Titan Network
Community => Task Force Hail Mary => Topic started by: Brighellac on March 26, 2015, 06:17:09 PM
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As we wait for hopefully good news from the CoH rebirth negotiating team, let's brainstorm on minor alterations to administrative issues that would make the game more fun.
1) implement categorization of AE missions into farm and story - many people have complained about not being able to find fun RP stories due to all the farms and farmers get irritated by missions they deem a waste of their time xp-wise
2) not feeling particularly creative
Any thoughts by you guys? Remember minor admin issues, not gameplay changes
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Hello! I don't know if that is new functionality or not. Unfortunately if it is and COH did come back there will be no updates to the game. However someday coh 2.0 in whatever form that looks like....
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1) implement categorization of AE missions into farm and story - many people have complained about not being able to find fun RP stories due to all the farms and farmers get irritated by missions they deem a waste of their time xp-wise
That would involve code changes to the game, so will be impossible.
Best they could manage would be to un-publish the farm maps periodically, which will honk off players no end.
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I think I've said it before, but its probably worth saying again; Pet customisation. Seriously. Twould indeed be awesome.
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You need to be talking to Irish Girl:
http://apr.pc-logix.com/
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I think I've said it before, but its probably worth saying again; Pet customisation. Seriously. Twould indeed be awesome.
I also wanted mastermind powersets based on in-game factions. I always wanted to command my own Freakshows and eventually level up to having my own Tanksmasher to command. There was always reasons x,y and z, along with custom appearing or custom power pets, but it was something I still liked the idea of.
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if the game came back the easy ae fix would to have a wiki page or a little text program that would list all the ae mish by name and then have a small column to tell players what type of mish it is. even if there 3000 mish in ae right now or more. it might take a person a week or two to make a pdf list of all the mish and then post in on the web.
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Tag missions by filters such as: story, comedy and farm so you can search by tags.
Or if you don't like farms or whatever send a tell to the mission author requesting them to put the word farm at the beginning of the mission title.
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The problem with a thread like this is that due to A.) hardly anyone understanding what will involve code changes and what won't and B.) people just ignoring the point of the thread and going on about whatever they always wanted regardless, it will devolve into an impossible wish list in no time. :)
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
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The problem with a thread like this is that due to A.) hardly anyone understanding what will involve code changes and what won't and B.) people just ignoring the point of the thread and going on about whatever they always wanted regardless, it will devolve into an impossible wish list in no time. :)
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
True, but this thread is more for novelty and wishful thinking rather than for expressing what we actually expect to happen.
I for one would be entirely happy with CoH back completely unaltered, although there are some things that could do with changing :)
Also impossible lists are fuuuuunnnnn :P
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True, but this thread is more for novelty and wishful thinking rather than for expressing what we actually expect to happen.
I for one would be entirely happy with CoH back completely unaltered, although there are some things that could do with changing :)
Also impossible lists are fuuuuunnnnn :P
Now I take this and make it absolutely unnattainable:
Moon base!
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Now I take this and make it absolutely unnattainable:
Moon base!
Ironically probably easier to do than half the other changes in the thread. Its not beyond the realm of possibility that someone with enough time and technical knowledge could create a moonbase map that could be patched into the client to replace another less important map in the game. Its a ton of work but doesn't require source code level modifications. Mastermind pet customization on the other hand would require less work, but that work would have to alter the way the game engine actually works which is to the best of anyone's knowledge going to be beyond the capability of the buyout team.
That's not to say we're getting a moonbase. Just making a distinction between the time consuming and the inaccessible.
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Now I take this and make it absolutely unnattainable:
Moon base!
And I dear sir reply!
Pet Moon base with in depth customization! :P
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And I dear sir reply!
Pet Moon base with in depth customization! :P
A moon base....
....that looks like M.C. Escher made it. haha. Ok too much
if you're not pushing your luck, you're not trying hard enough
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=upload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fen%2Fa%2Fa3%2FEscher%26%23039%3Bs_Relativity.jpg)
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A moon base....
....that looks like M.C. Escher made it. haha. Ok too much
if you're not pushing your luck, you're not trying hard enough
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=upload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fen%2Fa%2Fa3%2FEscher%26%23039%3Bs_Relativity.jpg)
I think an Inception-based MMO would be a great idea, not the least of which because technically speaking all bugs could be features.
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They were planning on a moon base already, which makes me very very sad. :gonk:
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They were planning on a moon base already, which makes me very very sad. :gonk:
Yeah... I always wondered what this screenshot was about....
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.cityofheroes.ca%2Fglobal%2Fincludes%2Fimages%2Fscreenshots%2FI2406_watermark.jpg)
from here: http://www.cityofheroes.ca/news/game_updates/issue_24_overview.html
I don't think the moonbase was going to show until issue 28... I am not sure about the Lore. Anyways, have a great weekend all!
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Rather than unpublishing AE arcs, they should have set them to an inactive status, and allow players to only search for active ones.
Arcs could be set to inactive if not played or altered after a certain period of time. I'm willing to bet that would clear out at least 90% of the arcs.
I'd also rather they implement a "Like" system rather than the 4-star rating system. There was so much intentional ratings bombing going on it wasn't funny.
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You got badges for getting good ratings from enough people. Of course, there was chicanery
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Yeah... I always wondered what this screenshot was about....
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.cityofheroes.ca%2Fglobal%2Fincludes%2Fimages%2Fscreenshots%2FI2406_watermark.jpg)
from here: http://www.cityofheroes.ca/news/game_updates/issue_24_overview.html
I don't think the moonbase was going to show until issue 28... I am not sure about the Lore. Anyways, have a great weekend all!
I see mother mayhem there but I thought she died at the end of the minds of mayhem trial. Didn't she get forced out of Aurora's mind or something?
edit: oh is that some sort of statue?
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Yeah! I know! Between the villain masks, Ghost Widow and Mother Mayhem I wish I could know more.
IF there is ever a Loregasm 2015 I wish Matt M and Devs could talk about some of the I24 images that were out there.
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That's from the Issue 24 villain arc. At some point you go up against Praetorian Penny Yin, who has assumed control of the Awakened. In order to further your personal goals, you end up entering her mind through the Awakened's psychic network and destroying what little control she has left, driving her completely crazy and unleashing a new supervillain on the world: Penelope Mayhem.
That bizarre landscape is a representation of Penelope's shattered mind, so there's lots of elements from her Praetorian past floating around. You can see it with I24 Icon by using /loadmap maps/Missions/unique/i24_Unique_Maps/Villain_Arc/Arc_3/IOM_Awakened_Showdown.txt
There aren't any spawn points inside that area (it might just be for the cutscene, I don't remember), and it's kind of hard to find in noclip mode, so you can use the F3 coordinate editor and go to (550, 295, 55).
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As we wait for hopefully good news from the CoH rebirth negotiating team, let's brainstorm on minor alterations to administrative issues that would make the game more fun.
1) implement categorization of AE missions into farm and story - many people have complained about not being able to find fun RP stories due to all the farms and farmers get irritated by missions they deem a waste of their time xp-wise
2) not feeling particularly creative
Any thoughts by you guys? Remember minor admin issues, not gameplay changes
This might be a good idea for ARP as some have said as for the image for the server I would say better to ask ARP for it.
As for your number 1, I feel that is a great idea, seeing as though many people spend so much time making their arcs and only get a few play throughs. (This is also for my arcs too, spending weeks to months on an arc and not have more then a few play throughs is something I feel was not worth it. :( ).
For your number 2, I think that would be more of the person making the arcs. What helped me was I took inspiration from other peoples arcs and watching movies and reading comic books.
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Have separate values for Influence and AE Influence. Something like 100 AE Influence = 1 non-AE Influence.
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That's from the Issue 24 villain arc. At some point you go up against Praetorian Penny Yin, who has assumed control of the Awakened. In order to further your personal goals, you end up entering her mind through the Awakened's psychic network and destroying what little control she has left, driving her completely crazy and unleashing a new supervillain on the world: Penelope Mayhem.
That bizarre landscape is a representation of Penelope's shattered mind, so there's lots of elements from her Praetorian past floating around. You can see it with I24 Icon by using /loadmap maps/Missions/unique/i24_Unique_Maps/Villain_Arc/Arc_3/IOM_Awakened_Showdown.txt
There aren't any spawn points inside that area (it might just be for the cutscene, I don't remember), and it's kind of hard to find in noclip mode, so you can use the F3 coordinate editor and go to (550, 295, 55).
Took me a while to get there, (Typo's are me) very disturbing map!
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Oh, yeah, I remember that arc. I ran it on the test server with my namesake. He was vastly overpowered for what was meant to be a mid-level arc, but I just wanted to see the story. I don't remember it well, since it was so long ago, but it was an interesting story.
As I recall, Penny Mayhem was not only "created" in that arc, she considered you her "creator", making her an ally.
Man. I'm sad again about all the stories that we'll never know the original ending to. (Sure, we can write our own, but that's not the same thing)
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Slight minor alteration. have all vet rewards opened . Also with some power that were with vet rewards have a choice to select them at games star. Have all Vet reward items opened up right away.
