Let me preface this by saying that what I know about programming wouldn't fill a thimble. That said, there have been hints by the Devs that we may not be thinking big ENOUGH with regards to CoT. The engine, and their work, just might be able to pull off stuff we believe might be impossible. So this thread is to test the REAL limits of our creativity. I want to hear about the really COOL ideas you might have for an event or a mission/mission arc but don't think there is a chance of it being done.
I have two big ideas: The first comes from a Champions PnP game from many years ago. In the scenario the team was trying to stop the dastardly mastermind from launching his gigantic robot against the city. In the end, we wound up fighting INSIDE the robot as it moved toward Baltimore. The GM had made a mock-up of the robot for us to put minis inside and everything. It was VERY cool. As a scenario this would be a nightmare to program but as a player I would SO replay this over and over!
The second idea is also from a previous game. We had an epic foe bent on destroying the world...erasing it from existence by making a device to prevent it from ever forming! The bad guy was both mystical and technological in nature so we got ALL of our characters past and present and had a HUGE rumble. The mystical characters went after the magical half of the enemy and the rest of us went after the other half. We had to defeat him three times, once for each half and once combined. Total mayhem with characters dying left and right and all kinds of carnage. Of course the character dying part wouldn't work but the rest of it would be GREAT!
Ok...your turn...
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Fight or sneak your way into the villain's active Volcano Lair, foil the Diabolical Plot Device, escape from the Exploding Volcano! (Yes, sorta like Age of Conan.)
I'm keeping mine simple.
Be Well!
Fireheart
OOooooooo this sounds like a fun game. Without even seriously considering playability....
1.) Way back in the day, there were a couple of story arcs in X-Men where this arch villain captured the X-men and put them in individual rooms, where they had a customized challenge that they had to defeat. Of course, once the hero busted out he or she could go help out his comrades. Everyone breaks out, and big gang fight at the end.
2.) Mission where near the end, the villain escapes into the streets. Other heroes in the street to then assist. Maybe villains could attempt to help their guy as well!
With great power, comes the need for great heat sinks
Actually, depending on what you thought was "very cool" about fighting inside the robot, that could be done just as an instanced "dungeon." Now, I won't say we could design the setting to feel like it's moving around from the inside, but simply "fighting inside the giant robot" would be as feasible as any other interior location.
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One thing I always thought would be cool was if during the Halloween event in CoH, Jack and Eochai could have duked it out on top of the Giza in St Martial. Kind of reminiscent of King Kong on a giant public building.
I like the idea of a giant monster climbing buildings like King Kong during their rampage.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
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Does U4 give you the option of messing with the gravity at all? Like can you change the direction of the "g" vector? Because that's all you'd need to do to make an interior space feel like its part of a moving robot. Now, doing that in any kind of quasi-realistic sense might take some trial and error and some thought, but in mechanical terms you're only playing with the game environment's gravity direction, really. I mean, the toons will still think gravity is still technically pointing down like it always does (from an immersion standpoint), but if you can only change that "force" in the game, magnitude and direction, it can create phantom forces that make it feel like you';re in a box that's being pushed this way and that. Youd's probably need to be able to tip the angle of the floor relative to the camera too.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Eventually, I'd like to see more "specialty" missions where the gameplay is a little out of the ordinary. The altered gravity idea touches that in one way. I'd like to see instances where, like
1) You get scuba gear and have to infiltrate the secret submarine base via underwater tunnels, so you're fighting in essentially zero-g and maybe you have to watch your O2 levels.
2) You're fighting on top of some kind of moving platform (Airship, Train, Aircraft Carrier) where falling off might have some consequence.
3) Part of the mission is seen through view finders/goggles of some kind where you have to ID the disguised/hidden/extra-dimensional etc bad guys in a crowd before you attack them or call in an "airstrike" or something.
4) as alluded to by Impulse King, the idea of the fight breaking out of the map into the open world would be epic! Whether this would work as far as other players then being able to join in, IDK. Maybe just a little slice of the greater map is part of the instance? This gets back to the mechanical stuff that others have a better handle on than me.
Separate from mechanical/engine specific wants, I'd like to see, very occasionally, some kind of physical puzzle (ala Tomb Raider) or mystery to solve. Where you actually need to put clues together and get the correct answer. Nothing super intellectual, just enough to change it from the usual "1. Go in. 2. Beat down everything. 3. Return to contact for next mission" 4. Repeat." I know this might be hard in a social game where the answers could eventually leak, but Secret World did a pretty good job of it and there arose a kind of "no spoiler" attitude in the community.
Events where super powerful villains smash through buildings and stuff in the open world and after he's beaten people can stay and help rebuild.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMcQdRLgVpMwXi_3yTCN5iA/videos
Having to break up a city-wrecking GM fight would be awesome (by GM I mean giant monster, not game master--though that could be cool too :P).
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Volunteer to clean up some graffiti, Then the tagger gangs show up.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
I'm sorry, but that does not sound very over the top. Sounds more boring and mundane to me.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Well it's over the top to me.
I mean, would you want to start washing off the graffiti in your neighborhood without armed guards and a mask?
Those folks'll kill ya.
and this would be a sure way to get a bunch of them after you at once.
plus with the COT clue system, they've talked about, it could easily lead to a lot of further adventures.
It's about the ballsiest move a street fighting hero could take short of just straight up attacking a gang boss.
Bosses can be hard to find, but a move like this might lead to him.
finally it's a way to show that your hero is trying to make the world a better place
Not just some costumed monster who enjoys violence.
The devs could even program graffiti to spread in some areas until heroes take on this challenge to push it back
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Start washing off the graffitti, and discover that it was actually a circle some new but talented magic [i]hero[/i] had put in place to seal a nasty djinni.
[color=#ff0000]Business Manager[/color]
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When I think "Over the top", I think: Galactus, Darkseid, Apocalypse, Thanos, Doomsday, Infinity War. Things like that. I'm not saying that cleaning up graffiti can't be a mission in the game that leads to other clues for other missions. Just saying it's not "Over the top".
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Okay, the djinni in question is Galacalypsied. :P
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Speaking of Galactus... Maybe an event where there is a giant battle simultaneously going on in every zone of the game in order to stop an appocolypse like they did in the last episode of Avengers EMH. Think Galactus's heralds or the horsemen of the apocolypse or something. After all of the threats are defeated, the big bad leader comes down on one zone because he's mad that his plan failed. A bunch of heroes/villains ban together to stop a common threat that would otherwise end the world.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMcQdRLgVpMwXi_3yTCN5iA/videos
Well Sev, Guild Wars 2 actually did that as part of the finale for their Living Story season 1. Scarlet Briar, the villain behind everything that had been going wrong in the world, was constantly sending her forces to various places in the world and if the players beat her forces she'd show up in person and need to be fought off.
To be honest, it felt kinda cheap when sylvari just kept popping in and out like a saturday morning cartoon villain. It was a tough fight, sure, but that doesn't really account for the fact that the whole shebang felt ridiculous and overblown.
I'm more in favor of events like that being limited to a single location in-world, like how the rikti Invasion in CoH was largely contained to a single map save for the rare points when it happened elsewhere.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
In COH I made an adventure in AE where the trolls opened a portal to Valhalla, then found out that vikings didn't like trolls.
ODin and Thor appeared in the mission and they were set on conquering earth.
This was just one of several viking themed missions I made and I guess it's the only one you'd consider "over the top".
of course like every Paladin, I dream about fighting and beating satan during a big demonic invasion.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
But isn't this forum for over the top ideas? Over the top generally means ridiculous and overblown ^_^. besides, what you're saying seems like it's part of the main story and the villain appears in every map. What I was thinking is more like an event that happens once in a blue moon where the heralds are scattered through all the zones then the boss only comes once in one of the zones (most likely the most populated one) and everyone fights him in open world. Weather this would work or is even possible, I don't know. But that's what this thread is for. isn't it? ;)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMcQdRLgVpMwXi_3yTCN5iA/videos
Yeah, that sounds better. It was just... bad. And kind of annoying.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
This puts me in mind of something that happened in an old PnP game I was in.
Essentially, a to-scale robotic Godzilla came ashore and started to attack ( was built by a mad robotics genius with a love of kaiju films ) and we had to fight it off. I could see an event where first you had to fight your way to the giant robot and once there, the heroes had to force their way into the innards of the rampaging behemoth and take out specific sections (power plant, nuclear breath generator, etc). The inner areas could be specialized instances and you could have multiple teams of heroes joining forces to stop the attack. A couple groups fighting outside to limit the destruction, some going inside to disable it, and the more teams you had the faster it could be stopped and the greater the reward.
Fighting an alien armada in orbit. You could have flyers/jumpers/teleporters attacking directly and the less mobile types boarding ships.
Oh yeah doing it in space would be so cool. The mission entrance could be the spaceship we use to get there
Most characters could be put into space suits while they're in the mission, but characters with certain powers could fly around in space unprotected.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Wouldn't be fair to force a difference between characters. Beyond, you know, the differences between characters.
Still not a bad idea... Moonbase!
Be Well!
Fireheart
Well most of My characters (like Paladin) would need a space suit, but a few like Der Ubermensch wouldn't.
We could always ask the player if he needs one.
You know, like, before tossing him into the cold vacuum, unprotected.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
It's simple. In the staging area (the spaceship, teleporter, orbiting satellite base, whatever) have an NPC who offers spacesuits to anyone who needs one. Those heroes who don't need suits can ignore the NPC and those who do can click on the NPC or a locker and get a temporary costume power (similar to the Freakshow disguise you wear in one story arc) that provides them with a spacesuit outfit for the duration. Easy.
and this way players can decide for themselves if their character needs one. So no one feels bad yay!
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
I remember CoV missions where jet packs were available for non-fliers so yeah that works.
Some very cool ideas out there. The 'invading robot' one sounds good. One idea I had was that different parts of the robot controlled different things and had different effects. Like destroying a power plant meant it would fire less often, destroying less of the area. Damaging a leg meant it moved slower, enabling more foes to concentrate fire. That way players could replay it looking for their idea of the 'best' plan.
The goal is to prevent the most damage for bonus Xps or whatever.
As to the inside of a robot being instanced, that would work but a few animated shots of what's happening outside would make if feel different from other instanced missions. Instead of radically altering the gravity how about just a constant shake?
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
This thread makes me wish that NCSoft had at least let us get to Battalion Invasion and The Coming Storm so CoH could have gone out with an over-the-top mission/event instead of a whimper.
But we managed a bang anyway, didn't we :)?
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
That's how CO did it for the assault on Cislunar Mechanon. My [font=lucida bright]AI[/font] character did not take the vaccsuit, but most of my biological characters did. Except for the space pirate catgirl, who had her own suit. Which was fortunate, as the provided suit would've taken off her ears. ^_^'
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
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1) Continuously evolving dynamic story arcs. Perhaps something game-masters could pop in and mess with to make it harder for the player? That would be something.
2) Large scale invasion force (from space or another dimension, etc), destructable environments. Using your powers to help re-build/clean up (optional of course)
3) Space! (space stations, starships, etc with destructable walls leading into empty space!)
4) Climbable giant monsters. Of course for ranged characters this wouldn't be an issue, though it could be implemented so you do more damage point blank? hmm...will think on this.
5) Abduction arenas. (player is (randomly or as part of a story/mission) zapped into another place/planet/dimension etc, and is forced to fight in an arena battle, (possibly with other random players) Think "waves of enemies survival/horde mode")
6) In-depth customizable weapons: Hilts, blade, pommel for melee. Barrel, receiver, stock for rifles and barrel, receiver, slides for pistols, and something similar with other possible weapons.
"I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty"
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Since I mentioned it in the tram thread; I love the idea of having a fight on top of a speeding train.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
That, indeed, was the greatest moment in animated super-being history...
...well played
Lay your hands on me
While I'm bleeding dry
Break on through blue skies
And take it high
Everquest has one of those as an instanced zone.
There is a giant robot walking through a zone, and if you approach the right leg from the correct side (the wrong side has the robot step on you for Painful (tm) damage) you can zone into to the robot.
After that it is pretty much an ordinary zone, with a high tech (for that game anyway) look and feel to it, but no indication that you are actually inside a 200 meter tall robot.
Just one word of caution, any mission that forces players into PvP is going to be divisive in the extreme and plain and simple will honk off a lot of them. (SW:TOR did that by placing some mission objectives in open world PvP zones and the backlash was not pretty). The player base of CoH in general was not overly thrilled with PvP iand it can be expected that the same is true for CoT. Forcing players into PvP is likely going to hurt the game a lot more than it helps.
The only players that seemed to really whine about the PvP zones was badge hunters. They overexagerrated it.
Other players didn't complain about being ganked because they stayed out of the PvP zones. However, if you were randomly teleported off of the street into a PvP area, there wouldn't be an option to avoid PvP, now would there? If it happened as a part of a mission, then as long as the mission text had a warning that PvP was a part of the mission, then the player could make an informed decision about if they wanted to participate or not.
I'd go into PvP zones on occasion in CoH while collecting badges or getting temporary powers. I found PvPers to be annoying, but a cost of getting the badge/power I was after. I simply avoided the PvP ones unless I had a specific goal in mind.
How about a mission where Dinosaurs are let loose in the city.
I already suggested a dinosaur mission or zone
but having them thrown into the city would be a different thing completely.
Freedom Force already did a time travel mission with Dinosaurs, and we all saw Jurassic Park, but I have a different Idea:
Suppose aeons ago when it was clear that dinosaurs were doomed, some alien race stepped in to try to save them.
They captured enough to breed on their home world.
Now at last they've bred enough dinosaurs to start returning them to earth
Millions of them.
That, over the top enough for ya?
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
I wasn't referring to pvp, i was referring to more of a co-op type thing, where players would be, maybe as part of a particular zone/quest what have you, randomly teleported to another world into a wave survival type situation. Players would have to fight together, even if players from both "sides" are present.
"I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty"
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If I got a warning that part of the mission arc would take place in a PvP zone my most likely reaction would not be to click OK, but to click Goodbye, followed by Uninstall.
if there is open world PvP going on, I really would want a configuration option that says: can not be flagged for PvP. can not in any way or form affect PvP flagged characters. Can not in any way or form affect PvP flagged characters. In short, I do not want there to be PvP in my gameplay for any reason, and if there are PvP players who want me in their gameplay, well, they are the reason why I want nothing to do with PvP.
I would prefer there not being any PvP in the game at all, since that would mean the developers can free up a lot of resources both in development and in maintenance, to make the PvE game more varied and polished, but i understand and (grudgingly) accept that is not possible.
If you have to force somebody to play something in your game then that to me speaks of bad game design. I would rather it be an option to play than forced to play it. Options are always better.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
"Must Play" is not as fun as "WANT To Play!"
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Over the top....are you sure you wanna go there? ;-)
First Mission
Player enters a warehouse in search of a stolen cache of Charter Arms revolvers headed for a notorious street gang connected to a new designer drug killing off the city's finest minds with promises of super-genius and delivering only neurochemical collapse transforming users into drooling catatonic shells. Once inside the warehouse player finds a computer terminal someone just walked away from that is displaying a spreadsheet of the gang's profits and losses for the past 18 months, complete with names of several prominent politicians that have been running interference with the DA's office. Player downloads the data onto a thumbdrive continues searching the warehouse. When they finally find the cache of stolen revolvers attached to side is a shipping invoice for the home of one of the politicians mentioned in the spreadsheet.
Second Mission
Player confronts the politician at home just as they are sitting down to dinner with their family. The politician's spouse begs for leniency while the politicians young children cry and demand to know why the player is arresting Daddy. Player learns one of the children has a genetic fluke that prevents the child's brain from producing certain neurotransmitters and the drug that is killing the best and brightest is keeping the child functional. Politician offers to "reveal the drug's inventor" if the player walks away without arresting them.
Third Mission
Player heads for the offices of a biotech conglomerate to seek out the inventor of the drug, only to learn the inventor is the son of the city's mayor. One of the Mayor's siblings stole the formula when they found it on the inventor's open laptop (exactly how the player found the spreadsheet!) while at the house for a holiday visit and sold the formula to the street gang. The sibling is the contact who gave the player the mission that sent them to the warehouse.
Fourth Mission
Player returns to contact but enroute is captured and rendered unconscious. Player wakes up in a cell and breaks down the door with unexpected ease only to discover they are at the heart of a giant underground maze. Every defeat sends the player back to the cell.
If the player solves the maze, they have an encounter with the contact supported by the heads of the street gang. If the player does not solve the maze after a preset number of tries (say, 10), they are rescued by one of the game's signature characters.
Fighting inside giant robots is a fine thing, but myself, I'm all about the narrative. :-D
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Escaping a building/boat/aircraft etc while everything falls apart around you, you have to save civilians before something crushes them AND there are A LOT of enemies with relatively low because feeling powerful is awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMcQdRLgVpMwXi_3yTCN5iA/videos
When did we ever have a mission that automatically popped one into the a PvP zone? I don't even recall that in other MMOs.
