By the sound of it, CO just about nailed it. Unlocking content, creating an entirely original villain, giving him his own army of mooks, beating his ass and deciding his fate... It's just stuph like this that makes a player look up at the sun, flash a beaming smile, and proudly declare, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9rvu6cr9Eaw#t=1213]"It's a living!"[/url]

I'd like to have the option for that nemesis to be an NPC version of one of my alts, and actually effect him when I log him in later--and vice versa for the protagonist. When I'm logged in as the nemesis, my other character would try to come in, and stop me. I made several nemesis characters in CoX. It was great to level up and see the world through that nemesis, actually giving him a soul. Even though there was no way for them to interact, it was fun to imagine that all my evil deeds were an offense against my protagonist. I could halfway do it in AE, which was great. In this system, there wouldn't be any loss of experience or items or anything, maybe a linked progress bar between the character that was some sort of eternal tug of war between the success of their actions. Hell in that case, this should be an option you can do with other people online.

Linking to a PC nemesis would be a slightly different system than linking to your alt or some NPC. You could get a pop up that says "Do you consider Mr. Insidious as your nemesis? Yes or No", and there could be some series of missions that'll link the two players together or one off instance missions you both would enter a building from different sides. It would strictly be a pact between two players sort of like the pact in CoX with shared experience. Like a radio mission that tells you if your nemesis defeated someone, blew something up, or was spotted somewhere, and you could try to stop them. I'm not sure what would prevent griefing or stop them from just following you everywhere, but I think it'd be a real fun RPing device, and switch up PVP. There should be a method for missions to separate both players from each other, then give both players a single object or area to meet at--It'd be real fun if the mission made you cross paths without warning. Both of you have to obtain the super sacred object, and not give any notice that your nemesis is after it, but you'd end up in the same room, battling it out.

There was discussion in the old forums of a nemesis system that I liked better. I'll wait for those tech devs to chime in but it is a much more social system than the self created-self contained nemesis.

That goes to show that the devs are very committed to user generated content. I would still very much like to create NPCs.. I just would rather the player created NPCs be allies (Mary Jane, Aunt May, Jonah Jameson, Harry Osborne) than enemies. People who the game's enemies can kidnap, threaten, etc. It's just better storytelling to me than creating my own antagonist when the GAME ITSELF is the antagonist of my character's story.

Blue Steel vs Red Iron

Round 1

[b][i]FIGHT![/i][/b]

Make a system that can be exploited and gamers will find a way to exploit it.

And then there's the juvenile nemesis names ala pokemon.

"This is my Grandson, Asshead."

Heh ... I've got a "sabotage" deterrent to pulling that kind of garbage. Not a solution, mind you, just a deterrent. Why do I say that?

Because there is no such thing as FoolPROOF. Merely FoolRESISTANT.

So ... my idea?

Some story arcs may require you to PLAY AS YOUR NEMESIS.
In other words, be careful how dumb you make your nemesis ... you may have to wear that foolishness in public (where other Players can Report you). And ... if you make your Nemesis too "gimptacular" then there may be content you simply can't DO or complete successfully, because you gimped yourself (technically your nemesis) too hard.

In other words ... Sauce For The Goose.

Again, not a perfect solution, but it does offer an additional level of FoolRESISTANCE.

Red's solution is hilarious :). And I agree with Rodion--let us pick the overall role/power sets and fully customize the look, but other than that it should be Dev/game controlled.

Redlynne wrote:

Some story arcs may require you to PLAY AS YOUR NEMESIS

I would be totally opposed to this I do not and will not play a villain ever.

Redlynne wrote:

Which is fine for YOU ... but what about everyone else? If the game has a playerbase of more than one player, it stands to reason that your opinion/view on this subject would not be held universally.
The objective here is not to limit the game to be exclusive to the features that only you (or only I, or ... you get the idea) want. Instead, you want the game's features to appeal to a wide variety of people.
Can't please everyone all of the time (that way lies madness!) ... but you can please a lot of people most of the time. I'd like to think that we're aiming for the latter.

Will you Please just state your opinion and quit attacking me for stating mine. This is what you say every time you respond to me. It's totally unnecessary, and I'm sick of seeing it.

The game mechanic being proposed here would require me to do something I'm not willing to do and that's something I think most people would not want to do to any player. If this is implemented I wont make a nemisis. If I'm required to have a nemesis and to sometimes play as that character I just wont play city of titans.

oOStaticOo wrote:

I would say that we should make playing your Nemesis an option. The more options we have the better. So TMP could choose NOT to play as his Nemesis and other people COULD choose to play as their Nemesis.

That would be much more acceptable.

True but I think the best goober repellent to use in an MMO might be none at all. Other players will always make characters we don't like and wouldn't want to be seen near, but maybe that's what they were going for or maybe it's something that has meaning to them IDUNO.

To keep you from making a nemesis you can easily beat there can simply be a restriction on giving him attacks you're protected against or defenses you can bypass. That would require a little complexity but it wouldn't be too much to handle. Also your nemesis should always be higher level than you, and like most arch-villains he should have a ton of HP. That would help to offset the fact that you have enhancements and (as an NPC) he doesn't.

Maybe if there was some kind of mythical "Wheel of Opposites" when it comes to power selection. Like Green Lantern, whose weakness was the color yellow (stupidest weakness ever), had Sinestro, whose power was, you guessed it, based on the color yellow. Like if your powers are Fire based, your arch-enemy is Ice based, etc. Just an idea. For the record, I'm more in favor of total customization at inception, with the stipulation that they are always slightly more dangerous than you think they are. ;)

Mighty Paladin, regarding your concern about playing the villain: I get that. However, let me submit that many Villains, arguably the best, most interesting villains, don't think of themselves as the "Bad Guy". Even your stated nemesis thought of himself as doing a public service, I'm sure. I was very uncomfortable at first playing CoV. But I eventually got philosophical about it, wrote my villain character as being born and raised in "The Isles" and was a product of that environment. Eventually, when Going Rogue was instituted, most of my Villains started changing sides. Even further along, some of my Heroes even started to drift to the dark side, (in my RPing mind) becoming more "extreme" in their methods for cleaning up the city.

I like Redlynne's idea of having a few missions where you play your Arch-Enemy. Partly for the deterrent factor, but more because if I've spent as much time as I always do designing the character, I'd like to at least test drive him! :) If this is the case, I'd really like/prefer the writers to give those missions some moral ambiguity, so the player can make some choices and establish the villain's character for themselves. Wasn't something like that going to be a staple of the three-axis alignment thing anyway? Why couldn't that be applied to the "villain missions" too?

WarBird wrote:

Mighty Paladin, regarding your concern about playing the villain: I get that. However, let me submit that many Villains, arguably the best, most interesting villains, don't think of themselves as the "Bad Guy". Even your stated nemesis thought of himself as doing a public service, I'm sure. I was very uncomfortable at first playing CoV. But I eventually got philosophical about it, wrote my villain character as being born and raised in "The Isles" and was a product of that environment. Eventually, when Going Rogue was instituted, most of my Villains started changing sides. Even further along, some of my Heroes even started to drift to the dark side, (in my RPing mind) becoming more "extreme" in their methods for cleaning up the city.
I like Redlynne's idea of having a few missions where you play your Arch-Enemy. Partly for the deterrent factor, but more because if I've spent as much time as I always do designing the character, I'd like to at least test drive him! :) If this is the case, I'd really like/prefer the writers to give those missions some moral ambiguity, so the player can make some choices and establish the villain's character for themselves. Wasn't something like that going to be a staple of the three-axis alignment thing anyway? Why couldn't that be applied to the "villain missions" too?

I'm totally cool with letting people play as their arch enemy, or any other villain, if that's what they Want to do. But I'm not OK with being forced to.
Steel Head was another player in a series of PNP RPGs played over the course of many years. (it was now many years ago). Later Steel Head appeared in the Paladin Comic books I made, and now appears in my book "Knights of Saint George". I got him, because I spent years with the player. He was a close friend and intellectual sparring partner.
I don't have the same relationship with mot other villains.
The only villain I ever enjoyed playing (As a GM) was a character named Overmaster Vlaad, who was the ruler of Romania. He drove all the vampires out of Transylvania and then drove the communists out of Romania before establishing himself as a fascist dictator. He certainly saw himself as a hero and so did a lot of the Romanian people in that game world. But when I tried him in COV he didn't fit in and I realized that the kind of villain he was simply couldn't work in that game.
I tried a few other villains before deciding that I seriously just don't enjoy it. I even tried making a character in COV who's backstory said he was really a hero working undercover. I enjoyed him the most.
Since this is a different game I might try a villain again but I don't have high expectations and I definitely don't want to be forced to do it.

LIES!!!

There must be a tutorial!

BAM! I pwnd a dev.

::leans back, nods, then realizes these are the people he's going to be to join Alpha/Beta.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Segev wrote:
I could be mistaken, but I don't think any particular missions or even story arcs will ever be required to play your character.

Well until Stutty came along, no one was saying there were. But someone Was suggesting there could or even should be.

I'm guessing you never liked the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_Universe]Star Trek Mirror Universe[/url] storylines either. ;)

To each their own. Some people never play villains, other people never play heroes and of course there's all sorts of in-betweens as well.

I only saw the mirror universe in the original series. As a kid I found it frightening and disturbing but I still thought Spock looked better (More serious and intelligent) with a beard. I also agreed with Cornelius in Planet of the Apes when he said that Taylor looked less intelligent without his beard.
In case you're wondering I don't have a beard. In my case it just made me look old.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Also remember that the Only reason Steel Head is Paladin's enemy, is because he kills people.
I explored the possibility of a Steel Head type character by starting this thread: http://cityoftitans.com/forum/deadly-force-and-law
The conclusion is clearly that it would Not work in this game.

Not sure how you came to that conclusion. If you want to RP that those that Steel Head defeats are dead, that's up to you. As for alignment, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find a variation that fits.

Quote:

My Overmaster Vlaad character simply couldn't fit into a game where all of the villains are forced to serve Aracnos. (That was a major turn off to me) and other villains who think they're doing good simply don't work in a game where you're given assignments by an overlord or search the newspaper for opportunities to steel stuff. If I want to play an eco terrorist, then I want him to go attack some polluting industry and an MMO simply can't allow me the kind of freedom I would need to play a villain I'm interested in.
Since I don't have any faith at all that the villain side will be or even can be worth playing. I have no interest in playing it and certainly don't want to be forced to play it.

I'm also not sure there will be anything like that requirement in CoT.

Well, then, for purposes of your story-line, Steel Head is clearly a lethal combatant. I don't see why we'd need or want some explicit game mechanic to decide this ambiguity.

Be Well!
Fireheart

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Fireheart wrote:
Well, then, for purposes of your story-line, Steel Head is clearly a lethal combatant. I don't see why we'd need or want some explicit game mechanic to decide this ambiguity.
Be Well!
Fireheart

HUH?

He's just saying as far as playing the actual game goes, just play the game and in your mind whenever Steel Head "defeats" someone he has killed them. There doesn't have to be a "kill" vs "subdual" mechanic built into the game.

It's actually less flexible game-wise if you can only choose to subdue or kill because that makes it binary--either or. If the opponent is "defeated", you can decide for yourself and your own character's storyline if you defeated them by killing them, subduing them, roughing them up good or maiming them.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

I'm not asking for a game mechanic for this I'm just saying my nemesis doesn't work without it.

Well, I think what Fireheart is suggesting is that if all that needs to happen for you to be able to play Steel Head in a game is that he kills, then an intentionally vague term like "defeat" gives plenty of leeway for you to consider it "defeat by death". So no specific mechanic needed.

If, however, you're just saying that you don't WANT to play Steel Head unless there is a specific killing mechanic in the game, fair enough. I didn't want to play every hero and villain idea I came up with in CoH either. Some of them just didn't fit well.

Ah. I see. For that to happen I guess Steel Head would have to be an NPC in a mission designed especially to play out that way. Which maybe you could do in something like AE?

I rarely played villains either and my son and wife didn't get why. I just... don't enjoy being part of the problem, even just in fantasy. I like being part of the solution. But we need villains out there to give us fun stuff to do :P.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

I wouldn't mind it if it were an opportunity. I mind it because as it was proposed, it would have been a requirement.

The intention and purpose of what I wrote boils down to this:

[b]IF[/b]
Nemesis = True
[b]THEN[/b]
Player Must Play Nemesis Character some of the time.

