Tiers, zones, items, and levels
It always saddens for me to see early level areas pretty much empty. It also annoys me when I outlevel contacts, quest givers, and items. This is one of the reasons why I keep suggesting a tiered approach to game content. People usually counter that tiered system doesn't allow a sense of progress but I disagree - in fact I think it's actually the opposite: it encourages progress for a couple of reasons (more about it later).
What is a tiered system? Basically character progression is divided to 3-4 tiers that each consist of around 20 levels. For example tier1 might be levels 1-20, tier2 levels 21-40 etc.
Where this shows up is in quests and enemies. As long as you are within tier you won't outlevel any enemies, items, quests, or zones. Basically they are like Giant Monsters in CoX and are always your level though there are still different ranks such as minions, liutenants and bosses.
The main benefit here is that it allows developers to design better level coverage without need to have places like Atlas Park and Galaxy City being separate from areas like Steel Canyon. Essentially you would have level 1-20 zones instead of level 1-5 zone, level 6-10 zone, level 11-15 zone etc. This means that Galaxy City, Atlas Park, Steel Canyon and Skyway City could all serve as starting locations after which you move to Talos Island, Independence Port, Brickstown or Croatoa.
Tiers and enemy diversity
The other benefit is that you can have wider variety of enemy groups to fight, as well as clear rules when one enemy group ceases to be a threat. This is why it's a tiered system and not a system where all enemies scale to your level.
I find it really annoying when you are fighting thugs with guns at level 1 and thugs with guns at level 50 - or in fantasy terms spiders at level 1 and spiders at level 50. How am I supposed to feel more powerful if I keep killing same enemies through my character career? Though some enemy groups might cover multiple tiers or all.
Even for natural heroes there should be progress from common street thug to organized crime, and paramilitary organizations. Yet even in CoH we see family at level 50.
Again in Cox terms:
- Tier1 (lvl1-20): skulls, hellions, family, lost, outcasts, tsoo, warriors, cimerorans...
- Tier2 (lvl21-40): tsoo, red caps, witches, rikti, crey, sky raiders, freakshow...
- Tier3 (Lvl41-): rikti, crey, praetorians...
- Then there could be some that pop up in all tiers like council, arachnos, CoT...
Tiers and power level
Similarly I believe there should be some upgrades to power appearances. Visuals are a very effective method of telling you grew in power. Something to give you a sense of progress. Tiers are excellent milestones for these.
So instead of having just another version of power x with a new name you actually improve visuals, and power level of existing character abilities.
Levels within tiers are still important as they actually grant you powers and sense of personal character progression. However power/ability gain is slightly more frontloaded to prevent the standard situation where you have only one or two power to start with - and in worst case scenario those require "downtime" through recharges.
Tiers and environments
This is connected to zone design but I also feel that environments should progress from mundane to fantastical while you move through tiers. This is especially true for fantasy games but can also be applied to superhero games.
So it might look something like this in a 3 tier system:
- Tier1: mundane world, landbound, forests, cities, caves... regular stuff
- Tier2: skies, underwater, exotic locations
- Tier3: space, other dimensions
However I feel these are not mutually exclusive. What I mean is that as you progress through tiers more fantastical locations open, but you should still have content in lower tiers as well, and glimpses of upper tiers from lower ones.
Archetypes and Powers (mostly about CoX2)
Here are a few changes I'd like to see in CoX2 if it ever gets created. I believe both CO and CoX are on the right track: powersets are necessary but in my opinion don't have to be AT specific. If CoX2 gets ever created things need to stay familiar but also change a bit. Following ideas are answer to things that I find annoying both in CO and CoX. Feel free to disagree.
These changes should obviously not made in current CoH - changing entire system that has been in place for years would be a very bad idea.
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Archetypes should give bonuses to specific powers and come with an inherent. For example tankers still get their gauntlet and bonus to powers that improve their own defenses. Scrappers get higher crit chance and melee damage bonus etc. Players first pick an archetype and when they are selecting powers from the set those that get the bonus are highlighted so players know to make informed power choices.
I.e. in CoX terms it could look something like this (I combined a few archetypes to get the effect):
- Controller: +1 to all control power magnitudes and +50% duration; +buff/debuff power effectiveness
- Tanker: +max hp, +defensive power effectiveness, +gauntlet (AoE taunt on hits), +X magnitude protection vs status effects (not supremely high so that in team situations they still benefit from mez prot buffs)
- Scrapper: +melee damage modifier, +chance to crit with all powers, +X magnitude protection vs status effects (lower than tanker one)
- Blaster: +ranged damage modifier, +scourge (deal increasing damage on mobs with low hp)
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All themed powers under one set. So the new fire set would have all fire themed powers. The reasoning here is that this allows more versatile picks for powers. You can for example have mix of ranged and melee with a splash of control and defense. After all, this is close to what we get now on higher levels and it seems to work.
