Oldeb

With the exception of costume pieces the objection to your suggestion is still not that character 1 has something different than character 2 who is better than character 3.
It's that for seven years now people have not known that they would be divided along those lines by the choices they made.
That is what is unfair for existing characters.

For newly created characters that isn't a problem. You'll know now which Origin provides the best benefits, be they bonuses, temp powers, costumes, or whatever.
But now character concepts are forced to go along with what is "best" or be lacking. Something that has never applied to this game before.
That is what is unfair to new characters. Especially for a game that provides such a broad base for character concepts.

Every single one of those changes falls within the cottage rule. Suddenly making Origin choice have in-game effects does not. It fundamentally alters character creation. Every single one of those changes has been made for game balance reasons, not because they decided it would give the game, "more meaning."

IOs are not a good comparison for what you want to do. They're optional. We've been told that the game is not balanced around IOs. (We could debate the truth of that, but until they state otherwise IOs are simply not required at all.) There is no way to not have an Origin, so there is no opting out of this. It's a mandatory change across the entire game.

You do know that when it became apparent that perma-dom was becoming the end all be all for Dominators they went back and rebalanced them? So that perma-dom wasn't as beneficial and their base damage was upped to make them more competative against other ATs as a whole? This was a case of IOs becoming a requirement for a particular AT and the Devs took direct steps to stop it.

Than what is the point of a large scale, game sweeping change? Either it's trivial or it's not.

Costumes are not trivial in this game, look at what's in the Booster Packs, look at how much time people spend on them, look at how much pride people take in a good costume. Locking options by Origin is a non-trivial change.

Temp powers may or may not be trivial, depending on what they do. If they're are like the Vanguard Heavy, that's going to be a big deal. If they aren't, then why waste time adding them? So that was can have something else to sell to the vendors?

If the difference is power selection or IOs, I can fix that without making sweeping changes to my character. I can respec into new powers or select new IOs. My character concept though, isn't changed in the slightest. It's still however I first pictured it and I am just as good as the person who doesn't care about concept and goes straight min/max.

In this game character concept in no way restricts my ability to min/max, design my costume however I want, or access any part of the game.

By suddenly giving a part of character creation meaning that it never had before you destroy that. I'm very aware that CoH lets me have my cake and eat it too. I'm aware that's a rare thing in MMOs. What I don't understand is why you feel that should be changed simply to provide "more meaning" to something that gives more meaning by lacking any game effect than it ever could with it.

Penalized: To impose a handicap on; place at a disadvantage.

I used the word correctly. For the umpteenth time you're forcing people to choose between concept and game play. That is a bad thing. It's very much a penalty to character creation.

You're correct in that it's not going to suddenly make any character worse than they already are. It's going to give bigger rewards to characters who picked the "correct" Origin. Yes, nobody is getting directly hurt, but what you're doing is buffing only part of the player base (at random!) and then telling those others to suck it up and just be glad you didn't nerf them.

Once again, you have a bad analogy. First, the cottage rule. Energy Transfer still does exactly what it did before they reworked it. Making Origin selection count is shattering the cottage rule and taking a whiz on its grave. You're taking something that has never had any importance and suddenly making its selection something to be considered.

Second, Energy Tansfer was reworked as part of a move to bring it into balance with the rest of the game. If you want to discuss whether or not it was successful or whether the Devs' vision of game balance is even a good one that's fine.

But what you're asking for is not a rebalancing of a specific power, a certain powerset, or even a reworking of an Archetype. It's a change to every character ever created. It throws balance out the window in order to hand out random buffs. You have to worry about whether certain ATs benefit more. Than you're going to have to see if certain powersets benefit more. After that you can check different primary/seconday combinations. You are asking for a rebalancing of every part of the game. Unlike a change to Energy Transfer there will be no character unaffected by this.

This just isn't an alteration that can be made so long after launch.

*sigh* Let's read for comprehension together! Gather 'round class, it's story time! This might take a while, been a lot of comments, many of them repeated over and over again.

It has nothing to do with some characters getting something that others don't. My Brute doesn't have any holds while my Dominator can't buff anyone, and my Corruptor has no mez protection.

Each one of those has something that the other doesn't. But, and here's the part you have missed in every single one of those posts, I made my decision on what to play while fully informed of the result of my choices.

This is so far removed from the actual objection being made by people in this thread that I wonder if you've read anything at all before posting.

If the thought that it might potentially penalize every single character created to date doesn't bother you I suppose nothing will.

That wasn't what I meant. Let me try again.

You wanted A. (Fire/Fire Scrapper)
A did not exist at the time.
You decided to go with B, as close as you could get to A. (Fire/Fire Tank)
You know during creation and while leveling B that B =/= A.
A is later added (via Proliferation)
B, however, is still B.
Nothing you did while creating B is invalidated or changed. B = B which you knew from the start.

Alternately:

Character C is created with origin X.
Seven years later, X is suddenly given an effect in game, one which you had no way of knowing about when the character was created.
You realize that instead of X, Character C would be better off with Origin Y or Z.
There was no possible way for you to anticipate this change and now suddenly Character C is not as good as his otherwise identical friend D because of what was thought to be a fluff choice.

