Making Origins count

If we're targeting specific comic book examples, you're going to have to do a lot of reaching to try to topple anything.

Wolverine: Yeah, he's a mutant but he has no specific strength outside of being able to cut anything. In CoX, Wolvie is just a mutant with his origin 'turned off' since it has no significant effect on him one way or the other.

Your explanation on Cyclops and Nightcrawler has nothing to do with origin as either will still be affected by being thrown into a wall or having a car flung at them with telekinesis. You'd have to come up with some better examples than that.

Would most likely fit under 'Low Forms of Technology' as it's steampunk. Such low-tech has a particular resistance to CoT spell casting because their function is so basic, it's extraordinarily difficult to disrupt that way. However, higher forms of tech from Rikti might be able to defend against them since they can target the general mechanics.

Ya, it's certainly complicated but only because origins aren't straight forward. Is it pointless? That's your opinion, really.

And you haven't made any decent point yet regarding the applicability of anything fitting any AT or any powerset.

Wolverine is no more 'vulnerable' to telekinesis than Cyclops. How is Cyclops going to blast anyone if the telekinetic simply holds his ruby sunglasses on his head?

Rikti *aren't* vulnerable to direct magic assault (at least that's isn't what I said). They would be weak to direct 'Deity' magic or 'Natural Faith'. That is, if you pray to your god(s) or channel the spirit of an immortal to throw a lightning bolt, by the logic of in-game lore, it should have a higher effect because they have nothing to protect them from the indignation of the powers from above.

But it makes sense that Rikti should be vulnerable to holds or debuffs that are magic in nature *if they hit*. They shouldn't have knowledge on hand to understand how to break a curse/hex or dispel an incantation or use the proper tongue to dismiss the effects of an empowered rune. That isn't to say any of such powers would automatically have a higher chance to connect or do more damage though.

How is Steampunk directly comparable to Rikti tech? Nemesis maybe. And Rikti should be able to defend more easily against lower forms of tech. I feel they should have an adverse effect on higher forms of tech too.

Well I'm just posting the idea and giving my interpretation of it because if I just said 'do x in this situation', you'd bring up random examples that could be dealt with. If I didn't give my 'vision' of origin in the context of the idea, the idea would have no context at all.

But it's not about me sharing your vision of origin, or everyone sharing the same vision of origin but the *devs* applying their vision for the NPCs. If the devs wanted to make Rikti highly advanced tech users that integrate other forms of tech easily, *that* is what the idea simulates.

You see, you seem to be arguing against me because you're riled up. You're defensive and discredit me just because I'm continuing to discuss rather than accept your conclusion. To me, the idea is complicated, yes, but it adds an extra layer of customization that can provide a tangible difference between one character to another and yet, I don't want the idea to be as easily abuseable or outwardly necessary as the inventions system is in today's game.

I don't have to. I'm the one who is stating that mutants SHOULD NOT be more vulnerable to a given kind of a attack *just* because they're mutants. You claim they should be. So, prove to me how Wolverine could be disabled more effectively by lifting him off the ground with magic instead of a force beam or telekinesis. My point was that Wolverine would be completely neutralized if he's stuck in midair, where Cyclops might only be inconvenienced and Nightcrawler would simply escape. It's the effect (lifting him off the ground so that he can't fight) that disables him, not the power source. He's vulnerable to it because of his specific fighting style, not because he's a mutant.

You are claiming that adding an extra word to the description of a power should somehow make it stronger against a given target. You want to claim that "divine" magic is somehow stronger against Rikti. Now you have to define, and therefore LIMIT, what "divine" means. You are proposing a system that would effectively REDUCE customization, not increase it. Because for a given AT, or powerset, or enemy, there would be a "best" Origin. People would have to care about Origin, especially in the endgame, for the same reason that some players care a great deal that you chose to skip Hasten on a given character. They don't CARE what your backstory is, or your origin, or your history. They care that Mids shows that if you add Hasten to *this* build, it'll improve your DPS by five percent. And they will kick you for being stupid and not having it, because you're "holding back" the team.

In the end though, the devs have already implemented their "vision" of the correct solution to the "origin" problem. Origin is a fluff stat that players can choose to base their character backstory around. And one that has no game mechanics at all. Because if I want to make a vampire themed character, I should be free to choose ANY origin at all, without having to worry that I'll be crippling my character against enemy X or in one Task Force or another. And let's be clear - if the Origin Boost you want isn't large enough that it's clearly "Best" in a given situation or for a given AT, then we're right back at the start and it can be safely ignored.

