lets say you had a choice to take a weakness in exchange for a hefty advantage.
It would take two forms:
1) a Limited Weakness for a limited advantage
2) a powerful weakness for a powerful advantage.
Limited:
You have Ice Guy. He has a limited Weakness against Fire. Fire does +50% more damage to him.
The advantage is he does 50% more damage to Fire Guys.
Powerful
You have Strong Guy. He has a powerful weakness against anyone with Kryptonite
Kryptonite sucks away at his Defense first and then at his strength. The lowest level Gang Member with Kryotonite can bring him down given enough time.
In exchange, his defense and strength are both stronger than usual.
Personally, I tend towards the greedy type...I would take a weakness to be stronger. I would actually go for the kryptonite...
what would you do...if given the choice?
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
[img]https://moneyfyi.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/dilbert-stupid-reality.gif[/img]
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
The problem with weaknesses in an MMORPG is that players (not all players, but some) will start avoiding the cause of their weakness. They start avoiding the scenarios with their kryptonite, and so their weakness doesn't come into play as often as was assumed when the devs decided how much weakness was balanced by how much advantage. Then word of the exploit spreads...
In a tabletop RPG, the GM can ensure that weaknesses come into play, but until we have good enough [font=lucida bright]AI[/font], we can't do that with an open path computer game.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
Curse Logic and human behavior!
sigh
It sounded good on paper.
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
Stupid reality.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
This - pretty much.
as much as I would love to have a system of disadvantages...as mentioned previously, there are thousands out there that would take horrible advantage of such a system. to bad really given it fits so well within the superhero genre.
[img]http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/whiteperegrine/84183/69278/69278_original.gif[/img]
When I was playing Champions PnP, my group called me the King of the Min-Maxers. Really, you just go and try and take that "Obvious Accessible Focus" out of my fist.
Nope, it created nigh indestructable monsters on the table-top. It would become City of TankMages in about 10 minutes or less. I don't expect my toon to fight Anubis to a draw in an MMO
Lay your hands on me
While I'm bleeding dry
Break on through blue skies
And take it high
Game Mastering must make parity a full purpose. Build Parity is the number 1 complaint in any game, especially MMORPGs.
TLDR: No.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
"They'll take my OAF when they pry it from my cold, dead, fingers."
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
OAF w/Multipower and each power has charges....gotta keep that cost down!
[img]http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/whiteperegrine/84183/69278/69278_original.gif[/img]
Variable power pool.
[i]* glares at Redlynne.[/i]
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Hey, my shtick was Variable ADVANTAGES and doing things like using a Multi-pool for Movement Powers (so pick one type of movement at a time) and then sticking Variable Special Effects onto those movement powers. Now, granted, I was able to shoehorn powers like Pratfall into my Movement Multi-pool for 1 Active Power Point (ie. as close to nothing as it can get) and then managed to parlay THAT into become the most powerful power in the entire game that anyone had ever seen ...
It what the Sanjiyan who had the Variable Power Pool allowing the "make up whatever you need on the spot" monstrosities.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Sadly, my answer to the OP Question is, "No."
Be Well!
Fireheart
I also don't see how it would work, especially like whiteperegrine said, people would share the ways of avoiding such issues and taking advantage of it. But if it were a perfect world and such a thing could exist. I would definitely. I would put on my tin foil hat to be more powerful against electromagnetic fields, mind control, and mind reading.
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
Something like this was brought up in a discussion a while back, If I'm not mistaken. Though I can't seem to be able to find the thread. I like the idea of adding weaknesses. I also think it would be totally doable, without being exploitable. Granted, it would likely be a good deal of work to implement. extra coding, art, modeling etc. but at the very least, I think it would be worthwhile to set up the systems to add it in at at some point post-launch.
in CoH there were flags set to spawn Quantums on a map if there was a PB/WS on the team... and they usually continued to spawn for several missions even after said PB/WS left the team. I'd think something similar to that could be used for a weakness system. Here's a quick run-through (off the top of my head) how it might be done.
- Set flag upon login to check if player character has a weakness associated with them. flag is verified as true/false upon entering an instance (to account for player respec after login, etc.)
- Players found to have a weakness will have that weakness added to a "weakness list" (for lack of a better term). this list will be called on when entering an instance or within proximity of a newly spawning mob.
- Upon entering a mission instance, weakness list is called and processed via RNG. A solo player with a weakness has a 40% chance to spawn enhanced enemies or objects in the mission, and a 60% chance to not spawn any enhanced enemies/objects. (note: these numbers may or may not be realistic and are purely stated as an example) (note2: an enhanced enemy or object would be something capable of exploiting your weakness (i.e. a guy with a flame thrower instead of a machine gun to exploit your weakness to fire, or a cave full of kryptonite crystals)
- The chance to spawn enhanced enemies/objects is reduced for each party member that has a weakness associated with them. Individual RNG rolls are made for each player with a weakness to determine whether or not to spawn enhanced enemies/objects for their weakness. (generally, I think a random chance of somewhere between 0-3 weaknesses in a single mission, on a full team, would be acceptable)
- If two or more players in a party have the same weakness, the chance to spawn enhanced enemies/objects for that weakness is doubled for each member that has it.
- Once a weakness is flagged as active for a player, that player will have a 100% chance to spawn enhanced enemies for their weakness until they complete the mission. (i.e. you wouldn't be able to "reset" the mission to try for a better rng roll with non-enhanced enemies... once the rng decides that your next mission will have enhanced enemies/objects for your weakness, the only thing you can do is complete a mission with enemies enhanced to your weakness in order to reset the rng).
Summary & TL;DR: use flags to identify player weaknesses (in a similar fashion to how it was done in CoH for PB/WS to spawn Quantums) With the exception that there will be a % chance to spawn enemies or objects that can exploit your weakness instead of always spawning them for every mission. If you're flagged to spawn enhanced enemies, you need to complete a combat mission to clear the flag and have another rng chance for an "unenhanced" mission. By flagging the player, and not the mission itself, it prevents exploiting the system by dropping and avoiding the "enhanced" missions to gain all the benefits of choosing a weakness while avoiding enemies you're weaker against.
Regards,
D. A. Cross
CEO of Phoenix Rising
CoX: @Mystic Cross ; @Pareidolia // CO: @Deadman-X ; @Citymystic // CoT: @Cross ; @D.A.Cross
Have you not been [url=https://moneyfyi.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/dilbert-stupid-reality.gif]paying attention[/url]?
/em popcorn
Stupid reality is stupid for a reason ... which is obvious and predictable to anyone who has been paying attention. This isn't rocket surgery. Heck, it isn't even a rock surge. This is "[b]CLUE TABLE[/b]" straightforward. Please tell me that the [b]WHAM! WHAM! WHAM![/b] of skull into the [b]CLUE TABLE[/b] has successfully had an ... impact ... on your thinking on this subject.
Or to put it another way ...
"I get wet when I fall in the river! Fix it so that when I fall in the river I don't get wet!"
Obvious preventative measure against getting wet when falling into the river is to NOT FALL INTO THE RIVER. Obvious solution is obvious. Stupid falling into the river is stupid.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled stupid reality, already in progress ...
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Well, if by "paying attention" you mean "fully reading every post in this thread"... then yes, I've been "paying attention". Have you? because It looks to me like you stopped reading my post at the line you quoted.
Foradain put forth a constructive reason as to how something like weaknesses would be exploitable by avoiding content that contains your weakness. I put up a rough idea of how to counter that "exploit".
You put up... a comic strip... twice.... (and you seem to REALLY like calling everything "stupid", but to each their own I guess)... that's about all the information I gathered from your posts. If you have something more substantial to add though, please do.
Otherwise, just forget about that "stupid" reality and continue working with your lies and assumptions... I'm going to try working on reality without them.
P.S. You mind sharing that?
Regards,
D. A. Cross
CEO of Phoenix Rising
CoX: @Mystic Cross ; @Pareidolia // CO: @Deadman-X ; @Citymystic // CoT: @Cross ; @D.A.Cross
For what it's worth it's absolutely clear the only way any kind of "selectable weaknesses" system could work in a game like this would be that the consequences of the weakness would have to be totally unavoidable by the given character. Anything short of that would simply invite exploitable abuse.
While your idea of borrowing the "Kheldian Hunted" mechanic of having random enemies come after you that are specifically designed to take advantage of the weakness is one possible way to handle the situation it's really pretty limited and would treat any possible weaknesses pretty much equally. If you have one character weak to cold and another character weak to fire the game's only enforcement response is basically the same (cold MOBs pop out to screw over the guys vulnerable to cold; fire MOBs pop out to screw over the guys vulnerable to fire) and the net effect is the same.
Even with this it's unclear what degree of "advantage" a character should receive for accepting such a weakness. Since the consequences of having this type of weakness is pretty much identical regardless of its type what kind advantages would be justified here? I think with this critical question we've firmly run into the "the whole thing's probably more trouble than it's worth" dead-end.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Not at all. Plenty for everyone.
Both worthy efforts, but as Lothic points out are actually more trouble than they're worth.
If you're writing a comic book, weaknesses can become character points that facilitate and drive the drama of the stories you're trying to tell. They become pain/pressure points that the *writing* of that character needs to work around and overcome. When you're dealing with a static, non-interactive medium like a comic book or a film, which has only One Way that things can happen no matter how many times you re-read or re-watch, that's all fine and dandy.
Things change when you're dealing with a game where you aren't dealing with a One Size Fits All solution. It gets even worse when you're dealing with an online MMORPG where you haven't got a Game Master acting as a constantly vigilant force to curb excesses edging towards exploitation. In an MMORPG, these decisions have to be automated, in advance, and built into the programming to prevent exploitation. Well, the problem is that (human) Players are ... crafty clever little bahstids ... who are fully capable, empowered AND incentivized(!) to find the ... seams ... in any sort of Take X Vulnerability For Y Advantage system, and to rip their way through those seams to achieve an unfair advantage. We don't even have to speculate whether or not this will happen. It. WILL. Happen.
Even without a Vulnerability/Advantage system to turbocharge such pre-emptively exploitative behavior, the incentives and rewards of Min/Max will be at work. Again, we don't have to guess about this one. All it takes is an understanding of the motivations of Players who are inevitably competitive and the result is obvious.
And that's even before admitting/realizing that City of Titans will need to have "design space" to ... evolve ... over time. Any sort of Vulnerability/Advantage system would act like a force multiplier on the centripetal forces acting to tear free of the game's balance point (or as I prefer to think of it, zone of dynamic equilibrium). That then means that there's even LESS margin for error when it comes to the realization of game breaking exploits, which then have to be patched up. The net result of a Vulnerability/Advantage system is to push everything towards the margins of acceptability and "fairness" with the result of "hollowing out" the center of the realm of possibilities, such that the "center" is placed under additional strain and likely cannot withstand the pressure of the forces unleashed by the Vulnerability/Advantage options.
