Mission Architect Ideas

[Tortuga]

I started thinking about Mission ideas.  The Great Gusto is in a lot of them.  That character and Circus Infamous toons are full of story potential.  Here's the one I've fleshed out the most (without yet knowing all the possibilities within the MA system).

Basic idea: Save Bruno!
Mission 1: Bruno has been missing for months.  Rumor has it he's been slimming down at the local gym.  Find Bruno's trainer (custom villain named "Lifecoach") and interogate him to find Bruno.

Mission 2: Lifecoach tells you that Bruno has been taking some heavy-duty dietary supplements.  Find the supplier and steal the shipment.  Defeat the supplier and he'll tell you where Bruno is.

Mission 3: You find Bruno going for a walk in the park.  He's just a thin shadow of the beautiful behemoth he used to be.  Knock some sense into him and find out why he's lost all this weight.  Bruno tells you that he lost weight so he could rekindle his love with the Circus' long lost Bearded Lady.  The Great Gusto tells you that the Bearded Lady is a powerful Illusionist who's beard was merely an illusion.

Mission 4: Find the Bearded Lady and her bearded minions.  Defeat her.  Maybe Bruno could help in this mission (I'm guessing AI controlled helpers will be possible).  Upon defeat the Bearded Lady realizes what Bruno has done for her and begs him to 'be himself once more'.

Mission 5: Help Bruno steal a shipment of protein supplements so he can regain his weight.  The Bouldered Behemoth will rise again!

So that's the basic gist of the story.  Other potential ideas are "Help Circus Infamous take a bit out of the Carnies business" (an obvious one!), something about California Hustle as his former dance troupe, Something brewing in the sewers (for the Tortuga character), and a few others.

Anyone else up for sharing?

[BlueBard]

I'm not really ready to talk much about ideas until I see what's possible.  I'll probably just want to get my feet wet with the mission creator at first.

[Zapow]

I've been thinking about a mission arc that pits heroes against the evil versions of the FR SG founders & captains from a parallel world.

Harmeille!

Terrortuga!

Hartbreaker!

Kill Dynamo!

Burning Irishman!

Ms. Killshot!

Slamma!

Evil A!

[BlueBard]

Okay, based on what I now know I think my first story is going to be a "Day in the Life" kind of story.  A humorous look at the daily challenges a superhero faces as he/she tries to juggle the demands of their civilian identity and their 'great responsibility'.

I don't have an outline yet.

[BlueBard]

I'm putting my first story arc together and it's coming along.  I do have one question, though.  Has anyone figured out a way to populate a map with civilians that run around in a panic (or otherwise)?

At first I thought maybe it was map-specific.  But now I'm wondering if you could use some combination of settings under Allies, Captives, or Escorts to accomplish it?

[Viking]

I have not yet found a way to have random civilians running around in a panic on a mission, as they presently do in several CoH missions.

[Alaric]

Does anyone know if there's a way to add a boss without minions to a mission?

[BlueBard]

Does anyone know if there's a way to add a boss without minions to a mission?

Don't know, but I have suggestions for what you can try.

One thing you could -try- is to add an (almost) identical character as a boss to its' own custom group and use that Enemy Group for the mission, then add the Defeat Boss objective.

You'll either get one boss or a whole map full of bosses.  Let us know what happens! 

Another thing you could try is creating an empty custom group and see if it will let you create and assign it.  The boss need not belong to that group and I -think- you can assign any group you want to guard the boss.  If it won't let you create an empty group, you can create a custom group with one or more Persons in it.  They're supposed to be non-combatants so it might work.  On the other hand, they all get the Brawl power so it might not.

[BlueBard]

I'm not positive yet, but I think we're in danger of crashing if we attempt to edit a mission without quitting the story.  Or maybe it's just me.

I hope they fix the range of available animations.  Especially for civilians.  It's kind of annoying that I can't make them put their hands up when they're hostages.

One thing we can't seem to do is to activate collection goals based on mission events, like you can some of the other goals.

And I want panicked mobs.

All in all, though, I'm enjoying the heck out of tinkering my own missions.

[MJB]

I crash every time I edit an arc after testing it. Regardless if I quit my current mission or not.

-MJB

[Flying_Infant]

I think I'm loving the critter creator more than anything. I suck at "text writing" and all that.

Though I do enjoy my 1-mission Freedom Force mission.

And will eventually enjoy whatever GI Joe mission I come up with...if only to be running around beating up Cobra.

[BlueBard]

Does anyone know if there's a way to add a boss without minions to a mission?

Don't know, but I have suggestions for what you can try.

One thing you could -try- is to add an (almost) identical character as a boss to its' own custom group and use that Enemy Group for the mission, then add the Defeat Boss objective.

You'll either get one boss or a whole map full of bosses.  Let us know what happens! 

Another thing you could try is creating an empty custom group and see if it will let you create and assign it.  The boss need not belong to that group and I -think- you can assign any group you want to guard the boss.  If it won't let you create an empty group, you can create a custom group with one or more Persons in it.  They're supposed to be non-combatants so it might work.  On the other hand, they all get the Brawl power so it might not.

OK, having done some testing and trying a couple of things...

1. If you create a one-character group and assign that group to the mission parameters, you will indeed wind up with a map full of that character, whatever it is.  I figured it would probably work out like that, but it was worth a try.

2. MA will not allow you to assign a group to the mission parameters that only has Persons in it, nor can you create an empty group, nor can you omit assigning a group altogether.

3. I could not find a combination of settings that would allow me to send panicked people running through the map.  At least not so far.

[DMenacer]

A idea for one thats been tested on the Test Server is call Save the League.

Its about using our VG Villains in the mission.

They have captured different SG Freedom Reborn heroes and its up to you to save them.