This is more or less a copy and pasted fragment of what I sent to the contact address, the community manager recommended I post it here as well.
"Seeing as the City of Heroes community has been an extremely alt-focused group, notoriously so, what if you were to make aspects of the gameplay specifically tied to alts? Without knowledge of the viability of these ideas tech-wise, here are a couple ideas along that vein:
~ Forming a "brotherhood" (extracted from any supergroup, it would be more like a friendship rather than an organisation) between your alts, a maximum of two per account, a maximum of eight per brotherhood. This woould allow a number of things: for you to have a brotherhood-specific base, where you can provide holograms of all the brotherhood members and allow you to edit their costumes no matter which character you are on; when in a particularly challenging mission, you could call for back-up from your Brotherhood, this could involve making a member of your Brotherhood appear as a Sidekicked pet for thirty seconds and would be on an account-wide recharge and/or alternatively, allow you to pull the character you are on out of the instance and replace him with a Sidekicked version of one of your Brotherhood allies (distribution of xp would be a complex discussion); a point of progression at endgame could involve a linked storyline between your endgame-flagged brotherhood members.
~Forming a "rivalry" between two endgame-flagged alts, one identified as the antagonist and one identified as the protagonist. The antagonist and therefore the nature of the path their conflict follows would be flavoured by a list of words that give a broad description of what motivates the antagonist. Many can coincide, but this would be the absolute driving motivation behind the antagonist. Some examples: Destruction (Disorder-inclusive), Greed, Power, Vengeance, Redemption, Justice, Competition and Wrath. The difference between Competition and Wrath is, Competition is merely the desire of the antagonist to prove he is superior to the protagonist, whereas Wrath is the pure desire of the antagonist to destroy the protagonist, he is his sole target. There are a number of things you could do with this idea; have the only one who gets missions the protagonist; have them both gets missions but them lacking divergence; have them both get missions but there being a kind of competition-involved, perhaps time limits, perhaps the possibility to permanently fail missions; have othere be fights with your alt as an NPC; have the ability to customise aesthetic elements of the missions to the taste of your antagonist. Obviously, if you make it about competition and you are the person who controls both competititors, then you can decide the result (provided you are capable of succeeding with either of them), but if the result ends up with the loser lacking where the winner gains, then that's a choice you should allow the player to make."
This sounds like it could be done in a custom Architect mission, but I'm certain that it would be difficult / unwanted by most players in a TF or Trial, or generaly large Team. This might be liked more by solo players that want to SIMULATE teamplay. ;)
I really like the general idea behind Brotherhood. I solo'd a lot in CoH, with multiple alts; I was fortunate to have access to a friend's F2P account so that I was able to create a one-man SG and invite my alts to it so I could have a shared base. Without that secondary account, I would not have been able to set up my alt-SG, and would have been spending hours emailing stuff around. Having a Brotherhood base for my alts to use without needing to jump through hoops to set it up, would be fantastic.
These are ideas I can get behind, these sound like fun.
___
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Well, obviously I cannot imagine the logistics myself but it seems to be the type of thing that would be confined to solo play. The calling a member of your Brotherhood I mean. With regard to producing it with an Architect mission, that's all well and good, but the concept is that it could be another avenue for endgame progression. A solo alternative to raiding, for example.
Not criticizing, trying to understand...a player would unlock the Brotherhood/Sisterhood sub-system at 50? ...and the brothers/sisters would need to be 50 too yes?
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([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
Oh, I know, sorry if I came across as defensive. I used the term Brotherhood because it's one that hasn't been used before in MMOs and has a history at least in the superhero genre of not denoting gender (Marvel's Mutant Brotherhood). This is an idea to be manipulated at the developer's leisure, but my thinking is that you would be able to place any of your characters (up to a maximum) in a Brotherhood regardless of level, but the Path missions related to your Brotherhood would only be available to endgame-flagged characters.
