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Bad Skills Customization
erirdar
Member Posts: 6
Every toon in a given type has the same combat skills, which is incredibly stupid, one should be able to customize the skills more.
Erirdar means lonely hunter in Sindarin
Comments
Mm, my feelings about the game are quite different. Certainly, the skill selection in City of Heroes is not nearly as customisable as, say, that of Guild Wars. However, the skill selection is arguably more detailed and open for customisation than some other games, such as World of Warcraft (although one could argue that World of Warcraft has an impressive degree of customisation, also). After all, in World of Warcraft one's class determines almost all of one's available abilities. In City of Heroes/Villains, the player is able to choose from several sets of powers, all of which offer different abilities. These abilities can be mixed and matched, and a character can become rather silly or extremely efficient based on what powers are chosen. Also, the level at which one chooses particular powers matters, especially if one does a lot of level-changing when playing with higher or lower level friends.
Overall, I would say that City of Heroes offers a very nice amount of customisation in its available power sets and the different ways they can be matched. With a little bit of imagination, each character can be rather different from another. I would love further customisation also, but sometimes one must take what one gets with each game; a game likely cannot meet everyone's desires. The available power choices are quite good, I feel!
There are actually multiple sets of skills for each archtype and each one compliments the others. You have two sets you start with that gives you 18 powers to choose from, then you get to choose 4 power pools, each with 4 powers in them. You now have 34 powers to choose from. Then you hit the 40-50 levels and you get your Ancilliary power pool, 4 more powers to choose from. 38 powers to choose from and only 25 levels that you get to choose a power. Add to that the most extensive character creation system of any MMO on the market and you have endless possiblities to customize your character.
To be honest the OP seems like one of those "CoH/CoV sux cause it aint WoW" types.
I wouldn't see the point to have Brawl1, Brawl2, Brawl3, if that is what you mean by customisation. Brawl is just a basic attack everyone has. They could have make it differents I guess and allow you to choose a different looking Brawl attack. Giving choice here would divert the player attention from the real focus and confuse players. Brawl has a great use in PvP as well...
Kick is in the fighting templace, as is punch, which is available to every character level 6+. Jab, uppercut and many other are limited to super strenght, which is fine by me. Martials artists have special attacks move if you look for these...These attacks and diversity are linked with already existing primary/secondary power sets. I see more variation in CoV then in ANY other MMO I have played. Not every SS take jab or uppercut, but of course, a LOT do. Which is fine, since mastering an art usually involve sharing in comon a LOT of technics other masters have. That's been said, it would always be nice to have more customisation, yet it clearly outmatch any MMO out there, there are over 200 differents attacks, which is already a LOT. Of course, as a player, we always want more.
Devs have limited time and work time to allow on the game, contrary to the popular belief. They give you the best customisation (look), which I think is a LOT better than cutting these options by half to give you a few brawl variations...
That's been said, I gues that if they can't find anything, they could always give the player a choice in the brawling attack they get at low level, but it also mean changing the way you acquire it...which is honestly a lot of fuss for very little. I rather see them working on stuff that matter and will enhance the gameplay.
And as many peoples point out, there is MORE customisation in CoH than in any MMO I play, even fight-wise. You have to check which primary/secondary you want, then pick the powers you want between these 2 and any secondary power pool, up to 4 of these...then there is the EPIC powers to consider. Myself I avoid these epic, but some like them a lot. (only the pet is worth it in CoV IMO).
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
I think the OP is talking bout how powers are copy / pasted around. for instance, energy melee is shared across like 6-7 classes. Defender / Controller share entire sets. Stalker borrows Scrapper sets. Brutes got Tanker powersets. Corrupter got Defender/Blaster sets with a new set here and there thrown in. Yeah this was a common complaint on the CoX forums. Everyone was always asking for more powersets.
Guess #2: He could be complaining about how there are only 24 power slots which are not enough to even fit all the class powers + epics + travel / fitness. So, I always thought it always crippled teaming cause you never knew what someone bought to the table. for instance your team can recruit a kinetics corrupter and he might not have Speed Boost, healers lack rez, tankers/brute lack Taunt. Yeah I havent heard many CoX fans complain bout this honestly but I always thought that crippled gameplay too.
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
[edit] Btw this is what I heard- in beta there were no archetypes. You just picked your sets and went with it. Well, right before release I heard they hastily added on the ATs. They did a good job however, this is why you really dont have the strong defined roles in CoX. For instance, in CoX there is no defined healer role per se. Empath is the closest thing you will find however they can choose to 'roleplay as a healer' and get Clear mind, heal other, and rez.
