Should the signature villains be AV rank?
By
Aura_Familia,
Posted on: 2009-06-16 09:15 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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But honestly if this power scaling thing is so acceptable, why not reverse it? Have a mission or two where you fight the entire freedom phalanx and they're all lieutenants, because in this issue of City of Heroes you're the star? Obviously that'd be ridiculous and not exceptionally fun, but that's pretty much how some people such as myself see the current AV mechanic.
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Actually, that would ROCK for a level 50 mission.
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Honestly if they *want* to give story reasons why the Freedom Phalanx is so much better than everyone else so be it, but as I have asked several times already: What does that accomplish?
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What does it accomplish for Superman to be (presumably) on a higher tier of power than anyone else can reach in DCUO? It's just a byproduct of his concept and his history (DCUO will go on to make me eat my words by making Kandorians and Daxamites player races).
Manticore likely conceived of this universe (along with Rick Dakan and Jack Emmert, I think) to feel like a long-established hero universe just like DC and Marvel. As such there are powerful established icons like Captain Marvel/Statesman or Recluse/Doom. They are conceptually team content from the ground up.
Now I agree that not everyone who is an icon in this world needs that status. I can easily see Manticore and Back Alley Brawler for instance, being EBs or even topping out before level 50. Heck, if Batman were in this game, he should be outclassed by a Gaardvord in terms of physical combat: I'm sure any of them could take Killer Croc.
But in any case, I'm sure there are people in the game (out of 150k, pprobably every conceivable opinion is reflected) whose experience would be diminished if they felt like the signature hero of the universe were just some chump they could easily take down solo. That's actually beside the point, kind of.
The point is YOU don't like it. Even if every one of the other 150,000 people were united in one voice against you, you'd still not like the fact that you are overshadowed by Statesman. That's fine.
MY point is:
1) There is always going to be a critter that has bigger numbers than you; they are NEEDED.
2) Since those are going to exist, there is no reason to exclude the Signature Heroes from that status UNLESS doing so would improve the game significantly. I have yet to be convinced that this is the case.
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Something else that occurs to me on this line: not everyone can be the best. That is to say, 150 thousand subcribers cannot all be the absolute top tier of cosmic-powered badasses in the setting at once. It simply doens't make sense. As Kitsune says, Someone has to be the Justice League/Avengers of the setting, and not everyone can make the list. In some games (games with open PvP and dynamic environments) who gets to claim their palce at the top of the pyramid has a lot more to do with player interaction, I grant you, and I for one would love to see a superhero game like that. But in a static-world, linear type game in the WoW model, such as City of Heroes, the only practical solution si for those people to be NPCs.
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But honestly if this power scaling thing is so acceptable, why not reverse it? Have a mission or two where you fight the entire freedom phalanx and they're all lieutenants, because in this issue of City of Heroes you're the star? Obviously that'd be ridiculous and not exceptionally fun, but that's pretty much how some people such as myself see the current AV mechanic.
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Actually, that would ROCK for a level 50 mission.
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I suggested something similar to this in the other thread. Have an arc where you and your team get powered up and can smack around Recluse and Co. like white con wusses. Of couse, the missions would have to have additional challenges to prevent the missions from becoming a sleep walk.
Say some Mu guys botch a spell and whenever you're around Recluse and friends(ie, in the missions in the arc as opposed to on the street), you end up siphoning their power and becoming uber.
Play it like the Black Suit Saga from Spider-Man where the power ultimately proves harmful, thus the heroes have to give it up, and you've got the makings of an intersting arc.
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What does it accomplish for Superman to be (presumably) on a higher tier of power than anyone else can reach in DCUO? It's just a byproduct of his concept and his history (DCUO will go on to make me eat my words by making Kandorians and Daxamites player races).
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In the well written stories, he's not some unreachable god on a whole other tier from other heroes. John Byrne's Superman, generally regarded as one of the best interpretations of him, wasn't the most powerful guy on the block by far. Lots of characters, the Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, even Batman were capable of bringing him down.
What made him "powerful" was his will to fight, the sheer diversity of his powers, and the fact he was so much of an icon.
They even addresed this in the comics. You ask a kid in New York or London who the best super hero in the world is, he'll say Superman. You ask a kid in Buenos Aires or Sydney Australia who the best super hero is, he'll say J'onn J'onzz.
