Character Architect!

Hi there! Long-time lurker, not-oft poster here. I'm going to be taking a break until GR launches, but something occurred to me today, something that might be worth considering for the future of CoX.

I've always thought that there was something of a dichotomy to the game, a never-ending battle to merge two parts which can never make a seamless whole: superb player customization (costumes, custom missions, etc) and the necessarily rigid structure of the MMO. Over the years, this has created numerous points of friction, between RP'ers and PvP'ers, casual and hardcore gamers, and so on. The above-mentioned are, of course, not the only contentious groups of players, but for most, the ones most seen or heard. Now, what I'm suggesting might help somewhat - or not - but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway.

As I let my sub lapse, I stopped to think about exactly why I am doing so. I thought long and hard about it, and came to an interesting conclusion: my only reason for repeatedly returning was missing the feeling of running characters, decked out, and radiating with (good or evil) glory. For me, the enjoyment of the game was having a variety of 50s - slotted, mostly - and either running content with them for the joy of doing so, or running custom arcs (my own or others') with said characters. I LOVE making characters, I love fine-tuning how their powers and outfits look, I love taking these grand displays of raw power, fluid grace or what-have-you, and being massively heroic (or villainous) with them. Given the opportunity, I could play that way forever, generating countless stories and characters for myself until the servers shut down. However, what kept me leaving in the first place was not enjoying the process of grinding to 50, then griding for weeks or months on end to keep up with the market, to slot them to my liking. I've lost many a character that I would've otherwise loved to play (and would still have) to this.

That being said, there are obviously a few things in the above paragraph that some (if not most) players will disagree with. Many may not care about the look of the character, or think me lazy for wanting the instant gratification of yet another 50 (to tack onto the 8 or so I already have ;p) without stopping to consider how it affects others, either by teaming, the market, earned rewards, and so on. They would be right to think this, of course - the game is fun for everyone in a different way, and having fun in a way that directly impinges (or is even at the expense of) others' enjoyment of the game isn't very nice, and can lead to unpleasantness. I thought about it for a long time...how exactly could I play CoX the way I want to, without exploits, without harming others' enjoyment, or somehow cheapening their accomplishments? Well, funny enough, my idea builds off of what the devs have given us already: the Mission Architect.

The MA allows us to create whatever kinds of stories we can think of. A quick run through the mission arc list (farms notwithstanding) shows us a staggering variety of story types. Mysteries, action arcs, canon, non-canon, themed, pop-culture, the list goes on and on. Heck, my own DC arc is a metaphorically humorous poke at the frustration of writer's block. I've always believed that the devs created the MA for this purpose, allowing us to make our own stories, our own fun, when we found the constant repeating of the content we all know so well to be a touch dull, after the 87th run through it. Too much of a good thing, you know. :P So my thought was, "Why not allow a character creation process that follows this same line of thinking?"

What I mean by this is, the MA is essentially VR entertainment. We already create custom stories, environments and characters within it...why not allow a similar system to create playable characters? We choose their level, powers, colors, and so on. More specifically, I'm proposing the following conditions and limitations for this particular type of player-character:

- A new character can be made, at level 50
- AT, starting costume, colors etc. are chosen as normal
- The character then goes through a version of the respec, picking powers first, then slots
- The character is able to slot (from a Mid's-like interface) what to slot where, from the available SO, IO Hami and Set pieces


Additionally, there would need to be special considerations for this type of "holo-character":

- The character would not be able to earn, accept or trade Inf, Enhancements, Salvage or any other commodity whatsoever, to prevent near-instant destabilization of the market
- The character would either be unable to earn badges not related to the MA, or any at all
- Any team that the holo-character leads gains no rewards, to prevent egregious abuse of farming/power-leveling with insta-50s (this includes tickets, salvage/enh. drops, inf., XP and any other sort of earnable commodity or reward). The character's status would be visible, whether by name color, or a special icon on their character bar when selected. As an alternative, the character may not be able to leave the MA building, or perhaps has an alternate instance/server where such things couldn't possibly interfere with the normal environment
- As the character is unable to trade for or buy Enhancements, they could visit a respec NPC as normal, simply going through the leveling process again. Much like swapping builds on a normal character, there would be a time limit between visits, to prevent abuse of the system


