Okay, simple and weird, I was thinking of something, what's the difference between an NPC, and a player? From what I understand, not much (No offense). Combat NPCs have power, just like players, they're just controlled by an AI.
This gets me (Randomly) to my 'point'. Could we have a power that we earn or buy, that lets us summon an alt to our characters side? Perhaps even an inherent power once you reach a certain level? There are a couple reasons for this, one being, I like to RP, and one thing that irked me was being incapable of playing two characters who are not the same person, at the same time. The archetect creator from CoH showed us that in many ways there was little difference in structure of players and NPCs beside the human component.
The second reason for this is that some people REALLY like to solo, I enjoy it quite a bit. I don't want to do it exclusively, but sometimes you just feel like playing alone, even in an MMO. Also, how many of us have been midway through a situation in game, any game, when you thought. "Man I could REALLY use my Healer." or something along that lines. Some alts this won't be a good idea for, since they won't work well as NPC's, but it allows players who get a bad PUG to improve it with an alt, or soloers to have backup in lieu of a friend.
I can anticipate a few issues with this, PVP zones might not do well in this regard, but then you can always ban the usage of them in PVP. There could also by the same token be a specific set of PVP rules in arena style combat that are exclusively for fighting with your own personal duo.
I also imagine that there would be 'balance' issues involved, but they aren't really a problem, since you can shut the ability to use the summon self power off, and archetypes would already be intentionally balanced for play. The only problem would be dealing with a possibly dumb AI, but that too could be corrected with simple controls.
Hope this isn't a repeat of something else, or an inherently stupid idea...
SHWEETT.. PL'ers were looking for something like this Also. :D
That's probably another thing that might cause balance issues, the second character wouldn't really gain XP, which it might be great to help you build up an otherwise hard to level toon! PLing would get a boon to their gameplay options in either case, need a tank to PL your mezzer? Summon it! Etc.
I wrote something similar in a few threads. I had a second account I'd log onto so I could dual box. Though it was a pain in the ass at times and not efficient as it could be, it was loads of fun to RP my characters, and have two of my concept characters fighting together. I think it'd be best if there was a way to have both characters logged on one account at once. You'd click a button on the UI to switch between their UI/consciousness, with no penalty, and both players gained everything they would normally gain. I don't see why there'd be any penalty, that defeats the whole purpose, and it slows the game down. Nothing should ever slow the game down. I wouldn't consider this an ability or a summon. Perhaps you'd pay an additional monthly subscription fee at 1/2 price or even another full price in order to activate this feature. I'm completely fine without this feature in the game if I could just click a button on my mouse to switch characters. I plan on dual boxing anyways when my mind is up for multitasking.
One problem I see with this is if a full team has people boxing their alts, and they don't want to give up the slots for people who actually need them. I always had common courtesy in this case, but I'm afraid this would happen a lot. I still foresee this happening anyways w/o this a feature like this. Also, yeah PLers could exploit this; however, dual boxing isn't the most aggressive way to PL. Maybe with a door sitting alt while your fire/kinetics controller rips the zone apart, but hopefully door sitting won't exist here.
Another cool idea would be a marvel vs capcom kind of arena where you could tag in/out your alts, switching between characters. I'd love to fight against NPCs and PCs this way.
5 OClock Shadow
"The Five", "Old Scruff", "Wolfbrand", "Tashomono"
Your shaving days are numbered...
That's one reason why I suggested the summoning function, to be honest, that way it wouldn't take a team slot, you wouldn't HAVE to run the other character at all even. I'm not a fan of multitasking characters in that fashion, only for RPing. I can see how that feature would be fantastic, if implemented with the capacity to have an AI handle your second character!
If you think about it too, this plays to the idea of superheroes as well, sidekicking in the origin context was two characters working together one 'under' the other, and CoH did a phenomenal job working it into the game, but this would be another form of sidekicking or exemplaring, since whomever you summoned would either be a level below or above you.
The ability to toggle between them would be great too, most damage AT's can be handled fairly easily by an AI, mezzing, healing, buffing and tanking can be more precise sciences and being able to swap back and forth would be a great feature, I honestly hadn't thought of it. I never have enough to get a second machine (Or a beefy enough single machine) to do it, so incorperating the practice into the UI and providing an AI to handle it could greatly improve the game. IMO/
Yeah, AI taking over while I'm not actively controlling that character would be useful, but I would absolutely want to switch between characters at any time. I hate side kicks lol, I'd rather have a character who is equally as bad ass, wrecking toons next to me. Also, it's more of witnessing my conceptual characters being in game at the same time, rather than RPing both in chat and what not. I can't multitask that well.
