I just wanted to get some thoughts on a possible solution to Mystic's shap shifting as an MCOC champ

First up is Mystic. The main problem was her shap shifting ability and that it could be implemented in game. My idea is that she could shape shift on her Special 3. The basic idea of the animation would be that she would get some hits in on her opponent touch the opponent shape shift Into her opponent. Whike Mystic looks like her opponent she would do some amazing assassination move afterwards Mystic would shift back into Mystic... end of the sp3... this way Mystic keeps her shape shift abilities. That everyone wanted to see. The next mechanic involves her assassination trate that works in a way such as Corvis's missions. For every match the player completes with Mystic, Mystic will gain a charge for that specific class. Corvis's mission charges are such a Beloved mechanic for a champion that no other champion here after got to partake of. But on like Corvis's charges maybe Mystic's awaken ability could be that her charges could stack. So that is my idea in a cracked nut shell. I would really like to hear some feedback on this idea. Also Kabam Mike and Jax please weigh in a message as well.

Comments

DNA3000

That’s an interesting solution to the technical resource problem, but I think the devs would not want to be limited in that way. I think a champion that can only shape shift into appearing like their opponent might be more limiting than most people would want to see from Mystique.

Sundance_2099

Mystique. Mystique. MYSTIQUE. MYSTIQUE. MYSTIQUE!!!!!!!!

WednesdayLength

I'd rather they just wait until they can get her to better represent her comic abilities. Having her just change for the sp3 would be pretty underwhelming since 90% of her kit wouldn't involve her actual powers

captain_rogers

I had a better idea, whenever mystique reaches certain health, like 15%, she randomly shapeshifts into one of the 250 playable champs in game, temporarily gaining their abilities for x seconds.

But this will definitely cost a lot of buffs

brucef8bringer

original Mortal Kombat had shape-shifter Shang Tsung and that was 32 years ago

ahmynuts

original Mortal Kombat had shape-shifter Shang Tsung and that was 32 years ago

Original Mortal Kombat wasnt even a fraction as complicated or intensive as this game

peixemacaco

Great idea...but load time would be huge.

Another idea I had on another Mystique thread was=
All ending animations are called by some code in game.

So...only if Mystique wins(against Sersi per example)... she will fade and start a random animation of a xx champ against Sersi. In the end, she alone returns.

This would be great, because everyone will be waiting to watch which champion may appear.

Code= 138=Mystique
259=Sersi
T6=Short anim Mystique fades
T7=Short anim Mystique back

Lines
If 138 wins call anim T6
getrandom winanim over 259
Call anim T7

Et Voilá 👍

Nightheart

Yes on entering the fight she turns into Drax so opponent can't see anything but that would cause an issue for us because we can't see Drax

TP33

Abs Mans appearance changes into 3 different forms, if they made a mystique i think the main limitation now is how to make her a good champ when she doesn’t have any superpowers that enhance her fighting. I mean I think a cool thing would be to let her shape shift into champions that she’s defeated in a quest, but how to implement that for a longer quest like incursions, or keep it balanced at all, is going to be the main discussion.

Wicket329

Abs Mans appearance changes into 3 different forms, if they made a mystique i think the main limitation now is how to make her a good champ when she doesn’t have any superpowers that enhance her fighting. I mean I think a cool thing would be to let her shape shift into champions that she’s defeated in a quest, but how to implement that for a longer quest like incursions, or keep it balanced at all, is going to be the main discussion.

It’s worth noting that Abs Man has three different skins over the same model, not three different models. It’s the same animations and everything, just with a different coat of paint over it.

Pikolu

I had a better idea, whenever mystique reaches certain health, like 15%, she randomly shapeshifts into one of the 250 playable champs in game, temporarily gaining their abilities for x seconds.

But this will definitely cost a lot of buffs

Keep in mind Mystique doesn't gain the abilities of whoever she transforms into, just what they look like and how they sound.

Also, if you wanted the transform to happen at RANDOM when she hits 15% health, then every single character model in the game would need to be preloaded onto your phone before the fight starts. I don't think even the top-of-the-line phones have enough memory for that.

Ashacekar

They will do it, we don't need to worry abt. Tech and AI improves everyday to facilitate what's needed.

Wicket329

They will do it, we don't need to worry abt. Tech and AI improves everyday to facilitate what's needed.

The issue isn’t on the development side. From the comments made in the last livestream, it sounds as if they *could* make her today. The problem is that it would crash the game for basically anybody not playing on a newest model device. So the problem isn’t what the highest end of technology can do, it’s what the baseline can support.

Ourobøros

Besides almost having a stroke reading this, Sinister collects other classes he faces as well

Rookiie

Besides almost having a stroke reading this

I was looking for this comment

Mr Wilson Fisk

I think it would be cool to have her as a boss that's transforms through the stages. She starts as mystique then turns into other heavy defenders as she tries to defeat the challenger.

