Too many tankmages.
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-08-10 21:26 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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If I didn't have a legacy sig that I keep just because you can't have one like it any more, I would put this quote there just because it's so damn odd out of context.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
There's no reason to stay for the jello except masochism.
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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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So are we talking just the players or is the audience included here?
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Originally Posted by rsclark
This is going to be a strained analogy, but stick with me.
You go to a baseball game. For 8 innings, it plays just like a baseball game. Then at the top of the 9th, everyone strips down to their underware and gets hosed down with warm jello. They then wrestle to decide the ultimate winner. Anyone not a fan of the jello portion of the event could just leave at the bottom of the 8th, and they would have still experienced 8/9ths of a good game. If you wanted, you could even just say that whoever was ahead after the end of the 8th was the de facto winner. Yet, somehow, I think the existence of that last inning would spoil the game for quite a few people. |
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That doesn't work since they don't require you to ride it a dozen times before you can leave the park.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
You should have stopped here when you basically admitted the analogy was fallacious.
Let's try something much more analogous: You've been going to the same amusement park for years, and you've liked every ride they've ever had. This year, though, they have a new roller coaster. It's different from anything else, and it turns out to not be your favorite ride. A great number of other people love this ride, so it's kind of crowded. You'll ride it once or twice with your friends, get the T-shirt for riding it, but you still prefer to do the other things in the park. You can still find a partner for any other ride in the park though, so the rest of the park hasn't changed for you. Just because you don't like the new ride doesn't mean you can't go to the park. |
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I say they would be dumb for going to the game at all.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
And yet, someone who really enjoyed the part with people swinging sticks at flying balls but really hated the part with the jello who kept going to game after game after game and not leaving at the seventh inning stretch would still be an idiot.
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| The problem with your analogy is that there is still a certain incentive to either stay and watch or at least find out later what happened: to find out who won. |
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Neither do the trials silly.
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Originally Posted by rsclark
That doesn't work since they don't require you to ride it a dozen times before you can leave the park.
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The devs could eliminate the need for the incarnate exp for an account after you have leveled a character through those incarnate slots already.
I offer this because there seems to be resentment of the incarnate slog process rather than incarnate powers.
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That's the part that fits not at all. There is nothing that happens at level 50 that puts all of the rest of the game into a different context. The competition in a sporting event is usually explicitly intended to drive to a conclusion. However, every single player that has not even leveled to 50 much less played the end game hasn't in some sense missed a part of the game that would have given the rest of their play additional meaning.
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Originally Posted by rsclark
That's not a problem with the analogy. That's the part of the analogy that fits perfectly.
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That wouldn't achieve much. The iXP requirements are tiny, now. My latest character through the trials fully unlocked Interface+Destiny in 6 Lambdas, and fully unlocked Judgement+Lore in 8 BAFs.|
Originally Posted by Necromatic
The devs could eliminate the need for the incarnate exp for an account after you have leveled a character through those incarnate slots already.
I offer this because there seems to be resentment of the incarnate slog process rather than incarnate powers. |
The "slog" is running enough to get the components you want, or the Merits with which to buy them.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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On the other hand if you don't play through the whole game, its like going to an all you can eat buffet and having a glass of water.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's the part that fits not at all. There is nothing that happens at level 50 that puts all of the rest of the game into a different context. The competition in a sporting event is usually explicitly intended to drive to a conclusion. However, every single player that has not even leveled to 50 much less played the end game hasn't in some sense missed a part of the game that would have given the rest of their play additional meaning.
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Not remotely. It's more like eating your fill of steak but skipping all the seafood because you just don't like it.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
On the other hand if you don't play through the whole game, its like going to an all you can eat buffet and having a glass of water.
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True only if somehow the level 1-49 game is analogous to a glass of water, and the level 50 game is analogous to everything else that exists as a buffet: if the level 50 game was, in some sense, dozens or hundreds of times larger and/or more significant.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
On the other hand if you don't play through the whole game, its like going to an all you can eat buffet and having a glass of water.
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To me, its more like going to an all you can eat buffet and not actually literally eating everything. Not everyone can, or wants to do that. That doesn't mean they can't enjoy buffets.
