Level-less CoX

Level-less CoX. In other words, every Player character starts at, for want of a better example, level 50. An equal starting point. A baseline stat if you will. And then the character grows from there, without actually being 'lower' or 'higher' level than any other character. Better trained, maybe, but not inherently better, in the same way no AT is better than another.

Let me lay out more of an example;

Hero/Villain created.
Either use a baseline set of stats for each AT, or make it more involved, similar to a system like Fallouts SPECIAL stats.
Pick power sets and first powers.
Each power bar the first two picked would have an exp bar. One for each power.
As the character earned experience, he/she/it could pick which power was currently 'training'. At, say, the half way mark of the bar, the character could start to use the power, albeit not at its full potential.
Once the bar was full, the character has learnt the move, and can then change the exp distribution to another power. This sould also be done at any time, but any unlearned moves will be 'paused' and will not be useable, not even past the half-way mark.
Up to two powers could be learned at a time, albeit slower than one power at a time. This could be increased by certain in-game rewards, though probably only up to three powers a time.

Characters can only have a certain ammount of powers, some of which may require pre-requisits. So, for example, Blaze from Fire Blast would require you have EITHER Flares OR Fire Blast. Just an example, seeing as the character would have to have one of them anyway (starting power)

The character could also have acess to Inherent 'Pools' much like the pools as we know them. HOWEVER, these Pools would be limited to three pools, though they do not count towards the maximum number of powers. This would allow the character to take the fitness pool, the flight pool and the leadership pool, without having a negative impact on their main powers. To balance this, powers from the pools would take more experience than normal to train.

If a power was not being trained, e.g. training was 'idle' then no experience would be gained, instead only influence and prestige would be, possibly in greater ammounts, much like Mentoring/Malefactoring now. This means that when a character has filled every power and pool slot, they do not need to keep earning now useless exp. And players at any level can put training on hold to earn some more cash.

Concerning respecs, it would not be too much of a problem. The ammount of powers learned and in progress would equal a certain ammount of experience. This experience, on Respec, could then be reasigned to different powers. Alternate builds would still be an option, again using the ammount of experience earned at the time of modification/respec.

Enhancement slots is the one fuzzy area at the moment. Each power would obviously have a slot to start, or maybe all powers would start with six slots. In this way, enhancements would ahve to be much rarer, even basic ones. Things such as the procs from current sets would need to be incredibly rare. Or perhaps not. Again, this is the one area thats a pain to figure out mechanics for.

So, anyway. This would only ever work if CoX2 did ever see the light of day. The current game is too far a base to leap from, as is the current engine, probably. Hopefully, it could be done alongside more varied powers, customisation, etc, etc, all the stuff people ask for a lot.

Opinions? Is the idea mad? (I wont ask if Im going mad, I think I already know the answer ) What do people think of it?
And please note this is not meant to be taken in context of CoX as we know it at the moment. I know this would never work as an update, nor am I suggesting it.

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Just looking at this idea, I quite like the approach to getting powers. Reminds me a bit of the power trees in Hellgate London.

Now though...
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Once the bar was full, the character has learnt the move, and can then change the exp distribution to another power. This sould also be done at any time, but any unlearned moves will be 'paused' and will not be useable, not even past the half-way mark.

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Looking at this i'd presuming you would intend for some kind of "timer" before a power can be reselected. Otherwise depending on how many "half learned" powers a player has access too they could end up switching their usable power range over and over again.


The idea about extra pools taking a bit longer to train yet not take a slot i find quite interesting. Would something specific unlock these pools though? The way I see it so far, a completely new character could start work on a fitness pool right out of the box, whilst still training another power.