Nevermind all the other mission story arcs that didn't do it? *shrug* Not that I'm for it, but if it was 1% of the mission story arcs, I wouldn't think that grounds to install, but to each their own.
For what it's worth I was one of those "weird" badge hunters who actually didn't whine about having to go into PvP zones to collect badges. I guess there always has to be an exception to prove the rule.
The only specific case I did vocally complain about was the hyper-sadistic "one Contaminated spawn in RV" joke scenario where it literally forced you to camp a single spawn point to get the Isolator badge. It's one thing to have to go to a PvP zone on your own terms to work on various badges throughout the entire zone but it's another thing to basically force players to gather around a single point like fish in a barrel serving as gank-fodder for the whims of a Dev (*cough* Positron *cough*) who was openly passive-aggressive towards his own players. Frankly I blame Positron for directly lighting off most of the "Badger versus PvPer" bickering we saw in the game based solely on this one ill-conceived stunt.
Despite Posi's "carebear gank-trap" PvP zone badging in general was never a big issue for me. Sure I occasionally got popped while I wasn't paying attention but I must admit some of my most memorable PvP experiences came from the countless other idiots who thought I was an easy kill and in turn got stomped by the stupid badger. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Didn't say it was all Badge Hunters. Though I always saw the one contaminated in the pvp zone was because the idea originally was, you missed it, oh well.
Which of course, was never anything they wanted to hear. :p
Actually if you had made a character before Issue 2 it was never a matter of "ho hum, you missed it, oh well" it was more a matter of there was never even the opportunity to CHOOSE if you wanted Isolator or not because the Devs stupidly trapped it inside the tutorial.
I totally agree with the idea of not making a badge easy to get for those lazy people who make the conscious decision to skip it and only later decide they wanted it. But to screw the innocent folks who would've have very likely gotten it at the "proper" time in the tutorial if they had only the chance but the badging system itself didn't exist at the time was totally insulting to those players. It wasn't my fault that I made a character before badges existed and it wasn't my fault they locked a badge in a place where I had no chance to earn it the "right" way. Had they never trapped a badge in the tutorial in the first place there would never been a need for a "fix" to the problem they created.
For me it wasn't even the PvP aspect of the "One Contaminated spawn in RV" trick that bothered me so much. Basically Posi made a badge that would only take about 15-20 minutes in the tutorial take potentially weeks/months to get in RV. Again why was it fair to make innocent people (who again would have loved to have been able to earn it in the tutorial as intended) waste so much extra time/effort just because they were dumb enough to start playing the game before Issue 2?
Instead of Positron apologizing for making the dumb mistake of trapping a badge where no pre-Issue 2 character could have gotten it he doubled-down on his failure by dreaming up the "One Contaminated spawn in RV" as a way to supposedly "punish" those players who pointed out his short-sightedness. The fact that a few years later they made getting a post-tutorial Isolator very trivial in the Ouroboros TF only goes to prove that the only reason Positron stuck us with the "One Contaminated spawn in RV" situation to begin with was as a sadistic joke.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I know that, but it's back to oh well you missed it. Like the anniversary badges. I know when I switched my main and I went back to get other badges, even though I was around for all the anniversaries, my main lacked certain badges.
I would've thought it fair if they just said, sorry, just how it goes (until such times as it wasnt). Positron should've just stepped up and said it that way.
For what it's worth there was a period of roughly a year between when Issue 2 introduced badges to the game and when the "One Contaminated spawn in RV" scheme was added (Issue 7 IIRC). At that time everyone who had created a character before Issue 2 had absolutely no way to earn Isolator on those characters.
Now you might think that every last badger in the game was screaming-n-yelling for any way to get Isolator. But in reality that wasn't the case. It seemed (again at the time) that most of us were perfectly content in knowing that as long as NO pre-Issue 2 character could get it then it was equally fair for none of us to have it precisely because as you pointed out "oh well, we all missed it". Things ironically would have been perfectly fine if nothing like the "One Contaminated spawn in RV" scheme had ever happened. I personally remember thinking it was dumb for Posi to trap Isolator inside the tutorial but I had no rabidly insane desire to get it any cost.
Unfortunately as fate would have there was in fact a tiny minority of uber-vocal badgers who did scream blood murder about wanting to get it. As the story goes several prominent players (who ran the badge tracking sites) in particular begged Positron so much they literally told him "we would do anything in game to get that badge". Now instead of remaining thick-skinned and mature about it Posi basically threw his own temper-tantrum and devised "One Contaminated spawn in RV" as a means to punish/mock those few players who had continuously bitched-n-moaned about it.
Sure on the one hand it was "nice" that Posi broke down and gave us a method (even a ridiculously stupid one) to get Isolator post-tutorial. But he did it in a way that was overtly vindictive and punished a bunch of "innocent" badgers due to the actions of a few hyper-completionists. Sure you could claim that it was ultimately a few badgers who effectively screwed themselves (and everyone else) at least until the Ouroboros TF alternative. But I will still always squarely blame Posi from losing his cool and subjecting the entire game to a laughable spawn camp just to flex his manly Dev muscles. Frankly he should have been the "bigger man" in that situation and refused to provide ANY method to get Isolator if it wasn't going to be a REASONABLE method.
P.S. What really miffed me was that at the time "One Contaminated spawn in RV" was introduced Posi literally told us some BS along the lines of "this is the ONLY way I can give you a chance at Isolator" as if it wasn't his direct fault that he was screwing everyone over. Obviously once the Ouroboros TF alternative emerged the bald-face lie that he told us was laid bare.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I was there for most of it, but didn't know all the story, though it makes sense when you see how they killed off States and Psyche.
Not sure on the RV spawn though. At the time, was Ouroboros even a thing? Was it one of those, we can never, and then later, WE FOUND A WAY! Though, I would think if one could put a contaminated in one zone, you could do it in any zone.
We didn't. It was suggested as an option earlier in the thread so I included it as an example of something that would be a bad idea, IMNSHO.
Quite so, X. They could have created a 'Oh no, some Contaminated escaped, go stop them!' mission with enough spawns to complete the badge if they'd wanted to. Putting the one lone contaminated in RV was pretty clearly a 'Fine, we technically allowed it so shut up' move.
Zombie apocalypse with dinosaurs
When Posi took over CoH in its final years he apparently decided to "rewrite history" to make it seem as though States and Psyche (and their real life alter egos) didn't even exist. A fairly "[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality]cult of personality[/url]" type-ish move if you ask me. *shrugs*
Ouroboros (and its TF mission that finally made getting Isolator post-tutorial relatively trivial) appeared several years after the "One Contaminated spawn in RV" scenario was foisted upon us. Clearly at the time Posi wanted us to believe that the RV method would be the only way it would ever happen in hopes that we would all be tempted to jump into the frying pan so to speak. To be honest I don't even know why Isolator was later made available in Ouroboros other than maybe Posi finally came to his senses and realized that his RV scheme was a little over the top.
And here is where the house of cards behind the "One Contaminated spawn in RV" falls apart: There was in fact absolutely no reason that spawn had to be in RV in the first place. As Mendicant implied the whole thing of making it far harder than necessary was a not-so-subtle slap at the players. Even if a few of the players technically deserved that kind of response I still believe Posi should not have been so heavy-handed, especially when it affected everyone, not just the few. The "responsible" thing for him to have done was to either wait for a reasonable Ouroboros TF type solution or maybe not even bothered at all.
All in all it's an interesting lesson in what happens when a Dev loses his cool and reflexively tosses something into the game just as a thoughtless "STFU" response. Hopefully a similar situation will not come up in CoT.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Well I'd say it worked, I remember many disagreeing with me on the forums about their reason for doing it. :p I remember getting a lot of replies that were basically "We agree with the move and it wasn't personal, it's just time."
Of course, lots of CoH players didn't like Jack so they didn't care for States.
I suppose it's what happens when you have top Devs closely tied to specific important NPCs. When Jack left it must have been weird at Paragon Studios for his "character" to still be around reminding everyone of his lingering presence.
I'm sure most Devs in most other games have their own personal characters in the given game. But CoH might have been unique in having central lore characters being directly associated to real people. Heck we're still doing it now referring to "Posi" as "Posi" instead of as Matt Miller. Of course that kind of thing is cool only as long as the Devs in question are still working for the game. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
On the topic of over-the-top missions, I'd like to see missions that borrow from an old game called [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_MpWYOXDpg]Blast Corps[/url]. The game revolved around a truck carrying nuclear missiles, and your objective was to clear a path for it. The truck would stop for nothing, and if there was anything standing in its way---buildings, walls, whatever---it would crash and cause a nuclear catastrophe unless you demolished the obstacles.
