I bet someone else already came up with this, but here goes anyway:
Imagine somewhere in Titan City there is a military base or rich tech company "proving grounds" where you can go to simulate various different types of missions against varioous different types of badguys. Not a mission story and map creator per se (not like AE) just a place where you go and pay some NPC fake money (or pay MWM real money in terms of a subscription or cash shop purchase) and that allows you to use the "danger room" to some extent.
People who want to respec and test their builds could go there and use that thing, you could bring teams, etc. It would basically be a soloable arena where you can pick your map from a list of set options and pick your simulated opposing faction (Clockwork, Carnies, etc) and se tthe difficulty level and off you go.
In my opinion this could be a thing that gives either reduced XP and swag or no swag at all, etc. And it would be a building you go to in town someplace to access its functionality.
Maybe SGs could have a less awesome version that has limited functionality and costs less, I don't know.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Over in the RP forums, ([url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/maul-shopping-mall-open-rp]The Maul[/url]) Rotten Luck has postulated a Danger Room as part of a super-gym.
CO's Power House includes a danger room that is only programmable for what foes you face.
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]
I like the idea. I think it would be especially interesting if the "danger room" in a SG base could be upgradeable over time. It starts with one or two basic environments and some "combat mannequins" and as you progress, you either use SG resources to buy upgrades, allowing more environments or more target factions, or you acquire them through play sort of like SG badges, where members defeat X number of faction and now they can be used in the simulator.
The Power House was one of the things that CO did right. I loved it. The idea of testing out a power, deciding it wasn't what you wanted and you IMMEDIATELY get to swap it out for free was brilliant.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
If there is a danger room (yes, please!), I see no reason for the 'public' one to be different from what SGs have access to. Wouldn't it just be simpler to have One danger room and instance it out to any user/team?
Be Well!
Fireheart
I vaguely remember an MWM team member mentioning that a single power could be "tested" and swapped out until the next level was reached, at which point the power was locked in. Maybe this could be expanded...carefully.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Danger Room has my vote!
They also serve, who only stand and wait.
Although it it were possible, I'd love the optional ability on top of that for testing a power, to add a basic scenario and maybe choose a may type for it, to make it 'feel' like more of a proper Danger Room sim experience.. even if it's just a basic "The Sentinels are attacking New York in the Future, stop them" blurb on a loading screen. :)
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
For such official powers testing scenarios/tutorials, my ideal would be some small mission creator spin-off that allowed a basic selection of map type and enemy group. Basically mini-missions on demand. No rewards or XP, or any such thing, but something that's just good enough to take a power/build for a test drive.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I wonder if it could be done with an option to allow xp at the risk of whatever the penalties of losing are, or if the downside (not wanting people to just do that all day) could be managed.
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
I'd be in the no XP camp, myself. For exactly the reasons stated above.
And while it's extra work, I'd rather the sim-droids used in the Danger Room have a few generic "robot" models (for size differences) and just mimic the powers and animations of whatever bad guy group is selected. :shrug:: Just to re-inforce the "simulation" aspect. Or...maybe the models of the actual bad guys are used with just a generic color/lighting effect that indicates they are "holographic". Something like that. Just an aesthetic idea on my part.
Since the person programming the simulator would need some amount of exposure tot he mobs that they're trying to simulate, it might be cool to have the simulator as a SG base or personal lair object (or room) that requires you to go do some "defeat X of a faction" missions in the real game before then being able to simulate that faction in the danger room. You could have various unlocks that happen upon doing different thing, like badges for defeats unlocking better simulator options.
So like, if you do a "defeat 20 Sky Raiders" mission for your simulator, you get to have some basic sky raider stuff, but for the Sky Skiffs and such, you need to do something more substantial, like get the Sky Raider specific badge or complete the TF that pits you against the sky Raiders, etc.
As for simulator xp, I think zero is okay, but I wouldn't be against having something like "no swag drops, no Inf, but half the normal XP" just because you are training your toon after all.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I could see another small reward instead of exp, too- but to me, that sounds like it'd make the simulation a little more rewarding and thus, desired by the general player.
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
I like this idea. Perhaps any public Danger Room could have generic holograms for general testing, but an advanced Danger Room that you could buy for an SG base could provide simulations of mobs that SG members clash with frequently or significantly.
This would make for a more tangible reward from defeating enemies than a simple badge. In turn, it might create an incentive for players to branch out into content or locations that they might otherwise skip if it would help their SG's Danger Room "evolve" so to speak.
As far as Danger Room XP, I think it should be a reduced amount with no drops or [inf].
Like Radiac said, on realism, it is [u]training[/u], so experience should be gained.
