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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Eh, there's still a lot of laziness out there. I've seen plenty of systems where anybody with some decent skill at probability can sit down and prove that two options that should be roughly equal in power vary wildly. (Not saying that this applies to CoH, just that the situation definitely does exist.)
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
I suspect many gamers think the developers of the world are phenomenally lazy, because they never seem to get balance right. But there is a good reason that no RPG in history has ever been totally balanced, and that's because game balance is not only hard to achieve, the target you are aiming for is constantly moving if your game continues to introduce new systems or content.
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Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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Originally Posted by Combat
Just to be clear, I agree with you Sam, and I actually hated it when CoH was so opaque with regards to power numbers. I had no idea whether "extreme" damage was better than "superior", if x power did something better than y, etc. Real numbers have made the game much better in that regard.
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I agree that opaque numbers are sometimes irritating. I think it depends on the game though. It does work better in some games than others (e.g. text based games that might give you an idea of your "rank" with a skill or power with a number, but the results of using it are an abstract "wound" you cause to the creature rather than just "hit points.")
Anyway, the thing about numbers is that even if you are given them, they still don't mean what they say. Unless your game is seriously broken. "95% defense" better not mean "you will dodge 95% of all attacks" or you have a system where there is no variation in the capability of enemies to hit you.
The other thing about numbers is that they lie. This is true of every game I've ever played or had a hand in building. They lie because there is a factor you have modest control over: how often the player comes up against certain kinds of challenges. In an MMO where you can easily avoid enemies that cause you problems most of the time, that's extremely significant.
You see people trying to quantify this all the time by totalling up the number of different enemy types and finding the average of which damage types are most common and which are most resisted. But unless you fight perfectly average volumes of enemies in only perfectly average scenarios, this may not be relevant. A single end boss who is very resistant or very vulnerable to your character could spell curtains for game balance if that enemy shows up in a raid the player has to run frequently and has a high chance of failing (in this game, btw that end boss would be "Archvillains.") The kicker is that this isn't predictable just by looking at power stats. You have to be familiar with the game world, and everyone on your staff has to be on board with achieving the same vision.
More Branching powers like VEAT's have for every AT and powerset...
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
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Originally Posted by Kelenar
Eh, there's still a lot of laziness out there. I've seen plenty of systems where anybody with some decent skill at probability can sit down and prove that two options that should be roughly equal in power vary wildly. (Not saying that this applies to CoH, just that the situation definitely does exist.)
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Sure, but proving it in a system you have in front of you versus plotting it from scratch without guidelines and actually programming that while accounting for cost, timeliness, quality control, and value add versus the hundreds of other things that need to get done are two completely different things. It's why I can sit on the boards and say I hate the way archvillains are programmed, but what brought me to this message board today was discouragement over a broken pop up window in one of my own projects.
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You think you don't know, because you think one power must be better than the other, and that fact is obscured by details difficult to decipher. You think *someone* knows the correct answer. In my game, the answer would be: if you want to be fast, fear or poison something, or get more health, you would pick the first power. If you want special ability vs undead, you would get the second power. If you have no preference, you would flip a coin.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Do I want a sword which does 50 damage, is fast, does fear, poison and gives me some extra heath, or should I take the hammer which deals 100 points, is slow, does paralyse, steals slife and is extra strong against undead? I don't know. I cannot know.
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Properly designed, if the intent was to eliminate a quantitative way of judging, there wouldn't just be a very difficult one you couldn't do, there would simply be no way to do it at all. That's not impossible. Its not even especially difficult, engineering-wise. The differences would be provably qualitative only.
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I just want one thing from CoH2 that this game isn't capable of: A flight mode that supports aerobatics.
When I pull back hard during a flight, it doesn't mean I want to go straight up, it means I'm going for a loop, and why not do a barrel roll when I press the move left/right buttons twice while flying forward? I also want to be able to fly upside down. Couple that with an aura or power that leaves a trail and you've got a fun aerobatics team in the making.
