City of Heroes is the World Wrestling Federation of Superhero MMOs

You sacrificed powers from your secondary to take Fighting, two travel powers, and Maneuvers. She sacrificed equally from primary and secondary to take Fighting, and two travel powers, and Combat Jumping.

That's supposed to be diverse?

Before Stamina, you would have taken Super Jump and she would have taken Fly and the two of you would have been much more different. She's better in melee, you're better at range, but that was possible to do before or after inherent stamina.

(I should also note that I don't see any use in your two-slotted maneuvers. What is that, 2.28% with Weave as your only other defense? Combat Jumping would have been a shade less defense, effectively no endurance, and free up a slot. But then -- with a smarter build -- the two of you would have been even more similar.)

The builds you posted prove my point. Instead of one blaster who jumps and one blaster that flies, we have two blasters that both fly. One can jump and one can superspeed, but they're a lot more alike now than they would have been before.

I'm sorry. I am getting annoyed, and I wasted most of my day at work responding in this thread.

No. That was never my point. My point is that people do not take useless powers if they can help it. Because of that, they are driven to take the same powers in the power pools. Everyone takes combat jumping because nobody wants to take Provoke. (Barring concept characters, of course.)

Let's get past the 'useless power' argument and just assume that every power is equally useful. ("Everrrry slot is saaaacred...") Before there were 64 possible combinations of the base powers, and permutations on that with the power pools. Now there are 21 possible base combinations, plus the same permutations. There are less possibilities. Characters are more similar than they used to be. It's basic math. I'm sorry if I'm getting frustrated explaining it.

In any event, this is only one facet of the complaint lodged at the beginning of this thread: The developers are not delivering new gameplay experiences, they are commited to delivering flashy gimmicks. You can't blame them; flashy gimmicks sell microtransactions. Character diversity is just one example of how the game has lost substance that is not being replaced.

Then I think we simply disagree. I believe the number of meaningful choices has decreased. I also believe that the number of trivial choices has expanded.

I hadn't heard about that. I think it's an awful terrible no-good idea, unless it also comes with new power pools.

What will your blaster take with three new power slots? You can't take any more power pools. You're stuck with either the 5th power in your travel pools or filling out your primary and Epics. Either of those choices gives you near-identical power choices to St. Angelius' blaster.

Take it to the absurd extreme; let's say the devs give us all 55 power choices. That's every AT power and every Epic, and four powers in four power pools. Whee, more choices! Except, no -- everyone will have the same powers, except for some minor differences in which pools they take.

Restrictions create diversity. By removing restrictions diversity is lost.

er, no, i did not sacrifice any powers from my secondary, I gained 1,, boost range, I also gained the 3 fighting pool powers, someting my build was too tght to fit in before. SS and SJ were both in my build before, I wasn't forced to take them.

You also didn't look very well at my build, Neo chamber doesn't fly, he does run and jump. and in aition to my 2 sotted manouvers I do also have CJ, weave and temp invulnerability for always on defences, and tough for always on resistance as well as click powers in PFF and force of nature.

Then to top it off, you are suggesting we both build just like you do and make our very different blasters more alike? Seriously?

Our builds may not work for you, but they work for me and Arcarnaville. and work very well thank you.

Originally Posted by Forbin_Project Then it's time for them to get off the cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and get over it.

I think we know which way you swung in the great ED debacle, now.

No worries.

Not trying to be flippant here, but you basically just summarized the way most people used to feel about Stamina. The hierarchy of 'better' supplemental powers has shifted, but that isn't, in itself, evidence that there's less diversity overall. If anything, I think the above-quoted paragraph tends to emphasize that the no-brainer pool options are less compelling than Stamina was.

As much as I love Combat Jumping, I'm not seeing a lot of claims that it's mandatory. I guess what I'm not getting is how you can acknowledge on the one hand that players tend to gravitate to the best pool powers, but on the other hand dismiss just how many people took Stamina before.And if you take it as given that Stamina was a common factor for the vast majority of builds before, then giving those same builds three more power picks must increase diversity on average, if not in every specific case. Why?

Because a greater proportion of each build's 24 discretionary power picks at least has a chance to be different - and that's before we even consider the IO options that arise from inherent stamina.

I believe the slots in question are enhancement slots.

Do those characters play near-identically, though? That isn't a rhetorical question (in part because I'm typing on an iPad, and can't look at Mids); I'm honestly curious what, to you, passes for functional diversity.