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Impossible lists are fun! :D
I like the idea behind this thread. We've heard a lot of "Reverse i13 PvP changes!" "make these other huge changes!".
I'm personally interested in hearing some of this...and of course some of it I might take over to Revival. -cough-
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Impossible lists are fun! :D
And lore too! If I can add again to the Impossible List:
Arachnos Lore and costume Update like they did with COT....
1.) Something with the Red Widow - she gets out from under Lord Arachnos's control to depose him or finds out she can't be killed again or
2.) ...with Statesman 6 feet under the cosmic balance is off and Lord Arachnos starts getting souped up on Well Water. Can't have good defeated and expect the evil counterpart to just sit around.
3.) .... Marshall Blitz too. I loved the two monthly series/arcs they made before shut down. He ended up cancer free & I would have liked more stories with him becoming a bigger pain to Arachnos
4.) Ghost Widow/ Nocturnal Widows.... anything with her!
As always, thanks for giving me a place to ramble about the world's greatest super-hero game.
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Impossible lists are fun! :D
And also a proud continuation of the Suggestions and Ideas section of the original game forums. I remember one poster suggesting allowing characters to have six arms. Just matter-of-factly, in the same way someone would suggest having more strappy shoe styles.
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Maybe they heard your Human Centipede comment to Posi all wrong :P
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I would think there are a couple of categories of changes that we KNOW can be made -- Client-side changes.
Specifically, I would like to see somebody go and remake those crappy-looking head fins from the first generation of costume options -- into something actually useful, like generic cowl pointy ears/horns like have been used on 50+ comic characters starting with Batman and including Daredevil and a bunch of orphaned characters from the 40's thru 60's -- or how about an actual generic spread-winged bird emblem? Can somebody come up with less dopey-looking letter and number chest emblems? (smaller, less irregular?)
Sure any change is going to replace an existing option, and SOMEBODY will not like it, but I think there are major improvements that could be made in the less-popular costume pieces.
Also, wouldn't it be possible to alter existing maps?
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More glowing costume pieces ala Tron
Retire Bloody Bay and Siren's Call, make them echoes.
modify the space map in the final mission against Darrin Wade/Rularuu to be a moonbase map.
recalculate the values of the AE badges that were removed in the great badge nerf and restore them to AE
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I don't know about minor change ideas other than one possible minor change. The costume parts that were only accessible to the Dev's for making the NPCs, if it is possible to have those unlocked with the more advanced Costume editor similar with the BUY OPTION to be able to totally alter a character's appearance was a Store Purchase.
I don't agree with fully unlocking all of the Veteran Tiers. Tier 9 should still be a Subscriber Tier reward. Actually, I only had access to the game for its final year, and with the ability to unlock the parts to the Tiers with every $15 spent worked fine with me. Just before the shut down I had reached Tier 9 and was able to get the Mech like wing pieces for my Cyborg type character. Having Wings and Tails unlocked for everyone to use, basic ones, and letting people pay for the prettier ones is still reasonable.
Veteran Tier unlock ability, Base Teleportation, should be available freely to subscribers and a buy option in the Store.
Base Editing, this won't be a minor request. I have seen some wonder creations inside bases due to people skills with the controls they had. I worked at learning from the "Masters" and borrowed ideas to use in my own works. In some areas we were lacking pieces for a particular feel. Maybe some pieces that look like actual pillows and blankets, pieces that look like table settings. Small braziers for those who don't want a huge fireplace in a small room, or a half size to the wall torches. Maybe some wall torches that have a wood look instead of the stone hands.
But the one thing I want is my account back with my already made characters which I only have to do the 50+ instances.
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Suggestions for minor dev alterations if CoH relaunches
Black Scorpion needs to smile more.
Arbiter Hawk should get a hair cut.
Synapse needs better shoes.
Black Pebble should clean the inside of his car.
Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
Dr. Aeon should be taller.
War Witch should become less Canadian.
Second Measure should dye himself green and livestream visits to abusive players where he throws their furniture around and growls "puny troll!" and "Nate smash!"
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Revert Trick or Treating to the fun everybody open as many doors as possible as quickly as possible mode from the boring i'm surprised even people who want the badges are doing this mode.
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Suggestions for minor dev alterations if CoH relaunches
Black Scorpion needs to smile more.
Arbiter Hawk should get a hair cut.
Synapse needs better shoes.
Black Pebble should clean the inside of his car.
Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
Dr. Aeon should be taller.
War Witch should become less Canadian.
Second Measure should dye himself green and livestream visits to abusive players where he throws their furniture around and growls "puny troll!" and "Nate smash!"
This post...makes me happy.
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Revert Trick or Treating to the fun everybody open as many doors as possible as quickly as possible mode from the boring i'm surprised even people who want the badges are doing this mode.
Percentage of Jack spawning after Eochai being defeated needs to be improved.
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* Lose travel suppression, not sure why it was ever put in the game.
* Change AE designer so you can actually place mission objectives on the map. My biggest gripe ...
* Remove the requirement to take prereq powers in the power pools to get the one you want.
* As a hero, let me gain villain power sets without having to go to the dark side first.
* Do something like Neverwinter did, where you can earn extra enhancement slots over time, just by gaining xp after reaching
max level.
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* Lose travel suppression, not sure why it was ever put in the game.
* Change AE designer so you can actually place mission objectives on the map. My biggest gripe ...
* Remove the requirement to take prereq powers in the power pools to get the one you want.
* As a hero, let me gain villain power sets without having to go to the dark side first.
* Do something like Neverwinter did, where you can earn extra enhancement slots over time, just by gaining xp after reaching
max level.
Travel Suppression exists so that player's can't just cheese-kite enemies. I do think it could be re-worked a little bit though...to be a little less of a pain in the rump. Perhaps only activating on using powers, and not being attacked. Switching off after all enemies within a certain radius have been defeated, or say...5 seconds since power usage. To throw out an idea.
I can't say for certain, as I don't know as much as I should about AE's backend. I have a feeling however that it was likely partially a technical limitation, or perhaps it would have been more trouble than it was worth to implement at the time. Personally, I want to see about players having far more control to build missions and stories in AE.
Giving players just free access to skip to the bottom of the Power Pools sounds like a great idea. Why have to take hasten when you just want Super Speed? On the flipside, it does keep players within a certain frame-work, and away from nudging too close to freeform characters. CoH tried freeform...and it didn't quite work.
Honestly, however...this is kind of something I wouldn't mind letting a bunch of beta players loose on a server to try. It could either go horribly, or work pretty well.
The Patron Power pools are thematically supposed to be representations of the Arachnos Patrons. The idea being that these are special skills you learned from your mentor while under their tutelage. How/Why would a Hero have access to these very special skills?
The last one is...an interesting idea. Very similar to a thought I've been having. It opens the possibility of balance issues, in both PvE and PvP. However, I love the idea of becoming more and more awesome...and Incarnate felt a little...clunky to me. (No offense, Posi. -salute-)
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Travel Suppression exists so that player's can't just cheese-kite enemies. I do think it could be re-worked a little bit though...to be a little less of a pain in the rump. Perhaps only activating on using powers, and not being attacked. Switching off after all enemies within a certain radius have been defeated, or say...5 seconds since power usage. To throw out an idea.
Done and done. Suppression doesn't activate on being attacked (only using an attack power - non-damaging debuffs & buffs/heals/pets don't trigger suppression), and it only lasts for four seconds after last attack.
Giving players just free access to skip to the bottom of the Power Pools sounds like a great idea. Why have to take hasten when you just want Super Speed? On the flipside, it does keep players within a certain frame-work, and away from nudging too close to freeform characters. CoH tried freeform...and it didn't quite work.
Honestly, however...this is kind of something I wouldn't mind letting a bunch of beta players loose on a server to try. It could either go horribly, or work pretty well.
Travel Powers are capable of being taken at level four without any prerequisites. Tier 4 and 5 powers still require prerequisites because they are (generally) more powerful and/or more useful.
The last one is...an interesting idea. Very similar to a thought I've been having. It opens the possibility of balance issues, in both PvE and PvP. However, I love the idea of becoming more and more awesome...and Incarnate felt a little...clunky to me. (No offense, Posi. -salute-)
They tried to add more enhancement slots at one point and it broke the game.
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And Agge dibbles, and passes!
Man, I remember Suppression going off when you were attacked... -rubs forehead- Man, it's been too long. My memory's starting to go! That or I'm getting old.
On the powers:
Right, I kind of forgot that had been changed. I used Ninja Run so much as my main travel by the end... -shifty eyes-
I imagine what Silver is talking about likely ends up being Travel Powers for most people, if so...I guess that makes it a pre-solved issue?
On the added enhancement slots:
Did they? I must have missed that... Too bad, I imagine there was a lot of fire and explosions as all that balancing was thrown out of whack with a single change. xD
(Proof that while I know more about CoH than most of the people I know... There are still a couple people out there that beat my knowledge up and take it's lunch money. -bows to Aggelakis-)
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I imagine what Silver is talking about likely ends up being Travel Powers for most people, if so...I guess that makes it a pre-solved issue?
Well it'd still be nice to be able to get tough/weave without boxing and aid self without aid other, for example.