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No ranged attacks in melee unless they have versatile trait! This means that if your current target gets into melee range you either switch to melee or find a way to get him out of melee range (i.e. immobilize and back off, or knock him away). Versatile trait is required for attacks like single target roots, or knockback powers, or powers like shockwave.
The reasoning for this is to prevent spamming of a single attack and to increase viability of melee attacks. The PvP balance issues with ranged vs melee are common and this might help a bit with it.
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Endurance builds in combat and acts as a damage bonus, like fury, but also unlocks heavy hitting powers which in turn consume endurance. So in some cases it is more useful to hit basic attacks (i.e. when fighting a few minions) and in others you wish to unleash your full might (defeating whole group of minions, hitting a boss with heavy hitter).
The reasoning for this is that running out of endurance is one of the most annoying things that can happen. You are basically reduced to waiting until you have enough endurance to unleash even basic attacks. Not fun.
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Basic tapped attacks are used to build endurance for heavier attacks. These attacks you use most and are always available: they don't have recharges, they don't root, you don't charge them, and they cast nearly instantly. These attacks should essentially cover all themes within the set. I.e. for fire: fire blast (ranged), ring of fire (control), scorch/fire sword (melee), heatstroke (debuff), and cauterize (buff).
The reasoning for this is that I'd wager most people hate waiting for their powers to recharge and animate. Early levels in CoX are painful before you get a proper attack chain. You also don't want to stop charging every damn power which is the problem that *I* have with CO. Both slow down especially early combat. CO style endurance builders are also annoying.
Why have annoying, insignificant attacks that serve no other purpose than to build endurance when you could have actual real attacks that do the same?
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Combo chains should be used by basic attacks to allow some things that shouldn't be done immediatelly. For example ring of fire might immobilize a single target with first two hits and then actually hold the target with third one. Below are a few possible combos:
- Fire Blast: Tap1 (damage) --> Tap2 (damage) --> Tap3 (small AoE)
- Ring of Fire: Tap1 (immobilize) --> Tap2 (immobilize) --> Tap3 (hold)
- Heat Exhaustion: Tap1 (debuff damage) --> Tap2 (debuff damage) --> Tap3 (damage debuffed foe)
The reasoning for this is of course that some things shouldn't be allowed to do immediatelly. Currently in CoX it's way easy for a few persons to destroy whole spawn before others even have chance to land hits. Similarly why immobilize when you can hold?
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Heavy hitting attacks and AoEs should be unlocked once you have enough endurance. These can be chargeable or maintained or what not - like in CO. They can even have timers for nuke type powers.
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Less toggles and more passives that enhance toggles might be a good idea too. Especially since toggles won't be consuming endurance. Toggles are still nice to have because they can be suppressed via mez, and as such pretty much a necessity for any sort of AoE buff.
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Mez protection should be mostly left to break free type click powers, and as passive mez resistance (that is, mez duration is reduced). The reasoning here is that currently scrapper and tanker ATs are pretty much immune to enemy mezzes while blasters and others are heavily penalized by them.
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Charge (bullrush) powers for melee types. These function basically like lightning rod and shield charge now, except they close distance between ranged and melee and also break free from immobilize effects. These allow building of purely melee characters because with immobilizes/holds/knockbacks there is an option to build pure ranged character - even if they can't use ranged attacks if someone melees them, they can always mez them and back away.
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No pools. Signature powers and power swapping are the way to power diversity. Power swapping means that at certain levels you can swap out one of your set powers to power from another set. Signature powers are fully customizable powers that you earn a few during your career.
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Diminishing returns to powers and harsher than what they are in CO. Basically this means you are going to be hitting soft caps much sooner than in CoX but also that your initial numbers can be higher. This is even a necessity considering now all ATs can get armors and/or AoE buffs. Naturally those with tanker AT should be able to get more out of their defenses.
Fire Control sample (about CoX2)
Below is a sample fire set. It uses CoX powers and it certainly isn't meant to be a "full" set. More like a draft of what could be. It's also more focused on damage and debuffs than some of the current fire sets are. Ideally the set has alternate animations and FX so you would rather have "fire melee" than "fire sword" - and ability to use power customization for fiery sword.
I feel some of the current power combinations are a bit silly (I mean, you actually shield someone with a shield made from fire, and that protects against ranged damage... uh, right). If you want buffs and healing you can use the "swap out" feature I mentioned before and pull a heal from other set - such as empathy.
I also feel all sets should have an inherent power that is only available for that set. If you use the swap out feature to pull powers from other sets, they are not affected by the set bonus.
You still normally pick powers from the set. They are not all available to you instantly, and some depend on other powers.
