I like Power Sets because...
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2009-10-04 14:30 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I was privy to a good chunk of the Exalted design process. It was designed around mini-maxing your character first for survival, then combat, then whatever role you want your character to fill. Hence the sidebar in first edition suggesting you start with Ox-Body Technique and a reliable defense.|
Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
I wouldn't say Exalted is designed around min-maxing, but I also wouldn't even attempt to claim that min-maxing is impossible, or even difficult. For example, Dexterity is squarely in the "god stat" realm. Dex is used for hitting things, dodging things, running fast, climbing, manipulating devices, catching, and more. A character with low Dex is frequently left behind (figuratively or literally)
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Also, please understand that I am not criticizing Exalted here - it's one of my favorite games ever. I'm just saying that mini-maxing is not by itself a bad thing.
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Fortunately, in my opinion, there are only two truly "broken" Charms in the published sourcebooks. One of them (Void Avatar Prana, last Charm in Dark Messiah Style supernatural martial arts) should be considered a giant typo (it was added by the editor, not the author of the style), and it is extremely easy to claim that it simply doesn't exist. The other (Zeal) should be considered "lost", since it's in the Dreams of the First Age book. If you want to play a First Age campaign (in which case, all of the players are rulers of the world and they're brokenly overpowered regardless of what Charms they take), fine, allow Zeal. If you want to craft an entire story about learning the existence of Zeal and then rediscovering it, fine, it's an epic story for an epic Charm. In all other cases, I say, "Nope, everyone forgot". There are a few other scarily strong Charms, but they also tend to require obscenely high Essence ratings (not that Zeal doesn't...), such as Fantasy, which essentially turns a character (not player) into storyteller for a scene. |
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No, this is more like everyone taking Indomitable Will and Instant Healing no matter what their AT and powersets are.
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Originally Posted by Eisregen_NA
I dunno. Isn't this kind of down the same train of thought that has almost every character in CoH pick up Stamina and Hasten, no matter whether it fits the concept?
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This is just what I want from an open power system, and early videos suggested CO would be doing it. Yet their much hyped advantage system turned out to be nothing but less flexible slotting!|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
A true open system, and the one that should have and should be built is one where you spend points buying your mechanical advantages: attacks and the amount of damage they do and the type of damage; defenses; resistances; protections; mezzes; buffs and debuffs; speed; etc... on a diminishing returns scale.
Then, for each click or toggle or passive or charge-up attack/defense/mez/buff you have, you customize how it looks. You choose the animation, it's emanation, and it's colors. Then the Devs build the NPCs and their AIs to function as not-insurmountable challenges to the mechanics the players have available to them. Done. |
Here is what I want to do (maybe I will try developing something like this eventually):
Power type: target enemy
+ Add animation (average speed is free, slower or faster affects your points)
+ Add visual effects (free)
+ Add buffs (many types with various point costs, HP buff, mez, stats, debuffs if enemy targeted)
+ Set power stats (adjust recharge, energy, etc.)
For n00bs, there would be a large set of organized pre-built powers in a class system (at something like 5% less points than a custom, since prebuilts may have superfluous advantages), but experts can make any power the system can support.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
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What system would you use to prevent someone from figuring out 'the best' options and those options spreading through the game like wildfire since they'd be the most efficient way to earn rewards?
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Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
Power type: target enemy
+ Add animation (average speed is free, slower or faster affects your points) + Add visual effects (free) + Add buffs (many types with various point costs, HP buff, mez, stats, debuffs if enemy targeted) + Set power stats (adjust recharge, energy, etc.) For n00bs, there would be a large set of organized pre-built powers in a class system (at something like 5% less points than a custom, since prebuilts may have superfluous advantages), but experts can make any power the system can support. |
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Doesn't a sigmoid curve start off shallow, then accelerate, then get shallow again?|
Originally Posted by Aliana Blue
I always thought it would be better to use a sigmoid for returns, start with increasing returns for investment in a single skill, then diminishing after certain point.
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Wouldn't an arcsecant curve be better with a fast initial positive slope, then a diminishing returns asymptote?
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Yep. EDIT: Hm, I may have gotten the name wrong? It should look something like this:|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Doesn't a sigmoid curve start off shallow, then accelerate, then get shallow again?
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| Wouldn't an arcsecant curve be better with a fast initial positive slope, then a diminishing returns asymptote? |
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Ah, I get what you're aiming at... progress that progresses then regresses. Yes, a sigmoid curve represents that.|
Originally Posted by Aliana Blue
The idea is to promote specialization by requiring non-trivial investment to reach the highest returns, so as to limit the minmax of being able to combine several skills that give a large return just for a few points. Spreading the points to have several abilities would have a higher cost that way. The exact shape (or the steepness/shallowness of the different parts of the curve) is not as important as the general idea.
