Things I'd Like to See In Going Rogue...

(Semi-witty introductory monologue deleted)

* Non-Contact mission starts: You rescue a mugging victim while street sweeping and they ask for another favor. One of the street thugs you just thumped had a clue on them that leads to an abandoned warehouse. Instead of walking by and praising your name; a Civilian walks up to you and tells you about something they saw/heard. While running by a building you hear gunfire/a snatch of conversation/etc that comes from the building itself and when you try the door it opens!

* A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to...: The trains/ferries are great ways to get from zone to zone but how many movies/comics have you seen where something bad went down on the trip? Bad things happening on subways is a movie cliche. A mini-map appears and you find yourself battling up towards the front of the train to take out the bad guy who's captured the conductor. Or you're running around the ferry trying to beat up all the tentacles that are attempting to drag it under. This would have an automatic feature that would NOT start one of these if you were on a timed mission. It would also have a toggle to turn it off from the options menu.

* Death Traps: I'm a silver-age fan and those heroes were ALWAYS being trapped inside giant hour glasses with falling/suffocating sands, strapped to rockets being launched at cities and dropped into pits filled with various mutant carnivores. Sleeping gas or some knock-out agent as soon as you enter the mission map then you wake up to find yourself in a death trap. There is a count-down timer before it goes off. You need to click glowies, destroy objects, defeat robots, etc before you run out of time. The death trap maker was nice enough to tell you during his monologue exactly what needs to be done. If you fail then you end up in the hospital; but your debt amounts are double that of a street sweeping death.

* Rescuing/Kidnapping Tweeks: I wouldn't mind being a kidnap "victim" in Paragon. They always seem to be just standing around talking to their captors. Sure, some of them cower, but I figure those are just naturally nervous anyway. Put the victim in a death trap. Put them in a prison cell. Heck, chain them into a teleporting device that blips from location to location until you wreck the computer that operates it. ANYTHING but have me feel like a jerk for interrupting their conversation when I "rescue" them. As for kidnapping on villain-side... We have the "throw the body over your shoulder and walk slowly" emote with the Wormy mission. Why not let us do that? It's more realistic if we're dragging this poor schlep to his doom... We could throw them down when a battle begins and pick 'em back up once done.

* Life Long Themes: Superman was ALWAYS rescuing Lois and Jimmy Olsen. Captain America was constantly fighting off para-military organizations trying to rule the world. Some heroes/villains just can't seem to get away from one defining characteristic. This is more roleplaying than function and should be optional. At character creation you can select a Theme; Hero's Ally, Playboy/girl, Organized Crime, Toughest Around, etc. These won't be the ONLY missions you get, but your character will lean towards those kinds. For example if you took the Playboy/girl and you selected females as your preferred focus... If you brought up your radio missions you would be guaranteed of at least one of them being a rescue the damsel mission. When people offer to introduce you to a contact the lovely female contacts will always be the first ones offered. Like I said, it's primarily role play but a fairly easy tool to implement and a great way of immersing yourself into a character.

* Branching Missions: We all know what they are so I won't go into it here. I want them however... I want them badly.

* Unknown Mission Objectives: At least at mission start. It never made any sense to me that when I enter a building armed only with my contact's advice that "something strange is happening there" I am somehow able to know exactly how many people I need to save and how many glowies need to be clicked. A little mystery might be nice. If I rescue the first hostage and they say "Thank you! But I'm not the only one in trouble! There were five of us here researching the anomaly... You need to help them too!" And another rescued hostage might say "I can get out on my own, but you HAVE to retrieve the data from the computer! That's why the Council invaded in the first place!" It would make the missions grow much more organically and make it seem less like a shopping list mission structure.

* Training Facility: Instead of a lone hero/arbiter standing out in the open, how about an actual building at which to train to higher levels? Target ranges, training dummies, weight benches, etc. How about developer-created testing programs specifically made for individual ATs? You run a blaster through a mini-game where they shoot targets of bad guys or civilians, hit too many civies and you fail the test. Passing the test does not award experience points, but instead extends the x1.5 xp bonus out another bub for every level of success. You can only take these tests when training up a level or (if the rewards are exceptional) every 5th level. Perhaps they could be set in the current Arena buildings... may as well get some use out of them.

