Where's my kryptonite?
The occasional mapserver issue is all the kryptonite I need.
/no thanks
Why would any of this have to happen if picking weaknesses would be purely OPTIONAL in the first place?
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Disadvantages work fine in the comics where a writer gets to choose what happens and in table-top RPGs where a human GM likewise chooses the story and adjudicates all the action. Story and role-playing based considerations will always trump the numbers when push comes to shove in comics and TTRPGs.
In a computer-based game there is no writer or GM to moderate the use of disadvantages. That means players will just min/max their characters to do away with the limitations while retaining any positive effects bestowed by the disadvantage. We see this already with the existing powersets, most of which already have inherent disadvantages of the sort disadvantages would impose.
The most common one is knockback: every non-melee character (and some with melee powersets like Fire and Dark) has no inherent KB protection. As soon as I can, I get a -KB IO or slot Kinetic Crash. Getting knocked around constantly does not add to my character's personality or backstory, it just gets me killed. I doubt I'm the only who does this, and I'd guess that you also do it.
Because the game is so flexible and has so many ways of getting around our character's limitations, it's most likely that giving us some advantage for some disadvantage would be just another way to min/max the character to the utmost. With Incarnate slots coming out the opportunities for eliminating the negative effects of disadvantages will only grow.
That means disadvantages would probably have the opposite of the effect you intend: characters taking them would become more powerful in one aspect, while eliminating the weakness the disadvantage is supposed to impose.
In TTRPGs the GM will simply stop you from doing this because it violates the intent of taking the disadvantage in the first place. In an MMO, such a tactic will just make the players angry and causes harsh feelings and cries of NERF!
In the end, disadvantages that provide benefits would wind up being another source of exploits and would only result in a great deal of rancor as the devs closed those exploits.
Yeah pretty much every time someone suggests adding a "Kryptonite" concept to this game the pure MMO players come out of the woodwork claiming the idea that anyone would ever want to willing gimp themselves is borderline insane. Most people who play MMOs are always trying to do anything they can to min/max their characters into god-like Tankmages. The fact that a cornerstone of the comic book genre rests on the concepts of "vulnerabilities" seem to be totally lost on them.
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I would never advocate a system of Disadvantages for this game ever be FORCED onto people. This kind of thing should always be 100% OPTIONAL. This is why the void/quant Kheldian thing is generally hated by most people. The Devs tried to introduce a Kryptonite-like weakness on them but they effectively forced everyone to have to deal with it instead of making something like that be optional.
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Also plenty of people have mentioned in this thread the idea that many AT/Powerset combos already have built-in vulnerabilities (i.e. stone/fire tanks have serious problems versus psi damage). That's all fine and well. But when people like Next_Player suggest Disadvantage systems they are usually asking for optional choices to allow them to CHOOSE which things they are going to be vulnerable to, not just let the game decide that for them.
I've never really understood why people typically overreact to this suggestion. It's a suggestion for an OPTIONAL QoL improvement, not something that's going to be forced on you if you don't want to challenge yourself. This suggestion goes beyond just a new tool for RP expression - many people (including yours truly) consider this game to generally be very easy to play. Much like the introduction of the Mission Difficulty settings I wouldn't mind challenging myself even further with new optional ways to make things harder. Once again if you're the type of person who'd want to keep playing on "easy mode" with no Disadvantages you'd certainly be able to keep doing that. YMMV.
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Nice attitude. I wish I knew what your kryptonite was... I'd have brought some with me.
I will always be against system of disadvantages and associated advantage. That's the kind of micromanagement of character builds I do not want. Don't have to use it? Well, we "don't have to use" Inventions, and you tell me how well that's worked out for you. Every time you put a tangible, obtainable benefit in the game, you put people in the no-win situation of either pursuing it against their will, or ignoring it and feeling like they're gimping themselves, which is the complete opposite of what you're suggesting.