Forget Defense then. That used just because it's the easiest to pick on. If none of them gave defense we'd just comment on some other bonus. There is zero chance that you can add a bonus that isn't going to upset someone. None. No matter what the bonuses are you're going to invalidate an RP concept or ruin the day of someone trying to get the most performance out of their character.

The only way to avoid that is to make the bonuses so trivial that nobody cares that they're only getting one of them. And if they're that trivial then what's the point of doing it?

Incidently I mean that question for the whole idea of Origins having meaning, not just for bonuses due to Origin. No matter what you decide, be they costumes or emotes or temps or whatever, you're going to have to make them so minor and trivial that it becomes a waste of resources to tie them to Origin. There are seven years worth of characters created who took Origin for RP reasons, because they liked shopping at a certain enhancement store, or just by the person randomly clicking one. You'd be penalizing every single one of those characters. And for what?

This is a terrible analogy. You made a fire/fire tanker. Regardless of any additions to the game, your tanker is still fire/fire, with all the abilities, bonuses, and powers that comes with both your Archetype and your Powersets. At no point were any of your choices in creating this tanker invalidated with the addition of fire/fire scrappers. At no point in the creation of your tanker did you not know what you were going to get. Even if it wasn't what you wanted, you were not creating your tanker blindly.

By adding Origin bonuses you would be making blind changes to every existing character. All those characters that were created over the last seven years would have been made without knowing what they were getting into.

Epic Archetypes would be Archetypes, not Origins. See how the two words are different? Just because a specific AT is required to have a specific Origin, does not mean that they are even remotely the same thing. That's like using the existence of inherent powers to justify adding Origin powers.



p.s. Please don't try and argue for Origin powers based on inherent powers.

First, there is no decision you can make on what to give to an Origin that isn't going to upset people. Maybe someone really needs that last bit of psi resist for min/maxing and now feels "forced" to be Natural or is appalled that suddenly having an increased resist to toxic invalidates their Mutant character's RP storyline. There is no way to avoid angering people with this, the best you could hope for would be to minimize the number.

But more important is the thing you touched on in the first sentence. Some bonuses are potentially too powerful. So we ditch them or greatly reduce them. That'll make everyone happy, right? Well, now these things are so weak and useless that there is no point to adding them in the first place. The time and resources spent making the change are just wasted. There simply isn't going to be a middle ground this late in the game.

See, that's not really how opinions work.

Opinion: a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.

In this case the Developers performed datamining on the performance of Defiance 1.0 and found it to be lacking. That you were personally benefiting or otherwise able to make it work is irrelevant to how it affected Blasters as a whole.

The evidence showed that Defiance 1.0 simply was not working. That's not something that's a judgement call based on insufficient evidence as the Developers have access to all sorts of performance based data. Saying 2.0 is better for Blasters than 1.0 was isn't an opinion, it's a fact. Now you could argue for a Defiance 3.0 or a hybrid 1.5, but that would be different.

Except you didn't. You just pointed out that it's possible to have Power X that sets your character to Model Y while giving you access only to Powerset Z. That hasn't been news since Issue 3 six years ago. It also doesn't in itself make vehicles feasible in any way.

So you agree with me that those problems I brought up all make the idea infeasible, i.e not possible or practical.

So the Devs only have to go back and alter every indoor map. I can't see any problems being introduced there, no siree. I'm not sure it's possible to have a player without a collison boundary, but even if you shrink it so that it's small enough to not get in the way you still have problems. There are going to be plenty of complaints about people walking through other people's vehicles. Even if it doesn't bother you personally there'll be plenty of posts about it on the forums and comments in game.

This... wouldn't actually be a vehicle power. Not in the sense that everyone who posts this suggestion wants. It would be just a Kheld-type transformation. I have no complaints here. Size indoors might still be an issue, but we can already summon the Heavy anywhere.

Ah. An AoE version of Placate? Autohit or not? By duration do you mean even if you attack? Placate currently breaks when you launch a new attack or when the duration wears off (assuming you haven't fled or re-established hidden status). I'd be very supprised to see a version that doesn't break when you attack so this is really only good for a panic button. Does it provide a Placate-like effect for the whole team? That seems like it would be extremely overpowered with multiple people using this on the same team.

I was going to suggest that instead of making a new AT you'd want to try and flesh this out as a Dominator or Controller set, but I don't think that'd work either. I think you're trying to do to much. You want a Defender that is also a Stalker with a Controller thrown in yet different enough from all of those that it is a whole new thing with multiple powerset choices.

I see you've never met a blapper. Many, many blasters use their secondary. Range attacks are not the end all, be all for what they do to survive. It's the easiest and most basic strategy for their survival, but hardly the only way they play. They will have soft or even hard controls in their sets to help them out, especially in melee range. (Okay, maybe not Fire/Fire but their trade-off is more damage) There is no reason for a blaster to do nothing but sit behind the tank and use only one of their two powersets unless they want to.

You have never been perma-stunned. This AT will eat Break Frees like no other. It almost sounds like you want to make a blapper, but are unsure of how to play one.

