CoH 2 Ideas Thread

[captainspud]

Most of the time, when people make a suggestion for changing CoH, my counter argument comes down to: It's too hard to add into the current game. It's not that it's a bad suggestion, it's just not feasible for any number of reasons:

-Would add too much of a system load, stopping current players from being able to continue playing
-Requires too much "new code". Anything with new code takes the devs way too long to develop
-Balance issues: Good idea in theory, but broken when combined with one or the other current powerset
-etc

Thing is though, all of these problems, and more, are much easier to solve in a fresh boxed product. They'd have way more coders assigned to them, and they'd have the ability to completely rebalance the game without player backlash. It's really the only way big new ideas are ever going to happen.

Sooooooo... let's start brainstorming. Start with CoH as it stands, and then upgrade to a new graphics engine. That's the starting point. Now, let's add crap! Almost entirely free from Spud's "that can't be done" buzzkills! :D

[captainspud]

First up:

More epic ATs.

Start with the base five classes (which I think are fairly well-balanced as they stand). Get one to 50, and you'll get "New Epic Archetype Available!" Now, when you go to the character-creation screen, you'll get a new option: Unlock Epic Archetype. Click it, and it takes you to a screen that lists multiple new ATs. You'd get standard Kheldians as two options (hopefully with a slightly more inspired redesign...), and then a few others. Honestly, I don't really care what they are. But make them... I dunno... weird. Interesting. Very different from the standard choices.

So, yeah. You look through all the ATs, pick one, and confirm. And then, ta-da! You've got a new archetype available to you. Every time you get a new toon to 50, you get to "buy" another AT from that menu.

This keeps the player motivated to keep playing after their first 50, as every time you ding you unlock new content. Yes, there will be the griping about "let me play my game how I want!", asking for unfettered access to all the ATs. But personally, I'd rather have something to work toward. I'm getting really tired of CoH right now because it's all self-motivation. I have to set myself goals and then meet them. And when I DO meet them... ten minutes of glow, followed by the realization that I need to set a new goal or I'll get bored again. It's an endless cycle, and I'd much rather have something tangible to motivate me.

[B A D]

Destructable Enviorments everywhere, ala Freedom Force.

[Viking]

Drastic change to how Health Points and Healing are handled in this game - once again taking a cue from Freedom Force.

If you think about Freedom Force and its faithful adaptation of comic book characters, outright healing is pretty rare compared to CoH.  You get 1 - 3 natural abilities to fully replenish health or stamina within the course of a mission.  Or you can fully heal by grabbing an appropriate canister of Energy X that has been placed in the mission.  Or if another teammate "heals" you, it usually comes at that teammate taking damage as well.

When healing is rare, minions become a bigger threat.  There's actually a point to villains planting squads of minions in the path of heroes - it wears them down before the heroes square off against the villain at the end.

Exploring this further, heroes would have a limited, finite number of heals in the course of a mission.  If the team blows through those heals and the team wipes before clearing the objective, it's a Mission Failure.  But - in order to mitigate player frustration, the team would be given the option of repeating that mission.  Much like in Freedom Force, where if you fail at the mission, you keep trying until you get it right.  Or you could choose to have that black mark on your career, and move on to the next mission.

[Camma]

I would like to see a throwback to COH Alpha and the open ended power choice.  This is tricky as they found in alpha, because it was too easy to create the dreaded tank-mage or conversely a totally gimped character.  With that in mind i think there should be some structure but less so than is currently implemented.

I think origin could come into play here and actually mean something for character developement.  My preliminary ideas are that upon choosing an origin you get a wide pool of powers to choose from.  Choose a magic origin and you end up with elementally focused powers (fire, ice, etc.), choose technology and you have acess to guns and other weapons, a mutant might have to cross some lines to include a mixture of some magical abilities and some more general super powers (ie super strength).  But i would like to see ATs disappear and allow character development and power choice make you into a control oriented ranged attacker, or a depending on how you choose armors vs melee attacks become either a brutish character or more of a true tank.

This way i see more soloability for generic missions.  You can have a blaster, but include some healing powers, or be a scrapper but have some control powers.  The challenge of getting people to team should be met by content and not character development.  This way i can solo my regular story arcs with no problem, and when i want to do something more challenging and team oriented i there would be content to provide it (TFs and mini-Arcs).

[BlueBard]

Even if they didn't banish the AT's in favor of open-ended power selection, I don't see why they couldn't implement something like 'at level x, select any power from any powerset that is available at level x'.

Say at level 20 my Stone/Fire Tank has the option of selecting -any- one power from -any- powerset that is available at level 20.  Maybe he might take something from the Blaster's Fire Projection powerset, or the Controller's Earth Control powerset.

Even -one- power every few levels that's out of the box would make things interesting.

[Bugbear]

No levels.

Okay, take a moment to laugh, and then let me qualify...

My objective is to make it so any group of toons can team up.

