Jack_NoMind

Neither does Empath, but, hey. It's still there for people to aim for.

For, say, 15 tickets.

It would fix the current market issues everyone's complaining about, which only exist in the first place because people are bad at math.

Sure: realistically speaking, melee attacks should pretty much always root for at least part of their execution. But that's unbalanced. And doing it really well would require context-sensitive animations (similar to how Punch, -> Punch, <- Punch, and -> -> Punch are usually different moves in fighting games), but that's exponentially more effort than even what I proposed.

Nearly all of the single-target ranged blasts are suitable, and basic melee attacks (many of the single slashes of various weapons outside of Katana, forward punches, etc) are suitable. That, to me, is "a lot," possibly even "most," of the attacks in CoH.

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If you want every hat usable with every hairstyle, that just cannot be done, and even each hat with a dozen hairstyles is just out of the question.

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I dunno, Soul Calibur's character creator seems to do a pretty good job of it.

Cannot be done easily, sure. But it's not impossible. If it was done poorly, it would make adding new hats a [censored], though.

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Eventually the game's engine will be, ultimately, defunct. The graphics will not get prettier, the innovations to gameplay will reach their limit.

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That's... not really how it works. Changing and updating the engine for an existing MMO is no harder than creating a sequel, and is often vastly easier.

Think about the support that's been added since launch -- PhysX comes to mind. That's an engine update, one that (for single-player games and many FPS and the like) would have waited for the launch of a sequel... largely for revenue reasons.

It's possibly slower, because you have to maintain stability as you're doing it. But everything anyone has asked for could, theoretically, be packaged into the current game. Some of the changes (like the ones I requested) would require wiping character data, which is a no-no... but it doesn't require actually starting over from scratch at any point.

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Removing rooting would make Blasters nigh-invincible, more often than not.

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I'm not really sure I see how that's so. What makes you think that?

I dunno, I seem to remember quite a few Jurrassiks yesterday. I think it was actually raining Volvos.

The thing I've wanted since CoH launched initially was largely destructible, weaponizable (Hulk car gauntlets!) environments. It's just not a superhero game to me until someone gets knocked through a wall.

I'm kind of holding off my expectations 'til CoH 4 for that one, though.

Edit:

Oh, oh! And cats, dogs, rats, pidgeons, squirrels, and the four other kinds of animal that can be found in cities.

Honestly? I'd rather have a levelless, virtually classless system in which exclusivity (the reason you'd make ten characters instead of one) was provided by a larger set of difficult-but-not-impossible to reverse decisions. Think of them as mutually exclusive accolades.

I also want respecs to be called retcons.

But an MMO without levels is like a loaf of lunch bread in Wal-Mart that doesn't come pre-sliced. =/ So I'm trying to predict something that's merely unlikely, rather than miraculous.

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I'd prefer a combination of multiple 'skins' for faces and the slider idea. Different people have different texture to their skin, and colors. And I think having different available options for the faces really helps with that.

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Pretty much all of those can be compressed into tone sliders. Fallout 3 does a fantastic job of this, if you're willing to spend the enormous amount of time required to get exactly what you want. I think simply having a good list of presets would be an appropriate compromise.

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The Backwards compatibility issue would be something no other MMO has ever done, and might drag old players to the new game where it otherwise wouldn't.

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There's something I sometimes think about as 'reverse truth.' What you said is true, technically (at least, for major titles), but I think you might have the reasoning backwards. The reason MMO sequels aren't reverse compatible is because if they could be reverse compatible without compromising the new system, all of the changes made between the original and the sequel could have been applied to the existing game, quite possibly without losing (m)any players at all (as long as they were done gradually and intelligently).

I mean, it's distantly possible you could figure out some system smart enough to usually convert a CoH 1 character to CoH 2 stats. But even if it's perfectly reliable, players will complain that something they took on their original character -- say, Teleport -- was done to thematically sidestep somthing that's readily available now -- say, the Burrowing travel power -- and they don't like the decisions the automated system made for me. And that means support tickets...

Say the average number of characters moved was, oh, two per person, and only a quarter of the CoX 1 playerbase chose to do it. And say only a fifth of all transferred characters had issues their owners objected to. Rough estimates put that at 10 000 new support tickets.

But wait! What if we allowed them all respecs? Well... in that case, what's the difference between "import old character" and "reserve name and get new character at level cap"?

Edit: Kind of lost my original thread there, hah. So, yeah, anyway: The advantage of making a sequel is specifically that they aren't beholden to the old in any way at all, except perhaps insofar as their own expectations and those of the market direct. Name reservation, sure, that'd be neat. But the headache, heartache and hassle just isn't worth making an import tool for a new system -- and if there isn't going to be a new system, the money and time is better spent on fixing what's here than reinventing it all, with its own, entirely new set of problems.

