One of the things I always thought would bring a lot of diversity and depth to CoH was a weakness you could choose for your character.
I envision it sort of like a power pool that you could choose and then assign a damage type to. So for example (and for sake of clarity) if you were a fire-based super hero, you would receive extra damage from ice based attacks. But also you could choose to have your weakness be psychic attacks (if RPing that made more sense to your toon.)
Then standard attacks would have an addition effect if used against someone with a weakness. So, if you had a weakness to fire and were hit with a fire-based power that normally does base 25 damage, maybe now it does base 30 damage and has a 25% chance to inflict Burn.
The benefit for taking a weakness then would be that it would also have an attached bonus to a different one of your stats that would compensate for your new weakness. Perhaps the attacks of a fire blaster who possesses a weakness would all have a 25% chance to inflict Burn.
It doesn't necessarily have to be something that sacrifices defense for offense either. Your weakness to physical could mean your attacks do less damage, but instead you are better at dodging attacks.
It might work better as a mandate at character creation. You could choose "no weakness" obviously if that's how you'd rather play, but if you started with a weakness then in addition to choosing new powers as the game advances, you'd choose new slots from your weakness tree as well, representing your character learning to cope with their weaknesses. It would make the game more difficult in the beginning, but then reward you by making you more powerful in the end.
Going to grab my bag of popcorn...
P.S. For what it's worth this subject was at least semi-regularly debated on the CoH forums and there was even a lively thread on it here in this forum a week or two ago, I for one would love something like this just because it was a fun concept to play with in PnP superhero settings. But I personally feel that there's really no reasonable way to pull it off in a completely fair and balanced way in a static/deterministic MMO setting.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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I posted this question originally here: Home » Forums » Development » Suggestions and Ideas: You speak to the Devs! » Arch Nemesis
Some very good discussion and ideas. I still think it would bring tremendous depth to characters and add a whole new facet that would set CoT apart that is consistent with the genre. Lots of folks on here talk about how they loved the creativity and the uniqueness of characters. That was my love, as well. But there still seems to be a signifiicant number of players that don't want anything that might hinder their characters from being the Uber-mensch.
I originally thought of it not so much as a weakness. More of a "susceptibility." Specific types of attacks do more damage, additional debuffs against certain defenses. Like that. Not enough to cripple a character, but enough to make you think more strategically when soloing against your particular bug-a-boo.
I was an ardent, but essentially casual player. Loved having one cool little idea, even if it was just a punny name, then designing a character around it. Never pursued PvP. Had zero interest in Min/Max'ing. (too much math (: ) But, I could happily stand around in Virtue's Pocket D and read bio's for an hour.
Balance, schmalance. I can see getting a little perk if you take a weakness, but that's not the main point for me. If everybody HAD to have one, it would be just another game mechanic that you build around. If people can opt out, then the more creative types will find an opportunity, and everyone else would ignore it.
So, anything that allows me, or anyone, to add richness a character's story, I'm fer it.
My idea for this is to have debuffs linked to powers. That is, you activate a power and it debuffs you in some way as a side effect. Or, if it's a helpful power, debuffs your target as a side effect.
Several examples to make this clear:
1) You toggle on a power that boosts your regen, but it also slightly debuffs your resistance to fire.
2) You detonate your huge AoE explosion power, and have an endurance regen debuff for a few seconds.
3) You give your teammate a defense buff, but it also slightly debuffs their accuracy.
4) You are hit by an enemy, taking damage, but the attack gives you a small buff to your recharge for a few seconds.
There's nearly limitless way of combining powers and possible side effects. Side effects like this makes powers more interesting and increase the tactical depth of the gameplay. Why would you take a power that has a negative side effect? Because the primary effect would be slightly increased in strength. For more fun, I'd hope NPC powers would have side effects as well.
How would we put these side effects into the game?
A) Bake them into the powerset design. This works even better if there is more than one power at each tier in the powerset. The powers at a given tier could have different side effects, so the character would have some good choices.
B) Add them into some enhancements. Imagine a "vanilla" enhancement gives a +25% bonus. Maybe an enhancement with a side effect gives a +30% bonus, while also have a 10% side effect of some sort.
C) Include them through some sort of origin or theme system. Some extra level of choice for characters to choose from.
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I could see this being an issue when trying to balance PvP or certain PvE encounters, but it sounds like something that could help diversify characters. I would prefer everyone have to take one rather than being able to opt out or have weaknesses that gives you strengths in other places, since it would be much more of a hassle to try and balance.
