jackattack
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Posts
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Joined
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Thank you.
Who needs developers? I have the COH Forums! -
I genuinely did not know that. I'm a Mac. I have no right-click.
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Salvage, recipe, and other drops is a great idea and I'm embarrassed that I didn't think of it.
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The comment about size restrictions not allowing giant robots or giant heroes: Don't grow the hero, shrink the world. In an instanced mission space, miniature buildings and hero-sized monsters would generate the same effect. -
When we put a cursor on invented enhancement in store inventories or in Wentworth and worktable directories, we get a pop-up telling us what it is and what it does.
Enhancements available in stores don't do that.
Dual and single origin enhancements often have arbitrary and non-descriptive names.
How about adding the pop-up feature to enhancements available for sale at stores so we don't have to memorize a bunch of silly enhancement names, or try to gauge whether we are buying the right thing by minor variations in color? -
Maybe if enough people ask for the same thing enough times, the developers will take notice.
And maybe if a small change to bases gets a big response, the developers will look at making bigger changes.
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Heh.
Maybe devs should create a small "project team" to work on an issue selected by players from a votable list.
It would give us an idea of what they consider to be possible/reasonable, and give them a better idea of our priorities. -
I've only recently rejoined, missed a lot of issues, please forgive if this has been done.
As an occasional recurring event, have a clone of every hero/villain in the zone appear nearby and attack their counterpart.
Each clone might only be vulnerable to its counterpart's attacks, or it might be a chance for random proxy/PVP.
The clone would have the original's current costume, in reversed greyscale.
In starter zones like Atlas Park or Gemini City, they might con blue or green. In late zones like Founders Falls they might con red.
Players who don't want to participate could leave the zone, or the clone might disappear if the character moves a certain distance away.
One possible story/mechanic for this would be that a transdimensional object appears in the zone and begins to merge two universes. Some buildings might change appearance to reinforce the idea. When the evil/good twins are defeated, the transdimensional object can be attacked to "dislodge it from our reality" so everything goes back to normal.
Just the bare bones of an idea really. What would make it work? -
Slightly less ambitious, what about a recurring nemesis who is generated or chosen at character creation?
When you create your character, or when you hit a certain level, the system could automatically pick a nemesis from a pre-established rogues' gallery, or it might simply mirror your character and give it a new/evil name (and either reverse your costume colors or change them to gray-scale).
Every level or so, the nemesis might attack you in the street, or show up as a mission.
His minions could be a new generic thug group, or assigned by existing group with nearest power sets, or a random mix of villainous minions.
Players should have the option to set the nemesis difficulty/frequency. We should be able to not have a nemesis at all, make him an occasional nuisance, or make him a frequent red-con boss threat.
I'm going to suggest something like this as an event. -
Quote:Or he might quit the SG because the players are a bunch of ***holes. The same reason players quit SGs (and teams) now. What keeps current SGs from demanding that their members put in a certain number of hours to earn a Prestige quota?Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Interesting idea but then I can see a bunch of SG's demanding that their members either run at maximum prestige earning or get booted from the SG. And while a Vet player will be seasoned enough to tell them to shove it where the sun don't shine a new player may quit the game because the players are a bunch of ***holes.
By revised costs (not available then) a base with a Teleport Bay, a MedBay, and the Oversight Room to run them costs about 260K; a base with Teleport Chamber 1 and two Telepads with Beacons, an Infirmary with Inspiration Collector and one improved Reclamator, the Oversight Room to run them, and a Workshop with Salvage Storage and one Personal Storage Vault costs about 600K. And those are on the smallest plotsize.Quote:Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Depends on what you and your friends considered a decent base. Even back in the beginning it was possible to make a decent fully functional base even if it was just on the smallest plotsize.
In casual play (a couple-few hours a night, one night per week) a small group is not going to acquire enough Prestige to make a dent in those amounts. At an average of 20 Prestige per win, that's 12,000 villains defeated for the first and 29,000 for the second.
