Ah, I was hoping for the "hero south" type thing for my main.

Question, though, do the paths let you declare yourself sciencey or magical or whatnot? For example, situation occurs that's magical, the option comes up for me to say something like "I don't know magic from Adam." signifying that I'm magically illiterate? Will the game remember that? Something else happens that's all martial arts guru and again I play the fool. Something happens that's technical, and I jump in and provide the answer. Does the game now recognize I'm playing a nerdy nerd nerd or not?

I ask because I have played games where everyone can do everything and it gets a little silly.

(Super Suit Engineer PC walks up to mage who has portal open) Mage: "Here, help me stabilize the portal!"
(PC automatically starts casting spells to maintain the portal, as per the pre-written plot, even though they should have no idea how to do that).
*Next scene*
(Super Suit Engineer PC is approached by a martial arts guru) Black Belt: "Help me train the students."
(Engineer PC automatically starts performing martial arts techniques that they never learned and have never used, good enough to train students.)

These things annoy me. I hate hate HATE when my character starts doing some random thing they have no business being able to do.

So... will the paths provide us an opportunity to let the game know what we should and shouldn't be able to do?

Yeeesss I am so here for this! So excited!! I love love love this.

This is great! Love it! Especially where it says (if I'm understanding it right) that the combat will not simply be "Go out and Kil Skulz." I mean, who didn't like pounding gangs of Vahzilok or Freakshow into mush? But having mission after mission of nothing but grinding got old pretty quick. So looking forward to this! I miss my superhero characters!

I really enjoyed this update, and it's made me more excited than ever to play the game.

Ironically, when I first started reading it, I was prepared to dislike the path system. In CoH/CoV I always had my characters' individual "paths" in mind despite them all essentially playing through the same content. I didn't like the idea of the game telling me what my path was, but reading further, it doesn't sound like you'll be pigeon-holed or hit over the head with it.

As for the idea of "souvenir comics pages" like an earlier poster mentioned, that would only work for me if it were presented as the work of an in game comic book creator whom our character had inspired. Otherwise it would be too immersion-breaking (not that you guys were planning on doing such a thing anyway).

A couple post-launch Paths I can think of:

Political revolutionary: not totally evil, but not necessarily good. Throughout the game your toon tries to attack entities (gov't or private) that are an affront to their extremist political views. E.g. an anarchist who seeks to dissassemble TCPD, anti-science radicals who seek to bring down Tyrosine corp or similar.

Military Takeover: even bigger than Villain North arguably, the Path may take a villain through the beginnings and into an invastion on the US starting at titan city. Could be another nation, or an alien attack (Rikti Lineage of War, Darksied, Thanos)

I really, really hope there's a Dresden Files-esque path eventually. The "investigator deals with things well outside his weight class through guile and skill" route has a ton of appeal to me.

By and large, I'm likely to end up going for the South routes more often than not. I prefer down-to-earth stuff with a slow buildup to crazy, and it seems to me that the Hero and Villain South routes will be that more than what North has to offer.

I'm also very much hoping there's an option to say that your villain is on the wrong side of the law for the right reasons; controlling the underworld to make crime as clean and efficient as possible to cut down the suffering of others? Pretty solid motivation.

I'm glad to read this. More so, after playing games like SWTOR where "Your Story" meant absolutely nothing for the first seven years of the game and by the time it did, the game was already dying out. I like a lot of what i read here but will we be getting options like "intimidate" or "Persuade"? It would be nice getting an option based on more of a personality style. Will there be inbetween options as well? i.e. if i go mostly north hero but still do south villain choices here and there, where would i end up? One of the things that has me most excited is the possibility that there could always be more options tossed in later, expanding our choices as the game grows.

I usually play my main as a bit of Symbiote Spidey. He's a good guy but his power acts as a corruptive influence, meaning that he tries to do well but can still do the wrong thing at times. Is he a killer? No, but not every one makes it out clean. It would be nice to have a game that allows for that gray space while still having the feel of freedoms. Being a Darkness/Shadow powerset, i imagine people either being a little creeped out by my hero or just assuming he's the villain. So far, the south end looks to be where the Wraith will be patrolling.

great update.