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It's funny, I look at ogre as an enjoyable little wargame. Its fun factor mostly comes from the fact that for games of the genre it's exceptionally small and quick.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Although I don't have first hand experience buying recent re-releases and such, my understanding is most versions of Ogre use the same basic rules. Also keep in mind I'm talking about Ogre the hex-board wargame, not GURPS Ogre the RPG or the miniature system Ogre which is based on the hex-board version but I'm much less familiar with.
In my opinion, if you're a student of game design and game balance, Ogre is your first point of call. You could spend years thinking about how and why Ogre works. There's even a *hint*, albeit only a hint, of the kind of thinking that should go into open powers systems design. I suspect that might be where Another_Fan is coming from by mentioning wargames. In a sense, you could analogize an army as being a set of powers, and the assembly of an army as a form of open powers selection. However, that analogy doesn't hold strongly enough for it to be a model for open powers design in an MMO for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being the fact that there's no good evidence that any wargame like that cared about constant-point balance. It was all about making a better or more effective force than your opponent, and the balance was due to both sides having similar options or being put into static situations that themselves were engineered with balancing forces. Ogre is interesting in that it has a stronger hint of open powers balance than most wargames, because one side is very strongly fixed: it takes the Ogre. For Ogre (the game) to work, of all possible counter-army constructions there cannot be lots of combinations that are obviously more powerful than the Ogre, but there must be a wide rage of combinations that are nominally as powerful as the Ogre. Which meets some of the requirements I set forth as mandatory in a balanced open powers system. Why its just a hint of the problem is because the strength of the counter-army is difficult to fully assess because its partially based on the tactics used to drive it. Its hard to say if the Ogre is exactly balanced with the intrinsic power of the counter-army, or if the Ogre is easier to tactically deploy and the counter-army much harder to get maximum effectiveness out of, which acts to handicap the counter-army. In other words, I don't know if in a computer vs computer match, if the Ogre has a significant advantage or the opposing army does, eliminating human factors. It would be an interesting problem to study, though. |
As to balance its pretty easy to run the numbers. There are entire fields of study devoted to just that. At a guess balance was sacrificed to keep unit pricing and ability performance as simple integers.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's somewhat a matter of opinion (the latter part) and Ogre does in fact meet the on-paper list I provided in a superficial sense, but its mechanics as I previously mentioned aren't quite extensible to MMO design. The fuzzy part is significant in one area: requirement one. When the power selection options involve units in a group rather than abilities on a single entity, you add a set of complicating factors that may only work when the set of powers is distributed among multiple entities in that fashion. The notion of interunit tactics exists for a set of units that doesn't exist for a single entity (at least, not in any design I've seen). And that's important because an Ogre army has some diversity due to its specific selection of units and some diversity due to the implicit interunit tactical options each set of units contains separate from per-unit tactics. When you collapse that into a single entity that interunit tactical options disappears, and the options that Ogre presents when translated into an MMO would be too limited to be interesting.
To reproduce interunit field tactics with interpower synergy effects in a way that would make these two situations directly analogous would be challenging to say the least. And that's why requirement one is there: I don't see a way to bypass it and get relateable results. Wargames in general are fine if there is a way to customize *units* in an interesting enough way to be analogous to the way an MMO open powers system would work, or if the wargame fields larger scale superunits that contain individual units that aren't themselves customizable and which operate atomically. That would be more analogous to an MMO open powers system. Ogre doesn't do this. |
That's a rather broad assertion. It also seems to melt away if you actually start trying to do the constructions needed to build the system. The real problem seems to be in giving players powers that enormously increase team effectiveness, and then having npc enemies that either won't have those powers on tap or due to AI limits won't use them effectively.
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Originally Posted by newchemicals
In the really early version of Ogre when GEVs were 4/4 movement. It turned out that no one considered an all GEV force. Now they are 4/3.
So there is still a GEV scatter phase, but at least Ogre has a chance now  |
Actually, I'm on the other side of the fence. I don't feel that any character should be dependent on a team dynamic to be functional.