I suspect KO-Blow and Haymaker could be animated in such a way as to avoid rooting (I further suspect that watching sufficient quantities of Luchadore wrestling would probably provide a solid clue to this way). (Melee powers would still have the minor disadvantage of possibly spinning you around to auto-face your target as they were executing, but I think we can live with that.)

I suppose I should clarify: When I say Melee PBAoEs, I mean actual circular-type area of effects. More specifically, I mean powers that don't require a target to be selected in order to execute. Some PB-Cones would probably fall into the "thematically heavy and mechanically appropriate" category, but I think of those as the exceptions, not the rule.

I wouldn't want them to retain the same powerset model -- no need to release a sequel if they're doing that. I'd rather have something more like the alpha/closed beta building, or better, yet, do-it-yourself point-buy power creation ("Ranged Moderate Single Target: 15 points. Fire attribute: 3 points. DoT: 10 points").

Edit: Note: I'd want these to be shareable, and for new players to be given the option of picking a pre-made build for their first 15-20 levels from a list of sets that were voted as "newbie appropriate" by the community (which would help ensure they stayed more or less up to date).

Similarly, I wouldn't care about character backwards compatability. I mean, if we have a whole new world of content to play in anyway, why skip straight to 50 (or whatever the level cap is)?

As far as costumes go:

Grid-placeable decals instead of "chest emblems" and similar options available now, so we could have shoulder emblems or chest and back or off-center or whatever.

A layer for skin, and a "mannequin" that would let us place tattoos, scars, etc on a featureless blank white "doll" version of our character (to sidestep the hassles of having to work around underwear without having to allow nude or bandaid-censored "real" characters).

Jewellery which operates on an anchored version of a similar system. For instance, a jewelled stud could anchor to the belly button, nose, or ears. Bracelets could anchor pretty much anywhere on the arms or lower legs. Etc, etc.

Texture and Reflectivity scales complementing the color scale. Wood armor? No problem. Sleek metallic tights? Sure! Vinyl skirt? Check.

(Edit: Note: I'd want this to be designed with improvement in mind, such that we could eventually select individual elements or areas of a complex costume item to color/texture.)

Back details! As a comprehensive category. Same for Knee/Thigh details.

Face customization occurring more along the lines of recent console games -- no list of "faces," just molding and coloration sliders. Besides finally equalizing makeup access between the sexes (and finally getting lipstick to apply properly), AND giving us eye color control, this would far more importantly let characters be able to change facial expression as they emote or talk. Which, you know. Is kinda a big deal.

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But by removing rooting for Blasters, Defenders, Controllers, Dominators, Corruptors, and Masterminds while instead keeping it in place for MANY melee attacks that require 'gravity' you're creating a schism in thought.

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Ehh? I said pretty much just the opposite -- melee power animations should be reworked if the current visual conception is disadvantageous to the sets mechanically. Mobility for melee PBAoEs isn't very relevant to PvP... and I did also specify that summons would still root, so things like Rain of Fire aren't going to be cast on the go.

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First slash hits, second slash goes off 4 feet behind the guy.

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That already happens; when you attack someone that's moving (or while you yourself are moving, if you're going quickly enough or jumping/falling), you root, causing your attacks to animate while you're some distance away.

For attacks that are truly "heavy" -- things like Air Superiority that don't make sense to use while moving -- I already mentioned retaining the root element. Most attacks are not of that nature. Attacks which would mechanically disadvantage their sets if rooting was retained would have to be more extensively re-animated.

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Having Seen the 'other game' in action

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Oh, you play Fusion Fall and Fable too?

7) Make Hamidon's subsequent respawn Cyborg Hamidon, with Metal Mitos.

that is the best description ever. it started out weak, but the ending is pure win.

I was hoping it was actually a discussion about things people would like to see in CoH 2. The OP was kind of a downer, but nobody contributed anything else. =/

I'd like queued (eg, launches a PvP instance when and only when enough people have signed up) event-based cross-server PvP available from trainer contacts.

J_B, make a humanform Kheld already.

Kind of a general reply to a few points brought up:

When I said I acknowledged that this was difficult, what did y'all think I meant other than redoing the animations? Re-describing each power is tedious, but if that were all it took to eliminate rooting from the game, it could have and quite possibly would have been done Issues ago.

There are a number of games which use pretty generic animations for attacks that can be performed while moving, and a lot of the CoX attacks are suitable for that treatment. The ones that are least suitable for it are mostly melee PBAoEs.

Edit: Clarification: Yes, this is a selfcensoredload of effort. I think the increased fluidity of the game, subtle though it may seem, would be worth it. I'd expect this from a sequel to CoX, and updating the animations and even the engine is less work than a true sequel. (Throwing everything out and starting over from scratch sounds lovely, until you've thrown everything out and you're sitting there with... nothing.)

Edit2: Oh, hey, and a plus side. It would only be fractionally (a big fraction, but a fraction nonetheless) harder to just redo the animation system at that stage to the point where power customization could go in.

