jackattack

Oh I don't think they'll ever do it, I just thought it would be fun to play around with the idea.

On the other hand, during pre-release we discussed burning buildings as a fun idea here in the forums. A couple-few years later, fires broke out in Steel Canyon, just about exactly the way we'd talked about. (Although the rioting Hellions never came up, that was a surprise.)

Anyway...

Yeah, the no-second-chance thing seemed a bit harsh to me as well. How about "influence debt", or the trial is blocked only until the hero succeeds at a different CS trial?

The wand timer is there to keep the hero from dominating the "cure encounters".

If the hero is around the same level as the Lost, he has to juggle the amount of damage he is taking from ticked off bad guys, whether/which/how many Lost to defeat normally to stay out of the hospital, and how long it will take the wand to recharge. That actually has the makings of a good fight.

On the other hand, if your hero already outclasses the Lost he is trying to cure, it'll be boring no matter what you do.

Maybe the recharge could last thirty seconds minus the difference between the hero's level and the Lost he just cured.

I'm sure this has come up a dozen times, but here goes.

Corporate Sponsorship could be a set of missions or arcs that allow a hero, team, or supergroup to gain the backing of a Paragon City business or institution. However, the difficulty of a CS trial mission/arc would NOT be adjusted to the level of the hero/group that takes the mission -- the difficulty would be based on the reward to be gained from successful completion of the mission.

Players would have to choose which corporate sponsor to pursue carefully. A solo hero would not be able to defeat the same trial that a team could. To avoid groups bringing in "ringers", teams would be specced down to the lowest level hero on the team.

The penalty for failing a CS trial would be very simple -- the hero can never gain the sponsor's backing. No chance to do the mission again, not even on a team. Perhaps a form of "influence debt" could be incurred, just like experience debt for hospitalization, instead or as well.

The reward for successfully completing a CS trial would be a badge with the sponsoring entity's name, normal experience, and normal influence PLUS a bonus of half the influence awarded over time. A hero might earn X influence per minute or hour while displaying the badge until all of the bonus was awarded, or he might have the sponsor's name on his back for the same number of minutes/hours. (Although capes and wings might be a problem.)

If every member of a team on a CS trial was a member of a supergroup, then every member of the supergroup would get the badge, and the bonus would be awarded as prestige instead of influence.

Although a hero could only have one corporate sponsor at a time, achieving ten sponsors would get the hero a "Corporate Shill" badge, and twenty-five would get him a "Corporate Sell-Out" badge.

For example:

Dober-Man is a Level 10 hero looking for some extra Influence. (Aren't we all?)

He decides to try a Corporate Sponsorship trial for Paragon City University, but is soundly defeated by the Level 25 villains in the trial. He bit off way more than he could chew, and PCU will never sponsor him, even if he joins a supergroup that wins their backing.

He tries again, but picks a trial for Up-and-Away Burger this time. This time he beats the Level 9 villains in the trial so he gets an "Up-and-Away Burger" badge. Since he earned a total of 120 Influence in the trial, he will earn 1 Influence per minute for 120 minutes while displaying the badge.

When that sponsorship runs out, he joins a team and beats a trial for Sheherazade. Every member of the team gets the same badge and influence bonus.


Any merit?

How about a new random event involving vehicles?

It might be a runaway bus going in circles until somebody stops it, or it might be a getaway vehicle racing from one end of a zone to an exit on the other end of the zone, or it might be a gang's "battle vehicle" mowing down pedestrians.

A vehicular hazard is a constantly moving target, so the heroes have to stay in range by moving with it. A vehicle with a destination also has a built-in time limit -- once it gets to the tunnel between Zone A and Zone B it has escaped (or gets caught "off-camera" by PPD).

Heroes might target the wheels to stop the vehicle, or they might target the vehicle itself. (Or they might be able to target both, and damaging the wheels gets you Influence for being heroic while damaging the vehicle incurs an influence penalty for being less heroic.) The vehicle itself might be vulnerable to effects like Hold and Slow and Immobilize (but not to damage) while the wheels are vulnerable to any type of damage.

