Rock, Paper, Shotgun

31/08/2009 at 23:19 DK says:

When they suddenly and without announcement upped the respec costs by an order of magnitude between the last days of beta and release, I was rather pissed.
I still am.
Effectively not being able to respec, AT ALL, is utter bullshit – even moreso for a game built on customization.

31/08/2009 at 23:24 the affront says:

It hurts a whole lot, in my opinion. But that’s from someone who sees PVP as the endgame. Now I have only played the “open” beta of Champions up to 26 or so, but there wasn’t a hint of anything but PVP in sight as something you could regularly DO at max level, apart from twiddling your thumbs (read: “socializing”.. if I only wanted that I’d certainly play something better suited to it). And if you want to be competitive there instead of dying 10 times in a row, you MUST respec or reroll. No way around it with a game that’s so young (oh how fun no real respecs will be when the inevitable balancing buffs/nerfs for the year or so after release hit….).

And, yeah, I do expect them to put respecs into the cash shop. I’ll laugh heartily when the time comes and feel glad about not buying the game for now.

31/08/2009 at 23:26 the affront says:

It hurts a whole lot, in my opinion. But that’s from someone who sees PVP as the endgame. Now I have only played the “open” beta of Champions up to 26 or so, but there wasn’t a hint of anything but PVP in sight as something you could regularly DO at max level, apart from twiddling your thumbs (read: “socializing”.. if I only wanted that I’d certainly play something better suited to it). And if you want to be competitive there instead of dying 10 times in a row, you MUST respec or reroll. No way around it with a game that’s so young (oh how fun no real respecs will be when the inevitable balancing buffs/nerfs for the year or so after release hit….).

And, yeah, I do expect them to put respecs into the cash shop. I’ll laugh heartily when the time comes and feel glad about not buying the game for now.

Also, Zyrusticae: the powerhouse tells you jack shit about how the powers scale at the level cap. They might be fine and dandy at level 15 but suck major ass later. Then you’re SOL.

31/08/2009 at 23:31 Zyrusticae says:

It’s the devs’ fault if a power scales poorly. Ideally, that should never be the case.

I do not believe that those kinds of issues warrant cheap/easy/free respecing. That said, I’ll agree that the current prices ARE pretty ridiculous. At the very least you should be able to afford one full respec if you throw all your resources into it…

31/08/2009 at 23:45 Blast Hardcheese says:

I’d have an opinion, but I don’t know if you can ever pick a second energy building power. If so, there’s no big deal. If not, I screwed up a couple of my characters pretty obscenely, what with some tanks having ranged energy building and some rather weak but high damage ones having a melee energy builder.

01/09/2009 at 00:06 gryffinp says:

All I know is, I played in the open beta, and I frequently wanted to respec but could not.

01/09/2009 at 00:11 DK says:

“@ Lafinass:

But you can pick any of the tier two skills. That’s what the ‘custom framework’ button at the bottom is for.”
If that was the case, there would be less of a problem, but it’s not. They only give you a small selection of the actual tier two skills at the start. You have to respec, which you can’t because they made it too expensive, after the tutorial to get to the actual power selection.

01/09/2009 at 00:15 Zyrusticae says:

@DixieFlatline
Er, you guys all seem to be confused.
To pick a tier two power, you need 3 powers from that power’s set or 5 non-energy-building powers from any set. This is impossible at level 5 (which would be the very first time you have access to the respec).
You’re thinking of the tier 1 powers, which require 1 power in that power set or two non-energy-building powers from any set to be taken.

@the affront
Actually, this is my sixth… seventh… eighth? MMO (EQ -> EQ2 -> SWG -> CoH/V -> Vanguard -> Eve -> PSU -> CO).

At this point I’ve learned to accept that there are going to be inequities among different classes – or in this case, different powers. And considering each and every power is available for you to choose at any junction, so long as you meet the prerequisites, I find I have little reason to care if there’s balance issues down the road.

I just start playing a different character if one is gimp. Especially in this game, which is extremely altoholic-friendly. Not an ideal solution, surely, but I don’t see why I should be given free reign to completely redesign my characters in the event of balance issues unless I’m specifically testing the game for those in the first place.

I guess I’m just not cynical enough to believe that the devs would be so short-sighted as to make something “unplayable”.

01/09/2009 at 00:38 Sartoris says:

“Hugging power” sounds awesome. John Walker would be my constant victim :D

01/09/2009 at 00:45 the affront says:

Zyrusticae: Heh, expected something like that. That sentence just sounded entirely too unbelievable/naive to me coming from someone with MMO and inevitably balancing nightmare experience. But then “unplayable” for me begins when I feel that I’m dragging my group down and just fill the throw-away slot.

Also, considering the advantages of a basically class-less system I see no reason to still force players to re-roll if they/the devs screw up. Seems like just throwing the opportunity for improvement away.
(And I’m not saying respecs should be cheap, easy to get, or whatever. Just that they’re there and you don’t get ripped off by cash shop for them – they should be achievable by in-game means, be they expensive or otherwise hard to get. There have been enough successful examples of this.)

01/09/2009 at 00:59 malkav11 says:

@Persus-9
No. People who want you to be optimized for your role simply won’t take you if you’re not optimized and there’s no ability to change that.