Remember, the underlying assumption of a Vulnerability/Advantage system is either going to be a Zero Sum Game, which then promotes and enforces a Min/Max mentality to an even greater extreme ... or ... is going to be exploited as a "something for nothing" tradeoff in which the Vulnerability can be avoided and the Advantage can be exploited. Guess how long it will take the conventional wisdom of the game to align itself around the "something for nothing" tradeoff. We already saw this in City of Heroes with regards to Damage Types, where the conventional wisdom hardened that Smashing/Lethal was the most commonly resisted Damage Type in the game, therefore it was always better to choose Powersets that did a different Damage Type than Smashing/Lethal if you were dithering between choices. It doesn't require corrective lenses (rose colored or otherwise) to anticipate what would happen if a Vulnerability/Weakness optional were made available, because it happens in EVERY SINGLE GAME that the option is made available in ... including pen & paper games running on point systems for game balance.
That's because I know what human nature is when it comes to gaming. I worked on the Customer Service side of a major MMORPG title [i]last year[/i] (2014). I [b]KNOW[/b] when "reality" is going to come along and blow everything up, no matter how nice the theory sounds.
As Lothic said, and I second ... it's more trouble than it's worth.
CAN it be done? Anything's *possible* ... given enough Time, Tools and Tech Manuals. "Worth it" is a different question.
SHOULD it be done? Emphatic [b]*NO*[/b] is pretty much the only reasonable response by anyone with even a modest amount of foresight (which is a required trait in game developers).
Let's at least try to establish a dynamic equilibrium "zone" for the game before adding an angular momentum to it which will spin things out of control. Okay? The job of settling on that region of dynamic equilibrium is hard enough to do without adding a spinning moment that forces things away from the center and towards the edges where things start breaking down and want to fly apart.
Why?
Stupid reality.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
First, Thank You for the constructive reply. I agree that the consequences should be completely unavoidable by the given character. However I don't think that it would be necessary to cause a... consequence, to spawn in every.single.mission, just to be clear.
After all, by choosing a weakness, we wouldn't be changing the game to only spawn enemies we're strong against in every mission. So why would enemies we're weak against spawn in every mission?
Hence the RNG %chance upon entering a mission to spawn "something" that takes advantage of your weakness. and the clincher is that once you are flagged to spawn... I'll just say Quantums... any mission you enter will have quantums in it until you complete a mission. Unavoidable, but not necessarily constant. You might be able to do 5 missions in a row that don't spawn quantums, and then have 3 consecutive missions that do.. or vice versa. such is the nature of rng. averaged out... I think spawning "quantums" every 1 in 3 missions might be an acceptable place to start. tweaking would obviously be required.
I was using the "kheldian hunted" mechanic as a way to convey the idea in an easily understandable reference with a working example of the procedure call. Yes it would use a similar function to flag the character as having a weakness, the same way "kheldian hunted" flagged that the player was a kheld. and yes it could spawn enemies in a mission that you're weak against, but it wouldn't necessarily HAVE to spawn JUST enemies, the changes could possibly be environmental as well.
It could cause the cave map you're entering to load as a lava cave with narrow walkways and enemies that have heavy KB and/or flight disabling powers. watch it! some of these guys might have flamethrowers too! or it could be a kryptonite cave where the whole place is lined with kryptonite crystals. Find a safe place to fight, if you can! and watch out for the kryptonite blades those guys are holding!
Point is, the net effect doesn't have to be the same. the severity of your weakness could determine what rank the mobs are that have a counter to it... or how harsh an environment you're entering is.
SCENARIO A: you have a minor weakness to cold, you might run into some minions with ice rays or the like in your missions, TFs and so on, or your maps might spawn some circle of thorns-like ice aura crystals.
SCENARIO B: you have a severe weakness to kryptonite, you might get trapped in an office space where the room is flooded with kryptonite gas followed by ambushes of LTs using kryptonite weapons.
Note: scenarios are only examples intended to describe possibilities, not "this is exactly how it should be".
I think that's actually a pretty simple question, in a general sense. a detailed answer of exact percentages and the like would require implementing the function, followed by LOTS of testing to ensure balance... but the short answer would probably be to make the advantage only half as powerful as the weakness to start with and go from there.
A minor weakness to cold might give you -10% cold resistance and +5% damage to fire based enemies, as a starting point. and a major weakness might double those numbers.
Frankly, I'm inclined to think that it -would- be more trouble than it's worth... right now.... but down the road a bit, it might be more relevant for an update or something. The question from the OP was "would you take a weakness for an advantage", and the dilemma that came up in the thread was mainly "I would, but it would be exploitable so no"
I like the idea of it, so I just wanted to have a discussion on how it could be possible to implement, without being exploitable.... and maybe, sometime down the road, someone might say "you know what, I think we could pull this off"
Regards,
D. A. Cross
CEO of Phoenix Rising
CoX: @Mystic Cross ; @Pareidolia // CO: @Deadman-X ; @Citymystic // CoT: @Cross ; @D.A.Cross
Your ideas here are not strictly "bad" ones. If anything I would simply consider them premature.
I actually believe there will come a time where players in computer-based MMOs can be "dynamically managed" well enough by realtime AI that it will come close to duplicating the kind of free-form sandbox experiences one can only currently get with human based PnP games. When that time comes I believe things like "player selectable weaknesses" will be possible without abuse/exploitation and will work as well as they currently work in human moderated games.
Unfortunately I'm not sure the technology is ready for that kind of thing just yet. We may literally have to wait another 10 or 20 years before that level of control will be practical and cheap enough to spread to mass market MMO games. Until then I'll stick to the conclusion that concepts like this are effectively "not worth the effort" to try in such a relatively limited setting that is a MMO circa 2015.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
This scheme of Xander's might actually work. It might take a long time on the playtest servers to find the points between too many people saying "How can you not go for the extra power?" and too many people saying "That totally gimps your character!" though, so it is not likely to be very high up on the devs' Big Whiteboard of Things to Implement.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
For what it's worth if CoT manages to stay up and running for 5 or 10 years then maybe the Devs will finally manage a workable version of this. I'm just envisioning the day where I might be able to take a semi-crazy disadvantage like "weakness to freshly mowed grass" and have a game be clever enough to force my character to have to run through fields of freshly mowed grass just to make sure my choice of weakness was consequential. That's what any good human GM could (and would) do. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
There are a couple of things worth noting in the cited examples of kheldian weakness, the impact it had on general gameplay, and why eventually things were changed.
