Mastermind Pet Cosmetics

[Thrythlind]

This is most likely something that's come up before. But I really wish we had some ability to customize our pets a bit.

 

I feel it's fair that you can't have the sort of full customization you'd get for a player, but would be nice to have like some different styles. Especially as regards to demons, necromancy, and bots.

 

Also, some female minion options for gangs, mercs, and ninja would be neat. Even just put into the same random selection pool as exists currently.

[MTeague]

My Ninja/Cold MM is basically Lo Pan from Big Trouble In Little China, but with an Ice Mage twist. I'd love to have a BLUE Oni, instead of a red one.  Wouldn't even care if the powers the Oni uses stayed the same. 

 

That said, it's firmly in the "it would be nice if" bucket, not anything I consider a Dire Need.

 

But how cool would it be to have some Thugs that looked like mobsters?  Or ninjas that looked like Knives of Artemis?  Or Beasts that looked like Werewolves/Werelions?  Necromancy minions that were more like Apparitions / disembodied spirits for a Soulbinder take instead of a Zombie Lord take?  It is probably a LARGE lift, because I don't think they want them being visually indistinguishable from existing enemy mobs. But is definitely a good sized crowd who would squeeeee for joy.

[Thrythlind]

Yeah, though at least a option for lady minions would be nice. And I certainly wouldn't want to minions to be mistaken for enemy spawns.

Edited April 24, 2021 by Thrythlind
Agree with a comment I forgot about... and then edit to add reason for edit.

[Thrythlind]

As a note, assuming full character creator is too much trouble (and I mean full relative to current, would still be less than what PCs have) These are some of the optional minion styles I'm thinking of for the critters. Possibly with a interface in either character builder (for if you're all of one style or another limited) or Power customization if you could choose style per power to have a mix. An interface of per minion so that you could mix and match over all six summons feels again to be way out there. (all of this is unlikely and troublesome, to be honest):

 

Gangs - Mafioso, Yakuza, College Kids, Athletes, Cheerleaders, etc

Mercenaries - Cyberpunk, Napoleonic (yeah would be a bit strange with their attacks), Space Opera, Modern Military

Ninja - Anime-ish, Infiltrators from other cultures, Cyberpunk again

Necromancy - Ghosts, Skeletons, mummies, maybe vampires (or that might be better as its own power set), Banshees

Beasts - alternate beasts like bears, dinosaurs, etc

Demons - Demons is already a broad group, have to be ways to do demons on a similar skeleton without looking like behemoths

Robots - See Demons

Also, female minions... yes sexy kunoichi and such, but also just the same stagehand night-suit that the current ninja wear on a female body.

Edited April 24, 2021 by Thrythlind

[AngryJesusMan]

I'm down for this. I have a couple of MMs that would definitely seem mildly more interesting to me if their minions didn't look exactly like the minions that ever other MM ran around with.

[50caltech]

agreed, mm pets need customization, color options  for incarnate pets also...

[Thrythlind]

In quipping with friends I brought up "what if I want to play a soccer girl and her friends that decided to take on villains?" Which resulted in one of my friends pondering the effectiveness of "soccer-tween" minions

 

[Thrythlind]

I know I said not having minions that look like enemy groups was understandable.... but then I thought about a Ninja or Thugs mastermind grouped fluffed as ex-Carnival of Shadows. Just have the costumes slightly off what the Carnies have.

[krj12]

I played a Thugs MM back on live, and always wanted his henchmen to look like Family.   So I agree, some customization would be awesome.

The ability to create custom mobs already exists in AE, so I don't think it's impossible.

 

[Darmian]

1 hour ago, krj12 said:

I played a Thugs MM back on live, and always wanted his henchmen to look like Family.   So I agree, some customization would be awesome.

The ability to create custom mobs already exists in AE, so I don't think it's impossible.

 

Having Ninjas that looked like the Praetorian Syndicate would be cool. Sure, we could go for Tsoo, but that's not far off the original really.

