The Hybrid wrote:

So does anyone know if this is a thing?

I think you basically answered your own question here. These games (both CoH and CoT) have been specifically designed so that the "source" of your powers are completely abstract, not "internal". The reason these games don't make clothes/items literally be the "source" of your powers is that they don't want any "thing" to have to be owned/equipped to have any given power. This might lead to things like "the only way you can use power X is to wear cape Y". This would be absolutely horrible from a RP point of view.

For RP purposes it's simple enough for a character who "needs a suit to do super stuff" to have at least two costume slots - one with the suit and one without. At that point all you have to do is "explain" to anyone who might care that you get your powers from wearing the suit and have enough self-control to not activate any of your powers while using the "non-suit" costume slot.

As Foradain implied you could get super-fancy with this and link keybind commands to your costume slot switch buttons so that toggle powers could shutoff automatically whenever you switch to a "non-suit" costume slot. And with the emanation point thing you could have all your power effects come from say a ring or what-not. RP-wise it's really not that hard to simulate just about anything as the "source" of your power.

The Hybrid wrote:

So basically, no being fully normal without a suit?

Again the "source" of a character's powers in this game are not really assumed to come from inside the character's body. They are actually completely abstract when you think about it - RP it however you want.

There were plenty of times where I RP'd characters in CoH as "having no powers" while not wearing the equivalent of their "super-suit". Again you just have to have enough self-control not to push any power buttons while you're not wearing the suit to "stay in character". This is far, far more preferable than having the game start linking powers to physical items/clothes - in fact a key strength of games like CoH/CoT is the very fact that they strictly [b]did not[/b] do that.

Ravrohan wrote:

The way I've written my main is that they have basic powers and all their martial arts skills when he's 'normal' and his physical ability is that of an apex human (or has the potential to be) rather than having super strength/endurance/etc. When he merges with his spirit partner, the spirit creates some of the costume and opens up the other higher powers. RP wise it's a transformation, but without those in-game, I figured it would be a simple matter to swap costumes, perhaps with some fx emotes and call it a day. If it's all rp, then the mechanics don't strictly have to be there for it.

Yes this is a good example - it doesn't even have to be an "all or nothing" suit/no-suit thing when it comes where your powers come from. I once RP'd a character that had "mutant powers" to explain their energy blasts but had to rely on "rocket boots" to fly. If I ever switched to a costume slot where that character was not wearing the boots I simply did not fly. *shrugs*

The Hybrid wrote:

I said in the OP that we could pretend, but I just find it much easier for RP purposes if I didn't have to. Also, I never suggested making equipment tied to powers exclusively, but if you could set it that way that'd be great. For example, in the customization menu you set the powers to the clothes rather than the character.

The game would have to add an entirely new mechanic to support the concept of "assigning" power sources to "things". Right now the "source" of all character power is completely abstract as it should be. The game already let's you decide the source of your powers for yourself via RP.

Ask yourself what would you actually gain by forcing the game to somehow restrict the character's ability to activate powers to whether they are wearing specific physical items/clothes. At best perhaps there could be a way for the game to keep track whether a given costume item is currently being worn by the character and if it does not appear in the character's current costume slot the game could "grey out" the given power in their power tray. But then one would have to reasonably ask whether any player truly possesses so little self control that they'd need a power button greyed out by the game to prevent them from pressing it? Really?

For what it's worth I suppose the game could in fact come up with some convoluted scheme for a player to be able to set things up to have various powers greyed out on their power trays depending on whether or not they're wearing a particular costume item. But since such an utterly trivial workaround for this "problem" already exists (a.k.a. your own personal self-control to not push a button while RPing) I would rate this kind of QoL feature to be dead last on the list of Dev priorities and in fact I'd probably be genuinely upset to see it ever actually implemented. There are about a million things that'd be more useful and beneficial for the player base at large than something like this.

OathboundOne wrote:

I think the issue would simply be that that would require a non-insignificant amount of coding time to do something that players can already "do" themselves, and that likely very few players would actually use.

Bingo. Maybe in like 10+ years when the Devs literally have no other QoL features they could possibly work on then maybe something like this would be worth thinking about. Until then... no.

The Hybrid wrote:

Lothic wrote:

The Hybrid wrote:

I said in the OP that we could pretend, but I just find it much easier for RP purposes if I didn't have to. Also, I never suggested making equipment tied to powers exclusively, but if you could set it that way that'd be great. For example, in the customization menu you set the powers to the clothes rather than the character.

The game would have to add an entirely new mechanic to support the concept of "assigning" power sources to "things". Right now the "source" of all powers is completely abstract as it should be. The game already let's you decide this for yourself via RP.

Ask yourself what would you actually gain by forcing the game to somehow restrict the character's ability to activate powers to whether they are wearing specific physical items/clothes. At best perhaps there could be a way for the game to keep track whether a given costume item is currently being worn by the character and if it does not appear in the character's current costume slot the game could "grey out" the a given power in your power tray. But then one would have to reasonably ask whether any player truly possess so little self control that they'd need a power button greyed out by the game to prevent them from pressing it? Really?

For what it's worth I suppose the game could in fact come up with some convoluted scheme for a player to be able to set things up to have various powers greyed out on their power trays depending on whether or not they're wearing a particular costume item. But since such an utterly trivial workaround for this "problem" already exists (a.k.a. your own personal self-control to not push a button while RPing) I would rate this kind of QoL feature to be dead last on the list of Dev priorities and in fact I'd probably be genuinely upset to see it ever actually implemented. There are about a million things that'd be more useful and beneficial for the player base at large than something like this.

