If YOU Were In On The Planning of CoH2 What Would YOU Do Differently?

Many of us have been around the CoX community since launch, or almost since launch. We know that there are many things that the game has done right, and some that... could have been done better. We have also seen some ideas that were difficult or impossible to implement efficiently because of limitations of the game engine itself.

Pretend for a moment you are sitting around a table with Second Measure, Positron, War Witch, Noble Savage, and a collection of other developers and producers of the game, brainstorming about ideas for CoH2. You have the unique opportunity to provide your input into how the game is designed. Current limitations to the game are not an issue because this would be all new code, rewritten from the ground up.

What ideas would you bring to the table?

A few ground rules...

• Your Ideas Should Be Constructive, not Destructive. Don't just say "Take out Such And Such. It Suxxorz!" Instead say how you would do it differently.
• If Responding To Someone Else's Idea, Resist The Urge to Tear It Down, and Instead Try to Improve Upon It.
• The Whole Point Here is To Have Fun, So Try To Keep The Personal Jabs to A Minimum
• This Post Is Not Meant To Imply Or Discuss Whether Or Not There Will Ever Be A CoH2. We All Have Our Opinions On That Possibility, Some Based on Eveidence, Some On Instinct, All Are Pure Speculation, So Leave It At That.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

First I'd have to actually pretend there will be a CoH 2.

Everything

Cancel CoH 2, and pour all the funding into CoH, where it belongs.

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Biggest Troll on the forums? I'll give you a hint:

Well, honestly... If *I* were in on the planning of CoH2 I have to assume the other developers would have duct taped my mouth shut prior to any meetings.. By now most of them know better than to actually listen to any of my suggestions...

Change the animation for Hasten.

Now for a serious answer.

Most of what I would do, I see the Dev attempting to do in this version of CoX. The main thing would be to dump using a different model for mobs and players. I would also go a bit deeper into customization, much like the competition did.

Appoint Steelclaw head of game data management and awesome jokes.

Also, asymmetrical costume options, click-and-drag moveable costume pieces, 3 to 5 color costume options, and a full in-game HUD overhaul.

For lore...

-I'd probably set it in a parallel world that makes full use of the fact that super powers have always been around and became prominent again after the end of World War I. With super technology and magic ending up everywhere, I'd probably have it set back between 1960-1980 (yet you'd still see modern PCs and other pieces of modern tech).

-Statesman and Lord Recluse may or may not have offed eachother sometime in the fifties, all that's known is that both did battle with one another in the Canadian wilderness and when the smoke cleared, both were gone.

-Arachnos and the Fifth Column (and by extension, the Council) got absorbed into one organization. (This would also reduce Arachnos' prominence redside)

-Rikti War still would have happened.

-I'd keep the Origin powers arc but make it MORE confusing and contradictory. Each contact you speak with offers their own theories on the matter, some even contradicting themselves to remind you they're not the most authoritative source. Branching dialogue would let you agree or disagree, but if you're not the same origin as the person you talked to, they'll brush you off with what amounts to "And what the hell do you know?" while same origin would get something like "Well, if you ever really figure it out, I'm all ears to make heads out tales of this mess."

-I'd probably keep something like the Well of Furies but make it more vague, less "directable", and probably even never let it be referred to by the same name more than twice outside of the same person.

The world...

-Paragon and the Rogue Isles would still be the main hangout of heroes and villains respectively, but the biggest city would be another city where heroes and villains indirectly battled one another for control over it through missions that increase or decrease the territory hold. along with other places...

-Paragon's Geography would be tightened and the city itself shrunk a bit. I mean there are gaps between war wall sectors that you could fit two whole zones into, I'm not kidding! which brings me to my next point...

-War walls/zone barriers are still there, just in different ways. With how special Atlas is to Paragon, I imagine that they would have long had a barrier protection field around it before the Rikti War. Similarly, this could be applied to Brickstown and the Zig, others would gain war walls that look more alien in design, obviously since they were built originally by the Rikti.

-Expand the Rogue Isle. 'Nuiff said

- Home Turf instances: Inspired by GW2's Home Instances, I had the idea of heroes and villains being able to start out in a corner of a City, a village, a suburb, etc. etc. (I imagine plenty of different options) that they can use as their own tutorial and starting zone. This zone you could continue to work in, either raising it as a testament of your prowess by driving all crime out (or uniting it under you as a syndicate for the "glamorous villain") or let it decay and become a wretched hive of scum and villainy (for when your hero is too lazy to GO OUT and fight crime).

Mechanics...

