Dr_MechanoEU

Right here is the only scenario I can imagine for time traveller/future me coming back and telling me I'm going to doom the world.

*swoooshy portal noise*
Future Me: Erm...hi!
Me: *faints probably and then comes too*
FM: Right...now that's out of your system we've got to talk about something.
Me: Next weeks winning eurolottery numbers?
FM: No, it's a little bit more important than that.
Me: Wow...that's got to be big.
FM: Right you know you've wanted to take a trip to the Vatican City with friends just to say you've seen the Pope?
Me: Yes...
FM: Well you DO get to do that, it's nice and all, you have a good time, there's just one small hiccup caused by this.
Me: Ok...wait is it to do with the..
FM: Yup, you can cross off 'Belly to Belly suplexing the Pope while dressed as the Ultimate Warrior' from your bucket list, infact cross it off right now, yeah it sounds awesome but it has implications.
Me: Wow...wait...how did I even get past the bodyguards?
FM: No idea, we were blind drunk at the time.
Me: Oh...
FM: So yeah, you can live safely in the knowledge that an alternate version of you has done something nobody in History would ever forget.
Me: Surely you'd be in prison right now?
FM: Well..you see that act kind of led to a slow destablisation of the world, people begun asking questions like 'how?' and 'Why?'...it's all very complicated, basically we're on the verge of World War 3 thanks to that little act. I've been sent back here, to talk to you, to tell you not to do it.
Me: Well buggeration...
FM: Indeed...so...yeah...don't do that...ever...infact don't go to Rome.
Me: Awwww...
FM: Tokyo is nice...
Me: Alright...
FM: Glad we could have this chat, hopefully I'll cease to exist in a moment since you'll never do that...so..catch you later!
*Future Me goes back through the portal*.
Me: I bet it looked awesome on TV...

I'd just like to know HOW exactly I could cause the end of the world, I'd have a seriously hard time believing someone when they said it was me. What did I do...put the wrong DVD in someones rental?

I mean...I'm not a scientist working on some bio-weapon, I'm not actively trying to summon demons/raise the dead to do my bidding, I'm not programming an artificially intelligent AI.

So what the hell did I do to bring about the end of humanity...infact I'd more than likely tell them to bugger off just to see how I personally bring about this biblical level doomsday for humanity.

Besides it's more than likely if you did go the villainous route and stopped caring since 'doomsdays a'comin' that you probably avert the future where things go wrong anyway since by being told you cause this destruction, your personality has changed and thus doomsday would never appear because you'd be rotting in a jail cell OR in some place for the criminally insane if you did a crime bad enough to warrant that since you'd be spouting about how a time traveller told you that the end is nigh.

I will also point out that Muhammed Ali used the 'let them tire themselves out' strategy against other boxers, especially the much bigger George Foreman, hell it's even got its' own wiki article, called The Rope-a-dope.

BAB probably would be Street Fighting if the set had existed at the time to be fair.

Well people seem to be going on about Spear melee ala real life..just pointing out that using a spear in CoH would be more martial arts style showy so twas no need to be snarky.

yeah...we can't even mention our old DnD paper and pencil stories, one of my favorite old threads was the one where you detail how your party screws up or succeeds in a spectacular fashion.

Can we atleast have Paper and pencil RPGs, Board games and Card games off the verboten list?

He just attacked a level 1 who had a garish costume.

I judge him to be the Hellion costume judge, pass his muster and you may enter city hall.

Nope this is Union not Virtue.

Perhaps it's a plague of lone Hellions in City hall!

No that isn't a costume power...that's a genuine Hellion..

Wow and Rory being a badass continues.

"You'll need to remove your eyepatch before it activates."

"It already has..."

That was a corker of an episode!

I will point out that the stereotypical bodybuilder look...really isn't what most superheroes would look like if they just did their heroic thing, especially the 'can bench press a school bus' type Hero.

IIRC (and this was back during my school years) it was pointed out that most of the big biceps on a bodybuilder actually quite a bit of water than muscle, compared to say...an actual Olympic weightlifter


You'll notice it looks at lot closer to our 'huge' template than to the standard bodybuilder type build most superheroes go for.

Hmm with the Zombie survival MMO example I was thinking along the lines of what Clave was suggesting.

Humans = adaptable and versatile, can be good in combat or other areas.

Zombies = Combat focused but varied in that focus.

Lets say you start out as a Walker, you're weak one your own but able to take out NPC humans in groups of 1-3. From there you can progress down several paths with their own wider skill set focused to that path.

Groaner: MM style controlling a horde of zombies, skills would focus on improving horde.

Crusher: aka TAAAAAANNNKKKK big, hulking zombie that focuses on smacking the crap out of anything in its way, hits slow but hits like a truck, very resilient though.