I think this kind of scenario would make a great mission objective in City of Titans. Let there be a vehicle carrying some dangerous object away from the city, and leave it up to the heroes to pave its way. This idea could hardly be realized without destructible buildings or large objects, but maybe blockades of villains could also work somehow. In any case, the mission would be a failure if the vehicle collided with anything.
Plexius, that's essentially an Escort Mission in which the NPC is behaving Full Speed STUPID™ rather than taking any intelligent actions (like driving sensibly, in the scenario you cite).
Such mission types are rarely as entertaining to play as they might sound, particularly when the inherent design for such gameplay becomes a "twitchy" DPS fest.
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You have a point. I was thinking that a reactive, white-knuckle scenario that demanded nonstop action to prevent tragedy could be fun. Not everyone's into that sort of thing, but it could make for a crazy and challenging change of pace. It sounds less exciting when you word it the way you did though.
Well ... to be fair, I played in a few different "modes" in City of Heroes (and in WoW and in ... you get the idea). There was the full bore tunnel vision of [b]SCRAPPERLOCK![/b] that was the glory of the beat down when playing [i]The Extraordinary Death-defying[/i] Redlynne (who defeated Ghost Widow to achieve Soul Mastery no less!) ... and then there was ... Ms Givings ... my Mind/Kinetics Controller.
Redlynne fought using [i]The Flying Feet of [/i][b]NO GET HITSU!![/b]
Ms Givings used what can charitably be called "Jedi Mind Tricks" to defeat her Foes. It was slow, but methodical. Most Foes never even "knew" they'd been defeated by her. I often entertained the notion that her Foes would simply wake up in the Zig with absolutely no idea of how they got there. Mind Control ... gotta love it!
Eventually, my playstyle evolved into what I preferred to think of as being something of a Scranktroller ... sort of a Scrapper/Tanker/Controller hybrid. Even my Defenders, Sidhe Bang (Storm/Dual Pistols) and Flight of Stars (Empathy/Archery) had their builds influenced by and designed to allow Scranktroller types of utility to be employed.
So when I looked at your scenario, Plexius, I immediately spotted that for DPS monsters who live in a state of Scrapperlock would plow through such content just fine. It would essentially be a sort of Rolling Mayhem Mission. But then I considered the other side of things ... the Control Freak side ... and very quickly realized, well, what I posted. Suffice it to say that even a Buff/Debuff oriented PC could have problems with the scenario you presented if it was "tuned" to be a challenge for the DPS Monsters.
Reminds me of trying to destroy unexploded Rikti Bombs during a Rikti Invasion Event ... with Ms Givings. Mind Control wasn't all that effective against unexploded bombs, even if it was quite effective against anything organic (ie. not mechanical/robotic). All that lockdown capability was essentially wasted on a straight up DPS check.
So yeah. It makes for an exciting Action Movie Sequence, but less so for a Mission Design in an MMORPG. Different mediums. In a movie, the Director (and Editor) controls the pacing of the action. But in a MMORPG, you can't count on the PC's "keeping up" with the predetermined(!) pace of the action, since not everyone will generate the same amount of DPS (or do so using the same techniques), which then leads to "tuning" problems with the pacing of the action. Ye ken hoo i'tis. ^_~
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I understand your point that not everyone can pump out massive DPS, and it wouldn't be fair for mission success to hinge on it. I gave it a little more thought, and I think there are a few ways to make sure it's not just a matter of having X amount of DPS to chew through obstacles.
[list]
[*]Have some obstacles that aren't just one big monolithic object with 1,000,000 HP, but have some blockades that consist of numerous weak objects scattered about. This could allow even low-damage heroes to help clear a path.
[*]Have explosive objects near big obstacles that would deal significant damage to other nearby objects. This can allow players to play smarter rather than harder, so to speak, and it wouldn't require massive DPS to detonate.
[*]Have some allied NPC's in the area that will help you demolish obstacles after you rescue them. Any hero could effectively plow through obstacles with one of these NPC's in tow.
[*]Have some obstacles that must be cleared by hitting a switch. You don't need DPS to click a glowie.
[/list]
Things like this would make it less of a test of damage output and more of a test of situational awareness and critical thinking. DPS would still be valuable, but in many cases, taking a more creative route would be more helpful.
What do you think?