My only issue is that certain weaknesses may be more or less desirable based on popular PvP builds or difficult PvE encounters, and groups may start to discriminate on the basis of your weakness. If none of the endgame PvE encounters rely heavily on psychic powers, then that would be the most desirable weakness for a character to have. Likewise, certain weaknesses may have less of a negative impact in PvP, so they would be the ones that groups would look for over other characters.
I feel as though weaknesses would become a discriminatory factor when grouping. Players would start looking for characters with certain weaknesses, or not allow one weakness or another into their group. Instead of looking for melee DPS or a healer or controller, players would look for melee DPS without ice weakness or healers without darkness weakness. It would become more of an inhibitor than something that really fleshed out characters.
The thing you have to remember is that in City of Heroes, the "weakness(es)" of particular powersets were baked INTO those powersets in terms of what they didn't cover. Super Reflexes was basically "helpless" against To Hit Buff (Devouring Earth Crystal Emanators) and Psionics/Mental attacks. Ice Armor was "helpless" against To Hit Buff (go figure, eh?), FIRE and Psionics/Mental attacks ... which, honestly, was more things to be vulnerable to than its fair share. Invulnerability had problems dealing with Energy/Negative Energy on some builds I'd seen over the years, and of course, the ubiquitous Psionics hole. The list went on.
Building City of Titans in such a way as to let you "pick" your Weakness, and not have it baked into how the Powers for each powerset is constructed would be ... tricky ... to the point of perhaps being needlessly complicated.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I just finished reading the older post which is here: http://cityoftitans.com/forum/achilles-heel
Some of the points from that string and how I would address them
If it were optional only a minority of players would use it, but if were mandatory players would complain about being nerfed.
My solution is making it optional. Maybe only a minority would utilize it, but CoH always (for me anyway) was always an alt-heavy game. I think I finished off with two maxed characters and like 6 level 20's. Not everyone would use it all the time, most people would use it some of the time. It's about adding depth. You could consider it like an easy/hard mode of the same game.
If you know your weakness you'll just avoid that enemy
Unless choosing a weakness also affects possible quests that you receive forcing you to face your weaknesses to beat those quests. It would be advantage of choosing a weakness. Content that you couldn't play otherwise. A storyline from someone in Atlas that was only available to characters with weaknesses and generated mobs depending on what you chose. Also, you could just have some bosses of your weakness randomly spawn in all of your missions, like the Kheldians had. If anything, it would encourage more team play.
Balancing would be difficult
Only as difficult as balancing any other pool power. Arguably, you could mandate it turn off automatically in PvE
People will abuse it through min/maxing
There will always be people who try to abuse everything. That doesn't mean it has no place in the game. Try not to let the few spoil a fun concept for the many.
People won't take something that weakens their toons
That depends on how it's implemented. I imagine a Fire Blaster with an ice weakness would be slightly more powerful against all enemies except ice ones.
You could link weakness to XP bonuses
Not wild about this idea. I think the likelihood of abuse outweighs advantage to gameplay. It would be better to balance the weaknesses to give you an equal but opposite bonus to your stats. -10 v ice gives you +5 to your base defense. something like that. Then you have to unlock your weakness tree just like you would any power tree. Endgame powers are far more positive than negative, but you must choose 5 of the other weakness "powers" to unlock them. You would have to chose it at the character creation screen, along with your primary and secondary powers
Something like
Weakness (you choose the element): Magic
1. Susceptible
Enemies deal +10% Damage with Magic attacks.
10% chance enemy will spawn in mission
+5% Dodging
2: Side-effects
15% chance magic attack will inflict Subdue on you
10% chance your fire attacks will inflict Burn on non-magical enemies
3: Compensation
+10% Damage to Magic attacks.
+10% chance enemy will spawn in mission
15 sec debuff immunity to magic
4: Winger
Attacks vs magical enemies are -20% damage
+10% Accuracy
...etc.
Of course players could choose not to take weaknesses. But then they don't get the bonuses either. Maybe if you're a tank that's a good idea (although the weakness tree should alter slightly depending on what both what your powerset is and what type of hero you are.) The benefit isn't in XP bonuses, it's in gameplay bonuses
I'll just jump back in here to say that if the Devs ever decided to offer any kind of weakness/disad system they had better not ever make it mandatory. If for some reason only 10% of the playerbase ever wanted to use it I'd be fine with that. Heck they say only around 10% of CoH's playerbase ever PvP'd so there you go.
