Thanks for all the stuff, can you do it better?
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Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2012-08-13 09:23 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Old hat. CO, TSW, and several others already permit this. Despite how you may personally feel about those games, they do have loyal players.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
For example: What is the value of having multiple characters if any character can pick anything and respecs are available (the equivalent of jumping from Empathy Defender to Fire Brute)?
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| This isn't an impossible situation to solve, but it is very, very difficult. |
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The truth is that "levels" in this game long ago ceased to have much meaning aside from being an arbitrary way of dividing up content and regulate the acquisition of power. When you can swap your level up and down freely to accomodate your team or, in the case of Ouroboros, your mission and entire zones can hard-set your level, you're not really playing a level-based game any more. You're just playing a skill-based game where your assortment of skills is pretty strictly limited by your archetype and your order of acquisition.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
This isn't an impossible situation to solve, but it is very, very difficult. One thing I think some people (though not you, I suspect) overlook is that by limiting us to specific powers, CoX prevents the optimal strategy from being directing yourself into an aberrant temporary build, leveling it up, and then using it as your vehicle to access any character you want at any time by respeccing.
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This only becomes more true as more pool powers and more craftable powers become available.
I guess I'm not really seeing what the downside is of " using it as your vehicle to access any character you want at any time by respeccing". It would just be an acknowlegement that the game wasn't really about fixed archetypes at all.
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I'm aware of both concepts you're referring to. The first one isn't really a good one to base a game like CoH on. The other is the line of attack that has been the foundation of my standing response to players that claim reasonable balance is not possible in MMOs without homogenization.|
Originally Posted by Jack_NoMind
It's either very difficult or very expensive (and still kind of difficult).
But I think Arcana has overlooked -- or anyway isn't talking about -- at least two solutions other than the one she has proposed. One of them is encapsulated in any discussion of zero-sum economics. The other is encapsulated in the process of answering the question, "Can an anthill be described as sentient?" |
However, that's not a "solution" that's a methodology. The extremely difficult part is building in the proper design control into a system that is directly intended to have emergent properties. You could make your Ph.D dissertation on the structural framework required to do that properly for a system wide enough to encompass the ability breadth of a game comparable to City of Heroes.
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
I would put it at one step away from impossible, if not actually impossible, when you start looking at the framework surrounding long-term MMO play.
For example: What is the value of having multiple characters if any character can pick anything and respecs are available (the equivalent of jumping from Empathy Defender to Fire Brute)? Do you just not allow respeccing at all to preserve the system? Can you only respec at huge cost? Do you have to slowly migrate skills over because a full respec would be too powerful? How do players who are new to the game manage their progression if respecs are very limited and they will be stuck with what they pick? If you do allow them to respec, how do you manage the fact that no matter what you do some builds will be better at leveling than others, so players will be pushed into building a fast-leveling character and then switching their build to what they actually want? This isn't an impossible situation to solve, but it is very, very difficult. One thing I think some people (though not you, I suspect) overlook is that by limiting us to specific powers, CoX prevents the optimal strategy from being directing yourself into an aberrant temporary build, leveling it up, and then using it as your vehicle to access any character you want at any time by respeccing. |
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Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Except with DFB that is exactly what is the easiest thing to do now. I can level any character to 50, no matter how impossible the build is to level, no matter how little I know about that archetype/power setup, because it is easy easy easy. THen, when the character gets it's uber powers at 38 and you can I/O it to godhood it is ready for the I-trials without me struggling to get it through regular content.
Your point about that being even worse in a respeccable full variable system is well seen. I could build mondo the tank, crush all enemies by standing there with the 3 allowable damage toggles. Then after Mondo has hit max experience turn Mondo into Mondrotron the Mighty Blaster with no armor and 3 nukes that kill at a distance, while I am cloaked, and phase shifted. (Not a good build to level, but fun at a party) |
It would be kinda like if in CoH your archetype choice was frozen, but you could respec primary and secondary between levels 1 and 20. But after 20, you couldn't anymore, but you could still respec power and slot choices within those powersets. A free form system would not be that large-grained, but the concept would be similar.
