Ridiculous 'Find A Genie And Make A Wish' Level Idea For MM Pet Customization

[Rudra]

We've asked for pet customization for a while. A really, really long while.... Anyway, I had a random thought that most likely will leave the devs laughing at me for the audacity about how that might be implemented. And all it will require is the addition of 30/60 more costume slots for characters....

 

Okay, before anyone grabs anything to stone me with, hear me out. (You can laugh at me or stone me after.) The way this would work is as follows:

 

Either 30 or 60 hidden costume slots, completely unavailable to the player for use for their own character, are added in groups of 3 or 6 to each character costume slot.

 

A new tailor (like a burning Behemoth Overlord maybe) or a new tailor function is added to Icon/Facemaker (and so available to SG bases through same means) gives the player access to the 3 or 6 costume slots assigned to their current costume slot only. (This is to try to reduce the headache/complication of implementation.)

 

In the case of 3 hidden costume slots per character costume slot, the slots would be assigned Pet 1, Pet 2, and Pet 3. In the case of MMs, this would mean T1, T2, and T3 respectively. In the case of other ATs with pets, only Pet 1 would work for them. (Sorry, we don't get Lore customs or secondary pet customs in this plan.) Note that the player selection choices would still just display Pet 1, Pet 2, and Pet 3.

 

In the case of 6 hidden costume slots per character costume slot, the slots would be assigned Pet 1, Pet 2, Pet 3, Pet 4, Pet 5, and Pet 6. In the case of MMs, this would mean T1 1st, T1 2nd, T1 3rd, T2 1st, T2 2nd, and T3 respectively. For other ATs with pets, this would mean 1st pet, 2nd pet, and 3rd pet, with remaining pet costume slots beyond their number of pets not being available. The available choices would still only be displayed as Pet 1 - 6.

 

Alternatively, there could just be 3 hidden costume slots period and we'd only be able to assign pet appearances that don't change across our costume selections, but that would be gravely disappointing to have my MM running around in winter camouflage on winter event maps while my pets are still running around in generic use outfits.

 

That's my idea. You may now commence the withering, I mean feedback.

 

(Edit: And yes, I know Standard Code Rant still applies.)

 

Edited Saturday at 07:09 PM by Rudra
Edited again to add "Level" to title. Edited again to correct "clot" to "slot".

[Glacier Peak]

Hey it's an out of the box idea, but it sounds fun. I'd be happy to see some more Mastermind primaries!

[Britannic]

Outside of the technical difficulties of pet customization I'm gonna assume they'd stil want the primaries to represent what they actually are titled, so Robotics should still be robots and Mercs still some form of military looking unit. Being able to change the type would be good though, Robotics could have ones selected from Longbow, PPD, Malta, maybe Arachnos Spiderbots. Mercs could select from ones like PPD special forces, Malta, Arachnos Wolf Spiders, and the like. Plenty of mob/thug style groups exist already, and there's a few options for Necromancy and Demons too: from the Circle of Thorns (minion Hordeling Berserkers; lieutenant Hellfrost Lord & Behemoth Master; and then the giant Behemoth Overlord for example) and the Banished Pantheon and Zombie zone invasion mobs could probably be made to work for Necro.

Edited Saturday at 08:01 PM by Britannic

[Rudra]

23 minutes ago, Britannic said:

Outside of the technical difficulties of pet customization I'm gonna assume they'd stil want the primaries to represent what they actually are titled, so Robotics should still be robots and Mercs still some form of military looking unit. Being able to change the type would be good though, Robotics could have ones selected from Longbow, PPD, Malta, maybe Arachnos Spiderbots. Mercs could select from ones like PPD special forces, Malta, Arachnos Wolf Spiders, and the like. Plenty of mob/thug style groups exist already, and there's a few options for Necromancy and Demons too: from the Circle of Thorns (minion Hordeling Berserkers; lieutenant Hellfrost Lord & Behemoth Master; and then the giant Behemoth Overlord for example) and the Banished Pantheon and Zombie zone invasion mobs could probably be made to work for Necro.

What does a robot look like? Whatever the robot is constructed to look like. That ranges from the scrap built Clockwork to the advanced Praetorian Clockwork to the steam powered Nemesis impersonator robots and more. So a player running a Robotics mastermind should be free to make their robots look however they want.

 

What does a mercenary look like? That depends on the mercenary's species, former/current military affiliation/equipment access, and more. (Edit: And to be clear, by species I mean human, lizardfolk, catfolk, shadow people, or whatever.) So again, the mastermind player should be free to decide how their mercenaries look.

 

I'm specifically trying to give players the freedom to make their units the way they envisioned their characters commanding/fielding. The only issue are the animal pets like with Beast Mastery and the Darkness Control Umbra Beast since we don't have access to animal model customizations.

 

 

Edit: What does a zombie look like? Depends on the race, how fresh the corpse was, and how much effort/magic the animator puts into preserving his/her/their/its undead minions. Not everyone is willing to put up with a smelling of rot minion. Thugs? Again, depends on the race and background. So on and so forth.

