated. The player doesn't have an ally this time, and since the EB is Fiery Aura, this might seem too challenging for some AT's/groups.
However, the EB is a different faction from the enemies on the rest of the map and is aligned "Rogue." A careful character could probably get the regular spawns to defeat the EB. The regular spawns in his room often "soften him up"; indeed, I gave him Healing Flames to ensure that they don't always defeat him.
Again, this is all in arc #175660. Frustratingly, this arc has gotten the fewest plays of any of my three, possibly because of all the warnings I had to cram into the description about an AV without assistance provided to the player and the hard-hitting nature of the custom faction (which is due, in my opinion, to the overpowered damage of the ranged attacks in melee sets; otherwise, they just use straightforward, no-control-power weapon sets).
I'm trying to create another "strange mechanics" arc at the moment, in anticipation of i15's extra slots option. Any further suggestions?
"Bombarding the CoH/V fora with verbosity since January, 2006"
Djinniman, level 50 inv/fire tanker, on Victory
-and 40 others on various servers
A CoH Comic: Kid Eros in "One Light"
I did something similar to this in an AV fight that I haven't published. The AV himself is built around pure debuffs, Sonic/Cold. His surrounding faction was the same faction as the rest of the arc, nothing special. However, the ambushes at 75/50/25% were a mix of Fire Blast/Sonic Resonance LTs and Ice Blast/Force Field LTs with their AoE shields. The AV did some moderate damage with sonic blast, but made the incoming LTs a nightmare. I never did get a chance to actually test the guy out, but I imagine that he'd be fun for bigger teams.
QR
Weatherby_Goode - "Heck, Carrion Creepers negates the knockdown from Carrion Creepers."
Qr olantern, jadkni - seeing this type of thought put into the MA is great. I think a lot about objective manipulation, but I hadn't given a lot of consideration to powerset mixes yet. Food for thought indeed.
This thread is really good.
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
|
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I hate this type of chained objective if it's not done the right way. Not because it's a terrible thing overall but because it kills my immersion. I've been through a room or hallway before and there was nothing there. Then I kidnap somebody and suddenly I notice a huge obelisk or tech doodad sitting in the middle of the floor.
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I've used this to make pseudo-ambushes. The glowies are there from the beginning; the boss spawns when you hit the glowie.
On one, I made the glowie take no time: click and you immediately are told that your presence has been detected. Another, I used a map that could hold one glowie, and put an aggressive hostage as an objective as well. If you just pick up the hostage and go to the glowie next, the boss is certain to spawn between you and the exit, which can put the hostage in danger.
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