* The Undefeated Champion: Personally, I have always felt faceplanting was a bad thing. The whole concept of any game is to NOT have your character die. The badges awarded for paying off debt have always seemed ludicrous to me as well... gee... lookit that... I got an award for losing! They are the "Participant" ribbons of City of Heroes. To heck with that.. I want the Trophy! So... I believe a special bonus should be given to any hero or villain who manages NOT to be defeated. As long as you can maintain an undefeated (hardcore) status you get a bonus to earned influence/prestige. In RP terms this would mean that people are aware that you haven't been taken down yet and admire you for it. The bonus should be substantial too... perhaps +50 to 100% the normal rewarded amount.

Anyway, just a few things that percolated through my mind as I woke up today. It wasn't a joke-list... but it was a list... so I guess I got it half right.

Most of it looks fine, though it could use more suppa tenko.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

I saw "Steelclaw" and prepared myself for teh funny.

I was disappointed at not finding the funny.

I am not disappointed in the ideas, and would like to see all of these incorporated in some way.

/em clap

/signed

A little worried about Steelclaw's frame of mind at the moment.

Someone send a fruit basket.

Otherwise, nice ideas. A tweak here and there and it could lead to some interesting new content

Nice Ideas.

Thought I agree with KitsuneKnight. Undefeated Champion can be exploited and well I was more of the fan of marvel little guy approach.

Face it part of the fun of Spiderman was he did get beat up he did suffer he has a crappy life. DC even changed away from the Unbeatable heroes Superman DIED!

Now what I like to see I thought of with I16 was the Supersidekick alows any level to team with any group of any level. Well lets take that to the next step Let us go to any contact and play the arc. Perhaps have it you need to be level 50 to unlock all contacts.

Or open all contacts of a given level when you reach said level. That so my character can go to any contact and get a mission. I always wondered why the contact would refuse to ask a Hero to help. Really is that logical? Now It does make some logic if it was involved with a whole story arc but not every contact is. I also like to be able to go back to a contact and do there missions that I passed. Yes I know the Ouroboros system was put in place to play past missions but is that the best option?

With SuperSidekick we can team with any group. AE missions adjusts the players level. So does some of the Ouroboros tasks so why not apply that to every story arc? Allow me to take my level 50 Tank to the Hollows and bash Trolls and not be limited by Ouroboros because I'm on a task force and can't join a team running Frostfire!

Good ideas, on the whole. I don't like the exploitability of the Undefeated Champion, or the type of gameplay I think it would encourage, but I've long been a proponent of spontaneous non-contact missions.

The "On the way" idea sounds like fun, but it would have to be implemented very carefully, or it would end up being terribly annoying. You've accounted for timed missions--which would be the biggest single objection, I think--but what about when you have a team waiting for you? Or if you're just trying to get to the market to dump some stuff before logging? Going into the Options menu to switch it on and off frequently as your circumstances change would be a pain, and I suspect most people would end up switching it off and never bothering to reactivate it. At the very least, I would make it check to see if you have a mission set (even a non-timed one), and not trigger if you do.

The Life-Long Theme is another good idea, but the contact sorting part is probably more work than it's worth. If you're roleplaying it, you can just pick the contact accordingly. Guaranteeing that paper/radio missions that match your theme turn up each time is a nice notion, though. Ideally, it would go a step further, and each theme would have a set of arcs--say one for each 10-level range--that goes along with it, similar to the Kheldian arcs. Additionally, there should be a few themed street spawns that pop up if a character with the corresponding theme is in the area, the way Voids pop up when Kheldians are around. The themed street spawns would occasionally link to a themed non-contact mission, too.

Regarding The Undefeated Champion...

I agree that PL's and Farmers could exploit this... however that could be rectified by a couple methods...

1) The bonus does not function while the Champion is lackeyed or sidekicked.