Besides, given how wide open Champions character-building is and how poorly it’s explained, it’s pretty easy to build yourself a character that flat out doesn’t work, only you maybe don’t figure that out until down the line. My closed beta character got to about level 16 before I started having major problems staying alive and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

01/09/2009 at 01:16 Persus-9 says:

@ Malkav: I’m not sure exactly what are you saying “no” to… My point is that sure as you say “people who want you to be optimised for your role simply won’t take you if you’re not optimised and there’s no ability to change that.” but since there’s no ability to change that and most people won’t get the optimum build the mainstream will never be made up of people who demand optimisation because the mainstream won’t have optimised builds themselves because it’ll be damn near impossible. The people who demand optimisation will be a little cliq of power levelers who are willing to start from scratch multiple times to get everything perfect rather than the mainstream that they are in WoW.

If you can build characters who don’t work at all then that does seem like a major problem but that isn’t necessarily the same problem as not being able to respec.

01/09/2009 at 01:27 Shalrath says:

“When I played WoW I played an affliction spec ‘lock and other more serious ‘locks told me I should respec to demonology because it was “better” but I couldn’t help but feel they were missing the point … I should imagine that if I’d ever wanted to get involved in a raiding guild and see the end game raids then they wouldn’t have tolerated this type of frivolous behaviour and I’d have had to respec in order to be allowed to take part.”

It’s funny, I remember this time in WoW (I say ‘this time’ because there were times where Demonology was the WORST spec…) but I was Destruction rather than Affliction. I would get harassed about how awful the spec was, how ‘unsurvivable’ it was, and then they’d play in AB with me.

And I’d top the charts.

This isn’t some ‘lookit me! I’m awesome!’ point here, but I did actually get the top spot a lot. And I didn’t just charge in a group all ring-around-the-flag. I stayed at one (almost universally the Mine) and defended it, often with, at most, 1 other person. And we’d hold it. They’d come in two’s, three’s, finally entire waves. But somehow I always held it.

And the REASON I held it, with this spec, was that it was burst. While demon could, in fact, take far more damage than me, and could also do far more damage over time than me, they could NOT kill someone faster than a heal could keep them up. I couldn’t survive shit, but I could rip a healer down in seconds.

So, in the end, you’ll find that cookie-cutter ‘min maxers’ often are quite wrong.

01/09/2009 at 01:42 Wulf says:

@DK:

I see no problems with including respecs and it’s fine for those that want them but you’ve committed a cardinal sin in my book, you’ve spoke for a huge group of people, purporting that your opinion is as theirs.

I’m a roleplayer, and by planning my character out properly (as any real roleplayer would), I’ve never actually had the need to respec, I know where I’ve been, I know where I’m going, and I’ve known this with every character. It isn’t the optimal build, but it’s my build (damn it!) and I strongly believe that’s part of what roleplaying is about.

A roleplayer becomes their character, after all, and that character is only mutable to a certain degree, no? It’d be interesting if a Ranger/Mage Elf in D&D could rush off and become a Dwarven Warrior/Berserker.

But if that happens, where’s the attachment to the character, where’s the loyalty? :<

I'm very loyal to my characters, and to dump them just because they aren't perfectly min/max is, in my opinion, not of The Roleplayer Way.

Casual players? Sure. I'm a casual player too, but casual players who aren't also roleplayers I can't speak for. Maybe a casual player would want to be respeccing every other day. No clue, I can't speak for them, and neither can you.

But to say that "RPers and casual players are screwed" is trite. It'd be more fair to say that "I, as a casual player, am screwed".

01/09/2009 at 02:11 Zyrusticae says:

As an avid RPer… yeah, that argument holds no water for me.

But, y’know, none of this discussion matters since they’ve said it’s bugged and that it will be fixed in short time anyways. :p

01/09/2009 at 03:08 perilisk says:

I’m spoiled by Guild Wars’ current system. I like playing around with builds in every system, but I don’t necessary enjoy the slog of leveling the damn characters up over and over to try things out.

Ideally, I’d like something like Guild Wars’ PvP character system — you play and accrue points used to unlock additional options for building a character, rather than vertically increasing in power. For the PvE campaign, you would start out with a very low limit on total power, but the cap would raise as you advance in the story. In PvP, everyone would play at the same level of power.

01/09/2009 at 04:49 Dante says:

The ability to test different powers is a valuable one. During the beta they added a /retcon command to unlearn abilities which was fantastic as it let you tinker around before settling on something, much like the travel power room now.

Perhaps simply extending the ‘try before you buy’ policy to include all abilities is the key?

01/09/2009 at 05:12 malkav11 says:

@Wulf – You are perfectly correct. I did not sit down and plan out my character’s entire growth from start to finish. Not only do I not want to ever have to do that, but I’m not sure how you would given that it’s not exactly clear right off the bat what’s available or how things interact. But I did make reasonable choices based on the information I had available at the time and my basic character concept. I was a swordsman with some demonic power backing me up – breathing out clouds of flies and stealing life from my foes, specifically. I had regeneration. I still died like crazy. I suppose eventually I could have very, very slowly levelled until I hit another power-granting level at which point I could have taken a wild stab in the dark at selecting a power that might make me more viable. Or they could just let me respec when I feel the need.