As several of you mentioned earlier I don't mind optional add-ons which add "flavor" to a game like this. But I will stand firm on my speculation that the only thing 98% of the playerbase will ever use this for is as a means to further min/max their characters with whatever choices makes their characters work the best regardless of character concept.
What made weaknesses work in a PnP setting is that you had a human GM who could flexibly account for whatever disads you wanted to play with. As long as a computerized MMO is limited to only offering set number of "stock" weaknesses that you have to shoehorn and/or rationalize into your character's concept then I have no faith in it working as intended.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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Its also worth noting that in most PnP roleplaying games, if you did take a disadvantage/flaw/callitwhatyouwill, the *advantages* could be anything.
Hell, they allowed there to be varying levels of disadvantages as well, so whilst someone might only be *mildly* allergic to silver (ie blisters, discomfort), their best bud could be *fatally* allergic to it.
And the *bonuses* that you could get? Might not be one thing, but several *smaller* things.
*Edit* I would like to add, that *generally* speaking, merits and flaws produced a character that was fairly similar to a character who *never* used them.
But you could always tell who the munchkin was...
And then there's whatever you could talk the GM into. GURPS had the "Nearsighted" disadvantage as -10 points (in a society where glasses are readily available) or -40 points (in a society that does not have glasses at all). I talked the GM into letting me take it at -20 points for a feudal-era game (my character was a university student and got the astronomy folks to grind him a pair of lenses; therefore corrected vision but glasses would be very difficult to replace).
Of course, the GM turned out to be a jerk and constantly did things to try to separate me from my glasses...
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Personally, I would love to have that power of being able to give my character a weakness. And some weakness' would make sense to exist. If you are a Fire Hero. Would make sense that an enemy hitting you with water would harm you. But yea there would be lots of balancing to have to configure. Whats weak to what. How many weakness' are there. Also would suck if you end up with a weakness that hurts you dramatically in a zone where all the enemies hit that weakness. Getting weakness' or debuffs because of certain powers would be cool too. Even superman cant just use his laser eyes non stop all willy nilly. Would make for character building even more in depth. So I'd be for it if it can be done properly and balanced nicely.
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*shrugs* I always remember "Absorb Pain" from the empathy set.
For a period of time you were *totally* unable to regain health.
I can see weaknesses/disadvantages being more in line via power sets than anything else. If anything else, it would make it easier to balance (just one variable as it were), instead of trying out a weakness with *all* combinations of powersets....
Thanks Red for pointing these out again. See, you ALWAYS got a weakness, whether you wanted it or not. No choice. I don't remember a lot of crying about being "nerfed". It was just a another game mechanic you had to deal with. Balance will always be an issue.
I originally suggested a "decision tree" based on your power set. So the weakness would be initially derived from your powers (Fire v. Water, for instance) but you could adjust the "flavor".) I could also see a system where you determined its "severity" as well. I wouldnt want it be something random like "Hmm. I think I'll make my Stone Tank allergic to shellfish, so I get a -5 when fighting crustaceans."
And I don't really see the horror of tying it to XP somehow. If you have a specific vulnerability, you get a little boost because the mission is a bit more difficult for you. I'll say again, I wouldnt want any disad for anyone to be crippling, just nudge you to be a bit more tactical. ANd I wouldnt want the XP boost to be such that it would be all that worth the Min/max calculations.
Giving individual powers weaknesses like the cited examples didn't really feel like weaknesses to me. They just felt like power balancing.
I guess it's just when everyone who has a power has the same weakness, it doesn't feel like a weakness, it just is what it is. In order for it to feel like a weakness it has to be in some way unique or at least archetype specific.
One of the things that kinda always bugged me with the old game is that choosing science or magic or mutation or whatever for your origin basically didn't really matter for your gameplay experience. You still fought all the same fights all the same ways.
Yes but the prevailing line of thought on Origins was that if you carried their effects out to the extremes you'd end up with the same "cookie-cutter" effect you described with the powers. If Origins had forced certain default pluses or minuses then you'd have EVERYONE who was a Science or Magic guy have the exact same pluses or minuses.
Remember when CoH first launched Origins were envisioned to be fairly important. But over time the Devs came to realize that if they "baked-in" specific in-game effects related to Origins that it would force and/or limit everyone to accept those effects which might have run counter to player character concepts. By the end Origins rightly lost their signifiance and became something that you could simply "roleplay" any way you wanted to.