Stalker: Mix of Witch (high melee damage) and Hunter, able to scale buildings and even ceilings while it waits for prey, hits very quickly for high damage not as tough as regular zombies.

Meanwhile all Zombies would have an additional pool of skills available to all no matter which specialisation they picked or if they indeed bothered picking a specialisation and instead focused on the general skills while remaining a walker.

That's all I've got for the moment, sure I could think of other skills set styles for Zombie, just throwing things out there.

Simple for me.

No Hat, no sale really.

Sorry but the hat was the only thing I wanted out of it so...yeah...not buying this.

Wow some truly spectacular costumes.

Loved the simplistic Leon (from the film of the same name) costume right at the start, quite a surprise to see that and that I recognised it.

Hmm a good point, hadn't thought of that actually.

So while a dedicated combat character could take a sledgehammer to a Zombie and do what they do best in one or two hits, the Wrenchmonkey would take 4 or 5 take to out your basic walker type Zombie.

This dynamic also helps breed stronger player ties. That Wrenchmonkey may not be good in a combat situation but it's good to bring him along because he can spot and scavenge all the useful stuff from an area, turn it into weapons and armour to make the Combat Specialists better at their job.

Obviously the higher up in skill you go, the more points it costs, the longer you have to wait to put points in. This is a balancing factor in itself, you can either be really good at something and not skilled in a lot of things, or a bit skilled in everything but not master anything.

Now lets throw a spanner into the works shall we.

Lets say there there isn't just humans involved in this imaginary Zombie MMO but the option to play the big old walking corpses themselves.

Now I imagine that Zombie skills would obviously be different from human skills, however Zombies are purely combat focused, they're there to munch brains, delicious, nutrious brains.

To me this would lead to having Zombie skills lean more into granting abilities.

For example, lets say you start out as your basic walker, alone you're not that much threat to player characters, in huge hordes yes because you can overwhelm.

Now the skills would personally see as leading down various Zombie archetypes which crop up in gaming. While there should always be a generic skill pool for Zombies to take from (basic increased toughness, shuffle speed etc.).

It's the balancing of these two which has me puzzled.

Now I'm not going to mention any games but I've been wondering, what other ways are there of progressing a character in an MMO beyond the following:

1) XP = levels = New abilities:
The system City of uses along with many other MMOs. Now this is a good simple way of doing things. It's by far the easiest to balance content around since at any given level you'll know, roughly, how powerful the player should be.

However the problem with this system is that it isn't very dynamic and doesn't allow for a lot of player customisation in their abilities, normally limiting them to specific Classes (aka Archetypes).

2) Time = skill points = New abilities:
This system is used in a few places and does allow for a vastly more dynamic levelling system.

I'll use a random and completely made up example.

Lets say there's a Third person Zombie Survival MMO (which sadly does not exist). Now every player would start with a certain allotted number of skills points to tailor their character from the off. This system allows that person to go the combat route and spec into Melee Combat, Fitness (character is tougher, stronger and has more stamina) and basic Firearms training. However they can also go down the route of Repair, Weapons production and scavenging which allows their character to make their profit purely through finding, repairing and then selling on items to other players.

Now the problem with this system, as I see it, is that this system can be kind of unrewarding. While your character does progress, there's not the same sense of reward which comes with getting a new level. This also means that content has to be based around earning equipment and currency rather than XP, making it much harder to balance as someone who is purely a crafter is going to have a hard time surviving out in the wastelands of a Zombie infested city.

So far those are the only two levelling systems I can think of, each one has its advantages, disadvantages and neither is really best, both suiting certain types of games.

I'm curious if there is really any other way of doing it though.

Hmm I will agree that the Store button is a LOT more in your face than it needs to be.

Heck in most other games of this nature, the store is listed with the other inteface options (character info, inventory etc.) and while it might do something like shine or glow, it's a lot less intrusive.

Hmm are you sure you want standard respecs?

You say you like to play characters without being pidgeon holed into styles.

Well...that's kind of what the ATs are, there's very little way you can completely screw one up apart from being a Mastermind with no pets...that's like, rule 1 on building a character unless you going for a 'Manly Man' Blastermind build.

Heck even the 'Manly Man' builds usually contribute something (Blasterminds less so..a lot less).

Have to agree with the whole 'don't merge the AT forums' vibe.

As mentioned it doesn't make things simpler, infact it makes things vastly more confusing.

After all Brutes are both tanks and melee damage, they can be one or the other, lumping then under 'tanking' isn't really justified, infact Brutes tend to ignore tanking all together usually, one of the most suggested things on a build thread is 'ignore taunt'.

They can't see that because of the new direction they're going in.

They're can't charge for Power Pool customisation so they've not bothered with it.