Making Origins count

As a costume-and-concept junkie, might I give a resounding NO. Say one of the Mutant-only costume parts is the Tentacle Arm. What if I have a Magic-origin character with a Lovecraftian theme? That's just not fair!

However, I do like the idea of giving a little bonus XP or other rewards based on completing arcs and running missions for contacts of the appropriate origin. Contacts are already listed as having origins associated with them, and apart from unlocking stores in which they sell overpriced DOs and SOs that nobody in their right mind would buy when they can just go to a regular store, that means nothing. Increased rewards based on origin is a fantastic idea and a great way to make these contacts' origin-associations relevant. It'd all be the same rewards regardless of what origin you play - you just do different things to get them, which is both equal and sensible. No combat buffs, no special weaknesses, no locking anyone out of anything, just a little incentive to have a robot, a wizard, and a ninja to have differing adventures.

If the thought that it might potentially penalize every single character created to date doesn't bother you I suppose nothing will.

can the blue wisp be buffed via defense bubbles and the like?

I do it all the time on my ice dom corruptor, giving me an almost constant +def/+ end boost.



Personally, I find it laughably -bad that origins mean absolutely zilch in this game.

I mean, really, really bad.


As for being "forced" in to one origin or the other, were people "forced" in to one Patron pool or the other? Not really. Some people chose one for RP/Conceptual reason, another chose one for its benefits. And the world survived.


By the way, where in the hell is everyone getting the idea that your OLDER toons WOULDN'T be able to run the arcs and get whatever rewards were offered? Your 5 year old fire/fire tanker would be able to run his magic arcs and unlock any SOs/Temps/Costume pieces that my brand new Fire/Fire tanker could. I'm not sure why you'd think otherwise.

THIS is my, and many others, exact problem with the status quo.


As far as the game goes currently, the origin of your powers and character matter JUST about as much as the color or your costume.


Hell, less even, since no one holds "origin contests" in Atlas Park. ;-)



For a lot of us, even min-maxers like myself, that kind ruins a part of the game. And we're complaining and asking for more, just like the min-maxers are saying they might complain if they suddenly had to work harder, or buy something from another player of a different origin, to get that very small extra edge in their min/maxing.

Here's the issue -

For seven years, people have picked origin *specifically* because of flavor. It hasn't mattered one way or the other. Adding any sort of benefit *now* is just bad. You're telling them a choice they made (or ignored, just clicking something and moving on) now has a consequence, years after they did it, and it's not something that can be adjusted.

If the devs were looking for suggestions for COH 2, I'd say "Hey, go ahead," as players could make an informed decision from day one. But right now you're saying "If you own a Chevy, you can use only even-numbered interstates. Fords, odd-numbered. Chrysler, only the bypasses. Foreign cars aren't allowed on at all."

Adding arcs that address it? I don't see an issue - it doesn't affect a character's powers or abilities. Past that, though, yes, I do have an issue with it.

I'll also point out that "Origins meaning something" was originally part of the game (determining how many powers you could take and how far you could progress in them,) and it was yanked before beta.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Status quo - what do you mean by that?

Something new like WTS? Or incarnates? Merged markets? GR? New powersets like DP or DS? Changes to Doms/Blasters/Stalkers/Khelds? Changes the colors of powers or proliferation of powers? IOs? New zones like Cim or RCS to RWZ? Addition of CoV? EATs? ED/GDN? etc.

Maybe you missed all that has gone in this game, hardly the status quo after 19 issues in close to 7 years - just under 3 per year if I20 comes out by April.

Maybe you aren't getting it that some people will get quite ticked off that origin means something significant after all this time. Why would the devs want that? I still remember the GDN/ED posts from years ago and the rage. Look at the posts on WTS and people complaining on that. People will complain, I have zero doubt. Unlike what some other uncaring poster is thinking, I am extremely doubtful people will just deal with it.

Make an arc or special contact for some story or such. Sure, sounds great for a new story to read.

Make origins count, completely /unsigned.

This is so far removed from the actual objection being made by people in this thread that I wonder if you've read anything at all before posting.

If you can show me where I suggested anything even REMOTELY similar to your interstate idea, you may have a point.

The problem is, what has been suggested has been, at BEST, a "Would be cool if they added some new roads for specific types of cars, and if a Ford travelled the Ford road it can have free dice air fresheners, the Chevy road travellers can have those dangly feet fresheners, etc."