Nice update. Paths sound interesting. I think it might be neat w/ the "adversary thing",

Quote:

For instance, Villain North will present your PC evildoer with a recurring adversary, a young hero with a death wish, that you’ll face in a variety of contexts throughout the Path.

if we can design our own adversary that will keep coming up in our faces & challenging us, a' la Champions Online. Like if your toon is a villain, to design/name a hero nemesis. If your toon is a hero, to design/name a villain nemesis, etc.

Other possibilities could include having tools available to help (e.g. the Incredibly Convenient Rod of Portal Stabilization) or being able to assist by dint of earlier choices (e.g. "I can't help with martial arts, but I know a guy.").

It'd also be neat if there was some random elements to the paths. So you go stop a museum heist and the perpetrators are one of four possible groups. That way if you play it again you won't get the exact same thing every time. Even simple changes like item names and/or types of things can help make it feel different from others' playthroughs. In the museum heist it was the Rooks and they stole a gem! In mine it was (other villain group) and they stole a sceptre! Maybe even the place where it happens was different. So like group X attacks place Y and steals Z. With various randomization the playthroughs may never feel the same way twice.

Cinnder wrote:

Will the enemies in North be of a more fantastical nature, while enemies in South will be more 'realistic'? I'm kind of seeing North as the MCU films while South is more like the MCU Netflix shows. Is that roughly correct?

This is exactly what I was wondering :)

Spidey is usually classified as a street level hero, but would he be in the North or South?

Sounds interesting! I'll likely end up with a lot of north heroes and south villains, though, depending. But if there is a lot of storyline variation within a Path, that might be a good thing!

Also, considering the things that Spidey gets up to, I'd put him as North. It's kind of a matter of Spidey's rogues gallery vs. Batman's rogues gallery: Spidey fight scientists, evil industrialists, and sometimes gangsters. Batman fights gangsters, mobsters, and sometimes scientists. That kind of thing: there is overlap, but the bias is more fantastic.

Scenario: Multiple people teamed on a "path" mission. Mission is completed. How does the path decision-making get recorded for the team:

[b]Options[/b]
a)[b] All people advance on that path using the decisions made by the main mission holder. [/b]This allows for expediency and advancement of storyline, but locks users into the main questgiver's decisions.
b)[b] One "path-holder" story get completed, and everyone else has to take the same path mission over as the "main" to advance their own. [/b]This may make for a night of deja' vu, but may be interesting to explore all the other options. Perhaps present the option to accept the mission completion ("A") or keep it open to be re-run ("b")
c)[b] Everyone gets to answer their own way during the dialogue scenes, the dominant response (or main mission holder's) determines the mission's outcome, but in future encounters, the player's specific choice is the one remembered.[/b] (allows for expedience AND personalization, but with continuity conflicts if these dialogue choices have very apparent narrative deviations.
d)[b]Paths are solo, or "instances of solo" where teams break up temporarily.[/b] IIRC, Going Rogue took this approach. It is probably the easiest to code for, but my wife and I tend to duo and build characters to compliment off one another. Suddenly being forced to solo wasn't enjoyable. I also know many players with disabilities that are able to play well in a team but are challenged by solo, and that leads to roadblocks for them.

e?

I was wondering the same thing Chase. The whole "determine your OWN path" thing seems solo-centric. I am not saying that is a bad thing; just curious on how it plays out vis a vis teaming.

Edit add: Whoops did not see the Doctor's post before I sent mine. If you decide to not follow the lead's direction do you run the risk of "outleveling" content unless you turn off XP?

Fire Away wrote:

I was wondering the same thing Chase. The whole "determine your OWN path" thing seems solo-centric. I am not saying that is a bad thing; just curious on how it plays out vis a vis teaming.

Edit add: Whoops did not see the Doctor's post before I sent mine. If you decide to make not follow the lead's direction do you run the risk of "outleveling" content unless you turn off XP?

Nope. One thing people new to our internal worksheets can be confused about is that every single group or path is level x-50. That is so you cannot outlevel the material.