With the enhancement slots, i'd think of something possibly along the lines of some limited uses of "intensive training" on a specific power (holding from the start a single slot), and each time a power is "re-trained" (just without the under half bar, can't use limitation) they gain another slot for it. Maybe as an incentive for retraining a power they gain a few percent extra acc/dmg/etc depending on the type of power. Allow them to retrain a power 5 times and you get your six slots within which they can slot enhancements in...

or maybe each time a power is trained they choose a bonus. When they first get the power lets say a player selects an "accuracy bonus", then that power gets the effect of an acc enhance on it, if they then retrain the power, once it has finished retraining they can choose another bonus, this carries on each time they retrain a power (still with a limited number of retrains available) and when their power hits "level 5" it has 6 bonuses on it which they have manually selected. As a possible extension to this, maybe certain combinations of bonuses create a "set bonus".


That's all i'll say for now...

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or maybe each time a power is trained they choose a bonus. When they first get the power lets say a player selects an "accuracy bonus", then that power gets the effect of an acc enhance on it, if they then retrain the power, once it has finished retraining they can choose another bonus, this carries on each time they retrain a power (still with a limited number of retrains available) and when their power hits "level 5" it has 6 bonuses on it which they have manually selected. As a possible extension to this, maybe certain combinations of bonuses create a "set bonus".



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That I like. The thing I always find a bit daft at present is that its as if you need the NPC trainers 'permission' to do anything. While you gain the instant hitpoint, damage boost, etc, surely that should extend to powers as well.

The suggested training with added bonuses, thats nice. So you could, in theory, train a power purely for damage. This should, I think, be possible, countered by the fact that its accurancy and endurance rate, plus others, would be neglected.

As to the query about half trained powers, thats why I suggested a limit to number of powers. So, if you've designed a build already, technically you could 'train' all the powers from the start, or at least lock them in place. So, in a simplified version, say a player had a limit of three powers, with four options. Flares, Fire Blast, Fireball and a cone attack, f'rinstance. Now, he picks Flares as his lvl one power, (automatically trained). He trains Fire Blast next, to full. Then he has to pick from Fireball or the Cone (or not at all, if he wants). Once he has started training one of them, he has reached his limit of powers (three picks). Just because he hasnt fully trained it yet is irrelevant.

Of course, to allow for more people to try powers out for a bit before committing, a sort of 'mini respec' would be a nice feature. A re-trainer item or recipe that could be brought. This would allow a player to take the exp out of one power, thus freeing up a power slot, and then adding it to another one of his choice.

Another point to note, to do with training higher level powers.
A player at the start could, in theory, start training for high level powers immediately. The way to counter that is for each 'Tier' to require more experience. So Inferno, for example, would require the sort of experience that you could only realistically achieve by fighting tougher foes, such as Nemesis or Malta or Rikti. Which, while using a form of Rikti Code (one level conning), they would have bonuses and defences added onto that prevents people from simply going for the tougher stuff instantly.

Reasoning; Take a hero/villain that is not a 'rookie', or shouldnt be. In the current system, they have to start at lvl 1. In theory, they should be able to go toe to toe with enemies anyway, but fighting things at lvl 30 or such is impossible. Under this version, that same hero/villain would be able to fight a 'higher level' opponent and stand a chance. They would suffer from having very few powers, and the enemies added bonuses, but they might be able to win. As they gain experience, they gain there own bonuses and of course more powers, allowing them to better deal with high end enemies.

And yes, they can start training swift at the get go, if they want, which leads onto health and stamina. No reason why not. It means they might learn the other power more slowly, or learn only that power. But theres no reason why not.

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The experience for training the power should be linked to the use of that power. Slower recharge would be offset by higher results (I say results cos an empaths experience should be linked to the healing of team members, buffs to... well... buffing.)

I can see some issues with that, buffers just spending time buffing out of conbat, so maybe it needs to be tied to combat in some way. Spamming healing Aura would only give results is someone got healed for instance.

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There would be numerous problems to make a levelless CoX.

One that would be hard to fix is how to scale up challenges for the players. From PvE to PvP that will be a nightmare.

The level system is a time proven system for dealing with that problem. You can try to invent a new wheel or just use the existing one.

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The level system is a time proven system for dealing with that problem. You can try to invent a new wheel or just use the existing one.

