Here's what's coming...

heavynosferatu · August 2015

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/335/feature/10007/Champions-Online-Get-Ready-to-Unleash-Your-Inner-Villain.html

So, after reading it a couple of times...I'm only concerned with the potential for griefing. It sounds like it will be a lot of fun though.

Thoughts?

meedacthunist · August 2015

Not a great fan of PvP in CO (or any Cryptic game for that matter), so here's hoping it will be handled like duels.

Otherwise I'm indifferent. Never really cared about signature villains of CO. Their mmo versions are weaksauce. Not on pair with DC, Marvel or even CoH baddies.

BTW:

Is this a Gravitar player fighting PA npc?

I wouldn't say no to her costume being redesigned this way. Looks way better.

somebob · August 2015

Very interesting.

One big negative I can see - it's gonna make RPing in random overworld spots in MC VERY difficult. At any point, a villain could just drop on your head and wreck your day.

ladygadfly · August 2015

heavynosferatu wrote: »

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/335/feature/10007/Champions-Online-Get-Ready-to-Unleash-Your-Inner-Villain.html

So, after reading it a couple of times...I'm only concerned with the potential for griefing. It sounds like it will be a lot of fun though.

Thoughts?

We've taken steps to minimize the possibility of griefing. Nobody can be targeted by player villains unless they attack the villain first.

heavynosferatu · August 2015

ladygadfly wrote: »

heavynosferatu wrote: »

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/335/feature/10007/Champions-Online-Get-Ready-to-Unleash-Your-Inner-Villain.html

So, after reading it a couple of times...I'm only concerned with the potential for griefing. It sounds like it will be a lot of fun though.

Thoughts?

We've taken steps to minimize the possibility of griefing. Nobody can be targeted by player villains unless they attack the villain first.

Very nice. Yeah I'm looking forward to this. One question, will npc villains ignore the villain player as well?

flyingfinn · August 2015

Takes 5-10 players to take you down.

Yea. You might last like 12 seconds as a "Cosmic Villain"...

But i liked

so...

Well, maybe 80 "Gronds" running around shouting *PUNY HEROES!!* might be fun thou.
or...(YECH!) having fun in Club Caprice....

And who is Avatar?

themightyzenith · August 2015

somebob wrote: »

Very interesting.

One big negative I can see - it's gonna make RPing in random overworld spots in MC VERY difficult. At any point, a villain could just drop on your head and wreck your day.

What? You mean like in a *GASP* superhero comic book?

deadman20 · August 2015

flyingfinn wrote: »

Well, maybe 80 "Gronds" running around shouting *PUNY HEROES!!* might be fun thou.
or...(YECH!) having fun in Club Caprice....

You know, I wouldn't mind walking into Caprice and doing that... just run around as Grond and be all "WHO START RUMORS ABOUT GROND? GROND SMASH PUNY HERO!" then just go nuts and fight around on the dance floor, crushing all the "Puny Gods" who reside in there...

crypticarkayne · August 2015

flyingfinn wrote: »

And who is Avatar?

Gravitar; they misheard the villain name.

flyingfinn · August 2015

And about those giant UNTIL Defender power armor units....
They could have made use of the Variable Robot pieces and make a GIANT one. That like, you know, merges with multiple smaller ones to a GIANT one. Like some of those "transformable" robots in disguise do....
And release actual variable pieces to the set same time, to be collected in the Onslaught scenarios........
Ok, i'm just gonna go and

flyingfinn · August 2015

themightyzenith wrote: »

somebob wrote: »

Very interesting.

One big negative I can see - it's gonna make RPing in random overworld spots in MC VERY difficult. At any point, a villain could just drop on your head and wreck your day.

What? You mean like in a *GASP* superhero comic book?

SHUSH! you. And let them interrupt all the social stuff in RenCenter???

crypticarkayne · August 2015

Stay tuned for an ARC announcement tomorrow regarding Supervillain Onslaught!

meedacthunist · August 2015

flyingfinn wrote: »

And about those giant UNTIL Defender power armor units....
They could have made use of the Variable Robot pieces and make a GIANT one.

Why, to scare people away from the new content?

flyingfinn · August 2015

meedacthunist wrote: »

Not a great fan of PvP in CO (or any Cryptic game for that matter), so here's hoping it will be handled like duels.

Otherwise I'm indifferent. Never really cared about signature villains of CO. Their mmo versions are weaksauce. Not on pair with DC, Marvel or even CoH baddies.

BTW:

Is this a Gravitar player fighting PA npc?

I wouldn't say no to her costume being redesigned this way. Looks way better.

And she grew few feet in height....

biffsmackwell · August 2015

Wow. I've always wanted giant monster attacks on the city, but never thought they'd be player-controlled. That is seriously awesome.

That Gravitar costume design looks great, too.

windupduck · August 2015

Wait, this means I might have a chance, albeit a small one, to finally beat up Biff Smackwell!?
Huzzah!!

splosions · August 2015

flyingfinn wrote: »

meedacthunist wrote: »

Not a great fan of PvP in CO (or any Cryptic game for that matter), so here's hoping it will be handled like duels.

Otherwise I'm indifferent. Never really cared about signature villains of CO. Their mmo versions are weaksauce. Not on pair with DC, Marvel or even CoH baddies.

That's actually one of the things we'd like to change.

Is this a Gravitar player fighting PA npc?

It's Gravitar fighting one of the UNTIL power armor units, yeah. Those things pack a wallop!

I wouldn't say no to her costume being redesigned this way. Looks way better.

Yes.
Yes, it does.

And she grew few feet in height....

It's artistic license-- it makes bad guys easier to see and target, when they're mobbed by half a dozen heroes.

Lore-wise.... um... would you believe... uh... Telios?

biffsmackwell · August 2015

windupduck wrote: »

Wait, this means I might have a chance, albeit a small one, to finally beat up Biff Smackwell!?
Huzzah!!

Count on it!

theravenforce · August 2015

heavynosferatu wrote: »

ladygadfly wrote: »

heavynosferatu wrote: »

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/335/feature/10007/Champions-Online-Get-Ready-to-Unleash-Your-Inner-Villain.html

So, after reading it a couple of times...I'm only concerned with the potential for griefing. It sounds like it will be a lot of fun though.

Thoughts?

We've taken steps to minimize the possibility of griefing. Nobody can be targeted by player villains unless they attack the villain first.

Very nice. Yeah I'm looking forward to this. One question, will npc villains ignore the villain player as well?

NPC villains will attack players in Onslaught Mode as per usual (I think ALL NPCs regardless of level will attack you as well though).

I don't think it will apply to civilians though, they'll probably ignore you.

This does mean you could run Mega Destroid Invasion in Downtown then have Grond fight the Mega D...or Gravitar...

Does make me wonder though...if players who activate the Onslaught Device and have a 10 min duration...and no one attacks...will they just do whatever? Or will a countdown for the timer only start when players are in Onslaught mode and are being attacked by other players?

deadman20 · August 2015

splosions wrote: »

Lore-wise.... um... would you believe... uh... Telios?

I am TELEIOS! I am perfection! I- I cannot fail!

Hehe, I'd love to use some of their character's voice lines every once in a while as the Villain.

canadascott · August 2015

deadman20 wrote: »

splosions wrote: »

Lore-wise.... um... would you believe... uh... Telios?

I am TELEIOS! I am perfection! I- I cannot fail!

Hehe, I'd love to use some of their character's voice lines every once in a while as the Villain.

Verbal taunts (on a cooldown to avoid spamming) would be pretty awesome.

pantagruel01 · August 2015

ladygadfly wrote: »

We've taken steps to minimize the possibility of griefing. Nobody can be targeted by player villains unless they attack the villain first.

The problem can go the other way as well, with people trying to use the devices being farmed; it's tough to balance open-world PvP (see, for example, the Blood Moon Hunters vs Werewolves, which inevitably winds up as one side farming the other, and thus no-one plays it any more). I would at least consider some means of creating restricted engagements (duels or instancing). Or scaling based on number of adversaries (though this introduces another type of griefing: adding fake adversaries to make the villain tougher). Also, if I bring on a healer, can I just heal the person fighting the villain, without actually being attackable? One possibility might be treating anyone in a fight with a player villain to be in a team duel, meaning you can only be assisted by other people on your team in that duel.

In any case, it sounds interesting. It's just going to need a lot of playtesting. I'm curious why Mega-Destroids aren't in the list, though -- I always wanted to try dueling against a Resistance Mega-Destroid (sadly, I have never found a way of doing so).

sterga · August 2015

Grav no longer looks like she belongs on a corner in the red light district. Woo!

The only thing that would make this better is if we could destroy all of the building in MC... No, it's not something I've been wishing for. I swear! *shifty eyes* How about just Champs HQ? Can we destroy that?

windupduck · August 2015

biffsmackwell wrote: »

windupduck wrote: »

Wait, this means I might have a chance, albeit a small one, to finally beat up Biff Smackwell!?
Huzzah!!

Count on it!

Oh, the Mayhem! It makes my little anarchist heart soar.

sistersilicon · August 2015

pantagruel01 wrote: »

Also, if I bring on a healer, can I just heal the person fighting the villain, without actually being attackable? One possibility might be treating anyone in a fight with a player villain to be in a team duel, meaning you can only be assisted by other people on your team in that duel.

