City of Heroes is the World Wrestling Federation of Superhero MMOs

Back in the old days, the problem was defense and tohit buffs were both so high there wasn't any moderate middle. There were winners and losers: if you weren't a winner, it didn't matter how much defense you had. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that if you had a lot more defense than the opponent had tohit buffs, you won. If not, you might as well not have any defense at all. Perma-Elude tended to be a winner. FF defenders in the old days were usually winners. Invincibility was a winner most of the time. But quartz eminators were the ultimate winner - on the critter side.

While you're calculating the potential of FF defenders and SR scrappers, consider this: in a full team invincible set mission, the critters were +5. A turret dropped from a Malta engineer would have had a base tohit of about 140% back then. The critters in the Eden trial would often be buffed to the tohit cap of around 200% once two eminators were placed. It was a back and forth struggle.

Also, the term "cascade failure" is a term I invented in I3, to explain what happened when a perma-eluded scrapper something around 100% defense jumped into a large group of Council (when large groups of Council and 5th were duking it out in the zones) and one or two of them landed lucky shots that debuffed defense. You'd literally melt.

It was great when it worked, but there were lots of places it didn't work.

Absolutely. Glad you asked.

Might as well start with what they're doing and have proven capable of doing. The incarnate trials are neat puzzles, with the regenerating walker in the UG and the tricky fight against Antimatter in Keyes. I just can't enjoy that content because it's all geared for massive teams. If they put out similar missions that were tuned for soloing or for a single team they would be wonderful. Soloing one of my heroes against a villain who can stop time? I'd love that. But make him so powerful that it takes a league to fight him -- which among other things means giving him huge AoE instant death powers -- and it's no fun anymore.

As an example of new content that isn't fun and isn't challenging, I'll point to the signature arcs. Find the glowy, survive the ambushes, hover over the lava and the AI will kill itself off. Terrible.

Want some new ideas?

I still feel that we need new power pools to expand character customization options. It would be great if we could link new power pool access to the completion of a TF, just like the villain Epic powersets are linked to villain plot arcs. Make a TF where the heroes need to stop someone from using some grand device, and have it so a single hero must sacrifice themselves to end the arc. "The backup controls are inside the reactor chamber", says the NPC, "Someone's going to have to go in and switch it off manually." But instead of dying, the hero survives with new access to new power pools. Players would play this over and over (since only one teammate gets their pool access per run), and it would provide character customization that's linked to the backstory (which we only have with the villain epics and the incarnate powers which are linked to the Well of Furies.) Lots of choice, lots of consequence, and all deeply immersive.

Let's revive street hunting. Pick an underused zone -- I'd choose Boomtown -- and make it a faction war. Have council fighting 5th column fighting vahz fighting trolls fighting clockwork. But put in a mechanism such that if players defeat enough mobs of one group, they disappear for a week or so. If enough of the factions disappear, then one faction will 'win' the zone and start making advances on Steel Canyon. This will spawn a faction-themed giant monster and a NPC monitoring the situation who will sell faction-themed temporary powers. If you want to fight the Council's giant mechaman, or if you want to buy a temporary Vahz vomit power, then you have to help the appropriate faction win. Choices, consequences.

How about new tech that can help revive any mission? It's criminal that NPC artificial intelligence has never been worked on. Put in some code to create new minion behaviors. Players know how to use the terrain to their advantage -- every now and then minions should shoot from behind boxes, gaining AoE defense. If a runner gets out of sight of the players, he should spawn an ambush and return with them shouting, "I ran and got help! Here comes the cavalry!" Create traps (visible only to those with +Per powers, including Tactics) that do nothing but raise an alarm and cause every support minion nearby to click on their force field or heal. Code some support minions -- especially incarnate level ones -- to always have their force field and buffs up, instead of waiting for the players' alpha strike. Have organized groups like Longbow and Malta use some tactics, like organized formations and focusing fire on perceived threats. When the Ballista shouts, "Focus fire on <villainname>", all the Longbow
shift to that target and the player's healer better help them out. (In other words, give enemy bosses the power to taunt their minions to attack a target, which may or may not be the players' tank.)

If nothing else, stop making choices for players. Twinshot's arc and the First Ward are terrible about forcing characters to follow the storyline. Instead of having fixed dialogue choices that eventually lead to the one possible mission, have actual branching mission options. You choose to help Twinshot, you go on that mission. You decide that you don't want any part of them, you go on a different mission which sucks you into the storyline a different way. Can you imagine having branched options in a mission arc that eventually lead to multiple endings for that arc? I'd play the crap out of that mission arc, and each time I'd make choices customized for my character and get that character's chosen consequences.

