From square 1, what would you change about Champions Online?

baronleo · January 2017

If you had the opportunity to change 5 things about Champions FROM SQUARE ONE when it was FIRST being developed, what would you change?

Here's my list:

1) ARCHITECTURE
- Redo the architecture of shops and buildings in Millennium City. Make shops actually look like shops with small, simple, but not crowded interiors rather than people standing out in the open.
- I would also have existing shops and buildings around town that already exist have an interior and service some small purpose like:
A donut shop that gives a "donut" that ups your energy recovery for 15 minutes but causes it to drag for 30 afterwards and coffee that lowers your cool down temporarily for all powers but lowers your accuracy/offense a smidge.
A Pizza joint that once you down a slice increases your Energy Equilibrium for a short while.
Louie, that hot dog vendor in from of the Champions building? He's got hotdogs and sodas that give and equilibrium raise and an energy recovery raise (and he can tell you some great stories about what he's seen).
Music stores can sell you a great new tune that gives you temporary stars to feel better and inspire you after a loss.

Having a donut shop and many other shop wherever you see a store facade would allow RP space for players, it would be simple and it could also be used to start missions too. Johnny the donut shop owner has a kid getting mixed up with PSI agents and their cheap psi drugs and asks for the local heroes help for lower level heroes.
- Make Harmon Labs have an interior and Arms and Science tables that you must have gone on certain missions to unlock but provide a +10% to your success rate. Do the same with the mystic foundry in Millennium City for Mystic Skills. When you are in Harmon Labs, a scientist asks for your help to "test" something and ...yep....another mission.
- Make the Bank locations actual also banks where items can be stored.
- The Barlowe can be entered and it's a hotel with a concierge that has a rescue mission inside if you are high enough level and such. Make it fun and worth exploring. Also, having more mobs inside buildings would make it easier for low levels to explore a bit without being killed.

2) SKILLS - Make skills count.
-Make higher skill caps available at level 10 and 20 as well but make the criteria for raising them be a mission and a certain number of fuses, not just found ingredients.
- The "loot" esthetic seems unusual to me for a superhero game and should be removed. Mods found or created directly add to your stats but those mod slots are limited and their number and the level of mod only increase with your level.
- Make mod drops from certain enemies, available from certain shops, or as mission rewards and get rid of the randomly placed mod spots you grind and harvest that make no sense. Help with immersion , RP, and decrease the grin feeling. May I also suggest minigames within the game for certain mods?
- Put the ingredients to MAKE mods in shops, as drops, and locations where it makes sense (rare herbs from Herbalist at the Botanical Garden, parts from autoshop for vehicles, chemicals from local supplier, etc.)
- Mods should be flavored for the different skill sets (Constitution Enhancement could be a Health Evocation for Mystics, Structural Integrity Field for Arms, and a Cellular Invigorator for Science). There would be certain GENERIC mods that anyone could "train in" to raise to a certain level (working with weights increases strength, cardio increases your Energy, Reading increases your Intelligence) but only to a certain level (like a level 3 or 4 mod is highest without higher level. These generic mods can be gained every three days (whether offline or on) at their basest level 1 whether the character is online or off and they just need to assign what they are training in before they leave for the day. If nothing is changed, then the previous one is selected. These generic mods cannot be traded or sold, though. They also require periodic upkeep past a certain level.
- Higher level Mods from certain skills cannot be combined by using different skills (i.e. Mystic mods cannot be fused by Science or Arms and visa versa) but can still be used as a mod. Mods that aren't your skill type may still drop occasionally for something you do not have the skill to work with, forcing you to trade more and interact more.
- Any skill table should give a +5% boost for using one and better tables can be purchased for hideouts giving a better percentage to fuse so that having a hideout would get you an additional bonus.
- Also, select devices (radiation/mutation/biochemical treatments, gadgets, spells) can be made with skills BUT only if you collect the proper blue prints (forumulae/equations for science, blueprints for arms, spells for mystic) and ingredients. Your character then works to "fuse" those ingredients successfully to create the desired "device". These devices are like the powers bought in stores (Minor heals, energy, Talsiman of Winter, etc.) but blueprints and components drop on appropriate missions or from appropriate mobs. Once you have a blueprint, your character keeps it. Rare items you had to mission for stick around unless they are used by succeeding in what you were trying to do. Only the less rare items are used up if you fail and are available in shops around the area or easy missions or possibly a drop from common mobs.
- Devices and vehicles can be damaged and do not heal and thus, must be repaired by someone with the appropriate skill. (See vehicles below)

3) TRAVEL POWERS
- For standard Archetypes, give them out at level 5 and 25.
- Freeform characters with the ability to choose a new power can choose when they want to start a new Travel power after level 5 when they want to but there is a requirements list for the powers, of course.
- Make some archetypes based AROUND certain Travel powers with extended powers that are gained by level progression such as ATs of: Super-Speedster, Teleporting Imp, Winged Warrior, etc.
-
- Extended powers for Teleport would allow include:
Teleport to Team Mate: Self explanatory and available in the store
Grabbing Teleport: Yes, move a teammate (with prior approval) or opponent WITH you to another location. Approval works like the Summon Team Teleport. Can also be used against an opponent as well if a melee strike is successful.
Teleport to Favored spot: Save a spot (You have to go to it to set it) and be able to teleport to it as the teleport to the Ren Center power available for sale works now.
Flicker: Slotted passive: Avoidance goes up as your reflexes and teleportation is so attuned, you teleport out of the way of most attacks.
Combat Teleport: Lose the slower teleport in combat handicap and , as a bonus, wipe threat temporarily as per Smoke Bomb.
Teleport team to you: As available in the store.

- Improved Flight powers would include:
Evasive Maneuvers: Flies you straight away from an opponent as per the Archer power but farther away
Carry Freind: Freind has to approve as in Summon Team and has a "Bailout" button so a friend can "jump off" when they want to. The player with the power can end the power when they want and the player they carry drops.
Dive Bomb: You can into an opponent from a long ways away causing damage and knock down and alternatively knock back but you have to have a good amount of distance from your opponent for it to be effective..
Combat Flight: Lose the slower Flight in combat handicap and. as a bonus, Your Avoidance goes up when in flight.
Fly-by: When active for a short duration, any target you fly by takes damage and knockdown/knockback.
Grant Flight: For some reason, your powers grant temporary flight abilities that last until a timer has elapsed, the character flies out of your range, the character turns off the flight power, or the player with the power ends the power.

- Improved Super Speed includes:
Evasive Maneuvers: Runs you straight away from an opponent as per the Archer power but farther away
Carry Freind: Freind has to approve as in Summon Team and has a "Bailout" button so a friend can "jump off" when they want to. The player with the power can end the power when they want and the player they carry drops.
Rapid Fire Strikes: like 1000 palm strike power (whatever it is called.)
Freight Train: You can run into an opponent from a long ways away causing damage and knock down and alternatively knock back but you have to have a good amount of distance from your opponent for it to be effective.
Combat Speed: Lose the slower Super-Speed in combat handicap and. as a bonus, Your Avoidance goes up when in its active.
Run-by: When active for a short duration, any target you fly by takes damage and knockdown/knockback.

4) VEHICLES -
- Instead of dying at the same time your vehicle does, you get dumped out of it at full health (unless you have been damaged (see below)).
- Certain Vehicles should allow you to carry others. As per the Carry Freind power listed above under Travel Powers above. Larger vehicles would have a large number of passengers who can bail out when they want, (Taxi anyone?)
- Damage should be shown with two bars, one for your vehicle and one for your character (and any occupants may seen there own meter as well, of course)
- Damage past your Armor Plating and Hull damage meter should be randomly distributed among the pilot, its occupants, the stats (speed, armor, energy) and the Weapons, Defenses, and Utility Mods.
- Damage to Vehicles must be repaired with an appropriate skill. Armor Plating, Shields, Hull, the stats (speed, armor, energy) and the Weapons, Defenses, and Utility Mods must be repaired unless they have a special power which allows them to heal themselves (Nano-repair, reconstructive steel, etc.). Shields auto repair until they fail then are of no use til repaired. Arms fixes most vehicles but other repairs might require Science (Force fields) or Mystic (Haunted tank?)
- There need to be Mystic equivalents like a Magical Thrones, Ghost Carriage, Flying carpet (Not a travel power, an actual vehicle), Badass Witches Brooms, flaming Hell Cycle, etc with appropriate mods and requiring Mystic Repair.
- Mounts (Controllable Pets that you ride upon such as a giant wolf, Eastern Dragon, European Dragon, Pegasus, Unicorn, Armored Steam Steed, etc) that can also attack and heal normally. While "mounted" the travel power of the Mount is in effect but the player can still use all his other powers.

