Shadestorm

Now, to get back on topic. Rolling over the basic questions addressed, and keeping in mind the apperant community dislike for a purely raid focused system, I'm going to start laying out some alternative and simpler systems here.

System 1: SG tips.

The Sg tips system mirrors the standard tip system with a few SG specific differences.

When playing in SG mode, normal tip drops for a given character are replaced with SG tips. The difference is that unlike a normal tip, which when used becomes a temporary contact, an SG tip is intended to be analyzed utilizing base facilities. Yes, this prevents you from getting normal tips in SG mode, however given the drop rate for tips, which is pretty darn high, and the limit of 5 tips missions every 24 hours, I don't see this as a problem.

Standard tip - You find a piece of smooth metal... blah... you poke around with your contacts... Mission/choice.

SG Tip - You find a piece of smooth metal.

Now how do these tips ramp? With the standard tip system, you've got a bar for the moralities avaliable to you. Completing mission choices of a given morality adds to the bar. Fill the bar, you get a morality mission, right?

SG tips are a bit different. We'll begin by making the assumption that an SG tip mission is a mission that is intended for at least half a group of players, if not a full group. Thus, you've got more people getting the tips. The tips themselves are simply bits of evidence, data, rumors, etc. that alone are a smaller piece of a larger puzzle. However, when assembled, you have the whole picture.

In a game play system, this is accomplished by a bar visible at the mission computer. When an SG member finds an SG tip, they'll take it over to the proper facility to "analyze" it. This effectively eats the tip, and adds a point to the bar. Once enough tips have been analyzed, the SG now has all the requisite data to begin a mission!

SG tips, when examined will have a bit of flavor text, describing what the tip is, as well as suggestive text specifying what sort of analysis should be performed on the tip.

Example Tip Types:

*Physical object (Strange Material, Interesting fingerprint) - Analyzed by base facility (Specialized Analysis device e.g. Fingerprint database)
*Rumor (You heard NPC X say Y)- Analyzed by a contact (Phone call, face to face meeting, Mission computer.)
*Cipher (unknown writing/data) - Analyzed by a base facility (Computer, Specialized control aux item.)

*Other - Some tip types may have multiple analysis types!

So, we've got SG members finding all these interesting things, and calling in their personal contacts (some SG members may have different contacts! Cooperate!) and using base facilities (These cost prestige! Cooperate to get them!) to analyze them. Once we've filled that bar, we get a mission!

SG Missions:

SG missions are a bit different than normal content, and require some interesting teamwork to achieve. Whereas a standard mission is designed under the assumption that the entire team remains within arms reach at all times, plows through mobs, clicks glowies, etc. an SG mission is purposely designed to split the team in to two or more differing complementary objectives. While the base mission goals are still stated for all to see, what is different is the way the players are expected to approach the mission. Think of these and little pocket sized TF finales. They comprise a single mission, but it's a big tough mission that's going to require coordination as much as it requires a mass of well built characters.

Heroic Example - Help Dr. Awesome close a Rularuu portal! Part of the team needs to be with the good doctor fighting the minions of Rularuu at the portal, for if the good doctor falls, then the mission fails. The other part of the team needs to be on the other side of the portal, fighting their way through to set up the negative displacement pylon to complete the process.

Villainous example - Take over WSPDR and make your demands! Part of the team needs to be outside the building fighting off the RIP on the ground floor, if the RIP make it inside, they'll cut the power and your plans are foiled. The other part of the team needs to make their way inside, capture a technician, and force him to set up for the broadcast.

These are simple, but you're getting the general idea here.

The other place where SG missions differ from normal missions is the reward. SG missions pay in pure prestige, however if failed they can not be re-attempted without collecting the proper tips again. Successfully completing one will give you not only a shiny SG accomplishment badge, but perhaps new decorations, raid defenses, or schematics to go with it!

In this manner, it's a short order to set up *progressive* SG tip content. If completion of one SG mission is required to access the equipment required to analyze the tips for the next mission, then the SG can only climb the ladder by successfully completing the mission.

