Champions online: Arch Nemesis

Something I forgot was in a different game but totoally should be importaed here:

https://championsonline.fandom.com/wiki/Nemesis_System

the system allows you to create a foil arch nemesis that can spawn.

I know right now development is focused on stuff like stability, but I'd love to see a project that includes something like that.

Even if it's just a random % spawn chance on a mission.

This added a lot to make the character feel like they had their own storyline apart from the game.

If there's any interest, I can't code, but I'm good with systems design if there's any will from the powers that be to see something like this.

I know it's from champions, but they don't own the concept of an arch nemesis, and it's very much a comics flavor thing.

Sure, the concept of a Nemesis is good.

In the meanwhile, a storyline of missions build with AE can do the job.

Here is an idea :

- the player can design a nemesis for his toon

- an architect can design a mission with a placeholder for the nemesis

That way, you can have an interesting storyline made by a player with your arch enemy.

You can even have an 'evil' double placeholder (evil as 'of the other morale faction') if that does not already exists since there are a bunch of missions with just that in the game.

I loved the Build-a-Nemesis system.  And I would love to see it here.  I’d also would love a build a sidekick too, someone who shows up in Nemesis situations now and then.  And maybe a chance to show up if you’re about to lose.

If "Nemesis" wasn't the name of a villain in the game already, this would be something I would /sign as-is. A name rework and maybe some kind of change to make it at least somewhat distinct from CO's system, and it's perfect.

I've been trying to think of ways to implement a personal arch-enemy and sidekick. I think a sidekick could be a summonable power that lasts like an mm pet. Don't know if that's possible. I have no idea how hard or even possible it would be to grant the capability to design your own.

I don't know how the nemesis system works in champions, but I like the idea. As someone pointed out the AE system is a happy medium until something like that could be added. It's also a great way to tell our characters backstory.

I've been trying to think of ways to implement a personal arch-enemy and sidekick. I think a sidekick could be a summonable power that lasts like an mm pet. Don't know if that's possible. I have no idea how hard or even possible it would be to grant the capability to design your own.

I don't know how the nemesis system works in champions, but I like the idea. As someone pointed out the AE system is a happy medium until something like that could be added. It's also a great way to tell our characters backstory.

Sidekick could be implemented in two ways.  Or both (preferred)

1.  Mastermind type pet that only shows up when you're solo.  Definitely help beginner Controller characters not feel so helpless, and give Defenders an easier time too.

2.  During team missions, if you would take fatal damage, chance they show up, take the hit that would kill you.  And if they survive, help fight for a bit.  Longer its been since they showed up, the higher chance they will come.  (This one would probably be far too complex to code in than worth, but it would be neat and fun when it happened!)

There is a mission arc in game that uses your character model as a nemesis of sorts, but I agree that being able to design your own nemesis would be cool.  I could see it being abused slightly - for example, a player with a Psionic Blast blaster designs her nemesis to have Invulnerability as a defensive set.

Of course, if this is viable, you wouldn’t want to call it a Nemesis, for the reasons listed in the thread.  Perhaps ‘Adversary’ would be a better name.

If a Nemesis-style system is a bridge too far, there is another option.  Perhaps along the lines of the mission arc in game, you design an alternate universe version of yourself as an evil mirror.  You get to customize the costume and a few other things, but the game uses your powerset for them.  There’s already code in the game for that...it would just need to be adapted to allow for customization.

honestly the nemesis system was probably the only good part of CO

but you can already make nemesis missions yourself in AE

not sure if the amount of effort it'd take to implement it in standard content would benefit enough people for it to be worth

There is a mission arc in game that uses your character model as a nemesis of sorts, but I agree that being able to design your own nemesis would be cool.  I could see it being abused slightly - for example, a player with a Psionic Blast blaster designs her nemesis to have Invulnerability as a defensive set.

 

Of course, if this is viable, you wouldn’t want to call it a Nemesis, for the reasons listed in the thread.  Perhaps ‘Adversary’ would be a better name.

 

If a Nemesis-style system is a bridge too far, there is another option.  Perhaps along the lines of the mission arc in game, you design an alternate universe version of yourself as an evil mirror.  You get to customize the costume and a few other things, but the game uses your powerset for them.  There’s already code in the game for that...it would just need to be adapted to allow for customization.

Meh, if people want to abuse it, let them.  I don't think the system was so embedded into the game, it would be a constant threat.  So you wouldn't gain much of an advantage.

I remember in Champions Online, I gave it powers that were opposite of mine.  Made it feel more Nemesis like.  I'd always try to make them stronger than me personally, but I think it should be the persons choice.  For both theme reasons, or maybe they want to ezm0de it.