Those are just some ideas. I'd also like to see separating of teams (a villain phases half the team into an alternate mission (really another floor of the same mission)), customized arch-enemies (the competition has this), and missions and enemies that are customized to your powers (If you have fire powers, you get selected to go on the mission 'Track down the villain who froze Perez'. If you have psi powers, you're sent to look for the sons of Ishmael. If you have a weapon (sword, bow, rifle, doesn't matter), you go to a gun or tech show and end up defending it against attacking Council. etc.) I'd like to see Day jobs have real, in-game effects on the story (commuters/storekeepers/auctioneers/doctors can get a tip about villains attacking the metro/store/auction/hospital). I want AI that uses players' tactics against them (Why do so few mobs have taunt? Why so few AoEs? Why have we never seen a mission where the villains have their own emergency medical station, where all the bad guys respawn?) I
want mobs with the power to steal inspirations from players (high level Banished Pantheon content, maybe? They're all about destroying hope, right?) I want power-dampening attacks that disable the last power clicked. I want more use of the 'prison' system in missions, to put defeated characters into deathtraps that they can get out of by solving a puzzle. (Knocking down a door, like with the current prisons, is not a puzzle.)

All right, this has gotten too long...but you did ask. I want new types of gameplay that fit into the classic 1-to-8 player game system. I don't want new costume choices or massive multi-team trials, and I don't want fixed storylines that feel like the devs fan-wanking over their own creations while my character stands by and watches. Or at least not those things exclusively, which is what we're getting.

I just hope that someone in Paragon studios will someday think about maybe budgeting someone to study the impact of possibly assigning an intern to read this thread.

I do believe GG asked for your ideas to improve gameplay WITHOUT gimmicks!

Not to say some of the things you list aren't good ideas, but they are all gimmicks.

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.

And they could all be dealt with by popping purples

I need a concept before I can build a character. Sometimes it's a role-playing concept, sometimes it's a power concept, and rarely it's just a costume. If I start a character with a role-playing or costume concept, I usually just take the powers that match and play it. Sometime in my 20s I'll pull up Mids and start figuring out how to respec the character into something more efficient.

If I make a power concept, then I start with Mids and plan it out ahead of time.

My power concept characters are limited, though, because I don't like to duplicate powersets. If I've already seen what I can do with Ice blast, why make another character to do the same things with it? Even if it's a different AT, I don't want to reply a powersets if I can help it.

Because I try not to duplicate powersets, I have played most of the powersets in this game at least up to the low-30s. (I've skipped some powersets that I hate, hate, hate. Shield and SR fall into this category; I just can't stand click status defense. Also, my my Beam defender is still in her teens because she's new.) I'm out of powersets to try. Which means no new power concept characters. But that's my choice; I don't expect the devs to release enough powersets to keep someone like me satisfied.

When I do replay a powerset it's usually in service to a role-playing themed character. Those are more difficult to build than they used to be. In the old days almost any concept was good; it was assumed that any superhero in the world would eventually find their way to Paragon City and sign up for a hero license. Now, character concepts have to take into account Praetorian Earth and/or the new newbie trial. Everyone starts out either as a Powers Division trainee or an emergency responder to a crisis in Galaxy Park. Bleah.

I don't do costume concepts very often, but I suppose they're more open than ever. We're getting lots of new costume pieces to design characters around. The devs saw that the costume creator was one of their biggest assets and they've decided to ride that pony until its legs break. My last costume concept characters were from the animal pack. The wolf blaster (Santo Lobo) is in his teens, the panthress necromancer (Panthress) is in her high 20s, and the trap cow in crotchless chaps (Sweet Trouble) got to her 30s before I rerolled her with a beam rifle.

For the wolf and cow, I can look ahead and see what power choices I'll make and they bore me. Attacks, some power pool defenses (the wolf wants toughness; the cow should have Leadership), travel powers (the wolf jumps, the cow has superspeed but I may respec into just using Beast Run, although she'll also get combat jumping because she has so many slots free). The panthress I can't plan out that intuitively because I have less experience with MMs. But I don't see many options for her; leadership is just about mandatory, and none of the other power pools fit either her concept or her powers.

I don't respec as often as you do, however. I like getting a character build and sticking to it. The respec process is painful and irritating -- something else I'd like to see improved, but that's a nitpick on top of everything else.

We can argue about the semantic meaning of 'gimmick' if you like, but I don't think it would be very productive.