The first two would (relatively) increase the value of AoE. When you need to clobber lots of little small fry, AoE is the weapon of choice.
The second option is also effectively an "explosive barrel" strategically placed for the PC(s) to exploit ... and get themselves killed by (note: griefer potential). These kinds of things tend to favor Range over Melee thanks to a proverb about pins, grenades and friendship.
Third option is kinda ... I wouldn't call it exciting. Once you reach this point you're making Henchmen available. Henchmen will necessarily "skew" the balance point of the objective, introducing additional variables. In some ways, if you have to resort to this, you're all but admitting that you've lost the ability to balance the scenario without them. Furthermore, these Temp Hench are all essentially throwaway characters or fall into the Fusionette fallacy of usefulness.
Fourth option is actually the relatively intelligent one, since it simply requires an interaction, rather than a defeat of X. A variation on this could be that the switches are "guarded" by hostile Foes which will interrupt your interaction with the switch. This then creates multiple means of successfully "pulling the switch" to progress. Either defeat them in straight combat. Control them so as to neutralize them. Or play the Stalker card and achieve your goal without ever being noticed by the guards.
And just so you know, don't let my Negative Nancy towards this idea get you down. It IS one of the stock and standard mission types you see in MMORPGs and also side scroller games. The trick is to figure out what kind of balance you're trying to build around for this challenge.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I had almost as many Controllers as I did Tankers (gotta try them All!) and my Mind/Storm Controller was one of my favorites. Drifting about in a cloud of 'dreams', putting baddies to sleep, giving them terrible nightmares, and then they wake up in the Zig... Lots of Fun! I used to say that the only way to know that you'd been busted by a Mind Controller was that there was absolutely No Evidence. No scorch-marks or clouds of smoke, no cold spots, no mysterious rocks or junk-sale items lying about... nothing. Just "everyone went crazy and arrested themselves!"
And, as much as I enjoyed the easy pace of the Controller, a lot of my teammates would get terribly bored and go off and Scrapperlock themselves. The pace enforced by Control's lower damage, even with Containment set, meant more focus on strategy and tactics and little concern for DPS. Like a Defender, in a situation where DPS is king, Controllers were handicapped. It Was possible to 'mana-burn' and fire off powers as fast as possible, to raise the DPS, but only until the blue-bar was spent.
I hope that most of the adventures in CoT will allow a non-DPS path to total victory.
Be Well!
Fireheart
My main controller was LaGrange Point, a grav/kin, and I loved that you always KNEW where I'd been from the breadcrumb trail of random junk left behind.
I had a blast wormholing mobs into a corner or stringing them up with gravity distortion field so everyone could practice their piñata skills.
Actually, even more fun than the corner was wormholing them straight up. Then it would rain dizzy bad guys.
And I never got tired of the sheer chaos of my ice/strom troller, Cryo Havoc.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
OK I got an Idea for an Over the Top mission and this time it's really over the top.
I came up with this while playing with my daughter and our action figures so please get this game going soon I'm going insane.
A villain with the power to control machines/electronics gets himself locked up in a high tech prison so he can take over. Using his power, he quickly releases the other prisoners and turns the prison into his fortress. Worst of all any heroes with a tech origin will b helpless against him because he can turn their own devices against them.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
He's bred...
Hmmmm.....would several prison lock systems going off the grid at once qualify as this? You would have criminals, smallfry villains, and supervillains running around causing trouble in an entire district or across the entire city.
Or you can have an special prison holding an monster of an supervillain go off the grid. He could essentially try to level an district or the city itself. Kind of reminds me of Faultline.....
Formerly known as Bleddyn
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This is just BEGGING to be the [b]Ultimate Weapon™[/b] used by one of the two Nazi groups determined to knock over Titan City. Definitely qualifies as "Kaiju class" over the top, just from reading the design specs.
Forget Mad Scientists ... this thing needs [b][i]MAD ENGINEERS[/i][/b]!!!
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Yeah, but could you imagine one of those (quite real) Bagger-288s turned lose in a city park?
Be Well!
Fireheart
Since apparently every game since Wolfenstein simply MUST have Nazi hordes for players to slaughter in glee, then I'm with Redlynne: give the Nazi guys some honest to goodness BFGs to fire at the silly heroes.
25-foot long projectile... Even Hulk would flinch if hit with one of those!
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Well, it certainly qualifies as being Over The Top ...
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