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PnP games manage fine and have been doing so for years. Traveller, a game that goes back about 30 years, had no levels, but was just as challenging as any other.

MMOs are largely stuck in the artificial world of D&D and it's mostly because increasing level gives an obvious feeling of progression through the game.

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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.

i would more like to see it in the power level system, invented my self

you first have something like 100 PL(power level), and you grow more and more.
after every kill, you gain x PL, but your power doesn't improve until you hit a milestone.
so let's say the first milestone is 1000PL, at that time you can choose your stats.
but to fit this in the COX system, let's make it so that after every 2 milestones you can choose your power.

with this system, the enchantment system is gone, so it's a bit easier to learn the level system.
you also don't have to spent your INF just to get some better stats, something that shouldn't happen anyway.(maybe for villains, they buy anything that makes them powerful, but real hero's don't buy power, they earn it)

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*quite enjoyed Ultima Online's character development system when he played that many moons ago...*

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Games like EvE and the upcoming Darkfall are levelless, and rely on "skills" rather than a finite number of moves or abilities. Perhaps something to Darkfalls system might be nice whereby you can train in whatever skill you like, and the more you use it, the more powerful it becomes. If you don't like the skill, you just don't use it until you forget it, freeing up the points used to train it, so that you can train in something else.

Whilst nice in theory, I'm not entirely sure such a system would work in a Super hero game. By definition, a character is pretty much defined by their abilities and how they came by them, so I can't imagine why a fire blaster would want to forget how to shoot fire and suddenly shoot electricity instead.

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@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
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Whilst nice in theory, I'm not entirely sure such a system would work in a Super hero game. By definition, a character is pretty much defined by their abilities and how they came by them, so I can't imagine why a fire blaster would want to forget how to shoot fire and suddenly shoot electricity instead.

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That's because you're thinking in terms of trainable skills. Most of the superhero PnP games operate on an xp points sytem where you earn xp, and use that to buy up power in whatever skills or abilities you have, or gain a new skill or ability. Gnerally, it 'costs' more to gain a new power than to increase an old one. Superhero games often require a thematic approach to the additional powers you can gain as well.

It's all doable. Frankly, it's been done, it's just that very few MMOs have ever broken out of the D&D mold.

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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.

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Whilst nice in theory, I'm not entirely sure such a system would work in a Super hero game. By definition, a character is pretty much defined by their abilities and how they came by them, so I can't imagine why a fire blaster would want to forget how to shoot fire and suddenly shoot electricity instead.

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I never said change the powersets in respeccing. As is now, once chosen, sets should be permanant. Only power choices shouldnt have to be. And its not so much about forgetting an ability as utilising a power in a different way.

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The level system is a time proven system for dealing with that problem. You can try to invent a new wheel or just use the existing one.

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PnP games manage fine and have been doing so for years. Traveller, a game that goes back about 30 years, had no levels, but was just as challenging as any other.

MMOs are largely stuck in the artificial world of D&D and it's mostly because increasing level gives an obvious feeling of progression through the game.

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I have played quite a few systems. With or without levels. They work fine so long as you have a competent GM running them. I shudder to try to implement them for a computer game. Especially one with PvP in it! Especially when I want to make it a nice balanced PvP system. Using levels is much easier and even then they manage to get it wrong.

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The level system is a time proven system for dealing with that problem. You can try to invent a new wheel or just use the existing one.

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PnP games manage fine and have been doing so for years. Traveller, a game that goes back about 30 years, had no levels, but was just as challenging as any other.

MMOs are largely stuck in the artificial world of D&D and it's mostly because increasing level gives an obvious feeling of progression through the game.

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I have played quite a few systems. With or without levels. They work fine so long as you have a competent GM running them. I shudder to try to implement them for a computer game. Especially one with PvP in it! Especially when I want to make it a nice balanced PvP system. Using levels is much easier and even then they manage to get it wrong.

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I dont see how it would be an different from the basic bones of PVP (with or without I12/13 )
A zone has a limit on the ammount of powers a player will have, say seven. That would start at the first learned power and then go up the 'levels', in other words which powers were taken first. Seeing as the pools dont count for power choices, maybe they would either need there own limit, or not be limited.