Fire Manipulation
- Fire inherent: chance for contangious fire DoT
Basic attacks/powers: no recharges, no end cost, always available, build endurance, have to cover all ATs, combos for greater final hit. These are the stuff you use most.
- Fire Blast (ranged damage; combo3: final hit for AoE splash damage)
- Fire Sword (melee damage; combo3: final hit has high chance to crit)
- Ring of Fire (ranged control; combo3: final hit holds target)
- Heat Exhaustion (ranged debuff; combo3: final hit deals fire damage and may disorient)
Instant attacks/powers: can have minor recharges, can use only at certain endurance level, effect scales with the amount of endurance you have, consume all endurance when used. These would be the powers that you use when basic attacks just aren't enough: to AoE a spawn or to take out a boss. The catch is that you can't use them until you have hit with a few basic attacks. Heck you could even have them do some damage when you have zero endurance since their damage heavily scales with your level of endurance.
- Fireball (ranged AoE damage; damage scales with endurance)
- Fire Cages (AoE immobilize; duration scales with endurance)
- Fire Sword Circle (PBAoE damage; damage scales with endurance)
- Melt Armor (AoE debuff; debuff severity scales with endurance)
- Blaze (high single target ranged damage; damage scales with endurance)
- Cremate (high single target melee damage; damage scales with endurance)
Special Attacks/Powers: something out of ordinary going with these attacks. They may be maintained or charged or what not. May consume endurance or may replace basic attack but not build endurance. Basically these are not used in a normal way and actually root you or *stop* the flow of combat. Most likely powers some people love to hate or hate to love while others go glee. This is where CO fails most in a sense that pretty much all powers are these "break flow the combat" powers - they require charges, or maintaining, or you to stay still.
- Blazing Bolt (ranged sniper attack)
- Breath of Fire (maintained cone with guaranteed contagious fire damage and fear)
- Consume (mantained PBAoE endurance drain with minor fire damage)
- Incinerate (melee range single target root and maintained fire DoT)
- Power of the Phoenix (rez target or self if no target)
Recharge intensive attacks/powers: these are too powerful to not have recharges, but they are also fast casting. Usually fire and forget powers and powers that allow you to focus on doing something else, or "oh &ยค#&" powers.
- Combust (consume fire cages/RoF and deal high damage)
- Flashfire (fire and forget AoE disorient)
- Fiery Embrace (releases you from mez effects and boosts fire damage)
- Rain of Fire (fire and forget AoE)
Nukes: these are the most powerful, top tier attacks. They have recharges, and do weird things to your character - and hopefully worse things to enemies. These shouldn't be affected by any sort of recharge bonus. They are that powerful!
- Cinders (PBAoE fire hold with charge up)
- Inferno (PBAoE fire nuke with charge up)
Toggles: are you shields and other protective powers that are basically always on except if you are mezzed. Most armor powers should be toggles. There should be also less overlap with armors within sets. So if someone wants to be a fire themed tank, swap out a power and get invulnerability because Fire shield is mostly about fire and cold resistance - and about damaging surrounding foes.
- Fire Shield (+high fire and cold res, +minor smash/lethal res; PBAoE fire DoT)
- Hot Feet (PBAoE slow and minor DoT)
Passives: enhance existing powers and give set flavor. They also offer mez resistance (that is decrease in mez durations, not protection). Currently in CoX most passives aren't worth the time. Maybe in CoX2 this changes (if it ever gets made)? In fact I dare say that for example most invulnerability set powers should be passives.
- Greater Fire Sword (replaces your fire sword with a more damaging one)
- Smoke (fire attacks add minor perception and to hit debuff)
- Temperature Protection (+fire and cold res, +res slow)
Pets: are your... well. Pets. Controllable or uncontrollable. Masterminds probably have their own sets - or perhaps the speciality of mastermind is that they can pick pets from any set!
- Fire Imps (summons a swarm of tiny uncontrollable fire elementals; mobile DoT)
- Flame Servant (controllable pet with both melee and ranged attacks; customizable model)
About Missions
One of the most important things for me are missions. Questing is the core of game experience for me and without interesting missions the game simply ceases to interest me. This is mostly what happened to CoX - albeit only after four years but nowadays I've very little tolerance for it. Everything else in CoX is pretty nice, and it's customization, WW and ambience which keep me entertained, but CoX seriously still "fails" in missions.
I tend to talk about missions being boring and feeling wrong, however this seems to often translate to the idea that I think mission story is boring - it's usually not, it's just that missions are mechanically boring. You go in, kill everything, sometimes skip most of the content and kill only the end boss, and then get out. This is what happens in many taskforces, too!
I like instanced content but I feel CoX seriously underuses its instance potential. Instances are the best way to give personalized experience: destructive environments, traps, changing maps, subgoal driven objectives... all this in CoX comes down to "find a blinky, click it/destroy it" or "get ambushed by a spawn you can see from miles away" or "defeat all" or "defeat boss". Now this all is fine if it's the primary goal. However road to the primary goal is what should matter, and that could be more interesting.