Let me explain why this is important:

It's not just about roleplaying, but also immersion. I have several characters planned the specifically draw powers from a suit, one being a regular dude who happened to inherit a suit one day and became a hero, but he himself is not actually superhuman and I have another that's from the future, and she was able to travel back in time because of the suit. The point is, if I'm playing a character that isn't a true superhuman and gets their powers elsewhere, it'd be nice to create the restriction of the power usage based on whether you have the costume equipped. Then the temptation wouldn't be there to cheat, or accidentally use your powers when you shouldn't. It would make the backstory integrated into the gameplay and stuff like that can go a long way in adding so much depth to how you play.

For an example of why having to "pretend" can be bad, look at Saints Row IV. You basically had to ignore leveling up if you didn't want to be massively overpowered and render everything else useless. I mean, I've tried to play it normal, drive cars, have restraint and all that stuff, but it ultimately doesn't matter because you have these superpowers that make them obsolete and at one point you'll just break the rule. There's actually a cheat that allows you to turn powers off (should've been there after you completed the game), and that made it so different [i]because[/i] you weren't just pretending -- you had the actual restriction in place to keep you in line, and it was interesting.

I get that what you're saying is "important" to you. I'm even willing to go as far as to say in a "perfect game" having it do what you're suggesting here (i.e. greying out powers based on worn/unworn costume items) would be perfectly fine and might even be cool if it was flexible enough.

But I also get that your "problem" here is [b][i]entirely[/i][/b] one that the game already let's you solve based on how you choose to RP your characters. The game Devs do not need to write extra code for the game to give you the ability to stop yourself from pressing buttons on your keyboard. I'm sorry if you might "accidentally" press a button that could "break your immersion". On the scale of world-shattering possibilities yours simply doesn't rate all that high. *shrugs*

P.S. If you are super-duper serious about wanting the game to "enforce" what you can do when you're playing a suit-based character you can always use the build system to effectively handle what you're talking about here. Come up with a "suit build" and a "no suit build" and set your power trays for each accordingly.

The Hybrid wrote:

What's wrong with wanting to make a Scott Lang-esque character who's just Normal McAverage without a fancy suit to give them the power to fight alongside other supers? I think that kind of character is appealing in its own way.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Some of my most favorite characters in CoH were "tech-based normals". I simply never had any problem whatsoever with avoiding hitting specific buttons to maintain the "no-tech RP immersion" when necessary.

Like I P.S.'d in my last post you could always use the build system to do what you're talking about here if you seriously have no self control of your own.

I agree this is a really low priority kind of thing, but I understand where the OP is coming from. If such a thing were to be built into the game (and I think the player-driven way to do it is sufficient) then one way would be to fold it into a secret identity system. Notionally, in that you would check a box on a costume slot (assuming CoT uses those sort of in the way CoH did) and it would deactivate all your powers, slow your run speed down and decrease your jump distance, display your secret identity nameplate/description, and make you die to any hit, no matter how small; all whenever that checked costume slot was active.

But as others have indicated, short of changing the name-plate, everything else can be imitated by player action quite well.

I recall people in CoH even making character clones to be their secret identities. This is very clumsy for just taking your super-suit off for a bit, but for longer roleplay sessions, it worked well.

It gets worse, really. A secret identity system, fully implemented, would have to go into the faction mechanics too. For example, if your villain has a secret identity, then you'd expect to be safe from the police when you're in that costume/identity.

Without the super-suit, and even with powers-off enforcement, would the OP's character be treated like a neutral NPC? I don't think so.

As I see it, there's a fewlevels of support for this.

1) Use the functionality we already expect to get, and the player self-enforces their immersion/roleplay. Zero additional cost to the devs.

2) Put in some partial-measures, which might go pretty far for most cases, and the players work around the rest as they can and see fit. Substantial additional cost to the devs.Maybe they'd do something like this in the long term, as was said earlier, if they run out of other cool stuff to add.

3) Go all the way and build in some feature rich system to support all this and related functionality. I think this would need to have been designed in at the beginning, and not this late in the process, and even then, would have been too expensive for the value added.

This is a very modestly funded project working on volunteer passion, coffee donations, and good fortune. I'm happy they're focused on core features for now. I just want them to get to the point where they have a basic game to sell me.

^ Yerp.

I'm probably overthinking all this, but -if- such a system were designed, it could make a lot of complexity, some of which might be fun. First off, you'd have to decide if your 'base' character was your secret identity, and later adopted the persona of a super. Or, if you were a super that adopted a secret persona. Both, but especially the latter, could require you to go through a process, perhaps even by tasks and missions, to fully establish the new identity. Imagine you're an super-powered alien arrival, and you needed to create a normal human identity to blend in. How would you do that? Take over a dead person's identity? Kill someone and replace them? Create an overseas person, and immigrate over? Enlist help from a government bureau? How hard would it be, and would it be proof against omnipresent cameras, fingerprints, biometrics, and so on?

How about getting your identity compromised? What mechanics would govern how easily the system would detect that normal person costume-identity A is in fact, super-powered costume-identity B? And what about your other umpteen costumes? Would there be missions other people could take on to reveal the connection? Could you take on counter missions to thwart them? Can a third person pretend to be you, and soil or cleanse your reputation?

