Origin Inspirations

Been thinking about how to involve origins more directly into combat. Taking a queue from enhancements, your origin as a source of strength becomes stronger as you level (TO -> DO -> SO). Likewise, inspirations scale as you level and drop rates change to match the increase in potency - but those are, mostly, single-aspect self-buffs.

Maybe there is a drop-schedule for these enhancements or a combination of consuming a piece of salvage and an inspiration to create a random origin inspirations.

Perhaps there is a chance-to-activate schedule, so that sometimes you receive the origin effects and other times it converts into standard inspirations. The inspiration values could remain the same for all levels, but the chance-to-activate ratio evens out to 50% at L50. Maybe instead of drops, there is a method to combine an amount of regular inspirations into an origin insp. For example:

Medium Mutation Insp Drops:
-combine all available small & medium insps to activate Medium OI effects, 50% chance-to-activate or create 1 medium single-aspect insp.

It would be interesting if there was a play between the buffs and procs. - for example, at L50 - you have a 50% change to activate, if activated, for 90 sec you may receive: 20% global stat buff, +dam proc on all offensive attacks, +debuff proc on all offensive attacks, +buff proc on all defense powers. This would mean 20 new inspirations total.

Anywho - there's plenty of thematic content in enhancements, though there might be a chance for something new:

Magic - 'chaos' proc.
Natural - 'intensification' proc.
Technology - 'innovation' or 'upgrade' proc.
Science - 'side effects' proc.
Mutation - 'emergence' proc.

Thanks for reading - would love any feedback!

Given that we already have archetype-specific enhancements, I'd be surprised if the devs aren't already working on something origin-specific. It may not take the form of enhancements or inspirations, but I'd be surprised if we get to year 9 without something interesting coming along.

Howdy Bob,

Well I do wonder. The char-creation screen still provides that origin has minimum impact on gameplay experience. I think it used to be more involved in terms of enemy groups one encountered, but that was early in the game.

Still thinking about how this might work:

would be great if they dropped like insps, but had 3 right click options:

1)consume for a 10% boost to all stats (this does not scale)
2)consume all available inspirations for an offensive proc (scales/unlocks)
3)consume all available inspirations for a defensive proc (scales/unlocks)

Would be great if you had access to 5 different procs of progressive potency for each ten levels. Drop rate could scale as well, but I wonder about the chance-to-activate mechanic mentioned in the first post.

Anywho - I hope you are right.

I would have to vote 'no' on this sort of thing, unfortunately. It sounds like an interesting idea, overall, but I'd really dislike tying origin to anything mechanical in the game.

As it stands, your choice of origin is almost completely meaningless from a game mechanics standpoint (the *only* notable example I can think of is the magic/tech origin power being able to light oil slick). And I think that's a *good* thing. It means that I'm free to choose the origin that best fits the character in a story sense without having to worry about whether that's also the 'best' one for that character in terms of powers/etc.

For an example, imagine the effects of, say, mutation origin's boost mean that when used I get a few more points of defense out of my build. I'd be *extremely* tempted to use that one on many defense based characters, even if it's overall not any 'stronger' than the other origin's stuff, because the non-linear defense stacking when you're near the softcap would make it vastly stronger for that particular build. That would suck if, like the brute I rolled yesterday, the character's theme says they should be a magic origin character. Or say the example 'chaos' magic proc could manifest as short duration confuse procs - I'd feel almost compelled to take that on a character like, say, a fire blaster, who'd have very little mitigation otherwise. This would be a problem if his story says he's supposed to be a mutant or science character.

Generally speaking, one of the *massive* strengths of this game is the almost complete disconnect between theme and mechanical performance. You don't need to wear the +5 pink frilly shoulderpads of ugliness just because they're the best armor for your class at this level, you can technically be wielding fire but make it look like soul magic or plasma blasts or have dark armor but actually be warded by the desert sands or the waters of the sea, and in general you're free to make your awesome hero/ruthless vigilante/cunning rogue/dastardly villain whoever the heck you feel they should be *without having to worry that that choice will impact your gameplay.* Origin is part of that.

I know it would never happen but I would like to see the type of origin enhancements you use effect your character. Almost as if every character started off as a blank slate and was able to buy DO's/SO's of any origin.

I haven't thought this through so dont yell at me but the game could look at the percentage of each type you have and give you a mild origin related buff accordingly

Say you had only Natural SO's/DO's you might get a 5% damage buff because your training had made you stronger. 100% mutation might give you a 5% end recharge boost. If you had 100% Magic enhancements you might get a wand aoe power, like the black wand.

You would be able to mix and match but the overall percentage would effect the buffs, higher rewards for staying true to one type but say you had 50% natural and 50% mutation you mught get a 2%damage buff and 2% end boost. Like I say this is just off the top of my head, it could give you another temp power instead or actually charge up the origin power you get at lvl 1 to make it more effective, from single target to cone to aoe... slotting different origin types would unlock their starting power.

I wouldnt want it to be anything that changes the game radically but a nice extra for those that dont mind shopping around. it wouldnt be hard to write into a characters story, a natural character that completes the midnighter arc could be "supercharged by magic", a tech character could be mutated by a shivan meteor.

I don't expect it to hapen but I though it might be a nice addition.

IF they were ever to do anything like this I think it should be an expansion of the TO/DO/SO system and make it possible to tie IO's to origin.

This wouldn't add new IO's but when you build an IO you can check the 'link to origin' box and it would give them a small % boost or small secondary effect that only applies to your origin powers (IE: Primary and secondary), but obviously be tied to origin so have a smaller market for selling.

I would hate to see new IO's tied to origin, I already dislike the ATIO's because it makes the choice of scrapper / brute more difficult.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

The sheer amount of nerdrage that would explode from these boards if they ever tried to implement this means I have to vote 'no'.

Without making Origin-based ANYTHING where they are not essentially the exact same thing with different special effects (at which point, why bother to differentiate them?) would mean that one of the Origins would then be 'better' than all the rest and being unable to change your favorite character's Origin would drive the vocal minority to an apoplectic fit of truly epic proportions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyperstrike English does not borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and rifles through their pockets for loose grammar.

A leaked power pool does point to possibly origin-based power pools, but they would still be available to everyone.

Leaving Origin as a flavor piece is good, it's one less thing for minmaxers to go nuts about. Right now the ONLY thing it affects is if your veteran Nemesis Staff or Blackwand is better. And which stores you have to remember to shop at for DOs and SOs.