Also travelling to missions can be boring. It's not the travel itself, it's the travel being completelly unrelated waste of a time when it could be part of the mission itself. Endlessly repeating maps don't help either.
Below is a mission sample that is at least a bit more complex. It is mostly approached from a mechanical point of view, and doesn't actually tell any sort of real story.
The Temple of Doom
Enemy group: CoT
Primary objective: destroy wards protecting the temple, defeat main villain
Secondary objectives: prevent summoning, destroy teleport hindering obelisks, help midnighters, perform ritual of destruction, destroy debuff altar
Allies: midnighters
Enemies: villains, flying villains
Hazards: vines, temple debuff
The mission starts with a cutscene of Circle mages chanting in perez, the ground shakes and suddenly a temple and various large thorns erupt from ground. Circle mages and ghosts pour out of the temple and attack other villains.
Players are ported to the mission map: the air space is filled with flying CoT patrols (ghosts), and there are groups of CoT mages chanting around obelisks. There are a few fights between different villain groups, and Midnighters have erected a force bubble near Steel Canyon entrance, and are fighting CoT.
The goal of players is to find a path to the temple through the forest maze but this path changes every time. Those who choose to fly must fight with the flying patrols where as groundbound characters need to enter the forest maze, only now thorn tree vines erupt from ground and form blocking walls, and attack heroes (you destroy the walls and vines to proceed).
Teleportation is not possible until players destroy obelisks and defeat the villains guarding them (so no flyby or stealth teleporting before that).
The temple itself is warded against entry. You have to destroy the wards protecting it. When you attack wards they alert a group of CoT who show up on the scene, lead by rather nasty elite boss. If you choose to help Midnighters they will give you protective charms (temporary powers) that work well against the EBs, and you can even have a Midnighter ally to help you. Temp powers are removed when mission completes.
As you enter the temple another cutscene plays with some head honcho proclaiming doom and starts a ritual with mage lackeys. Timer starts. The temple is filled with vine corridors - dozens of vines that smack you around as you navigate the temple. Even better, the initial room has CoT teleporter that scatters the party and you all have to make your own way to central room (spawns are adjusted to single size but you still have to go through vines).
The main villain is surrounded by a large spawn of CoT but those with magical gift (magic origin) can take a detour to a subgoal location that allows them to perform a ritual that zaps the spawns around main villain to death. There's also an altar within the temple that causes constant defense and resistance debuff to heroes until destroyed.
Finally if the time runs out the CoT summon an AV (EB if solo) so now you are facing both EB and AV (or EB and EB).
I find missions like this much more interesting since they have a lot secondary goals that can help you to complete the primary one but aren't 100% necessary. They also bring AT into play which is nice too. They are also great for ambience.
The above is actually very simple mission idea. I've certainly more complex ones. I've to also discuss about zone events (my other love) in a new post.
I'm waiting for the end.
I'm only ladylike when compared to my sister.
About trial zones and zone events
Zone events are another thing that I feel are sort of underused feature - or rather I feel the zone event should have a build up period, and to be player triggered. For example consider current Steel Canyon: no one is blinking an eye when fires start there - it's done only to get badge. It's also completelly random so you are not likely to stop your mission and rush to help citizens.
What I'd like to see is sort of open mission where there are multiple small spawns of hellions setting up fires even when the event is not running. There's a counter with overlay similar to what deadly apocalypse has. As players defeat groups the counter goes up until hellions show up in force and start the actual torching of Steel Canyon. Players who contributed most get a few merits while everyone who contributed for the event gets something - i.e. recipe drop, or badge.
Even better if players are rewarded with fireman themed costume pieces and/or temporary powers because temporary powers are something that help quite a lot in lower level gameplay.
There should be also a repeatable lower level mission where you can defeat hellions for mission rewards (defeat x type) granted at the police station.
All in all I feel zones that have a theme and missions build around it are very good and fun. This is one of the reasons why I'm wondering why the interactive ones are mostly reserved for PvP? I mean in Siren's you can do missions to buff allies within zone (why not in PvE?) and in RV the environment changes based on fights, and there are a lot cool toys to have (turret stations and giant killer robots) why not in PvE side?
Maybe the answer is with lack of open world missions. They are something CoX is currently lacking - and it's always more rewarding if it also starts a mission. Incidently zone events are also one of the things where I feel tiered gameplay helps: you spend more time at the zones. Part of the problem currently is that while mission mobs scale to your level, outdoor mobs usually don't.
Oh and for fun a zone event that may happen in... say... Boomtown if it ever gets redesigned. Combines an open world event with instance. The zone being built around this event! Indeed trial zones are the best choice for these. 