The OP introduced 'gimmick' to describe flashy content, often in staged events, that had nothing to do with the game itself. In CoH, I would say that monthly costume releases and fixed-story signature arcs are good examples of worthless gimmicks.

I have been arguing against that kind of content and for giving the players choices that have consequence. I think if you have an open mind, you'll see that my suggestions give players choices, all of which lead to mutually exclusive consequences. Those aren't gimmicks, they are new forms of gameplay.

Back to the wrestling analogy. If everyone in the WWE decided to wrestle in Santa Claus costumes, that's a gimmick. If the WWE decided that no holds could be applied above the shoulders, that's a change in the game. If the WWE decided that wrestlers could choose to start in a corner, along one side of the ropes, or in the center of the ring, that would be a change in the game that gives the players a choice, and which could lead to consequential effects on the match.

If you have branching missions and you have to choose which branch to take, no clickable inspiration is going to help you.

It doesn't need any discusison - "gimmick" = anything that you don't like

Task Forces, Rikti invasions and Hamidon raids? They're all flashy staged events that use gimmicks that arne't found in the normal 1-50 mission content.

So you'd prefer new costume parts to only be relased several months apart with each new Issue? And how many non-fixed-story arcs are there in the game? I'm assuiming you're not including the ones in GR, as they're all tied into the gimmick of Praetoria.

Which parts of the content from the "good old days" did that? Or do you mean that the new content in Praetoria and the Tip misisons is the kind of stuff you want, rather than the fixed-story stuff we always got pre-GR?

Pop purples, blast through one rbanch, go to Ouroboros, pop purples, blast through the other branch - content completed, wait for the next Issue

I rarely respec. Prior to I9, however, it was easy to get bored at level 50 and I would occasionally burn freespecs before the next one came out so I wouldn't lose them, mostly on my mains. But once I9 came out, I stopped doing even that. In fact, my three main characters were last respeced in I9 prior to incarnates, and all three were next respeced in I19 to take into account a better understanding of the invention system, inherent fitness, and incarnate abilities.

Also, with multiple builds I actually didn't respec them in i19, I created new builds. Their I9 builds are still in there, inventions and all. Multiple builds meant I could make the new build in there, and then slowly slot them up. When they had enough enhancements to be functional enough, I then permanently switched to that build. The build switch timer is a bit annoying, but that's not a problem: you switch to the alt build as the last thing you do before logging out, slot some stuff, then log out. When you log back in, just remember to switch back. That actually took almost all the pain out of making my I19 builds.

Or rather, its close: I don't have the Glad proc slotted yet, and nova's slotting isn't finished yet. But even though technically it just has "defense and recharge" I think its fair to say that a) its not a common build and b) its unlikely to be reproducible with other powersets, and c) it doesn't suffer poor performance for its conceptual choices. That's actually something the invention system (and to a lesser extent the incarnate system) have done for diversity: its reduced the penalty for concepts. It doesn't do that by homogenizing powersets: if you want to copy someone else's build, that's your choice. But if you pick a concept and push the system to its limits to achieve it, you're likely to come up with something that isn't just following the herd. I'd actually bet that *no one* was playing exactly my build, and few people are willing to sell out to speed to that degree on an energy blaster. As you can see, I could have afforded a range-capped blaster. Wasn't interested at the time.

Now, if *players* don't take advantage of the system, that's a separate thing. In the old days, a lot of players swore by 1/5 slotting for all attacks. You're actually more likely to see different slotting now. A lot of players swore by perma-hasten back then, and while recharge is still highly valued there are now at least three different viewpoints on hasten: one says recharge itself is not a big deal given the other alternative bonuses available, a different one says getting the equivalent to perma-hasten is fine since it replicates what we used to have (i.e. drop Hasten itself and go for +70% or more global recharge) and another says go for broke and get both Hasten and enough recharge to make it perma or near-perma itself. That is a genuine difference of opinion that is reflected in actual builds.

On the whole, I think there's more diversity not less these days when it comes to builds. And because of that, there's also a wider range of supported playstyle. What might be true is that for some min/maxers, the system can appear to funnel them into the same choices again and again. But I think, based on my own experience, that tends to be the fault of the player and not the system, because people tend to get tunnel-visioned. The *system* I believe always offers alternatives, if what you want are alternatives.