-Faction favors: The ability to run repeatable missions or arcs from NPCs of specific factions, this earns you favor with them so you can gain temporary powers or other boons.

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.

1. Really pimp out the costume creator so we can do some serious avatar customization cuz that's the most important thing in a super hero game.

I'm talking tattoos anywhere on the body.
More categories/sub categories like Left eye, Right Eye, Both Eyes and Left Upper Arm, Left Lower Arm, Left Hand.
More animated costume choices
Glowing selections with a brightness slider
And tons more costume choices

2. Do the same thing with the Base editor and give players the ability to have personal lairs as well as join larger Supergroups.

3. Even tho I don't like it redesign and make a working PVP and give them a separate location that all players have access to at any level if they want to participate.

4. If there is going to be factions then evenly divide up the content so no one side has more to do than the other factions.

5. Still like the unique naming system but give players more characters to create names and more space for bios. RPer's may like to keep a diary, or have a secret identity.

6. More choices of locations for social events. It all doesn't need to be piled into one zone like Pocket D/Tiki Lounge/Chalet, and they can have different themes than clubs.

7. Destructible environment like Mayhem/Safeguards.

8. Plenty of secret rooms/locations. You know those easily overlooked or hard to find spots like the game room in Faultline, or the dev room under Grandville.

9. Add some of the long asked for content like the Moon Zone, Underwater Zone, Haunted House, etc.

10. More options for power and weapon customization.

11. More avatar skeletons even if it means some power sets can't be chosen. We understand that a pussycat skeleton won't be running around wielding swords and such whereas a humanoid one would.

12. More power sets.

Knockback would be beneficial and sought after.

WARNING: I bold names.

Shooting for the skies here (and beyond)...

But I'd try for world-wide locations... and beyond, through the atmosphere and into space. Not 100% sure that'd be worth the costs, but I would love to have ceiling-less skies that then break through the Earth's atmosphere... or connected zones (using seamless zoning transitions) from the regular skies, to above and with the clouds to Earth's orbit.


More important, I imagine, would be to make a more interactive physical world. Knockback could send characters through walls (and poles and trees).

The key here... would be to match the original game's fun combat system... yet add to it.
I've seen other games that are more realistic and have a ton more interactive properties... But they often don't feel as good. So, I'd spend a lot of effort attempting to hone that aspect.

The trick is to add these sorts of things without losing what was good about the first (even if you accomplish those same things very differently... you have to recognize what was good and emulate that somewhat).

• World Wide (plus more!!)
• Player Characters on par with Signature Characters (eventually/as they progress)
• Heroes and Villains anywhere/wherever
• Challenge and Accept open world duel system (when players want to engage in PvP against each other)
• PvP made to be long drag 'em out knock 'em down fights that may often become stalemates and/or one side is capable of fleeing the fight (PvP should be about the back and forth battle, not about win or loss... weird, maybe... but that's MY personal take on it, so NYAH)
• Strive to make the character customization the KING on a new level from the original (just as this one was the innovative leader, progress forward to do that again)
  • Full power effect and animation customization from the start
  • Advanced character animations - selectable stances, walks, runs, idle animations, facial animations, moods, modes and styles a player can choose in themes and/or in a one-by-one long list of options
  • Custom player sounds (chosen from a pool of options) for personal character sounds (grunts, leaping, walking, being hurt, laughing, burping and so on)
  • Multiple options for all powers that can make use of various FX, devices, costume pieces and such.
  • And much more...
• (As I said before) Interactive world
  • Streets, ground, floors, walls, poles, trees, cars interactive, destructible, etc.
  • Buildings: multi-floored destructible walls, floors, ceilings, plumbing, electricity (crazy, yes... but these are ideals, at least).
  • Cat burglars, security guards, kittens in trees, people in fires, hero world simulator.
• Day/Night Cycle that is not quite so ridiculously fast (have certain locations that maintain spawns necessary for missions/badges, if need be).
• In-World housing
• Optional Secret Identity mini-games, locations and scenarios (include full-time hero aspects as well, to try and include all)
• Continue to push the bounds in the OTHER direction and NOT more towards the standard mmorpg traditions
• Try to fend off the race-for-rewards trend by rewarding the player's time spent doing whatever it is that they enjoy, rather than filtering them into specific tasks for their earnings
• Multiple paths through multiple systems for similar rewards
• MORE (NOT LESS) OPTIONS... ALWAYS!
• Try and figure out a mad-genius way to (somewhat) port over a lot of content to have it straight out of the box. Content is the king and the killer... how can you open a new game and supply enough content to compare to a game that has existed for so long?
  • Short story is that you cannot
    • Longer story is that the words "can not" are the words of people who haven't figured out how to yet.
    • Possibly some major programming that can take events, objectives, scenarios and AI in order to orchestrate quicker rehashes of older content within new systems/programs (In other words: "if we modify the tachyon wave...")
• Hire Dark Reprise
• Continue to get free help from Arcanaville (psst, don't inform Arcana of this)
• Close down the forums and ignore these ridiculous players!!!!! (KEEEEEDING!!!)

