The SSOCS is out of the bag....

It will probably give some little cookies to people with skills.
For exemple:
- Finding glowies
- Finding Bosses
- Tracking certain mobs and monster
- Add more time to timer
- Show mobs weakness
- Have an extra sidekick
- Select filters for enhencement drops
- Increase combining % of success
- Get contact phone numbers earlier
- Open option for a 5th power pool
- Access to the private helicopter ride travel system that links together the Dark Astoria/King's Row/Founder Falls/Rikti Crash Site/Peregrine hospitals together
- Detect proximity to plaques and badges
- Get debt discounts
- Resist NPC-bypassers-push

and of course:

- open up the new super-secret cowbell emote

Yeay, skills.

Of those mentioned none of them fit my main's character concept. I suppose I'll have to grind to get them all maxed out anyway so I can keep up with everyone else.

What's your concept? I guarantee I can find a way to make 'em fit.

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Personally, I'm more worried about the Supergroup becoming replaced by the SuperFRAT.

I mean, can you imagine what superhero hazing would be like?

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The late and lamented live-action The Tick show (not to be confused with the equally outstanding cartoon series) had en episode where Tick and Arthur were invited to join a prestigious superhero club (turned out to be a bunch of jerks). The initiation included lengthy paddling, with the gag of hero after hero getting exhausted trying to paddle the Tick hard enough for him to notice.

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Or, of course, for the Discworld heroes: "GOOD EVENING. I WILL BE YOUR TEACHER. SIT."

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Nah... Death would make a horrible teacher... he's like Time... kills all of his students... (Avoiding getting kicked now)... Make Susan the teacher...


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Good point. Susan is a teacher already (no sane hero will try and get into the supply closet of course). And she can to The Voice too.

But in CoH, at least we get a chance to profit from Death's instruction :-)

And the history monks suggest that not all of Time's students die, at least not permanently. Though it can sting.

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I really hate to say it but this is, by far, the worst decision to change this game made yet...

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How can adding completely optional new content be the worst decision?

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Alternate Advancement in EQ was optional (yeah, right). It was, indeed, the worst thing to happen to EQ.

So long as they don't follow the same path here, it'll be just fine.

1. This is being stated as optional; however, I was under the impression that the skill system would be another form of leveling, thus making combat optional. Is that the case?

2a. Is it possible to have group skill learning "sessions"? It sounds more like a solo thing.
2b. If it's possible to group, will this lead to some skills requiring a group? For example, a certain skill requires 3 or more Detectives, or another certan skill requires at least 1 Communication and 1 Scholarship.

3a. Will skills be handled like powers, ala having auto/click/toggle skills?
3b. If so, will we get a new skill tray, or will they be added to the power tray?

4. Can you only learn one tree/subset or can you be Detective/Security, Detective/Forensics, and Science/(insert science subset here)?

What is this SSOCS?

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What is this SSOCS?

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The Super Secret Out of Combat System.

I made the acronym up if anyone cares/believes me...

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What is this SSOCS?

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The Super Secret Out of Combat System.

I made the acronym up if anyone cares/believes me...

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So it was YOU!

I HATE SSOCS! ACRONYMS ARE TEH LAME!!

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2a. Is it possible to have group skill learning "sessions"?

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Allll Riiight!!!
Time for a 'study session' with the ladies...

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man, some people just cant appreciate new content if its not specifically what they want in their wildest dreams. i'll bet if cryptic made jesus pop out of the game when you hit level 15 you'd complain about a grind too!

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I can guarantee that five seconds after that was implemented, there'd be a huge flame post on the boards by some politically-correct meathead screaming that Allah, Buddha, and Yahweh didn't also pop out, which clearly indicates that Cryptic is run by extreme right-wing Christian conservatives . . .

Followed five seconds later by a rabid feminazi type shrieking her skull off that Athena, Brighid, and Kuan Yin are also significantly missing so this obviously means that Cryptic is run entirely by male chauvinist pigs . . .

Followed five seconds later by an enraged atheist protesting the inclusion of any religious entities whatsoever . . .

You get the idea.

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lol. Exactly, no one here seems to ever be happy. I'm just glad they are so involved with the community and give FREE updates.

"How can adding completely optional new content be the worst decision?"

It all depends on how it is implemented. If that new content creates rewards (as they say it does), then those rewards need to be carefully designed. The may implement it beautifully or terribly, and it is always easiest to implement something terribly.

Now back to your question, how could it be a bad thing? There are lots of ways. Even though they say it's fully optional, groups may find it essential to have specifically "skilled" members to create the best "skill modifiers" for that group. This would give the shaft to those who didn't opt to pursue this new optional content.

These new "skill enhancements" could be made sellable, creating a (previously absent) economy for CoH. This would make influence mean far more than it does today, greatly changing something we are all currently used to. Characters that solo and collect influence more effectively would rise yet another notch on the power pole.

I could site dozens of plausable examples.


Now, all this said, I have great faith in the developers, and I'm sure they will do their best to implement this system in such a way to avoid as many foreseeable pitfalls as possible.

As always, however, the proof will be the pudding.

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- open up the new super-secret cowbell emote

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ROFLMAO!!

WE NEED MORE COWBELL, DAMMIT!!!!

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Does anyone ever wonder where these universities are going? All of a sudden these massive centers of learning sprout up through the ground. Maybe I should move to Rhode Island, there seems to be a lot of cool stuff happening down there now.