5) HIDEOUTS
-Make available as a mission reward for select missions so not only available from Zen Store.
-Make any hideout one that can be shared to a supergroup with the original owner of the hideout determining who has access to what (labs, libraries, etc) OR they can "CONTRIBUTE" it to the group, relinquishing all rights to it and transferring rights to the leader of the SG but with a plaque somewhere stating they contributed it. Players can contribute more and more to a Hideout but large enough groups may want a larger Hideout with more doors/rooms. Special VERY DIFFICULT missions requiring a full 4 members of an SG start and finish the mission can grant special LARGE SG hideouts such as underwater bases (Crisis at Lemuria? or underwater river adventure in the Qulaar ship in the river), high high tech mansions (Resistance?), or orbital satellite bases (A new Alien Crisis?).
-Make "Tailor" and "Bank" an optional thing that can be added by purchase or granted by mission for special missions.
-Many hideouts have pre-existing doors that lead nowhere and can't be opened. One has to be a bathroom (One HAS to be a bathroom 8| ) but.... Make the hideouts use the alternate doors that currently serve no purpose as rooms represented by a static image. The image will simply show an image of the room but tell you the benefit. These are the suggested benefits:

Walk-in Closet - "Tailor"
Vault - Stores mod components. Essentially, the BANK. Owner Only access or other SG leaders with special access.
Supply Closet - Stores mod components. Essentially, the BANK. Owner Only access unless access granted by owner.
Teleport Pad - Get teleported to any number of UNTIL approved teleport pads all over the different zones straight from your hideout. (In Millenium City, one at Ren Center then one wherever they have those field UNTIL units stationed, then one other in each other zone near the landing pad)
Hallway - May have up to three additional rooms
Library - Useful for gaining the Generic Mod for Intelligence and Ego (Can store Blueprints)
Study - Useful for gaining the Generic Mod for Intelligence and Ego
Weight Room - Useful for gaining the Generic Mod for Strength and Constitution
Indoor Track - Useful for gaining the Generic Mod for Endurance and Recovery
Gymnasium - Useful for gaining the Generic Mod for Dexterity
Dance Studio- Useful for gaining the Generic Mod for Dexterity
High Tech Lab - Can be used as a skill table for Science Skill (bonus varies from +6% to +15%)
Garage - Useful for repairing vehicles (see previous Vehicles) & gives a bonus varies from +6% to +15% to repairs.
Arcanum - Can be used as a skill table for Mystic Skill (bonus varies from +6% to +15%)
Arsenal - Can be used as a skill table for Arms Skill (bonus varies from +6% to +15%)
Greenhouse - Useful for creating some mystic and some science ingredients for upper level mods
Forge - Useful for creating some mystic, arms, and science mods for upper level mods
Woodworking shop - Useful for creating some mystic, arms, and science mods for upper level mods
Bedroom - Character Start each login once a day with a new heal, energy booster, or damage boost. Luxury Bedroom gives you two of these. Opulent Suite bedroom gives three. Additional bedrooms are assigned by the owner to their own characters allow one player the benefits of ALL amenities of the Hideout or and the extra heals/boosts. If the hideout is granted to an SG, then the owner grants to one player character of another player.
Kitchen - Manufactures food items like those suggested above in the Architecture section. GOTTA have a coffee maker.

-Trophy Case - One piece of Furniture is a glass shelf (like the one available in the Luxury apartment) but has items based upon the perks earned by the owner or perks contributed by members of the SG (They will then disappear off the character if contributed but can be re-earned.) Owner or SG leader can program what items show. Bragging rights are awesome.

-Staff - Hideout bound pets that deliver certain benefits. They can be designed like characters with some new interesting costume selections.
Butler - You have can store new costumes you like and switch them out at no cost. Buying a new one still costs but he or she will hold your costume between adventures.
Lab Assistant/Tech Assistant/Magical assistant - Has his own skill levels and can repair and/or craft mods as needed. Will appear when you arrive in your hideout with the new mod and you can reassign to a new task.

Okay... let the kvetching begin

spinnytop · January 2017

1. Instead of tab targeting make everything manually targeted.
2. Dodging/dashing system.
3. Character action style combo system.
4. Recognition system instead of crafting
5. Everything skull tech

baronleo · January 2017

Spinny,

I apologize, I do not understand some of the items you are talking about.

-What is a Dodging/Dashing system and how does it work?
-What do you mean by "Character action style combo system."?
-Why do away with crafting for a straight recognition system?
-What do you mean by "Everything skull tech"

Thanks for your input.

Baron Leo

spinnytop · January 2017

Dodging/dashing would be a system where players have an ability that allows them to move a short distance very quickly with invincibility frames during part of that movement.

Character action style combo system is a system whereby the player can pull of varying strings of attacks by inputting certain combinations of button presses. The game currently can mimic this somewhat, but I would make it into a formal system built into the various melee frameworks.

The recognition system is essentially the same thing as a crafting system, minus the need to combine crafting materials and wait for a progress bar to finish. It gets to the point of the system - doing content to get things that you can then turn into various other things - while doing away with the "chores".

Skull tech is a state which NPCs can be in in which they will scale to the level of the player that is attacking them. Making every NPC in the game utilize this would mean that the player could go to any zone and do any mission at any level.

jennymachx · January 2017

1) Make gear concept to be actual permanent effect "power ups" or "talents", not some uninspired randomly named nonsense, like calling one tympanic membrane, aka an eardrum, or some other organ. Yuck.

2) No more separate inventory bags. Each bag you purchase just makes one common inventory bigger.

I couldn't think of three other for now.

baronleo · January 2017

Thanks for the elucidation, Spinny.

Thanks for the input Jenny. If you think of three more things, please don't hesitate the post them.

relkar · January 2017

1. Rebuild powers and power customization completely. This is a pretty big one, so I'll break it down a bit.
For this, I want you to imagine that you only had five active abilities, one passive ability, one travel power, and one block (no energy builder or energy unlock, but that is addressed below). As you level, you unlock additional ability slots and ability points.

Ability Slots -- When these are unlocked, you are given a template for a power that you want to build that contains the basics of the ability. (ex: Blasts are 50 ft. ranged single target w/ 1.43 charge time and 0.57 activation time). Each basic "type" of attack would be present -- Blasts, (PB)AoE, Cones, Close Attacks, Single Target Sustain, etc. When you are first given the ability, you can likewise choose the effect of the ability -- damage, healing, cc -- and its specific type based on the effect: sleep, stun, or paralyze for CC; Heal, Health Transfer or HoT for healing; type of damage the ability does (cold, fire, piercing) and a visual effect based on the type of attack, and a point of origin (because I want to be able to shoot fireballs from an assault rifle)

Ability Points -- This is where the bulk of the true customization begins. First, abilities will have up to 10 points to work with rather than five. Second, abilities will have multiple options based upon the type of ability it is -- a PBAoE Damage (Electric) ability and a PBAoE HoT will share the PBAoE template, but differ along the Damage (Electric) / HoT line.

