City of Heroes is the World Wrestling Federation of Superhero MMOs

It's actually pretty simple when you stop to think about it. Having ten wrong choices, only one of which is right - that being "Fitness" - and all the others wrong is not diversity, in that it's not a choice. It may look like you have ten choices, but you really only have one choice - fitness.

Removing one choice and leaving behind nine other relatively equal "apples and oranges" choices has therefore increased diversity, because it now looks like you have nine choices... And you actually DO have nine choices. The total might be less, but it's not a question of total number, but rather the number of meaningful options.

Putting in one option which clearly an obviously outclasses all others REDUCES diversity and eliminates choice. Removing one clearly broken option effectively unlocks all the others. Diversity is built not on the number of options the game presents, but rather the number of options the game presents that are worth a crap.

Here's a thought experiment. Let's add ten more power pools, each of which consists of four powers, each of which grants you 1 hit point to your maximum health. Theoretically, the number of options has increased. Theoretically, diversity has increased. Practically, nothing has changed, because no-one is dumb enough to take these powers. At best you'll get something like the Determinator, but intentional outliers like that are exceedingly rare.

Here's another thought experiment. Let's add just one new pool with just one new power. It's a cost-less passive that makes you unkillable. It breaks your AT caps and makes you immune to all damage. Theoretically, just one power shouldn't change things all that much. In practice, EVERYONE is going to take that power, thus actual diversity will decrease as people will lose a power pool choice and, more than that, have their defensive sets be rendered almost completely pointless.

The reason "balance" keeps being thrown around so much is because that's what it comes down to. "Diversity" as such only exists when the choices we are presented with are balanced against each other, such that there are no clearly superior choices to deprecate all others and such that there are not clearly inferior choices which will never be considered. Fitness was always the one right choice, and would have remained the one right choice irrespective of base stat changes. Taking it off the board entirely increased diversity, or at the very least reduced the penalty for being deviant.

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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.

This whole argument over diversity is nonsense because none of you have enough information to know what you're talking about.

Lets say that a average build has 6 powers to spare on power pools. I don't know if it's true, it's just a number I've pulled out of the air.

Now let's say there is Stamina and 6 other pool powers that people generally want.

Before Stamina was inherent, everyone would take it and then have 3 powers left to spend on the other 6 options. That's 20 potential combinations.
After Stamina was inherent, everyone would be just given it, and would have 6 powers left to spend on 6 options. That's 1 potential combination.

In this case, making Stamina inherent has clearly reduced diversity.

Now let's say there is Stamina and 12 other pool powers that people generally want.

Before Stamina was inherent, everyone would take it and then have 3 powers left to spend on the other 12 options. That's 220 potential combinations.
After Stamina was inherent, everyone would be just given it, and would have 6 powers left to spend on 12 options. That's 924 potential combinations.

In this case, making Stamina inherent has clearly increased diversity.

What these numbers are is vital information in knowing if diversity has increased or decreased, and it is information that none of you have.
RemusShepherd thinks that in general the number of powers in the pools that people want is less than 9, while UberGuy and Samuel_Tow think the numbers are higher than 9. But not a single one of you can back your own claims up.

If you want to go out and find the average number of powers people spend on pools, and the average number of powers people really want in the pools, and then compare the two, be my guest, and then you'll have a reasonable idea of if diversity has increased or not.
But until then, you're all just talking out of your arses.

Wow, the thread still lives.

Just to clarify why I started this thread, I do not hate the game nor wish failure upon it. I'll be here till the servers finally close.

I don't hate gimmicks. Almost everything that's purchased relied on a gimmick. KFC has Col. Sanders. McDonald's has Ronald as well as the McRib. I'm just wishing that the gimmicks would be used sparingly.

The WWF/WWE didn't fail. They just slowed down a bit because another company used a gimmick that was based around using "less" gimmicks. Since pro-wrestling, although the industry has hundreds of millions of followers worldwide, was referenced I think that people took the wrong meaning from my post.

Let me give another example: pinball.

Pinball was the MOST played form of arcade entertainment in the world in the 70's and 80's. When home consoles like Atari were introduced, less people frequented arcades. Pinball almost died out in the early 80's. But, because of oversaturation of home console games, people got bored with playing at home and started frequenting arcades again. In the mid 80's pinball was king again.

But the makers of the pinball games did something that eventually killed that industry: they pumped out too many pinball games with over-the-top gimmicks.

Pinball, pre-mid 80's, was a simple game. The simpleness is what made people play and pump more quarters into the machines. You had a relatively simple layout, a few flippers, a ramp or two and bumpers. You received points based on what you made the ball hit. No matter the pinball machine, you knew what you were getting into.

But, mid-80's game designers decided to add more to the game. Instead of the same simple design, they built more complex designs. They added more mini-games to the design. Some machines had an LED monitor that allowed you to play a monitor based game once you accomplished a set goal. Some machines had animatronic monsters and space ships that you had to hit specific bumpers to cause them to fly or die. They added layer upon layer of gimmicks in the hope that they could keep people in the arcades to play their product.

But the more complex they made the pinball games the less people wanted to play them. There were no simple rules anymore. Some games relied only on the gimmicks they added. People no longer had the game they loved.

Even though arcade video games were popular, pinball was what those arcades relied on. Since older machines were replaced by newer, gimmick filled machines the pinball player population quickly died out. The hit was so swift that pinball making companies collapsed. Players quickly went back to home consoles in the late 80's because there was no reason to spend their time and money at arcades. That and the fact that console games started producing a better product than before people decided to once again stay home.

When I reference this I mean that I DON'T want this to happen to CoH or the MMO industry. I don't want CoH to overburdon the player with so many gimmicks that it slowly drives people away.

Am I looking for CoH to stop the gimmicks? No. But, like pinball, players are looking for the same ole same ole. The more gimmicks that are added don't necessarily add to the replay value of the trial/tf/etc. What adds to the replay value is simplicity and not too much complication.

Pinball survived on just earning points with no "endgame." Pinball died when they started adding endgame type content and made earning points less valuable to the player than trying to beat the gimmick.

And yes, even 7 years later I still think that players stick with CoH for the cool, but simplistic features that were introduced when the game was first released.