This is the same trap that a weakness system would lead to in a game like this. We'd be pigeon-holed into accepting certain specific kinds of weaknesses that may or may not fit with what you'd envision for your characters. Like Origins until a game like this can allow us to define ANY kind of weakness you'd want it's probably better to not have them impose arbitrary default in-game effects.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Unless it was set up like a tertiary powerset at creation. Thus allowing you to chose one something from a weakness pool (fire, ice, magic, physical, etc.) And then have individual powers therein that you could chose and slot as the game went on just like a powerset. Obviously you couldn't allow for EVERY possible weakness, but you could allow (and not mandate) the possibility of some.
If your character is an ice blaster with a weakness to fire you can choose and slot the weakness and the individual elements of your weakness, and then if the elements don't fit your RP, you just don't use them.
Another way to do it would be to add 'modifier' slots to each power, into which you could slot power modifiers that would give a benefit to the power with an accompanying cost:
A modifier that gave you a 10% boost to damage at a 10% increase in endurance usage.A modifier that added 20% to accuracy but made the power interruptible.A modifier that added 10% to accuracy but increased the activation time 10%,A modifier that added 20% to range but increased the activation time 10%.A modifier that reduced a defensive power's effectiveness against Fire damage but reduced its endurance cost.
The actual numbers for the modifiers would need to be tested to determine what the values should be to make the tradeoff fair.
Adding modifiers to powers would be a choice on the part of the player, so that you're never [i]required[/i] to add them, and you would be able to choose which powers you tweaked this way. And you'd still be able to enhance your powers normally, so if you took modifiers that increased damage and range for increased endurance cost, you'd still be able to enhance the power to reduce the endurance back down; you'd just be starting at a higher base End cost.
I have no issue with enhancements with multiple effects. It makes way more sense than having 5 types of enhancement that all do the exact same thing.
I'll grant you that a weakness system for a MMO could probably be made with a relatively large set of possibilities for customization assuming the Devs of that game were willing to put the effort into implementing it. But that set will never be large enough to avoid devolving into an outlet for the typical MMO player to simply figure out the best min/max combos that benefit his/her characters the most regardless of character concepts.
A human GM in a PnP game could make sure that your chosen weakness remains a significant weakness to justify whatever benefit you may have gained for taking that weakness. Quite the opposite would happen in a MMO - if I gave my character a weakness to say acid attacks I would simply choose to never play any content that included acid attacks. My so called "weakness" would be anything but. And to take it a step further if the system was set up so that I'd get say an XP bonus if I faced acid attacks that would be semi-ridiculous. Why would my character be such a masochist that he/she would willing choose to constantly fight things he/she knows they're vulnerable to? It'd be like Superman choosing to always fight robots made of Kryptonite just because he'll "learn" more that way?!?!
I guess you could look at it from the point of view of what you really want to gain from this. From a roleplaying point of view one could say it's practically obvious that a typical Ice Guy is at the very least not going to be too fond of Fire and vice-versa. Do we really need to give players some way to get some kind of arbitrary in-game +/-5% effect to highlight that or would it just be easier (and perhaps more fun) to roleplay that kind of thing? Remember how in the A-Team B.A. Baracus was afraid of flying and they always had to "trick" him into doing it? That's a classic example of roleplaying through a weakness.
Ultimately I appreciate your suggestions here but I will sadly have to remain pessimistic about it in the context of a game like this.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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I'm not really getting the argument here. Some players will always min/max choices. That's not a good reason to not have choices. It is a good reason to make the choices balanced. To that end, the compensations for taking a weakness should be commensurate with the difficulty in avoiding it.
[size=1]Kickstart Backer # 771[/size]
Of course some players will always min/max their characters. There's always going to be a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_of_8-Bit_Theater#Red_Mage]Red Mage[/url] type player in any game, that's a given when you've got a large enough population of players (which could simply be 1+). The thing is, as a Developer, do you want to be handing players MORE ways to min/max their characters to the Nth degree ... or not? Just because you admit that it's going to happen, doesn't mean you have to go about finding (and making and supporting) ways to make that kind of behavior easier.
