Too many tankmages.

Calling that "a little slower" is like calling the ocean "slightly damp."

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I've been a strong opponent of homogenization for a long time (and its my main gripe with the incarnate power system) but now that I've seen what that kind of homogenization does in an actual superhero based MMO, I've gone from strong opponent to "Oh Hell No" religious zealot.

I think it depends on how it's done. What I would like is something more along the lines of the City of Villain core ATs (except the Stalker). If you look at the four ATs each one of them has one powerset that provides damage and one that provides force multiplication (Brutes get taunts which are a form of damage mitigation and therefore count as force multipliers). In many ways what I would do is take that basic divide add a bit more personal defense to everyone and add some more generic team support to the "tank-type" since Taunting alone is somewhat limited as a form of mitigation.

The idea I like is to switch to a Three powerset system. Each character gets three powersets, one Offense, one Survival and one Support (this could work either with or without ATs). I envision the sets as being slightly smaller than the current ones (6 or 7 powers instead of nine).

Offense Powersets are similar to what we already have come in four flavors, Ranged, Melee, Assault and Pet. Roughly corresponding to the four types of damage sets currently available. One change I would make is to give Ranged powersets a greater reliance on Cones for their AoEs in order to discourage Ranged characters from hanging out in melee. I'd also change Pets powersets to be more focused on fewer, stronger pets with a number of the set's powers actually functioning as special attack commands for the pet(s) (similar to Smoke Bomb for Ninjas).

Survival Powersets are roughly equivalent to armor sets with two major changes. First no Auras (taunt or damage) and second no mez protection. Other than that they include things like self heals and defense resistance buffs/debuffs.

Support Powersets are split into three categories: Leadership, Buff/Debuff and Control. Buff/Debuff and Control are largely what you'd expect given the names but Leadership are a bit different. Essentially they are the second half of the armor sets containing taunt powers, auras, a bit more personal survivability and (possibly) mez protection. However in addition to this they get some team support powers along the lines of VEATs. Primarily these would be aura style powers (both toggle and click) as both buffs and debuffs.

Now I'm not sure if ATs would be strictly needed here. I think you could use the set types for inherent powers and modifiers rather than needing specific combos but it's hard to say. Just baking modifiers into the sets will provide significant differentiation (i.e. damage goes Melee > Assault > Ranged). Some combos could be problems such as combining leadership sets focused on aura based debuffs with ranged cone based sets for example so I'd definitely provide "suggestion" ATs even if I ultimately allowed any combo.

Basically Dominator secondaries, power sets that have both Ranged attacks and Melee attacks.

All Dom assault powers have been more a combo of Blaster/Blaster secondary. It's always been.

I find it funny when I read reviews where people say the Corr is the blaster version of the villain AT's when actully it's the Dom. Sure, both have blast sets but the Dom in general has better melee damage than their ranged damage.

They are the Blapper....only more efficiant at doing it.

This is Champions Online by the way if that is what you wanted, since you can basically choose any power anywhere to make your character and you can easily get the essential ones by level 20-ish, making everyone round themselves out to tank mages. I think it kind of sucks but you might like it. The problem is that if everyone is a tank mage, then they do play the same, and this is particularly true in CO.

You are wrong here. Most of the ATs could solo +4x8 without incarnates if by that you mean cherry picking a mission to farm. (And if you didn't mean this, most still have problems against psi-heavy damage types who sling around mezzes like dominate and mesmerize.) Lets go through the ATs; Brutes, tankers, and scrappers can obviously do it with many variations. Traps and similar buff/debuff sets helps things like cors and defenders manage it. Permadoms with softcapped defense can certainly do it. I've seen plenty of warshades that were IOd up the wazoo do it. The SoA types with their stacked leadership buffs can do it. Etc. Etc.

Many other people in this thread have also said things like they think it is the incarnate content putting people ahead and not just the IO system. I would have to differ here. I think the IO system is what really puts people ahead and the incarnate stuff not so much. I would much rather (not on an incarnate trial obviously because there the +3 lvl shift is overpowering but on a normal mission) in general have a fully IOd out character than one with normal SOs but all incarnate abilities. The +1 level shift of the incarnate system is nice, and there are definitely nice abilities (nukes, various PBAOE buffs, etc) but IOs can give you ridiculous +recharge, +damage, +acc, +defense, etc etc.

For example, my permadom is powerful because she is a permadom with softcapped defense--none of which used incarnate abilities. And my TA/A is good because she has enough recharge to keep oil slick and rain of arrows up often and has softcapped defense--again, all done without incarnates. Sure the incarnate abilities (both of the previously mentioned characters are 50+3) add some things, but they are overpowered for other reasons.

