Why are thugs not gangsters?

[pawstruck]

I really don't want to start trouble.

 

But dammit, it bothers me that Thugs actively avoided being one of the really cool gangster archetypes in our culture.

 

Gasp and clutch pearls all you want, but the urban black gangster culture is fun as hell (in theory, anyway). There is a reason gangster rap is popular. But can your thugs be literal thugs? Nope.

 

Yakuza? Nope. Chinese Mafia? Russian mob? Bikers? Nope nope nope.

 

What we get are generic white kids with weird hair that shoot guns... And a Bruiser that looks like Back-Alley Brawler's preemie brother.

 

All that rant to say... I want to like Thugs so much, but it seems like the power set purposely tries to be milk-toast neutral.

 

Bo-ring. (Customizable pets when??)

 

[Psyonico]

I just want Mafia-style thugs!

 

edit:

Think Mooks/Family

Edited July 24 by Psyonico

[Scarlet Shocker]

Why are thugs not gangsters?

 

Because then they'd be gangsters, not thugs.

 

We have the Family and we don't need those as pets. MM pets should be very different from in game enema groups

[Glacier Peak]

It's a video game

[pawstruck]

52 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

MM pets should be very different from in game enema groups

 

Clever.

 

Better disable most of the costume creator then, if player characters can't be anything like enemy* groups.

 

Or is it just MM's that must be weirdly out of place?

 

*I do not endorse group enemas, as does the person I am quoting.

[biostem]

1 hour ago, pawstruck said:

it bothers me that Thugs actively avoided being one of the really cool gangster archetypes in our culture

It's far simpler than you're making it out to be;  it's because the game draws heavily from 80s-era pop culture - look at "The Warriors"...

[Frozen Burn]

Simple.  Thugs are not gangsters.  Thugs are hired hitters to do one's bidding for whatever random reason they want.  Gangsters are a club / group / organization of like-minded individuals, who follow a leader in organized crime.  Some gangsters can be thugs, but not all thugs can be gangsters.  🙂  

 

But given all that, yeah, it would be cool to have your "thugs" be yakuza, mafia, triad, etc.  Hopefully one day, we'll get MM minion alternate skins.  But I think it will be a long while as it takes model and animation design to implement - and I've heard the HC devs doesn't have a volunteer animator.  😞  

[FupDup]

If we had MM pet customization, you could make your "Thugs" be any style you wanted, maybe even making up your own gang. That's the real tragedy here. 

[Scarlet Shocker]

It's simply enough, but some don't seem to get it

 

Yes you can dress many toons up to be a particular faction and create their back story.

 

But Character-specific pets are not aligned to a specific group for a very good reason; they create player choice. You can choose your own head cannon, but it is not the same as the player's next to you. If you align pets to a particular group that task makes imagination much harder.

 

Live with what you have and celebrate the choice. Sorry you didn't like my first response  @pawstruck but trust me, this gives you many more options and is  far better in the long run for the game and your personal enjoyment!

[cranebump]

4 hours ago, pawstruck said:

What we get are generic white kids with weird hair that shoot guns... And a Bruiser that looks like Back-Alley Brawler's preemie brother.

Thugs change appearance with each summons, I think. I just ran my MM this evening, and had different types of Thugs each time they showed up. Think the same thing happened when I changed zones even. They were different.

 

Well...except for that flame blowing guy, who always seems to he a readheaded douche.:-)

[shortguy on indom]

• SOMEHOW GOONS HAVE NOT BEEN MENTIONED.... 

 

[Chance Jackson]

5 hours ago, pawstruck said:

I really don't want to start trouble.

 

But dammit, it bothers me that Thugs actively avoided being one of the really cool gangster archetypes in our culture.

 

Gasp and clutch pearls all you want, but the urban black gangster culture is fun as hell (in theory, anyway). There is a reason gangster rap is popular. But can your thugs be literal thugs? Nope.

 

Yakuza? Nope. Chinese Mafia? Russian mob? Bikers? Nope nope nope.

 

What we get are generic white kids with weird hair that shoot guns... And a Bruiser that looks like Back-Alley Brawler's preemie brother.

 

All that rant to say... I want to like Thugs so much, but it seems like the power set purposely tries to be milk-toast neutral.

 

Bo-ring. (Customizable pets when??)

 

Pretty sure devs wanted to avoid ethno centric gangs & all the problems they can bring so you get a cadre of multi ethnic crooks

[NotsoevilDM]

I am sure it is probably very challenging to implement but there are plenty of assets in game for alternative MM pet skins:

 

For thugs, there are Skulls, Warriors, and Family 

For mercenariies, there are Crey and Nemesis 

For robots there are Clockwork, Praetorian bots and the PPD ones 

 

One potential issue is that it could get confusing when fighting the same type of mobs but even that could be overcome with some tweaks to the skins.

 

Plus, we want clowns and pirates first!

[Techwright]

17 hours ago, FupDup said:

If we had MM pet customization, you could make your "Thugs" be any style you wanted, maybe even making up your own gang. That's the real tragedy here. 

MM pet customization is the one thing another CoH emulation did that I actual wish were in game here.  Of course, my thugs would have mock turtlenecks, bowler derbies and identification markings across their chests. 

 

[WumpusRat]

23 hours ago, pawstruck said:

I really don't want to start trouble.

 

But dammit, it bothers me that Thugs actively avoided being one of the really cool gangster archetypes in our culture.