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I was thinking you wanted big returns right off the bat with regression being minimal at first and then increasing regression.
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For all of CO much lauded open customation, the heros you end up with IMO feel pretty generic...
I mean... you can make and us any combanation powers, but you end up really only useing 2 or 3 accual attacks. One good AoE, one good Singletarget... maybe a gimic attack... a heal.. a passive... your travel.. and that's it. The rest of your powers are just for show.
Then the game brakes down into the same endlessly repeated sequince of, block block, nuke nuke, block block.. wash rince repeat. ALL my heros, dispite the fact they all have very different powers, seem to play the very same way... Even my offince "glass cannon" plays in the same style my hulking "tank" does. block block, attack attack, block block..
That's what's bugging me about CO right now. I'm hoping they work that out somehow. And improve teaming. Oh god, is teaming a joke IMO.
Right now, CO is my, "eh, i don't feel like CoH right now" game. It's there to help me through my coh burnout phase. lol.
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Just out of curiosity, how high have you played?
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Originally Posted by KingSnake
For all of CO much lauded open customation, the heros you end up with IMO feel pretty generic...
I mean... you can make and us any combanation powers, but you end up really only useing 2 or 3 accual attacks. One good AoE, one good Singletarget... maybe a gimic attack... a heal.. a passive... your travel.. and that's it. The rest of your powers are just for show. |
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Here comes Kali to CO's defense!
See, I keep seeing a few concepts repeated that kind of bug me, and have been reasons on their face for me to quit games.
First and foremost is the tradeoff between more powers or stronger powers. I HATE that. The fact of the matter is I want powers. As many as I can get. About the arsenal of proactive powers a Blaster has at level 50 is where things become sufficiently comfortable for me - I have enough powers to cover a variety of situations and rarely fall into a set-piece attack chain that never alters, yet not so many that they end up being redundant and unneeded. However, when a game gives me the opportunity to pick more powers or stronger powers, it just always, always favours LESS power made stronger. Even in City of Heroes, people look for ways to take fewer powers and just have them hit harder and recharge quicker. There is just no "right" solution, because if I want to be effective, I have to take fewer powers than I'd like, which in turn ruins the game entirely.
Secondly, the more fiddly customizability a game has, the lower the effectiveness of each action are and the harder they are to notice. In City of Heroes, I can take a status protection power or big hitter and I WILL see a difference even without investing anything into them, and just one level later, this difference will be amazing. Much more so than getting 5 more strength. It changes something, I guess, by maybe a percent point here and there, but eh... Who notices that sort of thing? It's only when the specific build starts to mature and investments begin to pay off do you begin to notice differences, and even then mostly if you're looking for them.
Unnoticeable, smooth progress may be more realistic, but it is VERY unspectacular, and above all, it is VERY hard to work with. When my build choices don't give me any direct feedback I can feel, then I don't know if what I'm doing is right or wrong. I'm told strength is what I need the most and maybe constitution to some extent, so I keep investing in those, but I can't tell if it's doing anything at all, and I've no idea what I am NOT getting in doing so. It's like driving blind (which isn't impossible, as the Mythbusters proved, just very impractical).
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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.
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Uh yeah, that's me, uncritically positive about CO 100% of the time. |
Originally Posted by Clouded
Here comes Kali to CO's defense!
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I was curious because it seems to me that CO gives you too many powers, unless you build around a certain degree of flexibility. But not everyone wants or needs that flexibility. I mean stuff like taking more than one passive and swapping as needed, or picking up support and control powers.
I've also found that there's a reason to use more than two attacks in more than one framework, but it's easy to miss that if you get comfortable with one or two powers. There is a good reason to have three or more power armor attacks, for example. Or to use two-gun mojo even if you have the otherwise superior assault rifle or gatling gun.
Part of the problem is that some powers are unreservedly superior to all other choices (like gigabolt for AoE). They've whittled down the number of attacks that could be comparable to burn since launch, but a few remain.
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my tank, is 39 and 3 blocks or so from 40. I just refuse to "grind it out" and am waiting for blood moon.|
Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
Just out of curiosity, how high have you played?
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my fire is.. hmm. 34. ready for Lumaria, i just haven't done it yet.
i have about 4 or 5 others in there late teens.
Now, i relise i didn't put my cavoit in the last post.
I LIKE CO. Even with it's flaws i see atm. It's fun. I've enjoyed my play sessions so far, but i'm kind of running out of stuff to do.. and i'm finding that as i alt.. the gameplay.. just feels the same dispite the fact i'm playing a Might/Fire/Dark/Singleblade/Elec/Techy hero.