This addresses only a fraction of what is possible with base content, but its a start. I'll make a later post about configurable facilities when I've finished simplifying the system.

After a quick re-read of the War Witch Q&A, you are in fact correct.

Disregard that statement. Complete misinformation on my part. I think I got crossed in hindsight/looking over the base comittee thread.

Most current bases fall in to that category. Unfortunately I can't see any way other than a herculean effort in terms of software engineering to have bases that both allow the current style clipping/nonpathing, and base raids by players OR NPCs.

Thus my suggestion that the plots simply be ported over, so that those who want to do base raid content can sell off their old base and swap the plot to a raid-legal-placing rules plot.

After all, I've seen some truly beautiful bases, and it'd be a shame to tell people they HAVE to take them apart. However I do think its simply not feasible for the NPC AI to handle the amount of freedom we currently have placing things.

Maybe a compromise? Give bases a "basement" where you'd put all the functional items, and have that be the area that the raids use, leaving your awesomesauce clipped and stacked bases intact but still allowing you to do the content?

M.A.G.I. System wide email - Subject: Final message regarding the Shadestorm

I've had it with you people. You've allowed this crystal to remain in uncertain hands for years despite my warnings. You've done nothing while parties unknown have utilized that Shadestorm entity for progressively larger and more vile acts of crime.

By this point it has become obvious that this organization is either not willing or not capable of addressing this threat, and by way of inaction has allowed it to develop from a small nuisance in to a rather large problem.

Thus, I'm tendering my resignation. My intelligence indicates that the entity has turned up in the Rogue Isles again recently. I'm going to put this thing down once and for all before it can send more of our city's heroes to an early grave.

Do not get in my way.

-Literati

I didn't post in the other thread, but my entry is:


456663 – Rogue Transmission

Best of luck to everyone!

We already have the models, and the rooms and such. I say why not? Just add "you got a base detail!" to the current IOP personal buff rewards in the CoP. Purely eye candy, purely base shinies, but at least you get this nice monument that says "we were there, we kicked butt."

Thanks posters. I realize I may have put a more negative spin on it than I really intended. Bases aren't USELESS by any stretch of the word, however there is a remarkable lack of really special content in regards to bases.

ow, I had a thought about optional setups for NPC raids. I'm keeping this in a PvE specific bubble. This is a base operational risk with base-specific rewards. Nothing could be gained through this system that could benefit a single player. The idea is that, like prestige, this system belongs to the group, and does not pay individual benefits.

Operations level:

Assume your hero or villain group has gained enough prestige to hire staff (or hire/subjugate henchmen if you're a villain.) So you get yourself an AE-like interface to design the costumes/powers of said staff, based on a prestige cost for various base items (call them "crew items") Which determine the amount of staff your base can support. These would be rooms/items for the purposes of training, housing, and maintaining your hirelings.

Now, what's the point?

The base operations level is an optional system that can be altered once every 24 hours. Setting base operations level above zero tasks your hirelings with a specific job, which results in an automated gain of prestige, unique base items, etc. Higher numbers or quality of hirelings will allow more reliable performance of higher operational levels.

However, this comes at a cost. With an ops level above zero, your base begins to attract attention. The higher your ops level, the more likely you are to come under attack from NPC factions you've tasked your personnel to interact with. The higher your operations level, the greater the gain on prestige, and research/spycraft/loot/etc. toward base specific items gained through the system.

What is the risk/reward?

NPC raids can damage your base items. Base items can not be destroyed via these raids, but they can be rendered inoperable. Damaged or inoperable systems can not be sold. In order to fix them, you'll need to task some hirelings with repair work. These repairs do not cost prestige, but they do cost time. That is time you can't task the same number of minions with running ops, and thus your base is not operating at peak efficiency.

You're not LOSING and re-farming prestige. If you get seriously whacked, you can always stand down all operations and stick the base on repairs until its all fixed up again.

