Prestige Store

[Cristiona]

Well, as you all know, there will eventually be ways to spend Prestige to improve Leagues and such. I figured I'd start this thread to get ideas on what sorts of things you all would like to see. I know that being able to rename Leagues has been mentioned, but what else would you like?

• Renaming
• Temporary buffs (chips, xp, -time, etc)
• New sidekick jobs
• Permanent +time
• Frayday-on-demand
• Coffee Machine
• Candy Vending Machine
• Some kind of league-only bulletin board
• Additional league villain fights
• League nemesis
• Healing
• Gym/danger room

[Satan]

I'd like to see temporary buffs for all league members not in a locked down retcon (+chips, +xp, -time/turn, hp/mp regen, general stat boosters, etc). A sidekick training seminar that allows anyone's sidekicks to learn some new roles (this should probably be a one-time unlock thing that can be accessed by anyone who joins afterwards, so people who are hopping don't miss out). Permanent +time per day. A 'get out of work free' card that works for one non-frayday so none of the league members have to go to work the next day. And a shiny nickel.

For reasonable costs, of course.

EDIT: Oh, and in-league affordable health care.

[Hardware]

What about spending 5 Prestige to face a second league villain in a single day. It would equate to zero Prestige change (assuming they win, and not take on a fight that they can't handle a second time), but give the leagues more trophies to show off.

Or, perhaps a larger one-time expenditure to permanently gain the ability to face two (or more) villains per day. With a high enough Prestige expenditure, perhaps they could purchase the Twilight City Official Municipal Recognition, which one make them one of the officially endorsed protectors of the city, thus making them an archenemy of all of the city's enemies. Perhaps they could fight one of each available villain (assuming that, at some point, there is a pool of villains that alternate) each day. Or, maybe they could fight one copy of every villain that's been available since the beginning, allowing for a few rogue copies of VILLAIN to still be circulating out there. Oh, and there could be a shiny plaque for the team to display on their wall (aka, trophy board).

Or, maybe leagues could purchase a "league nemesis" which would be a single villain that they can face each day, regardless of any other villains that they normally face. For instance, if a league takes the Orwhal as a nemesis, then they could fight the Orwhal once each day, in addition to the usual league villain.

Just some thoughts.

[Hardware]

On a side note, with any of the ideas that allow for multiple villains each day on a permanent basis, there should probably be diminishing Prestige returns. For instance, for my municipal protectors idea, maybe each additional villain would only give one Prestige, instead of the usual five.

[Satan]

What about a shop discount card that applies league wide? And another one that gives a discount for hp/mp restoring facilities?

[Cristiona]

The only shop that's remotely expensive is the Creepy Old House.

[Satan]

That depends on the definition of expensive and whether or not it would apply to locked down retcons.

EDIT: Also, what about a league avatar? Only available to wear while an active member of the league, of course. I know personal avatars are high-tier donation items, but there are far fewer leagues than players, and the designs would probably be simpler. If not a good fit for the prestige store, consider this a request for it as a donation item.

[Cristiona]

League avatar would be neat, but I'm not seeing the need for a discount on a 20 chip denim jacket.

[xKiv]

I feel like maybe prestige should be used for getting away with something that would normally get you in trouble.

That *would* work with the idea of unleasing more league-battlefield-monsters, but I don't like that. That's "You unleashed WHAT on the city?" territory, not superhero-worthy at all, at least in the genre I am feeling here. We are here to secure, contain and protect - not abuse, exploit and destroy.

Other ideas:
- "smuggling" equipment/consumables that are usually off-limits (but recognizably responsible superheroes can be expected to use them well in defense of the city)
- orchestrating parties/festivals/celebrations (no idea about effect of such)
- access to higher-security information/zones (multiplayer B-quests? something like clan dungeons in KoL? skills? NPC shops?)

Some stuff (sidekicks, skills, certain equipment) might be limited to be usable only when you are currently in a league that has it unlocked.

Some stuff might auto-open once league prestige is above certain absolute value - I am imagining not only advantages, but mainly disadvantages (villains that are more determined to get you, but implemented in a way that ends up only costing you more turns, or enemies getting stronger without giving more XP) to encourage spending prestige and discourage hoarding (but this would probably just result in everyone having one league stocked with prestige and another without disadvantages).
Or maybe some stuff could scale with available current prestige, so there would be decision between spending on something and decreasing other benefits.

