Suggestions: For Making AE Builder Make Sense & Geometrically Better at Storytelling

[moonligh7er]

A Few Proposals for Making AE Builder Make Sense, and Astronomically Better

(TLDR; try the titles in bold, esp. orange)

The code for almost all of this already exists in the game, ‘over there but not here.’ Most of this should be relatively easy, just recycling code and making it fit (if if allies cen betray but captives can't, the code is already there for captives to be made to betray too). Not saying this is so for all elements but I mean... all these things exist in-game somewhere so this is the notion I'm operating on when considering reasonable suggests. Stability and testing is probly the biggest concern and I suspect why some things were reigned in? But, currently AE builder is anything but stable/coherent/finished, and the builder option are garbage compared to the same options but actually consistent and function. Why not improve it? It’s potential is extremely stifled (and, noting wrong with wanting your toon from live back ASAP, but personally I’m not interested in farming at all–I farmed exactly one toon cuz tank is my last archetype, but I needed one). I’m looking for improvements that improve storytelling mechanics and memorable experiences.
 

Most of these suggestions I do not see as being open to exploits particularly given all the XP and other nerfs in play. Eg, an escort’s destination becoming active when they’re rescued and tell you about it doesn’t open up any exploit (correct me if I’m wrong, sure), it’s just common sense that that’s how that should (be able to) work.

Radiance of Theia: A Cosmic Pirate Odyssey and Radiance of Theia II: Raiders of the Atomic Sea are anti-farms,. I personally like them more than ITF even with the limitations of builder, not the least of which reasons I like ITF a lot and have played it a lot but also I can keep it constantly fresh. Though the finish level and limitations make some elements impossible to make as cleanly as ITF. Point being, that’s the kind of 10-mission storied, lore of my characters type content I’m into making and that these improvements would improve in some cases literally geometrically.
 

I have sustained 1,000,000 psychic damage making each of those 2 arcs and while I love them I’m extremely far from, “satisfied,” and would like to keep refining them, both before and hopefully after some improvements to and fixes of AE. That said, long list. Here we go, no particular order but what I think are seriously bad issues or limits in orange:

AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

I. ALLIES AROUND ALLIES & CAPTIVE BETRAYALS UPON RESCUE (both currently impossible)
 

Currently allies cannot be surrounded by allies but, but can betray you. Honestly not a big deal you can’t surround allies with allies, but it’d be kind of cool and allow a bit cooler scenes to be set up. Also currently, captives can be surrounded by allies (making them your captives in a gorgeous mechanic where they appear as enemies until freed), but they cannot betray you.
 

Both should be available for both. Especially captives being able to betray on rescue! The absence of this option really ruins a would-be next-level superrr fun mechanics. For example, if you have a captive surrounded by allies, and they have a PBAOE toggle, they’ll have that turned on while captive. So, my Puddle Queen has hurricane on and it looks like my allies are struggling to keep her captive,. Getting blown back. Another AV has static field, and so he very slowly kills the allies holding him, and, if escorts could betray upon being freed, all your guards could be dead when you get back and he could be gone, or free and a problem. This is easily one of the top coolest possible mechanics in AE, and one that's already almost all the way there. PLEEAASSEE D ; lol

II. ESCORT’S DESTINATION SHOULD BE ABLE TO BECOME ACTIVE AS OBJECTIVE UPON THEIR RESCUE, when they set the waypoint and tell you about the objective, the ONLY time or at least the time it most makes sense for the objective to become active

When you have an escort, you cannot set the destination object to become active as the objective at the same moment as the captive is released. AE accuses you, because of it’s 2D vision and believing the world to be flat due to it’s extremely bad coding, of circular reasoning, when common sense and logic and the time-space continuum all inform us that there is nothing at all circular about finding out something exists at the moment you would in reality: When told about it. In either case, the objective item to take them to is on the map from the very beginning. There’s no real circular error here, the system is just currently designed not to allow these two things to be concurrent. There should be code in the background that can discern if A and B are checked (escort to the thing, and make the thing active when the escort is rescued/tells you about it/sets the waypoint–the time it most makes sense, possibly the only time it makes sense, and how video games and time-space traditionally work–then the contradiction should be resolved, cuz  the conflict is not not in the logic of reality or the A to B causality I’m asking for, it’s in AE’s extremely unfinished, broken, and crippled logic which extremely poorly reflects the traditional video game narrative where some of these literal-most-basic mechanics are disabled or missing or designed incorrectly.
 

This issue is just totally incoherent and unnecessary. Maybe AE coded so poorly that this isn’t as easy to fix as it seems, but it’s really asinine and unjustifiable. Not sure how causality and time work where the AE coder (deserter? I heard) lived but this one is just… a failure in common sense and design.
 

