(I hate to bring them up here, but) With Thunderspy having pet customization...

[OmegaX123]

...it kind of proves that it's doable, even if it is a hacky method via using your own costume slots and a tag added to the name of the pet. Do the Homecoming team have either a)an implementation of this in-game yet or b)any plans to attempt it?

Edited February 29, 2020 by OmegaX123

[Yomo Kimyata]

Why don't you spend some time on Thunderspy and report back to us?  That's the beauty of the code being out there -- if you want different providers with different stuff, there's nothing to keep you from playing on more than one!

[THEDarkTyger]

So...their pet customization, what? Requires using one of my costume slots per pet? No thanks. That's just awful.

[Jabbly]

it's a good compromise for customization, although I wish HC had the same changes that Thunderspy has for its MM. 

 

They fixed mercenaries/necromancy

their changelog 

 

Mercenaries Update

*Soldiers:*
+ New Costume based on Spec Ops design.
+ 1 extra Soldier, due to medic being moved to own power.
- Removed Brawl
+ Gave Burst a 15-Arc Cone
+ Frag Grenade for early level group control
+ Increased Resistances to soldier by ~12% & added Recovery + Health Regen

*Medic:*
+ New costume
+ Medic is now summoned separately from Soldiers. (A third Soldier takes his place in Soldiers.
- Removed Brawl
+ Medic has two heals, a single target heal and AoE heal, both on 10 sec cooldown. 
+ Stimulant is now an AoE and places a Heal DoT on friendlies
+ Final Upgrade is Field Medic skill.
- Medic has NO ATTACKS 

*Spec Ops:*
+ Web Grenade is now an AOE attack, 20 yds
- Removed Brawl
+ Replaced Rifle Butt for BeanBag Mag 2.5 Stun
+ Increased Snipe's Damage by 1.2% 
+ Replaced Stealth with Targeting Drone as it really didn't help and snipe needed the Accuracy Buff
+ Increased Resistances to soldier by ~12% & added Recovery + Health Regen

*Commando:*
+ Increased Resistances to soldier by ~12% & added Recovery + Health Regen
+ Reduced Cooldown of Rocket Launcher to match Assault Bot Rockets
+ Reduced the frequency of Knockback/changed to Knockdown
+ Summon 2 Soldiers, they last 120 seconds and cooldown is 200 seconds.
- Removed Brawl

*Equip Mercenary:*
+ Passive Power, Once bought, every 5 seconds it Pulses to upgrade any new or re-summoned pets

*Tactical Upgrade:*
+ Passive Power, Once bought, every 5 seconds it Pulses to upgrade any new or re-summoned pets

*Serum:*
+ Increased range & turned into an AOE for pets
+ Duration set to 60 seconds
- Endurance cost raised to 25
+ Recharge time reduced to 100 seconds
+ Crash reduced to 50% of cur%pet powerpool
- Bonuses from Serum reduced ~3.7%

Necromancy

LifeDrain:
+Now Aoe, Heals only the caster. (might change in the future)

Zombie Horde: 
+Zombies have slithly better resistances and regeneration like Merc pets.
+Replaced Zombie Brawl attacks with Lethal/Smash and a chance for Toxic Dmg
+Replace Vomit with another Zombie Brawl with a chance for Knockdown and Lethal 

Enchant Undead:
+Auto Passive, pulsing every 10seconds to rebuff any missed or newly created pets.

Grave Knight:
+Increased defences slightly and added Lethal/Fire/Smash defense bonus
+Whirling Blade for AOE attack
-Removed Darkblast
+Added AoE Taunt with Riptide effect, allowing the Graveknight to pull Aggro and maintain Taunt
+Movetome in riptide has only a 0.5% chance to move anything higher than a Boss
+Tier 2 Upgrade gives Invulnerabillity allowing the Grave Knights a higher chance of surviving large groups that were taunted.

Soul Extraction:
+Toggle power, with minimal Drain (might change)
+Fires off every 10 seconds with an AoE than Summons a Zombie per dead foe nearby, no more targeting required, There is no upper limit to how many you can have, but they only last ~25 seconds
This will drive you to push through tasks fast to keep your zombie horde up and running, while also maintaining your 3 zombies and 2 grave knights.

Lich:
-Removed Lifedrain
+Added Twilight Grasp in it's place
+Lich can Summon Ghost minion to serve him for 170 seconds, with a 200 second cooldown
+Possess, migrated from the Darkness Controll Tree
+Petryfying Gaze is now a small AoE
+Tenebrous Tentacles Radius and Cone increased to 60/45 respectively

Empowered Undead:
+Auto Passive, pulsing every 10seconds to rebuff any missed or newly created pets.
 

