The technical aspects.

I've just been reading a topic which had a couple of responses that sparked my interest (The A/TA corruptor thread in this forum to be precise) and I just thought I'd post a question.

How far into the technical aspects of the game do you like to delve?

Are you one of those that researches everything, weighs up the numbers and produces the most "efficient" build? Do you look into guides, find one you like and follow it? Do you take the advice of random PuG members seriously? Or, like me, do you take it as the levels come and take the powers you look at and think "oooh shiny!"?

Also I'd like to know WHY you think that way. An obsession with numbers? Efficiency? Fun?

Basically, what makes you, and your characters, tick?



And to show good will I'll go first.
As you probably noticed from the previous text I follow, as I call it, the "shiny" route of playing. I take the powers I think sound fun, with very little regard for their actual capability. I pay little to no real attention to the numbers (though naturally playing an online game where people feel the need to vent their spleens because you don't slot like them gives you a little knowledge of the maths). Now this isn't to say I have no set patterns.

Without fail by 20 I'll have the endurance skill from fitness and a travel power. But other than that it's all fun and games to me.

As to the why? Because I'm horrible at long term planning. I could have all of my powers planned out, written down and slotted on paper. Then I level, spot the presence pool and think "I want my character to be SCARY" and find my planning blown to hell.

But then, that's what I find fun about the game. What about you?




--Edit the first--
Please note this discussion also applies to choice of power pools. Do you power game? Are you a thematic type? Whatever your choices spread the word!
And remember, be polite.

I crunch the numbers, use Mids, and plan out IO builds. And I usually have a plan in mind long before I hit 30, which is when I typically begin IOing.

As for why I think this way... for me, it's just another level of customization. I'm a huge sucker for character customization in a game, and when an RPG offers me a great many combinations, almost all of which can be made effective, I end up playing through it many more times than I ordinarily would. City of Heroes does this for me - I love that no two characters are alike. Even two characters with the same AT and powersets can perform very differently when you put them against each other. Player choice in the build makes them unique.

There are a number of different ways to 'win' and do well. Every AT and powerset combination can. I absolutely love exploring what's possible with IOs because it allows me to make my characters uniquely my own.

So I crunch the numbers, because that's a huge part of the continuing fun of this game for me... finding new and different ways to be awesome.

Figuring out numbers make my head hurt. If it work, great.

Don't really care when there is a change and the forums is up in arms when an attack's animation is increased by .01 second or something silly like that.

I Ignore the numbers, I have a corrupeter who will 4 slot superspeed because she's supposed to be fast, and mostly use Knockback enhancements in her power blasts.

Basically for me is I want to know how things work. I'm the type to take something apart to see how it works. Although over the years I have hone the still of just observatopm and extrapolation. Meaning I can look at things and develop pretty good idea how something world under the hood without having to pop the hood (or the bonnet as some over the pond would say). I have a pretty good idea how the majpr systems of the game worlds w/o having seen any of their source code.

As to numbers themselves, I have obsessed over them some in the beginning. I took over a month to respec my tri-form Peacebringer to sqeeze every bit of performance out each slot. Being able to shave 10 slots out of a already tight build was possible by being obsessive (and having Common IO avaliable). But nowdays, I have a pretty feeling on how the numbers and game works w/out having to obsesses with them. And I'm an advocate of good enough performance. So I don't hve to spending 80% of my time to squeeze 20% more performance out of whatever.

And I'm a crazy nutty type who know that every little but extra helps. What do I mean by that, I'm a rogue that actually takes MM attacks even the AoE attacks. I know that I can't crank out tons of damage. But when added onto the AoE of my henchmen, it's comparable to what damage any other henchman is doing. And every little but helps which is the way that MMs are designed. Each henchmen isn't individually that powerful. But when combine, they are a force to be reckoned with with.

I crunch the numbers, but I don't min-max. I wouldn't think, any more, of starting a character without first plugging the combination of powers I had in mind into Mids Hero Designer. But that's because, after 3 and a half years of game time, I know the game's combat mechanics well enough to look at the results and see, "oh, okay, this is practically an all-AoE build" or "hmm, lots of def, no fallback plan" or "wow, this build is going to be an endurance hog" or whatever.

I'm not trying to build characters that can solo a +3 AV and a full 8-person team's worth of minions, lieutenants, and bosses, and I don't spend billions of inf maxing out the stats on any of my characters. But Real Numbers was a gigantic improvement in my quality of life, because it saves me from spending dozens or hundreds of hours of misery to build an alt that I wouldn't enjoy playing anyway.