Citadel in the Sky
Enemy Group: Rikti
Allies: NPC heroes, paragon police, vanguard
The Rikti have brought in one of their motherships and attack the zone! The event starts with storm brewing and the zone darkening. A whirling nexus can be seen on a sky and swarms of Rikti drones appear from it. Some of them patrol the skies while others start actually assaulting enemy groups, heroes and NPC allies on the ground.
Soon after the mothership descents and starts powering up. Rikti ground troops start porting in and join the assault. Heroes can fight the Rikti and enter the mothership. There they have to fight hordes of Rikti and crash it down (yay for cutscenes) before it manages to unleash a massive blast (zonewide nuke). Players also have to defeat pylons and can man turret stations to take down Rikti.
This zone basically has two states now like RV: "normal" and "newly destroyed".
Then have some NPC allies actually help and provide aid when the event starts. Build the zone missions around this event too!
I'd like to address this...
Primary objective: destroy wards protecting the temple, defeat main villain
Secondary objectives: prevent summoning, destroy teleport hindering obelisks, help midnighters, perform ritual of destruction, destroy debuff altar
Primary Objectives: Break Object and Defeat Spawn, Defeat Boss
Secondary Objectives: Defeat Spawns performing rituals, Destroy Object and Defeat spawn, Rescue Ally, Click Object (Unique to origin), Destroy Object.
Most everything you put in the "Unique and new mission" is handled entirely through CoH's current engine design and consists of current goals. It's just a mish with a lot -more- of them all at once. Though making Magic Origin characters able to hit one altar (Ritual of Destruction) would require a -bit- more coding...
A lot of us tend to like the simple rush in, fight fight fight, finish the mish, leave style of gameplay because we wind up on budgeted time. Sometimes I've only got 20 minutes to play. Making missions with a half dozen "Sub Goals" just requires the player to run back and forth across the mission map (which would need to be fairly large) in order to complete the mission. And while that's -fine- for Task Forces and the occasional storyarc mission it would totally ruin this game for a lot of players (those with time constraints) if applied to -most- missions in the game.
All you're describing in this "Temple of Doom" mission is a Task Force or Objective Heavy mission. We already have some of those. Maybe you should play them, more often. Especially if they're going to be replaced (See Posi TF as potential starting point for Freedom Phalanx TF revamp)
-Rachel-
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Indeed and this is what I'm looking for. I want more goals to my missions than just go in, kill all, next... ok thx. It can be fun but it soon gets tediously boring. The entire point was that it doesn't have to be revolutionary, just more interesting (from my perspective of course).|
Originally Posted by Steampunkette
<snip>Most everything you put in the "Unique and new mission" is handled entirely through CoH's current engine design and consists of current goals. It's just a mish with a lot -more- of them all at once. Though making Magic Origin characters able to hit one altar (Ritual of Destruction) would require a -bit- more coding...
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| A lot of us tend to like the simple rush in, fight fight fight, finish the mish, leave style of gameplay because we wind up on budgeted time. Sometimes I've only got 20 minutes to play. Making missions with a half dozen "Sub Goals" just requires the player to run back and forth across the mission map (which would need to be fairly large) in order to complete the mission. And while that's -fine- for Task Forces and the occasional storyarc mission it would totally ruin this game for a lot of players (those with time constraints) if applied to -most- missions in the game. |
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All you're describing in this "Temple of Doom" mission is a Task Force or Objective Heavy mission. We already have some of those. Maybe you should play them, more often. Especially if they're going to be replaced (See Posi TF as potential starting point for Freedom Phalanx TF revamp) -Rachel- |
Also one of the problems with current TFs and trials is that it is way too easy to skip to end. We did Eden trial a few days ago and ended up skipping pretty much all enemies save for those that we actually had to. I believe that tells something about the design (it's not even very ambient when mobs just stand in large groups and growl).
I'd rather spent 20 minutes in one mission than 1 minute in 20 missions, unless it's simply "find a glowy put into weirdest of places". I'm not even against splitting the mission to multiple parts, but then those parts shouldn't have hordes of spawns between you and the goal so it ends up being doubly tedious. I like defeating spawns if I've a clear goal, but it can quickly get tedious which is the primary reason for "stealth to end" objectives.
Nothing is worse than cave and tech maps that go on forever... I always stealth those if I can, they are mind numbingly boring.
Okay. Let me go through this the easy way.
Level-range limits on enemies with specific traits: NO. Not all of my characters are meant to be global threat resolving heroes. Sometimes I don't want to play Superman. Sometimes I want to play Spiderman. Spiderman has been around for decades and spent most of it fighting goons with guns and a handful of powered villains. Same goes for Batman and other heroes. By limiting "Street" heroes to level 20 you shorten the game life for them incredibly.
