Make the world more interactive - make objects that are destructible, destructible

[temnix]

As I think back on the concept of CoH and the work Cryptic started doing twenty years ago, I can only applaud them for style and the ambition that was successful almost everywhere. How they took on the superhero subject, interpreted powers, the villain groups, the unique work on areas and, of course, the music, that's just wonderful. But that creativity is spread over a large surface, so it doesn't go deep anywhere. They represented existing a super-powered being in a convincing way, but living as one in a world that responds they didn't, maybe couldn't. Me, I want more interactivity: with people, with the environment... Putting out fires is nice, if you can find them. So is climbing to the roofs of tall buildings by the stairs, that's another convincing touch. But I want to be able to put some money in the hands of that lady who so tirelessly implores for donations for the children of Galaxy City. And can't I do something to, I mean about, I mean with, I mean for the homeless on the streets? A little influence should go a long way, or infamy when that's lacking. It would be good to earn points towards an alignment change with such things.

 

But that's all more complicated, not so immediate. Immediately I want to feel that I exist in this world. Just as I want it to matter what kind of body I chose to have with sliders - if I'm slow, let me be slow, if I'm tough, let me be tough, and THEN the powers go on top of that, the same way I want to exercise my god-given right to smash stuff. What good is super strength if I can only punch people, and then only bad people, and not through a wall? Well, as it happens, a lot of that is possible without any technical changes. Not walls, but the potential for destruction is already there for just about everything else: cars, buses, trucks, barrels, dumpsters, power poles, those red-and-white air masts on rooftops... You only realize how many kinds of objects can be destroyed after you've been on mayhem or safeguard missions and explored in junkier places: the middle-south of Faultline, Boomtown, Freakshow's shanty fortresses everywhere, places where Rikti are supposed to have invaded. Then you see everything that you thought existed only as bright, shiny catalog models twisted, mangled and burned. In some of those missions you get to smash a few chosen brackets. The only question is, why do you have to leave the big world for it?

 

I propose making a massive freaking sweeping change and turning all those objects destructible. All the cars on the parking lots, all the dumpsters, the power poles where that would make sense visually vis-a-vis nearby wires, the stone gargoyles and lions - and a million other things. Not just something here and there, like the Trolls' explosives specially placed, but all those other things around all get to go boom, interior fixtures including, and inflict some damage in a radius. Indoors, too. Tables, for example. If I shoot a lightning bolt at a table, it ought to fly into smithereens and hurt everyone around. And if objects don't have a midcourse, damaged-stage model, they can still shatter in the end and toss out wooden splinters, chunks of stone, straps of metal - all of those, we know, are available.

 

Of course, in the big world these objects would regenerate in a few minutes. The cars would come back (preferably a different model, but that's an extra), the dumsters... and the debris would clear away. The Paragon City maintenance service works day and night. I should know, I had a character who started out fixing up after Clockwork before she was nabbed by the Council. As far as debris goes, we also know that some kind remains permanently or just about, and other kinds fade away, so there is some setting that controls that. The point of all this is to give players a real feeling that their actions affect the world and sometimes tactical opportunities: target the truck the Hellions were stealing the wheels off, make it blow, send them flying; throw a fireball in a side office a few enemies stand in, singe them and hit with debris from the smashed desk to boot; throw one in a room with a lot of vases, and those will burst and pepper everyone for a little lethal. There is nothing impossible about this.

 

As far as targeting is concerned, it would be nice to have something in Options for whether objects will be included in cycling with Tab. Some players may not care about using the environment this way and not want to be distracted when switching quickly in a crowd. Plus, object names should be colored differently, though aren't they already in aquamarine? A bigger question is, should they take damage from everyone's AoE powers, or must they be targeted specially to be damaged? The second variant promises more precision and fewer unpleasant surprises, but the first has potential for much more fun. When tossing fireballs at the Damned who toss fireballs back, all next to a big tank of fuel, it should be no surprise to find yourself in the hospital. I think this interpretation, where you have to mind what is around you, would make the reality more real.

[Akisan]

Again, acceptable breaks from reality.  I'm perfectly happy to not have to be RPing as "Property Damage Man" every time I suit up.  (Seriously, he has such a hard time with insurance, and cycles through PR people weekly).  Stuff's fine to be a bit more comic-y, and some of us like having a smaller impact - one of the big reasons I quit CO was that I couldn't stop my tiny ninja character from leaving craters everywhere as I traveled.  It's immersion breaking to be that destructive.