I'm not an optimizer, but I do like to see what I'm getting. I really wish we could have had the Real Numbers from the beginning, but I'm very glad we have them available now. I like to see how much stealth, defense and resistance I have going for me, and I like to compare powers before I pick one.

If I wanted to spend my time crunching numbers, I'd play Spreadsheets in Space, eerr.. EVE.. Which oddly enough, I have been doing for the last month or so.

But I got bored and stopped.

When a game become work, it's no longer fun for me. I just choose what fits the concept, as that's where the fun is for me.

I tend to think of combinations and try them out. In fact I havent had Mids until recently. Most of it is just trial and error, But since I've been playing for 5 years, I pretty much know how most of the powers work.

I sorta treat my builds like everything else in life. I weigh the pros and cons, think deeply, and throw that all out to go with what feels right.

Of course, "what feels right" is often very similar to "what performs pretty well," but the numbers are really more of a guideline to me. I don't get hung up on my build having 5% less effective survivability than another. On my Mind/Fire Dom, I slotted Mesmerize for damage instead of, like, mezzing, and every day I'm super-happy I did that. My Dark/Regen scrapper has the Leadership pool, cause I felt that'd be cool for her to have. I don't care that it gives like 3% less damage and 1% less to-hit than a defender's Leadership would. It's still good!

So yeah. I suppose my answer is "whatever"

I used to be a hardcore Min/Maxer... gotta know all the elements and how they work together. Of course, I'm the kind of geek that taught myself prob & stats back in Junior High just so I could work out Axis & Allies scenarios against myself, so I'm far from normal.

Nowadays, I still need to KNOW how everything works, but once I have that knowledge, I intentionally avoid those builds. Things get too unchallenging at that level, so it's nice just to study it and then stow it away for future reference (or when a change makes it obsolete).

I prefer to make builds that challenge the convention- things like an all-stun-set energy melee brute- just to try things differently. I like figuring out how unconventional team builds can work together, rather than put together the preferred sets.

I use my extensive knowledge of game mechanics to pursue goals orthogonal to performance. My general approach is to take a character that is good at X, and make it the best it could possibly be at X without compromising overall performance too much to be enjoyable.

Well, I certainly spend o lot of time reading the forums about powers and AT's but when it comes down to actually leveling and picking powers and slots i usually can't be bothered to stick to a plan. If something does't work there is always a respec available, yay!
I spent too many years playing city builders with a pen and graph paper next to my keyboard and a template of building footprints. If I ever feel the need to obsess over numbers I will load Ceasar III or Emperor RotMK back in and go to town

I build to concept, first and foremost. However, many of my concepts are for characters that a lot of players would regard as anything from "limited" to "suboptimal" to "gimp"--the aggressive empath, the Trick Archer created when the powerset was new (and sorely battered by the Dev's overreaction to its Test performance), and so forth. I like to take those characters and do things with them that people don't expect them to be capable of--like soloing a TF with the archer, or wiping out 8-person spawns with the empath.

To do crazy things like that, I have to know the mechanics and numbers well, and I have to make some effort to build for it. I've spent years tweaking the empath, for instance, to be highly capable both at protecting a team and at fighting on his own. It's not easy (or cheap), but I enjoy the balancing act, and it's perfectly in accordance with his concept.

That's the main thing, I suppose: Concept and Numbers are not opposed forces, as some seem to believe. Enough imagination can supply a concept for any build, and a grasp of the numbers and mechanics can make any concept build more effective. You don't have to spend billions on purples, or even millions on sets; just knowing how stuff works can open up new strategies, which may even be more appropriate to your concept.

I will often read guides to see what others think of various power choices when I am undecided about what I want. I will look at the numeric details of the power in the enhancement window when deciding what to slot.

I choose IO sets based on the laboratory of Actual Play rather than any serious number crunching: if it seems like I'm always low on END, I get +recovery and +endurance set bonus sets, if I am chewed up by psychics, I get +psychic defense sets, etc.

I guess I can see the theoretical value of things like Mid's but where the rubber meets the road, things don't always line up the way theorycrafting says it should. The all important human element is never taken into account by such programs and number crunching (nor can it be). Playstyle has as big an impact on effectiveness as does slotting (up to a point: someone with a reasonable selection of SOs who plays well will always out perform a lousy player tricked out with the best sets).

So I'm somewhere in the middle of the two extremes: I do look at guides and numbers, but I am not ruled by them. They do weigh into my decisions, but they're not the sole (or even most important) measure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

I just do whatever the heck I feel like at the time.

Sometimes I hijack AE teams. Sometimes I spend all day in Icon. Sometimes I respec multiple times. Sometimes I form a Task Force. There's no pattern that I'm aware of.