Anyone seen this? New expansion?
By
Arctic_Princess,
Posted on: 2008-08-09 10:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Unless it's done *very* well, then all it's going to boil down to is a formulaic system that people will maniupulat to swap sides at will, with no actual gravitas at all. Guess we'll have to wait and see
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Of course it's going to be a formulaic system. All systems in all MMOs are formulaic systems which are open to abuse or embrace depending on what you want from them.
Take the old Dreck mission, it was either an epic battle in an alternative dimension to save it from Freakshow domination, or an awesome farming level with no gravitas at all. Whichever it was was up to the players.
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That's awfully true. Then I think, what i was getting at is that it will feel formulaic, more than anything. Like the difference between Christmas morning when you were 7, and Christmas morning now
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But isn't a limited choice system still better than no choices at all?
Giving you the choice to be good, be bad or be neutral is very limited, but it's still a step up from having your progression decided for you.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Unless it's done *very* well, then all it's going to boil down to is a formulaic system that people will maniupulat to swap sides at will, with no actual gravitas at all. Guess we'll have to wait and see
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Of course it's going to be a formulaic system. All systems in all MMOs are formulaic systems which are open to abuse or embrace depending on what you want from them.
Take the old Dreck mission, it was either an epic battle in an alternative dimension to save it from Freakshow domination, or an awesome farming level with no gravitas at all. Whichever it was was up to the players.
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That's awfully true. Then I think, what i was getting at is that it will feel formulaic, more than anything. Like the difference between Christmas morning when you were 7, and Christmas morning now
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But isn't a limited choice system still better than no choices at all?
Giving you the choice to be good, be bad or be neutral is very limited, but it's still a step up from having your progression decided for you.
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I can see a circle forming.
What if these needless choices (yes, they are needless, the story content is fine as it is), end up 'locking out' other content, and forcing you to the hero arcs that i'm simply 10000% disinterested in doing, all because of some choice whose consequences i'm unable to see.
Sure, heroes may get the great chance to go down the dark path and experience some good content. Us villains will get to accidentally earn a few brownie points and be rewarded with 10 hours long task forces and about 1 good arc per level range.
It's the old, 'if it 'aint broke, don't fix it' approach I'm afraid. Which is why i'd prefer it in a sequal, something that wont get in the way of currently existing 50 characters, large badge collections, task force dynamics (don't get me started on how bad CoV could suck, when tankers march on the scene and start giving the orders). If this were in a sequal GG, I would agree with you completely
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What if these needless choices (yes, they are needless, the story content is fine as it is), end up 'locking out' other content, and forcing you to the hero arcs that i'm simply 10000% disinterested in doing, all because of some choice whose consequences i'm unable to see.
Sure, heroes may get the great chance to go down the dark path and experience some good content. Us villains will get to accidentally earn a few brownie points and be rewarded with 10 hours long task forces and about 1 good arc per level range.
It's the old, 'if it 'aint broke, don't fix it' approach I'm afraid. Which is why i'd prefer it in a sequal, something that wont get in the way of currently existing 50 characters, large badge collections, task force dynamics (don't get me started on how bad CoV could suck, when tankers march on the scene and start giving the orders). If this were in a sequal GG, I would agree with you completely
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But that's one of the uses of a moral compass - if the choices you were making as a Villain were pushing your moral compass towards neutral, then you'd be able to get it back to evil with a few misisons where you did the worst possible things in the choices given to you.
And don't forget, I don't think the system would be so subtle and shaded that you'd have trouble telling what was the "correct" thing to do as a Villain - like an assassination mission, for example - your contact sends you to kill someone - you can either kill them, let them go, or kidnap them and see if they might be useful for your own plans.
That gives you one obvious evil choice, one obvious good choice, and one not so evil choice, and, depending on who the target is, maybe the kidnapping is even a semi-good choice - so you get good, bad and neutral choices, and all three are quite easy to spot.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Yeah, I'd be happy for a system like that - but would it be fair in general?