Maybe also in addition to prestige, also have infamy (for stuff the general citizenry doesn't really approve of) and open/close stuff vaguely like the reputation system does (high prestige lets me eat in a 6-* restaurant, high infamy lets me get stuff done in the underworld).

And hardboiled eggs.

[Hardware]

I think that Prestige expenditures should somehow affect the league directly, rather than just the members currently within it. I say this because the current whitelist system allows for league-hopping too easily. For instance, consider Satan's store discount suggestion (which, while not particularly useful, would be thematic and cool, and a good way to "burn" Prestige from leagues without giving too much benefit). If, for whatever reason, a person wants to make a large purchase of those denim jackets (for assembling, perhaps), and doesn't currently belong to a league with the store discount opened, it would be far too simple to just bounce to a league that does, stay there long enough to make the one purchase, and then bounce back. There's no incentive to STAY in the league if they can show up just long enough to benefit and then leave to whatever other league they've been in.

So, I like the idea of league-only benefits, such as a league message board (I've suggested this several times) or additional villain fights. I don't think of villain fights as "unleashing" the villain on the city. Instead, I see it as the villain seeking your league out to harass and terrorize. That's what's being a archenemy is about.

[Patojonas]

I feel like maybe prestige should be used for getting away with something that would normally get you in trouble.

That *would* work with the idea of unleasing more league-battlefield-monsters, but I don't like that. That's "You unleashed WHAT on the city?" territory, not superhero-worthy at all, at least in the genre I am feeling here. We are here to secure, contain and protect - not abuse, exploit and destroy.

I agree with this, we're heroes, not mercenaries. There are many types of league enemies though.
Take V.I.L.L.A.I.N. for example, it's a program, so exchanging 5 prestige so the city hall gives you access to a small and isolated from the web mainframe where you could plug one of the VILLAINCPU's from the trophy case to fight it (and get the trophy back if you win, not getting any prestige obviously) would be fine since the public is safe, on the other hand, somehow cloning the orwhal using the horn and have it rampage through the city is out of the question, for obvious reasons.

Seeing prestige make villains finding you X% faster above a certain amount would be interesting too.

Also, to address the hopping problem, I suppose making it so the benefits only apply on the day after (or 2 to make sure) switching to the league would suffice.

Also, bulletin board in exchange for prestige?
That should be a free feature in the command room so we can organize better, league channel is nice but if our timezones don't intersect its useless, something like the journal personal notes editable by everyone(or only the leader, being able to switch it on or off for non leaders would be nice to adjust to different league sizes/ leading style) should be added ASAP.

[Hardware]

See, I don't think of fighting additional villains as "unleashing" them. I think of it as more villains seeking out the heroes to best them. Superman doesn't set Lex Luthor free each week just so they can have an epic battle. Lex just keeps finding a way to be a thorn in Superdud's tights, though. The same is true with Joker getting out of Arkham to cause trouble for Batman. No supervillain is ever truly down for the count.

Think of the normal superhero comics. The bigger and better known the team is, the more enemies it has and the more frequently that they face them. The Avengers and Justice League (the biggest superteams from each major comic world) each have a slew of enemies that they have to fight on a regular basis. The villains just keep coming back, defeat after defeat, continually being a pain in the superteam's posterior. Smaller and lesser known teams, though, often have few, if any, recurring enemies. Thus, more Prestige means more baddie fights.

Or, think of it this way... No one "kills" the Orwhal, or it wouldn't keep coming back each and every day. We merely defeat it and send it packing back to whatever Jurassic Park establishment it came from. So, it keeps coming back to fight the league again and again. The same could be said of VILLAIN. It's a computer program, and it's reasonable to think that it may have become intelligent enough to hide a few copies of itself that are still hanging around in cyberspace, waiting for the right time to strike. So, if the league runs into one, it's not "unleashing" a copy on an unsuspecting city. It's discovering a villain who was already there and waiting to strike.

[Cristiona]

Also, bulletin board in exchange for prestige?

Yeah, that should either be a free thing or an exceptionally cheap one. Or perhaps league-wide messages for leaders could cost Prestige.