Don't get me wrong... having powers and abilities that aid or support the others around you is fine and good. But Self-Reliance is the very nature of the superhero genre. Sure, they are superhero teams but those teams are usually formed to deal with Major Events or issues to big for them to handle on their own... not to take down the local drug dealer and his ninja crew.
I personally think that every AT should have the all tools it needs to solo all but the biggest threats effectively, and when those challenges present themselves, then it needs to be "all hands on deck!" time.
But that's just me (and thousands of superheroes through the ages 8D), YMMV
It's 106 miles to Grandville, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing faceless helmets
... Hit it ...
... Hit it ...
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I've done the constructions necessary to build the system in another context for which a subset had a specific practical application.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
That's a rather broad assertion. It also seems to melt away if you actually start trying to do the constructions needed to build the system.
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Why on earth would you play the entirety of any decent MMO? The entire point of the modernish MMO design is that the entire game, pretty much, is optional. You have dozens of choices, so you can do the ones you enjoy.
I'm a fan of CoH. I've never yet gotten anyone past 44. I have a second account due to running out of slots (and yes, I bought some slots too), and I still never quite get around to it. For me, buckling down and focusing on levelling a character might extend as far as trying to play that character at least once a week.
This isn't just CoH. Not comparing with other MMOs, but I'm a pretty big fan of RIFT (like, I have a special forum title over there)... And I haven't yet gotten anyone to level cap on either of my accounts.
And yet... I'm having a lot of fun. I had fun in WoW, too, even though I did maybe 10% of the endgame content that was ever around when I was. And I've never PvPd in any of these games, even though that's a huge hunk of content to many people.
That, you see, is because I understand that the point of the game is to do things you think are fun. I tend not to be well-suited to stuff like trials and leagues and whatever else, because I don't deal well with large numbers of people. I'd rather play in small groups, doing stuff like 5-player SF/TF runs. So I don't see a lot of the game...
But the parts I do see? I enjoy them. I have fun. I have gotten to be pretty firm about that one policy: If I am not having fun in an MMO, I go do something else. There are no rewards that make up for Not Having Fun.
MHO, but MHO happens to be backed by many years of having a great time while forums were full of people complaining that the game was ruined for them.
I don't even have to read this thread to realize how little of a basis this argument has.
1.) This game is being re-vamped so people will focus on the end game, which just so happens to be what people were asking for oh I don't six years.
2.) People vigorously complained of their lack of abilities, the devs fixed that so everyone could be on a team without feeling like a complete waste. Of course now that they actually answered the call people are complaining it was too much.
3.) Solo a trial, then talk to me about a Tank Mage. Until that day, sorry guy but you really have nothing other than "I don't like something, please change it so it appeals to my personal tastes more."
4.) You obviously have very little clue on how long people have been waiting for end game content like this. My jaw literally dropped when I found out how much time/money is going into end game, because previously we had nothing but the LRSF or STF. I mean you could try and run a hami, but finding that many people is much harder than grabbing eight randoms.
5.) People -hated- the 1 hero/villain=3 minions concept. It was stupid, the devs even admitted they didn't like it. Last time I checked this was City of Heroes, not City of Armed Civilians. People -love- mowing over large quantities of enemies because it makes them feel like they haven't wasted their time getting something to 50 that might not get on any teams because of certain powers.
Here's an idea, set your own challenges. I know it seems crazy, but believe it or not the majority of people enjoy not dying repeatedly. Also to be completely honest, do you really think CoH is going to re-vamp this whole game, making everyone weaker? Does that honestly seem logical in any way shape or form? No. People would leave by the masses. It would be like i13 for PvE in this game.
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I am glad the game has found an arbiter of how it should be played and what is fun.
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Originally Posted by seebs
Why on earth would you play the entirety of any decent MMO? The entire point of the modernish MMO design is that the entire game, pretty much, is optional. You have dozens of choices, so you can do the ones you enjoy.
