Response to recent (and excellent) feedback on Of Guns and Asa Ronan

[cranebump]

First off, let me thank steel frost, FourthSurvivor, Heat-Transfer, and  Fate Evaness for running Of Guns and Asa Ronan. I am hopping on it today, and will check on the customs. I may just push things up to 20 to make it more reasonable for teams. Bear in mind that I design with soloists in mind, and I usually expect exemplared toons, IOs and such. That said, the challenge should be tough, but fair. It sounds like some things may not be, so I'll make a pass at it, for sure. 

 

Thanks much. If you run anything else I've designed, be sure to hit me up. The key word in AE is Entertainment, and I definitely don't want to take away from that.

 

Thanks again,

Crane

[cranebump]

The comments were about CC effects and the DP group (the PPD Stingers). When I checked their powers, it looks like I had designed them to be viable all the way to L25. Rather than tweak every group, I bumped the lvl range to 15-20. I assume that, since the group grinded their way through at 15, a bump in PC powers was the simplest fix.  That said, because the mish includes Vazh, which top out at 20, I had to maintain that as the max level, rather than ramp up to, say, 20-25. You never really know how things will actually go until tests, but I do test all my arcs extensively, albeit solo. So team feedback is invaluable.

 

Hopefully, this will keep the arc challenging, but not over-powered. As a general warning to anyone not familiar with AE missions, however, I would advise always having some insps available before going in. Custom enemies can be a bear, but part of the fun, we hope (if I can speak for others here) is dealing with and overcoming these unique threats. Which means you might run into stuff you don't usually find in the regular game. That can be a fine line to tread, though, so feedback is key to ensuring that the "E" in AE is just that, for all involved.

 

Thanks again. Let me know if you rerun it, and how it comes out. Or anything else of mine you may run across. I always hope to get better.

 

Shine on heroes (and skanky-ass villains),:-)

C

Edited May 10, 2023 by cranebump

[Ankylosaur]

If memory serves, the updates a few "pages" ago included requiring more powers in AE to give full xp.

 

In my limited experience looking at the differences, this can make the mobs much tougher. (on sets that actually use it - a few broken ones don't still 😕 )  

I suspect this was targeting farming, and have to wonder if it really scales down to level 20 well.

When it comes to balancing I do rely on the tool for it mostly. It's not easy and why I also don't do a lot of customs at lower levels. At higher levels toons have more mitigation options and more inspirations to handle things that are out of the ordinary so I worry a little less.

 

When things get into teams I've had some real challenges because of stacking. In part it's why I almost always only put defender powers on LTs. That means, when a team is running x8 or whatever, there's less stacking, and it also means they're not too hard to kill if there is some. The other way to do it is just have ratio of  a few minion out of a group of several have those powers.

 

Some things I have slowly learned to be cautious of.

1. Poison - stacking debuffs in large groups melt tanks
2. Sonic - see above
3. Aura shielding, like cold or storm stacking or bubblers
4. Flash arrow - everyone being heavily blinded from range is not fun