Some specific replies:

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I'm sure we'll eventually see this in a game engine

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"a" game engine? Most of the popular engines don't root most attacks.

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'Just isn't fun' isn't an argument. It's an opinion.

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Yup. "Games should be fun" and "Rooting feels more tactical" are also opinions. Opinions are a form of premise, out of which arguments can be constructed or implied.

So, this is something that a few people don't get. I don't know if this was intentional, but it doesn't seem like a stretch.

Inflation isn't inherently a bad thing; it's neutral, as long as everything inflates at basically the same speed. What having tickets available does is allow the market to undergo inflation naturally without any specific thing skyrocketing in price. This is because if there is anything that *does* start going up in relative price, players will immediately start obtaining more of it to sell.

Making the objects available for influence means the market will never grow -- no one will sell at above those prices. This would probably lead to a serious recession... either players would buy from the vendors and flush the influence from the system, or people would undersell vendors on the market and inf would back up heavily. (Of the two, the second one's more stable overall, but less likely to happen. People like instant gratification too much. It also would cause a lot of weird fluctuations week to week as market supply bottomed out and people went to the vendors, so I'm not sure "stable" is the right word.) And that's besides pretty much gutting the purpose of the market in the first place -- why let players sell to each other when they can buy exactly what they want from vendors already?

...Anyway. You can still outright buy standard IO recipes at crafting tables. I'm not quite sure why you think they've become more relatively expensive?

So the MArc got me thinking... and perhaps these lines have already been considered. But it might be worth mentioning anyway.

Players contributed a wealth of content very rapidly for the game, when provided with the tools to do so. And if we'd been given more extensive scripting options, I'm confident they'd have been readily employed. The same goes for the creation of maps -- even tilesets and new object skins. I've seen the same happen in other games. While it's true that as complexity to create a particular content element rises, the number of players contributing content decreases, I suspect there is almost no level of content at which at least a few players would not still rise to.

So... hey. Why not let people?

Okay, okay, I know the answer to that. But I'll modify: Why not let people submit content for review and inclusion into the game?

There's an obvious hurdle there too -- the flood of new material could easily overwhelm the moderators. But I think the community can self-moderate to a certain degree, if provided the tools to do so. The surprisingly high average judgment and integrity of a self-moderating community has been demonstrated in places as diverse as Wikipedia, FPS map editing, and Newgrounds. (I'm using a very specific definition for judgment and integrity, mind.)

So, here's how it works. Say guidelines are released for creating new costume elements, and a 'viewer' tool is created so that average users can download these elements and view them on blank mannequin models of the appropriate body type(s), similar to the existing costume creator. Intrepid amateur graphical designers create an element, then create a thread in the newly-minted Player Submitted Content forum. Other players rate the thread based on their vote for the element's quality -- or, better yet, have a new tool, "nominate." Threads with either a certain rating after a certain time/number of views OR threads with with a certain number of nominations are then brought to the attention of the content moderators, who do some basic QC and then pass it to the appropriate internal department. There would probably be a queue for this -- say, no more than 3-12 (by category) 'accepted' submissions per category (Costume, Object, Map, etc) per month.

As far as I know, this would be a true first for MMOs, but it's proven successful in similar games already. The infrastructure would be a fair amount of work, but it seems like the payoff could be pretty massive in terms of new content over time. I mean, hey -- just the ability to create new decorative objects for bases would be huge.

Meh. I don't mind those, per se. I'd like them a lot more if the missions were available regardless of security level. I'd like them *far* more if they were tied to zone objective events rather than instance missions.

One miracle at a time.

The suggestion as written would only be appealing to me if the characters were automatically awarded all accolades, or provided with an alternative method to obtain them. (This includes Day Job Accolades, although providing an alternative means to obtain them seems more straightforward.)

I also would be wary of implementations for "PvP Merits." My immediate fear is that they'd be dropped only for PvP kills, and that heavily disadvantages new characters created this way.

One thing that would probably have to go in for this that I'd really like, however, is the ability to run PvP Zone Missions according to your combat level rather than your security level.

I'd be more concerned about that if trips didn't work the same on cogs and Warhulks, or if arrows shot at Winter Lords weren't suddenly the size of telephone poles. (I'm neutral about this set idea as a whole, but it's more about wanting more non-Natural-seeming attack sets than the animation issues.)

It sounds like what you want more is the event -- a player-driven RvR -- than the actual power sets.

If that's the case, what about something like a special zone or Arena type, in which one or a handful of players got to build and control large monsters and everyone else in the zone/arena tried to kill them? Maybe you could unlock Monster Powers the same way Gladiators are unlocked now.

(There would probably have to be some incentive for people to want to play regular characters in that match -- maybe beating a Monster awards everyone on the team that takes it down a slightly higher than normal chance for a PvP recipe or something.)