My wishlist

Preface: None of these suggestions are new; some of them are suggested on a weekly basis. I just thought it might be nice to have a linkable conglomeration of stuff I'd like to see added/changed I could put in my sig. I'll also add stuff to the list {and in new posts, so as to avoid needing reading through the entire list for another two or three suggestions} as I remember more.

If you have any feedback on any of them, that's cool too. If you've already read the list earlier, each new batch of wishes is also added in a separate post for convenience.

• Chat

1. Add Help and Architect channels to the context menus in the chat. Help has been greatly neglected during the time it's been broken, but more than that, it would probably be safe to assume that maybe one in twenty players even know that the AE channel exists, let alone use it.
2. Implement a serverwide teaming channel and add it either to the default chat tab or a separate one on character creation, as is done for Help. Cannibalize the Architect Chat channel if necessary. This is going to become a major issue once CoH: Freedom hits, as an absence of an "official" teaming channel will leave Help channel as the only possible option for Freem players to solicit teams in.
3. Increase the upper limit of global channel capacity. 2500 users may have seemed like enough at CoH's inception, but with the surge of activity Going Rogue brought, overcrowding has again become a problem on larger servers, even with the 30-day /chan_timeout setting.
4. Fix unicode support for beginchat; if you try to /beginchat with a unicode character, the input field glitches out.

• Teaming, contacts and Search

1. Have your contacts give you their phone number when you meet them {not when you're only referred to them}. It seems like the best middle ground between convenience and actually adding a face and locale to the person giving you your missions.
2. Remove the FedEx missions - PvP zones, difficulty adjusters, Striga/Croatoa/etc., and replace them with the "You have been contacted by..." notices you get from Nance, Roy, Castanella etc.
3. Rework the search window from the ground up. Include a functionality to automatically invite or notify players who match certain criteria, with an opt-infunctionality on the receiving end. I.e. if LFT criteria from one player and LFM criteria from another overlap, a notification is automatically sent to the LFT player. Barring that, finish implementing this... whatever it is.
4. Remove duplicate contacts used for the Lv10-29 content. There doesn't seem to be much point to redundancy, especially since most of them aren't exactly colorful. Preferably keep the ones that aren't situated in Nowhere, Oklahoma {which is a rant for another bullet point}.
5. Have the contacts' missions spawn in the contact's zone, rather than all over the city, unless dictated otherwise by the mission itself.
6. Expand the NoXP option to convert unrewarded experience into patrol XP, extra influence, or extra prestige, rather than just evaporating.

• Missions and arcs

1. Exemplar the mission owner to the mission level if the mission's max level is lower than the character's current level. That way, the issue of outleveling your current missions is removed, especially on multi-part missions like the entirety of Mr. G's arc. Additionally, it could also enable the problem of outleveling anything at all - you could call up your ancient contacts and have them send you on their level missions at their level. Investigate for cases of missions that are often too difficult to complete at even level {Sea Witch, Madame of Mystery} and adjust the difficulty accordingly.
2. Rewrite old missions and arcs, using the currently available tech. This can easily be a gradual process, and it could also be possible to hire the playerbase into doing it for you - each week or so, present an arc or mission up for rewrite, define the guidelines and limitations, and let the players post their dialogue and mission descriptions for it. Present the author of the one you choose with a unique in-game perk, whether it's cosmetic or gameplay - something they can brag about.
3. Eliminate all instances of "back-loaded" mission pacing - they're rather rampant in the old content, and there's little to no point to slogging through green and blue mobs before you finally reach something challenging and slash or rewarding. Atta is a particularly egregious example of this.
4. Bracket all missions to their five-level range - 1-4, 5-9, etc. There's quite a few missions that open up after the contact introduction level, which makes it difficult to tell when you're done with a contact or not.
5. Fix the Tsoo Takeover arc level range - currently the contact only gives it to you once you've outleveled him.
6. Add an AE-style TF mode for flashbacks. Use the big crystal to start a flashback in the challenge mode, and the smaller ones to start it with a malleable team.
7. Rework the Ouroboros list by contacts, rather than by arcs. Then, list all the missions the contact has, branched by a} Arcs b} Badge missions c} One-off indoor missions and d} Street hunts and multi-part missions that start with street hunts. Furthermore, for C and D, once a mission has been completed, calling the contact would give you another random mission in that branch, favoring missions the player hasn't completed yet. This, combined with an AE-style TF mode and target zone bias, would likely provide a much higher level of exposure to non-arc missions that would otherwise be overlooked in favor of more convenient repeatable missions.
8. Reduce the number of players needed for the Cavern of Transcendence trial, or at least the number of players needed to complete it. As things stand, a single player leaving {willingly or otherwise} makes the trial unwinnable for everyone else.
9. In the difficulty options, in addition to enemy level shift and size, add an option to adjust ambush sizes. In addition to providing more gameplay customizability, it would likely also reduce complaints about ambush-happy content such as Praetorian arcs.

