I would argue that there is no wrong way to build but there are certainly "better" ways to build. A wrong way would suggest you can make a build so wrong as to be unplayable. That is not the case with CoH.
Something witty and profound
Quote:
There are ways to build unplayable characters, actually. Toggle Man and the Determinator are pretty good examples, though if you were to argue you'd have to go out of your way to do it wrong, I'd agree with you. However, consider where content has been going of late - more and more "challenge" by including enemies with higher base to-hit or who taunt a lot or who have massive endurance debuffs or other nasty attacks.|
Originally Posted by Fista
I would argue that there is no wrong way to build but there are certainly "better" ways to build. A wrong way would suggest you can make a build so wrong as to be unplayable. That is not the case with CoH.
|
In City of Heroes, it's not so much the case that there's no way to build "wrong" - there are PLENTY of ways - so much as that the game is relatively easy to the point where you can build wrong and still succeed. That's a good thing, especially in comparison to most other MMOs. However, it doesn't really change the fact that there very much are right ways to build, as well as a largely objective measurement of what build works and what build doesn't. I generally subscribe not to needing a build that's the best, so much as one that's "good enough," but even that is still driven by an objective goal of power that is informed by how the game is structured, thus making at least quite a few of my decisions for me.
Easy examples: Making a melee character and NOT taking your status protection is a mistake. This can't be argued with, because there is no situation where NOT having, say, Practiced Brawler is better than having it. I learned this back in 2004 when Anathema and Pariah Lost started spawning in my at the time incredibly large cape mission, thus teaching me the value of status protection. Similarly, there's no point in making a Blaster if I won't take any of his attacks. I'm not even sure if that's possible, but I suspect you can come close. Obviously, those are relatively easy mistakes to avoid (I still built a Dominator for damage and little control and paid the price in frustration), but again - you're still solving a problem with measurable correct solution from the game.
Again, that's not a "bad" thing. That's what a game is, pretty much. But at the same time, this is a very different kind of interaction with the game, ESPECIALLY in City of Heroes, because there's really nothing to lose or gain from costume creation, not practically speaking. To some, this is demotivational because it has no reward mechanic while for others (myself included) the satisfaction of producing something appealing is greater than any reward any game can ever offer.
This sort of difference is, as I'm fond of saying, neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It's just a thing, but a thing that I find it's a good idea to keep in mind. Gameplay and costume design are rewarding in very different ways and, again, trying to bleed these kinds of satisfaction between the two is a mistake. City of Heroes actually has a pretty neat segregation of stimuli. You have the playing, achieving and accomplishment side of it with the actual gameplay, and you have the creation, artistry and self-expression side of it with costume creation and customization. Trying to turn costumes into gameplay elements is a mistake, as is presenting gameplay that's less interactive and more cinematic. The game does both very well, so there's no real reason to try and cross-breed them between game aspects.
Quote:
|
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.
|
Just yesterday, I came back from a very gruelling business trip and my back feels like a sumo wrestler tap-danced on my shoulders while carrying an elephant balanced on top of a piano. For seven days straight. So if I ramble on, please forgive me.
For a while now, we've had this debate about gating cosmetic items, which eventually brings up the subject of gating powers. I don't want to get into this debate all over again since it's been going for close to a decade, but I did finally manage to put my finger on why I feel aesthetics are a fundamentally different aspect of a decent game than gameplay. Now, most of you will probably say "No duh!" but hear me out. I have a good reason for WHY they're different, and it comes down to objective and subjective values.
Let me ask you something: What looks good in this game? Pretty open question, right? Because what looks good, especially in costume design, pretty much depends on who you ask. "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder" doesn't quite cover it here, since it's not always even a question of beauty. I've seen a fair few people make specifically ungainly characters to serve a concept or just to make a statement, and they still play those with enthusiasm.
What it comes down to is you really can't do cosmetics wrong, from a "player using the editor" perspective. Can you make a costume I won't like? Sure, I'm highly opinionated, but I don't pay your subscription so what do you care? Can you make a costume that art critics will pan as the worst thing ever? Of course, but do we all really aspire to be recognised artists? Can you make a costume that goes against the art team's aesthetic vision? Well, every artists who's ever posted on the forums has held fairly strong views - BABs didn't like clipping and giving players "ugly" options to trust them to make them work, Jay famously joked about hating furries and David seemed to really like high-detail, high-fidelity pieces while seeing older, simpler ones as needing an update. But going against the art team's vision is not doing it wrong, it's simply having your own vision that might just be harder to achieve.
My point is you can't do cosmetics wrong. I said that already, and I meant it. And this, really, is what sets them apart from pretty much any other aspect of the game and, hell, from cosmetics in damn near every other game out there. The game simply has no rules to dictate what looks good. Your appearance is separate from all gameplay aspects, and thus essentially doesn't matter. When I made Praxis, my Mary Sue goddess, I made her fond of giving people non-choices. "Follow me or die. The timeline will remain unchanged either way." That's essentially what cosmetics are in this game. It doesn't matter what you pick, the game will play out exactly the same way, and this is liberating in such a way that I don't think any other game has fully grasped. When there are literally NO consequences for ANY look you pick, then this frees you to look like whatever you want. Fire up your imagination and go wild. There is no wrong way to do this.
Then the actual game starts and practical concerns start cropping up. Which powers do I take? How do I slot them? Which Set Inventions give me the best bonuses? I've heard a fair few MMOs advertise themselves as having great customizability in character building, and this always scares me. Recently I wondered why I'm so reluctant to accept build customization when I like cosmetic customization, and I think the answer is... I don't know what I want. More specifically, I don't know what I'm supposed to want. That's really the crux of making a great build. I can crunch the numbers and do the averages and figure out what stats a build will give me, but I'm never really certain what kind of balance of stats is actually the best. I never know what works, but unlike cosmetics, there actually ARE things that work and things that don't and these are objectively measurable.
The truth of the matter is you CAN do a build wrong. City of Heroes makes this harder by comparison, but the fundamental construct which creates the situation in the first place is still here - there are right ways to build and wrong ways to build, and thus character building depends on recognising what works and what doesn't. Sure, the point of build customization is for me to find the thing that works that I like, but what if none of what works mechanically works for my sense of gameplay? What if none of what works mechanically is something I can achieve in a way I enjoy? I've made such a fuss about it that I'm sure everyone knows I dislike Inventions, and this is where that comes from - it's less a question of customization and more a question of optimization.
To step back for a moment, the crux of my argument here is that aesthetics and gameplay are measured in two philosophically dissimilar ways. Aesthetics are judged based on subjective taste and opinion, while gameplay is judged on an objective, testable scale of performance. Oh, sure, there's wiggle room when multiple ways exist to produce similar performance, but the aspect of having to produce performance in the first place informs what a build looks like and thus puts an objective guiding limit on it.
Now, my whole point isn't to claim gameplay being objective-driven is a bad thing. Far from it - that's kind of sort of the point behind games. Take that away and you have Second Life, more or less. But what I AM trying to say is that cosmetics and gameplay are two very different aspects to a game, and it does that game a disservice to let the design of one bleed into the design of the other. Granted, a game works best when aesthetics and gameplay click together, but that doesn't have to happen by having gameplay dictate aesthetics, when player choice can often produce a synergy much more powerful for the one person who really matters - the one actually playing his own creation.