I wish that players automatically got all of their powers from their class sets that way we'd have better defined roles in CoX. Right now, players have toi choose their powers. this is not good for newbies. many pick gimped stuff like jump kick, etc. it is not unusual to run into someone with group fly that totally has no need for it. Giving newbs all of their powers would make CoX more newbie friendly. You just cant expect newbs to plan out their entire builds. That's the weakness of the CoX build system. Limited respecs is another weakness it discourages trial and error. I made good use of test server however I was a hardcore player. Casual players just dont use Test server normally
These are just my personal opinions I think their build systems can be improved to be more flexible for newbs.
I do like the enhancement system. I love how you can switch them out at will. They did a lot of stuff right.
Possibly, but perhaps we should allow him to speak for himself rather than having us suppose and guess as to his meaning.
New sets of powers would be lovely, but I for one rather like the current 'overlap' of sets. Sometimes I become fond of a certain collection of powers and would like to combine it with a different type of character altogether. For example, Fire is always entertaining to me, so on my characters I've combined it with many different sets.
Although I understand how you feel in your second paragraph, I believe that the game is actually more varied and interesting when not all powers are available for all characters. Certainly, some characters may end up better in certain situations than others, but more often than not everything balances out fairly well. I could understand the problems associated with teaming with, say, a would-be healer without Howling Twilight (or a similar revive power), but honestly I feel this encourages people to adapt to different situations and to find other players whose characters' skills complement their own powers.
Good points here however I personally consider Guild Wars the supreme champion when it comes to customization. You have over 400 powers to choose from I believe (I only have GW + GW: Factions so for mne its only bout 300 but if I had GW: Nightfall it would be more). Players literally design their own class. for instance Fighter/Monk with some healing/rez is called a 'Paladin' build. You have 'touch rangers', 'druid' - ranger/monk, etc. There's enmdless variety you never know what a guild will bring to a Guild vs Guild war. The pitfall is that you can only bring 8-9 skills to arena matches I forget the count. However what I found interesting bout GW is that many players post templates on many sites and give their 'Class' a name like Paladin. So you are actually sort of role playing. Now, not saying GW > CoX or anything else like that. Both games have their own strengths
Yeah GW, like CoX, can suffer from not having a set defined role. However, in GW right before a mission I'd negotiate with the team to findout what powers they wanted my Monk to bring. CoX lacks this sort of flexibility. In CoX you are locked into your sets. Not necessarily a bad thing though cause you are role playing as a superhero in CoX so it makes sense. I do wish I could configure my build (power selections) at will in CoX (for infamy, etc) what would it hurt the Devs to give out infinite respecs? This is the question many pvpers have asked on CoX forums.
CoX is a good game however with just a tiny bit of work it could become really really awesome
<edit- ignore this post I dont want to derail the discussion talking bout GW in which is mainly an online RPG to me anyway sorry>
I agree with you. Yes, there are several powers to choose from, but in reality, the game is very limiting. Want to be a tank? You only get a choice of 4 primary sets. Scrapper? Very limited there too.
In addition, the game play is in sharp contrast to character creation. When you create a character, you have tons of choices to individualize your character. However, even though your characters may look different, everyone of equal level is pretty much the same with a few minor differences. Powers are slotted pretty much the same (2 acc / 3 Dam / 1 whatever) and players take pretty much the same powers out of their AT selections and Power Pools (I'm looking at you stamina and hasten).
I understand your views, but how is what you noted about City of Heroes any different from many other MMORPGs? In World of Warcraft, there are three talent trees for each class, and even though one can pick and choose from a variety of these talents, the spells and abilities are, for the most part, the same across the entire class. In something like Auto Assault, every member of a particular class is essentially alike in terms of available powers and abilities. Even in Guild Wars, which is not technically an MMORPG by its creators' statements, the selection of powers is fairly limited---certainly, the available abilities are legion, but members of a certain class combination tend to take many of the 'best' ones in premade builds for specific situations.
It seems to me that the standard of 'limitations' is not in any way simply a City of Heroes issue, but rather an ongoing issue for many MMORPGs. Some would even argue that limitations may need to be fairly common in order to achieve some degree of game balance and organisation. I always love new choices (not that I'm terribly good at making decisions or anything, but I do like having a lot of things from which to choose), but sometimes we just have to take what we can get and accept the game for what it is. Not very many MMORPGs offer better customisation; that's not to say that they should refuse to improve, but rather that we should avoid speaking too strongly against a particular game of the genre when the genre itself may be what is full of the issue.
Actually I apologize I probasbly should not have brought up Guild Wars since many do not consider it an MMO. I do not want to derail this into a conversatin bout GW though. The only other MMO that has as much variety is Rappelz. there is no limit to the # of pwoers from what I can recall- if I'm not mistaken it only cost a few job points to acquire base class powers. Rappelz had one of the best customization systems it would rank as my personal favorite so far. For CoX I like many of the other things it offered. anyway...
