This game needs "stuff"

I have to say, I have never seen this happen. Ever. Pre or post IO.

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I've had my dom turned down for a perma-dom on a SF. I'll admit that all of these are edge cases. I'm just saying, it's a bit late for
We have epic gear, and it's called high-end IOs. Whether or not it shows up on your costume is a detail.

I want to take as many opportunities as I can to agree with the Lemur. I agree with this completely. Whether you want to avoid your powerful build from ruining your looks or your fancy looks from gimping you, the costume and power segregation is THE selling point of this game in my eyes. I get to look cool AND be powerful. This is extremely rare, especially considering that I don't agree with developers as to what is "cool" very often. I don't agree with Jay and BABs a lot of the time, but that's OK. I can pick my own "cool" here, even if we disagree.

As well, the notion that "people like stuff" is a major misnomer. It's one of those vicious circle things, where players expect MMOs to do certain things because MMOs do certain things, and MMO developers do certain things because players expect them to. "Loot" is one of these things. I'm not interested in it, and I've never really been a big fan, even when I knew no alternative. In fact, one of the main reasons I dumped Dungeon Siege 2 was because I dreaded every trip back to town and all the nasty fiddling with items.

Robbed of their "visibility," these items then become literally indistinguishable from enhancements. In fact, we already have enhancements named after rings, necklaces, gauntlets and so forth. The only reason is that each neckless is for one power only, instead of being only one per character, which itself might be changing in the future, given vague developer allusions.

And I ESPECIALLY dislike "end-game," "elite," "raid" and in fact any kind of items locked behind "accomplishments." To my eyes, making a good costume is an accomplishment in itself. Making another one that's also great but makes sense too even more so. I do NOT want to see the game delve any deeper into "prestige" costumes. Not only are prestige costume items NOT cool (being locked doesn't make them better, it makes them worse), but restricting them actually undermines the freedom of expression that the whole game is built on.

In short - please leave costume creation as free of interference as it is.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I'd argue, with this game, it certainly *isn't* a detail. Especially with the time people can put into the costume creator. *Every other game* makes you lose any uniqueness you have within 5 levels as you exchange "starter gear" for "slightly better than starter gear," your "pointy stick of pointiness" for "newbie sword of poking" or what have you.

It's one of the few disappointing things (to me) in Aion. They have a great face creator with body options - but you can't do anything with the outfits. Why? Because *it won't matter in a few levels.* You'll end up with similar gear to every other fighter/mage/ranger/cleric/chanter/etc. in your level range soon enough, because if you don't, you might as well just start insta-funnelling the money you make to the soul healer.

Here? Several of my original (c.2005) characters still have their original costumes. They've moved to IOs, they've respecced, etc. but my Fire/SS tank doesn't look like every other tank, my Elec/Elec blaster isn't less powerful because she's wearing a four and a half year old outfit, my Spine/Inv scrapper is still dressed for his backstory, etc. That, to me, is certainly not a detail - and it's a welcome change from "gear" based MMOs.

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Right. I totally agree with that. My Anarchy Online character is supposed to be an elegant sort, and thanks to the whimsy of equipment, she's stuck wearing what appears to be some sort of molding orange chitin stuff. Having character appearance + effectiveness tied together sucks. I'm not debating that. I'm addressing that single sentence from Sigium. Mechanics-wise, we already have gear; it just doesn't show up on your costume. Some of it is expensive/epic/rare and can make characters significantly more powerful than characters without it. That's all I'm saying.

This about sums it up.

The game says that my Elec/Storm Corruptor's powers are stronger due to IOs.

Capt. Stormrider say his powers are not being increased by jack, he's just had a lot of practice and exercise.

Since nobody can see my IOs, nobody but me has the right to say what they are. I could say it's my snazzy hat that's boosting my powers, and nobody could argue. If I decide that my IOs are an obscure representation of self-training, that's just as valid.

If you want to cobble together a suit of armor and label each piece with a fancy name and a specific fuction relative to your IOs, hey...More power to ya.

