What I would like to see in a Freedom Force Sequel

[lugaru]

Every year or so I do this post but this is what I would like to see in a new (and probably never released) freedom force game.

Story:
1980's going into the 1990's, chronicling the change from cool fun to super hero deconstruction. A new team of government sponsored heroes shows up and it turns out they are being controlled by some evil force (time master, blitzkrieg, whatevz). They represent the ruthless and flawed hero with guns, pouches and violent names.

Agent Liberty (grownup Liberty Lad) discovers their plan and leaves the group, trying to put the Freedom Force back together including a grownup Green Genie and Sea Urchin (who is now part Baywatch and part marine biologist) and a bunch of veteran heroes, think El Diablo with gray streaks and BB, child of the bullet.

Character creation:
1)   Less focus on individual meshes and more on extremely flexible ones that you can attach any number of accessories to. That way Batman would start with a good Bruce Wayne, then add a cape, cowl, and a custom skinned batman outfit. Think "The Sims" meets "City of Heroes". And like the upcoming Champions game one mesh can use any number of keyframes from robotic to godlike. Mesh makers would find themselves crafting objects to stick to costumes, custom weapons and exotic animations moreso than entirely new characters. So if you play as Batman you dont need to download a batman mesh, just a batman Mask, Logo and Belt and adjust the color on ingame assets with a slider to get it just right.
2)   This character has any number of costumes attached to him, so Peter Parker could have a couple of civilian outfits and a half dozen spidey outfits. Powers can be attached to outfits as well, so spidey armor or symbiote suit would change his stats and give him extra abilities. Likewise once you build a suitable Iron Man armor you could do crazy stuff like give it to Bruce Wayne and see what happens.
3)   Attacks are similar to magic in Oblivion, you can mix any number of effects but the cost escalates a lot. That way you can have poison arrows, magic fire or whatever you want.
4)   Material and Resistances are separate... you individually choose your resistance to each damage type but also choose a material. The game balances Armor and Density, armor subtracts damage, density reduces it by a percentage.
5)   Powers have origins such as "mutation" or "training". That way a mind wipe would kill all training based powers while a power null would kill all mutation based powers.
6)   Characters have tags... for example Captain America might have marvel, hero, Avengers, so if building a rumble you could click on him, add him, click on avengers and go add those guys too. Also that way a character can have any number of teams, since it is just one more tag. Think of beast like Marvel, Hero, Avengers, Defenders, X-Men, X-Factor, Mutant, Scientist.

Action:

1)   First Person and Aerial View with the ability to pause to plan your actions. In other words you could jump into Logan and fight alongside the X-Men by mashing buttons or you can jump out of him and control the team RTS style.
2)   Buildings now have very basic interiors; basically a building is a floor, 4 walls and a roof, like a box. Stack a bunch of these and you have a multi story building. That way a character can get knocked through one side and out the other without the whole thing crumbling.
3)   Generic Environmental Challenges... you can place bombs, hostages, locked gates, switches and loot in the world and the A.I. will react to them.
4)   Drag and drop map and mission creator.
5)   Heroes have inventories, this defaults to just their costume (suits can have advantages or at least armor) but also the game is full of items with pre packaged powers such as guns, bombs, radio communicators, first aid kits or anything the player chooses to create such as magical wands, power gauntlets, miracle drugs and high tech armor. Simply these items add to the characters cost just like a power would, if you can only use the power once. It makes for great utility belt characters (Batman) or gun nut characters (punisher) and gives teams useful items (teleporters, radio headsets, illusion generators).
6)   Characters gain experience by performing actions (i.e. damaging somebody, disarming a bomb) and the total CP you recieve at the end is based on the cost of your team vs the level challenge value. For example if you go into a bank robbery with Thor and Superman, you will get like 1 cp at the end. On the other hand if you go in as a police officer character you created, odds are you will get 2 or 3 times as much points at the end. This creates an incentive for some gamers to challenge themselves, going into a situation as the punisher without any weapons just to see how their score soar in the end.

Online

1)   Co-op mode is available, with several players taking over a character in first person.
2)   Master Plan: one group controls villains trying to do something evil (knock down buildings, rob a bank, etc) while the other team controls heroes and tries to stop it.
3)   Hero Chess: each team gets one 5 second tactical pause per minute, otherwise it is played as an RTS with no first person mode.

Any more thoughts/fantasies?

[style]

This sounds DOPE!!!

[GogglesPizanno]

I still want an open world environment. GTA4 showed that you can do a realistic big open city... now imagine destroying it :-)

[USAgent]

4)   Drag and drop map and mission creator.

This is the single most coveted thing I have wanted for the game, a easy simple way to click/drag and drop missions togeather and also drag and drop characters/hero files into the missions as well to easily create your own stories.

[lugaru]

I still want an open world environment. GTA4 showed that you can do a realistic big open city... now imagine destroying it :-)

Not nearly as flexible or lighthearted, but I just saw Prototype for pre-order on Steam last night which means that if you want to rip appart a big open city, half GTA and half HULK then you totally can on PC.

Now what I was thinking about inventory: any item you start a mission with adds to your total CP, and the less your characters are worth, the better your bonus. So lets say a mission is ranked at 20k difficulty and gives a 1000cp reward for winning. If you go in with 10k worth of heroes you would get a 1500cp reward, if you go in with 30k you would get 500cp for your reward. In other words epic heroes who take on small challenges dont make a name for themselves like small heroes overcoming great odds do.

So playing the punisher would mean loading up Frank Castle (5,000 worth of weapon skills, martial arts, explosives and being tough) + Kevlar Costume (1,000, good against bullets) + Choosing several guns.

Likewise players can create all sorts of skill combos, item combos and power combos. Examples:

Skills - Ex Military: gun skills (extra damage with gun items), explosive skills (extra damage and disarm), Hand to hand
Items - Punishers Armory: .45, uzi, uzi, grenade, grenade, grenade, rifle.
Powers - Atlantean: water breathing, +2 strenght and endurance, Resist cold, Weak to fire.

Also I would love to see excessive roughness taken into account, not blowing up characters heads but telling you that you injured somebody if you take 'em out with a lot of damage and your own characters can be injured, forcing them to sit out a mission. That way Minute Man will think twice about tossing a thug off a building or if your character gets caught between several exploding cars, he is going to need some paid time off.