Zone Event restructuring: Zone Events (Zombies, Rikti, Supernatural events) Despawn other enemies. By putting control of their spawning into the hands of players through zone-missions and applying the event to multiple or ALL zones you kill every "Hunt" mission currently in progress. Even TF hunt missions. Some players leave zones to avoid the lag-fests that zone events cause. Making them spawn in all zones would leave them nowhere to flee, save maybe the Pocket D or something similar. Don't turn my Heroine into a Bomb Shelter bunker buddy.
Power/AT Restructuring: The game was originally slated to launch with players choosing any powers they liked. This lead to "Fail" characters and "Uber" characters. Fail characters could not win a fist fight with a hellion at level 20. Ubers could punch Statesman out by level 30. Yes this is exaggeration, but it gets the point across.
Players with multiple Limbs/Animal PCs: Both options would require completely new models and animations built from the ground up. Then they would require completely new skins of every costume piece and option currently available. The work required to do this is phenomenal. The payoff: Not so much.
Aerial Battles are limited by both NPC AI and player willingness to plummet from the sky as end-costs drain them. NPC AI is finicky to deal with, and currently makes enemies close for melee attacks, so a person on the ground can aggro a flying target and fight them without flying. Aerial battles also cause some characters to be incapable of using some powers (Superstrength, Earth Control, Fire Control, and Stone Armor leap to mind)
Removing endurance and replacing it with "Building" powers: This would basically require players to spam the same attack 4-5 times before pulling out a bigger and more interesting power. While you may enjoy this, I like opening combat with a Shield Charge or Foot Stomp. Besides, if we give everyone Fury; What do Brutes get? And you do realize that brutes have the lowest melee damage AT multiplier based on their ability to generate fury. Would we lower ALL player damages in order to allow "Fury"?
No recharge on some attacks: This ties into the "Spam your Tier 1 until you can fire off your tier 3" argument. It's not a playstyle everyone wants. Considering it's the playstyle of Champions Online and we're still playing City of Heroes I'd say it's a playstyle a Majority does not want.
Ability to customize pets: Labor Intensive, Memory Intensive, Little potential pay off. They might look into it at some point.
Animal Summoning: See Animal Skeleton comments.
Instance Potential wasted: Each instance in World of Warcraft or Champions Online is individually hand crafted and takes FOREVER to design, map out, build, playtest, and repeat. This is why CoH has procedural missions with randomized maps. While I wouldn't mind seeing some advanced, hand-crafted maps/events/missions I would prefer simply adding more variety to the procedural maps (new tilesets, new options, potentially maps wihch support multiple goals simultaneously without spawning issues). That said more Unique maps are nice to have.
AVs Are bags of hit points: I don't know about you, but I despise the ITF. Going through every challenge, having a blast even in lag valley, beating down entire armies worth of Cimerorans, and then being stymied by a single opponent because an integral teammate dropped or had to leave for an emergency is not my idea of "Fun". I happen to hate Gimick fights where you have to complete some sideways series of requirements in order to defeat a specific opponent. This is not the Legend of Zelda, where all bosses require you to hit a weak spot. This is City of Heroes where a character may not be able to REACH a weak spot artificially tacked onto a specialized enemy.
Fully customizable signature powers: Plausible, not probable. We've got power customization with the potential of having multiple animations/particle effects/etc in the future. Isn't that good enough?
Travel Powers at level 1 and Travel power attacks: Kheldians and Warshades, Air Superiority, Jump Kick, and Flurry. The reason players don't, generally, have travel powers at level 1 is, most likely, time inflation. An MMO requires (to be successful) roughly 400 hours of play time per player. Whether it is 100 hours of travel, 120 hours of hunting badges, 30 hours of roleplay, 50 hours of PVP, and 100 hours of fighting NPCs or some other combination. Travel eats up time. Time is spent over the course of a Month, multiple months mean multiple instances of payment means a greater profit for the work involved in creating the game. Time spent Traveling is a function of Money.
Power change suggestions: Incredibly difficult to balance, incredibly difficult to code, incredibly huge number of powers to apply the design to. Bear in mind how many powers and powersets this would apply to, and then apply it to every powerset that hasn't been created, yet.
Damage Scales based on total remaining endurance: BAD idea, since it means one fireball wipes out my whole end bar. Another problem with removing endurance: Toggles. How would armors work? For free? How fair is that?
In short... City of Heroes has lasted six years and change on the design and engine it's had. Asking for huge, sweeping changes without understanding the effort behind them and the ultimate effect on the game is folly. If you like Champions Online's method of handling powers (Everyone dishes out the same damage for the same attacks, repeat the same attack 4 times to do a new attack, woo!) then play Champions Online.
-Rachel-
Wow...that's a lot of text. First, thanks for the effort of posting such detailed information. No way I could reply/comment on all that information.
