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Freeform?

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RUMBOGUTHORUMOR
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Freeform?

Like in CO, would there be a freeform archetype?

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Hello RUMBOGUTHORUMOR, there

Hello RUMBOGUTHORUMOR, there is no free form system for character design in CoT.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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But between the aesthetic

Between the aesthetic decoupling that CoT is promising (which'll allow any power look pretty much any way you'd want it to look) and the large array of primary/secondary/tertiary powerset combinations this game should be just about as close to "freeform" as you'd really want to get while still avoiding the absolute chaos that a -true- freeform system is plagued with.

Quick History Lesson: CoH actually tried a fully freeform system during its early alpha/beta testing phases. They were attempting to make CoH as close to the classic table-top Champions game as possible which is famous for its freeform powers system. Supposedly you could pick any powers you wanted AND it was a complete and utter disaster. The one major thing the Devs overlooked when trying to translate a table-top RPG to the computerized MMO world was the guiding hand of a human GM. The problem was pretty simple really - without any GMs to make sure PCs were balanced the game allowed players to create either laughably overpowered tank-mages or hopelessly lame/unplayable characters which had no hope of survival or earning XP.

Because the freeform idea failed so spectacularly the CoH Devs had to redesign the game with standardized archetypes/powersets to make sure players could never create characters that were either too powerful or too weak to survive. Even when you look at CO's so-called "freeform" system it really doesn't give you total freedom to pick whatever you want. It still constrains you to pick certain types of powers so that, once again, it prevents you from creating an overly extreme (too powerful or weak) build.

Bottomline no MMO will likely ever allow for a completely open freeform powers system. At best games in the future might incorporate enough AI to give players the "illusion" of freeform build choice while still preventing you from stepping outside the balanced thresholds of the game.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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There is no more a problem

There is no more a problem with free form than there is for non free form when it comes to balance. There's always balance issues. So many MMOs don't have free form and people are ALWAYS bitching and moaning about balance.

That said, if they throw a range attack option in the melee set and give better tertiary set than CoH did with Epics, we may be fine in CoT.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

There is no more a problem with free form than there is for non free form when it comes to balance. There's always balance issues. So many MMOs don't have free form and people are ALWAYS bitching and moaning about balance.

I would strongly disagree with your statement that freeform systems are no worse than anything else in computer games. I never said that MMOs in general don't have balance issues - pretty much all of them do. But I did say that MMO games (at least up until now) that have tried to provide fully unrestricted open freeform systems usually resulted in catastrophically unplayable balance issues. For example how do you effectively play a character in a typical MMO that has absolutely -no- offensive DPS capability? An fully open freeform system would let you make one of those...

Games that organize their power systems around a class structure (i.e. archetypes/powersets) are not perfect, but they tend to be far, far better than the alternative.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Freeforms tend to put in a

Freeforms tend to put in a couple obvious powers to avoid some of that. Like CO freeforms start with a basic attack, so people always have an attack.

You can put in other safeguards to make sure someone doesn't go all "buff others!" on their build.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Freeforms tend to put in a couple obvious powers to avoid some of that. Like CO freeforms start with a basic attack, so people always have an attack.
You can put in other safeguards to make sure someone doesn't go all "buff others!" on their build.

Right there are ways to have a sort of "pseudo-freeform" system that imposes enough controls to keep things from getting out of hand. But there's really a pretty fine point where a pseudo-freeform system like that simply becomes another "class/powerset" system in disguise. Frankly I'd call what CO calls its "freeform" system to be one of those secret "class" systems in disguise.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I never got that feeling in

I never got that feeling in CO. Rather, yes they had tanks and healers, but none of the game really needed it. It felt to be more in that way because players can't see to get out of the Tank/Healer/DPS mindset.

Put them in a MMO where everyone is DPS and generally looking after their own survival while still working as a team and they all lose their minds.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Brand X wrote:
Freeforms tend to put in a couple obvious powers to avoid some of that. Like CO freeforms start with a basic attack, so people always have an attack.
You can put in other safeguards to make sure someone doesn't go all "buff others!" on their build.
Right there are ways to have a sort of "pseudo-freeform" system that imposes enough controls to keep things from getting out of hand. But there's really a pretty fine point where a pseudo-freeform system like that simply becomes another "class/powerset" system in disguise. Frankly I'd call what CO calls its "freeform" system to be one of those secret "class" systems in disguise.