• Interface

1. Hooray for brainless feathery ***holes! Remove the Mystic Fortune prompt, or add an "don't ask me again" option.
2. Fix the "don't ask me again" option in the Useful Salvage prompt. I imagine how the prompt can be useful to some, but it can also be just as annoying.
3. Add the ability to link macros to powers; something the lines of /macro_icon "Insert power name here" "Macro commands" "Recharge?", which would allow the players to make macros with an icon of an existing power, with the option to "recharge" the icon if the player has the power in question. Example: /macroicon "Buckshot" "local This! Is! My! SUPER SOAKER!!$$powexec_name Buckshot" 1
4. Add the ability to target_custom by rank {f/e Stalkers quickly picking out bosses from the crowd} and current health {f/e picking out atarget that won't die in the middle of transfusion}.
5. Tighten the click-target hitboxes; as things stand, the decision on which enemy will be selected when you click on one of them seems to be left to chance.
6. Add the "hide toggles" options in the interface. The functionality already exists via optionset buffsettings, but very few people know it can be done, and even fewer are willing to break out the calculators to set up their preferred status icon layout.
7. Similarly, add the "Always" option to "Show villain names". Like buffsettings, it's already available via command line.
8. Hooray, it's fixed! Remove the cooldown from team invites. It's both irritating and apparently pointless, especially when one is reply-inviting a large number of teammates.
9. Have the purple color in the team search window override yellow.
10. Add an option to save and load graphics and audio settings {currently they're not included in optionsave}. That would allow, for example, for quick switching between high detail for "normal" gameplay and high performance for large events like muthaship raids, invasions, etc.
11. Allow for setting a waypoint on an enemy critter, as it would greatly help with use of cone AoEs, should one take the extra effort to strategize.
12. Implement a way to quickly locate your cursor, which can very easily get lost in all the visual noise heavy combat involves. One option would be to add a command which would overlay a large {size-adjustable through a related command?}, semi-transparent icon of the player's current alignment on the screen, centered and tracking the actual cursor.
13. Continuous, dynamic music: As is, most of the music in CoH is limited to short clips that play when entering a new neighborhood. A continuous soundtrack that plays outdoor or in missions would help a lot with immersion. "Action" music that fades in once the fighting starts {characterized either by an NPC aggroing on the player or the player/teammate entering combat mode} would also make the overall experience feel more "super".
14. Add the command to claim all available veteran rewards {minus base items and other multi-claimable rewards}.
15. Implement a command for window positioning, as well as the ability to set transparency for individual windows. /wdwload looks like it was intended to support this, but functionally it has... failings.
16. In the buff status display, add an option where right-clicking an icon would, in addition to "hide autopowers", stacking, etc, provide an option to hide visual effects from that power. This would probably reduce complaints about effects-intensive buffs, such as flame and ice armor, obscuring character costumes.
17. Add an option to either hide the team window while solo or lock/hide the comment field. As it is, it's remarkably easy to click on the text field in the middle of combat, leading to a variation of postmortem "123123sssdddwww" chat messages.