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Once min-maxing figures out exactly what's a good disadvantage to have and which advantage gives the most benefits, you essentially just move the bottom line. For instance, can I be weak to ice, please? Because I happen to know that almost nothing in the game does strong Ice damage.
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Implementing this system outside of the armor sets we already have leads to the system being gamed for min/max potential, and there's already enough of that out there. We don't need any more of that.
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You want a tank with weaknesses? Ignoring the fact that Invulnerability has a kryptonite in the form of psi, Ice Armor in the form of fire, and Fiery Aura in the form of cold (et cetra), I have an idea for you.
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Don't take the power that grants protection from your weakness. Solved!
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Oh, but you wanted a benefit to having a kryptonite? Sorry. Doesn't make sense, seeing above named powersets with kryptonite already have the opposed element strength. You do get a benefit, though. Since you skipped taking a power, that's one more other power you could have! See? Benefits.
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Personally, if they did do the advantage/disadvantage thing, it could easily be balanced in a similar manner to some PnP systems on some games I've played.
Have each disadvantage give you a number of points, and each advantage cost some. |
You want to take Ice Res Debuff to get that big shiny advantage because there aren't many Ice Enemies? Well, too bad. Ice -Res Debuff isn't worth as many points because of that, so you've gotta take something else, too!
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For what it's worth, his stance is that seeing as it is a optional, minimal interest QoL thing that would require substantial coding work, it is hardly worth the development time required.
It's a stance I cannot argue with. |
Stop dodging the question.
Less than 'some' people would use this, I'd say 3-5% max, there's no incentive to use it. Heck, there's incentive not to use it as it makes the game harder for no reward. I'd rather the devs work on something we all enjoy rather than just a small benefit to 3-5% of the population, thank you very much. |
[QUOTE=newchemicals;3275178]If you want kryptonite just play a blaster and don't slot your attacks. Set mission to +4x8 and fight malta or KoA.
That's not kryptonite, that's insanity. You fail.
Kryptonite wouldn't work because people would just pick an AE fa...er mission and avoid their weaknesses. There would have to be enough gain to make it worth it to people and all we would get later on is whiny threads about how people avoid their weakness and use whatever bonus they get to mow stuff down faster.
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The occasional mapserver issue is all the kryptonite I need.
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I've played table-top RPGs for years, where disadvantages are common. Given that experience, I think your idea would probably backfire.
Disadvantages work fine in the comics where a writer gets to choose what happens and in table-top RPGs where a human GM likewise chooses the story and adjudicates all the action. Story and role-playing based considerations will always trump the numbers when push comes to shove in comics and TTRPGs. |
In a computer-based game there is no writer or GM to moderate the use of disadvantages. That means players will just min/max their characters to do away with the limitations while retaining any positive effects bestowed by the disadvantage. We see this already with the existing powersets, most of which already have inherent disadvantages of the sort disadvantages would impose.
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The most common one is knockback: every non-melee character (and some with melee powersets like Fire and Dark) has no inherent KB protection. As soon as I can, I get a -KB IO or slot Kinetic Crash. Getting knocked around constantly does not add to my character's personality or backstory, it just gets me killed. I doubt I'm the only who does this, and I'd guess that you also do it.
Because the game is so flexible and has so many ways of getting around our character's limitations, it's most likely that giving us some advantage for some disadvantage would be just another way to min/max the character to the utmost. With Incarnate slots coming out the opportunities for eliminating the negative effects of disadvantages will only grow. |
That means disadvantages would probably have the opposite of the effect you intend: characters taking them would become more powerful in one aspect, while eliminating the weakness the disadvantage is supposed to impose.
In the end, disadvantages that provide benefits would wind up being another source of exploits and would only result in a great deal of rancor as the devs closed those exploits. |

All my toons do have a kryptonite, it's called DE quartz.
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Right, so all invulnerability tankers are essentially vulnerable to psi damage... which doesn't actually make it a "kryptonite" since everyone has the same limitation. I mean, if kryptonite affected Captain Marvel, Atom Smasher, and Cyborg the same way, then I could see your point.
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Vulnerabilities are a staple of comic book lore. Oh, sure... not everyone has them. But the closest we have is certain resistance sets having less protection against specific kind(s) of damage such as Invulnerability's lack of defense or resistance to psi damage. I don't consider that a weakness, though, so much as it is just a hole in the character's defense.
And everyone may not like the idea of having an additional element to which their character is suddenly vulnerable to. But what about those who are looking for something like that? My recommendation is new IO sets that give the player a noticeable hindrance with two enhancements from a given set, and then reward the player with bonuses at three and more from the set. And because we're taking a penalty to something up front, the rewards later on should be more appreciable. Let's say I want to make a character that's flame-based and want him to be vulnerable to cold. As it stands, unless you make a melee character with the fiery aura set, you're as vulnerable as anyone else to cold attacks. But let's say they make a ranged damage set that throws a -10 to 20% resistance debuff to cold attacks when you have two from the set. You could really gimp your character to ice attacks if you slot this set in more than one power. But at the cost of becoming more vulnerable to that, perhaps one of the bonuses for having three or more in the set is a boost to fire-based attacks... a noticable defense or resistance bonus to fire attacks... or a chance of a fire damage proc each time the power affects your target. And that's just with fire and ice in mind. If you do this with the various damage types, players could better customize their character's weaknesses and strengths at the same time. I'm sure there will be arguements about how such an idea could be abused to min/max and create uber powerful characters... but aren't we getting that anyway with the IO sets as they are? With hindrances to balance out the gains, its just a matter of someone crunching the numbers when creating such sets to make sure things are balanced properly. |
But it would be a nightmare to implement on an MMO. Disads open up whole new aspects to min/maxing. It can be acceptable in a pen and paper game, where a live GM is looking at every character and setting up each game session with the specific characters playing it in mind. That does not work in this setting.
So what you're saying is that set bonuses that do nothing but add add add work fine, but sets that would take a little here and add a little there would be too powerful? Either you're assuming too much advantage gained from any negatives implied, or you just don't have any concept of balance.
Again, I'm not saying take 20% off a resistance and add 20% to another. I'm saying that if we have sets with a negative at the front (with 2 enhancements from the set), then make the rewards for having 3, 4, 5, and/or 6 slightly better than those in the existing sets to offset the penalty. It doesn't even have to be bonuses in the same way. Like you could have a set with weakness to fire up front and then have cold related benefits afterward, such as increased slow effects, a small boost to ice damage only, a proc for bonus ice damage or a brief hold.
Again, that example is just to illustrate my idea, not an actual proposal of what I think such a set should be.
and the answer is still no. people would not use them. except maybe a small, small, small, small, small percentage.
I'm sure the entire population of the game thanks you for speaking for them.
And I like how the argument shifted from everyone needing to use them and finding a way to abuse them to no one will use them. You don't like the idea, great... say so and move on. Don't make up arguments and speculate facts to shoot down an idea that wouldn't affect you at all if you don't choose for it to do so.
And now to counter your argument with your own way of thinking: I think you're wrong. I think everyone would use them. Yes, even you and you're lying right now because you don't like to admit that you're wrong.
The idea that some IOs could have a downside could be useful and people would use them if they were a bit better.
But rather, instead of having the penalties only for the first part, the penalties should be all throughout the set--the penalties, and the rewards, getting better the more you equip.
It would have to be carefully balanced, though.
I'm sure the entire population of the game thanks you for speaking for them.
And I like how the argument shifted from everyone needing to use them and finding a way to abuse them to no one will use them. You don't like the idea, great... say so and move on. Don't make up arguments and speculate facts to shoot down an idea that wouldn't affect you at all if you don't choose for it to do so. And now to counter your argument with your own way of thinking: I think you're wrong. I think everyone would use them. Yes, even you and you're lying right now because you don't like to admit that you're wrong. |
I guess, by the same logic, they should stop working on new enhancement sets altogether. Because, you know, any new sets are going to have to be balanced and will likewise be resource prohibitive.
