Favoured Opponents

Okay, so this was an odd idea I was mulling over at work. Sometimes, a hero or villain will just be out to save/conquer the world in general, yes? This we already do, we have many, many choices of who to punch at a given time.

But sometimes, a hero or villain really just has it in for one group of people, perhaps they killed their dog, stole their socks, took over their country, who knows! But this person has declared a war on that group of people.

They have made them their Favoured Opponents.

Well how does this work then?

What I was thinking is that at a certain level, oh say, L10, you are given the option to pick a favoured oppenent group from the various factions in the game, say you really wanted to Kill Skuls or something, you'd choose Skulls. Or you could simply decline to favour a group.

The character would then get a small damage and experience bonus against that faction. They would also get missions in their Favoured Opponents contacts tab, just the usual newspaper/radio style mission stuff, and perhaps even the occasional ambush (after all, groups don't like to be picked on.) Characters who decline would get these bonuses possibly on just newspaper/radio missions in general, I dunno, I didn't think that part through.

To prevent the bonuses being abused however, it would be subject to dimishing returns. The damage and experience bonus would begin to drop off after so many mobs, until it is non-existant. At this point, the character would then have to do a number of missions/defeat a number of mobs of other factions to regain the bonus.

At every, say, fith level, they would be given the option to re-choose their favoured opponent, to keep up with the changes in factions throughout the game, however if they stick, I'm thinking the tab missions will scale up the levels of the mobs to match (perhaps further up than the player if they are a low level faction with attacks not designed for high level players.)

Examples!

1) Hiro Protagonist really, really dosn't like the minions of Igneous. They kind of creep him out to be honest, and besides, he wants to add to his esoteric but fascinating pumice collection. Unfortunatly for Hiro, there arn't many Minions of Igneous in the game, so his Favoured Opponent is hard to get to. Luckily since he selected them, he can go hunting them through generic missions as much as he likes, yay for Hiro!

2) Ima Vigel Ente Sort of dosn't like the Crey. They get up his nose, thinking they are smarter than everyone else. He'll show them! He's picked them as his favoured enemy. Unfortunatly for Ima, he's running a 342 mission Crey arc about putting hero brains in cybernetic hamsters. But hey, it was nice to get that bonus for the first couple of missions. And he still really dosn't like the Crey.

Bonus Ideas of overthetopness!

In the Favoured Oppenent contact tab, you also have a guage that fills with mobs defeated (1 point per mob) and missions accomplished (10 points?) After a fairly high number, this guage will fill, and the character will be offered a Resolution Mission (or something.)

This will come in the form of an NPC contact (Could be anybody really) asking why exactly that hero or villain has it in for that group. Now the answers possible should be vauge and wide, something along the lines of:

"So why do you keep putting laxatives in Longbow's coffee supply, Arch Villain Fluffykins?

"Choose:-
Revenge
Justice
They are a threat to me
They are a threat to the others
I don't want to talk about it
Funsies"

They will then get to do a larger, harder mission, with an elite boss maybe. And after that will be granted a souvineer with some vauge flavour text about how you hounded your favoured enemy for X GENERIC REASON over the course of your career, and a badge for the reason chosen. That faction will then no longer be selectable as a Favoured Oppenent, but other factions can be chosen and taken to other Resolutions.

Anyway, Like I said, odd idea I had that I mulled over far to long, but hey, what is boredom for =D

So, thoughts?

So basically, you want to make it easier for people to farm.

Well no, that severely not the point, which I tried to counteract with the dimishing returns, but hey, I've never even attempted to farm anything what do I know about game balance in that regard.

This is all about character concept and flavour, just another customisable thing to make your journey through Paragon really that characters.

I would be happy if all it did was make that enemy always appear in at least one of the options for Radio/Paper Missions. No bonus necessary and my character can always fight the enemy she hates (they know who they are!) when she wants.

Only real issue I see with this is the fact that quite a few enemy groups in game simply don't go past a certain level.

The reason you don't see Skuls in the late game is the group simply doesn't exist that high up.
Only groups I know of that could be 'Favored opponents' from 1-50 are
COT, Council and well I can't think of any others...


I already do this in game though. One of my toons has the concept that he was rebuilt after the Rikti war by the Council (6 million dollar man style)
and then promptly escaped. He now makes it a priority to hunt down Council soldiers at every chance. Specifically picking arcs that focus on them, etc.

Another toon I have spent levels 22 thru 30 soloing the BP mobs in Dark Astoria as it was in his concept that he had a personal vendetta against them for destroying his ancestor's souls.

So, I see what your aiming for. Just don't think it's currently possible without reworking all the groups in game to range from 1-50.

Don't know about the specifics, but I like the concept.

Wouldn't mind also if a SG as a whole could have a "favored enemy". Your group makes a public strand to stop the terror of *Enemy Faction X*, and there's a sort of mini-game when players in your SG go up against that faction. Have bonuses for defeating them, and maybe even penalties for being defeated.

what about instead of a damage or xp bonus for the favoured group you could earn special rewards like temp powers and costume pieces and or costume recipies . any temp powers you earned temp powers would either have a use/time limit or for some of the more dificult ones to earn are permentn unless you switch a favorite group (as would any timer or useage ones should you not have vinished using them), how ever costume pieces would be perminent.

so example:
super Joe hates the Skulls by undertaking skull based missions from the advesary tab he can earn temp powers like a dark smite that uses no end but has only 20 charges or other powers of the like, but if he keeps it up he can earn special dark based defensive power that gives him extra defense for 15 min and has a recharge of 30 min. Along side that he can also earn "skull themed" costume pieces, some at random from killing skulls some for completeing spesific tasks or sticking with that group as his arch rival.

I love this idea. Several of my characters already have favorite enemies, even though it has no in-game effect. Jake Salem will always take the newspaper mission that allows him to pee in the Family's cheerios if there is one. Always without fail. (And he won't take any missions that require him to beat up Scrapyarders (cuz he's a working-class thug, right?) but that's a different concept.) Ren Fangbai has a perpetual mad-on for the Tsoo because their ancestor-ghost mojo offends his medieval Buddhist sensibilities. And so forth.

It would be so very awesome if there could be mission arcs where you get to pwn your favored enemy, or even just -- like someone already said -- get an option of going after them in each set of newspaper/radio missions. A small bonus would be fun, but I'd love it even without that. More ways to play out your character's epic story in actual gameplay is always win.

So yeah. In short: Cheers!