What would you change for CoH2?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-04-30 17:51 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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You know, I always thought detoggling could be a cool specialty of specific ATs that might have limited options for branching abilities, primarily Blasters and Stalkers.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Actually, there was a better way to deal with this. Toggle dropping actually would have been not just a nuisance, but a good thing if toggles were just balanced correctly (speaking about personal protection toggles).
Toggles are balanced based on the principle that if it burns endurance, it should be stronger than passives which don't. But although that sounds like a reasonable rule, its actually a completely meaningless one in terms of individual primary and secondary powersets. When you choose a powerset, you have the option to take any or all of the powers in that set (eventually). All other powers in the other competing sets become impossible to take. So, for example, there is no specific reason why temporary invulnerability's strength from Invulnerability has to have any specific relationship to Agile from Super Reflexes. You never have the option to pick from those two. .... .... What's the downside? 1. Nothing. Seriously: I haven't been able to think of one in six years. Except, of course, retrofitting the current game around this principle is an overhaul the devs would never undertake, because it rewrites the rulebook of how powers work in a potentially very disruptive way for the existing players. |
In both PvE and PvP, it'd be a useful effect if both had a strong ability to drop enemy toggles by simply attacking (because Blaster's attacks can conceptually be overwhelmingly powerful to blast right through, and a Stalker's attacks are so maniacally pinpointed to near always bypass a foes defenses). Of course, it have to be made so dropping toggles wasn't so debilitating (as outlined by your post) but would still be seen as a form of 'debuff' since you could potentially decrease some useful/strong effects that would take much debuffing to counter.
It's effects like that (and phasing, and stealth and a few other underutilized effects) that could really create uniqueness between ATs but the game has be so horribly backwards nerfed, neutered and limited, it'd be impossible to do anything with these new effects...I mean, why do we need a 'no phase' state for PvE anyway!? That just screws over anyone that decided to pick phase shift and hibernate as concept powers. Are the recharge on them not enough?
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All I read were multi-paragraphs saying CO makes them look ugly! which is, again, not the fault of the concept, but of it's implementation in that specific game.|
Originally Posted by Ironik
Since we've given specific reasons why it's bad and you just keep saying, "Nuh-uh, you guys are doodyheads," I'm going to consider this a win on the anti-CO-character-editor side. Thanks for playing.
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But okay, keep thinking you won.
I would like to issue a plea on behalf of Paragon's diminutive protectors, please watch where you step. We're four feet tall in a six foot tall world, we've been cast adrift in a sea of butts. -Pillbug
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Wow, you are the best at being the worst at reading comprehension.
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Originally Posted by Magpie_Mouse
All I read were multi-paragraphs saying CO makes them look ugly! which is, again, not the fault of the concept, but of it's implementation in that specific game.
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The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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You either actually chose not to read my post or chose to ignore everything said in it. I have no desire to argue that way. Have fun being right.
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Originally Posted by Magpie_Mouse
And you folks are still hyper-focusing on CO's implementation of it and screaming DO NOT WANT.
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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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I can think of one, possibly subjective downside: A feeling that the toggle is not worth it. In the realms of endurance management, toggles constitute a not-insignificant drain on my total endurance. I justify running them anyway because the benefits for doing so, and the loss for not doing so, are considerable. They are, as a point of fact, worth the price of admission. Not so with Tough and Weave. I'm sure that, in specific situation, those few extra percent are going to make all the difference, but for the most part, I don't find that a small defence or a moderate resistance buff is worth the additional cost.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
1. Nothing. Seriously: I haven't been able to think of one in six years. Except, of course, retrofitting the current game around this principle is an overhaul the devs would never undertake, because it rewrites the rulebook of how powers work in a potentially very disruptive way for the existing players.
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What you propose reduces all toggles to "small" buffs, to the point where I start having to wonder if they're even all that useful. I know that was part of your point - an all-passives build would be worthwhile. But the simple fact remains that people's psychology is that if they're paying for something, they expect a return. If they don't see that return, they either don't take the power, or they feel cheated for taking it.
The downside is I would feel like a right fool paying 0.26 points of endurance per second for getting, what? 7.5% damage resistance to JUST physical damage? That'd put me in front of a choice with two wrong options, and those are the kinds of things that make me resent an entire game system.
