If you could make one change....

[Greycat]

... to the "engine," or a base game system (not "fix this AT this way, but to the game world or the way we see/interact with it,) what would you do?

 

As tempting as multiple different selections might be, I think ... "environmental awareness and interaction." We have a *little* of this right now, with things like ice/water powers affecting (some) fires, but making this more widespread could be interesting. Have an Electric based character, with enemies happening to be in water? The results can be shocking... until an Ice character freezes that water, just by using their powers. (Or turns it to slush first, to freeze later.) Have a mission with an area lined by torches? You might think twice about using hurricane or gale close to them. (Then again, as shiny as some powers - or even auras - are, it might not be a problem. Fire armor characters, for instance, could light the way. Or just relight the torches.) More things could be destructible - perhaps with unwanted (or surprisingly wanted) consequences.

[EmmySky]

I think I would vote for a name revamp.  Either a global tag on a name or something.  I have recently wanted to move a toon or two but someone on the new shards is using my name so I can't.  A way to circumvent that would be nice.  But a nice implementation..not something clunky.  

[Apparition]

Vehicles.  Batman has his Batmobile, why can't I ride a motorcycle?

[CursedSorcerer]

Similar to what Greycat posted, make it so enemies (and players) get dealt environmental damage if they're hit with an elemental attack while being in a certain area. (I.E. if you're in water and you get hit by an electrical attack, you will take more damage than if you were on dry land. Or maybe have it so that weather can play a role in your crime-fighting/villainy maybe if you had the powerset Storm Summoning, you could potentially change the weather by summoning a thunderstorm across the entire zone.

Edited January 16, 2021 by CursedSorcerer

[Darkneblade]

Base building in real maps. Results would be chaotic....

Maybe villains can set up lairs and heroes can create sidekicks to destroy it.

Aside from these, I just want to gamble on St. Martial.

Edited January 16, 2021 by Darkneblade

[Take One]

Wall clinging and rope swinging.

[Coyotedancer]

More attachment points on our character models for costume bits. 

[Illithid317]

The ability to adventure underwater with all the hazards that entails. Some mechanism for holding your breath, breathing water, drowning, pressure, currents, and of course underwater monsters.

[QuiJon]

23 hours ago, EmmySky said:

I think I would vote for a name revamp.  Either a global tag on a name or something.  I have recently wanted to move a toon or two but someone on the new shards is using my name so I can't.  A way to circumvent that would be nice.  But a nice implementation..not something clunky.  

I was thinking for a while that either associating the name with the global name or an abbreviation for your global name or super group might be nice way to circumvent the name backlog. So like my global is QuiJon. So maybe let me set an abbreviation of [QJ] somewhere and then if i want to make a character named Super Dude and the name is taken i can elect to have it display as Super Dude [QJ] in game denoting my global. Or do it for SG, so my Maximum Effort becomes [MxF] or some other clan style tag i set for hte super group and that displays as a part of the name. And at least that way you are only in conflict with those in your super group. 

[CrudeVileTerror]

Pipedream:  Overhaul the 3D rendering and animation.

There are some serious limitations in there that really cramp the potential for making a LOT of the suggestions people ask for work the way they expect them to.  

Wall climbing could be done from a technical standpoint, but the animations would be so janky that I expect most people wouldn't want it.  Motorcycles and vehicles are doable, but animating them would result in some really stiff movement.  Underwater is already showcased in the game, but again the animations when you cast Powers would require either another pass of every single attack and emote with the swimming stance, or your character would adopt the flying stance for them, which wouldn't necessarily look quite right either.

Personally, I wouldn't mind that much . . . but based on some market research, it seems I'm in a stark minority on that front.

Almost everything else is doable, if perhaps a little dicey to pull off.  The interactions which are possible in this engine are pretty robust if you're willing to extrapolate and use plenty of abstractions.