Ultimo

I like to think I can write a decent arc (though, the 5 mission limit rather constrains things). I just like adding little "easter eggs" in missions. In the arc I'm planning out, the idea is that you'll likely end up rescuing a group of mutants who are being held as prisoners... for being mutants. It's a classic X-Men thing, so I thought it might be fun to include some characters where players might get the reference. It's not critical to the story or anything.

No worries, I'm aware. The characters are meant to be inspired by the Brotherhood, not to be copies of them. Kind of necessary, given that the powers are never going to be exact anyway. Exactly, the characters would have powers similar to the comic characters, but their appearances would be different. Or, if I can't get the powers the way I like, I might go the other way, and have them resemble (but not copy) the comic character, but have somewhat different powers. For example, I might make a character based on the Black Knight (Marvel), but change the cultural frame of reference, and make him a Samurai, or perhaps a Roman Gladiator or something. Similar powers, different character.

So, I'm making an AE arc that includes a group of characters based on the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, from the X-Men. However, I'm finding it a bit difficult to give them appropriate powers, that simulate what the characters in the comics had, so I thought I'd see what the community would suggest. The general rule is, I always try to make AE enemies using power combinations the players can have, as if I was going to make the characters playable (which I often do). So, here's what I have. Magneto - Defender, Force Fields/Seismic Blast Toad - Scrapper, Martial Arts/Regeneration Mastermind - Controller, Illusion Control/??? Quicksilver - Tanker, Super Reflexes/Street Justice Scarlet Witch - ????, ????/???? Mastermind in the comics could create realistic illusions. The Illusion Control set actually makes relatively few illusions, it depends heavily on Phantom Army, but it's the only Illusion set there is. Beyond that... I'm not sure what to give Mastermind. Scarlet Witch's power in the old days was her Hex, which made improbable things happen to her opponents... but I've NO idea how to simulate that in the game. Any suggestions would be great. I also intended to include other X-Men themed NPCs, including: Blob - Tanker, Invulnerability/Super Strength Unus - Tanker, Energy Aura/Street Justice????? Not sure about this, he really should have a Force Field that makes him "Untouchable." Vanisher - ?????? Not sure about him either. His power was instantaneous teleportation, but there's no powerset built around that, and certainly none available to an AE character.

You missed the point. What I suggested were just rationalizations off the top of my head. The thing is simply that it doesn't MATTER why they're there when it's not part of the story you're doing. If you must have an answer, it takes only a little imagination to come up with a reason you can accept. In any case, fringe cases like that don't mean you shouldn't NOT do something. Also, as I mentioned, it would be easy enough to put limitations on nemeses so they don't run into those kinds of situations.

Edge cases like that could easily be adjusted by giving the nemesis a few limits, such as a selection of groups they won't work with. Or, you could just accept that any villain will work with any group, if there is a reason. As players we might not be aware of such a reason, it's just a matter of rationalizing it. For example, that noble villain working with the Council might be acting to save the life of a hostage. The high-tech nemesis working with the Circle of Thorns might have been promised some kind of technology as a reward for his presence. The misogynist might be being blackmailed or extorted into working with the Knives or Artemis. Any enemy might have any reason to work with any group, we don't necessarily need to know the reasons for it, unless it's relevant to the story you're playing in... which wouldn't be the case if the nemesis is appearing in a random mission.

It is possible I've brought this up before, or at least been part of a conversation about it. I've been around for a while now. That said, I see no harm in suggesting it again, in case it's slipped through the cracks as a suggestion. I know how the Champions system worked, and I don't recall it being exactly the same. Sure, the specific Nemesis arc was always the same, but I seem to remember the Nemesis appearing in random missions from time to time. I could be wrong, it's been quite a while since I played Champions Online. In any case, I think it would be cool to add it to CoH as a regular thing, not just for the AE. The way I envision it, if a player has an active Nemesis, the nemesis could appear randomly in any mission the player is doing. For example, in my old comics I used to write, Ultimo's nemesis was called the Catburglar. If I was involved in Positron 1, Catburglar might (or might not) appear in any of the missions, either as a boss (replacing any generic boss, like one of the Eidolons, for example) or as a seperate encounter. Imagine being in that mission and coming up on a group of bosses where your nemesis has appeared with some of the other players' nemeses as well! It could be epic! Maybe it's not possible. I don't know. I see no harm in making the suggestion.