I should also add that while at that stage of the beta they didn’t have the Powerhouse yet, I don’t think it would have helped. The powers I took were quite effective at lower levels and against the sorts of things I was facing then. I was far more survivable than the dark magician I’d tried previously, that’s for sure. But then I got higher level and the foes changed and I was losing a lot.

01/09/2009 at 08:03 Moorkh says:

In a persistent online world I expect characters to be persistent as well.
Respeccing is a metagame, munchkin feature that detracts from the consistency of the game world and thus from my immersion.

01/09/2009 at 08:56 vasagi says:

Mr Majestic cares not for min-maxing, just power biffing perps in front of hot chicks!

01/09/2009 at 10:42 Pod says:

As long as no skills are shit, why does respecing matter?

Also:

“(i.e. In Champions you respec, and you’re still fundamentally the same sort of character. In Champions, you may not be.)”

eh?

01/09/2009 at 11:04 Choca says:

As it stands, Champions Online needs a full respec system.

The UI information about powers, stats and everything is so lackluster that people WILL make gimp characters during their first few weeks. The website is hardly helpful on the game mechanisms and you have to actively search the forums right now to learn about “the way things work” in the game.

The fact that it’s a MMO and that powers will obviously get nerfed/buffed to oblivion at some point also makes me think that they should at least give a free full respec when a patch is released.

If they don’t, the day Personal Force Field get nerfed, half the players will have to reroll. Or to quit.

01/09/2009 at 11:16 Blast Hardcheese says:

The only real problem I’ve had is not being able to change my energy-building power, which has caused quite a few headaches as I’ve had to run the tutorial for at least the fifteenth time just to pick my starting powers better. If you can pick one of the other energy-building powers later on, great! If not, we really need more respec options.
Say I do something positively inane like give a low survivability high damage character a melee energy build and everything else ranged? Then I am screwed.
Unless you can pick a second power. No one has mentioned if you can, or cannot.

01/09/2009 at 12:23 We Fly Spitfires says:

Respeccing to such a large degree has a big impact on the structure of the game. Look at a “classic” MMORPG like WoW where once you’ve selected your character class, you’re stuck with it. If they implemented the ability to change classes, you’d likely kill off the entire low level game. Still, in Champions, I found that I really didn’t have enough knowledge about the game to make any informed decisions so I just picked the Might powerset and started smashing stuff :)

01/09/2009 at 13:17 Choca says:

As far as I’m concerned the problem was not (only) the price. The fact that you can only respec your ten last choices is a pain.

I’m not asking for a “respec everything any time you want” system, I just think that a CoH-like system (where you need to do a long and limited mission to get your full respec) would be a nice addition to the game.

Anyway, thanks to the patch I finally could respec out of super dexterity on my Ice character, which will now have the almighty super constitution (like pretty much every one of my characters).

01/09/2009 at 13:47 Calabi says:

This is what turns me off of most rpgs. How do you know whats good and bad when you havent tried it before.

To play Diablo 2 you have to look up tons of information just to get a viable build for later on in the game. It is not fun at all, you cannot make any choices for fun. You have to be so careful about every choice about where you put that one stat. Unless you have this build written down right next to you which you follow to the letter then you are going to make a mistake.

01/09/2009 at 14:56 Brian says:

Sorry to complain but this article had a heck of a lot more typos than usual. Some sentences and thoughts were just outright indiscernible. Maybe give it just one read-through before hitting that publish button?

01/09/2009 at 16:40 Brass Gerbil says:

Any game with respec’ing is by definition NOT an RPG.

1974, Chainmail: Roll 3d6, write the result under STR. Roll 3d6, write the result under DEX, etc. Your class selection is based upon what you rolled randomly. The “roleplaying” part is to try to make that character come to life and play to its strengths.

1978, AD&D: Alternate rules for multiple rolls and optional (at DM’s choice) single-trait selection.

1999: EverQuest: Infinite re-rolls with bonus point distribution to tailor character. The latter editions of AD&D also adopt this system, making much of the AD&D crowd the ADD crowd.

Post EQ: Everybody’s equal. Just pick a cardboard cutout and start playing. If you run into a challenge, just remake the character mid-stream. Rules? What rules. Not coincidentally, this is also when the term “toon” (from the anime-tards) came into common usage. It is distinct from a “character” in classical roleplaying, and differentiates a generation of gamers raised on sensory overload.

Designers may as well cut out leveling and just have everybody start at max level, focusing design energy on “high-level content.” At which point the MMORPG will have become… a multi-player version of a single-player game. Circle complete.

I suspect a “hard-core” MMORPG would sell well to old codgers such as myself, but it’s a marketing risk that is probably too big for any publishing houses to swallow, considering the enormous overhead of developing and deploying modern MMOs. Ah, well… I’ll be over in the corner grumbling if you need me.

And stay off the damned lawn, ya little bastards.

01/09/2009 at 17:50 Sanns says:

That’s a particularly interesting observation about single player RPGs–that “people argue particularly in favour of no-way-back persistence”–but I don’t know that it’s a fair one. There are three critical differences between single-player and multiplayer (or, at least, MMO) RPGs:

1.) In single-player RPGs, progression is infinite (or at least close to), while in MMOs it is extremely finite. If I don’t like the way I’ve spent Frau’s LPs in FFXII, I can just go grind out some more; however, once I’ve spent my 71 talent points in WoW I am done, no matter how much more time I spend playing.