In other MMOs, healing a player flagged for PvP flags the healer for PvP as well. Might want to keep a close eye on those Healing Drones, if that's how it works here.

sterga wrote: »

The only thing that would make this better is if we could destroy all of the building in MC... No, it's not something I've been wishing for. I swear! *shifty eyes* How about just Champs HQ? Can we destroy that?

It would look too much like real-world Detroit, then. Breaks the immersion.

mrhinkypunk · August 2015

This sounds really exciting, I as someone who mainly PvP's (believe it or not) in this game these days am extremely happy that something such as this is being implemented. People may think that becoming a villain will mean death within seconds from a team of 5 or so people with good'ish builds however you miss the fact that CO is infact an action game. If you learn the villains skills and know how to use things such as LoS and stuff I could imagine a player being able to become a much tougher foe than a stationary derpy NPC. As I said, can't wait to give this update a go.

flyingfinn · August 2015

sterga wrote: »

Grav no longer looks like she belongs on a corner in the red light district. Woo!

The only thing that would make this better is if we could destroy all of the building in MC... No, it's not something I've been wishing for. I swear! *shifty eyes* How about just Champs HQ? Can we destroy that?

Or the Cryptic building.....

sterga · August 2015

flyingfinn wrote: »

Or the Cryptic building.....

Nah. I dislike the Champions, not Cryptic. Besides, why would I want to walk all that way just to crush a hot dog vendor?

kemmicals · August 2015

Please tell me I can run around as Foxbat and drop weights on people all day.

And hopefully have that pave the way to a comedy powerset.

pantagruel01 · August 2015

mrhinkypunk wrote: »

People may think that becoming a villain will mean death within seconds from a team of 5 or so people with good'ish builds however you miss the fact that CO is infact an action game.

The problem isn't that a villain who can take on a team of top-end builds is impossible. The problem is that such a villain will roflstomp non-top builds, and you don't want content that only a small minority of players can actually contribute to.

There may be means of implementing scaling to the potency of the opposition (for example, if you gain a 5s stacking buff for every 10,000 damage taken, a team throwing out 20,000 dps will wind up fighting a villain with 10 stacks), but it requires some thought.

heavynosferatu · August 2015

I can imaging the RP guilds are gonna have a lovely time with this. Although, I know I'll have fun just popping up randomly and getting people to chase me. I might even just let myself get killed by newer players for the fun of it. Yeah, I can see this being a lot of fun.

mrhinkypunk · August 2015

pantagruel01 wrote: »

The problem isn't that a villain who can take on a team of top-end builds is impossible. The problem is that such a villain will roflstomp non-top builds, and you don't want content that only a small minority of players can actually contribute to.

I see what you mean, it'll be a lot easier for them to balance this however seeing as you don't pick the build yourself, while in FF you can make yourself good at everything as a "become" device pretty much you wont just be rotating AD's all day with crazy amounts of healing bursting everyone in seconds. It'd be a lot worse if the villains were normal players even without any buff to their normal builds because then you'd get some pretty tough teleporting aopm UR SR build that will probably beat 5 players that don't have anything set up for PvP. We'll have to see exactly how they balance going up against the villains to be a viable thing to do for someone with a themed RP build for example.

dr490nbr347hi · August 2015

I was hoping for actually creating villains, but whatever. Getting anything is good, and the precautions taken against trolling normal player heroes seem like they'll do the trick.

xcaligax · August 2015

I can only punch Grond so many times. Now it's gonna be even harder because he'll actually have a "brain" behind his moves.

windupduck · August 2015

xcaligax wrote: »

I can only punch Grond so many times. Now it's gonna be even harder because he'll actually have a "brain" behind his moves.

I imagine a scene wherein an unsuspecting Caliga heads absentminded into Leo's Bar after a long day of Hero'ing. As the door swings open a group of twentysomething rowdy Gronds at the bar cease their revelries and fall silent, all radioactive eyes turned menacingly to the crowned figure. Somewhere deep behind Caliga's helmet a smile forms on unseen lips as the door swings closed behind him.

riverocean · August 2015

I literally squealed with glee when I read this today. Been counting on some crazy things coming from Cryptic this year - but never anything as wonderful as this.

Just thank you devs.. thank you caring about CO. And thank you for keeping at it despite how grumpy some of us players have been. I can't wait for this and to see what else is coming. You just won back a subscriber. I know there will be bumps along the way. But it looks like you are really trying to bring this game back to life.

nbkxs · August 2015

sterga wrote: »

Grav no longer looks like she belongs on a corner in the red light district. Woo!

