Ultimo

So, went in with a full tray of purples, and I even discovered there was an ally Fortunata in the mission I'd missed before. Every little bit helps, you know. Did manage to take her down, even though she was a L37 red EB. Unpleasant, to say the least. But, got my Mu Mastery, so that's good.

So, I just got my Mu Mastery set, and went to customize the powers. I found, to my consternation, that it was costing me more than 50k influence to alter all my War Mace powers, too. ALL of them... even though they can't BE customized. That might be a trivial cost to some, but it's a lot to me... especially repeated for EVERY costume. I can't imagine this is how it's supposed to be. Do I report this as a bug?

What about the adds... do the Fortunatas or other Arachnos debuff Psi resistance?

Well. FINALLY got past Silver Mantis. Kicked Barracuda's butt, and then rescued Wretch. Next mission, defeat Serafina. I go into the mission, fight my way through to the room she's in. She's showing up as a red EB, surrounded by about 12 Arachnos adds. I go in, attack with three purples, three reds and three yellows running. She attacks back and hits me for 1400 damage. I have 1300 health, so with the adds all doing damage too (since NONE of them ever miss, regardless of the purples), I'm instantly oneshotted. Seriously, how am I supposed to do anything with this, there's no way I can tank that kind of damage, and she just spams that over and over, every time I try to do it. On the one occasion she started with something else, she STILL did 800 damage with that attack, then followed up with another 400, then another 1400. I mean, seriously? This is me playing at -1 level, no less. Just stupidly overtuned.

The thing is... if something keeps being brought up, I'd consider it something worth doing, because there's a demand for it. As for being difficult... well, I'm no programmer, so I can't speak to that.

The main problem I have is that I've made many characters over the years (I used to make comics when I was a kid), and when I try to recreate them here, they need to have their correct name, as much as possible, or they're just not themselves. Some characters can get close. I have a character who was originally called Warpath, but had to be renamed. I finally settled on Warshell (he's an armoured character, so his armour is a "shell," which is still kind of thematic), but some characters just can't be renamed. A good example is the Canadian Shield. His name is a reference to the geographical formation in northern Ontario. There's not really any way to rename him. I still say they should alter the way characters are named, using a system like there is in Champions Online (and elsewhere). In that system, a character's name actually includes their HANDLE. So, my version of Canadian Shield would show that name, but as far as the server is concerned, he would be Canadian Shield@Ultimo1. That way, anyone could have a character using that name.

So, tonight I was trying to do the patron arc for my War Mace/Electric Armour Brute. He's L35. He also has Combat Jumping and Weave. So I get to the mission where I'm supposed to fight Silver Mantis, who spawns as an orange Elite Boss. Ok, fair enough. I've soloed AVs on this character before. I attack, and she hits back. We trade blows for a bit, I use a few inspirations to recover health, and get her to around 20% health. At this point she uses Unstoppable, and my attacks are doing essentially nothing. So, I retreat to let it wear off. By the time it does, she's back to nearly full health. I engage again, and she almost immediately uses it again. And again. And again. I run through ALL my inspirations, run around and around and around trying to let myself recover, since HER attacks do massive damage while mine do nearly nothing. AND she has a self heal on top of all that. I don't know what else I can do if she's just going to keep hitting the Unstoppable button every time I do any damage, then self heals. It's been a very frustrating night. So, I was chatting about this in game, and suddenly start taking damage from her. She's not even on the screen, I retreated. She's on some other level of the place. So, I went back to try again and got her to 50% health, at which point she just stopped taking damage at all. No Unstoppable, and my attacks were putting up numbers (around 100 damage per attack), but her health never moved. So, I don't know what else to do with her. Yes, I could get someone else to come in and beat her for me, but that's not any fun either. Kind of defeats the purpose. Any other suggestions?

I've posted a first draft, called The Dire Plan, if anyone wants to try it out. I welcome feedback. I should say, I've tried it myself on a few characters ranging from L9 to L38, and they all did ok, but had trouble with the final mission.

So, I've published the Dire Plan for testing. In particular, I need to know how HARD it is. The goal (as usual) is to make it accessible to everyone without being too easy for higher level characters. I've tried it a few times on a couple of different characters at different levels, and only the final mission proved difficult. I'm also open to some opinions of the enemy power sets. I'll not say any more about it until I've had some feedback. If you have any questions or comments, PLEASE post them or send me a PM so I can answer/consider feedback. Thanks!

Appreciate the input. So far, it's pretty stupid hard, but just later on, and I've populated those missions with NPCs to help out. It's still bare bones though, so I have work yet to do.

So, I'm making a mission with a hero to rescue. I want it to be a random hero, selected from the Generic Heroes group, but I'd like it to show the name and bio of the actual hero (as opposed to a generic name, like "Beleaguered Hero"). Is this possible? The second thing is more of a survey... The idea is that each mission should become harder and harder, and I wanted to figure out what power sets are the most difficult to fight against. It might depend on the class of the character, but in general terms, what are the four most difficult to fight power sets?