It ties into the additional examples of a lesser percentage protection vs one type to gain a benefit in another area.
First important note: the kheldian weakness had no general defense other than not being hit. The common solution was to create a keybind to locate the particular type of spawn and eliminate the immediate threat. This was a good solution for savvy players or those who bothered to look up the forums for how to deal with the 'void problem'. It wasn't so good for general players and it was later changed to be less of a threat.
Now the idea of taking a hit in one area, like the -10% to cold is not an example of a weakness. Its an example of a minor hinderence in considering that the power improvement system will allow a player to build the flaw away sufficiently that it is not seriously impeding performance, while they still maintain the benefit that is suppossed to offset the suppossed weakness.
Another thing to consider is that in general, particularly for a good majority of the game from level 1 upward, is that characters must maintain a minimum bound of performance metrics. If a weakness causes the character to fall below the minimum bound of performance, it is a design flaw. This does not in anyway indicate what player perception would be of an unnacceptable loss of performance, which typically is far above what the dev perception is.
Another problem such a system poses is in the design itself. Weaknesses would have to be taliored to every power set to ensure that each one as appropriate to the set. There's no point in say, taking a weakness to psi if there is no psi protection in a set to begin with (just an example).
This ties back to minimum bounds of performance issues as well as another: ease of play. Generally speaking, a system of flaws and advantages favors those who invest in build design and can configure their build appropriately from the outset of play. General players want to design their character, pick their powers, and get to playing, not munch on a few percentage point differences which could have unintended impact on how they play the game later (for their perception anyway).
Suffice to say, in the highly customizable system in build design we are employing, such a mechanic is very difficult to implement and most likely not to yield the intended results for the general population of the player base.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
The biggest problem with the "Kheldian weakness" was that players had no choice whether they wanted to contend with that "hunted by" mechanic or not. The weakness was "baked into" the Kheldian AT.
Now a person could argue that a weakness of that magnitude was needed to balance the overall power of the AT itself. I would counter by saying the CoH Devs could have come up with other less annoying methods to balance out the AT that didn't involve that specific KIND of unavoidable weakness.
Ultimately the lesson learned here was that players should always have a CHOICE about whether they want to live with a "hunted by" weakness or not. Many players found the situation so intolerable that they choose to avoid playing Kheldians altogether - that's not the outcome the Devs of a game want to impose on their players.
Take this thought of yours and extend it out to the logical extreme. The classic hypothetical example we want to avoid is someone being able to say take a -50% DEF penalty to cold attacks in order to gain a +50% fire DAM bonus and then go out and only attack fire vulnerable critters that have no cold based attacks. Net effect: Gigantic advantage to be able to farm specific MOBs while suffering no effective consequence for the supposed weakness.
If the system allows it I could easily see people willing to create characters that are technically "below the minimum bound of performance" in certain areas in order to become gods in other areas. Again as example if I could make a character extremely vulnerable to poison (like even one-hit-death vulnerable) in order to gain a huge bonus to my lightning damage I might do it if I knew I could go to areas in the game that had no MOBs that could use poison on me.
Now if you're saying the game will automatically prevent a player from being able to choose this kind of imbalance then that could be fine, but if the automatic limits end up being too conservative then you risk preventing legitimate degrees of customization and everyone's characters will become "cookie-cutter" identical in terms of whatever weaknesses/bonuses they have. Sure it might be better game balance wise to disallow anything as strong as Kryptonite was for Superman, but be aware by playing it safe like that you might make the game intrinsically less interesting than it could be.
Actually there would be EVERY reason for characters with no built in powerset-based psi protection to choose to take any additional weaknesses to psi possible. Think about it: With no inherent psi protection I would naturally want to avoid psi attacks anyway. Why not make myself even more vulnerable to something I'm going to avoid anyway in order to gain an advantage that will have no real extra drawback for me? This is a basic min/maxer tactic that would be exploited to the fullest if it were allowed.
Just because there might only be a few min/maxers willing to figure out extreme cases of exploitation doesn't mean there won't be any people out there trying to do it. The CoT game system must be able to prevent this overtly abusive level of exploitation no matter how many people spend the effort to figure it out.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Yes there will be players who crunch numbers and spend hours in whatever mids equivalent we may have. And there should be a system (that is we intend to at some point include one) where the are plenty of bonuses and such to play with to crunch plenty of numbers with. What I'm saying at the last quote there, is that it shouldn't be a requirement for entry into the game. There are games where that is part of the design. Ours is less about the finesse of numbers on the outset with emphasis on customization of appearance (and appearance of powers) to be our "munch on this for a while" entry to play. It is a different character design dynamic is all.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I agree that min/maxing with an optional weakness/advantage system should never be a "requirement" for a player to have viable characters in CoT. That idea by itself should almost be grounds enough to avoid ever having such a system under any circumstances.
But if you still want to try to work such a feature into the game as a post-launch update all that I (and others) are stressing is that such a system will require a huge amount of oversight and testing to ensure it serves a useful purpose OTHER than becoming an easy means for min/maxers to abuse and distort game balance. It's a bit of a Pandora's Box at best: make the system too conservative and people won't bother using it; make the system too useful and everyone will abuse it. The fine line of balance with this one will always be razor thin.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
GREETINGS PROFESSOR FALKEN.
A STRANGE GAME.
THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY.
[youtube]uOoXwxqeVzg[/youtube]
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
IMO COH had a great advantages/disadvantages system pretty much from day one (needed some number tweaking but still). It was baked into powersets/ archtypes and further manipulated by enhancments.
http://tvtropes.org/Main/CripplingOverspecialization
Be Well!
Fireheart
At best I would call what CoH did a "workable compromise". A "great" system would not be forced to "bake" these kinds of advantages/disadvantages directly into the AT/powersets.
Ideally these kinds of things should be a "player optional choice" thing to serve the player's overall character concept. The Devil-in-the-details of course is how to allow such a thing to be a player choice thing while still maintaining overall balance. That will always be a very hard nut to crack MMO-design wise.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
No game would have a problem if you wanted to make a "glass cannon" type character. The problem would arise if you could maneuver that glass cannon though the game in such a specific way that its weakness was never a practical or significant drawback. Sure your character might die instantly if it takes any fire-based damage - but if you never have to (or choose to) fight anything that can cause fire-based damage how much of a weakness does that character really have?
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
In an effort to give serious consideration to the subject, just about the only excuse I can come up with for this kind of tradeoff is to NOT do the "one thing for one thing" exchange. In other words, a vulnerability to Cold in order to gain an advantage to Fire.
Instead, I'd want to structure it as a vulnerability to ALL THINGS in exchange for One Thing.
Now, granted, the All Things side of the ledger could potentially be "weighted" in certain ways such that you aren't looking at an All Things vulnerability that is equally divided. But the minimum ground floor assumption would have to be ALL THINGS ... so as to prevent the avoidance of the ONE Weakness problem.
To put it in City of Heroes terminology, I'm thinking of a structure somewhat like this:
+2% Fire
... requires ...
-1% Smashing
-1% Lethal
-1% Energy
-1% Negative Energy
[b]-2%[/b] Cold
-1% Psionic
-1% Toxic
That way, you get the 1:1 tradeoff of +/- that's the intent of the design, but you're also looking at losing [i]half that much[/i] on everything else into the bargain. In other words, the "totals" of the cost vs benefit don't "balance" per se. Furthermore, I'd make it such that the vulnerabilities [i]move the hardcaps[/i] on both the Minimums AND the Maximums in ways that are against the Player's favor. So if the normal cap for a Tanker is 90% Resistance, take the above 5% and now the cap for your PC is 80% Cold and 85% everything else in exchange for +10% Fire ... in addition to the formal penalties on performance (which happen too).
Build a glass cannon this way and you'll be well on your way to Crippling Overspecialization (thank you, Fireheart). After all ... if the normal Resistance "floor" is 0% but you stack up enough Vulnerability to push it down to -25% on "everything, but {insert specialization here}" then that's on you for why your PC has such a glass jaw and is terrifically squishy.
That sort of "it costs more than you gain" tradeoff is pretty much the only way I'd ever want to implement such a system into MMORPG. It prevents the "avoidance" factor that makes such tradeoffs appealing to the maximum extent.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
While sounding like a bad idea...,
- I can see where this might help establish unique and different character ideologies if they are allowed to adjust the settings of their base powers. For instance, one player could take Energy Blast as is while another player, opting for more 'alpha strike' potential, takes a recharge increase limitation for more damage while another player, preferring to use the power as his 'auto attack' takes recharge reduction with a tohit reduction to represent their 'fire first, ask questions later' mentality. These choices could be made upon power acquisition or later during respeccing and the limitations/bonuses would seldom exceed 5-10%...just a little flavoring, but not entirely game-breaking. A decrease in one area required an improvement in another as long as the caps weren't exceeded...and, of course, the limitations could be offset with enhancements. Still, there would be a slight difference...something to give the min-maxers something to play with.
Without the advantages and disadvantages 'baked' into the powersets or ATs then there is no reason to have powersets or ATs. It would be a completely free form character design where players have a set number of 'points' and choose where to put them.
Now I may personally love a system like that, I also know it would be pure hell to balance the game around (not saying it cant be balanced...saying its tuff).
So while you may think CoHs ATs, Powersets and enhancments were a 'workable compromise' I think it was exceptional in design concept in that it allowed players to tailor characters enough so that one blaster was not the same as another even if they shared a powerset (or two). The fact that few players actually see how this advantage/disadvantage request was already in CoH (and as CoT follows a similar character design it will probably be in Cot as well) and still ask for it baffles me.
But the point I was trying to make that the game already had the advantages and disadvantages system.
There's an obvious difference between being able to directly choose which advantages and disadvantages a character has and having to be forced to get specific ones based on which character class you choose. It's the difference between saying you could choose to have ANY character you want have a +10% DEF to electricity or having that same bonus applied to ANY Tank you played regardless if you wanted a Tank to have better DEF against electricity or not. What if you wanted to play a Tank that (for some reason) was actually vulnerable to electricity? Baked in advantages and disadvantages will not let you do that.
There's actually no reason whatsoever that the kinds of advantages and disadvantages we're talking about here had to (or should be) baked into powersets or ATs. The two concepts are like apples and broccoli - they have absolutely no direct dependence on each other. And no you wouldn't automatically have a "free-form" system if you made advantages and disadvantages be player selectable - powersets/ATs provide a rigid backbone for game balanacing and organization that transcend any advantages and disadvantages.
Games like CoH and CoT use things like powersets or ATs to organize and balance core fundamental character abilities like being control/buff oriented versus being tank oriented. But things like having +5% DEF to fire or having no extra Psi DEF are at best "icing on the cake" things that while interesting could easily be divorced from being baked into powersets/AT directly and be handled by other another method (like being directly selectable by players which is the main point/question of this thread).
