New Kind of Proliferation

Hello Folks,

In the wake of Another Game like City of Heroes hitting the scene,
I began to think of how proliferation is moving CoH/CoV in the direction of more options
for power combinations and had an idea I thought I would share.
I apologize if this has already been presented by someone, and of course, I also
realize how large of an undertaking it would be for Coding (possibly).

Anyway, what if instead of proliferation, all powersets were opened up, but with
some built in rules. Each character would pick a primary and a secondary powerset,
just as we do now, but depending on what primary you choose, certain choices are
then removed from the list of secondaries. The strength of your powers would be
based on whether its a primary or a secondary set, and Inherents could be triggered
off the primary, but modified to be more generic.

For Example

Primary Choices (Hero-side) would be Self-Defense(Inv,Regen,SR etc...),
Blast Sets, Melee Sets, Control Sets, Team-Defense(Defender primaries).

These same choices would all be available as secondaries depending on what primary you chose.

Primary Choice ------> Available Secondary

Self-Defense ----> Melee Sets, Control, Ranged Sets
Melee Sets ------> Self-Defense, Control, Team Defense
Ranged Sets -----> Self-Defense, Control, Team-Defense
Control Sets ------> Team-Defense, Melee Sets, Ranged Sets
Team-Defense -----> Melee Sets, Control, Ranged Sets

You will notice that every primary choice is missing 1 combination.
This allows a pool of choices still for Epic powersets.
For example: Team-Defense for Self-Defense Primary (Tankers)
Melee for Ranged and vice versa, Self-Defense for Control and Team-Defenders.

Another thing that would happen with your primary choice would be an adjustment
to your hit points. This would mainly effect Tankers (Self_defense Primaries),
but each choice could get a small tweak for game balance.

Finally, the Inherents.

Self_defenders and Team Defenders would each get a seperate Inherent (Gauntlet and Vigilance)
but perhaps with some improvement over current implementation so that there is a solo benefit.

Melee, Ranged and Control primary would get Critical Hits (Chance for x2 Damage, not guaranteed for control primary)
Perhaps the Damage of control powers would need a tweak to bring them in line with
damage dealing powersets like melee or ranged

Primaries would operate at 100% effectiveness, Secondaries would be at 75% effectiveness AND damage.


I welcome any input, especially regarding the allowed combinations.
Also remember, I am thinking about how other games coming into the market will impact the popularity and
population of CoH/CoV.

Soo you want to throw out the archetype system? Nah.

The appropriate forum for the original post would have been Suggestions & Ideas, a few further down the list.

As for the idea itself, I could imagine it being made to work... if it'd been part of the design of the game from day one. As is, it would take far too much effort to chop up the existing system and reassemble it into this, and massive post-launch changes (especially five years into a game) have a distinct tendency to upset far more players than they please. It would be like going into the wacky unpredictable unbalanced days immediately post-beta all over again, where anything and everything could be subject to rebalancing at a moment's notice, and I for one would unsubscribe without hesitation. There's a reason I didn't start playing the game the first time around until it had already drawn past that awkward phase.

The AT system is what allows this game to create balance. Either the alpha or the beta of this game was very much like your suggestion, but there were only two things that happened.

People picked a ranged primary and a self defense secondary, or a self defense primary and a ranged secondary. You become self sufficient and capable of laying waste on a large scale. It destroys the needs for teams, thus support roles go away.

Look at That Other Game. This is how it functions, and there are no teams. Everyone is a scrapper.

Since Blasters are my favorite type of character to play and your system totally leaves them out, I'd have to say, uhhhh... No thank you.

Now if we can take Melee Sets and Ranged Sets together... sure thing.

If anything they'd have to make a new AT. It would have access to an "assault" (both ranged and melee attacks) and a buff/debuff secondary, and/or an "assault" set and a self buffing secondary. I would have to think that all mod's would have to be about were Kheld modifiers are to keep it balanced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Sure, the devs are supposed to listen to their customers, mister business 101 out there. And if I decide to start suggesting that the devs change the game from being about superheroes and supervillains to being about clowns that is my right as well, and technically Paragon Studios is supposed to pay attention to me. But I hope strongly that they assume a meth-head somehow managed to hack into my forum account and make paper airplanes out of my posts, because I hope they recognize stupid when they see it. I assume they will recognize futile just as accurately.