Why is Base Construction the only unimproved aspect of CoH/CoV?

+1 to EXACTLY what Rediynne just said. If it went for the Individuality that can be done with the CC then I don't think I would have played this game for over a year. The ability to be creative with your character has made certain characters shine for me that would have floundered not for that. the Individuality that the bases have offered is like that; to an extent.

Imagine if, that the bases all looked the same, every room you placed of that type look like every other of that type?. Individuality is what made bases what they are. You'd never see base tours or or anyone asking to see your base. There'd be no reason.

Bases are a great social aspect to this game that hasn't really been explored. First off bases were meant to be used by Sg for Interaction with you SG mates. This never panned out the way the dev's wanted. The major problem was the COP trial didn't work as intended, Another was SG raids that never even got off the ground. Some would certainly have to do with the other.The Personal room Idea may have merit, and if attached to bases with a revamped editor would do worlds of good for bringing existing players into bases and using its new editor.

I think the root problem is this: Any meaningful improvements to bases are not warranted based on the small number of players that would use the feature. Those resources can be better used on more widespread and attractive features that will be used by more players.

However, I think there is a value in significantly improving the Bases feature because it is a rare (unique?) feature in the MMO space and can be leveraged as a feature that defines and distinguishes City from its competitors. Before that can happen, though, the root problem above must be solved.

I think there are, therefore, several targets that could be identified (listed here in what I feel is the order of importance):

1. Make base building accessible to all players without negatively impacting the role of supergroups.

2. Make the base building tools user friendly, intuitive and robust.

3. Make the base building tool feature-rich and fun.

You could probably tack on a few other goals to the list, but those (I think) are the big three. Here are my proposed solutions to those three.

1. Develop functionality that allows Supergroup leaders to designate authorized base editors by room, or wing - thus giving individual SG members an option to design their own portions of the base.

Develop private apartments and "lairs" which can be built by and for individual players, allowing these to be accessed both outside of SG bases and from inside the SG base (adding the appearance of being a separate section of the base). To limit negative impact on the role of SG's, these personal lairs should have limited functionality (e.g. less storage space, fewer or no teleporters, no empowerment buff stations, etc).

Develop functionality within the Mission Architect system allowing use of the base building tool for designing custom mission maps.

Those three items should create a base building solution which will be available to all players, would not negatively impact the role of SG's, and has the added benefit of making a significant improvement on the other unique feature of this MMO; player created mission content.

2. This is the hard part for me to define. I don't pretend to know anything about how you develop these tools. I can only provide examples of what I would like to see, most of which have already been detailed elsewhere in greater detail. Some quick examples include the xyz axis tool, ability to create doors and hallways of whatever size you want, remove restrictions on which items can be placed in which rooms and remove room types (have instead only room sizes). There's a lot more but it's too much to go into here.

3. Again, there are tons of lists of features we'd like to see. Far too many to list again here. But in keeping with the idea of increasing the user numbers for bases, the most important features I think are those which add more functionality. Examples include a market interface, NPC's, ability to move between coalition bases and personal lairs without zoning out and back in, ability to create signs and notices within the base to leave messages for SG mates, etc.

I don't pretend to know what kind of resources these ideas would take, or if they are even technically possible. At the very least, I know it would not be easy. Maybe it's already been proposed, investigated, and deemed too costly. But those are the things I think need to happen, and I think if they did happen that it would make base building into what it always should have been: a defining feature of this game.

Anything less than that and I don't think you overcome the core problem and thus can't justify the resources.

My first assumption is that the majority of the player base are a member of a group, hero or villain, and that group has a base. So, any changes to the base system will affect, in some way, the majority of players.

Bases currently offers storage, crafting, transport and a central meeting place. Before bases, players would have to travel to different areas to accomplish what can now be done inside the base. By adding to the functionality of a base, I believe bases can again see the kind of traffic that was around when they were first introduced. Adding an interface to the market, tailor or trainers would be, in my opinion,the next logical step in bringing players back into their base.

When players start spending more time in the base then they will care what it looks like, and possibly start to ask for some of the more decorative items to be added to the editor.

If the booster pack allowed for some sort of private base--perhaps with some limited storage—maybe one salvage and one enhancement rack or something—limited transporter access—maybe one or two TPs—and then maybe a choice of either a med bay or empowerment station, it would open the base experience up to a very wide range of players.

It would help if these private bases were accessible from the larger SG bases so that members of VGs wouldn't miss out on the benefits. Instead of actually adding it to the base, it may be simpler and cleaner to put only an entrance to all the private rooms in a VG base. You would click on the entrance to the private bases and then be able to choose which one you were going to enter—your own or one of your team mates or one of you VG mates.