As far as the idea working in comics and table top RPGs but not MMOs... prove it.
now you are just arguing to argue with anyone who disagrees with you. grow up. Rodion already summed it up nicely a few posts up. so i am not going to restate what he already said.
OP, I have a small experiment for you to try. Roll up an /sr scrapper or brute heroside. Level them to 50. Spend the money to softcap them. Run around and do all sorts of epic stuff for awhile. Tank AVs. Laugh at 8-man spawns. Enjoy the feeling of being almost unkillable.
Then take a trip to the shadow shard. Find a good size group of rularuu that includes a few of the giant eyeballs. Go try to kill them and see how long you survive without using any inspirations. Then come back and tell me there's no kryptonite in this game. To be a little less tongue in cheek, nearly every character in this game already has something that they are weak to. |
Their attacks are weirdly typed meaning most sets won't have major resistances to it besides Stone, the Bosses hit incredibly hard meaning one or two can spike you or your pets down and they've got enough To-Hit to ignore defenses.
/impersonal rant
I will always be against system of disadvantages and associated advantage. That's the kind of micromanagement of character builds I do not want. |
Yes, micromanagement can be tedious and time consuming, but it also comes with the prospects of a unique, personalized character/experience.
Don't have to use it? Well, we "don't have to use" Inventions, and you tell me how well that's worked out for you. Every time you put a tangible, obtainable benefit in the game, you put people in the no-win situation of either pursuing it against their will, or ignoring it and feeling like they're gimping themselves, which is the complete opposite of what you're suggesting. |
There's so much wrong with the thought of not giving people more options because their perception will perceive it as mandatory.
Once min-maxing figures out exactly what's a good disadvantage to have and which advantage gives the most benefits, you essentially just move the bottom line. For instance, can I be weak to ice, please? Because I happen to know that almost nothing in the game does strong Ice damage. |
A disadvantage system. I would like one but only with some kind of advantage attached. What about exploiters? Limit the system. You want to be weak to ice damage because you think that's the mildest disadvantage? Implement more enemies with ice attacks! I can think of an additional enemy for nearly any villain group that can do ice damage beyond just handing them a cryo-round or ice grenade (although it'd be hard for some groups since the majority of the enemies are carbon-copy gun shooters). Yeah, you can attempt to avoid certain enemies. Great. That's an option, but that's all you if you want your hero or villain to go shaking in their boots and running for the hills at the mention of enemies. Only you will know your character's a coward

But you're not finding an exploit in the game, you're exposing the fact that there aren't enough ice enemies.
You could even implement a Nemesis system along side it. No, not a vanilla villain that pops up on your mission and wrings his hands maniacally. Perhaps the villain could have informed your enemy before hand of your weakness, maybe even going so far as to give the group weapons/items to fend you off!
But that said, a plain boring -stat weakness is weak and uninteresting. Such a system is so plain...so boring it might as well not be there. I wouldn't bother even if it would help usher in a revamp in the enemies so they don't have to rely on cheap cheat tactics like idiotically long duration stun grenades or sapping guns that'll leave you dry within seconds.
As unlikely as it'd be, however, I still think it'd be a good avenue to add to the game if it makes player characters, NPCs and battles more dynamic. The idea has merit if you're willing to actually consider the possibilities.

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We already HAVE our "kryptonite." Maybe not the ones the poster's talking about, but if I take a control set, I'm going to have problems against stuff that resists it (like Arachnos, Cimerorans with that shout and stuff.) Psi blaster? Robots. Other sets have holes to knockback or psi or get trashed with various debuffs.
The information's there when you take the set. Choose what you want.
Wanted: Origin centric story arcs.
If you've only played an AT once (one set combo) and "hate" it - don't give up. Roll a different combo. It may just be those sets not clicking for you.
If an optional Fault system were available, I'd use it.