To respond to a few things here:

Renaming is an obvious need since nemesis is a faction, but I'm pretty sure we can all google "thesaurus" and find something fitting.

The key challenge for the naming is that it would have to be neutral since players can flip factions, and in theory, your nemesis should too, when you do.

I'm not keen on the sidekick notion, and this is why:  players are designed already to be sidekicks and x-efactors.  I think doing this would encourage more solo rather than team play and also would absolutely be abused by team play to add even more stress to the system, though keeping it to just solo would be reasonably lore friendly (since you don't see robin with batman while he's doing justice league stuff, etc).  Additionally, giving players a sidekick before level 25 seems kinda silly since... why would they have one if they aren't very powerful themselves?

What would be cool I think though, is for team play is that multiple nemesi could spawn together in a team up to take the heroes down, which would be cool AF.

I do think giving player choice here would be good.  IE, should your nemesis be "more powerful, on par, or less powerful" than your character/team.  If they spawn in a mission without other nemesi, perhaps adding extra mobs of whatever the board faction is ties to their aggro trigger would be good, as if they are presently working with whatever faction to try and bring down the hero/villain.

Either way, short of the naming convention, I'm all for this stuff, hoping someone can implement it at some point since this really goes a long way to make your character feel more involved in the world as a personal experience, rather than being "just another hero/villain" in the sea.

SNIIIIIIIIIIP.  A lot of words

As for the sidekick.  It would promote soloing, but atm, I can't even find a team, so I got nothing against that.  Sidekick could easily be part of the tutorial, someone you help/save/mindwipe/manipulate/etc, and they want to follow in your footsteps.  Make them an androgynous hooded figure, so you can customize them entirely.  They would be even more fresh than you, and look up to you (Or have to due to some scheme of yours).  I mean, in Going Rogue at level 10 you can get your own team!

As for the sidekick system in the game, thats really just a name.  I don't think that would cause an issue.  Just a lore fitting name for bringing someone up to your level (And infuriatingly, not a system that is often duplicated in other MMO's).

Sidekick should totally be solo based (Or up to two players), to help even you out so you CAN solo.  Plenty of other content that requires a team though, so I don't see too much issue.

I see sidekick just as nemesis, a custom persona to use in specialized arc stories.

No need to make him a pet.

Here is a train of thoughts to integrate a sidekick/nemesis system :

You meet your future sidekick on a mission. He is a newbie and completly neutral (not hero or villain) but inspired by you and would like to follow you in your adventures.

With arc stories involving him, you lead him to the path of goodness or corruption (just like tip missions).

option 1 : you push him to far in the opposite direction. That will lead to an arc story with a morale clash and he himself becomes your nemesis.

option 2 : he is aligned with you. He will be defeated or killed and then becomes possessed by an evil being that will make him your nemesis.

And since he knows your weaknesses, he will hire goons with appropriate means to deal with you.

That would lead to the equivalent of Quantum NPCs but specificaly for you.

Since the mecanism exists, it should not be that complicated to put them into random missions (like for Kheldians).

And further arc stories can take place after that.

I don't like the idea that a nemesis would be tied to a sidekick out of necessity.

It could be, but I don't think it should be.  For example, batman has robin as a sidekick and joker as an arch nemesis and in most cases they are not the same person ever (I think there was one arc where this wasn't the case, but I wasn't a huge batman reader, just using the obvious example).

I also think some limitations for sidekicks beyond just for solo:

summonable, -10% (or so, would have to balance it right) to xp pool, starts with one secondary power set and one power pool to start, can auto level up or manually, always has 2 less enhancement slots than the player. 

I think this would ensure the sidekicks are always avoiding overshadowing the main hero, and would also make it so that teaming up with actual heroes is generally preferred.

I second this. When I heard about it being in CO, I immediately wished it was in CoH. It would be amazing to have my villain toons be the archnemeses of my heroes.

I suggested something like the CO Arch Nemesis system for CoH a very long time ago. I don't know if I was the first or one of the first to suggest it, but I don't recall anyone bringing it up before or after I did. I called them PAE for personal arch enemy.

A handful of people liked the idea, but I've noticed that in game forums, a lot of good ideas get shot down not necessarily because they're not liked, but because other people have agendas with different priorities and don't want the developers focusing on anything else. It's pure, basic politics, but I've also noticed that if you have a good idea and if it's fairly easy to develop, there's a good chance the devs will hear you and consider and sometimes even develop it.