I like that we can seemingly fight street level stuff our whole hero career. It's a little weird when you make a low power hero and then the games like, now go fight robots, aliens, or some other crazy stuff!

Lost Deep wrote:

For the love of grouping do not have SWTOR's voting system or some other thing that ties your own progression to the decisions of others. Maybe that 'accept or deny team leader's decisions' thing, but I have never grouped in SWTOR, ever (Barring one time when I had no idea what I was doing), because I've been too afraid of someone else's decisions affecting my personal story. As a mechanic it has actively discouraged me from grouping.

Maybe I'm paranoid about it, but the idea of joining a group and having someone else's decisions affect your story or (as an example) faction standing will discourage people from grouping. The only time I've seen people group in SWTOR are the flashpoints, while in CoH you basically got no quest progress from grouping other than the leader (if I recall correctly, might be wrong) but I still grouped up for EXP and for fun!

In SWTOR on your personal missions others don't get to vote. They can watch but that's all. On missions in the world (that aren't personal story ones) you vote and gain light/dark side points based on how you voted not the outcome. The winners of the vote are the ones to perform the action, so if you voted to spare a person's life and the kill vote won only someone who voted kill would do the act.

I wish it had a more robust dialogue system like Divinity: Original Sin where player characters can and do have conversations with eachother and if a decision needs to be made that is not agreed upon there's a rock paper scissors mini game to decide who wins the argument. But hey, no game is perfect.

From reading the article, first I'm getting even more excited for the game, so yay. Second, it sounds like dialog boxes will be a thing in CoT.

If this works like the ones they have in GW2, the following scenario would be possible:

You enter a map with a glowwie, you find the glowwie. You click on the glowwie, and instead of instantly getting the temp power or item drop that it represents (you open the crate, safe, etc) instead you pop up a dialog box. It gives you say three options you can choose by clicking on one of them. Options A, B, and C. Then, maybe based on your choice, you get a second dialog box, with more options. Then another, etc. Ultimately, if you make the right choices, you get the rewards inside the glowwie crate/safe/etc, if not, you get nothing, or you have to try again later, or a monster spawns, etc.

Quote:

Much of the dialogue in a Path allows you to select multiple responses when an NPC speaks to your character.

[b]Notification: You are on private property. Identify yourself at once![/b]
My name is Inigo Mon--
[i]Words begin streaming across the display.[/i]
Seriously? You went there? C'mon... That joke is, like, over twenty years old.
Just for that, this terminal will self-destruct in 5 seconds.

Mordheim13 wrote:

This is great! Love it! Especially where it says (if I'm understanding it right) that the combat will not simply be "Go out and Kil Skulz." I mean, who didn't like pounding gangs of Vahzilok or Freakshow into mush?

Me. I hated both enemy groups... while still loving their concepts.
One explodes and the other... Oh, how I've come to dread the sound of rezzing Freaks. Not because they'd pose much of a threat, but because then I'd have to go back and make sure they go down again.

Seen on the Facebook post of this:

[Img]https://i.imgur.com/7AbBXdf.png[/img]

So does this mean once we hit 50 as a hero or villain, we can't change?

And wow, what does "several years" mean here?

To me, a few years is like 3 or 4. Is "several years" 5+?

I know that City of Heroes didn't have side swapping for 6+ years, but still it's worth being clear on this.

MeSoSollyWan wrote:

Seen on the Facebook post of this:

[Img]https://i.imgur.com/7AbBXdf.png[/img]

So does this mean once we hit 50 as a hero or villain, we can't change?

And wow, what does "several years" mean here?

To me, a few years is like 3 or 4. Is "several years" 5+?

I know that City of Heroes didn't have side swapping for 6+ years, but still it's worth being clear on this.

This does not mean side switching will be delayed, but the actual path branching framework. It's not being explained very well there.

Simply put, we only have 4 paths for launch. It will take years to add the remaining paths. That is what is being referenced. So, branching is very simple at first, but grows over time.

My personal hated group was Malta, particularly the Sappers.