2) The bonus "scales" depending on the difficulty settings the player has active. If they have no bosses, no AVs, play as though 8 man team at -1 level difficulty they get a very low (if any) bonus and if they are set to bosses/AVs/1 man team/+5 levels they get a much larger bonus.

Another idea I had regarding Undefeated Champion is a badge by the same name. Everyone gets the badge... it's a freebie... However the honor of having it comes not from the badge itself.. but the number that follows it... The number continues to climb for every level (combat level) you attain prior to your first defeat. Once you are defeated the number freezes never to increase again.

Just for style points it would have be a Roman numeral.

Undefeated Champion XXV

Undefeated Champion XIV

etc

/signed.
But shouldn't this be in the suggestions and ideas forums?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

I like these idea's. Disappointed that it wasn't a piss take, but still good =]

Wow a serious Steelclaw post.

Most of these things I have stated that I would like to see in the game several times.

However, the first one especially, is something that I think can add a LOT of personality to the game. Random missions from encounters in the street form the basis for a lot of superhero adventures in comics and cartoons. Most heroes don't have a series of successive 'contacts' doling them out tasks. Really, most heroes have a single trusted contact that THEY will go to when they are pursuing an objective, not the other way around.

The contact system is better suited for people wanting to hire mercs/villains...except that our villains get pushed around by their contacts more often than not...

Sounds good Steelclaw but on the Undefeated Champion theirs another thing to consider and that is people teaming and then blaming the healer when they die. We all know people are jerks and that no one ever takes responsibility for any thing so "Garontee" there will be some one that says "Just because I went a completely different direction than the rest of the team you didn't heal me OMG im L49 how could you I'm gona call the (insert something threatening here)"

And there there are the healers that don't heal people they don't like. Not that I know any of, or am one of those people myself....

Good ideas. These ideas have been approved by the Cursed Sorcerer!

All good suggestions except undefeated champion. Too exploitable, or could make people not fight on purpose of duck out of taking on the Av who get's aggro'd by the squishy. other than that, a big :Thumbs up!: from me.

I am Techbot Alpha
I approve of these suggestions. /Signed

Finally, I'd be able to strap the meddling fleshlings who get in my way to some very nasty torture devices. Or, that rocket sounded like a good idea...maybe kidnap the Countess Crey, launch her into orbit, and then conquer her industrial empire brick by brick?
/e plot
When the day of doom comes, Steelclaw, your life will be spared

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Signed!

Good suggestions on a whole.

I'd also like to see a useful defender inherent power

I'd like to see the ability to make choices which influence the outcome of a story arc. I'd like to see this incorporated into task forces as well. Perhaps whenever a decision has to be made, a box pops up for each member asking which way they would vote. The leader gets the deciding vote if there's a tie.

Some fine ideas by Steelclaw. They all have merit.

Having the objective be murky is fine AS LONG AS we are NOT talking about a Blue Cave Layer Cake Room or a Council Water Room, etc. What has me currently avoiding Defeat Alls is having to spend 20-30 minutes hunting down the LAST GUY in a map laid out by a drunk on a 3-legged donkey. (This generally coincides with some RL need arising, such as dinner or bedtime, and the whole time you spend on the mission is shot unless you FIND THAT LAST @#$@#@$!@#$ NUTAFINGA!)

While I like the idea of the Undefeated Champion, I fear it will just lead to all sorts of timorous behavior. Steelclaw's idea envisions a Blue Steel sort of hero who smites all comers, no matter how tough they are, but given the way the game scales, you will be running away a whole bunch to avoid getting defeated on most hero builds. It just will get ugly: you run like the Cowardly Lion all the time, which will not endear you to teammates, or you will carefully get to lvl 49 or so and some L33T Newb orchestrates a Team Wipe by acting like an idiot. Or you will get griefed by someone who notices your badge and pulls 3 additional groups of Nemesis snipers to the fray. This is a perfect example of a fine idea that can be bolloxed by human nature so fast it will give you whiplash.

Still, some fine thoughts... even if they were not Teh Funny.