Scripting for teams/soloists

[cranebump]

A recent run of Gravity by @Valeyard (Mollymauk76 on twitch) revealed that my Mission 1 bosses are, shall we say, not beloved. Since they were running at +4 (and +1 I think), the team of 3-4 spawned multiple bosses who summoned singularities. Vale's tank got bounced around the map quite a bit. Couple the fact that, as one of my earlier arcs, I put them on a timer (ain't changing it now - it's got that gold star thing). The negative (but constructive) comments I received were about that - too many singularities, due to having one boss type. I'll have to see if they're right about that, but I suspect they might. I did get a kick out of watching the party tank bounce around between singularities, though.

 

Anyhoo, on the whole. I'd say that's a legit critique and suggestion. In my (weak) defense, I can only offer that (1) Gravity is an older mission for me (which a decent story, I'd say), and I may well have skimped on the M1 customs, since I hadn't learned some shortcuts/faster ways to do things, and so may have stopped at 1 a single boss type); and (2) I script for soloists running at default settings.

 

Of the two, the second determines pretty much everything -- how I approach clues, dialogue, NPCs, and story development. I figure a soloist is there for that - story. They're going to pay attention to text, much more so than a team (simply because it's more of a hassle for everyone not leading the team to follow the story). I know that when I'm running one, I keep tabs for Clues and NPC dialogue permanently tucked off to the side where I can see them immediately. 

 

That said, I haven't done a good job of testing at higher settings. I have been more adept at filling out custom mobs through bosses, making sure I've got more or a variety. But I think it may behoove me to run on +X settings to check synergy. In any case, I truly appreciate feedback from teams. It's interesting to see how things change with additional toons.

 

So, if there is a question in all this, I guess it would be Do you script for soloists, teams, or both?

[Clave Dark 5]

I'm here for the story, and due to the limited nature of sharing said story in the AE, I'm probably shooting for soloists.   One mission of my latest even doesn't have you fight anyone, it's just all story.  I'm not here to give you a prettier farm. 😃 

 

I also rarely have difficulty cranked or anything, so I dunno, my missions might be the next circle of hell for players if they routinely do.  To be honest ha ha, never considered that wrinkle until just now, but I do tend to try and aim for "easy enough" so as to not distract from the story-reading.

[Ankylosaur]

I write for soloists primarily as I count myself as pretty lucky if even one person plays something. 🙂

 

Having said that, after Adventures in Wonderland became a Dev's choice, a number of people commented about things in there over time that have me trying to better accommodate teams in my thinking.

• Defenders - Most of that has to do with /Defender powers. In there I had a number of "flowers" with /poison and that has melted some tanks. I also had some mobs with Flash Arrows and stacking that people found annoying. In general I try not to be annoying with mobs.
• Bosses - I often only had a single boss in a mob as soloers would rarely encounter them. Still holds true for some, but I think more about boss variety now.
• Escorts/Allies - I tend to over-rotate on the health of these now and use EBs or AVs to ensure they can survive when traveling with a team. If custom, I limit their attacks so the solo player hopefully has to do a little more than just kite them around with them, but EB and AV allies certainly make it a lot easier for soloists.
• Giant Monsters - I throw these in for flavor only if appropriate to a map. They are never required but teams seem to enjoy them.

 

 

And then there is keeping teams informed of the story. For that I don't have a great solution.

 

One of the things I struggle with is clues. I used to put in a lot of clues to help teams and just to keep people informed in case they missed something. But they are a little immersion breaking and flow breaking as you have to stop and read them - especially if they don't reveal new things themselves.  So then I backed way off, but after watching Valeyard's twitch play through, the dialog of toons is often completely missed, so now I am thinking they are important? Not sure what to do about clues.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Ankylosaur

[cranebump]

1 hour ago, Ankylosaur said:

 

One of the things I struggle with is clues. I used to put in a lot of clues to help teams and just to keep people informed in case they missed something. But they are a little immersion breaking and flow breaking as you have to stop and read them - especially if they don't reveal new things themselves.  So then I backed way off, but after watching Valeyard's twitch play through, the dialog of toons is often completely missed, so now I am thinking they are important? Not sure what to do about clues.

I noticed the same thing about the dialogue, though he did read through some important dialogue offered in Gravity. Seeing as how he's running for an audience, though, and often talking about various subjects while he plays, I'm not sure we can consider the runs truly representative of a typical player experience. I also think he misses the green text pop on objective completions that reveal info without pinging a clue box. This has led me to going back to using clues in situations where the completion text should be enough, but will probably be missed because the player is expecting a clue pop. As for as Clues in general go, my most recent stories are somewhat less clue heavy, and numbered sequentially from 1 (rather than by mission/Clue # [ex: "C1-3"], to sort of gauge how info-heavy the arc is. The one I'm working on currently is making use of "Bonus Clues" to flesh out the narrative, while I make a conscious effort to ensure the Clues I provide are (1) actually needed, and (2) actually clues (and not just situation summaries, or rehashes).

 

On Clues, I really think most players just don't want too many of them. But, as AE players aren't most players, you can get away with more than you would in a trad story arc. Even so, I'm trying to execute new stuff with "less is more" in mind (though this is not the easiest thing to do).

 

On the bosses: Same here - I've included more bosses than usual (but rarely more than 3 types, while Lts and Minions are around 5-6 each).

Edited May 25, 2023 by cranebump