For pragmatism, maybe a factor to reduce could be the following formula:
f(n) { 1 for level1
1/sqrt(x-1) for other levels
At level 5, you get half XP, at 10, a third, at 17, a quarter, at 26 a fifth, after that it goes down very gradually, not reaching 1/10 until level 101.
For the realism of this, assuming the Danger Room isn't a perfect simulation of enemies, one can't gain much once out of rookie status from facepunching holograms.
The formula isn't very complicated, simply truncate further than 3 decimal digits.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Perhaps instead of rewarding XP to the player, it rather awards XP to the danger room, unlocking further features with more and greater use, but giving no reward to the player directly.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Compromise: limited XP and Danger Room XP but the real XP stops at level 10.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
I like that.
Be Well!
Fireheart
And this is where I disagree. As I mentioned in the Curbing Farming thread, this would be the ideal scenario for those people that like to mission repeat for XP. The Danger Room would be perfect for those people that have already ran through all the content in the game and are not interested in running through it for the 20th time. Make it pretty much like the AE in CoX and people can then design their own maps to play, along with content if they so choose. Keeps all your farmers in one place and not ruin your immersion in the game. Experience is still experience, regardless if you are hitting a real bad guy or a simulated one. I can see a no influence, or whatever money will be called in CoT, design being built into the Danger Room. Since you are fighting simulated enemies you shouldn't be able to receive any drops from them at all. So I'd say make the Danger Room for XP only.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I think this once again raises the question of risk and reward. If your "danger room" is supposed to be a way of running the hero through his or her paces, figuring some things out, etc with no threat of death, then smaller rewards are definitely in order, I think. If, on the other hand, you CAN'T control which types of badguys spawn in the sim, how many bosses, which type, etc and there is the real threat of getting defeated (and having that defeat cost you something) then larger rewards would be in order, I think.
For example, if the danger room is set up such that defeats in the danger room simply respawn you in the danger room with no debt or loss of anything, and if you can tailor the amount and type of mobs you face to your own specifications, then you're taking no risks and really not pushing yourself in any meaningful way, and as such I'd be fine with no XP, no swag, no Inf, no nothing. and really, even if you CAN get defeated, being able to select the badguys pretty much allows you to tilt the playing field in your favor to the extent that no XP or swag or Inf gain rate that's anywhere near what you'd get in the "real world" should be given, I feel.
If, on the other hand, you're set up such that a defeat means real defeat and the need to respawn in the hospital, debt, etc. and you do not get to pick which badguys you'll be facing and how many, etc, then maybe you're stretching your limits a little and deserve better rewards. I think this could be a thing that depends on what you're doing case by case.
If the danger room supports both a "safe mode" and an "unsafe mode", then clearly one necessity in "unsafe mode" is the unknown nature of the baddies, and as such maybe unsafe mode needs to be something you unlock after doing a lot of defeats and missions, etc and getting the necessary badges (or gladiators, or whatever) to unlock like ALL of the badguy types it has access to, so that "random" really does mean "random" not just "randomly chosen from among the 3 or 4 different mob types you have unlocked so far".
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Quick mention for my idea on "curbing farming" and the Mission Creator:
Farming and PLing are prohibition issues, simply regulate the farming and PLing and it'll all be fine.
For the AE, let's simply be honest and allow one to mark his created arc as "Farm Friendly", and separate that from more narrative-driven arcs. Maybe alter the creator's rewards and whatnot. Point being, make it clear what is farming and what is not..
Analogy: sites with NSFW content and "normal" content. Simply separate the NSFW section from the bulk of the website so each are avoidable from the other. NSFW-seekers get the content they're looking for, and others get the otherwise content.
Farmers get their PLing fix, and others get to experience the creativity of narrative-driven arcs. (Not to say "farm friendly" arcs can't be creative ;) )
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Here's a thought.
*IF* there's going to be any sort of "rewarding" going on for doing any kind of Danger Room/Architect Entertainment content, one way to "balance" it would be based on the diversity of content that can be present within it.
The stereotypical "I wanna farm" method relied on large quantities of identical (or nearly identical) opposition that was entirely predictable. Puppy Farms for instance (yes, we called it that back in the day for that mission). These strategies/tactics worked because what you'd be up against was an entirely KNOWN quantity with practically no real meaningful variation.
Twist that around and you can create a situation in which Players are given the opportunity to choose their opponent(s) ... for performance testing reasons (among others) ... but the more restrictive your choices get the less reward you "get" for doing that content. Needless to say, it would then be easy to put a minimum floor on the diversity of what you're setting up to do before any kinds of "rewards" are made available for doing that content, introducing a "you must be this Diverse to ride this ride" sort of dynamic. Extend that out such that having No Restrictions is the only way to get [i]almost but not quite[/i] the same rewards you'd receive out in Live Play and you're getting somewhere.