(Side note: I always wound up severely pissed off in That Other MMO when I'd find an awesome set of gloves that looked hideous with my robe. I went as far as nerfing myself in the name of good fashion.)

This.

When I started the OP, I thought he was asking for a variety of costume pieces - I was quickly disabused of that notion BTW.

Adding cool-looking bracers, rings, necklaces, etc - great idea! Making them anything other than a costume piece - ick!

This. You don't beat the competition by copying them, you beat them by providing a superior product or service.
While one particular MMO has this feature and is doing well, doesn't mean that it is the perfect feature to port over to this one.

Also: Iron Man is covered in gear (armor). Superman just had tights and a cape.
Blue n00b needs moar gear?
The superhero genre doesn't quite support the "gear" thing as much as the Sword&Sorcery one.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

One example I have personal experience with: Auto Assault, which wanted to be World of Carcraft so bad it hurt.
What they failed to take into account is that that coveted spot already has an 800 (thousand) pound gorilla sitting on it, and he doesn't feel like moving. People who like that sort of thing are already playing that game, so why should they play yours past the 1-2 month novelty stage?

This.

Even with the character descriptions of the stats, it still made me wonder "Oh, fantastic, DEX increases my stealth... By how much?" They have a few percentages, but for things like your critical hit chance and all that stuff. I'd find my equipment increasing [stat] and I wondered "Well, do I NEED that stat at this point? Do I need more?"

Nowhere did I say any of these items would determine the way you look. They could be completely invisible. In short, they would function as global enhancements.

This stuff already exists.

They're called IOs.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Not true, actually. It's possible to hang on to equipment looks you like and turn that appearance into what you keep wearing.

Really? Can you show me how to slot one independent of a specific power?
Any IOs that have the special procs that I listed, or give your toon a specific tweek ( such as debuffing ) that your archtype normally wouldnt have?

What I'm proposing goes a step beyond what IOs or other enhancements would normally give you, and allow you to add a little flavor to your toon.
For example, what spider based villain wouldnt love to have a spider pet proc occasionally?

Essentially you're talking about universal enhancement slots.

It's been talked about before. Not really sure if it's going to go anywhere or not.

As to "pet procs". If it's strictly cosmetic, I could see. Otherwise, in a universal slot format, I'd think it'd be horrendously hard to balance.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

So basically you're trying to claim credit for an idea they've already told us they're working on for Going Rogue?

IO set bonuses don't only affect the power that the set is slotted into.

I'm... not sure I see that happening, for the simple reason that archetypes don't have those "tweaks" already on purpose. If the game's designers had wanted Scrappers to have combat-capable pets or Blasters to be able to debuff, they'd have built them that way.

I wasn't aware of this. If so, that's excellent news. I just hope it isnt plain +def or +dmg SO equivalents. I also hope it's a bit more imaginative than just calling them "global enhancements." Again, giving them names that indicate they're physical items that you wear ( visible or not ) would add something to the game. Making them origin sp//ecific would also ( finally ) make origin actually mean something.

Considering that there is very little in WoW that the WoW developers can claim they invented, the answer is no.
WoW is a great cannibilizer of ideas from other games - something the CoH devs should also consider doing.

Our devs work for NCSoft not Cryptic. They aren't in the habit of implementing bad ideas from other games. If they were this game would be called Champions Online not City of Heroes.

And, really, Co*'s design has already proven to be superior. Other MMORPGs are copying this one. We've had fast travel at early levels from the beginning. We've had solutions to XP griefing almost since the beginning. We've had sidekicking and exemplaring, badges to show accomplishments, the most detailed costume creator in existence, continual free improvements and additions of content and dozens of other features for longer than some MMORPGs have been in existence.

This game was designed around the concept of characters being 100% viable without being forced to grind for rare drops, spend hours in a raid, run with perfect teams or follow carefully contrived builds in order to succeed. This game took a lot of the old paradigms of MMORPG design, threw them out the window and started from a completely different approach, and has been so successful that even the most popular and massive MMORPGs are copying what we've had since day one. To put it simply, for our developers to turn around and start throwing "gear" in (in any form other than enhancements) would be ten steps backward.

Fixed.