Exportable Builds & Leveling System
By
Baeleos,
Posted on: 2008-11-10 10:52 in Suggestions and Ideas
While I would be happy to see a mechanism for exporting builds, the rest of your suggestion sounds, frankly, like an amazingly dumb idea.
It's one of those things where you think it sounds brilliant, but in practice, this is just going to get you fairly heavily slaughtered.
Beyond that, why, exactly, would you want to clone your build to another character? Exporting the build so that you can load it into a character builder, yes. Importing a build during a respec process, yes. Exporting a build so you can relaod it for automated levelling on another (new) character? Why on earth would you do that?
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
People do this already anyhow. They make a build with mids character designer, then they follow the build exactly.
This idea would just allow the system to level you up, according to the build you select. It prevents accidental wrong power choices, it eliminates the need to travel to a trainer (remind me - why can we not just do that over the phone anyhow??).
And ask yourself, you agree that exporting builds would be a good idea... But what logical purpose could that serve, if there was not a mechanism for importing it back in?
You agree that it would be a good mechanism to have for respec's. Well, essentially, a respec is identical to the auto level up. Only difference is that you gain all the levels in the build at once, where as during the leveling process, you gain them pro rata.
I mean... Costumes can be exported, and imported (on character creation).... why not this?
You also say why would you want to make a clone build wise?
I ask you this...
Why would the developers want us to make a clone costume wise.... Surely that is even more pointless.
The idea of having a build export/import system is not that everyone has to use it, it would only be there, for the people who did want to use it.
Azmodan - 50 - Storm/Energy Blast Defender
Baaleos - 50 - Gravity/Power Blast Dominator
Orici - 50 - Fortunata
Psi'on - 44 - Kinetics/Psionic Defender
Azazeel - 40 - Warshade
Bloody-Ice - 31 - Ice/Cold Domination Corruptor
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People do this already anyhow. They make a build with mids character designer, then they follow the build exactly.
This idea would just allow the system to level you up, according to the build you select. It prevents accidental wrong power choices, it eliminates the need to travel to a trainer (remind me - why can we not just do that over the phone anyhow??).
And ask yourself, you agree that exporting builds would be a good idea... But what logical purpose could that serve, if there was not a mechanism for importing it back in?
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So one could easily export / post their live builds into 3rd party applications (like Mids) and the forums. At least that's the only reason I'd use it.
So yes to Exporting my Live characters from CoH into a nice easily read / parsed format for other apps. The other bit I'm really not sure about.
Cossies can be exported and imported back in to make it easier to make SG / Themed cossies across multiple toons and, as a godsend for me, for "repairing" some god awful mess of a cossie I did at 2:00am and resetting it back to look like my first slot does or did.
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People do this already anyhow. They make a build with mids character designer, then they follow the build exactly.
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For a respec, yes. For normal play, only if they are immensely stupid, or have OCD.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
Or wana get things right first time round?
Azmodan - 50 - Storm/Energy Blast Defender
Baaleos - 50 - Gravity/Power Blast Dominator
Orici - 50 - Fortunata
Psi'on - 44 - Kinetics/Psionic Defender
Azazeel - 40 - Warshade
Bloody-Ice - 31 - Ice/Cold Domination Corruptor
if they've never played that build before, how can they know it's "Right"?
You know, this game is NEVER about a power being right or wrong. It's only about what feels is right or wrong for your character. I like to plan my characters in advance, I pick powers which I think supplement each other and follow the build as I level up. If it doesnt work or I come up with something that works out better I'll use a respec.
In most of the cases where you have a player that has played multiple characters to 50 he has an idea of how most of the powers in this game work. They are, after all, quite similar to each other in effect. You know how useful a 5% defense power will be for your resistance based character and how useful it will be for a defense based character. It's NOT wrong to use a pre-planned build for a new character that has sets you've never played, it helps you plan the slot distributing and power picks over the level-up span of the character so you dont end up at 50 thinking "dang, if I hadn't spent these two slots on this power and this slot on this one I could have three more slots in this power. Also I dont need this power because it hardly helps me, I wish I had chosen this power instead!".
Mind you, I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, but at least I like to know I can slot one power with a certain amount of slots without screwing things in the long run.
- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein
I like the idea of exporting builds. A plan nice txt should do well enought to easy reading and to export it to mids, but I don't like the other suggested stuff
Proud member of Blaze of the Immortals (Heroes) and leader of F.O.E (villains)
Heroes:
Plumber, Ice Desert Girl, Doc Goodheart, Banana Machoman, Pavattone, Penguin Shark, Sting like a Bee
Villains:
Bricklayer, Savage Dentist, Fruit Cocktail, H. Yashida, Shesinellek
True, the exportable build thingy is great. But leveling up by phone? Arent things already easy enough on us?
- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein
Or... heres an amendment to the idea.
The bit that seems to hack everyone off so far, seems to be the idea of the game automatically leveling you up according to your predefined build.