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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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Forget just Mission Architect, I'd make the whole game like this. No experience for directly defeating mobs, instead having all experience come from objective completion.|
Originally Posted by Leandro
* Mission Architect with a map editor and no XP from mob defeats. On arc completion, reward the players with a big chunk of XP based on how long they took to finish the mission and the time they were actually active within it.
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This would mean that you would have to have enough objectives available to get the player from start to level cap right at launch.
I would also design the objectives differently. You could still beat up whatever amount of mobs were necessary to complete the objective, but there would be alternatives for stealthiness, control and whatever else, or a mixture of all of them. This would cater to different classes, powersets and playstyles, and allow people to play their characters closer to their own concepts.
Aside from that, no level restrictions on costume parts, or on travel abilities, and probably a better integration of travel abilities, movement and environment with a character's powers.
"I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show,
A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes."
No more animation lock. If you're in range to do an attack, you can do it, but you can still move around. Also, some method of canceling attacks.
I would also homogenize some of the sets. They could set up a sword set that had a function similar to swap ammo. You click it, you go from katana to broadsword to dual blades. Give the swap a cool down to keep people from swapping in the middle of attacks and abusing it, give the individual attacks different functions based on what weapons they're using. Katana is fast, small hits, broadsword is slow, heavy hitting, dual blades uses the combo system it does now.
Enhancements would no longer go into powers, but would be applied to various aspects of the character. Essentially, enhancements would become permanent equipment. That being said, I would do away with training/dual origin/single origin altogether. Have all enhancements function the way that IO's do. They don't expire, but higher level enhancements have more of an effect.
I would also have IO enhancements drop(even set pieces), as well as the recipes for them. The enhancements themselves would be much rarer. Of course, you would be able to buy basic enhancements from vendors, and mission arcs could give enhancements or enhancement recipes as rewards. And, not a randomized reward, either. You pick from a list appropriate to the difficulty of the mission arc.
And so on and so fourth. Hands, animated hair, more travel powers, that stuff too.
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Or at the very least, actually display the required level for each power in the set/pool. I get tired of asking "what level does <power> unlock at again?" in Vent or global channels. If I mouse over a power at the power selection interface, the description should read "Power available at Security/Threat Level ##." If I right-click a power in the Powers window, I should see "Unlocked at Level ##" between the power's name and effect types. |
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
- No "power trees." Maybe it's just personal taste, but I despise having to pick up "prerequisite" powers to unlock stuff further down the tree. The pool powers are tolerable, but a whole game based around trees isn't attractive to me.
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And while we're at it, I'd replace the "minor/moderate/etc" verbiage with actual base numbers, the attributes displayed depending on what type of power it is I'm looking at.
For example, if it's a click single-target attack power, I should see the attack's base numbers for damage and accuracy. If the attack has a debuff or status effect attached to it, I'd expect to see the debuff's/effect's base magnitude, duration time, and chance to proc. This is all without enhancements, and assuming you're attacking a target with average defense and minimal resistance (say, around 5% at the most?).
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You'd have to be very careful about the interplay between these two. If you kept a relatively easy-to-attain defense softcap, this would let you, say, have a FF defender buff a high-defense tank to 40% above the softcap, then let them herd up three or four groups in relative safety. Not the end of the world, but I can see it leading back to i0-2 'sit in one place and let the tank herd the level' gameplay.
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Main things I'd consider:
- Change the Defense and Resistance formulas so they are no longer multiplicative. - Remove aggro cap. Replace with following rule: every enemy after the 16th reduces your defense and resistance by 1%. |
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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I think the point was, it doesn't reduce toggles to 'small buffs', just removes the rule that says they must be the other way. That is, there could still be toggles with moderate bonuses on them but there could also be passives with moderate bonuses as well. But it'd be entirely up to design goals how the actual bonuses are distributed over the powers of a set/tree rather than some rule dictating toggles get the lion's share.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What you propose reduces all toggles to "small" buffs, to the point where I start having to wonder if they're even all that useful. I know that was part of your point - an all-passives build would be worthwhile. But the simple fact remains that people's psychology is that if they're paying for something, they expect a return. If they don't see that return, they either don't take the power, or they feel cheated for taking it.
