sponazgul

I will probably make this an actual suggestion in the Suggestion forum thread, but I wanted to share this here first, to see what you mission architects think and also if it is already possible. Occasionally in a story, I’d like to have a NPC be an objective that will generate a clue at an opportune time. I have tried making a hostage with no surrounding enemies, with the thought that when the player comes into line of sight, it would generate the active dialog and then spawn the clue, but in practice that happens immediately. What I would like if there was a way to place a person like an object to be clicked on, to generate interaction bar text and the completed system text (and a clue that spawns appropriately) I suppose I could use a statue for this, but that seems limited in what I want. Hopefully, what I’m suggesting makes sense.

It's a problem I've seen. The architect UI implies that if you create a collection of X items, the clue fires off when the last one is collected, but that's not what happens - as you describe here, it kicks off on the first. My advice would be to give up on the clue be awarded, and something else. What is the next objective that spawns from the last collection item being collected? If that's the end of the mission, the mission completion clue will serve. If possible, when the next objective is completed, the clue associated with that objective could refer to the previous collection being collected OR you can embed that info in the objective text up in the mission bar. For example, you have to open 3 boxes looking for something. The mission objective text probably says 3 boxes to search through, then 2 boxes to search through ... stuff like that. If the last empty box was supposed to tell you to go beat up someone who might have gotten what you're looking for (for example), the objective text for that target could be something like All boxes were empty, but you hear the thief - and that is the clue to the player to hunt that person down, and when you fight the thief, you can recap in their completion clue that you heard a noise and that led you to them... That is how I might do it, but I don't know your mission specific objective flow.

Enjoy your Saturday, having fanciful rushing-blaster adventures!

Just chiming in - my beam-rifle / tactical arrow blaster Dr. Lasertraps really enjoys his beam rifle. I recognize that not everyone will have the same experience. I appreciate you posting this to generate a discussion.

I appreciate you bringing this back to the front of the forum thread. This looks like an arc my vigilante detective would enjoy running.

I discovered a way to cheat the limitations imposed by my own story arc.

When I do an AE story, there's an overall story, and each mission is a part - a mission *might* be its own story too but that's not the norm. I mean, Save Three Champions I guess is it's own story - you save three captured champions, but it's part of a bigger story - maybe getting the villain who captured them in the first place, etc. Some of my missions might be low impact but are there to introduce some larger element. (This has a drawback though, some people play a mission that's rather light and bail.) I think people who do multi-arc stories are more representative of the television show that's episodic with a season-wide arc.

Some Architect Notes on the arc, for anyone interested. Concept Behind the story: Mission 1: Mission 2: Mission 3: Mission 4:

Okay, I made my change to arc 68902, The Return of Despoticus, a four-mission arc, all on small maps to make it relatively quick time. (No running about on huge maps, trying to find objectives, although maybe you have to run around small maps, trying to find objectives.) The arc is probably best played by a heroic-minded character willing to go solo, for story reasons, but I assume a team would be just fine if you just want to smash stuff.

Colleagues, I know I asked for feedback, but this morning at work I realized I wanted to make a simple but significant change that will effect the last two missions in the Despoticus arc I’ll report back when I’ve made that change. Happy Architecting to you all…

I don’t know if I can meaningfully contribute, I just know that I’ve made a few bosses to be beaten. I almost always make them an Elite Boss - I have to verify this, but if someone has Don’t Solo Bosses, it downgrades AE Elite Bosses to just Bosses. While testing The Return of Despoticus recently, Elite Boss Despoticus appeared as a boss to the controller I was testing with, who had the lower difficulty. I tend to vary the number of attacks on the Elite Boss - if it’s a mission that can support Incarnates, the boss gets all attacks. For the secondary choices I try to give a few powers that make things weird, like Detention Field or a Fear or Confuse. if a player needs to retreat and restock on inspirations, that is still a valid fight. I usually have to do that with the Praetorian Malaise in Brickstown for Maria J. I think that if someone finds an end boss too easy, they should increase the difficulty and run the mission/arc again.

Colleagues, I just published a 4 mission story-focused arc called The Return of Despoticus (arc 68902) It is intended for upper-end characters, and probably thematically played with a heroic tank character. Much like my vigilante story arc from last year, Allegedly, Your Death (arc 65297) was probably best played with a specific type of vigilante detective (with a butler) ... this latest arc should appeal to a certain classical heroic comics archetype. And just like Allegedly, Your Death, I do break the Ocelot Rule (where the various mission text includes speech from the player -- I know that that's usually bad form, but it worked for me in A,YD and I think it'll work here in The Return of Despoticus. But you can let me know if that's the case. This arc is out for feedback, I'm sure that there are typos and weird things that I'm too close to to notice. Thanks in advance to those who play it and give me constructive critical feedback (or any feedback, I'm just happy to publish story-arcs.)