2.) Multiplayer RPGs work towards an “end game”, where all players have comparable base stats and abilities so they can work together (or against each other) to achieve marginally better gear and similar augmentations to increase their power. However, they are always limited by some type of “hard cap” (usually a max level) that normalizes the player base and prevents anyone from becoming undefeatable. Single player RPGs don’t have that same constraint, because they don’t need to sustain an endgame. If you want to grind until your entire party has more HP than the final boss, you can.

3.) Single-player RPGs usually have parties, allowing you to partake in several play styles simultaneously. However, multiplayer RPGs limit the player to a single character with a single play style. In the multiplayer game, the player needs to redesign his character if he wants to experience a new play style (or start an entirely new character, which is extremely time consuming); in the single-player game, he needs only change his party.

01/09/2009 at 20:34 J. Kevin Carrier says:

It seems obvious that more choices = more fun, but in practice it doesn’t always work out that way. Playing in open beta, I found myself wishing I could just pick some basic, reasonably-effective build “off the shelf” and get my feet wet with that, instead of having to pore over documentation for hours just to figure out how to make a non-gimp character. I suspect the combination of a (relatively) complex stats system and (relatively) restricted respec options is going to lead to a lot of newbie frustration.

01/09/2009 at 21:33 Wulf says:

@invisiblejesus

“I knew a lot of roleplayers, some of whom mini-maxed and some of whom didn’t.”

You know a lot of people? Care to name ‘em?

I’ve never known a roleplayer who min/maxes, and whenever someone says that I wonder how my definition of roleplayer (a person who plays a role) differs from someone else’s (a number-cruncher?).

“I feel pretty confident that I am.”

No, you’re not. You can ask them to speak for themselves but you cannot speak for them, you cannot speak for anyone who hasn’t had a quotable instance of something said that supports your viewpoint before.

You’re not in a position to speak for anyone but yourself.

This is the most annoying fallacy I’ve ever encountered, I almost feel like I’m going to pop a vein whenever I come across it.

“Lots of roleplayers [...]”

1) Your definition of a “roleplayer” may differ from the next person’s, I know it differs from mine.

2) “Lots of”? You’re speaking for a large group of people again, you cannot possibly do this! You could only do this if you have a hive-mind link with a huge group of people, if you don’t then you cannot know what any one person is thinking at any moment in time, let alone every moment. Let them speak for themselves and you speak for yourself!

But if you do have a hive-mind link then…

…then…

…then Gods damn it, as a transhumanist, I’m jealous! :<

"[I] like them in CoH,"

I fixed your typo for you.

"[...] and I assure you many RPers in CO will feel the same way."

On what grounds? Give me a basis if you’re going to make a claim like that! Do you even have any questionable statistics supporting such a statement?

Though actually… I do respect you for not using questionable statistics. Still, you’re only speaking for yourself, and on a personal you/I level, I think your definition of what a roleplayer is is different to mine.

“I dunno about DK,”

You mean like you don’t know about all those other people? :p That’s the first honest thing you’ve said thus far.

“[...] but I know enough roleplayers that I think I am in a position to speak for them.”

So you claim to, at least.

And assuming that these people even exist outside of your imagination, have you asked each and every one of them if they agree with you? Hm?

Bloody fallacies.

“If you don’t share that opinion, that’s fine, but it doesn’t change the facts.”

What facts?! D:<

Where's a fact? I see no facts! I wish to perceive these facts of the aether, for thus far I cannot!

You have no 'facts', you have an anecdotal story about how you can speak for a huge group of people, and you have your own opinion, none of these things are 'facts'!

Lordy…

Here, look at this: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fact

A fact is actuality, it has to have a basis in reality and truth and yet you have provided no such basis, therefore you’re speaking as one person with one rather biased opinion, and one that’s making claims that have no anchors in reality.

Not even the combined might of Witchcraft’s and Ravenspeaker’s magicks could turn your baseless warbling into facts.

Seriously, lrn2fact.

@malkav11

“Not only do I not want to ever have to do that, but I’m not sure how you would given that it’s not exactly clear right off the bat what’s available or how things interact.”

Now this is what I find strange…

1) This is a roleplaying game, more so than any other MMO I’ve ever played. Why would you not feel compelled to plan out your character?

2) Either I’m a sparkling intellect of immeasurable depth (I’m not, I’m not particularly smart at all, just rather creative) or it is clear off the bat.

You can head into the tutorial and test things out, if you save your character like I pointed out, then checking things out in the tutorial so that you understand them isn’t a major concern. And after that, you have the Power House.

All this I pointed out all ready.

I really don’t understand your difficulty with constructing a character, I’m not the smartest cookie and yet I found it easy. I think you’re just putting too much thought into min/maxing rather than simply going with what your character would do.

“I had regeneration. I still died like crazy.”

This usually happens due to bad tactics and refusing to group rather than the actual character build.

I could pick the worst build in the game and still avoid dying like crazy. In fact, the only times I’ve died is when I’ve done stupid things on purpose, just for a laugh.

