So imagine our Devs decided to go for CoH 2...

[Scarlet Shocker]

what would that look like.

 

There was a time we had high (or less high) hopes of successor projects. Some of us even gave money to them, in the hope we'd get something in return but I think genuinely without too many expectations. Some of those projects haven't gone so very far, others have withered on the vine, and some seem to be increasingly close to completion in a way that counting to infinity works.

 

But... (and it's a very big but and I like big buts I cannot lie)

 

We were blessed with some magic and we discovered that against all odds, something we loved dearly was given back to us - but not just returned in a static state like an antique vase, but more like (rushes to search for an analogy) a classic racing car, that is continually run, successful in its class, and often modernised and updated within the rules of the competition (ie the constraints we are under as we are)

 

So this is more a thought experiment than anything. I should stress it is not a "wish list" or a call to  action for our own devs - but I need to give them credit for not just nurturing our game but treating it with the love, respect and dedication that it deserves. They have guarded it well, and in many many ways improved it - and even if I've disagreed with some of the options they've gone for I understand their logic and reasoning and they are mostly minor. I genuinely believe that this group of developers have served the game better than some served it on live - but I also understand the commercial pressures they were under and that's not what this thread is about.

 

So imagine our guys get a free rein, go have skilled fun and come up with Paragon City 2.0 (perhaps after we've finally kicked the Rikti's butt and sent them packing (it's the 20th anniversary of their invasion, after all) - what does that look like?

 

What does City of Heroes 2.0 look like on day one of launch?

 

No, this is not a wish list. It's not about new gimmicks, or "I want x power set" or "I wanna play a clown"  etc. It's about how does the game, the story, the environment move forward as a game released at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century with a 20 year legacy behind it.

 

Go to it!

[cranebump]

King’s Row is revitalized, but it’s by a Kingpin type character who’s seen as a hero by most of the folks (but we know better, don’t we?)

[Coyotedancer]

People instantly begin petitioning to make CoH2 a hard-mode, open-PvP grind-fest. Because that's apparently what's popular. So, City of Dark Souls... or maybe City of Fortnite. (Which would kind-of be hilarious-.) 😝

[biostem]

I would mainly want to see a graphical overhaul, but staying within the same design aesthetic.  The biggest thing, for me, would be complete power customization - you want to fire dark blasts from a gun?  You got it!  You want to represent energy blasts with a "hard light" construct of yourself appearing next to the enemy to hit them?  Can-do!

 

I'd love to see the storyline carried forward, and events from CoH acknowledged - like maybe the Rikti Mothership has finally been dealt with, or the "Coming Storm" has actually arrived.

 

What I wouldn't want to see is a full freeform system, as it resulted in very bland "tank mages" over in Champions Online.  I'd also like to stray away from making player characters Incarnates right from the get-go - make it something you still have to unlock in the end game.

[Shenanigunner]

The same, except:

• No hard zones, at least, not across most of the 'city.' Some compartmentalization for hazard and remote zones. Maybe bad things happen to lowbies who think this means they can go anywhere.
• Completely modular power building scheme.
• Very deep writing on the major mission arcs, much more than 'here's some backstory on why you are fighting another tide of these same villains.'
• Significantly more variation among villains, so that not every Council mission is a re-peat. Maybe the mission briefing will really, really tell you some detail you need to know, to slot up and team up the right way, and just charging in, dumb-ass hero style, doesn't overcome that.
• Option/path for real consequences... like death. Or maybe you're injured in a way that forever prevents you from having some upper-tier power or buff. Maybe some power options have to be earned in non-linear. non-grind ways.
• No PvP. Period. At all. Ever. No matter how loud the puppies whine. It just effin' distorts the whole game, top to bottom.
• Maybe, overall, a lot less "I can do any mission if I'm just Superman" simplicity. Maybe Supes will find out the glowing green rocks in the cave are kryptonite, or Bats can't win without picking up a 9mm. But rig it so sheer power/s and slotting and buffs can't always mean a win.

