What would you change or add in a City of Heroes sequel?

[Lusiphur Malache]

Heroes start blue and stay blue. Villains start red and stay red. Let praetorian only choose rogue or vigilante if they leave Praetoria.  

 

Letting ATs mingle was one of the biggest mistakes COX made. 

 

End enhancement diversity. If I want to put 6 recharges in a nuke, let me. 

[BlackSpectre]

There’s a lot that could be improved, changed, added, and removed. A lot. So instead of a lengthy list, let me just suggest 2 things… 1) no defense or resistance caps, soft or otherwise. Make the combat difficulty  scale into perpetuity. Eliminate the possibility of any character to be completely invulnerable no matter how many mobs at the same level attack them.  As far as I can tell, this is the biggest problem in the game. 

2) Make missions less consistent and introduce surprise or unpredictability that goes against our expectations. Increase wandering groups of mobs, randomize ambushes, randomize mob group placement and numbers, include environmental traps, include tactical and strategic traps that are unexpectedly sprung in already difficult circumstances or circumstances that put the player up against the wall looking for a way out, include intellectual puzzles to solve that make sense in the context of the mission/story, have more than one storyline or outcome for each mission, etc.  in short, try to make repeating missions less hum drum and boring while at the same time spicing up the game. 

 

 

[Player2]

6 hours ago, Lusiphur Malache said:

Letting ATs mingle was one of the biggest mistakes COX made. 

 

I disagree strongly with this statement.

 

I'm not overly fond of your comment about forcing heroes and villains to stay on their initial side, either.

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Player2

[gameboy1234]

I think the main thing I'd add is more cut scenes to explain the plot.  Much of the writing is quite decent, but a lot of the time missions just turn into random shooting galleries because nobody has read the wall of text that explains what the mission is doing.  I'd also like to see more cut scenes in-missions to explain plot development as it occurs (kind of like Frostfire has of him towards the end).  Just having speech bubbles during a mission doesn't work as well, they're easy to miss and often bad guys go down too fast. This would also I think help people feel part of the story, actually explain the story, and would add a cool factor that the game sort of lacks right now.

[biostem]

7 hours ago, gameboy1234 said:

I think the main thing I'd add is more cut scenes to explain the plot.  Much of the writing is quite decent, but a lot of the time missions just turn into random shooting galleries because nobody has read the wall of text that explains what the mission is doing.  I'd also like to see more cut scenes in-missions to explain plot development as it occurs (kind of like Frostfire has of him towards the end).  Just having speech bubbles during a mission doesn't work as well, they're easy to miss and often bad guys go down too fast. This would also I think help people feel part of the story, actually explain the story, and would add a cool factor that the game sort of lacks right now.

Cutscenes are a very contentious issue, IMHO - they basically take autonomy away from the players, especially if it's something most players want to skip.  Some sort of optional battle report after the fact, which you can revisit at any time, would be much better.

[Jawbreaker]

No incarnate system. Or at least have one that is much more open-ended for theme/RP/story elements. It pigeonholes alpha characters and on many of mine I hate taking incarnate powers because they don't fit my character's theme or backstory

[Techwright]

8 hours ago, biostem said:

Cutscenes are a very contentious issue, IMHO - they basically take autonomy away from the players, especially if it's something most players want to skip.  Some sort of optional battle report after the fact, which you can revisit at any time, would be much better.

 

I agree on contentious.  I do like cutscenes, I just hate the interruption in the middle of a thick fight.  It's even been known to give the opponent an advantage upon the cutscene ending, since the computer is fully aware of where everyone is and what all is going on and can target you in your "sleep". 

 

One thing I might latch onto is the idea of a picture-in-a-picture cutscene, something that plays out as I fight or as I move into position.  The BAF for example, might have a 2-minute warning, where teammates could make last minute moves and preparations while the cutscene plays out in a box (which we can move around, resize, or even minimize to keep all parts of the UI functional).  Clamor's interrupting cutscene in Terra Volta could trigger in a window right as we enter the building, allowing us to keep fighting our way to the center.  Etc.

[Techwright]

7 minutes ago, Jawbreaker said:

No incarnate system. Or at least have one that is much more open-ended for theme/RP/story elements. It pigeonholes alpha characters and on many of mine I hate taking incarnate powers because they don't fit my character's theme or backstory

I'd much prefer an endgame system to earn points towards gaining a 7th or even 8th slot on my powers already picked.  Perhaps even earn any stray powers in the powersets I've already picked, earn unique add-in bonuses enhancements, or crazily, open 1 one more 3rd column powerset.  Each of these would be very slow in being earned though, as if the character is straining against something of a threshold in their nature to earn the ability to go beyond, to be extraordinary in their native abilities.  I say "points" since these should be uneven earned rewards:

Unique bonus enhancements < additional slot < new powers within the established sets < 1 more 3rd column powerset.

 

By using points, the player can decide how they are to be spent.  Perhaps they've always want to add in teleport, but never found the fit before.  It would take them a good long while to open up the 3rd column powerset, and even longer to open up the powers in it, but it could be done.