So when I said what CoH did with these advantages and disadvantages was a "workable compromise" I was clearly making the point that these relatively minor "pluses and minuses" could have been handled separately from the powersets/AT system and not hardwired directly into them. Keep in mind I still think there's no easy way to actually allow for advantages and disadvantages like these to be player selectable in a MMO, thus the "compromise" I mentioned. But in a perfect game that "compromise" would not be necessary.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
By choosing which class and powersets you ARE choosing which bonuses and disadvantages you have. Asking for an additional bonus or negative is just that ....an additional advantage or disadvantage. It. You are not forced into any powerset of AT choice...the player picks it. Whats more the player decides what and how to enhance the powers they have. If you want to be fast but not strong....there was an enhancement to do that...want the reverse you could do that too.
Thats just it....without a powerset having a baked in advantage or disadvantage then its no different than any other powerset. If all ATs had the same health, range and damage then there is really only one AT. So yes its apples and broccoli but not the broccoli you are saying. Its ATs/Powersets/enhancements or freeform ...you just wont admit that.
Yes CoH used powersets and ATs to fill as many of the traditional Superhero genre rolls as they could just as fantasy games have classes like fighter and mage to fill that genres traditional rolls. It does not change that they have baked in bonuses and disadvantages.
I understand that wanting to control these advantages and disadvantages was the point of the thread. What you seem to be missing is that this system already gave you that control.
This 'icing on the cake' is separate from the baked in advantages and disadvantages already in the form of enhancments.....as I said.
Yes you clearly made the point that they could be handled separately but you conveniently ignored how they were.
The AT/Powerset/Enhancement system that CoH had (and CoT presumes to follow in spirit) offered much in the way of customizing the advantages and disadvantages of a character. You choose which AT you want thereby choosing your health, range and damage, then you choose powersets (or power pools) which had built in bonuses and negatives....then you could pick which abilities you wanted in those sets and finally you could choose to further tailor those abilities with what and how you slotted enhancments.
At every stage you had a choice of how to customize your character and what advantages and disadvantages it would have.
It was a balanced system (well numbers could always use tweaking but still) that allowed a massive amount of player customization.
The only way this system would be a compromise was if they wanted to give freeform character growth but not know how to maintain balance so they went the AT/powerset route.
If CoT offers any kind of expansion in the way of advantages and disadvantages I hope they follow the same concept and just offer more in the way of pool powers and enhancements. This allows them to still maintain the games balance as much as possible.
I'll just chalk this one up to us having different definitions of what "advantages and disadvantages" are in relation to when they are used to balance a game's character classes out. Your thinking on this is far more binary than the reality has shown us.
You seem to think that if these incidental qualities weren't baked into powersets we'd have the instant anarchy of a pure freeform system. I on the other hand realize that powersets/ATs are distinct from each other based on far more fundamental aspects than which one has the +5% DEF to cold or not. They actually differ on the basis of HP totals, attack and defense tables, Aggro and AoE thresholds, possession of unique class based inherent powers (like Defiance or Containment) and so on. If CoH had eliminated all the extra little "advantages and disadvantages" from the system that we're talking about the game still would have had functional/viable powersets and ATs. Bottomline these things were extra flavorings/icings that helped to make certain powersets that much more unique - they weren't the core things that literally defined what the powersets/ATs were. You're confusing the icing for the cake.
I'll try to summarize by stating the system CoH came up with (baking incidental advantages and disadvantages directly into powersets/ATs) was a workable way to address the problems you'd have if you allowed players to choose pluses and minuses that they could easily abuse min/max wise. I'm asserting that once games become sophisticated enough in the future to prevent players from abusing these kinds of options then there will no longer be any need to COMPROMISE with baked in solutions. This is why CoH's system wasn't "great" - it just employed a clever workaround it needed until someone invents a game that won't need that workaround. It's not technically a knock against CoH - it's more a knock against human nature and the need to have better AI to police it effectively.
Not really. Sure you could choose to play AT X with powersets Y and Z. But with those choices you were always forced to accept the same incidental ads and disads baked into those classes. Let's use the CoH Tanker Invulnerability powerset as an example: We know that it gave you strong resistance to physical attacks but no psi resistance. What if you wanted to play a character concept that traded the vulnerability to psi for vulnerability to fire? Under your "bake it all into the powersets/ATs" scheme you couldn't do that. That's why at best it's was WORAKBLE COMPROMISE because while it avoided the chaos of pure freeform it also stifled many avenues of creativity at the same time.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Obviously we have a difference of definitions. You want to exclude anything EXCEPT for the +/-5% from the concept of advantages and disadvantages. Who exactly is thinking binary?
This entire statement ignores how I included the entire character creation in my assessment of CoH's advantages and disadvantages system. You have attempted to direct my 'baked in' comment to only mean AT's when I have stated that power selection and enhancements are a part of it. Which is why I said AT/Powersets/Enhancements vs Freeform. Which in turn is in relation to your previous statement that an AT's/Powersets did not have to have baked in advantages/disadvantages.
And this system is freeform. If the devs truly wanted to have freeform but were forced to settle then its a compromise. Its not a knock to admit it.
Again....its not just about a single AT its about choosing from all ATs. When you make that choice you are choosing the bonuses and negatives. Its not being forced.
To keep this simple we will ignore how the reasons for the bonuses and negatives AS A WHOLE in a powerset were theoretically the way the set was balanced and its unlikely a direct 1-1 comparison can be made (I know you already know this Lothic but want to head off arguments from others).
So we give Invulnerable tanks the ability to swap psi for fire. Does that mean that is the only swap that can be made ...or can you swap the psi for Ice....what about some of the smash/lethal for psi...how about aggro limit for more fire resist....damage caps for defence caps....a for b ...do you see where I am going? Eventually you either get to a freeform style or you bake in limits.
