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Phararri wrote:
Phararri wrote:

You did not have to contribute to the "Trolling" if that is all you think we are doing.
This is the most active thread, because SoH and VO are the two that displayed recent intriguing "footage." Footage draws more conversation than no footage. If CoT displayed recent footage, their topic would be booming.

Was that really necessary? You're just being combative, which doesn't help anything. Certainly not reasonable discussion.

An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".

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Valiance update - https:/

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Man, I finally get back to

Man, I finally get back to work today from being sick and I miss out on all the action. Hmph.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Valiance update - https://valiance.shogn.net/blogs/general/27-development-continues

It's interesting they are allowing for what they are calling "Benefits" and "Detriments" in their character creation system. Sounds like a variation of taking "disadvantages" from the Hero System.

Assuming VO implements that as a set list of hardwired advantages and disadvantages you can select from you just know people will min/max that system to death by figuring out (and always using) the best Ad / least Dis-Ad combos. ;)

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https://valiance.shogn.net

https://valiance.shogn.net/blogs/general/27-development-continues

They lost their entire 3d art team...ouch. That would explain some of the long silences as they 'worked around' the issue. You can already lose people in a fully funded game or have some type of breakdown that interrupts the schedule so I can only imagine when you have a small budget or a bunch of volunteers how difficult making an MMO can be. It makes that more impressive that any of the projects are still around and putting out updates.

Reward tactics as well as damage dealing.

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Sounds a lot like the Banes
Lothic wrote:

It's interesting they are allowing for what they are calling "Benefits" and "Detriments" in their character creation system.
Assuming VO implements that as a set list of hardwired advantages and disadvantages you can select from you just know people will min/max that system to death by figuring out (and always using) the best Ad / least Dis-Ad combos. ;)

Sounds a lot like the Banes and Boons in Camelot Unchained.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Sounds a lot like the Banes and Boons in Camelot Unchained.

Speaking of that, I don't think there is currently a plan for CoT to have that type of thing, and I'd guess that due to aesthetic decoupling, we also can't have "fire protection is weak against ice and vice versa" or "energy is weak against negative energy" or "mental is strong vs most defense and smashing/lethal is highly resisted" dynamics like in CoH.

So that seems to indicate that the whole "weakness" dynamic that is an established part of the Superhero genre will be totally absent from CoT. That dynamic did keep the "Superhero weakness" feel and make building a bit more complex and fun, but I can see how it could be a pain to try to balance for Devs.

That's ok, I guess, just a little sad :\.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

Huckleberry wrote:
Sounds a lot like the Banes and Boons in Camelot Unchained.
Speaking of that, I don't think there is currently a plan for CoT to have that type of thing, and I'd guess that due to aesthetic decoupling, we also can't have "fire protection is weak against ice and vice versa" or "energy is weak against negative energy" or "mental is strong vs most defense and smashing/lethal is highly resisted" dynamics like in CoH.
So that seems to indicate that the whole "weakness" dynamic that is an established part of the Superhero genre will be totally absent from CoT. That dynamic did keep the "Superhero weakness" feel and make building a bit more complex and fun, but I can see how it could be a pain to try to balance for Devs.
That's ok, I guess, just a little sad :\.

Instead, any weaknesses will be designed within the protection set itself.


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So, it might be true that

So, it might be true that 'invulnerability' will have a weakness to 'mental', but that's a property of the 'invulnerability' set and not a property of 'mental' attacks, nor a weakness chosen by the player. Right?

That does sound a lot easier to deal with, and one could always, then, shore up the weakness with a different power/slotting choice.

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

Speaking of that, I don't think there is currently a plan for CoT to have that type of thing, and I'd guess that due to aesthetic decoupling, we also can't have "fire protection is weak against ice and vice versa" or "energy is weak against negative energy" or "mental is strong vs most defense and smashing/lethal is highly resisted" dynamics like in CoH.
So that seems to indicate that the whole "weakness" dynamic that is an established part of the Superhero genre will be totally absent from CoT. That dynamic did keep the "Superhero weakness" feel and make building a bit more complex and fun, but I can see how it could be a pain to try to balance for Devs.
That's ok, I guess, just a little sad :\.

I feel the same. I did like the rock-paper-scissors aspect of the various abilities' strengths and weaknesses.

I suppose even with aesthetic decoupling we could have it. I'm thinking this up as I go, so it may not be perfect; but with some better minds on it, it might work.
Here it is.

Let's say that there is an exhaustive list of balanced pairs of strengths and weaknesses. But we can't pick from the entire list. No, we would only be able to pick from those balanced pairs that are applicable to our power and aesthetic theme choices. Yes I used the word 'Theme' specifically, according to the glossary(post#16).

We could have this for all kinds of themes, like natural, mutant, mechanical, necromantic, arcane, ice, water, plant, storm, wind, psionic, willpower, alien, etc. So that when we get our Thematic Mechanics and pick our Aesthetic Theme, we also get this third theme to pick. We'll call it the Balance Theme, and the choices for this third theme are limited to the choices that would be applicable to either the mechanical theme or the aesthetic theme.

Now, lets say that we picked damage over time as our mechanical theme and FIRE as our aesthetic theme. We would get six balance theme choices to pick from, three associated with the DoT mechanics theme and three associated with fire aesthetics.

The DoT Mechanics Theme balanced pairs could be:

  1. you know where all the pressure points are in the human body, your damage over time attacks do more damage in human targets, but your damage over time attacks do less damage to non-human targets
  2. Your attacks are extremely bothersome to your opponents, resulting in a greater chance of interrupting their own attacks while the DoT is in effect; but the concentration it takes to do so makes your own attacks easier to interrupt
  3. you telegraph your DoT attacks making them easier to block, parry and evade; but once they hit, the target suffers penalties to block, parry and evade while the DoT is in effect

And the Fire Aesthetic Theme balanced pairs could be:

  1. Your are a fire-based creature, making you nearly impervious to fire-based attacks, but you take extra damage from water-based attacks
  2. You use fire as your offensive damage of choice, making your attacks do extra damage to plant based and ice-based targets, but dealing significantly less damage to earth, crystal and ceramic targets
  3. You emit a fiery aura, making water and ice-based heals less effective on you, but you gain extra healing from heat and fire based heals.

Of those six balanced pairs, you get to pick one. So there are six choices to get a balanced strength and weakness combination that fits your character idea and playstyle.

What do you think?


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Instead, any weaknesses will be designed within the protection set itself.

Hmmm. I'm not sure I exactly get this. Are you allowed and would you be willing to elaborate?

My main confusion is, if there is no innate "theme" to a set, such as elemental or energy/negative, how do the Devs pick what weakness a particular protective set has?

Is it just more like the innate advantages and disadvantages of Defense vs Damage Resistance vs Regen in CoH? If so that's not quite the same as a thematic weakness.

Huckleberry wrote:

What do you think?

I like the thinking. I wonder if the Devs would be willing to consider/tackle that.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Empyrean wrote:
Speaking of that, I don't think there is currently a plan for CoT to have that type of thing, and I'd guess that due to aesthetic decoupling, we also can't have "fire protection is weak against ice and vice versa" or "energy is weak against negative energy" or "mental is strong vs most defense and smashing/lethal is highly resisted" dynamics like in CoH.
So that seems to indicate that the whole "weakness" dynamic that is an established part of the Superhero genre will be totally absent from CoT. That dynamic did keep the "Superhero weakness" feel and make building a bit more complex and fun, but I can see how it could be a pain to try to balance for Devs.
That's ok, I guess, just a little sad :\.
I feel the same. I did like the rock-paper-scissors aspect of the various abilities' strengths and weaknesses.
I suppose even with aesthetic decoupling we could have it. I'm thinking this up as I go, so it may not be perfect; but with some better minds on it, it might work.
Here it is.
Let's say that there is an exhaustive list of balanced pairs of strengths and weaknesses. But we can't pick from the entire list. No, we would only be able to pick from those balanced pairs that are applicable to our power and aesthetic theme choices. Yes I used the word 'Theme' specifically, according to the glossary(post#16).
We could have this for all kinds of themes, like natural, mutant, mechanical, necromantic, arcane, ice, water, plant, storm, wind, psionic, willpower, alien, etc. So that when we get our Thematic Mechanics and pick our Aesthetic Theme, we also get this third theme to pick. We'll call it the Balance Theme, and the choices for this third theme are limited to the choices that would be applicable to either the mechanical theme or the aesthetic theme.
Now, lets say that we picked damage over time as our mechanical theme and FIRE as our aesthetic theme. We would get six balance theme choices to pick from, three associated with the DoT mechanics theme and three associated with fire aesthetics.
The DoT Mechanics Theme balanced pairs could be:you know where all the pressure points are in the human body, your damage over time attacks do more damage in human targets, but your damage over time attacks do less damage to non-human targetsYour attacks are extremely bothersome to your opponents, resulting in a greater chance of interrupting their own attacks while the DoT is in effect; but the concentration it takes to do so makes your own attacks easier to interruptyou telegraph your DoT attacks making them easier to block, parry and evade; but once they hit, the target suffers penalties to block, parry and evade while the DoT is in effectAnd the Fire Aesthetic Theme balanced pairs could be:Your are a fire-based creature, making you nearly impervious to fire-based attacks, but you take extra damage from water-based attacksYou use fire as your offensive damage of choice, making your attacks do extra damage to plant based and ice-based targets, but dealing significantly less damage to earth, crystal and ceramic targetsYou emit a fiery aura, making water and ice-based heals less effective on you, but you gain extra healing from heat and fire based heals.Of those six balanced pairs, you get to pick one. So there are six choices to get a balanced strength and weakness combination that fits your character idea and playstyle.
What do you think?

That would never fly with out system. Arsthetics do not drive game play mechanics. Mechanics and appearance don't affect the other.


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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

What do you think?

I think it's funny you cut out the one sentence of my last post where I compared this concept to the classic DisAd system of the Hero System (the game system that evolved from the Champions superhero RPG that was established in 1981) and instead found another less-superhero oriented example from a fanstasy-ish MMO that was only Kickstarted a couple of years ago. Go figure.

It reminds me of the Family Feud TV game show where the host asks survey questions that were previously posed to a group of 100 people and the answers are ranked by popularity of the survey's responses. My answer (using the benchmark example of Champions DisAds) would likely be the top number one answer to the question "Name an example of a quintessential DisAd game mechanic used by a classic superhero oriented RPG". Your answer (using a semi-obscure unlaunched fantasy RPG that apparently copied Champs like dozens of other games have in the past) would likely be somewhere towards the bottom of the list.

I'm not arguing yours is not a valid example - I'm just saying I probably would/could have listed half-a-dozen more relevant/famous RPG examples of this Ad/DisAd mechanic before I would have even guessed that Camelot Unchained(?) had also apparently copied this tried-n-true RPG staple from Champs. As Han Solo would've said:

Huckleberry wrote:

I'm thinking this up as I go, so it may not be perfect; but with some better minds on it, it might work.