So, just for the sake of argument, let's say that the Rewards Ratio could be anywhere from 0% to 80% of what you'd get "out in the wild" of the game ... so that it's always "better" to Leave The Danger Room than it is stay in there and never go anywhere else (ie. AE Babies). You'd then be able use the Danger Room to "test" your build against a variety of opponents to try and find where the weaknesses in it were if the weak points were more a matter of Dynamics (positioning, attack chain animation flow, etc.) that were difficult to model otherwise and couldn't compute all that well using a spreadsheet analysis.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I agree with Red in principle that at BEST the danger room rewards ought to still pale in comparison to the "real world" rewards. I don't personally think it needs to be all that configurable in terms of the sliding scale Red proposes, at least not for my sake. I would be fine with just the two options on the extremes, "safe" and "unsafe". Safe Mode ought to be "no rewards, no penalties for death" whereas Unsafe Mode should be "normal penalties for death, some rewards, but at a reduced rate as compared to regular play in missions, street sweeping, etc.". That's my take, but your mileage may vary. FYI I'm still not sure I like having ANY swag drops or influence at all. It's enough of a stretch, for me, to pretend that defeating actual bad guys in missions would make you money, but just working out in what amounts to your "super gym" doesn't seem like it should have ANY inf or swag, to me. If anything it should cost you some resources (or your SG) to keep stuff like this working.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Fair point, and one I substantially support.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Scalable XP based on hazard (safe mode or full lethal with appropriate lvl/mob variations) is fine by me. There should never be swag, though. That was one thing I never understood about AE. If its a simulation, no mater how real or lethal, how did it get loot? Unless its programmer wants to supply the loot for it to drop, which is another matter.
No loot will prevent farming in that regard. Grinding xp is fine, but doing it in the Danger Room will never make you wealthy.
They also serve, who only stand and wait.
If I understand correctly you are saying that we should implement a system where the "Danger Room" gives little to no actual reward for running it unless it is substantially more difficult than running normal missions. The "puppy" farm I recall was a normal mission which was a map of a couple city blocks full of Werewolves. If we are thinking of the same mission, it was pretty much one type of baddie repeated throughout the entire mission. If you were to do that in the "danger room" it would reward as little as 0-10% simply because it was player written. How would that be balanced?
How much work and effort would be wasted if such a system was designed by the Devs when virtually nobody would use it. If I make a mission that has a wide variety of damage types, and gives a good challenge, you feel that only giving a percentage of normal rates of xp, and no influence or drops. Would you run player created content with only a small percentage of what you could earn in "live" play? I'm betting the answer is no. Why would a player want to run missions with a risk of death penalty with limited rewards.
I like Static's idea of making this type of content with only XP. If someone actually runs all "Danger Room" missions for 30 levels they then still need to work to get "Inf" to slot anything in enhancements slots. They would not get drops either. This would require them to either run some regular content off and on to get Inf and drops or use a "Bank" alt to finance enhancements. Either way a fair restriction for running player created content IMO.
One thing to keep in mind is that no matter how many ways you try to limit other ways of playing the game, someone will figure out how to squeeze a bit more out of their toon or the missions they run. It will happen simply because somebody feels the need to figure out a way to do it.
Why do you feel that rewarding one playstyle better than another is a goal to be achieved?
People have mentioned the need for being able to test their builds using very specific, standardized, reliable metrics so as to be able to make apples-to-apples comparisons using hard numbers. This is pretty much the main reason for having a danger room , I think. I wouldn't want it to be the preferred XP gainer or swag generator for anyone, because that's not the intention nor is it in keeping with the flavor of what the danger room is. Real experience is the best teacher anyway, so you eventually have to take the training wheels off and do it for real, but having a somewhat more controllable environment to use to measure your effectiveness after slotting a particular IO or whatever isn't a bad thing either.
The danger room is a thing that I feel not all people will care about and many SGs probably won't bother to place, but for those who want it, it would be there. I also like the idea that it gives you a reason to go do some real world missions or whatever to unlock certain maps, mobs, environment objects, etc. Ultimately it would be cool if you could program it to give you an accurate simulation of, say, the Hamidon just to be able to test things out without having to build a raid party. I would say that you might need to defeat the Hami a few times before unlocking that particular function, for instance, but it sounds like a neat little thing to have access to.