Superhero TV shows are full of this, and it makes my brain hurt at times.

As I have said in the past, we considered a Secret ID system for the game (a couple in fact). However after evaluating the necessary work involved, such a system would basically amount to as much work for the game proper. Basically making en entire second game. Thus those concepts where effectively shelved.

Tannim222 wrote:

As I have said in the past, we considered a Secret ID system for the game (a couple in fact). However after evaluating the necessary work involved, such a system would basically amount to as much work for the game proper. Basically making en entire second game. Thus those concepts where effectively shelved.

That was my expectation. So either it has to be a major part of the game planned from the outset or it's basically a kind of mini-game. I don't recall if it was ever meant to tie into secret identities in any way, but I believe CoH's day jobs system was as close as they ever came to such a thing.

Tannim222 wrote:

As I have said in the past, we considered a Secret ID system for the game (a couple in fact). However after evaluating the necessary work involved, such a system would basically amount to as much work for the game proper. Basically making en entire second game. Thus those concepts where effectively shelved.

An entire second game that would be used by only a subset of players. I think you guys made the right call on this one.

Fireheart wrote:

So, 'Powers Source' is an RP issue and not a factor in the Mechanics of the game. Which I like because all of my characters are self-contained, drawing their powers from within. I have One who uses an external catalyst, but that's merely background.

To be absolutely clear CoH (and presumably CoT) never specifically defined ANYTHING in the game as a "power source" for character powers. No BS "Midichlorians" or anything even remotely similar! The reason is clear - as long as the game never specifically defines power sources of any kind the players are free to RP that their powers come from anything they want.

The CoH Devs even spent most of the 8.5 years of the game's existence trying to -remove- any lasting vestiges of their original Origins system because they realized early on that trying to have hardwired Origins in the game only served to pigeon-hole character concepts and stifle character creativity. This is precisely why they aren't even bothering to have anything like "Origins" in CoT from the very beginning.

Lothic wrote:

The CoH Devs even spent most of the 8.5 years of the game's existence trying to -remove- any lasting vestiges of their original Origins system because they realized early on that trying to have hardwired Origins in the game only served to pigeon-hole character concepts and stifle character creativity. This is precisely why they aren't even bothering to have anything like "Origins" in CoT from the very beginning.

Concur. The outline of an origins system is a nice to have for setting flavor; but be unrelated to specific missions and character progression. Why shouldn't a tech-hero in a super-suit be able to help the Bureau of Magic Stuff recover lost artifacts? "You guys really need a better vault. Call me, I'll rig an exclusion field barrier thingy up for you."

One of the nice things about CoH was the proliferation of early contacts and how they allowed you to level up through a tangled web of introductions to the next contact(s). But they were origin-tagged, and that was often frustrating. With all the alting potential, it was nice that the early game didn't have to be played with the exact same story sequence each time.

Even if MWM had the resources to implement such a detailed approach to identities, you might not like the results if they were applied rigorously, which they would be in an MMO. Case in point:

The GM in my last Champions game was very strict; and I made the mistake of creating a squishy scientist with a secret identity who depended on a power suit. Well, whenever combat was at all a surprise, which was a good chunk of the time, I would miss at least half of it. If I was lucky, I'd be looking for a broom closet; if not, I'd be trying to survive in combat with no powers. The loss of SPD alone meant that trying to do anything took *forever*. It was such a PITA for me AND the team that I ended up making a different character who was super all the time.

Long story short, Dr. Doom had the right idea all along. If you depend on equipment to be super, you're going to end up wearing it the great majority of the time, or you're going to wind up dead. Only plot armor will save you, and that doesn't work too well without a writer/GM.

CallmeBlue wrote:

Even if MWM had the resources to implement such a detailed approach to identities, you might not like the results if they were applied rigorously, which they would be in an MMO. Case in point:

The GM in my last Champions game was very strict; and I made the mistake of creating a squishy scientist with a secret identity who depended on a power suit. Well, [color=red]whenever combat was at all a surprise, which was a good chunk of the time[/color], I would miss at least half of it. If I was lucky, I'd be looking for a broom closet; if not, I'd be trying to survive in combat with no powers. The loss of SPD alone meant that trying to do anything took *forever*. It was such a PITA for me AND the team that I ended up making a different character who was super all the time.

Long story short, Dr. Doom had the right idea all along. If you depend on equipment to be super, you're going to end up wearing it the great majority of the time, or you're going to wind up dead. Only plot armor will save you, and that doesn't work too well without a writer/GM.

While a devious GM could spring "surprise combat" on you anywhere in a table-top RPG setting there's really no such thing in most MMOs. Either you move your character into a "safe zone" where combat can't really happen or you (on purpose) go somewhere where you can get attacked.

I agree there are still many issues/concerns related to how Secret IDs should be properly handled in a game like this but getting caught somewhere without your "super-suit" on is likely not going to be one of them.

Lothic wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

Also if it can be done being able to assign a different name per costume would be good. Maybe you want to run around as the bombastic bagman rather than spiderman for example. Or you want to be Miss Marvel, Captain Marvel, Warbird, Binary, and Carol Danvers.

I used badge titles for my main characters in CoH to uniquely name each costume slot. It basically let me a have a unique "local name" for each costume I wore. Seems like it would be relatively easy to let players assign a unique "local title" to each costume slot that, if you wished, could be your secret ID names among other things. This wouldn't have to have anything to do with the character's actual global name at all.

