The Alignment Imbalance
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2011-09-27 20:27 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
My decisions about which alignment a character will have is entirely character-driven. Enough of them remain "pure" villain or hero (I tend to prefer redside in general, and rogues in general) that I have plenty of characters who can obtain alignment merits for recipes I require. I just email the recipes around as needed.
The system is flexible enough, and I have alts enough, that I don't feel constrained to shoehorn any particular alt into any particular alignment (other than my badge-hunter, but that's due to badge requirements).
I'm happy with the current alignment structure and rewards.
Quote:
My point is that they don't balance quantitatively. But when it comes to open, repeatable gameplay choices open to everyone, player options aren't required to be balanced quantitatively. They only have to present the same approximate value proposition as judged by the percentage of players that choose each alternative. If, as I conjectured above, a large percentage of players choose each choice, the choice presents a roughly equitable set of options. Only when the choice has permanent consequences and quantitatively calculable results is numerical balance of any importance.|
Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
The point I made is not that we need a rewards AT but that rewards vs. access is apples and oranges. They don't balance just as combat effectiveness does not balance either.
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But numerical balance is not the only kind of balance that exists. It isn't even the most important one in many cases, such as this one.
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Well, the devs said it was a surprise how few tourists there are - people go where they can get rewards so how it could be a surprise is shocking to me.
There's also the fact it is RP concept related and the tourist system is undeveloped - incompatible with bases - and that influences the population too.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
Quote:
You also have to factor in inertia, though. Anyone who chooses not to run tips on some of their characters is leaving them as heroes or villains by default. I suspect that most people don't change the alignment of most of their characters, and not because they're working to get alignment merits.
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Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
Well, the devs said it was a surprise how few tourists there are - people go where they can get rewards so how it could be a surprise is shocking to me.
There's also the fact it is RP concept related and the tourist system is undeveloped - incompatible with bases - and that influences the population too. |
Just hit the point where I can change/affirm alignments with some of my characters, changed a praetorian turned villain into a rogue and re-affirmed a hero, kind of working on what I want to do with others.
I wouldn't distinctly call it an imbalance, but after poking about the system, it does kind of seem like things are favored a bit more toward the pure alignments. Someone else said that the grey alignments feel like stepping stones onto transitioning to the other side and, ya, that assessment feels kind of valid.
Playing tourist really doesn't seem like much of an incentive. I mean, I turned the guy into a Rogue more on in-character reasons, cuz I just don't see him as that bad a guy (Even if he was essentially a Resistance Crusader) and he's a Blaster so I wasn't that concerned about any of the alignment powers. My dominator on the other hand, you can bet dollars to donuts I'm re-affirming him as a villain.
Alignment merits seem kind of nice, though not the 'end all be all' of rewards, but it does seem neat that heroes/villains get something they can work toward *for being heroes/villains* and staying those alignments now that we've got tips & signatures to acrue merits with. Rogues/Vigilantes, on the other hand, it seems more like all the rewards come for just changing into the alignments. Really, after that, Rogues and Vigilantes have no major reason to continue doing tip missions except to change, or if you *really* want to farm merit rewards solo but, at least on hero side, they hand out merits like candy anyway.
I think it'd just be kind of nice if there were some alignment exclusive contacts for Greys, or something exclusive to do for 'tourism' beyond TF/SF (Which, btw, is only if you're a team player. What incentive is there for Solo play?) Or even if some of the standard arcs had 'grey' choice options like Praetorian arcs do when you're playing Spy (Not that those *really* make any difference in the end [that I could tell], but it was still nice at least for RP purposes).
Though really, is it adversely affecting gameplay? No. The game isn't ruined or anything if nothing changes as everything is now. Would it be nice though? Sure. It seems like fresh ground for the developers to use and play with the potential.
It's not exactly true, of course -- given that converting costs 50 merits and 20 million influence. Any task that doesn't result in a multiple of 50 merits diminishes your "double" benefit for choosing a pure alignment, and with all the alts we seem to be assuming everyone has, stacking 50 merits on any given toon in quick fashion may be a non-trivial task.
That's where the added flexibility of side switching comes in. Certainly, if Chaos is going to disclaim that the lack of Oroborous access in tourist zones - - and thus, slower travel capability -- may slow down your team's progress, it's not quite fair to handwave the 20 million influence conversion fee.
More to the point, Chaos addressed the reward in his/her own quote: