Pet customization :)

Before you flame, yes, I know, we won't get it until at least Issue 500 comes out or whatever, if ever It would be nice if it was sooner, but hey, thats life.

I'm just talking about what I *would* (maybe someday will?) do if I could customize my pets. Maybe other people will post some concepts too

I made my MM with a military theme, but Mercs are a poor primary in general, especially for the way I like to play -- thats really another discussion anyway, but I went with Thugs instead. Realistically, former-soldiers might not wear their uniforms anymore anyway.

For my MM's storyline however, they are not former anything but current soldiers working for a Rogue general with his own agenda -- not actually Mercs anyway. I'd like a somewhat sinister look, but clearly military -- and of a fairly uniform (heh) appearance since they are part of the same unit. It wouldn't make sense for soldiers to be wearing uniforms totally different from one another after all. Note I didn't change any of the actual skeleton models, just the skins.

First off, this is my character. Currently in Praetoria actually but he'll be going Rogue ;P He provides the basic look and theme. Natural original, traps secondary. All of his men are assumed to be natural origin-types, but there is a small tech-theme.
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img6/glowfoto

My two basic troopers are basically identical in appearance, for variation I will likely change their pistols around a bit as I've shown. Thugs don't really wear any armor so the basic soldier uniform is actually perfect.
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img5/glowfoto
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img4/glowfoto

The arsonist is a bit tricky to theme but I think I got a look I like with him. The Arsonist has some fire resistance so I took the bulkier looking gas-mask and changed his jacket to be baggier to represent a different, supposedly fire-resistant material. He has a tool belt since he's got lots of stuff to carry and big armored gloves to protect his hands while handling hazardous materials. I also added some small shoulder pads since dealing with explosives usually involves some shrapnel, and thus a slightly armored look seemed appropriate.
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img6/glowfoto

My two "Enforcers" are my officers. They are chock full of leadership skills so it makes a lot of sense. I wanted them to be identifiable as officers, but share a general appearance. The official jacket-type looks like a vest, he's got a toolbelt for the various little bombs the enforcers use and losses the helmet for an official looking military cap, smaller than the Generals but still something an officer would wear. They look combat ready still, even with the slightly more dressy uniform. I'm not sure if I would change the second officers appearance too much, probably just some scale options.
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img6/glowfoto

Finally the bruiser. He's my heavy combat specialist soldier, he does wear armor and has resistances in game. You can't really tell from the picture but he's still a "big" skeleton model but he's scaled down pretty much too within normal possibilities. He shares the same camo over the metal armor plating, and the same distinctive gas-mask and helmet as the regular infantry, he's assumed to be part of the regular infantry-types and not an officer despite being T3 since he has no leadership abilities. He is a natural-type origin like the others, of course, its assumed most of his super-strength comes from the armor he's given, which is the reason for the large gloves to make it believable-ish when he does his smash animations and the like.
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image.../img5/glowfoto

The gas masks go really well with poison trap The armaments are generally suitable for urban combat which is mostly close range stuff so thematically it works pretty well. They can be recognized for what they are, but share a close theme, and have in my opinion a practical look to their styling.

So yeah, in an Alternate Earth where MM's could customize their pets thats what my boys would be kicking around in. And hey, if we ever get our wish about this I'm ready to go

So yeah.

Issue 20. Us Mm's been asking to customize our pets for a long time now. Since the first day they where added, in fact. Here we are, 14 issues later.. And its still not in.

That really sucks so bad. I wish they'd just add it in already.... They already fixed all the "impossible" features like zoning minions they said would never happen.

Devs, just please add this feature in. Being able to customize things is amoung this games selling feature, having such poor minion choices ruins so many concepts.


Oh yeah and fix our broken ai while your at it

Sorry about that, but necroing a 4 month old thread is not going to make people care anymore. That, and you don't grasp the sheer damage this kind of thing would do to the servers.

Maybe color schemes, but that's it.

Snipe thread, please?

You don't get it. It's not just being able to re-color stuff. You're asking for unique costume pieces, for each of your six pets.

Consider the amount of memory needing to be spread, world-wide, for every single Mastermind's six pets, for even the /slightest/ change in model.