I will follow Steampunkette's lead and just point out a few:
1) The "tap-tap" power build up: I would cancel my account within 2 seconds of this being introduced or never buy if a sequel. I have a SS brute. I want to use my SS. I want to go into a group of mobs, say "Hi fellas!", then proceed to stomp the ground from under their feet.
2) S/TF's and skipping to the end: This game has been out for a while. I have done Eden too many times. Is there a reason we need to kill the mobs skipped? The devs can't go in for every mission in a S/TF and make all these mobs do something for the objective. They have S/TFs now down to a reasonable time (~1 to 2 hr in my experience) and have them ran more often because player like to run them. IMO, that tells me they are well designed if the players are playing.
3) No ranged attacks in melee: Have you ever been ambused like on the ITF and the mobs pop all around you? My defs or corrs would really be at a disadvantage since they do not have any melee attacks except brawl. And mobs can immobilize you like the web grenades and get into melee range. For examply, if my ice/cold corr was immobilized, she wouldn't be able to attack or use her holds since they are ranged and the mobs come into melee distance. She couldn't even fly out of it.
Thanks for the replies. I was quite sure there would be people who disagree with me and that's one of the reasons why I placed "CoX2" in the title. I think there's room for both games because I personally would like to see an approach to combat that someone are bound to call "consoly" while having interesting missions (especially open missions).
Even so, my next game is probably going to be Guild Wars 2 since they are actually trying to do something new with their game quests - or so it seems. Either way, NCSoft keeps the money. I just hope the combat is not mind numbingly boring "spend two minutes to exchange spells" style.
A few comments to PennyPA:
As to the Eden trial. It just seems to me that there's something wrong with the trial if you actually wish to skip to the end. Either it's too long or then badly designed. Perhaps it is because for me it has been more than two years since I last did it, and still I didn't feel I missed anything by skipping to the end. It felt just a bit pointless and uninspiring.
Oh and the "no ranged attacks in melee" is not going to work for current CoX - or it might, but everyone is just too used to having ranged attacks working in melee. Besides most ATs lack melee attacks currently. Still, it's not like you lose the ranged attacks if there are mobs within melee range, you lose them if your current target is within melee range - and then you switch to melee attacks, PBAoEs or tap target and fireball some critter a bit further away - or optionally knock them away from you. Most are things that controllers, defenders and corruptors can do currently.
Then to Steampunkette's comments:
Fair enough about level gated enemies. Just make there optional paths where you don't have to fight mooks with guns unless you have to. This is where tiered gameplay helps again. Have "natural path to max level", "magic path to max level" etc.
For zone events you could use trial zones. To me Crey's folly is pretty much a graveyard, so is Dark Astoria (which has awesome fog theme). Boomtown is also empty. Doesn't have to be within city zones. And events like hellions setting up fires could still happen within regular zones as they aren't that invasive - in fact they would add some new missions to Steel Canyon.
As to power/AT structuring. Yes, it would fail if you have free access to all powers. That's why you still pick a powerset, only now your powerset has more choices. You have a few options to swap out powers but that doesn't mean completelly free power selection - or are you saying people aren't borderline overpowered now?
A player who knows how to build IOed character with maximum defenses is going to be hugely more survivable than regular character. In fact it was recently pointed out to me that my Boardsword/Shield scrapper isn't quite properly build since he doesn't have tough, weave, aid self, and hasten. More importantly I wouldn't even dream about playing him without stamina. All this is bad from my perspective, and probably from perspective of a new player. Sets guarantee you have the basics covered and some limitations for picks. It's just that you have more flexibility if every thematic power is in one set. Currently most sets duplicate most powers anyways (i.e. tanker fire melee has a lot same powers as blaster fire manipulation).
As to animal characters. Again I've to agree that animal model should be something appearing in the new game. I believe they could have male, female and animal. Huge can be probably nowadays handled with better "tech" (I don't know as I'm not a modeller or animator, but I think so?).
As to powers: yes, I think toggles should be free. Their main downside is that they can be suppressed - in theory. This is not possible in current CoX. It's also not something I'd change in *current* CoX.
I also think you missed part of the point: some of these things were meant as suggestions to potential sequel. I don't expect them to completelly change how CoX currently works - that would be silly and cause a huge uproar for people who have stayed faithful to CoX. It would be like changes to Star Wars Galaxies, and lead a lot people leaving the game.
Still, they can do some things to smoothen the lack of attack chains and with endurance problems that lower level characters suffer from. I don't have the attack chain problem as I have sands of mu, blackwand and nemesis staff because of vet rewards but I remember how painful it was when I didn't have those. I also tend to create characters who are light on endurance consumption, or provide recovery early on, as running out of end is something that aggravates me to a point that it makes me want to turn into a villain and hurt people responsible for endurance mechanic (if villains didn't suffer from the same problem).