In general, I would say that characters I perceive to be overpowered are ones with lots of recharge and very high defense. These are both easily achieved with IOs.

I like the power but dislike the homogenization. Definitely playing a brute/tanker/scrapper tends to make me feel like my eyes are bleeding as I type in 1,2,3 like a braindead monkey. Luckily there are still some powersets that at least feel a little bit different and require different methods to play--mainly the (de-)buff sets and the control ones, to be honest.

What's the opposite of hyperbole? Because that's what you just did.

I think that's stretching things a bit. I don't have any problem with the way the CoV archetypes are differentiated, not even Stalkers in general, but I don't think you can characterize CoV as everyone having similar offense, personal defense, and support. And I think filling in the CoV archetypes to make that true would be extremely difficult in a way that wouldn't erase the archetypes entirely, and with them the whole point of starting with the CoV archetypes as a prototype of the system.


You're pretty close to what CO offers. Basically, there are offensive sets and more support-like sets, and everyone gets to choose a defensive passive plus a block. You need to run, or try to run, multiple characters through such a system before you really understand what that kind of system's appeals are, and what its deficits are.

The biggest problem for me is best explained this way. When I'm playing a blaster in CoH, I sometimes compare my experience with my blaster to my experience with my scrapper. The comparison stops at that point because there's no way to turn my blaster into a scrapper or vice versa: that pins the comparison down to comparing dissimilar play options. That can sometimes make me appreciate my scrapper more, and vice versa: playing my scrapper can make me appreciate playing my blaster more.

In CO, when I'm playing my melee-centric character, all I'm thinking is why was I stupid enough to make a melee-centric character. All the disadvantages of having to be in melee range with all the disadvantages not having range. There's no good side. But in CO, I can *fix* that. I can just respec out of melee and into range. Or if I'm leveling, I can just stop taking melee attacks and start taking more ranged attacks. Eventually, everything either becomes a ranged scrapper with a touch of support, or a mistake.

Its specifically because X cannot get the abilities of Y and Y cannot get the abilities of X that makes the different archetypes and powersets in CoH replay opportunities. In CO, you can just cherry pick whatever you want from where ever you want. And if you actually make a cherry picked build that has every feature you want, why would you ever play something different, something other than everything you want?

And some people like that, and others don't. Personally, I think it hurts the game a lot in terms of accelerating burnout. I can't prove it of course, but that's the conclusion I've drawn from their experiment in removing archetypal boundaries. And it is the boundaries that matter, not specifically the archetypes. The fact that choosing X means you don't get Y in CoH is something many find annoying, but for many of them that is because they haven't seen what happens when that's not true.


In any case, the only way I could see this working, for the people who don't already love CO's open style of building, is to do something you don't mention but is critical: you say what you would let people get, but you don't mention what limitations people would have. More specifically, what *different* limitations different characters would have. If everyone has the same options, and the same limitations, you're basically back to CO's model.

Troy Hickman?

I think you have to say it three times.

Or just once if you're not wearing pants.

Well then I hearby complete the Troy Hickman summoning trifecta.

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

Well if you take Blaster Primaries + Blaster Secondaries and drop the controls what do you get? Ranged attacks + Melee Attacks. It doesn't really matter whether you want to call them Blaster Primary + Blaster Secondary - Controls or Range + Melee the point still stands, assault sets combine ranged attacks and melee attacks.

I didn't characterize them that way, I said I'd use that as the base. My general goal would be four-fold:
1. All characters should have similar capabilities for solo play
2. All characters should have something to offer a team besides "I can deal damage"
3. Team power should be more predictable based on team size
4. Team composition should not be a major consideration

For the most part CoV comes close to this. With each AT you get decent soloing options and have something to offer a team. I tend to feel that this could be improved by adding a bit more personal survivability to the squishier classes and providing more options for tough classes to protect their allies besides taunt (and then ramping up the difficulty to compensate).

I'll point out what I consider a VERY important difference between what I'm saying and what CO has. Specifically you cannot cherry-pick powers from multiple powersets. You choose one powerset to get offensive powers from, one to get defensive powers from and one for team powers. Once you lock those in you can't then opt to switch to a different powerset (I'd also continue the COH tradition of not allowing them to change during a respec).

There are few different ways I can see to accomplish this.