The rest of it, with power balance and such I'm sure will be taken care of, but I just want to have an even better Fly.
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OK, let's roll with that. For the sake of argument, let's assume that you are capable of designing a system with no wrong choices, where everything I pick, I pick because that's what I want to do and not because it constitutes better performance. I'm down with that. In fact, I'd like to play such a game, provided you didn't leave in choices which gimp me anyway, with no ability to predict which they are. Let's assume that. I have two questions, then:|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
You think you don't know, because you think one power must be better than the other, and that fact is obscured by details difficult to decipher. You think *someone* knows the correct answer. In my game, the answer would be: if you want to be fast, fear or poison something, or get more health, you would pick the first power. If you want special ability vs undead, you would get the second power. If you have no preference, you would flip a coin.
Properly designed, if the intent was to eliminate a quantitative way of judging, there wouldn't just be a very difficult one you couldn't do, there would simply be no way to do it at all. That's not impossible. Its not even especially difficult, engineering-wise. The differences would be provably qualitative only. |
1. Why even bother with small percentage values that have non-obvious effects? If you don't want me min-maxing, would you then offer me 3% resistance to cold damage? Would you offer me an extra 1% chance to score a critical hit? Would you, in the broader sense, offer me choices which are only meaningful within a min/max context? I have two ways to make decisions: One is based on understanding the underlying system and being deduce the significance of each choice even if it isn't directly obvious, and the other is by simply making a choice and looking for the effect it has. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. If you give me a system that I cannot comprehend, then you CANNOT give me choices that don't have obvious consequences.
2. Why even bother bundling effects? Suppose I'm given the ability to have more damage and more resistance to toxic attacks, or I'm able to have more speed and more accuracy. Suppose I want more damage and more accuracy but I care nothing for speed and toxic resistance? I want both choices equally, so I must find some way to differentiate between them. If I were given a choice of damage, accuracy, speed and toxic resistance with the ability to pick only two, then that would be a far superior situation, but would you go for that?
This really comes down to the fact that players like to know what they are doing and not just pressing "Random" at every choice, and when players are given bundle choices, they tend to evaluate everything in the bundle. IF you can design a system which doesn't task the player with min-maxing, then you NEED to break those bundles up into individual items and you HAVE to make each choice's effect obvious through play.
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Originally Posted by McNum
I just want one thing from CoH2 that this game isn't capable of: A flight mode that supports aerobatics.
When I pull back hard during a flight, it doesn't mean I want to go straight up, it means I'm going for a loop, and why not do a barrel roll when I press the move left/right buttons twice while flying forward? I also want to be able to fly upside down. Couple that with an aura or power that leaves a trail and you've got a fun aerobatics team in the making. |
Right now, we have three axis of locomotion: left-right, forward-backward and up-down (jump-down), and we have full control over yaw (turning left and right along the vertical line) half-way control over pitch (looking up and down) which is limited from straight down to straight up and allows for no upside-down camera, and we lack any control over our roll orientation. I'm not sure how complex it would be to implement what's missing, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the engine may have trouble drawing a non-standard camera orientation. That, and not only would this only benefit Fly, it also has the potential to make the control scheme far more complex than it strictly needs to be.
For reference, I direct anyone to check out any of the Descent games. They have the kind of controls I just described, and this can make them profoundly confusing, to the point of eliminating any notion of "up and down."
That said, in an ideal world, HELL YEAH would I wan that kind of flying!
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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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Hmm, you want significant choices that you can handpick for better performance based on knowledge and forethought and yet you don't want gimped choices that might give you worse performance. You want consequences for your decisions and yet you do not want to be faced with situations where those consequences would result in below-average performance? If I'm understanding you right (and including #2), you want strong and useful effects and for the utility of these effects to be universally obvious when making your choice. So either you want homogeneity or you want the game to hold your hand. Or maybe I'm just not understanding what your argument is.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
You can't have your cake and eat it, too. If you give me a system that I cannot comprehend, then you CANNOT give me choices that don't have obvious consequences.
