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Let's bring up Customizable Sidekick Devices again
mischym
Posts: 4 Arc User
Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way, my forum search revealed to me the frequent occurrence of this request since over 5 years ago, I am fully aware I might get down voted into oblivion and neither do I harbor much if at all any hope in my heart for this suggestion to be ever seen by the devs, but it has happened all too often in my life that I have spoken about what I am going to suggest, and I have been send to this forum with the mission to spread the word.
Now I have thought about this, for quite the while infact; How it might affect the gameplay, economy and players and here in no particular order, follows my thoughts and my sincere attempt to generate some noise by other people who I truly believe are invested in CO as much as I am, and though debate, come to a conclusion if this is really needed as much as I want it to be, and maybe, though enough activity, acquire the attention of the community managers who might value this and relay the conclusions to the development team.
Number One!
The Players. Well who gives a **** about the players but I would like to go on a wager that a large and if not the entire demographic of We the Role-players and oh I just lost you didn't I?
Quick go to number two!
Number Two! MORE ZEN SPENDING OPPORTUNITIES!
This is my main bargaining chip, let's assume, we have a Sidekick. We can retcon its powers, level it up, gear it up, and design outfits and place them in outfit slots. That's essentially One player, managing the requirements of Two players. And we retcon all the time, and we change outfits all the time, and we buy gear all the time, so would it not be fair, to state that; People waiting for the Perfect Sidekick to be released in the next patch, are generating revenue at a fraction of the speed, people who can just spend it all to change their sidekicks on every account all the time?
I would imagine, that to be true. I my self. I can vouch for at least me, and many like me, who need the perfect sidekick to supplement our current build (Which I change every few months), or the perfect sidekick to fulfill some lore or story void (Which we often change too)? Both true. For in Game, my character went back in time to find herself, and I would praise the day, when I can roleplay with both of them side by side, instead of one conveniently being rather disappointingly "Away".
And if the added huge moneysink were not enough, imagine the gameplay bonuses of creating bosses meant for high level characters?
Now, obviously there are things need thought out.
How can the prevention of highly OP sidekicks be enforced without hampering the sense of freedom?
My personal suggestion might be that Sidekicks have less power points than Players do. And perhaps are level caped as well?
As great of a moneysink this is, I do realize the potential of disaster. This is a tool, that might break progression schemes, mission difficulty might drop, as well as a group of 10 players all with sidekicks, is effectively a group of 20 players.
But I want to believe it is possible to implement this, were it only as a cosmetic toy with 4 power points.
TL DR;
Sidekicks - Good Zen and Gold moneysink
Hard to balance existing content for
Might require less power points and a level cap
Even as a cosmetic toy, can generate revenue
I want it 7 parahraphs and 3416 characters badly. That's Really Really Baaadly.
Now I have thought about this, for quite the while infact; How it might affect the gameplay, economy and players and here in no particular order, follows my thoughts and my sincere attempt to generate some noise by other people who I truly believe are invested in CO as much as I am, and though debate, come to a conclusion if this is really needed as much as I want it to be, and maybe, though enough activity, acquire the attention of the community managers who might value this and relay the conclusions to the development team.
Number One!
The Players. Well who gives a **** about the players but I would like to go on a wager that a large and if not the entire demographic of We the Role-players and oh I just lost you didn't I?
Quick go to number two!
Number Two! MORE ZEN SPENDING OPPORTUNITIES!
This is my main bargaining chip, let's assume, we have a Sidekick. We can retcon its powers, level it up, gear it up, and design outfits and place them in outfit slots. That's essentially One player, managing the requirements of Two players. And we retcon all the time, and we change outfits all the time, and we buy gear all the time, so would it not be fair, to state that; People waiting for the Perfect Sidekick to be released in the next patch, are generating revenue at a fraction of the speed, people who can just spend it all to change their sidekicks on every account all the time?
I would imagine, that to be true. I my self. I can vouch for at least me, and many like me, who need the perfect sidekick to supplement our current build (Which I change every few months), or the perfect sidekick to fulfill some lore or story void (Which we often change too)? Both true. For in Game, my character went back in time to find herself, and I would praise the day, when I can roleplay with both of them side by side, instead of one conveniently being rather disappointingly "Away".
And if the added huge moneysink were not enough, imagine the gameplay bonuses of creating bosses meant for high level characters?
Now, obviously there are things need thought out.
How can the prevention of highly OP sidekicks be enforced without hampering the sense of freedom?
My personal suggestion might be that Sidekicks have less power points than Players do. And perhaps are level caped as well?
As great of a moneysink this is, I do realize the potential of disaster. This is a tool, that might break progression schemes, mission difficulty might drop, as well as a group of 10 players all with sidekicks, is effectively a group of 20 players.
But I want to believe it is possible to implement this, were it only as a cosmetic toy with 4 power points.
TL DR;
Sidekicks - Good Zen and Gold moneysink
Hard to balance existing content for
Might require less power points and a level cap
Even as a cosmetic toy, can generate revenue
I want it 7 parahraphs and 3416 characters badly. That's Really Really Baaadly.
Ancient Egypt is an inexhaustible source of roleplay opportunities.
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Playing CO since August 25, 2012
Lifetime sub since July 6, 2017
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"Don't call me lizard!"
Cutomizable NPC's would be fun, just give it a fair amount of money, or perhaps a quest to get one.
Another issue that was brought up was that as a device this will never be as powerful as the already existing devices people with unlimited Zen have access to, without it being too OP, so perhaps instead of cratering to the PvPers, perhaps create this as a sort of toy? Like the fun devices?
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My characters
Template power sets
I am not a huge fan of Sidekicks as devices, I would prefer if they were handled as a tab in the Character window, but I guess that would get too close to how Bridge Officers work in STO so they wouldn't be allowed to do that.
Power sets: If you look at the pre-made Sidekick devices, they tend to have only a few abilities such as a standard attack similar to an energy builder, a sustained attack and one or two other, "big" abilities. This is mostly for balance reasons. My suggestion for a customizable Sidekick is to let us choose from the existing character templates (no freeform!), which would then apply a simplified version of that template to the sidekick. This would maintain balance, but also give us a lot of options.
Travel powers and vehicles: I would prefer if we could coose from all the Travel powers we have unlocked for our account / character to use on our Sidekick, but if that is not possible, then let them use the same one as our character uses. Third coice, have each Power template for Sidekicks come with a default Travel power, typically some form of flight. Vehicles... that depends. The coolest would probably be if our Sidekick would automatically use a copy of the vehicle our character uses, but maybe with only the basic sustained attack - or even no attack. If that is not possible, just let them use their Travel power to keep up.
Costumes: I would really like if the Sidekick gets the same number of costume slots that the associated character has, which we can then customize to match the corresponding costume and have the Sidekick switch costume automatically when our character does. This may take too much work for the developers to pull off, but it sure would be awesome.
I seen threads of this as far back as 2010. There was not even a mention of this from the team? Seems like something people want, and customization is CO only attractive feature
A sidekick customize component would be useful here.
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My characters
Courage is doing what is right even when it isn't popular or safe. Honor is retaining the dignity and virtue in one's self, so it can light the way for others in the darkest of times. Compassion is showing patience and mercy towards others, even when it isn't returned or deserved. A hero is defined by these 3 words, they set him apart from others as a beacon of hope and excellence.