 

I would love to have the upgrade abilities as a passive that auto upgraded your pets. Having to spend your end just to upgrade them feels backwards.

[nzer]

Buffing underperforming primaries and auto upgrades are things I would love to see here, but I don't want to see hacky compromises in the game just for the sake of getting the feature out. If they can't figure out a proper way to make pets customizable, they shouldn't make them customizable. The HC team has been absolutely right so far to focus on doing things correctly rather than quickly.

[Clave Dark 5]

On 2/29/2020 at 12:55 PM, OmegaX123 said:

Do the Homecoming team have either a)an implementation of this in-game yet ...

Have you not played here lately?

[Rieitdd]

On 3/1/2020 at 6:11 PM, Jabbly said:

it's a good compromise for customization, although I wish HC had the same changes that Thunderspy has for its MM. 

 

They fixed mercenaries/necromancy

their changelog 

 

Mercenaries Update

*Soldiers:*
+ New Costume based on Spec Ops design.
+ 1 extra Soldier, due to medic being moved to own power.
- Removed Brawl
+ Gave Burst a 15-Arc Cone
+ Frag Grenade for early level group control
+ Increased Resistances to soldier by ~12% & added Recovery + Health Regen

*Medic:*
+ New costume
+ Medic is now summoned separately from Soldiers. (A third Soldier takes his place in Soldiers.
- Removed Brawl
+ Medic has two heals, a single target heal and AoE heal, both on 10 sec cooldown. 
+ Stimulant is now an AoE and places a Heal DoT on friendlies
+ Final Upgrade is Field Medic skill.
- Medic has NO ATTACKS 

*Spec Ops:*
+ Web Grenade is now an AOE attack, 20 yds
- Removed Brawl
+ Replaced Rifle Butt for BeanBag Mag 2.5 Stun
+ Increased Snipe's Damage by 1.2% 
+ Replaced Stealth with Targeting Drone as it really didn't help and snipe needed the Accuracy Buff
+ Increased Resistances to soldier by ~12% & added Recovery + Health Regen

*Commando:*
+ Increased Resistances to soldier by ~12% & added Recovery + Health Regen
+ Reduced Cooldown of Rocket Launcher to match Assault Bot Rockets
+ Reduced the frequency of Knockback/changed to Knockdown
+ Summon 2 Soldiers, they last 120 seconds and cooldown is 200 seconds.
- Removed Brawl

*Equip Mercenary:*
+ Passive Power, Once bought, every 5 seconds it Pulses to upgrade any new or re-summoned pets

*Tactical Upgrade:*
+ Passive Power, Once bought, every 5 seconds it Pulses to upgrade any new or re-summoned pets

*Serum:*
+ Increased range & turned into an AOE for pets
+ Duration set to 60 seconds
- Endurance cost raised to 25
+ Recharge time reduced to 100 seconds
+ Crash reduced to 50% of cur%pet powerpool
- Bonuses from Serum reduced ~3.7%

Necromancy

LifeDrain:
+Now Aoe, Heals only the caster. (might change in the future)

Zombie Horde: 
+Zombies have slithly better resistances and regeneration like Merc pets.
+Replaced Zombie Brawl attacks with Lethal/Smash and a chance for Toxic Dmg
+Replace Vomit with another Zombie Brawl with a chance for Knockdown and Lethal 

Enchant Undead:
+Auto Passive, pulsing every 10seconds to rebuff any missed or newly created pets.

Grave Knight:
+Increased defences slightly and added Lethal/Fire/Smash defense bonus
+Whirling Blade for AOE attack
-Removed Darkblast
+Added AoE Taunt with Riptide effect, allowing the Graveknight to pull Aggro and maintain Taunt
+Movetome in riptide has only a 0.5% chance to move anything higher than a Boss
+Tier 2 Upgrade gives Invulnerabillity allowing the Grave Knights a higher chance of surviving large groups that were taunted.

Soul Extraction:
+Toggle power, with minimal Drain (might change)
+Fires off every 10 seconds with an AoE than Summons a Zombie per dead foe nearby, no more targeting required, There is no upper limit to how many you can have, but they only last ~25 seconds
This will drive you to push through tasks fast to keep your zombie horde up and running, while also maintaining your 3 zombies and 2 grave knights.