[b]ELSE[/b]

[b]IF[/b]
Nemesis = False
[b]THEN[/b]
Requirement to play as Nemesis character is waived (because Nemesis character does not exist).

Whether your character has a Nemesis or not is up to you ... and presumably would be something decided at character creation. As a game designer I'd be very leery of allowing a Nemesis to be turned on/off after character creation, simply because doing so then opens up opportunities to exploit, but that's the basic shape of what I was suggesting.

Your turn.

Segev wrote:

I'm not sure what would force anybody to play a mission they didn't want to.

Two words.

[b]Gated Content[/b]

Ok, Red, that was a funny suggestion, but trying to get rid of gooberish names and looks would not be worth required or gated content for everyone else even if it would actually work, which it wouldn't. People will always find ways to do stupid, tasteless things in a game.

On the other hand, some people would like to play their Nemesis and some wouldn't. So, if we did have this feature ingame, which would be great, make it optional.

And it's not like anyone has to actually worry that the Devs of this game are going to force anyone to play their Nemesis.

Yea I'd be cool with that.
But not using Steel head's lethal attacks would be as simple as putting his gun down.
Mind you I'd have no effective attacks in that case but with his teleportation, maybe I wouldn't need it.
One problem with a scenario like that is that Paladin's Martial arts are knowledge
that should go with his mind and be usable even in a different body (so long as it's still a humanoid body)
Likewise with steel head's ability to use firearms
Though Steel Head would get Paladin's Regeneration.

For what it's worth, I think many of us would rather not have had to do, say, all of the Striga Island missions just to unlock the Ernesto Hess TF, or even being "forced" to defeat 50 Infected in Outbreak to get the Isolator badge. Those things were still required of those things though. Is anyone seriously suggesting that there shouldn't be some things that are required to do other things? Because I think that sort of thing is probably inevitable. I don't think having a nemesis in the first place will ever be required of anyone, at least I can't see why it ever would be. That said, I think if you decide you want a nemesis, then you're basically agreeing (up front) to do the nemesis content whether or not all of it is something you feel is really 100% something you really want to do. Or else you just stop doing it when you hit the part you don't like and never really use the nemesis game function again. I mean, nobody liked the "Go defeat X baddies" missions from contacts either, but when you did them you did them to move the arc forward, if that was what was required of you at the time to progress in that arc.

I mean, if you go to start a Manticore TF, you might not LOVE the idea of having to fill a team to the required start size, you might not LOVE the first couple of missions, you might feel like it's a drag to have to go to that map in the middle of Crey's Folly, etc, but those are all things you're signing up for when you go to do the TF, right? They are essential parts of a larger thing (the TF itself) which you want to accomplish. If you're suggesting that people ought to be able to opt out of any part of any larger thing just because they personally don't like it, then I can't say I agree with that.

D-Pad wrote:

Champions Online has a similar system that I always felt was rather neat. When you reach level 25 or so, you're taken over to the Police Station to fill out information on a villain that you know about (a.k.a. "you get to make your nemesis in the Character Creator"), and every once in a while, when you were out punching normal mobs, a bunch of the minions that you had picked for them would spawn, try to kill you while you're weak, and if you defeated them, you'd get a clue that would set off a little mini-plotline involving whatever it was that your nemesis had planned. When you do all of the nemesis events, they're thrown in jail, and then you have the option of either having them bust out and continue their rampage, or making a new one to do different things with.

I know this is an old discussion, but I didn't see any definite answer so I would like to add my 2¢. I think Champions did a great job with their nemesis system although like it was point out they never expanded it. They even had a task force that pulled in everyone's nemesis which was pretty cool. A couple of things I didn't like were that you could eventually throw them in jail but they never escaped, and the task forced only used your second nemesis. I personally liked my first nemesis over my second so it was kind of too bad he got stuck in jail while the second one would show up in the task force. I think adding a nemesis system would be pretty cool, although having it at launch wouldn't be necessary because even in Champions you had to wait until level 25 before you could create one.

blacke4dawn wrote:

My guess is that they did have grander plans for the Nemesis system but just didn't get enough resources to even make it decent.

Yeah this was pretty much what I thought of the CO Nemesis system. It was the start of an interesting idea that never got fully developed.