Ex: “I’m going to drop into that VIPER facility, aggro all of those guys who’re levels higher than me, and then run like hell to see what happens! :D”

So yeah, death is usually due to that. And that I did just because I was feeling sadistic and thought it would be pretty funny, and it was. I ran past three heroes with about 20 VIPER guys chasing me, and they were all “what?”.

Yes, I can be pretty stupid if there’s humour to be had in doing so, but I digress.

“I should also add that while at that stage of the beta they didn’t have the Powerhouse yet, [...]”

If you’d said that at the start, I would’ve just pointed out that the game is very different with the Power House and not have argued anything. The game without the Power House would be total arse.

This I freely admit.

“I don’t think it would have helped.”

You don’t know that without having tried it, the Power House is an incredible concept.

“But then I got higher level and the foes changed and I was losing a lot.”

The foes became harder and you have to use more intelligent tactics, yes. You can’t just rush into a huge group of people and hope to survive, only the mightiest (Might-based) heroes can do that.

If you’re not primarily Might-based (which it sounds like you weren’t), then you’re not going to be able to survive that.

You need to learn to use the environment and travel powers to your advantage.

@Zyrusticae

Going by a lot of posts I don’t think anyone even bothered to look in the corridors of the Power House, and are now too embarrassed to admit this.

So I wouldn’t be surprised if what you’d pointed out was new to a lot of people.

@Moorkh

That’s exactly what I was getting at when I asked “Where’s the loyalty to characters?” earlier. In a game like Champions Online, it’s nice to see someone and think to yourself… hey, I know that guy.

Myself, I’m becoming a once-hobo werewolf crossed with a hardened military vet, and I’m building on that and making the character stronger instead of desiring to change things. I want people to see me and know me, if I run by I want people to be able to recognise my character by how he looks and how he’s fighting, rather than just his name.

And that’s how it is in the comic books too, heroes are memorable.

@devlocke

Thank you! I couldn’t have said it better myself.

As I’ll get to with another reply in this post, I think the game is about character building. I see many heroes which are just min/maxing. They have horrendous, random costumes, they have no backstory, their name makes no sense, and they just look like a bloody pointless abomination.

I ask myself: What’s the point?

In a superhero Universe, you’re out to create an individual aspect of awesomeness, whether it’s hilarious, simply brilliant, or something that makes someone stop and think. And then it’s absolutely bloody beautiful to talk to that person and find out they’ve planned out their entire character, that they can effortlessly answer any questions that you have for them. They become their character, and their character has almost endless depths and facets.

I love that shit.

When I see someone who’s just min/maxing and a random pile of junk with no backstory and a pointless name… well, they’re not someone who I could really talk to or enjoy the company of.

I welcome people, like you, who come into the game to make their own hero, something that they’ve put real effort into and that’s individually theirs.

Not number-crunchers, but people with history, stuff that’s actually, genuinely interesting.

@Calabi

You can completely test every power from top to bottom in the Power House, and frankly, it sounds like anyone who doesn’t realise this just hasn’t plumbed the depths of the Power House yet.

You can know what’s good and bad, because until you leave the Power House you get free refunds on every choice you make.

@Choca

Your complaint isn’t in regards to the Power House though, the Power House has let you test every power you’ve had. Your complaint is whining about how you’ve picked one power that makes another power you have obsolete.

I think that a worthwhile solution there would be that certain powers should be classified as an upgrade of previous powers, so that if you select power A that makes power B obsolete, you get a refund token for the obsolete power, and I think that idea could be posed to Cryptic.

Really though, I don’t mind “obsolete” powers, because I keep plugging advantages into everything, and eventually powers that seemed obsolete make themselves very worthwhile again as A) one works them into their tactics and B) one upgrades them with advantages.

But that’s just me, and I do support the refund token idea for powers which are truly obsolete.

@Deadend

I find the irony of the way you begin your post delicious, you claim that the defenders amount to saying that you suck and yet you go on to say that the methods of powers management in the game sucks. So you turn the whole thing into “You suck!”, “No you do!”

That made me giggle, but it wasn’t at all constructive.

To you and anyone else who’s whining instead of playing the game: What’s so bad about the Power House? I’ve seen people talk ill of the Power House, and I’ve seen people say that it’s not like a real combat scenario. Uh… okay. Want to tell me why?

Let’s examine what the Power House has…

- Target dummies for ranged and close quarters.

You can test your powers here and see their animations, visual effects, and effectiveness in general.

You can also test offensive drones here.

- Attack lasers.

You can use these to test your basic defense buffs, blocks, and combinations thereof, just keep activating the lasers and watch what happens.

You can also test how defensive drones will respond to you being damaged via the attack lasers.

- A huge room with platforms at various heights to romp in.

This place is fantastic for giving travel powers a go, and the Power House itself is pretty spacious, too.

So at the end of the day, we have the ability to test close quarters attacks, ranged attacks, response to damage, and drones. What is the Power House missing? Give me a constructive write-up on what the Power House could use, and then give that write-up to Cryptic as well.

Because Cryptic will fix the Power House system if it needs fixing, they’ve already responded to no end of player feedback, and rarely does anything ever go ignored.

I don’t think the Power House is broken, I think it accounts for every combat scenario. If you disagree, then why? And why not do something about it by asking Cryptic to implement your ideas instead of just whining on comments threads about it?

@M.P.