• Powers and enemies

1. Give Crey, Family and other "easy" groups more support characters in the boss tier to spice them up along the design lines of Super Stunners - something that would make combat with them less routine.
2. Conversely, nerf Nemesis. Ranged AoE attacks, fear and confuse protection and stacking vengeance, with no weaknesses or variety to balance them out can often make fighting them simultaneously difficult and monotonous. Removing or focusing certain buffs on certain mobs {i.e. some are much stronger against status effects, others aren't, but have stronger attacks} could make dealing with Nemesis a more varied experience. There's no excuse for vengeance stacking, though.
3. Remove the heal delay from Absorb Pain. The inability to self-heal is a downside enough - your target dying anyway due to the delay {and compounded by lag} is just adding insult to injury.
4. Rework Time Bomb. The long animation, the comparatively low damage and the general impossibility to use it in the middle of a fight or reliably makes it borderline useless. There are numerous threads discussing how it could be improved, there's no need to recap them here.
5. Remove or drastically increase the aggro cap. Between target caps for most powers and removal of mob clipping, the dumpster diving issue it was presumably implemented to fix is no longer extant. On the other hand, having to count enemies to make sure the squishies don't bite it, rather than diving in headfirst can often feel rather limiting.
6. Remove the 95% clamp from tohit rolls. It may be just a matter of perception, but critical whiffs on powerful and above all, accurate attacks are just frustrating. Keep the 5% lower clamp, of course, at least for NPCs.
7. Have the Malta gun turrets, Tuatha animated stones and other low-threat-hard-to-kill pets despawn once their summoners are dead.
8. Prevent the cairns from affecting each other. Thus, for example, stacking cairns should make the mobs nigh-invincible, but they themselves should remain underling-grade squishy.
9. Make teleport instantaneous {or nearly so} and increase the post-teleport hover time. That way, part of the tedium of teleporting across large distances is reduced, and the chance of post-teleport laggy-plummet-of-death is reduced. Retain the current endurance cost per jump.
10. Open the Teleportation pool for Peacebringers, or implement another way for them to gain the Recall Friend power.
11. Add a second version of Recall in the Teleportation pool that allows for recall across zones.
12. Implement a method and option to use a target-based AoE power via a drop reticle. Considering the... erratic nature of default targeting, it would make it greatly easier and smoother to simply "shoot from the hip" in the general direction of the target{s} one has in mind.
13. Adjust the Freakshow Super Stunners to be less insta-death for melee characters, and especially mastermind minions. The expanded range of control and debuff abilities gives the Freakshow a nice dash of extra flavor, but their massive, immediate and autohit self-rez damage almost always spells a death-without-saving-throw to any pets that were close enough to take them down in the first place. A few seconds' delay before rezzing, for example, would give the players enough leewayto get clear before the damage kicks in.
14. Implement the ability to "force-feed" teammates inspirations as an alternative to giving them.
15. Take another look at Praetorian mobs and the balance issues with them. Destroyers {specifically blast masters and big dogs} are the primary offenders, but almost all groups become disproportionally difficult for low-level players in large teams.
16. Replace Cosmic Balance's buff from EATs into a recharge buff or something similarly useful. Recharge debuff resistance, which is the buff it currently gives, has a remarkably narrow niche compared to other broad-application buffs the inherent grants {damage, resistance and status protection}.

• Architect Entertainment

1. Rework the search window. Again, there are multiple threads discussing the issue.
2. Bring up the options extant in the game {single bosses, boss+hostage goals, interactive dialogue options, waves of ambushes} into AE.
3. Add the ability to create hybrid NPCs - standard NPC models with player-defined powers, or vice versa.
4. Add the ability to add non-player powers to the NPCs - machine guns, sappers, self-destruction and so on. In fact, allow the players to pick and choose powers that aren't limited to two powersets.
5. Add the ability to choose exact goal spawn points {assuming the map chosen isn't random, of course}.
6. Add the ability to create custom mission maps using the base editing interface. The approach might also have significant application in creating official missions, since it could allow for more variety without requiring creation of additional graphical resources.
7. Fix the team overflow and star-reset bugs.

• Market, inventions and enhancement management

1. Enable listing of stacks of enhancements. The trade of IOs is severely limited by the fact that, at the absolute most, a character can only have twenty of them listed. In fact, why not enable enhancement stacking in the tray as well {though maybe not from the respec screen}.
2. Add a temporary power, tied to an accolade or purchasable from the market, that allows a character to access the market interface from any given location.
3. Add jetpacks to the market under the fixed price category. They are already purchasable from Grandville and the Shadow Shard - why not make them more convenient?
4. Add a display of the average price for an item for the past month and/or since the price tracker started.
5. Add a "donate" item in the item context menu {maybe replace Delete?}; donated items will be available on the market for free, but marked as untradeable until used or crafted. Might help with supply and demand disparity in the salvage market.
6. Merge IO categories - ranged and TAoEs, Melee and PBAoEs, etc.; if multiple categories share the same enhancement aspecs, merge them under the same category. That way, categories that currently have a small selection of sets {TAoE, for example} have a much larger selection without having to invest resources into designing additional sets. Possibly also merge status effect categories as well - stun/hold/fear etc.
7. Implement the ability to convert salvage into random salvage of a selected category at a loss. For example, converting five pieces of ceramic armor salvage into three pieces of random Lv26-40 common magical salvage. This could address the disparity between salvage that is in low supply and astronomical cost and salvage whose supply at any given time can count literally in tens of thousands, usually driven by the nature of latest content additions. Similar code is already in place {conversion of base salvage}, so it's likely it wouldn't need to be written from scratch.

