What is the Ultimate "FREEDOM"?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-07-11 20:35 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Are you going to do the animations?
I don't expect what you're talking about to happen in CoH, but having played "open sandbox" style games where players can create their own content (outfits, animations, etc), I'm curious if a game will ever come along that incorporates some of that sort of openness in an MMO environment, or if it's even realistically workable.
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
Standard code rant.
Standard Animation rant.
Standard Balance rant.
Standard this should have gone in the suggestions forum rant.
This post brought to you by the "Standards let's Maintain Them" forum initiative.
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Um... What's more free than a cash shop powerset? How about a powerset I don't have to pay for and, you know, get for free?|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
Will it ever happen? What's more FREE than creating your own powers or at least allowing you to choose existing powers to form a powerset? Of course there's going to be limitations and loads of play testing but it will be worth a lot of "cash points" if it ever happens. Dev, can you see the $_$ face?
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Selling power in the most abstract sense is never a good idea.This defeats your entire purpose in suggesting it. Player-created powers always come down to a handful of "best" options and a sea of "horrible" options, so rather than giving people more choice, you give them even less by introducing unambiguously "best" options. This is exactly the sort of thing that failed spectacularly in City of Heroes' pre-beta and delayed the game's release by two years. It let people who knew what they were doing create massively overpowered characters while letting people who didn't know what they were doing gimp themselves hard. ATs and powersets exist for a reason.
Additionally, selling power or real money just creates an environment where those with the most disposable income are always the strongest, and class struggle is not why I come to games. Selling cosmetics and novelty items, sure. Those are just trinkets. But selling actual powers is a no-win situation. You end up either having to pay more, which is not a good prospect, or being less powerful, which is not a good prospect either.
In short: Mechanically difficult, impossible to balance and devoid of any kind of business ethics.
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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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Thats for suggestions you want the devs to read. If you want players to read it, post it here |
Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
Standard this should have gone in the suggestions forum rant.
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Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
This post brought to you by the "Standards let's Maintain Them" forum initiative.
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This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
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To see old friends who could pay for this game, to come back, Getting to no the Free To play people as well and befriending them. Exploring New Zones, new Content and more Raids, New Powers Set and a Hopefully a new Awards for Vip Players, Now that is Freedom.
Never play another NcSoft game, If you feel pride for our game, then it as well, I Superratz am Proud of all of you Coh people, Love, Friendship will last for a lifetime.
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Could... You rephrase that?
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Originally Posted by GreenFIame
To see old friends who could pay for this game, to come back, Getting to no the Free To play people as well and befriending them. Exploring New Zones, new Content and more Raids, New Powers Set and a Hopefully a new Awards for Vip Players, Now that is Freedom.
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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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At this point I'd just be happy to have the freedom again to not have to form the team myself if I want to team with any of my toons below 50.
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Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
Standard code rant.
Standard Animation rant. Standard Balance rant. Standard this should have gone in the suggestions forum rant. This post brought to you by the "Standards let's Maintain Them" forum initiative. |
But seriously, what would be my ultimate freedom?
The Dance Gun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGF0MYORADE
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A competitor has a feature that allows players to design a custom flag, submit it to a peer review, and then be approved and added to the player's flag inventory. This is a MMO, not a sandbox.|
Originally Posted by Organica
Are you going to do the animations?
I don't expect what you're talking about to happen in CoH, but having played "open sandbox" style games where players can create their own content (outfits, animations, etc), I'm curious if a game will ever come along that incorporates some of that sort of openness in an MMO environment, or if it's even realistically workable. |
It's true that most costume elements would be out of the question but it seems to me that chest emblems are the exception, being that they are basically decals. I find it conceivable that there could be a process for submitting and approving custom chest emblems and charging a few hundred paragon points for the privilege.
As for the topic, I have a difficult time imagining any new "freedoms" above and beyond the one the OP envisioned. It's one of the reasons I've felt for awhile that CoH was already pretty much set for conversion to freemium. It has many monetization opportunities available just selling the basic building blocks of the game experience.
Assuming that "freedom" in this context means "pay money for some extraordinary benefit in the game", I'd like the "freedom" to erect a statue in my character's honor.
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You do have a point that those that are new to the game may gimp themselves too hard by choosing powers that don't have much synergies (although they can force them to choose tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3...etc)|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Um... What's more free than a cash shop powerset? How about a powerset I don't have to pay for and, you know, get for free?