Here we go again…

“(though I preferred Warhammer to AD&D)”

I’ve only played a tiny bit of Warhammer, but having experienced Warhammer at least a couple of times I can tell you it’s a very, very different beast to D&D.

“[...] here was interaction with the other players [...]”

You’re claiming that there’s less interaction between players in MMOs than in PnP? I disagree as I can spend six hours or more roleplaying in a good group in PnP or in an MMO that supports roleplaying.

I have to say that the people in Champions Online are bloody marvellous. I haven’t wanted to leave some zones because the players there were so much fun!

“[...] and ACTUAL roleplaying!”

Let me give you my definition of roleplaying: The playing of a role, the personality of an imaginary character and building upon these things over time, creating a rich story in the process.

This is something one can do anywhere, isn’t it? One could even do this writing a book, or acting in a play that has a loose plot.

In my opinion, to suggest that PnP is the only system that allows for roleplaying, and indeed that roleplaying can’t be achieved anywhere else is elitist, dis-ingenious, and utterly fallacious.

Number-crunching and die-rolling isn’t my definition of roleplaying, not at all.

“In MMOs, 90% of the gameplay is “activate skill 1, activate skill 2, etc.” How long will you want to do that for before you want to try something new?”

Uh, I have a varied selection of skills even as a low level Champions. Good grief, did you even bother to examine Champions before making a post in a comments thread about Champions?

My low-level werewolf already has guns, kick-boxing, feral attacks, smoke bombs, and he can travel by swinging around on a grappling hook, soon I’ll add even more to that arsenal. He’s as detailed as any of my similarly levelled D&D characters ever were.

“And how many times are you prepared to spend weeks or months levelling up an alt just so you can try out a slightly different gameplay experience?”

You really aren’t talking about Champions Online. No doubt in my mind at this point. Seriously.

Go play Champions Online, understand how the game works, then form your opinion. You fail at arguments because you’re arguing without knowledge of all the elements present within the current topic.

If you’re not arguing about Champions Online then why bring up this argument in a thread where that’s the said topic?

In Champions Online you can have an incredibly varied power-set off the bat (it’s a classless game) and one which can become even more varied as time goes on.

This isn’t World of Warcraft, where you select Priest or Druid and that’s that, but I’m sure that’s the picture you have in your head due to the points you’re positing, like people are locked into a class.

“In the pnp [You mean Warhammer? - Wulf] days I really enjoyed sitting down before a new campaign thinking what kind of character I wanted to play, [...]”

Did you even read my big post about how I describe doing just that with Champions Online and how strongly I recommend that people do so? Once again you’re speaking from the perspective of MMOs only having cookie-cutter classes which you simply pick and then run into the game with.

“[...] what he’d start like and how I’d evolve him, which careers he’d take etc.”

Seriously, read my post above. I always do the same thing; why my character has the appearance he does, explanations for disfiguring scars, or other individual visual elements, stories behind his clothing and equipment, a detailed write-up on his personality which would define what kind of training he’d opt for, an origin story behind whatever powers he might possess, and so on.

This is seriously getting old because you obviously haven’t played the game you’re supposed to be arguing against. Champions Online is more like PnP than any other MMO I’ve ever played.

I might be wrong though, you may have played Champions Online. If you have, care to link a Champion profile?

“The difference was in those circumstances you played with a GM, and if he was any good he would adjust the challenge according to what the group could handle.”

And you can do this with Nemesis content, in Champions, you’re your own GM.

“[...] or would your friends kick you off the party because you weren’t optimal!”

Uh… that happens in many MMOs out there and it’s pretty shit, I hate min/maxing. Is that your idea of what roleplaying is? Because if it is then I’m not sure it’s worth discussing this any further with you because our ideas of what roleplaying is vary greatly.

It’s sounding like your idea of roleplaying is carefully tailoring numbers, stats, and abilities, rather than giving a damn about the history of your character, his personality, or anything else.

The end result is that you’re throwing around an algorithm, a mathematical formulae, and one without a shred of personal character or charm to speak of. In my opinion that’s number-crunching and a pure staple of past MMOs, that’s not PnP at all (or Champions Online).

If my assumptions are right, you’ve performed a bait and switch by moving from talking about PnP — in which one creates and roleplays a character — to MMOish number-crunching. But let’s continue and see where this goes…

“In MMOs, finding a group can be difficult, [...]”

Not in Champions Onlilne as I find the zone chat is pretty much occupied by people trying to group, a second doesn’t go by where a person asks if people want to group to do this or that, and it’s always met by a positive response.

This isn’t Final Fantasy XI, where you’d sit around for ages waiting for a group, you can just do your own thing until someone wants to group with you just for fun, and I’ve found no shortage of people who want just that!

I admit that’s just my take on it, and it’s anecdotal, but speaking from my own experiences I find myself grouping more often than not.

“[...] and finding a good group even more so.”

Now you’re doing the elitist thing again. Show me a good PnP group that has no weak links and I’ll show you an Elder Myth.

“Endgame pvp in most of them is also more of an e-sport than an RPG, [...]”

PvP is almost pointless in Champions, but I don’t care because I always roleplayed with friends and I never took a weapon or spell to any of them.

“[...] so having a good spec is important, and being able to respec easily is justified.”

