Arch-enemies...?

[Ultimo]

One of my favourite things about Champions Online was the ability to create an arch-enemy for your character (several, in fact).  I wonder if it might be possible to adapt this idea to City of Heroes?  I know, you can make a nemesis in the AE system, but there's never any surprise to it.  You always know what the story is, and who is going to appear... because YOU wrote the thing.

 

The ideal is that these nemesis characters might appear randomly in other missions, perhaps as a boss instead of some generic boss...

 

What say you, is this possible?

[Rudra]

In Champions Online, you also always know what the story is and who is going to appear. (Edit: And where your nemesis was going to be/appear and what your nemesis was going to say and do. Every time.) Because it is always the same missions. (Edit: You only ever encountered your nemesis on a random drop nemesis tip which could be ignored as long as you wanted and always followed the same order for what specific mission that tip was. There were two exceptions. The Nemesis Alert where the nemesis was for the first character on the team to load on the map, or if that character didn't have a nemesis, would be a generic "nemesis" for the team to fight. And a mission on a very large (for CO) map that had everyone's on the team's nemesis if they had one, but the team had to go looking for most of them because except for one of them, they spawned in out of the way locations on the map for a mission that most teams preferred to just blitz and be done with.) (Edit yet again: Well, three exceptions to waiting for the tips to randomly drop. When you made your nemesis, there was no waiting for a tip to drop. You immediately got to go fight your nemesis at the museum.) There was one, maybe two missions tops, that differentiated between the three types of Nemeses you could choose from. Aside from that 1 (maybe 2) mission(s) though? The entire arc was the exact same from start to finish. Including the mission after you 'finally defeat your nemesis' to go back and free your nemesis to run through those exact same missions all over again. (Or throw together a new nemesis to go through those exact same missions all over again.)

 

Edit again: Also, haven't you brought this up before? This discussion about adding personal arch-enemies to the game has come up multiple times before. And I'd swear you were at least part of the discussions.

 

Edited February 15 by Rudra

[El D]

AE is the Nemesis system for CoX. As @Rudra said, the Champions one is literally the same arc over and over again - AE actually allows variety and bespoke content. It just requires that players write to get full use out of it. If you really want to be surprised by a custom Nemesis arc, commission someone to make an AE arc for you or join a roleplay supergroup.

 

 

Edited February 15 by El D

[Ultimo]

It is possible I've brought this up before, or at least been part of a conversation about it.  I've been around for a while now.

 

That said, I see no harm in suggesting it again, in case it's slipped through the cracks as a suggestion.

I know how the Champions system worked, and I don't recall it being exactly the same.  Sure, the specific Nemesis arc was always the same, but I seem to remember the Nemesis appearing in random missions from time to time.  I could be wrong, it's been quite a while since I played Champions Online.

 

In any case, I think it would be cool to add it to CoH as a regular thing, not just for the AE.  The way I envision it, if a player has an active Nemesis, the nemesis could appear randomly in any mission the player is doing.  For example, in my old comics I used to write, Ultimo's nemesis was called the Catburglar.  If I was involved in Positron 1, Catburglar might (or might not) appear in any of the missions, either as a boss (replacing any generic boss, like one of the Eidolons, for example) or as a seperate encounter.  Imagine being in that mission and coming up on a group of bosses where your nemesis has appeared with some of the other players' nemeses as well!  It could be epic!

 

Maybe it's not possible.  I don't know.  I see no harm in making the suggestion.

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

It is possible I've brought this up before, or at least been part of a conversation about it.  I've been around for a while now.

 

That said, I see no harm in suggesting it again, in case it's slipped through the cracks as a suggestion.

I know how the Champions system worked, and I don't recall it being exactly the same.  Sure, the specific Nemesis arc was always the same, but I seem to remember the Nemesis appearing in random missions from time to time.  I could be wrong, it's been quite a while since I played Champions Online.

 

In any case, I think it would be cool to add it to CoH as a regular thing, not just for the AE.  The way I envision it, if a player has an active Nemesis, the nemesis could appear randomly in any mission the player is doing.  For example, in my old comics I used to write, Ultimo's nemesis was called the Catburglar.  If I was involved in Positron 1, Catburglar might (or might not) appear in any of the missions, either as a boss (replacing any generic boss, like one of the Eidolons, for example) or as a seperate encounter.  Imagine being in that mission and coming up on a group of bosses where your nemesis has appeared with some of the other players' nemeses as well!  It could be epic!

 

Maybe it's not possible.  I don't know.  I see no harm in making the suggestion.

Imagine having a noble villain nemesis or a hero nemesis and that nemesis shows up leading the 5th Column or the Council randomly. Imagine your hi-tech, disdains magic nemesis leading the Circle of Thorns in their magic rituals. Imagine your misogynistic nemesis showing up as the leader of the Knives of Artemis spewing his bullshit creed. Imagine all the possible ways a nemesis just randomly showing up in missions not designed for such character will go against the nemesis concept/design. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess there is a reason why nemeses only showed up in very specific missions back on Champions Online.

 

Edited Tuesday at 03:38 AM by Rudra
Edited to add rest of sentence: "for such a character will go against the nemesis concept/design".