[Patojonas]

Think of the normal superhero comics. The bigger and better known the team is, the more enemies it has and the more frequently that they face them. The Avengers and Justice League (the biggest superteams from each major comic world) each have a slew of enemies that they have to fight on a regular basis. The villains just keep coming back, defeat after defeat, continually being a pain in the superteam's posterior. Smaller and lesser known teams, though, often have few, if any, recurring enemies. Thus, more Prestige means more baddie fights.

That why I dislike American comics, they never defeat and jail the villains for sure BECAUSE they're needed to keep the story going endlessly, so they can keep making money selling them (until the story sucks so much it dies or is reset).

I agree on the part about the Orwhal though, when we defeat it it says it is stopped on its tracks, why does it come back? Its background is unknown.

I'd make more sense to say it escaped into the ocean a la Godzilla to justify it appearing the next day imho...

Also, bulletin board in exchange for prestige?

Yeah, that should either be a free thing or an exceptionally cheap one. Or perhaps league-wide messages for leaders could cost Prestige.

Then I ask you: why would I waste precious prestige on sending league wide messages if I could just message everyone individually the annoying way for free?

[xKiv]

stuff

I would have no problems with more prestige meaning that more league villains (if I didn't think that's against design goals, and unbalanced [1]). What I have problem with is the mechanic of *spending prestige* to "cause" another league villain. In-game, that's either the league doing something to cause the villain, or (the other direction of cause-effect) losing prestige because the villain appeared. (unless you want to introduce more complex stuff, like unrelated common causes).
[ OK, there's another variant solution I just thought of: split prestige (which is still shown as the primary league score, goes up as the league does stuff to earn respect, and down if the league does stuff to make the city hate it) into two parts - one that represents all the stuff the *villains* did because they were attracted by the league/wanted to destroy it, and the "remainder" - then you can have two ways to "spend" prestige, with different flavors and maybe slightly different mechanics, and one of those *could* conceivably lead into more supervillain fights ... but then I also think that something "nasty" should happen if the league doesn't defeat that instance ]

And if you have too many people and want more vault toys, just make a subsidiary league. Doesn't cost prestige, lets you fight more league villains.

[1] I think that the goals/balance in question are (at the very least): 1) at most one league trophy per league per day 2) at most one league villain instance per day for a given character

Or, think of it this way... No one "kills" the Orwhal, or it wouldn't keep coming back each and every day. We merely defeat it and send it packing back to whatever Jurassic Park establishment it came from. So, it keeps coming back to fight the league again and again. The same could be said of VILLAIN. It's a computer program, and it's reasonable to think that it may have become intelligent enough to hide a few copies of itself that are still hanging around in cyberspace, waiting for the right time to strike. So, if the league runs into one, it's not "unleashing" a copy on an unsuspecting city. It's discovering a villain who was already there and waiting to strike.

VILLAIN had more copies because the eggheads at LI kept sending out more hotfixes (new versions) every day. This is a world where you have to assemble each copy of software from (decrypted) parts (or, like Kinak once replied to my question in a Metroplexity podcast [different universe, same issue] - the DRM guys won). You don't make copies of existing data, that's *impossible*. Everybody knows that.
Orwhal needs time to heal up. Maybe this one was stronger ... but how do you connect that to the league becoming *less* prestigious?
(maybe I am just reading too much into the standard meaning of the word "prestige"?)

[Hardware]

I see it this way....

If we went with the "league nemesis" idea, then you're not "spending" Prestige to have more baddie fights. It is, in roleplay terms, being lost because the public at large knows that you now have a big baddie after your team. Imagine how the general populace of New York would react if Doctor Doom vowed war against the Avengers. I don't think that most people would be too happy with knowing that their neighborhood could be a long-term battleground for supers.

In the case of being designated as municipal defenders of the city, the Prestige spent is for the honor, not for the villains that are now after your head because they have to go through you to get to the city. Or, from another angle, teams that are so honored by the city would be EXPECTED to step up and fend off attacks from every wackjob that shows up to threaten the citizenry. So, in roleplay terms, you expend the Prestige for a nifty plaque on the wall of your Fortress of Solitude, and end up attracting the attention of every supervillain that wants the city as the new capital of Villainvania.