Imagine if every mob worked like Giant Monsters or the zone raiding Rikti?  i.e. level-equalized to whoever was fighting them?  One of the nice things about the first few days of the invasion event was that people could team up freely, without having to ask "what level are you?" and "Do we have a mentor/exemplar for X?".  How many times have you been unable to team with a couple of friends because the levels didn't match up?  Sure, sometimes this can be solved by certain players switching to different toons (and sometimes you do that anyway for a better AT mix), but that represents a hassle.  How many times has a new SG member felt isolated because they couldn't find a team within their SG, often because the established players are on high level toons?

Obviously, toons need to progress and get better (actually, I don't personally feel that way, but enough of the market needs that to make it a requirement for a successful MMO).  It's fun to learn new powers, and it's satisfying to be able to handle greater challenges over time.  However, I think that kind of growth can exist in the game without the heavy handed level differentiation that currently exists.

If every mob in CoX was suddenly changed to work the way GMs or the invading Rikti do, a lvl 50 would still be more effective and powerful than a lvl 5, simply because they have more powers and more slots within those powers.  The game doesn't actually require the specifically level differentiated effects (i.e. the main things that change by level alone are your total hp, accuracy, and numeric damage/effectiveness of your powers.  In practice, it is the difference in levels that determines effectiveness in a fight, rather than the specific levels).  The main effect of having levels in the game is to direct players through the content in a linear fashion, sort of making the entire game feel like one giant tutorial if you notice it happening.

I'm not explaining this well, so I'll summarize by simply saying what I would do if I was designing CoH2:

1) There would be levels as a measure of progress.  At each level, you would improve your character through the addition of a new power or the enhancement/tweaking of an existing power, but there would be no game mechanic that actually hinges on level.  Your hit points don't go up, you don't get a global accuracy or defence increase, your movement speed doesn't increase, just because you levelled.  Those things will improve if you take or enhance a power to do so.

2) All enhancements would now operate on the same schedule.  The doubling difference from TOs to DOs and from DOs to SOs would be removed in order to smooth out character progression over 50 levels rather than having extreme jumps at 12 and 22.  I'm not sure how IOs fit into my plan yet.

3) There would be other ways to "progress" yourself in the game besides simple increases in personal power.  This will be a subject of a later post.  They're not really related to the level thing, but I mention it to show that I have plans to replace some of the feeling of progression that may be lost by reducing the game effect of levelling.

4) Since mobs will no longer have levels that mean anything, we will have to expand the range of basic mob types from three (minion/lieutenant/boss) to as many as twelve.  In particular, tougher opponents will be needed for high level toons who can no longer simply bump up enemy levels for greater challenge.

5) Many other slight or not so slight changes will be needed to make this work, which is why I would never propose making this change to the current game (even though it would be technically simple to remove the level differentiation mechanics).  I'm not going to list them all here.

All this being done, we'd have a game where it would still be pointless for a lvl 50 to team with a lvl 5, but a group consisting of a 50, a 44, a 31 and a 20 would be able to hop into a mission, and all contribute.  Sure, the 50 would be doing more than the 20, but that's his reward for being 50.  He gets to be the star.  The 20 would still be able to effectively do their main job though.

There are a lot of other changes I would make for a CoH 2, but this was actually the easiest one to explain.  :o

-BG

[psychopanda]

Great ideas Bugbear. I hit that wall a lot, being the casual player that I was.

[captainspud]

That's a really great idea, Bugs. :)

Something that might tie into that well, would be to have powersets reinforce themselves. If I take Fire Blast, it makes all my other Fire powers more effective, and gives me a smidge of Fire resist. Take the entire Fire tree, and your Fire powers all get a significant boost, in addition to giving you a really solid resistance to your own powers. The boosts could either be percentages (+5% effectiveness for each other power taken), or specific bonuses, inspired by Inventions (take 6 Fire Blast powers and all your Fire DoTs do 2 extra "ticks" of damage).

So, just another thing to make the 50s feel more special than the 20s. The more powers they take, the more powerful the character as a whole becomes. There's no way for a level 20 to match a level 50's power, because they haven't unlocked as many bonuses.

Another fringe benefit would be to reward "flavorful" toons. If you take Fire Blast and Fire Manipulation, each reinforces the other. You can choose to stick to one element and be a high-power specialist, or choose different sets to be a generalist with more options.

And something that's only kinda related: I think secondary powersets should be unlocked later, not at creation. Controllers roll with ONLY control sets. Then, at level 10 or 15 or whatever, they get to choose a secondary powerset. This would give less experienced players an opportunity to test-drive their primary and then only choose their secondary when they have a better idea of how it works.

[77]

Feel free to blast away at these ideas, some of them are taken from Guild Wars.

PvP only chars, Create a max level PVP only toon, with access to io or so to slot.

Epic healing tree, I had to take dark mastery for lack of emp epic :(

A bit more selectable weapons, Various types of guns and bows. just a visual difference.

More control over the user interface, i would like to dock something anywhere, team on top of inspirations etc.

all i can think of right now

[Alaric]

No levels.

I agree completely. I've thought since the begining that levels, at least as implemented, were the single bigest design mistake the devs made. If levels existed only as a useful way to track when characters picked up new powers or improved existing ones, that would be much, much better, in my oppinion.