[gameboy1234]

2 hours ago, Techwright said:

 

I agree on contentious.  I do like cutscenes, I just hate the interruption in the middle of a thick fight. 

 

12 hours ago, biostem said:

Cutscenes are a very contentious issue, IMHO - they basically take autonomy away from the players, especially if it's something most players want to skip.  Some sort of optional battle report after the fact, which you can revisit at any time, would be much better.

 

Obviously the implementation would have to be good.  The devil is always in the details.  I'd like to see cut scenes on entering a mission.  Tell me why I'm doing this, and set the background info for the activity.  Tell me before I do the activity so I know what's going on as I do it.  It would help a lot of missions make sense, and there's normally a pause when entering a mission (hot doors excepted, but those should be considered a bug with a cut scene on entry).

 

Cut scenes in the middle of a mission obviously require some finesse.  Locked doors could be used to implement a cut scene.  Require a defeat-all up to that point, then the door can open, and a cut scene is triggered.  This way no one is in combat.  Alternately only players in an area (like the spot just in front of the final door) receive the cut scene, so you have to be in an already "clear" room for it to trigger.  I've seen stuff like this implemented in other games and it works really well and can be seamless with game play if the devs are good at it. 

 

The basic problem right now for CoH is the engine on the client and server are a little clunky, and don't seem to support any operation other than "you will watch a cut scene right now and you will like it."  Some thought and effort would be required here, but if we're talking about a sequel game, not the current engine, then this is definitely something I'd like to see.

 

[BlackSpectre]

A lot of people miss out on the storyline merely because they don't read... they can, they just choose not to. Making the text spoken by actors would be great! Just audio.

[biostem]

1 hour ago, BlackSpectre said:

A lot of people miss out on the storyline merely because they don't read... they can, they just choose not to. Making the text spoken by actors would be great! Just audio.

I think something like a little window in one of the corners with the person whose speaking and an accompanying voice-over would work rather well, then you could give each individual player the ability to shrink or enlarge it, along with controlling the volume of said voice-over.

[gamingglen]

On 11/21/2022 at 2:09 AM, Techwright said:

 

4. Speaking of street sweeping, I'd like the option to do a Null the Gull switch from telling NPCs "you con gray to me" to having every street villain always seen as within color range of me.  Sure, it might be blue or green, but make it at least a bit of a challenge (voluntarily) moving through the streets.

 

 

Oh H.E.double-hockey-sticks no.  I want to be able to go through low levels zones without being interrupted every few feet. I hated this in a Star Wars MMO (TOR?) when I was trying to get to my missions when the mobs were -5 levels or more to me. Now if they had made the roadways clear so you can bypass the chumps that wouldn't have been so bad. 

 

The Tip missions, based on your level, derived from beating up grey-cons was a good way to give meaning to those greys. 

[MistressOhm]

6 hours ago, BlackSpectre said:

A lot of people miss out on the storyline merely because they don't read... they can, they just choose not to. Making the text spoken by actors would be great! Just audio.

 

Proper voice acting, not just AI-driven Text to Speech, would be prohibitively expensive.  SWTOR did it, and it worked, but when they got round to later expansions (ROTHC) they'd lost access to the core VO artists, so it was either recast a player-character or just do text balloons.  They opted for balloons, and after playing thru the entire main campaign with voiced interactions, the balloons were ... cringey.

[Techwright]

5 hours ago, gamingglen said:

 

Oh H.E.double-hockey-sticks no.  I want to be able to go through low levels zones without being interrupted every few feet. I hated this in a Star Wars MMO (TOR?) when I was trying to get to my missions when the mobs were -5 levels or more to me. Now if they had made the roadways clear so you can bypass the chumps that wouldn't have been so bad. 

 

The Tip missions, based on your level, derived from beating up grey-cons was a good way to give meaning to those greys. 

I think you missed the word "option" in my comment.  I specifically said that because I realize it is not for everyone, and not even all the time for those who like working it.  That's why I included Null the Gull in the concept.

[MHertz]

Hmmm.

• A choice of animation for power activation.
• An inmate “entity type” for players that grants certain advantages and disadvantages (eg, robots weak to Electricity and Smashing but resistant to Cold and Lethal; undead weak to Fire and Positive Energy but strong vs Negative Energy and Psionics).
• Alien worlds at the highest tiers that are more than just “ruined future city where X took over.” Level 50s face currently universe-level threats, but it all feels very grounded on Earth.
• Tier selection. You can go from 1-50 as a street-level hero, a mid-tier hero, or a cosmic-level hero, and each path has its own worthwhile storylines. Sometimes you want to create a noir detective guy with bat ears and a cape who solves ordinary crimes, without being forced to go to alien planets and stop a revolution against the king of the Grapnex people. What’s your detective guy going to do there?
• Secret identity. It would be nice to have the option of a secret identity with customizable features: family members, profession, and missions that relate to those things.
• Arc-altering storylines. You get a magic ring, or your powers are disabled, or you get body-swapped with another hero. Sometimes heroes develop in unusual ways. Maybe it’s only temporary, or maybe you can choose to make it permanent. It becomes part of your story.
• Dynamic city zones. If you defeat too many of X villain, another group moves in. Spawns change to the new enemy.