Lothic

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

If you completely ignored the game's plot, would your characters and their actions still make sense in the game's existing setting?

If a piece of story required your character to feel a certain way or perform a certain action that goes against their concept, what would you do about it?

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

So, think about it and tell me this: Do you prefer to design characters who actually care about the specific events that the story tells about, or would you rather make unconnected characters who simply exist in the same world but mostly care about other stuff you make up for them?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

To take this point in a serious direction, the difference between MMOs and PnP games isn't just the question of GM control. Its also that MMOs are shared consensus realities with a single set of rules while PnP games are really frameworks that thousands of small groups of players customize to some extent to generate a unique experience. Its unclear if the two are compatible with any level of technology, because there may be irreconcilable differences in culture. In PnP games, there is only a loose sense of being part of a larger world that encompasses all players playing campaigns in the same system. But in MMOs, there is a sense that everyone is playing in the same world with the same rules. It may actually be improper to compare a PnP "ruleset" with an MMO one because a PnP ruleset is really the sum total of a PnP framework and all of the collective (and sometimes unspoken) house rules that make up a gaming session. Those individual PnP rulesets may be too focused on the specific needs of its target group to be generalizable to an MMO.

In other words, the very things that make PnP game frameworks successful might make them impossible to translate into MMO mechanical systems and vice versa simply due to the scale. Its more likely that with infinite technology PnP games can evolve directly into interactive custom simulations still focused on a small number of people, while MMOs evolve into more generalized simulations of large scale environments with less customized and more generalized physics.

Or to put it another way, it may be that the fundamental difference between PnP games and MMOs is not the human GM or the rules or the computer technology, its that in PnP games the players and the GM ultimately craft the experience in conjunction, whereas in an MMO because of the sheer number of players all of them submit to the will of a singular authority to dictate the experience. These are two logically incompatible experiences, driven by scale. An MMO played with PnP-like participation fragments into many small experiences rather than one consensus one. A PnP game played with MMO-like participation becomes too authoritarian within small groups. That's a difference in psychology not technology and may not be ultimately resolvable by technology.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

I understand what you're saying completely. You're saying even though HERO is a well balanced system, its not well balanced enough for MMOs. I'm telling you HERO is not a well-balanced system period. And its years of success have nothing to do with it being a well-balanced system in spite of many of its supporters making that claim. This isn't just true relative to the requirements of MMOs, this is true within the scope of PnP games: its success has never been reliant on its numerical balance, of which it doesn't have much.

Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha

Fine by me. YMMV. It still won't dissuade me from my opinion that, were it an actual 'balance point' rather than an oversight that has, like many things, been on the uber-massive To Do list for years, then it's a pretty stupid one. Again, in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Megajoule

Good judgment, on the part of the player and the (human) GM, cannot be assumed, automated, or enforced by software.

Originally Posted by Father Xmas

Ah no. It's not that simple. Well simple if you are designing items using a 3D Cad system, standard output format and all, not so much converting a bunch of game geometry data and texture maps.

Originally Posted by Snow Globe

Two points.

FigurePrints already has most (all?) of the 3D data it needs from Blizzard to recreate all the items/characters.

The "snapshots" are like City of Heroes' costume files.

Edit:
Ooh, this topic has been repeatedly mentioned since 2006.

Arcanaville at one point posted what the figures would probably look like:

She goes on to say in another post:

And when she hedges what she is saying she does a good job at it:

Originally Posted by darkangel32

thanks guys, let me clarify why I think it is low, at one point i was like 2 billion ill never get that and then I got 1.7 billion in one day on my tank so at that point I was like wow, 2 billion seems low.

Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha

Just like all those other things that have been changed and fixed over the years very fa-

Oh, wait.
Not like it only took them...nigh on seven years to remove the pointless -ToHit penalty from group fly?

The reason can be as horribly simple as 'that and a million and one other things to do.'
Again, I'm not complaining, although I do find my pets derping along behind rather annoying at times. I simply think calling it a 'balance issue' is incorrect and daft.

Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha

Calling slow pets a 'balance issue' is frankly daft. Having pets actually able to keep up with their owner would NOT break the AT in any way shape or form, and, honestly, anyone believing such needs their head examining while Arcanaville slams solid numbers directly into your brain.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

The part I was objecting to was the part where you said:

Ignoring MMO limitations completely, the HERO system is *not* even remotely balanced if you actually make any serious attempt to min/max it. And I'm not talking about weird tricky rule-bending exploits that all PnP game systems have, I'm talking about something simple like just taking all the defensive powers, or just focusing on a couple point-focused killing attacks. HERO's "disadvantages" were only interesting if both the players and the GMs played them straight. Even if you eliminate players picking lactose intolerance and coulrophibia quantitative disadvantages tend to be too easy to game, even for non-exploitive players.

But mostly, the problem is that the points system is a little too simplified to make a balanced game as focused on the kinds of combat that MMOs have, even if you had a human GM in the driver's seat. Its not a good starting place to make an MMO powers system, and there isn't even anything interesting to learn from it except what not to do.

I can see adapting something like HERO for a single-player game in theory, with some guardrails. But not an MMO.

Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha

Disa- What? No, seriously, What?! MMs are, as far as I know, NOT balanced around an 'annoyance'. Balancing by annoyance is the most cheap and un-fun shortcut that is available.

MMs are NOT ultimate, unstoppable killing machines like people keep harping on and on and ON about. MMs are balanced around a number of factors;

1) They need pets up and running to have meat/metal-shields for their otherwise pitiful HP
2) They need pets up to do any meaningful damage, due to poor personal attacks
3) They have lower buff/debuff numbers than things like Defenders or Corruptors (unsure about Controllers)
4) They usually have a higher focus on DoT, rather than the raw and usuaully higher burst damage of such ATs as Brutes, Scrappers and Stalkers
5) They suffer far more from AoEs than other ATs, due to the relatively low health of pets, shields and buffs not withstanding.

So, frankly, pets should be able to ALWAYS keep up with their summoner, because, frankly, they are the entire point of the AT and the only way it really survives.
It'd be like telling a Tank "Oh, you're going to be really good at withstanding damage, but everytime you move your defense powers will drop as mini-pets and have to catch up to you before you can use them." It's that patently stupid.

Originally Posted by rsclark

Having a larger business is only beneficial if you make more money by doing it.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Dear god no. The HERO system is not a well-balanced system. The HERO system is a system that offers GMs the tools to balance content against the players by ensuring that nearly every player power option includes an opportunity for the GMs to cause trouble for them. But that requires an intelligent GM to react to the players dynamically.

The system itself is, in computer-controlled MMO terms, incredibly horribly unbalanced. And in fact the HERO system is self-aware of this fact: it specifically warns GMs where the dragons in the system are, and even warns them that there are certain things the rules technically allow that they should feel free to completely disallow if it makes a mockery of their sessions. That's a rule that all PnP games really have, and its why most PnP games primary safeguard against munchkins is the GM, not the rules structure. A good PNP rulesystem gets close enough for the GM to get the rest of the way. MMOs don't have that safety net, and their systems need to be far more air tight.

Important to note: PnP systems first priority is to offer GMs enough tools to make controlled, reasonably balanced gaming sessions. Mathematical rigor is not a priority. But in a computer game, numerical balance has to replace GM balance, because there's no GM (smart enough to take over). The fact that the HERO system is, by numerical standards, incredibly unbalanced is not a knock: its an observation about a facet of the system that isn't critical to its success. The system is flexible enough that every GM running HERO campaigns out there can tweak the system to match their player and session requirements. The system has enough options to encompass all of that play, but no one actually uses them all to their maximum potential. That's a good thing. But in an MMO, its one ruleset to rule them all.

Originally Posted by Greenykins

*cough* =P

Originally Posted by Inazuma

Heh, they use their costumes for advertising space. That made me laugh.

Originally Posted by Silurian

Ed Fries, founder of the company, was at Classic Gaming Expo last year, and I asked him if there was any consideration for supporting City of Heroes figures. Sadly, the short answer was that the player base was too small to be considered worthwhile from a business point of view. Here's to hoping that changes in the future.

Originally Posted by Cptn_Courageous

The names of the AT's should reflect a more neutral position.

Originally Posted by Noyjitat

Something has to be adjusted. It's still going to be a very challenging trial without an undodgeable death attack.