Lich:
-Removed Lifedrain
+Added Twilight Grasp in it's place
+Lich can Summon Ghost minion to serve him for 170 seconds, with a 200 second cooldown
+Possess, migrated from the Darkness Controll Tree
+Petryfying Gaze is now a small AoE
+Tenebrous Tentacles Radius and Cone increased to 60/45 respectively

Empowered Undead:
+Auto Passive, pulsing every 10seconds to rebuff any missed or newly created pets.
 

 

I would love to have the upgrade abilities as a passive that auto upgraded your pets. Having to spend your end just to upgrade them feels backwards.

Would also love for some love to necro and other underperforming sets.

 

but specially necro, some of the choices there are too bad on the pets (zombies vomits and overall a complete lack of any sort of aoe comes to mind)

 

the passive buffs I dont think would work tho,  would need to evaluatee how many MM we have concurrently on the server as to not overflood it with requests every  10 secs for buffing.

 

 

[EyeLuvBooks]

11 minutes ago, Rieitdd said:

Would also love for some love to necro and other underperforming sets.

 

but specially necro, some of the choices there are too bad on the pets (zombies vomits and overall a complete lack of any sort of aoe comes to mind)

 

the passive buffs I dont think would work tho,  would need to evaluatee how many MM we have concurrently on the server as to not overflood it with requests every  10 secs for buffing.

 

 

After I saw the Pet customization I downloaded Cream Soda and raced right over there. My observations are based on the better part of the day's worth of play:

 

1) I don't like using costume slots for the Pet appearance. If they ever figure out how to make my guys look like the enemy models (assets already in-game) I'd be thrilled.

 

2) I don't believe that the auto-upgrade is necessary. Yes, upgrading resummoned pets is a pain but so is being the only melee fighter on an all-ranged team. IMHO it's part of the game, it works, don't mess with it.

 

3) I'm perfectly fine with the changes to the underperforming sets but truth be told the balance is all over the place. Where's the love for Ninjas (arguably the LEAST effective set over the career of the MM)? The idea of adding a new Medic is great (because I don't believe that we need to follow the 3-2-1 model all the time) but adding AoE to Burst seemed to be an over-reaction. If Mercs is under-performing for damage, why not simply increase the damage?

 

4) The TT radius of 60 for Liches is insane. I had whole spawns tangled up from one power on one pet. Procced Bonfire became immensely powerful there.

 

I like making improvements to powers and sets that are proven to under-perform but my background in manufacturing tells me to make SMALL changes, then reassess how things are doing, then if necessary make more. The PILE of changes made on Thunderstruck is over the top IMHO.

[tjknight]

Also, it seems Thunderspy's  pet customization breaks power animations on non-human pets. 

[Rikmach]

On 3/4/2020 at 6:42 AM, EyeLuvBooks said:

After I saw the Pet customization I downloaded Cream Soda and raced right over there. My observations are based on the better part of the day's worth of play:

 

1) I don't like using costume slots for the Pet appearance. If they ever figure out how to make my guys look like the enemy models (assets already in-game) I'd be thrilled.

My understanding is that coding user interfaces in City of Heroes is unbelievably difficult for some reason (Not a coder, so I don't understand *why*, just passing on what I've heard), which is why Null the Gull exists- apparently, creating an NPC you can talk with is easier than coding an user interface option in a menu.  Wild.   Either way, my guess is the "Uses existing costume slots" is their initial, hacky way of implementing the pet customization option using existing interfaces.  IE, get it working at all.  I'd be willing to bet they'd implement a seperate interface, or slightly more hacky options to mitigate this (IE, Masterminds getting more costume slots that other classes)  We'll have to wait and see.

 

As for Enemy models, well, hopefully people will add NPC costume options to the character creator so you can make them for yourself- for humanoid models, at least.

 

On 3/4/2020 at 6:42 AM, EyeLuvBooks said:

2) I don't believe that the auto-upgrade is necessary. Yes, upgrading resummoned pets is a pain but so is being the only melee fighter on an all-ranged team. IMHO it's part of the game, it works, don't mess with it.

And I'm sure you hiked through the snow to school, uphill, both ways, and liked it.   Sorry, naysaying QOL changes "because that's the way it's always been" holds zero water for me.

 

On 3/4/2020 at 6:42 AM, EyeLuvBooks said:

3) I'm perfectly fine with the changes to the underperforming sets but truth be told the balance is all over the place. Where's the love for Ninjas (arguably the LEAST effective set over the career of the MM)? The idea of adding a new Medic is great (because I don't believe that we need to follow the 3-2-1 model all the time) but adding AoE to Burst seemed to be an over-reaction. If Mercs is under-performing for damage, why not simply increase the damage?