• DITCH THE MARKETING HANDCUFFS and trust the community and the Development Team
  • Enjoy and appreciate the rewards of this and deal with and relax about the negatives (that should trickle down through the community and be an overall great thing)
    

• Extra Credit: Gain the powers of reality manipulation and supply a perfect, yet harmless, super-powers simulation/virtual reality!!

grappling and throwing enemies, and weaponizing of the environment. correctly, a light post should be used like bat,cars should be military pressed and slammed front first, a tank should have its barrel ripped off and swat like a flyswatter. also the ability to do distance closing lunge attacks and pull in attacks.

climbing on walls.

visual variety for device based powers should have selectible varieties for broad thematic variations, like magical, high tech and biorganic.

lots of alternate animations, its one of our strong unique points, emphasizing it seems intuitive.

be quite clear that you are including manga influences into the game so people don't constantly question inclusions of manga influences with "but this is just a silver age game and should just be about silver age stuff(mini rant)"

actually include manga influences. more ninja,more mechs, more kanji, more yokai, more martial arts clothes and styles, more Asian themes. we're getting there, but its been a long haul.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I'd actually like some sort of skill system so I could hack computers or pick locks or notice that secret door or any number of cool things a skill system could do.

1) Keep game mechanics out of the lore. This includes such things as enhancements, inspirations, salvage...ect...

2) Keep the same art style. This is why I l love CoH over any og the other superhero MMOs

3) Do away with ATs. Make it so weapon based attacks flow nicely into the next. This will allow people to use weapons and elemental powers without worring about redraw, while also allowing for more well rounded concepts. Maybe someone wants a Fire Blaster who also uses a sword? Or a weapons master. Ect...

4) Set it up as the difficulty we have now. Yes. On just SOs, one isn't going to be soloing AVs. But throw in IOs and an effort to build one's character for such feats and it becomes possible.

5) Make it so all GMs are team events. AVs = things to aspire to. GMs = OMG the city will be destroyed calling all heroes (now the more IOed out the heroes, the less heroes one would need obviously)

6) Fix the lore

7) Better character creation. Get some assemytrical pieces in there.

8) Either start it out with heroes/villains or just keep it heroes! Putting it in later leads to it not working imo.

how about the exploration/ missions in the rikti home world/demension.
having origin type having a modifier on same/different types.

I would have customisable base stats (Strength/Speed/Toughness/etc), which would probably serve a similar purpose as AT modifiers and have varying costs and starting values based on AT, with costs further affected by current opposing values (for instance, raising melee/ranged damage might increase the cost of raising ranged/melee defense, respectively).

I would severely limit IO set bonuses (for instance: max 10% to any given Defense, max 35% global recharge) and increase Resistance set bonuses so that they were as achievable as equivalent Defense bonuses.

I would get rid of IO levels.

I would take the needless complication out of salvage - there would just be Common salvage, Uncommon salvage, and Rare salvage rather than a plethora of senseless specific things like Lucky Whatsits and Psionic Sammoflanges.

I would fire the guy from CAPCOM that they apparently put in charge of currencies, and thus avoid having Super Turbo Championship Merits Ultimate Hyperfighting Arcade Edition. And as he was escorted off-premises, I would have him flogged with the Wet Noodles of Shame.

Two words: Apes. Dinosaurs.

Figure a way to get them in-game, as enemies as well as a set of ape heads for the ape-inclined players to run with.

Pvp

Okay, I was waiting to see if this topic had any level of interest from anyone else before I bothered to post my own ideas. Some pretty great ideas expressed in the thread already, IMHO, so the time has come for me to add one of my own. It may well get me verbally abused, but so be it.

One of the most creative and bold features ever introduced into a game was the Mission Architect system. I know that some people hate the way it is used, but the idea was a good one. The system was conceived as a way to allow the community to design their own stories for other community members to play. A really great idea, especially for the more creative among us, but the implementation of it made it a haven for farmers and powerleveller and really took away from the story telling aspect of it.

