Power Customization

As I said, building a one-of-a-kind hero is one of the great pleasures of the game. Not only should your selection of powers impress, but the look and execution of those powers. As many different combinations of powersets as there are, I still see people that look and act the exact same. How different can you really make your D3 from mine?

Each power should have several different execution styles. For example, maybe a crane kick could have stlightly different animations. Each variation would have a different effect. For example, option one would be a longer animation that does more damage. Option two is very fast and has a higher chance to disorient, but does little damage. Option three is the normal way it is now.

By varying the look and the effect of powers, heroes would be more unique even in the same AT and powersets.

Permenant "Temporary" powers

Holdiay Jetpack

During the game you get a variety of temporary powers that disappear after a set number of uses or period of time. There are times I won't even bother using the power because it's use is so limited. However, there are certain powers that really add a lot to my character's theme and I wish I could keep them permenantly. This brings me to suggestion 2.

Nemesis Staff aka The Lollipop

As you go through various missions and story arcs, you should gain temp powers like you do now, but there should be a lot more of them. Instead of being able to use them right away, they are added to a "temp power pool". Every time you level (even on slot levels), you should be able to chose one power from the pool to use until your next level. If you gain new powers between now and then, you have to wait until you level to use the new power. If you change your mind about the power, you can change it back on your next level. As you get higher level maybe you'll have the ability to chose more than one of the "temp pool powers" at a time.

This too would give your character a uniqueness that would make it harder for anyone to emulate you. Especially considering you get the powers only from certain missions or badge combinations or what have you.

Character options

Not only should my character be unique in powers, but in look. No matter how hard I work to make my character unique, I still sometimes see another hero with a very similar style. Some very minor changes would make a big difference.

• More hair styles
• Ability to modify hairstyles - maybe I really like it, but want it to be less full or a little longer/shorter
• Ability to combine faces with different expressions
• Expressions change with emotes
• Ability to set "moods" and change them with emotes
• Choice of Eye color

Hidden places

Why can't I wander through an abandoned building? Can't there be garages or sheds with slightly open doors that I can enter and hide in? Think of that cool spot that Flux is hiding in at the Hallows. There should be secret caves, hidden spots between (or in) buildings, and under bridges. Most importantly, these hidden places should require no zoning (like when you enter a mission).

My motivation for this is simple. Whenever I ride the train and see the empty sheds and cool tunnelways, I think of how cool it would be if CoH had terrain like that. I see a dark alley that dead ends and think of the secret nook that would be there in the game. I fly up through the center of one of the buildings in King's Row and am dissapointed to see that nothing special is there.

The only thing close to "secret places" that they have now are the places that no one goes like the dam in faultline. Not only should there be secret places, there should be a reason to go there (which brings me to my next point).

Hidden treasure

As you wander the city, perhaps you take a side alley that you normally wouldn't pay any attention to. As you pass by a broken vending machine, you notice a soft pulsing sound. While it doesn't actually glow and the noise is much fainter than in missions, you've found a city map Glowie.

The places these things are found is always random and can be almost anything in the whole zone, including certain enemies (creating a bonus for killing that particular thing).

These secret Glowies can be under rocks, on the underside of a bridge, in the water, or whatever. The prize you get could vary from an enhancement, to influence, a special badge, a special costume option, or a "temp pool" power. Not only would this make the maps more fun, but people wouldn't ignore zones like they do now. It's almost sad that my map through Crey's Folly is over 60% black (and likely to stay that way, there's just nothing to see in the dark corners of the zone).

At the higher levels, it's easy to travel through a zone taking the same path every time and ignoring everything around you. There's just no reason to spend any time or effort looking around.

Hidden enemies

Think of the Troll raves in Skyway. It spawns the "Supa Trolls" that are somewhat rare and a lot more interesting than the normal enemies in the zone. This is a step in the right direction. How about one of the things they can put in the secret places I talked about was specail enemies or enemy clusters.

For example, maybe a infestation of Swarms even in Galaxy City? What if you discovered a hydra lurking in a dark alley of King's Row? What if every now and then you could find a City of Villains enemy lurking in the corners of Paragon City? Each of these secret enemies could be worth extra experience or give a "Temp pool" power. This would also encourage exploration.

