cranebump

So, both Citadel and all the other allies are set to "Enemy: Empty?"

I assume Citadel is an ally with no enemies around him? If so, the objective is autocompleting when you enter mish, since there’s no need to rescue him from anyone (it considers the enemies “defeated). Once he’s “rescued,” attached objective enemies spawn automatically, preceding the use of bait in your chain. They end up on the map immediately. Assuming I have this right, I’d suggest keying the enemy patrols and boss spawns to the bait. Since they aren’t ambushes, they should all be attachable to the bait.Attach nothing to Citadel.

What is the first objective?

Heh...review of mission White, especially funny, @TerroirNoir Engin-eeee and Iiiii-vor-ee, Fight together in perfect har-mon-y, What the future may hold, though, don't know, could go "ow-ow-eeeeee."

Are any of the in-game signature characters /SR tanks? (Curious) Only SR tank I ever ran much of was from the slot machine random powerset challenge. Katana/SR. It was fun but…weird…

You're insane. NO ONE is banana. No one...:-)

In lieu of huge mobs, you can achieve a similar effect by choosing maps that dump objectives on top of or near each other, so that player might have overlapping mobs, or patrols flowing through mobs. There's a couple of warehouse maps that lack the really big chambers that are like this. They can get cramped and deadly REALLY quick, esp if ambushes drop in. The entire area can be full of them.

I designed 1 mish with an NPC who spawned on floor 2 of an office building. Player meets with them, NPC announces a raid by the bad guys, which occurs on floor #1. NPC runs off (to nearest door), ostensibly to get away. Players take on raid bosses on floor #1, then find the same NPC captured on said floor. Worked fine, in that instance. So, for this to work, you'd have to run into all the heroes on one floor, then have the rescues occur somewhere else. Somewhere COMPLETELY else, if you don't want the duplicates to meet up. The easiest thing to do, honestly, is just have the meeting with Cit occur up front, then head to back to rescue the heroes. You eschew the seeing them earlier, but fighting against the AE engine just makes things more difficult, imho. Path of water, as always.

Based on what I keep coming back to, it's the KR Devil. AR/Tac Arrow. I'm a fan of The Row (I set a lot of my AE stories there), so there's that. Outside that, he's a plain-garbed, fairly quick ground-bound vigilante who's simple to run and can provide a lot of options via the Arrow set. Mirrors the type of comics supers I like -- "low-powered" folks who tend toward the grim and gritty, but will ultimately do the "right thing" (as I imagine him).

Hmmmm…well… Movement: pretty good with “ground bound” toons, if being able to time rooftop leaps is any indication. I’m still not 100% at lining of Sands of Mu (still!). 3.6? Tfs and such: 0. I don’t form anything these days. Builds: when I do actually concentrate on it, I produce decent enough characters. But…probably a 2. badges: never focused on these before, and only focus on enough explore to make my zone TP power get me to the main places I go. I’ve memorized all AP and Galaxy: Echo spots, since this is my usual early game trek. But I think most people have done that. A 1? key binds: used them in the past. Not at all now. 0 lore: since I study lore to an extent when crafting SFMAs I’d say better than average. 3.5 I suppose. Or maybe a 3. The only thing I’d rate myself a 4 on is AE SFMA. I’ve spent so much time there I know a lot about it (mainly from doing so many things wrong early on).:-) can’t say I’m a 5 since I don’t do anything super fancy. Can say I script pretty quickly, though, for what that’s worth.

Good advice. There are a great many clear mishes when you solo story content. I’m thinking of the Striga content I did a couple weeks ago, and it seemed that Stephanie Peebles had my Sentinel doing defeat alls nearly every mission. All for her silly little, Uber powerful, temp ring (that I really, really wanted so I could easily kick the shit out of Calvin Scott* later on [god, how I hate him]). *mission accomplished:-)