Ex: Point Blank AoE (25 ft. 0.67 sec charge time, 0.33 activation time) has the following possible modifications -- Increase range 25 ft (max 3 ranks); reduced energy cost by 25% per rank (max 3 ranks); Toggle (turning it into a pulse once per second, but increasing its cost by 3)

EX: Damage (Electric) has the following possible modification -- Increase damage by 25% (max 3 ranks); Energy Siphon (regains energy when dealing damage); Ionic Reverb 10% (charge an enemy so that additional electric attacks deal bonus damage and consume ionic reverb) (max 3 ranks); Stun (paralyze affected targets for rank second(s)) (max 3 ranks), increased threat by 100% per rank

EX: HoT has the following possible modifications -- Increase healing by 25% (max 3 ranks); Energy Restoration (restores 1 energy per rank); Guided by Light (affected players increase their critical hit chance by 1% per rank) (max 3 ranks); Wrath (deals damage roughly equal to 5% per rank of healing done) (max 3 ranks) Abilities will cost 1 - 3 point each, but the cost will increase per rank (rank 1 = 1 pt, rank 2 = 2 pts, rank 3 = 3 pts (cumulative for a total of 6 pts for rank 3) and each rank will be unlocked based on your total character level.
With this level of customization I could take a basic PBAoE (Electric) and turn it into a low damage, mid range toggle that grants energy whenever I hit an enemy, while using 50% less energy. I could also turn it into a high damage mid range ability (that would probably drain energy rather quickly), or a short range high damage stun. I could use the healing route and build a high healing, crit granting AoE, or a low cost, energy restoring AoE with a little healing, or a dozen other combinations.
Of course, I'm pulling most of these numbers out of the air (or forgetting them completely as in the case of energy costs), however, if a system could be balance around it, it would be a great amount of customization. The "hidden" value in all of this, of course, is the fact that an ability that you are granted at level one will still be useful at level 40 and you can choose your own play style completely based on your power ability selections.

2. Include a mission creator. Done.

3. Allow players to see ALL costume pieces, including drops and gear from the Q-Store and Z-Store along with a tag as to where they may drop from. The costume creator is the biggest part of this game, but if a player never has a chance to see a piece until they actually acquire it, they may never go looking for it in the first place.

4. Make energy management a thing. Spamming an ability all day long without any concern for energy is pretty boring. Between energy unlocks, energy from forms and energy from defiance or rush, energy management is rather unheard of. This can be addressed several ways, however the one I am going to suggest is to allow players to start at max energy (based on endurance) and regain energy at a steady rate based on recovery. This will negate the requirement for energy builders and energy unlocks (you will actually have to consider your stats rather than simply dumping everything into one or two stats)

5. A whole lot more. Seriously. The game has done well for when it was created, but certain things need to be looked at from the ground up.

maatmons · January 2017

I rather like the combat system in Wildstar. Attacks go where your character is pointing, without this “selecting a target” nonsense. Every significant attack by every enemy is preceded by an outline on the ground. You can move an attack at the same time. And, finally, you have your classic dodge roll. All in all, it makes combat a very mobile thing.

But, if I were designing my ideal combat system, I wouldn't completely copy Wildstar. For one thing, Wildstar breaks it's own “no targeting” thing with one of its classes and a bunch of mission-specific devices/powers. For another, Wildstar doesn't have blocking for any class. I kind of like having block and dodge roll coexist within a game, even if the two are never on the same character.

Also, for blocking, I always kind of liked the idea where holding block during an attack reduces damage by a percentage, but tapping block at the right moment negates an attack entirely, maybe even disrupting the enemy. I mean, I could never get the timing for those things right myself, but I think it's a cool idea.

Regarding combo attacks, I didn't like them when DC Universe Online implemented them, but that was partly because they used long and short button presses, kind of like Morse code. Also, they set it up so that longer combos interfered with shorter ones. For example, a short press is a basic hit, and a long press is a lunge. All well and good, until you unlock the combo which is triggered by a short press followed by a long press. Then you can no longer do a basic hit and immediately follow up with a lunge. If you try, you'll perform the combo instead.

Having all content scale to level would be good, but even better would be to get rid of levels altogether. By “levels,” I mean numerical advancement. You could still unlock a wider range of abilities over time, as long as they weren't just higher-damage versions of the previous abilities. Really, the RPG standard of increasing the player's numbers, but then also increasing the enemies numbers so as to exactly cancel out the effect, is a silly way of doing things. “Congratulations! You've just gained a level! You now have twice as many hit points! Also, enemies now deal twice as much damage to you! Things functionally haven't changed at all!”

I'm going to have to agree on turning power customization up to eleven. If I learn a combo attack with three melee hits, I want to be able to choose which of those hits are punches, kicks, or weapon strikes. I want to be able to go into any given attack and say “Okay, when I do this one, my sword crackles with electricity,” or whatever my whims say. I'm personally more concerned with visual customization, but mechanical customization is good too. I'm not even sure damage types should be a thing. I mean, if a player makes a character with only fire attacks, then an enemy who is basically immune to fire damage basically wind up punishing that guy for a valid thematic decision. I guess we could take a page from Firefall's book. In the later patches of that game, energy resistance was removed from all enemies so that no encounter punished certain players. They did leave vulnerability to a single element on some enemies though. Basically, you'll occasionally get a little extra bonus, but you'll never get a large penalty.

You know how we can have two hairs now? I want to be able to have two of anything. Or three of anything, or however many I want. I'd like to abandon the idea that costume pieces take up “slots,” and let me wear anything I've unlocked without regard to anything else I'm wearing. The location of an item should only tagged so it can be used for searching and sorting. And searching and sorting int the costume creator should be a lot more robust. I understand that allowing infinitely complex costumes would be a performance concern, but just give every costume piece a cost based on how much effort is required to render it, and every costume can only contain pieces adding up to some limit. Heck, reward players with an increased “costume point” limit for doing certain things in game. Then the detail and intricacy of your costume becomes the benchmark for prestige.

Now, I don't PvP, but I feel like MMO tanks could learn some lessons from PvP. In PvP, aggro isn't a thing. When an MMO includes team-based PvP, traditional tanks become useless. The whole idea of a traditional tank is, it's good for your team when the enemy is attacking you instead of anyone else. Naturally, any intelligent enemy will ignore you and attack your teammates instead. That's just what you've set up as the good option. So then you realize, traditional MMO tanks only work because they get to manipulate aggro. That is, they get to dictate that the enemy takes actions that are bad for him. I don't play MOBAs, but they apparently manage to have tanky classes that can function even when enemies make good decisions. I'd like to see an MMO where the enemies act intelligently, and the players are given the tools to deal with that.

So, to summarize that as five points:

Aiming, not targeting
Mobile, reactive combat
Non-numerical progression only
Even more customization
Not getting to tell enemies what to do, and not needing to

aesica · January 2017

I only get to list 5? Bummer. Oh well, I'd probably do these things:

1) Replace the current power/advantage selection undo stack mess with something less sloppy and unprofessional. You'd be able to swap out powers you want, change/remove advantages, etc without removing a bunch of powers and such that you actually like. Pretty much the system used by Herocreator and the Powerhouse. Also, I'd add a button to bulk-remove powers and slash the costs of respecs by a significant amount.

2) Integrate bags into a single inventory window, just like STO and Neverwinter. Adding a bag to a bag slot would unlock a number of inventory slots based on the bag size as long as it was equipped. In fact, you can see this exact thing in Neverwinter.

3) Replace instance cutscenes with voiceover dialog that happens as the instance begins, progresses, and finally, concludes. Interrupting the flow of gameplay with jarring cutscenes is generally frowned upon anyway, especially when the content in question is grindy.

And now, the controversial stuff!

4) Remove ranks from powers entirely, treating everything as Rank 3 by default (both in terms of power and visuals) except for perhaps toggled forms that stack. This might require things like fewer advantage points overall, new advantages added to powers, and things like that, but ultimately, it would make for a better starting experience and better customization due to not having to pick Rank 2/3 over a utility advantage.

5) Energy reform - the goal with this is to normalize energy generation/consumption from level 1 all the way to level 40 in max gear, because while level and gear should affect your numbers, having it also affect how well your character plays is pretty crude design. So: Remove "cost reduction" from literally everything, reduce the base cost of powers to match what most people at 40 have due to current cost reduction, merge end and rec into a single stat, set the energy equilibrium to max, remove energy unlocks from the game/remove energy generation from forms and boost the base energy regeneration rate to compensate, and remove energy penalties from forms and roles. To compensate, int would probably need something else, like better cooldown reduction or baseline resistance penetration.

While I'm sure the change-fearers might not like 4 and 5, it's important to realize that the end result is a better starting experience and greater customization for everyone. If done properly, the endgame player wouldn't really feel different, except perhaps their tank would be happy to have a rank 3 whirly-chain plus vortex technique.

