Let's face it: the endgame is boring. That's what got me to quit after I leveled my main superhero, The Melting Point (fire/ice blaster) to 50. Just before I quit they added the alien portals, which were interesting ... for a moment of time, but quickly got boring again.

This game has two distinctive properties that make it a really good game: the character customization and the combat.

The character customization is second to none. It's more detailed than The Sims 2 or Star Wars Galaxies. There are so many ways you can create your character it's mind-boggling. You can even create characters based off of other superheroes/supervillains. I did this to create David Dunn and Mr. Glass characters (from Unbreakable - the first being a tank with super strength/invulerability and the second a mastermind with thug minions) and for the most part they looked like the characters in the movie (although I don't think I could find a trench coat to fit David Dunn with...)

My point is, the character customization is incredible. But when I found about the limitations of the powers you could have, I was struck. Yes, I know Champions Online will release some of these restrictions, and give you more options for your powers - but I want more than what they proposed.

When I heard of the concept of City of Heroes, I knew right then and there what character I was going to make: Bubblegum Boy! He blows huge wads of bubblegum until they burst and make the enemies all sticky - slowing them down, or paralyzing them. He can also use his amazing chewing powers to wrap enemies and constrict them until they implode! I guess I should also tell you now that what I pictured was a boy that looked kind of like Ness from Earthbound. So they should add boy/girl/young huge into customizaiton.

I thought I would be able to customize my powers. You might think this would be hard, but I don't. What do powers require? 1) Graphics and 2) Statistical information.

1) The graphics would be user-created, using a robust system similar to the character customization. It would cause more lag for older computers, but screw the cheapies. They probably don't have enough money to be playing a 15 dollar a month MMORPG anyways. Everything from color, shape, special effects, size, name, ane speed of power (which would be tied into the statistical information) would be made and calculated by the player, and the icons as well would be developed by the player. For newbies or people who just don't want to spend a lot of time doing this could just use pre-made graphics made by the developers (that are already in the game).

2) Statistical information. You would be given ... say ... 100 points to allocate which can go up (by nerfing the ability) or down (by buffing the ability) and when the 100 points are spent, the statistical information of the ability is finished. To prevent people from making all finishing moves, the ability to nerf the cool-down (which would drastically increase the points) would be restricted and slowly loosened for powers only obtainable after you reach certain levels.

There would be bars that could go up, down, activate, or deactivate (buffs and nerfs of powers), taken directly from the power enhancements of the game - and as such - the power enhancements would auto-restrict themselves for the player (such as, you couldn't put accuracy improvements on a power that always works):

1) Accuracy Bar

2) Activation Acceleration

3) Confusion Duration

4) Damage

5) Defense Buff

6) Drain Endurance

7) Endurance Discount

8) Fear Duration

NA) Fly Speed - this is a general power pool set power

9) Heal

10) Hold Duration

11) Immobilize Duration

12) Intangible Duration

NA) Jump Height - this is a general power pool set power

13) Knockback

14) Recharge Reduction (with restrictions mentioned above)

15) Recovery

NA) Run Speed - this is a general power pool set power

16) Sleep Duration

17) Snare

18) Stun Duration

19) Taunt Duration

20) toHit Buff

21) toHit DeBuff

22) Cone Range Increase

23) DeBuff Defense (made this one up)

24) Range Increase

25) Resist Damage

(And anything else I missed - and the order would be different but you get the picture)

For this revamp of powers, current player's characters would be allowed a complete make-over, everything from name to powers to costumes, but at the same time keep the badges and all the other awards and stuff they earned throughout the game.

There would be an all-new beginning set-up area in the game called "The Simulation Room" which you are free to create new powers, revamp your character, and test it all out in a safe environment inside the main building in the beginning of both games. There would be a door going to the outside with a warning Once you go out of this door, you cannot enter again unless you have a Simulation Room Token the token being the new gateway to revamp your character.

So, could it be done? I know it's a little, "Second Life-ish", but I think if the development team put their heads in order they could make it easy as pie to make new powers at no expense to the creative aspect of the idea.

If they did this, it would pull me back to play the game again. But they probably never will, due to the lazinessness of developers and the fear of true innovation within gaming.

Originally posted by Mackerni

I thought I would be able to customize my powers. You might think this would be hard, but I don't. What do powers require? 1) Graphics and 2) Statistical information.

1) The graphics would be user-created, using a robust system similar to the character customization. It would cause more lag for older computers, but screw the cheapies. They probably don't have enough money to be playing a 15 dollar a month MMORPG anyways. Everything from color, shape, special effects, size, name, ane speed of power (which would be tied into the statistical information) would be made and calculated by the player, and the icons as well would be developed by the player. For newbies or people who just don't want to spend a lot of time doing this could just use pre-made graphics made by the developers (that are already in the game).

2) Statistical information. You would be given ... say ... 100 points to allocate which can go up (by nerfing the ability) or down (by buffing the ability) and when the 100 points are spent, the statistical information of the ability is finished. To prevent people from making all finishing moves, the ability to nerf the cool-down (which would drastically increase the points) would be restricted and slowly loosened for powers only obtainable after you reach certain levels.