Power sets were vertical, and narrow at low levels. Specializations were horizontal, and were about power behavior, not aesthetics. Which pushed power sets more into aesthetics, until every power set revamp started to include thematic "bleed/rupture" mechanics that penalized you for moving laterally. Sister Silicon herself was a mostly Power Armor freeform that was a slightly tanky beam spam generator by power set definition, but extra tanky after I loaded up on defensive Specializations. I think they've redone PA since I left, so I have no idea what I'd be walking back into if I ever got dragged into returning.

Brand X wrote:

I never got that feeling in CO. Rather, yes they had tanks and healers, but none of the game really needed it. It felt to be more in that way because players can't see to get out of the Tank/Healer/DPS mindset.
Put them in a MMO where everyone is DPS and generally looking after their own survival while still working as a team and they all lose their minds.

Cryptic bungled CO's crowd control from the start, and never really got it right after that. That pushed everybody into the trinity, and with freeform, it was a very narrow trinity. By time I left, every melee toon was a Tank with ridiculous burst damage, every range toon was a damage-threat firehose that could survive the ensuing boss punch in the mouth, and everybody had at least one mega self-heal or regen to shame Wolverine. Little wonder that they've been passively punishing true freeform builds and making bosses that hurt like hell lately.

Twitter: @SisterSilicon

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CO at least at one time, had

CO at least at one time, had you feeling like a hero. Also, it's not like one couldn't do that in CoH with the right setups.

Every MMO is said to have bungled crowd control by everyone though. Even CoH :p

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SisterSilicon wrote:
SisterSilicon wrote:

Cryptic bungled CO's crowd control from the start, and never really got it right after that. That pushed everybody into the trinity, and with freeform, it was a very narrow trinity. By time I left, every melee toon was a Tank with ridiculous burst damage, every range toon was a damage-threat firehose that could survive the ensuing boss punch in the mouth, and everybody had at least one mega self-heal or regen to shame Wolverine. Little wonder that they've been passively punishing true freeform builds and making bosses that hurt like hell lately.

This is the lingering irony of so-called "freeform" systems in MMO settings - they ultimately lead to LESS build diversity, not more.

People in MMOs will always tend to Min/Max their builds to the extent the system will allow. This means people will always take the game and figure out the most offensively capable, defensively survivable builds. So when you have a supposedly freeform system (like CO's) it really only funnels players towards a very specific set of power choices that fully maximizes the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses. You can't do this as much in a strict powerset/class setting (like CoH was) so (again ironically) players are able to be more successful with diverse builds within classes because the "penalty" for not hyper min/maxing is not as great.

Freeform systems in MMOs don't really let you do "anything" you want - they actually motivate you toward having the same tip-top cookie-cutter "best" builds everyone else has.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

This is the lingering irony of so-called "freeform" systems in MMO settings - they ultimately lead to LESS build diversity, not more.
People in MMOs will always tend to Min/Max their builds to the extent the system will allow. This means people will always take the game and figure out the most offensively capable, defensively survivable builds. So when you have a supposedly freeform system (like CO's) it really only funnels players towards a very specific set of power choices that fully maximizes the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses. You can't do this as much in a strict powerset/class setting (like CoH was) so (again ironically) players are able to be more successful with diverse builds within classes because the "penalty" for not hyper min/maxing is not as great.
Freeform systems in MMOs don't really let you do "anything" you want - they actually motivate you toward having the same tip-top cookie-cutter "best" builds everyone else has.

QFT

I for one am extremely happy CoT isn't based around a freeform system. Archetypes, primary/secondary/tertiary and different power sets within those selections are essential to the legacy of build diversity from CoH. It's the middle ground between freeform and "here are 10 classes--pick one" that made it work.

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People still looked at the

People still looked at the numbers and there were still builds that were considered the best and sets that were considered jokes in CoH.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

People still looked at the numbers and there were still builds that were considered the best and sets that were considered jokes in CoH.

