Origin perks (another idea)

Here's the thing about adding or changing core systems that are keyed into something people pick at the start. No matter how many options you make, there is going to turn out to be a "best" and "worst" thing to pick. It's why we have powersets. A mix of awesome and less awesome powers.

If you come up with dozens of options for each, or even dozens of options that are the same as options for other origins, then it's just the same for everyone, and then you're back at Origin not meaning anything.

You'd be far far better off proposing something that people can participate in after they level up, and it provides a different experience for different origins, or different badges. Things that won't really set up a barrier based on what people pick at the start. As an example, look at Origin of Power arc. The person of your Origin gives you a different speech than he would someone not. Same thing could happen with a mix of contacts added that all gave slightly different arcs. You go to work for the Science guy, you can bring non Science people along, everyone has fun, everyone gets a badge, but your's is slightly different because of your Origin, and you had some special task only someone of your Origin could do in that mission.

That kind of thing would be a cool way to make Origins matter. Slight changes to stats? Boring. We get that kind of thing with Inventions. We presumably get something like that in the Incarnate system. It's fine, it involves choices and stats and numbers.

We need more things to enrich content though. That's what Origins can be for.

What would be the point of linking something like this to Origin, anyway?

You could get the exact same thing by just having a bit list of perks that each character could pick from regardless of origin. So, anyone could be a bodybuilder or wear flame resistant clothing or have mutated strength.

Of course, then you have the standard balance problems with certain perks just being better for certain ATs powersets, plus the fact that they'd have a hard time balancing things so that the perks were big enough to notice but low enough not to be overpowering. So, i still don't think it would be a great idea, but its better than tying it to Origin for no real reason.

For an idea about 'making origins matter', I'd say start by finding out what people would accept as a possible 'loss' since if origin let you gain something they'll react as if you lose something (even if you had the option to choose).

What about origin letting you combat certain enemy factions easier? Like what if Rikti (sans AVs) for whatever reason had trouble vs Magic origin character? But vs Natural origin character, the Rikti would have an easier time.

Or what if your origin let you choose (or not choose) an AT bias killer stat? Like, as a Magic origin character, you can choose an 'occult hunter' type trait that gave you an edge when battling magic origin foes or a 'power mastery' type trait for an edge against mutation type enemies.

What the specific 'edge' either of those ideas would actually be is up in the air. But it couldn't be 'gamed' by the player *if* there is a proper spread of enemy factions in the game. If nothing more, the above could stimulate the desire for more faction variety.

As for the age old 'You can't change origins' argument; well, provide the tech so you *can* rechoose origin (if only for characters currently created). Heck, even add a means for picking 'dual origins' so there'd be even more options and possible ways to customize characters.

I need to get this out of the way, but why is there a need to make origins mean something? This is about as useless as making character NAMES mean something. For instance, if you have "Iron" in your name, you get a bonus to resistance, if you have "Striker" in your name you get a bonus to attack, and if you have "Ling," "Xing" or "Xiao" in your name, you get an account-wide ban. Origins simply don't have to matter any more so than, say, dressing your character up in Armour Plate increases defence vs dressing your character up in cloth bikini.

Moving on to strengths and weaknesses, this has always been a good idea... In theory. I have SERIOUS doubts about how it could possibly work in practice. For instance, two of the ideas for strengths I always come up with are "Robotic Brain" which should make you less vulnerable to psychic powers and "Non-breathing," which should make you less susceptible to smoke, gas, toxins and spores. The problem with those is that they both face massive redundancy with certain powersets AND have the potential to utterly unbalance the game because of how many things they actually affect and how easily they could be min-maxed with certain ATs.

I remember Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura had something like this. I decided to be Allergic to Magic because I intended to play as a pure technologist, only to find out the game became unwinnable when I had to equip a magical amulet to reveal a hidden path. Oops! Same thing here. Who wouldn't pick, say, Naturally Ethereal that made you significantly less susceptible to physical attack over, say, Fire-Incarnate, which made you less susceptible to fire and a bit less to cold? The propensity of the damage types is just incomparable.

As far as I'm concerned, at this stage in the game, I don't believe there's any room for adding such a system.

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.

Honestly I'm cool with that. Pretty much all I did was make a suggestion, and try to fill in the blanks when questions were asked. I'm wasn't looking to change gameplay because the system we have no wasn't working. I just posted something that I thought would brighten up gameplay.

I wasn't rude, I didn't get mad. Yet it's annoying when people try to talk to you on this forum like you are slow for posting an idea. Its funny though. I got -40 rep for voicing my opinion. Each time I post a suggestion I learn more and more about the game. Which is why I keep doing it.

Just because someone doesn't know as much as you about the game doesn't mean you have to be rude to them. This idea wasn't meant to make or break the game. I only posted it because I thought it would add to the excitement the game already had but anyway. I'm putting it to rest.

Thank you

I'm always an advocate of posting suggestions or ideas. Besides, it's more fun if there's leeway in the idea so people responding can suggest stuff to add or change.

If you get people jumping down your throat (while being perfectly civil about criticism) you can PM me, I'll play devil's advocate if need be

I vote for more Origin-Based COSTUME PIECES!