- - -

Minor bonus enhancements: Every vendor would have sell and buyback tabs, tailoring would have no cost, acquiring new devices wouldn't automatically drop them onto the device tray, you could block effects that allow other players to put junk into your inventory, power tinting wouldn't be limited to gold/lts, device tinting would be included in the UI, and player-to-player, Challenge! would be removed as an advantage and instead be automatic for anyone using the tank role, and player-to-player/player-to-npc collisions wouldn't exist. And everyone gets a pony.

spinnytop said:
1. Instead of tab targeting make everything manually targeted.
2. Dodging/dashing system.
3. Character action style combo system.

Good news! Cryptic has already done these things, just for you!

spinnytop · January 2017

aesica said:

Good news! Cryptic has already done these things, just for you!

This thread is about CO.

baronleo · January 2017

Hello all, please reread my original post as I added a lot there. I look forward to your feedback. Please keep it constructive but honest.

maatmons · January 2017

aesica said:
Neverwinter

You know, I'd actually considered citing Neverwinter as an example of the type of combat system I like. I opted not to though, because it'd been so long since I played it; I couldn't remember the particulars. Since you brought it up though, I reinstalled it to refresh myself.

It does do the basics of having attacks go where you're pointing. But…

Most of the attacks I tried rooted the character in place. Combat just doesn't feel very mobile if I have to stop attacking every time I want to slightly adjust my position. That's compounded by the fact that some enemy attacks knock you back, and at least one melee attack causes your character to take a step forward each time you use it whether you want to or not. Then you've got the fact that base movement speeds are pretty slow, and only some of the classes have any sort of sprint option.

It doesn't seem to allow zooming, which is annoying. Being able to see everything around myself is all well and good, but I'd also like to have the option for first-person perspective or an over-the-shoulder view. Especially since there are attacks that hit whoever's under the crosshairs at the center of your screen.

A nice thing Wildstar did was, whenever they showed an outline on the ground of where an enemy attack was going to strike, the same outline also showed how long it would be till the attack struck. For circular attacks, there'd be a smaller circle inside the big one. The smaller circle would keep getting bigger, and when it matched the bigger circle, the attack happened. Cones and rectangles did something similar, but with a line sweeping across the area from nearer the caster to farther away. I never thought about this when I originally played Neverwinter, but now that I've experienced it in Wildstar, I miss it.

Going back to Neverwinter reminded me of another thing I wish all MMOs had, full voicing. I don't want to spend my gameplay time standing still while reading through a wall of text. But I do want to know what's going on. I mean, Neverwinter still messed it up because you have to stand still next to the NPCs to listen to the dialog. It really should just play while I continue doing fun things.

So, all in all, Wildstar's still my go-to example of how MMO combat ought to be. And Champions Online is still my go-to example of how character customization in MMOs ought to be. I wish I had a good example to point to for quest dialog. My old example, Firefall, seemed to be on life support the last I checked.

baronleo#9423 said:
Hello all, please reread my original post as I added a lot there.

Oh sure, I notice this after I type up a long, detailed post. Okay, I'll give the original post a reread. Just note that this post doesn't reflect on any new stuff that may be in there.

flyingfinn · January 2017

Not being like CoX.

sterga · January 2017

1: Dev tools that aren't crap. Despite the faults, it's pretty damn easy to add content with the Creation Kit. Modders that have a full time job and life can make great stuff. Just think what a dev working 8h a day could do with those kinds of tools for an MMO. Bonus: Devs don't have to worry about compatibility with other modder's things, because they would be the only ones moding the game.

2: World focus over quest focus. Having a world to explore instead of a world where you get ferried around by quests is a whole lot more fun. Letting people explore the world and finding cool treasure is going to keep them around more than doing the same **** with a new character.

This also includes making the world believable. CO's building interiors are ridiculous. Real buildings have floors not room-hallway-room style craziness.

Quest are still important, but should be less hamfisted into the game. Bounty boards, rumors from the bartender, official request from law enforcement, murder mysteries, treasure hunts, contest of skill, random events, training young heroes. It'd be pretty cool if you saved a person from a burning building and a cop on the scene recognized you and asked for if you'd be interesting in helping out with other tasks.

Even fetch quests could be more interesting. Your hero could sign up for volunteer work picking up and delivering meals to the citizens of the city you're supposed to care about. Sign up with the local jewel theft ring and get a shopping list of items to steal from stores around the city.

Maybe a fan sends your hero a tweet about some rare, magical artifact. Go on a treasure hunt and get XP for finding the item. It could even be done in a way that doesn't involve simply going out and mowing over everything standing in your way.

3: Professional Writer. You never see the quality of writing from an HBO series in a video game. Even shows on the CW have better writing. People have told me my writing is good. That doesn't make me a professional writer. No amount of voice acting is going to cover up the terrible writing that too many MMOs have.

CO is horribly lacking in the RPG part of MMORPG. Quality writing and more interesting ways to interact with NPC would be amazing. The only NPCs anyone interacts with in CO are the ones you do random BS for and the ones you stab in the face for loot. The random civilians mostly just run up and blow smoke up your **** about how great you are.

This also goes with the world building. People in the real world go around and talk to each other, go to work, to the movies. They do thing that don't revolve around you. They don't wait around in a parking lot for you to happen by to gush over your radiant awesomeness.

4: Creativity Focus. No piece of content should be added that goes against this. That means no ATs, no class based raids, no vehicles as they are. It also means that no one thing should grossly out perform anything else. None of this constitution being the king of stats that we have now. This is the kind of thing that makes balancing the game ****.

Everyone should get their own instanced player home that can be decorated. If I get a medal for saving the city, I should be able to decorate my home with it. If I explore an abandoned town in the desert and find a prototype cowboy robot head, I should be able to put it on display in my home. Even better: allow players to choose if their home is open to the public like Rift does. Anyone can go in and look around, but not touch anything. "Check out my fabulous downtown apartment." or "You totally can't tell it's my mom's basement."

5: Character progress by doing. If I want to be a better gunslinger, I need to actually use guns. If I want to be better at persuading people, I need to talk to people. Skyrim has this. As you progress in skill with something, you can learn bonus traits to enhance your abilities. The one difference is that HP, stamana/mana would also be gained by doing. Getting punched in the face gives you more health. Using magic all the time gives more mana.

A system like this would also mean a fireball you start with can be improved as your mastery over fire increases. There would be no need for endless redundant spells in different trees because you could simply customize one power to your liking. Instead of having three different chain sets, you could just choose to have barbed or tetanus effects added on to one power.

It also means that as you become more proficient, new powers would become available. Now you have access to a meteor skill since you became so damn good with that fireball. The meteor is powerful, but takes time to show up, so that fireball spell isn't suddenly useless.

aesica · January 2017

^ I really like pretty much everything you said, except for perhaps 5.

Abilities ranking up, or unlocking new abilities, by way of using existing abilities is one of those things that sounds really cool when you plan it out, but in practice, every game I've ever played where such a thing existed pushed players to macro due to the grindy nature of the mechanic. Do I get Meteor after 10,000 Fireball casts? Great, I'll set up on something that hopefully can't kill me or respawns quickly, fire up my favorite automation program, and let the magic happen while I sleep.

WoW had something like this originally with weapon skill levels that affected your melee performance, but later ended up cutting it from the game entirely. Back in my earlier MMO days, I played two fairly-unknown games: Meridian 59 and Dark Ages. Both of these had a heavy focus on using abilities repeatedly to improve them. The result: People botted their abilities like crazy, to the point where the operating companies felt they had to recruit self-righteous players to go around and police for this kind of activity and punish people found macroing.

It may work in a game like Skyrim, but in every full-fledged MMO I've seen that tried to apply this model, the end result has always been the same--botters and "bot police."

sterga · January 2017

I was thinking like Skyrim (with Ordinator). Balancing out how to make it not abused is well beyond the scope of my post. Level and skill caps would be the obvious way in that a player has to pick what skills to focus on because they can't do it all. But would still be flexible enough to let people be creative with their character builds. Specializing in something should be rewarded, not crippled with diminishing returns. But I also don't like having loser skills at low level that you just hastily replace with new, better skills later.