The first (simplest) solution is simply to differentiate the set types by the values and power types they provide. Melee sets get stronger powers than ranged sets to account for the extra risk. Similarly Leadership sets provide less utility in team buffs to compensate for stronger self buffs, mez protection and the ability to draw aggro. I've never really cared for the "range as defense" argument, although I do see the "range as convenience". In either case though I think it is possible to balance melee versus range simply by adjusting the damage and types of powers available to each although I'll admit I can't prove it.

The second option would be cross-set focused inherent. If taking a melee offense set provided an effectiveness buff to all of your survival powers, well suddenly you have a non-damage reason to take a melee offense sets. Similarly the different support power sets could provide differing bonuses. For example if Leadership provided a damage boost and melee provided a defense boost then a Melee/Leadership character is tough, has good damage and has the ability to draw aggro onto himself. Essentially your selection of offense type and support type would give you two different bonuses similar to inherent powers (I leave out survival since everyone would get a survival set).

The third option would be to introduce archetypes. You've got 12 potential AT combos (4 offense set types * 3 support set) pick the ones that make sense, slap an inherent power on them, adjust values as needed and call it a day.

The limitation is similar to what we currently have just with less coupling between "attack style/damage" and "team support style". You trade damage for range in your choice of offense and in your supprot role choose between tough aggro magnet, buff/debuff or control.

I didn't read the rest of the thread, but I just want to comment on this. It sounds like you didn't really give it enough of a chance, and perhaps you were doing something wrong. To unlock the Alpha slot, you don't even need to do the iTrials...just some regular missions. Then when it's unlocked, you can start on trials. From doing ONE trial, you will get about 6 astrals and 1 emp. Each astral is worth 4 threads, and the emp is worth 20. A common incarnate component costs 20 threads. So from ONE trial you're getting about 44 threads. Which means that just from doing 2 total trials, you can craft a tier 1 alpha. If you concentrate on one toon (your main), it really doesn't take that much time to get quite a few incarnate powers. And it's definitely worth it.

Because everything I want for one character is usually not everything I want for a different character. Hence why they are different characters.

Only one of my level 50 characters was able to do those "regular" missions. The rest of them couldn't beat that guy who creates duplicates of himself.

I don't really have a main. I just have characters and I play them (or make new ones) as my mood dictates. On the one character who had an Alpha slot open, at the time I didn't see a way to craft an Alpha that didn't require shards so I converted to iXP towards other slots. On the others it all had to be converted to open the Alpha slot. After which I no longer wanted to do those trials because getting into them was often a time-consuming process and playing them was not very fun to begin with.

I very much agree with this analysis. It doesn't take much to extend the logic to analyze CoH's game design progression either. The game started with 5 archetypes, all of which were designed to specialize in a particular function/role. The devs even classified them as such. Blasters were low survivability/high ranged (and some melee) damage. Scrappers high melee/medium survivability with little ranged and not much AoE. And so on and so forth. In theory (because skill imbalances plague every game design system), each AT's limitations prevented it from steamrolling the content while solo. Sure, everyone could solo and the scrapper would be a little better, but each class would be hampered by their designed limitations. Tanks, controllers, and defenders couldn't deal enough damage to steamroll, blasters couldn't survive well enough alone to steamroll, and scrappers were in the middle. And no one could override their limitations because character enhancements were limited to enhancing powers rather than global enhancements (looking at you IOs).

Consider what the devs have opened for us now. New ATs such as the SoA allow high damage or control without sacrificing survivability or team force multiplicative abilities. IOs allow everyone access to significant amounts of +dam, +rech, +regen/hp, and +def. Now, given enough time (farm or play enough and you WILL find good IOs) and the willingness to indulge in the IO system, any character can transcend the originally designed limitations to steamroll content. The same can be said for the Incarnate system. Tired of working around your inherent mez protection limitation, Mr. Warshade? Clarion for you! Oh and yes, it's perma! Tired of dealing weak damage because your a tank? Have a nuke on a 2 minute charge! It doesn't take a game developer to realize that by allowing X to get the abilities of Y and vice-versa, the differences between the ATs melt away. It's only a logical extension then that burnout is heightened because playing one AT means experiencing the rest. It's the same thing that happened with runewords in Diablo 2.