Selling power in the most abstract sense is never a good idea.This defeats your entire purpose in suggesting it. Player-created powers always come down to a handful of "best" options and a sea of "horrible" options, so rather than giving people more choice, you give them even less by introducing unambiguously "best" options. This is exactly the sort of thing that failed spectacularly in City of Heroes' pre-beta and delayed the game's release by two years. It let people who knew what they were doing create massively overpowered characters while letting people who didn't know what they were doing gimp themselves hard. ATs and powersets exist for a reason. Additionally, selling power or real money just creates an environment where those with the most disposable income are always the strongest, and class struggle is not why I come to games. Selling cosmetics and novelty items, sure. Those are just trinkets. But selling actual powers is a no-win situation. You end up either having to pay more, which is not a good prospect, or being less powerful, which is not a good prospect either. In short: Mechanically difficult, impossible to balance and devoid of any kind of business ethics. |
What I envision is picking existing powers WITHIN the same AT to form a set yourself but there will be penalties of course. You are not going to get the full value because your strength will be the diversity in your own powerset and simply being "unique". Yes, I will pay for that uniqueness if I have access to it. That's the kind of cash shop I really pay for it and no, I don't like creating overpowered toons and I dislike AE farms.
This is why I suggest "cash shop" powersets because to get this "freedom" in creating your own, you gotta pay more for it. Yes, "freedom" does cost money and that will be a big draw for me in Cash Shops. Those costume pieces have almost zero attraction to me.
That will be my "ultimate freedom" for the F2P model. What's yours?
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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This sounds good in theory and even technically workable, but I wonder whether it could be made to work. The devs don't have the manpower or inclination to do large-scale review of the main mode of players' content creation at the moment, AE. There's just too much of it and not enough time or people. Wouldn't having a review system for chest emblems run into the same barriers? Perhaps not; everyone can string a few characters together and populate a map, but not everyone can Draw A Hexagon. Would the difference in submission rates make having a Chest Emblem Reviewer in Paragon Studios' best interest? I don't know.
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Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
It's true that most costume elements would be out of the question but it seems to me that chest emblems are the exception, being that they are basically decals. I find it conceivable that there could be a process for submitting and approving custom chest emblems and charging a few hundred paragon points for the privilege.
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Signed. They should make this happen.|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
The Ultimate Freedom this game can achieve, in my opinion, is to allow you to create your own powerset through Cash Shop.
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Animations are not a problem. You'd create a powerset by selecting from already available powers, each of which has an animation already.
Balance is not an unsolvable problem. Mark each power as defense, offense, utility or support. Have the player select one of those when they create the powerset. Powers that match the powerset are at full strength; powers that do not are drastically debuffed. Thus you can make a support powerset with Acclerated Metabolism (support), Howling Twilight (support), and Energy Transfer (offense), but ET will be at a fraction of its usual strength. There'll be no tankmages, and no all-purpose powersets. You'll still specialize but you'll be able to customize also.
Code is a problem. But they're rewriting a lot of code for the Freedom initiative anyway; may as well spend some of that manpower giving existing players something they want.
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I just want to point out that we enter this situation as soon as Freedom becomes live. The Veteran powers and the Costume Pack powers are vital parts of some character builds, allowing them to be stronger. As soon as people are able to buy those things a la carte, the income class struggle is on.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Additionally, selling power or real money just creates an environment where those with the most disposable income are always the strongest, and class struggle is not why I come to games.
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We are going to have a disparity in character builds based on how much players are willing to spend. It's unavoidable. We may as well do cool things with it.
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If that was the person's sole job (say an intern or something) then 8,000 - 10,000 submissions in a year at $5 a pop would mostly pay for that person's salary and benefits. That sounds fairly reasonable, actually, and if Freedom is a runaway success then that might be a conservative estimate of the potential revenue.|
Originally Posted by Olantern
This sounds good in theory and even technically workable, but I wonder whether it could be made to work. The devs don't have the manpower or inclination to do large-scale review of the main mode of players' content creation at the moment, AE. There's just too much of it and not enough time or people. Wouldn't having a review system for chest emblems run into the same barriers? Perhaps not; everyone can string a few characters together and populate a map, but not everyone can Draw A Hexagon. Would the difference in submission rates make having a Chest Emblem Reviewer in Paragon Studios' best interest? I don't know.