Take it to the opposite extreme; let's say the devs took away all but two of our power picks. Everyone would have their first-tier primary/secondary powers, and that's it. Obviously either argument breaks down at its most extreme. What's more interesting, and more revealing, is what the restrictions or their lack allow you to do otherwise.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

I can assure you they don't, Arcarna's toon lacks primaries that are essential to neo's concept but has more of the primaries attack that don't fit in neo's build. Remus just looked at the builds, in passing i might add as he is under the mistaken impression that neo flies, which he doesn't, and made incorrect assumptions as to what powers were put in to replace the slots freed up by inherant fitness. Then goes on to critasize the build and my un-smart choice of powers and slots. Basicly, Neo doesn't fit into his narrow definition of a good build, so is completely dismissing it in as an example of how it is diferent from another blaster with the same primary and secondary powers.

Originally Posted by Forbin_Project Then it's time for them to get off the cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and get over it.

I am not criticizing your build, I'm sure they both work fine. I'm just saying that they look pretty similar.

I don't put myself forward as a connaisseur of builds. The fact that I mixed up the two builds and saw fly in both, rather than superspeed in both, is proof of that.

So you both speed instead of fly. You say that you gained Fighting when you got free stamina. Either Arcanaville already had Fighting -- in which case your build became more like hers -- or she chose it also, proving that there are only a few viable options in the power pools. One way or another, your characters are more similar now than they were before inherent stamina. That's pretty undeniable.

That's not saying that either character is inferior, or bad, or ugly, or that their mothers didn't love them. I'm not criticizing your character or your creativity in making them. I am saying that you and Arcanaville were herded into similar choices by the changes to the system.

And as I said before, I maintain that most people were wrong.

Oh, that doesn't bother me as much. There's still plenty of diversity in slotting. In fact, giving us more enhancement slots will help the power slot problem, because it will allow more power pool picks to be viable. Yeah, that's a fine bandage over the problem. New power pools would be the better solution.

I'm sure they play very differently. I'm not saying that they don't. I saying that they play more similarly now than they did before inherent stamina. If nothing else, both have Fighting now, when they didn't before.

Noooo, the other extreme would be two power slots, but still 24 powers + pools to choose from. Then every character would truly be unique. I'd have a Power Thrust blaster, and you'd have a Boost Range one, and they wouldn't resemble each other at all.

Wait a minute. You can't just say that. If we both traded fitness for fighting, that's not becoming more alike. That's remaining equally alike. Your thesis is not that diversity didn't rise, its that it fell. So you can't just say things are the same: you have to show where they got worse.

In support of your thesis, you've said that inherent fitness drives builds closer together, so close in fact that you've strongly implied that everyone tends to get driven to similar choices. But in terms of powers, there are twelve power choices that are different: Power Burst, Sniper Blast, Bonesmasher, Power Boost, Total Focus, Superjump, boxing, kick, maneuvers, hover, fly, and repulsion bomb. You could say alternatively that there are six pairs of power choice swaps. That's six power choices out of twenty four choices, one of which *has* to be identical (power thrust) and two of which are extremely likely to be identical in blasters power bolt and power blast. In practical terms of the 23 real choices presented to us, 26% of them were different. That ratio is probably similar to the ratio before inherent stamina for energy blasters.

And that overlooks the stylistic differences that address the core of your thesis, that inherent stamina reduces options. Both builds are range-focused blasters. However, the way I "spent" inherent fitness was to fill in a melee option: I have bonesmasher and total focus. Those aren't just filler: they give me a melee option separate from my primary ranged focus. I am range-focused, but not range-exclusive. St Angelius' build spends the same power choices to add additional ranged options beyond conventional ranged shooting: it has sniper blast and power burst. And interestingly, power burst is not being used primarily as a short-range alternate attack. Its actually being used as a kinetic crash mule. While the attack does still do damage and is partially slotted for damage, its an inferior attack to bolt and blast: but it offers recharge bonuses and knock protection. This build is still almost exclusively a long-ranged blaster.

Yes, 75% of the power choices are the same, but I think that belies the fact that energy blasters were always approximately that similar in terms of counting powers, and that 25% difference masks a much greater playstyle and conceptual difference. As an energy blaster, St. Angelius' build seems almost as different from my build as a randomly generated one would. Between us, we have the speed, leaping, fighting, leadership, and flight pools, plus coincidentally the same epic pool (one build version earlier and I would have had cold). About the only pool we don't have that would have been common in the old days for energy blasters is the stealth pool and the medicine pool, and that was negated not by inherent fitness or incarnates, but the invention system in stealth IOs. And the invention system added far more diversity than it removed.