New minions are trained at a fixed rate, thus your "bottleneck" is number of available minions to carry out tasks. Set ops too high, you lose minions at a disproportionate rate to your gain, and become even less efficient, possibly incurring even more base damage as a result of an NPC raid.

Thus, the risk is losing base functionality in terms of operational efficiency, defense, teleport capacity, etc. for a potential reward of increased prestige gains, new base shinies, etc.

NPC raids would be set on a base vulnerability window, say somewhere in the range of two hours every day. Vulnerability windows are a great way to prevent players from needing to be on call 24 hours a day. During that window, a raid event may spawn at your base, you'll be notified via the zone events channel if it happens.

Since we still have the tab for it, I'd advocate that base salvage be reinstated, and that minion operations be the only way to obtain it, and the only way to construct anything unlocked via the system.

Possible other additions to the system:

"Tip" style missions from the SG computer - Accompany your minions on ops.

SG specific temp powers - Limited utilization of minions by SG members as a temp power (reinforcements, orbital strikes, etc.) from a common pool (This temp power can be used once every 24 hours by anyone with permissions in the SG.)

Nemesis systems - Allows opposing SGs to run NPC ops against each other, potentially stealing ops-gained resources from the other. Think of it as PvP-lite. You don't fight the other SG, but you would fight their minions.



This is really a skeletal outline, but its just one example of ways to use bases as content.

Hello. Don't believe we've met. A lot of you have been around a lot longer than I have. See, I picked up City right around CoV preorder release.

Not that I have anything against superheros in general, it was just that up to that point, every run I had with the game was found lacking in the basic fundaments of multiplayer gameplay. Before I9, there was really nothing that comprised a group effort. Sure, I could group with others, and often had to to complete a task. But what about MY group? With our matching uniforms and such? Before bases, it was just a nametag.

In addition to my unending desire to spread chaos and havok, I really latched on to the game for what CoV added:

Accessible open PvP.
Extensive base building options.
PvP within said bases.

I abandoned PvP around the time IOs turned it in to a rich man's sport. I refuse to farm until I turn blue simply to avoid getting 2 shotted by a tanker with more inf. This is not a thread about PvP, nor the desolate wasteland those once fun zones have become as a result of fightclubbers and the IO aftermath. This is a thread about bases.

This isn't a thread about making bases prettier. This is a thread about bases having lasting function and value. To tell the truth, city's Prestige system and base builder are probably the most elegant "guild" system I've ever encountered. The concept of the group's achievements belonging to the group rather than a single individual, and the group losing that effort if someone is let go encourage building strong, lasting groups.

Now, back to the topic. Since my initial break with City, I've generally lapsed my subscriptions, returned every few issues to eat up the new, and left again. Those in my SG usually end up coming back all at once, we stick around for a month or two until the new wears off, and we bugger off.

In the mean time, the base grows with every fresh spurt of activity. The base itself is the one thing we're proud of, and the base is the only thing that really stands as a testament to our efforts ingame as a group. Racks full of storage, populated and de-populated by every member coming through. Racks of teleporters that'll take us anywhere we need to be. Decorations, bigger rooms, etc.

Since base raiding was effectively turned off, bases have been in a rapid decline. Aside from the aesthetic details, they are functionally null and void.

1: Base raiding axed/CoP killed.

I know why this was done. It was a flawed system that encouraged preying on people unequipped or inexperienced in PvP. not only that, the CoP and general raid related bugs/exploits were soul crushing. I'm glad to see the CoP come back with a (PvE) reward befitting its (PvE) risk. Base raids? Still on hiatus. Reason?

Result? All defensive systems, capacitors, and every raid related base item is effectively a really expensive paperweight. Sure they're shiny paperweights that don't look like the other ones, but they're still paperweights.

2: Ouroboros

Double edged sword. On the one hand, the flashback system being base accessible was a nice upgrade. On the other hand... you can do that from Ouroboros. Bonus? The O-Portal has invalidated in-base teleport upgrades. Stick that hand in hand with transporter powers from day jobs, boosters, etc. and now you've got more paperweights. Why bother walking to a base portal when you can simply oro-hop anywhere you might be?