 

Edited Saturday at 08:23 PM by Rudra

[biostem]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

You may now commence the withering, I mean feedback

Is this basically a way of working around or otherwise compensating for how "the other server" makes you use your own costume slots, in order to customize your MM's minions?  I'm not against the idea, but I wonder if adding some sort of untouchable/pet-only costume slots is even possible;  I wonder, instead, if a system could be implemented where you go to the regular tailor, create a costume as normal, save the costume, then simply talk to another contact or via some menu, select a costume file and that, for all intents and purposes, overrides the pets' appearance...

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, biostem said:

Is this basically a way of working around or otherwise compensating for how "the other server" makes you use your own costume slots, in order to customize your MM's minions?

On the one hand, no, this is an attempt to give players as much creativity for their minion followers as possible. On the other hand, it is also yes because I am unwilling to give up my character costume slots since I use them. Clear as mud, I know. Sorry.

 

3 minutes ago, biostem said:

but I wonder if adding some sort of untouchable/pet-only costume slots is even possible

I did say this is a ridiculous level, go find someone that can grant wishes beyond our mortal capabilities, request. I have no delusions about this even being possible. It doesn't hurt to ask though, and maybe I'll get surprised and it turns out to be quite possible.

 

4 minutes ago, biostem said:

I wonder, instead, if a system could be implemented where you go to the regular tailor, create a costume as normal, save the costume, then simply talk to another contact or via some menu, select a costume file and that, for all intents and purposes, overrides the pets' appearance...

That would still fall under this proposal. You are still designing a desired appearance for the pets and then having said appearance loaded to said pets via a provided interface that does not interact with your own character's costume slots.

[Ghost]

Only if all the pets have massive amounts of KB in all their powers, that can’t be suppressed.

[Greycat]

mmm.

 

The two main issues I see with this (ignoring "ton of extra slot feasability" and "character and UI to do this") are upgrades and Beast MMs.

 

Upgrades, because as I recall they're swapping models to visually indicate T1 and T2 upgrades, and I don't know how they'd want that handled (or if that'd be too much of a pain.) Which might limit any sort of customizing to swapping out between in-game NPC models (Current demons to COT demons, for instance.)

 

Beast MMs because they'd be the most obvious "... but what about..." set. There's not much to switch, say, a Dire Wolf out for or many ways to customize it, and the various attacks/animations (including idle) are rather specific.

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Upgrades, because as I recall they're swapping models to visually indicate T1 and T2 upgrades, and I don't know how they'd want that handled (or if that'd be too much of a pain.) Which might limit any sort of customizing to swapping out between in-game NPC models (Current demons to COT demons, for instance.)

Since upgraded henchmen models rely on current models, I just figured the player selected appearance for their henchmen would simply override the costume alterations of the upgrade powers. That would be far simpler than trying to come up with a method for applying the visual changes from the upgrade powers across all the possible ways players will choose to design their henchmen. So if the player is unsure if their pets are currently upgraded, they can either simply look at the pet window to see if the upgrade powers are showing or not, or they can simply re-apply if they want.

 

16 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Beast MMs because they'd be the most obvious "... but what about..." set. There's not much to switch, say, a Dire Wolf out for or many ways to customize it, and the various attacks/animations (including idle) are rather specific.

As I said earlier, this is the only real issue outside of Standard Code Rant that I really see for the proposal. Because we lack any customizable beasts in the game. And while I don't want to leave anyone out, for the characters with animal model pets, until we can get some animal model customizations, it would probably be easiest to simply let them choose from available animal models in the game. I'm far more in favor of customizable animal models for players to tinker with, but I don't want to move the proposal so far that even djinni can't help us get it done.

[Doc_Scorpion]

On 1/12/2025 at 11:24 AM, Greycat said:

Beast MMs because they'd be the most obvious "... but what about..." set. There's not much to switch, say, a Dire Wolf out for or many ways to customize it, and the various attacks/animations (including idle) are rather specific.

The most obvious yes...  But the same problem exists for bots, there's specific animations for the various powers and any player created 'bot would need to have equivalent animations.

[Rudra]

33 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

On 1/12/2025 at 12:24 PM, Greycat said:

Beast MMs because they'd be the most obvious "... but what about..." set. There's not much to switch, say, a Dire Wolf out for or many ways to customize it, and the various attacks/animations (including idle) are rather specific.

The most obvious yes...  But the same problem exists for bots, there's specific animations for the various powers and any player created 'bot would need to have equivalent animations.

The bots still use humanoid models. The animations should work just fine already.

[biostem]

13 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The bots still use humanoid models. The animations should work just fine already.

Might have to force some missile pods on whatever takes the place of the assault bot...

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, biostem said:

20 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The bots still use humanoid models. The animations should work just fine already.

Might have to force some missile pods on whatever takes the place of the assault bot...

It's no different than using the LRM Rocket, Chameleon Suit, or any other power that requires adding an item to the character when activated.