What would you do if you were a DEV?! (Fun Ideas Talks)

[merrypessimist]

I would hire an animator and have them create some brand new power animation options like more alternative punches/kicks and enabling the ;getsome emote as a taunt alternative animation.

[BjorJlen]

   I would send one ice cream bar with Hami's picture on it to every person who play's Coh, with a note saying "Thank you for your support. Here's a HamiBar for you". That would be a very kind gesture I would think... 🙂

[Crossie]

I would create a full immersive experience where you can actually enter the game ready player 1 style.  Until then, I shall just bitch!

[Skyhawke]

Big Head Mode, in all it's glory.

 

Edited April 7 by Skyhawke

[MonteCarla]

I'd make sure all popup dialogs (Resurrect, Mystic Fortune, Teleport, mission into text) could be activated with Enter or Esc

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

46 minutes ago, MonteCarla said:

I'd make sure all popup dialogs (Resurrect, Mystic Fortune, Teleport, mission into text) could be activated with Enter or Esc

 

 

Not sure about Esc but Enter key can be bound to this function. It might also activate your dialog box, though. 

 

I have this bound to Y key myself.

 

It would probably work with /bind enter "dialog_yes$$startchat"

[MonteCarla]

12 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

Not sure about Esc but Enter key can be bound to this function. It might also activate your dialog box, though. 

 

I have this bound to Y key myself.

 

It would probably work with /bind enter "dialog_yes$$startchat"

 

Woah! It works!
Thanks so much, twozerofoxtrot! That made my day!
Really glad I dropped by this thread to moan about something! 😄

[mistagoat]

Eliminate all crashes on T9s

Remove Group Fly from the game and give pets their owners travel power.

Pets spawn even level to their owner.

Increase base storage by 50%

Increase coalition limit as high as possible (infinite?)

Fix/expand league controls

Purge Max (sorry Max, nothing personal but I hate seeing the pop ups)

Allow converting of Hami-Os/D-Syncs

Instanced Hami Raids

Statues in my honor

[Hedgefund]

Make all follower pathing "good".  

 

I'd probably just say propagate Mr. Yin's follow AI to all others but I haven't seen him on a stairwell.  Praetorians on a stairwell make me want to get some hair implants just so I can yank them out in frustration when trying to coax some of them up ramps or stairs.

 

I could write a lengthier post about a lot of other things on my wish list but this is just #1 for me.

[Ukase]

So, at first, I would do nothing. I would think carefully, which tends to hurt my brain. Assuming the implementation of these ideas were within my ability, and wouldn't break anything else, or take more than 4 hours of coding to implement: 

I would try to find a way to trade a power for another at the trainer without doing a respec. As an example, leveling up a Beam/marine corruptor. I foolishly chose shifting tides, a power that had an icon that looked like a marine version of build-up, a standard click. But no, it's a targeted ranged power. So, I have to either make a macro or use my mouse to use it. I'd rather not have to do either. I think it should work the same way any other attack or buff does. Target acquired - fire. If I'm buffing, target the ally, press the corresponding icon, boom. Same if I'm debuffing. I might now do a respec, because even though the power itself is a good one, the implementation of it is not suitable to my current power tray set up. 

Second thing: I would start with 3 enhancement slots at level 27. Every build I have is 3 slots short! 

Third thing: I wouldn't limit power pools. If someone want's speed for hasten, leaping for combat jump, teleport for fold space, leadership for maneuvers, tactics and vengeance, and they want fight pool for tough and weave, let 'em have it. 

Fourth thing: Patron pool unlocks would go the way of the dodo. 

Fifth thing: Every zone would be a co-op zone. No alignment changes would be necessary, aside from merits, badges or that alignments temp power. (Force of Justice, for example) 

 

Sixth thing: I'd like to find a way to make AE a compelling place to visit for new content. Some of our players are pretty good at making missions, but there's currently no incentives to do them. No merits. 1/2 XP. I'm not at all sure how to remedy this, but if there was a way to monitor a mission or arc before it got published to see if it were afk-farmable, I'd try to create incentives to those maps that are far less likely to have predictable success afk-farming. 

 

Seventh thing: MSRs would remain the same, but have the flyer that routinely gets taken down be a lot more offensive, with the equivalent of bullet sprays, and toxic gas, so the league actually has to work at it. 

Eighth thing: No training while you have debt. If you have leveled and have debt, you should have to work that off before you can train. And that's terribly easy with patrol xp. 

Ninth thing: Zero second timers and zero second activation and instant recharge on all teleport powers purchased from START vendor. I see no reason why they have any. 

 

Last thing: A costume overhaul for Manticore. People hate Manticore for more than just because he's arrogant. His costume is just plain hideous. At least, on my screen it is. Give the dude some kind of color variation. 


I've no idea if any or all of these would break the game, nor how hard or long it would take to implement them. Or if they're even possible. Each suggestion assumes the change wouldn't break some other part of the game, and wouldn't be too hard to implement. 
 

[Chance Jackson]

Add a signature power system

[Water]

I'd make crafting in any base have a 2% (or some other random donation amount) contribution of the crafting fee go to the base owner.

Crafting in your own base you'd lose nothing. Crafting in another base which you admire would show your appreciation for the work which went into it and/or the services it provides like Cosmic Transport for example and the CC competition organisers bases and the MSR organisers bases.

Yes yes, 2% is negligible and it would come out of the 5% we are charged anyway for reasons.

It might cause more interest in base building (or not).

Could it even get more people doing more story?

[Tiger Shadow]

I would enemies who flee no longer count as guarding a hostage. Same thing if they hole up inside a force field.

[TheMoneyMaker]

I've put some additional thought into this

 

• Dismiss all the prior talk of "The Coming Storm" as nothing more than a weather miscalculation
• Set the lore that the alien threat we were supposed to get already came, but they were super tiny and eaten by Captain Mako without him even realizing it
• Make Croatoa a shared (not co-op) zone like Striga and introduce some missions that allow villains to work with Cabal or Red Caps or Firbolg
• Introduce new contacts on both hero and villain side that represent corporate interests in the game universe, looking to get supers to shill for big name companies of in-game products.....after you do them a favor by dealing with some threat --either villains or corporate sabotage or whatever.
  • Try to develop a "snapshot" system that takes your character image and inserts it into specific images, so when you agree to a corporate sponsorship an image is created of your character and stored temporarily
  • Try to bring back the real world advertising nonsense the original devs wanted to implement, but instead of inserting real world images it would feature these pregenerated snapshot game images with your character appearing in the ad. Ideally, because so many people would do this, the character image data would be temporarily stored server side and the images would cycle regularly (at night when the low light would make the sudden change less obvious). After the hero's image is used a predetermined number of times, it's removed from the temporary storage until a new sponsorship agreement is reached.
  • Each time the character's image is used, an amount of influence is deposited into that character's account to represent getting paid off for the endorsement. I'd see this as a proportional level-based amount that can be useful but not overwhelming.....maybe like a third of the influence you would get for mission completion, so you get paid twice with the first time for completing the mission that results in the sponsorship, and then 3 more payments that add up to one full mission bonus of influence. To prevent abuse, maybe limit how often the influence bonus can be collected even if the mission is repeated frequently, so maybe only once per week.
• Water Melee power set, using the existing effects from Water Blast and Marine Affinity with melee animations from other sets
• Marine Armor power set, again using existing effects

[Healix]

I would try to find a way to email Incarnate Shards/components to alts only. (Still no selling in AH or gifting to others.)

[Scarlet Shocker]

I've thought about this a bit more seriously.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing some different ATs in game, as a form of variety. One I think might have legs is what I call a Sentry - which takes a somewhat detuned Armour set, Willpower, Super Reflexes, Bio Armor etc, and pairs it with a Controller's secondary set, Cold Domination, Storm, Poison etc. Obviously there would need to be some additional attack powers to make the character at least vaguely soloable but it's the kind of AT that would appeal to me, so I'm thinking I'm not so unique nobody else would enjoy it.

 

I'd like to radically overhaul the Pool Powers. Whilst it's great that we have new pools, some are strangely mutually exclusive - especially the newer sets. Instead I would probably rejig pool powers into trees, similar to Incarnate trees; in other words, you pick a particular tree and get access to more than the four pools already, but not the entire lot. I'd probably make Hasten inherent, since it's mostly ubiquitous these days - slightly less potent but with better opportunities for slotting, as a part of that process. (So you get the power for free but you don't get more slots, in the same way that the Fitness Pool became inherent on live.)

 

I would vastly widen the APP/PPP and include GPP (Gold Patron Powers) to give a greater variety of powers and capabilities, whilst still retaining their overall "shape" as additional, non-essential powers. I'd make their unlocks FAR easier; I'd offer the same unlock content for Villains who are the only ones restricted in this way - but simply doing a Talkie mission would grant the pool from the requisite Patron. HOWEVER... I would enable certain "double cross" missions for the Patrons where the player is put in a position where he has a choice to either serve or betray his/her Patron. If he betrays the Patron his Patron powers no longer function until he either chooses a new patron or forgoes them completely. This would come with a Freespec to be used at a convenient time. With the Redside Patrons the player might be able to visit Arbiter Daos and do a "penance mission" to get his Patron to keep him on board.

 

Loose Ends: There are a ton of these in the game - some because of circumstance - but also I'm pretty convinced that the Live Devs were focused on the newest shiny a lot of the time so would drop a story and move on to something new. Incarnates is a big part of that. But getting some of those loose ends put to bed would be very pleasing.

 

TPN ITrial: that dogshit has to be seriously reworked. I would seriously (no this isn't a joke) nerf rock - because the entire premise behind the trial... well let's just say my dog leaves better packages in my garden of a morning. It wouldn't take much to rework  in truth. I'd turn it into something along the lines of Praetorian Police rounding up innocent Praetorians and the players have to rescue them while HD (already horribly dated) reports on it - while the authorities attempt to shut him down.

 

There are other things I could imagine doing - but that would require an even longer wall of test and I'm sure, dearest reader, that you don't have the patience for that.

 

 

[katmorriss]

On 4/3/2025 at 12:08 AM, twozerofoxtrot said:

1. Better base building tools (has been mentioned but worth repeating)
2. Optic Blast alt customization for Beam rifle (literally all the animations already exist for this, it's just a time/effort thing)
3. Freakshow Customization parts (it's been out there for a years, HC is the official license holder, time to use it)
4. Super Strength for Blasters (my meme dream)

4 would be fab on stalkers/scrappers too, but would need an early AoE power. Also need to revamp stalker sets that doesn't have lvl 4 AoE's ie claws/nrg/fire. make them interesting to play. 

[Demobot]

Larger storage per salvage/enhancement rack in bases.

 

Access to the AH in bases. 

 

 

[Acroyear]

I would make the NPCs for bases customizable (same as creating a costume for your character or a critter in the AE). This would allow players to have superheroes or villains within their base instead of normal NPCs. My main reason for this is to create NPCs to represent teammates who have passed away over the years.

[Sakura Tenshi]

Well, in rough order of feasibility

 

Stuff that should mostly be texturing, asset imports, and renaming

1. Add sand and snow ground plates and mounts to the base editor (also carpet tiles and maybe some walls with alternate textures)
2. Add assets in game but not in the base editor, such as motorcycles should exist due to thugs MM, probably add shield models to various weapons that can be displayed, Midnighter and Carnival Living Armors (could be good for armories, manniquins, etc.), police cars (surprisingly they're not in already)
3. Probably go through various factions and rename critters, mostly the Cimerorans (Minions become Hastati, Lieutenants Principes, and bosses Triarii) and the Tuatha De Dannan (Bres was a traitor to the Tuatha and saw himself as a Fomorian and sold out the Tuatha to Balor)
4. Probably give each each villain group in AE a sort of 'generic AV' which would effectively be a normal boss or some other interesting critter boosted to AV levels and maybe given a few appropriate additional powers.
5. Add Rogue PPD to the damn enemy critter lists!
6. Similarly, make Mastermind Minions their own AE groups

 Would require editing assets either powers or models

1. New Lore pets:
   • Mastermind based (So you can have more of your MM robots, or zombies, all that)
   • Black Knight (would probably beef up the Chevaliers to be the boss pet so they'd be unique from Cimerorans and have TW instead of sword and board)
   • Paragon Police (which might get split into two or three separate ones since you'd have PPD robots, Peacekeepers, Power Armor, SWAT, the options are enormous)
   • Midnighters
   • Carnival of Light
   • Praetorian Resistance
2. New AE Powersets which encompass broad themes (So like all assault rifle, arsenal control, arsenal assault, and Arachnos soldier gun powers, traps, devices, and even Munitions epic powers would all get lumped into a single set. Or Martial Arts, Street Justice, etc. etc.)
3. 'Generic outdoor maps' for AE which would largely just be a lot of the existing maps, just with war walls removed and, tram lines removed, and in the case of Croatoa ones, the yellow filter removed.
4. Expand on several enemy groups in various ways with either lower level parts of the group boosted up or new enemies added. for example
   • Freakshow: Noise tank returns (especially in the Penelope Yin TF), New Freakshow Pyros including pyro tanks (because nothing says 'anarchy' like setting everything on fire!), PraeTechFreaks (Freakalock already kind of do this but I was thinking it's surprising Freakshow having begun using Clockwork, Warworks, and Resistance parts where they can get it.)
   • Non-robot, non-sky skiff piloting Sky Raider boss(es): The Sky Raider Ace!
   • Knives of Artemis: Because they're conceptually cool but holy crap are they boring to fight!
   • Legacy Chain: Now going up to level 50 for villains to have self-righteous mages to punch too!
   • Nemesis and his Automatons getting some fixings too (admittedly a chunk is lore side, but I rather dislike that the automatons that barely pass for humans can feel 'vengeance', maybe they'd get sort of 'phase two' overclock modes for their bosses)

Stuff that would require brand new assets, potentially including animations and generally would be an insane amount of work even for the live team!

1. New Powersets:
   • Integrated Arms for Blasters, Sentinels, Corruptors, Defenders, and even an assault version for Dominators! Live out your power armor/mech/robot fantasies with under-arm miniguns, lasers, railguns, and those awesome shoulder mounted missile racks the IDF and Malta Titans get
   • Medieval Masterminds: Armed with a crossbow, you field lowly spear and shield wielding Levies (tier 1 pets), Potent Archers (tier 2), and even a greatsword swinging Champion (tier 3)
   • Shotgunnery for Blasters, Sentinels, Corruptors, Defenders, and an assault version for Dominators too. A close-range, blasting set not afraid of getting into the faces of its enemies and getting messy.
   • Spears melee powerset for Scrappers, stalkers, tanks, and brutes. Can be used as a two-handed weapon or paired with a spear!
   • Swashbuckling melee and assault sets for scrappers, stalkers, tanks, brutes, and dominators. A sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, you can live out your privateering fantasies and exert mastery close in or from a distance.
   • Tactical Acumen support set for Controllers, defenders, corruptors, and masterminds. A natural focused support set built around upholding the morale of your allies, exposing the weaknesses in foes, and even gaining unrealized advantages with the terrain itself!
   • War Glaive for Scrappers, stalkers, brutes, and tankers. A heavy, two-handed polearm for those who wish to wield a heavy poleaxe, a sinister scythe, a gallant guan dao, or bring destruction with the Dane Axe.
2. Power type variants - Basically these would be 'existing powerset, but different animations and weapon customizations'
   • Katana - can be switched to one-handed giving access to broardsword and some DB options. Mostly for if you want a 'fencer' type sword fighter.
   • Broadsword - can be changed into a two-handed grip, allowing you to make a HEMA longsword fighter or even a 'heavy nodachi' type katana fighter.
   • War Mace and Battle Axe - Similarly also opening two-handed versions of the powerset animations. If nothing else because I like to imagine Warrior Elite Smashers and Hewers going with a Minotaur aesthetic and wielding two-handed maces and axes.
3. New Costume pieces:
   • Varsity Jacket
   • Hoodie (both zipup and pull over), the hood itself would be under hoods or a 'down' version in the neck category
   • New chest style: Jumper Tops. Basically like Baggy, except with full sleeves built in and can include turtleneck. (also available as a chest detail in jackets)
   • New 'Shorts 5' option added. (Basically it's the long, Japanese 'shorts' women get but going all the way down to ankles and ported to huge and male)
   • Long skirts
   • Belted Trench Coat
   • Western Duster
   • Actual T-shirts and Tanker tops for women instead of being painted on
   • So many new hairstyles. If nothing else, port Foreshadow and Maelstrom's hairs to players since they can lose those and still look unique.
   • Similarly, give Scirocco's skirt to players because so many Egypt themed characters could use that.
   • Skirts and Shorts on Monstrous legs (Now you can be a Scottish Minotaur. Among other things)
   • Resistance shoulder pieces with Robotic Arms.
   • Barbarian Longsword added to Katana customizations
   • New 'Basic Assault Rifle' added to Assault Rifle, Arachnos soldier, beam rifle, etc. options. (basically it's the Resistance rifle with the glowing powerpack and other sci-fi bits removed)
   • Arachnos Pistols for Dual Pistols (you see the RIP use them)
4. More enemy group expansions and revamps with some of the aforementioned powersets
   • Warriors now get a proper phalanx lancers
   • Nemesis Officers with sword and pistol and automatons with integrated weapon systems!
   • Malta gains an upgrade both visual and arms. (admittedly a huge part is using paragon SWAT assets to make them look more like modern military special forces)
   • New Sky Raider drone minions because modern conflicts have told us the best investment you can make in the air is robots that spew missiles (and in this case, bullets) at you. Also, probably update the Sky raider Raptor Packs to be able to fold up and update the sky skiffs to have an enclosed cockpit. (Also, Skyraiders would get a GM enemy that'd use the VTOL model from the base assets)
   • Additional crazy new appearances for the Freakshow, because for a bunch of egalitarian anarchists, they are weirdly uniform in their appearance!
   • Massive revamp to Croatoa's mobs, mostly Redcaps, Tuatha, and Fir Bolg, giving additional critters to flesh out their ranks
   • With the help of Penelope Yin, the Clockwork King has begun to regain lucidity, but with it, he has come to see the new threats to his 'princess and kingdom' and rebuilds his army anew, an army befitting a mechanical king! (might include a story arc which involves Primal CK doing a psionic fusion with his Praetorian and Clockwork World selves)
5. Zone Revamps
   • Kings Row - Would mostly stay the same, just have some newer buildings put in and such.
   • Perez Park - Not sure if I'd remove it's hazard zone status or keep it, either way it'd largely be some new assets, particularly with the trees, and just touch up geometry in general
   • Croatoa - This would be a biiiigg revamp and potentially be about having it fill a bit of the 'underlyingly creepy' air of old Dark Astoria. Also, would remove the normal barriers and have it so after a certain point at the edges of the zone, the fog becomes too thick and you're then teleported to the opposite side of the zone or something. (to feel like you're looping around), oh, also fix up the town and include some nice residential houses and such.
   • Fautline - Yes, this has already been touched up, but honestly, this would mostly just involve some small touch ups and, if nothing else, allow for a continuous road, unobstructed road from the entrance to Yin's Market.
   • Cap Au Diable/Port Oakes - this is small one and it's largely be touching up the mountain itself (if nothing else to feel bigger, also maybe add woodlands) and also making the tunnel open for access between the zones. A more intense revamp might even be both expanding them and adding actual residential areas, and in Cap Au's case, use a scaled down version of Mother of Mercy Hospital for the university instead of the general Paragon U one.
6. New Mission Map Tilesets (Like, soooo many)
   • Submarine interiors (Nemesis, Longbow, Arachnos, and 'generic')
   • Airships (Nemesis, Sky Raider/'Generic', Fifth Column)
   • Space Station (Okay, this would largely just be various types of labs (maybe mixed with offices) with windows looking out into space and arranged to not contradict itself)
   • Apartment buildings/hotels
   • Museums (both art, history, and science)
   • Gyms
   • Actual Nemesis bases (instead of the generic tech labs!)
   • City/town outdoor maps in other parts of the world