While this is true, I'm not sure what it really means. The nature of any game of this nature is that some builds will be better than others in some sense.

But I think the real questions are how much diversity there is among builds that fall within a reasonable range of performance and how much system mastery is necessary to achieve that. Some disparity is inevitable, but that's not a bad thing. I would much rather have system mastery actually mean something, but it also shouldn't be necessary in order to build a character that performs reasonably well.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

People still looked at the numbers and there were still builds that were considered the best and sets that were considered jokes in CoH.

Right, as long as you have a system where some things are different than other things (i.e. character builds) you're likely going to be able to determine that some of those things are "better" than others. The important point here is that the EXTREMES between what was considered "best" and "worst" in CoH was far more towards the middle-ground of reasonableness than you'd ever get in a wild-west freeform situation.

Most of the time even the best builds in CoH were not considered overpowered and when they were the Devs nerfed them back just far enough to keep them in-line. And there was never a case where the silliest build in CoH was "100% unplayable". A bad/silly build might not have been very fun to play, but assuming that it didn't bother you it could still be played.

The use of archetypes/powersets didn't stop some builds from being better than others in CoH. Things being relatively "better/worse" is not the problem - the problem is when those qualities are allowed to become TOO extreme.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I think there's fun to be had

I think there's fun to be had making intentionally low-power builds then trying to do missions etc with them. I don't mean "let's make a build that operates against itself and has anti-comboes all over the place" but something more like just a character with it's own backstory and maybe didn't take Hasten and Superspeed, for once.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Brand X wrote:
People still looked at the numbers and there were still builds that were considered the best and sets that were considered jokes in CoH.
Right, as long as you have a system where some things are different than other things (i.e. character builds) you're likely going to be able to determine that some of those things are "better" than others. The important point here is that the EXTREMES between what was considered "best" and "worst" in CoH was far more towards the middle-ground of reasonableness than you'd ever get in a wild-west freeform situation.
Most of the time even the best builds in CoH were not considered overpowered and when they were the Devs nerfed them back just far enough to keep them in-line. And there was never a case where the silliest build in CoH was "100% unplayable". A bad/silly build might not have been very fun to play, but assuming that it didn't bother you it could still be played.
The use of archetypes/powersets didn't stop some builds from being better than others in CoH. Things being relatively "better/worse" is not the problem - the problem is when those qualities are allowed to become TOO extreme.

I think they did and people just forgot. We'd see fotm builds.

CoH would always have some build that was just the best and we'd see more of them than anyone else, with lots of people going "What? I always had this build since the beginning." :p

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with some uber builds, especially when one had to build for it with IOs. In fact, my only problem with CoH was I was never able to build my one concept build (came close...damn Stalker WP just needed to have positional defense instead of typed defense).

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SisterSilicon wrote:
SisterSilicon wrote:

Lothic wrote:
Brand X wrote:
Freeforms tend to put in a couple obvious powers to avoid some of that. Like CO freeforms start with a basic attack, so people always have an attack.
You can put in other safeguards to make sure someone doesn't go all "buff others!" on their build.
Right there are ways to have a sort of "pseudo-freeform" system that imposes enough controls to keep things from getting out of hand. But there's really a pretty fine point where a pseudo-freeform system like that simply becomes another "class/powerset" system in disguise. Frankly I'd call what CO calls its "freeform" system to be one of those secret "class" systems in disguise.
Power sets were vertical, and narrow at low levels. Specializations were horizontal, and were about power behavior, not aesthetics. Which pushed power sets more into aesthetics, until every power set revamp started to include thematic "bleed/rupture" mechanics that penalized you for moving laterally. Sister Silicon herself was a mostly Power Armor freeform that was a slightly tanky beam spam generator by power set definition, but extra tanky after I loaded up on defensive Specializations. I think they've redone PA since I left, so I have no idea what I'd be walking back into if I ever got dragged into returning.
Brand X wrote:
I never got that feeling in CO. Rather, yes they had tanks and healers, but none of the game really needed it. It felt to be more in that way because players can't see to get out of the Tank/Healer/DPS mindset.
Put them in a MMO where everyone is DPS and generally looking after their own survival while still working as a team and they all lose their minds.
Cryptic bungled CO's crowd control from the start, and never really got it right after that. That pushed everybody into the trinity, and with freeform, it was a very narrow trinity. By time I left, every melee toon was a Tank with ridiculous burst damage, every range toon was a damage-threat firehose that could survive the ensuing boss punch in the mouth, and everybody had at least one mega self-heal or regen to shame Wolverine. Little wonder that they've been passively punishing true freeform builds and making bosses that hurt like hell lately.