I don't think players should have zillions of abilities available to them. It's the thing I hate about traditional MMOs like WoW and EQ. Doing combat with the hotbar isn't fun.

In the One Tamriel update for ESO, they essentially made everyone equalize around the same level so that players can go anywhere, do anything, and play with anyone of any level. Leveling and powering up still gives access to more abilities, so isn't worthless.

It doesn't really matter what kind of leveling system exists, bot user and cheaters don't discriminate. Besides, it's 2017. Companies don't care if people power bomb their way to level cap anymore. That's why level up boosts are in cash shops. Pretty sure the company that makes the game will ruin good things themselves by putting power items in the cash shop faster than players can with cheating.

aesica · January 2017

Yeah, I'll agree that the diminishing returns this game has on most of its stats are pretty awful. From a designer perspective, it's the easiest solution to patching up holes in what's otherwise a poorly-designed stat system, so that's probably why DR exists on pretty much everything in CO. If there wasn't such a huge emphasis toward focusing on 1-2 stats while completely disregarding the rest, if stat allocation on gear had been planned out better, and if stats like cost reduction didn't need to exist in the first place, DR wouldn't be a problem because it wouldn't exist, either at all or at least not in a way most players would ever really notice.

As for the number of abilities, I think there's definitely a sweet spot that varies from player to player. I feel like CO has just the right amount, while Neverwinter's 5-6 buttons is too limiting to me and STO's space combat with its 3 full rows (often more than that) is way over the top. Thankfully in STO, I can at least mass-bind certain keys to the same button and just mash it.

baronleo · January 2017

C'mon now, y'all.

If you've been silent, let me hear how you really feel.

If you were in charge of making a NEW Champions Online, what would you change and how?

And thank you too to all of those who have given input.

I am also VERY interested in your feedback over my suggestions above as well in the edited original post.

Thanks again!

raighn · January 2017

1. Soft-lock/Hard-lock system - When you have no target selected your attacks will launch directly infront of you and follow a course based on the attack type. Ranged attacks will launch out to their maximum range or until they hit a target or object. Melee attacks would hit everything within their radius. If a target is within a melee range or within 5ft of the projected path of a directional attack, the system will aim the attack at them. Mousing over a target will display a secondary target overview or "soft-lock" alowing you to quickly direct an attack at them. Additionally you can select a target to "hard-lock" causing all attacks to be dircted at them. Additionally, an option can be enabled to enble "soft-lock priority" whic would allow soft-lock targets to take priority over hard-lock targets.

2. Power builder system - This is a rather complicated one... First you would pick a power template this would include Blasts, Rays, PBAoEs, Targeted AoEs, Cones, Combos, Lines, Splash, etc... You can then pick your damage type(s) from the numerous existing damage types. You can have up to 3 damage types on any single power, however selecting more than 1 damage type will split the damage output evenly between them (much like existin dual damage abilities), additionally if you have selected 2 damage types you may select one of them a second time to reduce your second damage type to half of your primary damage type rather than equal to it (similar to how HW work now with fire damge).
Passives would be split into 3 parts, Offensive, Defensive, Support and Utility. Your selected role would enhance the benefit of one of these parts by 30% while reducing the other 2 by 15%. The Offensive section would allow you to define an offensive benefit that applies to your attacks or to nearby enemies, such as a DoT, a Debuff, a self-buff, etc... The Defensive section would define your primary form of defense, these forms would include all current defensive passive forms as well as a few other options, such as reflective/reactionary damage or Ablative Armor (Large Flat-damage reductions limited to negating up to X damage every X seconds). The Utility section would give options for auras, healing bonuses, crowd control benefits, etc...

3. New Framework system - This would work hand-in-hand with the power builder system. What this system does is it allows you to choose from a selection of "Frameworks". This system would be similar in effect to CoH's Archetypes and would define the primary form of combat for your hero. You've got the basic options of Blaster, Brawler, Slicer, Mentalist, Gunner, etc... You're choice here can impact many of your power options, but doesn't necessarily have to interact with any of them. Energy builders and Energy Unlocks would be tied into this system. You're basic attacks (Energy builders) would be directly defined by this choice. Powers would change from "you're entire build" to "defining abilities".

4. Dodge/Dash & Overhauled Block system - This system would introduce a stamina bar. The stamina bar would be depleted by performing certain actions, Dodging, Dashing, or Blocking. How this would work is that you would have a base of 100 Stamina, You're stamina is increased by Endurance & Con. Recovery will now increase your stamina regeneration in addition to Energy Regeneration but will NOT increase your max Stamina. Ego, Strength, and Presence would provide a reduction in Stamina costs up to a Hard Cap maximum of 40% reduction. Dodging would have a base cost of 25 (minimum 15), a dodge is performed by either pressing the dodge key or double tapping a directional. Dashing would have a base cost of 25 + 5/sec (minimum 15 + 3/sec), Dashing is performed by holding the dodge button while moving or double tapping and holding a directional key. Dashing and Dodging provide a 100% dodge chance for 1.5 seconds, Dashing provides a +25% dodge chance for the duration of the dash. Blocking will expend 15 (minimum 9) stamina per hit, You can continue to block at 0 Stamina but you will only receive 15% of your block bonus (Damage from DoTs do not expend stamina when blocking).

5. Travel Power System Overhaul & Climbing- Travel Powers options are reduced down to the basic travel forms with visual options purchasable. You may select 2 travel powers, your second travel power is made available at level 20 rather than 35. Travel powers share advantages and are activated together. Movement with travel powers active in combat costs 5/sec (min 3/sec) stamina and function at 50%, no more power cost penalty. There are 5 general classifications of Travel powers, Ground (Super Speed, Acrobatics, Ground Slide), Jump (Super Jump, Acrobatics, Ground Slide), Tunneling, Maintained (Swinging, Gliding), and Aerial (Flight, Aerial Slide, Prop Flight). When on the ground you will gain the highest benefits of any ground travel powers you have selected, if you are using Super Speed & Slide then you will gain the movement bonus of Super Speed with the low traction of Slide. Tunneling powers may be toggled by Double tapping the new Cling button. Jump powers trigger upon jumping, simple enough... Maintained powers are triggered exactly how Swinging is triggered now, pressing and holding Jump while airborne. Aerial Powers are triggered by tapping Jump while airborne and disabled by touching the ground. Additionally the map would have been designed to allow Wall climbing, as mentioned with Tunneling a new Cling button would be implemented that will allow you to stop and hold onto a surface for a short period (5/sec stamina drain in combat). All ground based travel powers enable wall running upon collision with a wall until you stop moving, performing a dash while holding the cling button will also enable wall running for the duration of the dash or until you stop moving if you also have a ground travel active. Anyone may wall Climb by holding the Cling button and moving.

markhawkman · January 2017

maatmons said:

aesica said:
Neverwinter
You know, I'd actually considered citing Neverwinter as an example of the type of combat system I like.

Also, it gives me a headache. The actual combat works, but the way things move is just too jittery.

pallas0001 · January 2017

5 things? Okay, before I go into this list I just want to thank Kaizerin and company have done to revitalize the game in the past year and a half or so. Seriously, if you read this, thanks --- there have been constant updates, tweaks and fixes and it HAS been noticed. I appreciate what you've done to keeping this game going.

1) I'd like the world and characters to feel more 'Alive' like the OP pointed out.

2) Something like Guild Wars 2 has - scaling content. I would love to be able to run through Westside and it pose at least a LITTLE challenge to my level 40. And give me reasons to go back to those areas to do content. I mean, barring UNITY missions there is little to bring you back to certain places.

3) More Hideouts. Please. I don't know WHAT all goes into making these, but I can't see it as being horribly difficult (I could be wrong). We need more - science lab, 'regular house', warehouse, etc. A fully custom creator would be fantastic buuuuut I'm not going to get super greedy.

4) More Nemesis content. Please. No more death ray business. Variety is the spice of life.