[Adamence]

Destructible environments are, in my opinion, a must.  Even if they're not fully destructible, just having objects around that you can target and destroy like during Mayhem missions would be a nice touch.  Perhaps barrels that explode causing extra damage to nearby enemies if you shoot them, or even having the ability to pick up objects and use them as temporary weapons.

I definitely like Blue Bard's idea of having a couple spots in your build where you can pick up powers from another set.  You wouldn't necessarily get access to all the powers in the game, or even all the ones available below that level, but there'd be a nice large pool of different powers that you could choose from.  Basic blasts, heals, holds, melee attacks, that you can use to round out your character and not have to waste a power pool.

Like 77 said, more aesthetic options with some powersets would be nice.  For example, you can choose a different looking gun if you're an AR blaster, or different looking swords if you're a broadsword scrapper.  Just little visual touches like that would go a long way.

Just for Spud, an improved chat interface.  It's sometimes so difficult to keep track of which channel or person you're sending stuff to with each message.  Even if it's just giving each of the chat windows it's own text box to type in, that should certainly reduce the annoying quantity of "mt"s.

And I definitely like the idea of more epic ATs to give you more to work for.  You don't even need to have it be that you need to hit level 50 with a toon to unlock.  You could have one for hitting 50.  You could have one for getting 3 toons over 40, or 6 toons over 30 or something like that.  Maybe you can unlock one for getting 250 badges on a toon.  There are all kinds of goals you could make like that to get people to play and experience more of the game.

I'm sure there's more, but I'll write about that later.

[rain]

I think about this a lot actually, There's obviously a lot I like about CoH, there's actually not much I don't like about it. When it comes to improving the game I think about my favorite features of other games I've played and how to incorporate them into the game I love to make it even better. The games mentioned below are things I've also played over the past year and offered something I found particularly compelling and would fit in well into CoH.

From Freedom Force: Customizable powers.
I know the Devs have said time after time that this is impossible the way CoH was written. I believe it, but if we're talking a complete recode of the game then this can happen. In a perfect world, I get a power and I choose the animation to trigger it and the special effects it displays. That way I could make my Fire Blaster shoot off the standard Flares when choosing the power or I could choose say a "fireworks" effect. My Bubbler could surround people with the standard bubbles or those bubbles could be replaced with a mystical shield with little mystic symbols, or even a light semi-transparent brick wall.
CoH has two main strengths, one is the actual gameplay which is just plain fun and fast paced, and the other is it's character creator, this would provide a sweet enhancement.

From EVE Online:A Single server environment.
One of the few things I liked about Eve was the fact that all gaming takes place on a single server. I could go into why this is awesome but I'm sure we can all think of a reason or two.
It goes without saying that I want 30 character slots and the option to earn or purchase more.

From World of Warcraft: Bug-free gameplay.
A month and a half in WoW showed me one thing. Even a game that is 40% fun and 60% time-sink can be enjoyable if it is well made and bug-free. One of my biggest problems with CoH has been the bugs... particularly after each new issue for a while there when you could count on crashes and performance issues. Memory leaks, zone crashing, exploits... hell I can still see the shoulder peaking through the jacket on one of my toons when his arm moves. There were about 4 issues that were like soap-candies to me: sweet and tasty, but oy that aftertaste. Playing WoW for a month and a half I encountered exactly zero bugs. Anyone who's played a number of MMO's can attest to just how rare this is. MMO players are accepting of bugs, they expect them.
Returning to CoH has been nice and I was just about to chime up about how much more polished the game had become.... that was until the other night when we started the Level 50 respec trial and got the second mission in a zone that no longer exists, and a half hour of waiting and two petitions brought no GM to resolve. As a somewhat casual player now, this kind of thing spoils what little time I have to play the game.

And most importantly...

From Half-Life 2: Wicked physics
I simply cannot stress how much this would change the game for the better. Anyone who's played HL2 knows it may very well be the best game ever made. Yes the graphics are good, yes the story is sweet, but what really makes HL2 so great is a physics engine that lends to new solutions to obstacles and improvements in the over all "fun factor".
Look, my SS Tank has Super Strength, he should totally be able to pick up that car and throw it. I would like Propel much more as a power if it actually pulled something from the environment and threw it at the enemy rather than just materializing a fridge from thin air. Heck, why can't my brute pick another person up and throw them against a wall... or through a wall, breaking down the plaster and mortar and exposing the mobs on the other side.
When I think of what a superhero battle against an Archvillan should be like in CoH I think Superman vs General Zod. I think of Rainmaker getting picked up and thrown two city blocks into the Coca Cola sign where he takes the added insult of some electrical damage.
I think of my defender Propulsion using his Telekensis power to pin a Hellion boss with a garbage bin against a wall to make him talk. I think of Verfall's foot-stomp taking out every crate in it's radius, then a Storm Defender like Time Titan whipping those sharp shards of wood in a gale and sending them shooting towards the mobs, big splinters sticking out of the mobs as they try a counter attack.
Real physics would add alot of creativity to the gameplay.
If my grav controller were as fun to play as the grav gun in HL2 I wouldn't have delted her at level 12.
As it stands now, physics in CoH is little more than glorified hitpoints for objects.