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1) There is always going to be a critter that has bigger numbers than you; they are NEEDED.
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But they don't have to be the Freedom Phalanx, Statesman or Recluse.
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2) Since those are going to exist, there is no reason to exclude the Signature Heroes from that status UNLESS doing so would improve the game significantly.
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Doing so would require more diverse finale encounters, and we both seem to agree those are good things.
You don't feel overshadowed, but at least respect that other people do. You seem to not mind either way as long as the challenge remains the same, and that's what is being advocated here; changing the presentation of the encounters and not the challenge level of them. So why argue in favour of signature characters as AVs when it's (supposedly) no skin off your neck either way?
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So why argue in favour of signature characters as AVs when it's (supposedly) no skin off your neck either way?
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I don't consider myself to be arguing one way or the other. I'm just expressing my opinions and trying to understand those of others.
I agree with your basic premises a lot; just usually not with the extremes to which you wish to go or the way in which you express your ideas.
In this case, although I don't have a problem with AVs existing or being signature characters, I also want to encourage the Devs to continue to seek new ways of making uber encounters and high level content fun.
A lot of things are the way they are because of circumstances: the Devs would probably like to redo a lot of old content with a unified (dare I say it?) vision in mind, but it's unlikely to be prioritized over all-new shinies to entrance new and old players alike.
So I don't see the Devs going back to set, say Back Alley Brawler in stone as a Batman-level opponent (level 15 or so EB) and rewriting all the missions he's in and also coming up with new mechanincs specifically so your Tanker won't feel outclassed when facing him solo on Invincible. Especially when talking to an npc can make him an EB just like you want: at that point you are not arguing in favor of more content for yourself, you are arguing in favor of denying a certain experience to other players.
Especially not now that anyone who wants that, can do it in the MA (although they would have to cobble together their own BAB lookalike critter).
But I do want to explore what makes players feel 'super' and how the Devs can perceive that and tap into it to make the game better for everyone.
There definitely should be more foe teams out there.
The Devs are already making the first step in the direction of giving villains more respect in the writing.
I am totallly in favor of more gadget fights.
These, I beleive are all acheivable in a time frame of months, rather than the years it would take to excise AVs from the game seamlessly, even if the Devs wanted to.
I am totally on your side when it comes to future game content having better presentation, a better feeling of progression, and better writing when it comes to whay a character is an EB as opposed to an AV.
I also agree that if there are ATs, or powerset combinations, that basolutely cannot slo an even level AV regardless of purplitude or slotting/skill/patience/perseverance, then that should be addressed. But I don't think that's actually the case.
Of course, AVs are team content (intended for 6 players IIRC), so the Devs are as likely to address that by buffing AVs as by buffing a powerset, but that's a separate fight.
Just out of curiosity: any of the responders in this thread made any MA Arcs? If so, have they already, or do they plan on, making any with Arch Villains?
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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Something else that occurs to me on this line: not everyone can be the best. That is to say, 150 thousand subcribers cannot all be the absolute top tier of cosmic-powered badasses in the setting at once. It simply doens't make sense. As Kitsune says, Someone has to be the Justice League/Avengers of the setting, and not everyone can make the list. In some games (games with open PvP and dynamic environments) who gets to claim their palce at the top of the pyramid has a lot more to do with player interaction, I grant you, and I for one would love to see a superhero game like that. But in a static-world, linear type game in the WoW model, such as City of Heroes, the only practical solution si for those people to be NPCs.
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This brings up an intriguing point. I've been studying game design and one thing I read that struck me as interesting was player perception and MMOs. It said that in any given video game you generally want the player to be in the "top 10 percentile" of the in game universe. This is easy in a single player game but becomes difficult in multiplayer games. For MMOs, the workaround is for the NPCs to fill in the lower/weaker/poorer 90% of the game. The player will be inherantly "better" than most of the game's inhabitants. The real trick winds up being that once this state is obtained, how do you provide a proper challenge?