Since you don't seem to grasp this? The game would not be able to deal with that sort of sheer memory. That would equal one hero/villain, suddenly equaling /seven/ at once.

No. This wouldn't work. Sorry.

Except those AE missions aren't constantly in use, and you can't change every single enemy, to the very last one, to have something unique about them.

A group of enemies looks the same, period. They might be different from other enemies, but each enemy in that group has fifty twin brothers.

There is a huge difference between AE enemies who are rarely used, and six Mastermind pets constantly in use.

Also, please don't pretend you understand how the memory system of this game works. You aren't a developer :< And we've been told how this would hurt the servers.

In a roleplaying point of view, this would be a nice change. But considering pets insta-die in PVE... no one cares.

Um, Reppu. This game can handle vast amounts of characters with it's normal bandwidth. Ever play an AE ambush map? Ever gather in a location with a large number of other players, like a costume contest or something similar? The only things I've seen lag this game due to sheer numbers of entities on screen are the ITF or a Mothership Raid, or something of that scale.

Ignoring the actual work the devs would have to put in to enable such a thing, the amount of work the server does wouldn't actually change.

Right now a MM with his henchmen come into view and the server tells your client to display the models/costume pieces that are already on your hard drive.

With such a change, a MM with his henchmen would come into view and the server tells your client to display the models/costume pieces that are already on your hard drive.

The only difference is the code the server sends, which wouldn't be any more complicated than the costume data that is sent between clients for regular player costumes or custom AE enemies, or anything else. Things the servers are already fully capable of.

Also, while certain costume pieces can be more graphically complicated than others, it's not enough to make an appreciable difference in your performance.

Are you sure you're not just confusing your own computer lag with server lag?

Cute jab at the end there <3 Ignoring that...

Okay, let's try it like this. Right now, let's say the files are...

Mastermind_Thug_Minion_Model
Mastermind_Thug_Lieutenant_Model
Mastermind_Thugs_Boss_Model

Change the pet type name, and there. You have the basic models. Now, add a 1, 2, and 3 at the end, for the powers that change their appearance.

In theory, you have 9 models set in stone, for the six primaries.

With the changes proposed, you'd have...

Mastermind_Thug_Minion3_Model1
Mastermind_Thug_Minion2_Model2
Mastermind_Thug_Minion1_Model3
Mastermind_Thug_Minion2_Model4
Mastermind_Thug_Minion2_Model5
Mastermind_Thug_Minion3_Model6
Mastermind_Thug_Minion2_Model7
Mastermind_Thug_Minion1_Model8

etc etc etc etc etc etc

The server would have to make a file for every single Mastermind, in the whole game, with the slightest of changes, constantly at the ready. This is a far-cry bigger deal than an AE Mission map, where the majority of those are never in use anyway, and are only loaded up for short periods at a time.

This would be something constantly in use, with the minions dying left and right as they always do, constantly being reloaded. The slightest differences between each pet is a new file. And another new file for each upgrade.

Please convince me this is not a big deal, just because AE exists.

I wasn't taking a jab at you. And as to your example, how can you know that is how it works?

I'll see if I can't find the quote from a while back that summed up what would have to be done. But keep in mind this; all of your saved costumes and powers are in this format. Thus, I'm /guessing/ it's how it's done.

We'd honestly need a dev of some sort to really say for sure how plausible this is.

That's fine, then. All fine. Neither of us can really say for sure how exactly CoX's servers work, or how data changes hands. We can't, period. I'll still go by the post we were given when this first came up. If we get a more-recent one, kudos.

But I'd much rather they just fixed the bloody AI, long before some stupid cosmetic changes happened. Thanks.

A possibility would be give 5 to 10 models for each henchmen. Just go in the power customization screen and select which model you want. Would only need 15 to 30 different models for each powerset. For my Ninja henchmen, I would like futuristic female ninjas. Robots, Demons, and Zombies are far more limited in terms of generic henchmen models.

Customization is a low priority compared to giving some standardization in terms of powerset performance and fixing the A.I.

Unfortunately most people disagree with the former(That goes for all ATs)

Female MM pets aren't even going to happen. Because too many people would do the "Slave Girl" Approach.

Yeeeep!

At this point I'd be happy just to be able to color the henchmen.