The Battle of Steel Canyon

[Ultimo]

So, I'm planning out a story arc, and one of the missions is expected to be an alien invasion of the city.  The mission I'm working on is set in Steel Canyon.

 

I've published it, just a single mission, in order that people can playtest it a bit and offer feedback.  Please give it a try and let me know what you think.  What I'm going for is a titanic invasion battle, similar to what we saw in the Avengers film (the first one).

I've added a few wandering heroes who are helping out, you might recognize them 😛

 

Anyway, try it, and let me know what you think of it.

 

It's posted under my ID, @Ultimo1

 

[raven9864]

I'll try it out now!

 

~Paws

[raven9864]

I assume it's the one posted on 6/29?

 

[raven9864]

Just played it.

 

Great customs and the feel of a running pitched battle is achieved

 

Notes below.

 

Spoiler

Suggestion: a few less patrols, and more fixed pockets. For a defeat all, constantly moving targets forcing you to go back over old ground to end the mish may not go over well with some. I don't mind and I think it fits the feel however.

 

Secondly: I ran around a corner smack into a Boss and Elite Boss standing side by side. That was a lot tougher than the first boss I ran into. Granted, I was solo and teammates would have helped. Perhaps a note about team play being suggested? I think it would also add to more of that Avengers/JLA feel.

 

Lastly, the "hero helpers" didn't really impact the gameplay for me. I had cleared most of the map by the time I met them, as they were all the way in the back.

 

~Paws

 

[Ultimo]

3 hours ago, raven9864 said:

Just played it.

 

Great customs and the feel of a running pitched battle is achieved

 

Notes below.

 

  Hide contents

Suggestion: a few less patrols, and more fixed pockets. For a defeat all, constantly moving targets forcing you to go back over old ground to end the mish may not go over well with some. I don't mind and I think it fits the feel however.

 

Secondly: I ran around a corner smack into a Boss and Elite Boss standing side by side. That was a lot tougher than the first boss I ran into. Granted, I was solo and teammates would have helped. Perhaps a note about team play being suggested? I think it would also add to more of that Avengers/JLA feel.

 

Lastly, the "hero helpers" didn't really impact the gameplay for me. I had cleared most of the map by the time I met them, as they were all the way in the back.

 

~Paws

 

Great suggestions, thanks!

The wandering heroes (and villains) were there more for flavour, but also to make some fights easier.  When soloing, you can lure tough foes into one of the ally groups.

The wandering foes are a good point.  Not sure how I would do "fixed pockets," do I put them out as bosses, perhaps pick a generic boss minion or lieutenant as the "boss" and have them as objectives?  I could then make THOSE the objective of the mission and be rid of the Defeat All...?

 

On that point... is there a way to set a series of objectives as an objective to unlock a final one?

 

For example, suppose I put out a number of Lieutenants as Defeat Boss objectives, say 10 of them.  Is there a way to have a final boss, an ACTUAL boss, like Lord Marko, appear only after all 10 lesser bosses are defeated?

Edited July 1, 2023 by Ultimo

[cranebump]

Okay, did a quick run this morning.

Ran with a L32 Brute Rad Melee/Energy, so he ain't super tough.

Spoiler

NOTES;

• Obviously needs an intro text. I assume this will come later.
• Nice costume on the In-No-Way-Do-I-Resemble-Iron-Man contact:-)
• Good writeups on your customs. Interesting...Brass Men, which I assume are adversaries of Steeltech. Is it possible Steel is inadvertently behind the invasion (tech run amok?).
• Got some help from the NPCS:-)
• 
• I defeated bosses, then exited. Defeat All's are tricky. Some players may not want to clear the map, others will. I'd make it optional. Maybe place a glowie in there to summon backup, then other supers arrive to "mop up," and player can stay to clear if they want to.
• It's well done, but obviously a work in progress,

 

[cranebump]

23 hours ago, Ultimo said:

On that point... is there a way to set a series of objectives as an objective to unlock a final one?

 

For example, suppose I put out a number of Lieutenants as Defeat Boss objectives, say 10 of them.  Is there a way to have a final boss, an ACTUAL boss, like Lord Marko, appear only after all 10 lesser bosses are defeated?

You'd have to chain them, if each is a unique boss. This will lead to some running here and there on the map. I'd suggest having Marko as the BBEG, on a later mish. Story-wise, you'd want to address the questions presented by the intro, as in:

1. Who are these guys? What do they (really) want)?
2. What is my role in repelling them? If this is a big city-wide invasion, I assume I'll be dealing with a piece of it. I would think it'd be "all hands on deck." If so what is happening in the world around me?
3. What's the twist? (a good story will almost always have one in there somewhere)

Speaking of, it feels like there's a connection between the contact and the bad guys. (other than it being his turf) If not, story still works, but personal angles, character motivations, etc., deepen the story aspect.

 

Good start!