Beyond quibbling about discarding my perfect example of a Ad/DisAd for an obscure imperfect one I ultimately believe the problem with your idea for shoehorning this kind of thing into CoT is the same problem I noted in my post about VO trying to use this - all of these things would be HARDWIRED into the system via preestablished strength/weakness combos.

The reason the original Ad/DisAd concept worked so well in Champions was that it was overseen and balanced by the human Game Master who could flexibly adapt to whatever the players tried to do and ensured their Ad/DisAd choices were unavoidably relevant to the game. In a computer-based MMO like CoT the only thing players will do with your strength/weakness combo pairs is figure out which pair provides the best overall strength/weakness ratio effect. They'll min/max that choice by choosing it regardless and the whole thing will degrade down to just another minor factor towards making the latest FoTM builds.

By being hardwired into the computer game it'll lose any meaning it might have had as an interesting focal point for role-playing.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

That would never fly with ou[r] system. A[e]sthetics do not drive game play mechanics. Mechanics and appearance don't affect [each] other.

Wait a second. In post #16 of the Glossary thread, you said the following:

Tannim222 wrote:

Themic layer is termed Thematic Mechanics, that is damage ove[r] time, target vector displacement, etc[.] [and] may include a damage type. Fire is not a damage type, it is an aesthetic.
Aesthetic Theme is the range of possible visual partical effects afforded to a power. Burning sets have stuff that looks like it "burns" such as fire, stinging winds, boiling liquid, or acid.
Emanation points, colors, and animations are also part of the aesthic options but may be more widely applicable or limited depending on certain factors. You can make a ranged attack using a boxing animation throwing a gust of wind, and there could be a melee attack using same animation and melee-ranged particle effects for a melee wind attack.

and in post #4 of the Regen thread, Doctor Tyche said:

Doctor Tyche wrote:

Ok, let's say you want a fire based healer. When you make your costume, you pick "Fire" as one of your themes (you get 2). When you pick powers, you then pick "Rapid Healing" as your power set, and then pick your starting power from one of the two options if its your primary, or just get the top option if your secondary. Then you pick the animation for that, if one is needed, from the pool available.

If I choose a fire aesthetic, will not by characters aesthetic be 'fire' for every other player who views me? Thus is it not a fact that my character's chosen aesthetic is a saved value in some database associated with my character? And if there is a database, or profile whatever you want to call it, associated with my character that includes my aesthetic choice, why then could there not also be another field in that same character profile for the pair of modifiers also known as my chosen pair of a strength and a weakness?

Granted, this would also require that every interactable target have an additional code associated with its properties (probably in the form of a bitmask) so that it can interact with these strengths and weaknesses.

So we will be able to pick an aesthetic theme for each character. And since our aesthetic theme is part of our character's profile, then it sure seems to me that another entry in our character profile could correspond to a pair of mechanical modifiers (a.k.a. a strength and a weakness) that we also choose at character creation, the choices of which we get to pick from are based upon the value in our profile for aesthetic theme.

What about this 'will not fly?'


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

I think it's funny you cut out the one sentence of my last post where I compared this concept to the classic DisAd system of the Hero System (the game system that evolved from the Champions superhero RPG that was established in 1981) and instead found another less-superhero oriented example from a fanstasy-ish MMO that was only Kickstarted a couple of years ago. Go figure.

I'm not arguing yours is not a valid example - I'm just saying I probably would/could have listed half-a-dozen more relevant/famous RPG examples of this Ad/DisAd mechanic before I would have even guessed that Camelot Unchained(?) had also apparently copied this tried-n-true RPG staple from Champs.

In my defense, I never played the pen and paper Heroes System, and the link you sent us to had nothing to do with the strengths and weakness you discuss here. So I used the only MMORPG example I knew. Please forgive my ignorance in the shadow of your perfection.

Lothic wrote:

Beyond quibbling about discarding my perfect example of a Ad/DisAd for an obscure imperfect one I ultimately believe the problem with your idea for shoehorning this kind of thing into CoT is the same problem I noted in my post about VO trying to use this - all of these things would be HARDWIRED into the system via preestablished strength/weakness combos.
The reason the original Ad/DisAd concept worked so well in Champions was that it was overseen and balanced by the human Game Master who could flexibly adapt to whatever the players tried to do and ensured their Ad/DisAd choices were unavoidably relevant to the game. In a computer-based MMO like CoT the only thing players will do with your strength/weakness combo pairs is figure out which pair provides the best overall strength/weakness ratio effect. They'll min/max that choice by choosing it regardless and the whole thing will degrade down to just another minor factor towards making the latest FoTM builds.
By being hardwired into the computer game it'll lose any meaning it might have had as an interesting focal point for role-playing.

Interestingly, Camelot Unchained has their Banes and Boons balanced by point costs. You have to pick at least one bane and one boon and when they are all combined they have to balance in points. I thought to simplify it by providing pre-matched pairs, but we could use the points system also.

And since in my concept the balanced pairs actually associated with the particular chosen aesthetic or the particular chosen mechanics theme, then in my opinion it actually would very much be a focal point for role-playing.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

In my defense, I never played the pen and paper Heroes System, and the link you sent us to had nothing to do with the strengths and weakness you discuss here. So I used the only MMORPG example I knew. Please forgive my ignorance in the shadow of your perfection.

It's not -my- perfection by any means. The core character system of Champions revolves around how its advantages and disadvantages work and was very arguably a groundbreaking feat of RPG genius back at the dawn of RPGing. One of the key reasons why so many games (both computer and PnP) still try to copy elements of it today is that it was so foundational in its impact to this industry. It would be easy to say that Champions (as it now exists as the more generalized Hero System) is probably second only to D&D in its overall importance to basic RPG mechanics used in most games today.

So when someone cites a relevant element of Champs to make an analogy with another later game (like in my case with VO's attempt to create a variant of Champ's Ad/DisAd system) it's akin to citing the Gaming Bible in terms of Original Authority where RPGs are concerned. While I will again agree that your Camelot Unchained reference also applies in this situation its like basing your example from something scribbled on the back of a bubble-gum wrapper. Your example wasn't wrong, it was just so diluted and derivative from the Original Source that it just struck me almost more like you were making a joke rather than being serious about it.

Remember for what it's worth the entire design concept behind CoH was based on Jack Emmert's original Champions table-top campaign (Statesman was his player character in that campaign) and his desire to translate that into a computer RPG experience. That's how fundamental Champs was.

Huckleberry wrote:

Interestingly, Camelot Unchained has their Banes and Boons balanced by point costs. You have to pick at least one bane and one boon and when they are all combined they have to balance in points. I thought to simplify it by providing pre-matched pairs, but we could use the points system also.

Interestingly the "balancing the point cost" idea between Ads and DisAds was established by Champions 36 years ago.

Huckleberry wrote:

And since in my concept the balanced pairs actually associated with the particular chosen aesthetic or the particular chosen mechanics theme, then in my opinion it actually would very much be a focal point for role-playing.

I don't really care about the "aesthetics/theme" issue in relation to your strength/weakness suggestion. I just care that it won't work as intended because again players will min/max the crap out of any system like this that's based on just a few hardwired pair/combo choices.

Let's just take one of your examples as case in point. You suggested that a player could take a strength/weakness combo such as the following: "you know where all the pressure points are in the human body, your damage over time attacks do more damage in human targets, but your damage over time attacks do less damage to non-human targets." While that seems straightforward enough what this actually means is that the player running this character will likely be able to alter his/her gameplay to the point where they can avoid most situations where they have to face non-human targets in favor of human ones. This would minimize the weakness part and maximize the strength part (a.k.a. the very definition of min/maxing).

As long as we DON'T have any human GMs that would constantly force this character to face non-human opponents (to make sure that the chosen "weakness" was truly an unavoidable weakness) then the player in question will essentially "game" the system and turn this whole thing into "what's the best combo I will always choose to max the strength and min the weakness" regardless of RP concerns.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:
That would never fly with ou[r] system. A[e]sthetics do not drive game play mechanics. Mechanics and appearance don't affect [each] other.
Wait a second. In post #16 of the Glossary thread, you said the following:
Tannim222 wrote:
Themic layer is termed Thematic Mechanics, that is damage ove[r] time, target vector displacement, etc[.] [and] may include a damage type. Fire is not a damage type, it is an aesthetic.
Aesthetic Theme is the range of possible visual partical effects afforded to a power. Burning sets have stuff that looks like it "burns" such as fire, stinging winds, boiling liquid, or acid.
Emanation points, colors, and animations are also part of the aesthic options but may be more widely applicable or limited depending on certain factors. You can make a ranged attack using a boxing animation throwing a gust of wind, and there could be a melee attack using same animation and melee-ranged particle effects for a melee wind attack.
and in post #4 of the Regen thread, Doctor Tyche said:
Doctor Tyche wrote:
Ok, let's say you want a fire based healer. When you make your costume, you pick "Fire" as one of your themes (you get 2). When you pick powers, you then pick "Rapid Healing" as your power set, and then pick your starting power from one of the two options if its your primary, or just get the top option if your secondary. Then you pick the animation for that, if one is needed, from the pool available.
If I choose a fire aesthetic, will not by characters aesthetic be 'fire' for every other player who views me? Thus is it not a fact that my character's chosen aesthetic is a saved value in some database associated with my character? And if there is a database, or profile whatever you want to call it, associated with my character that includes my aesthetic choice, why then could there not also be another field in that same character profile for the pair of modifiers also known as my chosen pair of a strength and a weakness?
Granted, this would also require that every interactable target have an additional code associated with its properties (probably in the form of a bitmask) so that it can interact with these strengths and weaknesses.
So we will be able to pick an aesthetic theme for each character. And since our aesthetic theme is part of our character's profile, then it sure seems to me that another entry in our character profile could correspond to a pair of mechanical modifiers (a.k.a. a strength and a weakness) that we also choose at character creation, the choices of which we get to pick from are based upon the value in our profile for aesthetic theme.
What about this 'will not fly?'

The reason being that any given set can have a wide range of different aesthetics. Right now, there is nothing which states a given particle effect can affect how a power operates mechanically. Power mechanics were intentionnaly designed to be agnostic to appearance.

Now when we theme power mechanics, it may provide a range of visual aesthics which are possible to apply, but the appearance doesn't drive any mechanics. To do so amounts to turning your powers' "costume" into actual "gear", something we're purposefully avoiding. From there it is a easy step to go from how powers look affect mechanics to how a character looks affects mechanics.

Keeping them separate allows us to design sets within a reasonable range of bounds of performance. Opening things up to include aesthetics to drive mechanics would seriously set us back and in fact take a lot away from the game because we would have to seriously limit the range of aesthics applicable to an entire set in order to cover the bounds of performance.

Now, it may allow for even more sets than we've pre-planned, but it would also seriously slow down the lroduction.

While it is possible to connect appearance to performance, our design is a concious choice to not do that.