Oh goody. LOL I just hope y'all have some Knives of Artemis analogues. LOVED them, as much as I hated Malta. They were nearly as hard to fight (except for the freaking Sappers), but they were just so COOL!

There are no direct analogs. Instead we stepped back to the tropes involved in each group, and created new groups to fill those tropes. Knives of Artemis used the Deadly Assassin and Mercenary tropes. We have both tropes in different groups, but with very different idioms attached to them.

And no, I am not telling you which groups. Have to keep some of it as a surprise for you all.

One of my least favorite were the Cage Consortium: private security for miners.....LAME!

We should get some badguys in something like the mech exosuit from Aliens.

There are two "hero" paths and two "villain" paths.
Why no gray/neutral/chaos path where you waver across the line at any point?

Planet10 wrote:

There are two "hero" paths and two "villain" paths.
Why no gray/neutral/chaos path where you waver across the line at any point?

Time to develop. We have many more paths planned, but they will not be ready for launch. So, the decision was to make two paths for each side of Titan City to start, then grow from there.

Last time I checked there were a dozen paths in various stages of development. And I look forward to their rollout.

There is no sympathy to be felt for Malta Sappers. They were the lowest of the low.

The exact example i was going for :p

BiotopeZ wrote:

Ah, I was hoping for the "hero south" type thing for my main.

Question, though, do the paths let you declare yourself sciencey or magical or whatnot? For example, situation occurs that's magical, the option comes up for me to say something like "I don't know magic from Adam." signifying that I'm magically illiterate? Will the game remember that? Something else happens that's all martial arts guru and again I play the fool. Something happens that's technical, and I jump in and provide the answer. Does the game now recognize I'm playing a nerdy nerd nerd or not?

I ask because I have played games where everyone can do everything and it gets a little silly.

(Super Suit Engineer PC walks up to mage who has portal open) Mage: "Here, help me stabilize the portal!"
(PC automatically starts casting spells to maintain the portal, as per the pre-written plot, even though they should have no idea how to do that).
*Next scene*
(Super Suit Engineer PC is approached by a martial arts guru) Black Belt: "Help me train the students."
(Engineer PC automatically starts performing martial arts techniques that they never learned and have never used, good enough to train students.)

These things annoy me. I hate hate HATE when my character starts doing some random thing they have no business being able to do.

So... will the paths provide us an opportunity to let the game know what we should and shouldn't be able to do?

Yes that is annoying.

Not sure if they implement a system where we can essentially set "preferences" in such a way even though it would be nice but I certainly hope we get more options in [b]how[/b] to help and not just a simple "help me? yes/no" dialog.

If you can't do it yourself then having the option to get another person or even item that can do it would be wonderful since then you won't need to reject missions based upon what your character can or can't do lore-wise.

Doctor Tyche wrote:

Mordheim13 wrote:

My personal hated group was Malta, particularly the Sappers.

If you hated Sappers, wait till you see what the Disciples of the Shattered One can do....

Oh I remember those guys from when I was working on ideas. They ...*Gets grabbed and tied up. Mysterious figure types* Are just generic foes who do lots of damage. Nothing to see here.

BiotopeZ wrote:

Ah, I was hoping for the "hero south" type thing for my main.

Question, though, do the paths let you declare yourself sciencey or magical or whatnot? For example, situation occurs that's magical, the option comes up for me to say something like "I don't know magic from Adam." signifying that I'm magically illiterate? Will the game remember that? Something else happens that's all martial arts guru and again I play the fool. Something happens that's technical, and I jump in and provide the answer. Does the game now recognize I'm playing a nerdy nerd nerd or not?

As far as I am aware, if those questions exist, they are part of character creation.

Wraith_Shadow wrote:

will we be getting options like "intimidate" or "Persuade"? It would be nice getting an option based on more of a personality style.

As of right now, options during path dialogues are supposed to be allowing for a number of different scenarios with regards to player abilities. There's one that I personally wrote that has such options of "sure, I'll do the magic thing" and "you want me to do what to the who now?" (text not exact, some exaggeration for personification involved). When writing the paths, we are trying to make allowances for all types of characters possible.

angelo.pampalone wrote:

But paths are open for character lv 50+ or will be doable at lower levels?
If doable at lower than max level will they dynamically sync with the character level?