SGs can abuse the Coalition feature this way now.Quote:Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
To easy to meta game even with harsh restrictions. For example players can simply make a series of SG's with small SG sizes and use the coalition feature and email feature to get access to them. Picture a main RP base and a series of small TP bases and Storage bases in coalition.
We've never technically needed SG teleporters to get around, but they are convenient and that is one of the reasons a base is good to have. My character can store X salvage items, and Salvage Storage stores a hundred items; X + 100 is more than X. And if it comes down to it I can create a channel for my friends and me, or for a non-SG group, or for left-hand curling enthusiasts. You are claiming that my idea would discourage players from joining SGs by offering reasons that SGs are not necessary.Quote:Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Actually all I see this doing is discouraging players from joining SG's. In todays game we don't need the SG teleporters to get around, and we can use our own characters to store far more items than we ever could in an SG base. And our use of global channels puts us in commincation with as many as 37,500 other players.
I think this would actually promote a larger number of smaller SGs, which I think would be beneficial. Players might form more theme-based or story-based SGs, rather than simply recruiting as many players as possible to max their Prestige totals. And players might choose (to stay with) SGs because they enjoy them, not because they don't want to lose the base's features or because they've invested so much time and Prestige.
Unfortunately, this is a philosophical argument about an arbitrary game mechanic, but I'll take a shot anyway.Quote:Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
You seem to be under the impression that prestige belongs to characters. Unforunately it doesn't. Prestige belongs solely to the SG and players can't take it with them when they leave. You can't get a refund.
The hero generates Prestige, which is donated or assigned to the SG. The Justice League (for example) gains prestige not only for what the members do as a team, but also for what the members do individually (albeit not as much). If Superman quit the Justice League, it would lose prestige; if he joined the All-Star Squad, it would gain prestige. Prestige belongs to the hero, and he takes it with him where he goes.
We can't get a refund because that is how the rules were written. They can be rewritten so that players have more and better choices about SG membership and base availability.
I never suggested that.Quote:Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Oh and no you can't get it refunded as influence. That would be a horrible exploit to the game where people would use powerleveling to farm SG membership for the inf refund when the character quit.
If heroes generated Prestige continually, even at a reduced rate outside of an SG, and got Prestige back when they quit an SG (as Prestige), then more players would have better options for building bases.
Prestige was built broken. This is a system in which hundreds of players are participating to allow a few players to design and equip what are arguably their bases, not the groups', and somehow gives those players control over the other players in their SG.
By putting Prestige in the hands of all the players who generate it, rather than in the hands of a few players who run SGs, more players will be able to fully enjoy this aspect of the game, which currently (effectively) bars participation by small groups and solo players. -
NPCs as placeable base items.
The simplest would be stationary and immobile guards, uniformed mannequins in a couple of styles. As a piece of furniture, there's no limit on how many you could have. (Assemble an army of them in formation, if you want.)
Next up, stationary personnel with limited animation, probably seated but moving their arms to interact with desks, monitors, and consoles. Probably not much more complicated than some of the animated base equipment, but they might be limited to one per room. Or they might be attached to a oiece if equipment (Monitor Bank with Personnel).
Finally, mobile animated NPCs on a level with those roaming the streets. One per room would be great, or maybe one or two who can roam the entire base. They might have clipboards and wander around saying things like "[Villain] is attacking [zone]".
I know the odds of it happening, but I still think it would be cool. -
What about giving players some control of their Influence/Prestige ratios?
The game automatically "adjusts" this ratio as you increase in level. Why not let us have some choice about chipping more or less of our earnings to Influence or Prestige? Players who are all about building enhancements and changing their costumes would favor Influence earning, while players who are all about their SG base would favor Prestige.
On our end, it might be as simple as a trip to a contact (press agent? image consultant?) to set a choice for high, regular, or low Prestige. It would simulate heroes in comics who are primarily associated with supergroups (like the Fantastic Four) and heroes who belong to supergroups but are primarily regarded as solitary/independent (like Bat-Man).
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Another thing to consider is allowing a supergroup to set a size limit that would adjust the amount of Prestige its members earn.