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Hmm... Maybe that deserves posting in the suggestions forum. OTOH, it's such an obvious customization that I'd imagine someone at Paragon Studios already has it on a white-board of possible "products" to put in the Market.
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OK, so I pick Build Up seven times and then something else on top. Absurd example, but it highlights a couple of problems:|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
What I envision is picking existing powers WITHIN the same AT to form a set yourself but there will be penalties of course. You are not going to get the full value because your strength will be the diversity in your own powerset and simply being "unique". Yes, I will pay for that uniqueness if I have access to it. That's the kind of cash shop I really pay for it and no, I don't like creating overpowered toons and I dislike AE farms.
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1. Powers within powersets are not balanced against each other. Healing Flames has an equal heal strength to Reconstruction, but it recharges 20 seconds faster, just as an example. And there are others besides. Most powersets are balanced as a whole, relying on the interaction and stacking of all nine powers, even if individual powers within the set may be overpowered or underpowered.
2. Some powers only work within the context of the set they appear in. Soul Extraction only works on Necromancy henchmen, Swap Ammo only affects Dual Pistols powers, Power Syphon builds up buff from Kinetic Melee attacks only, etc.
3. Power order is all over the place. If we go by Blaster primaries, I can take one Tier of power from each set and still end up with a set of almost entirely Snipes. And if you don't make powers comparable by Tier, any other kind of comparison is largely subjective.
4. Power balance dictates that powersets have certain weaknesses and certain strengths. Invulnerability has no psionic Protection, but has high smashing/lethal resistance while Fiery Aura has overall less survivability but more utility. Mixing and matching powers as you please simply means the community as a whole will end up with one meta-powerset with all strengths and no weaknesses.
This system existed once before, in CoH pre-Beta, and it was abandoned. There was a good reason for this.
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Originally Posted by Jibikao
That will be my "ultimate freedom" for the F2P model. What's yours?
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Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
I just want to point out that we enter this situation as soon as Freedom becomes live. The Veteran powers and the Costume Pack powers are vital parts of some character builds, allowing them to be stronger. As soon as people are able to buy those things a la carte, the income class struggle is on.
We are going to have a disparity in character builds based on how much players are willing to spend. It's unavoidable. We may as well do cool things with it. |
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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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Re: Roll-Your-Own-Powersets on the Occasion of FREEDOM
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I didn't play pre-Beta, so I have no assurance that they did it right. I see several options for doing it right. Thus, I suggest that they attempt it again.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
This system existed once before, in CoH pre-Beta, and it was abandoned. There was a good reason for this.
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| No, we may not. I HATE what veteran reward attacks have done to the game and what Booster Pack powers are doing to it. The last thing I want is to make things worse. Just because things are bad doesn't mean I want to make them ten times worse. The next thing you know, we'll be buying experience, Inf and Incarnate XP. Do not want. Ever. |
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I'm not sure if there is a way to do ti right at all within the context of a video game. However, I KNOW that there is no way to do it right as an add-on to the current game. 2 Minutes looking through the Defender primaries is enough to show that. For example (using the power must remain at the same tier rule):|
Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
I didn't play pre-Beta, so I have no assurance that they did it right. I see several options for doing it right. Thus, I suggest that they attempt it again.
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1. Twilight Grasp
2. Tar Patch
3. Darkest Night
4. Howling Twilight
5. Force Field Generator
6. Sonic Dispersion
7. Disruption Arrow
8. Oil Slick Arrow
9. Fulcrum Shift
There you go. One absurdly tough high damage defender. Even on SOs it would be pretty tough due to FFG, Sonic Dispersion and Darkest Night, add in an epic shield for more resistance and some IOs and it's insanely tough. Meanwhile the other powers really boost damage and it has HT for some -regen (not my first choice for -regen, but in terms of power locations it's the best fit and it has the advantage of having some other nice abilities).
For me would be 2 things:
1. AT respecs. No explanation needed right?
2. New AT that allows you to pick power combos ala AE. So you HAVE to pick a primary offensive set, (not individual powers) and then a secondary set. Example: Psychic Blast/Ninja Reflexes
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May I ask how veteran powers and booster pack powers are harming the game or your experience thereof? I'm being serious.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
No, we may not. I HATE what veteran reward attacks have done to the game and what Booster Pack powers are doing to it.