Paths start at levels 5-10 and go up in level by increments of 5. I believe the intent would be to scale down to the episode level.

Wraith_Shadow wrote:

Will there be inbetween options as well? i.e. if i go mostly north hero but still do south villain choices here and there, where would i end up?

As it stands now, as far as I am aware, you won't be able to cross paths in this manner. Each path is created with the idea that the later series build on the earlier ones. Sure, some foes disappear as you outlevel them, but they're replaced by others. There are some things that begin in the very first episode that carry through to the launch conclusion and beyond (we have plans). Switching paths, or even picking and choosing like you describe, will impede the overall storyline. Some stuff would work for this, but that is an extreme minority. Example: in the Hero North path, of the total 66 episodes, only 6 episodes (2 series and a stand-alone) could be played outside the path and truly make sense. While they [i]could[/i] be played outside the path, the context from the path enhances one's ability to understand the content; one of the two series and the stand-alone both are valuable in later path series (which also use other path series for context).

Cinnder wrote:

Could a character level all the way to max by doing only Path content, only Tip content, or only street sweeping (in addition to a mix of these)?

IIRC, we are intentionally [i]NOT[/i] making it possible to reach max level based on paths alone. There was much discussion about this in the earlier stages of this project, and it was concluded that to do so would not be in the best interest of the players. In theory, the Hero PC would do some street crime interruptions and the Villain PC would enforce their superiority on hapless citizens and pathetic foes (a.k.a. street-sweeping), and perhaps a tip episode or few. Paths can certainly get you [i]most[/i] of the way there, but you will most likely need to supplement it some.

Cinnder wrote:

Will the enemies in North be of a more fantastical nature, while enemies in South will be more 'realistic'? I'm kind of seeing North as the MCU films while South is more like the MCU Netflix shows. Is that roughly correct?

Many of the factions span across both areas, though there are some that are only on one side. That said, for the northside content think Spandex, and for southside content think street crime, gangs, and organized crime. Since I'm not especially big on comics myself (I know...total sin against nature here), I had it explained to me as "Superman in the north and Batman in the south."

Dax Doomslayer wrote:

One question about logistics. How do paths interact with other players you're teamed with? Or don't they? I'm curious as to how teamed players would be impacted by decisions made during this if it isn't the character's 'path'. Would each player get a dialogue option or would it only be the leader?

This has been discussed a few times, but I will have to leave it to other departments to answer. It's not really a composition thing.

chase wrote:

Scenario: Multiple people teamed on a "path" mission. Mission is completed. How does the path decision-making get recorded for the team:

This has been discussed a few times, but I will have to leave it to other departments to answer. It's not really a composition thing.

Deathwatch101 wrote:

I presume it will be possible to do non-path missions etc without say doing path's. How hard will it be for a character not using any path to reach max level.
It would be appreciated to know how hard you guys think it would be to level to max through avoiding path content that affects my own character ?

It is intended for PCs to be able to use any content type, whether all or only one, to level. They are intended to be about equal, IIRC. Well, mostly. I suspect that leveling via street-sweeping alone will take a bit longer to do.

Planet10 wrote:

There are two "hero" paths and two "villain" paths.
Why no gray/neutral/chaos path where you waver across the line at any point?

We've only got so many writers. Also, we've only got so many artists and techies, etc. The more content we put in, the more time it takes. We will have more path content in later updates, but we can only do so much at launch and still have it out in a reasonable period of time. We still have a [i][b]LOT[/b][/i] of episodes to write, including about two and a half of the paths (they're outlined, it just takes time to write up the individual episodes).

Maybe when new paths come out, a "path reset" option for older characters can be available? So the player can pick up the new path with an existing character if it fits better? If everything in a path scales 5-50 anyway, why not?

