The Designated Helper (New for Issue 18!)

Now that the NDA has been lifted we can talk about that fix for the allies issue that Dr. Aeon promised us a good while back.

Introducing: the Designated Helper

• We are removing the reduction to rewards based on the number of allied NPCs in a mission, since that had undesirable side effects and limited legitimate story telling options.
• Instead, a team can only get assistance in the form of buffs and debuffs (and Autopowers) from a single ally in the mission. That ally becomes “The Designated Helper”.
• There can only be one Designated Helper in a map.
• If there are multiple candidates for Helper, the FIRST eligible ally the team encounters that uses its powers will become the Designated Helper.
• In order for an entity to be a candidate for Designated Helper, the following rules need to be true:
  • The candidate must Follow the player:
    • Added via choosing an Advanced Mission Goal of:
      • Add an Ally
      • Add An Escort
      • NOTE: If the Author chooses “Release a Captive,” the Captive will not follow players and is not a candidate for Designated Helper.
    • The candidate must have the “Follow “ behavior set in the goal Settings
      • Ally: “Ally Behavior” is “Follow”
      • Escort: “Arrival Behavior” is “Follow”
  • The candidate must have its combat abilities set to:
    • Aggressive
    • Fight Defensive
  • The ally becomes the Designated Helper once it USES its powers, and Defensive allies only use powers defensively, so if the team meets an Aggressive ally before the Defensive ally uses its powers, the Defensive entity will NOT become the Designated Helper.
  • It is possible for the team to end up with a Designated Helper with no buff/debuff powers if the first candidate the player meets does not have Buff/Debuff powers but is set to Aggressive or Fight Defensive.
  • NOTE: Allies with combat abilities set to “Non Combat” or “Pacifist” will not be the Designated Helper.
• No other allies in the map will use their buff/debuff abilities. They also won’t use any Autopowers, summon any pets or use location-based attacks (like Rain of Fire) or chaining attacks (like Chain Induction).
  • Including any friendly bosses, patrols, ambushes, etc.
  • Including any Designated Helper candidates after the first
• If the author adds more than one buffing ally to the map, and sets those allies to follow the team, after the first ally they will not use their buffing powers. They will still follow the team so goals can be completed and will use offensive powers to attack enemies, but only one ally will use their non-offensive abilities. If the non-DH allies do not have offensive capabilities, they will not do anything other than follow, much like a non-combat escort/ally.

• The nerf on mission XP that used to be in place for friendlies even existing is gone. Allies and Escorts once again only steal XP by killstealing.
• Passive Buffbots are effectively dead.
  • A critter set who is not set to Aggressive/Defensive will not use ANY Buff/Debuff/Heal powers or mezz/damage auras.
  • Also a critter with no attacks at all will not use any powers either.
• The Designated Helper (DH) is the only ally/escort who will use ALL of their powers.
  • Only the DH can Heal, Buff, Debuff, use Holds, and run mezz/damage auras.
  • Non-DH allies/escorts are limited to Attacks, certain Stuns (those with less than 100% chance of working), and Immobilizes.
  • All critters will still use their personal Defense/Resistance toggles.
  • The above list is a bit incorrect. Non-DH critters can still summon Mastermind Pets but those pets will not cast buffs or debuffs.
• To be the Designated Helper:
  • Only a critter set to Aggressive/Defensive can be a Designated Helper.
  • For a critter to become the Designated Helper, it has to be either the first Defensive critter you rescue who uses their powers (if you rescued more than one), or the first Aggressive critter you rescue (who becomes the Designated Helper right away).

Note that the critter doesn't have to be set to "follow" to designate themselves helper, even though the patch notes say they do. "Aggressive" critters not set to follow seem to become DH when they first enter combat instead of as soon as they're rescued.

Another interesting tidbit: any ally not set to "fight defensive" was, admittedly as of a few patches ago, correctly wandering, doing nothing, or running toward the door. Even if you lost them and reacquired them they didn't start to follow. Defensive allies were always following though. And the "run away" setting seemed borked; they were just standing there, and if you lost and reacquired them they'd fade out.

So, take, for instance, one arc of mine (out of several) that has two separate Empath allies on it. Only ONE of them will be able to heal, and that's depending on which one you find first, and the other one will only be able to use his attack powers?

Sigh. Guess I get to rewrite/rework. . . hmmm. A slight reworking to one arc that I'd rather not do, and a possible junk-shot to my other arc that has about four or five different allies per mission. Sad Tubby.

I prefer the xp drop over this, if only because of the fact that it takes away quite a few powers from allies. If we had an option to turn on or off Designated Helper, I'd be happy.

People having multiple buffing/healing allies running around in missions is the reason we got the previous nerf and what this feature fixes while reversing the previous XP nerfs. Really if something like this should have been in AE from day one we would have had a lot less problems with exploiters ruining it for everyone else.

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Originally Posted by Xzero45 I prefer the xp drop over this, if only because of the fact that it takes away quite a few powers from allies. If we had an option to turn on or off Designated Helper, I'd be happy.

