Free the city from the tyranny of...

[drdread]

When you start a new blue side character, and do Matthew Habashy's first missions, you get a sampling of phasing. That is to say, the Hellions you were fighting a moment earlier are now being arrested by the PPD. Neat! You changed part of the city. But what if we could do that in a bigger scale? Clear the bad guys from a part of the city. Imagine clearing out the Hellions, Skulls and clockwork from Atlas Park forever (*some conditions apply).

 

Essentially, your character would have a flag turned on, if you completed a story arc that removes a villain faction from a part of the city. If the flag is turned on, you cannot see or target the villains, nor can the villains see or target you. *If you are on a task force, or doing a flashback, the flag gets temporarily disabled.  The flag would not be applicable to hazard or trial zones. If you clear the Skulls from King's Row and Atlas Park, you can still hunt them in Perez Park or the Hollows. And for course, the flag has no affect in instanced zones.

 

Here is what I am thinking:

Faction	Zones affected	Story Arc	Badge
Hellions	Atlas Park	Reason to Fight	Savior of Atlas park
Clockwork	Atlas Park King's Row Skyway City	Synapse Task Force
Skulls	Atlas Park King's Row	The Lords of Death	Skull Buster
Lost	Skyway City	Lost and Found	Lost Savior
Rikti	Founder's Falls	Rikti Ship Raid

 

What does the community think? Any other factions that could be "permanently" defeated?

Edited May 27, 2021 by drdread
grammar

[Apparition]

Considering that phasing causes a bunch of problems and I believe that the developers plan to remove it or at least work around it, and that Clockwork in AP, Skulls in KR, and Rikti in Founders' are all needed for the Numina TF...

[Darmian]

3 minutes ago, Apparition said:

Considering that phasing causes a bunch of problems and I believe that the developers plan to remove it or at least work around it, and that Clockwork in AP, Skulls in KR, and Rikti in Founders' are all needed for the Numina TF...

It's the problems more than anything though, isn't it?  I mean the flags get turned off in TFs/instances.

[drdread]

28 minutes ago, Apparition said:

Considering that phasing causes a bunch of problems

 

Graphically, a problem I could see are mobs appearing and then disappearing when you get close to them. That is a common problem with phasing.

 

I'm also thinking that the team member's flags could be inherited by the team leader. That way, if you are exemplared with a friend, you can help him with the hunt missions, despite the fact that you normally don't see that mob anymore.

[drdread]

4 minutes ago, Night said:

Phasing barely holds itself together as a system. I don't think making the zones even emptier than they are is a good decision, no. Also it'd make hunting for defeat badges a nightmare.

 

Valid concerns.

 

Regarding making the zones emptier, I was hoping my suggestion would make the city seem more dynamic, rather than stuck in a static status quo.

 

For hunting, it would encourage people to go to the Hazard and Trial Zones which tend to be the most empty zones.

[TheZag]

If i recall,  zones that use phasing somehow prevent the rikti from being able to invade.  Thats why atlas park never gets hit.  Not because its supposed to be a safe area for new players.

[Apparition]

27 minutes ago, TheZag said:

If i recall,  zones that use phasing somehow prevent the rikti from being able to invade.  Thats why atlas park never gets hit.  Not because its supposed to be a safe area for new players.

 

Not exactly.  SCoRE eliminated invasions in Atlas Park and Mercy Island because level less mobs actually do have an internal level of 30.  So AP and Mercy were declared safe zones for newbies.

[Tiger Shadow]

Villain-side the mobs shouldn't disappear, they should just stop attacking you and start calling you "Boss".

[Xing]

I think this is a neat idea. I have been wondering how the initial missions that make the Hellions disappear worked. While there may be technical difficulties implementing it, I would love to see this. 
 

It may even open up opportunities to introduce new things. Off the top of my head, perhaps a new class of burglars would be introduced to try to avoid the attention of the new hero in town making waves. Or perhaps stronger Freakshow opponents would start roaming the streets only after you angered them by completing the Freaklympics story arc. 

[Faultline]

3 hours ago, Apparition said:

Not exactly.  SCoRE eliminated invasions in Atlas Park and Mercy Island because level less mobs actually do have an internal level of 30.  So AP and Mercy were declared safe zones for newbies.

 

That is incorrect. Invasions were removed from Atlas and Mercy with their revamps because the Rikti that spawn don't play nice with phasing -- they end up invisible when they spawn inside one of those volumes, but they can still attack players in them.

[GraspingVileTerror]

That's very interesting, @Faultline.

Given that, to the best of my understanding, Invasion spawns will not occur inside shops and other indoor map spaces, could we not flag those phasing areas as "indoor" to prevent Invasion spawns?

Not saying I want Invasions in Atlas Park or Mercy Island, of course, but I think it would be cool to have that phasing tech show up in more future content.  Naturally, resolving problems like that and keeping the tech as non-complicated as possible would be required, aye?

[Faultline]

The "under cover" check is done by casting a ray directly upwards from the player and checking if it hits any geometry. It's not a flag that can be applied to an area.

[GraspingVileTerror]

Can we make some "fake geometry" then?  Transparent to players and does not obstruct movement, but still blocks the ray?

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by GraspingVileTerror
geez, language skills seem to be deteriorating over time, lately.