Other things I have suggested that i didn't see too many other ppl suggest or like were the ability to hide from your in game friends (got shot down by the pro-required-teaming crowd, but the devs added anyway it so woohoo) and a mission editor (long before we got AE). Numerous other little things that people asked for also ended up either in CoX or later in CO. So they do listen to us. Sometimes it's just nto feasible at the moment.

Actually, I wouldn't think that getting your Nemesis to spawn randomly would be too much of an issue. They kind of already have something like this in the game for Kheldians, where the Quantums are concerned. They're special spawns that only appear if a Kheldian is in the mission.  I'd imagine that the code would be similar.

The difficult part would be 'designing' the Nemesis. The easiest solution would to just duplicate you, and a more in depth one would allow you to design your own.

Either way, I think it'd be pretty cool.

Has anybody checked if this was a Nemesis plot before we engaged in this topic?

I've never played CO myself...well...maybe a little at the beginning but I dropped soon after, it was only a trial. I never got to make or encounter my nemesis. But it would be cool to have your own signature counterpart. I've had a pair of characters who were the hero and villain version of each other, different people, just rivaled in motivations. It would be cool if I were able to play as both characters but then port their counterpart as a Nemesis, then it would be like playing against myself! And from the way I've written them, the villain is as much entitled to win as much as the hero.

I am going to post this here to show my general support for the idea, but there are definitely some changes from CO in how I would like to see it executed.

I am just too tired right now to really get into it.

I find the implementation of the Nemesis system in CO pretty novel but also very limited in its scope. You get full access to the costume designer, but the story for your enemy is very limited. You can only pick from a handful of personality/motivation/power/faction combinations, so ultimately you're always fighting the same person just in a different skin.

I think CoH's Architect system does a MUCH better job at actually letting us tell a specific story with regard to an enemy or rival of our character, it's just the fact that it is confined to a simulation portal hampers the immersion factor.

If there was some way to let us get AE's flexibility into a normal world instance spawn system that would be pretty interesting.

Okay, back to where I was and some ideas on how to handle this in the game.

Note that I have zero expectations of such a thing making it into the game in its current state.  I do not even know if the current engine could handle such a thing.

This is all just wish list stuff.

Also, I am writing from the hero perspective when applicable, but villains would have arch-enemies, too.

1) One arch-enemy per character.  Yes, this is a limitation but combined with the next idea this would encourage alts.

2) Missions tailored to the arch-enemy specifics.  What specifics?  Those come down to one or both of the next two items.

3) Arch-Enemy backgrounds.  Magic, mutant, natural, science, and technology.  Just like our characters.

4) Arch-enemy personalities.  What makes them tick?

The genius type (mastermind in CO) and tough guy type (brute in CO) are staples in the comics.  CO also has the maniac, which is way too over the top for my tastes, and that is it.  It's very limiting.  Either your nemesis is a super-genius that loves to hear themselves talk, a tough guy with a below average vocabulary if not intellect, or a complete nutjob that makes you wonder how they manage to function at all.

Where is the villain motivated by only greed?

Where is the villain that is a true enigma?  That doesn't speak at all?

Where is the alien or "outsider" type that might speak, but the words don't always make sense and the motivation isn't exactly clear?

In Co this may not work too well because they only have a single nemesis story arc, and while repeat runnings may include or exclude a mission here or there, they all end in the same place.

This brings me back to item #2.

With missions tailored to the personality types of the villains, if not also their background, it creates a much greater opportunity to tell a more unique story, and this makes alts more desirable for those that want to see those different stories.

5) Arch-enemy contacts.  Here I am thinking like Twinshot, Matthew Habashy, Eagle Eye, etc.  Special contacts that will work with you for the arch-enemy missions.

Whenever they had something for you then you would get a notification and they would move to the active tab.

These do not have to be people.  The "contact" could be "detective work", "rumor mill", "Arch-Enemy clues", whatever.

I mean, they could be people but they do not have to be.

6) I am thinking that missions could start at level 10 and then appear every 10 levels, so something like 10-15, 20-25, 30-35, 40-45, and then 50.

There should be at least two different level 50 missions just to try and keep things semi-fresh.

There should also be an arch-enemy TF.  Super-villain team-up time.  Let's say three different ones.  ~20, ~35, and 50.

Every character's arch-enemy would appear, with each randomly assigned a spot within the TF itself.

The bigbad would be randomly determined from the arch-enemies of all of the characters when the TF was formed, but every enemy would appear somewhere, possibly with a mission or two having two of them together that the heroes have to fight.

7) Minions should appear in other missions.  Nothing major, but I think that if a hero is fighting some Trolls in a cave then one or two of the Troll spawns should be replaced by a group of their arch-enemy's minions talking about how they hope the Trolls can take care of the hero or how they think that making a deal for some superadine might give them the edge the next time they run into the hero or whatever.