Would CoV players, some of who say they're not treated the same as CoH players, really be very happy that they'd have to work much harder in the going rogue system than CoH players becoming Villains?
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May not be fair but it's realistic, play Fabel of KOTOR for a bit, it's a lot harder to remain good in those games than to fall to evil.
Being good is about making sacrifices, giving up the things we want in order to help others, being evil is about giving into those desires, thus by reasoning it is easier to become evil than to remain good.
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I can't speak for Fable but I found in games Kotor and particularly Mass Effect it was quite difficult to sway away from good into evil. Of course it was easier in Kotor as with one fell swoop late in the game you could erase all the good you'd done in the game to that point and suddenly become the embodiment of all evil. Mass Effect I found quite hard to be as bad I wanted without becoming the biggest a*s in the universe to achieve it.
Well, that would be because Mass Effect wasn't about good and evil per se - it was pragmatism and idealism. You either dallied wanting the best for everyone, or cut to the heart of the matter and dealt with problems now rather than bleeding your heart out for some orphans standing in the way.
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What if these needless choices (yes, they are needless, the story content is fine as it is), end up 'locking out' other content, and forcing you to the hero arcs that i'm simply 10000% disinterested in doing, all because of some choice whose consequences i'm unable to see.
Sure, heroes may get the great chance to go down the dark path and experience some good content. Us villains will get to accidentally earn a few brownie points and be rewarded with 10 hours long task forces and about 1 good arc per level range.
It's the old, 'if it 'aint broke, don't fix it' approach I'm afraid. Which is why i'd prefer it in a sequal, something that wont get in the way of currently existing 50 characters, large badge collections, task force dynamics (don't get me started on how bad CoV could suck, when tankers march on the scene and start giving the orders). If this were in a sequal GG, I would agree with you completely
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But that's one of the uses of a moral compass - if the choices you were making as a Villain were pushing your moral compass towards neutral, then you'd be able to get it back to evil with a few misisons where you did the worst possible things in the choices given to you.
And don't forget, I don't think the system would be so subtle and shaded that you'd have trouble telling what was the "correct" thing to do as a Villain - like an assassination mission, for example - your contact sends you to kill someone - you can either kill them, let them go, or kidnap them and see if they might be useful for your own plans.
That gives you one obvious evil choice, one obvious good choice, and one not so evil choice, and, depending on who the target is, maybe the kidnapping is even a semi-good choice - so you get good, bad and neutral choices, and all three are quite easy to spot.
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So what you're saying is, that the great big i13/14 that is meant to sway the competition, is a big daddy holding my hand, and giving me a choice of two ways to go
L for LEFT
and R for RETARDED
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What if these needless choices (yes, they are needless, the story content is fine as it is), end up 'locking out' other content, and forcing you to the hero arcs that i'm simply 10000% disinterested in doing, all because of some choice whose consequences i'm unable to see.
Sure, heroes may get the great chance to go down the dark path and experience some good content. Us villains will get to accidentally earn a few brownie points and be rewarded with 10 hours long task forces and about 1 good arc per level range.
It's the old, 'if it 'aint broke, don't fix it' approach I'm afraid. Which is why i'd prefer it in a sequal, something that wont get in the way of currently existing 50 characters, large badge collections, task force dynamics (don't get me started on how bad CoV could suck, when tankers march on the scene and start giving the orders). If this were in a sequal GG, I would agree with you completely
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But that's one of the uses of a moral compass - if the choices you were making as a Villain were pushing your moral compass towards neutral, then you'd be able to get it back to evil with a few misisons where you did the worst possible things in the choices given to you.
And don't forget, I don't think the system would be so subtle and shaded that you'd have trouble telling what was the "correct" thing to do as a Villain - like an assassination mission, for example - your contact sends you to kill someone - you can either kill them, let them go, or kidnap them and see if they might be useful for your own plans.