To me, the biggest issue with playing as a villain is the lack of agency, the freedom to be your OWN villain. From the very start to the very end, you're a lackey of a minion of a lieutenant of some other villain. That might work for some characters, but others would never prostate themselves before Recluse and his various agents. Those kinds of characters need to have some way to pursue their OWN agendas. I've posted a somewhat detailed suggestion on this topic before. It would take some work, but amounts to this: Villains choose an objective from a list. It might be to get rich, or it might be to conquer the world. It depends on the villain, and on his level. He then chooses a method to accomplish it. Perhaps he'll conjure demons or build an army of robots, perhaps he'll infiltrate the government, there could be any number of methods. Once these are chosen, a set of objectives will be generated, related to his method of achieving his agenda. These objectives would be substantial, and might take weeks to achieve. For example, suppose he's building an army of robots to conquer the world with. He'd need a base (ANY agenda would start with this), metal components, electronics, fabrication machinery, computer chips, etc. On any mission he's a part of, there might be some of the things he'd need (as glowies). He could also do missions specifically to gather such resources, or he could assign such missions to OTHER PLAYERS, acting as a quest-giver himself. Once all the objectives are completed, he's ready to achieve his agenda, and a final mission is generated. He would need to survive an assault on his base by NPC heroes. The assault would be timed, and the enemies would be beyond daunting, even getting to the point of facing the entire combined Freedom Phalanx. The player is NOT expected to win. If he loses, he gets standard rewards of some substance. If by some miracle he WINS, he gets temporarily upgraded to Arch-Villain status, increasing his health, damage and so forth, allowing him to go anywhere in the game. While an Arch Villain, he would be automatically open to PvP in any zone. He can attack or be attacked anywhere. Rewards he gets while he's an AV would be greatly increased too. This would give villains something special to do, a reason to BE a villain. As it is, there really isn't any reason to be a villain.

One of my favourite things about Champions Online was the ability to create an arch-enemy for your character (several, in fact). I wonder if it might be possible to adapt this idea to City of Heroes? I know, you can make a nemesis in the AE system, but there's never any surprise to it. You always know what the story is, and who is going to appear... because YOU wrote the thing. The ideal is that these nemesis characters might appear randomly in other missions, perhaps as a boss instead of some generic boss... What say you, is this possible?

Ok, since I need to clarify. I'm not upset about anything. I just encountered a mechanic I thought was new, that NPCs get the benefit of the streakbreaker. I thought that was a bad idea, because it nullifies the defense of not getting hit, no matter how much you do to prevent it (I kind of still do). However, it was pointed out that this mechanic has been in place all along. Since I didn't notice any problem before, that suggests there IS no problem. I just never noticed it in the combat log before. So, it's NOT an issue. My original complaint is founded on a misconception, so it can be ignored.

What the heck are you all still raging about? I said I thought the streakbreaker for npcs was something new. It was pointed out that this is not the case, so I said, OK, THERE'S NO ISSUE THEN. And yet there's FIFTEEN more posts. It's fine, I got the answer I needed, if you guys want to go on about it, knock yourselves out, just leave me out of it.

Yes, I'm aware of this. Every attack has a CHANCE to hit you. What bothers me is that when streak breaker engages, it's GUARANTEED to hit you. It was my understanding that means every sixth attack is guaranteed to hit you. Again though, I thought this discussion had reached its logical conclusion. The streakbreaker has been in place all along, and I never even noticed it... so there's not really an issue. I still think it probably shouldn't be there, but if I've never noticed it before, how much of a problem can it really be?

Good lord, some of you people will argue and fight over ANYTHING. The character suffered a defeat. I'm not comparing it to actual physical suffering or anything like that. If you don't like that word, substitute the word "endured."

