Making Origins count

First, there is no decision you can make on what to give to an Origin that isn't going to upset people. Maybe someone really needs that last bit of psi resist for min/maxing and now feels "forced" to be Natural or is appalled that suddenly having an increased resist to toxic invalidates their Mutant character's RP storyline. There is no way to avoid angering people with this, the best you could hope for would be to minimize the number.

But more important is the thing you touched on in the first sentence. Some bonuses are potentially too powerful. So we ditch them or greatly reduce them. That'll make everyone happy, right? Well, now these things are so weak and useless that there is no point to adding them in the first place. The time and resources spent making the change are just wasted. There simply isn't going to be a middle ground this late in the game.

Let me make this perfectly clear;

HELL NO!

K? Costume pieces should never, ever ever be origin locked. Ever. Worst. Idea. Ever.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Except they already are in some cases.


See: Epic Archetypes.


That being said, that was my least favorite idea suggested so far, yet. :-)

Epic Archetypes would be Archetypes, not Origins. See how the two words are different? Just because a specific AT is required to have a specific Origin, does not mean that they are even remotely the same thing. That's like using the existence of inherent powers to justify adding Origin powers.



p.s. Please don't try and argue for Origin powers based on inherent powers.

Because you'd still get a benefit either way?

I suppose that's a fair point. My thinking was that since Epic Archetypes are locked in to one specific origin, and they have costumes/auras that are only useable by those archetypes, those costume pieces were also origin locked, so it's not "unheard of." But in reality, you bring up a good point that the costume pieces really are "archetype" locked, with the origin being a secondary effect.



You know, the DID make me think of an interesting idea that I may go back and add to the edited orignal post:


What if these rewards, whether enhancements, costume pieces/auras/weapons, or temp powers, -WERE- origin specific in how you received them, but were also sellable on the markets?

That way ANY archetype would have access to the pieces/rewards, but through the market, while origins would still matter in that your origin would allow you access to "gain" these items. This could be an interesting way to kill 2 birds with one stone. Perhaps your magic character doesn't really need a True Origin level 5 Damage enhancement his mutant arc gave, but COULD benefit from a True Origin level 5 Recharge Rate enhancement your Tech arc gave. He sells his Damage enhancement on the market and purchases your Recharge Rate one, while you sold your Recharge rate one and purchased MY Science Accuracy rate one.

As a matter of fact, if you did this, perhaps instead of the culmination of completing all four main arcs unlocking a TF or a special proc enhancement, it unlocks a "repeatable missions" aspect to the contact. Completing the repeatable missions would give you some sort of merrit/credit sort of like "training" in your origin powers and thus purchase these items for sale/use, and then you could either use them yourself use the funds to purchase the ones you want from the market. This could actually be worked all the way through, giving the purchase merits to only characters of the correct origin who are active in that mission. While you could do these missions as teams, the merrits are give only to the correct origin players, since they also are the only ones affected by the debuff in said mission. The limit to slotting one of a given type, and four total, would have to still be in place, but it could allow variety, uniqueness of origin, and fairness/access to all to come in to play in unison.

I could even see teams forming up of multiple origins to run back to back origin arcs of all origins to "swap" to the type of enhancement they desire at that level.

I'll have to think that through more, but that might be the perfect way to go.

Back when the invention system was introduced, costume pieces were *rare.* Very. Wings, for instance, ran $14-25 million. And this was before we had purples, PVP IOs, etc, things going for *really* insane amounts of INF, so that was a rather high priced item.

I'd rather not see that happen to costume pieces again, even if they were just a few.

Similarly, I'm not particularly fond of the idea of enhancements tied to origin, even if they're swappable. If one's particularly better than the other, (a) it will be insane on the market, and (b) it will be farmed (likely through Ouro.)

The only thing I wouldn't mind seeing - and it's something that would need to find a way to be worked in Red and Gold-side, as Blueside already has "departments of (origin)" - would be the occasional Origin-related arc. For instance, it would make sense the COT might be interested in Magic-based characters, regardless of if the character's "magic" is an item, something native to them, training, etc. But "origin specific rewards/difficulty/XP," I just can't get behind.

See my Guides and Tutorials

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.

Erm, can't everyone speak to the Clockwork in the tutorial? I'm pretty sure they can.

Not in their language. Tech characters get extra dialogue options. They don't amount to anything, but then that's kind of the point.

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.

Is the concept I'm trying to explain really that hard to understand? We're talking about a matter of CHOICE here.

Sure if the Devs decided to apply bonuses based on Origins then my current characters would get whatever bonuses were related to their Origins by default, whether they were of any use to them or not. But unless the Devs also provided a means to allow our current characters a way to respec their Origins so that we can have the CHOICE about which Origin bonuses we'd want it would be grossly unfair to any existing character. Without that our old characters would be (through no fault of their own) out of luck if they were stuck with Origins that were for whatever reason no longer appropriate.