 

Because Ninjas aren't the least effective Mastermind set?  They're the strongest Single-Target set that exists.  This isn't to say it's crackers, though, it's pets have garbage survivability, and if you don't have a secondary that covers that, it's hard to let them actually deal that damage.

 

Merc's problems wasn't *just* low damage.  It was low damage- both single target and range, low survivability, and almost no utility/debuff/control, and the stupid AI constantly putting itself into unnecessary danger by running into melee to brawl or rifle butt, despite being designed for range.  If you look over the changes, you can see that most of them are focused around ensuring they can survive, giving them AOE damage, and adding some control/debuff options.

 

On 3/4/2020 at 6:42 AM, EyeLuvBooks said:

4) The TT radius of 60 for Liches is insane. I had whole spawns tangled up from one power on one pet. Procced Bonfire became immensely powerful there.

Is that a complaint or a compliment? :)

 

On 3/4/2020 at 6:42 AM, EyeLuvBooks said:

I like making improvements to powers and sets that are proven to under-perform but my background in manufacturing tells me to make SMALL changes, then reassess how things are doing, then if necessary make more. The PILE of changes made on Thunderstruck is over the top IMHO.

True, that's one way of doing it.   That said, I've also seen success in making big changes and paring back afterwards.

[Zeraphia]

I really like the idea of pet customization but I think it should have limits. Look, everyone wants to be a thugs or a robots without being a thug or a robot costume. Let's face it, the thugs are some of the most unenthusiastic, boring, non-special costumes/concepts there are. Also, after seeing the robots for quite awhile, the robotic costume gets quite boring as well and well... kind of ugly. Here's my opinion: each costume for the pets should have a list of specific costume pieces for that specific pet.

 

For example, we shouldn't just have "robots" that look like clowns, have literally every power that robots have, and give them the costume of clowns, it would create a meta of MM's being pretty much one primary that "shines" and make others feel inclined to all choose said primary without being any variation, and make those who already have made the non-meta primaries feeling very left out that they dont even get the benefit of choosing a costume or theme they enjoyed. 

 

As a compromise, I think there should be sets of costumes for robots, thugs, demons, etc. that are attuned to each, for example, thugs can possibly look like clowns with certain colorings and costume set combinations (giving more "human" sets), ninjas can get a more "Scorpion" from Mortal Kombat feel (possibly more swords and effects), the Oni can look much more demonic (or possibly look like a more supernatural entity), and BIGGEST OF ALL, they should ALL have female variations. I think the fact that all minions are forcibly male is a little limiting. I wouldn't say that they can't be totally transformed, but I think robots should still look like robots, just given a LOT more robotic options! It would be a wonderful way to have various enemies (nemesis, praetorian clockwork, etc.) available as pets to you!

Edited March 12, 2020 by Zeraphia

[ScarySai]

I don't know about the customization, but those necromancy changes sound amazeballs.

 

Actually makes necro live up to it's name. Warshades are better necromancers! 

Edited March 12, 2020 by ScarySai

[_NOPE_]

I don't care about total customization, because I realize that could be a while to do it right. If HC does to it, I'd rather they do it "right" than to try to hack it in via the minimal code path possible.

 

That being said, there's just one MM set that I've been wanting for a long time....

 

Spoiler

 

Edited March 12, 2020 by The Philotic Knight

[RubyRed]

2 hours ago, The Philotic Knight said:

That being said, there's just one MM set that I've been wanting for a long time....

 

 

Thanks, I hate it

[_NOPE_]

Hehe sorry @RubyRed , a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do. I *DID* put it in spoilers!

[Herotu]

5 hours ago, The Philotic Knight said:

I don't care about total customization, because I realize that could be a while to do it right. If HC does to it, I'd rather they do it "right" than to try to hack it in via the minimal code path possible.

 

That being said, there's just one MM set that I've been wanting for a long time....

 

  Hide contents

 

Check out the Trivia section ... https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Positron_(Developer)

[Noze]

Tbh I think total customization would be awesome and it would probably fulfill a lot of the wishes on new pet sets that saw here once in a while.

You could easily become the leader of a group of infected with a let's say a thugs/rad mastermind, or perhaps be the captain of ghost pirates with necromancy.

You could make humanoid cyborg costumes and play a mad scientist who leads an army of roboticized soldiers (or corpses) as a robot mastermind.

Or design unique soldier outfits for the mercenaries that you won't play because it wouldn't make the set any better.

