Why so complicated?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-04-14 13:27 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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The funny part of your example is that Mutant SOs are the only SOs that have a small description next to their fancy name, so you don't always have to right-click to check what the SO does.
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Originally Posted by Furio
Same reason there's 5 different sets of SO's...flavor. It's a little thing, and yeah, back in the day figuring out which mutation enhancement was to-hit debuff could be a tad annoying
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Actually, complexity is specifically what you want in a system you are attempting to fortify against min/maxing: a complex system won't have a single or small set of local minima and maxima, making such activities sufficiently subjective so as to radically reduce the advantage of doing them.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
"Complexity" is not a positive trait in any system, and should never be regarded as such.
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That has nothing to do with this subject, because this isn't a question of system complexity, but presentation complexity. Presentation complexity is supposed to be as simple as possible given the system requirements. I don't think the Incarnate one is all that bad, but its probably not optimal.
Here's the difference between the two. Suppose I offer you a choice: one power that granted you 8% resistance to all but toxic and psi, or a power that granted you the sliding resistance from one SR passive: from 60% health to zero the power would increase in resistance to those types from 0 to 20%. You get to pick one.
That's a simple presentation of a very complex choice. Any player can look at that choice, understand what the choice is saying, and decide. But good luck min/maxing it. That's *exactly* what you want in a powers system where you want people to make intuitive choices without being dictated to by calculators, but without penalizing them too badly for not calculating. The qualitative choice in the above situation is probably going to be no better or worse of an approach on average than 99.99% of all the players attempting to pick a calculated choice.
The complexity should not be in the choices themselves, but what those choices do. In that, I think the Incarnate crafting system is not ideal. Suppose you're leaning towards making Judgment instead of Interface, or Cores instead of Radials. It would have been nice if all Cores required Cantrips and all Radials required Detailed Reports, say, because then the components mean something. Plus, the physical slots are Interface and Destiny and the psychic slots are Judgment and Lore. So why do we have magical components? Shouldn't we have physical and psychic salvage, even if we're given the choice of both in either trial?
The problem is the "flavor" obfuscates, rather than articulates what the system does. It could have been given a better presentation while still keeping all of the flavor if the salvage had just been broken down into the same categories the powers are: Physical or Psychic, Total or Partial, Core or Radial.
I can imagine a system where crafting a common physical power required three common physical components, crafting an uncommon physical core power required two physical common components and one uncommon core component, a rare physical total core required the uncommon power plus a common physical component plus a common physical core component plus a rare total component, etc. Then you just give these things evocative names matching their type. The common physical component could be "Supercharged Capacitor." But the uncommon physical core component might be "Antimatter containment vessel" and the uncommon physical radial component might be "Quantum transponder" - something that would at least evoke "core" and "radial" in some way so people could get their handle around them intuitively. I'm sure there are better labels than that, but that's just intended to be an example.
But then again: I'm a dreamer about this stuff. I would have made "Core" do one thing really strong and "Radial" do lots of things weaker, and it looks like they were thinking that originally, but it didn't quite turn out that way. And "total" and "partial" don't make sense any way you look at it. How about "Focused" and "Sustained" which would imply the power was either frontloaded or lasted longer?
It really feels like the names were made up first before any notion of what the powers were supposed to do, and then the powers were made to fit the names to some degree. That kinda drives me crazy.
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Consider that I put my foot in my mouth yet again. That's exactly what I meant - a simple presentation/interface that belies a much more complex, much more interactive system.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Actually, complexity is specifically what you want in a system you are attempting to fortify against min/maxing: a complex system won't have a single or small set of local minima and maxima, making such activities sufficiently subjective so as to radically reduce the advantage of doing them.
That has nothing to do with this subject, because this isn't a question of system complexity, but presentation complexity. Presentation complexity is supposed to be as simple as possible given the system requirements. I don't think the Incarnate one is all that bad, but its probably not optimal. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
But then again: I'm a dreamer about this stuff. I would have made "Core" do one thing really strong and "Radial" do lots of things weaker, and it looks like they were thinking that originally, but it didn't quite turn out that way. And "total" and "partial" don't make sense any way you look at it. How about "Focused" and "Sustained" which would imply the power was either frontloaded or lasted longer?
It really feels like the names were made up first before any notion of what the powers were supposed to do, and then the powers were made to fit the names to some degree. That kinda drives me crazy. |
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On a slightly separate note (in that it doesn't derive from anything I've quoted), I HAAATE the Incarnate crafting interface. It has a zillion redundant recipes for the same thing, all listed as different entries mixed together in a list with multiple copies of recipes for other items, making for a complete mess. Salvage names are in no way evocative of their functions, Incarnate power names are in no way evocative of their particular type (and often aren't even words - "pyronic") and it's just one giant mess. Oh, and component names are HUGE! It's a see of three- and four-word names
A wise man once said that it's easier to tidy up a room if the things you need to arrange are scattered all over the floor than if they're piled in a mound in the corner, and this is exactly what the Incarnate crafting interface presents us with - one giant pile of everything, or at most several giant piles of almost everything.