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I believe one of the

I believe one of the 'mechanical themes' is called 'Burning', which is a DoT that destroys material. That effect might be produced by fire, or ice, or tiny piranha-demons, so it's hard to associate an advantage or disadvantage with it. Fire, ice, or piranha-demons would be an 'aesthetic theme', in this case.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

I don't really care about the "aesthetics/theme" issue in relation to your strength/weakness suggestion. I just care that it won't work as intended because again players will min/max the crap out of any system like this that's based on just a few hardwired pair/combo choices.
Let's just take one of your examples as case in point. You suggested that a player could take a strength/weakness combo such as the following: "you know where all the pressure points are in the human body, your damage over time attacks do more damage in human targets, but your damage over time attacks do less damage to non-human targets." While that seems straightforward enough what this actually means is that the player running this character will likely be able to alter his/her gameplay to the point where they can avoid most situations where they have to face non-human targets in favor of human ones. This would minimize the weakness part and maximize the strength part (a.k.a. the very definition of min/maxing).
As long as we DON'T have any human GMs that would constantly force this character to face non-human opponents (to make sure that the chosen "weakness" was truly an unavoidable weakness) then the player in question will essentially "game" the system and turn this whole thing into "what's the best combo I will always choose to max the strength and min the weakness" regardless of RP concerns.

I understand where you're coming from, but in my opinion, what you are talking about is EXACTLY role playing. A character with the DoT advantage vs. humans actually WOULD live the same way that character would play. That character would WANT to play against humans and avoid non-humans. So you call it undesirable min-maxing, I call it staying true to character.

and Tannim222, I understand that MWM is intentionally trying to avoid a character's appearance from affecting the character's gameplay. But this is one thing I never liked about your intentions. It is one thing I don't think I will ever like about your intentions. In my opinion, if a player designs a character as a martial arts monk, a steam-powered robot, a genetically enhanced supersoldier, or an intelligent tuber, those design choices should matter more than just aesthetically. No amount of arguments to the contrary will change that opinion. It is mine to own and take responsibility for.

Tannim222 wrote:

The reason being that any given set can have a wide range of different aesthetics. Right now, there is nothing which states a given particle effect can affect how a power operates mechanically. Power mechanics were [intentionally] designed to be agnostic to appearance

Why do you think I went through the whole discussion of picking three different sets for the mechanic theme and three different sets for the aesthetic theme? Why do you think one of my sets for aesthetic theme was "you are a fire-based being" while another one was merely "fire is an element of your attack" this was intentionally to allow no less than three different aesthetic options, each of which is broad enough and general enough to include a number of creative possibilities in character design to represent a player's design choices as closely as possible. And that's just the aesthetics side. Don't forget I also included mechanics sets which have nothing to do with the aesthetic choice, so even if the aesthetic choices available don't fit the player's design very well, there are the mechanics themed choices that should.

The one argument you make that quenches my desires more than any other is the argument that incorporating any kind of system like this would "Seriously set you back." As much as I would like a "my design choices matter" philosophy, I am also willing to concede that it is too late to do anything about it.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

I understand where you're coming from, but in my opinion, what you are talking about is EXACTLY role playing. A character with the DoT advantage vs. humans actually WOULD live the same way that character would play. That character would WANT to play against humans and avoid non-humans. So you call it undesirable min-maxing, I call it staying true to character.

I think we have a sort of chicken-before-the-egg situation here in terms of a game-affecting detail driving a RP decision versus a RP concept influencing a particular game-affecting decision. The point here is what's the main motivation involved and what's the rationale that's subordinate to that motivation.

Here's what I mean by that:

It would be easy enough for a player to say to themselves "I want to play a guy who's an expert at martial arts" so they might pick your "you know where all the pressure points are in the human body, your damage over time attacks do more damage in human targets, but your damage over time attacks do less damage to non-human targets" combo REGARDLESS of trying to min/max the character. In this case there's a RP concept that's the main motivation and the player picked the strength/weakness combo that reinforces that RP concept regardless of the game effects involved.

Now on the other hand let's assume that this same strength/weakness combo arbitrarily turns out to be one of the most beneficial in terms of providing the most strength for the least weakness. Trust me when I say it'll take about 3 seconds for people to figure out which of these hardwired combos are the best for min/maxing in the game. A player might not really care at all about the RP ramifications or concept of his/her character and instead is only motivated by obtaining the best min/max outcome. In that scenario the player is likely to pick this combo regardless and only then (maybe?) bother to come up with the rationale that my guy is going to be a "ninja guy" just to pay lip-service to their main motivation to get the best min/max numbers. In this case there's nothing "true" about the character's RP concept because the player is building simply for min/max optimization.

So when you argue that these strength/weakness combos would serve only as RP tools that's a noble ideal and might actually be the case... for say maybe 2% of the playerbase. For everyone else they'll just figure out the BEST one to take (from a min/max point of view) regardless of RP considerations because their primary motivation will be to obtain min/max perfection.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

I think we have a sort of chicken-before-the-egg situation here in terms of a game-affecting detail driving a RP decision versus a RP concept influencing a particular game-affecting decision. The point here is what's the main motivation involved and what's the rationale that's subordinate to that motivation.
Here's what I mean by that:
It would be easy enough for a player to say to themselves "I want to play a guy who's an expert at martial arts" so they might pick your "you know where all the pressure points are in the human body, your damage over time attacks do more damage in human targets, but your damage over time attacks do less damage to non-human targets" combo REGARDLESS of trying to min/max the character. In this case there's a RP concept that's the main motivation and the player picked the strength/weakness combo that reinforces that RP concept regardless of the game effects involved.
Now on the other hand let's assume that this same strength/weakness combo arbitrarily turns out to be one of the most beneficial in terms of providing the most strength for the least weakness. Trust me when I say it'll take about 3 seconds for people to figure out which of these hardwired combos are the best for min/maxing in the game. A player might not really care at all about the RP ramifications or concept of his/her character and instead is only motivated by obtaining the best min/max outcome. In that scenario the player is likely to pick this combo regardless and only then (maybe?) bother to come up with the rationale that my guy is going to be a "ninja guy" just to pay lip-service to their main motivation to get the best min/max numbers. In this case there's nothing "true" about the character's RP concept because the player is building simply for min/max optimization.
So when you argue that these strength/weakness combos would serve only as RP tools that's a noble ideal and might actually be the case... for say maybe 2% of the playerbase. For everyone else they'll just figure out the BEST one to take (from a min/max point of view) regardless of RP considerations because their primary motivation will be to obtain min/max perfection.

You say potato, I say potato.

There will always be a flavor of the month, no matter what we do. And min-maxers will always be searching for it. The best the game developers could ever hope to accomplish is to try to achieve balance, regardless of where the min-maxers get their flavor this month.

Or did you forget that we will also have masteries and augments and refinements?


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

You say potato, I say potato.
There will always be a flavor of the month, no matter what we do. And min-maxers will always be searching for it. The best the game developers could ever hope to accomplish is to try to achieve balance, regardless of where the min-maxers get their flavor this month.
Or did you forget that we will also have masteries and augments and refinements?

Oh I realize that there will always be people whose only motivation will be to min/max. I'm just pointing out that a system of hardwired strength/weakness combos that won't be controlled/enforced by a flexible human GM will only be used like 98% of time for those min/maxing purposes. Why feed the fire?

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Oh I realize that there will always be people whose only motivation will be to min/max. I'm just pointing out that a system of hardwired strength/weakness combos that won't be controlled/enforced by a flexible human GM will only be used like 98% of time for those min/maxing purposes. Why feed the fire?

Why indeed. Why even have a superhero game? Why even bother with lore or immersion? What good is lore in determining whether you are 0.5% more effective than the other guy? Why not just put a big number cruncher on your computer screen.

Yes. Why indeed.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Why indeed. Why even have a superhero game? Why even bother with lore or immersion? What good is lore in determining whether you are 0.5% more effective than the other guy? Why not just put a big number cruncher on your computer screen.
Yes. Why indeed.

Please... no need to get hyperbolic here. All I'm saying is that we know that parts of any MMO game are more prone to be "abused" by min/maxing than others. If a part of it (like your strength/weakness suggestion) is just going to used to get a unique +5%/-5% set of modifiers that would be extremely easy to exploit one has to wonder "is it really worth it?"

Remember the playerbase for CoT is likely going to be the same one that screamed bloody murder when the Devs of CoH tried to impose relatively small hardwired weaknesses vs negative energy on the Kheldians. People lost their collective minds having to suffer ANY weakness and consequentially those Kheld weaknesses were quickly nerfed. Do you seriously think people are collectively going to happily accept a degree of weakness in CoT without doing everything they can to minimize it?

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Any weakness you can totally

Any weakness you can totally marginalize is no weakness at all, and as such it isn't really offsetting any buff you got. You're just getting a buff for free, pretty much, or for the low low price of "I can't do missions against Fire-based damage dealers, onaccounta I took 'Flammable' as a 'weakness'..."

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Huckleberry wrote:
Why indeed. Why even have a superhero game? Why even bother with lore or immersion? What good is lore in determining whether you are 0.5% more effective than the other guy? Why not just put a big number cruncher on your computer screen.
Yes. Why indeed.
Please... no need to get hyperbolic here. All I'm saying is that we know that parts of any MMO game are more prone to be "abused" by min/maxing than others. If a part of it (like your strength/weakness suggestion) is just going to used to get a unique +5%/-5% set of modifiers that would be extremely easy to exploit one has to wonder "is it really worth it?"
Remember the playerbase for CoT is likely going to be the same one that screamed bloody murder when the Devs of CoH tried to impose relatively small hardwired weaknesses vs negative energy on the Kheldians. People lost their collective minds having to suffer ANY weakness and consequentially those Kheld weaknesses were quickly nerfed. Do you seriously think people are collectively going to happily accept a degree of weakness in CoT without doing everything they can to minimize it?

I'm curious, when did the addition of weaknesses for kheldians occur? I confess I started playing in 2010, so I didn't witness much in regards to that before shutdown? Were weaknesses added after khelds had been around a long time?

In my experience as a project manager, system changes - whether good or bad (usually in the long term), whether adding depth to a program or removing it - have been met with a huge backlash, usually due to shorter term impacts on the system. I kind of feel like people are cool with some things because "that's how it's always been" rather than when they are implemented later. The earlier after a system has first been released, the less contentious big changes are. Then again, this is just my experience.

How do you think it would have been received had kheldians always had this weakness? Was it a huge weakness that gimped the khelds or was it minor enough that it would have been nigh unnoticed? Forgive my ignorance on the topic!

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The Void Hunters / Rippers

The Void Seekers / Stalkers / Slayers weakness of Khelds was mostly just flavour, occasionally adding a spike of randomness to combat - either the Kheld targeting the Void Hunter first (possibly compromising other challenges) or the Kheld getting a surprise clobbering from a Void Hunter hidden in an enemy group. They were a great piece of story too, assassins searching for Khelds. Voids were extremely rare unless you had a Kheld in your party. I don't think Voids created any sense of improved balance, just a complication to game play.

