More Nooby AE questions

[d4verman]

Is there a certain setting for a decent Solo boss? I ask because in a mission I'm building I created a "boss" villain that I completely steamrolled while playtesting it. I had harder times fighting henchmen. I don't want to make mission where the villain is ridiculously hard to beat Solo but I don't want the bad guys to be pushovers, either. Is there any advice on building a decent solo boss villain for the AE?

 

Speaking of bosses I tried a mission where you have to rescue a civilian from the boss. I put them both at the back of the map but the boss never appeared near the victim. A few test plays I had to actively run around looking for him. I don't guess there is a way to make sure the boss and the victim show up in the same place. (it was an office building map)

 

Am I missing it, ore is there a way to put the running and screaming civilians in the map? 

 

Sorry for the noob questions. I appreciate any help I can get. 

[Eva Destruction]

5 hours ago, d4verman said:

Is there a certain setting for a decent Solo boss? I ask because in a mission I'm building I created a "boss" villain that I completely steamrolled while playtesting it. I had harder times fighting henchmen. I don't want to make mission where the villain is ridiculously hard to beat Solo but I don't want the bad guys to be pushovers, either. Is there any advice on building a decent solo boss villain for the AE?

 

Speaking of bosses I tried a mission where you have to rescue a civilian from the boss. I put them both at the back of the map but the boss never appeared near the victim. A few test plays I had to actively run around looking for him. I don't guess there is a way to make sure the boss and the victim show up in the same place. (it was an office building map)

 

Am I missing it, ore is there a way to put the running and screaming civilians in the map? 

 

Sorry for the noob questions. I appreciate any help I can get. 

Give your boss some more powers.  Just make sure that the challenge is appropriate to the level range of the arc; you really shouldn't be using customs in a mission with too wide of a level range because something that is a reasonable challenge for a level 50 will roflstomp a level 10.

 

You can't have a specific boss guarding a civilian.  The only way to make sure they show up in the same room at least is to use a map with a "back" or "front" area that is a single room and allows for both a boss and a rescue objective. 

 

No panicky civilians, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for those people who get annoyed with how shovy those jerks are.)

[Darmian]

No panicking civilian mobs, as said above, but I did build custom "civilians' with no powers. Depending on what you do with them they can be fun. If you class them as an enemy they'll follow you around sullenly, unable to do anything apart from disapprove of your presence BUT if they are anywhere near you when you get into a fight with a genuine opponent then tabbing becomes insane as you try to avoid killing the civilians while the enemy happily targets you! You CAN kill them but while you're doing that your enemy is hurting you. 

If you have them as a patrol and classed as rogue it gets odder since the actual enemies will now also attack them.

But no, no fleeing and panicking!

Edited July 19, 2020 by Darmian

[Darmian]

You've only got a certain amount of bosses per map so you wouldn't use that quota on a scenery mob really. And yes, adding some regen etc would make the rogues last longer. If you want them to last longer.

[wilsonm]

On 7/17/2020 at 3:42 PM, Eva Destruction said:

Give your boss some more powers.  Just make sure that the challenge is appropriate to the level range of the arc; you really shouldn't be using customs in a mission with too wide of a level range because something that is a reasonable challenge for a level 50 will roflstomp a level 10.

 

You can't have a specific boss guarding a civilian.  The only way to make sure they show up in the same room at least is to use a map with a "back" or "front" area that is a single room and allows for both a boss and a rescue objective. 

 

No panicky civilians, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for those people who get annoyed with how shovy those jerks are.)

But if the AE has an enemy listed as 1-50 or something doesn't it automatically match their level to the player? Just askin' I don't know. 

 

[Eva Destruction]

Yes, it does.  But, the enemies get their powers at the lowest level players get the powers.  Which means if you give them, for instance, Knockout Blow to keep high-level characters on their toes, they'll have it at level 8.  You do not want to fight a mob with KO Blow at level 8.  So you have to give customs fewer powers if the arc is meant for low-level players, which will make them a pushover for high-level players.

[cranebump]

You can create custom minions for your boss with strong synergies that make them much tougher. My latest arc had a boss troller, paired with “mark 2” bots that can throw down singularities and grav holds. The first few test runs were pretty rough, till I figured out that all of them had no KB protection. I tossed plasmatic tasers and grenades at them to keep them down, then kicked them all in the face.  

 

In some cases, a well-timed mez can make a fight turn in a dime. If you don’t believe that, fight a pile of energy melees slapping you with multiple stuns. Characters with good resistances are fine, but, depending on lvl, stun can lead to a steamroll as others pile on the wavering character. Even minor stuns can be a pain. Had a mod 20s arc where the most common enemy group of 3 had a DB scrapper, a BR blaster, and another blaster with AR grenades. The Beam occasionally threw a stun on, which would allow the DB to throw down slicey DoT. Every now and then, you might catch a little KB from a grenade, as well. I started targeting the Beamer to avoid the stun (depending on the character I used). The BR was a squishy, but was just a pain.

 

So my advice on bosses is to build a good boss team. Think about player team combos that work, and use them. Also: don’t get too upset if the boss goes down easy. The player is supposed to win, after all.

 

Something else to consider: does the boss have flight? Flying bosses tend to move fast, and will sometimes zoom away. If the terrain allows for some verticality, this could add an interesting dimension to the battle.

 

Also: setting map to empty and populating with patrols can make boss battles dicey if there’s a chance patrol wanders in.

 

and then are, of course, ambushes. Maybe boss has some scary backup.

Edited July 30, 2020 by cranebump

[d4verman]

After playtesting a few of my own creations I see what all of you mean about bosses and levels. I'm going to have to rework some things to keep the story in a certain level range. 

 

[cranebump]

On 8/2/2020 at 1:54 PM, d4verman said:

After playtesting a few of my own creations I see what all of you mean about bosses and levels. I'm going to have to rework some things to keep the story in a certain level range. 

 

 

It’s a consideration, alright. I personally prefer designing for 15-30, with the sweet spot in the mid-20s. At this point, a typical character can be challenged by various threats. The info above about #/powers is spot on. Even with a few powers, choosing one of the upper tiers among the set can make a boss deadly at low levels. I paired Dual Pistols with a few forcefield set powers (including one of the better ones, I don’t recall which), and ended up with a boss character that just killed me, even with insp buffs. Also had a boss who locked you down with fire cages, then sent in shadow pets to wale on you, while you stood there, burning up. In the end, I went with easier combos, simply because there’s a fine line a fair/unfair challenge.