Prestige/Ironman Mode (For folks who don't like the sandbox)

[Marstead]

Hey folks!

 

I love I25 and so do most of the players on Homecoming. I'm really glad the devs are continuing to support the game with patches and new content; this is definitely the place I'd like to be.

 

I think the existing servers have some sandbox philosophy applied to their rules. I think that's totally cool for most of the playerbase, but it feels like a bit of a bummer that things like SG prestige simply don't exist.

 

I know a lot of folks will say "If you don't like that stuff, play on an I24 server" but I think these are small enough differences that you could make a permanent character flag set at creation that limits what that character will be able to interact with in-game. Games like oldschoolrunescape use a system like this called "Ironman Mode" (although we probably shouldn't call it that in a superhero game). I'll call these "Ironman Characters" and "Ironman Mode" here for convenience, but something like "Prestige Mode" or "Pristine Mode" could work.

 

I think this will assuage a lot of the concerns of players who enjoy the new content of I25 but aren't as fond of the sandbox changes. It'd also open up the Homecoming devs to be a lot more aggressive with sandboxy changes in the future, as the players who won't like them will already be opting out of them.

 

Here's a non-exhaustive list of things that could fit into an Ironman Mode, through character flags that don't need to fundamentally change the way how the game works for everyone else.

 

• SG Prestige Restored; Ironman characters can only invite other Ironman characters to their SGs, and must purchase SG objects with prestige normally
  
• Ironman characters must unlock capes, auras, and costume parts normally and start with the Live costume parts.
  
• Ironman characters do not earn respecs & costume tokens automatically at levels 10, 20, 30, 40, & 50
  
• Ironman characters cannot interact with Null the Gull to change alignment.
  
• Ironman characters can only receive mail from other Ironman characters.
  
• Ironman characters have the same salvage & AH slots as live.
  
• Ironman characters cannot use the normal P2W vendor, but can access a new Ironman P2W vendor that sells the same resources, but for a significant cost in Reward Merits instead of influence
  
• Ironman characters cannot sell/purchase enhancements directly on the AH, but can purchase Recipes & Salvage (to prevent the current Attuned enhancement cheese)
  

 

I could see this option being available on all servers, but one of the servers becoming the preferred place for Ironman players.

 

I don't feel like there's much need to call out Ironman Characters, except for maybe a single unique badge that would show up on the bio.

 

This should probably be a character creation restriction; non-Ironman characters should not be able to convert to Ironman (but maybe Ironman characters should be able to irreversibly "give up" and convert to regular characters, losing their Ironman badge in the process).

[thunderforce]

I would be delighted by something like this. If there is one thing that pains me about SCORE, it's getting a free SG base. I honestly would greatly prefer to pay Prestige for mine - whether or not any other player does.

 

I don't think there should be a badge for Ironman mode. Players hate badges they can't get, and I don't think anyone should feel incentivised to do this for any reason other than that it is genuinely how they would prefer to play.

 

The various options listed could be selectable individually. This would also mean some of them weren't actually necessary at all - if you don't want to use Null the Gull, you can just not do it.

 

I think if one recognises this is a purely voluntary challenge, some of the restrictions could be removed - eg "Ironman characters can only invite other Ironman characters to their SGs" and the email restriction, which I presume is to stop you using non-Ironman characters as storage mules, but again, one can just not do that.

 

As an intermediate option for bases, I personally would love to see a mode where cosmetic base items are free, but base items with game functionality cost Prestige normally.

[Marstead]

I agree the Badge is icky. Maybe a unique title? *shrug*

 

Making individual toggles could work, but I think it's really important for this to be an irreversible character creation change. The fact that Null the Gull exists makes it really hard for some players (like me, anyway) to unlock alignments "normally", when it's so easy to just pop over to Pocket D. I'd rather opt out of it permanently and not have the temptation at all!

[thunderforce]

Making individual toggles could work, but I think it's really important for this to be an irreversible character creation change. The fact that Null the Gull exists makes it really hard for some players (like me, anyway) to unlock alignments "normally", when it's so easy to just pop over to Pocket D. I'd rather opt out of it permanently and not have the temptation at all!

 

I can sympathise with that - I think "just don't do it" is oversimplifying - but I think with limited development effort it is more important to concentrate on things players _can't_ achieve for themselves.

 

I would also turn on issue 4 debt if available.