[Satan]

Blah blah blah blah

At a certain point we have to accept that the 4th wall is going to be broken. Not everything will be entirely realistic or rooted in the flow of reality the game follows. For these things, there is the metagame, which in lieu of a good explanation for something that should be there, just throws it at you and forces you to accept it. I for one would be fine if in the store it just said 'Fight V.I.L.L.A.I.N. again' with no other information present besides prestige cost. Except maybe an asterisk which would say no prestige is gained from this fight or what have you. There's no reason to make a convoluted story about why we're fighting V.I.L.L.A.I.N. again by spending prestige. We want to fight more badass foes, the system will provide us a way, stop questioning it <.<

[Hardware]

Plus, we have to be honest with ourselves that the game isn't exactly set up to be "realistic," even by comic book standards. When "straw and thumbtacks" is a legitimate ranged weapon, you can't expect other parts of the game to really follow a classic superhero pattern. Push comes to shove, we can toss together any string of potential reasons to explain any changes that are made, no matter how unlikely. The only thing that should really matter is game balance.

[Cristiona]

Also, bulletin board in exchange for prestige?

Yeah, that should either be a free thing or an exceptionally cheap one. Or perhaps league-wide messages for leaders could cost Prestige.

Then I ask you: why would I waste precious prestige on sending league wide messages if I could just message everyone individually the annoying way for free?

Convenience.

[Hardware]

It would probably depend more on the size of the league. If there's only five or so members, then individual messages would be feasible. If Satan tries to send messages to everyone in PFE, though, it would be worth it to spend Prestige to send it as a single message.

[Isladar]

Since Hardware raised the potential problem of League hoppers gaming the system, this could be prevented by the League granting buffs automatically at Rollover.

The discount could then be an effect that works more like sugar purifier.

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Another idea: League Gym (or Danger Room) for Stat and XP training. Allows you to fight holographic monsters selected at random, based on level, stats, resistances, etc. Takes as many minutes as the arcade. No drops, necessarily, but a reward structure of some sort, and a small boost to attributes/XP.

[Satan]

Since Hardware raised the potential problem of League hoppers gaming the system, this could be prevented by the League granting buffs automatically at Rollover.

The discount could then be an effect that works more like sugar purifier.

-----

Another idea: League Gym (or Danger Room) for Stat and XP training. Allows you to fight holographic monsters selected at random, based on level, stats, resistances, etc. Takes as many minutes as the arcade. No drops, necessarily, but a reward structure of some sort, and a small boost to attributes/XP.

I feel like just making the condition starting out in the league that day would work fine.

[Nommy]

I would like to see some kind of purchasable League Disposition-Basically, you spend Prestige to change the Reputation of the League, and thus the characters in it. I'm not sure how this would mesh with Retcons, but the only thing it really effects is the badge and maybe somebody in the league wanted to get a specific item out of the Park so now they have to switch back Reputation.

Really, I just think it would be cool to have League Reputations. Like, you spend some Prestige "Giving Chips to Charity" or "Starting a Campaign Against Purse-snatchers" and it moves everybody's alignment to Altruist or Watchdog.

Actually, League Titles would be cute. The Vigilante PFE. hehehe

[Satan]

An upgraded talisman tabernacle that does not make you lose xp/makes you lose less xp when switching talismans.

[Patojonas]

Custom league battle cry, so that all league members' fights will have it displayed!

[Hardware]

I would so totally set up the league battle cry as "Going Shopping!"

[Cristiona]

"New shoes!"

[Hardware]

I can imagine the look on someone's face when they join a league, and the next time that they step into combat, they scream at the top of their lungs.... "I'm a little teapot!"

[Satan]

"Hail Satan!"

[Cristiona]

I'm now 100% sold on this idea.

[Patojonas]

"I shall smite thee in the name of Justice....and Buffs!"

Patojonas is glad his idea is so popular

[Satan]

Necro bump >.>

[Patojonas]

Indeed. Moth my league and my alts have 3000+ prestige atm and nothing to do with them. If there were a new foe to spade my alt's league would get to spend some but other than that we only have board space and I don't need any more....

[Patojonas]

Bump again. My league has over 3500 prestige and nothing to do with them.

Patojonas wants his custom league battle cry