We are once again asking about Mastermind pet customization

[JetMalakai]

Yes, I know its a topic beaten to death, but there is now a server that does it. That shows that it is possible. I'm curious if there are any plans to do it here.

 

More than anything, I just want to know if this will ever be considered. I want to know if the devs have decided against it for a reason other than time constraints in implementing it. And if time constraints are the only reason, then I'm certainly not going to talk poorly about volunteers. Would there be any possibility of code sharing with the server that has it?

[Rudra]

To the best of my knowledge, the server that does so uses up player character costume slots to do so. Some of us use our costume slots for our characters. (The devs also said they preferred to find their own way of doing so here. I would rather see what they have in mind than use that other server's method.)

 

Edited April 10 by Rudra
Edited to correct "that" to "than".

[Chris24601]

13 hours ago, Rudra said:

To the best of my knowledge, the server that does so uses up player character costume slots to do so. Some of us use our costume slots for our characters. (The devs also said they preferred to find their own way of doing so here. I would rather see what they have in mind than use that other server's method.)

That said, so long as the customization is optional, I think it’s a reasonable method to allow the customization to work.

 

Even if each minion uses a different costume slot (instead of say, 1 slot per tier), that still leaves four open slots for the PC; which is as many as you had on Live prior to the Halloween Event.

 

The extra 5 slots we get free now were only available on Live during the last year of operation and had to be bought for 800 Paragon Points each.

 

The point is a whole lot of us on Live made due with 1-4 costume slots for virtually the entire life of the game. This method of getting customization to work would be no more onerous than what was the default play experience from 2004 to late 2011.

 

Personally, I flip between maybe three costumes at most (hero w. mask, hero without mask, civies, maybe a short black dress for clubbing as a fourth if it’s a female toon) so I wouldn’t mind surrendering six slots for my pets to be customized at all.

 

If there is a work around for customizing pets without using your costume slots, great!

 

But don’t make the Perfect the enemy of the Good. If there is no readily apparent workaround in say [insert reasonable time frame here; I’d say 6-12 months] then don’t keep delaying a workable solution because a better method MIGHT someday be found.

 

Offering it as an OPTION via costume slots (meaning you can use all your costume slots like now with the generic pets or devote up to six slots for custom minions) is still better than what we have now and it’s a trade at least some players would be willing to make.

Edited April 11 by Chris24601

[Videra]

Can I be real, as a long-time Mastermind player?

Can we please fix the archetype first and focus on fluff like this second? Like, MMs have MUCH bigger problems than lacking pet customization and HC only has so much manpower available to it. In-fact, one of the people who does stuff related to customization just left the dev team, I believe.

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

Even if each minion uses a different costume slot (instead of say, 1 slot per tier), that still leaves four open slots for the PC; which is as many as you had on Live prior to the Halloween Event.

 

The extra 5 slots we get free now were only available on Live during the last year of operation and had to be bought for 800 Paragon Points each.

I remember running around with 10 costumes for several of my alts well before then. That doesn't mean I'm remembering right, but your presented time frame feels wrong. If only because you could do all 3 tailor missions blue side, transfer red side, and do them all again for 8 costume slots including the Halloween one. And the Going Rogue update was not in the last year of the game's life.

[megaericzero]

Using costume slots is a creative solution but does present some concerns. The big ones, to me, are:

 

Tying it to your own costume slots means you have to use more slots if you want henchmen to have multiple appearances. Not just in terms of your Jounin looking different from your Oni but if you want your Genin to look two different ways depending on which costume you-yourself are sporting.

 

Henchmen also have different visual cues for which upgrades they have equipped. Not all are particle FX; some, like Thugs, change the actual outfits - arsonist gets a satchel, the enforcers put on trenchcoats, etc. Trying to incorporate that into character costumes would probably overcomplicate the customization process or impose cover-all VFX people would be discontent with, to speak nothing of whether or not it's even possible.

 

--

 

Henchman customization would be cool. Moving away from other servers' implementation via costumes, perhaps power customization recycling existing enemy groups? For instance, defeat 100 Vahzilok to unlock them for Necromancy - cadaver zombies, mortificator grave knights, and an eidolon lich, selectable per-power. This could also address the visual cues for upgrades as the NPC models could go through different versions of the same enemies. Having the Cadavers go to Embalmed Cadavers with the first upgrade and Diseased Cadavers for the second, for instance.

[Chris24601]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

I remember running around with 10 costumes for several of my alts well before then. That doesn't mean I'm remembering right, but your presented time frame feels wrong. If only because you could do all 3 tailor missions blue side, transfer red side, and do them all again for 8 costume slots including the Halloween one. And the Going Rogue update was not in the last year of the game's life.