It's a terribly untidy system that apes complexity by introducing confusion into what is ostensibly a dead simple system. It's just very, very cumbersome.
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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.
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Venture's spot on.|
Originally Posted by Venture
Codswallop and poppycock. It doesn't require thought, it requires drawing up a list of what components you're going to want in advance. For every character you plan on taking through the Incarnate process.
That's not complexity. It's tedium masquerading as complexity. |
Flavor is great, but the Incarnate crafting system is only complex to the extent that the devs seem to have gone out of their way to punish you for the smallest and gameplay-meaningless mistakes. You shouldn't need to consult with an out-of-game checklist every time you get a reward table, for fear of picking up the wrong component.
Complexity is fine, if -- as Arcanaville pointed out -- that complexity provides interesting choices. That's not what we have here. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've wasted a couple of components because on occasion I've lulled myself into using the spectacularly unhelpful Incarnate crafting interface to figure out what I needed. And misread it.
Those mistakes have nothing to do with gameplay. They're just a waste of players' time.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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Damn right...cuz it makes no sense. Half the time Im converting things into things I laready had and if I go up one side of the tree I should get to the final branch.|
Originally Posted by CaptA
This is the part of it that bugs me the most.
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When I was a little kid if I wanted to get to a certain branch of a tree Id climb my way there, not clime my way half way there and climb down again...and then back up...and leap over to the branch I wanted in the first place.
It's wierd...just odd.
They should just merge the two incarnate shard/thread currencies and be done with it.
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There are a lot of side effects to doing that which I doubt everyone would approve of.
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Originally Posted by newchemicals
They should just merge the two incarnate shard/thread currencies and be done with it.
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That might be a nice gesture, but I really don't even think that's the problem in this particular case. The Incarnate powers' interface is probably the main problem, followed by the absolute lack of clear naming conventions for components.|
Originally Posted by newchemicals
They should just merge the two incarnate shard/thread currencies and be done with it.
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The fact that there are two separate and distinct baseline currencies is almost irrelevant, because one of them is only useful for Alpha, which most of us probably had squared away before I-20 even launched. You can convert shards to threads, but that's as far as shards go with respect to the new content.
The devs clearly want Alpha to be more generally accessible than Interface through Lore. They want progress in the later slots to be limited (largely) to people who run the Trials. You can debate whether theirs is the right approach to gating progress, but that's probably a subject for a different thread. The false-complexity issue would remain even if there were no Shards.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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I tend to think of it this way. This is just a continuation of the existing salvage system for IOs.
Threads = infamy.
Incarnate Components = Invention Salvages.
Incarnate Tiers = IOs.
CoX has been using this system for years and I could imagine that the devs are just sticking to what they already know. It might be even easier to just use a variation of an existing system as opposed to creating a brand new one.
This system brings up a different problem though which is having to change the base currency (inf/shards/threads) with each new issue that involves new alternate advancement content. People tend to hoard stuff in MMOs and during the lull between i19 and i20, people were hoarding shards like there's no tomorrow in anticipation for the new Incarnate slots. I recall there were people claiming to have 400-500 shards. The devs don't want players to be able to acquire Tier 4 incarnate powers on the very first day after release so they have to one-up the hoarders by changing the currency. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised we'll get another new incarnate currency with the next issue. It's either that or the devs will try to one-up us again and switch back to shards as the base currency for the next 4 incarnate slots. Either way, it's only going to get more complicated.
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That's not really the issue. The issue is that because we *always* get to choose which common, which uncommon, and which rare components we get, the number of different kinds of commons is irrelevant unless you accidentally pick one you later can't use. In other words, you can make mistakes, but except for mistakes the system would present the exact same costs to every player even if there was only one of each. That's not true with the invention system because we get random drops during missions. We could use them, or we could sell or trade them. We don't get to decide what are drops are, so the different kinds have meaning.|
Originally Posted by baron_inferno
I tend to think of it this way. This is just a continuation of the existing salvage system for IOs.
Threads = infamy. Incarnate Components = Invention Salvages. Incarnate Tiers = IOs. CoX has been using this system for years and I could imagine that the devs are just sticking to what they already know. It might be even easier to just use a variation of an existing system as opposed to creating a brand new one. |
In the current Incarnate system, they have no meaning except to offer more possible ways to choose the wrong thing. That would be acceptable if it was there for flavor, but flavor should be transparent to the players. Players should have some idea that if they are going to construct a psionic pet, they should probably get the psionic rare component. Otherwise the extra detail is not serving a useful gameplay purpose.