Worth a try!

Hm. I'll look around, but I didn't see anything else that kind of resembled a store. I thought of trying a casino, but they don't work either.

This is true. I made a boss villain based on Darkseid, so he has a powerful ranged attack, but I made him melee, so he uses his melee powers most of the time.

So, I wanted to create an arc where an old couple who owned a store are being shaken down by the mob for protection money. The players would intervene and the story would unfold. But, I'm having an issue with the first mission. What I want is this: The police ask the heroes to go talk to the store owners. You enter the mission, talk to the owners, and this triggers the mobsters to arrive. The heroes beat up this initial attack (it's an easy mission), and the mission ends. The problem is that I can't figure out a way to put the owners in the store. I thought about making them objects as part of a collection, but that doesn't seem to work. I thought about making them rescues or allies, but the store maps don't seem to have the option for such objectives. Any suggestions how I might make this mission work?

From years of playing pen and paper RPGs, I came to the realization that the enemy shouldn't be a lot stronger (ie. do damage) than the hero characters. If they are, there's nothing for the heroes to DO to react to the events of the battle. I mean, if you're oneshotted, you can't do anything to respond. Your teammates can't do anything to respond. It takes away the GAME. So, I usually try to restrict enemies to having powers that don't do too much damage. On the other hand, that means you need them to be more DURABLE, so they can inflict the necessary damage over a longer period of time. So, I do put armours on the enemies, where it's appropriate. I also always give them at least one ranged attack, even if they're mainly a melee character. It's fine if they ONLY have ranged attacks, because those can still be used in melee, but if they only have melee attacks, they become trivial to characters who can stay out of reach.

Interestingly, I originally made a Luthor-themed character as a bots Mastermind, but he never quite "felt" right. In the comics, he was always that mad scientist type (until more recent years), making weapons and death traps and personally battling Superman. When I finally settled on him as a Blaster (Beam Rifle/Devices), he felt a lot more like Luthor.

I agree... not every character with allies is a Mastermind. The X-Men aren't Xavier's pets, they're allies. Meanwhile, Joker's henchmen would be best thought of as pets.

So, I had a bit of a discussion in chat the other day, and it got me thinking. I made the assertion that certain comic book characters were best represented as Masterminds, but many disagreed. My question for the community (for the sake of amusement, if nothing else) is, which characters in the comics would you think is best represented by the Mastermind class? The character I was playing at the time was based on Doctor Doom, whom I qualified as a Mastermind because he rarely gets personally involved in events, preferring to send lackeys to do his bidding. Of course, when he DOES get personally involved, he's FAR more capable than a petless Mastermind is in the game... so does Doom qualify as a Mastermind? A second character I built as a Mastermind was based on the Joker. Joker also has a variety of minions he sends to distract his enemies while he does other things. Joker himself isn't especially dangerous on his own (though he does have one or two genuinely dangerous attacks, such as his acid or Joker toxin), so I think that fits the Mastermind mold pretty well. Red Skull is another who is not a serious threat on his own, but pulls the strings from the shadows, using minions to do his dirty work. Similarly, Baron Zemo might have started out that way, but in the Avengers, as a member of the Masters of Evil, he was more of a match for Captain America on his own. What do you guys think? Who would be a Mastermind? How would they be built in the game?

And again you're missing the point. You want an example of what I think it should look like? Go watch THE AVENGERS (2012). What were the Chitauri doing? What were the heroes doing? The invasion was in INVASION, with enemy troops dropping in everywhere. The big space worm things were very like the Rikti ships. What happened with those? Iron Man took them on solo. Thor took them on solo. Hulk took them on solo. They were big, intimidating and presumably very dangerous, but the heroes were ABLE to fight them. The Chitauri soldiers were all over New York... taking civilians as prisoners. Blowing stuff up. Yes, they fought the heroes too, but they were doing other things the heroes needed to STOP them doing. THIS is the kind of thing I want to see from these invasions. Heroes doing heroic things, fighting off the enemy, whether solo or in groups. Saving the people. Stopping the bad guys. Right now the so-called invasions are dull and lifeless. THAT was my point. I offered a suggestion I thought might rectify the matter, but no one seems interested in that. So, how about suggesting something else to make the invasions more engaging... more FUN? You don't like my ideas, fair enough. What's YOURS?

Everyone seems to be missing the point. The Rikti aren't DOING anything in these "invasions." They have no objective they can achieve that requires us to stop them. The point is, however you choose to characterize their tactics, to make the invasions FUN and ENGAGING. As it is, they're NOT. 99% of the time, you can't fight the ships, so their presence is irrelevant Maybe they're just there for atmosphere, and aren't supposed to be fought. Fair enough. Waste of a cool opportunity though, which I why I suggested making them possible to fight. That requires making them do less direct damage, so people aren't being constantly onshotted by them. Yes, it makes them "easier," but it makes them more fun and engaging. Defeating the bombs does nothing. Defeating the troops beaming in does nothing. LEAVING the bombs and troops unopposed does NOTHING. There's no reason to engage in the "invasion" at all, because nothing happens if you don't. My suggestion is simply to give them a purpose, some goal we can OPPOSE and some consequence for failing to do so. The tactics are beside the point, and are just rationalization to explain why the event is even going on.

