Custom Villains

[Ultimo]

So... in my seemingly endless quest to make enemies that are fun and balanced to fight against, I've decided to come and ask what other designers do.

 

Basically, the issue I have is that if I make an enemy that is supposed to be kind of equal to the hero, so they can have a good one on one fight (like Spiderman vs Kraven, for example), I have to make them either Elite Bosses or Bosses... but I can't find a balance point.

 

If I make them Elite Bosses, they have the durability to be a good fight, but they do WAY too much damage.

If I make them Bosses, they do reasonable damage, but they're just too squishy to put up a decent fight.

 

The result is that I'm kind of stuck deciding which way to go.  In the past, I've made them Elite Bosses, and then only given them lower damage powers.  This results in enemies that lack many important or dynamic abilities, making them kind of dull to fight against.  Even as Bosses, sometimes these kinds of powers are too strong to make for a reasonable fight.

 

This brings me to the forums, to see how other designers make their custom bad guys.  What do you recommend?

 

(And yes, I've asked about this kind of thing before.  I'm not complaining that enemies are doing too much damage (even though they are), I'm asking how other designers work around the issue.  Try to keep flames to a minimum.  Better still, to yourself.)

[Maris]

If you're willing to sacrifice them giving XP to the player and don't mind mucking with text files, Advanced Enemy Power Customization is an excellent way to tweak challenge on custom enemies
 

 

Slap in a couple passives that boost +HP, maybe throw in Rage to give em' an accuracy and damage boost.

 

[Clave Dark 5]

Good question, one I'm facing myself with the current story I'm... well, I won't say 'working on,' but 'still sort of working on.'  Anyway.  In general I design more for my foes to carry the story along that be a big-fight thing in and of themselves, so this is just my take:

 

I've heard advice to not give foes Armor sets because that can make them far too tough to kill, so if you are doing that, try skipping it for an Elite-level foe... and maybe DO try giving one to a Boss-level and see how they work out; this may also come down to which Armor set you assign. 

 

As for the attacks, I'd still consider giving them as few as the XP setting will allow.  I often keep clicking around back and forth on the primary and secondary sets trying to figure out which combo or single powers really mess with XP levels (up or down), which sometimes means it the foe fairly often ends up without a wide range of attack powers; if the XP is still good, I figure that's probably best, but you might end up with some guy with like two top-tier attacks and nothing else (which of course will carry quite the wallop though, and will lead to angry messages from Controllers who had to drop out).

 

Like everything else AE, my experience with this says you just need to experiment and test test test.

 

ETA: forgot to mention if you haven't seen this page yet, you might find some good advice on the wiki

 https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Mission_Architect_Custom_Units

Edited July 28 by Clave Dark 5

[Forager]

Some people struggle with a single boss, some can solo AVs. Some people think if they need to use inspirations, it's too hard. I wouldn't worry about satisfying everyone, especially considering the number of people who will play your arc.

 

But adding a few armor/hp powers to bosses sounds like the closest thing to what you're looking for.

 

My personal feelings about it? Don't sweat the xp. It's broken and wrong. Make something that tells the story you want to tell. Make something you enjoy playing.

[ZeeHero]

Yeah I'd use this feature to make enemies balanced to be an even fight with my own character, but balancing it for others is not gonna work well

[Jiro Ito]

I struggle with this as well; in my most recent arc I had one comment that the final boss was too easy, and another say too hard.  My arc was low level, so you get a range of low level players trying it out vs exemped incarnates, which makes it impossible to balance.  

 

My imperfect solution is to an add ally and make the boss hard, that way player can use the ally if needed, or ditch 'em in the map and solo. 

[Ultimo]

Part of the issue is the disparity between the ATs.  For example, an enemy that will oneshot a Controller might be fine for a Tanker.  My thinking is always to make enemies that are soloable by ANY class... so I build for the Controller.  Yes, the Tanker will be more survivable, but he's SUPPOSED to be.  No enemy should be oneshotting any character intended to be durable.

 

So... a-tinkering I will go.  I'm working on a story arc now, keep your eyes peeled for The End of Days.

[ZeeHero]

The disparity between ATs is a good thing, they all have different strengths and weaknesses.

A Cold defender will rip through the defenses of an invuln tank like nothing, despite the tanker being by far a more durable AT.

[Ultimo]

6 hours ago, ZeeHero said:

The disparity between ATs is a good thing, they all have different strengths and weaknesses.

A Cold defender will rip through the defenses of an invuln tank like nothing, despite the tanker being by far a more durable AT.

While true, I'm more concerned with the NPCs than other players.  The issue is that so many of the higher rank enemies do so much damage, just with basic attacks.  For example, one enemy I created is an AV.  That meant he spawned in my mission as an Elite Boss.  I gave the player several NPC allies to help fight him.  He attacked my test character (a L32 Tanker, Super Strength/Invulnerability) with a relatively medium attack and did enough damage to oneshot him (since it was a DOT, it gets around the no-oneshot system in the game).  That's against a TANKER, the most durable class possible.  He's going to just oneshot every player he attacks.  To me, there's no fun being had unless you have some kind of chance to fight back.

 

That means reducing the rank of the character to reduce the excessive damage, or using only the lowest power attacks.  Doing the former means making the character a Boss, since EBs and AVs both do excessive damage, which means the enemy is too squishy.  Doing the latter means they're dull to fight against because he has no variety in his attacks.  This is the problem I keep butting up against.  I just thought perhaps there was an option I hadn't thought of.

[Forager]

21 hours ago, Ultimo said:

I just thought perhaps there was an option I hadn't thought of.

 

Nah. The only way to make low risk fights exciting would be to add some dope music. We don't have that... yet.

[sponazgul]

I don’t know if I can meaningfully contribute, I just know that I’ve made a few bosses to be beaten.

 

I almost always make them an Elite Boss - I have to verify this, but if someone has Don’t Solo Bosses, it downgrades AE Elite Bosses to just Bosses.

 

While testing The Return of Despoticus recently, Elite Boss Despoticus appeared as a boss to the controller I was testing with, who had the lower difficulty.

 

I tend to vary the number of attacks on the Elite Boss - if it’s a mission that can support Incarnates, the boss gets all attacks. For the secondary choices I try to give a few powers that make things weird, like Detention Field or a Fear or Confuse.

 

if a player needs to retreat and restock on inspirations, that is still a valid fight. I usually have to do that with the Praetorian Malaise in Brickstown for Maria J.

 

I think that if someone finds an end boss too easy, they should increase the difficulty and run the mission/arc again.