Now you’re doing the min/max MMO number-crunching thing again and ignoring your original argument regarding PnP. I suspected this earlier on though so it’s hardly surprising.

To me, it sounds like you’re actually supporting having an eSport PvP system in a game, and potentially even sacrificing the rest of the game to promote that PvP system. So PvP > character-growth? That doesn’t sound very PnP to me.

Hmmm…

“And you know something? Min-maxing is fun, it appeals to the powergamer in me [...]”

I’m sorry, I don’t do this often, but…

LoL.

I saw that coming a mile away!

I had a feeling that this was less about PnP and more about PvP, number-crunching, power-munchkinry and wotnot.

Still, let’s continue, for amusement’s sake.

“[...] (you must have had moments of flicking through your AD&D rulebooks trying to work out how best to eke the most power out of your character, right?) [...]”

Er no, that’s not how I play D&D at least, and speaking from personal experiences I’ve never been in a group where any of my favourite players have been min/maxing.

There was the odd person who loved min/maxing but they were often the weak link in a PnP group because they were all about phat loots, number-crunching, and they couldn’t roleplay or get into character worth shit.

Has anyone else with D&D PnP experience actually experienced a helpful min/maxer who they didn’t end up wishing wasn’t a part of the group?

Ex: I’d honestly claim that a Paladin who’s all ‘omigawd, i got to have that sword’ instead of playing up his role and acting on in-character motivations is invariably a D&D detriment.

“Even more so in games like Guild Wars, where I wouldn’t just design my own character but spend hours coming up with innovative builds for 8-man teams, which my guild leader would inevitably reject :)”

So this is all about being a PvP fanboy and damning games which don’t embrace PvP? Oh, and nice bait-and-switch between PnP and PvP, by the way.

Well, PvP isn’t a staple of D&D, and it isn’t a staple of Champions/Champions Online. Champions Online is the most D&D/D20-like MMO I’ve ever played, and that includes Dungeons & Dragons Online (which had a ludicrous XP curve which made no sense to D&D players).

So please don’t present your post as though you’re damning Champions Online as a PnPer, when really you’re damning it as a a PvPer.

You can damn it as a Guild Wars/Warhammer PvP gamer and number-cruncher but you haven’t made one single good, solid argument with which to damn it as a PnPer or by my definition of what a roleplayer is.

Champions Online is a brilliant game for anyone who subscribes to my definition of roleplaying, and to compare it to D&D/D20 is entirely fair. To compare it to the PvP element of Warhammer isn’t fair, sure, but to be honest … when I think of PnP (Pen & Paper), I think of D&D (and D20 in general).

The reason I think of D&D is because D&D is pen & paper. Whereas PvP-oriented Warhammer is more about figurines and boards, no? It’s not as focused around the singular character as D&D is.

So to draw this to its inevitable conclusion: In Champions Online you don’t PvP and you don’t min/max so much, but you actually play the role of a character. That comes first and foremost, the playing of a role > stat-crunching.

If you want to stat-crunch and number-juggle, well… there’s always Warhammer and the MMOs that love that kind of thing. But you’re not really roleplaying a character, are you?

01/09/2009 at 21:52 Wulf says:

@eyemessiah

“If your character lives in a world with infinite respecs and you love to RP then shouldn’t you just RP you characters as though they live in a world with infinite respecs?”

Sure… if respecs are a part of the lore of the World.

But I’d just cringe if Captain America could just run off and respec as Commander France, going from Might to Mind Control in the process.

“Or does the infinite respec universe really make for less interesting RP fodder?”

It depends on the World. For something like Warcraft? It makes sense. For something like Champions? It doesn’t.

“Surely your RP already takes into account the millions of other “gamey” abstractions and restrictions that trying to play on a uber-spreadsheet rather than with a creative GM requires?”

Again, if they fit the World we’re roleplaying in? Yes. That’s very important and I’ll stress it until it sinks in.

“Are infinite respecs really much more of a stretch than infinite respawns for instance?”

Absolutely.

Is it unreasonable to believe that Nightcrawler might teleport Cyclops away if he’s hurt in battle? No.

Is it unreasonable to believe that Defender may reroll as Offender: Man of Insults? Yes.

“On the other hand, modern MMOs are very well suited to min\maxing, character building and PVP, given that the mechanics are absolute and consistently enforced.”

Which is what Champions Online tends to be veering away from, it wants to be different from games like World of Warcraft, and it is.

Champions Online is actually more like Ultima Online. And in Ultima Online respecs don’t make sense either. If a woodcutter spends most of their life cutting down trees, is it really believable that they’d be able to forget that and reconfigure their brain so that they can take up blacksmithing? Err, yeah, pretty much.

It all depends on the nature of the World in question.

What works for Azeroth may not work for Sosaria.

“Given that MMOs are, by design and possibly necessity, far more G than R, [...]”

I think the balance of game and roleplay is pretty balanced in Champions Online, compared to say… World of Warcraft, where in my opinion the balance is strongly in the favour of G over R, as you’ve said.

We have to accept that Champions Online is a different kind of beast, we need to accept its individuality, and see it for what it is instead of trying to make it into what we want it to be. No?

“I’d rather that they were non-punishing and not excessively time consuming (excessive time consumption being really just another form of punishment imho).”

I don’t find Champions Online to be either punishing or time consuming.