I'm not here to argue military tactics. The point I'm getting at is that the "invasion" is really nothing of the sort. The ships appear and fly around. No heroes around (and sometimes even if there are), there are no invaders either. No resistance. What then do the Rikti do? Nothing. They just fly away again, because the whole point of their appearance is to be targets. There's no sense of urgency, no desire to defend anything or anyone. They don't attack the NPCs they don't do anything except beam in to be beaten up. There's a problem when the "invasion" can be completely ignored with no effect. There's just no engagement. So let me ask you, who are condemning this suggestion: How is this worse than what we have? You're telling me you wouldn't WANT the invasion to be more involving? You wouldn't WANT some kind of purpose?

I remember how it was on Live and the fact is, Rikti ships were (and are) essentially unassailable... which is just no fun. I have characters based on Superman, Green Lantern, etc. and it would be GREAT to be able to go fight these foes... but it's basically impossible when they take you out in one shot. Needing 1000 people to take ONE on is just no fun either. You say the purpose of the invasion is to eliminate resistance... but there's NO sense of that. There's no sense that anything is going on in the zone at all. The Rikti beam in for one purpose, to get beaten up. It's very underwhelming. I don't want to take away a threat from the invasion, I want to make it something players can DO something about. It's no fun just hiding in a corner somewhere, let us engage the enemy. As I said before, if it's going to require 1000 players to take on a ship, they're basically irrelevant. Having troops moving through the streets means players can engage them more naturally, and potentially more strategically. Having them just beaming in wherever you are makes it seem less like a troop movement than a game mechanic... if you see what I mean. Also, giving the Rikti actual objectives means they don't HAVE to fight the superheroes. From a strategic standpoint, the heroes shouldn't BE an objective. Your last point, about a zone becoming unplayable, is valid. I suggested an hour, some shorter period might be more appropriate. The point is to have some consequence to losing the zone. Perhaps some other consequence would work.

So, tonight I was in King's Row for another of the Rikti raids, and again I'm thoroughly underwhelmed. So, I'm going to outline a suggestion to improve the invasions. I don't know if what I'm going to suggest is even possible, but the basic problem needs addressing, I think. The problem as I see it is that the Rikti aren't DOING anything. The ships fly around overhead and oneshot people here and there while being entirely impervious to attack. Troops beam in around heroes here and there (sometimes, very often nothing at all beams in) and don't do much of anything except beat them up or get beaten up. The Rikti have no OBJECTIVE. My feeling is that the Rikti should have objectives in each zone that they will try to accomplish, and it will be up to the heroes in the zone to fight back and prevent them achieving the objective. Each zone should have several structures designated as targets. A command post (eg. Atlas Park might use the City Hall), a staging area (presumably where troops will gather to fight back), Anti-air defenses around the zone to fire on the attack ships, ground troops around the zone to combat Rikti invaders. The heroes (and villains) in the zone would need to protect those targets all around the zone. The Rikti ships should be made FAR less devestating with their attacks. As it is, most heroes are being essentially oneshotted. Ship weapons should be far less damaging and should have a chance to miss, like any other attack. Ships would periodically beam troops down, which would then MOVE through the streets to the nearest targets. Ships would also drop bombs, not as a separate phase, but as part of their attack. These bombs should have HUGE areas of effect, and would do enormous damage (eg. the size of a city block, doing oneshot damage at ground zero, and less the further away you get. Heroes would want to attack the ships, attack the troops and attack the bombs. If nothing is done, or the heroes fail to defend the Rikti objectives, the zone will become "controlled" by the Rikti. If this happens, ships will continue to patrol, but bombs will not be dropped. The objectives now fall under Rikti control, and it will be up to heroes in the zone to recapture them. Heroes in the zone will have Rikti troops beam in around them if they stay in the open, much as we have now. While the zone is controlled, services in the zone will be suspended. Characters to allow leveling, tailor shops, inspiration and enhancement shops... none will be available. This will give the players an incentive to retake the zone. If the zone is not recaptured after a set period of time (say, an hour), it will revert to normal. As I say, I don't know if this is something that's possible, but as it is, the invasions are very lackluster, and rather boring. I hope something like this can be done, for the Rikti, but also the other invasions (eg. Zombies).

I know it's a necro of an older thread, but I didn't see a point in starting a whole new thread to say exactly the same thing. I was going to post a suggestion for a single pistol power set (appropriate for characters based on James Bond, John Wick or any number of other similar characters), but I found this was already suggested in this thread. I'd like to suggest it be considered anew.