I’m not saying the object to take the escort to should appear at any time after the rescue (rather at the same time); that would actually be circular logic. Currently, the only thing to do is to make it active on a trigger either at the beginning *ruins narrative/continuity/time-space/nav objectives) or on a separate earlier trigger (ruins narrative/continuity/time-space/nav objectives), so the player could likely go to the object before the escort!
 

III. MORE CUSTOM TRAVEL POWERS, INCARNATE POWERS
We should be able to give custom characters more of the powers from the power pool, not necessarily in replacement of he current flight or not option. Superspeed might be a really bad idea, since even the lightning armor power that increases run speed by 200% can make an AV impossible for many teams to kill unless somebody brings a strong taunt, cuz the jerk will just start running and never stop despite not being set to flee (cuz I dont usually leave pure def or res powers but I do leave mez resistances on my AVs; they shouldnt be easy). If I had to choose just one, definitely at least just the teleport set! Pleeaasse! It's awesome in main-game, not even hard cuz it doesn't break targeting (I think it obv should)...

It would be sick and next-level challenging if we could also selectively give NPC’s incarnate abilities, which would warrant another warning align with AV’s, GM’s, etc. on the mission cover.
 

People have been asking for totally customizable NPC’s across power pools without XP being taken off the table. I imagine this would require a lot of work, and honestly it would be awesome but I don’t think it’s a priority, as the powers mostly make sense and the ability to mix-match powers we cant as players is already awesome. It would be a next-level improvement though. And, I mean, the code for determiningXP percentage by alpha values or whatever is already there, so, maybe it wouldn’t be hard at all.
 

It would also be cool if we could choose, again like we used to be able to, for them to do moves at a certain health level, but also it would be cool if we could choose a move for them to favor? Or a move to use, if up, each time a player uses, Idk a move over a certain damage, or a type of mez. It would be super cool if particular villains for example were known to punish you with high damage after you mez them. Details like those and all of these are what would make AE something so much more powerful.
 

IV. MULTIPLE TRIGGERED EVENTS ON A SINGLE TRIGGER–More than current, ones that actually work consistently, and perhaps ones that can even be ordered or, if code is stable enough, even spawn simultaneously like they’re supposed to

Multiple triggered events on a same trigger should be possible. I heard it was nerfed to 1 trigger max prevent exploits, but I swear 2 or 3 work now, if in random order and inconsistently? At least 5 should be made possible. It would be reasonable to limit how many of the 5 can be ambushes (the concern associated with the exploit, as well as probably tricky for AE’s tiny brain to render all at once or even in order, as it struggles with just 2-3 things when none are ambushes cuz ambushes are selfish and refuse to share a trigger with anything).
 

Which brings me to next–Ambushes should be able to share triggers. We should be able to have an ally or escort betray us at the same time as a patrol or ambush appears (“or” is fine), and also a new objective activates (a boss or object), etc.
 

We should be able to have multiple things happening at once, cuz that tend to be how climaxes work.
 

V. OPTION TO RETURN TO AE OR JUST GO TO NEXT MISH–Maybe? Not worth a headache tho

We should be able to give players the option at the end of each AE mission to either return to the AE building OR to go straight to the next mission. It’s really not a big deal, I can imagine there being challenges with loading stuff, it’d just be a little nicer for continuity. Probably not worth a headache tho!
 

VI. ADJUST RATIOS OF INDIVIDUAL NPC TYPES PER CATEGORY (MINION, ETC).

We should be able to adjust what percentage of each category (minion, etc.) is filled by each individual enemy added to that category. If I have 3 minions I should be able to choose 25% minion A, 50% minion B, etc. I see you can add the same NPC to the same list multiple times? At least I think it was ‘the same’ and not ‘the same but from a diff list.’ That may be a workaround, but it’s goofy. There should also be an option to choose only ONE because I’m sick of not being able to include AV’s in mob’s without AE’s little brain going “oh you obviously want 10 of these AV’s for your team of 4… regardless of being set to x4 or x8… and despite the mob being set to easy or medium, right too bad ambush is here?” Super not thought through in the slightest.
 

VII. CUSTOM PLACEMENTS OF NPC’S

We should be able to custom place them like we used to. I don’t care about farming; come off it. This is absolutely spitting on people who want to tell stories and have things look I mean just coherent to start but AWESOME ideally in their arcs. Find a more sensible fix for farming exploits that doesn’t completely defecate on arc mechanics.
 

This goes for any of these things which used to be features but which were disabled, and many of them are literally the most basic and intuitive features, many of which require no coding or addition but just adding from one objective to another (eg captives betraying you like allies and escorts can)

Like, custom placements for significant NPC's like bosses, allies, etc., and formation options like in RTS's would be cool a heck for mobs.

VIII. BETRAYALS BY NPC SURROUNDING ENEMY GROUPS (VS ALLY, ESCORT, ETC.)
When the ally that should be able to be surrounded by allies betrays us, those allies surrounding him should too. Hey, maybe the ally doesn't wanna betray you but they can't control the mob that wants your head.