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The Patron Power pools are thematically supposed to be representations of the Arachnos Patrons. The idea being that these are special skills you learned from your mentor while under their tutelage. How/Why would a Hero have access to these very special skills?
Scirocco was supposed to become a hero, and allow unlocking of the Patron sets without becoming a villain, though that would really only explain why heroes could learn Mu Mastery.
(Mace Mastery, though, is easy to explain. "While I was beating up dozens of Arachnos agents, I took a mace from one of those Bane Spiders I KO'd")
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Travel Suppression exists so that player's can't just cheese-kite enemies. I do think it could be re-worked a little bit though...to be a little less of a pain in the rump. Perhaps only activating on using powers, and not being attacked. Switching off after all enemies within a certain radius have been defeated, or say...5 seconds since power usage. To throw out an idea.
Not really interested in kiting anything, and if anyone's willing to extend a fight by 5 minutes this way, I don't see the issue.
What I want is the ability to make a hasty retreat if I get overwhelmed - that extra 5-10 secs before travel suppression ends is the difference between life and death.
The Patron Power pools are thematically supposed to be representations of the Arachnos Patrons. The idea being that these are special skills you learned from your mentor while under their tutelage. How/Why would a Hero have access to these very special skills?
They get access to the main power pools ... without converting to heroes. Maybe they could have hero patron pools, and just rename the powers.
They tried to add more enhancement slots at one point and it broke the game.
Hopefully the rewritten code wont be so fragile.
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that extra 5-10 secs before travel suppression ends is the difference between life and death.
Perception bias. It's only 4 seconds. And it doesn't make a difference very often.
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Hopefully the rewritten code wont be so fragile.
It wasn't strictly speaking a problem with the code being fragile. It was a problem with the game progression code working like a set of switches: when you gain this much XP, it triggers this, and that triggers that, and that triggers that. Adding extra slots tripped some of those switches, which disrupted how the game calculated what you should have at any particular time - in effect it confused the game as to what level you were. To change that would have required rewriting that code, which would have required not just the time to change it but also all of the QA time necessary to regression test such a change. Because it involved very deeply critical code to the game, the testing itself would have taken a significant amount of time to verify the programmer didn't introduce a new problem. My guess is that the required testing suite would have dwarfed the amount of time necessary to actually make the fix in the first place. The actual fix probably wouldn't have taken a competent programmer all that long to implement.
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Travel Suppression exists so that player's can't just cheese-kite enemies.
Interesting thing about that. At one point, the devs considered kiting to be a valid strategy for blasters. However, the devs later decided it was not, and tried to put significant emphasis on eliminating kiting as a credible strategy. For example, by ensuring all critters had ranged attacks. In fact, by the time they did this kiting was, compared to most strategies, extremely inefficient. However, there were edge cases they were concerned about. Two in particular were first the act of herding and vaporizing melee critters, particularly wolves, which they thought was exploitive. And the other was that although it was a safe strategy, it was a boring one for the average player. Creating a safe but boring local-minima-like strategy could turn players off to the game, so it was eliminated as a viable strategy altogether.
To this day I believe that a moderated form of kiting was and should have been a legitimate form of gameplay, particularly for novices. Once aggro limits were put into place for herding, eliminating kiting for PvE specifically was not an important issue. In fact, a proper risk/reward analysis of the game would suggest that trading safety for lower than average reward rates was an entirely legitimate player gameplay choice no different than other similar but more subtle such choices (such as playing solo tankers).
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How about ...
replacing all the npc's with teddy bears.
Oh, great, the teddy bears are back.
make it stop, make it stop!
j/k
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Replace War Witch with an angry green, and black teddy bear? Got it.
Arcana: You might be right about Kiting being allowed. Aggro limits do prevent it from being too far abused, It's relative speed vs chainsawing through mobs means it's not exactly exploitative in terms of risk vs reward.
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Another point never considered - if you are Speed Boosted you are not suppressed and so can kite freely, yet somehow never considered.
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Yeah, really don't understand the issue with kiting. If you're in a team, you're just steamrolling everything - no kiting needed.
If you're solo, who really cares? Play the way you want - personally I would think kiting would make the mission take longer.
Although they denied it, I really think this was brought about by the implementation of PVP, and they were concerned about hit and run tactics.
Totally different issue - but I wish they hadn't tried to tack on pvp onto this game - pvp is never going to be implemented correctly unless it's designed in from the very beginning.
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Another point never considered - if you are Speed Boosted you are not suppressed and so can kite freely, yet somehow never considered.
Say you're an MMO developer. Someone comes up with an idea and presents it in a meeting, to do X. You realize that while X might work most of the time, there are a few edge cases where it won't work. It won't be worse, just not better. So you say you object to implementing X because of a couple of edge cases where X doesn't do what it should do, and you stick to that objection.
Because almost *all* implementations have edge cases, and because its extremely difficult to design in a way that avoids all of them, guess what's going to happen when you have a brilliant idea you want to present to the group? Until MMO development tools get good enough that one guy can make an entire MMO, you will always have compromises that seem stupid in MMOs when they aren't so much stupid as trying to make reasonable accommodations to the reality that no dev team can design perfectly, and one concern an MMO director has that players don't have is ensuring their dev team is motivated to actually continue showing up for work every day. Often that means implementing ideas that are not perfect, and sometimes even useless but harmless.
I'm certain speed boosting was considered, is what I'm saying.
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A nightmare mode. Speed-running on this difficulty is required due to the following;
Always 8x+4
Enemies re-spawn. Re-spawned enemies give zero exp.
Enemies do double damage and have a 50% recharge reduction buff. Snipers gain an interruption time reduction of 200%.
Enemies gain +perception to detect stalkers easier. You WILL get hurt on this difficulty.
Respawned enemies actively persue the player as if the player had agroed them on re-spawn!
Enemies also have a 50% movement buff.
Also speed running categories for 8x, 8x+4 and the new nightmare mode. Variants include pacifist, no attacks allowed except on enemies you have to kill.
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Tempted to ask Synapse how much of these are actually possible.
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Off topic question.
Is Irish Girl and Golden Girl the same person?
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Off topic question.
Is Irish Girl and Golden Girl the same person?
God no.
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If I had my wish - since this is a wish list.
I would make AE how we do PvP in CoX - you would design the mission and setup the conditions of the fight. You could choose Capture the flag, Escort someone/something to safety, last man standing and free-for-all. You could also change the affects of powers within AE ONLY.
I would have the players find a type of PvP that was fun and balanced to THEM. Then you could choose if you thought No Gravity wasn't fun or not. Basically have a drop down menu for each power that has damage + recharge. Then the players could write content and set the balance.
Counterstrike is the perfect example. The game was simply a mod of Halflife that arguably became more of a hit than the original. I also used to play Soldier of Fortune 2 and in that game there were a LOT of mods better than the original content. I find zone wide - PvP to be pointless.
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Irish Girl is the one in charge of Atlas Park Revival.
Golden Girl is the one in charge of Heroes & Villains.
Apples and Oranges.
Atlas Park Revival is attempting to port the City of Heroes Lore and Content to Unreal Engine 4 once the IP sale is concluded for COH from NCSoft.
Heroes & Villains is a spiritual successor to COH in a different game engine with more of a Golden Age feel to it.
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My Wish...
Paragon Store open with the ability for me to buy any enhancement I want so I can get all my toons right back to the level they were when the game shut down..
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My Wish...
Paragon Store open with the ability for me to buy any enhancement I want so I can get all my toons right back to the level they were when the game shut down..
Don't want this turned into yet another pay2win game. I have no problem with cosmetic items being sold in the store, but once it gets
into the realm of equipment that gives you an advantage over others - really not a good idea IMO.
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This is going to sound weird but I wish they would change as little as possible. Maybe upgrade the graphics for 2.0. However the devs of CoH have said before they don't even know what they did to make the game so special. Every change made to the game risks compromising that.
Making player based changes to the game we love could be a very slippery slope.
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Don't want this turned into yet another pay2win game. I have no problem with cosmetic items being sold in the store, but once it gets
into the realm of equipment that gives you an advantage over others - really not a good idea IMO.
Well the paragon points unlocked respecs, costume tokens, nemesis staff, base telporter power and some other minor temp powers and costume pieces. I can't see buying up all the tokens needed to refill the token slots on relaunch to be a game breaking advantage over others.
When the game returns I will reroll my toons then spend some serious time in the paragon store to reclaim paragon points and repurchase the costume packs and also the mystery boxes or whatever they were called that awarded merits, special IO's, rare pets, etc.
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This is going to sound weird but I wish they would change as little as possible. Maybe upgrade the graphics for 2.0. However the devs of CoH have said before they don't even know what they did to make the game so special. Every change made to the game risks compromising that.
Making player based changes to the game we love could be a very slippery slope.
I think the reason many of the CoH devs didn't know what they did to make the game so special is because they've not really seen super teams in action, but maybe also forgot the kind of depth the game had. It's easy to lose touch, and heck i'd expect some people to lose touch, with why the non-trinity kind of play city of heroes inadvertedly had was a good thing. It's even easier to misunderstand city of heroes when every single other mmorpg does things in the draconic ways they do. These days the devs are working on existing titles that more than likely are comprised entirely of holy trinity clones.
