As I was lying in bed last night, an idea came to me. The morality system as it is is great, but it doesn't really capture the kind of quick doublecross that you get ever so often in comic books, where for one story arc, everyone is thinking that Hero X has turned to the dark side, when really he's been working his own angle to take down Badguy Y. This story is so prevalent even the City of Heroes comics went through and had Manticore go through that arc one, in issues 10, 11, and 12.
What I propose is that in Fort Trident heroside and Fort Cerberus villainside, a new contact be added representing Longbow and Arachnos, respectively. These contacts give you a line about how they'd like you to go undercover for them and see what the other side is up to, then they open up a menu similar to that in the pillar of Ice and Flame. Instead of your side, the arcs shown belong to the opposite morality. Once selected, you are allowed to run the arc you've chosen in TF mode, your contact being given via cell phone, but all missions are located at a portal beside the contact, while "talk to" missions are accessed via a "radio" sitting by the contact. Once you exit TF mode either via completing the mission or by quitting the "Task Force," you are returned to the contact (and returned to your proper alignment, possibly gaining one mission's worth of progress towards vigilante or rogue in the process.)
Once your chosen arc is completed, the contact says "Thanks for your help" and locks down, disallowing any more doublecross arcs. This is to try and limit the function to one arc per character. This way, if a player only wants that "one important arc" from the other side, they don't have to grind out tips for a week to go over and back, possibly breaking character along the way. However, if there are multiple arcs they want, the only way to access it is by changing alignment the old fashioned way (as old fashioned as a system that is just over a year old can be, anyways.)
Pros:
Could make Hero access to the PPPs easier.
Broadens access to existing content
Allows heroes to do "that one arc" without having to go all the way over and all the way back.
Cons:
Could devalue the morality system
Easy access to mission doors and talk-to contacts could skew merit rewards for arcs. They may need to be rebalanced for the doublecross arcs.
My story arcs: #2370- Noah Reborn, #18672- The Clockwork War, #31490- Easy Money
Sartre once said, "Hell is other people." What does that make an MMO?
As I was lying in bed last night, an idea came to me. The morality system as it is is great, but it doesn't really capture the kind of quick doublecross that you get ever so often in comic books, where for one story arc, everyone is thinking that Hero X has turned to the dark side, when really he's been working his own angle to take down Badguy Y. This story is so prevalent even the City of Heroes comics went through and had Manticore go through that arc one, in issues 10, 11, and 12.
What I propose is that in Fort Trident heroside and Fort Cerberus villainside, a new contact be added representing Longbow and Arachnos, respectively. These contacts give you a line about how they'd like you to go undercover for them and see what the other side is up to, then they open up a menu similar to that in the pillar of Ice and Flame. Instead of your side, the arcs shown belong to the opposite morality. Once selected, you are allowed to run the arc you've chosen in TF mode, your contact being given via cell phone, but all missions are located at a portal beside the contact, while "talk to" missions are accessed via a "radio" sitting by the contact. Once you exit TF mode either via completing the mission or by quitting the "Task Force," you are returned to the contact (and returned to your proper alignment, possibly gaining one mission's worth of progress towards vigilante or rogue in the process.)
Once your chosen arc is completed, the contact says "Thanks for your help" and locks down, disallowing any more doublecross arcs. This is to try and limit the function to one arc per character. This way, if a player only wants that "one important arc" from the other side, they don't have to grind out tips for a week to go over and back, possibly breaking character along the way. However, if there are multiple arcs they want, the only way to access it is by changing alignment the old fashioned way (as old fashioned as a system that is just over a year old can be, anyways.)
Pros:
Cons:
My story arcs: #2370- Noah Reborn, #18672- The Clockwork War, #31490- Easy Money
Sartre once said, "Hell is other people." What does that make an MMO?