There are difference to an extent, but it's very similar, and all the missions are exeatily the same... cause there isn't enough content.
Once the add more content (which they are) and add new powersets (which they are) and start refining the teaming process (which i hope they get to soon) CO will IMO be a pretty fun little game. It just, IMO, needs some work right now.
CoH wasn't perfect out of the gate, and i don't expect Co to be. I'm hopeful at least.
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I guess you missed the humor in my post.
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Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
Uh yeah, that's me, uncritically positive about CO 100% of the time.
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Power sets are nice for a number of reasons, such as the fact that they are very balanced, both internally and externally, and they tend to allow people to pick a theme and stick with it, which is also nice.
CO, on the other hand does have its share of FOTM builds, and for people that want to play them, go for it. My main in CO is a dual blade/archery mix. Thats it, and he can hold his own just fine.
I disagree with an earlier posters comments about combat all feeling the same. With the above character, I use archery to whittle down groups, then head in for my big melee attacks, I have a Sorc character that plays totally different, a Might character that plays totally different, and a TK character that plays totally different.
If you make a number of characters, and end up choosing close to the same powers, then of course, things will play the same. Not saying that this is the case, but that is what I took from the post.
CO has a long way to go, this is true. One thing that I can say, is that it WILL increase the competition factor amongst the devs here at COH, and, the result will be TWO good superhero games for people to play.
CO has already made great strides in improving teaming, there a few more bugs to tweak, but it is head an shoulders above what it was at launch. Content is going to start coming in at a rapid rate, and new powerset options will also begin hitting the streets.
COH, finally gave players tintable powers, thanks in large part to that being in CO methinks, they are doing more with powersets, and, they are about to launch the single biggest update since COV.
Its an exciting time to play superhero games. You can hate Champs online, or you can hate COH, and there are plenty of people over on the CO boards that gripe about COH for various reasons as well. And both groups have their valid points.
To me, I enjoy the level of competition that the Devs are in now, and I am excited about where it can take BOTH games.
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Oh? What kind of tank?|
Originally Posted by KingSnake
my tank, is 39 and 3 blocks or so from 40. I just refuse to "grind it out" and am waiting for blood moon.
my fire is.. hmm. 34. ready for Lumaria, i just haven't done it yet. |
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i have about 4 or 5 others in there late teens. Now, i relise i didn't put my cavoit in the last post. I LIKE CO. Even with it's flaws i see atm. It's fun. I've enjoyed my play sessions so far, but i'm kind of running out of stuff to do.. and i'm finding that as i alt.. the gameplay.. just feels the same dispite the fact i'm playing a Might/Fire/Dark/Singleblade/Elec/Techy hero. There are difference to an extent, but it's very similar, and all the missions are exeatily the same... cause there isn't enough content. Once the add more content (which they are) and add new powersets (which they are) and start refining the teaming process (which i hope they get to soon) CO will IMO be a pretty fun little game. It just, IMO, needs some work right now. CoH wasn't perfect out of the gate, and i don't expect Co to be. I'm hopeful at least.
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Possibly!
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Originally Posted by Clouded
I guess you missed the humor in my post.
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Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
Oh? What kind of tank?
I didn't think you hated it - I have had different experiences wrt how many powers I use, but I did kind of wonder how you were building. I think it's far too easy to take too many attacks and then rarely use many of them. But it's also pretty easy to take four or five attacks with particular synergies and use them as appropriate. |
Might mainly, with invlun passive and Str/Con about 260/250 respectively. Still can't lift that !@#$! titanic weight.......
That ticks me off...
I think excagreated at bit about 2 or 3 attacks. When i think about it, i use a few more, but not many, and often frind myself at a lose as to what to train.
My Might build, when i hit that point, i started training active defences. I have them all now... and MA's heal, the small dot one. I've gotten to ware i use them in tandom and can stand up to some ok damage, but i feel so squish for a tank... it's dishearting... and, i haven't been to CO boards in about a week or so, but, there's not alot of help i found up to that point as far as pointers go with building a tank. To much nerdrage still. Maybe it's died down, i 'll have to check.
Then i hit the content wall, and have no patience at all for grinding. I had fairly limited resorces to play around with my crafting... expearment with the non stat stuff to see if it helped...
So i started alting, and pretty much played the same game twice in a 4 week span... relised any other alts would only expearince the same game a 3rd and 4th time, and figured i'd just sit back and give it some time to shake itself out.
More content, and better teaming is about all i really ask. I think they relise that, and will be working on it. Time will tell.
