Customisable nemesis minions

bobsy26 · December 2015

Yeah, despite everything I still look forward to nemesis encounters. Problem is, 99% of the time these encounters only feature minions rather than the elaborate custom nemeses themselves. Not only that but the preset minions are... well, boring. They're barely-changed versions of the same generic baddies we fight every day anyway. Mafia goons are just New Purple Gangers without the purple, insectoids are Qularr, lizardmen are Lemurians... you get the idea. They're boring, and the creativity of the community would be able to liven up nemesis missions and alerts considerably.

Costume files are typically under 100k in size and rarely put any strain on players' bandwidth. Hanging out in the Ren Cen your client will be downloading 50-60 costume files without skipping a beat. A couple more when a nemesis minion ambush takes place would not be noticeable.

The generic minion types need not be removed - they're good to have around for players that just want their nemesis out their in the wild without spending hours in the tailor. But the option to create our own nemesis minions would be a boon for the sizeable creative community.

roughbearmattach · December 2015

Is there a concern about piles of minions violating ToS one way or another? If I were a Dev, that is what would concern me.

chaelk · December 2015

oh, yes I can see piles of clones, to go with the clone characters.

First you need to make a new tailor on the nemesis console.
then link it to the Minions file,
then link that to the Missions files.

no programming training but that's what I can see to start with,
same for the customized sidekicks. you need a new tailor. sidekicks would be easier, since it would be close to what STO has for their BOFFS.

bobsy26 · December 2015

roughbearmattach said:
Is there a concern about piles of minions violating ToS one way or another? If I were a Dev, that is what would concern me.

I can't imagine so. No more than player characters, anyway.

roughbearmattach · December 2015

bobsy26 said:

roughbearmattach said:
Is there a concern about piles of minions violating ToS one way or another? If I were a Dev, that is what would concern me.
I can't imagine so. No more than player characters, anyway.

Nemesis minions show up in open world, in groups of four, plus they show up in NemCon, Nemesis Alerts. It's bad enough when you do these and the Nemesis is something like "Sexy GoGo Girl" and is essentially a nude toon. Imagine if all the minions were the same. Likewise, having minions be Hulk clones is something that would happen.

People already violate ToS with Nemeses sometimes, but opening up minions would make it much worse.

soulforger · December 2015

roughbearmattach said:

bobsy26 said:

roughbearmattach said:
Is there a concern about piles of minions violating ToS one way or another? If I were a Dev, that is what would concern me.
I can't imagine so. No more than player characters, anyway.
Nemesis minions show up in open world, in groups of four, plus they show up in NemCon, Nemesis Alerts. It's bad enough when you do these and the Nemesis is something like "Sexy GoGo Girl" and is essentially a nude toon. Imagine if all the minions were the same. Likewise, having minions be Hulk clones is something that would happen.

People already violate ToS with Nemeses sometimes, but opening up minions would make it much worse.

Actually, it wouldn't be much worse, it would be more noticeable. Because people would be able to see the minions better than your nemesis. For the same people that make clones, will continue making clones regardless of anyone else. Same with nude toons. But, you do not see a lot of nude toons around, now do you? Likewise, you don't see that many clones either. The numbers for players that violate to TOS with those two types of toons would not change, but since minions appear on the world map at times, it would be more noticeable.

ealford1985 · December 2015

And I say just report the clones.

Shouldn't have to worry about the "what if" when it comes to clones. I am all for custom minions. The % of clone minions would be super small and if they are clones, then more than likey the player is one too.

soulforger · December 2015

ealford1985 said:
And I say just report the clones.

Shouldn't have to worry about the "what if" when it comes to clones. I am all for custom minions. The % of clone minions would be super small and if they are clones, then more than likey the player is one too.

Exactly. Don't punish the majority for the troubles a few cause.

roughbearmattach · December 2015

With only one GM, I don't think CO could handle the issues that would arise.

ealford1985 · December 2015

We have more GMs that respond to email...not sure about how many of those appear in game or actually default the clones.