A couple of friends and I created three sibling heroes that we only ever played as a team of three. We were NEVER going to be able to earn enough Prestige to make a decent base, so we didn't bother.
If a size limit were set at registration (solo, max of 10, 50, 100, whatever), Prestige earnings might be adjusted for the size of the group so that it takes a three-person SG four times as long to get a Teleport Chamber as a thirty-person SG, instead of taking ten times as long. An SG that wants to increase its size maximum might be able to buy that increase with a fee designed to prevent gaming the system.
It would not be completely unreasonable to limit base size and/or equipment available to smaller SGs for "balance", but I will point out the Bat Cave, the Baxter Building, and the Fortress of Solitude.
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Another thing that might help is to have all heroes earn Prestige whether they are in SG mode or not (maybe at half rate when not). That would let a Level 40 hero who suddenly gets the urge to form an SG to contribute a significant amount to base purchases, rather than starting with the 20K Prestige handout and a hopeful look on his face.
A refund on Prestige when quitting an SG (ten or twenty-five percent?) would also be nice. -
This would also be very welcome in the power-color-customization screen of the CC.
Every time I've set two colors across a power set I find that two or three of them look much better with the primary/secondary colors reversed, and I have to manually switch the colors on each and every power a couple of times to figure out which ones to make primary-secondary and which to make secondary-primary. -
Do your preventive Breakfree inspirations not work?
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Has the Devouring Earth Swarm been adapted for any other groups?
It seems like it would require minimal effort to make them look like nanobots or energy bugs, thus adding variety to at least two other gangs. -
I've been away for awhile, and one of the biggest changes I've seen since coming back is that Giant Monsters don't seem to get any attention at all. Lusca wouldn't've lasted ten minutes before I left, and now she is little more than an occasional decoration in the harbor.
So, how to make GMs relevant again?
1. Create new badges for defeating (some of the) GMs multiple times. This doesn't really work with the Ghost Ship, and let's leave poor Sally alone, but is perfect for Jurasik or Kraken.
2. Create an achievement badge for defeating all of the GMs, and an accolade for defeating all of the GMs multiple times per the new badges. (Sorry if this already exists.)
3. Reduce GM availability and/or link GM spawn to activity in a zone. If the GMs appear less often, then heroes who want to fight them will come running when they appear. If the GMs appear when there are at least X heroes in the zone, it will be more convenient for the heroes to stop and defeat the GMs.
4. When a hero has defeated a GM multiple times, award a temporary power (at the end of an arc or mission or by talking to a contact) that will allow the hero to solo against that GM. The temporary power should be medium to close range, should be about as effective as the fire extinguisher temp, and should disappear when the GM is defeated (and another badge awarded for soloing the GM). For example, Jack in Irons might be done in with a mystical tranquilizer dart, while Babbage might be vulnerable to nanobots or a rust ray.
5. Create new ways to fight GMs, which require the (first) badge to access. Create instanced missions where heroes can control a giant robot (or grow to giant size themselves) to fight GMs one on one, or where teams can fight GMs in new/destructible environments, or (at the end of an arc?) where everyone on a team controls a giant robot (or grows to giant size) and fights several monsters at once.
6. Tweak the monsters so they do something new, unique, and fun. Give Lusca the power to throw a hero across the harbor. Let Jurasik stomp a hero into a hero-shaped depression in the ground. Make Pumpkin-Guy turn give a hero pumpkin head for ten minutes. Make it something that only happens to one hero per minute, and award a badge. Some players will start fighting GMs again just for the chance to see or experience the new GM power.
I'm not a game designer/developer, but I think the first three would require minimal effort to brainstorm and implement. The last three are a lot more ambitious, but I think they would be a lot of fun.
Thoughts? -
Quote:A small medium (handbill or poster) would probably have the head shot from the ID screen -- villains' would say "Wanted" above and NAME below, while heroes' might say NAME above and "Day" below. A large medium (billboard) might show the full toon in one of the heroic poses -- villains' might say "Public Enemy Number One" and heroes' might say "Paragon City's Protector". But these are details that can be worked out later.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What do you envision these billboards displaying? Just a mugshot of your hero or villain? Them doing something? If so, doing what? Wouldn't that be kind of specific to the character? You see them, but wearing which costume? The one you're wearing now? That's kind of TOO convenient a coincidence, and what of people who regularly swap? A costume from a slot at random?
