Random missions

well, this was reacted to positively when I mentioned it on the city life forum, so here goes...

a common plot device in comics is for heroes to find a plot hook while stopping something happening in the city at large. what about doing the same thing in CoH? after you defeat X amount of X foes in X zone, you get a clue pointing you towards the first mission in a string that gets you to a thrilling final encounter and a shiny new badge (One of those Devouring Earth was carrying some kind of transmitter... what could this mean? youd best take it to Tina McKintyre... planted by Malta? can be traced to a relay station in DA? oh my, you found materials regarding the Hamidon and Crey in the base! this is most unusual... maybe you should check out that ruined Crey lab in eden. goodness gracious! Malta has set up a method of Cloning Devouring Earth and using them to mind control the hamidon! set the bombs, defeat the giant robot in charge of defense, and then get out before time runs out - BOOOM you earned "liberator of the Earth").

another possibility is randomly spawning either a unique boss in a story relevant zone as an intro, or dropping a group that shouldn't be in the Zone in the first place as the kickoff (what were those CoT mages doing in steel Canyon? what does the council want in Peregrine island?).

thoughts? opinions? ideas? I just generally think it helps to have us seems more like independant agents than people who just hit whoever the police tell us to.

I've thought for a long time that a hero or villain should perhaps have a little bit more control over his or her life than we've ever been given in this game. Even as we're reaching the pinnacle of our careers, we are still basically playing the flunky and not thinking for ourselves. I'm not sure if this is the best mechanism for generating that sense of control, but it's better than the nothing we have so far.

Mechanically, this would probably work the same as City of Villains' hidden contacts that unlock upon getting the appropriate badges.

oh right, I hadn't even thought about villainside. hmmm... well, a better way to make it seem more like we're in charge as villains is to a) make contacts afraid of us. we are the elite of arachnos and have a big future ahead of us. BOW, WORM! b) make them not know what we're doing. we ask the questions, they tell us what we want t know. have it so that WE made the plan, they're just giving us any additional info we need to execute it. the random missions thing ouldn't work so well, as villains should be the ones making the catalyst. MAYBE the defeat of, say, X longbow in Cap au Diable could reveal hat they're making a major move against the rogue isles, or defeating X goldbrickers reveals their stash of bullion or somesuch.

Yah, there were plenty of ways that they could have allowed villains independence and it largely had to do with the manner in which they wrote the text. They basically chose to wrote us as flunkies, even the choice you're given at the beginning is to either become an independent agent immediately or become an independent agent several levels down the road.

Heck, even the VEATs, who have the closest ties to Arachnos, are still basically independent agents who end up at odds with Arachnos troops all the time.

Basically, they could have created a decision tree.

Ie, a list of possible schemes. Then they could have allowed you to determine how much or how little work you put into the beginning stages of the scheme before putting the plan in motions. Each successful step of pre-work could determine the difficulty of the end scheme mission. Then you could have gotten an arc bonus based on how well or how poorly you pulled off your scheme.

IE...

Each possible scheme has 5 potential things to make the scheme easier, but you can 'launch' the scheme at any time.

Each 'thing' launches puts you into contact with someone who needs something accomplished, which creates an instanced mission. Successful completion of the step instanced mission results in a step down of the difficulty of the actual scheme mission.

Completing 0 steps - results in a nearly impossible mission that has reached the ears of a tier 1 hero group, meaning you'll probably face static of the level of all of the Vindicators at once or all of the Phalanx at once as well as +3-+4 Longbow..

Completing 1 step - results in a hard mission that has reached the ears of a randomly generated tier 1 hero - meaning you'll face 1 AV/Hero in the mission and +2-+3 Longbow.

Completing 2 steps - results in a difficult mission that has reached the ears of tier 2 heroes, resulting in...

Etc, etc, etc.

This doesn't necessarily have to replace the contact system in place, but it would result in the villain being able to make his or her own plans and randomly generate schemes from a preset list that would result an a huge diversity of types, rather than the random raido missions.

Obviously, nothing would mechanically change in the actual instanced missions, only in how they are presented. But I think doing it this way might result in players feeling less like they are always trudging over the same storylines all the time.

also, heroside, I mentioned the presence of a villain group that isn't usually in the zone to start a mini arc: along those lines could be spawning a unique boss in the midst of a crime, or the preparations of a crime, whom you can confront, and then investigate. like, say...

In Brickstown, a power armored villain accompanied by henchmen in crey powersuits is sighted fleeing a bank robbery, making for an unknown point. said villain could be doing any number of things, from just going on a crime spree or attempting to bankroll world takeover, but mechanically, it would look similar to the Ghost of Scrapyard's nature, spawning at a door, and then taking a long route through the city. the villain himself would likely be a boss, so that a single hero could take them down.

In Peregrine Island, a former hero accompanied by Rikti has been riktified, and is holding the area in a grip of terror, spouting forshowdowing about a large attack, or possibly just an event that impacts the Rikti in some way. to pull this off, spawn the villain him/herself and some Rikti, along with a perimeter of destructable police cars and police officers. inside the perimeter there could be any number of detructable objects, and the villain is just blowing them all to hell.