The only thing that would make this better is if we could destroy all of the building in MC... No, it's not something I've been wishing for. I swear! *shifty eyes* How about just Champs HQ? Can we destroy that?

YES PLEASE!

pantagruel01 · August 2015

mrhinkypunk wrote: »

I see what you mean, it'll be a lot easier for them to balance this however seeing as you don't pick the build yourself

Missing the point. The villain player might not have the option of picking a build, but the heroes do, and there's extremely large variance in PC effectiveness.

One possibility would be to grant buffs based on incoming damage -- the harder the heroes hit, the tougher the villain is, and the harder he hits back.

jonsills · August 2015

This is looking very promising. I plan on playtesting the heck out of this on PTS, assuming enough people come on over. Remember, guys, the devs can't even begin to imagine the ways end users can come up with to break new systems! Let's help 'em out!

kyastral · August 2015

Hmm.... I was also hoping to create my own villian, choose my villians' powers and cause consistent havoc like robbing banks and jewelry stores, threatening NPC's, set fires to important buildings, work with signature villians, fight the Champions one on one or challenge the team with my own villian team.

This new content seems boring to me; all you do is "become" a signature villian and battle a team of heroes and/or another signature villian and it is limited to Millenium City. Basically, it's an ongoing zone PVP event that is fast-paced (hmmm.. sounds more like a MOBA perhaps). I am curious enough about it to test it on the PTS, though.

Questions: Will the devices be account or character bound? Will they expire? Will they stack? Will they be tradable/saleable?

itsbrou · August 2015

So, does anyone remember Mayhem missions or Safeguard missions? This reminds me of that.

Is there any chance that we can earn bonus time by performing extra acts of violence over and above our main objective?

nepht · August 2015

Playable evil. About *&^%^%$ time -_-

xrazamax · August 2015

I hope these daily tokens can accumulate if you don't use them. Being able to use all 5 tokens you gained during the weekday over the weekend when you finally have a chance to play the game would be nice. Also, in the article it said the tokens may be included in lockboxes. Hopefully this means gold members will be able to trade their tokens with other players.

mrhinkypunk · August 2015

xcaligax wrote: »

I can only punch Grond so many times. Now it's gonna be even harder because he'll actually have a "brain" behind his moves.

Haha I was waiting for this comment... Just wait for Impish Grond to be ontop of you!

cornivic · August 2015

someguywhoplaysgames wrote: »

So, does anyone remember Mayhem missions or Safeguard missions? objective?

Yes, I hope this as fun as the Mayhem missions, they were the best.

sterga · August 2015

This game already has factions. They're called Supergroups and they don't require you to fetch pig guts for some arcane ritual to summon Cthuluh's brother's half cousin to destroy the city.

riverocean · August 2015

someguywhoplaysgames wrote: »

So, does anyone remember Mayhem missions or Safeguard missions? This reminds me of that.

Is there any chance that we can earn bonus time by performing extra acts of violence over and above our main objective?

It totally reminds me of Mayhem missions - but out in the open world instead of a closed instance. Also that earning extra time idea is gold.. please mention that on the PTS thread when testing time rolls around!

crypticbuxom · August 2015

I'm concerned about how hard heroes are going to wreck the villains because from what we've seen from the team lately isn't the most positive when it comes to competent builds.

pantagruel01 · August 2015

crypticbuxom wrote: »

I'm concerned about how hard heroes are going to wreck the villains because from what we've seen from the team lately isn't the most positive when it comes to competent builds.

Lately? Were they ever? But honestly, making this work well is hard.

On the high end of reasonable challenge might be a Resistance mega-destroid transform. Might be too hard, actually. Checking its powers:

Mega Punch Combo: 1s, 20' range
Stomp: 1.5s, appears to do about 12k damage to human-scale targets, radius unclear but significant.
Ground Slam: useless as far as I can tell.
Eye Beam: 2,200 damage every 0.5s out to 200', and ignites targets. Being ignited is 1,600 dps for 5s
Missile Swarm: 176-10,031 damage based on pulse (15 pulses over 5.17s), 200' range, 40' radius, 40' chance of 80' knockback, 15s cooldown.
Destroyer Beam: 2.67s, costs all energy, 105,000 damage in a 100' radius.
Self Repair: 27,044 heal per second for 5s. Costs 20 energy per sec, and 10s cooldown.
Defenses: 204,880 hp, no mitigation, 122 flat damage reduction, rank 3 energy shield.

Only destroyer beam and self repair cost energy, but the megas lack energy builders except maybe against colossi.

Here's what's coming...

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