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Actually, I think that may be a good case for having the 'effective' softcap be different from different types of content.|
Originally Posted by Kelenar
You'd have to be very careful about the interplay between these two. If you kept a relatively easy-to-attain defense softcap, this would let you, say, have a FF defender buff a high-defense tank to 40% above the softcap, then let them herd up three or four groups in relative safety. Not the end of the world, but I can see it leading back to i0-2 'sit in one place and let the tank herd the level' gameplay.
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It'd be fine, as an example, to be able to 'easily' get to the soft-cap for solo content on your own. However, when you start looking at group content, it should require some sort of additional support from the group to reach. And again another step up when you start talking about 'raid' content.
Let's Dance!
On more thought, perhaps a variant on free-form, where you can select types of sets to create your own AT ala carte. All would be required to take at least one attacking type (control, assault, blast, melee), and would have the addition of buff/debuff and armor for their other set. Secondary and primary would be set by the player, and AT mods would be set algorithmically, and a variety of inherents would be available with certain caveats, limits to prevent absolute brokenness like full-power containment on blast/contol. Obviously, this would have to be implemented from the get-go, with lots of testing by players who are known to break things wide open and would be willing to provide feedback on how to keep power within acceptable bounds (both high and low).
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Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
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Got a few more wild ideas in a rambling morning post:
Dynamic Contact encounters: You get a mission arc started by a tip. Somewhere around the third mission you have the option to call a prior contact, possibly affecting which part of a story tree that arc will go. But instead of meeting them at the same statue where they are always standing, your contact may ask to meet you in one of five random locations, all fitting the character and mood of the story. i.e.--back in the stacks of books at the local graduate library, in a lab, a biker bar, a coffee shop or diner, down a dark alleyway, at the local police precinct, on a remote seaside cliff overlooking the waves, etc. These locations can double for a variety of in game purposes, including RP social settings. When you go to meet your contact too, perhaps they may not actually be waiting for you but rather make you wait a few moments for them--the door opens and they then approach you starting the dialogue.
Why? This adds much needed sense of life and story to the geography of the game world. Also, it adds a touch of tension with unfamiliar storylines as meeting a contact could turn into a trap or you actually witness your contact being ambushed by shadowy figures in an alleyway and pulled into the manhole below, etc.
Mob Spawns: These should be much more dynamic and storied as well. The grind of defeating baddies has been considerably reduced since the MMO paradigm at launch seven years ago. Most spawns should feel like mini zone events that actually move through the zone, initiating and resolving themselves fully without intervention from players.
i.e. Purse snatchings have an observable beginning, at which time the perpetrator becomes targetable. The actually robbery may go back and forth a bit, but not indefinitely as the eternal tug-o-wars do in CoH. Eventually the robber will either be beaten back and chased off by a foot cop or will get the purse and run down the street at which time the victim will be shouting "Stop thief!" In this case, the robber will run till they get to a back alley where they'll go through the purse, take a moment to emote counting their pickings and then proceed to find a back alley doorway. Until they leave the world map though, they can be targeted and apprehended by a hero, giving us the opportunity to watch this entire multi-block narrative. If XP is less about just winning battles and as much about righting wrongs, I also think we should be able to either call cops in after defeating a baddie, pick them up and drop them off at a holding cell at the local precinct or simply take the purse and return it to the victim now several blocks away for as much of a reward as we get for defeating the baddie in the first place.
Obviously, these sort of spawns would need to scale up from cats caught in trees and small robberies. Another example would be kidnappings where a hostage gets shoved into a van by force. The van speeds off erratically--targetable at this time. Stop the van as one option to completion. Follow it to a destination as another. Either way, multiple moments for intervention with different consequences.
Add to this bank robberies with police in hot pursuit. Escaped convicts getting noticed by cops. Car thieves. Etc. And in some rare cases, random appearances and criminal activity by supporting canon characters including minor battles between canon heroes and villains that you can choose to help turn the tide in.
White collar crime and subtle plots should still be reserved for story arcs though IMO.
Different Paths to Victory: A Fear and Morale Mechanic: I think that in addition to knocking out and "arresting" minor enemies like this, I'd love for there to be a way of scaring the criminal straight. And lets face it, many comic tales are as much about threatening shows of force and psychology as they are about all out block busting battles. (Note when I mention fear in this I'm not talking about the current mez mechanic at all. In fact this mechanic would completely rewrite how some powers would work!)