3: Inventions

Now we're getting somewhere! All those salvage racks, finally useful for something other than the occasional base item! And they're right next to our tables to craft with! This is an extremely good reason to have a base again! Wait, you mean I can do all this stuff right outside the cap base portal too? Why do we still have this thing?

4: CoP/Silver Mantis redux.

The ONE reason left to have a base. That all important SG raid, was taken away. However, it was replaced with rework of the CoP. We're getting somewhere indeed. Sure, it's old content, but at least the raid teleporter is useful again!


Why haven't bases become more than collections of paperweights in the five years since they were invented?

Content.

Because in order to give bases all the love they need, it would run at odds with developing new SFs, new Story Arcs, and fifty other new ways to dangle a fresh shiny in front of us.

Here are new power sets. Have fun rolling more toons.

Here are new zones. Have fun collecting badges and temps.

Here's the problem. All those shinies are personal acheivements. I PUGd RSF yesterday. I don't expect I'll ever see those people again. The incarnate "endgame" is also a personal achievement. You can switch alignments and do tip missions now. However, these are also purely personal acheivements.

My question is this:

Why in the last five years of development has every addition to the game been focused completely on the single player experience? On "my" level of power.

You know what makes the Avengers work? The group. Fantastic Four? The group. Superfriends? Okay, that's basically just superman, but you get the picture.

In the realm of comics, there are far more stable groups of heroes or villains than there are random pickup groups to abolish some new threat. However, with each content addition, we've been treading further and further away from that all important concept of the "team that could" Yet again we stand on the eve of an issue that states. "You're all on the same side against a bigger threat. Again."

I don't know about the rest of you, but here's my thinking:

Bases can be content too.

Take a break from new personal shinies for an issue or two and focus on group shinies. How about some tip-style missions for the SG computer?

How about developing an NPC raid event system?

How about letting groups of opposing moralities declare an official rivalry?

How can we tie bases and supergroups in to other PvE content?

How can we tie bases and supergroups in to other PvP content?

How about any number of other fantastic (non decorative) suggestions?

In short, how about making bases, and by way of bases, supergroups, actually matter again? Will people complain they can't solo it? Maybe. It didn't seem to be a problem with the resurgence of CoP. Freelancers can piggyback works well enough.

In short, great job on GR. Now start thinking about the amount of "low hanging fruit" you've got in terms of AI pathfinding, the mission architect, and the base raid systems and try and get creative. I'm looking forward to defending my secret lair from intruders of any variety some day soon.

A lot of good suggestions in this thread, just like the so... stalkers one. To add on to what I posted there, here are a few other screwy ideas:

Team buff - Assassination - For each member on your team, every one of your hide-crits gains an additional 10% chance to apply the debuff. This places grouped stalkers in a position where it is more advantageous to the team for the stalker to use his signature mechanic to benefit the team rather than attempting to compete with other melee ATs for pure damage numbers. It doesn't mean the stalker can't scrap, but as teams get larger, there are probably other damage sources on the team anyway. On smaller teams, the stalker retains his dps utility without becoming overpowered in terms of control mechanics.

Critical mechanics - Give stalkers an additional 10% chance to crit on bosses+. This makes them specifically better suited for sustained DPS against single hard targets than scrappers, while leaving scrappers and brutes the kings of wading in to large groups of foes and beating the mess out of them.

BU - 1.0 please!

Survivability: Def sets are fine, HP is fine, Regen/resist sets REALLY need to be looked at.

Additional REALLY screwy idea (while disregarding any and all other buffs) - Inherent power - Exploit weakness - Stalkers may slot this power to gain increased critical damage, knockdown, knockback, fear, or stun. This power modifies the stalker's critical hits. Base critical damage values remain the same, and all criticals apply a base mag 0.5 knockdown, knockback, fear, and stun. This allows the stalker to build for specific mitigation or damage in terms of criticals at the cost of slotting he could have used on other powers. If granted at level 1, this also significantly smooths out a stalker's lower levels, as enemies have less HP, and are less resistant to such effects in the early stages.