And blessedly i'm able to afford to play both atm. So i will, at least until something else comes along to threaten CO at this point. Only other game i'm REALLY intrested in is TOR... and it's a ways off. STO, is a possibility, and DCU forsure, but i haven't heard much about it lately.. granted, i've not had time to really look...
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My common sense is tingling... ~ Deadpool
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There's a page that helps you find missed missions. I can dig it up later, if you want. It does take a bit longer than grinding, but is more fun.|
Originally Posted by KingSnake
Might mainly, with invlun passive and Str/Con about 260/250 respectively. Still can't lift that !@#$! titanic weight.......
That ticks me off... I think excagreated at bit about 2 or 3 attacks. When i think about it, i use a few more, but not many, and often frind myself at a lose as to what to train. My Might build, when i hit that point, i started training active defences. I have them all now... and MA's heal, the small dot one. I've gotten to ware i use them in tandom and can stand up to some ok damage, but i feel so squish for a tank... it's dishearting... and, i haven't been to CO boards in about a week or so, but, there's not alot of help i found up to that point as far as pointers go with building a tank. To much nerdrage still. Maybe it's died down, i 'll have to check. Then i hit the content wall, and have no patience at all for grinding. I had fairly limited resorces to play around with my crafting... expearment with the non stat stuff to see if it helped... |
As for tank builds - I know energy shield is a bit weird for your classic invulnerable superstrong hero, but laser knight makes you tough as nails, and works nicely with bountiful chi resurgence. Every time you use a melee attack, a weaker version of energy shield comes up. It does reduce your damage, so you should use the advantage that removes the damage debuff from BCR. My might character is low on damage right now (all rank 1 attacks) at 17, so it takes her all day to defeat anything...but it takes them even longer to really touch her health bar.
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So i started alting, and pretty much played the same game twice in a 4 week span... relised any other alts would only expearince the same game a 3rd and 4th time, and figured i'd just sit back and give it some time to shake itself out. More content, and better teaming is about all i really ask. I think they relise that, and will be working on it. Time will tell. And blessedly i'm able to afford to play both atm. So i will, at least until something else comes along to threaten CO at this point. Only other game i'm REALLY intrested in is TOR... and it's a ways off. STO, is a possibility, and DCU forsure, but i haven't heard much about it lately.. granted, i've not had time to really look... |
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If your willing to find it, you can post it here for everyone or just PM me. I'd love it. heh. I have that advantage that take off the damage debuff to BCR. It's a handy power if you keep using it i've found. I may toy with energy shield. I still have a freespec.. was waiting for more info to filter out before i used it... |
Originally Posted by KaliMagdalene
There's a page that helps you find missed missions. I can dig it up later, if you want. It does take a bit longer than grinding, but is more fun.
As for tank builds - I know energy shield is a bit weird for your classic invulnerable superstrong hero, but laser knight makes you tough as nails, and works nicely with bountiful chi resurgence. Every time you use a melee attack, a weaker version of energy shield comes up. It does reduce your damage, so you should use the advantage that removes the damage debuff from BCR. My might character is low on damage right now (all rank 1 attacks) at 17, so it takes her all day to defeat anything...but it takes them even longer to really touch her health bar. Yeah, I think three MMORPGs is my limit right now - and I stretched that to the breaking point. |
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My common sense is tingling... ~ Deadpool
If you can't learn to do something well... learn to enjoy doing it poorly...
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Here's the link.
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Originally Posted by KingSnake
If your willing to find it, you can post it here for everyone or just PM me. I'd love it. heh. I have that advantage that take off the damage debuff to BCR. It's a handy power if you keep using it i've found. I may toy with energy shield. I still have a freespec.. was waiting for more info to filter out before i used it...
My Global over there is ZeroG661. if you happen to see meh running around. |
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When you have to be in melee range for an attack to work on an opponent, then I consider that melee ranged attack. |
Originally Posted by Sigium
I have that exact power on one of my characters and I can assure you, it hits out of melee distance. Not only this, but it does, as it mentions 'Sphere' radius of damage.
Melee-ranged...? You realize that that's a contradiction, right? I can have my blaster use his attacks at melee distance, but it doesn't make 'em melee attacks. There you are, again with 'melee ranged attacks'. They don't exist. Yeah, and I had to make a lot of compromises myself until I realized... Guess what? I could play CoX and NOT compromise. The system? Yeah, a bit limited, but with every dose of Power Proliferation it's getting closer and closer to filling the niches. I started out with just Single Blade/Fire... Soon enough, I had to skip into sorcery, gadgets, and more, just to fill the gaps that I couldn't otherwise because so many powers were crap. Too much temptation? I have yet to find a way to NOT min/max in that game and do decent damage. |
Of course a blaster can use the ranged attack at melee range, but what if all of your ranged attacks had an effective range that was the same as melee range?
