His idea has merit. Why can't there be a rating that people can place on a power after having that power for X time or X uses. An in game feed back that would reflect people's views. Then when a power changes they can lock the old rating and reset the UI for the players to repick the stars under the new power design. This seems like a very easy way for Devs to see what power is universally liked or hated and why. Might even double and a bug reporting system by accident as someone days works great on X and Y but Z is immune to it so don't take. Then a dev goes ... that's not supposed to be immune ... hotfix, lock in old rating let people try it and pick news stars and give new feedback.

Could also be a patch log for the power so people can see in their powers what changed and when. I love this idea.

Could you pull in the data instead of opening my browser please.

Realy? I'd much rather prefer it would open in an external browser. I tend to always have one open, and set up on my second monitor.

JayBezz wrote:

I love the idea that players can tell other players how the ability could be used. This will also tell devs about un-anticipated behaviors.
BUT I don't think devs should take this data and nerf/buff based on player experience. From my experience even in the completely ungovernable Champions Online there are abilities that the players thought they understood that were being used for goals that were not understood.
For example, powers that seemed useless often had dev intended behaviors .. like "Celestial Cleansing" as an example. In such a Wiki it would be rated low and rarely used.. but it was one of the few ways to cancel travel powers outside of the traditional sense. This was dev intended behavior and players simply didn't want to use it (mostly because the rest of the ability was glitched as most of that game is).
In Marvel Heroes, Cyclops was a great debuffer of enemies. It was the reason i purchased the character. Players complained about debuffing and it was systematically removed from the game. I bought a debuffer and am now left with a DPS/Tank. Every character is now a DPS/Tank. And what's more.. the players REALLY LOVE IT. I am simply out-voted.. and my money is gone and I do not have what I paid for.
The thing is players often assume that they know better than the devs, and without well documented intent and consistency that intent can easily be lost for player intent. THIS is the reason debuffing and crowd control are nerfed to oblivion in almost every game I play. When devs leave and systems are altered from their original design the entire ecosystem of combat design goes haywire. It has happened in game after game.. players have shown that they prefer DPS races and tank/spank. If it were a purely democratic system the vocal majority would over-rule the will of the minority. This is great capitalism but horrible in gaming.
I point to these articles all the time about how game systems (be it chess, football, or a combat MMO) work and are delicate ecosystems: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/76328 and http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/76412 Everything the original systems designer warned against was eventually ignored and everything he said would happen has happened.

Well, in CoH/V, for me at least... after playing for a few years, I had to find "A Game Within A Game" to stay interesting. One of those was finding the Fastest AT to level up, the Best AT to do TF's, Best AT for this... and that, etc...
So, i'm not That surprised at what Most people look for. ;)

I think no matter what the power, a player has to understand the need and feel it is a valuable investment for their character. This is extremely difficult when a game boils down to a DPS vs. HP race. RP games have to make some things off limits to players who do not have certain abilities or levels. This can be frustrating, but to bring the realism of that to light makes players inclined to try different builds. Everyone wants that exclusive build, but most don't really want to work for it. Grieffers enter here.

Another issue is that support powers are generally weak for solo play, as we all know, so you are forced to team, which is great, but can leave you with an overall sense of a weak character. This is where MWM has their work cut out for them. The devs have stated that their will be multiple paths to victory, which is going to be the key if they don't want to nerf support powers into oblivion, as was previously stated.

So having a rating system for players would be good, with the understanding that every primary power will have tangible in-game value.

Information can be both good and bad, Dev's and Players alike. Ultimately, players having the information suggested would most likely be irrelevant. To give an example which probably dates me horribly, when I was in the Air Force, they used to let Rookie fighter pilots in the most sophisticated and tech heavy jets fight instructors in the most antiquated planes. The instructors always won.
It's not the information, or the tools used, its the user that determines success. If 90% of people say "Don't do that build!" what does that mean to you, nothing really because those 90% of people don't know You and what you like to do, what you can do, with what is presented to you.
The Dev's having that information is a no-brainer, they would be crazy to not implement statistical feedback from play. I would rather have players be encouraged to play something, then find out its not for them, than turned away from something that could have been fantastically awesome in their hands had they not listened to naysayers.

Radiac wrote:

Assuming there will be a wiki, and forum posts, and patch notes, etc I think every little bit helps. The star rating system is not the end of the argument for anyone, I don't think, and we all know some trolls are going to down-rate good powers and up-rate bad ones just because they think they're funny. And while it's true certain powers may not get a great community rating, there are still people like me out there who look at that and say "So the people think this power 'sucks' eh? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!" and go and try to make a build that leverages it well. Also, I don't think you should be allowed to rate a power unless you've actually used it.

The more rules and considerations it takes to implement something and keep it in check the less likely to be implemented. I'm not saying no, because we have to discuss it as a team, but my personal stance is that providing an optional link to view a wiki source for additional information on a power - and honestly the wiki may not end up having much more than what's available within the game options (like viewing hard numbers and the sort) is acceptable.

Going beyond that and providing an adequate system for ratings by power, who is and ins't allowed to rate a power, what that rating actually conveys, and so on is taking things too far and bound to not be worth the development effort in allocating resources.

I think that there is a simple method for handling this, though I don't know how simple in coding it will be. I think that you could just handle it like facebook, like or not. No dislike option, but keep the statistics for active characters who took the power. This would just end up with a very simple bar chart with some colored section overlapping another colored section to show the percentage of people who liked a power. A comment or suggestion option could be present so people can state to the devs only, why they chose to like the power. Though this does complicate everything.

Hm... Ya know Izzy, I think that's fantastic point! I think it's also a perfectly related point, since we're talking about people rating powers, which is a function of mechanics. I really don't want this game to be a collection of tasks.

I agree completely. I do remember loving the mechanics of CoH, but more than that I really loved the story elements that were there, it wasn't ALL perfect and fantastic, but on occasion it truly drew me in and let me forget I was playing a game. This is why I loved Roleplaying in it. Going Rogue is a good instance of a lot of good stories that felt immersive.

I didn't care what I was playing 90% of the time, just that I was saving the world from those "Resistance Scum" or from the tyranny of Marcus Cole. That said, I hope they avoid mechanics during the actual game play that jar you our of the experience with something totally inorganic to the experience. I think Egoraptor made a video that perfectly explains how this was accomplished in some megaman games then thrown out the window in others. Not sure how to relate them personally.

dawnofcrow wrote:

why not? tank mages sound difficulty i want play it

The problem with tank mages is the fact that they are [i]too[/i] easy to play, to the point they break the game.

Just speaking for myself, I can't think of many things more useless to me than other people's opinions of powers. This is not because I don't respect their opinions, but because playstyles can vary so widely that what is a pointless power for one person can be a staple for another. Also, I prefer to discover the nuances of powers through trying them myself -- that discovery process is a key enjoyment point for me in any RPG. So it probably won't come as a surprise that I would prefer that MWM concentrate on elements essential to the game, especially give that all the rating stuff could be done by players on a separate website, as Darth Fez suggested at the start of the thread. (Though I have to say I would prefer to see facts on a CoT wiki rather than opinions.)

That's why Scrapperlock was such FUN !!! *^_^*