To address some of the responses to the OP's concerns, I'm sorry but exempting down is not a legitimate answer. The same goes for intentionally gimping our toons, playing hardcore, or foregoing IOs and/or incarnate powers. While I don't debate that many of you may enjoy the challenges that such behavior creates, it's just not reasonable as a game designer to expect players to forgo content or powers (and exempting is a form of forgoing content) in order to create challenge. It would be no more reasonable to expect burnt out players to stab themselves in the hand before handling their mouse, simply because steamrolling would be more difficult as a result. No, one of the major challenges in game design is difficulty and if the game is easy enough to allow anyone to solo anything, that's a good sign that the game's difficulty needs to be re-examined. Increasing CoH's difficulty amongst all monsters would solve the tank-mage issue somewhat, but it's important to remember that such a solution doesn't address the homogenized and as a result uninteresting class distinctions, nor does it solve the problem if the devs go and make everyone overpowered again.

Another poor response has been along the lines of "this is a superhero game, we're supposed to be overpowered." Fail. This is a competitive (either pvm or pvp) MMO. If there is no challenge from either other players or the game's monsters, then the game gets really old, really fast. It doesn't matter what theme the game is. Playing overpowered, whether by poor design or by cheats, is fun for a little while, but almost ALWAYS gets boring after a while. Yes, this can be mitigated somewhat by varying the presentation. For example, having new powersets with new flashy animations or different attack/support mechanics prolongs the boredom. But if these powersets steamroll too, boredom quickly follows. Don't believe me? Play a single player game with cheats, or challenge your 5 year old cousin to armwrestling. Tell me repeated playthroughs of either doesn't get old fast. You could LOVE armwrestling, and it would still get old quick. Still don't believe me? Here's a relevant analogy. Read through your old superhero comics and imagine what it would be like if all of the conflicts, achilles' heels, and supervillains were removed. Every superhero was invincible in every issue and crushed the competition. Worst. Comic book. Ever.

To address those who grew up with old MMOs, who now hate having to team with particular classes in order to survive, and who love CoH's new (not really) homogenization, I can't argue with you there. If you just want everyone to kick *** equally and with overpowered force, I can't tell you that you're not having fun. Certainly your enjoyment style can be reinforced via game design that is focused around the content (quests, settings, loot). Consider the Diablo series for an example of a game that is focused around varied and extensive content to offset the fact that every class's true end goal is to just deal damage and more damage in whatever form. However, this mentality just DOESN'T work for CoH as it stands now. There is just not enough varied content in CoH to justify the homogenization of every class. Anyone who has played the hated MMO, WoW, can tell you that. Much of CoH's experience comes from the actual fighting and team interaction which, when everyone is a tank-mage of sorts, gets boring.

Lastly, any suggestions that the OP just quit or find a new game until s(he) learns to love this one unconditionally are just stupid. Reminds me of that old South Park episode. "We don't take kindly to YOUR kind around here."

I love this game, don't get me wrong. I still play it enough to warrant a subscription. But the homogenization and relatively overpowered tank-mages ARE a problem and are fundamentally weakening CoH's replay experience and lasting value.

I have a hard time believing that an intelligent person would say that with the intent of meaning what we are seeing with IO's+incarnates.

But then I don't think she meant it like you think she did...

The level of power we are capable of reaching right now is not good for the game. It would be ok in short bursts, like you enter a special mission and the dimension uber buffs you, but continually displaying the level of power available now is bad.

As bad or worse than the relative degree of power we can now possess is the unlocking of abilities that make everyone more and more similar. It is a pretty bad idea in a game that has heavily invested in the promotion of multiple, unique and highly divergent toons to then draw them closer and closer together in performance regardless of environment as well as closer in play experience.

You can say i'm off base, but a heavily io'd, softcapped, t4'd defender plays way more like a heavily io'd, softcapped, t4'd scrapper now then it ever has before. They are still different kinda, but they are converging and what you can and can not do with them ingame is converging be it solo, or teamed.

If you have a toon that can do everything, there becomes less reason to make another one that will just end up being able to excel at everything as well.

Oops. Somehow I missed that you were already in the thread.

My problem was precisely the opposite. I'd gone through both trials fifteen bajillion times, crafted T4s of every single ability slot and converted everything else I got to iXP, and /still/ hadn't unlocked my Lore OR my Destiny slot.

That was somewhat of a rhetorical question. The point is that some people like yourself have one answer that involves differentiating alts in your mind, and other people, and probably far too many, have another answer that involves playing another game entirely.

There's absolutely no question in my mind that CO would have more players if it didn't jettison archetypes. That doesn't mean it was the wrong idea: there's a place for different games with different ideas, and the people who want what CO offers deserve to have an MMO just as much as the people who like archetypes in CoH do. But there's absolutely no question in my mind that the people who thought archetypes were arbitrary limitations that were unambiguously bad for the game were epically wrong.