DNA3000

original Mortal Kombat had shape-shifter Shang Tsung and that was 32 years ago

OG Mortal Kombat used 6-bit color sprites, which are both tiny and have no actual geometry associated with them. By definition, there’s no shape shifting happening anywhere in the game. Sprites are just flip books of pictures, and “shape shifting” an OG MK character is just replacing one sprite bitmap with another, same thing that happens when that character takes a step forward or throws a punch. MCOC characters are 3D models with various texture and geometry maps, and take up a substantial amount of resources when they are loaded into memory on a smartphone.

DNA3000

They will do it, we don't need to worry abt. Tech and AI improves everyday to facilitate what's needed.

That’s not how technology works. The problem is not that this is impossible today but will become possible tomorrow. If Mystique was a design goal from the start, they could have done it back in 2014 when the game launched. They would have made the design decisions necessary to make her possible, probably by reducing the complexity of character models to ensure it would work. Every system is a compromise between what you need and what you’re willing to give up to get it.

MCOC was not originally designed to do this, so its systems don’t reflect the necessary compromises. As such, it is very difficult to retrofit. You can’t start by building a car, then later when the technology becomes available retroactively make it into an airplane. The fact that airplanes exist doesn’t make it any more likely your car will fly.

Grub88

They will do it, we don't need to worry abt. Tech and AI improves everyday to facilitate what's needed.
That’s not how technology works. The problem is not that this is impossible today but will become possible tomorrow. If Mystique was a design goal from the start, they could have done it back in 2014 when the game launched. They would have made the design decisions necessary to make her possible, probably by reducing the complexity of character models to ensure it would work. Every system is a compromise between what you need and what you’re willing to give up to get it.

MCOC was not originally designed to do this, so its systems don’t reflect the necessary compromises. As such, it is very difficult to retrofit. You can’t start by building a car, then later when the technology becomes available retroactively make it into an airplane. The fact that airplanes exist doesn’t make it any more likely your car will fly.

So no back to the future cars that run on garbage them?

Wolf911

So as @Pikolu and others mentioned she can't gain the powers of the ones she transforms into. She just tries to mimic them using her own powers.

So how about this instead?

she has persistent charges

unduped - max 1
duped
sig 1 - max 2
sig 100 - max 3
sig 200 - max 4

these persistent charges determine how many champions she can transform into

whenever she defeats an opponent she gains 1 persistent charge and can transform into that champ

( if she's unduped and after 1st fight she doesn't use her prefight and does the 2nd fight then first champ will be overridden by 2nd one she defeats )

let's assume she is max sig & defeats 3 champs
in a quest say herc cgr hulk

she would be able to select any one of them to start the fight with and switch between them with double tapping block like kate bishop

she would be able to mimic some their abilities for when she is transformed into them

like if she's in hulk form she would inflict stun on sp1 but instead of 4 seconds it will be 2 seconds

she would gain precision and cruelty but with very less potency when she throws sp2 in cgr form

THIS WILL BE VERY VERY HARD TO CODE FOR DEV TEAM but I believe they will find a way to do her justice

can't wait to see their take on how they want to implement her

Ashacekar

They will do it, we don't need to worry abt. Tech and AI improves everyday to facilitate what's needed.
That’s not how technology works. The problem is not that this is impossible today but will become possible tomorrow. If Mystique was a design goal from the start, they could have done it back in 2014 when the game launched. They would have made the design decisions necessary to make her possible, probably by reducing the complexity of character models to ensure it would work. Every system is a compromise between what you need and what you’re willing to give up to get it.

MCOC was not originally designed to do this, so its systems don’t reflect the necessary compromises. As such, it is very difficult to retrofit. You can’t start by building a car, then later when the technology becomes available retroactively make it into an airplane. The fact that airplanes exist doesn’t make it any more likely your car will fly.

I don't understand, what is the point of this thread exactly? Also i didn't understand the car and airplane thing. If devs said they had issues in designing a character and it makes game have more data, they will find an optimal way eventually or design as needed later. I don't understand how this thread will help the devs.

I m a software dev myself and we eventually figure out things. As a dev i won't look into this thread with random arguing members to get a solution. Tech stack, data, libraries/plugins, AI model etc. are something they will optimise, as general audience we don't exactly know the challenge to provide any analogy.

All we talk here is how shape shifting can change but we don't know what goes in the background and what actually makes the crash and how to optimise same. That is what devs will figure out.

Clyneva

An idea I always thought might be interesting for Mystique is to have her shapeshifting play a role in causing misinformation in pre-battle decisions. I.e. when you place/pick Mystique for defense in War/BG, she appears as a different character to your opponent, cause them to bring in the wrong counter. And perhaps she gains a buff for the battle if your opponent brings in a class that tries to have advantage over her disguise. Or she can just always show up as a random science champion, causing your opponent to pick characters with class disadvantage against her.

