Author Topic: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches  (Read 54045 times)

Mageman

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #120 on: December 02, 2015, 02:23:21 AM »
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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Arcana

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #121 on: December 02, 2015, 03:28:52 AM »
The design purpose was old-school and perhaps naive or ill-conceived. In a gamasutra interview "SGS Keynote: Jack Emmert On Designing MMO Behaviors", 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.

Remaugen

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #122 on: December 02, 2015, 04:55:00 AM »
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.
We're almost there!  ;D

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Sinistar

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #123 on: December 23, 2015, 03:13:01 AM »
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.
In fearful COH-less days
In Raging COH-less nights
With Strong Hearts Full, we shall UNITE!
When all seems lost in the effort to bring CoH back to life,
Look to Cyberspace, where HOPE burns bright!

Paragon Avenger

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #124 on: December 23, 2015, 03:23:04 AM »
Giant Penguins
Yup, that's what CoH is sorely missing.
Just saying.

Codewalker

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #125 on: December 23, 2015, 05:39:39 AM »
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.

Vee

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #126 on: December 23, 2015, 06:14:00 AM »
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.

Paragon Avenger

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #127 on: December 23, 2015, 10:01:05 PM »
I agree with CodeWalker about bases.

Sinistar

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #128 on: December 25, 2015, 12:51:48 AM »
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 :)
In fearful COH-less days
In Raging COH-less nights
With Strong Hearts Full, we shall UNITE!
When all seems lost in the effort to bring CoH back to life,
Look to Cyberspace, where HOPE burns bright!

MM3squints

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #129 on: December 25, 2015, 03:36:37 AM »
<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.

Codewalker

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #130 on: December 25, 2015, 08:40:34 AM »
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.

MM3squints

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #131 on: December 25, 2015, 10:37:47 AM »
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.

duane

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #132 on: December 25, 2015, 02:35:38 PM »
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. 
« Last Edit: December 26, 2015, 03:25:06 PM by duane »

Todogut

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #133 on: December 25, 2015, 06:20:58 PM »
... 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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Sinistar

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #134 on: December 30, 2015, 04:42:31 AM »
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..
In fearful COH-less days
In Raging COH-less nights
With Strong Hearts Full, we shall UNITE!
When all seems lost in the effort to bring CoH back to life,
Look to Cyberspace, where HOPE burns bright!

Kawless

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Re: Suggestions for major dev alterations if CoH relaunches
« Reply #135 on: February 20, 2017, 07:11:50 AM »
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.