That gives you one obvious evil choice, one obvious good choice, and one not so evil choice, and, depending on who the target is, maybe the kidnapping is even a semi-good choice - so you get good, bad and neutral choices, and all three are quite easy to spot.
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So what you're saying is, that the great bit i13/14 that is meant to sway the competition, is a big daddy holding my hand, and giving me a choice of two ways to go
L for LEFT
and R for RETARDED
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Which is still better than daddy leading you by the hand the whole time 
By having clear chocies, you can still play through the game as an evil Villain, while other pleyers can make themselves more neutral, and others can try and redeem themselves and become Heroes - it's a system that adds diversity to the game, and gives players more freedom in the way they explore the game and progress through the content.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Yeah, I'd be happy for a system like that - but would it be fair in general?
Would CoV players, some of who say they're not treated the same as CoH players, really be very happy that they'd have to work much harder in the going rogue system than CoH players becoming Villains?
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May not be fair but it's realistic, play Fabel of KOTOR for a bit, it's a lot harder to remain good in those games than to fall to evil.
Being good is about making sacrifices, giving up the things we want in order to help others, being evil is about giving into those desires, thus by reasoning it is easier to become evil than to remain good.
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I can't speak for Fable but I found in games Kotor and particularly Mass Effect it was quite difficult to sway away from good into evil. Of course it was easier in Kotor as with one fell swoop late in the game you could erase all the good you'd done in the game to that point and suddenly become the embodiment of all evil. Mass Effect I found quite hard to be as bad I wanted without becoming the biggest a*s in the universe to achieve it.
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Maybe that was the point? 
It sounds like the morality was clearly signposted, so there was no dnager of the game "tricking" you into being good or evil.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Oddly I agree with GG on this. Frankly being able to almost predict the missions you're going to get and know what you're going to have to do for the umpteenth time but with just a difference cossie and set of powers is dull. I don't care how you try and convince me that the nuances of a different team make up or builds makes each encounter unique, it really doesn't. If this system gives the possibility for arc branching and some real consequence for what happens in your missions, be it success, failure, good, evil or indifferent will be an extremely welcome addition in my opinion. It's always struck me as a bit ludicrous that no matter how important or emphatic a mission objective is made by a contact, if you fail it, there's a lame excuse along the lines of, "Oh don't worry we picked him up anyway" and the story progresses regardless.
Sure it ain't broke, but it also ain't "fine the way it is".
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
http://faces.cohtitan.com/profile/SteelRat
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As for what morality the system would be based on - it'd be normal human morality - stuff like murder = evil, helping people = good.
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I know I'll regret quoting this but anyway...
Whose human morality are we talking about? Depending on where you come from, if you believe in a religion and what religion it is, and a thousand and one other factors will define what an individual counts as human morality (and I do know that you believe that human morality transcends these things iirc the last time this subject arrived on these boards).
Does murder and capital punishment amount to the same thing in normal human morality? Helping people doesn't necessarily equal good, it depends on your reasons for helping someone and what you're helping them do. If you help someone for financial recompense is that a good act? Is helping to mug someone good? Is helping someone commit euthanasia good?
Whilst I understand the point you're making Cryo, I hardly think it's relevant in a 16 rated game about comic superheroes. *resists urge to insert a semi colon and right bracket*
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
http://faces.cohtitan.com/profile/SteelRat
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What if these needless choices (yes, they are needless, the story content is fine as it is), end up 'locking out' other content, and forcing you to the hero arcs that i'm simply 10000% disinterested in doing, all because of some choice whose consequences i'm unable to see.
Sure, heroes may get the great chance to go down the dark path and experience some good content. Us villains will get to accidentally earn a few brownie points and be rewarded with 10 hours long task forces and about 1 good arc per level range.