I don't think you know what "Status Quo" means in context. Since we're talking specifically about "origins" it's pretty clear we're talking about the "status quo" in respec to how origins function in the game. No one has ever suggested in this, or any thread that I know of, that nothing in the game every changes. This very thread is suggesting a change, which, if nothing changes, would be pointless. This thread has ALSO referenced ways that origin effect has already changed (inherent powers, etc.)


Actually, that is EXACTLY the objection -some- posters in this thread have been talking about. Read back about the discussion of two fire/fire tankers.

Excuse me?

There are valid objections being brought up. If you don't like that, too damn bad. That does NOT give you the right to just dismiss them, or the people bringing them up, as "whiners." If that's the only way you can argue, just stop.

And that would be sooooo easy, right? You've seen the code for the game?

We've been told there are four things that *cannot* be respeced out of. AT, Primary, Secondary.... and Origin.

It's highly likely that it's baked into the basis of a character *so* deeply that changing origin would break things badly.

Are YOU ready to piss off every player, possibly break millions of characters, just so you can "respec" your origin? (Dont' think it happens? Look what happens far too often when they just add *costume parts.* Look at what happened when they made Fitness inherent in beta - Kheldians and Dominators were broken.)

Go follow the link in my signature to the early COH trailer guide. Follow the dev diaries. The argument was not "players are stupid."

See my Guides and Tutorials

Then you shouldn't be mentioning "many others", especially when the other poster mentioned costumes and not origins. You obviously have other issues.

*sigh* Let's read for comprehension together! Gather 'round class, it's story time! This might take a while, been a lot of comments, many of them repeated over and over again.

It has nothing to do with some characters getting something that others don't. My Brute doesn't have any holds while my Dominator can't buff anyone, and my Corruptor has no mez protection.

Each one of those has something that the other doesn't. But, and here's the part you have missed in every single one of those posts, I made my decision on what to play while fully informed of the result of my choices.

o.O

No single character created to date would be penalized. Not a single one.

Do you know what penalize means?

Every single character created to date would recieve a buff.

The problem is more that it might not be the min/max buff that you would have picked.

And having a little buff to those you already created wouldn't change anything. And adding a new "well let me see how I plan to min/max my newest alt" would mean just that.

By your very own logic. They never should of changed Energy Melee. Maybe I made my EM toon for the whole purpose of loving the animation of Energy Transfere.

Now it's changed!

Penalized: To impose a handicap on; place at a disadvantage.

I used the word correctly. For the umpteenth time you're forcing people to choose between concept and game play. That is a bad thing. It's very much a penalty to character creation.

You're correct in that it's not going to suddenly make any character worse than they already are. It's going to give bigger rewards to characters who picked the "correct" Origin. Yes, nobody is getting directly hurt, but what you're doing is buffing only part of the player base (at random!) and then telling those others to suck it up and just be glad you didn't nerf them.

Once again, you have a bad analogy. First, the cottage rule. Energy Transfer still does exactly what it did before they reworked it. Making Origin selection count is shattering the cottage rule and taking a whiz on its grave. You're taking something that has never had any importance and suddenly making its selection something to be considered.

Second, Energy Tansfer was reworked as part of a move to bring it into balance with the rest of the game. If you want to discuss whether or not it was successful or whether the Devs' vision of game balance is even a good one that's fine.

But what you're asking for is not a rebalancing of a specific power, a certain powerset, or even a reworking of an Archetype. It's a change to every character ever created. It throws balance out the window in order to hand out random buffs. You have to worry about whether certain ATs benefit more. Than you're going to have to see if certain powersets benefit more. After that you can check different primary/seconday combinations. You are asking for a rebalancing of every part of the game. Unlike a change to Energy Transfer there will be no character unaffected by this.

This just isn't an alteration that can be made so long after launch.

Oldeb, First, you DO know that people can discuss issues, even ones where there's disagreement, without the need to childishly begin being insulting, right? Especially about something as unimportant as an online video game? How about just speaking civilly toward each other, listening to what we all have to say, and posting supportive views or flaws in their reasoning.

You know, like the forums are intended for?


What you did was called "Quote mining" and pretty much every freshman level rhetoric student knows it's garbage.

Here, I can do it to...