And finally, my own submission is......
Player Created missions:
I want to make my own story arcs.
This would be controlled very heavily in that the creator of the arc would have limits on what mission setups would be used. These limits would hopefully reduce the need for a huge Quality Control the department that would have to review every submission.

Create an NPC
Enter the mission text I
could choose from Warehouse 1, 2 3 4 or 5, Office 1,2,3,4,or 5  or whatever mission setup is available from the list
Then say villians are Rikti, Vanguard, Nemesis or whichever group I choose.
AV on mission? Yes or No... Which AV?
Named Boss or Elite Boss? ... Choose which and name him.
Enter the text given when The AV reaches 50% health, and text when the villian is defeated.
Enter the text given when the mission is called in, then tell the editor if it chains into another mission.

All Player created NPCs would live in a single zone or be placed in SG bases. This would then eliminate the understandable concerns that substandard content be mistaken from NCSoft content. I feel that the restrictions above would allow for some storytelling freedom within the CoH universe while stopping the PL'ers from just loading a map with 700 freak minions and farming it all day.

Example: I create Rainmaker as an NPC and place him within the NRF SG Base. (When I log on that toon however, he disapears)
Mission Text:"Chilly McBrrr recently insulted a particularly nasty Crey scientist, who's taken her to a heavily fortified lab, will you be so kind as to rescue her?"
Choose Mission style Lab 3
Enemy group: Crey
Av: No
Named Boss: Doctor Jones Elite Boss
Text displayed when Dr Jones dies "You fools, I sold that foulmouthed brat to Nemesis himself not an hour ago, truth be told I'm glad to be rid of her and would have paid to not have to listen to her prattling on in obscenities."

Basically by choosing those settings and populating text from a very strict set of options I would start to build a story arc in which  you had to go try and rescue Chilly from various villain groups who just keep getting rid of her because she's so annoying. Since I'm not actually populating the missions themselves and the XP rewards are generated by the system I'm not building anything that's open to exploit. I am, however, building content for the game and integrating my characters into the world that has been created. A simple system like that separates the actual paid content made by professionals and the amateur content which admittedly would have a lot of 16 year olds making stories with missions like "ZOMG KILL THIS DOOD AND BE MASTER OF TEH WORLD".

Finally to touch on some of the stuff mentioned above:
1.Leveless system. I like it, though honestly I think the SK/ex system works a good 80% of the time. I like the option of being able to go into more areas independent of my level and be useful, but what I would just rather see if a ton more stuff to do.
2.Classless System. Not a fan. There have to be some restrictions on character development and who can do what, part of what makes CoH so fun to me is in the synergies created between the classes. My Blaster should not have mez protection, and a tank should not outdamage my blaster.
3.New ATs: Of course but ...
Unlocking new material in CoH should not be solely dependant on hitting max level.  I'm all for a treat or two for it, the Khelds are a good example. But I'd also like to see these big rewards given for other reasons. 300 badges on a single toon = new AT would be a good one. How about a Mad Scientist villain AT being unlocked after you craft X amount of IOs?
Or my personal idea....
"Crey scientists have come up with a new gun based on the old freeze pistol. Should the blueprints for this gun get into the wrong hands this pistol could create a serious problem in fighting crime on the streets of Paragon"
Yeah it's a TF, mission one get the blueprints, missions 2-5 assemble the salvage to make one so Hero Corps can build some.
Finish the TF, unlock Pistols as a power set.
In short I'm into new things being given as rewards for completing content not just XP leeching a 50 in PI portals.

[Midnight]

To stir the pot...

An anonymous comment: "Waah! It's not Freedom Force!"

[Midnight]

If you think about Freedom Force and its faithful adaptation of comic book characters, outright healing is pretty rare compared to CoH.

Oh and to share my own ideas on this particular instance:

(10:38:27 PM) Aaron Noble: it annoys me to no end that people in Villains (VILLAINS!) say, "Team LF healer!"
(10:38:38 PM) Aaron Noble: A villain doesn't need a healer! Villains are bad***!
(10:38:53 PM) Aaron Noble: I'm gonna ****** kill you with spines that come out of my skin!
(10:38:57 PM) Aaron Noble: Plz heal.

[Anastasiya]

I would love to see an archnemesis and true sidekick system implemented, in addition to an epic storyline to follow each OT through the game.

I loved bringing my peacebringer to level 50 simply because I knew that every 5 levels, I had an opportunity to learn more about what was going on in my hero's world.  I don't generally roleplay within the confines of City of, but it's certainly a way of making me feel more immersed in the game.  The more immersed I am, the more money I shell out to continue playing.  The same principle applied to the patron storylines on the villain side - I actually ran from 40 to 50 four times with the same character on test just so I could try out all four story arcs.

So, my suggestion for a general improvement of City Of, which could be implemented as it currently stands:

1) Each origin type has a specific story arc that follows them from level 5 to level 50.  Each origin type has a specific archvillain pertaining to their origin type who they will face at level 45 - an archvillain that you cannot face at any other point in the game.  Someone special and unique, just for that origin.  Obviously there would be the required Elite Boss and named bosses and such who work for said person, and many could be pulled from the various origin-compatible types elsewhere in the game.  Science heroes and villains would face off against Devouring Earth, for example.

