Sidekicks and Lackeys

[Glacier Peak]

Sidekicks and Lackeys - a forgotten concept in modern play in my opinion. Everyone is auto leveled to the team, there's no mentorship or teaching dynamic. It just happens!

 

Back in my day warning ⚠️ 

 

I experienced the game with friends. It required having enough people at the right level on the team for any lower than characters to get in a decent range of expected enemies. A little gate-keepy to me, but the concept is what I liked - it was like someone was there to help you out as a player. 

 

And then leveling pacts, don't get me started! It was a good thing ruined by... wait what happened to that again? I feel like Homecoming started it then stopped it like the same week. Buggy or something?

 

Okay I guess that was a rant. Carry on...

[macskull]

Leveling pacts were apparently very broken. Post-shutdown they experimented with allowing up to 8(?) players in a single level pact but ended up disabling the system again entirely.

 

Re; sidekicking and exemplaring, I don't miss that even a little bit. Your mentor gets teleported across the map? Have fun when those grey-conning mobs are suddenly 30 levels higher than you! Want to run a task force but don't have enough people in the native level range to support exemplaring the higher-level characters? Guess you're doing something else! Hit level 46? Better be ready for a deluge of "will you bridge for me?" tells!

[Glacier Peak]

35 minutes ago, macskull said:

Leveling pacts were apparently very broken. Post-shutdown they experimented with allowing up to 8(?) players in a single level pact but ended up disabling the system again entirely.

 

Re; sidekicking and exemplaring, I don't miss that even a little bit. Your mentor gets teleported across the map? Have fun when those grey-conning mobs are suddenly 30 levels higher than you! Want to run a task force but don't have enough people in the native level range to support exemplaring the higher-level characters? Guess you're doing something else! Hit level 46? Better be ready for a deluge of "will you bridge for me?" tells!

Ah didn't know the first part. Well I liked the way it worked on legacy. 

 

And yeah, for all those reasons you gave about sidekicking/lackeying, absolutely prefer the QoL of modernity. But as a way to show a player the ropes, it was a cool concept.

[SeraphimKensai]

leveling pacts were buggy, but as a carrot, they gave us the p2w double xp options.

[GastlyGibus]

I don't miss side-kicking or exemplaring at all. It significantly narrowed the scope of players you could invite to your team. You needed at least three other players at or near your own level on your team to side-kick or exemplar anybody else who wanted to join. The current system is a vast improvement, one that I wish more games would utilize.

 

On leveling pacts, I don't remember exactly what was broken about them, only that people reported they were very broken. They were temporarily taken out of the game, and then when the teaming system was updated to auto-adjust players' levels to your own, it removed any need to have leveling pacts in the first place, so the entire thing was scrapped.

Edited September 18, 2023 by GastlyGibus

[MoonSheep]

i liked the old SK system too, it was a bit of fun and a good concept

 

CoH is still a fun game but not challenging enough to hold my attention for long thesedays. you can do pretty much anything in the game and still succeed 

 

edit: edited my grumpiness

Edited September 18, 2023 by MoonSheep

[Greycat]

Following someone with superjump when I'm on sprint...

 

You are getting too far from your mentor.

Your mentor is too far away!

You are in range of your mentor.

You are getting too far from your mentor.

Your mentor is too far away!

You are in range of your mentor.

You are getting too far from your mentor.

Your mentor is too far away!

You are in range of your mentor.

You are getting too far from your mentor.

Your mentor is too far away!

You are in range of your mentor.

You are getting too far from your mentor.

Your mentor is too far away!

You are in range of your mentor.

You are getting too far from your mentor.

Your mentor is too far away!

You are in range of your mentor.

You are getting too far from your mentor.

Your mentor is too far away!

You are in range of your mentor.

You are getting too far from your mentor.

Your mentor is too far away!

You are in range of your mentor.

You are getting too far from your mentor.

Your mentor is too far away!

You are in range of your mentor.

(repeat 60x....)