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Needless to say, if I were using Arcana's ideas and forming my own system, it wouldn't even be useful to min/max because there would simply be too many variables to cover. Like here, you're looking for capped defense, some -def resist and you're fairly golden most situations. I'd be looking toward means where it's not so easy to predict or exploit the NPCs and their AI and their abilities would vary drastically from one encounter to the next. You could *try* to min/max for *specific* encounters but they'd be set up and mixed in with *other* encounters that just wouldn't behave the same. In some situations, you *want* that quick hitting sword that can fear but when you run into those undead, you'll definitely feel the difference had you choosen the hammer.
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| IF you can design a system which doesn't task the player with min-maxing, then you NEED to break those bundles up into individual items and you HAVE to make each choice's effect obvious through play. |
That is, I'm not *against* such an idea, but that's not going to somehow relieve players of their min/max ways by giving them the means of min/maxing everything they get.
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There is a way of differentiating these things and making it obvious what they do: It's called "mathemathical representation" |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
OK, let's roll with that. For the sake of argument, let's assume that you are capable of designing a system with no wrong choices, where everything I pick, I pick because that's what I want to do and not because it constitutes better performance. I'm down with that. In fact, I'd like to play such a game, provided you didn't leave in choices which gimp me anyway, with no ability to predict which they are. Let's assume that. I have two questions, then:
1. Why even bother with small percentage values that have non-obvious effects? If you don't want me min-maxing, would you then offer me 3% resistance to cold damage? Would you offer me an extra 1% chance to score a critical hit? Would you, in the broader sense, offer me choices which are only meaningful within a min/max context? I have two ways to make decisions: One is based on understanding the underlying system and being deduce the significance of each choice even if it isn't directly obvious, and the other is by simply making a choice and looking for the effect it has. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. If you give me a system that I cannot comprehend, then you CANNOT give me choices that don't have obvious consequences. 2. Why even bother bundling effects? Suppose I'm given the ability to have more damage and more resistance to toxic attacks, or I'm able to have more speed and more accuracy. Suppose I want more damage and more accuracy but I care nothing for speed and toxic resistance? I want both choices equally, so I must find some way to differentiate between them. If I were given a choice of damage, accuracy, speed and toxic resistance with the ability to pick only two, then that would be a far superior situation, but would you go for that? This really comes down to the fact that players like to know what they are doing and not just pressing "Random" at every choice, and when players are given bundle choices, they tend to evaluate everything in the bundle. IF you can design a system which doesn't task the player with min-maxing, then you NEED to break those bundles up into individual items and you HAVE to make each choice's effect obvious through play. |
Numbers are the simplest ways to represent these things.
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I direct you to this post in that other thread you're reading, which eliminates the "small numbers problem."|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
1. Why even bother with small percentage values that have non-obvious effects?
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| 2. Why even bother bundling effects? |
To put it bluntly: the math has to be impervious to the intelligent. The language has to be impervious to the easily misled.
Plus, some simple choices the game currently gives us simply *are* better than others. For example, both accuracy and damage enhancements simultaneously increase DPS and DPE, while recharge only affects DPS (and in a complex way) while endurance enhancements only increase DPE. And the DPS and DPE effect of accuracy enhancements is capped very low relative to the effect of damage enhancements. That's due to oversimplistic one-dimensional effects having obvious easy optimization angles. You'd have to get rid of that specific kind of simplicit in any system that attempts to do what I've suggested I would do.
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Things I would do for CoH 2:
Make mez less binary. Then have mez protection/resistance/whatever you're gonna call it available to all ATs to some degree. Melees would have more than squishies, but squishies would be able to build some up through IOs, pool powers, or APPs.
Make defense less binary. Then stop filling the game with stuff that'll strip it down to the negatives in seconds unless you're /SR or a rich /SD. Completely eliminate anything that makes defense completely useless *cough* quartzes *cough*
Make range mean something besides "now I have to chase this ****** down to punch him in the face."