In King's Row, a plant-like villain is attacking one of the factories with a crew of Hydra, with the intent to *blank.* they're set to wander around an area until attacked, at which point they scatter, only fighting back if they themselves are engaged.

all of these would use the invasion code to make them spawn at an equal level to any hero.

feedback?

Proactive control requires two things that the game is currently capable of, and can benefit from a few more that it isn't.

One thing is writing. City of Villains, especially, constantly writes us as flunkies who have no greater goal in life than to get paid. Even paper missions go along those lines. We are written as flunkies working as muscle for more important individuals. And we don't have to be. In fact, having written and played Architect missions that were proactive, written as though your villain is making his own decisions, I have to say this is easily possible. You just have to make sure not to assume you know what the villain thinks or feels, but rather explain what makes sense.

With this in mind, it stands to reason that we can have at least a few contacts who work for us, rewarding us with progress towards a larger plan that benefits us, rather than the other way around. Basically, these contacts will work like informants actually should - providing information that WE ask for, not providing ready-made tasks for us to undertake. Think the typical Igor "How can I hyelp you, myassster?"

The other is one-off random contacts. Think unlockable contacts, each with one mission, but without a requirement to unlock them. Like, say, General Hammond - he's there and you can just go talk to him and he'll give you missions. Now imagine sprinkling, say, 10 of these per zone, each of which has one simple task. "Oh, no! My daughter was kidnapped by zombies! They went down into that manhole over there! Please, save her!" "Hey, I know the combination to the vault over there in that casino. If you can bust up the guards, I'll split the money with you." Just that. Nothing big or complicated, just some random person standing in an alley, giving you a target of opportunity.

For bonus points, these could be randomised to spawn in different places for, say, 10 minutes, then despawn and pop up in another place so you can never really learn where they are and they feel more like random encounters, even though it's always the same, like, 10 missions over and over again. Not only do we have to go out to them, but we actually have to find them, too. Or, you know, NOT. We could just run by them as we're going along and find them that way.

As for things NOT in the game right now, I'd say personal projects and PERSONAL secret lairs are the big thing. One at a time:

By personal projects, I mean, technically, a life-long mission that gets done piece-meal each level range. Read up on comic books, read a few people's bios and just think about it - a LOT of characters, both hero and villain, are defined by some specific, overriding objective that made them turn to good or evil. Out of my own roster, I have a villain who's trying to build a machine of ultimate power, one who's trying to "destroy all humans" and one who aims to destroy all evil, and a lot of good along with it, while I have a hero whose aim is to arm law enforcement to such a level that crime is pointless, one who's trying to return to his own body and save his soul and one who's trying to regain all her power and rebuild her homeworld. Basically, a lot of characters would benefit from a life-long objective.

Enter personal projects: At character creation, you pick a story arc for your character out of a few generic ones, like "Want to build device" or "Want to save self" or "Want to reduce crime" or "Want to found own state" or some such. They don't really have to be very complicated, but it'd serve to give our characters a sense that they're actually after something on their own time and they do odd jobs on the side, not that their lives and existence is meaningless but to "protect and serve," or optionally "get paid."

Personal secret lairs are something I've seen suggested in other threads, and no, it IS NOT bases. This is basically another life-long mission that has you take a BAD plot and turn it into a magnificent stronghold, or possibly just your own crib. The options I've seen discussed are taking a desert island, taking a run-down city block, taking a cave off somewhere or just a piece of land in the country and trying to refine it. Secure it, deliver supplies, run off the vagrant elements, start building actual lego set-piece buildings ala Ufo: Enemy Unknown and basically go through a whole stage of building yourself an awesome monument to your own greatness.

Granted, both of the above only really work for meglomaniacal characters, or those driven to create and won't quite work for a feral or common character, but there's nothing stopping this from having stories for them, too. For instance, a less grand super hero could have as his mission to just reduce crime, allowing him to tackle specific big-name villains as his career and his personal lair could be a city block that he clears out of crime and rebuilds with nice housing for the nice people. Inversely, a feral, pure evil villain could have the mission to just destroy all humans and be able to take on and remove important (but non-canon) heroes as part of his evolution, and his personal lair could be just a shack in a cave that he cleared out of troglodytes or something.

These are, obviously, pie-in-the-sky suggestions, as the workload involved would basically amount to a whole new game (or a whole new expansion), but they're worth reiterating from time to time anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

exactly. give us the option to try to take over the world, destroy the world, get to X location, depopulate the earth, or create x object.

I think us successfully destroying the world would have major issues.

exactly, which is why I said we should always fail in the tasks

Well that's just not fun. They shouldn't let us try things that aren't possible to win unless there's some sort of trial where you can do "better" each time... Like a never-ending swarm of heroes at some point...

ok, true enough. like a never ending terra volta, where you're defending the macguffin that will complete your plans?

perhaps at level 50 you end up fighing the entire freedom phalanx, plus vindicators.