If this is something that needs to be as simple as possible, or uses the same base settings for every user, then it should probably default to Costume 1. If this is something that can accept lots of variables that we can set, there might be a "publicity agent" interface that allows each user to specify costume (by slot, or variable, or the one they logged out in) and pose and background and whatever else.
If motion is possible, you might even be able to specify which power animation you want to show in the clip, and who your hero is clobbering with it.
Is Costume 1 likely to be the secret? The simplest default would be to display the hero's first/starting costume, which probably won't be a secret.Quote:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What if you have slots that people aren't supposed to know about in-canon?
If it defaults to the costume the hero logged out in, then the user can make sure he doesn't log out in a secret costume.
Maybe this should be optional, with a trial required to activate the publicity.
Probably not. From a technical aspect I suspect it is much easier for your account to put your hero on your computer. And adding one toon to a greenscreen is probably easier than adding three or five or ten.Quote:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Do your hero show up with other heroes? If not, then why not? They're supposed to be working together.
I would like to think that my character is the star of his own story, no matter how many teams or supergroups he is involved with. And who says we have to play a certain way? Some heroes work alone, some work with their supergroups, and some team with whoever is available. No style of play is less legitimate than any other.
As for supergroups, some of them are absolutely huge, and it would be silly to try to put all of their members on a single poster or billboard. If (big if) we can choose to add other heroes to our publicity, perhaps we will be able to specify which members appear with our hero. But it is probably much more practical to put the group's name and emblem up than a big group picture.
I disagree entirely. It is much more sensible to find out what is possible, and then come up with specifics to fit within those parameters. Why plan the details of something that can't be done?Quote:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
There are a lot of questions about the practical implementation of such a system in an inclusive way even before you get down to the technical aspects of how to programme it. -
If statues are a bridge too far, then forget the statues. Or leave them for Level 50s only.
But a wanted poster of a villain, or a handbill for "Your-Hero's-Name Day", or a billboard that says "Your-Supergroup-Name Says 'Stay Vigilant!'", or a shot of your character on the news would go a long way toward making each character the star of his own story rather than just another hero in others' shadows.
And it would be cool. -
I have to preface this with a technical question:
Does everyone see the same thing on their screen?
Does everyone have to see the same thing on their screen?
Can certain static items (statues, posters, billboards) be set up to show different things on different players' monitors, kind of like a greenscreen that layers an image set by each player's account/character?
If that is possible, then why not set it up so that each player sees his character's (and/or supergroup's) name and/or face around the city?
At lower levels, heroes might be on notices and villains might be on wanted posters. At middle levels, their names might be on billboards and/or faces might be on billboards. At high levels, they might even get a statue.
But each player would only see their own character's name/image. Two players whose characters were side by side looking at the same greenscreen billboard would see two different images. While that might seem confusing, it avoids issues like who "deserves" to have their name/image featured, or how long to leave any individual on the billboard, or a player missing his character because he missed it in a rotation, etc.
I would suggest one greenscreen in each zone that shows your current character, although there might not be a greenscreen in every zone. (Crey's Folly and Boomtown wouldn't have them, for example.)
This could be an optional feature, requiring purchase with Influence, or possibly a mission arc to activate.
Thoughts? -
Would the branching events be random, success/failure based, or choices for players to "customize" a story arc.
I would put a success/failure branch in the beginning or middle (NEVER the end!), and add a mission/episode that allows the heroes to recover from their failure. For example, if they fail to protect a witness, they get a chance to rescue the witness.