The Dark power that drains health and heals that I mentioned only works at a relatively short (melee) distance, but is not an actual melee attack. You just stand there and absorb their life. You don't punch them, you don't pound on them, you don't kick them. Thus the term "melee ranged attack." This power's range really is that short.
The chain lightning power has a really long range and can be considered a normal ranged attack. So I can agree with you that I can use that at melee range, but it's not really a melee attack.
However, Sparkstorm has a relatively short (ok, maybe a bit longer than normal melee, but not by much) range, even if it is a sphere. And if the bad guy moves out of the range, they stop taking damage. You really need to be in melee range to actually damage bad guys. Plus it does knock back, so you are constantly having to run after the bad guys so they are in range again. I don't see blasters having to do that with their ranged attacks.
Look at CoX's Lightning Field. It has a relatively short radius effectively only working on things within melee range. Not the same as being able to shoot someone 250 yards away.
Uber Talgrim - level 50 emp/dark defender
Uber Rod - level 50 dark melee/regen scrapper
Rod Valdr - level 50 invuln/SS tanker
Talgrim - level 50 ninja/dark mastermind
OMG!! Please add these costume designs now!
I have to agree with you. I find myself looking to not getting any more attacks because I just want to work on the one really cool AoE attack and boost my one cool buff.
Still it is nice to be able to move and attack. I would like to see CoH get rid of rooting when using powers, at least in PVE.
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Originally Posted by KingSnake
For all of CO much lauded open customation, the heros you end up with IMO feel pretty generic...
I mean... you can make and us any combanation powers, but you end up really only useing 2 or 3 accual attacks. One good AoE, one good Singletarget... maybe a gimic attack... a heal.. a passive... your travel.. and that's it. The rest of your powers are just for show. Then the game brakes down into the same endlessly repeated sequince of, block block, nuke nuke, block block.. wash rince repeat. ALL my heros, dispite the fact they all have very different powers, seem to play the very same way... Even my offince "glass cannon" plays in the same style my hulking "tank" does. block block, attack attack, block block.. That's what's bugging me about CO right now. I'm hoping they work that out somehow. And improve teaming. Oh god, is teaming a joke IMO. Right now, CO is my, "eh, i don't feel like CoH right now" game. It's there to help me through my coh burnout phase. lol. |
Uber Talgrim - level 50 emp/dark defender
Uber Rod - level 50 dark melee/regen scrapper
Rod Valdr - level 50 invuln/SS tanker
Talgrim - level 50 ninja/dark mastermind
OMG!! Please add these costume designs now!
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That's actually something interesting that comes up a lot here in City of Heroes - powers are not balanced against each other, they are balanced in regards to the powerset they appear in, but the different powersets are then balanced against each other as monolithic packs. This means that having one power have an identical type of effect as another, but with a much greater potency (Revive vs. Resurgence, for instance) is completely workable, so long as the sets they appear in make up for this difference.|
Originally Posted by Buckaroobill2222
Power sets are nice for a number of reasons, such as the fact that they are very balanced, both internally and externally, and they tend to allow people to pick a theme and stick with it, which is also nice.
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This isn't really a good thing in a completely free-form power selection system, because it is, technically, possible to grab only the useful powers off the list, meaning that either all powers have to be equally proficient, or they have to be locked together somehow, defeating the purpose. Anything less, and you have a small selection of "right" ways to build and a large selection of "wrong" ones, which REALLY defeats the purpose.
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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.
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And this is almost exactly what happened on the old Champions campaign I was part of about 20 years ago. Players would come in with characters who had disadvantages that granted point bonuses but were not truly a disadvantage - at least until the GM drew the line and shut them down.
In order to do that in an MMO, you would have to employ a metric ton of skilled players who know all the exploits and have the sneaky mindset to continually look for new exploits. The GM in the campaign above was just that sort of person. They aren't necessarily all that common, and the learning curve for training them is pretty steep.
Remembering this long-ago Champions PnP campaign made me not very hopeful for the MMO, and based on the reviews I have been seeing, it looks like I may have been right.
Oh, and to refer way back to near the top of the thread - Eisregen, I do not have a single character with Hasten. I tried it on one character and respec'd out of it long ago. It never works into any of my builds. I know I'm only one player, but I guess I am going against the "accepted wisdom" that *everyone* takes Hasten. Most of my characters take the Fitness poll, but the reason for that is almost just as much to get Swift as to get Stamina.
Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."