And just... new all through but all the same, like a new gen Corvette.

[biostem]

15 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

Maybe, overall, a lot less "I can do any mission if I'm just Superman" simplicity. Maybe Supes will find out the glowing green rocks in the cave are kryptonite, or Bats can't win without picking up a 9mm. But rig it so sheer power/s and slotting and buffs can't always mean a win.

IIRC, the early builds of the game had origin play a more significant role, which didn't go over well, and resulted in them ditching that aspect.

 

17 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

No PvP. Period. At all. Ever. No matter how loud the puppies whine. It just effin' distorts the whole game, top to bottom.

Keep it to some sort of arena setting, with no unique rewards, and I'd be fine with it.

 

17 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

Option/path for real consequences... like death. Or maybe you're injured in a way that forever prevents you from having some upper-tier power or buff. Maybe some power options have to be earned in non-linear. non-grind ways.

Absolutely not, especially if such a defeat can result from lag, a DC, or the actions/inactions of a teammate.

[Ironblade]

Fingers.

I want fingers.

[Skyhawke]

1 hour ago, Ironblade said:

Fingers.

I want fingers.

 

[Skyhawke]

I'll echo a boost to graphics, QoL stuff and more diversification of what powers can do/look like. COH is hamstrung by the old engine, but it does a lot of stuff that's still cool to this day. An open world (shhh, gimme a sec) instead of walled off sections. The kicker is using some Bethesda magic (again, shhh) and have it so only a certain radius of the world is actually generated around you at any given moment. Kinda like a zone that travels with you all the time. You don't "zone" into a different area, at least not noticeably.

[Glacier Peak]

I'm happy with the game, why do I need a sequel again?

[Lines]

There would be only one powerset, to eliminate imbalance issues.

 

The powerset would not include rage.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Lines

[Astralock]

1 hour ago, Glacier Peak said:

I'm happy with the game, why do I need a sequel again?

 

A sequel would be nice solely to remove all of the technical cruft CoH has accumulated.  More and more people are running into issues running it on modern hardware, including myself.  It's to the point that I pay $58 per month just to rent a Shadow PC to play despite having a modern gaming PC built last year, and honestly I'm kind of tired of it.

[Sir Myshkin]

If the only thing to happen were to bring the game's graphics up to modern era, I'd be a happy snowmanperson.

 

It made me think of an announcement I just finally caught today of a game I played way back in the CoH era on PS2: Armored Core. They're launching a sixth title soon and the graphics are just on a whole new level.

 

AC3 from over a decade ago:

Spoiler

 

AC6 preview trailer:

Spoiler

 

 

 

Years ago there was also a project I did taking character prompts from players and mixing those concepts into an idea called Cascadia, a post-cataclysmic Paragon. I thought I had a little snippet of the original story prompt I wrote but it seems to be gone after all this time, but it was essentially an idea to follow the majority of Paragon City/Rogue Isles getting wrecked by a major event (be it the Coming Storm, or Hurricane, or whatever, we didn't really know about the Coming Storm at the time) and it would've been a direct jump-over from CoH. And no I don't mean something small like the Galaxy City thing, I mean like everything. Either start a new character or export an existing level 50 and the idea was to have a high-level story line that focused on how upper-heroes dealt with the tragedy, the outbreaks, protecting (or looting) the city, and how they personally fit in. The low-level story lines were more help-the-little-guy, prevent a neighborhood fire, stop a street flood, zone style events that would lead up to a bigger-bad coming down to cause havoc, less immediate focus on instance missions and more open-zone stuff that could lead into mini-gm style things (babbage level kinda). The long term idea was that would involve three or four zones that, after a year, would be "renovated" which for the characters/players just mean they would stop loading into the devastated zone, and load into a restored (or more work in progress) styled zone with the next wave of missions, and another couple new areas of Paragon opened back up that were part of the disaster that still needed help. Gradually every original zone would be back (or appropriately replaced/updated) in some new way with a fresh new modern look in the new zone/mission system.