2) Hero patrons.  Revamp the epic power pools so that there are storylines and specific, special scenarios, maps, and bosses to accompany.  The patron arcs were my favorite part of City of Villains.

3) Sidekicks. The concept has been introduced, and horribly abused, in the persons of Faultline and Fusionette.  But having NPCs recur who you have to rescue from more dire circumstances is a fun concept and something you see constantly in the comics.  The sidekick does something stupid.  Instead of constantly going in to rescue Faultline and Fusionette, have a mission where one or the other of them (or a similar NPC) is with you and then gets kidnapped by a group of mobs you can't do anything to.  *Then* go rescue them from a tank of shark-people or something.  Supervillains are creative! Devs should be, too.  You could use a similar concept to create an archnemesis, especially coupled with an origin system that gives each origin type an archnemesis you face off against every 5 levels.

4) Ambush revamp.  Either hard-code ambushes so that they *only* will attack the hero/villain they are intended for, or code them so that they work like the invading Rikti.  Make it possible for innocent passerby to actually run away unharmed, if you're not going to force them to clean up their level 45 Carnie ambush in Steel Canyon at Positron.

[Adamence]

You could use a similar concept to create an arch-nemesis, especially coupled with an origin system that gives each origin type an archnemesis you face off against every 5 levels.

I love the idea of an arch-nemesis.  Every character should have an arch-nemesis, complete with a little back story explaining why they dislike you, maybe have the story tied in with your origin.  For example, a science origin based character might have a nemesis who believes the character horribly disfigured them in a lab accident.  *coughs*  And maybe based on your AT and your choice of power sets your arch-nemesis would be made so that they were an interesting opponent to face off against.  For example if you roll a fire blaster, your nemesis might be a fire tank, or maybe an ice blaster so they're the opposite of what you chose. 

You could have a special fourth mission slot that gets filled with a special archnemesis mission every 5 levels.  The missions come with a 24-hour (in-game) timer which is how long you have to face off against your archnemesis and foil his scheme, and if you fail the mission, something negative happens to you.  Nothing too serious, but maybe the nemesis' scheme was to steal your influence, so you end up losing half of your influence.  Or he impersonated you and robbed a bank, so as you walk down the street, civilians aren't as nice to you.

And of course, since you're leveling up, every time you face your arch-nemesis, every 5 levels, he's been leveling too.  Through the entire game, he just keeps getting better and better as you do. 


And on another note...they need to do away with hunts.  People hate hunts.

[Tortuga]

New power sets, structures, animations, etc are a given.  So I'm going to focus on mission possibilties and character immersion.

I'd like to see:
-Branching story arcs that really allow you to choose what your character would do.  Kinda like NWN2 allows your character to respond as a nice guy and a jerk, and everything in between.  Story arcs and missions could branch much the same way.  In one mission there might be hostages to save, or bombs to disarm, or tech to find, or a certain enemy to interogate.  You choose which route your character would take to solve the problem.  Your choice would change which direction the story arc takes.

-Primary and secondary mission objectives.  It already exists, but the reward system doesn't tie in with it.  There are too many missions where you do what you're supposed to do, and for some wacky reason you also need to defeat all the enemies.  Some make sense, most do not.  I'd like to see the primary objective as the main xp reward for the mish, and defeat alls become secondary bonus xp.

-Variable damage.  I find it goofy that I know exactly how much damage a power will do everytime I use it.  I want to see ranges of damage, where enhancements can bring you into the higher range more often.

-Power choices within limts.  I've never liked Superman type characters, that can seemingly do everything - simply put, they're cheap and uncreative.  In CoH however, we're given characters that are the opposite, they can do basically TWO things in various ways.  I would love to see FF style customization while still maintaining a character's focus.  This is really tough balance wise, but it would be great.

-Use the city atmosphere better.
a) I want to be a hero among the peoples.  I want to make connections with the people of the city.  Every 5 or so levels you could choose a neighbourhood to 'protect'.  You'd get called at random times by shop owners or apartment dwellers.  They'd give you a variety of missions.  You could also patrol the area and earn extra influence/prestige by spending more time in that neighbourhood.

b) Where's the sports stadium?  Where are the schools?  Where are the HOUSES?!  I've said it before and I'll say it again: Before the devs plan any CoH2 city zones, they'd better play SimCity 4.  Although I like the variety of city zones in CoH, it just doesn't make sense how cut off from each other they are.  What city planner would start building multi-layered highways in ONE section (Skyway) of the city?  I want zones that are unique but they make sense next to each other.

Tort

[ThePrelate]

I like the idea of having the option of running missions to hide your secret identity (assuming you have one). failing those missions has consequences, as does succeeding.

i think they should invest some limited AI in NPC's on the streets/etc. How you interact with them should impact your reputation, and potentially unlock random quests or missions for you.