Once again, very few powers are actually disabled. The powers that are confirmed to be disabled on a non-DH are Heals, Debuffs (as in it's a power that just debuffs, not an attack with a small debuff in it), Buffs (like Fortitude, Recovery Aura, etc...), Defensive Auras (Dispersion Bubble, etc...), Damage Auras, Mezz Auras (Oppressive Gloom, etc...), Holds, Rain Attacks, and Controller Pets. The DH will use ALL of their powers.

Here is some testing info from beta.

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Originally Posted by Lazarus Alright, finally finished my first test. For this I used an arc I have published on the beta server, so anyone else can go in and see for themselves. It has a total of 8 allies, 1 of which can heal/buff, 2 which can mezz, 2 which can debuff, and 1 which can summon. The arc is "Of Futures Past", the beta server ID is #226396, and this is all in the first mission. I'll list my findings in the order that I found the allies. Nagan Incinerator (Fire Control/Fire Assault LT) - 1st found; DH (Designated Helper); used all attacks and controls. Nagan Gunslinger (Dual Pistols/Willpower LT) - 2nd found; non-DH; Willpower toggles enabled before rescue and stayed on; never used swap-ammo. Nagan Archer (Archery/Trick Arrow LT) - 3rd found; non-DH; Didn't use her trick arrow powers at all; Don't remember seeing Stunning Shot used at any time either. Nagan Mentalist (Psionic Assault/Pain Domination Minion) - 4th found; non-DH; never healed but did use the immobilize power from Psi Assault often. Nagan Roboticist (Robotics/Willpower Minion) - 5th found; non-DH; Willpower toggles up and stayed up; DID SUMMON BATTLE DRONE. Nagan Duelist (Dual Blades/Energy Aura LT) - 6th found; non-DH; Energy Aura toggles up and stayed up; did see her use some Dual Blades Combos. Nagan Shockfist (Electric Melee/Electric Armor LT) - 7th found; non-DH, Electric Armor toggles up and stayed up. Nagan Specter (Assault Rifle/Ninjitsu Minion) - 8th found; non-DH; Ninjitsu toggles (including Hide) up before rescue and stayed up.

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Originally Posted by Lazarus Running another test with mission 5 of my arc "Breaking the Barrier (And Putting It Back Together)". Iron Samurai (Katana/Invuln Boss) - 1st Rescued; DH; Had Invuln toggles running. Field Tech Suziku (Robotics/Willpower LT) - 2nd Rescued; non-DH; Had Willpower toggles running; summoned 2 Battle Drones and 1 Protector Bot as expected; Protector Bot never used Dispersion Bubble but did summon Seeker Drones; Suziku also used Photon Grenade regularly. Nagan Gravitist (Gravity/Kinetics) - 3rd Rescued; non-DH; used all Gravity Control powers that I had given her; never used any Kinetics. Nagan Psionicist (Psi Blast/Pain Dom Boss) - 4th Rescued; Used Psi Blasts; never used Pain powers. Nagan Archer (Archery/Trick Arrow LT) - 5th rescued; non-DH; only used Archery powers, no Trick Arrow. Longbow Nullifier - 6th Rescued; non-DH; acted like any other level 40+ Nullifier except that he never used the Sonic Grenade. Note: The Nagan Gravitist and Nagan Incinerator are controller/dominator LTs but they don't have holds. They do have Immobilize powers and knockback/knockup (Lift, Bonfire) and did use those regularly. I would have to run a test with an ally with hold powers to see if they use them, but since the Nagan Archer never used Ice Arrow when not a DH I figure that I already know the answer.

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Originally Posted by Lazarus Ran another test, did mission 5 from "The Amulet of J'gara" twice. 1st Test: Avatar of Initiative (Fire Blast/Fire Manip Boss) - 1st rescued; DH; acted as expected, didn't have any debuffs/buffs/heals anyway. Avatar of Balance (Gravity/Empathy Boss) - 2nd rescued; non-DH; didn't use any Empathy powers, didn't use her Hold. Avatar of Strength (Broadsword/Shield Boss) - 3rd rescued; non-DH; acted normally. I noticed during this run that my Claws/Pain Dom boss, the Pain Elemental, is suddenly casting Enforced Morale on her minion for the first time in ever. So for the second run I made a change. 2nd Test: Avatar of Balance (Gravity/Pain Dom Boss) - 1st rescued; DH; used her hold, did cast Enforced Morale on use all regularly, never used the single-ally heal though. Avatar of Initiative (Fire Blast/Fire Manip Boss) - 2nd rescued; non-DH; acted as expected. Avatar of Strength (Broadsword/Shield Boss) - 3rd rescued; non-DH; acted normally. The only change I have to make to this mission is to make sure that the Avatar of Balance is always near the front door so that the player will certainly come across her first.

Thing is, though, is that I'm not looking to exploit anything. I make arcs for my SG so we can enjoy fun missions, and I'm not a fan of finding out that now, if I plan on having a mission with multiple allies, I'll have to center their power and the story around everyone being offensive, beat-'em-up types while only one can have any powers even remotely similar to assisting in non-combat ways.

If the ally betrays, would another ally pick up the Designated Helper role? And if the Designated Helper ally dies, would another ally pick up the DH role?

What I've found is that its tough on an outdoor map given you have no real control over where they end up, you almost have to find the DH first then proceed. So I sort of wish there was a different way to do it (maybe an extra field on the character definition for an ally).