Ditch the "everybody beat on a giant sack of HP" model of Archvillain encounters. I would even go so far as to ditch the Archvillain class entirely, or at least limit it to monster-type entities. Important human enemies would get more dynamic encounters attached to them, rather than more HP and more resistance and the ability to one-shot a Granite tank.
S/L damage users are people too, and we want to actually kill something, preferably before we die of old age. If the enemy is wearing a bulletproof vest, I will just have to procure better bullets. Perhaps a use can be found for all this extra accuracy I'm packing, if it allows me to bypass some enemy resistances. Furthermore, no critter in the game should ever have 100% resistance to any damage type ever, unless said resistance can be dropped in some way and still give me the MoLambda badge, and I wouldn't wait for CoH2 to implement this either, I'd put it right after fixing the Lambda warehouse lag and the overzealous AE swear filter on my priority list.
I would not introduce the Mastermind AT. Too many headaches. I would most certainly not turn every player into a potential Mastermind, like with Lore pets. I would not introduce the Stalker AT either, rather I would introduce secondaries for Blasters or Scrappers or both that would allow for an "assassin" playstyle. Furthermore, I would not limit the ATs by alignment....
....because there would be no "City of Heroes" and "City of Villains." One world, four alignments, with content paths for all of them. If I had the available tech to make player heroes not see player villains if they didn't want to, I would use it, otherwise they'd just have separate instances of the same world. Rogues and Vigilantes would be able to visit both instances. I would use the disappearing contact tech to hide contacts you're not eligible for. Villain content would be actually villainous.
I would plan for player-created content from the get-go. It would be out in the world, not tucked away in some building. Developer-approved player-created content would become a permanent addition to the game world.
The game world would be more streamlined. No unused zones. On the other hand, it wouldn't be like CoV either, where a ritzy casino district is right next to a burning pile of garbage. It would be more like Founders Falls, where the transitions are more natural.
And there would be no more evil goatee universes. Alternate dimensions would be less Praetoria and more Shadow Shard. If you leave this world it should feel like you're walking into something alien, not walking into a redesigned Atlas Park. Also no more Nemesis plots. Or Marcus Coles. All developer-created content would be focused on building an engaging and consistent world, and if players want monster-of-the-week episodes, well, I've integrated player-created content into the world, remember? They can write it themselves.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Plus, some simple choices the game currently gives us simply *are* better than others. For example, both accuracy and damage enhancements simultaneously increase DPS and DPE, while recharge only affects DPS (and in a complex way) while endurance enhancements only increase DPE. And the DPS and DPE effect of accuracy enhancements is capped very low relative to the effect of damage enhancements. That's due to oversimplistic one-dimensional effects having obvious easy optimization angles. You'd have to get rid of that specific kind of simplicit in any system that attempts to do what I've suggested I would do.
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I'm having a hard time picturing how that work. Most games basically tie stat boosts together in bundles that are then attached to equipment. For example, you might get a shirt of +Strength and +Stamina, meaning you're forgoing the +Wisdom or whatever else you might need. In City of Heroes you attach your equipment directly to your power, but its basically the same thing, especially with IO sets.
FWIW though I don't think in CoH it is particularly easy to optimize your character. The ability to combine a primary and secondary powerset creates unique advantages and vulnerabilities. It might be really obvious to some people on say, Scrappers, but on Controllers and Defenders it is much less so, especially because the numbers can't be whittled down to a number like DPS. Is a Fire/Trick Arrow better than Illusion/Thermal? At least part of this was unanswerable at the time these sets were developed because both of them have features that are unintentional (pets running off of lit oil slicks, and the ability to slot -tohit Hamis in a power that was supposed to be unenhanceable). That is just one of the things that has to be dealt with in a real game environment.
