The Path system is a type of story designed around a theme a player decides to play throughout their levelling process. These story themes range anywhere from "Street Hero" to "World Conqueror". You can [url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/630570]read about it[/url] from our Kickstarter update.

A seperate, but related topic is that of alignments. We have a tri-axis alignment system (more like hexagonal) of Law, Honor, and Violence. A character can be anything from Lawful, Honorable, and Non-Violent, all the way to the other extreme of Unlawful, Dishonorable, and Violent. From there we have those typical comic book character tropes of Hero, Villain, Vigilante, and Scoundrel. These labels help "color" the perception of the various NPC factions initially have of our character. You can [url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/629385]read up on this topic[/url] from our Kickstarter updates as well.

The reason they're related is that if you're a Villain on the "World Conqueror" Path, and you change alignments throughout the game based on the decisions you make while playing and become a Hero, well that may not fit well within the World Conqueror path anymore, instead you may then access one of the hero themed paths.

StellarAgent wrote:

I imagine it will be something similar to what CoX had at the end, where you built up "points" towards one alignment or another. Hero -> Rogue -> Villain and vice versa, Villain -> Vigilante -> Hero. All determined by the choices you made from the ones available to you either through Conversation or Mission Choices.

The way CoH did this was a workable solution but clearly had its limitations. It technically allowed people to switch from "hero" to "villain" or vice-versa, but you could only do it by passing through hardwired phases (vigilante/rogue) that were so vaguely defined that often times none of the alignments really properly covered exactly what you wanted your characters to represent. Sure you could say you were a "pure" hero or villain, but when it came to anything in-between it was hard to assume that calling yourself a vigilante or rogue really fully defined exactly what you wanted. The system was simply far too arbitrary and inflexible.

Tannim222 wrote:

A seperate, but related topic is that of alignments. We have a tri-axis alignment system (more like hexagonal) of Law, Honor, and Violence. A character can be anything from Lawful, Honorable, and Non-Violent, all the way to the other extreme of Unlawful, Dishonorable, and Violent. From there we have those typical comic book character tropes of Hero, Villain, Vigilante, and Scoundrel. These labels help "color" the perception of the various NPC factions initially have of our character. You can read up on this topic from our Kickstarter updates as well.

The axis system that will be used by CoT should be able to better define exactly what kind of character you want to be. For example there's a fundamental difference between Batman (a vigilante that typically tries not to kill people) and the Punisher (a vigilante that typically kills people first before considering anything else). COT's alignment spectrum will allow us to properly describe those differences.

Izzy wrote:

I dont think every player will like the fact that every action they take will eventually dictate Who They Perceived Themselves as being.
And if those PERCEPTIONS dont align of who they Should Be, they will stop playing the game. That's my reluctance in accepting this. I guess it all depends how its done. I'll wait and see how MWM plans to do this. If More like CoH/V, where you explicitly seek out to do a certain Mission to change alignments, or is it more, let the games AI determine my standing based on my semi-subconscious decisions. I dont want the CoT community to be discriminating against each other using this litmus test.
As long as there's an Option/Toggle that can be flipped between "AI Automatic" and "Manual Mission" for changing alignments... it might appease all player mentalities. :P

Every action is a huge overstatement. There will be key-decision moments with clear indications on what choices there are and how they affect alignment. Unless a player is near a tipping point, there will be "wiggle room" for alignment affecting decisions.

Choices are part of the game, though they may not always be present in every mission, a player won't be going out of their way to do "alignment missions" to change alignments, they just play through the game. There isn't a toggle, but again, at points places where choices will be offered, detailed, and when teams are present, options for voting or abstaining toward the mission leader's preference.

So "no worrying about did every little thing I did in my mission affect how the AI in the game world views my character?" Players will know when they are making alignment choices.

TheInternetJanitor wrote:

I apologize for the necro but didn't see this discussed elsewhere. Will these character choices be divorced from mechanical gameplay? I like that, and think it is entirely possible to make choices feel weighty from writing and world interaction alone without needing extra loot, stats, or other gameplay benefits attached. Taking away those carrots and sticks does mean the writing has to be strong enough to get players involved by itself. Still, that is the goal anyway, right?

I think there are some mechanical aspects tied to the path system, though I believe it's mostly faction rep stuff.

How you decide to act dictates how the world reacts to you, kinda deal.

Project_Hero wrote:

TheInternetJanitor wrote:

I understand making choice A or B would naturally lead a story in a certain direction that might mean different missions. I was basically asking if there would be in game rewards associated with those choices (directly or as a consequence of the story direction).

I understand why some games do it, it can lead more weight to a decision if the choice you make actually impacts your game. It is just difficult to do that without it also feeling like a middle finger if someone wanted to see the other story path.

Going off on a bit of a tangent you bring up another point. At some point CoH put in a timetravel mechanic to revisit content. That sort of idea could be even more interesting if it involved storylines with choices in them as you would have a potential to miss more interesting content if the writing is well done. Revisiting CoH missions was really fun but they didn't have a lot of player decision making that left you wondering "what if I had chosen something else" since it was mostly "go to a warehouse and beat up bad guys". So it would have a much bigger impact in CoT if it was put in I would think.

Our characters could have their own elseworlds stuff.

By that I think it'd be neat to frame any repeating missions/accessing missions you were locked out of as some form of alternate reality.

Remember that alignment choices and factional reputation in CoT are not going to be fixed in stone. Once you "choose a path" I'm fairly certain (if I understood it all correctly) that you could mostly "un-chose" it and go down different paths. Just as you could swing your CoH characters around from being "heroes" to "villains" and back again so should you be able to eventually travel down -any- path in CoT with a single character if you wanted to. It may be long and challenging to do so but it should be possible.