What I have in mind something I think that could be more satisfying than the current beat them till turn into a blue talk-to contact. Perhaps in addition to health and stamina bars, each baddie has a magenta "fear" bar that fills based upon a complex of how badly they are injured, how low their stamina is and (assuming that environmental damage is possible) how much damage you are doing around them. Specific powers could even directly do fear damage to enemies. Fill your enemy's fear/intimidation bar and its as good as knocking them out. Different enemies will scare more easily than others. Different powers could be used to reduce fear as well. And different enemy types will succumb to fear in different ways--some dropping their weapons and running, some raising their hands, some quivering once they break. And not ALL battles need to be resolved homogeneously: if the system works well in general encounters, say against 8 mobsters, 5 may get knocked out and 3 surrender by the end.
This mechanic too could be used to create both narrative and challenge. If a story says you need information from someone, that means you need to somehow pull your punches and defeat them via fear instead. Getting tips for missions or new arcs? Maybe you actually need to talk to a baddie you just defeated via fear instead of having it automagically drop.
Again, as discussed in the previous section, you could scoop up and drop off those 5 defeated mobsters in at the local precinct. But what if the tip you get becomes a time sensitive item instead? Like a 15 minute mission? Not worth the bonus.
This starts adding, in my mind, some diversity to the purpose and resolution of some of the street conflicts.
No idea if player characters themselves would ever be affected by fear? Or perhaps the fear effects would require their own mechanic for any PvP?
Enemy Levels, Conning, Lessons Learned from Incarnate Play and SSK: I wouldn't make the game totally levelless as level gating is still far too understood as a metric by gamers far and wide. But I'd consider something like this to keep spawns and encounters meaningful in a game with the above features:
- Levels are still explicitly displayed on characters and foes
- A level difference of 10 levels shifts the conning (accuracy, damage effects, mez resistance, etc) one color. So a level 3 character stats wise in combat fights a level 9 baddie the same as a level 12 character. But the level is an indication of what sort of powers and abilities the foes and characters have at their disposal.
- Conning difference has as much if not more effect upon the above described fear mechanic than upon damage.
- XP and drops would need to be affected by conning as well to prevent certain types of farming but not too wildly that it discourages teaming between characters. The xp bonus should top out at say +2 conning with decreasing returns after that. If you want to face harder foes, do it because it is fun and you enjoy the challenge. The xp drop-off for grey conning would need to be steeper than the bonus for + cons.
- If the game still had say 50 levels (I like 50, it's a good round number IMO), this means that 5 conning shifts are about the maximum difference one might encounter. I'd like to see the steep gating that prevents people from scratching +8's for example modified. This may ultimately remove the need for SSK
Thats about all I've got this morning. Not very edited. Fairly stream of conscious. And not fully thought through. But definitely some things I'd consider for a next next generation superhero MMO.
Relevant to my much earlier post in this thread regarding voxels and physics in a superhero game this article regarding some research done with a certain voxel game engine:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011...s-is-smashing/
The video speaks for itself.
One thing that is different from what most others mention is to have less of this "Me against the World" feeling. Basically every group in the game is against you and whether you are a Hero or a Villain it feels the same.
This is one of the few points that the fantasy genre has done a fair job of. Let me ally myself with the Carnies to the point where they have the occasional mission for me and randomly supply some aid on my missions.
On the opposite side if I take enough missions AGAINST a certain group they should send hit squads and hire Mercenaries to take me down every so often.
One man's hero is another's villain after all.
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You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
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This is a fine idea in theory, but in practice is produces horribly ugly animations, as can be seen in any game which includes non-rooting melee combat, and there are many. For ranged attacks, this may sometimes be appropriate, but then at other times it might not. A lot of the beauty of an attack animation comes from a character's overall stance and pose, as most physical attacks are not just launched from the hands. In fact, people who try to punch with just the hand look positively ridiculous more often than not.|
Originally Posted by Exclius
No more animation lock. If you're in range to do an attack, you can do it, but you can still move around. Also, some method of canceling attacks.
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Here's a thought experiment. Imagine yourself running backwards (a feat in itself) and throwing punches to an imaginary opponent running after you within an arm's reach. Now imagine how good this would look. Not very, no. When you treat characters like dollies, with their legs being a wheeled platform for their chest to swivel off of, then you get animations that are about as appealing as what I just described. You also get animations which are about as appealing as 1980s animatronics.