It's probably easy to forget why an all corruptor or all defender team was so powerful, or why people had success with scrappers or why so much altitus was prevalent in city of heroes. Truth is it's because the game had far better balance than other mmorpgs because it didn't conform to the same imbalance-prone rules that other mmorpgs follow; if anyone is winning without using the holy trinity tactic they see the game as imbalanced. In reality though, balance is both subjective as some people had said but also comes in multiple forms.
I often saw city of heroes classes as either "Muscle" or "multiplier" types. A muscle character had a ton of power built in, but couldn't increase the power of anyone in the team effectively. A multiplier character boosted the effectiveness of teammates, sometimes they benefited from their own buffs/debuffs, others didn't but could buff others even further in some way.
At same time I saw that every powerset had some kind of strategy to it. And the fact that you couldn't just randomly pick/choose from other sets you didn't take meant that balance was far more important.
In many ways city of heroes was almost more of an mmorpg/rts than it was a streight mmorpg. And it was also because it didn't really seem to forget what the "rpg" meant at the end of mmorpg. In that, it was about solving problems, not "your defined role in a team". The whole "defined role in a team" mentality is to me a terrible way to think what "role playing game" stands for, because it's like your thinking as if people are just cogs in a machine rather than individuals in a team. Other mmorpgs teams were not individuals teaming and working together, but just cogs in a machine. Even the player behavior in them being rude to anyone making any perceived mistakes reflects that mindset. Your either a healer, tank, or damage dealer, not whatever your name is, and if your not putting out the right numbers you deservery every form of mistreatment to some players.
Edit: Heck, I even had a case where my team couldn't kick a jerk because he was playing the most vital "minionmancer" role, which was our only means to do damage and he revealed himself as a jerk halfway through the content we played. Because if the "cog" he was, was removed we'd all have been destroyed. All because to many mmorpg players, your not a human being but a cog in the machine. Not to mention our only incentive to play was the reward, not the fun.
Which to me is another problem, mmorpgs try to keep people playing by not being fun but simply by playing addictive mind-tricks. Your rewarded items for success even if your bored of the game, you end up keep playing for the loot even if your very unhappy playing it. Course many players fail to realize it, but they are addicted even though they have no fun playing, they only play for the reward. And when they get it, they consider the game "beat" and move on.
While in city of heroes you were you. You were a human being and you weren't just another healer/tank/damage dealer. You weren't a cog in the machine. You were you, and your skills were yours to contribute to the effort. There is a huge difference between a team of robots and a team of human beings, know? Thats also something that, due to the sheer variety of viable strategies city of heroes had, helped it significantly.
And the game didn't try to keep you playing by being addictive, but more by balancing the whole "instant gratification" vs "fake fun through rewards". You still had to level up a new character to see what kind a combination of powersets would do. But it also made it fun to see how the character develops. Character development was a stronger point of city of heroes. A reason I wouldn't want AE to be usable for power leveling, since you miss the whole point of character development. Heck city of heroes was a role players game, not a munchkins game. And I think that, also made a huge difference compared to other mmorpgs.
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Don't want this turned into yet another pay2win game. I have no problem with cosmetic items being sold in the store, but once it gets
into the realm of equipment that gives you an advantage over others - really not a good idea IMO.
In all honesty.. I could give a crap less about the whole Pay 2 Win concept.. Unless we are talking about are some avid PvP person to me Pay 2 Win doesnt bother me in the least..
Explain exactly to me what I win If I pay?
In City of Heroes I paid for a monthly subscription even when it went F2P.. what did I win ??
That payment got me access to Paragon Points.. What did I win?
I paid to get Super Packs.. What exactly did I win ???
I paid on occasion to get enhancements from the store when they were for sale.. Exactly what did I win ??
That just my take on the whole Pay 2 Win argument.. to me its just silly..
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I wouldn't want us going down the same path CO did though, with op store-only items released and then nerfed constantly. Course, I wouldn't want nerf-heads ruining the game in general, but pay to win past a certain point only to me dooms games. CO went well past that, started baiting and switching due to nerf heads asking for nerfs to said items, and then now it's a ghost town. I talk to some people and they are dismayed at whats happened to it and very fearful of a shutdown, expecting a shutdown and are surprised every day to find it still running, like they expect an announcement any day anymore.
The severe mis-management combined with the overall misleading by listening to the more selfish members of the community, players who only wanted nerfs to things they didn't like and general prudes about different playstyles. Players who also shouted down any good idea that could have helped the game. They ultimately killed it. I wouldn't want them to have the ammo necessary to start crying in CoH's new forums when our game comes back.
Especially since it's pretty clear to anyone with a brain CO is unofficially on it's death bed.
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I wouldn't want us going down the same path CO did though, with op store-only items released and then nerfed constantly. Course, I wouldn't want nerf-heads ruining the game in general, but pay to win past a certain point only to me dooms games. CO went well past that, started baiting and switching due to nerf heads asking for nerfs to said items, and then now it's a ghost town. I talk to some people and they are dismayed at whats happened to it and very fearful of a shutdown, expecting a shutdown and are surprised every day to find it still running, like they expect an announcement any day anymore.
The severe mis-management combined with the overall misleading by listening to the more selfish members of the community, players who only wanted nerfs to things they didn't like and general prudes about different playstyles. Players who also shouted down any good idea that could have helped the game. They ultimately killed it. I wouldn't want them to have the ammo necessary to start crying in CoH's new forums when our game comes back.
Especially since it's pretty clear to anyone with a brain CO is unofficially on it's death bed.
I shall enjoy watching CO go dark.
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I shall enjoy watching CO go dark.
Funnily enough I don't actually enjoy seeing them go dark. I get more mixed feelings about the whole prospect. On one hand, the jerks who ruined it are to blame, so I'm not bothered from that. And I am not bothered and even smile at the whole "karma", but at the same time, I do enjoy the game itself, and I have friends who do to. So I end up with a cognitive dissonance. I believe the game probably should be shutdown due to the jerks ruining it to have it all to themselves but at the same time I don't want it shut down and believe only ill would come from a shutdown at the same time. See above and my worry about the nerf-heads trolling city of heroes if it came back.
Edit: Imagine some guy the smart CO vets dislike coming along and saying to nerf time manipulation and telepathy, then making demands for all defense to be nerfed cause no one was inviting his healer. They wouldn't be happy to see the person trying to ruin CoH know?
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Edit: Imagine some guy the smart CO vets coming along and saying to nerf time manipulation and telepathy, then making demands for all defense to be nerfed cause no one was inviting his healer. They wouldn't be happy to see the person trying to ruin CoH know?
I don't see any of that happening, simply because when the game comes back it will be in maintenance mode, with its code frozen in place and no upgrades or nerfing being possible.
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I shall enjoy watching CO go dark.
Not me... I enjoyed CO and had high hopes for it during alpha and beta but once the launch day nerfs came it was pretty easy to predict the future of it's demise. And ofcourse now it doesn't get content updates or new zones. Still has some fun moments but it's yet another game with lots of "it could of been more" and "it looked like it had a bright future"
Developers and publishers just don't get it anymore.
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All I am asking for is that the Paragon Store be back in the game exactly the way it was before.. Nothing More.. Nothing Less..
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I don't see any of that happening, simply because when the game comes back it will be in maintenance mode, with its code frozen in place and no upgrades or nerfing being possible.
I'm pretty sure that power statistic changes could be made since they are in tables and not in code.
I'm not so sure about adding new powers, or if you replace a temp power with a permanent power how you might make the permanent power available... but I'm pretty sure that if you wanted to nerf Regen, it could be done.
And, really, what more could someone ask? As long as we can still nerf Regen, we're still okay.
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As an incentive to players when CoH returns, they should run a limited time offer where you can purchase a special item from the store, you can only get one for one hero, one villain and one praetorian character on your account. Activate teh item and the character becomes level 50.
Thus players unlock the epic characters, the instant 50 character would of course still need to exemp down for TF/SF, and players have characters that can now access the high level content including incarnate trials right away.
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As an incentive to players when CoH returns, they should run a limited time offer where you can purchase a special item from the store, you can only get one for one hero, one villain and one praetorian character on your account. Activate teh item and the character becomes level 50.
Thus players unlock the epic characters, the instant 50 character would of course still need to exemp down for TF/SF, and players have characters that can now access the high level content including incarnate trials right away.
No point Sin,maintenance mode means there would be no rush to get to 50 because no new powers or zones or anything.We could hopefully take as much time as we want(if the servers stay for many years)to play all missions,maps,and make every power we want :)Looking forward to playing again not just getting to 50.
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I want to Run trials and msrs like I was before the Shutdown. I was doing it on multiple characters and wasnt even close to being bored. So i'll definitely be heading to 50 but wont farm my way there for awhile atleast. Got faultline, croatoa and shining stars on my mind.
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Hmmm Here's an idea that just occurred to me. Maybe when/If the game comes back they could somehow introduce some kind of way to run the seasonal taskforces and stuff of that nature. Dr Kahn's house of horror, the winter lord stuff, Nemesis Invasions and stuff. This is, of course all predicated upon the assumption that the game will come back in a static form so non static events and the like would have to be re-introduced in some kind of static form.