I’m in favor of your suggestion - I guess I don’t mind Shield being available for those power sets that visually conflict with it (like claws) and if it bothers someone, they can turn off the shield

as someone who has gotten a few characters to level 50 on Goldside (and kept them there just because) I support any new Goldside content. the mapserver event was a huge help in getting all of the incarnate slots unlocked on my Loyalist, and luckily there are people who run incarnate trials out of Echo Plaza, where my Praetorian can go. the grind from 45 to 50 is pretty bad - I honestly wish that there was an access to the Labyrinth of Fog from the Night Ward mansion that a Praetorian could use and join up with a league there hunting fogs and the Minotaur.

I’ve done things differently, but I usually have two teleporters to blueside zones (broken out in a sort of Gotham City vs Metropolis zones) then one for Rogue Isles, one for Hazard Zones, one for Praetorian zones, and one for Other (pocket d and the shadow shards)

Thank you!!

Thanks for running Allegedly, Your Death ! I got some good feedback from the team, which encouraged me to set the minimum level for the missions across the board to 41. Just to clarify, my handle in-game is First of Equals, not Fist of Equals (but people can find the arc easily enough by name or arc number) Thank you again, I was delighted that one of my arcs appeared in the MASS.

I like all of this.

Just got my Praetorian Loyalist to 50 (thank you, Spring Fling event and the Terrigol mission that I relentlessly re-ran without completing to get through level 49) and earned the Praetor badge, whose badge text implied a reckoning for Praetoria was on the horizon (but hadn’t happened yet, clearly) But since Praetoria is not destroyed for me at 50 (thank you badge for confirming that) a little more post 40 content to help Praetorians earn their way up to the Praetor level (like a Praetorian TF where we succeed in abducting Positron) would be great.

My level 48 Praetorian, lingering in the Night Ward and avoiding crossing over to Prime Earth, has noticed that the Labyrinth of Fog trial is available in the Trials section of the LFG tool. I didn’t even realize that someone could launch a league instance trial of the Fog. It would be convenient if the Midnighter Mansion in NW had an entry point into the Labyrinth, giving another entry point for everyone, but especially level 45+ Praetorians. I’d not have to grind Snaptooth or Summer Blockbusters now.

Yeah! pop up: One Hour Ago …

I think you can probably just be explicit. Like, the Mission Accept text is “You feel a moment of deja vu coming on” and the Title of Mission Two is “Flashback to One Hour Ago”

I don’t have any examples of my own, or other AE missions. In game, there’s only Mender Lazarus who experiences you in a different order than you experience him. The other example is Trilogy in Night Ward who offers his missions out of order. Both situations present a framework for the players to get it: time travel in one case, and explicitly being told the relative position in the three books the player is about to journey into. So if you want to have an out of order story, you might consider how or when to clue the player in.

Big thanks to @LordRassilon for playing through Into the YOUniverse this morning on Twitch. I have it queued up to watch, but I did see some bits of the stream, here or there while I was finding the playthrough in the feed. When he was reading clues, to my horror I saw that I had missed fixing a clue, that had the wrong name for one of the major characters in the mission arc - I'm looking to watch the full play through - I saw that he had some suggestions about alternate maps for at least one of the missions I'll give that some thought. I did laugh at one part of the playthrough I saw - - I'm not sure how much I could have done to restrain the natural impulses of the team. I do appreciate YOUniverse being given a run, and I'm looking forward to running Heart of Words. (I think that's Rassilon's arcs...)

Since The time I started this suggestion thread, suggesting more Goldside content to promote Goldside teaming and interest in making a Praetorian, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve gotten my Loyalist from 41 to 45, thanks to the Trilogy missions (the only contact left to me.) Since I’m a defender, the occasional inclusion of Epoch and/or Mercenary as NPC Allie’s really helps, since I can bump up the level diff and team size. Of course, each mission has to be run through several times without completion, for fear of finishing the arc and then being left without playable contacts. This is largely why I think some more Goldside content should exist. I’m hoping I can use this arc to run from 45 to 50 (because of the nonlinear story told by Trilogy, I’ll need to investigate if I’m on the last mission or not.) I also don’t know if 45 is the upper limit on the missions being given, in which case the level difficulty increase will only go so far, but team size will still help in the XP pursuit. Of course, I was lucky enough to join a Seed of Hamidon event, and to rob Tyrant’s casino (Ted Dubois needed to be taken down a peg) so that all helps the post-40 experience, even if I’m exemplared down for the SBB.