Unless you put the Void Hunters as a homogeneous faction into an AE mission. Then you also got one-star ratings from Kheld players unlucky enough to try your mish.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Remember the playerbase for CoT is likely going to be the same one that screamed bloody murder when the Devs of CoH tried to impose relatively small hardwired weaknesses vs negative energy on the Kheldians. People lost their collective minds having to suffer ANY weakness and consequentially those Kheld weaknesses were quickly nerfed. Do you seriously think people are collectively going to happily accept a degree of weakness in CoT without doing everything they can to minimize it?

That is a familiar reaction. Redlynne brought this kind of playerbase reaction up once before. I think she stated it something like this:

I am scissors. Paper is working fine, but nerf rock!

Yeah, not too concerned with those player reactions.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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@Huckleberry

@Huckleberry

One thing here with your suggestion, once I choose the aesthetic theme am I them locked to that choice for the rest of the life of that character? If so then it would be a deal breaker to me since I would very much like the option to completely redo the costume, including going from one end of the aesthetic options all the way to the other end, and of course anything in between.

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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

@Huckleberry
One thing here with your suggestion, once I choose the aesthetic theme am I them locked to that choice for the rest of the life of that character? If so then it would be a deal breaker to me since I would very much like the option to completely redo the costume, including going from one end of the aesthetic options all the way to the other end, and of course anything in between.

That's a really good question. I was thinking the same thing as I wrote it and I hadn't come up with a good workaround by the time I got to the save post button.

But since you ask, I suppose every time you change your aesthetic, you should be given the option of selecting from different set of aesthetic balanced pairs associated with your new aesthetic theme. And if you had chosen your previous balanced pair from the mechanics options, you should still get the option of changing it when you change your aesthetics. So when you change your aesthetic options, you would see the same mechanics options available to you that you had before as well as the new aesthetic options available to your new aesthetics theme choice. If the game lets us change our powersets also, then I suppose we could repeat this with the changed mechanics options as well.

How a player can rationalize changing a character from an eternally burning treant to a howling storm demon is up to the player's own imagination. I don't think the game should restrict him or her.

but this also gave me another idea...
Since we will probably have multiple costume slots available per character, utilizing these strengths and weaknesses and tying them to the costume change would allow our characters to change their strengths and weakness choices on the fly. Or at least as on the fly as the costume changes would allow. I think this could be an attractive feature.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Any weakness you can totally marginalize is no weakness at all, and as such it isn't really offsetting any buff you got. You're just getting a buff for free, pretty much, or for the low low price of "I can't do missions against Fire-based damage dealers, onaccounta I took 'Flammable' as a 'weakness'..."

I had a high, high end fire tank, but I still had to slow down and play much more carefully against a serious Ice based situation. It both cut through most of my damage resistance and slowed my heal recharge.

And serious mental damage was even worse.

But I could still manage due to building to minimize it and adjusting my playstyle.

On the other hand, against fire damage I made even the Stone tanks look weak.

I thought that was a good level of "Boon/Bane" for a game.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

@Huckleberry
One thing here with your suggestion, once I choose the aesthetic theme am I them locked to that choice for the rest of the life of that character? If so then it would be a deal breaker to me since I would very much like the option to completely redo the costume, including going from one end of the aesthetic options all the way to the other end, and of course anything in between.

A friend of mine in CoX, in fact the founder of the SG I was in (he worked at Office Depot at the time and named the SG "Hero Depot", it was just me, him, his wife, a co-worker, and like one other guy who was often not on) had a toon named "Chrononaut", which he had made before Time Manipulation was a power set. He remade that toon from scratch (not counting respecs, just straight-up delete the guy and make a new one) like 3 times.

I would argue if you want to make wholesale changes to the toon concept, you ought to do it that way, i.e. by making a new character, not just taking a level capped toon and redoing everything. The ability to change a toon (via respec) is, IMO, to allow some flexibility in the nuances and choices you made, not allow you to turn a Fire/Energy Blaster into an Ice/Gadget Blaster, or worse, into a Tanker of some kind. At some point you have to draw the line in terms of how much you can change before the game says "ok, what YOU want is a totally new toon, not a different variation on the toon you have here". and at that point I think you/we should have to make a whole new toon.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Since we will probably have multiple costume slots available per character, utilizing these strengths and weaknesses and tying them to the costume change would allow our characters to change their strengths and weakness choices on the fly. Or at least as on the fly as the costume changes would allow. I think this could be an attractive feature.

So it'll be largely pointless since one can then always choose the most beneficial strength-weakness pair among the saved costumes for the content one is facing? Sure, one might not always get The Best one possible but having ones where the weakness is negligible at worst makes the system bad by design imo.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

blacke4dawn wrote:
@Huckleberry
One thing here with your suggestion, once I choose the aesthetic theme am I them locked to that choice for the rest of the life of that character? If so then it would be a deal breaker to me since I would very much like the option to completely redo the costume, including going from one end of the aesthetic options all the way to the other end, and of course anything in between.
A friend of mine in CoX, in fact the founder of the SG I was in (he worked at Office Depot at the time and named the SG "Hero Depot", it was just me, him, his wife, a co-worker, and like one other guy who was often not on) had a toon named "Chrononaut", which he had made before Time Manipulation was a power set. He remade that toon from scratch (not counting respecs, just straight-up delete the guy and make a new one) like 3 times.
I would argue if you want to make wholesale changes to the toon concept, you ought to do it that way, i.e. by making a new character, not just taking a level capped toon and redoing everything. The ability to change a toon (via respec) is, IMO, to allow some flexibility in the nuances and choices you made, not allow you to turn a Fire/Energy Blaster into an Ice/Gadget Blaster, or worse, into a Tanker of some kind. At some point you have to draw the line in terms of how much you can change before the game says "ok, what YOU want is a totally new toon, not a different variation on the toon you have here". and at that point I think you/we should have to make a whole new toon.

I get you here but I think you are looking at it the wrong way, or reading it way beyond what I wrote.

I am only talking about aesthetic theme here while you seem to be talking mechanical theme and even AT. I fully agree that AT, mechanical theme and even primary/secondary power sets should be set in stone once you exit the character creator. Aesthetic theme on the other hand should be changeable as much as any other individual costume piece.

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Another issue of connecting

Another issue of connecting aesthetics to combat mechanics is that it further limits what we csn placemon the cash shop for purchase. Once you start selling items that affect game play in a cash shop it tends to have a lot of negative views in the western markets (you know the ol' p2w problem).

Even if the same things csn be earned in game, the fact thet someone can bypass the time it takes to unlock in game by spending real money always benefits the spender. It becomes a slippery slope to continue the trend of making it easy to get stuff in the cash shop and harder to earn in game, Which mand ans the cash shop because comes a manor factor of game design.

But back up a second and also recognize that when a simple change of appearanc can affect how amsingle power out of the many powers a character may have, even if a single power only has 3'aesthetic choices, you have to test the variables of each aesthetic combination to catch any bugs, to catch any unintended combat issues, etc...

And each time a graphics artist comes up with a new aesthetic, the powers designers have to figure out what combat mechanics it connects to, and if it doesn't already exist in the game...your inteoducing a new element via appearance. Which has all sorts of implications for the game.

Then there's the whole thing of having to limit choices of appearance for game balance.

Right now our combat mechanics are designed to be agnostic of appearance. Once we apply aesthetic themes to a set, yes it provides some limits to the range choices when it comes to particle effects, but not as much if each particle effect directly affected combat.

The idea also dimishes the role of our improvements - augments and refinements which can change certain aspects of a power's mechanics.

Basically, we'd have to scrap scrap the majority of work on combat effects, create a new system which connected combat mechanics to appearance, create a new production pipeline between artists and game play, xhange plans for the cash shop, rework our improvement system ro accomodate aesthetics, and each new set design would require a lot more production time to develop and iterate in the furture, hanging our production schedule.


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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

So it'll be largely pointless since one can then always choose the most beneficial strength-weakness pair among the saved costumes for the content one is facing? Sure, one might not always get The Best one possible but having ones where the weakness is negligible at worst makes the system bad by design imo.

That is an interesting point of view I hadn't considered.

I supposed some executive somewhere would have to decide whether choices made at character creation matter or not. The choices matter crowd would want the decision to be final and changes could be made only after paying a significant penalty. The 'Give me more freedom to fix my mistakes or adjust as I play' crowd would want to adjust our builds to suit the challenges. Modern MMO design has been trending more towards the latter in the last 5 years or so, so I naturally sided with the trend when I was thinking about that. Besides, limiting your costume choices because of a strength/weakness pair you chose at character selection seemed to me to be the less desireable option by comparison.

It is an interesting quandary that's for sure.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Another issue of connecting aesthetics to combat mechanics is that it further limits what we csn placemon the cash shop for purchase. Once you start selling items that affect game play in a cash shop it tends to have a lot of negative views in the western markets (you know the ol' p2w problem).
Even if the same things csn be earned in game, the fact thet someone can bypass the time it takes to unlock in game by spending real money always benefits the spender. It becomes a slippery slope to continue the trend of making it easy to get stuff in the cash shop and harder to earn in game, Which mand ans the cash shop because comes a manor factor of game design.
But back up a second and also recognize that when a simple change of appearanc can affect how amsingle power out of the many powers a character may have, even if a single power only has 3'aesthetic choices, you have to test the variables of each aesthetic combination to catch any bugs, to catch any unintended combat issues, etc...
And each time a graphics artist comes up with a new aesthetic, the powers designers have to figure out what combat mechanics it connects to, and if it doesn't already exist in the game...your inteoducing a new element via appearance. Which has all sorts of implications for the game.
Then there's the whole thing of having to limit choices of appearance for game balance.
Right now our combat mechanics are designed to be agnostic of appearance. Once we apply aesthetic themes to a set, yes it provides some limits to the range choices when it comes to particle effects, but not as much if each particle effect directly affected combat.
The idea also dimishes the role of our improvements - augments and refinements which can change certain aspects of a power's mechanics.
Basically, we'd have to scrap scrap the majority of work on combat effects, create a new system which connected combat mechanics to appearance, create a new production pipeline between artists and game play, xhange plans for the cash shop, rework our improvement system ro accomodate aesthetics, and each new set design would require a lot more production time to develop and iterate in the furture, hanging our production schedule.

No decision is all good, and I think the path MWM has for the most part decided upon has more positives than negatives. This is just one of the negatives for me. But mostly I've been discussing for the sake of discussion. I do feel like MWM should carry on with the planned upon system.

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Another issue of connecting aesthetics to combat mechanics is that it further limits what we c[a]n place [on] the cash shop for purchase. Once you start selling items that affect game play in a cash shop it tends to have a lot of negative views in the western markets (you know the ol' p2w problem).
Even if the same things c[a]n be earned in game, the fact th[a]t someone can bypass the time it takes to unlock in game by spending real money always benefits the spender. It becomes a slippery slope to continue the trend of making it easy to get stuff in the cash shop and harder to earn in game, [w]hich [means] the cash shop [becomes] a ma[j]or factor of game design.