I think you're missing the point on how much things would change if Origins suddenly had a significant game impact like this. That's precisely why the Devs wisely DID NOT attach in-game bonuses to them. Without Origin bonuses we don't have the added headaches you seem to have no problem wanting to introduce into this game.

I'm aware you believe that the bonuses you're talking about are small enough that people would still choose Origins based on RP reasons despite these bonuses. But if that's the case then why should the Devs add bonuses like this at all? What value added would we get from it if you're basically saying they wouldn't impact on our character decisions? You can't have it both ways here. You seem to be unaware that far more people play games like this with the mindset of doing anything they can to min/max their characters' stats. Origins which grant unique bonuses are going to be picked based on which bonus works the best for their characters, not which bonuses "fit" their characters' RP concept.

As I said before if the game ALWAYS had Origin bonuses like this then it would be a fact of the game we would've all accepted as "normal" by now. But introducing something like this seven years after launch would actually be far more problematic than it would ever be fun or useful.

Origins are a non game affecting way to detail our character for RP purposes, period. Just like costume items provide no in-game bonuses neither should Origins. These things are "bonus-less" so that we are free to choose any of them we want without having to worry about (or being locked into) picking the best combinations to min/max our stats.

I see what your saying. I'm saying it's still just something to live with.

I just don't see it as being any different than adding new powersets.

I wanted a Fire/Fire Scrapper! It wasn't an option. So I made a Fire/Fire Tanker. Now later, Fire/Fire Scrapper is an option. Did my Fire/Fire Tanker magically become a Scrapper? Nope.

Adding a bonus to origin would be just like that.

In your opinion. In my, and obviously many other people's, opinion Origins should have a larger impact on the game play experience.

Frankly, I'm very disappointed in the devs decision to further minimize the impact of Origins by making them all stem from Magic anyway. I thought this was a cheap cop out to try and bring CoH one step closer to all the fantasy MMOs on the market in the vain hopes of attracting some of their market share.

It failed.

This is a terrible analogy. You made a fire/fire tanker. Regardless of any additions to the game, your tanker is still fire/fire, with all the abilities, bonuses, and powers that comes with both your Archetype and your Powersets. At no point were any of your choices in creating this tanker invalidated with the addition of fire/fire scrappers. At no point in the creation of your tanker did you not know what you were going to get. Even if it wasn't what you wanted, you were not creating your tanker blindly.

By adding Origin bonuses you would be making blind changes to every existing character. All those characters that were created over the last seven years would have been made without knowing what they were getting into.

Likewise I can see some of what your saying on this. As I said before I probably would not stop playing my current characters if they suddenly got a new Origin bonus whether it was useful to them or not.

Your analogy with the Devs adding new powersets is almost applicable to this situation. But it still doesn't quite apply and I'll demonstrate that with an example: Let's say I made a Fire/Fire Tanker 5 years ago with the Magic Origin. Nothing wrong with that. Now after your Origin bonus change I could make a new Fire/Fire Tanker with the (suggested) Natural +2% DEF bonus. In both cases I could equip both Tanks with identical builds/IOs but ultimately the newer Tank would have a +2% DEF bonus the old Tank, again through no fault of its own, might never have access to. The only difference between these two otherwise identical Tanks would be their real world creation dates, and that should NOT play a factor into what makes one a potentially better Tank than the other one.

I'm actually not absolutely opposed to the idea of Origin bonuses being added to the game AS LONG AS Origin respecs were also included as a new feature. But if we ever got Origin bonuses WITHOUT Origin respecs then I think there'd be a serious problem with this especially amongst the many people who like to min/max their builds.

Well at least you realize this is only your opinion. *shrugs*

By that extension...why would I change the Fire/Fire Tanker's origin? Concept called for an origin, I picked the origin that went with the concept!

This is about min/maxing! So it's just a min/maxing problem!

By that account (building off of Lothic's reply)...one could respec out all of the original Fire/Fire Tankers IOs, and put them into a new Fire/Fire Tanker with new origin for the min/maxing needs (same as having to rerolling that Fire/Fire to a Scrapper, since Scrappers do more damage)!

And one could look at it with that 2% Defense tacked on to the new Fire/Fire Tanker, but then the original Fire/Fire Tanker would of either been more durable (+resist), have faster heal/return the big attacks or whatever faster (+RCH), been more Accurate (+to hit), had even LESS end problems (End Reduction) and if they didn't have End Problems before, they have even LESS end problems now.

See. Every origin would give something different.

I think the problem people have with the idea of bonuses, is that one origin might get +1-2% Defense (if the suggestion was even thought to be a good idea by the devs) due to Defense stacking.

And that's the only real problem with it. Because people keep defense stacking their toons, they want the one origin that allows them to stack a little more, and if they didn't have the right origin, they'd be all upset.