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I'm pretty sure that power statistic changes could be made since they are in tables and not in code.
They are not just in a standard database. Without a debug build of the game to regenerate the data from the text version, you have to modify the binary format by hand, which involves reverse engineering the encoding of the powers structure.
In short, I could do it. Arcana could do it. TopDoc could probably manage to modify the basic power and effect info. Past that there's maybe 3 or 4 others in the community who could muddle their way through numerical adjustments of powers that don't use complex mechanics. It's not something your average contractor for programming could do.
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Hmmm Here's an idea that just occurred to me. Maybe when/If the game comes back they could somehow introduce some kind of way to run the seasonal taskforces and stuff of that nature. Dr Kahn's house of horror, the winter lord stuff, Nemesis Invasions and stuff. This is, of course all predicated upon the assumption that the game will come back in a static form so non static events and the like would have to be re-introduced in some kind of static form.
Link the holiday events to Ouroborus
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I believe Matt Miller's discussion here highlights the best kind of changes to be applied. He mentioend how the game engine it was based on made it very difficult to create updates and he would've loved to have rebuilt the bottom: https://youtu.be/NYBzs5P3eBs
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Create a new TF based around the Saving of City of Heroes Game-
The Freakshow invade the Computer Network Firm, CNFirm for short, and bankrupt the firm from several attacks of property damage. Unable to sustain their business from multiple attacks, they shut down the popular game, City of Gyros. This gains the attention of many Gyro fans and urge the city's heroes into action.
TF may include:
Multiple phone missions.
Holding torches.
Stopping Nemesis.
And speaking with all the surviving members of the Freedom Phalanx.
Just an idea. Might be in poor taste to NCSoft, but it's important they are not interpreted to be the bad guys but rather are forced into the position. Why the Freakshow? Not sure. First villain group to pop into my head. Crey might make more sense from a buisness theme perspective.
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Hmmm Here's an idea that just occurred to me. Maybe when/If the game comes back they could somehow introduce some kind of way to run the seasonal taskforces and stuff of that nature. Dr Kahn's house of horror, the winter lord stuff, Nemesis Invasions and stuff. This is, of course all predicated upon the assumption that the game will come back in a static form so non static events and the like would have to be re-introduced in some kind of static form.
This is something I was longing for even before shutdown. :)
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Create a new TF based around the Saving of City of Heroes Game-
The Freakshow invade the Computer Network Firm, CNFirm for short, and bankrupt the firm from several attacks of property damage. Unable to sustain their business from multiple attacks, they shut down the popular game, City of Gyros. This gains the attention of many Gyro fans and urge the city's heroes into action.
TF may include:
Multiple phone missions.
Holding torches.
Stopping Nemesis.
And speaking with all the surviving members of the Freedom Phalanx.
Just an idea. Might be in poor taste to NCSoft, but it's important they are not interpreted to be the bad guys but rather are forced into the position. Why the Freakshow? Not sure. First villain group to pop into my head. Crey might make more sense from a buisness theme perspective.
Not too bad, but there is a restaurant in game named City of Gyros. So that would further distance it from such a straightforward potential jab at NCsoft.
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Big change #1:
Team leaders can activate a temp power called "team beacon", an interruptible power with a 10 second cast time, 2 minute duration and 10 minutes recharge(unaffected by buffs). When activated, a pop-up appears on all other teammate's screen that allows them to teleport to the team leader's zone. If the pop-up is closed, teammates could still right click the team leader to teleport if the timer isn't up.
This will help team leaders compete with the quick access of AE content.
Big change #2:
From my post here (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,11003.msg185176.html#msg185176), add a mission difficulty scaling NPC that gives 1, 2 or 3 extra random mob difficulty modifiers, in exchange for 1, 2 or 3 extra random rewards. Kinda like maps in Path of Exile.
This will make mundane missions more interesting and provide challenging content.
Small change #1:
Change all Peacebringer human form KB powers into KD.
Small change #2:
Buff the Scrapper ATO crit bonus.
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Suggestions for minor dev alterations if CoH relaunches
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Black Pebble should clean the inside of his car.
.....
You've never been inside my car.
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You've never been inside my car.
She refuses to get out of your dreams too.
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You've never been inside my car.
Maybe if you cleaned it more.
Although when I first wrote that I was probably thinking about Andy's car, but Andy wasn't technically a dev.**
I hope all's well. Life treating you Epicly so far?
** Although technically, I'm not sure where in the Venn diagram branding goes either. More coupled with production than community management though, I assume. I clearly need to sharpen my joke engineering skills.
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I'm thinking that removing the AE buildings and making that asset accessible through Pocket D might be cool.
Put a Wentworth's or black market in there as well.
And a portal or tunnel to the Midnighters' Club, huh, huh, I like it.
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I'm the tall one with great hair. Andy is the short one whose balding. Easy to tell us apart. Plus my car is nicer. You'd remember it. :-)
I always saw marketing as separate, but peers with development. Ultimately part of the same studio and team. The devs did all the real work and we coast on their laurels.
Community varies based on the studio. I generally see community as part of marketing, but not everyone shares that viewpoint.
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All devs should have sweet twitter profile background pics like Black Pebble's. Where did you get that?
Edit: I know where, but the question is more "how was it arranged?" or something like that.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/139591181/1367181362/1500x500)
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All devs should have sweet twitter profile background pics like Black Pebble's. Where did you get that?
Edit: I know where, but the question is more "how was it arranged?" or something like that.
Oh geez, that was 3 years ago. If I recall correctly, it was a fair amount of work. Each character was demorecorded separately until we got the exact pose at the exact moment. Then layered on top of each other. I don't think all of them were ever actually on the screen at the same time. Then a bit of Photoshop magic for color balance/lighting and boom. Screenshot magic.
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Devs actually interacting with us lowly peons like back in the olden days.
One thing I remember was seeing the forums for the first time and the devposts under the names of signature characters. From what I was told, the devs would actually take control of their character and you'd see things like Statesman going on patrol and Recluse barking his propaganda in Broadcast. I only ever saw this happen a few times but it left a powerful imprint.
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Devs actually interacting with us lowly peons like back in the olden days.
One thing I remember was seeing the forums for the first time and the devposts under the names of signature characters. From what I was told, the devs would actually take control of their character and you'd see things like Statesman going on patrol and Recluse barking his propaganda in Broadcast. I only ever saw this happen a few times but it left a powerful imprint.
Just FYI, the devs couldn't actually "take control of their character" per se, but they could make player characters that looked like their nom de plume and had almost any crazy combination of powers they wanted to simulate being their red name identity, provided they were granted those rights in an account. As far as I'm aware, there was no way to take control of an actual NPC in the game in that sense.
Also, this sort of thing didn't happen often outside of official events. Sometimes it was sanctioned, but sometimes it was ... less sanctioned. The devs were not really supposed to be roaming around with admin rights often, but especially in the free-wheeling early days of the game people looked the other way when it happened.
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Just FYI, the devs couldn't actually "take control of their character" per se, but they could make player characters that looked like their nom de plume and had almost any crazy combination of powers they wanted to simulate being their red name identity, provided they were granted those rights in an account. As far as I'm aware, there was no way to take control of an actual NPC in the game in that sense.
Also, this sort of thing didn't happen often outside of official events. Sometimes it was sanctioned, but sometimes it was ... less sanctioned. The devs were not really supposed to be roaming around with admin rights often, but especially in the free-wheeling early days of the game people looked the other way when it happened.
You'd think I'd be used to fantasy shattering info by now.
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You'd think I'd be used to fantasy shattering info by now.
Well, I'm replacing one fantasy with another one. The devs couldn't really take over Lord Recluse and play him as an NPC, say. On the other hand, they could make a character with all of the controller primary and secondary powers combined. Think about what that power tray looked like.
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If someone made such a character, they should name it SimRaceway.
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Well, I'm replacing one fantasy with another one. The devs couldn't really take over Lord Recluse and play him as an NPC, say. On the other hand, they could make a character with all of the controller primary and secondary powers combined. Think about what that power tray looked like.
Well technically, it was possible to use dev commands to force characters to engage in emotes, powers, etc. In reality, that didn't work very consistently and would usually end up breaking the character, forcing us to destroy it and respawn it to get it to work properly again. I did that a lot on the beta shard for trailers.
But in theory, it would work. And usually did for the first 4-5 commands.
For most dev takeovers of NPC's, they'd log into a character, go invisible, than benpc to change into the character. Then if the dev was particularly evil, they'd despawn an NPC (such as Back Alley Brawler) and swap into his place while becoming visible, making it look like the NPC suddenly came to life. Chris Bruce used to do that a lot. It freaked out players when their quest giver suddenly started running at them.
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For most dev takeovers of NPC's, they'd log into a character, go invisible, than benpc to change into the character. Then if the dev was particularly evil, they'd despawn an NPC (such as Back Alley Brawler) and swap into his place while becoming visible, making it look like the NPC suddenly came to life. Chris Bruce used to do that a lot. It freaked out players when their quest giver suddenly started running at them.
It slips my mind who it was, but I remember there was a dev that used to occasionally benpc the Kronos Titan and follow players around, moving when they moved and stopping when they stopped and trying (ridiculously) to pretend like nothing strange was happening.
Commanding NPCs to do anything seemed pretty icky. Ironically Paragon Chat would be a far more productive platform to do that sort of thing than the game itself ever was (particularly if Codewalker gets VFX primitives to work).
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It slips my mind who it was, but I remember there was a dev that used to occasionally benpc the Kronos Titan and follow players around, moving when they moved and stopping when they stopped and trying (ridiculously) to pretend like nothing strange was happening.
Commanding NPCs to do anything seemed pretty icky. Ironically Paragon Chat would be a far more productive platform to do that sort of thing than the game itself ever was (particularly if Codewalker gets VFX primitives to work).
I liked - after she was duplicated in Pocket D - when someone would have War Witch make observations/commentary on her surroundings (cos there's usually a group of RPers standing in the room behind her).
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Granite armor: there was talk that it was getting a facelift at some point but they also mentioned that it may not be possible to have two granite armors via power customization.
So if that is the case, I would have to consider the following ideas:
1. a second stone armor set, same basic powers and abilities but all the armors get a face lift in terms of appearance, especially granite.
2. Set up a video and that shows the classic granite and then the new and put up a poll and see what the majority would like: the old and busted or the new hotness :)
3. Or I could go by the philosophy that not everyone can be pleased at all times and that ANY update to ANY MMORPG will upset/offend some players such as all the nerfs of CO, COH issue 13 pvp changes, the changes that alienated many SWG players and so on and just replace the original granite armor and be done with it.
The idea for the new granite armor is based on the fact that there really isn't much point to working on costumes for a granite armor user since the costume goes away when in granite mode. So basically, set your character height, build and costume to however you want including aura and when you activate granite armor only YOUR SKIN changes and it will take on the texture/color of the statues that you would see in galaxy/atlas/pergrine zones. Color customization of the armor if possible except for maybe the color orange.....THINGS could be bad if that color would be available :)
Also would seriously consider slightly lowering the speed penalties of rooted and grantite. Rooted was 90% and Grannite was 70% as I recall and they combined. Perhaps rooted having 80% and Granite 60% penalty would be more appealing? Still cant jump or fly of course.
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Anniversary badges: instead of the you must log in all your characters for them all to get the badge during a set time frame, I would see about changing it to how it was when they changed to the token system for vet rewards. You get a "click to redeem button" and the badge appears in your badge list.
This token would be automatically awarded to subsequent alts that you make so that no alt shall miss an anniversary badge, provided that your account was made prior to said anniversary. If someone makes an account after the anniversary has passed then that is another matter.
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I think I've said it before, but its probably worth saying again; Pet customisation. Seriously. Twould indeed be awesome.
I SUPPORT THIS QUOTE!!
VOTE YES
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Change the teleportation power in the PB/WS Dwarf forms to "Teleport Charge" and make it like the Shield Charge power from the shield set
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Change the teleportation power in the PB/WS Dwarf forms to "Teleport Charge" and make it like the Shield Charge power from the shield set
That's one I could totally get behind. It would require a recharge to match the Shield power, instead of the instant-recharge of a travel power. But I'd totally give that up. PB has flight naturally and can get TP from the pool power, and WS has TP naturally.
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Suggestions for minor dev alterations if CoH relaunches
Black Scorpion needs to smile more.
Arbiter Hawk should get a hair cut.
Synapse needs better shoes.
Black Pebble should clean the inside of his car.
Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
Dr. Aeon should be taller.
War Witch should become less Canadian.
Second Measure should dye himself green and livestream visits to abusive players where he throws their furniture around and growls "puny troll!" and "Nate smash!"
May I add one?
The Drones summoned by Arbiter Sands have Espresso makers attached to them, so that he never need go get a cup of coffee away from his station.
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When CoH was being designed, they wanted to make power sets, not character types. When you started your character, you would select your Primary and Secondary power sets. No classes (Blaster, Defender, Corruptor, etc.).
I think that implementing something like this might be nice. Now that there are inherent powers with each class, you'd have to select your class, which would then force you to choose from the existing Primary Power sets. However, you could choose ANY power set for your Secondary. You could come up with some strange power matchups - I'm thinking something like an all pet mastermind like: Demon Summoning/Necromancy. No way to buff your pets, just lots of them!
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I would like to see the master mind pets such as zombies, mercs, and ninja get a bump up in all stats. These three were woefully underpowered when compared to the newer sets such as thugs.
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That's one I could totally get behind. It would require a recharge to match the Shield power, instead of the instant-recharge of a travel power. But I'd totally give that up. PB has flight naturally and can get TP from the pool power, and WS has TP naturally.
Thanks. I'd also update Khelds and their Lore to indicate that both PB and WS have been learning how to channel their energies with the results that their travel powers have altered.
Now when you make a PB or WS you can choose either the Kheld flight or teleport power. Can't have both, only way to change is to respec.
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I can't believe no one's said this...... base raids! I don't like pvp in CoH, I don't like the pvp zone or arenas. But base raids where so fun to me for some reason. I guess it was because it was a smaller area then a pvp zone and a larger area then arenas?
Either way, I only had the chance to do two of them before they took them away and always missed them ever since. :(
I third the ability to customize your MM pets as well.
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I think the most important alteration for CoX would be to make it so you can play in single-player or LAN mode instead of contacting the servers if the servers ever get shut down again!
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I think the most important alteration for CoX would be to make it so you can play in single-player or LAN mode instead of contacting the servers if the servers ever get shut down again!
One way may to alter the AE to work in single player mode, then create mission files that recreate/emulate the missions in the game.
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I can't believe no one's said this...... base raids! I don't like pvp in CoH, I don't like the pvp zone or arenas. But base raids where so fun to me for some reason. I guess it was because it was a smaller area then a pvp zone and a larger area then arenas?
Either way, I only had the chance to do two of them before they took them away and always missed them ever since. :(
I third the ability to customize your MM pets as well.
As I recall, the arena wasn't subjected to the Issue 13 PVP Changes so that was still a good thing.
As to Base Raids, I would put that on the list titled "Complete overhaul and reconstruction of super base system, including base editing and construction."
I'd also have to consider altering what items cause rent to be charged. I was never too keen on base storage bins being a cause for rent.
However power generators and computers and all computer items that attach to said computer to boost control....now those need maintenance and upkeep. So remove rent cost from storage bins and change it to power generators and computer systems. Also possibly the weapons systems one can install for base raids. Those should also require maintenance/upkeep costs.
Also I would consider altering it so that if you don't pay the first month your base power and control cuts by half then if you don't pay the second month plus the previous then the base shuts down.
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Also I would consider altering it so that if you don't pay the first month your base power and control cuts by half then if you don't pay the second month plus the previous then the base shuts down.
Personally, I always thought base rent was one of City of Heroes' dumber ideas. It didn't serve a useful gameplay purpose. The argument was that it was a necessary currency sink but that's a diffuse justification. I could make the same case for forcing players to pay rent to keep their character slots active. As a currency sink base rent was practically immaterial and thus useless for that purpose. It was also a worthless base configuration gate because for large enough supergroups it was trivially low. The only thing base rent did was make it difficult for small or limited activity supergroups to maintain large bases. There's no design purpose to inflicting that upon players that I can think of.
In design language, base rent was a form of gameplay friction. Given the limited usefulness of bases and the lack of priority the devs placed on improving bases and fixing base raids, applying friction to what was primarily a convenience and cosmetic supergroup activity seemed to me to be illogical.
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Personally, I always thought base rent was one of City of Heroes' dumber ideas. It didn't serve a useful gameplay purpose. The argument was that it was a necessary currency sink but that's a diffuse justification. I could make the same case for forcing players to pay rent to keep their character slots active. As a currency sink base rent was practically immaterial and thus useless for that purpose. It was also a worthless base configuration gate because for large enough supergroups it was trivially low. The only thing base rent did was make it difficult for small or limited activity supergroups to maintain large bases. There's no design purpose to inflicting that upon players that I can think of.
In design language, base rent was a form of gameplay friction. Given the limited usefulness of bases and the lack of priority the devs placed on improving bases and fixing base raids, applying friction to what was primarily a convenience and cosmetic supergroup activity seemed to me to be illogical.
Harrumph!
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As I recall, the arena wasn't subjected to the Issue 13 PVP Changes so that was still a good thing.
The arena was still subject to the i13 rules, you could just turn some of them off. There were options for Heal Decay, Travel Suppression, and Diminished Returns iirc. However, things like power damage being tied to animation time could not be changed.
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Personally, I always thought base rent was one of City of Heroes' dumber ideas. It didn't serve a useful gameplay purpose. The argument was that it was a necessary currency sink but that's a diffuse justification. I could make the same case for forcing players to pay rent to keep their character slots active. As a currency sink base rent was practically immaterial and thus useless for that purpose. It was also a worthless base configuration gate because for large enough supergroups it was trivially low. The only thing base rent did was make it difficult for small or limited activity supergroups to maintain large bases. There's no design purpose to inflicting that upon players that I can think of.
In design language, base rent was a form of gameplay friction. Given the limited usefulness of bases and the lack of priority the devs placed on improving bases and fixing base raids, applying friction to what was primarily a convenience and cosmetic supergroup activity seemed to me to be illogical.
You make valid points about the base rent and frankly I was never a huge fan of it either. That being said, having power generators and computer/control equipment and base weapons be the cause for upkeep money for the base would make the most sense. After all shouldn't the Fusion Generator have a costly upkeep? Or the Autonomous Expert System which was the best for base control? I just never saw the big point in making storage containers cost rent, basically we were paying for the ability to store items in our own bases.
Of course if bases can be revamped and rent done away with altogether......that's even better. :)
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The arena was still subject to the i13 rules, you could just turn some of them off. There were options for Heal Decay, Travel Suppression, and Diminished Returns iirc. However, things like power damage being tied to animation time could not be changed.
That is still an improvement over the PVP zones after ish 13. PVP diminishing returns is something else I would look at if I could. Either mitigate or removal.
Hmm, or just turn all PVP zones into echoes and let the arena be the main PVP source....
PVP wasn't all that popular after issue 13, one could almost make the case for turning all PVP zones into Echoes that can be accessed only by the Ouroborus zone. Enter the echo zone and get the map badges and plaques and other pvp zone badges. Even Warburg could become an Echo as it was free fire zone so you could still go there and farm characters from the same faction as you to obtain the rep points for the badge and gladiator and wins for the fusion generator badge......
.....or perhaps leave Warburg as the sole surviving PVP zone and the rest become Echoes....
Granted some wouldn't like this, but you can't please everyone all the time. Especially when making changes to an MMORPG. :)
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The VIP wall to pay rent was a bit of a dick move. It went from minor annoyance to major annoyance for me for a while.
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For Khelds, did the devs ever state why the Tier 3/Pool powers were shut off when transformed?
Did they somehow make the alt forms too strong or was there a technical problem?
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The base rent system does need an overhaul.
The idea of rent is to make sure that the base is still active.
Maybe some other system could be developed for base maintenance that wouldn't require the base high-levels to login, travel to AP and interact with an NPC.
I always gave "pay rent" permission to all the levels; that way, no matter which character of mine that was in the SG I was running at the time could pay the frigging rent.
Also, the rent provided another drain on resources for the base, even after the base was exactly how you wanted it, you still had to generate prestige for the rent.
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Base rent was more painful for Heroes than for Villains. Heroes needed 12 teleporters and sufficient power and control for all that, not to mention the salvage needed for construction. Now Villains only need 4. I think it WAS possible for villains to have their base on the smallest plot (8X8 for a total of 9 rooms 2X2) - thus no rent at all - and you can have a teleporter to every accessible zone.
Let's see - Rooms needed (2X2)
- Entrance Room
- Energy Terminal (150K Prestige)
- Control Room (100K Prestige)
- Workshop (150K Prestige)
- Teleport Chamber (150K Prestige)
- Teleport Chamber (150K Prestige)
- Med Bay (50K)
Total: 750,000 Prestige for just the rooms. This leaves you with 2 rooms (probably workshop so you can max out at 18 storage and have the worktables you want. Now, for the additional costs:
- Turbine Generator (1.5M Prestige)
- Super Computer (1.5M Prestige)
- Advanced Worktable (50K Prestige so you can build Telepads)
- Basic Telepad (15K Prestige X 4 = 60K)
- Teleport Beacon (10K Prestige X 8 = 80K)
- Basic Reclaimator (10K Prestige)
Total of items: 3,200,00 Prestige for a grand total of 3,900,000 for a functional base. No storage, but a functional Villain base. All with NO rent!
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The design purpose was old-school and perhaps naive or ill-conceived. In a gamasutra interview "SGS Keynote: Jack Emmert On Designing MMO Behaviors" (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11496), Jack talked about lessons learned from City:
As Jack described, bases were intended to motivate players to join supergroups; but, there was a disconnect concerning the base-building rewards. Although all members could contribute to the group prestige pool, actual base building could only be done by one person at a time. Hence, the rewards for creative expression were primarily enjoyed by an individual... the rest of the group just looked on--not particularly fun for them.
I don't think Jack's conclusion is the correct one. My own belief is that the real problem with bases was the fact that there was no direct connection between effort expended and personal progress. No matter how much players often complained about "the grind" the truth is that the vast majority of players that play MMOs for more than a short period of time become at least partially if not significantly motivated to play based on the perception that each minute played contributed to some sort of progress within the game; some sort of perceived way in which their own personal experience with the game was better. This was true when it came to leveling, when it came to earning enhancements, unlocking incarnate powers, even creating alts. The game had to provide some form of feedback. True in every MMO from World of Warcraft to Farmville. Bases had convenience items like storage and teleporters, but fundamentally they did not provide enough of a direct feedback mechanism to the individual player that their contributions directly improved their own gameplay. I think that is part of the reason why players asked for personal bases so much. The individual expression part that Jack references is a small part of a much more fundamental and important principle. You have to let players "build" in an MMO. One person builds the base in City SG bases. The other players just pass through. They were spectators in their own gameplay, at least in that part of the game. If players were allowed to build their own personal bases, each player would make their own individual agenda for how that base should be constructed, what the construction priorities were, and as they earned base prestige they would get direct feedback that today their base was better than yesterday specifically because of the things that player did to improve the base - which would *always* be the most important thing to them.
Feedback, is the most important thing when it comes to gameplay, not customization. Customization is a tool, but feedback is the mechanism for retaining players and interest in a metagame component. To drive my thesis home, I conjecture that if every base had to be essentially the same, with very little in customization options, but every player was allowed to earn their way to their own personal base, bases would be used more than if bases had unlimited customization options but were architected as City bases were: everyone contributing currency but (fundamentally) only one player designing. The ability to earn my own way to storage and teleporters and other optional capabilities everyone else got at their own pace would mean more than the ability to live in a unique base different than everyone elses that I didn't build myself. In both cases I have the same level of personalization options: i.e. almost none. But I believe its a radically different gameplay proposition.
Not saying everyone would agree or approve. Just saying I believe this would have been far more utilized by the player population.
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Base rent was more painful for Heroes than for Villains. <Snip!>
I never felt Base Rent was needed. Construction costs and then remodeling cost should be all there is to it. Rent was a nuisance, I never really understood the reason for.
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I never felt Base Rent was needed. Construction costs and then remodeling cost should be all there is to it. Rent was a nuisance, I never really understood the reason for.
Believe me, if it could revise the base system, the removal of rent is something I would try for.
Failing that I would change it so that power and computer systems cost upkeep, not storage bins.
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Giant Penguins
Yup, that's what CoH is sorely missing.
Just saying.
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Believe me, if it could revise the base system, the removal of rent is something I would try for.
Failing that I would change it so that power and computer systems cost upkeep, not storage bins.
I feel like the whole base system was mishandled and had a lot of untapped potential.
Speaking from a subscription MMO point of view, making bases have high costs and upkeep was exactly the wrong way to go.
Instead, what I would do is this:
- No rent or upkeep.
- No cost whatsoever for decorative items.
- Low cost for functional items, one that is easily doable casually.
- No item placement restrictions (this was mostly done already, but I'd remove room/base limits for specific item types too).
- No extra cost for upgrading plot size. Hell, give people a discount for using a bigger plot (you'll see why in a minute).
- Personal bases in addition to supergroup bases. I don't care how screwy you say the system was implemented on the back end, I firmly believe this would not have been that hard to do. Standard code rant can bite me.
- More items in the editor. Now that I know a lot more about how bases work, I know that importing items from zone / mission maps would have been trivial to do, it just would have taken somebody to sit down and do it.
Why? Think it about it for a second. People spent untold hours in the base editor perfecting their hideouts, banging their heads against a clunky editor, exploiting bugs to produce things that its designers did not think were possible. That's time that they did not spend gaining XP, influence, leveling, getting drops, acquiring and enhancing powers, or advancing their character in any way. In a traditional progression-focused MMO environment where you want to keep people playing and subscribing, that kind of time sink is a freaking gold mine. Especially one that players do voluntarily and enjoy without being forced into it.
Sure, they said that the base builder population was fairly small, so it didn't get much dev attention. I think the reason that population was small is obvious. Because they put so many barriers in front of it. Tying it to a supergroup, only allowing one base per SG so really only the leader or designated builder can do it, requiring the entire group to farm enough prestige to make a sizable base...
All of this of course was because for a long time they were clinging to the original design intent of bases being a social large group PVP-focused thing. It took them so long to finally give up on making that work that they totally missed the boat on what a huge thing it could have been if they had instead reimagined it as a sandbox activity allowing players to express their creativity freely and show it off to their friends.
I take that back. What a huge thing it will be.
Mua ha ha.
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I know there were a lot of people whose SWTOR sub lasted a few extra months because of the base building achievements and the fact that a more filled out base gave bonuses in the weekly guild competitions. And the base editor and options there were just as clunky if not more so than cox. So if you added badges to all the stuff codewalker suggests it'd motivate even more subbing.
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I agree with CodeWalker about bases.
