Pyroguy

not to be rude at all, but isnt there a sticky topic about power customization at the top of this forum?

just pointing it out in case you missed it

i agree and think this is long overdue, i am tired of always being auto sk'd to 50 in every AE mission cuz the level range is so high

Incidentally though, it is nice for PUG's since anyone can join your team

dude

entire zone beach ball-esque parties

/epic

This would require a lot of work, let me just state that

I clean windows for a living, glamorous huh? One day as i was working i started to notice how each of my coworkers works. some are very efficient, some are sloppy, some are elegant. Myself, i tend to be a bit showy (as much as a window cleaner can be )

thoughts at work quite often get me thinking about city of heroes, in some sort of weird way. So i started thinking, all of the powers we have look relatively the same. A blaster blasts the same way, scrappers have relatively the same animations for melee strikes, a tank dodges attacks mostly the same way.

I was thinking, it would be pretty sweet, actually, if we had the option to choose styles for our powers. Say a blaster chooses "brute force" for his style. He lights a fireball in his hand, runs jumps and smashes it into the enemies face. then does a backflip back to where he was. A rather lavish example i admit. and i cant seem to come up with any more

It would be a lot of work, obviously, because of the animations required to make anything close to this come to fruition. But i think it would be cool.... am i being to wishful?

i dunno, thoughts?

Thank you empire i had no idea the devs had...uh...."fixed" so many things. Honestly, i wouldn't touch pvp now in its current state. That being said,

Respectfully, i feel that

The general opinion i see here is that people feel that pvp should be taken out back and shot, or left to die, which is kinda sad thats the devs have gotten it to that point, as there is potential for some really cool ways for it to be used.

I remember when the arena first came out, which was issue 4 if i recall, not too far into the games development. Cool! Neat! everyone said. fighting each other was fun, back in the day, albeit unbalanced.

But then nothing was ever really done with it, it was just kind of there. Same with CoV. it launched, everyone had their day beating up vils and heroes alike, some "balancing" was done, and then the majority lost interest, either because they're blaster or controller couldn't kill a stalker/scrapper or brute/tanker (which is kinda like trying to kill an elephant with a bag of stones, and IMO should have been left the way it was, there are some things you just don't try to do as a certain AT) leading to the wretched state its in now. Why?

I am a hardcore PvE player, as i have stated before, But the idea of pvp really appeals to me. I think quite a bit of really awesome dynamics and content could be achieved thru the use of the pvp system. What about a mayhem or a safeguard where you try and stop another players rampaging villain or do-gooder hero? What about cross faction team battles?

Honestly, the OP's original idea is pretty intriguing to me, but just adding more stuff you can only get there just doesn't work, and really, that's the only incentive to go to one of these zones that anyone can seem to come up with right now. While i agree in some respects with the concept of having your character go to a pvp zone while leveling up, it cannot be forced upon people in any way, and some would view that as being forced. There already are "go see this security guy in xpvpzonex" missions to try and immerse you, There already are badges and IO's that you can only get from pvp zones, and they are generally hated.

Until pvp is fun and worth it, it will never, ever, be touched frequently by most players. With utmost respect, Cryon, you have some good ideas, i will give you that. But the core of your idea to come get people to pvp (the faction controllable stores) wont work. its just like adding pvp IO's.

The best thing i can think of IMO to "fix/revamp/resurrect" pvp, is to first, listen to the damn players and to their ideas (at least the ones who can coherently discuss it ) Come up with actual incentives to come and pvp, and then strip it down to what it was arena level, and build it up again slowly, issue by issue, listening to the players, and building a new system. This band-aid crap doesn't and will never work. Would there be outlash? you bet. Will it happen? Most likely not.

But what else is there to do but wipe the slate clean?

Honestly, the OP now has me interested...

Ive been playing cox since issue 4, and i don't pvp. I go to the zones every now and then, but mostly, its just a zone in, hit invis, and grab a nuke/shivan/temp/whatev

Do i have a problem fighting vils or other heroes, absolutley not! i understand that going to a pvp zone, i might get ganked. Ive fought the occassional fight and won and lost. But the reason i dont SEEK THIS OUT, is because, what in the world is the point? Sure i could perchance get a nice purple and make, oh god....a billion influence? or i could slot said purple and only gain a significant boost to more pvping. Again, theres not really a point in that to me.

But, if there actually was a point to going to a pvp zone, winning costume peices, getting a really nice temp power (which i realize we already have coughwarburgcough) a special type of PVE enhancement that can only come from the selected zone, or hell even a really substantial, if not hard to get, amount of xp, you know what, i would go.

I know people have a bad taste in their mouths about pvp. people dont like losing a fight in this game to an actual other person...actually a lot dont like losing a fight period. But what if there was actually a point to it, as the OP is suggesting? what if you got something really cool to use in game, for whatever you deemed you wanted to play against, and not something that only enhanced your pvp prowess?

