A post about NPCs playing the market made me think of this.
What if an NPC contact was a doctor or researcher or something and had a special type of inspiration they could sell you, and the insp is a pretty good buff, so you buy them. Then you notice that when the insp wears off, there's a temporary debuff that you have to live with , representing your "withdrawal" from the insp. Then maybe you end up doing missions for them to get more insps, then you can start making the insps yourself as a crafting thing. Or you can go the other way, and sell them out to the authorities/news media and do some kind of really tedious mission to "clean up" and lose the debuff permanently (?).
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R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
That sounds a little too much like doing drugs, and being a Teen rated game I don't think that is going to fly.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
While I don't mind the idea of having a Super Insp that does more than a standard Insp but has a debuff effect after the buff wears off like oOStaticOo said it may get to close to drug use and be banned. However the manner in which the devs use/explain/name the Super Insps can make all the difference.
Be aware that different countries view things like this differently so the games rating may need to be increased in those countries.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
If they call it "inspirations" then it will work just fine. You don't actually have to say that its a "drug" or something like that. Its just that it has an upside (temp boost) and a downside (-stats after use).
And even then I am sure that ANY mechanic that has a diminishing returns/ debuff associated after use would be ok, unless you *specifically* say that it is "drug usage".
Fallout 3 fell foul of this in Australia at launch due to its "drug use"... even though it was healing you, the way it was put across was in the "wrong way". They used the images of syringes, tablets and other medical stuff to show the "sci fi" nature of healing. Which was surprisingly close to real life when you get down to it.
For something like this... the less you say about the game mechanic in the game world (ie how it works, what it represents in game) is probably going to be better in the long run.
If you say "This is a drug, it will heal you" and it *LOOKS* like a syringe... you will get slapped silly somewhere in the world more than likely.
That is not to say that you CANNOT use them, but when you do that, don't be surprised if you get a mature rating or equivalent.
Why would we need this?
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
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Because the concept of "addictive drugs" are a major staple of modern villainy not only in real life but many comic book stories cover the subject.
If there wasn't the problem of risking the game's Teen rating I would totally agree with the idea of drug-like inspriations with both their positive and negative effects. They would not only add a new gaming mechanic for combat but they would provide a rich source of ideas for villain mission stories related to people creating the "drugs" as well as the downsides of people's lives being ruined by them.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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We don't need it. To top it off you want to introduce this mechanic on top of Fragile Boosts? Really?? Why not just make it so that any time we create a character and log off there is a 10% chance that the character gets deleted from the server?
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Not to hijack the thread too much but this kind of negative reaction to anything that might even temporarily "weaken" our characters pretty much shows that the average MMO player hates the idea of "weaknesses" in general.
This is why I always laugh at people who propose suggestions for things like "let us choose small penalties in exchange for small buffs" because everyone knows what people really want out of that is "give us the means to get very useful buffs in exchange for semi-meaningless penalties that we can easily maneuver into not really affecting us at all". ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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This whole thing now makes me feel like it's a pretty good concept for a "Just Say No to Drugs" mission story arc. It could be a thing that spans multiple levels, where you start off just helping a researcher test the thing, then you get hooked on it to the point where the buff it gives is less potent, because you've gained a tolerance to it, but the debuffing after effect becomes more severe, then the doctor guy get's his lab broken into by some villains, and get's killed in the melee, then you try to use his notes etc to synthesize the stuff yourself, then you eventually run afoul of the same villains, then you eventually kick the habit, or maybe you don't and you just keep sinking influence into it, maintaining your chain-smoking lifestyle forever, and wasting some amount of influence on it forever. Maybe by the end you figure out a way to make a non-habit-forming version that ends up just being the same as a generic insp, but hey, you can craft that insp now. Or not. Just an idea. And there is the intention, on my part, of it being very "drug" themed, for better or worse.
I don't know how CoX got away with having Superadine and whatnot, but "drugs" did exist in the CoX lore. There was a "Just Said NO to Superadine" badge, if I recall correctly.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Don't get me wrong - I actually really like your general idea on this. It has huge relevance to comic books and sounds dramatically interesting.
But there are at least two big reasons (already brought up in this thread) for why this probably wouldn't fly: 1) It involves players directly "using" drugs which doesn't work well with a Teen game rating and 2) MMO players in general avoid anything that might "weaken" them even if that consequence is appropriate and has precedent in the comic book genre. Sure Superman might have his kryptonite, but god-forbid if the average Tom, Dick or Harry MMO player ever has a character who might have to suffer from their own version of kryptonite. ;)
For what it's worth I think CoH got away with the Superadine plotline because it was clearly a villain-only, NPC-only thing. It didn't involve the players "using" Superadine themselves or suffering any direct consequences from simulated drug use.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Yeah, the Teen rating is a thing. I hear that, and I agree that they'd have to implement this in a way that there is no mention of addiction, drugs, needles, smoking, pills, etc. Plus eventually people will have advance knowledge that this storyline has the things in it that it has, debuffs and all. This would likely cause many to avoid it altogether. Those people wouldn't end up getting the Badges that go with that story arc, though, and that might be a thing that causes people to do the arc despite the drawbacks. Also, if the "happy ending" option gives you the ability to craft a decent insp that ISN"T "addictive", that might be an incentive as well. If I could have done an arc in CoX that eventually gave me the ability to craft those "+1 effective level" insps, I would go through that arc for that crafting ability. Even if the insp cost like 10-50 million inf to make. The fact that you can synthesize that stuff on your own instead of having to buy them with merits or worry about market availability would be great. There should definitely be an archvillain or elite boss that you have to beat in there though.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
This could be another little money sink. Say someone is facing a tough fight. If these inspirations are 10% to 20% more effective, they may be willing to take the risk of debuffs / side-effects (to avoid problems inherent in calling it an addiction) into account for that little extra oomph. Then they can either keep popping the requisite inspiration(s) every 30 minutes, or whatever, go on the mission to get rid of the debuff, or pay the premium for a quick fix.
Advantages, drawbacks, multiple solutions with no major hoops involved. I don't see a problem.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I think that this is looking at it *entirely* the wrong way. What is the point of discussing new stuff, if we assume that ALL of it will get into the game?
Sure, the same person might have come up with 2 mechanics, that *could* (if taken together, with no real thought by the developers) end up wildly imbalancing for whatever reason... but that is looking too far into the future, and is more of an implementation idea.
The thing is, is that most MMO's *DO* do something like this, although not necessarily with a "performance" decrease in the debuff. They just outright stop you from using another potion for X period of time. City of Heroes was different in that the inspirations had no "cap" on how many you could use (shame really, that could have been handy so that you couldn't use one if you were already at "cap" for a stat, so it would have no effect on you), and that they *generally* dropped with regularity.
Could fragile IO's have a place in the game? I believe so.
Could these have a place in the game? I believe so, or something similar to this.
Could they work together? I believe so, it would be a balancing act as well though, to make sure that the combination of the *upsides* isn't too imbalanced, and also that the upside of one doesn't necessarily "erase" the downside of the other....
That is something else that would need to be looked at, is how everything else interacts with each other.
This is why ingame currency inflation is a problem for MMO's... and why they can be *extremely* off putting for new players entering the game several years after launch. Could the new player actually *afford* anything off the Auction House, or would even the basic materials be "outpriced" for them.
And yes, to be honest, the crafting system in CoX was not *entirely* "newbie" to the game friendly; but that is a different argument and a huge derail for me already.