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I feel like the whole base system was mishandled and had a lot of untapped potential.
Speaking from a subscription MMO point of view, making bases have high costs and upkeep was exactly the wrong way to go.
Instead, what I would do is this:
- No rent or upkeep.
- No cost whatsoever for decorative items.
- Low cost for functional items, one that is easily doable casually.
- No item placement restrictions (this was mostly done already, but I'd remove room/base limits for specific item types too).
- No extra cost for upgrading plot size. Hell, give people a discount for using a bigger plot (you'll see why in a minute).
- Personal bases in addition to supergroup bases. I don't care how screwy you say the system was implemented on the back end, I firmly believe this would not have been that hard to do. Standard code rant can bite me.
- More items in the editor. Now that I know a lot more about how bases work, I know that importing items from zone / mission maps would have been trivial to do, it just would have taken somebody to sit down and do it.
Why? Think it about it for a second. People spent untold hours in the base editor perfecting their hideouts, banging their heads against a clunky editor, exploiting bugs to produce things that its designers did not think were possible. That's time that they did not spend gaining XP, influence, leveling, getting drops, acquiring and enhancing powers, or advancing their character in any way. In a traditional progression-focused MMO environment where you want to keep people playing and subscribing, that kind of time sink is a freaking gold mine. Especially one that players do voluntarily and enjoy without being forced into it.
Sure, they said that the base builder population was fairly small, so it didn't get much dev attention. I think the reason that population was small is obvious. Because they put so many barriers in front of it. Tying it to a supergroup, only allowing one base per SG so really only the leader or designated builder can do it, requiring the entire group to farm enough prestige to make a sizable base...
All of this of course was because for a long time they were clinging to the original design intent of bases being a social large group PVP-focused thing. It took them so long to finally give up on making that work that they totally missed the boat on what a huge thing it could have been if they had instead reimagined it as a sandbox activity allowing players to express their creativity freely and show it off to their friends.
I take that back. What a huge thing it will be.
Mua ha ha.
I like your ideas :)
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<List of Stuff>
Mua ha ha.
Also add in you can build in corridors or the room hallways. I think the reason this was not allowed in the first place was when base raiding was active, you would spawn in a hallway. Since base raiding is deactivated, why not allow building in those areas.
- No item placement restrictions (this was mostly done already, but I'd remove room/base limits for specific item types too).
This was possible by holding down if I remember CTRL to manipulate on the X axis, ALT to manipulate on the Y axis and I think it was tab to manipulate on the Z axis, but there was never a tutorial on this. Also I remember (I think it was War Base or Burnt Toast) told me you only can a have certain limit of all items in the base (this includes the stuff in your bins) or your base will crash or glitch out. It would be nice to just build as much as you want with the space you have.
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Also add in you can build in corridors or the room hallways. I think the reason this was not allowed in the first place was when base raiding was active, you would spawn in a hallway. Since base raiding is deactivated, why not allow building in those areas.
The main reason it wasn't allowed is that hallways don't actually exist. Every placeable item has to be parented to a room, but hallways are not rooms.
Instead, each room has a list of positions that a door exists, and when the geometry for the room is generated, a half-hallway is placed there. When you place a door in the editor, it actually modifies two rooms at once and adds data so that each room generates a half-hallway in a spot that joins up with the one from the other room. That's why the styles change halfway between the rooms.
It might be theoretically possible to allow doorway placement by letting items be attached to the parent room of the half of the doorway that it belongs to, even if that means the item has negative coordinates. However, that would require a much more advanced editor. The item bounds checks (the ones that control the blue box cursor and make sure stuff doesn't end up floating in space outside the walls, as well as placing wall attached items) would have to be an order of magnitude more complex to handle that instead of just assuming rectangular rooms.
Since most of the editor is clientside anyway, it's kind of a moot point as that's not something that can really be gotten at to make large changes to.
This was possible by holding down if I remember CTRL to manipulate on the X axis, ALT to manipulate on the Y axis and I think it was tab to manipulate on the Z axis, but there was never a tutorial on this.
Alt rotated around the X axis. There was no rotation around the other axes. Even the freeform yaw rotation they added was buggy in that it didn't transform the bounding box correctly.
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The main reason it wasn't allowed is that hallways don't actually exist. Every placeable item has to be parented to a room, but hallways are not rooms.
Instead, each room has a list of positions that a door exists, and when the geometry for the room is generated, a half-hallway is placed there. When you place a door in the editor, it actually modifies two rooms at once and adds data so that each room generates a half-hallway in a spot that joins up with the one from the other room. That's why the styles change halfway between the rooms.
It might be theoretically possible to allow doorway placement by letting items be attached to the parent room of the half of the doorway that it belongs to, even if that means the item has negative coordinates. However, that would require a much more advanced editor. The item bounds checks (the ones that control the blue box cursor and make sure stuff doesn't end up floating in space outside the walls, as well as placing wall attached items) would have to be an order of magnitude more complex to handle that instead of just assuming rectangular rooms.
Since most of the editor is clientside anyway, it's kind of a moot point as that's not something that can really be gotten at to make large changes to.
I never knew that. I remember a base maker named -Michael on Triumph some how dethatched his power from the rest of the base so it the power room wouldn't clash with his base theme (when you looked in the map, you can see a room in the lower right hand corner, but it had no hallway connecting to it) but never knew how he did it. Would you know how he did this trick?
Alt rotated around the X axis. There was no rotation around the other axes. Even the freeform yaw rotation they added was buggy in that it didn't transform the bounding box correctly.
I remember using a button to manipulate the desk in place to up and down, left and right, forward and back to create stairs. I remember this because it took me 1 hour to create a set of stairs when I pressed a button and I locked the desk in place then moved it up finishing my work in 15 minutes for the next flight of stairs. I think what I was thinking of is what your talking about.
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I agree with CodeWalker about bases.
I never read such a succinct and accurate portrayal of bases. I remember the original cost of things at base launch and it just seemed to contribute to the grindfest mindset of those first 6-7 issues... However I think it was a product of the times it was designed. I could never get into the UI. Bases as a sandbox for people to become lost in just building is a wonderful concept.
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... for a long time they were clinging to the original design intent of bases being a social large group PVP-focused thing. It took them so long to finally give up on making that work that they totally missed the boat on what a huge thing it could have been if they had instead reimagined it as a sandbox activity allowing players to express their creativity freely and show it off to their friends.
I take that back. What a huge thing it will be.
Mua ha ha.
Codewalker's evil laugh gives me a warm feeling, like hearing Santa Claus', "Ho, ho, ho!" Both convey the promise of good things coming....
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Granite armor: slight tune up of the speed penalty from rooted and granite for a combined 130% penalty vs the 160% penalty that the set had.
granite armor appearance: time for a facelift to that armor. I think the devs once said that such a change would be an either/or situation due to the power customization not able to support the two armors.
IF that is the case, how many would like to see the classic granite armor replaced with this: when you transform your character's SKIN changes to the same color/texture as the statues you'd see in Atlas/Galaxy/PI, but you still would retain your costume pieces, cape and aura? I think I had about 60 free tailor tokens on my granite tank since I didn't feel the need to make a costume that would vanish upon activation of granite armor.
Now if the customization can handle both armors, that is fine. But sometimes a change has to occur in an MMO that means replacing something.
Of course a survey poll could be run that shows demo vids of the two versions then let players vote for a week and see where it goes.
Or perhaps make a Stone Armor set 2 that has the new granite armor and a face lift to the other armors too.....hmm..
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Defender damage increased from 58% of Blaster damage to 75%.
Mastermind pets don't spawn below the level of their master.
Boss pet taunts a little.
Pets with mostly ranged attacks will attack at range.
Mercenaries: Frag grenade removed from medic, given to soldiers.
Spec Ops use tear gas and flash bang a lot more often.
Pool powers have the same benefits no matter what Archetype is using them.
Rename "Temp" Invulnerability.
Remove slot-wasting requirements for pool powers, like Boxing.
Increase slots since the problem sounded like it was serverside.
Modify ED so it doesn't kick in until after 100%, or maybe just delete it altogether.
Modify Invention Sets so no value goes much over 100% and get wasted by ED.
Increase Level 50 Schedule A inventions to 44%, 28%, 22%, and 20%.
Ex: Acc/Dmg + Acc/Dmg/Rech + Dmg/End/Rech + Dmg/Rech + End/Rech =
28/28 + 22/22/22 + 22/22/22 + 28/28 +28/28 =
50 Acc/100 Dmg/50 End/100 Rech
2 recipes for every IO: one tech, the other magic. Annoyed me to no end using both on the same IO.
Delete the Super Stunner from the Freakshow.
AE: Either only gain XP one hour per day or one level per day.
Separate farms from stories.
Exemping: Be able to use all your powers at level 1.
No timed missions!
Be able to choose one of two powers in the secondary powerset at character creation.
Procs and secondary effects that have a ~15% chance of going off: increase chance by around 20%.
Loading a power full of procs means they all have a chance to go off.
Player personal housing.
A Vault Reserve that is shared with all characters on the account, and grows ever larger as characters level up.
Make Devouring Earth a joinable faction.