The game could still have the "name filter" check the titles so that you couldn't use obvious profanity and as always players could be reported for "naughty" titles just like naughty character names.

Doesn't fix the issue of npcs running up to Clark Kent and still calling him Superman, though.

The actual character name matters less with @globals (even more so if there's no seperate friends and global friends lists) so barring any problems with coding such a thing there shouldn't be many/any issues with allowing a costume change to change a character's name.

It's a small thing and definitely not something high on any list of priorities but would be nice to have.

Lothic wrote:

CallmeBlue wrote:

Even if MWM had the resources to implement such a detailed approach to identities, you might not like the results if they were applied rigorously, which they would be in an MMO. Case in point:

The GM in my last Champions game was very strict; and I made the mistake of creating a squishy scientist with a secret identity who depended on a power suit. Well, [color=red]whenever combat was at all a surprise, which was a good chunk of the time[/color], I would miss at least half of it. If I was lucky, I'd be looking for a broom closet; if not, I'd be trying to survive in combat with no powers. The loss of SPD alone meant that trying to do anything took *forever*. It was such a PITA for me AND the team that I ended up making a different character who was super all the time.

Long story short, Dr. Doom had the right idea all along. If you depend on equipment to be super, you're going to end up wearing it the great majority of the time, or you're going to wind up dead. Only plot armor will save you, and that doesn't work too well without a writer/GM.

While a devious GM could spring "surprise combat" on you anywhere in a table-top RPG setting there's really no such thing in most MMOs. Either you move your character into a "safe zone" where combat can't really happen or you (on purpose) go somewhere where you can get attacked.

I agree there are still many issues/concerns related to how Secret IDs should be properly handled in a game like this but getting caught somewhere without your "super-suit" on is likely not going to be one of them.

Don't you remember the ambushes that would spawn on your character in CoH after accepting certain missions? IIRC, they were scaled to the current party size, meaning that if you accepted the mission while far from the rest of the group, you could easily get curb-stomped.

Are you sure that similar things won't happen here? ;)

Lothic wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

Lothic wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

Also if it can be done being able to assign a different name per costume would be good. Maybe you want to run around as the bombastic bagman rather than spiderman for example. Or you want to be Miss Marvel, Captain Marvel, Warbird, Binary, and Carol Danvers.

I used badge titles for my main characters in CoH to uniquely name each costume slot. It basically let me a have a unique "local name" for each costume I wore. Seems like it would be relatively easy to let players assign a unique "local title" to each costume slot that, if you wished, could be your secret ID names among other things. This wouldn't have to have anything to do with the character's actual global name at all.

The game could still have the "name filter" check the titles so that you couldn't use obvious profanity and as always players could be reported for "naughty" titles just like naughty character names.

Doesn't fix the issue of npcs running up to Clark Kent and still calling him Superman, though.

I never said it would. ;)

But my proposal (one that doesn't worry about the NPC issue you're talking about) would be far simpler for the Devs to implement thus far more likely to ACTUALLY happen. ;)

Project_Hero wrote:

The actual character name matters less with @globals (even more so if there's no seperate friends and global friends lists) so barring any problems with coding such a thing there shouldn't be many/any issues with allowing a costume change to change a character's name.

Right but again simply having a "unique name title" appear over the head of your character based on which costume slot you've switched to would be far simpler than worrying about even "temporarily" changing your character's -actual- name.

Project_Hero wrote:

It's a small thing and definitely not something high on any list of priorities but would be nice to have.

Sure it'd be nice but my idea is a far simpler compromise that effectively accomplishes much of what you're looking for from this. :)

The ability to have a custom title is about as useful as just putting a thing in your bio like, "when in this costume they are this person."

I'm all for having custom titles but they'd do nothing more to emulate a secret ID thing than just having a note in the character's bio.

NPCs will still refer to you as Super dude or whatever, and your name to everyone will still also be displayed as Super dude.

Doesn't solve any of the issues in any way shape or form. Though being able to set your title simply as "Not" would be pretty amusing.

Lothic wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

Lothic wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

Lothic wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

Also if it can be done being able to assign a different name per costume would be good. Maybe you want to run around as the bombastic bagman rather than spiderman for example. Or you want to be Miss Marvel, Captain Marvel, Warbird, Binary, and Carol Danvers.

I used badge titles for my main characters in CoH to uniquely name each costume slot. It basically let me a have a unique "local name" for each costume I wore. Seems like it would be relatively easy to let players assign a unique "local title" to each costume slot that, if you wished, could be your secret ID names among other things. This wouldn't have to have anything to do with the character's actual global name at all.

The game could still have the "name filter" check the titles so that you couldn't use obvious profanity and as always players could be reported for "naughty" titles just like naughty character names.

Doesn't fix the issue of npcs running up to Clark Kent and still calling him Superman, though.

I never said it would. ;)

But my proposal (one that doesn't worry about the NPC issue you're talking about) would be far simpler for the Devs to implement thus far more likely to ACTUALLY happen. ;)

Project_Hero wrote:

The actual character name matters less with @globals (even more so if there's no seperate friends and global friends lists) so barring any problems with coding such a thing there shouldn't be many/any issues with allowing a costume change to change a character's name.

Right but again simply having a "unique name title" appear over the head of your character based on which costume slot you've switched to would be far simpler than worrying about even "temporarily" changing your character's -actual- name.