Part of the problem is that errors can be immensely costly. If you get a Hamidon Goo drop but you really need Pangean Soil, you sell the Goo and buy the Soil. No one bemoans getting "the wrong" rare drop in the invention system because stuff can be bought and sold, and more importantly there is usually not radically dissimilar costs for comparable items. You can only convert and breakdown Incarnate components in your own inventory, and the asymmetry between creation and breakdown is very high. It costs 60 threads to make an uncommon. It breaks down into only 9 on average. If you pick an uncommon from a drop table and then later decide to make something that uses a different uncommon, your error just cost you 51 threads. Almost the entire cost of the uncommon in the first place. If you pick the wrong rare, you've screwed yourself to the tune of over 300 threads. The difference between having the wrong rare and having no rare at all is almost nothing.
Perhaps one way to partially remedy this is to offer "transmutation" recipes. Keep the breakdown values the same: if you really want to break a component down into the lowest form of incarnate currency, you're not going to get much. But suppose you could turn any uncommon into any other uncommon at the cost of that uncommon and, say, 6 threads. Suppose you could turn any rare into any other rare for the cost of that rare and maybe 30 threads. Something like around ten percent of the cost of construction. That's not bad, and it means if you want to think ahead and figure it all out ahead of time, you'll do a little better than someone that just picks randomly. But even if you pick randomly, you'll still get about 90% of the value out of those components even if you later have to transmute them into other flavors. The flavor then becomes just that: mostly flavor.
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I'm pressed for time here, so I'll try to be brief.
I would take the WoW crafting system and interface over the Incarnate ones every day of the week and twice on Sundays. As for Vanguard, the only reason to harvest components is if you want to make something specific, and then it's easy to figure out what you need and go get it. If all you want to do is skill up you can get jobs from NPCs to do that and they give you the materials for them. You can get better rewards if you use "real" materials but you don't have to harvest to gain skill.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
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I get what you're saying and I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just speculating as to why the devs chose to implement the incarnate system the way they did. Frankly, they were probably thinking along the lines of that old adage, "if it works, why change it".|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's not really the issue. The issue is that because we *always* get to choose which common, which uncommon, and which rare components we get, the number of different kinds of commons is irrelevant unless you accidentally pick one you later can't use. In other words, you can make mistakes, but except for mistakes the system would present the exact same costs to every player even if there was only one of each. That's not true with the invention system because we get random drops during missions. We could use them, or we could sell or trade them. We don't get to decide what are drops are, so the different kinds have meaning.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Perhaps one way to partially remedy this is to offer "transmutation" recipes. Keep the breakdown values the same: if you really want to break a component down into the lowest form of incarnate currency, you're not going to get much. But suppose you could turn any uncommon into any other uncommon at the cost of that uncommon and, say, 6 threads. Suppose you could turn any rare into any other rare for the cost of that rare and maybe 30 threads. Something like around ten percent of the cost of construction.
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The extra component we get for completing the Trial badges is random, at least.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The issue is that because we *always* get to choose which common, which uncommon, and which rare components we get, the number of different kinds of commons is irrelevant
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So, there's one reward that can have slightly less value than the component reward table where we always gets to choose exactly what we want.
Perhaps the Devs are planning a system to earn components other than the trials, but to make the alternate path a little less desireable, give it a random drop instead of selected?
Might be a good approach for a "solo path" for Incarnate progression. Put in an Incarnate storyarc that can be run once a day for a random Common component. Extra runs in one day give an Astral Merit. The randomness of the common drop devalues the reward relative to the completion reward of the Trials. Hm. Or a "Weekly Quest". Rotate among the level 50 Storyarcs in Ourorboros. First time you do the designated "weekly storyarc" in that week, you get a random common component?
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You can have the same effect by dropping a random number of threads really.
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Originally Posted by Shagster
The extra component we get for completing the Trial badges is random, at least.
So, there's one reward that can have slightly less value than the component reward table where we always gets to choose exactly what we want. |
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I've said it before and I'll say it again. It was deliberately made confusing, slow and tedious.
For years people have been complaining that they want an end game. The problem with this is that if you look at the other MMOs that have end games that content winds up being beaten very quickly and soon everybody is clamoring for new end game content. Thus the devs made an end game for us that will likely drive everybody except the most fanatic grinders away from doing more than a couple times.