I'm afraid I'm going to disagree with you. If I take steps to defend myself by making it impossible to hit me, then a mechanic that makes it guaranteed that I'm going to get hit is rendering my defense irrelevant. If I lose a fight because of that (as I did tonight), then I've suffered from it. You can play with the semantics as much as you like. In any case, if it's been there from the beginning and I've never noticed it until now, it's not actually a problem.

Fair enough. I suppose I've just never suffered from it before.

Ok, I wasn't actually aware this was a thing, but apparently NPCs get the benefit of streakbreaker now? I'm not sure when this started, but it can't be allowed, it renders characters depending on not getting hit completely defenseless. I was running a mission this afternoon, a low level Super Reflexes Scrapper. He doesn't have his status protection yet, but his defense is as good as can be at low level. An enemy hit him with a hold, which was FORCED to hit by streakbreaker... and that was it. The character couldn't break free, couldn't fight back, he just stood there and got attacked again and again and again, with no way to do anything. He would have been FINE, but the hold was FORCED to hit him. His defense, not getting hit, was rendered completely irrelevant by the streakbreaker. Of course, that was a hold. However, if it was just a normal damaging attack, it would have been much the same... NPC damage (Bosses and higher, anyway) is SO much higher than ours, one hit can essentially end the fight, if you don't have other defenses. Now, it's fine for US, because we're the players. We need to be able to fight back. The enemy doesn't need to have that freedom, they're MEANT to be defeated. We should get the benefit of streakbreaker, but NPCs should not.

Ya, you can do collections of several things... however, we can't make a set of objectives that are independent, but all together trigger a single event. For example: In one of my missions, I had several bosses the player has to defeat, each representing the generals of the enemy force. Once they're all defeated, the big boss would appear. However, I couldn't put them all in place and then have the boss appear only once ALL were defeated. I was forced to daisy chain them together, where you defeat boss A, which spawns boss B, which spawns boss C, which spawns boss D, which spawns the big boss. It made the mission a bit of a chore, as you had to go looking for each boss each time, covering the whole map each time. What I'd like is to have a set of objectives which are essentially independent, but that once all are complete, it spawns a single new objective.

So, I expect some of these may have been suggested before, but I'm going to present my little list anyway, just in case they've not been. I'd love to see these things done with the AE! 1. Balance the custom NPC powers. Make them consistent with regular NPC enemies. At present, they're doing as much as 3 times as much damage. It's too high, and makes it difficult to balance characters for use as enemies or especially as allies. Melee powers are especially problematic. 2. Have allied EBs and AVs scale down in the same way as enemies, to prevent them trivializing content. Right now, allies don't scale down as enemies do. 3. Custom power colours, and stances for NPCs. Notable: Phantom Army should default to make duplicates of the NPC, not generic featureless characters. 4. Make pool powers available (eg. Sorcery, Super Speed, etc.) 5. Allow custom characters to be marked as unique, so no more than ONE can spawn at any time (ie. if I have a group that includes all EBs and one Boss; the game will spawn several duplicates of that boss, even though it's supposed to be a unique character). 6. New maps, in particular, more from Mercy and St Martial, and something with a beach (for use as Omaha Beach in WW2 arcs, as well as other things). 7. Allow several objectives to spawn at once (eg. Completing an objective to activate something causes several Boss objectives to spawn at once - right now, you can only spawn the bosses one at a time). 8. Allow collective objectives (in the example above, a third objective spawns once all the boss objectives are completed). 9. Allow enemies to surrender instead of requiring defeat (ie. they become untargetable). 10. Allow interactions with NPCs (ie. go to a character and talk to them, a dialog window opens with the conversation, as happens in regular game content). 11. Allow the creation of custom Underling and Giant Monster rank characters. 12. Higher rank Dopplegangers. Right now, they're Lieutenants only. 13. Make Mastermind pets available as enemies independently of the Masterminds themselves. I'll probably add more as I think of them! If you have any suggestions of your own, mention them below, and I'll add them to my list!

I've posted a couple of times about this stuff.

Plus, the discussion might come up with something they can use. One never knows.