So the question then is how to implement something like this and not have it be a farming/powerlevelling machine. Well, what makes it so appealing for these purposes? It's easy. You never leave the building. You speak to the contact, you click the portal right behind the contact. You run the mission, exit. Walk 10 yards to a terminal, reset it, rinse, and repeat. What could be easier?

So, to eliminate that, you take away the AE building. Yeah, I know. Sorry Doc Aeon, but it's gotta go. Instead you have a place or interface for people to create the stories and use actual contacts and doors in the zones. Arcs could be written to be intrazone (all missions within the same zone as the contact) or to cross multiple zones, just like actual arcs. The number of zones could have an impact on the reward issued for completing the arc.

For those authors who wanted to create their own contacts, this would be possible to. Have some of the existing blank template contacts (just one or two) in each zone. The technology is already there to make them invisible to anyone who is not running an arc that uses that contact location, so it would not detract from the game.

As an added bonus, the "Devs Choice" arcs could them be seamlessly integrated directly into the game, indistinguishable from a normal story arc. Since these arcs already give "normal" rewards instead of tickets, there would be no way the player would even know the difference.

Sure, someone could still make a single mission arc, within a single zone, designed for farming, but with the rewards relying partially on the number of zones used by the arc, they would be gimping their rewards from the start. As a backup, they could always add the dreaded diminishing returns for repeating the same arc within 20 hours.

Just a thought.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

Take a hard look at CoH 1.

There has been a lot of experiments there. Villains, PvP, Arena, Supergroup bases, raids, invasions, taskforces, Co_Op zones, trials, AE, emailing, IO's, trial accounts, going Rogue, Paragon Points,Badges, Merits and all the other reward systems, etc. A lot of things have been invented and after 1 or 2 issues completely ignored. Appearently, something did not work right there.

Look at what worked and what went wrong. Ditch the things that will never work properly and improve those things that you want to keep.

For example: PvP. It is a nightmare to get it right. AE, it is a nghtmare to assure that it is not abused.

Going in a bit of a different direction, I would "spread" the game around so that it's not just something you do in one program on one computer.

Step one would be to design a kick-*** web site to support interacting with the game outside of the game. For example, players could buy and sell stuff and monitor the market from the web site. They'd be able to do stuff like once per logged out session, designate a day job location to teleport their character to offline, where they'll be collecting day job experience and where they'll appear when you next log in. E.g., "Move Spin Artist to the Dark Astoria graveyard."

Speaking of the web site, I'd build a social networking component to the site, where you can interact with your in-game friends through live chat, post events for your supergroup, post pictures, trade in-game items, send messages, share costumes and AE arcs, and so on. Also, since text is so stupidly compressible, I don't see any reason why the site couldn't provide an entire searchable chat history with everyone throughout all time. Obviously you wouldn't be able to see chats on teams you weren't on, private messages, and so on, but you would be able to see everything you would have been able to see in the game.

I'd expand upon this by making some offline apps for mobile devices or browsers. For example, an offline costume creator, something CoH fans have been clamoring for for a long time. An offline hero builder. I'd try to think outside the box. For example, maybe there's an Android app that interacts with the game server that does nothing but displays your mini-map. It will allow you to rotate, zoom, search for locations, mark locations, and so on. You'd still have your in-game mini-map available, or if you have an Android device, you could just set it up next to your computer and run it on there.

I'd also get more City of Heroes merchandise out there. Rikti Monkey plushies, Statesman star/Arachnos spider/Praetorian wreath car tags, various pins and buttons, customizable supergroup-logoed notebooks, and a bunch of other nifty little things that people can buy in addition to the standard complement of t-shirts and coffee mugs. I'd also have ways for people to earn out-of-game CoH loot in-game. As a simple example, those paper pads with logos and such on them are dirt cheap to make, and so are logo-imprinted pencils or pens. Whenever a VIP or premium player gets their first character to level 50, drop ship them three or four logoed paper pads and pen. The cost of doing so including postage, would probably be less than 50 cents, probably even less if you get a deal with the post office. It would generate excitement with the players and it's great advertising to the public.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Getting City of Heroes off of just the computer and actually integrated into people's lives--not just the hardcore players, but everyone--would not only generate a lot of excitement in the player base but likely generate a lot of interest in the game.

I wouldn't send Positron into space, though. It didn't seem to have helped Tabula Rasa much. I would, however, hire TonyV as something tentatively titled, "Manager of Secondary Operations" and pay him enough to sell his house and move to Mountain View, California.