IX. OPTIONAL COLLECTIONS BLINK BUT DON'T MAKE SOUND--THEY SHOULD DO NEITHER
Didn't we used to be able to add optional collections which, being optional, wouldn't blink or make sound? Maybe it was te same but if it were neither then we could take maps next-level by adding aesthetic elements (cauldron, gun rack, etc.).

X. ABILITY TO CUSTOMIZE NPC POWER/AURA COLORS

The lack of it has killed entire aesthetics.

XI. ABILITY TO GIVE NPC's MULTIPLE MELEE WEPS, DUAL WIELD
Maybe only NPC's of a particular level eg EB or AV? Two broadswords, two axes, a sword and an axe... Would be SICK! Can we half dual-pistol's damage and maybe slow down it's recharges a bit and have a katana and a pistol? Pistol or assault rifle or beam rifle and a shield (have particular cinematic in mind with a SWAT)?

XII. ALLOW POPUPS WITH CALLS FROM CONTACT, NEW WAYPOINTS

I imagine the issue is... There probably aren't opposite-handed animations for the weapons? Would it be easy to just mirror or reverse them?

XIII. A OR B NARATIVE OPTIONS / MULTIPLE PATHS
If player fulfills condition A, trigger A goes off. If B, B. Multiple endings. Also, give players popup option menus that work the same away. Ally yourself with us or fight us? What side are you on? Etc. Add options for changes that affect all elements or all of a particular or particular categories of elements, such as all patrols or all bosses only, or both but nothing else, or everything on the map. Eg depending on your response, a group may be enemy or ally.

XIV. Enemies surrounding captives/escorts/allies should not be able to make the captive/escort/ally invisible.
People might disagree with me on this, but I don't know who cuz it breaks and makes terrible more things than mechanics it enables or makes cool. Nobody wants to look for an invisible ally. Nobody.
 

BUGS
Since some people have disagreed with my definition of a bug, I will post this list here and under bugs and, take what you like; there’s plenty.
 

A.) NPC POWERS THAT DO NOT EVER WORK

Some powers, seemingly high-level ones (only ones I’ve noticed not working) like meteor, mass levitation, etc. do not currently work despite being available in custom character maker.Doesn’t matter their rank, health, if it’s their only move, enemy/ally/rogue, current spawns in the area, etc. This is obviously funkilling as heck. Moreso for me, meteor was the glorious crown highlight of one of my arcs that was about to be absolutely sickeningly cool. Ruined. Mass alleviate… Would obv be awesome for an AV, but it doesn’t kill the aesthetic if it doesn’t work. Was this possibly broken when the ability to make AV’s do certain moves at certain health levels was nerfed? We should get that feature back too–like most of these, for decent storytelling/aesthetic/etc. purposes, and these are not small but MAJOR improvements to them.

Possess is super unsatisfying and pretty lame. It should set off random powers on the target of whoever possessed you and follow them at a distance but in range of their target I think or same positioning but just switch to enemy.
 

B.) IF A PLAYER QUITS WITHOUT LEAVING TF, NEW TEAM JOINERS ARE UNABLE TO ENTER THE AE ARC TIL THE NEXT MISSION
There is no way to fix this but to wait til the next mission, AFAIK. The bug where when a player quits incorrectly/without leaving the TF (Idk, are my arcs so hard people are quitting to desktop or unplugging their PC’s when they leave angry-crying from my group that was advertised as extreme? What else are they doing in-game while still on the task force?) is, well, a game-ruining bug and should be fixed at some point.
 

C.) COSTUME COLORS WILL CHANGE RANDOMLY FOR NO REASON, ALSO BODY PROPORTIONS & COSTUMES RESETTING
Enough said.Sick of it. Body proportions will also randomly reset to default. Occasionally I’ll got to edit a character and it’'l reset the entire COSTUME even though I wasn't on costume edit page. I’d be PISSED if I saved a toon I just went to edit powers for without going by the costume menu and had to remake the costume from scratch cuz of AE’s IQ. Y’all seen my costumes? I’d have to log for the day lol
 

D.) IF YOU ADD A NEW NPC GROUP, IT WILL NOT POPULATE IN THE OBJECTIVE ENEMY GROUP DROPDOWN MENU UNTIL YOU CLICK INTO THE EDIT GROUP MENU AND BACK OUT–and you have to do this for each objective you wanna add that new group too; using the click in and out trick to repopulate the one dropdown only refreshes that one dropdown.
This makes it take literally several times longer to do a task that is very frequent and often highly repeated in AE builder, and it’s worth fixing.