It's the old, 'if it 'aint broke, don't fix it' approach I'm afraid. Which is why i'd prefer it in a sequal, something that wont get in the way of currently existing 50 characters, large badge collections, task force dynamics (don't get me started on how bad CoV could suck, when tankers march on the scene and start giving the orders). If this were in a sequal GG, I would agree with you completely
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But that's one of the uses of a moral compass - if the choices you were making as a Villain were pushing your moral compass towards neutral, then you'd be able to get it back to evil with a few misisons where you did the worst possible things in the choices given to you.
And don't forget, I don't think the system would be so subtle and shaded that you'd have trouble telling what was the "correct" thing to do as a Villain - like an assassination mission, for example - your contact sends you to kill someone - you can either kill them, let them go, or kidnap them and see if they might be useful for your own plans.
That gives you one obvious evil choice, one obvious good choice, and one not so evil choice, and, depending on who the target is, maybe the kidnapping is even a semi-good choice - so you get good, bad and neutral choices, and all three are quite easy to spot.
[/ QUOTE ]
So what you're saying is, that the great bit i13/14 that is meant to sway the competition, is a big daddy holding my hand, and giving me a choice of two ways to go
L for LEFT
and R for RETARDED
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Which is still better than daddy leading you by the hand the whole time
By having clear chocies, you can still play through the game as an evil Villain, while other pleyers can make themselves more neutral, and others can try and redeem themselves and become Heroes - it's a system that adds diversity to the game, and gives players more freedom in the way they explore the game and progress through the content.
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But daddy isn't holding my hand at all atm. The arcs are what they are, and I enjoy them for that fact. Turning, say, Peter Themari's arc into [SPOILER]
do you a) take pryss out, or b) tell her the truth and beat the snot out of thermai, or c) do nothing and have a cup of tea, would *totally* cheapen it for me. Did you ever use to read those adventure books? 'did you eat the melon? turn to page 98, if you didn't and fought the wolves, turn to page 4...
Are their stories comparable to great works of fiction that don't give you a choice of outcome. I know that's subjective, but I'm pretty sure that one of those is far more popular and renowned than the other
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But daddy isn't holding my hand at all atm
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He doesn't need to. You have one path in a tunnel and a visible exit at the end.
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
http://faces.cohtitan.com/profile/SteelRat
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It sounds like the morality was clearly signposted, so there was no dnager of the game "tricking" you into being good or evil.
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Actually I often felt ME 'tricked' me into doing things I hadn't planned. I often chose a response when talking to someone based on the text example of what I was going to say only for the words that came out of my mouth to bare little if any relation to the tone of the example, which would lead the conversation off on a tangent to where I wanted it to go.
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It sounds like the morality was clearly signposted, so there was no dnager of the game "tricking" you into being good or evil.
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I think modern thinking is that morality is based on intent rather than objective "goodness" of action.
But clearly things could get very complicated.
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Whilst I understand the point you're making Cryo, I hardly think it's relevant in a 16 rated game about comic superheroes. *resists urge to insert a semi colon and right bracket*
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It probably isn't. However I think a black = bad and white = good along with maybe an exactly in the middle third option is a horribly simplistic system if they chose to use it, and to me massively uninteresting. For the Beano or Dandy, or whatever the kids read today, black and white is fine but for an audience of 16+ it needs to be a bit less cut and dried.
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The arcs are what they are, and I enjoy them for that fact. Turning, say, Peter Themari's arc into [SPOILER]
do you a) take pryss out, or b) tell her the truth and beat the snot out of thermai, or c) do nothing and have a cup of tea, would *totally* cheapen it for me.
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But why? You can just choose to do whatever the current option is for that arc - right now, you're forced to do it - a branching system would give you the choice to do it, which is hardly cheapening it.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Whilst I understand the point you're making Cryo, I hardly think it's relevant in a 16 rated game about comic superheroes. *resists urge to insert a semi colon and right bracket*
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It probably isn't. However I think a black = bad and white = good along with maybe an exactly in the middle third option is a horribly simplistic system if they chose to use it, and to me massively uninteresting. For the Beano or Dandy, or whatever the kids read today, black and white is fine but for an audience of 16+ it needs to be a bit less cut and dried.