It seems like that is the crux of the "problem" here. How do you make the player feel powerful without making the rest of the game a cakewalk. A number of creative suggestions have been presented on how to have more innovative enemies than just sacks of HP and damage. Applying these to some AVs that are "normal" people or even some of the heavy hitters. I'm new so I haven't gone against Countess Crey yet but that concept of making her "weak" but giving her a ton of shenanigans sounds like a great idea and it would make for a more memorable experience. In theory, this could also be used with a Manticore fight. Batman has defeated Superman numerous times in the comics despite the vast strength differences due to tactics. Situations like that would be good for the game and may even give some builds a chance to shine.
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Just out of curiosity: any of the responders in this thread made any MA Arcs? If so, have they already, or do they plan on, making any with Arch Villains?
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I have an arc *points at sig* but no Avs yet since I'm still new to the game and learning my way around. Probably won't be any in that arc but with the ability to purchase more slots I'll have a likelyhood of doing so.
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These, I beleive are all acheivable in a time frame of months, rather than the years it would take to excise AVs from the game seamlessly, even if the Devs wanted to.
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I largely agree with your priorities, but I don't see where you're pulling the year+ estimate for excising signature AVs from. There is already a function in place to handle the AV to EB transition, I won't pretend to know everything about the CoH engine, but claiming that modifying that function would be a year long endeavor is incredibly far fetched and puts any discussion of doing so unfairly into "won't happen" land.
Having spent the past 8 years working as a programmer, I could take a stab at a counter estimate, but I think that's irrelevant to the discussion and would be incredibly uneducated on my part regardless of qualifications. Suffice it to say we don't know the cost of such a move, so all that can be discussed here is the benefit.
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Just out of curiosity: any of the responders in this thread made any MA Arcs? If so, have they already, or do they plan on, making any with Arch Villains?
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The arc I'm personally working on at the moment includes neither AVs nor EBs, but the main antagonist in it is not worthy of such a status in my book anyhow. I know a lot of people use the MA solo or in small teams, and without easy ways of categorizing difficulty at the moment, I tend to lean towards keeping my arcs accessible to everyone, but that's a personal preference really.
Infatum on Virtueverse
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The arc I'm personally working on at the moment includes neither AVs nor EBs, but the main antagonist in it is not worthy of such a status in my book anyhow. I know a lot of people use the MA solo or in small teams, and without easy ways of categorizing difficulty at the moment, I tend to lean towards keeping my arcs accessible to everyone, but that's a personal preference really.
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It's the same with my arc...its much more story driven. I tried to give the player a sense of urgency and them being a driving force in getting to the bottom of the case. Of course, it practically never gets played now...buried under...whatever else is there.
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See, I fundamentally disagree with your number 4 assumption. Not all builds are eqallyt good at soloing. ANd frankly not all builds are equally good, period. IF you didnt do the research and/or analysis to figure out which ones were better (or if you chose to build a sub-optimal character anyway) then you do not get the same performance as someone who did. If you want that performance, roll a better character.
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You miss the point that there shouldn't BE drastically better characters based on things players can't control like what power set contains massively overpowered debuffs and what set contains attacks with an overly resisted damage type.
Tell me, what would a dev say if someone asked to TRIPPLE the damage of Tankers?
Or if someone suggested making Blasters as survivable as Brutes?
They would say 'no' because that would be overpowered. There would be little reason to play any other AT. They would become the optimal AT.
That is what you are preaching. That flys in the face of all the balancing effort the devs have put into the game. You're saying it's OK for a handfull of combos to better for no reason other than a mathamatical quirk or because eliminating that outlier would create other problems.
That isn't rewarding hard work or skill with better performace. That's rewarding someone who followed a build guide someone else wrote and either farmed for a lot of hours or bought inf to obtain IOs.
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and you can't blame me if, as one of those people, IM not keen to see my hard work rendered irrelevent.
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You didn't "work hard" at all. You pushed buttons in a video game, George Jetson.
And I pushed buttons too. As many as you, for as long as you. And I pay the same fee every month as you too. So why should you get rewarded because one combo and AT is better than another? Why am I wrong for picking something different?
You likely have no more skill at this game than I do. I could roll the same AT and combo as you and within a short time devise a AV soloing build based what players who've gone before me have discovered. With my network of friends I could have him leveled up and outfitted with IOs in short order. Suddenly, your "work", is rendered just as irrelevent.
