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.

They tried this in Alpha, it didn't work then as it allowed people to break the game and to cripple themselves too easily, and so, don't foresee them allowing it again.

This has been hashed over six billion times, so don't take it too personally when people point this out.

Well, how many possible combos (total in the game, not just your list) are there that 1) don't result in gimping (i.e. self defense + (de)buff: neigh zero damage) while 2) being distinct from what's already in the game (i.e. pri:(de)buff sec:control is extremely similar to controllers already)? I think the actual number would be quite few (pairing Henchmen with a few other secondaries is the only thing that jumps out to me, and maybe (de)buff with melee damage), so it might be better suited to just add those as brand new ATs (story driven or otherwise).

I don't think this suggestion has the same inherent issues that a completely free-form power system has, but I'm not sure if it really adds much above an AT system (maybe thinking of it as 'AT-lite').

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

one big problem... this isn't a proliferation. it is a total redesign of the game mechanincs. one in which i can almost assure you NC would not do at this point. tankmages didn't make it out of alpha for a good reason. also, just because some other game tried doing this doesn't mean that it is something that will work here.

I wouldn't like to see this happen at all.

It's currently being done in CO and to be quite honest it's that game's main drawback.

The beta was ridiculously easy when playing a ranged character with certain defenses - so much so that the entire game was globally nerfed very quickly after launch.

Don't get me wrong here. I appreciate the thought that went into the idea, but I just don't agree that it would be good for this game.

Biospark, what part of it was already tried and didn't work don't you understand? and just a little fyi, one of the original developers for this game that left to make the other game is finding out way to late what happens when you do this. the entire game got a hit with a really really big nerf bat with nails and barbed wire and flames on it on the first day of release. if that is the style of play you are interested in, please go try it and come back and let us know what little fun it was for you.

Instead of this, why not go a more custom AT route?

Set powers as Tier 1 - Tier 9, then limit some combo's of powers...

For Instance, if you select Unstoppable, you can't select the other Tier 9's in the Self-Defense sets.

Or...

Melee & Ranged Primary with Self Defense/Debuff/Buff Secondary

and

Self Defense/Debuff/Buff Primary with Melee & Ranged Primary

You could put control options of control in the Melee & Ranged of power choices.

The big thing with mixing sets like this is AT modiiers, something everyone seems to forget when making these suggestions. You can give a Scrapper a Blast set, but with an 0.5 ranged damage mod (which is LESS than a Mastermind's), that Scrapper will simply outright suck. Considering that melee sets, in general, have higher damage attacks and a regular Scrapper's melee damage mod is 1.125, a ranged Scrapper would be doing less than half of his damage with powers that do less than his attacks on top of that.

Even worse, giving, say, a Blaster a defence set is a total waste, considering how low the various buff and debuff modifiers are on a Blaster. He'd still be doing Blaster damage, obviously, but at the cost of a secondary which doesn't do much at all.

And let's not forget Castle's direct refusal to port Energy Melee over to Scrappers until changes were made to it. Precedent exists to proove that certain sets are just broken (be they broken bad or broken good) in the hands of certain ATs. Simply opening all sets to all ATs willy-nilly is going to case people to either gimp themselves or make ridiculously overpowered tank mages.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

For once I guess I agree with ST! ...and then disagree a bit!
Changing the game totally would also break what I like about CoX: The simplicity. I hated ED/IOs because it made the game more "complicated".

I could see something like this being done as an epic reward or veteran reward on a new, neutral AT without modifiers. I for one DO like my (admittedly non-50 human) PB and the mix of melee and ranged attacks. Anything that keeps the basic game intact but gives you some new choises to make it feel "fresh" again is welcome.

Problem is it would have to be very carefully considered and beta-tested, balanced etc, and so far we've seen a very clear dev choise: lvl 50+ content isn't a concern of theirs, they care more about bringing new choises early in the game. Getting new customers is still more important than keeping old players since we still tend to hang on, or even keep paying the subs while we're taking a break. It's just too much work to happen.

At least we get flight without hover etc if we wait long enough. They could build on that a bit. Yeah, a hasten & stamina-like veteran power, auto-3-slotted as 10 year veteran power. /signed!

The problem you encounter with ideas like this, is no matter what you do there will always be the ability to game or exploit something about it.

And people WILL game or exploit anything they can, there's no getting around it, it's human nature.

Some combinations would have to be nerfed into the GROUND to not be overpowered.

I cite as an example: Ranged Attack + Self Defense

Fire Blast/Super Reflexes anyone?

Yes, the Super Reflexes would be at 75% effectiveness. BUT....scrapper values are ALREADY at about 75% effectiveness compared to tankers, so that would change nothing.

A Fire blaster that is soft-capped to all positions, with mez protection and Quickness would be extremely overpowered if left at the values you suggest. Seldom hit, never mezzed, and recharging faster? There would be almost nothing in the game that is a credible threat to it. Especially seeing as you could 6 slot Devastation in ST blasts to gain reasonable levels of Psi defense, SR's only real hole, which is NOT plugged by melee sets, probably intentionally. The combination of Ranged and Self-Defense would require a HUGE nerf to avoid tank-magery.

There are other combinations that would be just as bad, but this one is the most glaringly obvious one.

"Has been tried and didn't work" is actually a very valid argument.

Power levels and capabilities would increase to the point that the devs would have to make the game more difficult to compensate. That would screw the players that chose badly and you would run into a situation where everyone is playing the same thing because the game is too hard to play with anything else.

Everyone playing the same thing = boring game

Also, it would be a complete revamp of how the game works. It would be a huge amount of work in order to do something that will likely become a headache in and of itself. Since they would have to revamp the entire game to do this, we would get ZERO new content for quite a while as they are working on it. That alone would start players looking for other games.

You can't reasonably expect players to NOT take advantage of any loopholes they found in something like this. Just look at what happened with AE, the devs designed it with one thing in mind, and players IMMEDIATELY started using it for almost the exact opposite of it's intention.

The general rule is: If the devs build it, the players will break it if they can.