Nearly 7 Years Later... What Would You Have Done Differently?

Looking back, what in terms of content updates and quality of life improvements would you have done differently? Do you give all 19 issues of content the thumbs up our would you have swapped a particular feature out just to have something else?

Animated hair from day one

I would have left the 5th Column alone. A great pulp comic villain group ham-handedly written out of the game, retconned so they never existed in plaques around the city and then brought back in a confused shadow of their previous selves. What a waste.

I would have done the epic powerset proliferation in Issue 18 correctly instead of sucking it up something fierce.

I would have made it so the skeleton model could have apendages change size, as well has animated everything on them.

Make it so powers could animate from different portions of the body.

Have a mission and animation designer tool from day one

Not have so many zones, or servers.

Weather

More interactive environment

Have a lot of zone events, i.e. stop the bank robbers, save the kitten from the tree, walk to old lady across the street, red ball

Make PvP non zone exclusive, have a switch to shut off PvP or turn it on at will

Are just a few I'd done differently

Fired Statesman much, much sooner.

Enhancement Diversification, Inventions, and Wentworth's from the first issue.

ED wouldn't have been such a big deal if people didn't know what they were missing, and one of the biggest criticisms of this game, from what I saw, was that the game had no functioning economy. I feel like that should have been the main priority, as it's one of the best ways to unobtrusively attract a new demographic.

AE, Power customization and the Anniversiary issue should have just been patch updates. A full year of no real content except content you create to be exploited soured me to this game for a whole year.

Incarnate type system should have been releashed last year. While it is awesome so far I feel it is to little to late.

Not tied Reichsman in with the Column (It's just stupid. Have him bringing over Axis America forces.)

Not brought in that Roman place.

Used resources bringing in that Roman Place to instead: Do new Ouroboros arcs/TFs, revamp old zones, flesh out the Midnight Squad.

Remove the Origin of Power arc and the lore on Powerset Proliferation.

Get Powerset Customization done for APPs/PPs in Issue 17, instead of... well, no sign now.

Everything is easier in hindsight. There should have been a "Three of a kind" limit on enhancements from the start, for instance.

But the main thing I'd have done is to have held off PVP until there'd been something to do with it. Putting it in I4 as arena only made two things very clear to most players: That CoH PVP was all about deathmatches and that 90% of all characters didn't stand a chance in a deathmatch. So they did the logical thing and went back to PVE fights. PVP should have been held off until CoV, and with it, we should have had PVP objectives and non-deathmatch kinds of fighting. The current zones are used much less than they could, as they're pretty much just deathmatch areas with some PVE content scattered around for bait. Surprisingly, this doesn't work that well to attract new players. Take an idea from... another MMO... and have the zones be contested areas with defendable fortifications and rewards for holding them.

It does look like they've learned from this, though, with the delay of the Alpha Slot until there was at least some Incarnate content to do.

I'd also have finished Power Customization by letting us customize pool and epic pool powers. I want to de-yellow Hasten.

Other than that, I'm pretty happy with what CoH has done.

I would've started working on I19 about one week earlier so I would've fixed the bug with Kheldians by now and have it released before Thankgiving as intended.

Enhancers would work much differently than they do now if I were designing the game. Meta enhancers like recharge/endurance wouldn't exist. Powers would be designed with an acceptable uptime with or without enhancement. Powers would cost what they're supposed to cost and that would be it. Meta powers like Hasten and Conserve Power would still exist, but they would not be perma. With those out of the way, I would have lowered the number of enhancement slots each power can have. Enhancement Diversification would not be necessary under this scheme.

Inventions would have been in the game from day one. All characters would have access to meaningful ranged and melee attacks. I do not believe that the current melee v. ranged dichotomy is healthy for the game.

The survivability curve would be much different. Tankers would probably only be able to self-buff to where Scrappers can now. Scrappers would be less than that. Squishies would be able to build some meaningful, but lesser defense.

Most of the mechanical features: PvP, crafting, flashback, etc. would have been in the game earlier.

I would have started playing the game at release instead of waiting all that time to pick it up.

Dear lord, I can only imagine how complex my spreadsheets would be now if I'd had that kind of head-start.

Launched with Heroes/Villains at the same time as well as the rogues and side switching. I would have balanced the game in such a way there wouldnt be giant grand canyon size difference in solo speed on the ATs. I would have limited the stacking of buffing debuffing such that defenders and various support ATs would have never had to take a damage penalty for doing their jobs. Controller dom pets would come at lvl 12 instead of 32. Never implemented ED as did irreversiable harm to the overall playerbase's opinions of the developers. I could go on forever with this but I am late for class.

If I were the lead Dev and had all the knowledge and tech of today to make City of...

Let's see, a lot of what I'd do for blueside would have been to change things up, have arcs from the first level to the last, and revamp the zones to make more sense in layout terms. (Actually, that last part applies for the Isles as well)

In general I would have both sides have at least ten standard City Zones, two for each 10 level range increment, put in a starting contact for each origin in the two starter zones for each side, and they'd give you (or you could call them for) various arcs that have you fight enemies and/or involved in plots that could be considered thematically fitting to your origin. (This might cause lots and lots of rage about origins and their definitions...) And otherwise set up a contact flow that would mirror the moralities,

A lot of work would then go into changing things up redside, I might keep the Destined Ones framing, but have it played a bit more subtly. Like the Zig isn't exactly attacked by Arachnos, you just find yourself in the middle of a Zig riot (which you may or may not have started or helped start), a hundred different villain groups are out and about, smashing the place up, and you meet an Arachnos agent who offers you a ride out of the City... And you get dumped off in the Rogue Isles.
For the next Twenty levels, you hear about Arachnos a bit more, specifically what they were doing at the Zig breakout and why they seem to be rounding up all the villains into the Rogue Isles, and heck, the first few times you meet them, Arachnos faction would be allies, seemingly amicable and affably evil... Then 'rogue' Arachnos agents start coming after you, you keep working you way up, and either the Destined One story will simply fade away with Lord Recluse losing interest in you as you go about your own villainous activities, or you see the story through to its glorious end where you can either choose to tell Lord Recluse to not mess with you, or not say anything. After all, at the end of the Time Again arcs, you've beaten Lord Recluse at the height of his power, you have foreknowledge of his eventual betrayal, and that at least a good chuck of Arachnos would side with you, ultimately, maybe not now, but down the road, you could use all this and your foresight to crush Lord Recluse under your foot and then lay claim to a world that you rightfully conquered and ended up playing Arachnos like chumps.

I'd also probably expand on the critter factions and maybe drop a few new ones in. Like have a Thule Society become a villainous version of the Midnighters. (If you read the history right, they'd even have a reason to send you after the Fifth Column too!)

Also, more zones set across different parts of the world.

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.