At least that's how it's sounding, since no one is mentioning any of the other origin bonuses mentioned.

I just used the DEF Origin bonus in my example just because most people could relate to it. It's not because it's the only Origin bonus that has a "problem" associated with it.

Again I think this whole thing boils down to a matter of choice. The thing about hardwiring specific unique bonuses to specific Origins is that it ultimately limits our choices, not expands them. For another example let's say I picked the Magic Origin for my Fire/Fire Tank 5 years ago because in my concept the magic spells cast on him provided the basis for his awesome defensive capability. But given the suggestion above if I wanted to go with Magic I'd have to reconcile why the "Magic" was giving him the out-of-concept +4% DAM instead of a +2% DEF that Natural would provide. I don't want my Tank to be Natural origin - I want him to be Magic. But nothing in my original character concept implied that the Magic would let him do extra damage.

Keeping Origins "bonus-less" allows people to fit any concept onto any character for any reason without the extra baggage of getting semi-random bonuses that may or may not apply to a given character. It may not be the perfect solution to keep Origins as "game neutral" as possible, but it certain solves more problems along these lines than it creates.

That wasn't what I meant. Let me try again.

You wanted A. (Fire/Fire Scrapper)
A did not exist at the time.
You decided to go with B, as close as you could get to A. (Fire/Fire Tank)
You know during creation and while leveling B that B =/= A.
A is later added (via Proliferation)
B, however, is still B.
Nothing you did while creating B is invalidated or changed. B = B which you knew from the start.

Alternately:

Character C is created with origin X.
Seven years later, X is suddenly given an effect in game, one which you had no way of knowing about when the character was created.
You realize that instead of X, Character C would be better off with Origin Y or Z.
There was no possible way for you to anticipate this change and now suddenly Character C is not as good as his otherwise identical friend D because of what was thought to be a fluff choice.

Forget Defense then. That used just because it's the easiest to pick on. If none of them gave defense we'd just comment on some other bonus. There is zero chance that you can add a bonus that isn't going to upset someone. None. No matter what the bonuses are you're going to invalidate an RP concept or ruin the day of someone trying to get the most performance out of their character.

The only way to avoid that is to make the bonuses so trivial that nobody cares that they're only getting one of them. And if they're that trivial then what's the point of doing it?

Incidently I mean that question for the whole idea of Origins having meaning, not just for bonuses due to Origin. No matter what you decide, be they costumes or emotes or temps or whatever, you're going to have to make them so minor and trivial that it becomes a waste of resources to tie them to Origin. There are seven years worth of characters created who took Origin for RP reasons, because they liked shopping at a certain enhancement store, or just by the person randomly clicking one. You'd be penalizing every single one of those characters. And for what?

Then let them get upset, and they'll get over it

And to Lothic (nothing says your magic is more damaging, but then you don't have to say you're magic is more damaging...one could jsut say magic damage does a little more damage to things than natural does).

When I went off my suggestions (which may or may not be the best), I was looking for a way to keep things equal...

Now while I don't recall what all Origins I gave...

Natural (1% Defense) - You don't have super abilities, you have abilities that are totally natural to you! Get the hell out of the way of things!
Mutant (2% Resistance) - Mutants just tend to be tougher (really when I suggest the 2% Resistance, I thought of the Marvel Super Hero RPG)
Science (3% Recharge) - Science based tends to be just a little quicker (this was the weakest one imo).
Magic (4% Damage) - Magic just hurts a bit more than than comparable natural/science/tech based weapondry
Tech (5% End Red) - You use less of your end relying on the machines.


None of those bonuses are gamebreaking or character breaking. If I was to base it off my main, I'd have the 5% End Red, while I don't need it (I already can run all toggles and attack non-stop and not gain more end than I use) it'd be just a bit more buffer against end drainers who connect once to often.

One could just as easily go with...

Natural - Mag 4 KB Protection
Mutant - Mag 4 Hold Protection
Science - Mag 4 Immobile Protection
Magic - Mag 4 Stun Protection
Tech - Mag 4 Sleep Protection

Or even lower mag where it wouldn't even matter!

I'm not claiming that your suggestions for Origin bonuses are "gamebreaking or character breaking" in and of themselves. I'm just making the point that -any- hardwired unique bonuses related to a system of choices where you can only choose one of those several choices is going to be fundamentally problematic in a game like this. Especially when you introduce such a new set of choices to a system that's never had to cope with those kinds of choices before.

I understand you've attempted to come up with options for Origin bonuses that would "keep things equal". All I'm saying is the scheme that's the "most" equal is actually the one that we have right now where there's absolutely nothing different about Origins from a game mechanics point of view. Sometimes less really is more.

Bottomline your idea is not strictly a bad one. It's just seven years too late to be worth the effort dealing with the problems it'll cause. The phrase "more trouble than it's worth" fits perfectly here.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.