I can imagine a system based on origin types, rather than actual damage types. If I want my magical Illusions to be ineffective against robots, I'd give my magic origin controller a -1 overall ToHit (or other trait) vs Technology, with the trade off being a +1/2 overall ToHit vs Natural. Something along these lines would make origins relevant, which would be a nice change of pace for me, and would allow me to customize my characters for RPG. My super-bad-*** scrapper better think twice before jumping into a den of Outcasts; he's Mutant-Intolerant!
For what it's worth I've never STARTED one of these threads suggesting a Kryptonite system for this game. All I've done is responded favorably to the idea in the several dozen of these threads I've seen over the years.
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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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Of course people like Samuel_Tow love to jump on that, even as a purely OPTIONAL QoL improvment. Go figure.
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All I'm saying is that while I wouldn't oppose you, you're very unlikely to convince anyone in power. Hell, if it came to that, I'd show my support to the idea because... Well, why not? But as you yourself have admitted, it's highly unlikely.
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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Firstly, why would anyone be against micromanagement if it provides options not once available? Oh, let's not bother micromanaging character costumes and limit us all to 1 instead of 5. Let's not micromanage multiple builds, hurling us back to only a single build rather than the *option* to have another.
Yes, micromanagement can be tedious and time consuming, but it also comes with the prospects of a unique, personalized character/experience. |
What I would consider micromanagement is if we were one day given the option to specify our percentage enhancement by typing in a number, instead of having to apply enhancements, with a set total for each power instead of six slots. For instance, you can have 500% ANYTHING in a power, so you could throw in 50% of everything and not have it diminished, or 250% of two things and have those diminished by ED to however much they drop to. THAT would be micromanagement. Sure I don't HAVE to do it and I can just keep using regular enhancements... But I don't feel like getting locked out of even more extra performance yet again.
Personal perception. It can be a curse. There's so much wrong with the thought of not giving people more options because their perception will perceive it as mandatory. |
I don't want any more Inventions in this game. The current mess of min/maxing is big enough to bother me that I'm ignoring it, but not quite big enough to make me feel like I'm missing the point of the game. I do not want more like that. At all. Ever.
But that said, a plain boring -stat weakness is weak and uninteresting. Such a system is so plain...so boring it might as well not be there. I wouldn't bother even if it would help usher in a revamp in the enemies so they don't have to rely on cheap cheat tactics like idiotically long duration stun grenades or sapping guns that'll leave you dry within seconds. As unlikely as it'd be, however, I still think it'd be a good avenue to add to the game if it makes player characters, NPCs and battles more dynamic. The idea has merit if you're willing to actually consider the possibilities. |
Beyond that, you assume I want NPCs and battles to be more dynamic. I don't, and specifically because I know that "more dynamic" just means "more cheap." Difficulty and complexity in this game comes from cheating enemies that hit through your defences and disable your powers. That's fake difficulty in the extreme. I'm not interested in more Void Hunters who shoot me through my resistance, chain-stun me and knock me down. That's not dynamic. That's just cheap.
The only way I can see an advantage/disadvantage system work is if it were written into the story, such as a tech-savvy character being able to hack a computer whereas a dumb brute would have to bring in a scientist, while the dumb brute can just knock down a stone wall whereas the tech-savvy character would have to take the long way around. THAT kind of system I would appreciate, but THAT kind of system is not doable in this game. Or indeed almost any game I've seen to date, Arcanum included.
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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The way I see it, there are three ways that this could be implemented.
1. Allow players to choose a weakness, and balance it out with a strength in another area. I'm against this idea, since it would lead to a lot of min-maxing. I've played quite a few tabletop RPGs over the years, and many have these sorts of flaws and associated buffs. They almost always end up making characters more powerful. Unless the penalties of the weakness are much, much higher than the bonuses of the strength, it's impossible to balance. And even then, sometimes it doesn't work out. So IMO this is a bad idea.
