Mastermind Pet Customization

[Zeraphia]

What a necro, and what a hell of a response that this has gotten so far. And so far off-topic...

 

I fully support being able to customize your pets toward your liking, this is 2020, Thunderspy is able to do it albeit in a much less structured and thought-out way, I'd appreciate a way that has a more streamlined experience for the MM, and if some sets can't be redone, then fine. But those that can, I think it should be an option. Just because one kid at Christmas doesn't get their shiny new toys doesn't mean the rest of the children should suffer. I honestly would expect just one set at a time getting this option given the limited resources HC has.

 

On a side note, if anyone from the team reads this, thank you for the committed hard work that you've done for our community. Even the small baby steps are appreciated. 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Zeraphia

[RogerWilco]

13 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

What a necro, and what a hell of a response that this has gotten so far. And so far off-topic...

I used the forum search function, I don't like to start a new thread if there is an existing one covering the topic.

 

Sorry if that annoyed people. I just started playing in May 2020 and I'm digging though a year of Homecoming history.

[MTeague]

11 hours ago, RogerWilco said:

I used the forum search function, I don't like to start a new thread if there is an existing one covering the topic.

 

Sorry if that annoyed people. I just started playing in May 2020 and I'm digging though a year of Homecoming history.

When to start a new thread or do the "Rise from your grave!" on an old thread is definitely a judgement call.  Esp in a suggestions forum.  My personal cut off is 2 months, but that is admittedly quite arbitrary and I have NO expectations that there's a real consensus around when to let old threads rest in peace vs not. 

[plainguy]

I say make what customization you can now and worry about the rest later.  It is, what it is..  If Robots and beast are last on the list, as much as it sucks again be happy for someone else or roll one of those new custom toons. You have 1000 character slots..

 

As far as questionable customization of henchmen. Add to the log in ULA that its a perma ban if they any complaints about inappropriate henchmen attire. Ban the account, the email address and be done. No second chances.. No I'm sorry that was my kids account, he or she didn't know any  better.  ETC..  

Even if the player made the henchmen and never shows them except in their base.. If someone complains.. DONE !..  

[gameboy1234]

19 hours ago, plainguy said:

Add to the log in ULA that its a perma ban if they any complaints about inappropriate henchmen attire. Ban the account, the email address and be done. No second chances.

This is a little overwrought, I don't think a permanent ban would be appropriate for all but the most outrageous of abuses, but it brings up a good point.  If mastermind pet customization goes in, the "generic" admin feature needs to generic the pets costumes as well, and maybe generic the pet names back to the default too.  (This might apply to pets for all ATs, since it appears that now all pets of all sort can be renamed. )  Some thought should be given to per-character generic-zising and also maybe to whole account generic-zising for real problem people.

 

[plainguy]

1 hour ago, gameboy1234 said:

This is a little overwrought, I don't think a permanent ban would be appropriate for all but the most outrageous of abuses, but it brings up a good point.  If mastermind pet customization goes in, the "generic" admin feature needs to generic the pets costumes as well, and maybe generic the pet names back to the default too.  (This might apply to pets for all ATs, since it appears that now all pets of all sort can be renamed. )  Some thought should be given to per-character generic-zising and also maybe to whole account generic-zising for real problem people.

 

The biggest example brought up has been pimps and ladies of the evening..

 

I honestly don't care.  

 

But the rules should be ULTRA CLEAR and there should be real consequences.  Changing names and costumes don't do anything.  You can change your name any time. and you have costumes saved on YOUR PC.. 

 

You could change it back and keep the generic names.. The image is still there.. 

 

If they are limited in staff and time they shouldn't create something like this that is going to cause more issues and waste more time for them..

I think they need to make it super clear they are not going to waste their time investigating and asking questions and such..

 

I would even go as far as saying create a document which is an amendment to the EULA specifically for this and a player has to sign with user id and password and save it as a flat file. Like a digital signature.. 

When you get I didn't know.. You send them back the doc.. You signed this with your account ID and password..  

I didn't sign it, this is my kids account he did.. It clearly said on all amendments that an adult as to sign for their kids.

It also explains how you could REDO the signing for your kids if they "accidentally" signed instead of you.