And for comparison, here's what the build for my Energy/Energy/Force blaster looks like:

As you can see, very different power picks, Different slotting, different numbers. I'm not even tempted to copy Arcana's build, it doesn't fit neo as a character or me as a player Arcarna's toon may have better overall survivability, but neo would survive longer in certain situations, Arcarna's toon may do more damage mor often but mine can do so from much further away. There is nothing in the game mecanics tha prevents either of these builds no-viable, or even discourages them.

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.

To add to this, even when running down the relatively narrow paths that min/maxing tends to run along there is still a lot of wiggle room in builds. People make trade-offs in DPS vs mitigation, trade-offs in achieving high DPS via high recharge vs. high +damage vs high DPE... Heck, even the very notion of "high DPS" has different meanings depending on goals. Do you want to be a good TF/Trial participant? A good farmer? A good AV soloer? There's overlap in capability possible in that list, but differences in actual design targets elicit different build choices.

Different powersets achieve similar build goals differently. My DM/Regen Scrapper and Stone/FA Brute have similar levels of peak defense, but one is positional and one is damage typed, because the powerset slotting choices made each more optimal for one character. Dark Melee helps a character survive in radically different ways than Stone Melee, leading to different targeting priorities for different powers to achieve maximum effect.

In short, I really do find the claims that powersets are all interchangeable to be bunk, and I'm sorry, claiming it's "just an opinion" is simply a cop-out. That "optinion" happens to make a claim that's objectively examinable, and I don't think it holds out at all under such examination.

Heck, the diversity of builds here is the single most important reason that other game didn't do it for me, and I suspect I'm not alone. Like Arcana, I'm a concept player first and a min/maxer second, but I'm also probably a little more OCD than Arcana about ensuring beforehand that a given concept is min/maxable enough for me. Sometimes I'll spend hours or even days messing around with various build options offline before rolling a character.

Many characters die on the vine as it were if the results of those tinkerings are found wanting.

All of that is only tenuously relevant, though. The point is that none of my little habits would even be possible if there weren't a magnificent variety among character builds in CoH. In that other game, by contrast, I enjoyed myself for a little while but found that every good build had the same basic elements, each with the same basic functionality. Here, you can make an argument that there are substantial differences between, say, two Tankers using the same powersets, or even the exact same selection of powers.

Given the lack of long-term character development that this game offered for so many years -- and the heavy emphasis on alt play that filled the void -- it's hard to fathom how anyone could even attempt to argue with a straight face that we don't have build variety. Build variety is, perhaps more than any other singular factor, the very reason there's still a CoH forum on which to have this debate in the first place.

You could give everyone exactly the same set bonuses across the board and there'd still be a world of difference between, say, a Storm Defender and a Stone Tanker. I'm not sure there's even another game in existence that encompasses such a massive range of gameplay experiences.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Force Mastery was tempting, but for concept reasons, I needed to take Magic Missile.

For similar reasons, I also have Fireball, Cone of Cold, and Chain Lightning all in my spell book, even if I can only use one per Task Force.

What?

I can't look at it from work, but I'll load it up later at home.

Agreed. I haven't been complaining about the invention system, I think it was a net positive. Although I do hate that we had to go through ED to get it.

All the characters I abandoned on Victory when I switched to Virtue are *still* slotted with 1/5.

More diversity since launch? Sure, I'll go along with that. But we had a peak of diversity sometime after the release of IOs. (Issue 11?) Since then characters have been given various free power slots, and that has decimated diversity in the game. Where we are now is better than at launch but worse off than we were a few years ago.

Nope. I defined it in my last post. Now you're just being intransigent, Trollden Girl.

All of those provide bonuses that you can't get anywhere else. Task Forces give badges that lead to an accolade that used to be highly valued. (I'm not sure whether it is or not anymore). Rikti invasions were the best method for amassing Vanguard credits, which can be used to purchase things available nowhere else, such as expanded storage space. Hamidon is the only source of hami-Os.

Now, all the incarnate content gives incarnate tokens/threads/meritsshards/thingamabobs that lead to incarnate abilities, so they fall into the same category. I don't dislike the incarnate content because it's 'flashy'. I just think it's a grind, and it's designed for middle managers who like herding 24-man teams.

Flashy gimmicks include monthly costume set releases (which give *nothing*, gameplay-wise), new powersets that are functionally equivalent to existing powersets, and new task forces and mission arcs that provide nothing other than another chapter of the CoH backstory. Yes, some of those give alignment merits, but by now A-merits can be gotten in a hundred other ways. They're not new, and they don't elevate flash into substance.

I don't care how often they release costume parts. I don't care much about them at all. I just want more developer attention on improving gameplay.