Project_Hero wrote:

It's a small thing and definitely not something high on any list of priorities but would be nice to have.

Sure it'd be nice but my idea is a far simpler compromise that effectively accomplishes much of what you're looking for from this. :)

The ability to have a custom title is about as useful as just putting a thing in your bio like, "when in this costume they are this person."

I'm all for having custom titles but they'd do nothing more to emulate a secret ID thing than just having a note in the character's bio.

NPCs will still refer to you as Super dude or whatever, and your name to everyone will still also be displayed as Super dude.

Doesn't solve any of the issues in any way shape or form. Though being able to set your title simply as "Not" would be pretty amusing.

Again I'm just looking at this the way the Devs would. What you're talking about makes [url=https://cityoftitans.com/comment/157699#comment-157699]Tannim say weird things[/url] like "we'd have to write as much as a completely separate second game's worth of code to make that work."

I'd rather have "something" that's simple to implement than "nothing". *shrugs*

P.S. Why give a F*** what NPCs call you? Are you actually going to be trying to fight them in your "Secret ID" persona? ;)

Again the something (custom titles) would be nice but adresses the problem no more than putting a line in your character's bio. So in this instance the something is practically nothing.

And as for the PS, immersion? As I stated earlier I'd prefer any sort of secret ID thing to have NPCs leave you alone, but filling that it's a little immersion breaking for if you're about in your secret ID and have an NPC run up to you and call you by your super identity.

And again it'd be nice if we could at least set different names to our different costumes so then that wouldn't happen. If you were captain america but now you're running around as US Agent it'd be nice to be able to do that without either making a whole new character or having to buy a name change. Granted then they wouldn't be able to sell name changes unless once you set the names for your costumes that'd be set in stone, heck that might make people more willing to buy name changes, or additional costumes.

I did say it's nowhere near a priority.

But if stealth systems in the game exist there's nothing to say that they can't be tied to a specific costume slot. If name changes exist theres nothing to indicate how hard it'd be to have costumes have their own names. If npcs can approach you about various deeds there's nothing to say this can't be toggled off.

Especially if any kind of secret ID costume slot is a special kind of costune slot. It'd work sort of like putting a disguise on your character in most other mmos except it'd let you decide what it looks like.

Again, nowhere near a priority but it'd be nice to have and as an outsider (and someone with very little programming know how) it doesn't seem like it'd be that monumental of a task. Just stealth+no npc approaching to talk+temp name change. Plop in a restriction on when/where you can change and then the likelihood of it being abused diminishes.

Lothic wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

it doesn't seem like it'd be that monumental of a task.

Again Tannim seems to disagree with you on these points. That's all I'm saying...

Hence why I prefaced that statement by saying I have very little programming experience.

Also he's said, iirc that a secret ID system would be like making a whole nother game, without necessarily going into what that entails. For all I know my suggestion could be a much lighter version of what tannim believes should be in a secret ID system.

Though he could have detailed somewhere exactly what a secret ID system would entail and I have just missed it somewhere.

Project_Hero wrote:

I did say it's nowhere near a priority.

But if stealth systems in the game exist there's nothing to say that they can't be tied to a specific costume slot. If name changes exist theres nothing to indicate how hard it'd be to have costumes have their own names. If npcs can approach you about various deeds there's nothing to say this can't be toggled off.

Especially if any kind of secret ID costume slot is a special kind of costune slot. It'd work sort of like putting a disguise on your character in most other mmos except it'd let you decide what it looks like.

Again, nowhere near a priority but it'd be nice to have and as an outsider (and someone with very little programming know how) it doesn't seem like it'd be that monumental of a task. Just stealth+no npc approaching to talk+temp name change. Plop in a restriction on when/where you can change and then the likelihood of it being abused diminishes.

The amount of work is extensive. It would also require reworking multiple systems. It is no where as easy as made out as this.

I had even thought of a “simple” implementation and even that carries with it certain issues with the game.

Now, a major aspect of a hero or villain having a secret ID is that they have a life, and possibly other people connected to that life that they don’t want affected by their alter-ego.

There is an inherent risk of discovery and the loss of this secret ID.

There are things a secret ID, having its own “life” would need to do and fulfill which can cause friction with the alter-ego.

I can’t give details as to how, but the game Blizzard was working on prior to Overwatch was meant to be a super-themed mmo centralized on the concept of the secret ID and the hero alter ego. There were reasons it ended up being scraped after 7 years and over 100 mil spent on it.

Trying to fully implement the extent of what a secret ID means to a hero / villain is quite extensive.

Let’s take a simple approach:

Secret ID is not a costume slot. It is a “temp” power .
You customize the costume. It has a unique field for a name which requires additional UI work to be done in the CC which only is shown when customizing the secret ID power.

The “power” has to effect your character’s alignment and all reputations. The best way we could achieve this is by making a “civilian” faction that the Secret ID power uses and is coded tonsupercede the alter ego’s faction ratings. The alignment would have to set to standard civilian ratings. - which means we have to actually give them to civilians. This cannhave some unintended effects. Much testing would be required.

With this civilian ID a player could go places they could not normally achieve. To prevent activating and accessing faction related content that is not part of their alter ego’s factions - all faction related content NPCs would not be interactive with the secret ID. This require additional coding.

Finally, we would have to find a way for players to not use secret IDs from escaping combat situations, entering areas to exploit or instigate combat they should not have been able to as well. Most likely requiring coding for when and where the power can be activated.