And, quite frankly, every freeform who didn't take dual healing drones I'd fire from the Avengers. Drones which heal anyone damaged means an army of heals before a healer even needs to lift a finger. No, you don't need that one other power more. Here's a concept for your character: You're fired!

Of course, they'd just assign a horde to groups going on missions.

Worse, my /traps MM finished the game with ~2 billion dollars. Had she sold heal follow dronebots to people and governments, she'd have finished the game the world's first self-earned trillionaire.

Use the robots to rob a bank instead of selling them. Classic mistake!

__________________

The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.

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BTW, if you want to get rid

BTW, if you want to get rid of tank/heal/DPS, make sure the controllers are ready for prime time, then delete all taunt powers.

You got no taunt, you got no tank. Poof! There goes the flawed design that's been around since text-based MMORPGs. It was not needed, and was never needed.

__________________

The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.

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Yes, then the trinity becomes

So then the trinity becomes control (isn't that what a taunt is?), heal, dps. Shortsighted oversimplification.
The way to remove reliance on the trinity is to not require specific specializations in order to succeed, not to just trade one specialization for another.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Right, as long as you have a system where some things are different than other things (i.e. character builds) you're likely going to be able to determine that some of those things are "better" than others. The important point here is that the EXTREMES between what was considered "best" and "worst" in CoH was far more towards the middle-ground of reasonableness than you'd ever get in a wild-west freeform situation.
Most of the time even the best builds in CoH were not considered overpowered and when they were the Devs nerfed them back just far enough to keep them in-line. And there was never a case where the silliest build in CoH was "100% unplayable". A bad/silly build might not have been very fun to play, but assuming that it didn't bother you it could still be played.
The use of archetypes/powersets didn't stop some builds from being better than others in CoH. Things being relatively "better/worse" is not the problem - the problem is when those qualities are allowed to become TOO extreme.

I think they did and people just forgot. We'd see fotm builds.
CoH would always have some build that was just the best and we'd see more of them than anyone else, with lots of people going "What? I always had this build since the beginning." :p
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with some uber builds, especially when one had to build for it with IOs. In fact, my only problem with CoH was I was never able to build my one concept build (came close...damn Stalker WP just needed to have positional defense instead of typed defense).

Sure CoH had its FOTM builds. Like I said players of any game system will always try to min/max what they think are the "best" builds. Again this is NOT the problem.

If you'll recall there were some instances where the FOTM builds would get nerfed but many times they really didn't. That's because the archetype/powerset system of CoH did a good enough job preventing the most "extremely overpowered" cases from happening most of the time. Having/using the best builds in the game is completely fine as long as those builds are not considered hopelessly broken.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Gorgon wrote:
Gorgon wrote:

BTW, if you want to get rid of tank/heal/DPS, make sure the controllers are ready for prime time, then delete all taunt powers.
You got no taunt, you got no tank. Poof! There goes the flawed design that's been around since text-based MMORPGs. It was not needed, and was never needed.

Taunt was a control/mez. Tanks were basically melee controllers, except instead of "don't attack anyone" or "attack each other" the tank says "attack me".

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Interdictor wrote:
Interdictor wrote:
Gorgon wrote:

BTW, if you want to get rid of tank/heal/DPS, make sure the controllers are ready for prime time, then delete all taunt powers.
You got no taunt, you got no tank. Poof! There goes the flawed design that's been around since text-based MMORPGs. It was not needed, and was never needed.

Taunt was a control/mez. Tanks were basically melee controllers, except instead of "don't attack anyone" or "attack each other" the tank says "attack me".