5) Better loot drops. While I applaud the work done by the dev team in bringing a lot of items back into game, its mostly through grind for items you turn in. I love the idea of rare things that can be found throughout the world, personally. It gives you a chance to explore it and want to return to content.

draogn · January 2017

Only 5? It'd take more then that, but

1) ATs would be reworked, each archetype would give the player their initial stats and power colors, but the player would be able to choose any power, from ATs that they've purchased, and mix and max. It would still carry the other limitations, but this would be designed to wet the appetite for what true Free Form would give.

2) Multiple leveling paths, as it stands leveling is very linear.

3) I'd make sure the rewards from missions matched the prices in any in game vendor, or the prices would match the rewards, and nothing in the vendor would be bop (it would bind just not on pickup) Events wouldn't be about the grind, they would be about fun. All who participate would get rewarded regardless of how well they did on the scoreboard. Yes leeches suck, but players who do participate but don't get rewarded sucks even more. Everything in the vendor wouldn't cost many tokens and boe or boa.

4) Content creator, to give players the freedom to make their own stories. The nemesis system would be tied into this. Every nemesis created shouldn't have the exact same goals, (*unless that is what a player wants*).

5) I would add a color wheel with hex and rgb support to the tailor while cleaning up some of the lower quality costume pieces. The tailor is the best part of the game, so getting some of the bigger eyesores fixed would be a high priority.

baronleo · January 2017

raighn said:
1. Soft-lock/Hard-lock system - When you have no target selected your attacks will launch directly infront of you and follow a course based on the attack type. Ranged attacks will launch out to their maximum range or until they hit a target or object. Melee attacks would hit everything within their radius. If a target is within a melee range or within 5ft of the projected path of a directional attack, the system will aim the attack at them. Mousing over a target will display a secondary target overview or "soft-lock" alowing you to quickly direct an attack at them. Additionally you can select a target to "hard-lock" causing all attacks to be dircted at them. Additionally, an option can be enabled to enble "soft-lock priority" whic would allow soft-lock targets to take priority over hard-lock targets.

What is the benefit to the player? I can see where this might lead to keystroke bots running around killing indiscriminately (like they don't already

) but what is the perceived benefit I am not seeing?

raighn said:
2. Power builder system - This is a rather complicated one... First you would pick a power template this would include Blasts, Rays, PBAoEs, Targeted AoEs, Cones, Combos, Lines, Splash, etc... You can then pick your damage type(s) from the numerous existing damage types. You can have up to 3 damage types on any single power, however selecting more than 1 damage type will split the damage output evenly between them (much like existing dual damage abilities), additionally if you have selected 2 damage types you may select one of them a second time to reduce your second damage type to half of your primary damage type rather than equal to it (similar to how HW work now with fire damage).

This would be awesome, and then you can have a selection of animations to pair with it and choose a color. This would mean a HELLA lot of coding obviously but it would be great.

Also, you could choose any NUMBER of damage types but have a slider bar that shows how much of the WHOLE powers damage is allotted to each type.

This idea is a winner, in my book.

raighn said:
Passives would be split into 3 parts, Offensive, Defensive, Support and Utility. Your selected role would enhance the benefit of one of these parts by 30% while reducing the other 2 by 15%. The Offensive section would allow you to define an offensive benefit that applies to your attacks or to nearby enemies, such as a DoT, a Debuff, a self-buff, etc... The Defensive section would define your primary form of defense, these forms would include all current defensive passive forms as well as a few other options, such as reflective/reactionary damage or Ablative Armor (Large Flat-damage reductions limited to negating up to X damage every X seconds). The Utility section would give options for auras, healing bonuses, crowd control benefits, etc...

Along with selectable animations and color for each power, this would be cool!

raighn said:
4. Dodge/Dash & Overhauled Block system - This system would introduce a stamina bar. The stamina bar would be depleted by performing certain actions, Dodging, Dashing, or Blocking. How this would work is that you would have a base of 100 Stamina, You're stamina is increased by Endurance & Con. Recovery will now increase your stamina regeneration in addition to Energy Regeneration but will NOT increase your max Stamina. Ego, Strength, and Presence would provide a reduction in Stamina costs up to a Hard Cap maximum of 40% reduction. Dodging would have a base cost of 25 (minimum 15), a dodge is performed by either pressing the dodge key or double tapping a directional. Dashing would have a base cost of 25 + 5/sec (minimum 15 + 3/sec), Dashing is performed by holding the dodge button while moving or double tapping and holding a directional key. Dashing and Dodging provide a 100% dodge chance for 1.5 seconds, Dashing provides a +25% dodge chance for the duration of the dash. Blocking will expend 15 (minimum 9) stamina per hit, You can continue to block at 0 Stamina but you will only receive 15% of your block bonus (Damage from DoTs do not expend stamina when blocking).

I am not sure introducing an ADDITIONAL energy/Endurance bar would better the game but perhaps make it frustrating. Is this meant to replace that or be in addition to? Why not just have these new Dodge/Dash/Block mechanics work into Endurance?

raighn said:
5. Travel Power System Overhaul & Climbing- Travel Powers options are reduced down to the basic travel forms with visual options purchasable. You may select 2 travel powers, your second travel power is made available at level 20 rather than 35.

/AGREED!

raighn said:
Travel powers share advantages and are activated together.

I am not sure what you mean by this sentence

raighn said:
Movement with travel powers active in combat costs 5/sec (min 3/sec) stamina and function at 50%, no more power cost penalty. There are 5 general classifications of Travel powers, Ground (Super Speed, Acrobatics, Ground Slide), Jump (Super Jump, Acrobatics, Ground Slide), Tunneling, Maintained (Swinging, Gliding), and Aerial (Flight, Aerial Slide, Prop Flight). When on the ground you will gain the highest benefits of any ground travel powers you have selected, if you are using Super Speed & Slide then you will gain the movement bonus of Super Speed with the low traction of Slide. Tunneling powers may be toggled by Double tapping the new Cling button. Jump powers trigger upon jumping, simple enough... Maintained powers are triggered exactly how Swinging is triggered now, pressing and holding Jump while airborne. Aerial Powers are triggered by tapping Jump while airborne and disabled by touching the ground. Additionally the map would have been designed to allow Wall climbing, as mentioned with Tunneling a new Cling button would be implemented that will allow you to stop and hold onto a surface for a short period (5/sec stamina drain in combat). All ground based travel powers enable wall running upon collision with a wall until you stop moving, performing a dash while holding the cling button will also enable wall running for the duration of the dash or until you stop moving if you also have a ground travel active. Anyone may wall Climb by holding the Cling button and moving.

What problem is this solving?

I could get into an "Overdrive" type extra power that used Endurance but gave you a speed burst though.

raighn · January 2017

baronleo#9423 said:

raighn said:
1. Soft-lock/Hard-lock system - When you have no target selected your attacks will launch directly infront of you and follow a course based on the attack type. Ranged attacks will launch out to their maximum range or until they hit a target or object. Melee attacks would hit everything within their radius. If a target is within a melee range or within 5ft of the projected path of a directional attack, the system will aim the attack at them. Mousing over a target will display a secondary target overview or "soft-lock" alowing you to quickly direct an attack at them. Additionally you can select a target to "hard-lock" causing all attacks to be dircted at them. Additionally, an option can be enabled to enble "soft-lock priority" whic would allow soft-lock targets to take priority over hard-lock targets.
What is the benefit to the player? I can see where this might lead to keystroke bots running around killing indiscriminately (like they don't already ) but what is the perceived benefit I am not seeing?

It allows for more fluid action based combat.

baronleo#9423 said:

raighn said:
4. Dodge/Dash & Overhauled Block system - This system would introduce a stamina bar. The stamina bar would be depleted by performing certain actions, Dodging, Dashing, or Blocking. How this would work is that you would have a base of 100 Stamina, You're stamina is increased by Endurance & Con. Recovery will now increase your stamina regeneration in addition to Energy Regeneration but will NOT increase your max Stamina. Ego, Strength, and Presence would provide a reduction in Stamina costs up to a Hard Cap maximum of 40% reduction. Dodging would have a base cost of 25 (minimum 15), a dodge is performed by either pressing the dodge key or double tapping a directional. Dashing would have a base cost of 25 + 5/sec (minimum 15 + 3/sec), Dashing is performed by holding the dodge button while moving or double tapping and holding a directional key. Dashing and Dodging provide a 100% dodge chance for 1.5 seconds, Dashing provides a +25% dodge chance for the duration of the dash. Blocking will expend 15 (minimum 9) stamina per hit, You can continue to block at 0 Stamina but you will only receive 15% of your block bonus (Damage from DoTs do not expend stamina when blocking).
I am not sure introducing an ADDITIONAL energy/Endurance bar would better the game but perhaps make it frustrating. Is this meant to replace that or be in addition to? Why not just have these new Dodge/Dash/Block mechanics work into Endurance?