There are many different ways something like this could be handled in a superhero MMO. I figure it's an idea the CoT Devs could explore as a post-launch expansion.

Redlynne wrote:

Segev wrote:
I'm not sure what would force anybody to play a mission they didn't want to.
Two words.
Gated Content

I think the more accurate answer would be "gated rewards". People in CoX that did gated content that they didn't even want to do most often did it to get the rewards that the game doled out at the end of the thing: Rare IO recipes, later on Reward Merits, Incarnate shards, threads, components, etc. I myself didn't want to participate in forced PVP in the PVP zones but went to them solely to get the Warburg nukes and jellomen because they were powerful cool temp powers to have. I logged in at very unpopular hours on a very low pop PVP server (Triumph, early Saturday morning, and early on weekday mornings) to accomplish that. I did TFs because they were a guarantee of getting a rare IO drop or something at the end. I did incarnate trials to get like ALL of the incarnate stuff that was available. I was as reward-driven as anyone else, but I at least understood that the reason I wanted the rewards was to be able to do the content itself better, faster, or on a harder difficulty setting. If the devs cave in to pressure to just eliminate the "work" and hand over the rewards, you're allowing people to bypass playing the game in the first place.

What's the solution to that? Just hand people whatever they want for doing nothing? Tell the devs to stop writing story lines with content that makes some sort of a story come together? For what? This line of thought is basically about how people don't want to have to actually PLAY the game to get the items if they can get them by some easier means, like whining about it to the devs, or farming. And what purpose does that "more easily earned swag" serve then? To allow one to cut through the content faster? Why do you (the player) care about that anymore? You already got the cheese at the end of the maze, why go back and run the maze now?

Every DM knows you don't just hand out the +10 Holy Flaming Burst Greatsword on day one, for nothing.

Empyrean wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:
We already have an idea for this but not free to discuss specifics.
Word. It's a great concept and a great feature for a Superhero MMO. I'd love to see someone do it right.
That being said... while CO is a sad, misbegotten, abandoned thing for the most part, there were some spectacular ideas. The "Comic Series" missions Aftershock and Whiteout, for example. There's a lot to learn mining through that game, and I hope MWM is taking full advantage of it.

CO actually came up with the idea of buying additional costume slots for characters a couple of years before CoH did it. That alone means it wasn't a total loss. ;)

Tannim, tell your fellow Devs I really love this game. Every little hint of what you have in store for us shows a lot of time and love poured into this game.
Thank you for going the extra mile.

City of Tabbies is ...! 'scuse me a moment!

*defeats The Amerikatt Revenge Squad*

... PAWSOME!

*flops over and takes a snooze*

*dreams of Mr. Boots!*

Dark Ether wrote:

I thought Nemesis was where they turned one of your friends into a hulking, mutated beast with a Gatling mini-gun. Glad to be mistaken (I hope).

Though I won't discount the possibility of such a nemesis it will most likely be an extreme exception, not the rule.

McNum wrote:

I wonder if we could share a Nemesis between multiple alts? I know some of my CoH characters could be seen as at least knowing of the others, if not being friends or related. Would make sense from them to be menaced by the same bad guy.

It would likely be pretty complicated for any Nemesis system to be "smart enough" to have some kind of interconnected ongoing plot that would involve multiple alts of the same player. Not saying that it would be impossible (or that it wouldn't be cool) just saying I wouldn't count on it.

Having said that if we can assume any kind of CoT Nemesis system will allow us to custom design our own "Nemesi" then I see no reason why you couldn't reuse the design of a single Nemesis for multiple alts and just more or less "pretend" it's the same individual NPC that's harassing all of your characters one-by-one.

The QA tester in me is screaming that they are way behind schedule if MWM wants to release by end of year 2018. If they are posting (and then hiding) quandaries about hiring some people full time while shunning others at this particular point in the project makes me think they don't have a full grasp on the project. The fact that they are considering complexities of this nature is really inspiring. However I am really concerned that MWM is not paying enough attention to the full spectrum of the product release cycle given how much information is leaking out (from a non-kickstarter perspective).

I want this project to succeed.
I have no grasp on the MWM braintrust's capability to deliver on their promises.