So the grinders won't complain because their characters will be much more powerful than the average players and that is why most of them grind the end game, for the increased power. And those who can't stand running through the end game won't be clamoring for more end game content because it's pointless to ask for more content that you can only get to by going through content you are unwilling to go through.
The devs in one fell swoop (or swell foop) have managed to create end game content that will result in never needing to create end game content again.
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Except I seem to recall them saying from now on every issue will have some "end game" material in it.
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Originally Posted by Mandu
The devs in one fell swoop (or swell foop) have managed to create end game content that will result in never needing to create end game content again.
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The first time I was in a completed incarnate trial in beta and saw the reward table, my reaction was frustrated bewilderment (to the surprise of one of the rednames on the team). I couldn't figure out what the hell my options MEANT, because they were all flavor and no function.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The problem is the "flavor" obfuscates, rather than articulates what the system does. It could have been given a better presentation while still keeping all of the flavor if the salvage had just been broken down into the same categories the powers are: Physical or Psychic, Total or Partial, Core or Radial.
<snip> It really feels like the names were made up first before any notion of what the powers were supposed to do, and then the powers were made to fit the names to some degree. That kinda drives me crazy. |
I still can't, to be honest, I've just started picking things semi-randomly, because I haven't sat down to plan out ability paths yet, so I don't know what I will want. Then when I notice I already have a few of that tier, I just go 'Do I not have one of these yet? Okay, I'll grab that.'
It seems... like a very lost opportunity.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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What about the current Insperation 'system' of a 3-1 conversion. Actually, not literally the same but take any three (or any two + threads) uncommons say to create the uncommon you actually want. That's still quite a hefty loss to the player but better than converting to threads and building back up.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Perhaps one way to partially remedy this is to offer "transmutation" recipes. Keep the breakdown values the same: if you really want to break a component down into the lowest form of incarnate currency, you're not going to get much. But suppose you could turn any uncommon into any other uncommon at the cost of that uncommon and, say, 6 threads. Suppose you could turn any rare into any other rare for the cost of that rare and maybe 30 threads. Something like around ten percent of the cost of construction. That's not bad, and it means if you want to think ahead and figure it all out ahead of time, you'll do a little better than someone that just picks randomly. But even if you pick randomly, you'll still get about 90% of the value out of those components even if you later have to transmute them into other flavors. The flavor then becomes just that: mostly flavor.
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What about people who don't find it any of those things? |
Originally Posted by Mandu
I've said it before and I'll say it again. It was deliberately made confusing, slow and tedious.
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| The devs in one fell swoop (or swell foop) have managed to create end game content that will result in never needing to create end game content again. |
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Yeah, I just realized what you were talking about last night. I got my tier 3 alpha slot finally and was looking at the requirements for the tier 4 thinking "oh I just need to get the second tier 3 before I can get the tier 4"...nope. You have to start all the way over which makes no sense.|
Originally Posted by CaptA
This is the part of it that bugs me the most.
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No progression tree works like that. It makes sense to have to get both tier 3s to get to tier 4, but not to start all the way over. If this doesn't change there will have to be a LOT more content to do in order for me to attempt tier 4s.
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Uh...how else would you get a second tier 3? Each tier (save the first, obviously) has as one of it's components the tier that preceded it.
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My SG leader feels the same way and keeps telling me he is relying on me to explain it all to him. I think what is confusing some people is getting 4 new powers at once. Really when you think about it .. its not that different than what we had to learn when we got Alpha with the major difference being added levels of components to make rares or very rares instead of getting Notices of the Well and turning them into Favors of the Well.
1) There are 5 common component and three will produce a Common Enhancers... this is exactly the same as what we do in Alpha
2) There are 5 uncommon components and 1 of these along with 2 commons and of course a common enhancer slotted makes an Uncommon Enhancer ... again pretty much the same as we did to slot Alpha
The biggest difference is the new rare and very rare components which can be difficult to get to drop and can be costly to make. I really haven't had much trouble with the syytem at all .. Biggest concern has been at the end of a successful Trial having to go in and see what component I need/want to build which powers. LOL 
Now hopefully we don't get another whole NEW sysytem when the next batch of powers arrive. /em rolls eyes
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That's correct:|
Originally Posted by Clave_Dark_5
Except I seem to recall them saying from now on every issue will have some "end game" material in it.
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Originally Posted by Second Measure
For the long term, the Incarnate Trials will be part of every Issue release, and the Incarnate Abilities will be expanded from time to time as well.
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It's not that hard!
Compared to say most Fantasy based MMOs where you both have to know what to mine and smelt and then you usually have to forge about 3 different objects, all with their own individual pieces to make the one piece you want.
Also was that bad interface game Hellgate London?
Now THAT was a terrible interface.