Has this been theorized yet? It occurred to me that it would a really fun type of melee set, where a character could change his hands into hammers, blades, etc or melt into a puddle to dodge. Things like that.
Or in another direction, a set that would allow three or so different "beast" forms like wolf, bat, dragon or something with transformations allowing access to different powers, buffs, or animations.
Could be fun yes?
Ohhh! Ohh! Or how about a stealthy type power where you mimic the costume set of an enemy, making them ignore you? That would be deviously fun!
Shapeshifting has been discussed several times on this forum and elsewhere.
The main problem is how you handle all the different body models, especially if you start to consider non-humanoid forms. Basically the ability to have "manually shiftable bodies" far exceeds what MMOs could do today. For example how would you control your hands turning into blades or hammers? What happens if you want them to become screwdrivers or tennis rackets instead? A player's imagination will always be limited by what the game's powerset mechanics will allow for.
At best the only kind of "shapeshifting" we could have in CoT would be along the lines of how the Kheldians worked in CoH. You could have several "preset" forms that would all work in hardwired ways. Instead of just 3 forms you could have maybe 5 or 10, but ultimately that's probably about as far as it could go.
This is actually fairly cool idea. It's basically not that much different than the way the CoH "Halloween costume" temp powers worked.
The key difference is that it could be a single "stealth" power that has a pull-down list of possible disguises you could mimic. It could be a Toggle that would last until you took damage - at that point the disguise drops and there'd be like a 10 second cooldown before you could put it back up again. The main advantage over Invisibility is that this power would let you attack. The main downside is that it's only effective specifically against the types of critters you have disguises for but maybe then there could be ways for you to earn new disguises to use.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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This would be brilliant. This would allow you to bring all sorts of different concepts to the table and not just the tired ninja/invisibility dynamic.
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/corvus-clutch-characters]Corvus' Clutch of Original Character Profiles[/url]
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The transformation of any costume is very easy and it change the whole look of the character. I am a game designer. I design the character costumes where a character could change the costumes. If you want to design this type of characters costume you can do it easily you can also visit this http://platinumplatypus.com
Gloria D Chun
I like the idea of "earning" a collection of things you could transform into. Maybe there could be one generic "disguise" for every enemy group (to use CoV as an example, maybe one preset thing for slag golems, one for a freakshow disguise, one for the luddites, etc) then when a character was in a mission with that enemy group they would be ignored or trigger a unique simple diaglogue like "have we seen that guy before?"
I realize it may be impractical in terms of design, but it's fun to imagine the possibilities, eh?
Well, I mentioned the idea of animal models, and the topic of customizing the transformation power-set came up. Nothing is imminent, therefore i would not pout if we did not get such a power, to transform into stuff.
http://cityoftitans.com/comment/99653#comment-99653
According to them, it would be taxing, to add customization options, but aside from that, would be pretty sweet to transform into stuff, nothing is guaranteed though, guess we have to wait and see.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
Just give me a motorcycle (ducati style) as a travel power with the costume options to make it look like my character's motorcycle turned into battle armor and all is good! :)
Some limited shape shifting is NOT beyond what we could do
Dungeons & Dragons online allows Druids to shape change into bears and wolves.
When they're in these alternate forms,
some of their abilities work normally (with different animations)
Some don't work
and they have some abilities that only work in the alternate forms.
Even this can be a bit complicated and probably couldn't be expected at launch, but
Some Limited shape shifting is FAR better than no shape shifting.
I think this is a goal worth working for.
One way to make it work would be to have certain abilities that turn you into different forms as a toggle like flight/hover that turns you into a bird.
While in this form you couldn't use most other abilities but it would just be a travel power not a combat power.
You could also have attacks that change you into a wolf or gorilla etc or turn your hands into knives or hammers just long enough to do the attack
Then the form would depend on which animation you pick and perhaps shape shifters should be able to switch animations more freely than other characters.
Once again for emphasis: I don't expect this at launch but I think it's something to work toward having one day.
It is possible and not as difficult as you might think.
By the way working along these same lines is how you could eventually get stretching to work
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
In CoH it was easy create a very personalized form of shape-shifting using costume slots and alternate build slots. It was a little cumbersome, but with better designed, more streamlined versions of these systems, you could easily pull off a Werewolf or Hulk-type transformation, a Shrinking type transformation, etc.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I'd say the alternate builds was very very VERY little in helping with shapeshifting builds :p
I'd take one of those "very's" out. Just the last big one. I'll let you keep two, though :P.
Of course it doesn't fit every concept, but, for example, I had a character who was Brute AT, and he used a build built totally for damage in his human form, and a build built totally to tank in his much larger stone-skinned form.
If I'd been able to build-change at any location like we were able to costume change, or, even better, if we could link them, that could be very decent ghetto shape-shifting for certain concepts. That's what I meant by "with better systems."
BUT, I didn' t mean this would be a replacement for shapeshifting as a powerset, just another possibility that could be lots of fun to play with.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I have not posted this in this thread yet OP:
The last I heard, the design "idea" is to have each "Costume build" be based on 3 designs.
Out of Combat
In Combat
Travel Power
Presumably if you wanted your character to "shift" to use hammers as hands in combat (assuming hammer hands are a costuming option) you can simply augment your "In Combat" option of the costume build.
Also It stands to mention that "Auras" as they are considered in other games are planned to be apart of the Costume portion of your character. (If you want to burst in to flames or turn to metal or make your eyes glow in combat, this is all handled via this module)
IF you wanted to "transform" into multiple different things (Hammer hands, claw hands etc) you would presumably need to unlock multiple costume builds and simply swap them out (presumably out of combat to protect the game's framerate and server propagation for other players).
Think of the possibilities that this adds to "Aesthetic Decoupling"
Want to be Colossus and turn to steel, all up to you. Flame On in battle (or just in flight?). Grow Wings. Grow a tail. Turn into a warewolf, Glow Your hands/eyes/etc, gain a halo, change genders, grow armor... the possibilities are as open as the imagination.
The powersets and animations you use may be more rigid and static than say "Champions Online" but the ability to build character concepts is enlarged exponentially (and without separating out complicated systems like CO's Aura system).
All of this by the way is BEFORE you choose the combat mechanics of your character and THEN you still get to choose the animations that your character uses to cast (do they use a two handed swing type of melee or one hand, or prefer a headbut or use a one handed, two handed or staff/pole based instrument?
Oh and Lets not forget last the FX are YET chosen after that (Do they use Fire fists? Maybe magma? Maybe Acid burns...
If you're here for customization of concept then Titans is the game you (and I) want.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Nice JayBezz This will be especially cool if it ever becomes possible to build totally non human forms. You could take a bird for your travel form, a bear for your combat form and a human for your non-combat form. (By the way animal forms don't have to be super customizable, few animals wear clothes anyway),
But I'd like to see a 4th costume option: INCOGNITO. Just because we're out of combat doesn't mean we want to switch to civilian clothes. But I'd like to be able to switch when I'm ready. Also it would be really nice if NPCs react to me differently when I'm incognito. Costume options for incognito could be limited to things civilians would wear.
Also I'd still like to see specific abilities alter your appearance when activated the way stone and ice armor did in COH but more extreme and totally optional (Based on the animation chosen). like a swimming power that turns you into a shark,
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
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