Like Techbot Alpha said most of these suggestions seem to be made out of unfamiliarity with the existing ATs, powersets, and playstyles. (NOT n00b, let's get that straight. Just newb) I'd really suggest getting a better feel for the game and checking out the AT specific forums for information. Probably best to hold off the suggestions until then.

So you are going to go with the hoverbike solution. Please explain how this addresses the following issues, many of which are already mentioned in this thread (and every other vehicle thread):

1. Appearance - It's going to have to be a Longbow Chaser or some other entirely enclosed vehicle, not a sky raider skiff. You can't have any vehicle where the character is a visible pilot since everyone will have to look exactly the same when using "vehicle mode." Also, go take a look at the size of a Longbow Chaser. Now go take a look at how large you can make a character. How exactly did the pilot even fit in there? And while you can tell people to suck it up and deal with everyone looking identical that's probably not the best solution in a game that devotes so much to individual appearance. People complain about Khelds all looking the same now or how they never get to see their costume because they're always shapeshifted.
   
2. Getting inside the vehicle - How, exactly, do you see this happening? Go activate Nova on a Kheld. See how it works? There is an obscuring burst of energy and Character Model A is replaced by the Nova Model. Is your new vehicle going to be the same? It's not going to show you climbing into it. So you just sort of, "Wonder Twins Powers Activate!" your way into vehicle mode? (*sings* Jon can give you cancer and turn into a car!)
   
3. Overpowered/Underpowered - How does this compare to existing travel powers and how does it interact with other powers in the game? Remember that Khelds have their own powers and so only need to be balance against other ATs as a whole. A vehicle shapeshift power pool is going to have to be balanced against the entire game - all powerset combinations, all ATs, and all existing travel powers. Is it faster than Fly? Slower? If it's slower why use it? If it's too fast does it render Fly obsolete? How does it compare to Superspeed or Super Jump? If I can have Superspeed travel rate along with full x-y-z travel why ever use Superspeed? What powers can you use with it? Defense/Resistance toggles? Attacks? What does this vehicle do? Sure you can grey out all of the normal powers and give it it's own powers to use. Can they be slotted? How do they compare with other power pool selections? Power pool attacks and defenses are going to be weaker than normal powers, so why don't I just take Fly and use all of my regular powers? Making the vehicle pool powers stronger to compensate for the lack of regular powers is not the answer unless you would like to see everyone take it and ignore the regular powersets in favor of the new vehicles. What is stopping every single character in the game from taking this at level 14 (or 6 with the right vet rewards) and never leaving vehicle mode?
   
4. Potential to look really stupid - Ever heard anyone make jokes about just how do sky raider skiffs get into the reactor room? Ever laughed at finding out the boss in a newspaper mission is a longbow chaser hanging out in the back of a cave or office building? Now you too can look just as out of place. Are people going to be able to fly their plane through the tunnels of Orenbaga with their wings clipping through the walls the whole way?
   
5. Random annoyances for other players - How big is the target box on this vehicle? Can I block an entire hallway by myself? Will people be walking through the vehicle?

This is completely wrong. For examples of all the many problems this does not address please read this thread. Or the dozens of other threads in which this elegant in its sheer simplicity "solution" has been brought up.

And to stop your next "fix", hoverbike is not the solution either.

No. Just real quick, if it would work like a mix of Walk and Kheld shapeshifts do now you'd still have:

• Strafing issues
• Water use/Swimming issues
• Probably still going to have the "can't get to the mission door" problem without any form of jump
• Going to look really bizzare in places like The Pit in Sharkhead (Why yes, I did just climb a 75 degree angle in my car)
• Regular citizens pushing your car out of their way (Although that little old lady on the corner tossing your supermobile into the next lane would explain why the muggers can't seem to grab a purse)
• Potentially being either less useful than current Superspeed or too powerful compared to Superspeed depending on what the alternate powers are
• Potentially looking really stupid in anything but an outdoor map

No, but I expected some effort. How many times have we heard they don't want to add something until it's done correctly? Why did that not apply here? Other than the AM vendor (which is a [censored] trashcan for villains because nothing says Incarnate Destroyer of Worlds like digging through the trash) what is in there that people really use? Why not just move the AM vendor outside and nuke these incredibly bad zones with incredibly stupid dialogue that have the signature characters doing incredibly stupid stuff? Then we can just pretend this never happened and talk about how Paragon Studios maintains high standards for their product.

While I can rant about these zones for days with itemized lists of everything that I hate about them, I probably shouldn't hijack this thread anymore. My apologies, Amazing Guy. I'll stop.

He's part of the second crappiest thing to come out of the Paragon Studios era of this game, Fort Trident in Atlas. The only thing worse is The Crucible in Cap. Those two places are overwhelmingly below the standards to which the rest of the game seems to be held.

If Black Scorpion is responsible for them I can only hope that he is never allowed to design a zone/write dialogue without adult supervision again.

Have you seen the part in Trading Places where Louis learns the whole movie so far has been because of a bet? That'd be me. I'd end up tackling Ocho while he gasped out, "It. Was. The. Devs! It. Was. The. Devs!"