I personally wouldn't use this terribly often, but I would pay my SG dues to ensure I had the access to it and I Would definitly do raids and missions and TFs to unlock stuff for it, being a bit of a complete-ist.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
The Danger Room, in my opinion, should be aimed as a way to test a build after levelling up and choosing a new power, adding a slot (and adding an Enh to that slot) - (insert relevant Cot terms where applicable).
So I get to level 12 and select a new power.
Is it good? Does it fit my playstyle? Do I like it? No idea so off to the DR and run a few mini-maps. No XP, No Inf. No Drops.
If I find that my choice was poor I get to undo my selection (Power, Slot (plus any Enh in that slot)) and chose again.
If I do like I then I exit the DR and get back to doing my thing.
You should have something like 24 Game hours (not real hours) to enter the DR before it is locked as you have played enough to find out of you like the power. You could pay ingame $ to extend this time as a money-sink.
NOTE: this is not a respect. If Cot allows single power/slot respecs (I hope they do) this Mini-Respec would apply to any power slot, but the DR is only for the LAST level-up choice I made. If I level up twice within the 24 hrs (DBL-XP weekend!!!!) then if I go to the DR only my last choice can be redone. If I want to redo my first level-up of the day I need to use a Respec.
/MyOpinion
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
I still stand by my above comment that the Danger Room should grant XP but no other drops. It is a simulation. How did the X-men train to fight the Sentinels? In the Danger Room. Just like running a simulated field test for Police training or Army training, it provides you with experience so that when you go up against a real battle you know how to act and react. You go to a firing range to shoot guns so you can get better at aiming and shooting guns. You get experience. I see no reason why the Danger Room should not give a player XP if they go into it and use it. I can see it not giving out money or recipe/enhancement drops.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
+1
Just dont punish me (the player) for not realizing that a power i picked didnt Actually do what i Expected. :P
And just like being Sold a Lemon, now I have to drive it. (no test drive?) :<
I'd propose there is NO point where you should not be able to get another level in the game that should take twenty four hours of playing. Five to six hours might be pushing it.
Plus, what would the point of having a second limit on "how long you can repick" if you're already limited to repicking the last power?
Too short a line seems like it'd mean nothing to people who rush out and immediately start working towards the next level but potentially punish people who go out and do something other than roleplay.
Make it as long as twenty four hours and.. is it even possible to play against anything that gives exp for 24 hours and not level up?
On another note from the post, if you level twice, you should still have the option to train up one level, get that power, and train up another level after you test it.
Then again, your idea seems to assume you get a power every level. We didn't in City of Heroes. At later levels, it was only a power once every three levels - and by the time you got to fifty, you had gotten plenty of powers for most playstyles.
Is it just a way to encourage people to pay money for the service?
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
This is now becoming a discussion about the respec process, or the effective circumvention of it in a way that get's you something like a respec, but without it being called that. Personally, I think such respecs and respec-like operations that end up being possible ought to cost you something. Whether its Inf, or Stars or real money, etc. I'm not a fan of free respeccing, even in the limited or partial sense where you can only affect changes to a single power, or only for a short time, etc. I feel like this is a place where the subscriber might have the Stars or inf or whatever to do this kind of thing just using the monthly allotment of stuff the sub gets you, to some extent. Maybe not the ability to respec or partially respec 8 toons a day or whatever, but something reasonable. Whereas the non-sub would need to grind for the Inf to cover it or buy it from the cash shop or something.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Radiac let me ask you this.
If a Power Reads "Stuns for 3 Seconds and has a 15 second cool down." Yet what actually happens is it stuns for Up to 3 seconds and on a level 1 it is 3 but at level 45 when you get it the effectiveness is only 1 second. To top it off the 15 second cool down starts when the power finishes stunning because it's channeled and at short range. Now you find this amazing sounding power is meh.
Do you feel that a person who picks up a power like that which sounds viable and ends up being less so for some hidden or misunderstood mechanic should be required to shell out real $ even if they just picked up the power 10 minutes ago? That is effectively punishing someone for not going to read a wiki and min/maxing based on cookie cutter builds. If I screwed up by taking a "useless" in my eyes power and was stuck with it unless I spent real cash. I'd either, delete and re-roll my 1 and only toon I play, or just quit if it was t much of a hassle. I can remember only a few games like that I've ever played. I don't play any of them anymore.
Make me do a mission, spend in game resources, ect sure. WoW had a scaling gold cost and back in the day before I could do things like casually buy a 120k gold mount it mattered. I remember when I could actually dual spec. I could actually do something other then heal when not raiding! For a single character person like me your idea terrifies me. I'm not just going to level 3-30 alts and test every possible power before I play my main. I'm going to delve in and start being evil saving innocents while enslaving them to serve me and then provide health benefits to my minions and followers.