But the bigger issue is still that sets are not powerful of themselves. They are only powerful in the context of the game you place them in. To pick on something specific mentioned earlier, a damage boost versus undead, the immediate balance issues become how prevelant are undead? Are raid bosses affected? Are undead basically avoidable? Are enemies who are not undead basically unavoidable? Are undead typically a lot deadlier than other enemies? Do they tend to drop better or worse treasure? Are they mostly located in places that are inconvenient to get to? Do they stop showing up after a certain level? Has content released recently featured them? Does it work in PVP?
I don't mean to argue that game balance is not a worthy goal. I am just pointing out that the game world itself probably has more effect on whether a power is considered powerful than the power itself. Force Bubble and Heat Loss are nothing alike, for example, but most people probably feel one is far superior to the other in the current version of the game.
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One of the many reasons why, in an MMO where players have significant control over the content they experience (as opposed to a PnP game where that control rests primarily with the GM) you shouldn't give out bonuses like "+3 vs undead" in isolation. Its too narrow of a bonus to avoid being problematic. You want something more like how the game tries but only partially succeeds in leveraging damage types. You want something that has a higher chance of delivering a shattering effect, which has a certain bonus effect on robots, on crystal entities, on rock monsters, etc. You want conceptually interesting effects that have a wide range of effects against a large subset of everything you might encounter, so that incendiaries have benefits against lots of things in different ways, psionics have benefits against lots of things in different ways (robots might be intrinsically hard to damage with pure psionic damage, but they might also have very few ways to protect themselves from psionic attacks for the exact same reason: robotic armor plating might have zero effect against a psychokinetic attack that scrambles their wiring) and so on.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
But the bigger issue is still that sets are not powerful of themselves. They are only powerful in the context of the game you place them in. To pick on something specific mentioned earlier, a damage boost versus undead, the immediate balance issues become how prevelant are undead? Are raid bosses affected? Are undead basically avoidable? Are enemies who are not undead basically unavoidable? Are undead typically a lot deadlier than other enemies? Do they tend to drop better or worse treasure? Are they mostly located in places that are inconvenient to get to? Do they stop showing up after a certain level? Has content released recently featured them? Does it work in PVP?
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You want to make sure that things aren't too binary: this does a lot here, and nothing anywhere else. You want things to be more general: this affects lots of things, but some more than others.
Incidentally, this is where I should mention: in my CoH2, there would be only three power origins - not character origins. Your character origin is whatever you want to write in the biography box, and I don't care. But your powers themselves would have to obey power rules: Science and Technology, Magic, or Psionics. And these power origins would dictate how your powers worked, and how they interacted with powers and entities of other origins.
Yes: in my CoH2: Superman could be nearly invulnerable to physical damage, but vulnerable to magic. This also has very specific consequences for balancing PvP.
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What I would change (besides many other points already mentioned)...
More genre options, within some limits to stay comic-book like, such as:
1) my fav (see my avatar pix ) (that I can't seem to play in CoX without wanting to get properly clothed after a bit since you can't spend ALL the time in jungle/woods): jungle/forest denizen/protector. Have every, or nearly every zone, have some forest or heavily-wooded park area so that one can level from 1 to 50 (or whatever the level cap is) staying within that theme. The enemies are appropiate as well. Several story arcs would follow that theme, but also could tie in with other heroes doing them, also. (different contact, slightly different wording).
2) water-themed, like in 1 (could be lakes and rivers, I like the Hollows river area btw), perhaps with a river running through a forest so 1 & 2 can share some story arcs).
3) magic themed, for more levels than COT and their story-arcs presents. Probably just add a couple main magical villain or two with story arcs to go with the COT arcs; they would not appear as street spawns.
(3 brings up a point: not every villain group has to be seen on the streets, some that currently are would no longer be: I see you, Malta.)
4) ape kingdom (can go with 1 & 2)
5) dinosaurs (can go with 1 & 2), dinosaur area could be adjacent to the ape kingdom so have an area where giant ape fights dinosaur at times.
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I was thinking of Star Fox, actually. Or Pilotwings. Some measure of autocorrection, but giving you something to do while flying a mile across a zone. Stunts and aerial tricks, basically. Descent-style is fun, but only really works when there's no up in the game. CoH2 would presumably have an up direction that the player character would default to when hovering.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What you're describing is a rather very complex control scheme that relies on six axis of movement with no camera orientation limitation.