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But not so much that you were unsure what was the right thing to do - otherwise, as pointed out, you could go rogue by mistake.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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The arcs are what they are, and I enjoy them for that fact. Turning, say, Peter Themari's arc into [SPOILER]
do you a) take pryss out, or b) tell her the truth and beat the snot out of thermai, or c) do nothing and have a cup of tea, would *totally* cheapen it for me.
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But why? You can just choose to do whatever the current option is for that arc - right now, you're forced to do it - a branching system would give you the choice to do it, which is hardly cheapening it.
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I think forced is the wrong word GG, you seem to have totally internalised this idea of branching outcomes, because I havn't seen anyone complaining that you can't do anything other than complete a mission as the story dictates, other than failing.
I can't really see this being implamented outside of a pop-up/text screen.
'Pop up: would you like to do one of the follow options
option a (btw this is good)
option b (btw this is naughty)
option c (btw this is niether)'
just seems like such a dumbing down. I agree with Cyronic. It doesn't interest me. But maybe, because I personally see no benefit on taking my villains to do the frankly dire, stale, boring, rubbish, outdates CoH arcs, and seeing all the hero players play Masterminds (coz they r kewl!) in atlas...perhaps I'm a little bitter. Chaning sides doesn't interest me. Being given a choice really doesn't interest me, in the current story arcs. Tastefully done in newer ones (on the space station? lol, do you a) blow it up, b) not blow it up (btw this is bad)) then fine
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Whilst I understand the point you're making Cryo, I hardly think it's relevant in a 16 rated game about comic superheroes. *resists urge to insert a semi colon and right bracket*
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It probably isn't. However I think a black = bad and white = good along with maybe an exactly in the middle third option is a horribly simplistic system if they chose to use it, and to me massively uninteresting. For the Beano or Dandy, or whatever the kids read today, black and white is fine but for an audience of 16+ it needs to be a bit less cut and dried.
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But not so much that you were unsure what was the right thing to do - otherwise, as pointed out, you could go rogue by mistake.
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As long as one single action didn't outweigh everything else you did (as in kotor) this wouldn't be an issue. Even the greatest hero will have done something they aren't proud of, and the greatest villain can once in their lives do one act of kindness.
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The arcs are what they are, and I enjoy them for that fact. Turning, say, Peter Themari's arc into [SPOILER]
do you a) take pryss out, or b) tell her the truth and beat the snot out of thermai, or c) do nothing and have a cup of tea, would *totally* cheapen it for me.
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But why? You can just choose to do whatever the current option is for that arc - right now, you're forced to do it - a branching system would give you the choice to do it, which is hardly cheapening it.
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I think forced is the wrong word GG, you seem to have totally internalised this idea of branching outcomes, because I havn't seen anyone complaining that you can't do anything other than complete a mission as the story dictates, other than failing.
I can't really see this being implamented outside of a pop-up/text screen.
'Pop up: would you like to do one of the follow options
option a (btw this is good)
option b (btw this is naughty)
option c (btw this is niether)'
just seems like such a dumbing down. I agree with Cyronic. It doesn't interest me. But maybe, because I personally see no benefit on taking my villains to do the frankly dire, stale, boring, rubbish, outdates CoH arcs, and seeing all the hero players play Masterminds (coz they r kewl!) in atlas...perhaps I'm a little bitter. Chaning sides doesn't interest me. Being given a choice really doesn't interest me, in the current story arcs. Tastefully done in newer ones (on the space station? lol, do you a) blow it up, b) not blow it up (btw this is bad)) then fine
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Forced isn't the wrong word - the current mission system allows you only one path through an arc - that's forcing you to do it the one way only.