Memory is a funny thing. I suspect you might be remembering an earlier point in Homecoming’s history (hard to believe, but it’s been almost five years now).

 

My source is the old Paragon Wiki (https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Costumes);

“The maximum number of costume slots was increased to ten (over the five standard slots) with City of Heroes Freedom/Issue 21; the five extra slots are available for 800 Paragon Points each on the Paragon Market. Purchased costume slots are account-wide, not character-specific. VEAT slots would continue to automatically occupy one of the ten slots available.”

Issue 21 went live on September 27, 2011. Shutdown was November 30, 2012… so ten slots were actually only available for the last 14 months of Live.

[Rudra]

38 minutes ago, Chris24601 said:

Memory is a funny thing. I suspect you might be remembering an earlier point in Homecoming’s history (hard to believe, but it’s been almost five years now).

 

My source is the old Paragon Wiki (https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Costumes);

“The maximum number of costume slots was increased to ten (over the five standard slots) with City of Heroes Freedom/Issue 21; the five extra slots are available for 800 Paragon Points each on the Paragon Market. Purchased costume slots are account-wide, not character-specific. VEAT slots would continue to automatically occupy one of the ten slots available.”

Issue 21 went live on September 27, 2011. Shutdown was November 30, 2012… so ten slots were actually only available for the last 14 months of Live.

Going Rogue and Issue 18 were released August 17, 2010. At that point in time, we could side swap and the tailors were not limiting our characters in costume slots beyond the total number of missions available. 3 from blue side, 3 from red side, 1 to start, 1 from Halloween salvage.

 

Edit: Regardless, we at least had 5 costume slots before, we have 10 now, and I have several characters that use at least 7 of their costume slots. My main MM uses all 10 slots. So I'm not in favor of giving up costume slots for our pets, especially after the HC devs have said they will not go that route and are looking into a different means.

Edited April 11 by Rudra

[megaericzero]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

So I'm not in favor of giving up costume slots for our pets

Maybe we don't have to. Just playing devil's advocate for a second:

VEATs were able to accidentally acquire a sixth costume as far back as i12. Dunno how the excess alignment-swapped ones behaved but, for the VEAT one at the time, the game supported the sixth costume. The UI just wasn't programmed to display more than five so you couldn't edit #6 at the tailor; it still worked fine and could be accessed with /cc. That brings up the question of how much more costume data current character files can store. If there's sufficient room, perhaps allocating n more costume slots for henchmen could give us the best of both worlds. Add a new NPC at icon/facemaker locations whose UI only looks at those slots (so you can customize them) and disallow /cc or /cce from switching players to them. From the end user's perspective, they now have "player" costumes in the existing menus and "henchmen" costumes in a new menu.

 

 

(That said, I do still feel the costume route is too clunky and scales badly even if it didn't eat the player's costume slots, for the reasons I gave three posts up.)

 

Edited April 11 by megaericzero

[Rudra]

31 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

Maybe we don't have to. Just playing devil's advocate for a second:

VEATs were able to accidentally acquire a sixth costume as far back as i12. Dunno how the excess alignment-swapped ones behaved but, for the VEAT one at the time, the game supported the sixth costume. The UI just wasn't programmed to display more than five so you couldn't edit #6 at the tailor; it still worked fine and could be accessed with /cc. That brings up the question of how much more costume data current character files can store. If there's sufficient room, perhaps allocating n more costume slots for henchmen could give us the best of both worlds. Add a new NPC at icon/facemaker locations whose UI only looks at those slots (so you can customize them) and disallow /cc or /cce from switching players to them. From the end user's perspective, they now have "player" costumes in the existing menus and "henchmen" costumes in a new menu.

 

 

(That said, I do still feel the costume route is too clunky and scales badly even if it didn't eat the player's costume slots, for the reasons I gave three posts up.)

 

They could add 600 costume slots to each character that way if the game engine allowed it, divvied up at 100 per pet, and I wouldn't care. Because I'm not losing any of my character costume slots to the pets that way.

[megaericzero]

I get that it's hyperbole but why so riled-up about this in specific? I'm genuinely curious.

 

If they're added with the express purpose of being for henchmen and don't encroach your existing costume slots, you're not losing anything. You are literally gaining something at no cost to you. If they implemented it like that mechanically under the hood but it was never visible to you as a player, you wouldn't even know that's how it was. Like is it actually a concern to you, as a player, that the server store these hypothetical pet costumes in a different section of your character's file even if it doesn't affect the result and that you explicitly know that's how it's programmed?

Edited April 11 by megaericzero

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

I get that it's hyperbole but why so riled-up about this in specific? I'm genuinely curious.

I'm not riled up?

 

13 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

If they're added with the express purpose of being for henchmen and don't encroach your existing costume slots, you're not losing anything.