Actual choices might allow players to pursue personal/roleplaying preferences, or maximize the difference between multiple passes through the same arc. For example, if two villain groups are working together, the heroes might meet another (name NPC?) hero at the end of an early mission/episode who offers to pursue one group while the heroes go after the other. Players who have already done the arc chasing Group A would be able to choose Group B for a different game experience. Or a team that is mostly magic-based could choose to go after magic-based villains if that is their preference. -
I'm trying to come up with an excuse and method to make heroes sixty feet tall stomping around Paragon City without impacting the rest of the game.
Obviously we can't have a growth power set, and there wouldn't be much for a hero who was big all the time to do. But we can come up with a fairly simple way to let any hero in the game enjoy the experience of being a giant at least once just by creating new set-pieces.
If fighting the existing GMs upsets our sensibilities, we can always come up with new GMs, like an Emperor Rikti and a giant plant-creature that engulfs a building (ooh, new idea!) and a stolen military battlemech.
It's also a new way to fight GMs.
Nobody seems to fight GMs anymore, and there has never been any real incentive to do so once you have the badge. By creating a new mission, with new sights to see, and a new badge, maybe GMs will get some more play.
And if your hero isn't the right build, or optimized to take on elite bosses, or maxed out at level 50, here's a potential way to solo a GM. -
...uh, yeah, that might just do it...
<blush>
Would that return the hero to the previous costume when the power was deactivated? -
I would make this a plot device in two mission arcs.
In the first mission arc, you get the item as a display for the base or a badge for the soloist.
In the second mission arc, anyone who (se supoergroup) has the item can get a temporary power or a free enhancement or possibly a new/temporary visual effect (standard to bright, bright to dark) for the arc or the finale. -
Is it possible -- as a voluntary option set by the player -- to link costume slots to one or more powers?
An obvious example would be having no wings on Costume 1, having wings on Costume 2, and setting Costume 2 to come up automatically when Flight or Hover is active.
Another example moth be a tank who had tights for Costume 1, tights with an armor overlay for Costume 2, and textured armor for Costume 3, set up so that his Invulnerability toggles increase the armor he has on.
Finally, there's the classic -- Costume 1 as civilian clothes that are replaced by the hero's superhero costume{s} when any powers are active.
I don't think there is any way around the thirty second requirement, so we'd just have to live with "costume linger".
Thoughts? -
This would be in addition to, not in lieu of, current methodology.
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When I was a younger, inexperienced hero, I tried to take on a GM all by myself.
That lasted for about two seconds.
I'm older, but not too much smarter, because I still want to take on a GM on my own. But now I have a plan.
All I need is for one of the sciency corporations in Paragon City (or some mad genius with a really big garage workshop) to let me borrow a giant robot (power suit), and I'll be able to take on Babbage robo-a-robo. The robot's power tray would replace my own while I was in the pilot's seat, so a quick shake-down mission would help me figure out the controls, and then I could take Eochai downtown. Of course, if such a giant robot strayed into the Rogue Isles, there's no telling what the villains there would do to it.
Or, I could have a scientist or a wizard use their growth ray/spell on me, so I could take on Lusca hand to hand to hand to hand to hand.
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These would be instanced outdoor missions in which Giant Monsters (new or existing) could be fought by individuals or teams. The environment would be reduced relative to the heroes' size, and might be destructible for extra fun (and influence penalties?).
The giant robot option might also make a decent GM to unleash on the Rogue Isles. (Apologies if there is already something like that, I don't play CoV.) There might also be an Ouroboros mission with a steam-punk robot; the "robot" in a Croatoa mission might actually be a giant wicker man driven my magic; and so on.
I think this could be a lot of fun. -
When Sally first showed up, heroes practically lined the shores looking for her, and woe unto anyone who laid a finger on her without being part of a full team! One of my toons actually crit'ed her and go the badge with one strike.
I like the temporary camera power idea. Maybe you could buy the camera from a beachside vendor for 500 influence or something.
I wonder if it is possible to target Sally for buffs? Maybe that could be a new Friends of Sally badge.
Instead of making Sally a contact, how about making her a conduit to an instanced mission deep beneath Salamanca? When you get the assignment from the contact, you have to "catch" Sally so that she can carry you through the underwater caverns to a lost civilization that needs heroes.