Opinion Poll: Bases and Redesigns.
By
Acroyear2,
Posted on: 2012-07-11 24:22 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Quote:
Any grounds-up redesign that didn't include this would be madness, and this isn't Sparta. To me, if they achieve nothing else, they need to at least not break what's already there.|
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
Implement an entirely new base system from the ground up, but give SG leaders the option to "Leave my base as-is"/"Update to new system" (or even wipe it out and start from the beginning).
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Beyond that, I'd e perfectly happy with a grounds-up redesign if we could go with a Minecraft-inspired base builder, as opposed to the current "room-based" one. At its very basic, just load players into a cube room with the teleporter in the middle and let them "dig" out from it cube by cube. Have each cube be a 3 feet tall, so three are about the size of a max-height male and two about average height, then let people hollow out the shape of the base they wanted to make. Limit it to, say, 256x256x64 lengthXwidthXheight and let us dig away.
Once that's done, let us put cubes back in and pick their textures, then add to that a collection of props from the game, like consoles, couches, tables, stairs and such. In short, let us pick the shape of our base by ourselves, then let us decorate it with props after that.
I know what you're thinking - but what about rooms? We need a power room and a control room and so forth, right? Um... Do we? Why not just get away with putting a cost on the actual functional items, rather than the room they're in? But OK, suppose we need to define rooms in a system that doesn't use rooms as basic units. How do we do that? Well, let players define "doorways." Pick two blocks on the floor in a line and have the engine trace that line along the floor, up the wall, along the ceiling, back down the other wall and back along the floor until it completes a curcuit. That's your doorway. Section off room by defining a doorway at each of its entrances and just define that to be a separate room. Want that to be your power room? OK. So how big is it? Well, count the cubes it's made up of and that's your size. Now give it a cost and performance based on that size and you're golden.
I realise that this is not going to happen. It's too much work and a fundamental redesign of the system. But at the same time, this is what might finally get me to mess with bases, because forcing the base to conform to a rigid grid makes it easier to work with without having to worry about complex positioning AND it makes that grid is still considerably finer than what we could do with bases before.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Even though I often spend a lot of money on Bases and a lot of time, I'd throw my lot in with the "Legacy Bases and New Bases" idea, so that I can keep the ones i've worked and spent money on and then move onto the new builder.
Of course, there has to be something that'll appeal to everyone, but i'll leave that for others to figure out, but placeable NPCs or just wandering NPCs would be awesome, as well as a 'Training Room' with test dummies.
That is all.
I was doing some playthroughs of City of Heroes. Now they will serve as memories of a better time ...
In the grand-scheme of things, I'm relatively new to the whole base-building thing. It took a while for me to really get into it, learning how to make things stack, and how to float items and whatnot. (Oh the joy of being able to move items up and down.. and rotate them?? I dang near fainted when I saw that!)
Once I figured it out though, I had a lot of fun with it. I had a base that I inherited around i13 - i14 (it still has a storage rack that has 99 Base Salvage in it...)
I have dedicated a -lot- of time and energy to gaining Prestige, crafting items, upgrading plots, placing items... and I'm still working on it... (It's really only myself and two other people working on that Prestige...)
That all being said... Despite all the time and effort I have put into it, if the Devs said they were rebuilding the base system from the ground up, improving everything like it has been said they want to... I'd hand them the proverbial keys and hold a BBQ as it happened.
If we had a chance to actually keep our Legacy Bases as well, I certainly wouldn't complain, but it wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me.
The only caveat Id throw in is giving me a refund on all our Prestige. Or, if a new base system didn't use Prestige, then something else as an equivalent.
Basically, all I'm saying is that bases can be rebuilt, and I'd gladly do just that if it came to it.
"The part of me that is leaving... is going to miss the part of me that is staying..."
<QR>
If a redesign from the ground up means that I have even a chance of losing my current bases functionality or what I have in storage, then no. Please leave the Jenga bars alone.
If you could create new bases (or whatever new name they want to slap on it) with new code and functionality, then sure, go for it.