Interesting idea.  It has been suggested many times.  Personally, I have no problems with the powers as they are now.  However, your suggestions on graphics changes is interesting.  Here's my problem with the whole thing though:

1. You can't just say, "screw the cheapies."  Less people that can play a game = less revenues for the company.  Ability for a ton of people to play is one of the reasons why WoW is so successful.  Inability for a ton of people to play (restrictive graphic requirements) is one of the many reasons why AoC is currently dying.  Therefore, additional graphic requirements must be tempered with the low to moderate computer spec's at the time.
2. I extremely doubt that stat system for powers will ever see the light of day.  They tried a more skill-based system as the original idea, but scrapped that for the class-base system that is now.  The reasoning behind it was the inability to balance characters.  Yes, class-systems suck for a lot of people, but they do allow easier balancing for the devs, so they can work on other stuff more.

As I said, I have no problems with the current power system.  It works, allows for a lot of variance between characters within the same class (they usually won't have the same primary/secondary power combo, unlike a majority of other MMORPG's where each character in each class essentially has the same skills)  Granted, I think the color/graphics options for powers is viable and cool.  But, I have no complaints about the power sets as they currently are.

But how would you balance the powers for PvE and PvP?  Especially with players creating hundreds of new powers.

I promise you guys I will expand and resolve every issue you guys have and possibly could have. This is possible.

Just give me time. I'll have something posted here soon enough - along with that, I will have it pitched to the developers of City of Heroes/Villains.

Wow. It amuses me that you think this is actually possible. What is even more amusing is that you are acting as if the developers are going to have a conference meeting with you about the idea.

somehow i think tat all the game developers (including Cryptic) alrdy thought of these ideas

Originally posted by mrguy123

Wow. It amuses me that you think this is actually possible. What is even more amusing is that you are acting as if the developers are going to have a conference meeting with you about the idea.

One day you will see. One day, you'll ALL see. Not only am I going to college for software engineering, but I already modernized an ancient philosophical religion that will put everybody - including us - to shame.

If you don't believe me, I'll show you the papers. It was so obvious all along...

Originally posted by Vato26

Originally posted by Mackerni

2) Statistical information. You would be given ... say ... 100 points to allocate which can go up (by nerfing the ability) or down (by buffing the ability) and when the 100 points are spent, the statistical information of the ability is finished. To prevent people from making all finishing moves, the ability to nerf the cool-down (which would drastically increase the points) would be restricted and slowly loosened for powers only obtainable after you reach certain levels.

Huh? Could you clarify? Wouldn't nerfing an ability make it weaker, thereby lowering the points you could allocate to it? And wouldn't buffing/debuffing happen in-game through enhancements and team/enemy powers? Also, what "cool-down" are you talking about?

Interesting idea.  It has been suggested many times.  Personally, I have no problems with the powers as they are now.  However, your suggestions on graphics changes is interesting.  Here's my problem with the whole thing though:

1. You can't just say, "screw the cheapies."  Less people that can play a game = less revenues for the company.  Ability for a ton of people to play is one of the reasons why WoW is so successful.  Inability for a ton of people to play (restrictive graphic requirements) is one of the many reasons why AoC is currently dying.  Therefore, additional graphic requirements must be tempered with the low to moderate computer spec's at the time. Speaking as one of the "cheapies," you'd definitely lose me here. I keep my subscription active, even when I don't play for a month or so. However, I choose to spend my money on other things than graphics cards. It's why I don't play Tabula Rasa. Looked like a great game, sounded fun and interesting, but my machine couldn't support the beta so I never bought it. Wouldn't want CoX to go the way of Fury.
2. I extremely doubt that stat system for powers will ever see the light of day.  They tried a more skill-based system as the original idea, but scrapped that for the class-base system that is now.  The reasoning behind it was the inability to balance characters.  Yes, class-systems suck for a lot of people, but they do allow easier balancing for the devs, so they can work on other stuff more.

As I said, I have no problems with the current power system.  It works, allows for a lot of variance between characters within the same class (they usually won't have the same primary/secondary power combo, unlike a majority of other MMORPG's where each character in each class essentially has the same skills)  Granted, I think the color/graphics options for powers is viable and cool.  But, I have no complaints about the power sets as they currently are. Nor do I.

  What Vato said.

Because it will take me probably a month to heck-free my other arguments, here's my own to the "screw the cheapies".

When gameplay is suffered because the PC video game consumer will not buy a PC video console, I get pissed. Gameplay should always win out graphics. Why do you think D&D was so popular before there were computers? City of Heroes has been out for years and has been barely been touched with by new graphics. Don't you think it's time by now that, instead of improving the actual graphics, we improve the ability to control the graphics ourselves? I know that Second Life is almost always laggy, but it doesn't have to be that extreme. I always thought a game like Second Life would come about some day - just not so quickly. Hell, my favorite video game for years, Unreal Tournament, had so many user-made mods because of the programs it included in the software which allowed you to make new maps and such. You could literally make and do whatever you wanted to do in that game, if you had the programming and graphical design skills.

This topic is turning out just as amusing as I thought it would when first brought up 2 days ago.

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One day you will see. One day, you'll ALL see.

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Once you've got your airtight design docs in place, go pitch it to Emmert. What you describe would have to be built into the system from day 1, so Champions Online is a much better hope. And the simplified graphics there would be much easier to customize than the CoH realistic look.

Player created powersets would be a game balancing nightmare for NCSoft.

Besides, there are numerous powersets now especially with proliferation.  A Shield powerset is probably in the works as it has been ask for many times.  They'll probably add more as they see a need for it.  Willpower and Dual Blades were added because of player requests as well.

They are working on player mission creators.  I'd definately prefer that to create your own powers.