If you balance your strengths and weaknesses it wouldn't be pay to win at all, would it? It would be no different than making a new power set available in the cash shop, wouldn't it?

Tannim222 wrote:

But back up a second and also recognize that when a simple change of appearanc[e] can affect how [a] single power out of the many powers a character may have, even if a single power only has 3[ ]aesthetic choices, you have to test the variables of each aesthetic combination to catch any bugs, to catch any unintended combat issues, etc...
And each time a graphics artist comes up with a new aesthetic, the powers designers have to figure out what combat mechanics it connects to, and if it doesn't already exist in the game...your inteoducing a new element via appearance. Which has all sorts of implications for the game.

You make that all sound like a bad thing. To me that sounds like the best job ever! Where do I sign up to get paid to do that? And, hold on a second, who said anything about doing this for single powers? I thought you guys said we got one (1) aesthetic theme to choose from at character creation?

Tannim222 wrote:

Then there's the whole thing of having to limit choices of appearance for game balance.

Right now our combat mechanics are designed to be agnostic of appearance. Once we apply aesthetic themes to a set, yes it provides some limits to the range choices when it comes to particle effects, but not as much if each particle effect directly affected combat.

I don't understand this argument at all. First of all you and Doctor Tyche have already stated that there will be Aesthetic Themes and we get to pick one (1). Why would my suggestion cause you to limit appearance options anyway? Just generate more strengths and weaknesses to match the appearance options you already have, and then add a bunch of placeholders for future expansion. I thought this was a given.

Tannim222 wrote:

The idea also dimi[ni]shes the role of our improvements - augments and refinements which can change certain aspects of a power's mechanics.

I somewhat agree in that your current improvements (augments, refinements, and even masteries) modify the base power set, but they completely ignore the entire Raison d'être of the strengths and weakness system herein described. The only reason we're even discussing this is BECAUSE you don't take character origins into account with your augments, refinements and masteries.

Tannim222 wrote:

Basically, we'd have to scrap[ ]the majority of work on combat effects, create a new system which connected combat mechanics to appearance, create a new production pipeline between artists and game play, [c]hange plans for the cash shop, rework our improvement system [t]o accom[m]odate aesthetics, and each new set design would require a lot more production time to develop and iterate in the [future], hanging our production schedule.

Like I said before, this is really the only valid argument I have seen (in my opinion) so far against implementing the idea.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I'll admit that I am very

I'll admit that I am very used to games (both video and tabletop) using typed damage extensively - to not see the same in CoT does feel weird. Hmm...it will be very interesting to see how the defensive/armor sets work if there is no "typed" damage like Fire/Cold/Smashing. Do they feature varying levels of regen/heals, defense/evasion and blanket DR? Or are there other mechanics that come into play?

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Interdictor wrote:
Interdictor wrote:

I'll admit that I am very used to games (both video and tabletop) using typed damage extensively - to not see the same in CoT does feel weird. Hmm...it will be very interesting to see how the defensive/armor sets work if there is no "typed" damage like Fire/Cold/Smashing. Do they feature varying levels of regen/heals, defense/evasion and blanket DR? Or are there other mechanics that come into play?

No one ever said there wasn't typed damage.


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Tech Team.
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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Another issue of connecting aesthetics to combat mechanics is that it further limits what we csn placemon the cash shop for purchase. Once you start selling items that affect game play in a cash shop it tends to have a lot of negative views in the western markets (you know the ol' p2w problem).
.

I didn't mind buying new powersets in CoH. Did everyone consider that P2W back then??? I personally don't remember it being an issue.

Reward tactics as well as damage dealing.

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SavageFist wrote:
SavageFist wrote:

I didn't mind buying new powersets in CoH. Did everyone consider that P2W back then??? I personally don't remember it being an issue.

As I recall, people would generally lament needing to buy them when they came out, but after about three days of complaints it'd level out and things would go back to business as usual, since the most OP powerset combos were available without a purchase (electric melee brutes being one of the big ones, but also such things as a thugs/traps MM, and I'm sure there's others I can't remember off the top of my head)

An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".

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SavageFist wrote:
SavageFist wrote:

I didn't mind buying new powersets in CoH. Did everyone consider that P2W back then??? I personally don't remember it being an issue.

Its not new power sets that would be the issue because presumably they are balanced against other power sets. Huck's suggestion of aesthetics linked to combat mechanics means that certain aesthetics and their corresponding bonuses/negatives would be better for certain power sets in terms of min/maxing. If the devs sold the aesthetic that made it easy for a player to game the system then it would be a P2W situation which should be avoided at all cost.

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The argument "You shouldn't

The argument "You shouldn't/can't charge money for X because people will complain about it." is totally invalid, because, as it turns out, people can and will level some form of complaint about any and every thing that they have to pay money for.

In response to Huckleberry's continued "strengths and weaknesses" discussion, the basic argument that it'll be ok if you balance it is not a compelling one, to me, because such balance is not physically possible, in my opinion.

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Aesthetics have no positives

Aesthetics have no positives/negatives, they're pure visual.

Our design is not to sell power sets, but to sell Aesthetics. But anything you can buy for in-game also is available through play, so, if you *really* want that Aether Pirate steamcannon, you can either grind for the badge which unlocks it, or buy it on the store.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Aesthetics have no positives/negatives, they're pure visual.
Our design is not to sell power sets, but to sell Aesthetics. But anything you can buy for in-game also is available through play, so, if you *really* want that Aether Pirate steamcannon, you can either grind for the badge which unlocks it, or buy it on the store.

I hope there are other incentives to make purchases because I have never been a type of person that just has to have every costume. I didn't really buy costume sets in CoH, Marvel Heroes, GW2 or ESO. I would buy a new character though which appears to be equivalent to a powerset. In any game that only wants to sell visuals, I always run out of something to buy very quick but who knows maybe this time it will be different. It's too bad when it's always 'that's just p2w, my free/paid gameplay is ruined for x reasons." over 'hey, that person is supporting the game'. Yes, that is my polarized position on the matter but that's just because I've never been an outlier as far as metrics in any game and don't actively look to ruin others gameplay but I guess I'm sorry for buying powersets in the past? I have no idea the trail of tears I left in my wallet's wake.

Reward tactics as well as damage dealing.

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I did not mean to imply that

I did not mean to imply that the only thing for sale would be Aesthetics, only that everything for sale you *can* earn through gameplay as well.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

I did not mean to imply that the only thing for sale would be Aesthetics, only that everything for sale you *can* earn through gameplay as well.

I like this, and fervently hoped it would be the case.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Lothic wrote:
Remember the playerbase for CoT is likely going to be the same one that screamed bloody murder when the Devs of CoH tried to impose relatively small hardwired weaknesses vs negative energy on the Kheldians. People lost their collective minds having to suffer ANY weakness and consequentially those Kheld weaknesses were quickly nerfed. Do you seriously think people are collectively going to happily accept a degree of weakness in CoT without doing everything they can to minimize it?
That is a familiar reaction. Redlynne brought this kind of playerbase reaction up once before. I think she stated it something like this:
I am scissors. Paper is working fine, but nerf rock!
Yeah, not too concerned with those player reactions.

I don't really care what your reaction to imposed weaknesses would be. The facts of how insanely angry people were over the original implementation of Kheldian negative energy weaknesses speak for themselves.

All I know is that assuming something like your strength/weakness combos (whether tied to aesthetics or not) actually makes it into the game it should at the very least come with the option to NOT have to select ANY strength/weakness combo at all. If these things are forced on us you are going to see either A) a bunch of mad players who don't want their characters saddled with any built-in weakness and/or B) a bunch of players who are going to min/max this thing into pointless stupidity by selecting the combos that impose the least amount of weakness regardless of RP considerations.

Look, it's clear I think this particular suggestion is misguided because I think it will be nothing but abused. But as long as the game gave players the option to avoid having to pick any strength/weakness combo for their characters then its likely the playerbase would accept that as a reasonable compromise. Even you ought to agree that having choices about these things are vitally important and that no character should be FORCED to live with an characteristic they don't believe fits in with their character concept.

Huckleberry wrote:

but this also gave me another idea...
Since we will probably have multiple costume slots available per character, utilizing these strengths and weaknesses and tying them to the costume change would allow our characters to change their strengths and weakness choices on the fly. Or at least as on the fly as the costume changes would allow. I think this could be an attractive feature.

As blacke4dawn implied this would be maybe 10x worse than the already bad idea of picking one defining strength/weakness combo per character. If one character could essentially switch their active combo as easily as they could switch costumes then their supposed "weaknesses" would always be absolutely meaningless. All the character would have to do is switch costumes any time there was a situation in the game where their current weakness might actually significantly affect them. Can't you understand how utterly self-serving and grossly min/max-ish this whole idea of yours is?

Huckleberry wrote:

It is an interesting quandary that's for sure.

No, it's not an "interesting quandary". It's simply further evidence that this idea is fundamentally flawed. Unless there's a sure-fire way to ENFORCE that a character would SUFFER from their weakness for at least a significant amount of time then all this represents is a way to get an unbalanced benefit for little to no cost/risk to the character.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

All I know is that assuming something like your strength/weakness combos (whether tied to aesthetics or not) actually makes it into the game it should at the very least come with the option to NOT have to select ANY strength/weakness combo at all. If these things are forced on us you are going to see either A) a bunch of mad players who don't want their characters saddled with any built-in weakness and/or B) a bunch of players who are going to min/max this thing into pointless stupidity by selecting the combos that impose the least amount of weakness regardless of RP considerations.

That's an interesting suggestion. I think it has merit. This way, people who want immersion and who want to have their design choices matter can pick strengths and weaknesses associated with their design, but people who want their design to be agnostic, as Tannim222 calls it, can choose that. That's worth ruminating upon for sure.

Lothic wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

but this also gave me another idea...
Since we will probably have multiple costume slots available per character, utilizing these strengths and weaknesses and tying them to the costume change would allow our characters to change their strengths and weakness choices on the fly. Or at least as on the fly as the costume changes would allow. I think this could be an attractive feature.

As blacke4dawn implied this would be maybe 10x worse than the already bad idea of picking one defining strength/weakness combo per character. If one character could essentially switch their active combo as easily as they could switch costumes then their supposed "weaknesses" would always be absolutely meaningless. All the character would have to do is switch costumes any time there was a situation in the game where their current weakness might actually significantly affect them. Can't you understand how utterly self-serving and grossly min/max-ish this whole idea of yours is?

Ouch

Lothic wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

It is an interesting quandary that's for sure.

No, it's not an "interesting quandary". It's simply further evidence that this idea is fundamentally flawed. Unless there's a sure-fire way to ENFORCE that a character would SUFFER from their weakness for at least a significant amount of time then all this represents is a way to get an unbalanced benefit for little to no cost/risk to the character.