Yes, I mean that is what I'd like to see. Characters can get a maximum of three (four?) alignment choice missions in GR. Aside from that, I'm not aware of any other 'choice' missions in the game. I'd like to see more. We obviously have the technology to allow players to choose alternatives, why not make it more common?

More importantly, I'd like those choices to matter. The Tip missions don't matter much. Yes, after ten of them you can switch your alignment, after which you can...go do the same missions and TFs you did before. After another ten Tip missions you can switch your alignment again and see 'new to you' content. But there are no repercussions of that switch, no consequences other than which zones you're temporarily locked out of. I like the alignment system, don't get me wrong. But I'd like to see more consequences for a player's actions.

I find even this hard to accept. I can accept one part of it - if we're all given something, then we all share that part of our "build", and that is not diverse. By virtue of the fact that we all have the Fitness pool, the number of things that we all have in common on every character increased.

However, I find that a non-useful definition of "diversity". Measuring "diversity" by including the things we all have as a shared baseline is not particularly instructive. To convince me that diversity in builds has been "decimated", you would need to show compelling evidence that everyone did the same things with those slots that moving Fitness to inherent slots freed.

Apparently, you feel that the no-brainer thing to do with those liberated power picks was to take powers from your primary and secondary powersets that you had previously skipped. You seem to assume that most everyone else did the same. I know I did so only for a minority of my characters. I often viewed the "inherentization" of Fitness as releasing me to diversify into a new Power Pool. Some characters instead took Epic Pool powers they never previously had room for. A couple of characters did take primary/secondary power picks they previously lacked, but only when they were powers that I felt benefited the character more than Power or Epic Pool alternatives. Even then, they often also added a new Pool Power.

Unless I made the same choices on what to do with those freed slots as everyone else, I do not see diversity as lost. Instead I see it as increased. We all have the same number of power picks to make, and I see the measure of diversity as a measure how many of us are picking the same things. Previously, surely a plurality if not a majority of us were spending at least two, probably three of our power picks on the same powers - Health, Stamina and either Swift or Hurdle. Now we get more freedom to chose different things with those three picks.

If you go into your control panel, you can edit your group membership to display your status as a VIP.

And welcome to the game

That's because it isn't true

Okay, I find this very interesting.

I don't like running out of endurance, so I like to plan my characters to be able to run without endurance problems. This means at least a Miracle in everyone's health slot, and I'll go to Numina's and Perf. Shifter for real problem cases.

When inherent fitness came along I was presented with the option of either taking powers from my primary and secondary that I skipped, or taking a new power pool or some combination of pool powers. The problem was slots. The new powers I took would not receive any slotting, unless I stripped slots from the powers that I had already designed the character to have.

That left four choices:
A. Take powers from the primary and secondary that didn't need slots.
B. Take powers from power pools that don't need slots (Combat jumping, or Assault->Tactics->Vengeance).
C. Take some powers and never use them.
D. Take multiple travel powers.

Between my various characters I did all of those options except D. I may also have redesigned a character or two to juggle some slots and make the new powers useful, especially for those that could benefit from Kicking->Toughness->Weave. But the basic truth is the same: Diversity was lost with inherent stamina. Option C does nothing to improve character builds but at least it didn't standardize them. Option A and B both reduce character diversity.

All of my characters are running around with the same power pools with minimal slotting. I expect the rest of the playerbase is doing the same thing because it's logical. Add onto this that travel powers no longer require a prerequisite and there are new, purchasable travel powers that one could use instead of a power pool, and there are even more slots available that have to be shuffled into Combat Jumping, Leadership, and Fighting -- with no other sensible options.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe most people use multiple travel powers, one-slot Toughness and Weave, and have taken a lot of unslotted powers from Presence and Medicine. I don't understand why anyone would do such a thing, but I'll admit that it's possible. I wouldn't take those powers unless my role-playing concept demanded them, in which case I already had them in my build and had planned to give them slots already.

And for concepts that required *not* having certain powers, like petless masterminds and blappers? Well, they were usually already maxed out on power pools, so they were just out of luck. Take your primary powers, be like everyone else, embrace conformity.

I had two characters that ran without Stamina and I was delighted to have made them work. Now they're just like everyone else.

I expect that you did make the same choices, because there weren't that many choices to be had and some of the options are just sucktacular.

Now to give credit, they gave us a fifth power in each of the travel pools and that helps. But not much; each character should only get one of those, unless you have multiple travel powers, which I don't believe in doing. There are still fewer options for more power slots than there were before.