Well... how about, instead of that, a built in screen accessible from the level up screen, or maybe even just accessible from the main menu.
This screen can allow you to see, in game, the choice required to adhere to the build you have programmed in.
So, it wont be forcing you to adhere to that build, but it does show you the choices, and means you never have to alt - tab out of game. It would just be an extension of what the devs have already done so far, they gave us the ability to see abilities 'real' numbers on the training screen, which helps us choose.
It would be useful if we had an in game character planner, or even a method of looking backwards and forwards through levels, to see what powers we would have, and when.
For alot of people, getting powers at the right times in their career is important. Especially for PVP. Some people want that all important Stamina power before level 30 to take it into Sirens, Some might want it before 25 to take it into Bloody Bay.
It would be nice if we had a screen like this, that would resemble the respec screen, however, it has a slider, that allows us to select the level to simulate us at.
Then it allows us to choose our powers, and slots.
Since this is just a simulation, even allowing us to 'fake' slot IO's to see the benefits would be useful.
Azmodan - 50 - Storm/Energy Blast Defender
Baaleos - 50 - Gravity/Power Blast Dominator
Orici - 50 - Fortunata
Psi'on - 44 - Kinetics/Psionic Defender
Azazeel - 40 - Warshade
Bloody-Ice - 31 - Ice/Cold Domination Corruptor
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Well... how about, instead of that, a built in screen accessible from the level up screen... This screen can allow you to see, in game, the choice required to adhere to the build you have programmed in.
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Yes, not a bad idea, but frankly I'm not exactly sure it's worth bothering with to avoid al+tabbing once every couple of days. (Far longer in most people's cases.)
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It would just be an extension of what the devs have already done so far, they gave us the ability to see abilities 'real' numbers on the training screen, which helps us choose.
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No, it wouldn't be any form of extension of that. I don't know what makes you think it would be.
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It would be useful if we had an in game character planner, or even a method of looking backwards and forwards through levels, to see what powers we would have, and when.
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And then you take a simple idea like importing suggestions and allowing you to see them, and you expand it into an entire programme on its own.
Is your idea to import and export builds, or to put a character planner in the game?
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For alot of people, getting powers at the right times in their career is important.
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Yeah, but most of them can cope with remembering a build sequence for a few minutes, or they have this stuff called paper. You write things down that you want to remember...
Sorry, I'm getting sarcastic.
Point is. You had a suggestion, and because some people didn't like part of it, you've gone off and created an even more elaborate, bloated suggestion based on a desire to remove the need to alt-tab away from the screen for a few seconds once in a blue moon.
KISS. It's an important maxim.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
No, your not getting sarcastic, your just getting plain rude.
As for the 'its not an extension' bit.
What I mean, if you can wrap your mind around it, is that the developers put the 'power stats' tabs in, so we could plan our characters before we commit to any permanent choices, and before you retort with more 'Sarcasm', yes I know nothing in City of X is permanent, since we have those lovely little things called Respecs. It IS an extension of this system if you think of it in terms of an additional aid to help people PLAN their characters before they make the choices. There is no need to try and get technical with me about how it would be a totally different system requiring additional programming, being a programmer and all.
I did not realise this was the 'insult', 'retort' forum, coulda sworn it was the suggestion forum.
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Point is. You had a suggestion, and because some people didn't like part of it, you've gone off and created an even more elaborate, bloated suggestion based on a desire to remove the need to alt-tab away from the screen for a few seconds once in a blue moon.
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OMG - I did not realise amending ideas was so wrong. This is the suggestion forum in case you didnt know. Calling peoples ideas bloated, and trying to reduce the idea down to the mere 'desire to eliminate alt-tab' is just stupid, as it does not benefit anyone. Using your logic, we could just assume that the developers added the power stats to the game, as the 'mere desire to eliminate the need to surf to city of statistics or arguably Paragonwiki.com too often' - You know that lovely little site that has almost every power in the game, along with their statistics.
Azmodan - 50 - Storm/Energy Blast Defender
Baaleos - 50 - Gravity/Power Blast Dominator
Orici - 50 - Fortunata
Psi'on - 44 - Kinetics/Psionic Defender
Azazeel - 40 - Warshade
Bloody-Ice - 31 - Ice/Cold Domination Corruptor
Sorry, I agree with Ravens, why reinvent the wheel (in this case mids) just to avoid alt-tabbing to check you're following a build correctly?
I really don't see the need for it.
But an Export is a good idea.
No Probs Carnifax, at least your respectful and constructive with your criticism.
I dont see any reason why we should not consider other uses for exported builds though.
Can you think of any other uses that could make a build export feature more useful?
(Might be interesting if you could right click on a character in game, and see his power choices from levels 1 -50)
Purely for informative reason of course.
Azmodan - 50 - Storm/Energy Blast Defender
Baaleos - 50 - Gravity/Power Blast Dominator
Orici - 50 - Fortunata
Psi'on - 44 - Kinetics/Psionic Defender
Azazeel - 40 - Warshade
Bloody-Ice - 31 - Ice/Cold Domination Corruptor
This is supposed to be coming, via the City Vault website I believe.
But its been delayed for ages now. God only knows when the damn thing is going to actually go live. There's been no offical word in ages too,
Just like the in-game advertising... never saw any of that appear.... at least.... I dont think I have seen any of it.
One thing I wouldnt mind to be more informative in City of Heroes is the [Power Name] feature.
At the minute, you can see the power details, and stats by typing in [Confuse] (just as an example) and then you click on it's name.
Would it not make more sense to provide all of the powers accessible from one menu? Means there is never a case of 'cant remember that power name' syndrome. Plus, you dont get players spamming you with power names. (Although, this suggestion is completely off topic.. so it will stop there).
Azmodan - 50 - Storm/Energy Blast Defender
Baaleos - 50 - Gravity/Power Blast Dominator
Orici - 50 - Fortunata
Psi'on - 44 - Kinetics/Psionic Defender
Azazeel - 40 - Warshade
Bloody-Ice - 31 - Ice/Cold Domination Corruptor
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Just like the in-game advertising... never saw any of that appear.... at least.... I dont think I have seen any of it.
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We had a brief spate of Babylon AD adverts before the film opened. I don't believe there's been anything else. Plus, if you weren't in the UK, you didn't get the adverts.
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Would it not make more sense to provide all of the powers accessible from one menu?
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Just checking, don't bite my head off: You want a menu somewhere, listing all the powers, for all the sets, for every AT? I'm assuming this since you already have all the powers for the sets you have access to.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
You have to admit, the ability to look at powers that you do not possess, yet, or never will, can be invaluable.
Even if it is just out of curiosity.
We can currently do this, by typing the power name into chat.
However, you have to admit, typing it into chat, and then having to send it in a chat message is abit round the garden in terms of directness. Surely it would be easier, to have some sort of menu, or maybe an ingame glossery that allows you to just read about that power via clicking on its name. Im sure im not the only one who has spent about 2 minutes trying to remember the correct name of a power, or maybe getting it wrong, or confused with a similar power. So typing it is not always an easy option. Im not saying get rid of the current system of dragging powers onto chat, or typing them in, because that is good for sharing information with other players. Anyhow... I doubt this would get done.
It was more a quality of life sorta suggestion, you know, "Why have to type the name of a power in, when you could have them listed somewhere, and just click on them."
Azmodan - 50 - Storm/Energy Blast Defender
Baaleos - 50 - Gravity/Power Blast Dominator
Orici - 50 - Fortunata
Psi'on - 44 - Kinetics/Psionic Defender
Azazeel - 40 - Warshade
Bloody-Ice - 31 - Ice/Cold Domination Corruptor
It'd be bulky. Probably not as useable as you'd think. And likely with limited detail.
Again, this is a feature you can swap out to a web browser to do, especially if it's just curiosity.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
Now that we have the ability to have multiple Builds. Why not grant players the ability to export them.
Eg - Level 50 player exports his build, then starts a new character, loads the build into his character. This does not level him up to 50, but instead allows his power choices and enhancement slot choices to be automatically distributed to match his lvl50 build plan.
Multiple options could be enabled - Eg Completely Automatic (All Enchancement Slots and Powers are chosen according to the loaded build) - Power Auto (Only power choices are automatically chosen) - Enhancement Auto (Enhancement Slots are automatically distributed, as closely to the build as possible, where the power does not exist, according to the build, manual distribution is granted.)
An added benefit for this is....
Because the choices are made for you, automatically... what is the point in having to go to the Arbiters, or Trainers to level up. You could exchange your customizability (is that even a word) for the ability to auto-level up even in missions.
Eg - You go ding in the mission, and your new power + enhancement slots are available right away - Power made available would be the power that comes next in the build plan.
In order to make it more interesting, we could make this so that the leveling build is like a pact of sorts.
Eg - You can only enable it from character creation, but... you can set what level it stops affecting you at.
So, from levels 1 - 20 you could let the leveling build system control your power distribution according to your build loaded, then after level 20, it relingquishes control, and you resume leveling up at arbiters and trainers as normal. Meaning you can now diverge onto a new custom build.
What does everyone thing?
I mean, after all, builds is something that is already exchanged on the web, players would normally have to make the power selections themselves though. With this system, we are just making life easier for people who don't want to have to run all the way to an arbiter to level.
Note - We can now export our costumes... why not our power selection/level build for use, or even to share.
Azmodan - 50 - Storm/Energy Blast Defender
Baaleos - 50 - Gravity/Power Blast Dominator
Orici - 50 - Fortunata
Psi'on - 44 - Kinetics/Psionic Defender
Azazeel - 40 - Warshade
Bloody-Ice - 31 - Ice/Cold Domination Corruptor