Seeing as players can enter PvP zones now with less powers than people who are lvling down to the zone, I dont see what the difference would be. Could be set up thus, assuming the build had a limit of 18 powers (for example)
1-5 powers
6-10 powers
11-14 powers
15-18 powers

Any inherent flaws Im missing there?

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PnP games manage fine and have been doing so for years. Traveller, a game that goes back about 30 years, had no levels, but was just as challenging as any other.

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Heck, even in computer games, Darklands, which came out in 1992, had a levelless system, where abilities simply improved with practice and training. In fact, there weren't even any classes, although it was more efficient to specialise different party members that to try to make everyone great at everything.

Darklands didn't worry overmuch about matching encounters to characters, mind. That was the player's job. If you tried to travel overland without gaining enough experience, the *&$#ing gargoyles would just eat the whole party until you learned to save up for a boat trip instead.

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Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.

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Whilst nice in theory, I'm not entirely sure such a system would work in a Super hero game. By definition, a character is pretty much defined by their abilities and how they came by them, so I can't imagine why a fire blaster would want to forget how to shoot fire and suddenly shoot electricity instead.

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I never said change the powersets in respeccing. As is now, once chosen, sets should be permanant. Only power choices shouldnt have to be. And its not so much about forgetting an ability as utilising a power in a different way.

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Sorry Tech, I didn't make myself very clear. That paragraph was more of a criticism of my take on a levelless implementation than yours.

I actually like the idea of a levelless game, always have done.

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@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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The level system is a time proven system for dealing with that problem. You can try to invent a new wheel or just use the existing one.

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PnP games manage fine and have been doing so for years. Traveller, a game that goes back about 30 years, had no levels, but was just as challenging as any other.

MMOs are largely stuck in the artificial world of D&D and it's mostly because increasing level gives an obvious feeling of progression through the game.

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I have played quite a few systems. With or without levels. They work fine so long as you have a competent GM running them. I shudder to try to implement them for a computer game. Especially one with PvP in it! Especially when I want to make it a nice balanced PvP system. Using levels is much easier and even then they manage to get it wrong.

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I dont see how it would be an different from the basic bones of PVP (with or without I12/13 )
A zone has a limit on the ammount of powers a player will have, say seven. That would start at the first learned power and then go up the 'levels', in other words which powers were taken first. Seeing as the pools dont count for power choices, maybe they would either need there own limit, or not be limited.

Seeing as players can enter PvP zones now with less powers than people who are lvling down to the zone, I dont see what the difference would be. Could be set up thus, assuming the build had a limit of 18 powers (for example)
1-5 powers
6-10 powers
11-14 powers
15-18 powers

Any inherent flaws Im missing there?

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That might work yes. But how do you plan to match mobs to players?

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PnP games manage fine and have been doing so for years. Traveller, a game that goes back about 30 years, had no levels, but was just as challenging as any other.

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Heck, even in computer games, Darklands, which came out in 1992, had a levelless system, where abilities simply improved with practice and training. In fact, there weren't even any classes, although it was more efficient to specialise different party members that to try to make everyone great at everything.

Darklands didn't worry overmuch about matching encounters to characters, mind. That was the player's job. If you tried to travel overland without gaining enough experience, the *&$#ing gargoyles would just eat the whole party until you learned to save up for a boat trip instead.

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That's one way of dealing with things. Though I am not sure if people like being hung out clueless all the time. I find that I like to have a clue if I am able to deal with my opponents or that it is time to start running hard. Finding out the hard way all the time is not something I really can appreciate.

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I like the idea.

I would also welcome an idea of (as Dark Age of Camelot once had) - once you have a level 50, being able to create a character from Level 20.

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I think I mentioned the mobs before, Spades, but I'll put it up again and try and clarify a bit.

Mobs would be the same as players, level-less. Using an version of the Rikti code, all minions would con white, lieutenants yellow and bosses orange. Red would be saved for EBs, Purple for AVs, and lower colours for underlings and summoneds such as the DE ones.

Now, say there is a 'Baseline' of stats. I think a good example of a medium Enemy is a Warrior. They would utilise the 'Baseline' stat, with maybe a bonus or two to say HP and attacks for Lieutenants and Bosses.

Hellions, for example, would use the Baseline stats but with minus modifiers, to reflect the fact their simply gang members, rather than trained fighters. The minions would still con white, but their actual stopping power in a fight would be less than that of a warrior minion.

Mobs such as Malta, Nemesis and Rikti, the High End enemies, would use the baseline stats but with better bonuses, such as to accuracy and resistance, and possibly HP. Again, minions would still con white, Lts yellow, etc. But it would be up to the Player to learn what they can realistically stand up. So, a player at the 'midway' point could possibly fight off a few Rikti minions, but if he tried to take on a proper mob he would end up placeplanting. As a player trained more powers and aqquited more bonuses/enhancements the fights would get easier. So, while a mob of Hellions might once have been quite tough, enhanced resistace/defence and damage would make the mobs much easier.

For PvP zones, it would be the same, picking enemies that were within the right range of powers. So low end enemies in the low zones, mid in mid and so on and so forth.

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How do you envisage dealing with difficulty levels? Increasing the baseline stats by a notch per every other level and maybe increasing the group spawn size, in a similar vein to what happens now?

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@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"
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Could the difficulty colour rating not be linked to mob "exp"?

eg a standard hellion will have 0 exp where as a boss may have 5000 exp in their trees?

you could then compare your total exp with that of the mob to derive the difficulty?

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How do you envisage dealing with difficulty levels? Increasing the baseline stats by a notch per every other level and maybe increasing the group spawn size, in a similar vein to what happens now?

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Something like that would work, I guess. Maybe increase the ammount of LTs and Bosses spawned, as well, to represent harder fights. Maybe the group stumbled into a meeting of the gang leaders or something =P Either way, ticking the stats up a tad per level and/or boosting LT/Boss spawns.

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Could the difficulty colour rating not be linked to mob "exp"?

eg a standard hellion will have 0 exp where as a boss may have 5000 exp in their trees?

you could then compare your total exp with that of the mob to derive the difficulty?

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Not quite sure how that works out...D'you mean that the LT and above enemies get exp to 'spend' in a similar way? If so, thats actually quite a neat idea;

A Hellion Lt, for example, has a choice of three or four powers. Say burning fists, buckshot, burst and a resistance boost, or something. Being an LT they would have a certain ammount of exp to 'spend', which would be randomly distributed by the Spawn generator. To avoid messups, exp could only be spent in a power to train it fully. So an enemy wouldnt get the same 'half way allowace' and PC would.

So, say three Hellion LTs spawn. One has Buckshot and burst, the other has fire palms and burst and the other has the resistance boost.
The resistance one, as it inherently makes an enemy tougher, in this example would take all the available exp. Seeing as he has no 'over-riding' attacks, the LT would fight using the 'base' attacks of a minion, say a pistol and a sledgehammer.

Thats just one example, anyway. But that could lead to more diverse and interesting mob types.

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Not quite sure how that works out...D'you mean that the LT and above enemies get exp to 'spend' in a similar way? If so, thats actually quite a neat idea;

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Yeah, that’s what I was meaning. I suppose it would depend on the strain on the servers it this Per Group spending would cause.

the other option would be for a given mob with load out had an "exp" price attached and the server generated a random (-ish) experience pool for a given spawn point and would keep rolling mobs till it ran out of "Exp"

If each mob had a price you could use that as a scale for the difficulty relative to you.

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Anyone remember Star Wars Galaxy? No - just me then... but that had a system of allowing 250 skill points maximum that you could distribute between all your skills so when a character hit the magic 250 they could still learn new things and develop the character but they'd have to sacrifice skills in return. Always seemed better than the level system in my opinion.

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