What we give up for an improved game?

Hi all.

This question occurred to me leading up to the first Player Summit, where I felt a number of things were addressed and well at that, but alas something I was hoping for (although it's not a personal concern of mine) was not.

That something was bases, and I had heard from reputable rednames that something was going to be done to overhaul the system. And this cheered me initially as I had seen Millenium City's version of housing and rather enjoyed the feeling of immersion I got from them.

So I was disappointed to see no news, but then listened to the explanation of how bases were coded and how it's essentially a house of cards where the slightest change can make things not work for an extensive period (the latest bugs being proof of that). I asked some SG mates around this point if they were to get a totally revamped base system, would they give up what they had built already to achieve it.

The answer was generally 'no'.

Again, not being personally invested (I have no base of my own and don't feel very skilled or talented in that area), I wondered what I'd be willing to part with in the game to have it done better, given the acknowledgements of the game's code and ways of building. These are my personal conclusions.

Costumes: I love making costumes of all sorts and types, and whilst I enjoy a good range of ability in making costumes, I would gladly give up my current ability to use a new skeleton with new anchor points and more layers.

Powers: Given the option to do what I most want in a superhero game (interaction with the environment), I would sacrifice my powersets as designed to accomodate the new. I love the way new powersets are designed and look, and they have a dynamic feeling a lot of the old ones do not. I'm by no means advocating a 'action mmo' style with a gamepad here; what I would advocate is a feeling of interaction.

The environment: Hand in hand with powers. Superhero fights damage their environment. You smash through walls, you break stuff. Even on instanced mission maps, I would take this option and give up pure aesthetics. Paragon Studios proved they can make gorgeous environments without taxing a game system. Maybe they could make more 'real' ones, too. Long have been the days where I've sighed at Mayhem missions and wanted them to exist outside a vacuum.

And bases I more or less covered. Would things like this be too much for people to part with? Or is the comfort zone of the game 'as is' preferable? I open the question to you.


S.

One of the biggest failings of bases in this game is that they only look cool if you have the talent to get them to look good. I suspect most players do not and I know I don't.

Another is that bases don't serve much of a practical purpose. All game world services need to be available in bases, in addition to bases offering services only available through them.

I look forward to being able to purchase a personal base that looks cool by default, but can be customized if I want and comes in various theme flavors. A base that offers a full set of services making it a place worth buying and spending time in.

WARNING: I bold names.

Even with the ability to freely rotate items now (as opposed to the previous increments of 90 degrees only), bases could still use a lot of work. One of the things I'd love to see is the requirements for the medical room items to come down sharply. (Yes, I know that they were once required vastly more healing by SG members then they do now, but it's still ridiculous.)

I'd like to see more pre-fabbed items for bases as well, so we don't have to spend inordinate amounts of time (and hundreds of items) creating second floors, staircases, and thin walls (well, thinner then just filling in an entire base square). Mind you, the second floor thing could be handled by making the linoleum tile visible from underneath.

I'm somewhat against the idea of adding the ability to damage the environment. Considering the large numbers of players in some zones, you'd end up with Atlas Park or Mercy Island burned to the ground. Repeatedly. I mean, if it was specifically limited to instances, sure, that would be fine. We already have a limited version of that in villain bank missions.

Let us put NPCs in our base. Let us design them ourselves.

For RP I think it would be cool if you could link a base to an entrance out in the world, like a building in Steel Canyon. Or for SGs who RP as communities, you could link your base to the entrance of some apartment buildings in Atlas Park or Faultline. Maybe your underground themed base could be linked to a manhole or cave entrance. I've had this idea since my first week playing, hope I'm not the only one.

Thanks for the responses, folks....those suggestions are cool, but I was wondering what you'd sacrifice that we have now to get something better. It seems as far as powers are concerned, people would happily give up the older ones for a 2.0 of the same set?

With that in mind, would you let the old base system go completely for better features?



S.

I'd be happy if they did absolutely anything to bases except for further destroy them.

Oh wow, if there were NPC's in bases that would open up the opportunity for all sorts of cool stuff. For example I'd enjoy seeing younger, less experienced hero/villain characters that just hung around in the base and made coffee for everyone, complained about "the system," and saluted me as I went past or something, to add to the flavor of the base and whatnot. And if they occasionally walked around and did emotes and stuff that'd be great.

Compared to some of the other upgrades I don't think anything needs to be given up to improve the curent base system.

Bases don’t need to be destroyed for a better system to be added. Simply develop a system for making a feature that we will call Headquarters (HQ). HQs could have features such as Individual footlockers, NPCs that can speak dialoge, a single zonetransport unit that lets you select all zones, Group storage areas, Full health Med Bays, Danger rooms(SG A.E.) and so forth. Once developed add portals to the HQ from zones in the game. (Maybe use doorways that currently don’t have mission access or use the SG base pillars.) Now add this new system to the SG group options so an SG can have both a BASE and a HQ.

By doing this there is no need to destroy the beautiful bases already built, It allows for those who don’t like change to gradually use the new system or to never use it, as well as allows loot to be ported from the bases to the new HQ by the players and be sorted the way they want. And it is a system that does not need to have any code from the current "Base system" to be accessed or touched so the "house of cards" remains intact.

If the HQs system is well done then most SG’s will gradually stop using bases and instead use HQs yet the old bases will still be around for Artistic and Historical reasons.

I have absolutely no problems losing data, as long as I have the options with which to recreate that data after changes have been implemented. In other words, if I have to lose my entire base in order for the system to be streamlined, made more functional, and improved overall, so be it. But I would expect to have the same amount of gross prestige available (perhaps even a bonus since rebuilding would take time), as well as all of the existing item options and perhaps more.

Similarly, as you (Oz) said about the costume creator: I would be annoyed by having all my costumes reset on me. But if it meant improving the system for moving forward (layers, asymmetry, more anchors, fingers, etc.), and all of the current costume parts were going to be available at (or within a couple weeks) of launch, I could stomach it.