E.) IF YOU TRY TO REPUBLISH WITH AN ERROR THAT AE BUILDER DIDNT NOTICE UNTIL YOU TRIED TO REPUB, INSTEAD OF JUST GIVING AN ERROR, IT ILL DELETE ALL UR CHANGES AND THEN GIVE AN ERROR

This is absolutely ridiculous. It should obviously just not let you publish and leave you on the same editing page with all your work intact, like it does if you try to save from the unpublished file.

!!!>>> F.) For Ffff!! This whole issue I posted in bugs about (link below): Map trimming off elements esp. required objectives due to not being able to render the # of spawns builder said was below max& good to go <<< !!!
Basically AE can't count and the builder clearly communicates very poorly with the separate creation-force entity responsible for rendering the actual map, cuz AE does not know the magic secret number of spawns that will actually spawn on the map, a secret number which is different from both the categorical and collective enemy maxes AE builder claims are accurate. AE's maxes will exceed the maps, and AE will start trimming elements--not even thinking to trim required objectives last but instead seemingly trimming them first. It may not even be entire objectives; one time it was just an escort's literal ability to follow. Removed 1-2 mobs, 0 other changes, they followed fine. No there was not stealth on or any cause before that (unless another piece of bad code in AE, but I changed only one variable so going with Occam here); it was plugged in. AE fails to generate any kind of error, let's you publish, and then you can't complete cuz it failed to spawn  required objectives (or their ability to function/follow) and didn't bother saying anything cuz it probly didn't know. The departments should be put in touch. I'm sick of looking stupid and like my work was halfarsed and getting 4-star's cuz somebody else's work 20yr ago was halfarsed and a bug presents illogically and inconsistently. this specific bug took a LONG time for me to fig out. My naive self thought although AE, despite not being able to count correctly even within it's own accounting within builder (as evidenced by errors after adding stuff it said you could), surely it will get the final number right--here I find that's not the biggest problem cuz it doesn't even know the real number/s it should be counting to. -_-*

G. Doppelganger's don't work. Not 3 or them and not 1 of them. People have said they work as bosses but I've tried them as triggered bosses, and they don't work like that, not required and not optional. I only tied the shadow one--Maybe the skin's missing?
I didn't have any invis power or anything like that. They simply failed to spawn, either required (broke mission) or not.. This one, it's possible there's a factor (that shouldn't be a factor) causing this, so perhaps it is that factor that is where the fix lies. Either way, if a user error made this possible, that user error should not be possible.
Beyond that glitch, an improvement to Dopples I think right now (if the Dopple worked), it just copies group leader. Would be cooler if it copied multiple group members. Would be even cooler if it tried copying the lowest levels and specifically using the powers they haven't yet gotten, up to the level of the highest group member or the +whatever noteriety setting ofc. A an option at least. Just saying would be cooll. But Dopples working at all would be too.

THANK YOU
I’ll likely add additional stuff later in blue color text I think. I have a lot more. I will take videos of some of these. We'll have to take my word on some or don't (happy to provide more detal), but even if a user input made any of these incoherent errors possible, that's still an AE/coding/UI error and not a user error; users trying to use the system intuitively, and games (hands down builder software) should be intuitive; lack of intuitive UI is never the user's fault (unless... at least, I can promise you I'm not incompetent). Appreciate HC Team's time & awesome work to improve & keep fresh the game we love as always if y'all come by this.

Edited September 9, 2024 by moonligh7er
clarity

[moonligh7er]

If I can help in any way make any of these changes happen that the HC team deems worthy of looking at sooner than others, I'm not a coder but problem identification and solving are my line of work, I have some tools, and it wouldn't be the first time I was given a problem wildly outside my area and smashed it. I know nobody wants to run any code I come up with cuz if it doesn't work it'd be easier to do the thing from scratch than figure out what somebody else (I) screwed up and if my notes suck then it's a lost cause.. But.. I'm good at following instructions to accomplish sub-tasks or to accomplish clearly-stated larger goals, and have some people beyond tools I can consult with on technical stuff as I know time is probly HC team's shortest resource and the best thing next to coding skill (and the funding that makes this all possible) that can probably be offered? Idk, just an offer, for complicated scholarship reasons I risk boredom over winter lol

Will make some vids of the more complex things to prove everything's plugged in and to display all variables. I've just taken so much psychic damage lol not reliving that intentionally at this exactt moment xD and terrified to make any changes at all to published arcs, cuz AE is clueless and every change in a just slightly complex (all that's possible but even significantly less than that) mission could do anythinggg and requires re-testing of the entire mission unless all your objectives just start right on the nav bar and are all no more complex than kills or destroys. Definitely whether all elements with with follow, ambushes, triggers, etc. will work correctly cannot be discerned with the current glitches and trimming logic unless you play through the whole level, or remove all the connections which defeats the point of testing but will at least tell you if the map can hold all the spawns where AE builder cannot currently tell you that.

Edited September 6, 2024 by moonligh7er