A few suggestions and requests

[Hepativore]

So, hello, I just started playing City of Heroes last week and I am blown away by how addicting the game is and how great the graphics and character animations are for a game that came out in 2004. With that being said, I do have a few ideas.

 

1. I wish that when choosing the colors of your outfit you could choose how and where they are applied like having a "select-fill" option to color a specific area with the color or pattern you chose instead of being stuck with how the game wants to apply the colors you want.

 

2. How feasible would it to have something like a slider option to select your character's posture/stance? I would like to be able to make hunchbacked characters as well as characters that lean back slightly.

 

3. Perhaps there should also be an option for increasing the length of your character's arms so that you can have an almost "simian" anatomical layout.

 

4. I think that there should be clothing for 17th-18th century style military coats, sleeves, and breeches like you saw in the colonial era of Britain and the US. The closest that there is to something like that is the "baron" option for coats but it is not quite the same.

 

5. There should be a mechanical/robotic style tail for the tail selections.

 

6. I alluded to this before in an old thread but how about a type of flying backpack that is based on a pair of ducted fans/rotors like the Solotrek XFV instead of a rocket backpack? They would swivel into a housing in the backpack shell when not in use.

[srmalloy]

For #1, that's a limitation of the character models, and they'd have to be completely redone to allow flood-filling a costume part with a color or pattern.

 

#2 I believe is impractical, because stance is baked into all of the animations, so creating alternate stances, even if only for the idle poses, would require new transitions to the other animations for each stance variation.

 

#3 I believe is being played with, at least for NPCs, and may find its way to PCs.

 

#4, #5, and #6, more costume options are always good, but the HC staff has limited resources for artwork and  animations for the foreseeable future, so you're probably going to have to wait on these.

 

[WanderingAries]

1-3 are pretty hard baked into the code from what I understand, but I'm sure that a new character creator is on their list somewhere.

4-6 Look for the thread(s) that are actively seeking help and ideas for new content like this.

[Hepativore]

So, I am further along in the game and my main hero is a level 30 sentinel and I just made a second superhero to see what it is like playing as a blaster.

 

Anyway, in designing her costume, one big drawback I have run into is trying to give her a belt. She wears a sort of waistcoat but for some reason, the costume designer puts the belt over all of her costume layers including her coat.

 

I know that the costume designer intentionally does this, but there is an online superhero-making engine called Heromachine that lets you make 2D superhero characters. It is pretty basic, but one thing it does let you do is choose what layer of a character's costume is displayed and where...so you can bring different layers in front or send them underneath before finalizing and flattening the hero's design when you are finished.

 

How difficult would it be to do a similar thing in the costume designer? I do not think that you would need to maintain the separate layers in the actual game, but just have the ability to bring them forward or back during the design process.

[Shenanigunner]

As for #3, at the same time I'd like to see the leg slider allow shorter — normal — leg lengths. The first thing I do on every toon is set the legs to minimum, which looks okay with some costumes but (on the same alt) still looks comic book-ridiculous with shorts/tights. The normal and longer lengths look like giraffes.

 

Even with a little exaggeration, the waist should be at 50% height, not 60-66% minimum. 😛

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by Shenanigunner

[Hepativore]

1. Something else I just thought of...how difficult would it be to have a "training" area similar to the holographic projector that Manticore has during the missions with the Shining Stars? You could use it to make and fight any enemy or group of enemies that your superhero has encountered before and you could set mob sizes and difficulty settings. This way you could test to see how your powers work on different enemy types as well as to make level-grinding easier.

 

2. If you have a team base, you could add a training simulator to it.

 

3. Also, for those of us that like to play solo or do a lot of soloing, I wish that you could actually still use the Shining Stars base for yourself even after they get disbanded at the mission conclusion. Aside from being a place for you to meet in one spot, you could add more options for furniture and decorations to go with the theme for your particular superhero, much like Batman has his Batcave or Superman has his Fortress of Solitude.

[Darmian]

11 minutes ago, Hepativore said:

1. Something else I just thought of...how difficult would it be to have a "training" area similar to the holographic projector that Manticore has during the missions with the Shining Stars? You could use it to make and fight any enemy or group of enemies that your superhero has encountered before and you could set mob sizes and difficulty settings. This way you could test to see how your powers work on different enemy types as well as to make level-grinding easier.

The Architect Entertainment (AE) pretty much lets you do exactly this.  Ok, it's not in your base, but you can have a go to area of most types of map vs most standard enemies, or custom built ones.  

[Dragon Crush]

Sounds like Architect Entertainment (frequently shortened to AE when people talk about it) and Supergroup bases (SG bases).

 

You can build your own missions with many of the enemy groups in game available and even make custom enemies with their own powersets in AE, and SG bases used to require multiple players and special currency on live, but now you can make a new one for every one of your characters if you desire with everything being free, or make one base and invite all your characters to it.

Ninja'd and editing to add

On the other hand, maybe "unkillable" (yeah, know how that works in this game with people who are determined) training dummies in the base with adjustable resists, rank and level range might be cool for testing.  But I'd say have them offer no exp or drops for when people figure out how to beat them.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Dragon Crush
addeed a comment on training