And giving players more freedom in their progress through the game is hadly dumbing it down.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
What i would like to see is some kind of missions where the mobs inside are both good and evil.Uppon entering the mission the previous missions you have done to + or - reputation with said faction.These factions could have also allies where some reputation is gained there too due to "word of mouth"
Uppon entering these mission depending what you choose to fight or where you moral compass lies you end up in mission taking sides.Trying to remain neutral would lead to both factions in mission attacking you for being suspicious.
Would like to see such system in large scale battlefield with perhaps 20 people teams and loads of mobs (like a city in deep crisis,maybe a time attack sort of thing) where different moral compasses could lead to chaotic results and exciting missions.
And when one side starts winning could lead up to increased reinforcement strength for example lieuts start coming,bosses,AV's,signature heroes and finally when things start get critical drop huge GM's (we talking Hamidon size) and give the 20 people the time of their life! 
Ok i know i took it too far but would love this kind of chaos and challenge and i think i just had a mini orgasm at the thought of such PvE
This all sounds like good stuff. Personally, I'd be more than willing to buy all that stuff as a paid expansion. No sweat.
With regards to the morality scale, I'm meh. My characters usually have some motivation for what they are doing so I would always no matter what choose that option. For eg, KOTOR even if I need the credits, I won't do anything evil when going for a light side jedi.
Really, the way I see it. If you did have 3 options, one of them would lead you through the rest of the arc as it is now, and the other two would need a bit of re-write to swing your meter the other way.
OTOH, what's to say there will be multiple mission branches every mission. Maybe or two per arc depending on how well it could be shoehorned in, but I see no reason why the branching mission structure would immediately affect every mission for every contact in the game.
Perhaps if they added a mini-arc or TF when you reach a certain level of morality and you don't officially change sides until you do this? That way if you wanted to avoid going from good to bad, all you need do is avoid the contact. That way everything would stay avaliable to you until you decided to change for definite.
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Like the difference between Christmas morning when you were 7, and Christmas morning now
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I'm in my 30's now and I'm more excited on Xmas morning now than I ever was when I was younger.
As with everything, it simply depends on your pov. If the system works as a choice clicky, like you said, I think that'll be good (like the conversation choices in Mass Effect).
If it works by you choosing to slay a hostage before getting them out or even smacking them around a bit, then that'll be good too (unless you accidentally target them, but then, you should be careful with your powers 
).
We don't know anything about how they'll do it right now. I don't think they'll launch a COH2 though - that'd split the playerbase even more if this thread's any indication.
"Idealism is such a wonderful thing. All you really need is someone rational to put it to proper use." - Kerr Avon
Myopic Aardvark on Twitter
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/end quote Pyramid.
We'll see. I simply don't agree with you, but I've run out of endurance, not enough to use the [form viable argument] power
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But you can't really say that a system that gives you multiple ways to progress through the game and access different content depending on the choices you make is worse than a system where you have no choices and only one path of progression.
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Yes I can.
The reason I wanted to stopped discussing it, is that no matter how much detail I go into about what I actually think...the repercussions of allowing CoH Archetypes to team with villains in villain's content, the degredation of old story arcs when updated into this new 'superior'(to quote your earlier post) system, and various other things about these changes that worry me from a villain perspective (involving badges, etc)
...will all be met with a one (maybe 2) liner with an emote. I'm happy for you to bleed others of their opinions that way, but i'll keep quiet and fester to myself, I think
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But old story arcs wouldn't be "degreaded" - there'd still be the option to play them through and have them turn out the way they do now - only it'd rely on the choices you made during the missions - all the old story arcs would remain intact - they'd just have the option of branching into alternative versions with different endings.
For example - a typical mission right now would be to enter a building, search for a computer, and get the info on it, then return to the contact with the clue, and be given the next mission in the arc.
But a branching mission would give you the option of returning to your contact and either giving them the info (get the next mission, just as you do now) or telling them you found nothing, which would mean they'd give you an alternative mission that would take the arc in another direction.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork