Ultimo

So, I was looking at creating a nemesis for my Superman-themed character, and of course, the logical choice is to make a character based on Lex Luthor. However, I'm debating about what sort of character to make him, and thought I'd see what people thought. My first notion is to make him a Mastermind, bots and force fields, but as I think about it, I'm not sure that's really Luthor's style. He's much more personally involved, and uses more gadgetry than the Mastermind does. What do you all think? What class and power sets would Luthor use? (I know an AE character doesn't have to follow class limitations, but I always try to make them consistent with the classes... in part because I sometimes end up making playable versions, but mostly because it seems more "fair" to me that the enemies follow the same rules as the players.)

Ok... new problem. The first mission is about done... but it has a couple of problems I can't seem to sort out. First, there's a boss to fight, but he's supposed to run away at 75%. Instead, he stops fighting and just stands there. I can't figure out why he won't run away. Second, there's a bunch of captives to free. I'd like THEM to run away once freed... but they ALSO won't move. Finally, is there a way to make an NPC say stuff IN the mission? In a later mission, the PCs would rescue someone and he would give them a new briefing... a mission within the mission.

First, is it possible to have different quest NPCs in a mission arc? For example, first mission, the contact is Statesman. Second is Manticore. Third is someone else, and so on? Second, is it possible to make a boss run away to finish a mission WITHOUT it causing it to fail? I'm thinking about how when Superman defeats Darkseid, he doesn't CAPTURE him, Darkseid usually is defeated and retreats.

I often skip Tornado too, and I'm often inclined to skip Steamy Mist because it makes my charcter transparent (which I don't like)... but it's too useful to skip. The main issue is that I can't run it because of endurance issues. Having played the set for a while now, I'm still quite impressed by it's general look. Utility is decent, but the powers are a little goofy looking without Storm Cell active. I'm almost tempted to skip everything but the lightning powers and Storm Cell. I think if I had been designing the set, I would have made things a little differently... Storm Cell would be the FIRST power in the set, and would be a toggle, or a permanent pet (it seems to behave like a large pet, as it is). The other powers would be a little more visually interesting. A shower of hail in a tiny area just looks silly. Same with the Cloudburst, a tiny cloud spewing a huge amount of water... Not sure what I would have done with them, but something more visually interesting. I would also have had the powers interact with Storm Cell differently. Gust might convert to an AOE. Direct Strike might also cause a thunderclap, stunning foes in an area... and so on. As it is, everything just seems to conjure some lightning... which is fine, but not as interesting. In any case, I AM enjoying the set so far... I feel like it's at LEAST as good as the Electric Blast I'd been using.

I can also tell if the power is on by looking at the UI bar. In any case, my suggestion is simply going to make it possible for ME to turn it off for ME. It wouldn't stop you retaining the current implementation.

Ya, I know Positron isn't the best measure, but I just found the character rather frustrating to play, and it's not just in Positron. It just crystallized the experience. My original thinking was that his stretching would be "simulated" by having ranged attacks (ie. Mr. FF attacks from a safe distance by extending his limbs). The problem lies with the devices, which are universally underwhelming. This leads me back to going to the opposite arrangement, where the gadgets are represented by a big gun with a few different effects. I went with Beam Rifle, it's techy enough and I was able to fit it into the concept for the character: He's a scientist whose body generates subatomic particles. He created a "portable" particle accelerator, which he uses as a weapon (ie. a big gun). His secondary was Atomic Manipulation, which represented his control of his atomic particles. At least, that was the rationale. It's not quite like Mr. FF, except for the fact he's a scientist, and he uses a big gun. Ideally, he'd have more variety in his devices. He's tough to make work as I like. I mean, the Blaster character is pretty effective, he just isn't quite like Mr. FF. I suppose the question is, is he ENOUGH like him to be an homage?