Also, you guys still need more writers? Maybe I should volunteer, I haven't got a lot going on. Issue is I basically have no writing portfolio, only a half-dozen uncompleted fanfics.

desviper wrote:

"superman in the north..."

If superman exists we have a world without crime!!!

*grumble grumble*

Not true. There will always be criminals, and there is only one Superman. Even he must rest sometimes, and can only be one place at a time. Besides, if he became so pervasive as to be able to avert all crime, he would BECOME the force that heroes must rise against. "A government strong enough to give you all that you desire is strong enough to take away all that you have." Thomas Jefferson

Right, but Superman is Shiny and Batman is Gritty.

That's probably the difference that was trying to be illustrated by the examples.

Be Well!
Fireheart

BiotopeZ wrote:

ConundrumofFurballs wrote:

As of right now, options during path dialogues are supposed to be allowing for a number of different scenarios with regards to player abilities. There's one that I personally wrote that has such options of "sure, I'll do the magic thing" and "you want me to do what to the who now?" (text not exact, some exaggeration for personification involved). When writing the paths, we are trying to make allowances for all types of characters possible.

That's what I wanted to hear. It doesn't really matter if the game remembers it, or if the option comes up every time, so long as my munitions guy doesn't suddenly start hacking a proprietary super-computer, or my computer guy doesn't suddenly start waving his hands around with arcane sigils appearing in the air, I'll be happy.

Another pet peeve from other games is when they say "Humans, come to die?" or something... when the game clearly lets you make characters that aren't human. Kinda makes the enemy seem dumb if they can't tell the difference between a human and a robot... or a human and a bipedal shark, for that matter. Giant rock monster approaches his enemy Baddie Bossman. Bossman: "Human! You found me!" Rock monster: "...WAT?"

But it sounds like you got it figured out, thankfully. I'm going to be creating someone for each main path, for sure.

I will, too. But then, I have incurable altitis. I have a couple characters that I will be creating that are my mains, and then... characters for miles!

ConundrumofFurballs wrote:

"Superman in the north and Batman in the south."

/em impales cheek with tongue

So north of the river is a Metropolis where the sun is always shining ... and south of the river is a Gotham of a city that never sleeps because the sun never rises.

Got it. ^_~

Not really. He can move that fast, but he can't become light. He has to act, and Superman thinks before he acts (moreso than Batman, sometimes). Moreover, he is not all-knowing. Besides, in a Universe that has Starro, Darkseid, and demon hordes, it's not really unfair to have a hero with comparable power. Get over it.

McNum wrote:

One of my favorite characters in the old game was an assassin with a very mercenary streak. You need a problem solved? She'll do it, for a price. Of course she set up business in the city of villains since there was always someone needing an assassin around there. She later found her home in the Rikti War zone, because Vanguard paid better and it was a steady job.

Is something like that possible in these paths? Not wanting great power or world domination or even running any kind of organized crime. Just plain old mercenary assassinations. Make a name for yourself, get hired by anyone who needs an anonymous blade in the dark. End up changing the fate of the world because big old talks in third person guy needed a blade in the ribs and someone was willing to pay for it.

Something I hope for one day. Because Merc's or unaffiliated specialists are always useful to the good or the bad. They build a reputation and of course you aren't going to want to hire one that you know will turn their back on a contract.

I think it would be really cool for us to have a grey area person like that. Not particularly liked and likely wanted but lets be honest if your a cop and you've got a group of villain's pinning you in cover, if you know the guy that you really should arrest at least isn't gonna put a sword in your back or won't flee because they have a contract to fulfill. You might just let them get a 5 second headstart.

Or as a villain you know that person isn't going to screw you over to the police because once word gets out they aren't gonna get anymore jobs. Its a reputation game and honestly a Path which is a reputation game maybe it offers you more IGC but would mean "failing" the path if you take the bribes etc too often etc could be quite cool.

Yea, I like to at least suggest the idea - as i said above i'll likely try to grind my main/first character up to max level while avoiding the current paths.

...help other players with their missions, you're a mercenary after all.
I'm planning something like this for one of my toons... giving him his own 'Big Bad Villain' story just feels wrong for the character I have in mind.