Edited July 2, 2023 by cranebump

[raven9864]

20 hours ago, Ultimo said:

Great suggestions, thanks!

The wandering heroes (and villains) were there more for flavour, but also to make some fights easier.  When soloing, you can lure tough foes into one of the ally groups.

The wandering foes are a good point.  Not sure how I would do "fixed pockets," do I put them out as bosses, perhaps pick a generic boss minion or lieutenant as the "boss" and have them as objectives?  I could then make THOSE the objective of the mission and be rid of the Defeat All...?

 

On that point... is there a way to set a series of objectives as an objective to unlock a final one?

 

For example, suppose I put out a number of Lieutenants as Defeat Boss objectives, say 10 of them.  Is there a way to have a final boss, an ACTUAL boss, like Lord Marko, appear only after all 10 lesser bosses are defeated?

Yep, I'd set a boss objective so you can then build enemy groups around them.

 

The main crane, @cranebump, seems to have given great advice on the points you've listed. also, I ran it with my 50+ Dual Pistols/Devices Blaster. 

 

Give us a shout when you've tweaked it for mechanics or story and I'll run it again.

 

BTW-my personal choice when playing an AE arc based on story, is to see it not too hard to run thru. I stop and read everything. 

 

Looking good, keep at it!

 

~Paws

[Ultimo]

To flesh out the villains...

 

The Brass Men are a combination of my old Warhammer 40k Chaos Legion, mixed with Parademons.  Marko is a minor general, as is Tasker.  Later bosses are FAR more challenging and are based somewhat on Darkseid's elite (including Steppenwolf).  They're all still kind of works in progress.  The main, final bad guy is Lord Malephar, the Primarch of the Brass Legion, and he's based substantially on Darkseid.  Taken together, they're actually enemies of Super-Star, my Superman homage (who might turn up in the mission, it selects allies randomly).

 

My goal with characters who resemble existing ones is to make them resemble without outright copying... As such, some may end up being adjusted as I go.  Like I say, it's all a work in progress.

 

The actual text intro into the mission is yet to be written, what I put there for now is really just a placeholder to give some context for the mission for testing.

 

I appreciate all the advice!  Thanks!

[Ultimo]

Ok, I've made some substantial adjustments.  I discovered that I can have multiple identical boss objectives (in this case, they're all Lieutenant level "bosses"), and use that to trigger the "final" boss.  So, I've replaced many of the patrols with these bosses.

 

I should also say, I'm looking for feedback regarding the difficulty of the foes too.  The minions are meant to be individually weak, but strong in numbers (ie. they can heal each other, but not themselves, and the lieutenants and bosses just add other buffs...)

The Elite Bosses... well, they suffer from the design of the game... I tried making them Bosses, but they're too fragile.  As soon as I make them Elite Bosses, they become oneshot machines, doing ridiculous amounts of damage.  I don't want to imagine what Arch Villains would be like.  The result is that I can't take many of the powers without making the EBs utterly overpowering.  But... I will consider any feedback on the subject.

[wjrasmussen]

On 6/30/2023 at 6:36 PM, Ultimo said:

So, I'm planning out a story arc, and one of the missions is expected to be an alien invasion of the city.  The mission I'm working on is set in Steel Canyon.

 

I've published it, just a single mission, in order that people can playtest it a bit and offer feedback.  Please give it a try and let me know what you think.  What I'm going for is a titanic invasion battle, similar to what we saw in the Avengers film (the first one).

I've added a few wandering heroes who are helping out, you might recognize them 😛

 

Anyway, try it, and let me know what you think of it.

 

It's posted under my ID, @Ultimo1

 

Sounds like fun.

[Ultimo]

Ok, I had to unpublish it, it's become unplayable.

 

Every time I try to run through it, the last two bosses refuse to spawn.  Tasker is dependent on the Executioners being defeated, and Marko on Tasker being defeated... but Tasker won't spawn.

 

I suspect it's the wandering heroes... If THEY defeat an objective boss, it might prevent the player being credited with it, and thereby break the mission (since the player can't complete objectives the NPCs already defeated).

 

I'll have to tinker some more.

[raven9864]

I'll check on when you republish it and give it a spin.

 

I had some glitches chaining events together as well in my first arc. Or it was my novice skills. 

 

BUT...

 

I am intrigued with how youre putting this together. Keep em flying friend.

 

~Paws

[cranebump]

10 hours ago, Ultimo said:

Ok, I had to unpublish it, it's become unplayable.

 

Every time I try to run through it, the last two bosses refuse to spawn.  Tasker is dependent on the Executioners being defeated, and Marko on Tasker being defeated... but Tasker won't spawn.

 

I suspect it's the wandering heroes... If THEY defeat an objective boss, it might prevent the player being credited with it, and thereby break the mission (since the player can't complete objectives the NPCs already defeated).

 

I'll have to tinker some more.