Powers

This would also tie in with my previous example of power customizations and hiddent treasure. Maybe the type of power execution used by enemies in the game was locked unless you managed to find a special glowie that unlocked it. This way, people who had explored more and took the time to "smell the roses" would be more likely to have special hard-to-get customizations. Even then, it would be hard or nearly impossible to have ALL of the customizations that enemies use so there would still be some variety to the way enemies use the powers compared to players.

Enemy Actions

Attention! They are already implementing this idea so great job Cryptic!

If you haven't been to Croatoa, it's the best zone in CoH. Not only are the enemies more interesting and varied than other zones, they move around a lot more, perform different unique actions, and battle each other and ACTUALLY DIE! This is by far the best job they've done for the way enemies move and interact, but I'd like to see this spread to other zones.

For example, the Freakshow riot I talked about before. Maybe you'd know it by all the Freakshow in the zone leaving their normal positions and gathering in one place. That way, if you saw Freaks running one after another from one alley to another in a single direction, you'd know something was up.

Every now and then, how about a gang of Skulls or Hellions jumps an armored truck and they do battle for a while until either they successfully rob it, or the truck guards defend it. This would be similar to the Longbow battles you can assist with in Siren's Call.

Random Events

This is actually something they do fairly well (ex. the various holiday events), but it can be done better. For example, what if there was a small outbreak of low level Shivans in Steel or whatever? There are a lot of zones and as a high-level player, you get used to the fairly common enemies there which makes it boring.

Sure the Ghost Ship will go through Talos now and then (a very good random event), but even that becomes a little dull when it's the only thing that ever happens there. How about story changing events like a Freakshow invasion (like the massive amount of Clocks that spawn in King's Row now and then, but this would go on for hours instead of minutes)? It should also burns down some of the neighborhood. For realism, the buildings could stay burned for a few days before being "rebuilt".

The way it works now, an event starts and people broadcast it and form teams then tackle it (Giant Monsters for example), which is fine, but how many times can you see Lusca before the novelty wears off? The key is to have more events that are smaller, but more frequent.

How about a car chase? Random police battles where you actually see police run TOWARDS a problem? How about a hostage event? How about a "nest" of enemies where you find a few low level enemies on the outer edges with a high concentration deeper in (think large mob meeting, gang hideout, fortified base of operations etc). There are many possibilities.

Contacts and missions

Besides the random events, contacts and missions should be in the currently empty zones. For example, The Hallows is a very well explored and frequented zone because of how all contacts point you to David Wincott.

Also, if they make the unused zones match the level range of some of the current zones, you end up leveling past the contacts in one zone by doing missions in the other one or two (which is a good thing). For example, Croatoa, Talos Island, and Striga are all in the same range. By doing missions and task forces in one or two of the zones, you become unable to do the ones in the third zone. This keeps you from seeing the same content each time you go through the game.

Hidden Treasures and Secret places

Like I said before, this would make the game more interesting and also give people reasons to look around in zones that normally people ignore.

Mission realism

How about an office building with actual windows? Or an open lobby that goes up several floors like in I Robot? I want to go up floors with the same elevator like in FF7, not find 10 elevators that all go up only one floor. Why can't the mission start in the sewers below the building or in the dark basement where all the pipes and electrical are and work its way up to the ritzy offices at the top (or vice-versa)?

Mix it up a little. How about a cave that goes to a high-tech lab buried deep in the ground (like the Ernesto Hess TF or the mission in Croatoa that goes from a sewer to a cave? This is good, we need more of it. Perhaps you start in one building at the top, fight your way down, through a sewer grate, and back up into a warehouse where the gang's hideout is?

Zone Realism

Can I just say, the Green and Yellow Metro lines should meet at ONE station like they would in real life. How about a traffic jam now and then? Maybe a monster could appear and start throwing cars. How about breaking those design barriers and connecting two tall building by arches or walkways? How about a fire plug getting smashed and spraying water all over the street for a while?