Right now, we have three axis of locomotion: left-right, forward-backward and up-down (jump-down), and we have full control over yaw (turning left and right along the vertical line) half-way control over pitch (looking up and down) which is limited from straight down to straight up and allows for no upside-down camera, and we lack any control over our roll orientation. I'm not sure how complex it would be to implement what's missing, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the engine may have trouble drawing a non-standard camera orientation. That, and not only would this only benefit Fly, it also has the potential to make the control scheme far more complex than it strictly needs to be. For reference, I direct anyone to check out any of the Descent games. They have the kind of controls I just described, and this can make them profoundly confusing, to the point of eliminating any notion of "up and down." That said, in an ideal world, HELL YEAH would I wan that kind of flying! |
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Heh, that's basically the concept I was thinking when I was talking about the 'tag' system that would depend on origins chosen. But I'd go one step further and eliminate origins completely.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Incidentally, this is where I should mention: in my CoH2, there would be only three power origins - not character origins. Your character origin is whatever you want to write in the biography box, and I don't care. But your powers themselves would have to obey power rules: Science and Technology, Magic, or Psionics. And these power origins would dictate how your powers worked, and how they interacted with powers and entities of other origins.
Yes: in my CoH2: Superman could be nearly invulnerable to physical damage, but vulnerable to magic. This also has very specific consequences for balancing PvP. |
You could still write your character as having whatever origin you wanted but for the effects/affect you'd get is formed from choices you either choose at character creation or later in your career, but whenever you choose, it'd be permanent.
For enemies, origins would be basic. That thing is a 'psionic', he's a 'zombie', that's an 'android', she's a 'ghost', it's an 'alien', so on and so forth. For players, a modified/simplified list of options would be open but it wouldn't imply what the character is (incorporeal or just a character that you'd describe as having the properties of a ghost would choose a similar option but it wouldn't label you as such, just give you its properties) to allow the player to basically 'form their own origin'.
Similarly, the powers/abilities they used would allow to customize how your powers affect the world such in the example of the 'shatter effect' vs rock/robots/crystal enemies, choosing something like an 'exorcist style' would extend that shatter to ghosts and demons but perhaps to a lesser extent.
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My problem has always been uninformed choices. Whenever I make a choice in a game, I want to have some reassurance that the choice I just made is, if not right, then at least "not wrong." I need feedback on the choices I make. When I take a new power, I want to start the next fight and immediately see, clearly and obviously that "Yes! This power is helping me in such and such way!" The system you're describing is purpose-designed to deny me the ability to infer this by gleaning the internal mechanics, which means you have to ensure that I be able to tell what the choices I made do immediately. And, frankly, I doubt you could do that, even if I believed you wanted to.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The short answer is, and your example is more extreme than is necessary, to make the choices less one-dimensional. Even if they aren't intrinsically min/maxable, one-dimensional choices tend to *encourage* min/maxing psychologically. Consider: the 1acc5dmg slotting pattern was *not* necessarily the optimal slotting pattern at the time it was being used in all the situations it was being used in. What it was, was easy to *claim* was optimal with a trivial statement about damage. More complex choices don't just make the choices more complex, they eliminate the ability for people to incorrectly simplify them with misleadingly simply language. Its "obvious" more damage is better. Its not more obvious that more damage against undead is better than a higher critical chance against robots.
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You criticise choices with obvious right and wrong answers, and to some extent I can see that. If we are given choice, then it shouldn't be loaded. But what's equally bad - and indeed worse, in my opinion - is choices with meaningless answers. If I don't understand what my options do, then I don't care which one I pick. If I don't care which one I pick and instead resort to eeny meeny miny mo, then that choice has failed anyway. Only this time, the choice has failed as a choice AND possibly gimped me.