Free form power systems don't automatically imply unlimited respecification. Combining the two together is in my opinion bad for almost any MMO. The only kinds of MMOs that could tolerate that sort of thing without serious problems are ones where the content itself is specifically designed to challenge such options existing.
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Crap like this is why when Arcanaville gives me her opinion I go, hmm mebbe I should think a long time before discounting that lol. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm aware of both concepts you're referring to. The first one isn't really a good one to base a game like CoH on. The other is the line of attack that has been the foundation of my standing response to players that claim reasonable balance is not possible in MMOs without homogenization.
However, that's not a "solution" that's a methodology. The extremely difficult part is building in the proper design control into a system that is directly intended to have emergent properties. You could make your Ph.D dissertation on the structural framework required to do that properly for a system wide enough to encompass the ability breadth of a game comparable to City of Heroes. |
It's also a little overwhelming and inspiring. Because that looks like one of the few subjects I would like to attempt a Doctoral dissertation on. Of course I need to do a lot of coursework to do that, but at least the subject looks interesting.
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CO did it, but that's not because they solved the problems it creates. The opposite: they ran into those problems face first, ate their costs, and then retroactively tried to solve some of those problems when they transitioned to F2P, with F2P classes.|
Originally Posted by Jack_NoMind
Old hat. CO, TSW, and several others already permit this. Despite how you may personally feel about those games, they do have loyal players.
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CO isn't an example of a solution to the problem, its a cautionary tale of how serious the problem can be. The fact that they have a loyal playerbase doesn't change that. That would be like saying decimal point errors are obviously a good thing for developers to constantly make, because CoH has loyal players.
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How is this any different than making a Kat/Regen, going to 20, then deciding you don't like Katana, and rerolling as BS/Regen? Other than badges, obviously...but we do this already.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The obvious solution that works for most MMOs with leveling: have a two-phase leveling system. In phase one, leveling is fast, player build options focus on base fundamental choices, and respecs are easy. In effect, the first, say, 20 levels are the try before you buy phase. After that, those choices become locked in and future progress involves developing those choices, which become generally immutable. Leveling becomes slower, and personal investment into the character becomes higher over time.
It would be kinda like if in CoH your archetype choice was frozen, but you could respec primary and secondary between levels 1 and 20. But after 20, you couldn't anymore, but you could still respec power and slot choices within those powersets. A free form system would not be that large-grained, but the concept would be similar. Free form power systems don't automatically imply unlimited respecification. Combining the two together is in my opinion bad for almost any MMO. The only kinds of MMOs that could tolerate that sort of thing without serious problems are ones where the content itself is specifically designed to challenge such options existing. |
Also, before you rip into me (which I know you will) I just want you to know I LOVE MISFILE! >.> Poor Rumisiel gets all the bad breaks.
Carl and Sons @Aurora Girl (Pinnacle)
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Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.
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If City of Heroes existed when I was still in college, I might have done a degree in games theory instead of sleepwalking through engineering and fleeing before the ink on my diploma was dry.|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Because that looks like one of the few subjects I would like to attempt a Doctoral dissertation on. Of course I need to do a lot of coursework to do that, but at least the subject looks interesting.
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Who am I kidding. I would have flunked out playing City of Heroes all day. Structured academia and I have not gotten along very well in the past.
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It isn't very different, but that's the point. We know that's ok, because its not too bad here. We don't have tons of players complaining about replay value in the first few levels, and the devs even acknowledged this by streamlining the early content and adding DFB in the first place. DFB is explicitly intended to be a streamlined version of leveling through the sewers. |
Originally Posted by Aurora_Girl
How is this any different than making a Kat/Regen, going to 20, then deciding you don't like Katana, and rerolling as BS/Regen? Other than badges, obviously...but we do this already.
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So we know it would most likely work in a freeform MMO, because structurally allowing rapid leveling early and then decelerating later to invest players functionally works here, and the tools already exist to in net effect respec early characters by rerolling them and accelerating them through the content. This would go a little farther, but in a freeform system that would probably have minimal extra cost.