If we were to allow intactikn with faction NPCs, and these other instances, it would cause a. Umber of issues to crop up. For one, the player can use one character to access multiple types of content we not intents for a single character to access at the same time. Certain aspects can be used to cause grief.

Which means then, that the main character’s powers will either need to be deactivated while in secret ID (which goes against many concepts for characters, or code things in such a way that if a power is activated, the secret ID toggles off. Again if done in certain areas this can be used to grief or disrupt play becuase the player got to areas they normally may not have been able to other wise.

As you see, even my “simple” implementation turns out to not be as simple a solution and would require a lot of work to set up, and even longer to test.

Stealth is an effect which deals with Awareness. It can’t be used in a general sense the way you think it would.

In order for it to be high enough to work when dealing with an NPCs forward perception range to avoid situations that would cause aggro duento rep and such, the character has to be effectively invisible.

And stealth can be countered by super sense powers as well has higher Awareness effects. You could easily end up ina situation where instead of being able to walk around as a “civilian” you have to play a stealth game to avoid the bad guys with Indra-vision who would detect you, or enemies with higher awareness ranges. It becomes a different experience is has less to do with a secret ID and more to do with dealing with stealth mechanics.

Lothic wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

If by what you suggested here means "here in this thread" rather than "here on this site" then again I say that gives no more real tools for any kind of secret ID or multiple ID than CoH has as you can just put that info in your bio and it amounts to more or less the same thing. I agreed that having custom titles would be nice, but again, this adds barely anything to a proposed secret identity system or multiple identity system that can't already be fulfilled by a few lines in someone's bio.

You do realize you've repeated this same silly notion about how you think "custom titles are no better than putting something in your bio" about four times in this thread already despite the fact that I've told you I've had REAL GAME EXPERIENCE of having unique "titles per costume slot" be far more useful and fun than you're desperately trying to insinuate. With nearly 1,400 badges to choose from in CoH for badge titles it was pretty cool to be able to "name" each costume slot that way and I was even able to fairly easily express (in RP terms) what I was doing with those badge title options.

I'll go ahead and accept my own real experience with this issue rather than entertain your uninformed conjecture on the matter. *shrugs*

Project_Hero wrote:

Custom titles would be good but it is in no way a substitute for any sort of secret or multiple identity system.

In your opinion. Given the fact that Tannim appears to be unwilling to entertain anything as "expansive" as your ideas here I would consider customizable titles to be the PERFECT COMPROMISE for any sort of "simple to implement" secret or multiple identity system.

It's not a compromise because it adds nothing that couldn't already be done. And as for your "real world experience" all you've said on the matter is that you used badges to do a sort of semblance of that and that was good enough for you. No mention of how anyone else reacted to it, no mention of if anyone else even cared or noticed, which given how few people gave a crap about the stuff around a characters name, provided that it wasn't a title they hadn't seen before and wanted to know how to get it, I'll assume that generally no one noticed and no one cared.

An actual compromise would be something like the various WoW RP add ons that let you change your display name to any with the add on and allow them to quickly and easily see information about your character that you can fully customize and change at any given time. Which from how it's looking I'll have to wait to see if some smart cookie will make such an add on for CoT.

Considering that, afaik, the devs have said before they'd be open to the idea of player mods I doubt it'd be so far out of the realm of possibility.

And again customizable titles isn't really a compromise for multiple IDs or secret IDs. It'd be a feature that players could co-opt into using for that but that's less of a compromise and more just making use of what you have. Much like you had to in CoH.

Customizable titles would be a nice feature to have but they'd be in no way any sort of compromise for not having a secret ID system or multiple ID system.

Allowing us to have a different name on different costumes would be. Allowing us a way to change what our name displays as either above our head or in the chat would be.

The ability to be Spiderman The Bombastic Bagman isn't.

Edit: also they allow those kinds of mods on the WoW public servers so why wouldn't they here?

Project_Hero wrote:

Considering that, afaik, the devs have said before they'd be open to the idea of player mods I doubt it'd be so far out of the realm of possibility.

They'd be open to CLIENT-SIDE mods (i.e. mods that don't affect others). As Tannim just explained that's a big difference compared to what you're talking about.

Project_Hero wrote:

And again customizable titles isn't really a compromise for multiple IDs or secret IDs. It'd be a feature that players could co-opt into using for that but that's less of a compromise and more just making use of what you have. Much like you had to in CoH.

Customizable titles would be a nice feature to have but they'd be in no way any sort of compromise for not having a secret ID system or multiple ID system.

It'd be a compromise when the alternative is NOTHING. You do understand what I mean by a "compromise" in this context right? It's the "compromise" between getting NOTHING to support multiple IDs and/or secret IDs because it would take too much work for the Devs to create and being able to get at least SOMETHING that may not be perfect but is better than NOTHING.

And to be clear what we had in CoH was the ability to use "badge titles" which was technically "limited" to roughly 1,400 hardwired choices. While it was nice it wasn't as nice as being able to customize such a title to be anything you want. That's the difference between what CoH allowed and what I'm suggesting here.

Project_Hero wrote:

[color=red]Allowing us to have a different name on different costumes would be. Allowing us a way to change what our name displays as either above our head[/color] or in the chat would be.

The part I highlighted in red is EXACTLY what I'm suggesting here - a feature to allow us to display "any name" we want above our heads based on which costume slot we're using at the time as a local title. Changing our names "in chat" would be [b]entirely[/b] different and that's the part of your suggestion Tannim is likely balking at.

