A Useful Tweak

The logon screen lists your characters and shows each's level. I think it would also be useful if you could see how close each character is to its next level (ie, his XP status). Perhaps something like this...

Villainy!

I just got back from Gen Con, where the folks at Cryptic teased CoV with the costume creation setup for the new game (due out in October). While I'm not particularly interested in getting CoV, I can tell you there's gonna be a lot of people kinda pissed off that they can't have some of these costume options on their heroes.

On a laterally-related note, while I didn't demo the CoH card game, I did watch several demos. My reaction: "This might make a nice computer game. Oh. Uh... yeah." This does not bode well.

John Q. Zombie?

Something that's always bugged me (which I've also seen commented on in media reviews of CoH) is WHY THE HELL ARE THERE ZOMBIES WANDERING THE STREETS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT?? That just ain't right! This is, of course, to provide variety and interest in the villain population of various zones, particuarly the lower level ones. After all, who wants to spend their first 10 levels just pounding boring thugs? And I do think theVahlizok (Mortificators, Reapers, and assorted cadavers) provide an interesting alternative, but come on... Can't we make some adjustments here for the sake of realism? Here's a few suggestions:

-Paragon City has "night" and "day." I've always been disappointed that this is only a cosmetic change to the setting and felt that it should really provide noticable game-altering effects. This is one of them... Keep the Vahz off the streets and relegated to less trafficed areas like alleyways and fenced lots until after "nightfall."
-Let's have a few cemeteries scattered around some of the zones. Lots of trees and tombstones for zombies to hide behind. This gives them a place to be.
-More work for the programmers perhaps, but I think it'd be cool. When heroes defeat villains, they eventually just fade away (which is lame in and of itself). What if sometimes they didn't? What if some time after a thug is defeated The Vahz show up (ala a standard ambush) and resurrect the thug's body as a zombie? It's kind of a "logical spawning" at that location.

Taking Back the City

This suggestion may fall within the realm of too hard to implement for what it's worth, I don't know. I'm a roleplaying gamer who likes to have a visible effect on the game world around me. From this perspective CoH is a disappointment, as the world is absolutely static, changing only when a new Issue is released. This suggestion addresses my desire to have an effect on the game.

There are "hazard zones" in Paragon City... places where, essentially, the villains have won. Boomtown, Perez Park, Faultline, Crey's Folly, the Hollows... All are areas of the city which have been gated off from the rest of the community, as they're inhabited only by monsters and criminals. But what if the heroes of Paragon City united to take back these neighborhoods? What if they could be reopened to the "public"? That would be a heroic accomplishment. What I'm talking about here is a system by which heroes, working from the guarded gate and gradually into the zone, could take and hold more and more real estate, preventing the criminal element from taking hold again. After a certain amount of "protected" time (I'm talking days, weeks or even months here), the police drones would move their lines into this area, villains would no longer spawn there, and gradually the scenery would revert to normal city graphics... perhaps evolving from abandoned and destroyed, to construction, to restored cityscape.

Obviously, from the players' perspective, this is a large scale undertaking akin to defeating the octopus in Independence Port, only on a longer term basis. It would be very difficult and take a huge commitment of time from the hero community as a whole. As a reward, mission sized experience bonuses would be issued to everyone who contributed to clearing a predetermined area (perhaps similar to a force fielded zone in "board the train" missions). When the area is finally reclaimed by the police drones, badges would be awarded to everyone who contributed to keeping the area cleared. Finally, if the entire zone is reclaimed, badges are awarded again. The difficulty of obtaining this one would drive collectors nuts, which might not necessarily be a bad motivator. I, for one, would feel like I'd accomplished something. Perhaps this kind of "forced renovation" could be coordinated with the opening of new zones such as Croatoa coming up in Issue 5.

Misison: Rescue the Hostages. No, I mean REALLY Rescue the Hostages!

You've just run hither and yon through yet another nondescript office building. You've beaten up another pair of villains who had a hostage cornered. The hostage thanks you and scampers off into the building which we've already determined is crawling with evil-doers.

What the hell is up with that?

That's not rescuing hostages. It borders on irresposibility. How can you let them run off like that, perhaps only to find more danger? It's doing a superficial job. Time for another added touch of realism. When it comes to hostage rescue missions, suppose after each hostage is "freed," he follows you on through the building as you free the others. Then once you have them all, you have a choice... You can either click the "end mission" button and go on your merry way as usual. Or, for bonus experience, you can then wend your way back out of the building with the hostages in tow. Once outside, the hostages are to be escorted to "safety" ...perhaps to a police drone, or to a policeman stationed on random convenient corners throughout the city. During some story arcs, the hostage could still be highly sought by the villains, causing ambushes to spawn on the way. When an ambush appears, the hostage is once again considered "cornered" until they're defeated.

Now that's hostage rescuing.

In a similar vein, this kind of thing opens up potential for new missions, escorting people from place to place. The person could run along behind you (the hero) from place to place, or you could be assigned to escort a person in a car as it drives from one location to another.

The Need for Depth

I guess a lot of the ideas I come up with while playing CoH are born of a desire to ease the feeling of ridiculousness on the streets of Paragon City, balanced with an understanding of the game's needs. I understand the need to provide sufficient numbers of villains on the streets for heroes to beat up... I really do. We can't have players fighting over reduced numbers of "prey," even if that reduction brings the game closer to realism. But having a mugging on every streetcorner just feels forced and shallow. Worse, it prevents heroes from "caring" about the victims on the streets.... I know I just run past them now on my way to a mission. At first I felt kind of bad, like I was abandoning them. Eventually they just became part of the scenery, and an occasional target for hunting. And that just doesn't seem right.

So, what to do?

I think the solution is to provide more creativity in getting the prey out there, while making it less obvious that they really aren't any harder to find even though they're not just hanging out on every corner waiting to be pounded. (Yes, ugly grammar, but I think you get my point. Moving on...) Again, we have to work within the "what's worth it and what's not" confines of the existing game.... What can we make using existing programming/mechanics and graphics or make with as little new tweaking as possible. The "drive by shooting" scenario below was spawned of this desire to provide variety without depriving players of prey. (As an aside, I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea of making players work a little harder for their kills... not so much in making villains tougher, but making the situations a little trickier. I also think that doing so will give players more of a feeling of accomplishment. Give the "thinking" players an opportunity to think a little more. But this is a whole bigger subject that I'll hopefully address in more depth another time.)

So, with that preamble all blurted out, here's my newest idea: Store Robberies.
We've got all these doors we can't enter... why not let us use some of them? Picture this (as I'm too tired to Photoshop a mockup tonight): A typical storefront... only there's a thug or two standing nervously outside the door keeping watch. Unlike most thugs, these won't just attack if you get close... they're "playing it cool." However, if you attack these thugs, they'll either fight back or attempt to run inside the store. The store can be entered just like enhancement-selling stores. Inside the store, several more thugs are robbing (daytime) or looting (night time) the place. If the watch-thug outside the door gets in, the mob inside is aggro'ed the moment a hero comes through the door. If the thug outside is beaten first, there's a normal mob delay before the hero is attacked. Hillarity ensues.

This idea, like drive by's, gets some of the hundreds of muggers off the street while not reducing the actual number of potential prey available to heroes. Ideas for things like this come to me pretty easily and often. I'll share them with you as they do.