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Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Except with DFB that is exactly what is the easiest thing to do now. I can level any character to 50, no matter how impossible the build is to level, no matter how little I know about that archetype/power setup, because it is easy easy easy. THen, when the character gets it's uber powers at 38 and you can I/O it to godhood it is ready for the I-trials without me struggling to get it through regular content.
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I don't think it's the same thing. Even if it is easy to level up, there is still a time investment involved. You still need to spend time as your new character. A classless, skill based system where you can respec at any time is functionally equivalent to a system where XP can be gifted just as easily as Influence/Gold can.
Part of the tradeoff in City of Hero's double-swimlane system is that to have a character of any sort, you must invest at least some time as that combo. To have a level 50 Ice/Rad Controller you must first have a level 1 Ice/Rad Controller, and every level in between. While it may be possible to solve some issues with events like DFB, that's at least an attempt to solve the issue for the character using what was available to the combo.
In a worst case scenario in an open skill system, the system warps the game so that there ARE no level 1 Ice/Rad Controllers, or for that matter few Controllers of any level below level 40 or so. It just doesn't make sense to make one if you could build something unController to zip through that type of build's main problem areas and then switch back. In a worse-than-worst case scenario, everyone plays only one or two combos at all (whatever delivers XP fastest) and only bothers with any special specification when they max out their XP.
I have to wonder what would happen if one fine day we logged in and discovered that the incarnate "power crafting" system had become the base system for the entire game?
You'd choose your archetype, you'd have the same number of slots, but instead of powersets you'd have power trees and the power you created would be an expression of the path you built for it on the tree. For people who want things simple, you offer pre-defined one-click recipes for them to follow.
Never going to happen, but from a technology standpoint, is something that could be made to happen.
The one thing I'd say about the "level to 20 then commit to your character and invest in it system" description is it's pretty much a description of Guild Wars, except that Guild Wars does NOT enforce the commitment mentioned by Arcanaville; quite the opposite, in fact. I've never found that the open-endedness in the Guild Wars approach ever resulted in a smaller investment in any of my characters. It's my experience from playing the game that the search to collect new skills and gear bits and combine them in an assortment of ways gave more investment, not less.
Given that, I'd question whether freezing one's powersets would really be necessary in the "flexibuild" system Arcanaville describes. I wouldn't expect it to be so.
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I think you're glossing over the importance of playstyle. We have so many choices nowadays that the only reason anyone has a level 1 anything is because they like to play that. |
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
In a worst case scenario in an open skill system, the system warps the game so that there ARE no level 1 Ice/Rad Controllers, or for that matter few Controllers of any level below level 40 or so. It just doesn't make sense to make one if you could build something unController to zip through that type of build's main problem areas and then switch back. In a worse-than-worst case scenario, everyone plays only one or two combos at all (whatever delivers XP fastest) and only bothers with any special specification when they max out their XP.
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Regrdless, if that was really a problem that required solving then the solution is a simple one - do away with levels and let people combine powers to their heart's content. Of course, at that point you're not playing City of Heroes any more, you're playing one of its competitors.
In any case, levels are overrated. The city environment we have would make a lot more sense if all enemies were just enemies and not grey/green/yellow/orange/red/purple. Aaron Thierry wouldn't be stabbing Atlas Park in the back in order to draw some attention to the "all grey to me" problem, heh.
Why does this make me want to grab a level 1 character, turn off experience (forever) and have them be a badger?
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One ancedote does not a counter-argument make, but my counter-anecdote is that Guild Wars very strongly encouraged to me looking at characters as essentially build containers. Guild Wars is far more end-game focused, making any attachment to pre-end game anything far less meaningful. And because you can earn and swap skills around the game strongly encouraged widening progression rather than alting. In Guild Wars, exploring the skill tree is a major part of the "content" of the game and that's what keeps players playing past the level cap.|
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
I have to wonder what would happen if one fine day we logged in and discovered that the incarnate "power crafting" system had become the base system for the entire game?