The line between knowing and understanding is often blurred.
Cute Kitsune the Anti Villain of Phoenix Rising.
I have more fervor then empathy, I still like you.~Me to a friend
It applies here too, I'm passionate not hostile.
In response to Cute Kitsune:
First, I said they should cost "something", I did not say "should always cost money". Inf costs are costs too. So in this I think we agree, to some extent.
Second, in the situation you describe the real problem there is that the power has a description that is either incorrect or inadequate to the point that it's very misleading. In my opinion, the required solution to that problem would be to write a GOOD description for the power in the first place, in the game, and edit those descriptions as needed when rules and power tweaks are rolled out. You might even put in a link to the wiki in the power selection screen, allow people to rate the power with a five star rating system, write comments about it, etc. The fact that CoX did a really poor job of keeping the power descriptions current and accurate was a problem CoX had, but just giving everyone free respecs should not be the solution to that problem, I don't think.
Third, I can't understand how you would try to defend the position of the willfully ignorant player in your example. The attitude being expressed there is basically something like "I want my build to be efficient, but I don't want to have to learn anything about the game to be able to make that decision." I think, assuming the power descriptions are not outright incorrect, and assuming further info exists somewhere, anyone who would split hairs to the point of wanting their build to be that tight would educate themself on the subject before getting into that position in the first place, or should be expected to. Anyone who doesn't care and just picks powers based on first impressions or the 5-word description can't seriously expect to arrive at the best build without having done a little more digging than that.
I mean when faced with a power pick at a level up, I don't think any of us wants to have to read 10 pages of stat breakdowns on every power they might take in their build right then and there. Thus you can't expect the game to describe all the powers to that level of detail on the surface, so you're going to have to do a little digging to get that info if you want it, whether it's in the game somewhere else or outside it on a wiki. If you don't want to do that research, the powers you end up taking are still your responsibility, and when you end up with a power you've decided you don't like after the fact, I think the repec you want is then something you ought to be expected to pay something for (Influence, stars, money, do a certain trial/mission/raid etc). This isn't punishing anyone, to me, it's making people pay (something) for a "do over". I'm fine with that. And I would re-iterate that the power descriptions themselves need to not be misleading no matter what the respec system is. Misleading descriptions are punishing, respecs that cost something are just good design, that's how I see it.
In a more broad scope, while it may be true that we the players want to be able to change everything about our toons, all the time, with minimum hassle and cost to ourselves, the way to design an engaging and fun game, in my opinion, is not to just hand the players the things that they want up front like that. If you make a more restrictive, rigid base rules set, you open up the possibilities for there to be things that act as shortcuts or "exceptions" to those rules that people will want, and then you have something you can either give out as a reward for doing content, or sell in the cash shop, or act as a thing that causes people to play for Inf so they can get it off the market, etc. In short, you give people a reason to play the game more by using that stuff as a carrot.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Radiac please note I did say I was ok with an in game cost, gold/inf, quest line ect. Hell I did the druid faster flying quest line back when you had to do it for a faster flight form. (Stupid chain worth it but barely) I agree that powers SHOULD be kept up to date with their description.
This being an MMO, even if MWM has someone who updates the text of each power and each power has their own person on duty 24/7 to fix the text. The power I picked up 10 days into game launch will, at some point, get changed. When that happens I will have to put forth the effort to fix it unless they let me do it for free. Then I have to go by A> The patch notes which might be lacking B> The power description which might not have been updated enough/at all C> any friends that got the power and logged in before me saying "Avoid this power all yee enter this server" D> public in game chat with people bltching about the most recent nurf and whats to OP.
The next question I have for you Radiac. My ability to respec often, free or at a cost, between every mission or never at all. How does this impact your play? How is my ability to "fix" my character by the way I define as fix for my fun means so much to you that you feel I should have to pay for it or be disallowed entirely?
I will respond to the question I asked you as if you had asked me. If you can change your powers between every mission just before you step in then a skill I was relying on you having 2 minutes ago last mission might have been changed and you didn't say anything. However, if you have to run to your lair, access your data mcguffin, and change it for free then at least I have a chance to be like, why'd you go there? O wait no keep that power you need it trust me here is why. Now if you's just paid to respec and out success as an under powered team in a high risk area depended on that power. You'd now have to pay again. Yet what if you hated that power, if it were free you'd swap back, use it for one last mission, then put it away and just use it as needed.