Way of water, my friend. Best to go with with AE gives ya. Sometimes these challenges make you rethink, then execute your tale in ways that turn out to be better than you might expect. 
 

just a note on that: I’ve had instances where the fix was to rewrite the mission text to fit what I was seeing. Doesn’t sound like that will work in this case, but something to remember for the future.

 

Worst case scenario: drop the # of Allies/patrols/battles till things fit.

[Ultimo]

One of my favourite things is finding creative ways to use the limitations of the AE system to my advantage.

 

The biggest problem I have is with the damage output of the custom NPCs, especially once they get to Elite Boss.  I just hate leaving awesome looking powers OFF the character because they're broken.

[cranebump]

I wouldn’t worry too much about having challenging bosses. Unless you have them overclocked with  unreasonable powers, players ought to be able to make use of insps, temps and pets to overcome them. 

[Ultimo]

The wandering heroes seem to be a problem, because they might wander into, and then defeat, objectives the PLAYER has to defeat.  Perhaps if I put the "wandering" heroes in as BATTLES, where they're fighting some enemies in a static location...  That way, they wouldn't wander into the objectives, and if the players needed the help of the NPCs, they could lure them back to where the heroes ARE.

[cranebump]

1 hour ago, Ultimo said:

The wandering heroes seem to be a problem, because they might wander into, and then defeat, objectives the PLAYER has to defeat.  Perhaps if I put the "wandering" heroes in as BATTLES, where they're fighting some enemies in a static location...  That way, they wouldn't wander into the objectives, and if the players needed the help of the NPCs, they could lure them back to where the heroes ARE.

Capital idea! You get a similar effect and prevent the glitch. 

[Ultimo]

Ok!

I've revamped it a bit, and changed the map (let me know what you think... one of the things I liked about the original map is it's SMALLER, so the bad guys aren't as spread out... but the new map being bigger means they're not likely to infringe upon each other...).  It SEEMS to be working ok now...

I also tweaked all the enemies, as well as the bosses.  I need to tweak my super allies... they're still just too strong.  Mega-Troll's Hurl power does 100% of my health every time he uses it, and that's just not manageable when he's spamming the thing every 10 seconds and following it up with even MORE damaging powers...

[raven9864]

1 hour ago, Ultimo said:

Ok!

I've revamped it a bit, and changed the map (let me know what you think... one of the things I liked about the original map is it's SMALLER, so the bad guys aren't as spread out... but the new map being bigger means they're not likely to infringe upon each other...).  It SEEMS to be working ok now...

I also tweaked all the enemies, as well as the bosses.  I need to tweak my super allies... they're still just too strong.  Mega-Troll's Hurl power does 100% of my health every time he uses it, and that's just not manageable when he's spamming the thing every 10 seconds and following it up with even MORE damaging powers...

Just ran the revamp, and it took me about two minutes to complete. Neither boss were hard at all to complete. Ran with a 50+ Sentinel Beam/bio armor.

[Ultimo]

Ok, I'll see about tweaking further.

 

What's your thoughts on the different map?  I'm concerned it will be a mission people can just ignore all the bad guys and fly straight to the boss...

[Ultimo]

Did some more testing... I'm not sure what more I can do with the bad guys... you found them easy, but you're level 50... my level 30ish Tanker and Brute had no trouble.  My level 22 Defender did... alright, but was in tough against the bosses... and FORGET trying to take on the visiting villains...  Tonight I tried my L23 Controller, and he couldn't hurt much of anything.  Got killed over and over by the generic bosses, let alone Tasker and Marko... who would ignore his controls, of course, being EBs.

 

It's a hard balancing act here... I want anyone at any level to be able to play it... but I don't want it to be a cakewalk either.  The minions are supposed to be cannon fodder the heroes would blast through in great numbers with ease (much as we see the heroes in the movies doing against Chitauri and Parademons)...  Keep in mind too, Marko and Tasker are low ranking bosses.  Later bosses will me substantially tougher.

 

But as usual, I'm open to suggestions.

[cranebump]

I can’t recall level range, but, if this is 1-54, you may need to settle on a level range, and gear toward that. Or accept that the bosses are hard, and warn the player ahead of time. Or just live with the fact that not all ATs are geared toward the mish (which tends to mirror some aspects of the normal game).

[raven9864]

I think Crane has the right idea with a level range. Find that sweet spot if you can where its challenging but not too brutal.

 

If the idea is for the story to be the main character, don't worry too much with making it challenging, as players will want to take in the story elements. 

 

As to the map, I don't mind big maps as much as others as long as there is something engaging and interesting in most areas. I think either map you've used is fine.

 

~Paws

[Ultimo]

Ok, I'm starting to come up with the plotline.  I hope it holds up alright, but the real point is just to give us that Avengers/JLA style invasion battle.  I'll put up a more complete version with all five missions sometime soon.

 

Stay tuned!
 

What I might do is just set it at L50 (so everyone and everything defaults to L50), that should make it accessible to everyone... I hope.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Ultimo