• Miscellaneous

1. Rework Independence Port. The current size and ring-based door layout mean that any mission in it is almost guaranteed to be a long way away from the zone entrance. If a full-scale zone rebuilding is too costly, add in-zone teleport points to help with travel issues. As things stand, Indy Port is about as active as Galaxy City, and mostly for practical reasons.
2. Implement a "reload file" functionality in demoplay. Having to restart the client each time makes it prohibitively unwieldy for anything other than pure replay, rather than editing. Also, add support for UI elements, such as float text, which is recorded, but not shown.
3. Oh hey! Merge the european and US server lists. Enable more fluid movement between servers, such as character shadowing - synchronous clones of a character existing on multiple servers, with non-replicable aspects such as names or supergroup affiliations being specific to the server the character is currently on.
4. Enable character reinvention - essentially deleting a character, but the replacement character retains the name, badges, unlocks and other purely cosmetic aspects of the deleted character. Optionally allow the new character to remember which missions and arcs have been already completed, so it's not offered again. This is for the occasions where a player may choose to reroll a character, but is still attached to the personal accomplishments and other possibly hard to get shinies.
5. Delete all merit vendors. Each and every one. Add the option to cash in reward merits at the trainers instead.
6. Implement appropriate rewards to Praetorian arcs. So far, each P-arc awards exactly two merits, despite their varying difficulty and length.
7. Fix the bug where you can't claim veteran base items until you've changed zones.
8. Implement a command to perform a /stuck on a single hostile NPC; doing so would probably greatly decrease the GMs' workload as well as the frustration on the part of the players. Time it to, say, a thirty-minute cooldown to prevent abuse.
9. Allow for renaming of supergroups. I would pay {reasonable amounts of} actual money to be able to do so.

An open letter to NCsoft

I, Techbot Alpha, approve of this list. Especially the powers list, with maybe the exception of #5. I'm sure others will bring that up with a number fest alongside.

I would also add, add way more mobs to Crey at high levels. They literally become all power suits and Protectors. Which is so much more boring than the lower levels.
And yes, **** you Nemesis and your stacking Vengeance, Flamethrower and Full Auto! Whoever decided to make hostage missions vs Nems where you have to get them out alive should be shot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Nemesis is fine as it is, people just can't grasp the notion of disabling the Lt's and/or killing the bosses/minions first. Agreed about the easier groups, though. I want to see more of the Crey Scorpion tanks especially...

It's clear that a lot of thought went into this list, and there are a lot of good suggestions on it.

I agree with a lot of these suggestions. The 1st one in Missions and Contacts I can't really get behind though. The idea is that your hero or villain has simply become too powerful, and said contacts missions wouldn't be challenging at all. It would be weird to be level 50, then to call your first contact and go "Hey, you got any Hellions I can arrest?"

Besides, what is Ouroboros for if not for re-visiting old content? Plus you can get badges for doing it!

My wishlist:

1. Implement Quinch's wishlist.

Or, as the saying goes: "This friend speaks my mind on this matter."

I think Independence Port would be a perfect place for a bus or taxi system for getting quickly up and down the zone.

Wishes do come true! They fixed the invite cooldown!

An open letter to NCsoft

Wish dump! Added the following to the OP;

Fix the bug where you can't claim veteran base items until you've changed zones.

Expand the NoXP option to convert unrewarded experience into patrol XP, extra influence, or extra prestige, rather than just evaporating.

Allow for setting a waypoint on an enemy critter, as it would greatly help with use of cone AoEs, should one take the extra effort to strategize.

On a similar note, implement a method and option to use a target-based AoE power via a drop reticle. Considering the... erratic nature of default targeting, it would make it greatly easier and smoother to simply "shoot from the hip" in the general direction of the target{s} one has in mind.

