City of Heroes is the World Wrestling Federation of Superhero MMOs

Those quotes get to the issue of what constitutes diversity. In a later post, Uber says the following:

I don't want to put words in Uber's mouth, but the above-quoted paragraph, written after the post you quoted, strongly suggests to me that he wasn't even acknowledging the average-player's-pool-powers metric that you so harshly criticized as undefinable until later. The above-quoted paragraph suggests to me that he feels the standard you lampooned is, in fact, useless.

Just as I feel it's useless. There are any number of factors apart from Inherent Stamina that may have equal or greater influence on build diversity, whether you evaluate build diversity as a population statistic or a measure of the game-design incentive. It has become easier and easier, for example, to justify not taking a travel power at all. Incarnate powers allow builds to do things they couldn't before. IO bonuses are probably the biggest factor of all, and their interaction with inherent Stamina could go either way (Fitness offers limited slottable set-bonus options).

Most recently, there's the whole Premium/VIP dichotomy, which is likely to change the diversity of builds across the population. But that's only relevant if we stipulate that the unknowable average player's behavior should be the standard by which we judge build diversity. FWIW, I don't, and the more I read the less likely it seems that anyone else in this thread really feels like that's the appropriate standard.

Does that mean that you're now taking the 5th path, of pointing out the 4th guy to seem cleverer-than-the-cleverer-than-the-third path? I guess this post marks me as also taking the 6th path of wondering about the 5th who points at the 4th who points at the 3rd? If I speculate about whether you'll take the 7th path in your reply, does that also mark me as taking the 8th?

Considering that I was already among the first two sides of this little discussion, that makes me very busy indeed.

Whatever the case may be, even you have to admit that given your signature and your everyone's-talking-out-of-his-**** approach, it sure does seem like you went out of your way not just to convey a point, but also to convey an attitude. I may disagree with Remus in this thread, but I've admired his posts on various subjects in the past, and his conduct here has remained for the most part respectful. You struck me as aiming for a different note.

Nothing personal, just how I saw it.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Again, you're implying that a study of the average player's pool power selection is the deciding factor in this discussion. It isn't; in fact, if we could somehow poll the playerbase we'd end up in an endless debate about what constitutes rational or irrational behavior. In other words:

You're also implying that there exist, somewhere, two separate data points tracking the pool-power selection of the average player before and after inherent Stamina, and ignoring all other factors.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

No word-putting involved, that's definitely how I feel.

None of us could. "A study" that would in the slightest be meaningful for the general population of the game would include, if not the total population of the game, then at least a sizeable amount of it, and by "population" I don't just mean people, I mean all the characters a player has. We haven't been given player numbers of late, but let's be conservative and call the game at 100 000 players, if we restrict ourselves to just VIPs. Even if we're conservative and give those players just a handful of characters, say two or three (and many have upwards of 50) that's still hundreds of thousands of people who would need to be tracked down, "infoed" and written down. That's thousands of manhours of work just so that I can "win" an Internet argument?

Where do you get off being patronising and condescending that I haven't done it? Unless you are interested in doing the work yourself, then strutting your stuff here insisting that it COULD be done, but you can't be arsed to do it makes you... A bad person, let's put it like that and avoid me getting modsmacked twice in one day.

Or it would, if you had any way for us to travel back in time to do "a study" on people's characters prior to Inherent Stamina, which by my recollection was a year or so ago now, and that many people respecced out of on the day it went Live, embarking on a respec spree that saw many people thoroughly exhausted. It is functionally impossible to compare build variety between now and last year, because it is functionally impossible to examine build variety from last year unless we enlisted the help of Holsten Armitage.

The only people who would "could" know are those on the development team, and even then I'm not positive they track this kind of data. But if they did, they'd know. Sadly, I'm not on the development team, as can be inferred from the whiteness of my name.

And finally, no, I don't think you say this to make yourself appear smarter, and it's not working even if you were. I'm convinced you do this so that you can take a cheap shot at both sides of the argument while still trying to retain the moral high ground. The only thing players "could" know is the system. How the playerbase uses this system is no more knowable to any one single person than which American movie is most popular in India is knowable to any single Indian citizen without the aid of a nation-wide statistical poll, and even then I'm not sure the results would be realistic.

What I DO know is that the number of possible permutations of powers is greater now that we have more power picks than it was before Stamina. Whether that's more options to Remus or to you or Jack Emmert if he still plays is... Well, not terribly relevant. Unless there are reasons to believe that everyone is taking the same powers - and there aren't - then the system offering more choice is all that has any real relevance.

But, hey, go ahead and prove me wrong. Conduct a survey of several hundred thousand character builds (in-game, since only a small percentage of players come to the forums) and show me that you "could" know. I'm willing to be wrong if you're willing to waste your time to prove me wrong. That's what you're suggesting I do, after all, is it not?

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.

You discarded things incorrectly. I have a build with one-slotted Maneuvers, and that was not a throwaway choice. I have multiple builds with multiple travel pools, and again that was not a throwaway choice. I'm glad you have acknowledged this.