Respecing and Immersion. Captain Atom respecing sounds weird. Batman respecing sounds spot on. Bat plane or bat sub (travel power respec) different utility belt (Poison to Radiation) ect. Jimmy Olssn must have kept respecing like every hour or something. Rogue respecs every time she joins a new party. A danger room as part of the leveling process might actually be a good idea. You can test out the new power any way you like with GOD MODE enabled. How does it work if I have 300 enemies around me and it's a point blank AoE. What does it do to a Boss type? This could be part of the leveling process.
The line between knowing and understanding is often blurred.
Cute Kitsune the Anti Villain of Phoenix Rising.
I have more fervor then empathy, I still like you.~Me to a friend
It applies here too, I'm passionate not hostile.
Cox had rules tweaks to powers and when they did, they issued developer-given respecs to make up for the inconvenience. I'd expect MWM to handle this sort of thing in a similar fashion, though I don't think those need to be cumulative, nor should a toon just made today come with a bunch of freespecs as account vet rewards like CoX had. If the toon was just made today, that toon doesn't need a respec yet. Maybe after the NEXT patch it will, but getting like 10 built-in freespecs as vet rewards at level 1 was not necessary in CoX and probably devalued the respec to the point that vets like me didn't ever need to get one the old fashioned way for most of our toons.
So if any kind of "free" respec exists, I think it ought to be given by the devs in response to rules overhauls.
As to the problem of getting accurate information on powers, I think if you care that much about it and want to avoid taking powers you personally would think are less than optimal, then you and you alone have to sift through whatever information is out there, and it WILL exist in multiple places you'd have to check. If you don't like having to do all that research, then don't do it. There often won't be ONE answer that satisfies everyone, but rather a multitude of different options, all of which might appeal to different people, so YOU are going to have to eventually make a decision that YOU are comfortable with, however you want to handle that, your business.
As for how often people ought to be respeccing their toons in general, I raised that question in another thread with the question of whether or not PVPers would have a problem with it, the idea being that if I had unlimited free respeciing and could do it fairly quickly I might not agree to PVP someone until after finding out what their build was so I could counter it as best as possible, but then they'd want to do the same to me, etc and it then turns into fight that never happens because as soon as I pick up my sword, you take your shield, then I take my axe to break your shield, then you take your dagger so you can stab me before I get the axe over my head, so I counter THAT with..... ad infinitum.
Also, I'd prefer not to live in a virtual world where we're all constantly respeccing our toons before and after every mission or TF or trial. I'd just as soon not have to do than many respecs that often. It prefer a respec that is a fairly momentous thing that takes a while and that we all try to make a build that will work in many different situations when we respec a toon. If your preferred play style is to log on, respec your toon, then do a mission, then respec again to do a TF, then respec again like twice during that TF to be able to defeat the bosses, then respec again to go do some street sweeping, etc you're entitled to that opinion, but I would vote against that being the normal play behavior of people in the game in general, if I get a vote. That play style, if it becomes the basic thing everyone does when they play CoT, is not for me. It would detract from MY fun to have to do that much respeccing that often to satisfy the social pressures placed on me to do that by the other gamers at large, e.g. "You can get no this TF, but you have to respec and take this, this and this, or we'll kick you.".
As far as immersion goes, I don't find the occasional respec to be a problem there, but the constant, repetitive near-overhaul respec might be, I guess. Personally, I wouldn;t allow people to respec out of their secondary set for this reason, but there are other opinions on that. Many powers within a power set are variations on a theme or different techniques that one might employ given a fairly well-defined "power" anyway. Captain Atom could absorb and shoot blasts of energy. How he can aim or manipulate, or generate, or direct that energy might be different in different cases. If I just respecced out of the sniper shot into the cone power, maybe he's been practicing witht he broader area effects lately and ignoring the long-ranged stuff to the point where he's not really good at it anymore. Whatever. Maybe his powers, by themselves, don;t allow him to fly, but his government contacts gave him a jetpack,etc. I'm ok with it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
The current plan for Respecification is to allow for a change powers within a primary or secondary set, change the primary power set within a Classification, chance the Secondary Power Set entirely to chance Specifications within a Classification, and of course tertiary and other powers.
When we circle back around to Respecifying characters, I'll be sure to bring up a mention of a Reconstuction - a single power swap within a primary, secondary, or tertiary power, or other power.
Access to the ability to do this will come with some cost, either cash shop, in-game currency, content play through - its all on the table. One thing will be of certainy, anything that is available in the cash shop will in some way be attainable through game play.
With regards to a danger room, we do want to provide a place to get a good idea of what a power looks like when being used, particularly with all the customization that will be allowed, players may want to not only see what a power looks like animating from their character, but also animating on a target. We have not planned to allow this area to be a completely customizable interactive game environement with various spawn types utilizing tactics and various maps which will result in reward. We have something for this already - player created content. It may be possible to set up this type of content to be used as a 'danger room' scenario.