TheInternetJanitor wrote:

I thought "path" was CoT's term they used to essentially mean the story path. You pick one and you can perhaps choose to go through it different ways, but the story itself doesn't turn into another story.

I thought this was distinct from the alignment and reputation stuff. Related, since your choices can affect alignment, certainly. But making choices in your story doesn't turn switch you to playing a completely different story. If you're solving a gritty noir murder mystery the story doesn't suddenly shift you in a rainbows and sunshine comedy setting. Right? Your character may change as the story goes on but the story still follows a certain course.

That was the impression I got from reading previous dev posts and reveals.

Unless you mean we'll be able to play all the story paths?

I understood paths to function somewhat like the class storylines from swtor. An ongoing story for you to enjoy alongside any other content that is in the world itself, something you get to pick at character creation. It just wouldn't be locked to your class (which is how swtor did it).

I really liked the swtor storyline stuff, I think it was one of the strongest parts of that game. If CoT paths can provide that kind of interesting story content for players it will certainly help the game stand out.

I could certainly be wrong but I don't think a "path" the way that term is being used for CoT is something that your character sticks to forever. I thought it was more like a "long series of missions" that have an end and allow you to do others once you finish them.

Basically as I've understood MWM's design philosophy they want players to have as much freedom as possible. That also includes being able to choose what content you want to do. I would be very surprised to learn that they would enforce any "track structure" in the game that would force a player to be "locked into" anything permanently. Again I might have all this wrong but I don't think they want to force anyone into being a "hero" without the option to backtrack and become a "villain" if you want to.

Again the transitions down "different paths" might be hard and take a long time but again I'd be surprised if they were not possible. In any event the idea of "class based stories" as you mentioned from SWTOR is definitely NOT the way I understand CoT is going to be. Anybody should be able to play -any- stories they want even if they only get to choose one per character.

Project_Hero wrote:

Lothic wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

TheInternetJanitor wrote:

I understand making choice A or B would naturally lead a story in a certain direction that might mean different missions. I was basically asking if there would be in game rewards associated with those choices (directly or as a consequence of the story direction).

I understand why some games do it, it can lead more weight to a decision if the choice you make actually impacts your game. It is just difficult to do that without it also feeling like a middle finger if someone wanted to see the other story path.

Going off on a bit of a tangent you bring up another point. At some point CoH put in a timetravel mechanic to revisit content. That sort of idea could be even more interesting if it involved storylines with choices in them as you would have a potential to miss more interesting content if the writing is well done. Revisiting CoH missions was really fun but they didn't have a lot of player decision making that left you wondering "what if I had chosen something else" since it was mostly "go to a warehouse and beat up bad guys". So it would have a much bigger impact in CoT if it was put in I would think.

Our characters could have their own elseworlds stuff.

By that I think it'd be neat to frame any repeating missions/accessing missions you were locked out of as some form of alternate reality.

Remember that alignment choices and factional reputation in CoT are not going to be fixed in stone. Once you "choose a path" I'm fairly certain (if I understood it all correctly) that you could mostly "un-chose" it and go down different paths. Just as you could swing your CoH characters around from being "heroes" to "villains" and back again so should you be able to eventually travel down -any- path in CoT with a single character if you wanted to. It may be long and challenging to do so but it should be possible.

I just think it'd be neat to experience the paths without having changes to the character. That way you could run your goody two shoes Superman analog down the villain paths without having to radically alter who they are.

Like a what-if story.

In the pursuit of collecting badges in CoH I had several characters take the "around the world" tour of all the hero-vigilante-villain-rogue content. In the pursuit of pure RP I had some of my characters take one-way trips to turn villain/hero (and vice-versa).

Basically I would be bummed if we didn't have this kind of freedom with a single character in CoT.

The only disconnect is the difference between playing through content "in order" and playing through content "out of order" ... where the only thing that matters is the sequencing of the Player's experience(s).

[img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/22/3f/f5223f9d05dbe11d181f0e4bc6c85dda.jpg[/img]

As soon as you accept the notion that it is not only possible but [i]desirable[/i] to be able to play content out of order over the lifetime of the game, allowing you to go back and do stuff you missed (or even just do old content over again), all that really matters is what choices did the Player make the LAST time they did a particular piece of content. So the "records" maintained for a particular PC will contain whether a particular bit of content was done or not, and if it was done ... which "route" did the Player take through it the last time they played that content? This would necessarily mean that you [i]could take the other path[/i] on a repeat if you wanted, and that other path taken then becomes the new "history" for your PC (until you change it again by playing through again and picking an alternate route).

In a gaming context, this approach seems the most reasonable, since it yields an opportunity to Play All The Ways ... but necessarily limits which "ways" apply at which times ... so that you can "have it all" but just not all at once (if that makes any sense).

The devs have already stated that changing paths likely won't be at launch, just remember that. Once you get to a certain point (which hasn't been detailed) you're stuck in that path until they add the system/mechanics for you to swap sometime post-launch.

Atama wrote:

So for now if you murder little Susie in front of her parents you get no take-backs.

Later it’s not as big a deal.

So you're saying we actually have to think twice before we kill little children in front of their parents? Man, that's so much extra work... ;)

Atama wrote:

Actually that got me thinking, how awesome would it be if you helped someone and then in a later story mission they gained powers and became a heroic NPC helper for that mission.

If you didn’t help them, they hold a grudge and in a later mission they get powers, become a villain, and you have to defeat them.

I like how this stuff might work in a superhero MMO.

So basically this:

[youtube=450x300]iRlh_w6uRds[/youtube]

I like it!