I'm not specifically trying to beat you up on this, but rather explain how your view of what is choice and diversity isn't taking into account what other people actually see and play. You seem to have a thousand foot view of energy blasters, for example, whereas most of the people I know that play them have a much more nuanced view of them. And this gets all the way back around to tactics and options. I have options Angelius lacks: I have total focus, I have bonesmasher. I can blap, albeit not as well as before. I have hover: I can hover-blast. Angelius has snipe, that build can long-pull better than I can, even with boost range. The build has maneuvers, it has ally buffs which I lack altogether. And *neither* of our builds has aid self, which is still used by blasters not uncommonly. It cannot be true that the game has eliminated or radically reduced tactical options, when people are still building around different tactical options.

Yeah, I think it's worth emphasizing and re-emphasizing that what we're discussing here are two builds with identical power sets. The fact that they can be even 25% different in terms of power selection -- even before we discuss different slotting and IO-bonus set ups -- is pretty remarkable in itself.

Tossing IOs into the mix (and with apologies for not having looked over your specific build or St Angelius'), I could make an Energy/Energy melee specialist, a long ranged specialist, or a mix of the two. I could skew IOs towards max defense, max offense, or a mix of the two. I can flavor any of the above with different supplemental pool powers. Achieving all of those disparate goals is likely easier because of Inherent Fitness (if for no other reason than that Health and Stamina offer a fairly limited selection of slottable set bonuses, and Swift/Hurdle offer none at all).

Granted, I'm gonna end up taking a lot of the same powers in all of those builds, but that's beside the point. Actually, it tends to prove the point, though perhaps not in the way that Remus seems to desire; despite each build's superficial similarity, I can make those builds play so differently you'd scarcely believe they shared the same power sets.

If we take a wider view, the addition of inherent Fitness tends to allow different Archetypes and different powerset combinations to be more themselves, and thus less like others. Speaking personally, and for what little it's worth, the addition of Inherent Fitness has encouraged me to roll characters I would never have wanted to play before. The slog up through the early/mid-twenties to get Fitness, and the resultant lack of new (to me) power picks up through the thirties was just too annoying for me to even consider some builds. If I'm rolling combinations I wouldn't have before, doesn't that contribute to over-arching build diversity?

Then we'd both suck. There's a reason that the devs force you to take some sort of attack power at level 1.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Well, I agree with you on the idea that every character would be truly unique, but only because there wouldn't be anyone playing the game.

IF there were still hundreds of people playing, then there would still be fewer varieties of Energy/Energy Blaster than there would be players. Actually, since you'd have far fewer powers to slot, there'd be significantly less variety even.

Not three more powers, three more slots. You know, those things you put Enhancements in.

As for the rest of the argument, which I've only skimmed through now and again, I have to say that since Inherent Fitness I've found myself more often in a position where I level up and there is no power that I want to select, yet I am forced to select a power. This occasionally even happens to me with characters that I'm taking the entirety of their Primary and Secondary powers. I may end up with multiple travel powers that I don't really want or need. I'm not sure what that means about diversity, but it's a major reason why I haven't respecced my level 50 Electric/Energy Blaster out of regular Fitness, because that character already has a bunch of powers I don't really care about.

I am not saying that the builds are not different. I am not saying that diversity has decreased to zero. I am saying that it has decreased somewhat -- a noticable amount.

Okay, that's a good way of looking at it, so let's try that framing. I maintain that characters cannot be as specialized as they were before. They have too many power slots that have to be filled, so they have to take some generalist powers.

Before inherent stamina, St. Angelus was pretty long-range specialized, with a knockback power, few melee attacks, a snipe and no fighting pool. Arcanaville's build was more generalist, with no snipe or dedicated KB (beyond the natural KB in her attacks) and several melee attacks. (I'm unclear on whether she had the fighting pool before or not.)

After inherent stamina, St. Angelus picked up the fighting pool...and now their blaster is more of a generalist, with both range capabilities and some ability to mix it up close to the enemy.

You'd be hard pressed to make a true specialist out of these powersets. You'd have to avoid 7 powers in the primary to go pure blapper; there are 5 melee attacks in the secondary you'd have to avoid (one you can't) to go pure long-range. You already can't avoid taking 2 pool powers (not counting epics), so you're looking at either 9 or 7 power choices that have to be filled by pools. Doable, but there aren't a lot of options: Fighting for the blapper, a travel power for both, and then both builds will probably dabble in leadership or medicine. (I still don't understand having multiple travel powers, but I suppose that's an option also.).

Before inherent stamina you'd have either 6 or 4 power choices free. There was much less chance that the two builds will both choose the same power pool. The blapper would need Fighting, and after a travel power it would have only one power pick free, which would have probably gone to either combat jumping or hasten. The ranged specialist would only overlap if their travel pools were the same.

No overlapping powers before; several overlapping powers afterwards. Decrease in build diversity. A small decrease...but we are talking about two very loose powersets in possibly the least restrictive AT. If we replay this with a tank then you'll see a lot less options available.