The things that you are saying here lead me to believe that you are operating under constraints that most players do not recognize as valid. As such, I can readily believe that the number of choices that you would take has been reduced. I don't think that the number of choices has been reduced, or even that the number of reasonable choices has been reduced. And specifically, I do not think that any two of my characters, when respecced into inherent fitness, used the 3 or 4 new power choices in exactly the same way. What tended to happen was that they increased the degree to which they were already specialized for a particular metric. And because I tend to build toward unusual optimization metrics, this served to increase overall build diversity.

Yeah, I'd place it at close to 180 - 200 000.

Speaking of multiple travel powers, I have one such right now. By concept, she was intended to have a sort of anime super-fast slide (hence, Spuer Speed + Prestige Power Slide), but because of the technology I ended up writing for her, she ended up taking Super Jump towards level 50, as well. I rarely use Super Jump these days, just because it's supposed to be a last resort for her, but I greatly enjoy having it.

I have multiple teleporting characters for whom I would love to take Fly, if power choices permitted me to do so. That's not very often the case, but it's something I want to do nevertheless.

Here's the thing - MY freedom of choice and expression has increased. For the longest time, I felt compelled to pick powers based on what my builds needed, or at the very least pick powers I had some use for. Now that that's no longer the case and I have more slots to go around, I get to pick what I WANT to pick, as opposed to what I HAVE to pick. Multiple travel powers, garbage pool attacks, Presence and so forth. I pick these because I WANT them, not in the slightest because I feel I need them.

In short, I now have the choice to pick the powers I want, when I didn't before.

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.

Based on what?

Please remember I said subscribers.

Based on the same numbers you're using, I guess.

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.

The devs could do a statistically valid survey of builds. Players would have a much more difficult time doing that. However, what a player can do is what I did earlier in this thread. First, guestimate the number of total player builds that took fitness, given statements by the devs that a large majority of players did when they made fitness inherent. That number would have to be much higher than 50%, but it is unlikely to be very close to 100% or the devs would have said words to the effect that "virtually everyone" took fitness. A reasonable guestimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 75%.

Its not important what the precise diversity elements are throughout the entire game to determine if overall diversity increased or decreased to a first order approximation. First there is the observation that it is highly unlikely that those players without fitness would suddenly change their builds in a way that made them more self-similar. They would still have the same power choices. They could theoretically divert slots into fitness, but that's not likely to occur in a way that is exactly identical. Or they could decide to redo their builds entirely within the context of inherent fitness but its also unlikely that given inherent fitness that group would coalesce around a more similar set of builds. Whatever diversity they had, they would likely retain. And since fitness basically increases run leap, regen, and recovery, and since those fundamental changes could theoretically be replicated by simply increasing base stats, I do not consider adding fitness powers to every build to be a decrease in diversity. Characters with fitness slotted in the same way just have higher stats, and we wouldn't say they were more similar if the base stats themselves were increased. Contrawise, characters with fitness not slotted the same way are different.

The critical group are the characters that had fitness, and theoretically gained inherent fitness with a respec. These characters gained a number of power choices, probably three, and another power pool option since fitness no longer burned a choice. The question is, for this group of characters, is it more likely that for a given powerset combination that same high value of players all chose the same build modification: the same set of three powers from primary, secondary, and power pool. And since we're assuming that number is much higher than 50%, that would mean there would have to be one single dominant choice for *everyone*.

In other words, most energy/energy blasters with fitness all took the same three powers: they all took burst, combat jump, and maneuvers, say. Or alternatively, most energy/energy blasters were members of a dual build: one set took A, and the other set took B, and after fitness each took the other's powers, so they both had A and B.

Just *looking* at the opinions available suggests that the burden of proof is on the person making that assertion, because there are a wide range of valid options. A wide range of valid options for a specific case was presented in the thread. The fact they exist means this line of argument is only true if the vast majority of players don't consider them valid options. And there's no reason to believe that to be true.

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.

Not misleading for the perpose of figuring number of characters, on average, in game. As anyone with a second account, at least prior to freedom, are not likely to have done so for 1 or 2 character slots.

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.

Both quoted posts don't state, or even imply that builds are more diverse now. They both attempt to assert that builds are not less diverse now. The first one by Sam:

asserts specifically that in the days before ED, we may have had more theoretical choices for slotting than after ED, but as a practical matter players were funneled into "right" choices both by the way the slotting worked, and by the fact that the overwhelming recommendations floating around pushed people into them. He's analogizing that to the pre-inherent fitness period when there was the theoretical choice to take or not take fitness, which has been technically removed, but for a very large percentage of the player population that was not really a voluntary choice as they saw it. With inherent fitness, those people see four power pool choices available, not three.


Uberguy's quote is much less easy to misinterpret:

He *explicitly* states that we don't have less diversity. That does not mean he's stating we have more. Its not even an implication we have more. He's saying we do not have less.

I've been saying I do not believe inherent fitness significantly reduced build diversity. That does not mean I believe inherent fitness increased build diversity. It means I do not believe it reduced it. By in large, I believe it was more or less neutral.

