New mission types

So this idea was born out of the tf betterment suggestions thread

I was thinking, its been a good long while since we've gotten any new types of missions. The last new additions were safeguards/mayhems i believe. So the following are a few ive dreamed up:

The "Red Alert" mission
This was originally concieved for task forces, but would be great for regular arcs too. What if instead of "go inside, head to the back room, and kill this boss and his minions" mission, we had a similar type of thing, except for whatever reason (random generation, mission holder "hacked the base security wrong" or some other abstract reason i cant think of atm) the missions boss has been alerted to the fact that there are heroes coming after him. He then sends *almost* all of his minions within the map after them to meet them at the mission door or slightly after. Bosses should be used sparingly in this fight or only sent in after a certain number of baddies have been defeated, to avoid the problem of having a "garunteed epic phail" mission type that only results in a team wipe. If the heroes are able to push past the initial waves/numbers of minions, then they can proceed onto the boss, who will be surprised that they were able to defeat his defenses/cronies/creations/whatever. I originally thought this would be good for task forces because a short cutscene would play into this nicely, showing the boss saying something like "After them my minions!" or something villainy but those can be added to normal arcs too, as in cimerora (some of my favorite missions)

The "Master Plan" Mission
This mission type would be most suited to AV or EB battles. It would most likely be timed and require the hero team to defeat an AV or EB, and defeat whatever nefarious plot he has hatched. For example: "Dr. Vahzilok has created a machine that indefinitely clones his zombies (im just top-of-my-heading it here) Destroy his machine, and defeat him." or "destroy lord recluses death ray before he vaporizes Atlas Park." These types of missions wouldn't necessarily have to require you to defeat the AV or EB, come to think of it, although they certainly could be used that way. All thats needed for this is to give us a preferably large destructible object that maybe attacks us back, spawns baddies, or debuffs you maybe, and im pretty sure the code already mostly exists for this. This could work exactly the same for villains, the writing would have to be only a little different

The "Rampaging Villain"/"Do Gooder Hero" mission
Pretty self explanatory, let us go to a zone, safeguard/mayhem style, and stop a rampaging villain wreaking destruction, or rip the place up to draw out a hero or two. I think this is what i had in mind when i heard safeguards and mayhems were coming out. And while they're fun in their own right, this would be a blast. Now, i wouldn't want to go to one of these particular missions and see a villain attacking a stack of boxes that apparently are "vital to the safety of the citizens of paragon city" rather i wanna see him smashing up cars, setting fire to buildings (hellion style) and generally causing all the mayhem in mayhem missions (bank robberies) plus more, and maybe in the company of a sig. villain. conversely, the heroes would show up in force, perhaps with longbow in tow or a sig. hero, to combat the villain in question, and undo his or her acts. balancing would be the issue here. And im not sure if we can create an instanced pvp zone with the current game.

<b>The "OMG he's escaping!" mission</b>
Again simple, make it so some of the bosses or av's we have to fight have escape plans. I always thought the one mission where you have to bust one of the council leaders was cool, because he would try and escape you thru some of the elevators in the mission. this is a simple concept, it could be as easy as having them run for the door, or they could run down a hallway to a secret helicopter waiting on the roof. It doesn't have to move or anything, just if the bad guy gets to it, game over. This would bring in some mission failures, and would have to be remedied by having the heroes or villains take another shot at taking down the particular boss, but shouldn't make the tf or arc they are included in terribly longer than it already is (coughkatietfcough)

These are just a few ideas ive had. Overall i think the mission system could use an update or two, because kill alls, defeat boss, and hunt missions (which are the core of what we have) get dull after a while, in a certain way, and i think a few fresh ideas added to the mix of missions that we currently have would do the game well, rather ambitious idea that it is.

There it is, what do you all think?

There is no reason a "Master Plan" mission can't work exactly the same way for villains - one must always remember that Evil is NOT unified. When the Circle of Thorns brings up an enormous, AV-level, demon-summoning portal, that's just as much a threat to Lord Recluse and whatever grunts he sends to bash the Circle's collective face in as it is to Paragon City's heroes. Actually, when I think about it, I've never been on one but isn't a Rikti Mothership raid essentially this on a larger scale? Not like villains can't do that! All that would be different between Blueside and Redside for this sort of mission is the style of writing from the mission giver.

edited to reflect ty flashrains

/signed

Currently missions get quite monotonous. It would bring more diversity which is good!

I've got to agree with Fleeting here. We have all of those types of missions already. SOme of which are not really well received. Of course, I spend most of my time redside where these happen, and CoV was an upgrade to graphics/missions/flow which the blueside stories really need to be revamped to fix. But that is actually a huge job according to the Devs. CoV tightened up the CoH paradigm and improved it, but backwards improving (of blueside) would be a momentous undertaking.

I still hold out hope for 'someday' though.

Especially since I am gonna have to run through that blue timesink of monotony with a few Villains someday... meh.

As described, I would only say the "Escape" mission type really exists currently. But yes, "Stop Soandso from escaping!" missions are rarely enjoyed by the playerbase at large.

Well, I've played through every mission on redside, and except for perhaps the 'Rampaging Hero/Villain' mission; I have seen examples of each mission the OP described a number of times. Perhaps the descriptions are not clear enough to me, but I have seen them. Actually the Dr Vahz mish description sounds almost exactly like a mission I remember blueside, but might not be exactly what the OP wants.

Thinking about it; I seem to remember a 'rampaging Hero-style' mission in the Isles. Exactly? No, but similar.

Care to give examples? Because aside from the "Stop Soandso from escaping!" missions, the only examples I cant think of for any of the other suggestions occur only a handful of times (like... once), and are not very much like the mission type being suggested.

I had an idea for a "Challenge" mission. This be done in PVP/Arena locations.

Hero or Villain sends out a Challenge request via the Arena like menu.

The foe accepts aka a Villain if a Hero sent the Challenge.

Villain Goal is to destroy, Rob a bank, or Rampage.

Destroy mission the Villain goes after a target device. The Hero tries to stop the Villain. This be similar to Guard the Flag type PVP.

Villain Bank Robbery is simple like a Mayhem mission but the Hero that comes to stop you is another player.

Rampage the I would live to see a destructible map (even destructible buildings). The Villain would destroy as much as possible in a given amount of time. Hero of course tries to stop the Villain.

I was kind aunder the impression the OP was asking for these missions to occur with the frequency/intorduction mechanics of a mayhem/safegaurd, as opposed to at the end of an arc or some such. Maybe as a paper/radio mish, or from a contact who gives them as repeating mishes with randomized names/ enemies.

i think at least part of the reason (and i could be wrong) "stop soandso from escaping" missions are not very well received is the fact that they seem to be regular defeat the boss types. If i remember correctly, the mission i was referring to earlier with the council guy who runs for it, was surprising because nobody saw it coming. annoying at times? i could see how some people would think so. But if it was clearly labeled, if your contact said in red letters "Archon Whatshisface may try and escape this one, better be prepared" maybe it would mitigate it a little since everyone would know what to expect.

Of course, everyone knows what to expect with the missions as they are now too, so who knows

OK, Circle of Thorns was a bad example. Switch "Stop demon-summoning portal" with "This subordinate is too dangerous and I think he might be about to stage a coup, kill him."

/signed

because it would be awesome, and most missions lack originality in play style =(