That's an interesting counterargument. Inherent stamina did make players create more alts, and that alone might have led to more diversity. You've got a good point here, and I think I agree with you.

I still maintain that the game needs additional power pools, to increase character diversity and customization and to give more gameplay options. The devs are busy building costumes. We're getting flash, not substance.

I agree completely. Nobody wants the extremes. The question is where in the middle we want to be.

You are still seeing what you want to see in my build rather than what is actually there. Before inherant fitness My energy blaster was a long range specialist. the only melee attacks he had were brawl and power thrust. After inherant fitness he became a long range specialist with greater range, more survivability and 1 more melee power, kick, which barely gets used as it was a prerequist for tough and weave. What inherant fitness did for me was make me more of a specialist, not less of one.

As for 2 travel powers, SJ gave me good verticle movement while SS gave me great horizontal movement, 35ft of stealth, 100% threat reduction, which is much more use in the heat of battle on a team than stealth as it gives a blaster 0% threat generation, and a mule for a 20% slow resist. SS is always on because it is more than just a travel power, SJ is my primary travel method.

And Obitus, no need to appologize, I explained the diff Arcarnaville's build and mine as I knew you were unable to view them at the time.

Originally Posted by Forbin_Project Then it's time for them to get off the cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and get over it.

*cough*

They sell those at Bed Bath & Beyond, don't they?

Those are Powder Thrust Blasters.

Primary powers: Power Blast, Power Burst, Aim, Power Push. Blast you have to take. Power Push is being used as a knock tool and a mule for explosive strike. Burst is a short ranged blast good for mixing up with blapping. Not only are there no filler powers, I actually ran out of power picks. If I had more, the next one would have been power boost (to boost stuns) and the next one after that would have probably been hover (which would add to defense and allow some slot shuffling on defense bonuses). The only power not really explicitly intended for a blapper specialist is snow storm, and its a prereq for cold mastery.

I also ran out of slots: I could easily put more worthwhile slots into combat jumping, stun, health, aim, and conserve power. The slots just aren't there, and the slots are more valuable where they are.

(Incidentally, this one one of three different builds I'm playing around with in Mids, while brain storming what my future alternate build will be. Its a sell-out to blapping build, so its extremely specialized.)


Blessing of the Zephyr

Also, I have flight and superspeed. I have flight because I like to fly, and because you can fly right off of things like caltrop patches. I have superspeed because I like to be invisible, and it stacks with the stealth IO.

It runs contrary to your own "restrictions create diversity" maxim. What power pools do? They allow an AT to pick powers not normally available to it. So, the extreme case of "more power pools" would be no AT powersets at all, with powers that can be chosen a la carte by any AT.

No matter how you reduce power picks in such a setup. and in fact, the MORE you reduce them the stronger the pressure to just select absolutely the best powers available, and these powers quickly crowding out everything else. Scranktrollblastermind quickly becoming the only build. There were some actual games that had this particular problem, so it's not just a theoretical exercise.

It's quite difficult to balance such thing as a power pool for this reason, and Fitness was simply badly balanced. Yes, you could build staminaless, but why bother? It had way too much "benefit per pick." Fighting I'm afraid falls into similar category, though not as drastically.

Now, a game with infinite and perfectly balanced diversity... Won't actually be a good thing either. No meaningful choices, whatever you pick works as good as anything else.

So almost any MMORPG needs classes and certain class boundaries should be there. Means to work around them to create "blappers" or whatever may be there, but in moderation, and in fact too much of these HURTS playability, either by leaving no choice or making it devoid of any meaning.

I'm talking about diversity throughout the playerbase -- different players should have characters that play differently. Restrictions allow that. More power pools would (contrary to intuition, I know) create more restrictions by making it so there are many more powers available than the slots a character has to put them in. Players would have to make choices, and those choices would lead to a diversity of builds.

You're talking about diversity in a single character's abilities. I'm not concerned about that at all.

Almost but not quite. I am saying that there were few choices for powers to take. Most of the time people will choose primary or secondary powers over power pools, because they are stronger and generally more useful unslotted. But if you had powers in your AT that were just undesirable (like the Invuln passives) then you'll go after pool powers...usually, the same pool powers as everyone else with your powersets. There just aren't enough choices.

All three of your regens and one of your brutes now have Leadership, all of your fliers have Combat Jumping, and two more of your characters (who already fly) have super speed. Yet you're not seeing a problem with lack of choice here, or with character diversity?

I think you're proving my point, UberGuy. The only disagreement left is whether or not everyone else with the same powersets chose the same power pools for their characters. You say no, but I believe most of them would have. There aren't many good alternatives.

What we have now is City of Combat Jumpers. We need more options.