 

I had really liked the idea of something progressive like that.

[UltraAlt]

8 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

What does City of Heroes 2.0 look like on day one of launch?

 

It would fall flat on its face unless people could port over their all their characters, and there was a promise that there would be no microtransactions.

[Solarverse]

You know, I started to write something, but like my daddy used to say, "If you can't say anything nice..."

[Greycat]

7 hours ago, biostem said:

IIRC, the early builds of the game had origin play a more significant role, which didn't go over well, and resulted in them ditching that aspect.

 

Quite a bit was ditched (including aiming at body parts and freeform power selection.) Origins determined (from what I recall seeing) both how many powers you could take and how far you could extend them. (Hinted at a bit here for instance where some origins have a broader range of abilities, while others can develop them more.)

 

Still suspect this is part of where origin got "baked in" to where it's unchangeable.

 

As far as the original question?

- Move it forward 20-30 years.

- Keep enhancements, tweak the system a bit to deal with some of the silliness and give more flexibility in effects.

- Move it *out* of just the locations we have - let us move to deal with both the aftereffects of what happened in COH 1 around (and off) the world. Did the power wake something in Egypt, Mesoamerica, the Antarctic?

 

... honestly, basically keep some of the happy mistakes that were made by a design team that in many instances were winging it early on in a new studio, refine what needs refining, make it more easily moddable, enhance player creativity by making bases (for instance) even easier and less hacky to do great things with...

 

Oh, and fire whoever designed the office buildings and find someone familiar with... I don't know, architecture and physics.

[Scarlet Shocker]

There are (some) really great responses and ideas here.

 

I think a new engine would be the order of the day as a matter of course but I'd enjoy seeing (a non-exhaustive list) some of the following things:

 

1) An open city - no War Walls. Technology in gaming has moved on a good deal and they're no longer the necessity they were.

 

2) Fewer, larger zones, with one or two hazard zones

 

3) Dedicated PVP server - those that want to PVP can

 

4) Fewer powers, more choices: We have (IMO) too many powers currently but the majority seem to be very necessary in a good build. I took a lot from The Secret World's power wheels - I loved the idea of passive and active powers that could be interchanged at will once learned. I'd enjoy seeing something similar where you have a range of powers for a given tier/potency that all do roughly a similar thing but allow a far better expression of flavour for your character

 

5) Mobile character creater and build generator - design your characters while at work and then play them when you get home 😄

 

6) Many more customisation options in the creator. More anchor points giving better options.

 

7) Invade the Rikti homeworld with heroes - we should have sent them packing by now and gone to their home to ensure there's never a repeat of their invasion.

 

8: Character morality/choices have consequences - many missions give morality choices and those define your character's place on the "Moral-O-Meter of Doom" - are you a saint or a sinner or just grey like most of us? That could lead to some interesting mission choices and once you've gotten somewhere on a path there could be specific missions for the super-bad or super-good that are exclusive to that alignment level.

 

 

[Snarky]

In real life I spend a LOT of time sitting in traffic, attempting to ignore/be polite to other drivers.  I am a Semi driver in a large Metro area.  So, I have to amuse myself.

 

I buy lottery tickets pretty regularly.  When the jackpots soar, I dream of what I could do with all that power.

 

1) Buy the rights to CoH.  I have not researched it, but I understand this is actually held partially in at least two (possibly more) corporations hands.

2) Develop a game producing studio.  Maybe in a few of the offices in the same building that I am hiding from the world in a penthouse suite.  Maybe I will put them in a warehouse decorated like a base for that authentic touch.

3) Staff the game producing studio.  This would require bribing and / or kidnapping a large part of the HC team to relocate.  Money does talk.

4) Have the team rewrite the entire existing game in a modern code / engine.  Every stupid mission.  Including the blue ones I hate.  Did you know one A-hole blueside contact has a mission you need to rescue 17 people?  and when you do it turns into a kill all?  Gotta recreate this.  No one else was that visionary.

