Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #14: 3rd Party Mods/Software

[SeraphimKensai]

This week we delve into the state of third party mods or related programs.

 

Do you use any third party mods for this game? If so which ones? How have they impacted the way you play? Without them is the game unplayable/unenjoyable? Have you helped others learn about or use them?

 

Personally I've used Vidiots maps for years, and same with Mods (and it's variants). I tried to use a mod that tracked XP and influence gained per hour to track my efficiency back when I cared about that (it's been awhile so I don't even remember the name of it). I'm a big advocate of nice maps, as I deal with maps professionally all the time, GIS anyone?

 

Mids really helped people learn how to min-max their toons better, and I'm a min-maxer at heart. I only occasionally use mids though anymore as I've made enough builds that I have most of what I typically build for memorized at this point.

 

 

Thanks again.

[Greycat]

Vidiotmaps, certainly.

I've played with some other mods - tweaking glowie sounds, returning PB sounds to what they were, etc. but they're mostly take it or leave it. Vidiotmaps, though, is the only thing I make *sure* I have.

 

Also, I think the xp/inf gain thing you're thinking of might have been Herostats.

 

Mids... I rarely if ever use. I don't think I even have it installed anywhere at the moment. But I don't care about min-maxing, perma'ing, etc.

 

Of course, there was also Sentinel Plus back in the day...

 

But yeah. Pretty  much the only "must" is Vidiotmaps.

[Doc_Scorpion]

The only two I used are Vidiot Maps, and one that sets the background at the tailor's to a uniform neutral grey.  The latter is very useful for customizing powers.

[AboveTheChemist]

I like vidiotmaps so much, I bought the company.

 

In-game, I use a number of mods, many of which are of my own devising, some of which are branches or continuations of existing mods that I've built upon (with proper attribution, of course), and a few of which are by others.

 

Out-of-game, I have some parsers that I wrote to help me keep track of stuff. I use Mids when creating a character, but that isn't often. I use Badger some too, but in general I don't collect many badges.

 

I think the game would certainly be playable without them, but they do make life in Paragon City easier. And I do whatever I can to help folks learn about and/or use the mods that I have had a hand in creating. Most of my posting on the forum goes toward that effort.

 

2 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

GIS anyone?

 

I also work in GIS, which helps explain my penchant for creating and/or maintaining so many map mods.

[TerroirNoir2]

4 minutes ago, AboveTheChemist said:

I like vidiotmaps so much, I bought the company.

 

In-game, I use a number of mods, many of which are of my own devising, some of which are branches or continuations of existing mods that I've built upon (with proper attribution, of course), and a few of which are by others.

 

Out-of-game, I have some parsers that I wrote to help me keep track of stuff. I use Mids when creating a character, but that isn't often. I use Badger some too, but in general I don't collect many badges.

 

I think the game would certainly be playable without them, but they do make life in Paragon City easier. And I do whatever I can to help folks learn about and/or use the mods that I have had a hand in creating. Most of my posting on the forum goes toward that effort.

 

 

I also work in GIS, which helps explain my penchant for creating and/or maintaining so many map mods.

OMG a Victor Kiam reference.

[Spaghetti Betty]

Outside of vidiotmaps, I've never had the need to mod anything in CoX. I felt like the game has always done a pretty decent job at giving you tools to track what you need as the game progressed, provided you're willing to learn how to do it.

 

Compare it to something like WoW. I had to mod the hell out of the UI there just so I can keep track of everything while raiding. Here, we have full ability to customize our UI how we see fit, down to number of trays, chat channels, displayed stats, and where you want it to sit on the screen. It's not perfect at all, but way above average QoL from a typical MMO. Special shoutout to DCUO for having the worst UI ever.

 

As far as 3rd party software goes, I'm a smelly Mids user. I probably spend about as much time in Mids as I do in-game. I just simply don't have the chops to build as I go when progressing a toon. I make one mistake and I'm like, "Good job, dummy. Now go plan it right."

 

I see no mention of the folks that work on SFX mods for the game. They do great work. That's the one thing I wish I had the patience to learn how to do. The first thing I would change is giving StJ sounds from Tekken.

[DougGraves]

I was going to say I don't use any mods but I must be using vidiotmaps. 

 

And I want to make the sound louder for glowies but I can't be bothered to spend the time learning how to do it.

 

And I have an excel spreadsheet for tracking my characters.

[twozerofoxtrot]

6 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you use any third party mods for this game? If so which ones? How have they impacted the way you play?

 

Vidiotmaps, for sure.

 

Sound replacers to make glowies louder (I can't be assed to turn down my jams just to find the bookshelf in the sewers.). 

 

Also sound muters to kill Hasten activation Recharge notification sounds. The former I usually keep on autocast and the latter keeps me sane as quite a few characters have buff powers crossbound to movement keys.

 

I don't really consider Mids or Badger to be mods but I use both extensively. 

 

Big thanks to all the people out there who have helped make the game more enjoyable with these third party additions!

[lemming]

Vidiot maps.   Making the glowie sound louder.  Those are the must have.

Some of the pop menus that are available.

 

Never really used Mids and haven't gotten the latest to work with my Linux setup.

 

Back on live I used herostats and recently worked up a parser, but it's barely off the ground yet.

[Astralock]

 

 

Accolade_LRT changes the Long Range Teleport power icon to the old Pocket D VIP Pass power icon.  BeaconFontLabels clearly labels all SG base beacons, making it easier to see which portal to take.  BRMovieSFXMod replaces the sounds for Beam Rifle, making the power set sound ten times better.  HC_Vidiotmaps is.... well... Vidiotmaps.  High_Contrast_Cursors greatly increases the size of the in-game cursors and increases the hitbox of NPCs and other PCs, making everything much easier to select for me due to my poor and aging eyesight.  LinesWubWubSonicBlast adds a bit of dubstep to Sonic Blast. 😄  LoudGlowie greatly increases the audible level of glowies, making them much easier for me to find.  OfficePlantReplacer makes office plants look much nicer.  Titanman_VFX replaces a lot of the game's FX with more raid-friendly FX, making things much easier to find and select for me.  I've also used @AboveTheChemist's Halloween and winter event map mods during their respective event.

 

Over all, I find BRMovieSFXMod, HC_Vidiotmaps, High_Contrast_Cursors, LoudGlowie, and Titanman_VFX game changers and measurably make the game better.  The others are just nice to have.

 

In addition to those, I regularly use Mids' Reborn and City Mod Installer.  Like Betty, I am in Mids' about as much as I am in-game.

[UltraAlt]

9 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you use any third party mods for this game?

 

No.

[BraveDecoy]

I've got replacement tracks for the BoomBox emote collection, so it's a hoot when I storm a Freakshow rave and they've got a Shostakovich waltz on at full blast.

[Braddack]

On 2/2/2023 at 3:36 AM, Astralock said:

 

 

 BeaconFontLabels clearly labels all SG base beacons, making it easier to see which portal to take. 

Thanks so much for Info that This Mod exists

I use Videomaps and some Sound Mods like Bow Sounds and louder Glowies.

 

Other that that nothing.

Edited February 3, 2023 by Braddack

[Black Zot]

Calling Mids a mod is kinda like calling a cat a dog.

 

That said, Mids is basically the only CoH-related program I use that isn't CoH itself.

[Techwright]

Vidiotmaps and a few sound mods, mostly to temper or block annoying sounds thought a few I use to enhance or change a sound.