But just as I don't crawl inside glitched geometry just because it's possible, I don't build a character with no real concept behind it just because that outlier is better.
And just the same as that hangar glitcher I kicked from my server, I don't think it's fair to the vast majority of players, including anyone else who builds for something other than pure performance, that such outliers exist. And I'm especially disgusted that anyone can have a feeling of entitlement or superiority because they choose to take advantage of them.
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Now if you'll excuse me, I'm done with this line of the discussion. You've made me very mad, and not for the reason you likely expect.
You've made me stand up for the devs, defend them and even compliment them in these little exchanges. That makes me feel so dirty I can't describe, especially since when the sun rises tomorrow, they're still going to continue to deny me the things I've spent two and a half years fighting for.
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gotta love the hypocrisy
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I've always been a little annoyed at having a single signature character other than Statesman or Recluse as a team-based mission boss. (At least at level 50, at 40 it makes sense.) According to the CoX backstory, Statesman and Recluse are more powerful than any other standard hero or villain due to their being Incarnates who got their powers directly from the Well of the Furies. Likewise, I can see giant monsters, the Hamidon, and alien warlords as legitimately stronger than any player. But according to the in-game lore, every human hero other than the big two has about the same limit to their potential... in other words, the Freedom Phalanx and Recluse's lieutenants are basically very experienced, fully purpled out level 50s. They should be tougher than a normal level 50 character, but an even match for one that has a high end build and is played well.
Unfortunately, the game has real limits on how well the AI can operate. I personally suspect there are artificial limits on the AI imposed by a need to limit how many CPU cycles each mob uses up, but even if there aren't no game AI is a match for a human. That means that AVs pretty much have to be unmezzable bags of hitpoints because the game itself cannot support a more sophisticated approach. I do like TFs that end with a team of bad guys or some sort of artificially enhanced enemy, since they fit the lore better, but sometimes you have to have a lone signature villain (or hero). What I'd like those fights to be like is the equivalent of fighting a fully IOed level 50 with a full tray of inspirations, but the AI can't do it. So a bag of hitpoints that hits ridiculously hard is what we end up with.
At least a lot of fully IOed 50s can take down an even level AV, so it's not totally immersion breaking. But honestly, a fight between two Green Lantern / Wonder Woman level enemies (which is where I see a purpled out 50 being, with Superman and Darkseid being Statesman and Recluse) should be epic, not ten minutes of standing there pounding each other until one falls down.
Ok, so maybe IOed 50s and AVs are all the Hulk and the Thing. 
Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name
[u]Arcs[u]
The Scavenger Hunt: 187076
The Instant Lair Delivery Service: 206636
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But in any case, I'm sure there are people in the game (out of 150k, pprobably every conceivable opinion is reflected) whose experience would be diminished if they felt like the signature hero of the universe were just some chump they could easily take down solo. That's actually beside the point, kind of.
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Have you fought Statesman as an EB? He isn't a chump, nor do I want him to be one.
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The point is YOU don't like it. Even if every one of the other 150,000 people were united in one voice against you, you'd still not like the fact that you are overshadowed by Statesman. That's fine.
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Yes that is the point, I'm here voicing my opinion, and asking my detractors what the consequences of going this route is. So far you have not come out and said that you would miss having AV signature characters, only that there are theoretical people out there that would. Well maybe my theoretical people outnumber yours given you don't even appear to be part of your theoretical population where as I am along with a few others I know.
Honestly though I think most people who like the signature characters being powerful would be ok with Statesman still being able to flatten most players solo if they didn't use inspirations or temps. (He is a tough EB, many people can't solo him even with inspirations)
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MY point is:
1) There is always going to be a critter that has bigger numbers than you; they are NEEDED.
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Yes, I'd like more not less, but I want them to *feel* like they should have bigger numbers, not just *have* bigger numbers.
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2) Since those are going to exist, there is no reason to exclude the Signature Heroes from that status UNLESS doing so would improve the game significantly. I have yet to be convinced that this is the case.
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I have a handful of people whose experience would be improved significantly by this change. You have yet to show anyone who would be hurt by it, as you yourself have yet to actually show any real attachment to the signature characters only a general distaste for ideas that don't help you specifically.
Infatum on Virtueverse