As to AV battles. Some of them seem to be very much AT dependant or you can't simply kill them. One of the key things is that there shouldn't be a proper "set up" for a team. There should be always tools within the mission to be able to complete the fight. Whether it's some sort of battle strategy, using enevironment and zone triggers to your benefit, or simply by granting players temporary powers (on a side note: I do like ITF and in fact looking to join into ITF team if anyone is planning to run one during reasonable (European) hours. ).
As to other things. I disagree with them on the grounds that they are playstyle dependant. If they ever get around to creating CoX2 they need to keep in mind that it has to stay somewhat familiar to players, but also change things. As I said: there's probably room for both games. I mean CoX is not going to keep for example me for long, I pop in and out to check new content, but after 54 months it is just too much same old. I still have interest for a different kind of superhero MMO - just not too different as CoX does many things well. Perhaps DC Universe Online actually will be released and proves out to be a good game?
Why I don't like CO combat...
Oh forgot to comment on CO combat. CO combat is not what I want. CO combat is about turning on autospamming endurance builder that does insignificant damage so you can actually use "real" attacks, and all those "real attacks" usually require either maintenance or charging. This leads to a situation where you simply spam the endurance builder and then use same attack, repeatedly - and in a manner that completelly halts the flow of combat.
I argued for long while CO was in development that they should nuke the endurance builders and replace them with real attacks that actually do damage AND build endurance. I don't think anyone calls fire sword, scorch or fire blast unnecessary attacks? At least I use them all. Especially if they can drop minions with just a few applications. What I hate in CoX is "building the attack chain with no pauses" which even some of my 50s can't achieve.
My idea is to have no pauses (other than animation) basic attacks that are perfectly capable of dropping minions and damaging liutenants. Switch to heavy hitters to finish off the tougher foes or to AoE the spawn - and empty your bar in process. Since your basic attacks are actually viable attacks the useless feel of CO endurance builders shouldn't be as much of a problem.
I also argued the CO has too many chargeable powers since most of your time is spent charging attack - same one attack. That was boring as hell and made combat stagger. It was spam end builder, charge AoE, spam end builder, charge AoE all over and over and over. Not fun. Most powers really need to be instant casting with charge powers and maintained powers being an exception (for really heavy hitting or special powers). This at least CoX gets right.
For CO it also made no sense that they seemed to make arbitrary decisions on what powers had recharge and what not. You could easily Fireball entire spawn nonstop but try to use much weaker melee cone maintained attack you suddenly had a recharge? In a system where you can freely pick powers? Yeah, that's going to go well...
What makes charging in CO even more frustrating is that there's also no indication how long you need to charge a power to have enough damage to drop a minion, so you usually fully charged it just in case, even if you could tap it. Oh and since most AoEs do (or at least did) same amount of damage, or actually more, than single target attacks, you would use those all the time.
There were also no real attacks that didn't require endurance. You had to build endurance to be able to use ALL attacks, and even heals - though running out of endurance is also a bad thing in CoX. The "rage bar" endurance system has the benefit that you always have you basic attacks - they even enjoy a damage bonus when endurance is high.
You also have your special powers that don't consume endurance and that you use as openers (i.e. snipes), or in special situations (build ups/break frees, rezzes), or even to get back some endurance (consume type powers). This is what adds flavor to combat and not just spamming same one attack.
Then there's also the issue with buffs being pretty much worthless. What's the point of Protection Field if it has 15s recharge timer and alpha from three henchmen is going to drop it instantly - or a single hit from any other enemy? With the rest of the damage bleeding through? It's like someone cast deflection shield at target, only that you can cast it once every 15s and it drops from the first hit.
Finally CO also suffers from stupid enemies, boring missions and weird graphics that are all off putting for me. Heck if it had STO-like graphics it might be more interesting. Missions still suck, and open world mostly lacks any sort of ambience. Then there was the whole release fiasco with imbalanced powers getting to release and the "repair patch" AFTER beta - even after we kept repeatedly telling them the powers are not balanced. Oh and then there were the content gaps, and no real end game content, too fast leveling (for no end game content) etc etc.
I felt like discussing about a few things concerning CoX and potential CoX2. First post is a simple list about my likes and dislikes, and about things I'd like to see eventually. The second and third posts go into more details. These are just my thoughts so feel free to disagree with them. In fact it would be interesting to see how many people do (and I bet there are many).
Likes
*CoX has the best ambient life in any game that I've seen. This alone has kept me entertained for a long time. Lacking animals though - and lacking weather.
Dislikes
*Quests/Missions are the downfall of CoX for me. It's also the downfall of CO. When I talk about improving quests and making them more interesting, it seems to translate into developer head as "better story" (and more text). This is not what I look for even though story is important for me. It's actually game mechanics I'm looking forward to.
Wishlist