Interesting Survey for CoX

[RTTingle]

Now this is interesting.


From Hawkeyed on the COH Forums...

Hey all!

Recently, a survey company did a survey for NCsoft and the following is correct.

Thoughts?

Enjoy your reading.


Hawkeyed

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City of Heroes and City of Villains let players create unique characters and set forth as virtuous Heroes or evil Villains in a MMO comic book inspired universe. This expansion to the City of Heroes/Villains universe blurs the line between good and evil, between hero and villain. The Going Rogue system is a new game dynamic for City of Heroes and City of Villains that allows players to alter the morality of their characters, eventually opening up the opportunity to turn their Hero into a Villain or vice versa.

By visiting different contacts in the game, players can start the process of "moving their moral compass" towards being a hero or a villain. Making this choice dramatically alters the gameplay for the player, as they will now be able to bring an Archetype (class) that was previously only available to players of City of Heroes into City of Villains, and vice versa. Once a character has switched sides, they can continue down the path they have chosen, or use the opportunity to subvert their new allies through a series of espionage-style missions.

In addition to this new game altering dynamic, new neutral starting zones allow new players to select their Archetype (class) first, and then let their actions determine their hero, villain or rogue identities. At the high levels, rewards for these moral choices will be found in new PVP, PVE and Co-op zones. Accomplishments will lead to rewards that will significantly distinguish level 50 characters from one another.One such reward is the Universal Enhancement Slots. Ten Universal Enhancement Slots are available to be earned in the expansion, and each one has the potential of adding significant power to the character, essentially bringing them to a hypothetical "Level 60" once they have earned all ten slots.

For existing City of Heroes and City of Villains players who have previously reached the level cap of 50, the Expansion will take them into outer space where they can now find challenges that test their powers and skills to the max. On an alien space station that mysteriously appears over Earth, Heroes and Villains will race to unlock the secrets of the place and be the first to reap the rewards that are only available to the best of the best.

A brand new Spy Archetype (class), power sets and player costume options will lead to a massive amount of new character and gameplay options. And a significantly enhanced character creator system will now allow characters to customize the effects (looks and colors) of their super powered attacks and defenses.

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Here is some other things that were mentioned in the survey...

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1.) New high level Space Station Zones (PVE, PVP, & Co-op)
2.) Characters that do not wish to change sides are rewarded by becoming exemplary heroes or villains, and earning rewards not available any other way
3.) Heroes and villains who go to the other side can also act as Double-Agents
4.) Character Creator 2.0 includes Powers Customization, allowing players to customize not only the character, but also the actual look of its powers
5.) Players undertake missions that define their character's morality and steer them in a more heroic or villainous direction
6.) By switching sides (going from good to bad or bad to good), players can access content "on the other side" (heroes can experience villain zones and content, and villains can experience hero zones and content)
7.) Completely new low-level player experience/zones for new characters in which new characters do not begin a hero or villain, rather become one or the other through early gameplay
8.) New Spy Archetype, Power Sets & Costumes
9.) Universal Enhancement Slots - at level 50, these enhance powers to the character, essentially bringing them to a hypothetical "Level 60" once they have earned all ten slots

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Here are some of the suggested names you had to choose from for the new content...

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Rogues or Vigilantes
Rogues or Spies
Spies or Vigilantes
Moral Compass or Morality Meter
Shades of Gray or Crossing Over
Allegiance or Alliance

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Now this part of the survey offered information about the new Player Based Mission Content....

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This is a new module for City of Heroes, fictionally presented as a training exercise for Heroes and Villains, that allows players to build their own Missions and Story Arcs and share them with others in the game. Using an intuitive interface similar to the game's detailed Character Creator, players can create missions by selecting options like size and type of map/environment, mission objectives and encounter types, and difficulty level of each encounter. Additionally, players can write all mission story fiction and character dialogue.

Players can create their own missions and they can play missions that have been created by other players. Once you have finalized and "published" your missions, they are accessible by all players across all servers. All players can rate player created missions and a Mission Browser lets players find available missions and story arcs through a variety of tabs, sorts and filters in an auction house type environment.

As missions are played and more people positively rate them, the creator gains rewards and access to unlockable content for his/her missions. Rewards will also be given to players of the missions. Players will gain rewards such as badges and even XP for playing user created missions and StoryArcs.

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Here is a list of the feature from the player based mission creator...

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1.) Write your own dialog for all aspects of the mission.
2.) Build Missions and Story Arcs using a Character Creator-like interface
3.) Players can build powers for some NPCs by selecting from a group of primary and secondary power pools and attaching them to the NPCs
4.)Players can build a boss (and other NPCs) to place within their mission by creating its looks in the Character Creator and assigning it the powers of an existing NPC (non playable character)
5.) Select a variety of components for the overall mission including Level Range, Map, Length, Villain Group, Pacing, Time to Complete, Goals/type of mission, etc.
6.) Customize Encounters to your preference (Place in End Room, Select Villain Group, Name Boss, Select Critter Type, Select Hostage NPC Critter, etc.)
7.) Using an in-game auction house type interface, other players can find user created StoryArcs across all shards
8.) Creators can include their own character as a contact within the mission(s)
9.) Creators don't have access to high level content (environments, NPCs, etc.) until their own characters have encountered/defeated them in the main game.
10.) Using an out-of-game web interface, other players can find user created StoryArcs across all shards
11.) Rewarding creators of the most popular content with exclusive unlockable content such as signature heroes and villains or unique maps
12.) A rating system that allows players to rate missions or flag them for inappropriate content, allowing the developer to remove bad content and potentially ban players
13.) Players can enter the mission maps to adjust placement of the NPC spawns from their pre-selected positions

A picture of the mission creator screen can be looked at here.

And just incase anyone thinks this isn't legit.