 

The player gets a in game copy  minus the password and if possible a email sent to the registered email address for the account.. 

 

There should be no flip flopping, there should be no we didn't ban player A because of this excuse but we banned player B.

Or we gave everyone a grace period but now we are banning because its too much for us..

So Player A again gets a slide because he was in this grace period but Player B gets banned because now they had enough.. 

 

Again I don't really care this isn't something that would offend me personally. 

 

I work in cyber security and retired Law Enforcement.  I've seen many times what happens when  policy is not made clear.  It actually causes more work trying to fix the issue or investigate the incident.  Because people are free to play ignorant to the policy or rules and we need to prove otherwise.. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Patti]

I like the necro of old threads.  Letsme seafood stuff that was already discussed rather than asking myself in new threads.   This was a good one too.

[MTeague]

22 hours ago, plainguy said:

I say make what customization you can now and worry about the rest later.  It is, what it is..  If Robots and beast are last on the list, as much as it sucks again be happy for someone else or roll one of those new custom toons. You have 1000 character slots..

 

As far as questionable customization of henchmen. Add to the log in ULA that its a perma ban if they any complaints about inappropriate henchmen attire. Ban the account, the email address and be done. No second chances.. No I'm sorry that was my kids account, he or she didn't know any  better.  ETC..  

Even if the player made the henchmen and never shows them except in their base.. If someone complains.. DONE !..  

On one hand, One strike and you're out forever seems a bit much. 

On the other hand, well....

 

I do think that upwards of 98% of the people will use customization pretty responsibly and creatively.

 

I'm also sure that somewhere, someone, will go sailing RIGHT over that line. Because someone ALWAYS does, sure as the sun rises in the east. They'll think they're funny, or they'll be drunk, or someone will do it to someone else's shared account as a joke.  It will happen. Or they'll just really be some godawful piece of work type of person who really thinks it's okay. 

 

Now, stripperific costumes?  I still would not personally go for a Pimp MM.  I've had people convinced that I myself MUST be female (I'm not) just because my characters who are female happen to be dressed rather demurely.   But i'd find it hard to believe a squad of scantily-clad minions would cross the line considering what else I've seen in LIVE on brutes and scrappers. 

 

But you KNOW people will go over other lines.  All black minions with chains on them, with a name like "Slavedriver" for the MM, etc.  Someone, SOMEWHERE, is gonna be that dumb / tasteless.

 

So, ya.  Maybe there's something to be said for "You know what?  Let them be that dumb.  And then let them feel the wrath of the BanHammer and be done with them."

[Zeraphia]

2 hours ago, MTeague said:

But you KNOW people will go over other lines.  All black minions with chains on them, with a name like "Slavedriver" for the MM, etc.  Someone, SOMEWHERE, is gonna be that dumb / tasteless.

This is actually a point I never thought of. These types of images and messages conveyed through the "creativity" to use as tools to offend protected groups of people are exceptionally classless. Now, I am known to be a "troll" occasionally but lightly (I don't go around and make awful combinations to grief teams or anything like that but I'll occasionally say something like "hey guys, Synapse is the best task force in my opinion!" in general chat or "help! I made a robots/empathy MM and I can't manage to solo anything, even a minion!") but there is a very clear line between that and these types of abrasive behaviors. 

 

Wow, just wow... you are right though, like I said, I really didn't even think about these systematic abuses via providing the outlet to do things like this. However, I do realize that offensive names/costumes already do exist, I think the same rules for personal character costumes are fine, and I'm really not bothered by the stripper-themed ones (it is what it is, you're an adult, I'm an adult, most are adults, and there are legitimate reasons why women these days feel obligated to "strip" unfortunately for one reason or another) but I do feel as if most of the community wouldn't actively try to offend large segments of the population like this. However, I can definitely see this turning into a hot bed for trying to get someone banned...

 

I think as others have stated, that there should be some notice that racist, misogynistic, or offensive costumes to specific community members rules still apply even to the customized minions. 

Edited June 10, 2020 by Zeraphia

[plainguy]

2 hours ago, Patti said:

I like the necro of old threads.  Letsme seafood stuff that was already discussed rather than asking myself in new threads.   This was a good one too.

You can't really necro a suggestion thread. 