Remember, min/max is the kind of behavior that leads to Flavor of the Month as well as Cookie Cutters. I'm not entirely keen on the idea of "rewarding" those kinds of behaviors through development of the game's mechanics.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Yes people will always min/max everything. But when a system is properly balanced they will be doing that with game elements that are unavoidable, or at the very least fundamental to playing the game. Everyone needs powers to play the game - you can't avoid having to deal with and understand the power system of the game unless you want an absolutely unplayable character.
The argument here is that the choice of weaknesses would be completely up to the player. With that total freedom of choice people will tend to choose the "weaknesses" that will in practice have the least effect on them. The net outcome will simply be another way to get some random bonuses while the "downside" is mitigated and/or completely eliminated. Sure people will call this the "weakness" system but in effect it'll be the "cool bonus mini-game" that'll have people slotting all sorts of random things that have nothing to do with an actual roleplayable weakness in the least.
The fact that you're more interested in the "compensations" for weaknesses than the weaknesses themselves is very telling here.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
The idea of offering compensations for weaknesses is simply to balance the concept. It's unlikely that even from a roleplaying aspect many people would weaken their character unnecessarily if there was not benefit from doing so. It's the difference between balancing and nerfing.
There will always be min/maxers. We shouldn't avoid implementing things that could improve the gameplay experience to dissuade them. How does the way other people play the game ruin your game experience. Someone else abusing a system to get an extra percentage point on their stats doesn't change how I'll enjoy the game.
And, as I said earlier, you could very simply make it impossible to avoid elements you're weak against. By choosing to be weak against fire you guarantee random fire guys spawn in your missions. If you decide to be weak against fire, you know there's always going to be some fire coming after you.
I don't want to try to convince the people that hate weaknesses that they should take them. I'm just saying it could be implemented in a balanced way, and there's demand for it.
This is the argument that I agree with: weakness will just be something else to minimize the negative effects of and use only the bonuses of. Sure, it may add diversity to characters, but that diversity isn't something that couldn't be achieved through roleplaying well. From a roleplaying perspective, characters don't need to be weak to X or Y to be well rounded, they just need flaws, and those don't have to be tied to the mechanics of the game.
Again I don't actually hate the concept of weaknesses in superhero games. I've been having fun with them in various PnP settings for decades now. I simply remain convinced that anything that's advertised as a "weakness" system in a MMO like this will simply be abused and exploited far beyond reasonable recognition.
You're right that hardly anyone (perhaps statistically no one) would ever consider taking a weakness in a game like this without some kind of "compensation". Remember how many pitched a fit when the Kheldians were first introduced to CoH with their vulnerability to negative energy? So many people cried and whined over that "outrage" that the Devs forced to nerf back that weakness so far it became a non-factor.
Where this idea falls apart is that in the mind of players it’s going to be seen more as a BONUS system mini-game where you just have to game the pesky weaknesses well enough away to make them a non-factor as well. Eventually everyone will jump in, get their +5% to this, that or the other thing and effectively everyone becomes "unspecial" as far as this concept goes. The Devs might was well save themselves the trouble of making this system and just let everyone earn a +5% bonus to XP. Period.
But you're also right that this system probably wouldn't ultimately "ruin" my gameplay experience. In fact you can believe that if it existed I'd be pushing it for everything it's worth right along with everyone else. I just don't see where you've made the argument that this isn't just a slight recasting/addition to the existing enhancement system. I'm all for new types of enhancements that do weird new things - just don't fool yourself into thinking this is a true "weakness" system by any stretch of the imagination.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
That ship sailed when the CoT team announced we'd get to choose both a primary and a secondary powerset. And I've heard there's a really nice proposal for enhancements in another thread. ;)
My point being, let's talk about how giving more choices to the players can be balanced, instead of preemptively dismissing ideas.
Compensations for weaknesses is needed if weaknesses are going to be optional. And they should be.
As for players mitigating their weaknesses, I see nothing wrong with that. Players with fire powers are going to preferably go after NPCs that are weak to fire. Players with fire weaknesses are going to avoid NPCs with fire powers. I'd call both of those normal, desirable play: player choices causing consequences that effect subsequent play.
The trick is balancing things. If a weakness like increased damage from fire is easily mitigated, its "value" should reflect that. Maybe a +1% increase in health regen is balanced by a +10% increase in fire damage. Or, maybe it's 5%, or 25%. That's easy to tweak.
And other weaknesses are not so easy to mitigate. If your AoE explosion has the "weakness" that it debuffs your endurance regen (a modifier that gives +1% damage to the AoE and -50% end regen for 6 seconds afterwards), the only way to mitigate that is to either make sure you kill everything with the blast or that you have teammates to cover you. That's tactics and is something I'd like to encourage.