From Niviene...

Our marketing department has been working on survey research for City of Heroes. The goal is to get valuable player input. We are "testing" multiple ideas and features, and this research will help guide our development efforts

Hmmm, still soaking this in.

RTT

[Carravaggio]

That all sounds impressively cool. I'm grinning just thinking about the possibilities. Lets hope it's legit.
Fortunately for CoX I'm easy to win over. The Roman zone and costume pieces impressed me as well. Give me an elec/elc tank and I'm in for life.
TBH I've stopped looking at CO, not because I think it will be a poor game, or even a worse game, but because I'm invested in this one, and I like this one. Stuff like this, or even the possibility of stuff like this, just makes the choice that much easier.

[Midnight]

Neat.

[BlueBard]

Sounds too good to be true, really.

Just about everything in there is something that's been talked about for quite some time.  Switching sides, space missions, etc.  The mission creator was announced previously, so that's not really news.  If this report is true, it does give us a bit of extra detail as to how it will work.

The one item that leaves me a bit skeptical is the bit about Power Customization.  The Devs have said over and over and over that it can't be done... at least not in any of the ways that people were asking for.

All this in one issue?  Well, it doesn't say that, does it?

A Spy archetype?  Makes sense given some of the other statements made, but it's rather surprising.  I've never heard of anyone even asking for such an archetype before.  What it might involve beats me.  Some sort of combat and infiltration mix, I suppose.  Let the speculation commence!

(One idea for a cool Spy power would be a disguise power, sort of like we've seen in certain story arcs but able to take on the appearance of nearly any of the in-game factions... and maybe granting a related temporary power to go along with it.  To make it really interesting, perhaps the player would have to defeat the enemy he wants to disguise himself as.)

[Lionheart]

Watch your inboxes. I just took the survey myself this evening. While I have little interest in having my characters switch sides, there are elements (like becoming "exemplary" for sticking to your side) that are interesting.

However, to me, the biggest items (and I said so in the survey) are the Character creator 2.0 concept, power customization, and custom mission creator. I do expect some good storylines to come from the FR team.  :)

The idea of being able to design custom costumed bosses in all levels is awesome. That is one thing that has been lacking in CoH from the get-go.

[RTTingle]

Wow.

Which address does the survey come from?

I get way too much spam and I wouldn't be surprised if I tossed it.  :(

RTT

[BlueBard]

Watch your inboxes. I just took the survey myself this evening. While I have little interest in having my characters switch sides, there are elements (like becoming "exemplary" for sticking to your side) that are interesting.

I wouldn't want to do a whole lot of side-switching.  I can see converting certain heroes to "Double Agents".  I can also see turning certain villains into heroes.  Those possibilities interest me a great deal.

I would love to take a conflicted villain and redeem him as a hero.  I'd also like the opportunity to play around with some villainous powersets heroside, if this would allow for that.  (Heroic Masterminds, anyone?)

Turning heroes to villains?  Not so much.

[Lionheart]

I received the survey from: City of Heroes (invite@decipherinc.com)

On the CoH forum (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=general&Number=11615699&page=0&fpart=35), somebody posted the email, including the survey link on page 35 of that thread. Whether the mods will leave that post up or not is the question.

[Viking]

From my forays into the PvP zones, I imagine several PvP'ers would create Empathy heroes and have them switch over to villainy just to rectify what they perceive as a grave imbalance.  Especially since the Devs have previously said that they didn't plan on making Empathy available to villains because it just didn't seem like a "sufficiently villainous" powerset.

I'm not sure I like the idea of giving special boosts to characters who remain heroic or villainous, and don't switch.  Creating power disparities of any degree just feels like a bad idea.

And I look forward to player-created adventures with a mixture of eagerness and dread.  Eagerness, because there will be a wealth of inspired creations that will be a joy to experience.  Dread, because there will quite possibly be an even greater amount of dreck generated for the sole purpose of farming and powerleveling.   I also dread the possible dark side of having players being able to rate user-generated adventures, with benefits given to people who created highly-rated adventures - people spamming Broadcast channels with requests to play and highly-rate their schlock-filled adventures.

[Lionheart]

Since I don't PvP (no interest in it at all), the boosts for becoming "exemplary" sound great. Also, they had to toss a bone to those who have no interest in side-switching. Hopefully they will find a way not to let it get overly unbalanced.

As far as player-created adventures, I am very eager for this one. I share your concerns, but I think they will limit our ability to create XP/loot farms.

Hopefully, they won't curtail our ability to run player-created adventures often; that is, some on the forums have voiced concern that players might ignore the main content and focus on custom content. This is not a concern for me (though I will probably be one who at least initially does more custom than main); I think it adds another dimension to the game. And if you get greater XP/rewards from the main game, that maintains incentive to do the main game as well. Custom content may be more for players like me, who like the story and adventure more than the "rewards." I've never been a "loot" or "gotta get to 50" guy.

Of course, this may be why after almost 27 months of game time, my highest level character is only 31 (Lionheart FR on Triumph; next is Lionheart FR on Freedom at 26).

[BlueBard]

From my forays into the PvP zones, I imagine several PvP'ers would create Empathy heroes and have them switch over to villainy just to rectify what they perceive as a grave imbalance.  Especially since the Devs have previously said that they didn't plan on making Empathy available to villains because it just didn't seem like a "sufficiently villainous" powerset.

The question I've always had in this regard was whether they'd let the player keep the powers intact or force them through a painful conversion process.  In other words, would they really let Stalkers, Corruptors, and Masterminds run around on the hero side?  Or would they be forced to convert to Scrappers, Defenders, and Controllers?  (for example).

I for one would probably simply ignore the whole thing if they didn't allow a more or less intact character at the end of the process...

[Figure Fan]

Epic. All of this stuff sounds incredible.