“In my opinion infinite respecs are desirable, provided there are many optimal paths, and your goal is for the game to be accessible and time efficient.”

That may fit other games, but it doesn’t seem to fit the ethos of Champions Online. It really sounds like your post is saying that you want Champions Online to be World of Warcraft with a cape and in spandex, and that you’re throwing a bit of a wobbly because it isn’t.

Well, it isn’t.

I wish you could see that and actually try to accept it for what it is, if you do that, you may find that Champions Online is a far more beautiful beast than World of Warcraft. That’s if you were to give it a chance, and allow it to be the unique and individual identity that it’s trying to be.

@Dean

You make the claims, but as is my clarion call: Where’s your evidence?

You claim that the end-game in Champions Online will be focused around those that min/max. O rly? Have Cryptic said as much? If so, show me. If you have a magical basis to determine this, explain it to me.

You’re assuming that the end-game of Champions Online will be like World of Warcraft, but the Nemesis-play tells a very different story, and one of a more dynamic end-game than Warcraft knows.

In Champions Online, I would posit that the player can tailor their own end-game.

@J. Kevin. Carrier

You weave an argument based around the idea that it’s easy to create gimped characters in Champions Online that won’t last long without being min/maxed.

Where is the basis for this idea that min/maxing is necessary in Champions Online? I can only counter your opinion with my own opinion, and with my experience (however anecdotal), but I’ve been and encountered high-level players in the beta (and working my way there in Live) that never min/maxed at any point.

I’m truly baffled by the people who’re assuming that min/maxing is at all necessary in the game, whereas the game itself seems to tell a different story.

How many Champions Online players have found that min/maxing is a necessity?

@Lafinass

Who’s to say that they won’t offer a coupon to allow a full Power House redo when they make such sweeping changes? We have no evidence as to how they’ll handle that either way, so making assumptions before the fact is rather pointless.

But I’m seeing a lot of assumptions and baseless claims across the board, here. :/

01/09/2009 at 22:12 Wulf says:

Er, oops. Let me try that last paragraph again:

“Honest question, I’m tasking creative writers here. If anyone can come up with a well-written explanation of how completely rewriting the nature of entities mechanical, biological, and mystical can actually work in a practical and functional way, then I’m all for it.”

01/09/2009 at 22:39 Calabi says:

@Wulf

If you want an example for the irrationality of super powers and people changing from one t other then you just have to look at Heroes(the series).

They change powers more often than they have hot dinners, and they change their minds more often than that.

01/09/2009 at 23:44 Jaxtrasi says:

It’s worth pointing out I think that many pen and paper games don’t support “RP” as Wulf defines it. D&D certainly doesn’t. Storyteller doesn’t. Conspiracy X (old system) probably does.

Most RP systems I’ve played (the exceptions are the ultra-detailed ones… you can see where this is going) play merry havoc with realism and simulation in favour of broad strokes. Hit points inevitably lead to people surviving things they couldn’t survive (like falling from terminal velocity) or dying instantly from things that couldn’t possibly be lethal (like being punched in the leg).

As a roleplayer you always have to choose; do the mechanics define the game world, or does the player’s imagination define the game world? In the former, you take hit points literally. In such a world (like D20 Modern) humans can, with sufficient combat experience, survive falls from terminal velocity. In the latter, you gloss over such things, typically at the GM’s discretion. A player claiming that the mechanics supported surviving a fall from terminal velocity would be told to get stuffed, and that their character was dead.

Neither is superior or deserves the undisputed title “roleplaying”. Both work as long as the players involved want to play it that way.

A typical example of this in action is D&D’s Paralyse spell. This spell has a mechanical intention – it makes someone inactive in combat – and a characterful explanation – it literally paralyses their whole body.

Over the years this has evolved in two different directions. The attitude taken by hardcore 2E players is that the characterful explanation rules, ad therefore if you cast paralyse on someone and throw then in a river, they drown.

The attitude taken by 4E is that the (balanced) mechanical effect rules. Paralyse is a “debuff”, not a “kill”, so it can’t be “exploited” to turn it into a death spell except as demarked by the rules (for example in 3E you could Coup De Grace the subject of a paralyse spell). How you choose to explain it is less important – 4E explicitly endorses this by encouraging the players to come up with alternate explanations for their powers. Whether the paralysis comes from magical force, or poison, or roots bursting from the ground is mechanically irrelevant and therefore up to the players to decide. Using a more literal system, this difference would be desperately important – where are you going to find roots on a glacier? What happens when you run out of poison or are fighting a golem?

Most systems ultimately find an unwieldly balance somewhere along this axis, and most groups include players who would prefer it in different ways, which is where all this legendary “You’re just a rollplayer” etc etc comes from.

Neither is better. Both are valid.

03/09/2009 at 01:29 malkav11 says:

@Wulf:
I’m not interested in roleplaying in this or any other MMO. I’ll save that for the tabletop, thanks. (Or IRC or whatever). And if I were going to roleplay in CO, I certainly wouldn’t plan out my character’s every power choice at creation, because that doesn’t allow for organic character growth.

Beyond that…well, hey, thanks for assuming that I’m a terrible player who doesn’t know what he’s doing. Ass.

30/09/2009 at 08:21 Muckbeast says:

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