 

Gasp and clutch pearls all you want, but the urban black gangster culture is fun as hell (in theory, anyway). There is a reason gangster rap is popular. But can your thugs be literal thugs? Nope.

 

Yakuza? Nope. Chinese Mafia? Russian mob? Bikers? Nope nope nope.

 

What we get are generic white kids with weird hair that shoot guns... And a Bruiser that looks like Back-Alley Brawler's preemie brother.

 

All that rant to say... I want to like Thugs so much, but it seems like the power set purposely tries to be milk-toast neutral.

 

Bo-ring. (Customizable pets when??)

 

 

The reason Thugs (and all MM pets) are "neutral" is so that it doesn't lock the character into a specific background or origin.

 

Imagine if the Thugs were all Yakuza, for instance. That would pretty much require all Thug MMs to be Japaneze Yakuza bosses, wouldn't it? Or if you made the Thugs all "black ganger culture", same reason. 

 

Same would go for if the Demons set were all Circle of Thorns demons, or if Robotics were all Council robots, or Ninjas were all Tsoo. It would tie your origin/powers too tightly to one specific thing. 

 

All the MM primaries are "generic" so that you can use them with whatever background you'd like to have for your character. 

[UltraAlt]

5 hours ago, NotsoevilDM said:

I am sure it is probably very challenging to implement but there are plenty of assets in game for alternative MM pet skins:

 

...and there is at least one suggestion thread about this ... most probably more than 2 or 3 ...

[TheMoneyMaker]

On 7/24/2024 at 3:20 PM, Psyonico said:

I just want Mafia-style thugs!

 

edit:

Think Mooks/Family

goons

[Marshal_General]

I made my thugs as the body guards of my Mafia princess. They hope that they will be accepted into the Family by protecting her as she drags them into one adventure after another.

 

At least they convinced her to use rubber bullets since she is supposed to be a 'hero' though she is more of a vigilante.

[BazookaTwo]

On 7/25/2024 at 5:15 AM, Scarlet Shocker said:

Live with what you have and celebrate the choice. 

 

Be thankful you don't have options!

Sheesh...imagine having CHOICES it would be AWFUL

[Scarlet Shocker]

5 minutes ago, BazookaTwo said:

 

Be thankful you don't have options!

Sheesh...imagine having CHOICES it would be AWFUL

 

Which is to entirely misrepresent my point and you have a lot of choices. You have many MM options and plenty of other ATs besides.

 

So sorry you can't get exactly what you want

[Herotu]

On 7/25/2024 at 4:02 PM, Techwright said:

MM pet customization is the one thing another CoH emulation did that I actual wish were in game here.  Of course, my thugs would have mock turtlenecks, bowler derbies and identification markings across their chests. 

 

Judging from

1. the content we've had, and

2. the manner in which the feature is implemented on the other servers to which you refer,

it appears there are great difficulties creating the UI elements to facilitate custom MMs. Either that, or the extra files that would be need to be created, or the fact that zillions of custom MM pets might cause everybody's computers to lag to hell and back.

 

Possibly one of those, or something else. That's my guess.

[Techwright]

1 minute ago, Herotu said:

Judging from

...

2. the manner in which the feature is implemented on the other servers to which you refer,

 

I freely admit I'd not heard of any issues with the process elsewhere, just that it existed.

 

Speaking purely hypothetically, rather than individualized MM pets, perhaps it would be more practical to implement alternative skin sets for these.  Using the thugs as examples, a costume setting would be added that allowed a skins pick of original street thugs, gangsters, bowler derbies and turtlenecks, etc.   In theory, this should work similar to Illusion powerset's customization of illusion characters, with the big difference being that Illusion merely mimic's the player's character's look, and the suggested MM pets draw from a stock skins set.

[Herotu]

5 hours ago, Techwright said:

I freely admit I'd not heard of any issues with the process elsewhere, just that it existed.

 

Speaking purely hypothetically, rather than individualized MM pets, perhaps it would be more practical to implement alternative skin sets for these.  Using the thugs as examples, a costume setting would be added that allowed a skins pick of original street thugs, gangsters, bowler derbies and turtlenecks, etc.   In theory, this should work similar to Illusion powerset's customization of illusion characters, with the big difference being that Illusion merely mimic's the player's character's look, and the suggested MM pets draw from a stock skins set.

Don't forget that there is a visual change which indicates each of the "upgrade pets" powers - so every pet has;

• 1 summon animation,
• 3 appearances EACH (one appearance for each of the pet upgrade powers),
• possibly associated animations with each upgrade.
• more powers each upgrade.

I used to think custom MM pets were simple - yeah, simple - then I took an arro...  My point being, I learnt the hard way that custom MM pets isn't that simple.

[pawstruck]

8 minutes ago, Herotu said:

I used to think custom MM pets were simple - yeah, simple - then I took an arro...  My point being, I learnt the hard way that custom MM pets isn't that simple.

 

Yeah, but are the upgrades and animations so extensive that you can't even change color palates? I'd at least like my wolves to be all white, or my thugs to be ...not all white... Lol 

[starro]

Customizing MM pets would be incredible, though I'm not familiar with the coding complexity. I respect the legacy code and the potential complications it brings, so I'll just leave it there.

Additionally, having the capability to form in-game groups as masterminds would be great. I've always wanted to lead my own MM team of Hellions or Rikti.

I've been a COH fanboy longing for these features since the launch of COV.