I'm a fan of CoH. I've never yet gotten anyone past 44. I have a second account due to running out of slots (and yes, I bought some slots too), and I still never quite get around to it. For me, buckling down and focusing on levelling a character might extend as far as trying to play that character at least once a week. This isn't just CoH. Not comparing with other MMOs, but I'm a pretty big fan of RIFT (like, I have a special forum title over there)... And I haven't yet gotten anyone to level cap on either of my accounts. And yet... I'm having a lot of fun. I had fun in WoW, too, even though I did maybe 10% of the endgame content that was ever around when I was. And I've never PvPd in any of these games, even though that's a huge hunk of content to many people. That, you see, is because I understand that the point of the game is to do things you think are fun. I tend not to be well-suited to stuff like trials and leagues and whatever else, because I don't deal well with large numbers of people. I'd rather play in small groups, doing stuff like 5-player SF/TF runs. So I don't see a lot of the game... But the parts I do see? I enjoy them. I have fun. I have gotten to be pretty firm about that one policy: If I am not having fun in an MMO, I go do something else. There are no rewards that make up for Not Having Fun. MHO, but MHO happens to be backed by many years of having a great time while forums were full of people complaining that the game was ruined for them. |
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Actually, all he said was that you should do what you find fun; he did not say what that was supposed to be or implied that would be the same thing for everyone.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
I am glad the game has found an arbiter of how it should be played and what is fun.
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And in that respect, he is in fact exactly correct.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Actually, all he said was that you should do what you find fun; he did not say what that was supposed to be or implied that would be the same thing for everyone.
And in that respect, he is in fact exactly correct. |
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| Why on earth would you play the entirety of any decent MMO? |
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If you only read the first sentence of the post you'll get a somewhat different impression.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
I think what he was saying is pretty clear.
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Of course, I'm telling you exactly how to have fun: Do things you enjoy.
I am not telling you what those things are, because I don't know what you enjoy, but I can tell you that you will have more fun doing things you enjoy than things you hate. This is a super advanced concept for most MMO forum posters, I admit.
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Then I am sure you will understand |
Originally Posted by seebs
Of course, I'm telling you exactly how to have fun: Do things you enjoy.
I am not telling you what those things are, because I don't know what you enjoy, but I can tell you that you will have more fun doing things you enjoy than things you hate. This is a super advanced concept for most MMO forum posters, I admit. |
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| MHO, but MHO happens to be backed by many years of having a great time while forums were full of people complaining that the game was ruined for them. |
Or for the person who goes to the buffet for steak instead of a steakhouse, its annoying when they start using condemned beef.
Edited: For clarity
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Hear hear.
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Originally Posted by Jet_Boy
Actually, I'm on the other side of the fence. I don't feel that any character should be dependent on a team dynamic to be functional.
Don't get me wrong... having powers and abilities that aid or support the others around you is fine and good. But Self-Reliance is the very nature of the superhero genre. Sure, they are superhero teams but those teams are usually formed to deal with Major Events or issues to big for them to handle on their own... not to take down the local drug dealer and his ninja crew. I personally think that every AT should have the all tools it needs to solo all but the biggest threats effectively, and when those challenges present themselves, then it needs to be "all hands on deck!" time. But that's just me (and thousands of superheroes through the ages 8D), YMMV |
The game ends at 50.
SmilegasmDo not ever give Mind Control a pet.
We need more control sets without pets.My characters are not "toons".
They are all project characters, though.Global chat @Lxndr My servers: Defiant, Liberty, Pinnacle, Virtue
I dont blame the players that make tankmage type toons in the game. They are personally not for me. I wish I like had a toon like that though lol. I for one like my controllers, doms, corrs. I wish if anything that my controllers had some better damage output. At least in two or three powers. Example propel and lift on gravity would be a nice power with a little more damage behind it lol. Thats just my wish though.
Let's try something much more analogous: You've been going to the same amusement park for years, and you've liked every ride they've ever had.
This year, though, they have a new roller coaster. It's different from anything else, and it turns out to not be your favorite ride. A great number of other people love this ride, so it's kind of crowded. You'll ride it once or twice with your friends, get the T-shirt for riding it, but you still prefer to do the other things in the park. You can still find a partner for any other ride in the park though, so the rest of the park hasn't changed for you.
Just because you don't like the new ride doesn't mean you can't go to the park.
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