I may have missed a few finer points, but it should be apparent what I'm getting at. It's my hope that this type of character would serve two distinct purposes; to allow people more interested in merely playing characters without cheapening the achievements of those who wish to earn rewards (such as badges, inf, accolades and so on), and to hopefully lessen the impact of discovered exploits (typically used to achieve, in essence, what I've described), so that such things do not grievously de-stabilize the game for those who wish to enjoy it as it was made.

Availability is certainly a concern...perhaps this "mode" can only be accessed by a one-time fee, like a pack or expansion. Perhaps it requires that the account have so many months of veteran time, I'm not sure exactly. Still, that's my idea, in a nutshell. I'm not asking that it be implemented, simply that it be read and considered for ideas - in whole or in part - for the future. Additionally, I humbly request that any discussion be kept civil.

That said...thoughts? Comments, questions?

I like the idea. I can see people using the system to fine tune their build ideas for alts outside the system. See what they can and can't do and adjust accordingly to maximize player joy Gives like a blueprint to strive for, like actually seeing Mids in action. Could be an income source for NC Soft if sold as a booster pack, I'd buy it. Good idea!

so, if i can't earn any rewards at all why would i, want this and why would the devs waste time working on this? i see no point in this.

Unlike some MMOs, the process of "grinding" to the level cap is (believe it or not) the actual game.

Interestingly, that's the game I enjoy. I don't much care for playing this other game called the Market. Can I have a button I can push that will instantly slot my character with all the IOs I want, so I don't have to grind away at something I don't enjoy? 'Cause that'd be awesome.

I know this gets tossed around too much, but this game is all about the journey, not the destination. I'd rather play through levels 1-50, finding new arcs I haven't touched before, learning how to play with that class, and so on, rather than instantly creating a level 50 and forcing myself to be stuck with the mediocre end-game.

I can kind of see what you're going for, and I know of another MMO that has a similar system (Guild Wars, and in fact I only use it - the campaigns are far too grindy for me ), but I don't think it's suitable for CoH.

this is just a bad idea. all it will do is have people screaming about not getting any rewards and/or wanting to do their real characters this way. just because it is in another game is not a good reason for CoX to do it.

You could have a gym, in which you could test your final build.

You would be able to create yourself a build with all the chosen enhancements and accolade bonuses you want on your end build for that char. You would be able to upload it into the gym to test it.

The room could be a room of your descided design and shape whatever. In this room you would have controll over spawning enemies, enemies which could be from cannon or custom. The enemies would give no rewards and would be for testing purposes only.

This would help people descide what they want and would stop people creating builds that end up not working how they want them to and leading to them wasting loads of inf, which in turn would help the market by making more stuff avaliable as people would not use as much.

I say one of the servers should just be a 50 only server. The rest don't have this function.

I kind of like the gym idea, Just as a way to get a "Feel" for a build. I know I'd be apprehensive of wading into a new powerset combo blindly.

While I like the gym idea, I feel its more something for test server. Sure, turn test servers in Mids-in-action. That been said, I really like the OP's idea, however for entirely different reasons. The other day I decider to create arcs for all my characters, telling their backstory in a more interesting way. However, what I would really like is the ability to have other players control my character for certain mission. So when my character tries to escape from prison, you actually control him, instead of just being there and helping him. So basically, when you select the mission, you see a custom character warning, followed by a brief build description (powersets, powerchoices). So the custom character never leaves MA, its just a mission entity like your everyday glowie. As for teaming? Only leader gets to play the custom character. No xp/inf/reward sure is a turnoff, since people expect to lvl while having fun in MA (story arcs, not farm/speed runs), but I don't really see another, xploit-free, way.

I like this idea and would like to see the devs explore putting some sort of option like this in the game.

+1