5 OClock Shadow
"The Five", "Old Scruff", "Wolfbrand", "Tashomono"
Your shaving days are numbered...
I knew of a player that ran a 5-charactrer 'Hydra' of multiple accounts and multiple boxes because playing a single character was too boring... Scary, when you're on a team and realize that most of them are your one friend.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Whoa... That's... Wow... 5 at once?! I can understand being bored given the limited or simplistic nature of some games builds, I end up playing a new game and breaking the system fairly early, but never that hard... Wow. Mad skillz.
Actually, we do have threads [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/personal-sidekick]here[/url], [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/sidekicks-companions]here[/url], and [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/wish-list-30-partners]here[/url] which touch on this topic.
For my part, I'll quote from one of the other threads:
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Yeah, she made a great point, and ultimately, I wholeheartedly agree with it. In CoX, people had to dish out the extra money/effort to perform dual boxing. I like the fact that I have that money/effort to do it, and I'd rather not make it easier for everyone to do it. Something is taken away from the game when imagining everyone running around with an NPC super hero running around with them. It feels plastic and fake in a way. Besides the fact that I think side kicks are dorky, and I'd rather not see them.
The only time I dual boxed was when none of my friends were on, or one of my friends dual boxed with me. It isn't the easiest thing to perform, so I had to be in the mood to do it. But once I got in the groove, it was real fun. I'd rather keep it that way.
5 OClock Shadow
"The Five", "Old Scruff", "Wolfbrand", "Tashomono"
Your shaving days are numbered...
I can see to some degree how this might screw with the balance, but at the same time, allowing players to summon one of their alts with a power had a number of limitations to misusage, for instance if the character is too low, they won't be effective, it requires you spend time to level both of the characters seperately to use them effectively, which isn't like 'mini masterminds' running around, since one mastermind is one character with on xp bar. It's like two seperate characters running around, one gaining XP, the other not.
My main reason for wanting it is RP and the occasional save my butt situation.
If my alt wouldn't gain exp, I would still buy a second account, and box that way. I wouldn't be able to stand him not gaining exp.
5 OClock Shadow
"The Five", "Old Scruff", "Wolfbrand", "Tashomono"
Your shaving days are numbered...
Another concern to consider is that this is a potentially very powerful mechanic that is effectively gated. Some people do not create alts, or very rarely play them even when they do have alts. Giving them the old "too bad, so sad" due to their play style would be... undiplomatic.
It is also worth remembering that, with everything MWM intends, if your character does not have a sufficiently large newspaper to take down the AV (or whatever) and you do not want to ask for help (or none is available), it may be time to look for an alternate means to complete the mission.
For the record, I have no problem with such a feature being available for purposes such as RP.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I suppose it could be a non-combat pet, or a minor buffing pet like "Moral support!" haha, give you small boost to damage, defence, or something base on the AT you summon. Oooohhh
Shouldn't those types of pets be exclusive to specific non-melee classifications powersets? Melee classifications are supposed to hold their ground on their own best they can, they shouldn't have pets readily available. The pets you could get from party packs made sense, and were pretty weak, but I think that's where the line is drawn.
5 OClock Shadow
"The Five", "Old Scruff", "Wolfbrand", "Tashomono"
Your shaving days are numbered...
My *entire* stable of CoX characters over 7 years or so.... 8
On a server.
3 of those were 50's (2 the hard way, one via AE to see how "fast" that was), and the others languished in the low levels.
So by having a mechanic that *could* be very powerful depending on how your alts are built/specced out, would definitely give those "solo character" players a disadvantage.
I have no problems with missions being hard/impossible to do solo; just so long as I am told this in the first place... but saying that, I managed to do 99.999% of the open world quests solo in Wildstar. There were a few that I left for a few levels to go back and do it when I was a bit more powerful... and there were some that were for 3+ players, and I managed to do them as soon as I got them, with little worry or effort*.
*Ok, they took time, and I did abuse a couple of mechanics that caused aggro to drop, but I managed to still do them.