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So don't keep powers at the same tiers. If a power is too strong for its tier, make it higher in the customized powersets. Conversely underpowered powers can be taken at lower tiers. Why bother limiting the system to being able to replicate existing sets?|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I'm not sure if there is a way to do ti right at all within the context of a video game. However, I KNOW that there is no way to do it right as an add-on to the current game. 2 Minutes looking through the Defender primaries is enough to show that. For example (using the power must remain at the same tier rule):
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You do realize that in order to do this they're going to have to create a separate database of customizable powers anyway, so there's no need to adhere strictly to the existing ones. May as well use tier shifting as one of many balancing strategies.
It's doable. Other games have done it. I can't think of a good reason not to do it here.
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And that reason was that they had no way to balance this, and no easy way to warn players they were doing something dumb.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
OK, so I pick Build Up seven times and then something else on top. Absurd example, but it highlights a couple of problems:
1. Powers within powersets are not balanced against each other. Healing Flames has an equal heal strength to Reconstruction, but it recharges 20 seconds faster, just as an example. And there are others besides. Most powersets are balanced as a whole, relying on the interaction and stacking of all nine powers, even if individual powers within the set may be overpowered or underpowered. 2. Some powers only work within the context of the set they appear in. Soul Extraction only works on Necromancy henchmen, Swap Ammo only affects Dual Pistols powers, Power Syphon builds up buff from Kinetic Melee attacks only, etc. 3. Power order is all over the place. If we go by Blaster primaries, I can take one Tier of power from each set and still end up with a set of almost entirely Snipes. And if you don't make powers comparable by Tier, any other kind of comparison is largely subjective. 4. Power balance dictates that powersets have certain weaknesses and certain strengths. Invulnerability has no psionic Protection, but has high smashing/lethal resistance while Fiery Aura has overall less survivability but more utility. Mixing and matching powers as you please simply means the community as a whole will end up with one meta-powerset with all strengths and no weaknesses. This system existed once before, in CoH pre-Beta, and it was abandoned. There was a good reason for this. |
Not to get anyone's hope up, but I thought about this problem about two years ago, in a serious (and not just musing) fashion. I came to the conclusion it was possible to do, but would require a significant amount of restructuring of how the powers system worked to really do it right.
It would take me about six months to set the system up properly, which translates into about eighteen months of total development time. Maybe more including playtesting. But I believe every technical and balance barrier has a solution that would work in practice. You'd probably start with the easy stuff, and allow the construction of melee and ranged offensive sets, then dominator assault sets, manipulation sets, and defensive sets. The hard ones would be the buff/debuff sets, the control sets to some degree, and the mastermind primaries would be a nightmare.
Theoretically speaking, by the way, mitigation sets would actually be one of the easier ones to balance (easier, not easy), because for most power mechanics we have ways to calculate mitigation strength to within a high degree of accuracy. Its not as simple as allowing players to mix and match powers from different sets indiscriminantly, but its calculable. And if its calculable, its balanceable.
Pure offense is actually even easier to value. The AE custom critter system has an extremely primitive system for doing so, and it gets surprisingly close to doing it well enough for custom powerset construction.
Valuing buff and foe debuff powers and sets, now that's the really hard one.
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When Freedom hits live, what is the ultimate FREEDOM in your opinion?
To me, it's not the "free membership" part. I have money and I want a good game to play.
I've been playing this game for quite a while now and I've posted many messages as well. I think about this game all the time at work. It is sad but true. lol I think about set balances and improvement ideas and even get into fights all the time. :P
The Ultimate Freedom this game can achieve, in my opinion, is to allow you to create your own powerset through Cash Shop.
Will it ever happen? What's more FREE than creating your own powers or at least allowing you to choose existing powers to form a powerset? Of course there's going to be limitations and loads of play testing but it will be worth a lot of "cash points" if it ever happens. Dev, can you see the $_$ face?
I think it's one thing that this game will never allow to happen because we have ATs and how do you balance with "free" powersets? Or maybe we can at least choose the powers within the same AT to create a unique primary/secondary? This is probably more doable?
What's your Ultimate Freedom in this game? Design your own costume piece for sale? I am not a role-player and I even use Random button when I create characters but I know some of my friends can spend HOURS in costume shop. :P
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.