Having a seperate type of player created content soley for 'testing of powers but also provides some form of xp' is rather like spliting hairs here. Keep our power testing station as it is, a place to see how a power animates, get an idea how to use it (seeing the difference between click activation and toggle, target location and activate on target, live dummy or 'corpse dummy' and so on, how it works as damage, control and well you get the idea) - this is one of the very few things CO did well (IMOP). The actual experience with using a power should come with actual play, that is in the game world itself - whether that is content the devs provide or players - recall the player created content is meant to appear seemless with the game world.
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What Tannim222 has described here sounds really good to me.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
So lemme get this straight:
Respec = Change in powers within Classes or Specs, change in power set of Class, and/or change of Speicification?
I'd almost suggest two "respecs"
Respecification: Change of powers within the sets of your Primary and Secondary, and total change of teriaries.
Reconstruction: Respec + change in set of Class and/or change of Spec.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
There would be no change of Classification.
The current plan is for Respecification; the change of a Primary power set within a Classification (Stalwart from Cold Armor to Burning Armor), change of Specification within a class (this includes the Secondary Set), all Tertiary Sets, and other powers.
From the discussions in this thread I will bring up the possibility of including a second type of character rebuilding tool -
Reconstruction; change of any power within a primary, secondary, tertiary, or any other minor power.
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Idk, seems pedantic, but "respecification" sounds like a smaller change than "reconstruction", which sounds like a massive overhaul. :p
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Noted. Respecification been the termed used because it allows for a chnge to Specification.
I chose Reconstruction because it doesnt conflict with any other internal terminology, totally subject to change.
it hold also go without saying but ill say it anyway, that we will hve to evaluate the ability to swap out a ingl power in a sane way hat woks wthin what power tiers are availble a given level of the power chosen o a to not result in a domino effect on power selections. There will be other things o consider so don't take the Recon concept as a given yet.
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Holy fast type, Batman! ;)
I didn't even make the connection between Spec and Re[u]Spec[/u], that makes sense then. Suggestion: Reconfigure for changing powers.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
ReBuild? ;D
I'm suggesting something for changing specifications and sets that sounds less than ReSpecification, since that's a logical name for changing a new Spec.
Rebuild, Revamp, ReConstruct, Renew, all sound like huge undertakings, whereas "respec" sounds rather minor.
ReSel, ReSelect, RePower, other suggestions
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Is there any plans at all to allow a level capped character to start with a new class and revert to level 1? I'm going to assume a ReOrigin or RetCon is not in the cards. Still worth asking, cause it is something that will be, then sweet. I;m sure most people would tell me to make a new character.
A Resurrection man concept doesn't scale well for MMOs but I could so see a PvP arena known as the Chaos Coliseum where combatants have their entire power sets randomized from within their class. You have 90 seconds to figure out what powers you have before the FFA match with 24 people. Did I mention the floor slowly falls out as the battle progresses?
The line between knowing and understanding is often blurred.
Cute Kitsune the Anti Villain of Phoenix Rising.
I have more fervor then empathy, I still like you.~Me to a friend
It applies here too, I'm passionate not hostile.
No, reclassification is not going to be in the game. Who knows what the future may hold, but it's off the table for now.
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[b]Hot Swap[/b]. That's what I'd call it. Like swapping a failed hard drive out of a disk array for a new one, the idea here is to swap one power out of a character's build for another without disrupting the overall build too much. Seems fitting.
I guess [b]Power Swap[/b] might be more appropriate, but what can I say, my inner geek spoke to me first. :)
Far more easily said than done, unfortunately. While it is a sound principle to work from, the practical implementations from it, especially if considered from a standpoint of "you must assume an adversary who is actively looking for any flaw to exploit," means that it effectively becomes similar to a security question. And those pretty much always boil down to tradeoffs between security and convenience: at what point does the cost of security, in terms of convenience (and thus enjoyment of the majority of the population) exceed the cost to that same population in terms of a lack of fairness reducing enjoyment.
As a sidenote, there is a critical word choice in the above statement, one that CoH frankly screwed up multiple times. I don't know *who* there did, but as a business entity, their approach to handling it cost them non-trivial amounts of both goodwill and, so far as I've ever seen indication of, actual business -- multiple times. The word is 'adversary,' as opposed to 'enemy,' and the difference is that an adversary is someone on "the other side" who is not necessarily "evil" or "bad" in any way (certainly not in any *intentional* way), but whom you have to oppose because of the nature of what is involved. They might well even be someone you have *asked* to do that, so that you can find problems in the system. "Opponent" would be similar but can sometimes imply more of a "just a game" connotation.