Hello? did you completely miss this statement where I actually mentioned the same thing you just did, in between the two lines you quoted?

Huckleberry wrote:

I supposed some executive somewhere would have to decide whether choices made at character creation matter or not. The choices matter crowd would want the decision to be final and changes could be made only after paying a significant penalty. The 'Give me more freedom to fix my mistakes or adjust as I play' crowd would want to adjust our builds to suit the challenges. Modern MMO design has been trending more towards the latter in the last 5 years or so, so I naturally sided with the trend when I was thinking about that. Besides, limiting your costume choices because of a strength/weakness pair you chose at character selection seemed to me to be the less desireable option by comparison.

Or are you deliberately ignoring that part?

So I guess you are in the "My design Choices should matter" camp. I actually am, too; but I thought to make concessions for the "I want freedom and flexibility" crowd, since that is where games seem to be trending. Remember, this was all something I made up as I wrote it. Whatever peer review it needs is happening right here in this forum.

In my opinion, the biggest flaw in this idea is that it is an attempt at applying a patch to an already-established system that has a hole in it. To wit, the lack of any impact of origins upon gameplay. And because it is a patch, it will never be completely copacetic. We can only imagine what we could do to make things better (without making them worse in the process)


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Reward effort as well as

Reward effort as well as credit limit. <_<

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

concessions for the "I want freedom and flexibility" crowd

You have no chance to survive, make your time. For great justice, all your concessions are belong to us. Don't make us set us up the bomb. drops meme, walks out

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

The facts of how insanely angry people were over the original implementation of Kheldian negative energy weaknesses speak for themselves.

This is totally a picky historical point and doesn't weaken your actual argument, but I don't think that this was the case in this specific instance.

One of my main alts was a Peacebringer which I got to a high-end max level build. Anyone who did that with a PB can tell you that, while they were versatile and could be fun as hell, they were in no way overpowered or even particularly powerful relative to other ATs--and could not be built to be as powerful as many, if not most. In a way, they were a victim of being "too well balanced." As a matter of fact, every other AT that I got to a max level high-end build was more powerful than my very carefully built and highly invested in PB.

Also, from what I saw, it wasn't the general and, in my opinion, moderate and very appropriate negative energy weakness that people were so angry about, it was the specific ability of Voids, Quantums, etc. to two-if-not-one shot you with all of their attacks and the fact that on top of that they automatically showed up in any mission you were part of.

So, in this case, there was lots of Bane with no real Boon. Now, you could say that the versatility was the Boon, but when you can't really pull off as much as many other ATs even with that versatility, it's not that juicy of a boon.

Just a "historical perspective", not an argument against your point.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

Also, from what I saw, it wasn't the general and, in my opinion, moderate and very appropriate negative energy weakness that people were so angry about, it was the specific ability of Voids, Quantums, etc. to two-if-not-one shot you with all of their attacks and the fact that on top of that they automatically showed up in any mission you were part of.

This. The first iteration was TOO punative. If you didn't down the quantum gunner in one or two hits you were dead - no "ifs", "ands" or "buts". Massive damage + knockdown, and you get up just in time to catch a second blast to the face and that was it. And even if you did manage to defeat the Quantum, there are the three or more buddies he spawned with. The revised quantums were challenging to face, not the roll of the dice the originals were.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Or are you deliberately ignoring that part?

No I didn't quite ignore it. I mostly just disregarded it because you're still basically in favor of a system that would allow for choosing weaknesses that wouldn't matter to get benefits that would. That's not "freedom and flexibility", that's getting a bonus for no cost/risk.

Huckleberry wrote:

So I guess you are in the "My design Choices should matter" camp. I actually am, too; but I thought to make concessions for the "I want freedom and flexibility" crowd, since that is where games seem to be trending. Remember, this was all something I made up as I wrote it. Whatever peer review it needs is happening right here in this forum.

In my opinion, the biggest flaw in this idea is that it is an attempt at applying a patch to an already-established system that has a hole in it. To wit, the lack of any impact of origins upon gameplay. And because it is a patch, it will never be completely copacetic. We can only imagine what we could do to make things better (without making them worse in the process)

The thing is that I don't see your strength/weakness combo idea as some kind of patch/fix/link between a hypothetical "choices matter" crowd and "give me more freedom to fix my mistakes or adjust as I play" crowd. The more fundamental disconnect I think we probably have is you seem to think that "Origins" are something that should be unavoidably hardwired into the game whereas I agree more with the CoH Devs in that they effectively treated Origins as a fundamental MISTAKE of CoH that they tried their best to expunge from the game over its eight year run.

Here's the fundamental problem with trying to have the game provide finite nuggets of "character concept" details. Using CoH as the example, it hardwired all characters into five strict Origin categories: Magic, Mutant, Natural, Science and Tech. Now at first glance this would seem like a easy way to help people "describe" the basic make-up of their characters. But the problems arise immediately once you scratch the surface: What if you want a guy with a mixture of any of these (i.e. magic user with a ray gun, cyborg that uses magic-based TK, a "muggle" Natural who has no built-in power but uses a magic wand, a 'mutant' that looks like a normal human, etc.)? How do you neatly pigeon-hole any of thousands of crossover concepts like that with just 5 strict hardwired categories? They are simply too restrictive and the CoH Devs quickly ACCEPTED that as a fundamental early flaw of CoH.

Why do you think the Devs of CoH did so much to distance themselves and their game from the original Origin categories? Why do you think those categories had ZERO effect on how your characters played or how they could dress in the launched game when those things were far more significant during the CoH betas? Why do you think Origin based salvage was replaced by invention based salvage? Why do you think the Origin based NPC organizations in CoH (MAGI, GIFT, ELITE, SERAPH and DATA) were all deprecated and deemphasized? All these things happened because the Devs of CoH realized almost from the beginning that for the sake of true "freedom and flexibility" it was better that the game not impose any hardwired "categories" on characters which would impede/restrict a player's ability to fully describe/explain their character any way they wanted.

I don't want a game that will force my character to be "magical" or "mutant" only in the way the game defines that. I don't want CoT to shackle us with anything even remotely like CoH's Origins because the natural evolution of that game was to essentially GET RID of the whole idea completely. Towards the end Devs like Matt Miller were openly saying they wished they could have wiped away all the remaining vestiges of Origin from CoH but they couldn't get rid of the references completely because they were too far mixed into the guts of the game.

I have absolutely no problem being what you call a "give me more freedom to fix my mistakes or adjust as I play" type player in a game that won't FORCE me to conform to any hardwired Dev-based notion of what my characters' "Origin" should be. When Tannim222 uses the phrase "design agnostic" he's not saying that characters should have no supporting concepts; he's saying that the game should remain out of the loop as far as imposing ITS WILL on what we as players choose to design for our selves. As long as I can RP my characters to be ANYTHING I want them to be as opposed to the types of things the Devs say I should be then I'll be happy.

Origins don't provide character support. Origins only serve to LIMIT our concept scope and REDUCE freedom and flexibility.

P.S. I truly don't hate your strength/weakness combo idea based on anything related to Origins or whether they are linked to character aesthetics or not. I simply don't like it because it'll be abused by virtually everyone and it'll have no real redeeming value as a "descriptive RP" mechanic as you seem to be hoping it will.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Origins = oh hey look at all

Origins = oh hey look at all the enhancement drops I can't use = hold off starting the TF, I'm running around Talos selling at the various stores.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

Lothic wrote:
The facts of how insanely angry people were over the original implementation of Kheldian negative energy weaknesses speak for themselves.
This is totally a picky historical point and doesn't weaken your actual argument, but I don't think that this was the case in this specific instance.
One of my main alts was a Peacebringer which I got to a high-end max level build. Anyone who did that with a PB can tell you that, while they were versatile and could be fun as hell, they were in no way overpowered or even particularly powerful relative to other ATs--and could not be built to be as powerful as many, if not most. In a way, they were a victim of being "too well balanced." As a matter of fact, every other AT that I got to a max level high-end build was more powerful than my very carefully built and highly invested in PB.
Also, from what I saw, it wasn't the general and, in my opinion, moderate and very appropriate negative energy weakness that people were so angry about, it was the specific ability of Voids, Quantums, etc. to two-if-not-one shot you with all of their attacks and the fact that on top of that they automatically showed up in any mission you were part of.
So, in this case, there was lots of Bane with no real Boon. Now, you could say that the versatility was the Boon, but when you can't really pull off as much as many other ATs even with that versatility, it's not that juicy of a boon.
Just a "historical perspective", not an argument against your point.

My opinion (or supposed "pickiness") on this matter doesn't really matter - the facts speak for themselves. The Devs of CoH provided Kheldians with a "certain degree" of negative energy weakness which led to things LIKE Voids and Quants (which used relatively massive negative energy attacks) being able toast them fairly easily if you were not willing to pay attention. Now whether you as an individual thought the Kheld weaknesses were fine or not doesn't matter. What matters is that the outcry against it was enough to nerf back the effects of the weakness to maybe a point that was like 10% of its original impact. The playerbase collectively voted and the Devs agree with them at least to the point of only taking like a few weeks to nerf them.

The only viable conclusion I can draw from this is regardless of right or wrong the playerbase HATED having a built-in weakness that would be akin to the types of weakness proposed by the strength/weakness combo idea. Take from that what you will. *shrugs*

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Origins = oh hey look at all the enhancement drops I can't use = hold off starting the TF, I'm running around Talos selling at the various stores.

This was just one of the many disadvantages of the Origins concept. Too many cons; not enough pros.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Here's the fundamental problem with trying to have the game provide finite nuggets of "character concept" details. Using CoH as the example, it hardwired all characters into five strict Origin categories: Magic, Mutant, Natural, Science and Tech. Now at first glance this would seem like a easy way to help people "describe" the basic make-up of their characters. But the problems arise immediately once you scratch the surface: What if you want a guy with a mixture of any of these (i.e. magic user with a ray gun, cyborg that uses magic-based TK, a "muggle" Natural who has no built-in power but uses a magic wand, a 'mutant' that looks like a normal human, etc.)? How do you neatly pigeon-hole any of thousands of crossover concepts like that with just 5 strict hardwired categories? They are simply too restrictive and the CoH Devs quickly ACCEPTED that as a fundamental early flaw of CoH.
Why do you think the Devs of CoH did so much to distance themselves and their game from the original Origin categories? Why do you think those categories had ZERO effect on how your characters played or how they could dress in the launched game when those things were far more significant during the CoH betas? Why do you think Origin based salvage was replaced by invention based salvage? Why do you think the Origin based NPC organizations in CoH (MAGI, GIFT, ELITE, SERAPH and DATA) were all deprecated and deemphasized? All these things happened because the Devs of CoH realized almost from the beginning that for the sake of true "freedom and flexibility" it was better that the game not impose any hardwired "categories" on characters which would impede/restrict a player's ability to fully describe/explain their character any way they wanted.
I don't want a game that will force my character to be "magical" or "mutant" only in the way the game defines that. I don't want CoT to shackle us with anything even remotely like CoH's Origins because the natural evolution of that game was to essentially GET RID of the whole idea completely. Towards the end Devs like Matt Miller were openly saying they wished they could have wiped away all the remaining vestiges of Origin from CoH but they couldn't get rid of the references completely because they were too far mixed into the guts of the game.
Origins don't provide character support. Origins only serve to LIMIT our concept scope and REDUCE freedom and flexibility.