There's a lot of ways to combine tiny bonuses with small penalties which can make players and tactics even more diverse. As long as they are slight and proportionate to how unavoidable they are, it will be balanced.
[size=1]Kickstart Backer # 771[/size]
Lothic:
I guess you and I have a different definition of a "weakness system." Your definition seems more based on PnP models, where mine is only modeled after my recollection of CoH.
You're talking to a player who triple-slotted swift and sprint instead of taking a travel power, because I had a natural origin hero and it didn't make sense for him to have superspeed. So for me, I envision a system that reflects my characters weaknesses without nerfing my character in team play.
You see it as something that some people are going to exploit. To which my answer is, "So what? I don't care about those people."
Or you think it ultimately won't add to anything unique to the game, which I completely disagree with, at least the way I've suggested it.
I think we're simply going to have to agree to disagree. I can not see your point of view at all, and you seem too skeptical of mine.
But if there are those who fundamentally doubt this system could be as cleanly balanced as you propose wouldn't it benefit your position to better defend how this thing wouldn't become an entagled mess? If you can't convince the critics how are you going to convince the Devs?
Let's just say I think the "trick" you'd need to balance this thing is probably a little more tricky than you envision. As I mentioned if something like this is added to CoT I'll push it to the limit along with everyone else because I'd be stupid not to - at least until it's finally nerfed somehow.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
My point of view is that you're not really proposing a strict "weakness" system.
You're proposing a "get a bonus/eliminate a weakness" mini-game.
I realize that the distinction might be a bit subtle, but ultimately I don't see the overall net benefit to the game.
If it's any consolation people have debated this exact suggestion/proposal for CoH back on the CoH forum for years. I suppose I'll just leave it to you to conclude how much traction the idea gained there.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If to get something implemented we first have to silence all its nay-sayers, nothing will ever be implemented. Nothing is universally liked. The fact that this is a debate that occurs with some regularity demonstrates there is a demand for it.
It may not be a net positive to you but considering this is a hypothetical addition to the game, that is an entirely subjective opinion. If anything you should need to show that it would be a net negative to the game. If the consequences are net even, and there's enough demand for it, that leans towards implementation.
/em whistles not-so-innocently
I'm sure I have [i]No Idea[/i] of what you're referring to ...
/em coughs politely
That said ... why don't we turn this entire argument on its head and invert the premise. Even better yet, why don't I pull an example from City of Heroes to illustrate my thinking in terms of a better way to do this than we've been contemplating thus far.
[url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Olivia_Chung#The_Vahzilok_Plague_.2815-19.29]The Vahzilok Plague[/url] 15-19 Story Arc
In this story arc, the PC gets infected with a [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Vahzilok_Wasting_Disease]Vahzilok Wasting Disease[/url]. This worked as a Temp Power Debuff to Self that reduced Regeneration, Recovery, Hit Points and Endurance. It was a Storyline driven WEAKNESS that the PC had to "fight through" in order to finish the story arc.
I'm thinking that THIS sort of example makes a better template to model any kinds of "Weakness" System onto for City of Titans. First of all, it's Temporary ... which means [i]it doesn't have to be "balanced" by a corresponding benefit[/i] ... AND it makes possible the creation of a "weakness" that is relevant to the Story Arc, rather than being something which is a case of "avoid this content category and never have to pay the Piper" like you'd get with a more permanent "Weakness" sort of system.
Note that such a "weakness" system could be incorporated into Story Arcs in such a way as to "bias" them either For or Against particular targeted powersets (think Fire and Ice for easy examples), which then have no meaningful effect on other powersets simply because the "weakness" isn't relevant to those other powersets. Or you could do it the opposite way, where every powerset that ISN'T a particular type gets a "weakness" debuff for the duration of the Story Arc. So if you were fighting against Frostfire (say), you'd have to have either Fire or Ice in BOTH your Primary and your Secondary in order to avoid getting a stack of 2 Debuffs while inside the Frostfire Instance because of how COLD it is in there. That sort of thing.
Doing these kinds of "weaknesses" and running them as targeted, mission and/or story specific elements seems like a wiser course of action to me, mainly because it makes "gaming the system" in a permanent fashion a LOT harder to do.