Yes, in some games, I'm capable or running enough content that I am able to "sense" what my stats do after enough trial and error. I'm also not at all ashamed to say that any game which is designed to expect me to do this is going to deplete my patience long before I have enough experience to know this.
Put simply, I would sooner have NO choice, than have to choose between options I don't understand and cannot test out within a reasonable span of time.
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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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How do you currently choose between Fire Blast and Ice Blast?
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
My problem has always been uninformed choices. Whenever I make a choice in a game, I want to have some reassurance that the choice I just made is, if not right, then at least "not wrong." I need feedback on the choices I make. When I take a new power, I want to start the next fight and immediately see, clearly and obviously that "Yes! This power is helping me in such and such way!" The system you're describing is purpose-designed to deny me the ability to infer this by gleaning the internal mechanics, which means you have to ensure that I be able to tell what the choices I made do immediately. And, frankly, I doubt you could do that, even if I believed you wanted to.
You criticise choices with obvious right and wrong answers, and to some extent I can see that. If we are given choice, then it shouldn't be loaded. But what's equally bad - and indeed worse, in my opinion - is choices with meaningless answers. If I don't understand what my options do, then I don't care which one I pick. If I don't care which one I pick and instead resort to eeny meeny miny mo, then that choice has failed anyway. Only this time, the choice has failed as a choice AND possibly gimped me. Yes, in some games, I'm capable or running enough content that I am able to "sense" what my stats do after enough trial and error. I'm also not at all ashamed to say that any game which is designed to expect me to do this is going to deplete my patience long before I have enough experience to know this. Put simply, I would sooner have NO choice, than have to choose between options I don't understand and cannot test out within a reasonable span of time. |
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He'd also have to throw Science, Magic or Psychic punches.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
O
Yes: in my CoH2: Superman could be nearly invulnerable to physical damage, but vulnerable to magic. |
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He doesn't. He doesn't play ranged types.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
How do you currently choose between Fire Blast and Ice Blast?
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Try: "How do you currently choose between Fiery Melee and Dark Melee?"
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Fairly easily - I make a Fire Blast character and, upon using a power, conclude that this power burns enemies.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
How do you currently choose between Fire Blast and Ice Blast?
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More seriously - what you describe are fairly broad character aspects, like asking me how I picked my character's class. Broad aspects have fairly obvious results that can be determined even just from reading their descriptions most of the time. This is a good example of choices that don't give you much ability to comprehend them beforehand (unless you run through all then umbers), but still give you IMMEDIATE and CLEAR feedback once you're done making them.
I'm more talking about choosing between minor stats, like a few percent defence vs. a few percent resistance vs. a little more health. This is no longer an obvious choice, since no matter what I pick, I won't be able to tell what the result is without running tests and collecting statistics data. What's more, unlike picking between Ice and Fire, this is no longer a thematic choice. It's fairly easy to determine if my character should shoot fire or freeze things based on even the broadest of concept designs. It's not quite as obvious if my character should be a smidgen more resistant or a smidgen more elusive, when the net effects are practically unnoticeable.
If you choose to break your system down into very large chunks where every choice is ground and impactful, then I have no issue. Again - giving me the choice between being able to climb or being able to swim may not allow me to predict which will be how useful without expert knowledge of the content, but I will be able to SEE the difference more or less immediately after I make the choice.
What I fear is that you envision a complex system that tasks players to work hard at creating strong builds while simultaneously denying them the ability to understand what they're doing. It doesn't matter how complex you make the math - such a system will always be min/maxable, just limited by people's ability to do so. If you break your system down into small numerical stats and boosts, it will be a min/maxable system. The only way I can see a system where understanding the underlying mechanics isn't necessary - again - a system comprised of VERY few VERY large choices.