ED + Inventions + power pool extensions + lowered level thresholds most definitely combined to radically increase the amount of build options available. ED by itself not so much, but ED combined with Inventions did, and Inventions added additional diversity options beyond realizing the options ED theoretically had but didn't generally exercise.

My best guess analysis from all available numbers was that CoH had somewhere in the neighborhood of 70k-80k subscribers prior to Freedom's announcement. My guess is the current number of VIP subscriptions is somewhat higher now, but I have no idea if its higher by a tiny amount or a larger amount. I suspect that the number of Premium players is substantial, but I doubt we suddenly jumped to 200k active accounts this quickly.

Indeed. I also think it was mostly a wash. My own leaning is that builds are probably slightly more diverse, where "diversity" is defined in terms of a majority of builds having slightly different combinations of powers. But even if I'm wrong about that, I do, indeed, believe the worst case change in diversity is zero, not a negative number.

I'm not sure if builds are specifically more diverse (though I suspect they are). What I AM sure, however, is I have more choice in what to take now. Even though I didn't take Stamina before, that still took away from my slots for endurance reduction, and that's a LOT of it. Now that I don't have to do this (not as much, anyway), I'm free to slot things I couldn't slot before, and in turn take things I couldn't take before because I couldn't slot them.

And what I want to take is rarely for optimisation. What I want to take but never could is simply the crap stuff I could never justify "wasting" my slots and power picks on. Now that I have slots and picks to waste, I get to have what I want. Far as I'm concerned, that's a win-win.

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.

So you admit you made up that CoH had 100K subscribers?

Cool.

Of course I did. We have no real numbers. I was as unjustified in giving that number as you were with disagreeing with it.

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.

I think that Freedom caused a reduction in VIP subscriptions, but an increase in total players. I had a second paid account that I allowed to lapse into premium and I know of many other people that did the same. Most of my old friends that have returned have remained premium and not become monthly subscribers. While I'm sure that there are people who decided to become monthly subscribers I believe that there are more cancelled subscriptions than new ones.

But I have no doubt that there are more players overall. Although the number of players seems to me to have dropped in the last few weeks. I suppose that is to be expected in between releases of new content.

Also, I don't think anyone has addressed the diversity in wrestling.

Maybe when they add a wrestling powerset.

Perhaps I should have written an optimized C search rather than just whip up something in python. I'm looking at the maximum number of possible builds with inherent fitness for each level. However, it might be a while before this program completes, since its currently only up to analyzing level 16, and its already examined about forty million different possible ways to select powers given a fixed primary and secondary. I didn't think there were that many.

Computations through level 14:

Level 1: 2,2
Level 2: 6,5
Level 4: 18,9
Level 6: 144,59
Level 8: 1386,342
Level 10: 15390,1833
Level 12: 191952,9425
Level 14: 2905002,60518

Those two numbers represent the total number of possible ways to pick powers - i.e. the total number of power selection *orders* - and the total number of unique builds that are generated by those sequences of power choices. Also, the numbers are low: to reduce the search space I'm only looking for ordered sequences where the total number of power pool picks in each power pool are sorted in descending order. So I have to then apply a correction factor to add combinations of power pools. The ordered to unordered correction factor increases the total number of valid builds through level 14 to 2,194,455.

You might think that includes a lot of weird builds, like builds that have all four power pool selections at level 14 or three travel pools:

Travel pool choices:
0: 555,681
1: 1,050,172
2: 504,954
3: 80,328
4: 3,320

Non-travel pool choices:
0: 13,539
1: 307,476
2: 851,085
3: 797,580
4: 224,775

(total number of *pools* used, not powers)

Most number of options: one travel, two non-travel pools: 447,660
Least non-zero number of options: zero travel, zero non-travel: 9

To be honest, I don't especially care how many builds options there are at level 14. What I am curious to know is at what level are the number of options maximal. In other words, is there an inflection point beyond which the number of possible different builds drops. I would guess that it would at some point probably around 38, but I'm not confident in that guess at the moment.

And interestingly: Level 14 does have less choices than Level 12 in one respect: number of build options with *zero* power pool choices. Level 12: 35. Level 14: 9.

I'm also curious to know the answer to the literal mathematical question: to what degree did inherent fitness reduce the total number of possible builds if any, and at what levels, assuming stamina and its prerequisites were taken as soon as possible.

That may take a lot of run time unless I rewrite this code, and I'm kind of busy right now and inclined to just let it run for a week or two. I'm actually a bit surprised no one has been crazy enough to do this yet. I mean, the computer is doing pretty much all the work: I just have to wait for it to finish.

This also doesn't count slotting.

That's precisely what I wanted to know, as well. Thank you for doing this. It honestly does look quite a bit more complex than I'd anticipated, but the results should be interesting.

Believe it or not, I didn't think of it. I kept insisting there had to be some way to figure this out mathematically or through analytical statistics. It never even occurred to me to write a programme to do it. I can't imagine the logic would be that labyrinthine, but I also can't really say what it is without doing a lot of work that your computer is already doing.

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.

Incorrect. The burden of proof lies with you, not me.