Well, it's off topic, but I like knockback because it's a staple of comic book battles. For me, presentation is critical. However, mechanically, knockback is counterproductive for melee (ie. you have to chase enemies down, and many powers... Invincible, for example... rely on having groups of enemies all around you). My argument has always been to make knockBACK more desirable... perhaps add some damage, relative to the distance knocked. But, as I say, a bit off topic.

Honestly, I'd love to see them devise a pool to reflect the inventions many comic characters create... Mr. Fantastic, Iron Man, Batman... there are plenty of characters who make clever gadgets, tailored for the situation. Not sure how they would do it, but it would need to be better than Devices, Traps or Experimentation, all of which blow big beefy bear chunks.

Nope, played Positron with the Controller (Electric Control and Traps), and he was less than useless. The traps take so long to deploy and take so long to recharge that they were almost never useful. On those one or two occasions I was able to deploy them usefully, they did so little to help that they might as well have not been there. Most times I tried to deploy them, I was killed while doing so, because the Controller has very little health and no defenses. Sure, there's the bubble drone, but it doesn't reduce damage taken, so if I get hit, I'm dead (and with 20 bad guys shooting at you, you're getting hit. So, back to the drawing board. Once again, what does Mr. FF bring to his team? Thing is clearly a Tanker, perhaps a Brute. In fact, as I consider it, he's defeated a lot in the comics... that suggests he's not as tough as he is strong. Probably a Brute. Torch is most likely a Blaster. His whole thing is big damage, and he's usually depicted as being rather fragile. Invisible Girl is likely a Defender, though this is an inexact matchup. She really has only the one power set, Force Fields, which she does a variety of things with. Perhaps Psychic Blast. This gives the team a Tank, DPS and Support. That leaves... what? The Holy Trinity is there already, what role does Mr. FF fill? Mr. FF usually hangs back, sweeping enemies away or binding them up with his arms or body, pummelling them with enlarged fists, then produces some gadget to defeat them in one fell swoop. So... he's a melee fighter who hangs back... and a big DPS weapon user. Binding enemies suggests controls of some kind, but Controllers are incapable of substantial damage or significant melee. Big DPS weapons suggests Blaster. Blaster also has some melee capability, but he's awfully fragile. So, I'm stuck again.

That's the problem I had, apparently I hadn't selected the correct database during installation. You'll likely need to reinstall... that's what I did, anyway.

As I say, certain powers, it's appropriate to make the character transparent (such as stealth or invisibility), but when the effect is suppressed (such as when you attack), the transparency should be too. Of more concern to me are powers that make my transparent that really ought not to... my poster child for this is Steamy Mist, but there are others. As I say, I think the best solution is just to make this an option in power customization (eg. minimal FX), so it would be possible to pick and choose which powers cause the transparency.

I'd settle for no effect... but some other effect might also work... For example, if I crouch and sneak in Elder Scrolls Online, the character becomes darker, as if in shadow. But that also might not be right for some powers. Really, I think the best thing would be a tweak in power customization, that way powers that SHOULD make you transparent (like invisibility) would still do so, but powers which technically aren't making you invisible, but just harder to see or notice, wouldn't.

Many powers in the game cause our characters to become transparent, powers like Steamy Mist. I often avoid using such powers, even when they're kind of crucial to the character's class, but I'd love to be able to turn off this effect. My suggestion is that the option to NOT become transparent be created, either for my own powers specifically (perhaps as part of the customization system), or for all such powers I interact with (perhaps as a function of graphics settings).

This is basically what I meant from the start. Since the mission scales to whatever level you are, why restrict us from going in them? AE missions also scale to the character... so I didn't think it would be an issue to use the same systems to make it work for radio missions.

Well what about exemplaring ourselves? I mean, if I team up with a L10 character, I play as if I'm that level. Couldn't they just make it possible for us to play as if we're teamed with a L10 character?

I'm just looking for something simple to implement. Whatever works.