Or what about demonic Ninjas? or undead Ninjas? you know, perhaps shadowy figures with an aura that gives them red glowing eyes so that you could play an actual oni overlord.

Or what about Zombies created by science rather than magic? I mean zombies dressed with tattered casual wear, undead riot police with batons as grave knights and some kind of mutated zombie as lich.

Or yeah clowns, or knights with grave knights as actual crusaders, the lich as a mage and zombies as drunken monks that puke all over the place. D:
Or even better how about a group of lightly dressed pistol blazing gun girls (well I don't have any Idea what the Bruiser would be, perhaps you've somehow managed to recruit Big Betty the bully from your school days?

Or how about humanoid costumes for demons? you could actually be some sort of a cult leader by turning your daemonlings into cultists that do your bidding while keeping the monstrous models of your other pets?
I could go on and on with this, there would be so many possibilities. ^_^

[Peacemoon]

I think the homecoming team need to walk a tight path between too many changes and no changes.  My gut feeling is massive changes to sets would be more negative than positive. Little tweaks while still keeping the game true to what we know and love is the better path in my view.

 

Mercs for example can be made a lot better without half of those massive changes listed above.

 

For Pet customisation I think personally the first step would be palette customisation. Even if you could change their colours that would be a good start, and be very welcome.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Peacemoon

[zachary48282]

The changes on Thunderspy are fantastic to play with, but there is so much jank that it starts to wear on you after a few hours. 

 

The pets look amazing, but broken animations and upgrade costume parts being tacked on to your costumes really break any concept. I love playing on Thunderspy, but I prefer the stable feeling of Homecoming.

[StrikerFox]

On 3/12/2020 at 12:20 PM, The Philotic Knight said:

That being said, there's just one MM set that I've been wanting for a long time....

I wanted this back during live. Imagine carnival sound fx for their attacks. Honking horns, sinister laughter, inflating balloon, and the infamous circus song.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S280Pqq3T_w&t=11s

[Regrek]

Of course I want customized minions. That's like asking if someone wants pie; without restricting said pie to a specific kind, portion size, or having to pay for it.

If we're just throwing what we want out there, I want full costume customization same as player gets for each individual minion, along with selecting which type of minion per slot in a power, and full individual inventory management so I can fiddle with team management like a game of Necromunda. It doesn't even have to do anything, just let me fiddle with stuff.

 

As for what I want our dev team to actually spend their time producing, a simple across the board rebalance of set powers to a baseline DPS by AT for a start.

If this UI code clusterbunk is a real thing, scrapping the entire UI system, and reimplementing it with modern usable code would be a huge project with no visible benefit, but one that really needs to get done sooner rather than later. UI code is usually a PITA to make in the best of times, but it would allow all kinds of things.

 

As far as playing goes, just pull the power sets up to parity within the AT, and all the previously unusable stuff will keep people busy for a while. Numbers, spreadsheets, no fun but it's just math, not arcane mysticism.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Regrek

[Ry]

For someone completely new to the term "Thunderspy" are they the 4chan server? Because I genuinely have no idea what server belongs to that community. I hear about more servers now than I used to. Furthermore, as much as I'd LOVE pet customisation for Masterminds (easily in the top 5 things I want) I'd rather it be done properly. While their version of it sounds decent, the cost of a costume slot for a character would eventually add up if you wanted to make unique outfits for all the pets. Furthermore, non human pets such as Demons and Robots are easily the furthest away from any real customisation on looks, at best we could change their colours (minor tweaks like you can do in AE). Aside from that the human pets are easier to manage on the customisation front. If anyone could shed light on this I'd be thankful!

[Blackfeather]

2 minutes ago, Ry said:

For someone completely new to the term "Thunderspy" are they the 4chan server?

Yes.

[kelika2]

9-10 costume slots

6 pets

 

do your masterminds really have 4+ costumes?

 

and you are literally unwilling to share these with your pets?

[Lyrianna]

On 4/4/2020 at 10:00 AM, kelika2 said:

9-10 costume slots

6 pets

 

do your masterminds really have 4+ costumes?

 

and you are literally unwilling to share these with your pets?

Bear in mind you only START with 6 costume slots. Which means you have to do at least one of the costume missions to have enough slots to have a single costume for yourself, and 6 slots reserved for your pets. So yeah, for a lot of people they wouldn't want to burn almost all their costume slots just to modify the look of their pets. I generally have 5-6 different looks for most of my characters. Costume, casual clothes, an alternate costume, dressing up nicely, etc. So sacrificing nearly all my costume slots for pets would be frustrating, and I'd much prefer a better way to do it.