 

[TheZag]

I wouldnt mind the return of the sidekick system but with new mechanics.  Auto SK would remain as it is now but you could then sidekick to a player as well and it would increase your combat effectiveness.  Anyone joining a high level team with a low level character knows that nearly all of your attacks miss and do almost no damage when they land.  Its fun to rez my low level buddies and laugh while they attempt to finish off the last 10% hp of the minion that ran away but also frustrating when you are that low level character.  If posible,  the bonuses would decrease as you are farther away - something like a 1/3 reduction for each multiple of 50 feet away,  meaning no bonus once 200 feet apart.  And perhaps it would only be available for sidekicking a large amount of levels (20 or more?),  since players sidekicked a few levels for a team dont suffer from the combat ineffectiveness of people that sidekicked over a large amount of levels. 

 

I think if auto SK remained and manual SK was added to improve combat effectiveness,  low level characters could make a more meaningful contribution to high level teams and high level characters could actually 'mentor' a character again.  Overall,  its not something we need and it shouldnt be a strong enough buff to turn low level characters into killing machines on high level teams,  but it could bring back some of the usefulness of the old SK system without being required or overpowered.

 

[Ironblade]

20 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Sidekicks and Lackeys - a forgotten concept in modern play in my opinion. Everyone is auto leveled to the team, there's no mentorship or teaching dynamic. It just happens!

Well, not exactly.  All the lower level characters are automatically sidekicked to the team leader.  Any higher levels characters are exemplared down to the team leader.  So, if the leader is level 26, anyone who is lower level will be level 25.  It's important to understand how this works when you're on a mothership raid and the level 50 leader of your team disconnects.

[Scarlet Shocker]

The concept of sidekicks was brilliant, and utterly comicbook lore - the classic being Batman and Robin of course.

 

But what the reality showed was that very few players were genuinely interested in "mentoring" a lower level character. They were willing for them to be on the same team but that's as far as it usually went.

 

Also, as some of the posts in this thread make clear, not everyone even now understood it so that led to confusion and chaos and more than one or two faceplants.

 

So I just prefer to assume it's done with now. I know where I am when I'm on a team unless things have failed horribly <points above> and hang with the big boys without fear of things goingw wrong beyond my control

[Andreah]

I don't miss Sidekick Tetris.

 

Yet....

On 9/18/2023 at 12:32 PM, TheZag said:

I think if auto SK remained and manual SK was added to improve combat effectiveness,  low level characters could make a more meaningful contribution to high level teams and high level characters could actually 'mentor' a character again. 

... has a certain draw.

 

Even if all it did was boost that chosen lower level player's to-hit a little bit, it would make it more fun for a lower level to be on a high level team.  

 

How might it work?

 

[ZemX]

On 9/17/2023 at 4:27 PM, Glacier Peak said:

Sidekicks and Lackeys - a forgotten concept in modern play in my opinion. Everyone is auto leveled to the team, there's no mentorship or teaching dynamic. It just happens!

 

So you pine for the days when you had to manually sidekick and it STILL had nothing to do with mentorship or teaching because it was just a means to bring a random low level person onto the team or... as was often the case... exploited via "bridging" to accomplish powerleveling?

Oh yeah... "the good old days". 🤪

[TheZag]

3 hours ago, Andreah said:

How might it work?

 

If i flesh it out too much i'll have to head over to the suggestion forum and endure its wrath.

 

Im thinking it would be some +to hit that gets weaker as the 2 players move apart.  Its also only possible between a player that was at or above the team level and a player that was auto sidekicked - a single player cant sidekick multiple players in this way.  It also means a maximum of 4 players on a single team could be manually sidekicked.

 

Its also no secret how quickly a lowbie on a high level team can get killed.  Im thinking manual sidekick mode would also do something similar to mastermind bodyguard mode.  A portion of damage taken by the sidekick would be shared with the mentor.  This gives a feel of actually protecting your sidekick and adds an element of risk to the mentor since the sidekick usually takes damage spikes and the shared damage wouldnt be mitigated by your own defenses.

 

But i think i'll leave it at that,  if i add this to what i already wrote,  its almost ready as a suggestion and im still in the 'it would be cool if'  and not 'i want to convince a dev' stage.

 

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, ZemX said:

or... as was often the case... exploited via "bridging" to accomplish powerleveling?

And sometimes for badging; having one or more sets of a bridger and a lowbie sitting on the ferry in PI while an Inv/SS Tanker was up at the north end of the zone taunting Rikti Monkeys into a heap and Foot Stomping them down, back when the monkeys didn't have their psi blast, and the badge requirement was 10,000... I suspect that things like that are why there's a range limit on getting badge credit for defeats (and it's not too hard for a Blaster to get attacks extended past that limit).

[Herotu]

On 9/19/2023 at 3:42 PM, Scarlet Shocker said:

The concept of sidekicks was brilliant, and utterly comicbook lore - the classic being Batman and Robin of course.

 

But what the reality

NO!

 

Not THE reality - THIS reality. We could have a different reality in future. Things can be better! 😄

[Scarlet Shocker]

7 hours ago, Herotu said:

NO!

 

Not THE reality - THIS reality. We could have a different reality in future. Things can be better! 😄

 

 

You are correct. Everyone else's reality was better. Seriously, much better. MUCH MUCH better.

 

Your reality was worse. Of all the realities you could have had, you chose the worst. It's on you. OR fate. You decide who to beat up 🥰

[Glacier Peak]

10 hours ago, ZemX said:

So you pine for the days when you had to manually sidekick and it STILL had nothing to do with mentorship or teaching because it was just a means to bring a random low level person onto the team or... as was often the case... exploited via "bridging" to accomplish powerleveling?

Oh yeah... "the good old days". 🤪

What? No, unless you're being sarcastic (I can't tell), you are missing my point in the original post and my subsequent replies to other posters. In fact, I literally wrote that I absolutely prefer the HC QoL changed of modernity and that it was the concept of mentoring other players that I liked - it was like someone was there to help you out as a newer player.

[ZemX]

11 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

it was like someone was there to help you out as a newer player.

 

Yeah sorry, this is the part I was trying, and failing, to crack wise about.  Sidekicking really never had anything to do with this other than a name.  You could imagine that it did (which it sounds like you did) and that's fine, but it was in reality just an annoying puzzle to solve to have a workable team and it didn't really enable anything to do with teaching new players ala the actual comic book concept it was aping.  

 

It would especially strange here on Homecoming where it's probably 50/50 that lowbie sidekick knows as much about the game as you do. 🤪

[Andreah]

It might be neat if there was a Mentoring Power Pool. It would have a power that you throw at a lower level player, which if they accept it, would set up a sidekick/mentor relationship.

 

Within this relationship, the mentor could do helpful things for the sidekick, like break a hold, buff their to-hit, heal them, increase their damage, share fly, jump, running, or teleport to the, etc. All these would be powers with reasonably short durations and ranges, and have cooldowns.  In no specific instance could a sidekick be buffed by more than the difference between their and mentor's stat, less a small difference.

 

There might even be a few extra attacks granted to the sidekick, like an especially strong brawl, or a rock to throw, or whatever. Maybe the mentor could pick an option from the pool with a small set of attacks that the sidekick would get. The mentor could even slot this option with enhancements, and the sidekick would get those attacks with the mentor's enhancements. I could see options for melee, ranged, and defense. Each option would have a couple of things in it for the sidekick to use; Melee might have a punch, kick, and pbaoe slam; Ranged could have a single target throw, a targeted aoe grenade, and a snipe; and Defense might have a def/res toggle, a mez click, and a heal. 

 

Normal "Super-sidekicking" would still operate at the basic purple-patch level like it does today. But a particularly powerful high-incarnate mentor could really help out that level 3 sidekick with the more specific pool relationship.

 

Such a pool could be one you have to spend a pool choice on, or it could be made inherent for everyone.

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, Andreah said:

It might be neat if there was a Mentoring Power Pool. It would have a power that you throw at a lower level player,

 

 

... I don't need to read more. >.> "I told you not to run into that mob alone!"

 

Ooh... can one of the items be a book?

 

Is a slap upside the head part of the pool too?

[Andreah]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

 

... I don't need to read more. >.> "I told you not to run into that mob alone!"

 

Ooh... can one of the items be a book?

 

Is a slap upside the head part of the pool too?

A comedic variant would be AWESOME

[Psyonico]

3 hours ago, Greycat said:

Is a slap upside the head part of the pool too?

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by Psyonico

[Andreah]

I'm tempted to flesh out the Mentoring Power Pool idea and put it in suggestions.