[Thrythlind]

On 4/28/2021 at 8:44 PM, krj12 said:

I played a Thugs MM back on live, and always wanted his henchmen to look like Family.   So I agree, some customization would be awesome.

The ability to create custom mobs already exists in AE, so I don't think it's impossible.

 

 

I think editing the character customization interface would be major issue, honestly. Maybe storage space, unless the costume codes are mostly recording on your computer in your character file.

 

[MTeague]

4 hours ago, Thrythlind said:

 

I think editing the character customization interface would be major issue, honestly. Maybe storage space, unless the costume codes are mostly recording on your computer in your character file.

 

 

I'm hoping that's not such a big issue. Every player has wierdly different costumes. Does that mean their costume files exist on MY computer somewhere if we're both hanging out at Miss Liberty?  I doubt it.  are full images being transmitted to my computer in real time as they walk around, execute powers, etc?  I doubt it. 

 

I think what's happening is the Shard / Server informs my computer that they're "using this body type, with these sliders, and these costume piece selections, with these colors", and then it's up to my local client to assemble the necessary legos from the files of all tailor options that are already included in the game install.  But the data for a customized pet, I would hope, should be no more additional storage load for any local client or the server, than just another player with another costume.

 

I'd guess one first decisions process is stuck one 

a) do they want to allow pet customization at all?   (and Illusion Control/Phantom Army/Mirror gives me hope that gets a "yes" from the devs)

b) if so, do they want to restrict to certain prefab choices?  Or, open the gates and let players choose anything.

c) If you allow players to choose anything, are they okay with "robots" that don't look the least bit robotic. Beasts that don't look beastly. Undead that look like normal humans.  Mercenaries that look like Robots?  

 

I'm GUESSING they're still stuck deciding between cooking up multiple pre-fab options per pet type vs just opening the full costume editor. 

But I have ZERO evidence to back that. Just Wild Posterior Hunches.

 

I know they're smart enough to know people will complain if it's allowed for Thugs/Ninjas/Mercs but not Robots or Beasts or Demons or Undead.

Of course, they're also smart enough to know people gonna complain no matter what lol, so, maybe they don't care. 

 

[Frostmoon]

Heck, I'd just like an ability to change the colour of the minion's powers; when a character uses green fire and their minions are stuck with red, it can look a little strange.

[Judasace]

On 4/21/2021 at 12:18 AM, Thrythlind said:

This is most likely something that's come up before. But I really wish we had some ability to customize our pets a bit.

 

I feel it's fair that you can't have the sort of full customization you'd get for a player, but would be nice to have like some different styles. Especially as regards to demons, necromancy, and bots.

 

Also, some female minion options for gangs, mercs, and ninja would be neat. Even just put into the same random selection pool as exists currently.

 

One thing is that it isn't just changing the looks or allowing costumes to be applies to those characters. They'd also have to change any upgrade power to not add costume pieces to the character, like Thugs Jackets/Bandannas, Mercs helmets, Demon Falmes, etc. Of course some people would want to use the old models still, so now they'd have to make the upgrade costume pieces optional somehow.  Also, a number of the sets - Beasts, Robots, Demons and maybe some other individual pets, the models are not standard player size and shape, which means they'd need not only an alternate set of upgrade visual indicators, but probably entirely new power and movement animations and base VFX as well.

 

It seems like a nearly insurmountable amount of work for a small team to do in any kind of reasonable time frame.

[srmalloy]

On 5/1/2021 at 7:09 PM, MTeague said:

Every player has wierdly different costumes. Does that mean their costume files exist on MY computer somewhere if we're both hanging out at Miss Liberty? 

Actually, yes. That's one of the things that get saved with demorecord, and how Samuraiko (IIRC) was able to assemble her Unity Rally video -- she ran a character into each of the AP instances with demorecord on, then went back to the saved files to extract the character data (costumes and sliders), and placed each character in AP to record the pullback shot.

[Driglok]

This reminds me of the gang customization in saints row.