As a possible suggestion, a map editor function in AE would be wonderful. If you could somehow marry the capabilities of bases, arena, and AE such that people could design an environment to tell a story, or hangout, or fight other players it would be AWESOME!
Obviously you would have to set it to zero (or severely reduced) rewards because having that much control over the environment AND the npcs would be too good for power leveling.
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
Samuel_Tow, I can't see a mine craft like system. But here's the base designer I'd create.
(1) All bases have a fixed land space, size to be determined. Base expansion happens by adding another floor, requiring an elevator item to go from floor to floor. Each floor loads separately, so hoping in the base to use the teleporters or razzing to the base doesn't require loading everything. Floors can be functional (put devices in them) or just decorative (decorative are cheaper). An interesting feature would be if you could grant editing privileges for specific floors to specific people.
(2) No rooms. There's a "design mode" that doesn't have you in the base, you just draw walls where you want them. No 1x1 doorways needed either. Placing items in the base is still done by walking through the base.
(3) No control items. There are power plants, and devices that drain power, put them wherever you want. No crafting either, just buy the item and place it. Some advanced devices or power plants may require SG badges to use. Crafting is limited to inventions and buffs. Wide variety of decorative items, including "floors" - 2x2 squares, choose between different patterns and different heights.
(4) You buy one transporter. It's like the tram or tunnel or long range teleporter, you scroll through the list of zones and go where you want.
(5) An expensive upgrade you can make to your base is "personal quarters". Once bought, every member has their own floor which they can name, decorate as desired (including souvenir racks where the souvenirs you've collected are displayed and mannequins to show your existing costumes) and maybe some personal storage racks. You can visit the quarters of everyone on your league - so in normal use the list of floors is quite manageable but a SG can meet and show off their quarters to each other.
Now, this design works for PVE, no raiding. I suspect it wouldn't work for raiding, too much flexibility would make it too easy to make items inaccessible.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
Givings us the inf back in full would be the key point for a starters.
If they redo it all, Graphics, design, new features/items then yer i'm very much for new redesign of bases if it means more love in the future other wise it'll always remain a broken thing of the past and will for sure drag the game behind.
Yer i know the coding involved will take donkey ages to get it fully working. I expect at least 2 issues worth of work, but the end result would be - amazing.
Tbh i would have to say if they do start to look at this.. they should tell us that they are so we know change is going to happen soon, so people who r base builders/owners can at some point begin to think of the situation when its released.
But then it comes to - Raids - Thought would need to go into this so we can still raid while ... having the designs we love to create and keep... perhaps maybe options so inorder to raid- all doorways need to be freely accessable and not blocked etc.
However... If this is done... The devs will need to find a way in which things we have stored in the base can either be transferred over 100% or something and not loose them.
Plus... we could have a 2 tier system base.. the current/old bases remain for X amount of time and new bases added in for everyone else.. Those with Old system bases can still make a new base while keeping the old and after X time the base will just- disappear. that way people can transfer z items in the bases into their new one, while also having the ability to pop back n fourth in order to redesign their bases the same way.
I did forget to mention: yes, the prestige we earned in our previous SG...it would have to be mirrored in our new SG.
Perhaps just give the current SG leader the lump sum of the prestige in the current base....and then have it transfer to the new base.
Or, refund all the prestige each character has earned in their SG (by the values on the SG roster) and let it be a new "influence-like" number that actually goes with the character when they leave the legacy SG bases.....and then they can re-invest in the new SG base if they want when joining and clicking a "share prestige" button or something. (and then all prestige earned under the new SG will go directly to the new SG like the current bases do.)
If we lost all our prestige in the move of SG bases......i'd be a might P.O.'ed. :P
Level 53: Arrows/Devices/Munitions Blaster
....and hopeless Science-Natzi.
Would it be nice to see a Base System Overhaul/Base 2.0? Yes.
Would it be worth the manhours & "OMFG!!! WTF did you do to my Base??!!!" fallout? I don't think so. Hell, I still have one base I've been meaning to finish tweaking (again). I really don't want to go through the hassle of rebuilding the thing from Scratch (and that's one of several I have Red Star/Design privileges on...).
Thank you for the time...