I've had similar issues with defendable objects in the past, so I don't use them as mission objectives anymore. I DO use them as window dressing at times. If you continue to have spawn issues when using defend, you can instead change it to a normal glowie and make the objective Secure the database or something like that. Place the glowie in the area you want it to appear, along with patrols in same area. Then spawn an ambush to simulate them trying to get to the DB. Or have an ambush after the Cit contact to simulate the same effect. They'll chase the player right to the computer. End result: the player then has to go through patrols and bosses to get to the computer (along with an ambush), simulating its importance without dealing with the spawn headache.. After that, assuming the goal is to secure and retrograde, the bosses could be listed as optional, or just left as possible impediments. If the map allows a boss at the front, I'd place one there, esp. if it has a discernible chokepoint (hallway, for example). Another possible fix is cutting back on the #/patrols, bosses, until the thing works.:-)

To set Objective to "get to the exit," go the main mish settings screen and look for the verbiage where it says "Players exit normally..." Change it to the other choice ("Find Mission Exit..." Iirc).

I agree. My comment about settings was in reference to the general ease of play. Players who join a team with full knowledge of expectations, only to consistently ignore them (and subsequent warnings), deserve what they get. Be a dick, get kicked.

Good question. I tend to agree, though I somehow ended up in a team with 3 scrappers last week. Just when you think ‘X,’ freakin’Y’ shows up…:-)

And here I thought Water Blast was the obvious king of this category.:-)

Once of my newer toons is a Water Blast/Rad Armor Sent. Doesn't blow anything away, damage-wise, but WB gives you some soft control in the form of knockdown and disorient (from consuming Tidal Power), plus your attacks reduce target SPD and DEF. The combo also gives you a good mix of damage types (mainly smashing, cold, and toxic, with a bit of fire/energy at T8/9). Ground Zero also (minor) heals allies while damaging foes, so, if you do happen to get on a team, you've got that to contribute, as well. I've run my version of this solo at 0/x3 comfortably, but I'm sure he could handle more than that. I'm just not much an envelope pusher.

Believe me...I noticed...:-)

Any level can go in (as evidenced by lowbies being door sitters on farm maps). If you're looking for story content, you can tailor your search by using SFMA in your search string. You'll find player-made content of all levels. If your toon is below level for the mish, it will raise them up to min mish level. If your toon is higher, the opposite occurs. There are quite a few multi-arc stories, and some "mega-stories" consisting of dozens of mishes. Be advised: player-created content is often a bit tougher than default story content. Best to come prepared.:-)

Does one of them use Dual Pistols?

Correct. It will exemplar you up to min. mish level.

I'd look up actual mobster names and hodgepodge them. Or crib the Godfather. Corleone. Andolini. Tessio. Clemenza.

Okay, so I took out Marko, but it was a fairly tough fight. The other boss (starts with a T), I waded into a bunch of adds without seeing them. REALLY had a tough time. Gobbled insps, did a strategic withdraw. Picked off the beamers where I could, then ID'ed him. Stunned him right off, then slugged him down, but he hit pretty hard. I don't think it's the bosses as much as it is the bosses AND the minions. The beamers set you up, and if you haven't taken care of the boss (or the minions), you're in for a fight. Bear in mind, I'm running with a L50 Nrgy/Rad Tank who, while not optimized, is pretty damned tough. Feels like this should be a L50 mish. It's a a full-scale invasion, for one thing. I wouldn't sweat getting the bosses "right." They were tough enough on the big map. And I was only running 0/x2.

Which mish is it? There are two posted. Disregard. I'm in the right one.

Nice! I've used some of my AE stories as the basis for short stories in the super hero novel I'm working on. And it was in fact doing AE that got me to thinking I could go long form. I've self-published some plays (and had some of them performed in various locales), but something sustained like a novel always felt super heavy. I ended up with a narrative throughline that ties the various stories together so that the whole thing suits my style. I think that's key. Stick to your style. And don't talk your way out of doing anything. I've had lots of students over the decades who wanted to be writers (or at least expressed an interest in it), many of whom thought it wasn't worth it because they didn't have anything "unique" to say. I always told (and still tell) them that the minute they put the words down, it IS unique, because no one is going to tell the story quite like you do. And we continue to tell ourselves the same types of stories anyway, so don't worry about that. Anyhoo, best of luck with all that. Just keep chipping away and the rock will eventually split. It's not magic. It's just effort and belief.