You'll notice that almost any pinup of a cool action pose includes an appropriate leg stance. Wolverine is usually crouching, for instance. You'll almost never see a character doing an over-arm swing in one direction while his pelvis points 90 degrees to the right with his legs in a running motion. Because that's silly.
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Originally Posted by Exclius
I would also homogenize some of the sets. They could set up a sword set that had a function similar to swap ammo. You click it, you go from katana to broadsword to dual blades. Give the swap a cool down to keep people from swapping in the middle of attacks and abusing it, give the individual attacks different functions based on what weapons they're using. Katana is fast, small hits, broadsword is slow, heavy hitting, dual blades uses the combo system it does now.
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Then there's something like Dual Blades. This is a set which has numerous stab attacks. I've been through the whole process of people telling me about how you can totally thrust forward with a hammer and it would totally hurt as much as being stabbed. I still don't buy it. Hell, it looks stupid with even some of the swords we have, let alone with spike-less axe or a flat mace.
And if you DO make concessions for each of these sets having different animations, then there's really no reason to have them be the same set.
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Originally Posted by Exclius
Enhancements would no longer go into powers, but would be applied to various aspects of the character. Essentially, enhancements would become permanent equipment.
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I don't want to seem like I'm picking a fight here. However, IF City of Heroes 2 ever came out, I don't want it to be more like all the other MMOs I didn't subscribe to, and the above suggestions go in exactly that direction.
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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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My own pet peeve: Make Origins something other than just the enhancements you use (Mutation,Magic,Science etc). I wouldn't mind a arc or 2 specifically aimed at a particular Origin-something along the lines of how a VEAT arc works but expanded. You might even have the signiture characters for a particular Origin (Manticore,Numinia and such) as the contacts for the arc(s) and a opposing Origin character as a recurring adversary. Just my 2 cents here.
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Hmm, true. With the given model, more defense would always make you able to take on more enemies, which would address some of the game's current problems, like the second FF defender on a team being useless. You'd just have to be careful to avoid the standard teaming situation turning into 3 FF/ defenders, 3 Sonic/ Defenders, a tank, and a blaster to nuke once the tank rounds up the entire mission.
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Originally Posted by reiella
Actually, I think that may be a good case for having the 'effective' softcap be different from different types of content.
It'd be fine, as an example, to be able to 'easily' get to the soft-cap for solo content on your own. However, when you start looking at group content, it should require some sort of additional support from the group to reach. And again another step up when you start talking about 'raid' content. |
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
Lot's of good ideas that I won't rehash.
I would have the instance maps be randomly generated. I get bored of knowing which hallway to turn at to get to the same end room to get to the "target" in every mission.
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Originally Posted by Y3kbug
Lot's of good ideas that I won't rehash.
I would have the instance maps be randomly generated. I get bored of knowing which hallway to turn at to get to the same end room to get to the "target" in every mission. |
This would be wonderful. I'm not sure how doable it is with current 3D technology though. There is at least one major game out there that has been delayed for 11 years or so, and I suspect this is the major reason.
At the least I wish the interiors had differents levels of fog, wall coloring, global lighting and shadows.
While we're on it, I wish Fire, Electric, Energy, Empathy and a few other sets were lightsources.
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Honestly Sam, I think any game I would have a hand in designing would be a game incompatible with many of your sensibilities. You can actually be presented with a choice in which you believe both options are worse than the other. That's a situation I can't avoid, because I really don't fundamentally agree with. I understand *that* some people think this way, but not really *how*. And since I would specifically present choices designed to challenge people to prioritize rather than giving them easy ways to have everything, I think eventually I would trip over this problem for the people who feel similarly. But I wouldn't change anything to avoid it.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I can think of one, possibly subjective downside: A feeling that the toggle is not worth it. In the realms of endurance management, toggles constitute a not-insignificant drain on my total endurance. I justify running them anyway because the benefits for doing so, and the loss for not doing so, are considerable. They are, as a point of fact, worth the price of admission. Not so with Tough and Weave. I'm sure that, in specific situation, those few extra percent are going to make all the difference, but for the most part, I don't find that a small defence or a moderate resistance buff is worth the additional cost.