2. Allow players to choose one weakness instead of another. For example, a stone armor tank could choose to have a weakness to smashing damage instead of psionic damage. Or a fiery aura tank could choose to have a weakness to energy damage instead of cold. This offers slightly less potential for min/maxing, but it still has some. The biggest problem with this is that it seems like it would take a ton of time to create and balance. And honestly, I think that time could be better spent on other things.
3. Allow players the option to choose a weakness, with nothing else about their character changing. This would be the easiest to do, but it seems like something that not a lot of people would want to use. If it could be done quickly, without a lot of effort on the devs' part, then I don't have an issue with it.
OP, I have a small experiment for you to try. Roll up an /sr scrapper or brute heroside. Level them to 50. Spend the money to softcap them. Run around and do all sorts of epic stuff for awhile. Tank AVs. Laugh at 8-man spawns. Enjoy the feeling of being almost unkillable.
Then take a trip to the shadow shard. Find a good size group of rularuu that includes a few of the giant eyeballs. Go try to kill them and see how long you survive without using any inspirations. Then come back and tell me there's no kryptonite in this game. To be a little less tongue in cheek, nearly every character in this game already has something that they are weak to. My softcapped fire/sr scrapper as I mentioned gets shredded by anything that has large +tohit buffs, and attacks which do not have a positional component (I'm looking at you mind control). My stone/fire tank has some pretty serious problems with psi damage. My NRG/NRG blaster has trouble going up against enemies who have KB protection. My earth/fire dom has problems going up against enemies who have mez protection. |
I am principally against anything tedious and time consuming being an acceptable part of any game I care to participate in. I don't see what multiple builds and costume have to do with it, however. Each build is akin to a different character, as is a different costume. Each of those requires no more micromanagement to have. Not unless you try to design each for a specific task and try to always have the optimal build for the task, which... I don't actually think is feasible with how the timer is set up.
What I would consider micromanagement is if we were one day given the option to specify our percentage enhancement by typing in a number, instead of having to apply enhancements, with a set total for each power instead of six slots. For instance, you can have 500% ANYTHING in a power, so you could throw in 50% of everything and not have it diminished, or 250% of two things and have those diminished by ED to however much they drop to. THAT would be micromanagement. Sure I don't HAVE to do it and I can just keep using regular enhancements... But I don't feel like getting locked out of even more extra performance yet again. No, that's a simple case of smart design. Give people the tools to ruin their own fun and they will ruin their own fun. This has been proven time and time again. Furthermore, I am getting sick and tired of missing out on everything powerful in this game because it's hidden behind time sinks and micromanagement. Call me malicious, but I'd rather we didn't get any nicer things if the nice things we could be getting are continually unavailable to me, such that people can alternately scoff at me for not having them and mockingly tell me to "then just don't." I don't want any more Inventions in this game. The current mess of min/maxing is big enough to bother me that I'm ignoring it, but not quite big enough to make me feel like I'm missing the point of the game. I do not want more like that. At all. Ever. And that's what it comes down to. Advantage/disadvantage systems come down to just that - more boring stats. That's all they've ever amounted to. That's all they can ever amount to without essentially designing a brand new game. That's BORING. It introduces another set of numbers I have to remember, it introduces another set of variables I have to pay attention to and it makes the system even more complicated. And for what? So my orange numbers can be bigger and my red numbers smaller? That ain't worth it. At all. And that's, in a nutshell, what the entire Inventions system is. Beyond that, you assume I want NPCs and battles to be more dynamic. I don't, and specifically because I know that "more dynamic" just means "more cheap." Difficulty and complexity in this game comes from cheating enemies that hit through your defences and disable your powers. That's fake difficulty in the extreme. I'm not interested in more Void Hunters who shoot me through my resistance, chain-stun me and knock me down. That's not dynamic. That's just cheap. |
On one hand, you complain about tedious character generation systems, such as a tenuous stat slider that gives the illusion of complexity when, in fact, sliders like that are probably way simpler than the enhancement system we have. Do you realize you've probably memorized how much (or ballpark) schedule A, B, C and D values and the ED cap line for enhancements of those values? Or the values of DO, TO and SO enhancements? That isn't more complex than simply adjusting a slider for the values so you at least know where you stand rather than guess/memorization work?