I think that they should look at having 'echo' powers (or some form of tertiary) based on Primary and Secondary powersets selected in creation. There should be something extra in there.. as someone mentioned going fire/fire should offer some kind of fire resist, Storm/Rad should maybe make you more resistant to Psionic, etc, etc. Those powers would/should offer 1 offensive and 1 defensive power. Offensive being a power on your bar that you toggle/activate, and the defensive power is a passive.

[BlueBard]

Everything Tortuga said.  Plus Destructible Objects/Real Physics.

I'd like to add: Better In-Game documentation.  All of the slash commands and all of the emotes should be fully documented.  I don't want to have to stop in mid-game to check a website to find what I'm looking for, and I don't want to have to print out said websites.

It would also be an opportunity to fix some of the annoyances in the current game.

Like, no people walking/standing in mid air.  Come on, now.  This should not still be happening at this point.

Like, more origin-appropriate drops.  Supposedly I'm getting contacts and missions based at least partially on my origin, right?  So why does my Natural Controller consistently get drops that have nothing to do with his origin?  I'd rather not have to continually visit stores/WW to sell off the excess... drop me enhancements that actually relate to my origin occasionally.

Which leads me to another one: More origin-specific missions and story-arcs.

Also, IO's and Salvage need to be fixed.  Any particular reason why a Tech-origin character fighting tech-based enemies absolutely HAS to have a Luck Charm in order to create an Accuracy IO?  And why is that particular bit of salvage, necessary for many common recipes, so darned difficult to get?  Different or more flexible recipes, at least for the common IO's, would be appreciated.  And more frequent drops of the salvage needed for the common IO's would be nice too.

[RTTingle]

Hmmm, interesting thread.

... I don't think we should ditch levels from the game, but we need more baddies that just con, the same to everyone in game.  Would make things more interesting.  I think COH suffers from pushing people into one corner of the game, and its a shame... its a huge world!  Being able to make a difference with your level 50 at every zone in the game would be nice.  So while I wouldn't be all for getting rid of levels all together because of the logical buildup of powers, abilities, etc... i like the idea of adding more mobs that have no level --- just an established threat level.  It takes a lot from the game, that once you advance past a zone... you have no reason to go back. COH is a one way trip for the most part and thats kinda backwards.  COH forces us into a corner, which in turn forces us to ask for new zones.  I dont think the hassle for new zones would be as bad if...

... we had zones with greater depth.  Take the zones we have now and expand them.  Keep adding to them and give us something new to explore in the zones, or change things up a little.  Faultline was a start.  The Rikti War Zone is the next step.  But lets start taking a few of these empty buildings and make them explorable, besides for missions.  I'd love to see more buildings like the University.  Give us the Paragon Times building.  Let us explore Paragon Police HQ.  How about exploring some of the old abondoned factories in Kings row?  The warehouses in Port Independence?  Etc.

... along those lines... we can fly and explore the skys.  Now give us a chance to explore what lies under the water.  The game is full of water, lots of it.  Such a waste to not actually DO something with it.

... SMALL vehicles, climbing and swinging.  I still like the idea of vehicles as emotes.  Sure, window hopping is quite a skill, but I still want climbing in the game.  Swinging could be done as a "fliying emote" but it would be so limited and crappy looking --- I'd have to say no.  Would love to see these things in the next go around.

... expand inventions into skills.  I can see a skills system just wanting to bust out of inventions and what they've been doing with Merits and costume peices and temporary powers.

... powers that don't have colors baked in.

Thats all for now.  Felt an itch in my throat and took a few shots of Nyquil.  About to crash into my keyboard, so lemmie hit the sack and get back to this topic later when im not fightin to keep my eyes open.

RTT

[Tortuga]

Before I forget -- a much improved camera system.  I want absolute camera freedom for screenies, for better views of the battle, etc.  May as well throw in an official demo recording program a la Sims 2 as well.

And, along the lines of city immersion -- more buildings we can enter.  I want to enter apartment buildings, businesses, etc.  Sometimes for a mission, other times just because.

[ThePrelate]

what would be cool is if they implemented another travel power

"swinging"

similar to spider-man, Batman, and anyone else who travelled through a city using ropes, etc as their main method of travelling off-ground.

[MyndVizion]

I'll chime in here. The following are in no particular order of importance.

1. Destructible environments. This can be either in a mission, or better yet, in the world. A character with Super Strength should be able to pickup a car or rip a telephone pole out of the ground and use it as a weapon against the bad guys.

2. Mail system. With influence and recipes there needs to be an ingame mail system.

3. Shard-less environment. Put all the players on "one" server system.  A superhero game should be able to garner a decent player base, but that base will still be smaller in comparison to fantasy games.

4. Missions and story arcs related to origins and even ATs. I mean let's face it, your origin or AT really has no basis on what types of missions you get. It would be nice if missions opened up that were dependent on your origin or even what AT you are. These missions would be specifically designed for solo play.

5. Give badges some worth. I really don't care all that much about badges. They don't do anything for you other than tell other players that you have a badge. Big deal.  Badges should be treated more like Traits in LOTRO. Give the toon a bonus of some type if they "slot" the badge (example: 2% recharge to powers, Taunt duration increased, or less debt acquired on defeat, etc). The game has some of this in the form of temporary powers but I think it needs to be associated with the badges in some form or fashion. This would provide badges a higher degree of value.