Implement a command to perform a /stuck on a single hostile NPC; doing so would probably greatly decrease the GMs' workload as well as the frustration on the part of the players. Time it to, say, a thirty-minute cooldown to prevent abuse.

Implement a way to quickly locate your cursor, which can very easily get lost in all the visual noise heavy combat involves. One option would be to add a command which would overlay a large {size-adjustable through a related command?}, semi-transparent icon of the player's current alignment on the screen, centered and tracking the actual cursor.

Adjust the Freakshow Super Stunners to be less insta-death for melee characters, and especially mastermind minions. The expanded range of control and debuff abilities gives the Freakshow a nice dash of extra flavor, but their massive, immediate and autohit self-rez damage almost always spells a death-without-saving-throw to any pets that were close enough to take them down in the first place. A few seconds' delay before rezzing, for example, would give the players enough leeway to get clear before the damage kicks in.

Allow for renaming of supergroups. I would pay {reasonable amounts of} actual money to be able to do so.

An open letter to NCsoft

Wishlist update:

Continuous, dynamic music: As is, most of the music in CoH is limited to short clips that play when entering a new neighborhood. A continuous soundtrack that plays outdoor or in missions would help a lot with immersion. "Action" music that fades in once the fighting starts {characterized either by an NPC aggroing on the player or the player/teammate entering combat mode} would also make the overall experience feel more "super".

Rework the Ouroboros list by contacts, rather than by arcs. Then, list all the missions the contact has, branched by a} Arcs b} Badge missions c} One-off indoor missions and d} Street hunts and multi-part missions that start with street hunts. Furthermore, for C and D, once a mission has been completed, calling the contact would give you another random mission in that branch, favoring missions the player hasn't completed yet. This, combined with an AE-style TF mode and target zone bias, would likely provide a much higher level of exposure to non-arc missions that would otherwise be overlooked in favor of more convenient repeatable missions.

Implement the ability to "force-feed" teammates inspirations as an alternative to giving them.

Add the command to claim all available veteran rewards {minus base items and other multi-claimable rewards}.

An open letter to NCsoft

Quick wish dump!

Implement the ability to convert salvage into random salvage of a selected category at a loss. For example, converting five pieces of ceramic armor salvage into three pieces of random Lv26-40 common magical salvage. This could address the disparity between salvage that is in low supply and astronomical cost and salvage whose supply at any given time can count literally in tens of thousands, usually driven by the nature of latest content additions. Similar code is already in place {conversion of base salvage}, so it's likely it wouldn't need to be written from scratch.

Take another look at Praetorian mobs and the balance issues with them. Destroyers {specifically blast masters and big dogs} are the primary offenders, but almost all groups become disproportionally difficult for low-level players in large teams.

Implement a command for window positioning, as well as the ability to set transparency for individual windows. /wdwload looks like it was intended to support this, but functionally it has... failings.

Reduce the number of players needed for the Cavern of Transcendence trial, or at least the number of players needed to complete it. As things stand, a single player leaving {willingly or otherwise} makes the trial unwinnable for everyone else.

An open letter to NCsoft

Added:

Replace Cosmic Balance's buff from EATs into a recharge buff or something similarly useful. Recharge debuff resistance, which is the buff it currently gives, has a remarkably narrow niche compared to other broad-application buffs the inherent grants {damage, resistance and status protection}.

In the difficulty options, in addition to enemy level shift and size, add an option to adjust ambush sizes. In addition to providing more gameplay customizability, it would likely also reduce complaints about ambush-happy content such as Praetorian arcs.

In the buff status display, add an option where right-clicking an icon would, in addition to "hide autopowers", stacking, etc, provide an option to hide visual effects from that power. This would probably reduce complaints about effects-intensive buffs, such as flame and ice armor, obscuring character costumes.

Add an option to either hide the team window while solo or lock/hide the comment field. As it is, it's remarkably easy to click on the text field in the middle of combat, leading to a variation of postmortem "123123sssdddwww" chat messages.

Modified Chat section, point 2: Implement a serverwide teaming channel and add it either to the default chat tab or a separate one on character creation, as is done for Help. Cannibalize the Architect Chat channel if necessary. This is going to become a major issue once CoH: Freedom hits, as an absence of an "official" teaming channel will leave Help channel as the only possible option for Freem players to solicit teams in.

An open letter to NCsoft