Did you even look at my original idea?
All these arguments you just put forth about limited options of origins are moot when used against the idea I actually presented in post #461. Sure I may have thought it up as I wrote it, but give me enough credit to realize I had considered what you are saying when I wrote it.

Lets take the DoT mechanic + Fire aesthetic character design I used as my example. Note that the examples I came up with for strength/weakness pairs would allow anything from a ninja to a fire elemental, from a vigilante armed with a flamethrower to an arcane blood mage and everything in between. And that's just with those six pairs.

So to say that I have limited the options to only six established origins like what CoH had, does not do the inherent flexibility of my proposal any justice.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Interdictor wrote:
Interdictor wrote:

Empyrean wrote:
Also, from what I saw, it wasn't the general and, in my opinion, moderate and very appropriate negative energy weakness that people were so angry about, it was the specific ability of Voids, Quantums, etc. to two-if-not-one shot you with all of their attacks and the fact that on top of that they automatically showed up in any mission you were part of.
This. The first iteration was TOO punative. If you didn't down the quantum gunner in one or two hits you were dead - no "ifs", "ands" or "buts". Massive damage + knockdown, and you get up just in time to catch a second blast to the face and that was it. And even if you did manage to defeat the Quantum, there are the three or more buddies he spawned with. The revised quantums were challenging to face, not the roll of the dice the originals were.

I would accept that many would agree with your characterization of the situation. Of course there are others who classified the original version of Kheldian weakness as simply "challenging" and the subsequent nerfage of them to be far TOO MUCH nerfage to the point of making the supposed "character building weakness" almost pointless.

Regardless of our differing views on that it's clear that enough people considered it to be "too much weakness" and the outcry was enough to motivate the Devs to nerf it back down to near-pointlessness. Again the only logical conclusion to draw from this is that people don't like character weaknesses in MMOs and they will do almost anything to mitigate them regardless if encourages and unhealthy doses of min/maxing or not.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

All these arguments you just put forth about limited options of origins are moot when used against the idea I actually presented in post #461. Sure I may have thought it up as I wrote it, but give me enough credit to realize I had considered what you are saying when I wrote it.

I am simply not convinced that you see the true disadvantages of your proposal. Sorry... *shrugs*

Huckleberry wrote:

So to say that I have limited the options to only six established origins like what CoH had, does not do the inherent flexibility of my proposal any justice.

With the risk of treading into hyperbolic territory again unless you could propose a system that would provide an infinite number of combo variations any system with less than that number will always impose some degree of Origin-oriented limitation. The CoH Devs understood this - I'm just hoping the CoT Devs learned the lesson as well.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

I am simply not convinced that you see the true disadvantages of your proposal. Sorry... *shrugs*

I didn't realize that convincing you was my goal. I thought my goal was to throw out an idea and see what people thought of it. I guess I was wrong. No need to apologize.

Lothic wrote:

With the risk of treading into hyperbolic territory again unless you could propose a system that would provide an infinite number of combo variations any system with less than that number will always impose some degree of Origin-oriented limitation. The CoH Devs understood this - I'm just hoping the CoT Devs learned the lesson as well.

And that's one more reason why I think your idea about opting out of a strength/weakness pair (from post #500) has all the more merit.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

I didn't realize that convincing you was my goal. I thought my goal was to throw out an idea and see what people thought of it. I guess I was wrong.

You don't have to convince me - you have to convince the Devs. Ironically I'm actually trying to HELP you do that by playing Devil's Advocate here. You have not addressed what I see as a basic flaw in your idea: What under your proposal would ENSURE that your weaknesses would remain significant and unavoidable?

Huckleberry wrote:

And that's one more reason why I think your idea about opting out of a strength/weakness pair (from post #500) has all the more merit.

Well at least we can agree on something. ;)

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Did you even look at my original idea?

I did.

Now, I'll be completely transparant here...I actually asked for this very same concept, knowing it was going against business plans, knowing that (at the time) we would lose a lot of our preproduction work (this was during preproduction). When the many negatives were mounted in argument against, I tried another tact - using aesthetics to have effects on environmental factors - due to the impact it would have of production of assets and possible tengential effects on game play - again this was decided against.

I understand the desire behind the idea. But, as time went on, and we finalized pre-production and I began the process of iterating power set design, I see the wisdom in these early decisions.

Yes, this is a "different"'kind of game where there is more emphasis placed on freeing up the player to make their character look how they want while miniizing the complexity involved in combat-related choices to the AT and power sets. Devs have more leeway in production of assets and have a easier path to generating revenue.

Things will make more sense in how power sets work (the combat mechanics presented) and with the aesthetic character design once it is in player hands and people get comfortable with it all.


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- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
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Not arguing, just clarifying:

Not arguing, just clarifying:

Empyrean wrote:

This is totally a picky historical point and doesn't weaken your actual argument...

Lothic wrote:

My opinion (or supposed "pickiness") on this matter doesn't really matter...

I should have phrased that better. What I meant was "what I'm about to say is totally a picky historical point", not that you were being picky--that's why I said it doesn't weaken your argument. Totally my bad in not being clear. What I meant was that I was making a picky point that doesn't weaken your argument.

Lothic wrote:

The Devs of CoH provided Kheldians with a "certain degree" of negative energy weakness which led to things LIKE Voids and Quants...

I can't help it. I can't help it. Sorry. Sorry. But one more picky clarification on my part.

The degree of weakness to negative energy was not the same as the degree of weakness to Voids and Quants. The general negative energy weakness was about the same as Dark Armor's weakness to Energy, which is more than fair, while the weakness to Voids and Quants attacks was different. Very, very different. Horribly, punitively, ridiculously different.

From Paragon Wiki (https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Quantum_Array_Gun):

"The Quantum Array Gun deals to all players moderate Negative Energy damage. To any Peacebringer or Warshade, it will deal an additional amount of Negative Energy damage around 3 or 4 times larger than the initial amount. There is also a chance that a Kheldian target will be Disoriented by the blast."

That's at very least an auto-doublecrit with a chance to control. And from experience I can tell you, that chance to control was a very, very good chance. That is bullshit. That's why people were mad about it. There was nothing else like that in the game. It was worse than a Stalker's Assassination but also at very long range.

Again, this one example does not disprove or even weaken your point, but it was a clusterkerfluffle by the CoH Devs that was near and dear(ly hated by) my heart. So I had to elaborate.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Did you even look at my original idea?

I did.

That question was directed at Lothic, not you, but I do want to take this opportunity to say something I think is important:

Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to read our posts, and thank you for taking the time to treat us with respect and to provide thoughtful responses.

At times we can be snarky and difficult and hard-headed. But please don't ever accuse me of taking you for granted. I am greatly impressed that the devs spend as much time as you do treating with us in these forums. And it gives me hope that some of our concerns and ideas will at least be considered in the finished product.

Tannim222 wrote:

Things will make more sense in how power sets work (the combat mechanics presented) and with the aesthetic character design once it is in player hands and people get comfortable with it all.

I'm looking forward to it.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

I did not mean to imply that the only thing for sale would be Aesthetics, only that everything for sale you *can* earn through gameplay as well.

+1 to Doctor Tyche and MWM

I seem to recall a lot of discussion around this on a cash shop thread. I'm glad to see/be reminded that this is the direction. Here's to hoping that "earn through gameplay" != 10^inf hours to get a tenth of a star. Luckily the fact that "...everything for sale you *can* earn through gameplay..." suggests that other such evil trickery will be avoided. Pay to accelerate seems OK to me. Pay to play via micro transactions far too often equals abuse of mentally ill. Here's to being heroes.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

I did not mean to imply that the only thing for sale would be Aesthetics, only that everything for sale you *can* earn through gameplay as well.

I would attempt to clarify that this statement was made, I believe, in the context of aesthetics for sale. I don't THINK Doc meant to say that literally every thing that is for sale in the cash shop will be earn-able in-game. Like I doubt you can earn unlimited additional character slots by doing a TF for them or something, or various other administrative-level stuff that might get sold. That said, if the cash shop sells Stars for money and all other stuff for Stars, then you might be able to grind for IGC, use it to buy Stars off of another player, then use those to buy the thing you want, whatever that is. So in THAT sense the entire cash shop is stuff you can get for IGC, but you might need a TON of it to get the thing you want.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:
I did not mean to imply that the only thing for sale would be Aesthetics, only that everything for sale you *can* earn through gameplay as well.
I would attempt to clarify that this statement was made, I believe, in the context of aesthetics for sale. I don't THINK Doc meant to say that literally every thing that is for sale in the cash shop will be earn-able in-game. Like I doubt you can earn unlimited additional character slots by doing a TF for them or something, or various other administrative-level stuff that might get sold. That said, if the cash shop sells Stars for money and all other stuff for Stars, then you might be able to grind for IGC, use it to buy Stars off of another player, then use those to buy the thing you want, whatever that is. So in THAT sense the entire cash shop is stuff you can get for IGC, but you might need a TON of it to get the thing you want.

We already said how you can earn an additional character slot in-game:

Take a character to level cap, it unlocks another slot.

Technical Director

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

We already said how you can earn an additional character slot in-game:
Take a character to level cap, it unlocks another slot.

I don't know how I missed that one!
Great news!

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

No one ever said there wasn't typed damage.

Tannim222 wrote:

Yes, this is a "different"'kind of game where there is more emphasis placed on freeing up the player to make their character look how they want while miniizing the complexity involved in combat-related choices to the AT and power sets. Devs have more leeway in production of assets and have a easier path to generating revenue.

Things will make more sense in how power sets work (the combat mechanics presented) and with the aesthetic character design once it is in player hands and people get comfortable with it all.

Huh...interesting. Can't wait to see the breakdown of combat, damage and defenses in this game.

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Interdictor wrote:
Interdictor wrote:

Huh...interesting. Can't wait to see the breakdown of combat, damage and defenses in this game.

Technical Director

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Lets talk about this supposed

Lets talk about this supposed pet creator system. This would be interesting for sure. What if someone wished to creature a hybrid pet? Would you be able to place an falcon head on a hippo? With the humans, speaking simply from a player perspective, you can place any type of creature head on them. You are bipedal.I assume you would be quadruped here. Generally speaking, it does not appear too complicated, generally speaking..Tinkering with that seems like a lot of work. I assume no more work than you have to engage in with human models, but it seems like you are essentially creating a slew of whole new customization for quads.