-LOVING- this idea!...,
- I can't tell the number of times I'd had like to have even just Duoed with a few of my alts...especially during those times and moments where grouping just wasn't happening. Certainly, this might cause a decrease in actual player grouping...but if it's only just one additional hero/sidekick - it wouldn't be 'world-breaking' as SG missions such as Task Forces or Hazard Zones would still require more than just a couple of heroes. The system would simply pull the data straight from the current existing alt character build and run it like a pet...which, for those who are familiar with pets - a real player tends to be vastly superior. They run a concept like this with Everquest where a player can hire a henchmen to fill in where they lack (...like a Caster needing a Tank or a Tank needing a Healer...), though it takes up a spot in group and, like I said, if I was in a group that favored a pet over inviting a real player is a group I would quit. Also like the Personal SG Base concept, Costume Theme and Antagonist who shows up to ruin your heroes day...imagine having a timed mission where you have to disarm 'X' number of bombs in an office building full of mobs...
- ...and your Antagonist shows up... ^_^
Like the concept. It could help actually enrich the storyline and actually interconnect the alts. And solves that problem in a team gated TF game of "Well dang, we're one man short for this TF. Guess we cant do it. Sorry for having ya'll sit for an hour for nothing."
Now if something requires 8 and is short by 4, we can roll.
And definitely will help with people that like to play squishies but have trouble soloing the toon during low population times and cant find a team to join. May lessen the amount of cases where players have solo friendly toons like brutes/tanks/scraps that shoot up to 50 a few times over while their defender languish in the level 25-35 range because teams are hard to come by for them.
Hmmm... Soooo... if you ALT to a higer level toon, do you still fight the Same Groups in that Arc (whatever)? And if they are the same Enemy Groups... are you going to adjust their Lever range to match the just ALT'ed toon?
I have two characters, White Samurai and Blood Hand. The two are rivals (BH is WS's nemesis and vice versa). I would love it if the nemesis to the character I'm playing could often interfere in the missions I'm doing with a character (so if I'm playing WS, BH and his minions would turn up to interfere or perform some specific task and similarly, if I'm playing BH. WS would turn up to scupper BH's plans). That would be awesome.
I also like the idea of creating a 'dynamic duo' so you could create a main and your 'sidekick' to work together if you wanted to team but couldn't find one for what you were doing (a bit like SWTOR where your companions travel with you unless you're grouped). Having said that, you shouldn't REQUIRE a sidekick/companion to progress.
We all have it in us to be a hero to someone,
Super powers are optional.....
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Oh no...you weren't at all, I was just being pre-emptive, so that *you* wouldn't think that *I* was being critical : )
I get it now...only a single PC's toons would make-up the brotherhood.
I like it! I especially like the linkage to post-level 50. It's just one more thing that a PC could do with a 50 that does not involve loot/crafting purples. As time goes on more "Post 50 Brotherhood" content gets developed to keep it fresh.
Instanced (and opt'd in, of course) Brotherhood vs. Brotherhood PvP is great too!
Also an SG could have Bhood vs. Bhood PvP tournaments : )
Or SG-sponsored Bhood vs. AV tournaments. Fastest time wins!
Brotherhood vs. your nemesis in an instanced, PC-designed TF!
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([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
With regard to swapping your character out for a higher-level character, I think I did specify that the higher-level character would be sidekicked down to the level of your original character. Nothing in the mission would change.
With regard to calling upon a sidekick, I had originally envisioned this as being a really brief window of support rather than a henchman, but that might be an idea. I certainly understand the reticence to discourage normal grouping. For that I have a few suggestions: you could reduce the level of the Sidekick down to the minimum level you need to take part in the mission, you could make their AI extremely simple (i.e. you don't have any control over the character, they just rush and attack anything in sight) and/or you could give an xp detriment to the whole group for their presence. That would only be in Team missions, bear in mind. Solo play would not produce any detriment. One or more of these would make it so you would [i]always[/i] want to use a player instead of a Sidekick, making it so the Sidekick performs the desired function, to fill in a hole when you are simply unable to fill it with a player.
Certainly, it is a much lauded feature in games that do provide henchmen, especially those with squishy solo classes e.g. Dominator, Defender. Tying it to your alts is just something nice. For those who have a horde of alts already, it would only provide benefits, while those who do not usually have a horde of alts will be encouraged to make them, increasing activity at all level stages of the game.