And now for some ideas of varying complexity that would mostly be controversial

1. Another revamp to the Skulls per one of my old thread ideas.
2. Scrapper taunt powers are changed into either 'gap-closers', 'pull', or projectile attack powers depending on the set. (The taunt component remains auto-hit, range debuff and other effects would have the hit check)
3. Bring back the classic CoT appearance with some improved texture resolutions and all that
4. Many 'eye beam' powers now are snipes so you can have you 'power superman/homelander' eye laser attacks
5. Canonizing many of my own dumb lore/story ideas
   • Cimerora happens in 60AD, Romulus Augustus is NOT the same as the Roman Emperor.
   • Carnival of Shadows date back to early 16th century Italy instead of 17th
   • The Hamidon of Primal Earth and Praetoria are different guys in the same family tree (basically, Praet Hamidon is 40 years older than Primal one, it's gotta at least be his grandfather)
   • Tielekku is regarded by mages with caution despite being a Goddess of magic. (She did send Hecate to murder Ermeeth and his followers for teaching magic to humans. ... Which Hecate did by teaching magic to her own humans)
   • Probably have Penny leave the FP and ultimately join an SG made up of Jim Temblor, Doc Delilah, Fusionette, and possibly some others.
   • Probably create a new enemy group for Villains who are basically the 'Terrorists' of the Rogue Isles. Which means they're basically a resistance group of pro-democratic rebels who want to topple Arachnos and install a new government. Basically let Villains have more actual heroes to fight.

[blue4333]

Delete sentinels and replace them with melee defenders