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Piece of cake.

RI is no distance at all from Boston, which has a tremendous number of colleges and universities.

MIT, Harvard, BU, BC, to name just four, right off the top of my head. And there are others, lots of them. So I predict a portal to downtown Boston, from where we can jump on the "T", and take (for example) the red line to MIT, or whatever.

Or we could see about linking the Paragon City Green line to the Boston Yellow Line. Shouldn't take too long if we get all those construction workers wandering round Talos on the job.

Awww man! I was hoping some sort of mad scientist or such. Where we could craft temp powers. I wanted to walk around with 4 new fire powers for a short while like I did when I had all 4 pieces of the wheel of destruction. Then if I knew I was going to battle flaming hellions, I'd go and get some ice powers crafted. Still, the skill system does look like it might be a nice add on. Skills go hand in hand with superheroes! Just look at the dark knight and our skin-stretching marvel counterpart.

Also, any idea of what the Archetype is going to be that is skilled based? Statesman did say that with the new out of combat system would come a new Archetype. Teacher? Mad Scientist? Super Detective?

Alien - but that's another topic.

Ummm, folks? I'm thinking these skills are not going to be easy - especially the science one. Do you have any idea how many times I've had to rescue students from Paragon U field trips??? I've got some pretty strong evidence that several teachers are actually part of the Circle of Thorns. Please do not leave your costume at home and, for pity's sake, do NOT sign any release forms!

What pleases me most is that they are independent of level. I hope that's true. It's a sign that they are trying to de-emphasize the importance of level.

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what I want to know is why was the magazine told before us on the board?

Did the magazine release the article too soon, or was this a consience decision by you? I really want to give you the benifit of the doubt, because I would hope you have more respect for us than that.

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No. Magazines have a 2 or 3 month lead time for getting issues out. My deductive reasoning reveal the following...

At the time the article was written Statesman, or whomever gave the information, was correct The SSOCS was slated for issue #3. But as Statesman posted, it was more complicated then originally thought. So they had to push back it's release to a future Issue. Q.E.D.

A Battle Plan never survives contact with the enemy. For programming: A project is always more complicated than you ever imagined. And when estimating how long a software project will take: Take your initial time estimate, double it and then add 2 days.

I can certainly see the detective skills (which is good, since my character was a "detective" back when I wrote his bio, so this is perfect) but I fail to see how in-game goals would exist for people in Science. Especially without tool/power results.

Are these skills going to be more assosiative, i.e. will my guy

1. need to find the clues
2. bring them to a scientist who analyzes them
3. give the clues to my guy who brings in a "perp" who is then...
4. interrigated by a Communication guy and finally
5. handed over to a Scholar (LAWYER!?) for trial and punishment?

I guess that we'll soon (me being optimistic) see.

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What exactly would come under the scholar catagory? Would that allow your hero to teach other people or to be the student or what?

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Well, taking the example of "using a skill to find all glowies", compare the four categories.

Detective: Ignore irrelevant glowies/find all "random clues" on a map. Remember the Mission of Nigh-Infinite Boxes clockwork indoor, where you had to search like 50 identical glowing boxes to find the right one?

Science: Locate bomb/computer type glowies as above.

Communications: Extend the length of time available to synchronize clicking on "multiple simultaneous objectives" glowies.

Scholar: Improved map reveal radius/find all "arcane/history" type glowies.

Of course, one could imagine other specialties as well... but do you really want to see "LF Scholar to PL Detective skills w/pay 100k inf" on the broadcast channel?

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Another possibility is Electronic, Security Systems, or what not. Rather then succesfully or unsucessfully, bypassing a base security system you have a change to disarm it.

If you would have normally not bypassed it and suceed, you might reduce the aggro radius of mobs. They don't know that you are coming.

If you have normally have bypass the securty system and blow it, they will know. There might be an increased aggro radius. Or there might more/bigger patrols in the mission.

I myself am most KEENLY interested in this Forensics skill. I'm a Forensics major myself, in RL, so this is right up my alley. Also, my main is a college student, taking a couple of semesters off to be a Hero, so the idea of a Paragon University (or several) is intriguing indeed. Somebody help me to remember to change her bio when this system goes in...she's listed as a zoology student, and I don't see how they'd implement a skill for that (but hey, maybe they can).

What I'm trying to say is, this system sounds bloody cool.

So, um... Maybe I missed this somewhere. What does SSOCS stand for? Misspelled foot garments?

/clueless

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So, um... Maybe I missed this somewhere. What does SSOCS stand for? Misspelled foot garments?

/clueless

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This has been asked and answered at least once already in this thread. Did you read it?

However, as not to be completely unhelpful... it stands for Super Secret Out of Combat System.

What worries me is that this mysterious universal skill tree (MUST?) may only have use within missions. While a level 50 could still learn skills they wouldn't have much use for him. I hope they have a variety of non-mission uses as well. I can think of only a few:

- Able to act as an 'expert' for missions requiring one. (detective is a 'natural' expert, science is a 'tech/science' expert, scholar is a 'magic' expert, maybe)

- Able to train people of lower level. (Those guys must have learned how to do it somewhere)

At 50, you can still use all your powers to bust some heads or help other people w/o exemplaring. I would hope the same would be true for the MUST.
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I'm Doctor Why and I approved this message.