Flexform Builds
The Best of all Worlds

Warning: Long Post. Sorry but it’s a complex idea.

The dream of every good game designer is to create the best game possible within whatever restrictions they are given such as time and money. The dream of every player is to have as much fun as possible. One thing that MMO creators and players have been dreaming about for years is a freeform build style for character creation. Many have tried but none have succeeded. Any systems that DID get close to freeform wound up being not very good (like CO) for a number of reasons.

One of the biggest drawbacks to freeform builds is balance. It’s virtually impossible to properly balance the various Powers and effects to cut down on the one ‘perfect’ build that does it all. We’ve discussed freeform builds here and the general consensus is that it can’t be balanced properly and if we can’t do it right then we should not do it. But what if we could split the difference and give the players more choices for their builds while still maintaining enough structure to be able to prevent things from running amok? That’s what I call Flexform Builds.

What I’m thinking of is what I call Power Templates. A Power Template is a basic structure for a Power that can then be modified as the player sees fit within certain restrictions set up by the Template. The whole thing sounds more complex than it is so I’ll just use an example:

Energy Blast: Basic, fundamental Power. The basic Energy Blast would do X damage with Y Range and Z Recharge. Think of it as a typical T1 Blast from CoH. Now several things about the Blast are predefined like X, Y and Z above. However several other things are fluid and can be chosen by the player. For example there is no predetermined Power Effect for the Power. It does Damage as opposed to Cold damage, Fire damage, Energy damage or whatever. This Effect is chosen by the player at the time the Power is selected.
The Secondary Effect is also not predetermined. Out of the box the Blast would do no KB, no Slow, no Dot or anything other than its base Damage. The Secondary Effect would also be chosen by the player at the time the Power was chosen.

Note that the amount of Secondary Effect will be different for each AT. If a Blaster put an Immobilize effect on a ST Blast then it would reduce the Damage of that Power by 25%. A Hold on the same Power would reduce the Damage by 50%. This would bring the Powers in line with similar Powers from other ATs. So a Blast Power with an Immob Secondary Effect might do 10 Damage and last for 6 seconds where a Control Power with a Damage Secondary Effect might do 5 Damage and last 12 seconds. Also, slotting for various effects might result in different totals for different ATs. So a Blaster slotting up the Immob effect of his Blast might be limited to a single Immob slot while a Controller might have no limits for the same thing.

In this way the exact collection of Powers is up to the players but there would be restrictions for the sake of balance. No matter what, a Blaster would never be able to have as much Control as a Controller and a Controller would never be able to do as much damage as a Blaster. I have included a sample below for illustration (please note that the actual values are pulled from thin air and subject to change) :

Ice Blast (Blaster Set)
T1: Ice Blast – 100’ range, 2 sec Recharge, 4 End, 20 Damage
T2: Ice Bolt – 100‘ range, 4 sec Recharge, 8 End, 40 Damage
T3: Ice Storm – 60’ Range, 8 sec Recharge, 12 End, 15 Damage (45 degree cone)
And so on and so forth.

A player selecting this Set has their choice of these Powers as they level up just like normal. However when each Power is chosen the player will be able to assign each Power a Secondary Effect. The difference between this Set and, say, Fire is that IF the player chooses the Slow Effect for any of these Powers then it will last longer than a Slow Effect on a Fire Blast or an Electrical Blast.
Each Set would have a set of Effects that are not baked in but that do have synergy if selected. So the Ice Blast has no Slow effects attached to it but if Slow is the Chosen Effect then it might last 10 seconds instead of 5 seconds for s T1 Fire Blast with Slow attached to it. This allows each Set to have its own flavor but the players are not required to use a Secondary Effect if they don’t want to.
The following Sets would have the following Effects to synergize with:

Fire – DoT
Ice – Slow
Electricity – End Drain
Energy – KB
Darkness – Fear

The list of possible Secondary Effects would include:
Damage
DoT
Immobilize
Hold
Fear
End Drain
KB
KD

And so on. So a player can choose a Fire Set and go total damage, taking DoT or Damage as the Secondary Effect on all of his Powers if he wants. Or if he wants to play safer he could take a Fire Set and take a bunch of Slows, Holds, Immobilizes or whatever. The explanation of the effect is not important (smoke can blind a target as easily as snow can after all) nor is the special effect.

I wanted to try this idea the minute I read about the Effect Decoupling idea the Devs announced during the Kickstarter. If I have a Fire Blast that burns that sounds like DoT to me. But if I want an Ice Blast that simulates frostbite then that’s a burn too right? So why can’t I take a Fire Power, color the effects white and call it an Ice Power? As long as the damage is the same and the target’s defenses still react the same then why not?

The various Power Sets can still be balanced by the Powers available. Fire might get more AoE than Ice for instance. But a player who wants to run an Ice concept character who does lots of AoE can do so by choosing a Fire set, coloring the FX blue/white, adding Slows and other controls instead of DoT and there it is…a customized Ice Powerset.

The same concept would work for Control Sets as well. The difference being that where a Blast Set is more concerned with damage, a Control Set is more concerned with control. So a Control Set might look like the following:

Ice Control
T1: Icy Grasp – ST Immobilize, Mag 1 (enough for Minions), 100’ range, 2 End, 2 second Recharge.
T2: Ice Prison – ST Hold, Mag 1 (again, enough for Minions), 100’ range, 4 End, 4 second Recharge.

The biggest difference between a Blast Set and a Control Set is the basic goal of the Set. Blast Sets are supposed to do damage, Control Sets control the battlefield. Now a Blast Set can have controls for its Secondary Effects the same as a Control Set can have Damage for its Secondary Effects. Either of these Powers could have DoT or straight Damage as its Secondary Effect. However, they can also take MORE Control if the player chooses just like the Blast Set can take more Damage. So the Icy Grasp above could have Immobilize for a Secondary Effect raising the Mag to 2 which would work on Lts on a single application, however then it will do NO Damage. The player can decide, based on their own playstyle, how they want the various Powers to work. An ‘offensive Controller’ might take Damage for every Power which means they will have less Control during battle but do more Damage. Another player, knowing that they team all the time and have friends who like running damage-dealers, is less worried about defeating enemies solo so they add extra Control to almost everything.

Needless to say, this would require a LOT of balancing to make it work. However each Power Set could have its own unique style and flavor to keep them from becoming too homogenized. While not completely Freeform, this idea gives players so many choices (within reason) that there will be thousands of different combination to choose from.

Note that I have not explored Debuff Sets yet but I believe that they could benefit from such a system. I have also not contemplated if or how this might impact Defensive Sets. However Rome was not built in a day…