Much better to have one thread with 50 post then 5 threads repeating the same thing in my opinion.

 

Same as discussing a build or posting a build in an existing thread about certain builds.. EG AR Device thread on Blaster comes to mind..  Its a great thread to see a bunch of AR Device builds in one place.. Why have to click on different thread. 

 

I think though a LONG thread can be unruly it does show the Devs that there is a bunch of interest in a specific topic. Instead of 10 small threads over the course of 5 months that when not looked in totality look like just some small faction of people slightly interested in a specific change..   They might not see 10 threads with 50 unique posters posting. But they will see 1 thread with 50 posters because its a long paged thread and stays on top long enough.. 

 

Which is something I brought up a while back when suggested started.. Who is counting up these request ? Or is it someone from the teams comes here and notices some hot topic for that day or week and missed the other big topics from 2 weeks ago. 

 

Again this just my opinion on this.

 

 

[Shadowsleuth]

On 6/9/2020 at 5:31 PM, plainguy said:

I say make what customization you can now and worry about the rest later. 

 

@daveyfiacre put together a huge list of alternate pets for each Mastermind & Controller powersets using creatures that already exist ingame.

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/9713-mastermind-pet-clones-andor-female-minions/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-88013

[gameboy1234]

10 hours ago, Shadowsleuth said:

 

@daveyfiacre put together a huge list of alternate pets for each Mastermind & Controller powersets using creatures that already exist in-game.

 

That is actually a pretty cool list.  If anyone has time I wouldn't mind seeing some ideas how to extend that list using the costume creator.  There's a few obvious designs in the costume creator for things like Robots and Ninjas, but I'm often very impressed with how people can come up with cool looking ways to use it in unexpected ways.  Some costume creator ideas for Demons, Thugs, Merc, and Necro would be cool too.

 

[gameboy1234]

There's a few things missing from Davey Fiarce's list that I thought would be obvious.  For Beasts, vanity pets like Coyotes, German Shepherd, Black Wolf, Liger, Lion, Shadow Hound, and Blackwolf, and maybe the Warwolf as well.  With a little creativity you might be able to get two custom MM sets out of that.  Or even allow each tier to be customized separately.

[saintmountian]

How it is thunderspy already has this feature but we don't yet?

[srmalloy]

21 hours ago, saintmountian said:

How it is thunderspy already has this feature but we don't yet?

Less concern about ensuring that changes integrate properly with the code and don't cause problems?

[Patti]

Necro again!  Necrogain!

What if devs upgraded save/load costume window to allow it to be organized with folders and made facemaker/icon summon prestiegous power, and then old costume slots were dedicated to customizing pets?

[Greycat]

18 hours ago, srmalloy said:

Less concern about ensuring that changes integrate properly with the code and don't cause problems?

This. Which is why I play here and not there.

[Solarverse]

Deleted for being a grouchy dumba**

Edited October 15, 2020 by Solarverse

[FoulVileTerror]

er, 'verse?

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/15343-mastermind-pet-customization/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-225666

I think you may have misread Patti's message.

[Darmian]

On 10/14/2020 at 12:05 AM, srmalloy said:

Less concern about ensuring that changes integrate properly with the code and don't cause problems?

Yep. MacGyver may be talented but I don't want him wiring my house.

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, FoulVileTerror said:

er, 'verse?

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/15343-mastermind-pet-customization/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-225666

I think you may have misread Patti's message.

Damn, now I feel like an a**. Thanks for pointing that out, man.

[FoulVileTerror]

Also, not a man.  https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/17513-flag-emblems/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-225877

But I'm on the same page as you two as far as recycling threads.  Reduces clutter, keeps the discussion in one place for easier references to previous posts, and gives the opportunity for new posts to get things back on topic after a derailment.

 

And speaking of "back on topic" . . . 

The idea of adding a Portable Wardrobe Power is one which has popped up from time to time, and I fully support it!  For now, the enterbase command does the trick, but the Devs have already said time and again that command will be going away.

It would be wonderful for someone with a greater understanding of the technical issues associated with the costuming GUI to give us a "white paper" on the topic.  Let the players really know what kind of technical hurdles we're facing in terms of creating another 7 costume slots which exist independently of the current 10 (*11, hello Arachnos).  I've heard stories about the hell the Legacy Devs went through to get the Arachnos Costume Slot set up with the GUI, and that's apparently a sloppy hack, so having more details shared in regard to that would only be a good thing.