It's actually amazing how often people didn't "get" that concept. People tend to think Tanks and Controllers were radically different things when their only serious difference was that one operated in melee and the other (usually) operated at range.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Completely getting rid of the

Completely getting rid of the holy trinity doesn't lend itself very well to actual team play since everyone has to be tank healer and DPS at the same time.

Not sure how GW2 has it now (heard they are somewhat moving towards a trinity model) but in the beginning it was just a clusterfuck in dungeons imo. Sure everyone has to look out for themselves but that also means you can't develop any meaningful strategies with the other team members. To me at least it felt that like we were a bunch of soloers who just happen to do the same thing, not a team tackling a tough boss.

In CoH though it felt much much better. The ATs were based around the trinity model but there was no strict adherence to it in team compositions, thus we could have fun by just filling up with anyone who asked instead of having to get specific ATs.

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(haven't read the whole

(haven't read the whole thread)

Maybe a Danger Room to make any powersets in might be fun for a short time. Almost like going tgm and massacring Whiterun ;)


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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

Completely getting rid of the holy trinity doesn't lend itself very well to actual team play since everyone has to be tank healer and DPS at the same time.

I can't speak to this from personal experience, being a CO refugee, but IMO the existence in CoH of things like "Tanker Tuesday" argues against it.

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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

blacke4dawn wrote:
Completely getting rid of the holy trinity doesn't lend itself very well to actual team play since everyone has to be tank healer and DPS at the same time.
I can't speak to this from personal experience, being a CO refugee, but IMO the existence in CoH of things like "Tanker Tuesday" argues against it.

This is very true. CoH/V had quite a few super-teams that consisted of literally all of the same flavor of AT, the FRADS (Fire/Rads) being the one that jumps immediately to mind for me as a friend of mine was on one. And they held the record at one point in time for the fastest STF run, which was before all the Incarnate stuff.

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Cobalt Azurean wrote:
Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Foradain wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:
Completely getting rid of the holy trinity doesn't lend itself very well to actual team play since everyone has to be tank healer and DPS at the same time.
I can't speak to this from personal experience, being a CO refugee, but IMO the existence in CoH of things like "Tanker Tuesday" argues against it.
This is very true. CoH/V had quite a few super-teams that consisted of literally all of the same flavor of AT, the FRADS (Fire/Rads) being the one that jumps immediately to mind for me as a friend of mine was on one. And they held the record at one point in time for the fastest STF run, which was before all the Incarnate stuff.

I honestly think you could have a solid team of any single build in CoH and they could still finish missions. Sure some teams (like all Fire/Rads) could probably finish things -quicker- than say all Tankers. But in the long run as long as a team worked together and maximized their abilities I think almost anything could have worked.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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We finished Positron with two

We finished Positron with two blasters. It was like peeling onions, but it wasn't impossible.

"Unbalanced" teams like Tanker Tuesdays were great for pushing the envelope in directions other than completion speed or DPS. You get a very different gameplay out of it, and it enhances replay value.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

blacke4dawn wrote:
Completely getting rid of the holy trinity doesn't lend itself very well to actual team play since everyone has to be tank healer and DPS at the same time.
I can't speak to this from personal experience, being a CO refugee, but IMO the existence in CoH of things like "Tanker Tuesday" argues against it.

I was talking from a game mechanical perspective.

My only real experience with no-trinity games is limited to the Guild Wars series and honestly the "aggro" (if you can call it that) flies all over. You can't really have a strategy that the "tank" pulls to a location and the rest nukes/heals from a safe distance since there is no real tank to get and hold aggro throughout the entire encounter. Also no one can really specialize in healing/support or other low HP/def build to the same degree as other games since they also need the stats to survive the boss for significant amount of time due to the aforementioned piing-pong effect in "aggro".

CoH did not get rid of the holy trinity, it just made it optional to follow.

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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

You can't really have a strategy that the "tank" pulls to a location and the rest nukes/heals from a safe distance since there is no real tank to get and hold aggro throughout the entire encounter.