6. Reputation. If I'm a hero who patrols Kings Row quite often, then I should have a higher standing with the local police and population in that area. Having a higher standing should offer me not only enhancements but opportunities for more missions in that area. Reputation could also relate to factions, such as M.A.G.I. or Freedom Corps. Perhaps fighting Clockwork all the time might open a hero up for more missions against Clockwork.

7. Customization of powers. Maybe a player can't adjust the effectiveness of a power from the beginning, but allow different affects, colors, and sounds be applied by a player. Why does Energy Blast powers have to appear blue? Why can't there be red Energy Blast? Or even Yellow?

8. Costume abilities. I'm not talking about armor pieces like in other games. I think it would be nice to tie a particular costume to a function. Modifiers to your character would be applied based on what costume you wore. For example setting up a SG costume and wearing that costume may provide the player with a bonus to Prestige collection. Wearing your "heroic" costume may garner you extra reputation bonuses and/or a bonus to Influence collection. Or perhaps a costume could be slotted with enhancements. So you might make a costume with armor (like the new Vanguard armor) and slot it with protection enhancements to limit damage taken, or you could slot a different costume with damage and accuracy enhancements. Things like this would make having (and wearing) different costumes worthwhile.

9. Player created missions. I think Star Wars Galaxies has something like this in place already. Even if the missions don't provide experience points it would still be a nice thing to have for player events.

10. More indepth boss battles. The boss battles in CoX are very boring IMHO. I want to see some variety here. For example, you may take on The Clockwork King. In order to defeat him perhaps he's using psychic nodes that are setup around his chamber. A member of the team has to run to the various nodes and disable them. Or maybe the King's brain turns a certain color and the team has to run to that color node so they take less damage. Perhaps at 50% health the King summons 5 mobs to his side and turns invulnerable until the mobs are dealt with. I grow tired of a team fighting a boss and everyone just stands there spamming a couple of powers until the boss falls down. Plus, as a hero I don't want to fight "small" bosses. I mean c'mon. Frostfire is human sized. While there's a need for human sized bosses, I want to fight EPIC bosses either solo or with a small group. Why should Lusca require 20 players (or so)? I want to go into an instance and fight a 50 foot high giant robot rampaging through Steel Canyon.

Comic book heroes take on major threats to the world either by themselves or with a small group. Very rarely do 20+ heroes need to come together to deal with a threat. World bosses are cool and all, but those same type of epic bosses should be in an instance where I can stroll in and deal with them myself or two or three pals.

11. Instances. I want to run an instance whenever. If I want to go after Frostfire, I don't want to hunt down a toon with that mission. I want to go to the instance portal that is FFs lair and go inside. I want to fight Dr Vahzilok without having the mission or finding someone who does.

12. Make bases do something. Most bases are simply transportation services, nothing more. I want to be able to access mission contacts through the base - I know you can do this now on one level, but it needs to be opened up even further. Random missions should always be coming to a base. At any time a single player should be able to get 5+ missions from the base's main computers. Running these missions in SG mode may provide a bonus to Prestige. I want to be able to buy enhancements through my base. That way I don't have to trek across the city to buy some once I level. I should be able to sell through my base as well. I'm not asking for the influence to go to the base, it can still go into the fairy land of the servers.

13. Team attacks. LOTRO has incorporated this to a degree, but I want to see superhero team attacks done differently and with more oomph. In LOTRO after the team attack executes the players are treated to (usually) a series of ents appearing on screen and smashing the enemies. I would like to see the Blaster jump into the air and alpha strike the enemies - the whole area lighting up with their energy blasts. Perhaps the tanker jumps into the air, slamming his fist into the ground shattering the earth and sending the mobs flying backwards with tremendous force. Based on what each player picks, their toon would perform a certain animation when the team attack fires.

14. Zones other than just Paragon City. I want to go to the Moon. I want to go to some distant alien civilization and stop a galactic war. I want to travel to a different city around the world to track down a villain. I want to venture into the New Mexico dessert to stop a hero turned villain.

I think I must stop now otherwise I'm gonna keep going....

[Verfall]

5. Give badges some worth. I really don't care all that much about badges. They don't do anything for you other than tell other players that you have a badge. Big deal.  Badges should be treated more like Traits in LOTRO. Give the toon a bonus of some type if they "slot" the badge (example: 2% recharge to powers, Taunt duration increased, or less debt acquired on defeat, etc). The game has some of this in the form of temporary powers but I think it needs to be associated with the badges in some form or fashion. This would provide badges a higher degree of value.

Badges already do give powers bonuses. 5% hp and end bonuses, 10% hp bonuses, 1 minute click powers that give either massive defense and resists, huge accuracy and recharge bonuses, huge bonuses to status effects, and from the last issue, psionic defense and resists. Heck, get all the hero ones and you get a 20% permanent hp boost and a 10% permanent endurance increase.

[Flying_Infant]

I think CoH/V 2 needs more Vage.