And even you stated:




But the truth is, NONE of those users said that it being unfair because some people would get things others wouldn't was the ONLY reason they didn't like it, but no one said that they did. A feeling of "unfairness" and "If every toon I have can't have it then it's not really fair" is there as well, and stated flatly at some points, whether "it" was a costume piece (if my magic guy wants a squid arm and its a mutant piece thats not fair) or simply that new toons was have a slight advantage taking origin effects in to account.

The game has, at many times, changed some specific things about archetypes, including their inherent powers. Defiance works totally differently now, and Fury has been changed. Likewise even specific powers and sets have been changed, lik Enermy Melee or Electric Armor and how Energize was altered. Maybe I'd have made my brute a scrapper if I knew they were gonna scrap Fury as they did. Does that some break my toon? Not really.

Hell, IOs were introduced into the game, and if ANYTHING has made the game more "divided" and forced people in to certain builds its the IO system and the way it adds buffs, etc. Do you really think as many doms would exist if it weren't for the ability to increase global recharge? When I chose an energy/Ice blaster, I had no IDEA how much better I could be as a Rad/Ice blaster because of how IOs would come in to play, because there WERE no IOs. But Im ok with that, because as you pointed out, my Energy/Fire blaster is STILL better than he was before IOs were introduced. What has been suggested here is FAR less effective to a player than any of the above, and keep in mind the suggestion of an inherent buff has been dropped from my suggestion because I have become convinced that the enhancement system suggested is actually the most fittin, fun, rewarding, and fair way to go. Even if it hadn't been, dropped though, under your -own- statement, any character you made would still be exactly as you made him, and would still function just as you planned, only now with perhaps some -added- buff somewhere. The only thing that you bring up that would upset you is that some other character playing the same type of toon was able to take origin in to account like we now take IOs in to account, and may have a slightly DIFFERENT buff, and thus he's playing slightly "better" in some way than you are with your buff, even though you're BOTH playing just as well as you always have, if not better.

Regardless, as I said, that suggestion has been dropped.

It doesn't do what it did before. Before it did damage in a second. Now it takes almost 3 seconds. That was a change.

It doesn't throw out balance, why? Because the bonuses are so small, it's practically irrelevant.

Let's assume SO build. You REALLY think any of those (suggested) bonuses are going to make these great big advantages over the others?

And correct Origin? What's the correct origin? The fact that if you go Dark Armor, you could go with any of those and be...Oooo...either a little more this or a little more that, but not enough to make a difference EXCEPT in the last bit of IO set bonus stacking?

And what is forcing ANYONE to choose between gameplay and concept? I choose concept over min/maxing ALL THE TIME. This is why my scrapper has Mu Bolts and Electric Shackles over Physical Perfection (it's certainly not because I get any use out of Mu Bolts/Electric Shackles).

No, what it does is do the same thing as has always been going on, Min/Maxers will be Min/Maxers.

With the exception of costume pieces the objection to your suggestion is still not that character 1 has something different than character 2 who is better than character 3.
It's that for seven years now people have not known that they would be divided along those lines by the choices they made.
That is what is unfair for existing characters.

For newly created characters that isn't a problem. You'll know now which Origin provides the best benefits, be they bonuses, temp powers, costumes, or whatever.
But now character concepts are forced to go along with what is "best" or be lacking. Something that has never applied to this game before.
That is what is unfair to new characters. Especially for a game that provides such a broad base for character concepts.

Every single one of those changes falls within the cottage rule. Suddenly making Origin choice have in-game effects does not. It fundamentally alters character creation. Every single one of those changes has been made for game balance reasons, not because they decided it would give the game, "more meaning."

IOs are not a good comparison for what you want to do. They're optional. We've been told that the game is not balanced around IOs. (We could debate the truth of that, but until they state otherwise IOs are simply not required at all.) There is no way to not have an Origin, so there is no opting out of this. It's a mandatory change across the entire game.

You do know that when it became apparent that perma-dom was becoming the end all be all for Dominators they went back and rebalanced them? So that perma-dom wasn't as beneficial and their base damage was upped to make them more competative against other ATs as a whole? This was a case of IOs becoming a requirement for a particular AT and the Devs took direct steps to stop it.

Than what is the point of a large scale, game sweeping change? Either it's trivial or it's not.

Costumes are not trivial in this game, look at what's in the Booster Packs, look at how much time people spend on them, look at how much pride people take in a good costume. Locking options by Origin is a non-trivial change.

Temp powers may or may not be trivial, depending on what they do. If they're are like the Vanguard Heavy, that's going to be a big deal. If they aren't, then why waste time adding them? So that was can have something else to sell to the vendors?