You'd choose your archetype, you'd have the same number of slots, but instead of powersets you'd have power trees and the power you created would be an expression of the path you built for it on the tree. For people who want things simple, you offer pre-defined one-click recipes for them to follow. Never going to happen, but from a technology standpoint, is something that could be made to happen. The one thing I'd say about the "level to 20 then commit to your character and invest in it system" description is it's pretty much a description of Guild Wars, except that Guild Wars does NOT enforce the commitment mentioned by Arcanaville; quite the opposite, in fact. I've never found that the open-endedness in the Guild Wars approach ever resulted in a smaller investment in any of my characters. It's my experience from playing the game that the search to collect new skills and gear bits and combine them in an assortment of ways gave more investment, not less. Given that, I'd question whether freezing one's powersets would really be necessary in the "flexibuild" system Arcanaville describes. I wouldn't expect it to be so. |
Free form explicitly *precludes* having such a rich differentiated skill tree, because in free form you would be essentially creating your own skills from a much smaller set of ability components. That exploration wouldn't exist in the same way.
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Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
I think you're glossing over the importance of playstyle. We have so many choices nowadays that the only reason anyone has a level 1 anything is because they like to play that.
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My characters usually only spend around 5 to 10 minutes around level 1. But that's really not the point. Level speed has very little do with whether XP earned under one build is directly transferable to another.
The point is more that if you want a level 50 anything, you must pass through level 1 first; that is the distance that has to be traveled. If you can hit level 50 and be a short step away from whatever you want that is also level 50, you have Diablo 3 with 1 class instead of 5.
ADDENDUM: It may be fair to say that MOST MMOs suffer from the above problem to some extent. Even WoW has the "Why should I roll 2 Priests?" issue (even down to encouraging people to level as one subclass because its easiest and then switch to another). CoX really doesn't have a "Why should I roll two Controllers?" issue that is comparable.
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While its theoretically possible to make level-less games, you have to specifically design around that design principle, and its not easy. This game has a purple patch because not only does it need levels, the levels themselves aren't even enough.
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Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
In any case, levels are overrated. The city environment we have would make a lot more sense if all enemies were just enemies and not grey/green/yellow/orange/red/purple. Aaron Thierry wouldn't be stabbing Atlas Park in the back in order to draw some attention to the "all grey to me" problem, heh.
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I'll grant you that it would effectively be a different game and SWG already amply illustrated how radically changing your game to be "better" can backfire on you. All of these thought exercises are pretty much just that. Maybe we'll see some future powersets trying to stretch the boundaries a bit, though.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
While its theoretically possible to make level-less games, you have to specifically design around that design principle, and its not easy. This game has a purple patch because not only does it need levels, the levels themselves aren't even enough.
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Some of these thought exercises have had some practical benefit, but not in an easy to describe way.|
Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
All of these thought exercises are pretty much just that.
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I should mention as a food for thought item that while two methods for creating a complex free-form power system were mentioned above - fixed resource knapsacking and complexity theory-based emergent systems - that's not the current methodology I'm most interested in at the moment. I'm currently considering a line of thought that uses cryptography as its launch point, specifically the zero-knowledge proof analog to obscuring simpler foundations of more complex systems, so that simple but provably balanced systems can be used to generate more interesting ones.
In an alternate universe, such a system could have been the foundation for City of Heroes 2.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Some of these thought exercises have had some practical benefit, but not in an easy to describe way.
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I hear you on that. They have a lot benefit for me too. I always enjoy talking/hearing about the subject. I have no plans to enter/re-enter the video game development world anytime soon, but I do have a turn based game I started a while back that's been sitting in the dust bin while I play other games. That game blended a number of lessons learned from CoX, Final Fantasy Tactics, to name the major contributors.
I created it more for fun than because I ever planned to release it (main issue I ran into came when I was unable to find a source of 2D sprites that fit the needs of the game and my very limited budget), but it forced me to confront a number of questions. Specifically, in this case, the game started as a question like "What happens when you take a 2-powerset swimlane power system, give the player a team of 6 characters to work with, and put them in a turn based RPG?"
Unfortunately the game will probably never be finished, so we may never know.