Then the next step is also establishing if a Dopple can call a costume -other- than the one which the player is currently "wearing."  That sounds like it should be a small thing, but again; someone more versed with the code would need to let us know how feasible that actually is.

And finally, the "griefer" angle.  I had asked if the GMs had seen an uptick in reports of inappropriate costumes ever since the Illusion Control Dopple option was released, but I don't recall ever seeing an answer.  All the same, much like the issue in the above-linked thread, I think the most elegant solution (if perhaps one with quite a bit of overhead in terms of research and development) would be to allow individual players to have the option to /costume_ignore other players.  That could also be expanded to include Power FX, which seems to be an issue which affects a significant number of players in places like Mothership Raids.

 

I very much want customizable Henchpets.  It's probably the feature request which I've engaged in the most discussions regarding.

It would be wonderful to hear what the Devs think on the topic, other than their acknowledgement that it's a feature which has been requested a significant number of times.

[mrudat]

I figure for the non-human minions, being able to pallet-swap as a first cut would be pretty awesome already.

 

I'd prefer full character customisation for minions, and yes, that opens things up for abuse, but people who would abuse that are also likely to have been banned for not playing well with others already, I suspect.

 

 

 

Perhaps one way to do it is to 'donate' costume slots to your minions, so that the player can use the regular costume editor, and then on power customisation, say that this minion uses that costume slot. It'd work well with commandos/ninjas at least; sergeant (player) + private (minion), lieutenant (player) + (sergeant + 2 x private), captain (player) + (lieutenant + 2 x sergeant + 3 x private), for example.

 

Alternatively, don't have an in-game editor at all, but rather allow importing a saved costume for a minion's appearance?

 

I suspect that you'd need to have a pool of possible costumes for each tier, rather than having just the one costumes. Thugs, for example, changes shirt and hair style/colour when you summon thugs, and it would make sense for that to also be the case for the other human minions; you could go with just one costume for a set of clones (or a very strict dress code), or an exact number of costumes for the case of summoning exactly the same minions repeatedly, or a pool of costumes for where it's n minions pulled out of a set of possible minions.

 

That would get up to a significant amount of data to be stored for the one set of powers, though.

 

 

 

There might be issues with why there's a 50-character limit for zones if full costumes can be used for minions (including auras and capes), in the sense that a 50-character limit puts an upper bound on how much your graphics card will be made to cry. I suspect that banning capes and auras from minions wouldn't be unreasonable, or perhaps just having an option to turn custom minions off to reduce graphics load, probably defaulting to on if you have any of the "please be kind to my graphics card" options enabled.

[Darmian]

I only just thought of this, and Hallowe'en nearly over too, how about when you don a temp costume all your minions -- sorry, humanoids only I reckon -- get it too?

[ssutcliffe]

Since we already have the ability to Clone a full costume (the one worn), I do not see a technical issue with being able to create a way to specify a costume slot number to use for Phantoms.  I also don't see a reason why the same thing couldn't be done for all mastermind pets using the same method - although for pets with weapons, it would probably have to default to the weapon naturally used if the animation changes would be too hard. 

 

As for complaints about worrying that people would make 'inappropriate'  costumes, the devs should simply put specific, clear examples of what they would consider that to be. The KKK example could be one, the slave example maybe another. Simply saying that you couldn't make sets that are specifically designed to denigrate anyone would probably be good enough I think. 

 

On Thunderspy, they have this already - you can pick any costume for any MM pet individually.  That also isn't moderated as far as I know.  I haven't seen a single MM set where someone did something offensive using that there - and that's without significant moderation.  It is true that the population is low there, but I think these worries are ridiculously overblown.  We'll mostly get people making interesting role playing MM sets.  It would bring new life to any and all the Mastermind sets that allow it.  And if we get some girl gang thug masterminds?  So what! This game is about doing what you want, as long as you aren't hurting or putting down others.  This is a community where very few people even *want* to do that too.  And for those very few that would, well that's what reporting and the Ban Hammer are for.