Then on the other hand, you argue how cheap the enemies are and that they aren't real challenge but cheap challenge. Well, the NPCs have no choice right now. They *have* to be cheap otherwise we'd mop the floor with them every time. It's no more cheap than invincible bosses that only have 1 point of their body during a particular duration of time that's vulnurable in nearly every game on the market. Quick-time events? Cheap substitute to make you feel like skill was required. It's all the same.
You're basically self-limiting your perception of any possibilities that might expand a game's ability to simulate combat while at the same time reprimanding the games for its limits. Dynamic does not equal cheap unless you can't be arsed with being creative enough to think outside the box.
The only way I can see an advantage/disadvantage system work is if it were written into the story, such as a tech-savvy character being able to hack a computer whereas a dumb brute would have to bring in a scientist, while the dumb brute can just knock down a stone wall whereas the tech-savvy character would have to take the long way around. THAT kind of system I would appreciate, but THAT kind of system is not doable in this game. Or indeed almost any game I've seen to date, Arcanum included. |
Not that such a system is a bad idea. When it's brought up, I enjoy discussing it. You might want to post up another thread on it since we can't bump old posts on the subject. And I believe it *can* be possible to implement in this game...it'd just be a good deal of work. How it would be received by the players is another matter...
To conclude, while I'm arguing the possibility of an advantage/disadvantage system, I'm thinking from the perspective of something other than a vanilla +/- stat system. That's boring to me, and gameable. Wile I'm arguing the point, I'm thinking about something more robust, like the suggested 'Tags System' I suggested in another thread. Usually I go on a long post explaining an idea but I'll spare you. In a good advantage/disadvantage system, you can *try* to 'game' it to get the best buff, but there will always be that group (or groups) that will return the favor and there wouldn't be a way around it except perhaps running away.

Yeah pretty much every time someone suggests adding a "Kryptonite" concept to this game the pure MMO players come out of the woodwork claiming the idea that anyone would ever want to willing gimp themselves is borderline insane. Most people who play MMOs are always trying to do anything they can to min/max their characters into god-like Tankmages. The fact that a cornerstone of the comic book genre rests on the concepts of "vulnerabilities" seem to be totally lost on them.
![]() I would never advocate a system of Disadvantages for this game ever be FORCED onto people. This kind of thing should always be 100% OPTIONAL. This is why the void/quant Kheldian thing is generally hated by most people. The Devs tried to introduce a Kryptonite-like weakness on them but they effectively forced everyone to have to deal with it instead of making something like that be optional. Also plenty of people have mentioned in this thread the idea that many AT/Powerset combos already have built-in vulnerabilities (i.e. stone/fire tanks have serious problems versus psi damage). That's all fine and well. But when people like Next_Player suggest Disadvantage systems they are usually asking for optional choices to allow them to CHOOSE which things they are going to be vulnerable to, not just let the game decide that for them. I've never really understood why people typically overreact to this suggestion. It's a suggestion for an OPTIONAL QoL improvement, not something that's going to be forced on you if you don't want to challenge yourself. This suggestion goes beyond just a new tool for RP expression - many people (including yours truly) consider this game to generally be very easy to play. Much like the introduction of the Mission Difficulty settings I wouldn't mind challenging myself even further with new optional ways to make things harder. Once again if you're the type of person who'd want to keep playing on "easy mode" with no Disadvantages you'd certainly be able to keep doing that. YMMV. |
MARTy is proof positive the DEVs hate us...
Global: @Reiyichi
Protector (home)
I mean, what would you rather have? New mission arc, or a weakness? New Praetorian Epic AT, or a weakness? The Incarnate system, or a weakness?
Ultimately we are going to get the things the DEVS want to give us regardless if we like it or not. *shrugs*
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