VO is really doing this eh? Wouldn't that drastically extend their developmental time? They now need customization for creatures, before bipedal were the only customization element. They are talking birds, vermin like spiders, horses, wow.

I had another change of heart, I did not want this in CoT but this sounds cool and I would like to see it. I revisted the topic on their boards to read up on it and it sounds quite extensive. I am skeptical. This has not been brought up anymore, I think it was scrapped. They did not bring it up in their status update. This team has no limits to their promises.

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DT: You're just trolling now.

DT: You're just trolling now.

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Grimfox wrote:
Grimfox wrote:

DT: You're just trolling now.

My thoughts exactly when I first heard about it, too good to be true.

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Animal heads on humans is not

Animal heads on humans is not that difficult or time consuming depending on how it is done. If its done like GTA, a basic body part swap, then its fairly easy but it basically looks like an oversized mask on a player.

To make a more natural looking animal head on a human it takes a bit more work.

Some people think that by just swapping the head, or any other body part, with something new will result in picture 2 but what you actually get is picture 1. To get picture 2 the mesh needs to be extensively modified or completely changed, new animations need to be made, clothing needs to be adjusted and in most cases new uv texture mapping needs to be created.

Basically swapping body parts, any body parts, is easy unless you want something that looks like its a part of the model.

As for VO's pet customization, first I have heard of it. Can you link anything about it, because without knowing how extensive they plan to make this customization it's all just speculation. The customization could mean pallet swaps or pet clothing and have nothing to do with changing the pet mesh model at all. It could even just mean you get to choose a static pet out of a few options and not be able to actually change anything about it.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

Animal heads on humans is not that difficult or time consuming depending on how it is done. If its done like GTA, a basic body part swap, then its fairly easy but it basically looks like an oversized mask on a player.
To make a more natural looking animal head on a human it takes a bit more work.
Some people think that by just swapping the head, or any other body part, with something new will result in picture 2 but what you actually get is picture 1. To get picture 2 the mesh needs to be extensively modified or completely changed, new animations need to be made, clothing needs to be adjusted and in most cases new uv texture mapping needs to be created.
Basically swapping body parts, any body parts, is easy unless you want something that looks like its a part of the model.
As for VO's pet customization, first I have heard of it. Can you link anything about it, because without knowing how extensive they plan to make this customization it's all just speculation. The customization could mean pallet swaps or pet clothing and have nothing to do with changing the pet mesh model at all. It could even just mean you get to choose a static pet out of a few options and not be able to actually change anything about it.

Sure I can post it, if I can find it.

They are able to be edited per their comments, to what extent? I dont know, but I recall one of them saying there will be a level of flexibility. They are certainty not static from what I read over there ages ago.

Alright I finally found it.

Quoted.

(Hello, I just wanted to chime in and say, as Jaximus said, that customizable pets/minions are already a planned feature.

The current system used for them allows the same amount of flexibility as any other character (player or NPC). How much of that is editable on pets/minions is still to be decided, however. There will obviously be many options that will differ between players and pets/minions, just as there are options for NPCs that are not available as player options)

Someone here brought it up while we were discussing operator customization over here, so I checked it out because I was curious to what extent. They were also talking about horse-people and posted an image of a horse person. It is speculation because things can change and I assume they already have changed.

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Thats pretty vague. They say

Thats pretty vague. They say that they are using a system capable of the same customization as characters for pets but don't specify or even really hint at how much customization they will allow. Regardless, I gave a quick explanation of what body part swapping entails so how much they decide on is up to them. Really would have liked an actual link to the info over a quote which doesn't really say much.

As for MWM including this, pet customization, as far as I know, a pet class is not going to be available at launch. When they do include pet classes, I hope we get the same character creator customization for humanoid pets that we have for character creation and at least a decent amount of customization for animal pets. But body part swapping on animal pets is not a big concern to me personally, seems like its more work than its worth.

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Sort of vague, but not really

Sort of vague, but not really. The only vague aspect is to what extent, but there will be flexibility, as much as the PC anyway, so I am speculating it will be extensive to a certain degree.

https://valiance.shogn.net/forum/valiance-request/6-customize-minions

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Bah, its still dev speak

Bah, its still dev double speak where they say something without saying anything at all.

Dev: We are making a game where you can tell YOUR story.
Fan: How?
Dev: By giving you the tools to tell YOUR story.
Fan: What tools?
Dev: Our innovative story tools that let you tell YOUR story.

I know why they do this but it's still tiresome.

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Tannim22 wrote:
Tannim22 wrote:

Basically, we'd have to scrap scrap the majority of work on combat effects, create a new system which connected combat mechanics to appearance, create a new production pipeline between artists and game play, xhange plans for the cash shop, rework our improvement system ro accomodate aesthetics, and each new set design would require a lot more production time to develop and iterate in the furture, hanging our production schedule.

In my opinion this is the only reason that matters in regard to the advantage/disadvantage argument. I would prefer that CoT comes out in 2018 with it's current design plan than waiting until 2020 for them to revamp everything.

With that said, I love the idea of having the powers decoupled from the aesthetics, and I think having the weakness built into the defensive powersets gives more of a CoH feel than choosing adv/dis at character creation. So basically, I think MWM made the right decision in regard to advantages/disadvantages.

Anyway that's my 2¢ worth

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Phararri wrote:
Phararri wrote:

Sort of vague, but not really. The only vague aspect is to what extent, but there will be flexibility, as much as the PC anyway, so I am speculating it will be extensive to a certain degree.
https://valiance.shogn.net/forum/valiance-request/6-customize-minions

I'd say this depends on how you define flexibility. The only thing we know for sure is that they have stated that it'll have the same technical flexibility, due to using the same underlying system, as the normal character generator but the number of options are still completely unknown as is their respective "width". So I will reserve judgement in regards to its flexibility until we have something to actually look at.

Just because they use same underlying system does not mean that we'll be able to make chimera type pets.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

Bah, its still dev double speak where they say something without saying anything at all.
Dev: We are making a game where you can tell YOUR story.
Fan: How?
Dev: By giving you the tools to tell YOUR story.
Fan: What tools?
Dev: Our innovative story tools that let you tell YOUR story.
I know why they do this but it's still tiresome.

Yes I can understand how the "vagueness" of Devspeak can be annoying at times. But by the same token it allows them to perform feats of verbal wizardry such as taking the otherwise lackluster concept of Soon™ and redefining it into a span of time that could range between next Thursday and the heat-death of the universe. ;)

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Yes I can understand how the "vagueness" of Devspeak can be annoying at times. But by the same token it allows them to perform feats of verbal wizardry such as taking the otherwise lackluster concept of Soon™ and redefining it into a span of time that could range between next Thursday and the heat-death of the universe. ;)

My little word play was a 'not at all veiled' jab at Tyche's story vs lore thread. MMO developers have been using the 'tell your story' since way back when MMO was called MUD and it hasn't really added up to much.

I would just like some solid updates (that further explain and give a 'where we are in development' information) on some of the more vague aspects they touched on before. Combat mechanics, the leads system, crafting, mission design, bases, alternate activities and the games general aesthetic. Most importantly I would like one of the monthly updates used on Power design and customization if for no other reason than to have an easy link to point people to when people start arguing their assumptions as fact in regards to powers.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

Bah, its still dev double speak where they say something without saying anything at all.
Dev: We are making a game where you can tell YOUR story.
Fan: How?
Dev: By giving you the tools to tell YOUR story.
Fan: What tools?
Dev: Our innovative story tools that let you tell YOUR story.
I know why they do this but it's still tiresome.

Great point, which is why I dont trust them, and have been riding them for pages now. I suppose they are pretty vague now that I think about it.

"The tech will mirror the PC, but it really wont, because we dont know how much of it will resemble the flexibility of the PC"

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Phararri wrote:
Phararri wrote:

Great point, which is why I dont trust them, and have been riding them for pages now. I suppose they are pretty vague now that I think about it.

My frustration isn't about trust or any kind of anger with developers its entirely with the situation.

Like I said, I understand why the devs can't spell things out for us.
The situation of assumption, miscommunication, legalities and so forth make game development transparency such a minefield. I've made faulty assumptions that frustrated me, the devs have miscommunicated things, you have made some mistakes.

No one who develops a game or follows that development avoids missteps and that makes getting the info I personally want difficult to actually get.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

I would just like some solid updates (that further explain and give a 'where we are in development' information) on some of the more vague aspects they touched on before. Combat mechanics, the leads system, crafting, mission design, bases, alternate activities and the games general aesthetic. Most importantly I would like one of the monthly updates used on Power design and customization if for no other reason than to have an easy link to point people to when people start arguing their assumptions as fact in regards to powers.

For once you won't get any argument from me about this. Obviously I wouldn't expect every last detail about this game to be set in stone yet but there's got to be a point (within the next few months?) where the Devs of this game going to be able to disclose with some certainty a good amount of "big picture" info and maybe even some high level overviews of things they have otherwise been "cautiously elusive" about up until now.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

Empyrean
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I'm going to flip this thing

I'm going to flip this thing on it's head. NOT because I don't think recent posts have merit, but because I think it might be useful for perspective.

I'll bet the Devs would dearly LOVE to be able to give us concrete--hell, or even putty--details, but they are in the process of LOTS of internal testing and revision, and things are in a state of constant flux right now.

Just by way of example, here's a post from another thread:

Tannim222 wrote:

The combat mechanics are going through iteration - some is in prototype, others the underlying math is being updated to more current design pholosophies we've adopted. The "rules" or. Or more accurately, preproduction design has long since been finished. Now as we test things out, we have changed some of those "rules", and I'm sure others will change as well.
As far as contentious aspects of combat related mechanics, contentious is too strong a word. Just a few things I have my eye on which I currently find irksome, but further extensive testing is required before my concerns are either validated or alleviated.
There are some game play rules which have been shelved until we get the combat mechanics fully prototyped. These relate to our Noncombat Powers system. Some of the which has beem a topic of discussion on these forums in the past.
From time to time in the near future we may want to gauge the pulse of our supporters with regards to certain design aspects. But things are rapidly progressing where pieces are coming together.
Reserves is something I've mentioned as needing an update (among a few others). If / when that happens is another matter. My personal preference here is to show it in action rather than explaining it further ;).
I know we need more 3d artists and animators,

Now, we all know that it is established habit for forumites to use the Dev's words against them at every possible opportunity.

So, is it evasiveness and vagueness, or sensible caution and wisdom?

That last was rhetorical :P

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

SavageFist
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You can read about some pet

Reward tactics as well as damage dealing.

Brainbot
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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

I'm going to flip this thing on it's head. NOT because I don't think recent posts have merit, but because I think it might be useful for perspective.

I'll bet the Devs would dearly LOVE to be able to give us concrete--hell, or even putty--details, but they are in the process of LOTS of internal testing and revision, and things are in a state of constant flux right now.

Thank you, but I think you missed where it was said that the reasons why are understood and what it is that is so frustrating about the situation.

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