[Ultimo]

12 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Imagine having a noble villain nemesis or a hero nemesis and that nemesis shows up leading the 5th Column or the Council randomly. Imagine your hi-tech, disdains magic nemesis leading the Circle of Thorns in their magic rituals. Imagine your misogynistic nemesis showing up as the leader of the Knives of Artemis spewing his bullshit creed. Imagine all the possible ways a nemesis just randomly showing up in missions not designed for such character will go against the nemesis concept/design. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess there is a reason why nemeses only showed up in very specific missions back on Champions Online.

 

Edge cases like that could easily be adjusted by giving the nemesis a few limits, such as a selection of groups they won't work with.  Or, you could just accept that any villain will work with any group, if there is a reason.

 

As players we might not be aware of such a reason, it's just a matter of rationalizing it.  For example, that noble villain working with the Council might be acting to save the life of a hostage.  The high-tech nemesis working with the Circle of Thorns might have been promised some kind of technology as a reward for his presence.  The misogynist might be being blackmailed or extorted into working with the Knives or Artemis.

 

Any enemy might have any reason to work with any group, we don't necessarily need to know the reasons for it, unless it's relevant to the story you're playing in... which wouldn't be the case if the nemesis is appearing in a random mission.

[Rudra]

2 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

For example, that noble villain working with the Council might be acting to save the life of a hostage. 

The 5th Column and the Council? Will work with a noble hero/villain by holding a hostage while holding another hostage that the noble hero/villain is threatening? And that noble hero/villain won't say do the super thing and simply rescue said hostage like we and even the NPCs do on the regular?

 

3 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

The high-tech nemesis working with the Circle of Thorns might have been promised some kind of technology as a reward for his presence. 

The Circle of Thorns? Giving a tech hero/villain technology. I thought the first counter-example was a stretch.

 

4 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

The misogynist might be being blackmailed or extorted into working with the Knives or Artemis.

I'm just leaving this one alone. You know, considering said nemesis is powerful enough to be our character's nemesis.

 

5 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

Edge cases like that could easily be adjusted by giving the nemesis a few limits, such as a selection of groups they won't work with. <snip>

 

Any enemy might have any reason to work with any group, we don't necessarily need to know the reasons for it, unless it's relevant to the story you're playing in... which wouldn't be the case if the nemesis is appearing in a random mission.

And this is most easily done through AE. Sorry, I disagree with you. With how personal a nemesis is to any given character, what you are asking for is far more than I would be willing to try to implement. Fortunately for you, I'm not a dev, so your suggestion still has a chance. However, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

[Ultimo]

4 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The 5th Column and the Council? Will work with a noble hero/villain by holding a hostage while holding another hostage that the noble hero/villain is threatening? And that noble hero/villain won't say do the super thing and simply rescue said hostage like we and even the NPCs do on the regular?

 

The Circle of Thorns? Giving a tech hero/villain technology. I thought the first counter-example was a stretch.

 

I'm just leaving this one alone. You know, considering said nemesis is powerful enough to be our character's nemesis.

 

And this is most easily done through AE. Sorry, I disagree with you. With how personal a nemesis is to any given character, what you are asking for is far more than I would be willing to try to implement. Fortunately for you, I'm not a dev, so your suggestion still has a chance. However, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

You missed the point.  What I suggested were just rationalizations off the top of my head.  The thing is simply that it doesn't MATTER why they're there when it's not part of the story you're doing.  If you must have an answer, it takes only a little imagination to come up with a reason you can accept.

 

In any case, fringe cases like that don't mean you shouldn't NOT do something.  Also, as I mentioned, it would be easy enough to put limitations on nemeses so they don't run into those kinds of situations.

[JKCarrier]

It's a fun idea, but risky from the devs' point of view. Allowing players to insert custom characters into regular missions is just begging to be abused. At best, I could maybe see allowing us to pick an existing boss, change their name and costume (but not their powers) and have them turn up randomly.

[Riverdusk]

Course now they'd have to worry about this, as silly as it is and even if it is unlikely it'd be an issue in the end:

 

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-i-shadow-of-war-i-publisher-warner-bros-has-patented-the-series-nemesis-system

 

 

[Marine X]

Another approach might be to keep it as easy to implement as possible. How about as part of the character creation process or in the Personal Information for each Character, you can set an existing Villain Group to be your Nemesis/Arch Enemies. They may then spawn as an ambush outside missions, or be more hostile to you in missions as a result. No special Assets would need to be created and just a spawn methodology set up. That would teach you to go AFK a lot less out in the wide open, lol.

[mistagoat]

This sounds like a fun idea! I'd love to design my own nemesis.! Just let me give them a name and costume and we could use an existing npc powerset to maintain balance. Maybe have a 10-20% chance to have 1 mob on the map swap to the "nemesis" mob and that can be the same enemies that were there before just with the boss swapped out to your nemesis. Maybe your nemesis was crunched for time, they learned of your location at the last minute and had to hire some local freelancers, that might explain the potential disparity in mob types between the mob and your nemesis.

Lets call it the "Arch" system or the "Rival" system to avoid Mordors wrath.

[Jiro Ito]

I always thought it would be cool if we could all earn bounties from various factions, leading them to hire mercenary bounty hunters who often show up in our missions, similar to Void Hunters coming after Khelds.  

 

Just finished a Ms Liberty TF?  Lord Recluse puts a price on your head and Guts N Glory took out the contract and springs a trap on you while you're running a LGTF.

[Luminara]