 

Also, keep in mind the impact on AI - they're dumb.  Really dumb.  In zones with destructibles (most Safeguard missions), the AI will waste their alpha strike on nearby breakables before realizing that you're attacking them.  We don't need the extra edge.

[Rudra]

Not even breaks from reality. The OP is requesting every map in the game be completely rebuilt from the ground up to have a destructible environment. So just on those grounds alone, my response is no. Pop into some mayhems if you want to smash everything.

[Glacier Peak]

[Triumphant]

Yeah, again, like with your body slider suggestion:  It's a cool idea, it just goes beyond the scope of what they do here.  The suggestion actually makes me think of the old Incredible Hulk, Ultimate Destruction game on Sony Playstation (2?).  I loved that game, and how you could run around with Hulk and demolish everything from tanks to skyscrapers.  Would have been great if they had implemented something like that on CoH in at least one map/area.  Not sure if I would want it to be possible on all maps, though, since it would be quite jarring to see zones being levelled all the time during standard play.

 

Regardless, while I enjoy most of your ideas, realistically I really think you're going to have to temper your expectations somewhat.  It's a volunteer outfit with only so much time and energy, so you aren't likely to get a complete rebuild of the base game.

[Oklahoman]

I feel your pain - every time I run a LAM and get stopped by a BOX it makes me wish those were destructible. Or when you get stuck in that one room with the weapon cache and can't get out rather than maybe just busting through a window.

 

But, yeah, my guess is that if that were simple it would have happened a long time ago.

[srmalloy]

On 7/20/2024 at 3:38 PM, Akisan said:

Again, acceptable breaks from reality.  I'm perfectly happy to not have to be RPing as "Property Damage Man" every time I suit up. 

'Collateral Damage Man' was taken?

[PoptartsNinja]

This comes up every so often, with people wishing for everything from destroyable buildings to being able to pop the Atlas Park Blimp.

 

The live devs shot this down back in the day because they understood that MMO players don't live in the world. Players have no vested interest in keeping infrastructure intact, they'd just be chaos gremlins and everything that could be broken would be broken 100% of the time. The city would always look like Boomtown.

 

The live devs were starting to do more with overworld instancing, to let player actions have more visible effect in the game world; but then the game shut down and they never really got the chance to explore the possibilities of that. The world-map instancing also came with some unintended problems, too: like your team vanishing from the map in Atlas because you moved into an instanced section of the zone without them; certain mobs being able to attack you without you being able to target or attack them back because they're in a different instance; or the fire in that Atlas Park warehouse that will never be extinguished because you completed a mission but the city doesn't have any fire trucks.

Edited July 23 by PoptartsNinja

[Akisan]

3 hours ago, srmalloy said:

'Collateral Damage Man' was taken?

 

My arch-rival.  He keeps stealing all the good PR, too!

[biostem]

Champions Online has largely destructible objects in both the open world and instances, and it basically goes unused.  OP, I'm not telling you to leave CoH, but go try CO, (it's F2P), and judge for yourself how "immersive" it makes things...

[Rudra]

46 minutes ago, biostem said:

Champions Online has largely destructible objects in both the open world and instances, and it basically goes unused.  OP, I'm not telling you to leave CoH, but go try CO, (it's F2P), and judge for yourself how "immersive" it makes things...

On the plus side for that, it means that when a super strong character goes to hurl an object at a target, they actually pick up part of the terrain like a jeep and throw it at the target. On the down side, you can't just use your hurl object ability except with something on the map that can be picked up and thrown, so no on demand Hurl like in CoX. Also on the down side, the STR stat doesn't need to be that high to throw any terrain objects. You're running around with a mentalist character? Go right ahead and pick up that jeep, truck, boulder, or whatever, and chuck it at a foe at max normal ranged attack range even if you only have baseline STR. (Though some larger objects require higher STR. So if you have base STR, you can probably only throw a stationary jeep or truck. You can never pick up a moving object.) And you still can't destroy anything/everything. Buildings, hills, trees, and similar are still not destructible because if they were destroyed, then you would have open gaps on the map that let you get under or behind the map. (Which you can still do in several locations, like hiding inside a boulder because the boulder has no bottom and there is a space where it is not in contact with the ground.)

 

Sorry, started another CO rant. I'm stopping now.