No, but I only see the aura being the issue. The costume choices would simply depend on the effect (eg. the giant fist) being the same colour as the costume for the gloves. The effect would overlap the actual arm of the character, so it would look like it was extending. The aura... well, that's a different story. If you have a suggestion, that's the point of this thread... to get some discussion going and see how we can tweak the idea until it's something feasible.

Ya, I mentioned that in the original post... I'm not sure if new animations are something the current devs can do. If not, perhaps there are existing animations that can be repurposed... Most of the powers I suggested are likely able to use existing animations. For instance, 1- Snap Punch - Thrust animation from Neutrino Blast 2- Hammer Blow - Punch animation from Super Strength 3- Two Hand Blow - Energy Blast animation (2 arms) from Energy Blast. 4- Taunt - Normal animation 5- Iron Grip - Energy Blast animation again. 6- Rubber Banding - Buff animation. 7- Rebound - Buff animation. 8- Looping - Cross animation from Fighting. 9- Pinwheel - Whirlwind animation from Super Speed. Again, that's the character animations... the power animations are a different story.

Ya, I kind of envision it acting like ranged attacks. As someone else mentioned above, the animation might have the character thrust his arm forward (as with Neutrino Bolt), but instead of the green beam, it would project a "beam" that looks like the arm and fist. The beam would reach out then come back. It would overlap the actual arm enough that it would conceal the hand, and make it LOOK like the model was stretching out. You'd have to customize the colour to match your gloves, which shouldn't be difficult to do.

I'm not envisioning this effect stretching the model, but applying an overlapping limb. Imagine it like a beam effect (like X-Ray Beam, for example). At the front of the beam is a fist, and the beam itself would just be an arm. Colour customization would let you match it to your character's glove colour.

A very common power set is missing from the game. We've seen many characters in the comics who have this set: Mr. Fantastic. Plastic Man. Ms. Marvel. Elastigirl. Of course, I'm talking about STRETCHING. The usual explanation for why this set has never been introduced is that the engine doesn't support it, but I've seen effects in the game that are reminiscent of this set. For example, the Circle of Thorns Hordelings have an attack with a stretched out tongue. If they can do an attack that looks like a stretched limb, surely the players could too...? It would mean creating new animations, so I'm not sure that's feasible. If it is, though... how would we make the powers work? What would the set DO? Let's consider what we see the characters in the comics using the powers for. They throw punches at a distance. They often alter the size of their fists and use them like flails. They often alter the shape of their bodies to act as walls, or wheels, or other shapes. They use their limbs or bodies to restrain enemies. They allow their bodies to warp and distend, allowing them to reduce damage to themselves, even reflecting attacks back at the attackers. It seems to me the powers in this set would be essentially ranged, though likely somewhat shorter ranged. So, I see the following as an example: 1- Snap Punch - A quick, one arm attack at long range. Low damage, fast recharge. 2- Hammer Blow - Make a big hammer with the fist at close range. Moderate damage, AOE. 3- Two Hand Blow - A quick two fist attack at long range. Moderate damage, moderate recharge. 4- Taunt 5- Iron Grip - Toggle! Wrap body around a target and hold them. Target can still attack YOU, but no one else. Moderate DOT, long recharge. 6- Rubber Banding - Click, adding extra snap to attacks, increases tohit and damage. 7- Rebound - Click, while active, S/L damage reduced by 90%, reflecting such damage at the attacker 8- Looping - Sweep out with an arm and trip foes. Cone light damage, knockdown, moderate recharge. 9- Pinwheel - Spin body and arms, extreme damage PBAOE. Long recharge. Now, this is just off the top of my head. Some animations might need to be created, but some might already be in the game, at least partially. For example, the Snap Punch animation might be based on the same animation used for Neutrino Bolt from Radiation Blast, where the character thrusts his arm out at the enemy. The stretching version would replace the radiation blast with an arm and fist that moves out and back the way the Hordelings' tongues do. I don't know how much the current developers can do with animations. What say you? Does this have some merit? What would you change? Let us discuss how this might be implemented, and perhaps the developers can get some inspiration from the discussion!

Just so.