Project_Hero wrote:

Edit: also they allow those kinds of mods on the WoW public servers so why wouldn't they here?

Again I just alluded to the fact that CoH never allowed any server-side mods (i.e. a mod that would send info to the server so that other players could see and/or be affected by it). No reason to think CoT will allow them especially since Tannim just said so.

Project_Hero wrote:

Yeah, it's a client side mod, and anyone with the mod can see the name changes and stuff. Like Tannim said. You need to have the mod to see the changes people made with the mod. With the wow one I even think they worked with a bunch of different mods that did the same sort of thing.

So you can see this is, at the very least, not that practical as a workaround solution for this.

Project_Hero wrote:

And lothic it's not a compromise. Considering that the alternative would be the same as CoH had, which according to you, worked fine.

Sure it "worked fine" for me because I also happened to be an avid badge collector. The only reason I had nearly 1,400 choices to choose from for my titles was that I also happened to spend hundreds of hours collecting all those badges.

I think it would be nice if the average player had the option to use a "customizable costume slot name title" feature WITHOUT also having to collect a bunch of badges.

Project_Hero wrote:

And even with customizable titles you'd still need to either tell people to refer to you by your title or have something in your bio telling them that.

RPers do that for each other ALL the time.

Project_Hero wrote:

So in the end customizable titles would just be customizable titles and isn't really any sort of compromise for a secret ID system as the alternative isn't nothing, but more likely the same as CoH had.

Again what I'm asking for is not JUST "the same thing CoH had". It would be a middle ground between the fancy things you're asking for and WON'T get (as per Tannim) and NOTHING.

Project_Hero wrote:

So it adds very little and again isn't a compromise but an aditional customization option.

If this idea ADDS anything to game that didn't exist before I would consider that a net positive and a "compromise" compared to having nothing at all.

Project_Hero wrote:

It's like you're saying that giving players casual clothing options is a compromise for not having a secret ID system.

Yes, that's [b]exactly[/b] what that is. As the makers of a superhero game the Devs of CoT are not really under any obligation to give us NON-SUPERHERO clothing options. But since that is something they CAN DO (as opposed to a full blown secret ID system which Tannim has claimed would currently be too hard to do) getting causal clothing is IN FACT a compromise for us in this area.

Project_Hero wrote:

Cause no super hero has ever worn casual clothing.

Uh... sure... whatever.

The point still stands that the -only- reason a game like CoT would offer clothing options that would be considered "atypical" for comic book characters to wear is as a concession/compromise for the classic trope that many supers in the genre have "Secret IDs".

Since (again as per Tannim) CoT will -not- be able to offer a completely full-featured Secret ID systems as many people would like making sure the game provides as many OTHER options for RP customization as possible would serve as a means of COMPROMISE for that basic shortcoming. Sure the game might not be able to handle your characters' Secret IDs exactly the way you want but at least it'll provide the COMPROMISE of allowing you to dress your characters as freely as the game will allow to account for as many character concepts as possible.

Project_Hero wrote:

Or because neumerous heroes wear casual clothing as part of their super hero attire. Moreso in modern day super hero media.

So less of a compromise to super hero secret IDs and more just things in place to allow you to play as characters like Luke Cage, Modern Jessica Jones, the runaways, the outcasts (in some itterations) etc.

Cherry-picking is not proof. For every "modern" superhero you could name that does not bother to wear "classical superhero clothing" I could give you an alternative character that does. Your point here is effectively pointless.

Remember there's no law that says CoT has to "support" modern day super hero media or the type of clothing characters based in that media tend to wear. The clothing spectrum offered by CoT could easily be limited to gold/silver age spandex style comics. Now I suspect that would probably be considered by most players to be a "bad thing" for CoT to try to do but the point stands that "modern/casual" clothing is not a REQUIREMENT for this or any other game.

Project_Hero wrote:

Just because some RPs utilize the options given to have some semblance of a secret ID doesn't mean that the options were created with that in mind or as a compromise gor the lack of such things.

Synergy my friend. Various options exist in MMOs to cover "as many bases as possible" and have different uses depending on the circumstances.

Sure you can easily say that your superhero X needed a trenchcoat for his "superhero outfit" because he'd never be caught dead in spandex. On the hand if you were making your superhero Y to be a Superman type character then you could say you needed glasses to complete his "Secret ID" outfit.

As with most things this is all completely relative based on your point of view.

Project_Hero wrote:

I mean I put RP notes in my bio as to what people might immediately know about my character. That doesn't mean that the bio system was implemented as a compromise to not having the ability to set such things when someone highlights or selects your character.

The bio serves many purposes, one of which is to aid players when they RP their Secret ID persona. Just because you might not be able to say feature A, B or C was put in the game 100% for a single purpose doesn't mean if can't [b]contribute[/b] in part towards that purpose.

So yes since causal clothes help some players fulfill their Secret ID needs you can easily say they help the game handle Secret IDs [b]IN LIEU OF[/b] a fully-dedicated Secret ID system. Egro causal clothing can be said to be part of the "greater compromise" towards serving the game in the place of a fully integrated Secret ID system.

I'll put it this way: If you had to live with a game like CoT without a dedicated Secret ID system would you ALSO not want to have casual clothing or would you (in that context) accept causal clothing as a "substitute/compromise" for the lack of that dedicated Secret ID system?