But one thing I was working on right before setting that project aside for a while was whether and how to bring Equipment into the game. What I decided in the end was that I didn't want standard wearable equipment, and it was too much work to make players slot powers individually. So I developed an item system similar to what Diablo 1 and 2 use, where items drop with properties, and instead of slotting the items into your head/chest/feet/etc, you slot them directly into powers, like the Rune systems some games use.
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Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm currently considering a line of thought that uses cryptography as its launch point, specifically the zero-knowledge proof analog to obscuring simpler foundations of more complex systems, so that simple but provably balanced systems can be used to generate more interesting ones.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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After reading through half the thread, I don't have anything to add.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Q: How did the hipster get burned?
A: He was eating soup before it was cool. |
Except that I would sig this if I had room.
@Sentry4 @Sentry 4
PvP Redux is discontinued, for obvious reasons. Thanks to everyone who helped and joined.
Arcanaville, I don't have time to respond to this thread properly right (just reading it has put me late for work) now but I am wearing a very toothy grin. I am especially appreciative of the ideas of facefirstness and alternate universes, since they both answer questions I hadn't gotten around to asking you yet. And the conversation as a whole...
Just thought you should know.
(We need a crocodile smile emote.)
I'd be really keen to see the incarnate power creation stuff migrated into the larger power system.
However, when I think about it I realize that context has as much to do with the fun of that stuff (assuming you agree that it's fun) as anything to do directly with the mechanics.
More specifically, the leveling-up game is about fixed power selections. The archetype and powersets lock you into rigorous power structure that has a slight amount of "give" to it but mostly prescribes what you'll choose and how you enhance it. The amount of choice is largely a function of degree.
Later, the epic/patron pools allow you to break out of your powerset and choose something from another powerset.
Even later again, the incarnate trees don't just allow you to break completely out of your archetype, they allow you to plot the path you'll be taking to achieve it.
The fun derives in large part from liberating yourself of the restrictions of the pre-end game. Without that restrictive pre-game, the freedom of the end-game would not taste nearly as sweet.
I think that this is just as important a consideration in the overall design as the raw numbers are and it's the strongest reason why we're unlikely to ever see the incarnate system "ported" into the lower levels of the game. The value lies in its scarcity in relation to the full powerset experience.
For a current implementation of a free-form system, I give the nod to TSW. It is pretty much the way I would have done such a system if I designed it from scratch. As Arcanaville notes, though, you really need to design from the ground up for this kind of system. One for instance; TSW uses the "tidal power" mechanic of water blast all throughout it's powers trees. The advantage it has is that multiple "sets" of powers can be producers and consumers of a particular resource, and so synergies can be built between different sets of skills that are otherwise unrelated. It would be exceedingly difficult to retrofit a system like that onto CoH, though I expect that it will be a staple of new powersets going forward.
Mind you, I'd still dearly love to see an entirely IO-based power set where all of the powers were blank and you customized every aspect of them. I just don't expect that anything like that is ever likely to happen.
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I see what you're driving at there. Interestingly, I can imagine how one avenue of exploration would be the creation of the "recipes" to simulate that rich differentiated skill tree and then selling the recipes to other players who are more inclined to push-button selections and pre-made archetypes.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Free form explicitly *precludes* having such a rich differentiated skill tree, because in free form you would be essentially creating your own skills from a much smaller set of ability components. That exploration wouldn't exist in the same way.
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"Sheesh, I don't have time for this. I think I'll just buy an Aracanaville fire blast. I hear she puts really good resistance mitigation into her powers."
The idea of a "powers marketplace" really tickles me, somehow. :-)
I have not done it. I have gone from 1-25 multiple times in just DFB. 1-50 is not that hard, especially with boosters and patrol experience. I have a friend who is doing I think 3 DFB only, but at least one, just to see how long it takes.
I level a lot of 50s, because I love trying different builds and concepts. DFB is sometimes a lot easier than facing yet another PUG Synapse. PUG ITF can also be horribly stupid. At least with DFB you are 1) guaranteed a cookie 2) Content is not that hard 3) You never have to see these people again in 15 min, 14...13...