It would have to be in addition to energy. If they worked off of the existing energy system then people would quickly find themselves unable to attack ever. I'd honestly aim to give the game a more action based combat system with my changes, and having quick but limited access to dodge/dash/block that doesn't interfere with attacking is essential for that. The change to block is meant to make things like the block canceling advantage obsolete while reigning in the power of blocking. Turtling with block never should have been allowed, it should have a resource drain of some sort and a drain on your energy feels overly punishing, and a bit contradictory considering that blocking returns energy as is...

baronleo#9423 said:

raighn said:
Travel powers share advantages and are activated together.
I am not sure what you mean by this sentence

If you rank up one travel power you rank up both with the same 1pt cost. Advantages that exist on some travel powers apply to all travel powers. It's pretty self explanatory I thought... Like if you use Versatility on Acrobatics, the Versatility advantage would now be available on all Travel Powers and provide it's benefit while travel powers are active. As for them activating together, I explained that part with the rest of the explanation... Basically you have 1 travel power button instead of 2, and switching between travel forms is intuitive, jumping to activate a jump travel, holding jump while airborne for swinging & gliding, holding jump for a few moments while on the ground or tapping jump while airborne to fly, etc...

baronleo#9423 said:

raighn said:
Movement with travel powers active in combat costs 5/sec (min 3/sec) stamina and function at 50%, no more power cost penalty. There are 5 general classifications of Travel powers, Ground (Super Speed, Acrobatics, Ground Slide), Jump (Super Jump, Acrobatics, Ground Slide), Tunneling, Maintained (Swinging, Gliding), and Aerial (Flight, Aerial Slide, Prop Flight). When on the ground you will gain the highest benefits of any ground travel powers you have selected, if you are using Super Speed & Slide then you will gain the movement bonus of Super Speed with the low traction of Slide. Tunneling powers may be toggled by Double tapping the new Cling button. Jump powers trigger upon jumping, simple enough... Maintained powers are triggered exactly how Swinging is triggered now, pressing and holding Jump while airborne. Aerial Powers are triggered by tapping Jump while airborne and disabled by touching the ground. Additionally the map would have been designed to allow Wall climbing, as mentioned with Tunneling a new Cling button would be implemented that will allow you to stop and hold onto a surface for a short period (5/sec stamina drain in combat). All ground based travel powers enable wall running upon collision with a wall until you stop moving, performing a dash while holding the cling button will also enable wall running for the duration of the dash or until you stop moving if you also have a ground travel active. Anyone may wall Climb by holding the Cling button and moving.
What problem is this solving?

I could get into an "Overdrive" type extra power that used Endurance but gave you a speed burst though.

Intuitive controls for switching between travel forms (not to mention instantaneous switching at the same speed threshold you were previously at)... and possibly the #1 most requested feature Wall Climbing... additionally it solves the problem of having high power costs when using travel powers in combat, and gives you more control over your characters travel powers.

Also... I was under the impression this thread was about posting the changes you personally would have made if you had a hand in development from square 1... solving a problem doesn't equate into that... something doesn't have to solve a problem to be worth adding. Such as Wall Climbing, it doesn't solve anything, it's simply a feature that has been requested since day 1 but was never added because of a poor design choice by the devs on how the maps were built. It's a fun and desired feature, simple as that.

markhawkman · January 2017

baronleo#9423 said:

raighn said:
2. Power builder system - This is a rather complicated one... First you would pick a power template this would include Blasts, Rays, PBAoEs, Targeted AoEs, Cones, Combos, Lines, Splash, etc... You can then pick your damage type(s) from the numerous existing damage types. You can have up to 3 damage types on any single power, however selecting more than 1 damage type will split the damage output evenly between them (much like existing dual damage abilities), additionally if you have selected 2 damage types you may select one of them a second time to reduce your second damage type to half of your primary damage type rather than equal to it (similar to how HW work now with fire damage).
This would be awesome, and then you can have a selection of animations to pair with it and choose a color. This would mean a HELLA lot of coding obviously but it would be great.

Also, you could choose any NUMBER of damage types but have a slider bar that shows how much of the WHOLE powers damage is allotted to each type.

This idea is a winner, in my book.

This was a core game play feature of Freedom Force. It's Min/Max purgatory.

Granted it's really cool being able to make your own powers, but the system has to have limits. In FF, the primary limit was the number of hero points you had available to spend on new powers. The game gave 1000 for each level and you could get bonus points from missions. CO doesn't have hero points. FF could have powers that ranged from 500 to 10,000 or more points.

baronleo · January 2017

baronleo#9423 said:

raighn said:
Movement with travel powers active in combat costs 5/sec (min 3/sec) stamina and function at 50%, no more power cost penalty. There are 5 general classifications of Travel powers, Ground (Super Speed, Acrobatics, Ground Slide), Jump (Super Jump, Acrobatics, Ground Slide), Tunneling, Maintained (Swinging, Gliding), and Aerial (Flight, Aerial Slide, Prop Flight). When on the ground you will gain the highest benefits of any ground travel powers you have selected, if you are using Super Speed & Slide then you will gain the movement bonus of Super Speed with the low traction of Slide. Tunneling powers may be toggled by Double tapping the new Cling button. Jump powers trigger upon jumping, simple enough... Maintained powers are triggered exactly how Swinging is triggered now, pressing and holding Jump while airborne. Aerial Powers are triggered by tapping Jump while airborne and disabled by touching the ground. Additionally the map would have been designed to allow Wall climbing, as mentioned with Tunneling a new Cling button would be implemented that will allow you to stop and hold onto a surface for a short period (5/sec stamina drain in combat). All ground based travel powers enable wall running upon collision with a wall until you stop moving, performing a dash while holding the cling button will also enable wall running for the duration of the dash or until you stop moving if you also have a ground travel active. Anyone may wall Climb by holding the Cling button and moving.
What problem is this solving?

I could get into an "Overdrive" type extra power that used Endurance but gave you a speed burst though.

Intuitive controls for switching between travel forms (not to mention instantaneous switching at the same speed threshold you were previously at)... and possibly the #1 most requested feature Wall Climbing... additionally it solves the problem of having high power costs when using travel powers in combat, and gives you more control over your characters travel powers.

Also... I was under the impression this thread was about posting the changes you personally would have made if you had a hand in development from square 1... solving a problem doesn't equate into that... something doesn't have to solve a problem to be worth adding. Such as Wall Climbing, it doesn't solve anything, it's simply a feature that has been requested since day 1 but was never added because of a poor design choice by the devs on how the maps were built. It's a fun and desired feature, simple as that.

But that does solve a problem. It solves two. Switching to another travel form without the temporary loss in speed and the absence of Wall-Crawling IS a problem, actually, as many characters have it in comics but it is not represented here. since it would help people visualize their character better, adding it solves a problem. QED.

And thank you for your input and clarification.

Now if we could only figure out how to due Plastic Man's powers in Champs Online, we'd be set. Of course, it would require driving a dev insane but.... they are already pretty crazy anyway, right? (Love you guys.

)

baronleo · January 2017

markhawkman said:

baronleo#9423 said:

raighn said:
2. Power builder system - This is a rather complicated one... First you would pick a power template this would include Blasts, Rays, PBAoEs, Targeted AoEs, Cones, Combos, Lines, Splash, etc... You can then pick your damage type(s) from the numerous existing damage types. You can have up to 3 damage types on any single power, however selecting more than 1 damage type will split the damage output evenly between them (much like existing dual damage abilities), additionally if you have selected 2 damage types you may select one of them a second time to reduce your second damage type to half of your primary damage type rather than equal to it (similar to how HW work now with fire damage).
This would be awesome, and then you can have a selection of animations to pair with it and choose a color. This would mean a HELLA lot of coding obviously but it would be great.