But even with the extras GMs, they still don't handle all the clones now...so what's a few more going to hurt. Plus it would be extremely rare for anyone to catch a clones cloned minion in game.

zamuelpwe · December 2015

As a business, CO technically can't turn a blind eye on clones but lets step away from that point. On a technical issue, it's harder to setup than some are giving credit. The Nemesis editor only shows four enemies and only four attack on the overworld but with enforcer rank it's more like six enemies. This would require six costume editors. Adding onto that, while individual costumes may not be large, saving six per Nemesis is going to start slowly ballooning.

Also, something that's slightly incorrect is that the current Nemesis minions are just copies. While some are, others are wholly original.

divitus · December 2015

chaelk said:
oh, yes I can see piles of clones, to go with the clone characters.

First you need to make a new tailor on the nemesis console.

then link it to the Minions file,

then link that to the Missions files.

no programming training but that's what I can see to start with,

same for the customized sidekicks. you need a new tailor. sidekicks would be easier, since it would be close to what STO has for their BOFFS.

I've started something, haven't I? Maybe the idea I had was just too good to ignore...

Anyways, Bobsy, a very interesting idea. The more customized the game, the better. Now we just need a mission creator to create awesome story arcs to... oh, wait...

bobsy26 · December 2015

roughbearmattach said:
With only one GM, I don't think CO could handle the issues that would arise.

But this isn't our concern. It's not for the players to run the game, it's for the players to play and enjoy it. We make suggestions for what we'd like added to increase our enjoyment, but if it came to the players to worry about TOS violations, lawsuits, sales figures and the like then the least we could expect is a wage packet to go with it.

roughbearmattach · December 2015

Fair enough, @bobsy26.

Perhaps just introducing a wider selection of premade minions would suffice, particularly since creating an entire new system (customizing 4-6 different minion looks) would take a large amount of dev time.

How about introducing new minion sets like these:

* Amazons: all female minions
* Felines: feline heads, beast stances
* Constructs: golems and magical constructs
* Dark Minions: similar to the blazing and frosty minions, but with darkness eyes/effects
* Horrors: using creatures modeled on the Qliphothic look
* Undead: skeletons, zombies, ghosts
* Elementals: vaguely humanoid, each with appropriate aura

Going along with this, just add the remaining power sets to the Nemesis creator (Wind, Power Armor, Unarmed, Heavy Weapons).

This would allow more choices, and require much less dev time.

captainhunter1 · December 2015

I'd be all for custom minions, but sadly they would get abused.

How about just adding every bad guy minion that already exists in the game to the list for some added variety?

I mean heck, we got VIPER soldiers, bug aliens, dinosaurs, destroid robots, etc, etc, etc. that would make excellent minion fodder - and they're already created and in-game! Let us use them.

zamuelpwe · December 2015

roughbearmattach said:
How about introducing new minion sets like these:

* Amazons: all female minions
* Felines: feline heads, beast stances
* Constructs: golems and magical constructs
* Dark Minions: similar to the blazing and frosty minions, but with darkness eyes/effects
* Horrors: using creatures modeled on the Qliphothic look
* Undead: skeletons, zombies, ghosts
* Elementals: vaguely humanoid, each with appropriate aura

Going along with this, just add the remaining power sets to the Nemesis creator (Wind, Power Armor, Unarmed, Heavy Weapons).

This would allow more choices, and require much less dev time.

This would make sense though some of these seem unneeded. We do currently have an Undead set and while not feline exclusive, the Beastmen does have some cats. That said, some of these others would certainly fill some needed gaps. Like, Amazons makes sense for both the lack of a barbarian group and the lack of an all girl group. In fact, you could arguably have both amazons and modern street gang style of all girl faction. The Druids from Cairngorn Stoneblood could easily be repurposed since while we have tons of demons and zombies that might serve a mage, we don't have a basic cult as an option. Hmm...some of this seems like it would make a decent thread in Costumes and Concepts.

Customisable nemesis minions

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