Now start imagining what kinds of "diseases" the Devouring Earth might have been able to ... infect ... people with on story arcs where the DE were The Big Bad™, and let your imaginations go wild. What if certain [i]neighborhoods[/i] in Crey's Folly featured [b]Leaking Toxic Waste[/b] that broadcast a wide radius Area of Effect Debuff that acted as a penalty for simply being close to them. So it wouldn't be a Zone Wide phenomenon, but rather a localized area of effect.
Anything that you do to a Character with this subject which is done in a PERMANENT way is going to have to be compensated for. For every penalty, there must be a bonus. But if these things are applied IMpermanently, and they're merely temporary, then there is no driving NEED to make these things "balanced" in terms of detriment versus benefit.
That which does not kill me only makes me colder and more embittered (and all that).
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Surely. I'd very much like specific feedback.
For example, let's say every power has one "modifier" slot, separate from its"enhancement" slots (good idea, [b]srmalloy[/b]!). To simplify things, every modifier always increases the primary effect of the power (damage, healing, regen, etc), but has a different type of debuff associated with it. So, modifiers that debuff damage resistance, health regen, endurance regen, accuracy, recharge, speed, etc. The power benefits from the primary increase, but whenever it's activated (or toggled on) the debuff takes effect for a short interval (or as long as the toggle is on).
The numbers can be tweaked. Here's a first stab:
All modifiers give a +1% increase to the power's primary effect (damage, healing, regen, resistance, defense, etc).
The different types are (assume debuff lasts 6 seconds for activated powers, as long as the power is on for toggles):
-25% typed damage resistance debuff
-5% all-types damage resistance debuff
-10% health regen debuff
-25% endurance regen debuff
-15% accuracy debuff
-30% recharge debuff
-50% speed debuff
The character could change a power's one modifier much like they could change the power's enhancements. Not permanent, but something that has a cost to change.
How can such a system be exploited? Is the compensation too strong, too weak, or okay? Are the weaknesses too strong, too weak, or okay?
[size=1]Kickstart Backer # 771[/size]
Just to note, in-set weaknesses such as a psi hole aren't a weakness as much as a lack of a strength. An invuln guy was just as resistant to Psy as any other character that didn't have Psy resists. Not specifically "weak" to them.
The advantage of using a slottable power modifier like this is that, unlike a free-form Disadvantage/Limitation setup a lá the PnP Champions system, which would, as alluded to in an earlier post, require human oversight to prevent abuse (one of the things I learned as a GM for a Champions campaign was to set up a number of 'blank' villains and minion groups so that I could arbitrarily hand them whatever special effects I needed to fall into a character's Disadvantages and Limitations, and then use them with the appropriate frequency for the bonus the character was getting), it gives the devs a set of conveniently packaged pairs of bonuses and costs to be applied to a power. This allows them to tweak balance issues by updating the definition of [b]one[/b] power modifier item in the database, and have it apply automatically to every character taking that modifier, instead of having to set up a process to go through each character and look at each power each character has to check whether it needs to be updated. Having the modifiers as a separate entity makes the initial character load a tiny bit slower, because the server has to reference the modifier definition as a separate lookup in the database, rather than being part of the character record, but that's a one-time-cost; once the character is loaded, all the power stats are loaded and don't have to be updated unless the player changes the character's power slotting.
It may seem a little odd to be looking at the efficiency of the back end while the whole [b]game[/b] is still as nebulous as it is, but with the majority of my experience as a programmer having been dealing with data structures, both in databases and in memory, I've found that little optimizations done early in a design can give long-term benefits that significantly outweigh the extra effort, instead of having to go back and try to patch things onto an existing structure, the way the CoH devs had to.
That was my biggest challenge with playing GURPS- I had two types of players:
- those that would spend a boatload of points on skills in the sourcebooks that would have absolutely NO bearing in the campaign I was planning, so I felt obligated to write in situations to make those skills valued....
- those that worked hard to take DISADVANTAGES that would NOT come up a lot in the campaign we were planning, to munchkin out their characters as much as possible.
--
Here, one of the challenges is going to be how the weakness plays out:
- if certain foes have a high frequency of your weakness, you'd just avoid those foes (essentially doing #2 above-- getting all of the benefit and none of the penalty)
- on the other hand, if the devs spread damage types out across all foe types, trying to reduce this possibility, you've destroyed the diversity of the game and so 'flattened out" the overall impact of the weakness that it hardly becomes a novelty.