Exactly. I don't care if this is the method that the HC devs employ as long as it is not the method the other server employs which actually does take away from available character slots. I want customizable pets. I would like the pets to have a specific appearance, preferably by individual pet, to match my MM's appearance. So I don't care what method the HC devs employ that gives us customizable pets as long as it is not the 'use up one of your limited character costume slots' option the other server does. If additional costume slots are added to the character specifically for the henchmen and can only be accessed by a specific tailor at each of the tailor shops? Fine, I don't care. Make it so. It works for me.

 

Edit: My indifference is to choosing a method, not to the method itself other than the one used by that other server. I'm not indifferent to the method from the other server, I'm opposed to it. I'm indifferent between other options that accomplish the desired goal because any of them are good and I don't have a preference between them.

Edited April 11 by Rudra

[megaericzero]

Oh! Okay. I misunderstood.

I thought you were speaking in direct opposition to the addition of henchmen-only costume slots that don't touch the existing 10 slots that players have access to. I see what you're saying now.

 

14 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I'm not riled up?

 

Got it. I incorrectly read into it as a very impassioned statement because of the numbers. My bad.

[JetMalakai]

15 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

That said, so long as the customization is optional, I think it’s a reasonable method to allow the customization to work.

 

Just wanted to emphasize this. Yes, more options are a good thing, always. If you have the choice of playing a MM with ten costumes or a MM with four and pet customization, and you really want those ten costumes, don't customize your pets. You're still in the same place you are now.

[Rudra]

18 minutes ago, JetMalakai said:

15 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

That said, so long as the customization is optional, I think it’s a reasonable method to allow the customization to work.

 

Just wanted to emphasize this. Yes, more options are a good thing, always. If you have the choice of playing a MM with ten costumes or a MM with four and pet customization, and you really want those ten costumes, don't customize your pets. You're still in the same place you are now.

No, that makes pet customization a price rather than an option. An option is something the player can make use of and not give up something else about the character. For instance, double xp from START has a price, you lose inf' gain while using the double xp buff. Turning off xp is an option. It gives the player the ability to remove xp gain on the character without requiring the player to give something else up for that option. Telling players they can have pet customization but only if they limit their character's own costume choice availability by an equal number of costumes as the pet customizations is a price.

 

Edit: And yes, there are probably a lot of players willing to pay that price to customize their pets. That does not change that you are paying a price on your character for pet customizations rather than using an option. If it was an option, then everyone could make use of it rather than just those willing to give up costume slots.

Edited April 12 by Rudra

[CapedCanuck]

I just posted about this last month, after I did a quick search of the forums and couldn't find any posts about this topic.

 

My feeling is the method used by thunderspy server is basically a hack of the costume system. That's why I love the Homecomming team. My impression is the Homecomming team are professional developers who build on CoH with proper planning and sound design. Modding a game with one hack on top of the next is the quickest way to break a game and the fastest route to the death of it.

 

I AM NOT SAYING THUNDERSPY ARE AMATEURS OR HACKS. They do what works for them and more power to them.

 

The Homecomming team probably has their hands full with their next plans for the game. Hopefully down the road MM pet customization will be added in a way that makes sense. My advice is to be patient.

 

I'd rather not have MM pet costumes at all than some hack of the existing costume system.

[Ghost]

Since devs are working to #banMMs, I doubt they will make changes to them

 

😎

[Saiyajinzoningen]

perhaps the devs can make use of the rarely used now defunct supergroup costume thing?

I honestly don't know just throwing it out there

[Lyone_Manes]

So...there's a lot of ideas to individually and specifically customize the MM Pets...but I think that's asking a lot with the old coding and such. I believe most Maps pull from specific "Enemy Groups" with generic descriptions..."Arachnos Soldier" "Mu Blaster", etc, etc. Couldn't you just allow us to choose from the default pool that's already there? We could have an option to select which group each tier pulls from as maybe a section like "Weapons" in the Tailor?

[Rudra]

4 minutes ago, Lyone_Manes said:

So...there's a lot of ideas to individually and specifically customize the MM Pets...but I think that's asking a lot with the old coding and such. I believe most Maps pull from specific "Enemy Groups" with generic descriptions..."Arachnos Soldier" "Mu Blaster", etc, etc. Couldn't you just allow us to choose from the default pool that's already there? We could have an option to select which group each tier pulls from as maybe a section like "Weapons" in the Tailor?

Missions pull from the different factions to populate the maps. So for your example, both are Arachnos. The same faction. Minions draw from the pool of minion tier mobs, lieutenants draw from the pool of lieutenant tier mobs, and so forth.

 

And yes, there have been requests for players to be able to substitute different factions' models for their pets. Such as the request for PPD, Cage Consortium, and a few others for Soldiers and Thugs.