What if you were required to be on an 8-man team before going into this "cloud city" (i forgot what the "battle arena" was called, sorry ) as were your opponents. What if there was a way to make sure that you were evenly matched before you went to fight. Or take a page from the new field analyst system, and let players pick EXACTLY, or as close as they can, how they want to be treated fight wise on their pvp team? I would definitely go and form a team to come here and beat up some vils and if the rewards were general, and awesome enough, im sure others would too

As the OP is trying to get across, make it something to look forward to, give a pvp zone a reason to go to it and accept the risks and deal with them, not run away. Dont give pointless badges that only a few care about, dont give specialized enhancements that make the game better mostly only for pvpers. Work with the best game mechanic we have right now, teaming. it works with everything else, Almost everyone joins teams regularly. Why not import it to pvp under slightly more controlled circumstances

Oh my, i think im starting to rant
Appologies if i got incoherrent

Nice idea, just gonna get that out there

Im pretty sure the scope of this is too big for the game, this idea could be the general focus of its own game in itself

So, I had this other idea, admittedly not as well thought out as the other few ive posted in the last few days

I love that part in ITF when your just getting to the top of the oracle hill and that dramatic music sets in, and then the huge fight between you and the romans and all the dark dwarfs breaks out, IMO one of the best moments in the game.

The part i like best about it though honestly, is the addition of music. Big fights in games are *always* accompanied by it, and it just makes it that much better. is it too much to ask for some background music playing in some more missions or tf's? even only in the room where you have a boss fight, i would love to see (erm..hear) a slow buildup of some dramatically epic music.

And i think this would definitely be a great addition to AV fights, they need a little more dramaticism involved. <brain sputters to halt>

Comments?

i think at least part of the reason (and i could be wrong) "stop soandso from escaping" missions are not very well received is the fact that they seem to be regular defeat the boss types. If i remember correctly, the mission i was referring to earlier with the council guy who runs for it, was surprising because nobody saw it coming. annoying at times? i could see how some people would think so. But if it was clearly labeled, if your contact said in red letters "Archon Whatshisface may try and escape this one, better be prepared" maybe it would mitigate it a little since everyone would know what to expect.

Of course, everyone knows what to expect with the missions as they are now too, so who knows

edited to reflect ty flashrains

So this idea was born out of the tf betterment suggestions thread

I was thinking, its been a good long while since we've gotten any new types of missions. The last new additions were safeguards/mayhems i believe. So the following are a few ive dreamed up:

The "Red Alert" mission
This was originally concieved for task forces, but would be great for regular arcs too. What if instead of "go inside, head to the back room, and kill this boss and his minions" mission, we had a similar type of thing, except for whatever reason (random generation, mission holder "hacked the base security wrong" or some other abstract reason i cant think of atm) the missions boss has been alerted to the fact that there are heroes coming after him. He then sends *almost* all of his minions within the map after them to meet them at the mission door or slightly after. Bosses should be used sparingly in this fight or only sent in after a certain number of baddies have been defeated, to avoid the problem of having a "garunteed epic phail" mission type that only results in a team wipe. If the heroes are able to push past the initial waves/numbers of minions, then they can proceed onto the boss, who will be surprised that they were able to defeat his defenses/cronies/creations/whatever. I originally thought this would be good for task forces because a short cutscene would play into this nicely, showing the boss saying something like "After them my minions!" or something villainy but those can be added to normal arcs too, as in cimerora (some of my favorite missions)

The "Master Plan" Mission
This mission type would be most suited to AV or EB battles. It would most likely be timed and require the hero team to defeat an AV or EB, and defeat whatever nefarious plot he has hatched. For example: "Dr. Vahzilok has created a machine that indefinitely clones his zombies (im just top-of-my-heading it here) Destroy his machine, and defeat him." or "destroy lord recluses death ray before he vaporizes Atlas Park." These types of missions wouldn't necessarily have to require you to defeat the AV or EB, come to think of it, although they certainly could be used that way. All thats needed for this is to give us a preferably large destructible object that maybe attacks us back, spawns baddies, or debuffs you maybe, and im pretty sure the code already mostly exists for this. This could work exactly the same for villains, the writing would have to be only a little different

The "Rampaging Villain"/"Do Gooder Hero" mission
Pretty self explanatory, let us go to a zone, safeguard/mayhem style, and stop a rampaging villain wreaking destruction, or rip the place up to draw out a hero or two. I think this is what i had in mind when i heard safeguards and mayhems were coming out. And while they're fun in their own right, this would be a blast. Now, i wouldn't want to go to one of these particular missions and see a villain attacking a stack of boxes that apparently are "vital to the safety of the citizens of paragon city" rather i wanna see him smashing up cars, setting fire to buildings (hellion style) and generally causing all the mayhem in mayhem missions (bank robberies) plus more, and maybe in the company of a sig. villain. conversely, the heroes would show up in force, perhaps with longbow in tow or a sig. hero, to combat the villain in question, and undo his or her acts. balancing would be the issue here. And im not sure if we can create an instanced pvp zone with the current game.

<b>The "OMG he's escaping!" mission</b>
Again simple, make it so some of the bosses or av's we have to fight have escape plans. I always thought the one mission where you have to bust one of the council leaders was cool, because he would try and escape you thru some of the elevators in the mission. this is a simple concept, it could be as easy as having them run for the door, or they could run down a hallway to a secret helicopter waiting on the roof. It doesn't have to move or anything, just if the bad guy gets to it, game over. This would bring in some mission failures, and would have to be remedied by having the heroes or villains take another shot at taking down the particular boss, but shouldn't make the tf or arc they are included in terribly longer than it already is (coughkatietfcough)

These are just a few ideas ive had. Overall i think the mission system could use an update or two, because kill alls, defeat boss, and hunt missions (which are the core of what we have) get dull after a while, in a certain way, and i think a few fresh ideas added to the mix of missions that we currently have would do the game well, rather ambitious idea that it is.

There it is, what do you all think?

Just for the record, i *love* this idea

/signed