If the difference is power selection or IOs, I can fix that without making sweeping changes to my character. I can respec into new powers or select new IOs. My character concept though, isn't changed in the slightest. It's still however I first pictured it and I am just as good as the person who doesn't care about concept and goes straight min/max.

In this game character concept in no way restricts my ability to min/max, design my costume however I want, or access any part of the game.

By suddenly giving a part of character creation meaning that it never had before you destroy that. I'm very aware that CoH lets me have my cake and eat it too. I'm aware that's a rare thing in MMOs. What I don't understand is why you feel that should be changed simply to provide "more meaning" to something that gives more meaning by lacking any game effect than it ever could with it.

It does exactly what it did before, it just takes two seconds longer to do it. That's a game balance adjustment. It isn't a large scale change to every character.

Then what is the point? If they are so insignificant that people won't care, why waste development time and resources on them at all?

The correct one would be whichever I think gives that particular character the best bonus/costume/temp power ect. Currently I don't have to make that decision. Why should I have to?

Anything that gives me gameplay benefits at the cost of backstory for my character forces that choice. You may not personally think it's an important choice, but it's still there.

I feel no obligation to make that choice at all. The current system doesn't require it of me.

Sure it does! Look at posted builds.

Do I take that concept self-rez that is the suckie or do I take Combat Jumping to get me 2% more Defense to stack with all the other little Defense bonuses?

Do I take Super Speed and Super Jump for PvP or do I take the concept Teleport that is terrible for PvP.

The game has you make choices all the time.

The one that was suggested, makes no big difference, while still giving Origins a bit of distinction.

So, essentially, your argument boils down to "You go to hell, I want what I want." So how about no?

Making origins count is as pointless as making costume items count. One could make the argument that armour pieces should grant some measure of resistance because they're armour while Tights With Skin should add some measure of defence because they're lighter, and it would be logical. It would also be just as terrible.

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.

No. I thought my arguement was "I agree with the OP" (I believe it's been edited now), and don't see the problem other than people whining about not getting the, what essentially boils down, free set bonus they want, as they'd base the creation of their character not on concept, but on min/maxing.

This just goes to show that no matter how clearly established things seem to be there are always other people who can see some kind of merit in hopeless causes.

The irony in this case is that someone can look at one of the singular strengths of this game - the fundamental concept that things like costumes and origins are NOT linked to in-game stats thus freeing us to assign these details to our characters in any way we wish without fear of affecting how our characters work in-game - and consider that strength a "problem" that needs to be fixed.

The fact that things like costumes and origins are not tied to characters stats in this game is one of the major factors that sets this game apart from almost every other MMO past or present. The idea that you'd want to give up that uniqueness and shackle Origins to some hardwired, cookie-cutter scheme based on arbitrary and highly debatable bonuses is very, very sad. If you can't see that what you're really arguing for is to have the Devs take away our freedom of character design choice in order to gain a few randomly assigned buffs then there's not much hope of us ever agreeing on this issue.

Thankfully we don't have to agree because the Devs will continue to uphold the wisdom of their decisions in this matter regardless of what you or I think about it.

Here's one of several problems with this you keep dodging: What if the idea of the particular random bonus I'd get from an Origin goes AGAINST the character concept I have in mind? As I said before what if I really want to use the Magic Origin but the bonus it provides is one that makes absolutely no sense for MY character to have? That has nothing to do with min/maxing and more to do with something along the lines of giving a Magical Empathy Defender a +4% DAM bonus because everyone knows magical healing powers lend themselves to being able to do more damage.

There is simply no way to escape the "inconvenient truth" that linking arbitrary bonuses to Origins would set up a dynamic where some people will agree that the Origin bonus in question makes sense and others won't. Instead of trying to divine what everyone agrees are the most appropriate bonuses for the Origins the Devs made the smart decision to avoid that "nerdrage" altogether by NOT assigning in-game consequences to ANY Origin.

I continue to be amazed that you keep arguing for changes that would inject far more angst, prejudice and discontent into the game than any perceived benefit it could provide. As I said before "less" really is "more" in this case. Complicating Origins with Origin-based bonuses is the wrong way to go with this. You keep asking why Origins aren't more significant in this game - the rest of us keep asking why they should be. It's on you to show why the current system which has existed for almost seven years needs to be changed and I'm simply not sure you've done that yet. *shrugs*