And again....I never suggested 'bake it all into the powersets/ATs' ...I said that they had advantages and disadvantages baked in that could be FURTHER manipulated with the use of enhancements.
Seriously?
Creativity will be stifled in some way as long as there is some kind of framework or limits. It would seem you are now trying to discuss degrees of player control over advantages and disadvantages when that was not your original position in your response (or at least not what you said even if it was what you meant).
If its a matter of degrees you want to discuss then my stance is I would prefer more options included in CoH's system in the form of more powersets to choose from, more power pool option and a more diverse set of enhancements to fine tune a character. I don't think a separate advantage/disadvantage system is needed.
If you can avoid a disadvantage or weakness in game then it is not a weakness or disadvantage is it. If Disadvantages are implemented into the game...and i hope they are. disadvantages need to be commonplace ie in most situations you will come across it. An example of such would by physical damage. Weather its from claw, teeth, firearms, Axes, Thrown cars, kinetic blast etc etc. Even a sorcerer could have spells which do physical damage. A very common damage type in any setting. This is a true disadvantage.
Another important point is that someone should not get an equal return in an advantage from a disadvantage. Glass cannon kid decides to take a a major disadvantage against physical damage thus he takes 100 percent more damage from physical damage types. He decides to increase his energy damage with a major advantage which gives him 15 percent more energy damage.
The point is only have disadvantages which are commonplace in the world thus rarer forms of damage types would have no disadvantage to pick from. Disadvantages do not have to be vulnerabilities they could involve being hunted by a powerful organization or wanted by the Law etc.
Hmmm. What if ...
What if any Disadvantages need to be "activated" by actually being relevant before the related Advantage can be brought into effect?
So let's look at the stereotypical "fire good, cold bad" dichotomy and game this out. What I'm thinking of would be something along these lines:
[list][*]Always On debuff to self protection (Defense, Resistance, Regeneration, Recovery, etc., take your pick) vs (insert Disadvantage here)
[*]Upon receiving (insert debuff vulnerability), activate self buff (insert type here) that lasts for (insert time interval here) seconds which overwrites rather than stacks[/list]
That way, you've got an Advantage that can ONLY come into play as a result of the Disadvantage ALSO coming into play as a precondition. That way, the debuff is "always on" (even if it isn't always relevant) while the buff counterweight is temporary and conditional. Key point then being that the Advantage is "reactive" to the Disadvantage being "relevant" such that it influences the outcome(s) of what is happening in some way.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
To quote Redlynne's 0th Law of Advantage/Disadvantage: People will game it so as to avoid the disadvantage, or at least marginalize it as best they can while simultaneously leveraging the advantage as much as possible. If that's NOT possible, they'll avoid the whole thing and just opt NOT to take the "Take an advantage for a disadvantage" deal altogether, which leads to the question of "If that's what they're going to do, why bother programming stuff like this into the game in the first place?".
Even if you MUST suck up the disadvantage for some reason, one of three possibilities MUST be occurring:
1. The (Disadvantage + Advantage) combo is still strictly worse than the "vanilla" option (the option where you don't have the Disadvantage or the Advantage). In this scenario, nobody benefits, so nobody does this.
2. It's an "exactly fair" deal, such that the (Disadvantage + Advantage) combo is mathematically the same as the vanilla option. Here, there's no point to taking the (D+A) option over not taking it. Assuming there is some other option or some opportunity cost to taking the (D+A) deal, one avoids the (D+A) deal in this case too.
3. It's a "strictly better" deal to take the (D+A) option over the vanilla option. In this case there ought to be a stampede towards the (D+A) option to the point where it isn't so much an option as a built-in expectation by the designers that everyone will pick some sort of (D+A) option, and it's only a matter of which one they'll take and making them all balanced somehow, which sounds daunting to me just typing it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
To second Radiac here, I wasn't advocating for anything ... merely playing [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumblety-peg]mumblety-peg[/url] with the idea to see if there was any merit to it lingering under a rock that hadn't been turned over yet. So I'm sure it will come as a surprise to no one that the effort was pretty much wasted, since Radiac pointed out the inherent flaws of the entire notion.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Previous posters have rightly pointed out that letting the player pick advantages/disadvantages individually would be too easily game-able. I think the only practical, workable solution would be a system where tradeoffs are bundled and analogous to a certain degree. A [i]traits[/i] system, let's call it, a la Fallout 3. Examples:
[b]Cold-weather Survivalist[/b]: You gain a % resistance to cold for an equal % vulnerability to heat.
[b]Glass Cannon[/b]: You gain a boost to damage, but a decrease to overall survivability.
[b]Control Freak[/b]: Controls are longer in duration, but endurance cost is sharply raised.
[b]Journeyman Brawler/Mickey Ward Syndrome[/b]: Resistant to Knockdowns, vulnerable to stuns.
Taking a cue from Radiac's post, this would make you strictly better with some situations/strategies, and strictly worse with others. And trying to avoid any and all things related to your disadvantage would be functionally impossible, either because it would gate off huge chunks of content, or simply be a natural outgrowth of every single combat.
EDIT: Also, above, it's been pointed out that players would avoid their weaknesses like the plague, and I have to wonder, why is that a bad thing? Using my "resistant to cold, vulnerable to heat" example, if you want to spend your entire time fighting the Abominable Snowmen, but avoid the Pyromaniac Gasoline Flamethrower Coalition, why is that a bad thing? It's a tradeoff.
EDIT EDIT: Never mind, realized the answer to my own question. Most people are assuming, for advantages, a generic "get stronger" option. That should never, ever be a thing. Situational, specific, and opposing advantages and disadvantages, or bust.