Lunchbox thinks Vage is "ubah cool."

He likes his outfit too.

[MyndVizion]

Badges already do give powers bonuses. 5% hp and end bonuses, 10% hp bonuses, 1 minute click powers that give either massive defense and resists, huge accuracy and recharge bonuses, huge bonuses to status effects, and from the last issue, psionic defense and resists. Heck, get all the hero ones and you get a 20% permanent hp boost and a 10% permanent endurance increase.

Doh! I forgot about those!

[Tortuga]

While I don't love hunting missions, there are times where they work (story arc wise).  They need to change information gathering to an increasing percentage, as opposed to finding the info when you defeat that 30th guy.

So, something like this (for a Defeat 30 mish):
Defeats #1-10 = 2% chance of finding information
Defeats #11-20 = 5% chance...
Defeats #21-25 = 15% chance...
Defeats #26-29 = 30% chance...
Defeat #30 = 100% chance

[Kommando]

Zeroth of all:  Bugbears levelless idea FTW.  The idea of being able to go anywhere right off appeals to me.  Then preference of neighbourhoods would come its appeal, and not level.  One hero might prefer to stay in a upstanding neighbourhood to keep it that way, another might prefer a sleazier neighbourhood.  Yet someone else might prefer a more exotic location.  Like a previous comment suggested, maybe I really hate clockwork and I want to be able to lay the beats on them when I can.

First of all (because I backtracked for the previous comment), I'd like those NPCs to have some sort of variable reactions to them.  In old RPGs there were reaction tables, varying from friendly to hostile, with various modifiers.  So let's say I come and lay the beats on some Tsoo that are in the middle of fighting Council.  Why should the council immediately stop fighting them and instantly ally against me?  Maybe they might decide to temporariliy help me out.  Or maybe I have a badge stating I've defeated twenty gazillion Tsoo, and the Council decides they may not despise me so much due to my reputation.  Heck, the whole faction reputation might be a boon in some cases.  I could walk into a neigbourhood overrun with Hellions, and they may stay out of the way saying things like "Leave that one alone, he's out for Tsoo blood". 

Another idea relating to that is Random Tips, meaning missions.  So you're patrolling your neighbourhood looking for Clockwork and a random criminal type of the sort you normally don't randomly attack calls out "Psst.  Hey Cape, I got a tip for you.  You hates Clockworks eh?  We'll I don't cares for 'em much myself".  And if you're with someone who is a bit more hostile to that faction the NPC might add, "Just keep your pal off my case for a minute".  I know it wouldn't be perfect, but a faction system could really add flavor to the RP.

Villainside, this could play out even better.  My character Treya is a mastermind who uses a Bow as a weapon.  She derives perverse pleasure from going out of her way to take out Longbow operatives with it.   Now say a faction who particularly despises Longbow notices this, and generates a Random Tip event.  Maybe while in Marconeville, someone comes up and says, "Hey there, maybe we can help each other out, make a profit, and show Longbow their place".  You get a mission, and maybe even a random power which works like "I'll send a couple of my boys to help you out" and when you use the power you have temporary pets of the helping faction.  Villains is great for this because you could be in some neighbourhoods and people might see you as a friendly.  Say for instance, you really want to be in Arachnos.  You have a matching uniform, you call yourself the "The Barn Spider" and you bootlick whenever you can.  That should pay off.  Heck, villainside I don't see why you shouldn't have opportunity to be officially part of a faction.

In any case, it would be nice to see NPCs do more than just randomly attack.

[captainspud]

Shapeshifter AT (probably an Epic)

Tray 1 is locked, and Tray 2 is automatically expanded. The player can't put anything in Tray 1.

The Shapeshifter primary powerset consists of 9 shapeshifts. Pick some goofy stuff-- anything from Big Giant Dude, to Giant Insect, to Werewolf, to... whatever. All shapeshifts are 1-minute clicks with a 2-minute recharge. They cannot be slotted with recharge.

When a shapeshift is activated, your locked Tray 1 is automatically filled with powers appropriate to that shift. You can move them around within the tray, and the game will remember their positions the next time you shift.

The different Shifts would all have different, specialist functions. There would be, say, two different Tank shifts-- one for Physical damage, and one for elemental. Or maybe one that does well against small numbers, and another that does well against hordes. Some "middle of the road" scrapper shifts would make you sturdy with decent damage, while Blaster shifts would give you high damage with very low surviveability-- say, one that does good single damage only, and another with only AoEs. The Tier-9 power is called Mimic Teammate. You could do some odd Shifts, like one that does entirely debuffs with absolutely no damage. 1-minute duration, 10-minute recharge. Pick a teammate-- become that teammate. (probably with a colour shift). You get a tray with a random selection of their powers. You could copy a Blaster and get his Nuke, or you could copy him and get nothing but pools.

The shapeshifts are slotted as if they're pets-- you'll likely do them as 2acc/3dam, but some, like the Tank shifts, might get Resistance or Heals instead.

The idea is that the Shapeshifter builds up a toolset of situational powers, and then uses whichever powers are appropriate at any time.