Project_Hero wrote:

A modern super hero mmo which attempts to emulate modern super hero media will have casual clothing. Because numerous modern super hero stories have characters who do not wear spandex.

You've repeated the same faulty assumption here that I've already pointed you out on: CoT is under [b]no obligation[/b] to provide clothing for "modern super hero media". Therefore you can't assume its possible inclusion into CoT would be ONLY to serve the interests of modern super hero media characters. It would probably also be there to help people with Secret IDs. Therefore multiple purposes, ONE of which could easily be as a Secret ID system compromise. These things can serve MULTIPLE functions in a game like this.

Project_Hero wrote:

If a feature that's put into the game and is then used for a purpose not for which it was not put into the game for then the developers of the game aren't making any sort of compromise.

If a superhero MMO can't provide a fully integrated system for supporting Secret IDs it'll hopefully try to offer OTHER features that can fill the void. Things like casual clothing and bio spaces help fill that void thus they serve (in those contexts) as the COMPROMISES for the lack of a Secret ID system. That's not their ONLY purpose in the game, simply one of many.

Since Tannim doesn't think there will be a fully integrated system for supporting Secret IDs in CoT these things will be (among other things) the COMPROMISES for that shortcoming in CoT.

Project_Hero wrote:

A superhero mmo without many/any casual clothing options? They had that. It was champions online. It sucked.

And yet it has now outlived CoH by recently celebrating its 9th anniversary. Don't get me wrong - I think the game sucks too. But [i]somebody[/i] must still be playing it...

Project_Hero wrote:

And again. Having casual clothing in a superhero game isn't any sort of substitute or compromose as there's a large number of super hero characters (heroes and villians) who wear casual looking clothing. It's literally part of the genre. It'd be like expecting leather armor in a fantasy game. Not including it would be a weird choice.

Casual clothing in this context is a compromise for not having a completely developed Secret ID system, period. You say it would be weird not to have it in a superhero game literally just after citing a superhero game that's apparently surviving well enough without it. Make up your mind here. BTW in addition to being a "substitute compromise" for a fully integrated Secret ID system having causal clothes in a game like this is [b]ALSO[/b] nice for those folks who want to emulate modern super hero media. It can (and is) BOTH of those things at the same time.

Project_Hero wrote:

They added some more casual clothing style options later. And given that it was one of two superhero mmos really helped it to stick around.

Now you're going to imply that a few "causal clothing items" are the only thing that's kept Champions Online going for 9+ years? Priceless. ;)

Project_Hero wrote:

Sure they're under no obligation. But they're under no obligation to give is practically anything. So not exactly a good defense there. And yes stuff can have multiple uses, but again [color=red]intent matters[/color].

If things in a game are DESIGNED to serve multiple uses (like causal clothing helping players to create both Secret IDs AND modern style hero outfits) then the "intent" is pretty clear. Those things are [color=red]intended[/color] to be used by the players to do whatever they can imagine for their character concepts.

Project_Hero wrote:

If a game gave us nothing but sunglasses and people used color options to make them look like regular glasses that is not the devs making any compromises to give players glasses.

Your "sunglasses" example doesn't really apply to the situation where the Devs could either A) spend the enormous effort to provide a fully-fleshed out Secret ID system or IN LIEU OF that B) provide as many "secondary" features as possible such as casual clothing, bio space for RP, possible "name titles for character slots", a Day Jobs system etc. that would help players realize their Secret ID concepts.

If the Devs can't provide "A" the COMPROMISE for that is providing "B". Just because their version of "B" serves all sorts of various proposes doesn't mean that one of them isn't as a compromise for the lack of "A".

Project_Hero wrote:

Compromise happens when consessions are made on both sides towards a thing. Casual costume options are not a consession on the part of the devs as they want to emulate super hero media and some superhero characters have worn casual dress (or at least non spandex) since like, the sixties. So if they want to allow players to create many kinds of super hero concepts they sort of need those options.

Compromise happens when Devs cannot provide their players with the ideal game system functionality that they would like to provide their players so instead of the ideal they settle for offering secondary features that give the players as many secondary tools as possible to accomplish the most that the game will allow. The Devs compromise with [b]themselves[/b] relative to what they can afford to provide in their own game - they can't provide one thing so they compromise for that by providing other things.

Basically Tannim has told us that CoT can't do the type of things that you'd want a Secret ID system to do (i.e. change character names/reputation values so that NPCs will react differently to characters depending on whether they are "disguised" in their Secret IDs or not). So as a COMPROMISE for that the Devs MIGHT give us features that would presumably be MUCH EASIER for them to implement like causal clothing or the ability to have local name titles associated with costume slots.

It's merely just a sad coincidence that lazy modern superheroes can't bother themselves to wear proper fancy spandex outfits and instead use their "casual Secret ID clothes" as their super outfits. ;)

Project_Hero wrote:

Yes. They have no obligation to put those in. They also have no obligation to put in capes either. But no one would argue that capes are somehow a compromise on the part of the devs.

Capes would not be considered a "substitute/compromise" for a non-existent Secret ID system in CoT simply because they are typically accepted as "classical superhero clothing".

Now if Superman was able to be a legal CoT character and he did not wear a cape but Clark Kent did then you could say that Kent's cape was an item included to help him "realize" his Secret ID persona in a system that otherwise lacked the tools to help him do that. In that case his cape -would- be a compromise made by the Devs because INSTEAD of a Secret ID system they gave the game capes.