I don't agree with everything you just said, as I don't think players are so shallow as to kick folks for stuff like that. I don't think it happens all that often now.

However, this paragraph I completely agree with. Origin should NOT matter except in aspects of RP. The arguments I've been seeing is that "the aspects of it won't be that significant so it should not be too debilitating or advantageous." But as you pointed out, it then brings Origin back into the realm of unimportant except in RP reasons. Which makes the changes suggested pointless.

The weakness idea based on Origin is a poor one. Once again it was already tried with Epic Heroic ATs and was a complete failure. So much so that the devs NERFED that particular weakness to be unimportant. Thus why it wasn't replicated with the villain EPIC ATs.

I'd also bet someone a month's sub that no such weakness will exist if we ever get a Praetorian Epic AT.

This however, I could slightly get behind. When framed in this way it sounds okay, just like the starting temp powers being based on Origin, which you get at lvl 1.

What I COMPLETELY DISAGREE with is any special enemy or weakness based on origin. That idea fails to high heavens. Sorry. EDIT: The ONLY way I would agree is if we can respec our Origin. However, like AT, primary, and secondary powersets, the chance of an Origin Respec ever happening is pretty close to -445343535.

Firstly, your argument fails because you're telling me to prove something I *never* stated or agreed with. Please point to where I said 'mutants should be vulnerable to magic attacks' or '[origin] should be vulnerable to [origin] type attacks'. My proposal was more like '*Rikti* should have [specified effect] vs [origin]' which isn't even close to what you're telling me to prove.

Secondly, your example is (to put it bluntly) asinine because I'm talking about effects that relate to *CITY OF HEROES* lore and you're pointing to *MARVEL* lore. Not only that but you're focusing on a specific *non related* circumstance like telekinesis and how it affects different tactics. An actual *related* example of origin's effects in the *MARVEL* lore would be the x-gene and how it can be nullified using tech or suppressed using science. In the comic and the movies, a method to depower mutants was derived by targeting what made mutants unique. If Marvel had a game and you picked the mutation origin for your powers, you'd expect these enemies exploiting those tactics to have an advantage against you but that doesn't mean every scientist or technician will be using this.

*NOW* translate that to CoX. If (just making stuff up off the top of my head to make a point) Rikti are conceptualized as hyper advanced beings with high integration of technology, then any foe coming at them with tech might feel this concept from the origin they chose.

This is also a weak strawman. The only way it would reduce customization is if you don't know how to count. Currently we have *1* choice, and that's to be separate from origin. At the very least we'll have *2* choices, what we have now and the opportunity to take origin's effects into consideration. FYI, 1 isn't bigger than 2.

Also, that specific enemies will be affected differently by different origins means you *can't* game the effect to maximize the effects in general play. Sure, you can min/max for it just like players do with IOs, Incarnate, AE farm maps and everything else of that does *something* but then those min/maxers will have to limit their own encounters to whoever they have an advantage to. IMO, that's totally fine. If I make a character able to take down spell casters because his concept is a mage-killer, why shouldn't I? But if you team, don't expect to line up those origins in a row for hyper min/max potential. Honestly, it's not even *needed* considering how easy the game is. We have players that need to handicap themselves already to get any type of challenge. This could even be an avenue for them if you consider the potential.

And what would your vampire themed character be? Is he a magic re-animated type that can cast spells and has weaknesses to the typical stuff like holy water, garlic, crucifix? Is it the mutant type that is more a viral effect that requires you to feed? Maybe you were just born a vampire and your type just happens to have a diet of blood? The purpose of the idea is, if you could make origin have some type of effect depending on what you face, then you can do *exactly the above*. Because, right now, any vampire you make is exactly the same except cosmetic (costume/power colors/origin icon). What do you do to differentiate them? Pick different powers? Slot different? Then it's not the same character and none of those ensure you capture the actual effect correctly. That is, you *CANNOT* make a classic 'weak to light/holy' vampire right now. You. Can. Not.

Strawman alert!

You cannot ever make any assumption based on any 'origin' that will be true for even most of the characters that are labelled that way.

Also:
Yes, back when contacts actually meant something in the game, people noticed.