Frankly, the most brilliant response they ever had to an AE exploit was the Rikti picketers. It put folks on notice that they were well aware that there was an exploit being used, and what it was, without having to come down in the forums like a ton of anvils and say "stop doing that" when people weren't going to stop doing it anyway.
Personally, I'm campaigning for adopting the solution that at least one other game has opted for, that has apparently not just resolved a lot of the problems with user-generated content, but has in fact turned some of their "worst abusers" (i.e. folks who used this the most) into some of their best customers, while removing the abuse factor. It happened because they managed to ask the right question:
"Why is it a problem if someone wants to play the same UGC over and over, if that is what they are enjoying about the system?"
This isn't a rhetorical question, there *is* a reason (in many systems, certainly there was in AE) that it is a problem, but "they should be playing real content" is not it. That assumption is based around "the devs obviously built better content so anyone spending their time only in AE is clearly abusing something," and to be frank, that's a silly assumption, given some of the folks who were known to have written AE arcs. Which is why most of the solutions proposed so far would either not actually curb abuse, or would result in almost nobody bothering to use AE (farmers would just go farm their favorite 100% mission, which is precisely what they did before AE and after AE).
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All of that sounds reasonable. But what does it have to do with my simple suggestion :p
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Avatar by MikeNovember
I think the "just change one power" thing ought to still cost something, in case anyone was assuming that would be free. I mean, if you charge people for a box of crackers, but then you have those same crackers available as "free samples" at the deli counter, you have to somehow track how many free samples each customer has gotten to avoid the problem of somebody getting like a whole box of crackers, one at a time, in the form of free samples. I could see the "one power or one slot" respec being similar. You make a toon, and since the limited one-of respec option is free, you just do a bazillion of those instead of paying for a real respec. Some people claim the limited, one-of respec was the most popular or the only thing people really did all that much, so making it cost something is absolutely necessary, I feel. Otherwise you're pricing the full-blown respec out of the market.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I would just like to note that I am a huge fan of identifying "the right question," such as this one, and attempting to solve those problems rather than treating symptoms.
Treating symptoms very often just exacerbates existing and creates new problems, because the symptom is NOT the problem and the "solution" to the symptom just distorts things further. You have to understand both your goals and those of your players to properly identify where one is clashing with the other...and then adjust things so they complement instead.
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In the ancient Greek myth of Theseus, before he defeats the Minotaur, our hero is on a journey and on this journey he runs afoul of an ogre with a brass club. Theseus defeats the ogre by relieving him of his weapon and proceeding to beat him to death with it. Then he looks for a place to sleep that night and meets Procrustes, the innkeeper, who informs him that in order to sleep in the bed, Theseus will be measured and if he is shorter than the bed is long, he will be stretched on the rack until he's the right height, or if he is taller, his legs will be sawn off to make him fit. Theseus tricks the innkeepr into getting in the bed himself, and noticing that the innkeepers feet were hanging off the end, cuts his feet off at the ankle. Theseus then proceeds to vanquish the minotaur in a similar fashion.
The repeated theme in that work is the hero using the adversary's greatest weapon or strength against him, and defeating him with it. It is there to evoke a sense of the tradition of Greek ingenuity conquering all in the Greeks hearing it.
With that in mind, and having read Segev's latest post on this thread, I now think MWM should do this:
Have a mission architect system that caters to power levelers and gold farmers in a big way with missions and so forth that drop better swag, and more of it, award better XP, etc, but charge REAL MONEY for it in the form of microsubs, pay-per-play missions (timed), etc. This way, since I am neither a PLer nor a farmer, those people would be subsidizing the game I love for me.
Also, I want there to be a minotaur at the end, `cuz those are cool. :)
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Treating the symptoms works, and often works well, when the base issue will be resolved if given enough time, such as most cases of diarrhoea, treated with re-hydration and other symptom-directed measures.
But in game design and the culture of that game's players, that won't happen. Asking the right questions and taking action with them in mind is critical to doing things right.
What I would want is:
1. Training dummies, so combat powers could be tested.
2. Specific training dummies, that could mimic certain opponents.
3. Danger room, to practice better.
4. UGC system, so players can express themselves and make cool stuff for the game too.
Definitely should have XP for the UGC system. The others, if they give real threats and chance of defeat, should give XP too. Others drops, maybe.
As others have pointed out, farmers will farmer (just like Hetzers' gotta hetz :)) and will find the best field for their purposes. Here, the appropriate question might be "Why does farming in this UGC arc give more XP than a regular arc?"