One possibility would be to use methods like GURPS:
- when you pick a weakness, you pick its severity and the frequency it's encountered. The "boost" you get is calculated off of that (you could be SEVERELY afffected but make it EXTREMELY infrequent.
- this new weakness isn't a damage type- its something that has a % chance of appearing in your instanced missions, and if it does, you get the debuff applied.
This is very similar to the the "enemy" disadvantage in Gurps- you'd select the strength of the foe, the frequency of him being encountered in a game session, etc, and the GM would roll to see if the team would, indeed, encounter them. The downside is that many players treated "enemy" as a way to get more "free" advantages for themselves, as the entire TEAM had to deal with the enemy showing up, not just that one player. Here, the problem would be the same- while you're debuffed, your team has to pick up the slack.
Oh, I have an even better way of doing this.
Each power has one "modifier" slot, along with one or more "enhancement" slots. The bonus the modifier gives is based on the enhancement in the first enhancement slot. This gives the character flexibility in what the modifier will improve.
For a starting number, let's say all modifiers increase the first enhancement by a quarter. So if the enhancement increases damage by +20%, the modifier would increase damage by +5%. Of course the exact amount is tweakable, and on two levels--the effectiveness of the enhancement and the fraction of the modifier.
Also note that if the modifier debuffs stack (and I think they should) the appropriate numbers for the debuffs will need to be balanced with that in mind.
Please point any flaws in this scheme, because I'm starting to like it. :D
[size=1]Kickstart Backer # 771[/size]
And using this method, there could even be one global modifier slot to go with global enhancement slots. This modifier debuff would effect any power triggered or toggled on.
[size=1]Kickstart Backer # 771[/size]
This idea has a lot of intrigue to me, because I always hated but never had justification to complain that my fire blaster could set-bonus great resistance to psionic but not to fire or energy. Also, one of my absolute favorite PnP classes to play is Pathfinder's Oracle class which has built in curses that impact how the character develops. If something similar were implemented in Titans, it could see things that make the weakness internalized to the player's ability instead of based on enemy damage types.
(note: a fix to enemy groups not giving a weakness would be to have all groups have a mob that uses each type, but that's excessive and mind-numbingly generalized)
Blind (blurry vision) Hero:
L1 - hero has a major -tohit/acc to all attacks.
L10 - hero can "see" (through other senses) enemies that are stealthed
L20 - hero can pick up leads/audio ques through destructible walls, up to 60 ft open area
L30 - hero can "see" (through other senses) enemies that are "invisible"
L40 - hero has no weakness to "assassin strike"-like abilities
This is purely an example, so what I'm trying to showcase is that the bonus isn't gained until later, the weakness always applies, and there isn't so much an avoidance of groups to avoid the weakness kicking in.
This would apply similar to inherent fitness did in CoH. It's not a consumed pool power group, it's staggers which levels abilities are gained at what time, and it would have a unique list of these "weaknesses" that players select at creation, but cannot be changed like the primary/secondary.
Thoughts?
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That's a very interesting idea, [b]summer-heat[/b]. I don't like so much parts of a character that can never be changed, but this one makes some sense. It's actually a good replacement to CoH's Origin. Instead of very broad categories like CoH had, this idea can be very specific. It would allow for a lot of diversity in characters, while also being hard to exploit because it comes in a complete package.
[size=1]Kickstart Backer # 771[/size]
Thanks Pleonast! After sleeping on the idea I can't find any justification to lock a weakness like a primary/secondary (heroes overcome or gain new weaknesses all the time).
I could see a larger list of weakness powersets, specified by origin. Example, a weakness like "unstable powers" probably wouldn't apply to natural and magic origins, but it would apply to science, mutant, and possibly even tech.
[i]“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams[/i]
I dont know, but I can imagine a Natural or Magical based power that could have the "Unstable Powers" weakness.
A volatile Lava powerset where the Hero/Villain has a high probability of "Erupting" whenever they get mad.
A Electrical based character who continuously builds a charge and it periodically discharges in various ways could defiantly be unstable
A person cursed with a magical "illness" could have all sorts of unpredictable powers that go off at odd times with random results (think magical hiccups)
I can think of many fun concepts for "Unstable Powers" in all forms of origins.
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You're right. Imagination can provide a solution for just about any origin/weakness combination! Perhaps unique flavor text for each "origin" or possibly better termed "power source" provides additional uniqueness.
[i]“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams[/i]