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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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In a hypothetical system like Arcana designs, all choices would effectively be thematic choices, instead of "this is more powerful." |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Fairly easily - I make a Fire Blast character and, upon using a power, conclude that this power burns enemies.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I'm more talking about choosing between minor stats, like a few percent defence vs. a few percent resistance vs. a little more health. This is no longer an obvious choice, since no matter what I pick, I won't be able to tell what the result is without running tests and collecting statistics data.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What's more, unlike picking between Ice and Fire, this is no longer a thematic choice. It's fairly easy to determine if my character should shoot fire or freeze things based on even the broadest of concept designs. It's not quite as obvious if my character should be a smidgen more resistant or a smidgen more elusive, when the net effects are practically unnoticeable.
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At least, if it's done correctly. *pointedly does not look at Other Game*
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What I fear is that you envision a complex system that tasks players to work hard at creating strong builds while simultaneously denying them the ability to understand what they're doing. It doesn't matter how complex you make the math - such a system will always be min/maxable, just limited by people's ability to do so. If you break your system down into small numerical stats and boosts, it will be a min/maxable system. The only way I can see a system where understanding the underlying mechanics isn't necessary - again - a system comprised of VERY few VERY large choices.
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It isn't what I would do, either. I have disagreed with her on some points, but the basic notion of designing towards "I have these two options which do completely different things, which do I like better subjectively?" is one I definitely agree with.
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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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Most choices would be either equitable or qualitatively obviously explained. If you deliberately choose to take little or no offensive options and load up on defensive ones, you would be a more defensive and less offensive character. You may kill a lot slower, which would affect your performance relative to more balanced characters. But it would be a blatantly obvious decision on the player's part.|
Originally Posted by Void_Huntress
In a hypothetical system like Arcana designs, all choices would effectively be thematic choices, instead of "this is more powerful."
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Similarly, if there was an ability that increased your frontloaded damage but did little for sustained damage, and another ability that increased your sustained damage by a lot but didn't frontload that damage, those abilities would say, specifically, that they did those two things. This one increases your immediate damage by a lot, but averages out to a low overall damage. Your kill speed only goes up a little, but you kill more stuff faster at the start of combat. The other increases kill speed a lot over time and you will kill more stuff faster, but you won't kill very many things up front so you will have to deal with more punishment at the start of a fight. You get to choose, but the choice is presented in an obvious manner. What's better: increased kill speed or increased frontloaded kills? Depends on what you want, not on what's "intrinsically better."
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Depends heavily on thresholds. There are points where burst damage's value out paces the value of sustained damage. Although it does allow for alternate content design theories to be applied that may alter the relative balance of those two traits on their own. Burn/Execute phases for instance come to mind, especially when coupled with long endurance phases.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Most choices would be either equitable or qualitatively obviously explained. If you deliberately choose to take little or no offensive options and load up on defensive ones, you would be a more defensive and less offensive character. You may kill a lot slower, which would affect your performance relative to more balanced characters. But it would be a blatantly obvious decision on the player's part.
Similarly, if there was an ability that increased your frontloaded damage but did little for sustained damage, and another ability that increased your sustained damage by a lot but didn't frontload that damage, those abilities would say, specifically, that they did those two things. This one increases your immediate damage by a lot, but averages out to a low overall damage. Your kill speed only goes up a little, but you kill more stuff faster at the start of combat. The other increases kill speed a lot over time and you will kill more stuff faster, but you won't kill very many things up front so you will have to deal with more punishment at the start of a fight. You get to choose, but the choice is presented in an obvious manner. What's better: increased kill speed or increased frontloaded kills? Depends on what you want, not on what's "intrinsically better." |
The problem being, while you can say they are balanced, depending on how much players can control their encounters, different balance realities will emerge.
The basic point example of difficulty is easy to show with your example. If your burst/frontload damage is able to down the enemy in 'one cycle', then it doesn't matter how much sustained damage you have. That is in the hands of encounter design to avoid, or at least balance, but that is a far more organic process since it does deal with a sort of emergent system.
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Just to be clear, I agree with you Sam, and I actually hated it when CoH was so opaque with regards to power numbers. I had no idea whether "extreme" damage was better than "superior", if x power did something better than y, etc. Real numbers have made the game much better in that regard.
TW/Elec Optimization