5) Bolt on Extra content / powers.  Pain in the butt but would need to be done in a way where if vets wanted to play as authentic as possible they could still do so.  Possibly through multiple servers you could migrate the same toon through, each gated to a different time in CoH history.

 

Like I said....I sit in traffic a lot...

[Shred Monkey]

Regardless of what happens on day 1, on day 2 somebody would post the farm strategy that they abused to get to max level.

[High_Beam]

6 hours ago, Solarverse said:

You know, I started to write something, but like my daddy used to say, "If you can't say anything nice..."

Make sure they aren't in the damn room

[EmperorSteele]

My thoughts were similair to @Scarlet Shocker; lose most of the warwalls, make most of the city a "single zone". Some areas would still be walled off for security purposes, like Eden/The Hive.

 

Though I don't know why folks would remove PvP, unless this new version of CoH also does NOT have Villains. While the constraints needed to make PvP fair would horribly impact PvE performance, I belive the idea that opposite player factions would never come into conflict is asinine at best.  So what, you have no problem beating up Skulls and Hellions, but the moment you come across a serial Thief/Arsonist/Saboteur with delusions of grandeur and a nifty costume, suddenly you don't feel like doing your job anymore? Because you might lose?

 

Pfft, some Hero!

 

So yeah, no PvP is fine, but then no Player-Villains, either. Which probably wouldn't be a huge loss, since most of the time we're all teaming up anyway.

[tidge]

Ignoring "spaghetti code" (which I don't have to look at or maintain), I'm perfectly satisfied with the mechanics of the game at Live shutdown and the QoL improvements Homecoming has given us. I think it is hard to appreciate how the simple constraints of the game have contributed to the wide variety of enjoyments to be had.

 

I think it would be kewl to have s SG base in a specific world area, but such a thing would (a) turn into one more min-max item and (b) add complexity the game doesn't need. I don't think the game needs open world maps. Isn't open-world maps and "better graphics" one of the things that City of Titans has been focused on for... forever?

 

More costumes and improved ragdolls would be nice, but really aren't necessary to enjoying game play IMO. There are a few travel powers that could be kewl (sticking to walls, falling faster than world gravity, swinging on ropes, diving through water, true ballistics) but they wouldn't draw me to a new game.

 

I don't even want to imagine different ways to build/customize characters (statswise)... I can imagine many different approaches, (think D&D v. GURPS v. D&D v. D&D, etc. ad infinitum) but the simple system we have already allows for a huge amount of variety.

[Sir Myshkin]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

I am a Semi driver in a large Metro area.

For some reason I'm struggling to see this. A vampire... truck driver.

 

But then I think about it being a relatively confined (coffin) space, and with appropriately tinted windows it could be fairly well sun-shaded... and suddenly I have this whole new vision of a remake for Smoky and the Bandit. Instead of Snowman, it'll be Snarky, and it won't be Coors, but product from a blood bank ala a Bank Robbery style film.

[FupDup]

In regards to origin, I'd like each origin to have its own unique incarnate arc. Right now the Ramiel arc makes sense for magic characters but cramps the style of everyone else. 

 

Some ideas:

Natural: Go to ancient mountain temples, study under Tsoo monks

Science: Reverse-engineer Crey's Revenant Hero Project to modify your own body

Technology: "Borrow" some tech from the Rikti's homeworld

Mutant: Harness the power of the Devouring Earth virus to change your DNA to become more powerful

Magic: Drink magic juice from a magical well (the current Ramiel arc)

 

All origins could access every arc in Ouros (or Midnight Club after Dream Doctor blows up the place). The mutant one could maybe be the science origin instead, given that Dr. Hami designed the Dev Earth in a laboratory...

Edited March 23, 2023 by FupDup

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

More costumes and improved ragdolls would be nice,

The only thing I can think of to improve the ragdolling easily is to have limits on the amount of twist you can have at the waist, so you don't have defeated mobs having whole-body Linda Blair moments with their upper bodies rotating two or three full turns, or folding backwards like a jacknife.