Something that's bothered me since back in live is that Radio Missions all eventually say "Events here are beneath your notice." Shouldn't that be MY choice? Shouldn't I get to decide what's beneath my notice? You see, I have many characters, and I usually assign them a "home" zone. For example, my Batman-type character ostensibly resides in King's Row the way Batman resides in Gotham (both are kind of run down, gritty places), but he can't fight crime there anymore. The same is true of other characters. So, my suggestion is that something be done either to make Radio Missions accessible at all levels in all zones (which shouldn't be a problem, since they scale to the character's level anyway), or that we be able to exemplar ourselves DOWN to whatever level we like (so my L50 character to go to King's Row and play at L10, if he so chose). I think making Radio Missions accessible would probably be easier, but I'm not a programmer. Either situation would be acceptable.

Uuuuuughhh. Just CANNOT get the balancing right. Since it seemed the enemies were too easy, I added a couple of powers here and there, and now they're completely unplayable. A slight tweak, and they go from doing 40-50 damage per attack to 500-900 per attack. They're now basically oneshotting my Brute. If he can't stand up to them, how would my Controller manage? My Mastermind? Just impossible to balance this damn thing.

Hrm. Went back to my Electric Control/Traps Controller version of him... I do kind of miss the big gun, but he does FEEL more like Mr. FF, if that makes any sense. Is there a temporary power that I can get that could simulate the big gun?

So, a bit of an update. I've been tinkering with some custom characters. One uses dual pistols. He's an Elite Boss. My L23 Blaster took him on in an AE mission I'm working on, with Invulnerability active, so I could test things. Fighting this boss was one of the things I need to test, because someone tried the mission and said he was weak and trivial to his L50 Sentinel. In the time it took for my L23 Blaster (Beam Rifle) to defeat the EB, the boss had inflicted over 14k damage to him. The Blaster has 628 health. The boss was doing more than 200 damage with his most elementary attacks. His heavier attacks were doing nearly 500 damage. How are we supposed to balance our characters when they're so overpowered... and yet not overpowered for other characters. It's daunting, and frustrating.

Thanks for the feedback and ideas! I can see #1 working... the Galactus vs Nullifier idea could work really quite well, since one of the heroes to be rescued is a Reed Richards homage character... #2 probably wouldn't work, because the child of the big bad is based on Kalibak... and he's not the most diplomatic, relatable type. #3 is nifty, as a fan of HG Wells (indeed, I have a gang of low level villains I've named "The Noobs," one of whom is named Herbert G. Verne), but I don't want to wipe out the Brass Men... plus it's kind of been done before. Moreover, I love the idea of having Dr. Vazhilok working on the side of the angels. #5 is kind of the direction I had been going in... but I'm not sure quite how to get there. The idea is the heroes would do something to draw out the leaders of the Brass Men, and then draw out Malephar himself by defeating them. As I say, I just don't quite know how to get to that point... but you've given me some great ideas to work with!

Ok... I've got some mission stuff figured out. However, my problem now lies with the STORY. Now, I'm going to describe the story, so if you would rather not see it (spoilers, of course), then that's fine... don't read on. If you do read on, perhaps you can offer some advice regarding how to progress the story.

I love making the custom characters... when I was younger, my brother and I used to make our own comics, and we had a HUGE stable of characters. I love adding them to the game. The trouble, as usual, is balancing. So often characters I make are either far too powerful (ie. too much damage) or far too flimsy... or both. My version of Darkseid got his butt handed to him with EASE by my Mercs Mastermind... but was utterly overwhelming to my Psi/Psi Dominator. SO tough.

Ok, I'm starting to come up with the plotline. I hope it holds up alright, but the real point is just to give us that Avengers/JLA style invasion battle. I'll put up a more complete version with all five missions sometime soon. Stay tuned! What I might do is just set it at L50 (so everyone and everything defaults to L50), that should make it accessible to everyone... I hope.

Ok, this set completely changes when you get Storm Cell. In fact, I think it really ought to be the tier 1 power, it's just so necessary. Beyond that, WOW it's a spectacular set once it gets going.