So you don't use that strategy. The point is not to make that game where the trinity is required: don't put things on a timer where you automatically lose if DPS falls under a certain level, don't go overboard with "at x% they throw a PBAoE damage burst that autokills anyone but tanks" things, and so on. For example, the Hamidon did the latter, but there was an inspiration that let anyone survive it, so they could trade damage resistance for timing.

blacke4dawn wrote:

Also no one can really specialize in healing/support or other low HP/def build to the same degree as other games since they also need the stats to survive the boss for significant amount of time due to the aforementioned piing-pong effect in "aggro".

Or they trade off aggro, kite the boss around so very little time is spent in close range, bring a force field bubbler or kinetics defender along to make everyone a lot harder to hurt, and so on.

Here's a Synapse task force run with entirely Radiation characters (blasters and defenders). No official tanks to be seen. And they basically melted everything they faced with massed debuffs and AoE DoTs:

That's the beauty of CoH: it wasn't hardwired to the Trinity, so people were constantly coming up with new strategies.

BTW, Tanker Tuesday usually turned into all the tanks trying to steal aggro from each other. It's definitely disorienting for players who are used to being the center of attention to see all the mobs run right past them to someone else.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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*sigh* It seems everyone

*sigh* It seems everyone missed that the point I was trying to make.

There is a biiiiiiig difference between not having a "holy trinity"-based class system at all and having it but making adhering to it in groups optional. CoH was the latter and that was one of the things that made teaming so much fun in it, you didn't need to look for a tank or healer before you could get going you just picked what was available and ran with it. Sure dedicated group content was "easier" to do with at least one dedicated tank but there was no strict need for it. <--- This IS what I want in CoT, and from what I have read it appears that MWM is going for that.

GW2 on the other hand was mostly an exercise in frustration when it came to group content, especially the higher difficulty levels, due to everyone (and their dog) having to be tank healer and dps at once.

I initially made my comment because someone felt that getting rid of holy trinity would make the game better, maybe I just misread it and they only meant strict adherence to it.

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CoX had Masterminds and

CoX had Masterminds and controllers though, which are not healers, dps, or tanks, technically. So I wouldn't say it was designed with that trinity ethos in mind, really. The design, if anything, was (at first) an attempt to make each class relatively weak when soloing such that you really needed to team up to get best results. That said, scrappers were really good soloists despite that. They eventually scrapped that philosophy and made some classes more soloable over time however.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

CoX had Masterminds and controllers though, which are not healers, dps, or tanks, technically. So I wouldn't say it was designed with that trinity ethos in mind, really. The design, if anything, was (at first) an attempt to make each class relatively weak when soloing such that you really needed to team up to get best results. That said, scrappers were really good soloists despite that. They eventually scrapped that philosophy and made some classes more soloable over time however.

Some stories I have heard states that "holy trinity" originated in Everquest where it stood for tank heal control. Damage was not a "role" in that regard since everyone brought some damage, and pure dps classes/builds were only used to fill out group/raid slots. So from that PoV I'd say they kinda did.

Regardless of what definition of "holy trinity" one uses I think we can all agree on that CoH broke the reliance on it in a good way.

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I'd categorize Masterminds as

I'd categorize Masterminds as DPS, in that form of the trinity. They just split their damage across 6 pets.


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desviper wrote:
desviper wrote:

I'd categorize Masterminds as DPS, in that form of the trinity. They just split their damage across 6 pets.

Yeah, but they also had the "damage to master is shared with pets if pets in defensive mode" thing, which gave them some "pseudo-tanking" ability. Before the villain side was merged with the hero side, they only had MMs and Brutes to fill the tank role, and both were compromised when up against, say, Hamidon.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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One of the things I liked

One of the things I liked about CoX was that the holy trinity was more of a suggestion if anything else... with the right powers your group healer could be a controller, or your tank could just be a mastermind or the control guy could be a dark/dark defender or corrupter.... heck if you're smart enough you could turn a corrupter into a tank or an ice/ice blaster into a controller. The Trinity wasn't reinforced with adamantium and "You can only be X role if you have X class" mentality. There was more freedom there to try for a cross role AT or even a hero who was split between 2 roles at once if you wanted to.

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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Yeah, I really enjoyed the

Yeah, I really enjoyed the freedom to play multiple roles on a team, in CoH. I'm expecting a similar freedom in CoT.

Be Well!
Fireheart