A getaway car might have bad guys hanging out the windows firing weapons -- they should be targetable as well. A battle vehicle should have exterior weapons built onto it -- they could be targetable as well.

When a runaway bus or civilian car stops, grateful people should pop out and thank the heroes. When a getaway car or battle vehicle stops, bad guys should jump out and run away or attack nearby heroes. When a battle vehicle stops, it might turn into a giant monster (depending on which gang it belongs to).

Worth developing, or total bollocks?

It could be at 50% health, or every X seconds, or whatever, but it would also be one toon, not all of them. So on a team of eight, you'd only have a 12% chance of being thrown whenever the super-kb criteria came up.

This is a repeat of an idea I put up years ago, but let's trot it out again.

Some monsters should have the ability to hit a toon and do a significant amount of knockback. I don't mean a few feet, I mean a few hundred yards.

Take Lusca, for example. What if each tentacle had the ability to send a hero flying across the harbor? It might happen when the tentacle's health hits 50%, or it might happen the first time a hero does more than X points of damage. It might be random, or it might be the character who puts the tentacle below 50%, or it might be the hero who has done the most damage (in a single hit or over time) so far.

This doesn't have to be an attack that automatically hospitalizes the hero. The attack doesn't have to do any damage at all. To prevent a hero from being ganked on the way back, they might get some kind of stealth that lasts for a set time, or until the hero hits Lusca again.

I just think it would be a lot of fun to see some of the big hitters in Paragon City really knock the heroes around. There might even be a "frequent flier" badge for heroes that get tossed X times by any (combination of) monsters.

Thoughts?

Bear with me, I've been out-of-game for a few years, so I may be repeating someone...

The game knows when our toons are in water, because it makes them swim. I'm sure it (could) also knows when they are flying above a certain elevation.

What if we could specify an aquatic origin, that provided a small bonus to health or end recovery when the toon was in water? Or an aerial preference, that provided range bonuses when the toon was above a certain elevation?

A "nocturnal" toon might get some kind of bonus at night, while a "solar" character might get a bonus when outdoors in daylight.

In addition, they might allow anyplace in water to be a "day job" location, or anyplace above a certain elevation, to indicate that a toon is retiring or patrolling in their particular element. Since these locations aren't as specific as others, they might not bring as strong a bonus, but it would be nice to give my Atlantean martial artist a reason to log off in the water other than my own commitment to the bit.

Where are people gathering for roleplay. There used to be RPers hanging out in the park in Galaxy almost 24-7, but since I rejoined the game after five years gone, I've never found a single character there.

Did bases send all of the RPers into private supergroup space?

We can, I've been told, be a supergroup of one.

I'm coming into this discussion late, having only just heard about Prestige, and I hope this is just a silly rumor. Because this is the WORST idea I have heard of in a very long time.

I bought the game. I pay my monthly fee. If necessary, I will buy CoV and pay an additional monthly fee. But for that REAL WORLD money, I expect to have access to ALL of the features in the game WITHOUT being forced to play a certain way!

My experience with supergroups has been universally bad. Scheduling problems to get everyone together at the same time. Players outleveling others to avoid players they are annoyed with, creating factions within a group. Pressure to create costumes that I hate, so that I match the rest of the group. Pressure to roleplay a certain way. Cliques forming in the group, and arguments over how to do things. All the worst that group play has to offer.

And I resent the idea of the developers now telling me that I have to play as a member of a supergroup, an aspect of the game that should be entirely voluntary. My independent, solo hero should be able to have a base all his very own; maybe not a big one, but something nonetheless. It is bad business, and it is counter to the superhero genre -- the Batcave and the Fortress of Solitude are maintained by solo heroes independently of their group affiliations.

Heaven help us when vehicles become available only to those heroes who spend sufficient time sidekicking and/or exemplaring, or when the devs create archetypes that are only available to players who send in signed forms confirming hours spent volunteering.