1. Arc or mission specific temp powers.

Since we've seen the tech can support conditional removal of temp powers, how about configurable granted temp powers capable of the following:

Use temp power on object objective - Like the redside arc where you use the scanner on the rikti pods.

Use temp power on enemy - Basically a flag on custom enemy, or standard enemies in groups that makes them invulnerable unless they've been hit with your temp power.

Note that these MA temp powers can not be used to deal damage, but simply function as a sort of "key" to complete an objective (scan box with special dimensional thingy, etc.) Or exploit a critical weakness in an otherwise invulnerable enemy (Use the special formula dart to make the invincible end boss defeatable.)

You could just select the power's animation from a dropdown of any of the avaliable "tool" temp powers ingame, or even a selection of animations from existing powers.

I think this could add a lot of options for immersion in specific story arcs.

2. New GR style in mission dialogues.

I like the "banter boxes" that accompany several of the new missions, flagging bosses blue until they're interacted with. Set these up as a new event type with a sub-field for stuff like objects, bosses, etc.

3. FAILURE

I hate how MA Missions can be failed, but the arc will automatically proceed anyway. There should be an option to either end the arc on failure, or recycle the mission. This would allow for the use of some complex mechanics in missions which require the players to actually COMPLETE the objectives (take down a fleeing boss, protect someone, etc.) to progress, so that failure doesn't break the narrative.

4. Choice/Memory

Several tip missions have an either/or success condition. I'd like to see this in the MA. Additionally, It'd be nice if we could get a forking OR style contact dialogue to choose multiple missions. I can think of multiple times I wanted to do a story which required certian choices to be made at the end, or even in the middle of an arc that I simply couldn't do effectively because of the lack of any options for player choices.

The new GR tech where events can remember simple boolean variables based on your choices woul be nice too. Just give the MA interfact four namable flags in the base properties of the mission, and allow the events to set these flags when completed, and be triggered to spawn on a "true" condition of these flags. This would definately help with tying together player choices across missions to enable optional objectives that mean something. (Optional rescue of hero complete sets my "Hero Rescue flag" True. Mission 2, I have an ally who's spawn condition is set to "Flag is true: Hero Rescue flag")

Thugs:
JoeMcExpendable
Larry Larceny

Arsonist:
Burny Mac

Enforcers:
Ugly, Butt Ugly

TAAAAANK:
Beef Johnson

I actually went a similar route to dechs on mine, slotting mostly for forms, however I did make one major alteration.

I went deep presence. I six slotted Invoke Panic, I took whirlwind, and I heavily slotted pretty much all my CC tools.
Glimpse of the Abyssx2 (which I'm working on) helps pile on global recharge, and really help to cut incoming minion damage while shifting. Plus, I always wanted to six slot invoke panic.

Also, nothing say's "I'm the MFing warshade" like knocking people around and making them cower in terror. Sure, it doesn't have as much top end damage as some builds, but it's ridiculously fun to play.

I actually run a thugs/pain tankermind and it does pretty well even though thugs is probably the squishiest set there is.

The trick is proper slotting of Pain's AoE Heal, I went for 3heal/2rech/1end. Haven't even gotten around to set slotting yet other than a KB protection in toughness. With that nullify pain slotting, you've got a recharge running fast enough that it's actually worth putting on auto, as it'll fire every other power and it gets tiresome hitting the button over and over.

Toss some leadership in there, grab toughness, and slot the mess out of world of pain, and you'd be suprised how much you can suck up by just letting BG mode distribute the damage, and then using Nullify to keep them all up, and spot healing/shooting stuff as necessary

Extra bonus: Take kick with the pistol attack or attacks of your choice for extra lulz. BLAM BLAM - *boot*