I feel like that'd be in line with the subterfuge nature of her abilities, while having the advantage of not creating a bunch of stress on the actual in-battle resources.

peixemacaco

https://youtu.be/LOBqfMx6Cn4?si=5mvwx39VXxxn6gKw
On this Xmen 2000 scene ,Mystique changes to Wolverine with claws and everything.

Of course not Adamantium claws , so the real one cut those claws

DNA3000

They will do it, we don't need to worry abt. Tech and AI improves everyday to facilitate what's needed.
That’s not how technology works. The problem is not that this is impossible today but will become possible tomorrow. If Mystique was a design goal from the start, they could have done it back in 2014 when the game launched. They would have made the design decisions necessary to make her possible, probably by reducing the complexity of character models to ensure it would work. Every system is a compromise between what you need and what you’re willing to give up to get it.

MCOC was not originally designed to do this, so its systems don’t reflect the necessary compromises. As such, it is very difficult to retrofit. You can’t start by building a car, then later when the technology becomes available retroactively make it into an airplane. The fact that airplanes exist doesn’t make it any more likely your car will fly.
I don't understand, what is the point of this thread exactly? Also i didn't understand the car and airplane thing. If devs said they had issues in designing a character and it makes game have more data, they will find an optimal way eventually or design as needed later. I don't understand how this thread will help the devs.

I m a software dev myself and we eventually figure out things. As a dev i won't look into this thread with random arguing members to get a solution. Tech stack, data, libraries/plugins, AI model etc. are something they will optimise, as general audience we don't exactly know the challenge to provide any analogy.

All we talk here is how shape shifting can change but we don't know what goes in the background and what actually makes the crash and how to optimise same. That is what devs will figure out.

Actually, we do know, because it has been discussed before. MCOC is a very resource heavy game client. We know this because we can actually see how much resources it uses, and because the game has had resource management issues in the past. I myself worked with the devs to help characterize some of the crashing issues from a couple years back, which were due in large part to memory leaks.

MCOC is a 3D model driven game that runs on a Unity based engine. For a champion to "shape shift" into another champion would require replacing that character model with another one (to distinguish it from a game that uses sprites, like OG Mortal Kombat which was mentioned in the thread). This is the mechanism that strikers use. But that model cannot simply be loaded dynamically. It has to happen in less than one animation frame, and there's no way to guarantee that will happen as fast as necessary, especially on a mobile device operating under typical iOS or Android resource management limitations**. So for an MCOC character to shape shift into another, both models have to be loaded into memory and locked there before the fight starts. This would simply take up too much resources and cause the game to become unstable.

All of this should be and would be obvious to, say, a mobile device game developer, but this was also discussed by the devs in connection with strikers. Strikers essentially have the same fundamental requirements as a shape shift, just limited to a single alternate model. And the devs stated that even this took a lot of work to make stable. It was their experience with strikers that caused them to conclude that implementing shape shifting, at least in the obvious way the current game engine would support, would not be possible. It would cause too much resource contention and stability problems.

At first blush, the OP posted Yet Another I Will Solve The Devs Problems For Them post, but actually, it presents a genuinely practical solution. The one champion Mystique could always shape shift into without causing serious resource issues is the defender, because that model is already loaded into memory. Instancing another one is not guaranteed to be completely free, but it is likely to require less than a completely different champion model (with sufficient graphics engine trickery; I've seen similar shenanigans done in OpenGL). The problem with the idea, in my opinion, is that it is too limiting, not that it won't work.

I'm not sure what sort of software dev you are, but mentioning "stacks" and "plugins" and "AI models" when the subject is, or at least should be to any competent developer, obviously about resource exhaustion, makes me wonder what sort of software development you do, exactly.

** The biggest issue is that both iOS and Android use memory management magic to work around the fact that most mobile devices actually have very little memory. If you load something into memory and do not lock it, the phone is free to swap it out to free memory for other processes. That's why MCOC often just completely reloads from scratch when you switch away from it and then switch back. The phone swapped too much stuff out, and MCOC decided to just reload and restart everything. But if you do lock everything into memory, you can cause the device to become unstable when it doesn't have enough resources to do anything else, which would make MCOC a bad device tenant. Compounding this is the fact that MCOC models are very detail rich. Because the original game only assumed two champions would be on the screen at the same time, the original developers were free to, in effect, take the estimated amount of memory they could budget to character models and divide by two, informing them of how big the character models could be. If you want to now have more than two, you'd have to reduce the detail on the models which is a step backward the devs probably do not want to take. You don't want your nine year old game to suddenly get *less* visually appealing.

Longshot_33

Her ability to shape change should be represented the ability to change the odds in her favour by subterfuge and deception. Prefights which cancel out class advantage etc.