Also, you could choose any NUMBER of damage types but have a slider bar that shows how much of the WHOLE powers damage is allotted to each type.

This idea is a winner, in my book.
This was a core game play feature of Freedom Force. It's Min/Max purgatory.

Granted it's really cool being able to make your own powers, but the system has to have limits. In FF, the primary limit was the number of hero points you had available to spend on new powers. The game gave 1000 for each level and you could get bonus points from missions. CO doesn't have hero points. FF could have powers that ranged from 500 to 10,000 or more points.

Please explain "Min/Max Hell". Is Freedom Force an MMORPG?

Also that system sounds more complicated than a simple slider. Points would be interesting but I would slack up on the number of points provided giving fewer with higher levels or the same number of points but higher experience points to level. Maybe start with a base of 100 points which could get you to a level 6 character here and then 10 points per level with a base power costing about 20 to start and roughly 5 points to level with some give or take depending. Something more akin to Mutants and Masterminds.

Now THAT would be awesome but it would take a LOT of work to get it "just right", though.

markhawkman · January 2017

The game was actually more of an RTS. It was a collection of a lot of sliders. One for damage type, one for power type, stamina cost, range, and a bunch of conditional effects that were only for certain power types; flight spawn count, no friendly fire, impact spawn, AoE radius.(just examples, this is not a comprehensive list)

Oh and the animation chosen had an effect. Why? The length of the power animation. Short animations mean you can use a power more often. So they have a higher cost.

Here's an example of a passive defense:

sterga · January 2017

Caffeine is a stimulant. The side effects don't make sense. A more fun side effect would be a chance to get The Snares.

The addition of vehicles as they are has cause too many issues. I don't agree with anything that makes vehicles anything other than travel powers / devices. Maybe if a character specializes in a tech build, their vehicle can be used for the skin of an air raid power. It's the same reason why I don't think ATs should exist at all. Neither of those things were in the game at launch and it should have stayed that way.

raighn said:
1. Soft-lock/Hard-lock system - When you have no target selected your attacks will launch directly infront of you and follow a course based on the attack type. Ranged attacks will launch out to their maximum range or until they hit a target or object. Melee attacks would hit everything within their radius. If a target is within a melee range or within 5ft of the projected path of a directional attack, the system will aim the attack at them. Mousing over a target will display a secondary target overview or "soft-lock" alowing you to quickly direct an attack at them. Additionally you can select a target to "hard-lock" causing all attacks to be dircted at them. Additionally, an option can be enabled to enble "soft-lock priority" whic would allow soft-lock targets to take priority over hard-lock targets.

If you're saying that melee hits will auto target something in a 5ft cylinder in front of you, I'm going to say playing melee will suck. Path of Exile had melee targeting like that and if people just didn't say "screw melee" they ended up using the wide AoE skills that weren't gimped by that kind of targeting.

raighn · January 2017

sterga said:
Caffeine is a stimulant. The side effects don't make sense. A more fun side effect would be a chance to get The Snares.

The addition of vehicles as they are has cause too many issues. I don't agree with anything that makes vehicles anything other than travel powers / devices. Maybe if a character specializes in a tech build, their vehicle can be used for the skin of an air raid power. It's the same reason why I don't think ATs should exist at all. Neither of those things were in the game at launch and it should have stayed that way.

raighn said:
1. Soft-lock/Hard-lock system - When you have no target selected your attacks will launch directly infront of you and follow a course based on the attack type. Ranged attacks will launch out to their maximum range or until they hit a target or object. Melee attacks would hit everything within their radius. If a target is within a melee range or within 5ft of the projected path of a directional attack, the system will aim the attack at them. Mousing over a target will display a secondary target overview or "soft-lock" alowing you to quickly direct an attack at them. Additionally you can select a target to "hard-lock" causing all attacks to be dircted at them. Additionally, an option can be enabled to enble "soft-lock priority" whic would allow soft-lock targets to take priority over hard-lock targets.
If you're saying that melee hits will auto target something in a 5ft cylinder in front of you, I'm going to say playing melee will suck. Path of Exile had melee targeting like that and if people just didn't say "screw melee" they ended up using the wide AoE skills that weren't gimped by that kind of targeting.

Not saying that. Melee attacks use the same melee range they have now, which, correct me if im wrong, is 10ft. Additionally, all melee attacks would be tagged as AoE, though some would have narrow cones. Some melee attacks might benefit more rom an Arc rather than a true Cone as well... Such as Roomsweeper, where the attack would make sense to strike enemies n one side of the character in addition to infront of the character, but not on the other side of the character. The 5ft cylinder only applies to ranged attacks, I guess I could have been a little more clear on that...

So clarification...
Melee abilities Auto target within a 10ft Sphere
Targeted Ranged abilities Auto target within a 10ft sphere or 5ft cylinder
Targeted Ranged attacks with wide AoE cones/cylinders wil Auto target within a 2.5ft offset of their AoE cone/cylinder.
Non-targeted attacks will still function as normal

maatmons · January 2017

raighn said:
All ground based travel powers enable wall running upon collision with a wall until you stop moving, performing a dash while holding the cling button will also enable wall running for the duration of the dash or until you stop moving if you also have a ground travel active. Anyone may wall Climb by holding the Cling button and moving.

Oh God no! That's the reason I only used Flight in DC Universe Online. Ugh, running slightly too close to a signpost, and getting stuck to it.

baronleo#9423 said:

shops and buildings … have an interior and service some small purpose … minigames

So, there could be an arcade, and activating one of the machines launches a game? Would playing for a certain amount of time give you a “relaxed” buff?

raighn · January 2017

maatmons said:

raighn said:
All ground based travel powers enable wall running upon collision with a wall until you stop moving, performing a dash while holding the cling button will also enable wall running for the duration of the dash or until you stop moving if you also have a ground travel active. Anyone may wall Climb by holding the Cling button and moving.
Oh God no! That's the reason I only used Flight in DC Universe Online. Ugh, running slightly too close to a signpost, and getting stuck to it.

That is because they used a proximity check rather than a actual collision check... and if collision checks still cause the problem, it could easily be rectified by just making wall running require you to either tap or hold the cling button to enable...

markhawkman · January 2017

sounds like playing an alien in those old AvP games. Aliens could run up walls and stuff, unlike the humans and Preds. It's also a lot like Spider-Man.

baronleo · January 2017

raighn said:

maatmons said:

raighn said:
All ground based travel powers enable wall running upon collision with a wall until you stop moving, performing a dash while holding the cling button will also enable wall running for the duration of the dash or until you stop moving if you also have a ground travel active. Anyone may wall Climb by holding the Cling button and moving.
Oh God no! That's the reason I only used Flight in DC Universe Online. Ugh, running slightly too close to a signpost, and getting stuck to it.
That is because they used a proximity check rather than a actual collision check... and if collision checks still cause the problem, it could easily be rectified by just making wall running require you to either tap or hold the cling button to enable...

It could be a game setting that could offer one or the other that you could set. That would give you an option of how you like it.

baronleo · January 2017

maatmons said:

baronleo#9423 said:

shops and buildings … have an interior and service some small purpose … minigames
So, there could be an arcade, and activating one of the machines launches a game? Would playing for a certain amount of time give you a “relaxed” buff?

Sure, that works!

baronleo · January 2017

baronleo#9423 said:

maatmons said:

baronleo#9423 said:

shops and buildings … have an interior and service some small purpose … minigames
So, there could be an arcade, and activating one of the machines launches a game? Would playing for a certain amount of time give you a “relaxed” buff?

Sure, that works!

I was thinking more the loss of stars after a defeat was like a loss in morale and playing a bit would raise it but that works.

baronleo · January 2017

I would also make all powers ones with interchangeable animations/"auras" so you could pick the effect, pick the look to customize it, then play.

chaelk · July 2017

1.Tell the management to piss off and not steal Devs to work on STO.
2. repeat.
3. repeat as necessary

doctorevilface · July 2017

chaelk said:
1.Tell the management to piss off and not steal Devs to work on STO.
2. repeat.
3. repeat as necessary

This.

From square 1, what would you change about Champions Online?

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