I'm not against having dev-designed powers that give you something but take something else away, but I think it needs to be done such that the disadvantage is pretty inescapable. Granite Armor's -movement and grounding were pretty bad, but the protection you got while standing mostly still was really good. Stuff like that. I think as a designer you have to assume that whatever advantage the character gets is going to be something that they try to max out the usefullness of, and as such the disadvantage has to be pretty ubiquitous, inherently. Severe movement rate and travel debuffs, complete loss of stealth, overall damage debuff, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
An important note about those limitations, they could be by and large, built away without hindering the sustainability that could be improved by the player's choices. Basically, with effort of investment, there were (very little) drawbacks while getting all the good stuff that particular power had to offer.
My take on creating powers like this is from a different approach. Encourage a playstyle while allowing for player built diveristy. Instead of enforced limitations that can be built away, encourage a particular behavior inherent in the set mechanics. Therefore a good build will be viable no matter how it is played, but when played the in the 'encouraged method' there are heaps of benefits to attain.
The other route is enforcement via hard caps in capability, I find rather draconian in application as it severely hampers build diversity.
We have another possible way to create these sort of limitations that could be "built around" with how our systems are designed, but I'd rather employ the methods as part of the encouraged play route rather than a hard on / off binary application when a power is activated.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Staying with the Granite Armor analogy for a second, if one were to try to get rid of the movement debuffs by, say, adding in movement buffing Invention Origin Enhancements to offset them, that, to me, would be perfectly okay. You're devoting build space (slots) to do that and as such you're NOT gaining other benefits those slots might have gotten for you, so you're still paying a price.
Edit: Or if the debuff from a power like Granite caused you to take other secondary/tertiary powers to try to rectify it, that too would be a form ot "opportunity cost" and as such, okay. But the closer any of this stuff gets to "the disadvantage isn't really a disadvantage at all if you just avoid the thing it affects" is the thing I worry about. This is why I inherently don;t like the "-5% Fire for +5% Cold" idea and others like it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Might be unrelated, but when i hear this sort of discussions, I always think back to Staff Melee... and how it sounded Cool that you could switch from one effect to the next. Too bad when i played with staff melee, i just forgot about switching most of the time... unless it was an AV fight, and i got bored. :(
To be honest I prefer the Dual Swords combo system VS the Staff Melee one. :/
As far as that goes, I'd respond that an advantage isn't an advantage if you don't get to use it. Even if you somehow could always avoid enemies that deal fire damage, are you always going to seek out and fight enemies that [i]only[/i] deal cold damage? Especially for nothing more than a slight buff? That doesn't really seem practical, intelligent, or even doable.
Really, this system would be more about character concept that any huge game-changing effect. If I wanted to make a character who is a frost giant, but don't want to take any sort of cold-related powers, it'd be nice if their were something that would let me reflect that in game, somehow.
Hurray for animation customization and aesthetic decoupling!
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
And that's great, don't get me wrong, but I should have specified "something [i]gameplay-related[/i] that would let me reflect that." I don't have any doubt that it's covered on the aesthetic side of things, but I wouldn't terribly mind more options for gameplay customization as well, even if it's just little stuff like that. EDIT: [i]Especially[/i] if it's just little stuff like that, because that'd encourage customization without breaking the game. "Be Superman for kryptonite weakness" is a shaky proposition at best, but "exchange a bit of this for a bit of that" is much more feasible.
And yes, hurray for animation customization and aesthetic decoupling.
IMHO it comes down to effort. How much return are we likely to get from the effort from putting a system like this into place. Sure, myself and other RPers would love it but does that justify the work involved? How many people are likely to USE something like this?
I think we could at least consider a tiered system of Advantages and Disadvantages. The first tier would be more cosmetic than anything else. There would be small buffs and debuffs involved but it would be more for RPers and new players getting the feel of the system.
The next tier would be more involved and have more impact. There could be some sort of direct tradeoff system (heat weakness vs cold resistance etc) or some other ratio (more electrical damage for higher End cost). This would have to be balanced though since this is where the powergamers would live.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
It is an issue of development time as well. The more options to tweak a power (set) the longer it will take to validate the bounds of performance of every combination, test, report back, adjust (repeat process). This for every set and combination of sets for every classification. It is something that would need to be built into the system from the initial stages of design in order to me sure the design framework supports the adjustments.
And since we are starting off with a smaller pool of power sets we would have only a small sampling of the working system. As new power sets would be created they would each take longer than we would currently intend to develop. And without a doubt as the sampling pool increases there would need be many adjustments made after sets are live. Given that it will take some years to significantly increase the number of live sets, some changes could affect how a player has played their character for years. And this is just for a system of many small bonuses and limitations, not just how powers and entire sets operate in of themselves.
Considering that our design system does not support such nuances of "take this to get that" from the outset, we wouldn't be implementing now nor within out planned development cycles. It may be possible to review once we have the majority of our planned sets in live play, though I wouldn't hold out for it as part of a core character design feature. Things like this may find its way into crafted sets with bonuses as it is an extension of the design and not a core portion. And those are a ways off from where we currently are which gives us time to get more power sets out, won't hinder our current design process, which gives us time to implement correctly should the decision be made to employ an advantage / disadvantage system.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
When you say 'crafted sets' do you mean CoT's version of enhancments?
Crafted set Augments, that is sets of augments and / or Refinements that provide additional bonuses based on the number of pieces within a set are socketed into a power. We will have basic crafted Augments and Refinements that are not part of a set which will be available either at or shortly after launch (if things continue to go according to plan, subject to change, you know the drill.)
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Then this is exactly what I was hoping you would do. The advantage/disadvantage system comes from the power augments not from a dropdown list. Fantastic.