What you propose reduces all toggles to "small" buffs, to the point where I start having to wonder if they're even all that useful. I know that was part of your point - an all-passives build would be worthwhile. But the simple fact remains that people's psychology is that if they're paying for something, they expect a return. If they don't see that return, they either don't take the power, or they feel cheated for taking it. The downside is I would feel like a right fool paying 0.26 points of endurance per second for getting, what? 7.5% damage resistance to JUST physical damage? That'd put me in front of a choice with two wrong options, and those are the kinds of things that make me resent an entire game system. |
Except I would specifically design the powers to make the choices more logical. The current passives and toggles don't do that in all powersets, like the example you're describing in Invuln.
However, I will say that the very thing that agonizes you about the system is explicitly intended by me. Not the agony part, but the part where given a group of players, some will feel that the toggles are not worth the endurance and choose to run an all passive build saving the endurance for other things, and some will decide that the endurance is worth it and run everything. That's what I meant by saying this makes an all passive build a legitimate choice.
But there's another aspect to this you might be overlooking, and its also significant. I wouldn't exactly do it this way in a game I was designing from the ground up, but lets use CoH mechanics because we're all familiar with them. Lets look at something simple: SR toggles and passives.
Right now, the toggles are 13.875% defense, and the passives 5.625% defense. Unslotted, they are 19.5% defense total.
Right now, you can have just the passives, just the toggles, or both. Slotted, the passive is about 8.8% defense, just the toggle is about 21.6% defense, and the total is 30.4% defense.
The logical progression is to take the toggle first, then the passive. So your defense starts at 21.6%, and rises to 30.4%. Damage mitigation starts at 43.2% and rises to 60.8%. Another way of looking at it is that damage admittance (the damage that leaks through your defenses) starts at 56.8% and drops to 39.2%. Incoming damage drops to 69% of the original value. That's pretty good, and why its worth taking the passive (ignoring its resistances).
Notice, though, that the same thing would be true if the toggles and passives were reversed. If the numbers were switched, it would be the passives that gave the initial 43.2% mitigation and the toggle that was increasing the total to 60.8% mitigation. It would be the toggle that was, in effect, reducing incoming damage by about a third. That's attractive regardless of the superficial numbers on paper.
I would never reproduce CoH's broken stacking mechanics per se, but there are better ways to introduce synergy in a way where the passives would still be very strong, and the toggles would be weaker *on their own* but the combination would be stronger than the sum of their parts.
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A more interactive environment. Champions never really got me all enthusiastic, but it was really cool to be able to pick up a car, dumpster, or main battle tank and heave it at somebody. Like I was a superhero or something.
More mix-n-match in powers would be nice too. I do a lot of concept characters, and was always frustrated with having to take A,B,C, and Q just to get Power X, which I wanted to mate up with Power 4, but had to take powers 3,2,0,183, to get.
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I think the biggest problem you're going to face getting folks to understand some of these notions is that because of the rather inconsistent (and misleading) units we get in-game (percentages that aren't percentages of anything, but are instead added values), and the opacity of the net effects (such as the fact that the amount of damage admitted decreases at a faster rate than your defense points increase) make it hard for people to really understand what IS happening, much less what MIGHT happen under a hypothetical other design.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
However, I will say that the very thing that agonizes you about the system is explicitly intended by me. Not the agony part, but the part where given a group of players, some will feel that the toggles are not worth the endurance and choose to run an all passive build saving the endurance for other things, and some will decide that the endurance is worth it and run everything. That's what I meant by saying this makes an all passive build a legitimate choice.
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Not that all other MMOs manage to make this any clearer. Armor value in Certain Fantasy Games always makes my eyes cross, because I cannot tell at all how much a particular piece of equipment will help my survivability without referencing a chart.
That said, I do agree that one of the biggest flaws in CoX's AT/power design is the lack of meaningful choices. For me, I have to go to the IO system in order to get that; the core powersets (and pools) by themselves don't manage it.
Of course, sometimes there ARE choices with consequences, but in the wrong space, such as certain aesthetic options being restricted to certain ATs. I still don't understand why I can't have an Ice/Ice scrapper, for instance.
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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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Oh... and power armor. Because sometimes you just want a minigun and shoulder rockets.
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