An occasional appearance in the street during am arch-enemy mission is also okay, like how sometimes a special enemy spawn might appear in some open-world missions now, but there won't be any open-world spawns otherwise.

8) Minion types should include both in-game factions and generic minions.  I do not understand why in CO you can not pick minions from existing groups, and I certainly do not understand why they did not at least use the art assets for some of these groups as minion types.

You can pick ninja and pretend that your nemesis is a part of Red Banner, or maybe pick insectoids and pretend that they are Qularr, but why can I not pick actual Viper Agents?  Heck, they didn't even give the players an option to pick generic super-agent types.

They did give players an option for pirates and cowboys, though.

I enjoy some goofy fun now and then, but when I think of everything that they do not have for minion types and then look at some of what they do have, I think that they could have done with a little less goofy.

So, anyway, to make my point, I should be able to pick CoT minions for my arch-enemy and then maybe the dialog would reference the CoT themselves, or I could pick some generic "mystical minions".

I am fine with the players being able to design their arch-enemy's look from the ground up, but I think for minions they should be limited to colors only (if that), unless they pick established faction minions in which case they just get what they get.

9) Pick sets, not powers.  For the arch-enemy himself just picking the AT and power sets is enough for the players.

After that the powers should be automatically determined based up what is "reasonable".

I am not sure how the game handles this sort of thing, but the idea should still come across;  If I want my arch-enemy to be a mind control/psionic assault dominator then the game should at least be able to present an approximation of that if not actually deliver an NPC mind control/psionic assault dominator.

I am fine is someone wants to pick an invulnerable tanker arch-enemy for their psionic melee scrapper, but I do not think that it serves the game well to encourage some players to go out of their way to make bad builds, like petless masterminds.

 

<a whole lotta ideas>

 

OEM61, I really like the concept you have here

The Arch Nemesis system in CO is a letdown to be honest.  It sounds great on paper, but in reality it suffers from a lot of issues.  Basically, you can design what your Arch Nemesis looks like - that's about it.  You cannot select how they act, what they say and so forth. 

You have far, far, FAR more expressive control over this in the Mission Architect here in CoX.  There is no comparison IMO.

The Arch Nemesis system in CO is a letdown to be honest.  It sounds great on paper, but in reality it suffers from a lot of issues.  Basically, you can design what your Arch Nemesis looks like - that's about it.  You cannot select how they act, what they say and so forth. 

 

You have far, far, FAR more expressive control over this in the Mission Architect here in CoX.  There is no comparison IMO.

To be fair, you can select how they will act and, to the extent that it is more-or-less the same, what they say.

It's a very limited selection, but brutes do not say the same things that masterminds say, and maniacs say something different from both of them, and in that regard you control what they say and how they act.

But as I said, it is very limited.

I always wondered why a brute would build the exact same death-ray that was really only cover for some sort of dimensional door-opening scheme or whatever that fire monster was supposed to be about that a mastermind would.

To me, that was the ultimate failing of their system.

They offered three different types of nemeses but only one nemesis plot.

They let you pick powers for the nemesis, which suggest certain backgrounds, but none of that changes anything.

My martial arts-using mastermind with his ninja minions is building a death-ray in a volcano.

My power-armored brute and his army of mercenary soldiers is also building a death-ray in a volcano.

My blade-wielding maniacal nemesis and his crew of pirate cosplayers?  Yep.  Building a death-ray in a volcano.

To me, that was the ultimate failing of their system.

 

They offered three different types of nemeses but only one nemesis plot.

They let you pick powers for the nemesis, which suggest certain backgrounds, but none of that changes anything.

There is only one Nemesis plot - it's all connected...

Threadjack over!  :D

To me, that was the ultimate failing of their system.

 

They offered three different types of nemeses but only one nemesis plot.

They let you pick powers for the nemesis, which suggest certain backgrounds, but none of that changes anything.

 

There is only one Nemesis plot - it's all connected...

 

Threadjack over!  :D

You're a Nemesis plot!

To add to the thread itself, it'd be nifty to have your arch-enemy's backround include something related to your backround. For example, if you start off in praetoria, and you choose to go the resistance path, then to being a hero. Your arch nemesis could also be a former resistance member, but went villain. They could be resentful of you for hogging spotlight, or choosing what they believe to be the wrong side. Why be a hero and possibly fall into the same role of those you fought so hard against when you could be a villain and embrace all the freedom that comes with that? And so, you two fight to see whose conviction in their ideals is stronger!