In respect to WoW I'm not going to say much on the talent trees. It's really subjective. I personally felt it made a huge difference in my playstyle. What I liked about it was that I could always experiment with the different trees.
Now I agree with you on the surface WoW talent trees are minor little things here and there. I say thats a GOOD thing. This means all druids can innervate, heal, and morph. Thats good role play. THis means if I group wioth a druid then there is a high chance I'll get hit with innervate no matter what his specialization is. Now, I do consider CoX to have vastly superior role playing to any other MMO I've seen so far- just think teaming suffers to an extent
As far as FoTM builds you are correct its a big issue in most any other MMO for sure. In CoX- its a little more glaring cause from min/max point-of-view you really dont have a reason at all to try some of the sets. I specialized in CoV so in respect to corrupters- many of us couldnt see any reason then to do Fire primary for PvE (AoE) or Ice for PvE/PvP. The other primaries really seemed incredibly weak. This might not be a huge problem across the board but for someone who loved Corrupters like myself it was onyl fair that the Devs buff the other sets to make them more viable.
In any case these are just my opinions I cant speak for the entire CoX community. I suspect the folks that did not try to min/max and sweat over their builds in CoX Hero Planner probably had a lot more fun. When I developed my builds I'd meticiously plan every power for every level and do the math using CoX Hero Planner / prima guide. Like many once I did the math I got discouraged once I saw the powerful sets were so much better by a wide margin it made no sense to do anything else. For instance, for Brutes /ELA and now /Fire reign for secondary out of like 5 other choices? /Inv gets ripped by Carnies/Malta in high lvl PvE so no one wants to roll that anymore on villain side. For stalkers we only had spines and EM primaries. Sure, Nin primary looked fun but EM/Spines did more dmg so it made no sense to use anything else. Scrappers only have Broadsword and Spines, etc.
I understand your views, but how is what you noted about City of Heroes any different from many other MMORPGs? In World of Warcraft, there are three talent trees for each class, and even though one can pick and choose from a variety of these talents, the spells and abilities are, for the most part, the same across the entire class. In something like Auto Assault, every member of a particular class is essentially alike in terms of available powers and abilities. Even in Guild Wars, which is not technically an MMORPG by its creators' statements, the selection of powers is fairly limited---certainly, the available abilities are legion, but members of a certain class combination tend to take many of the 'best' ones in premade builds for specific situations.
It seems to me that the standard of 'limitations' is not in any way simply a City of Heroes issue, but rather an ongoing issue for many MMORPGs. Some would even argue that limitations may need to be fairly common in order to achieve some degree of game balance and organisation. I always love new choices (not that I'm terribly good at making decisions or anything, but I do like having a lot of things from which to choose), but sometimes we just have to take what we can get and accept the game for what it is. Not very many MMORPGs offer better customisation; that's not to say that they should refuse to improve, but rather that we should avoid speaking too strongly against a particular game of the genre when the genre itself may be what is full of the issue.
As far as balance goes, the game is still going through balancing pains 3+ years after launch, so I honestly do not believe that this limited system helps much with that. Personally, I like the way Asheron's Call worked. You could build any type of character that you wanted. You could be a group dependent or solo friendly as you liked. And in the superhero genre, this level of customization would have been a much better choice. Heroes and villains come in all different power combinations. This genre screams for individuality. Instead, we're given a game that allows characters to look different, but that's about it.
Don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed a lot of hours in CoH/V. Still, I have high hopes that Cryptic has learned from its mistakes and MUO will be better for it.
I have not tried Asheron's Call or Rappelz; perhaps I should!
On the topic of game balance, I am certainly not qualified to really understand whether something is 'balanced' or not. I usually do not try to make a 'min-maxed' character; most of the time I simply choose whatever sounds enjoyable to me. I'm very easily amused, so it all works out! However, likely the reason for limitations in available powers and skills in MMORPGs is because of a desire for 'game balance'; whether or not that balance actually exists for any particular game is, of course, frequently debated. Game designers are probably aiming for that, though, and try to keep available powers at a minimum to that end. At least, I would hope so!
The respec system also creates a new dynamic in the game.. it allows players to switch from PvE to PvP mode later in the game, if they so desire.
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
WEll Rappelz is still a work in progress I think I did not mean to blow it up I quit Rappelz at an early level. Was thinking bout logging in to see if leveling speed got speed up like they promise. I dont want to go into detail bout that MMO in this thread though. I just thought it was an interesting system to compare. Has some advantages over many MMOs. It has some flaws however but I dont want to go off topic hehe
In any case I think everyone has posted some really good points here you guys reminded me the strengths of the customization. Yeah the enhancement system is very good. In some ways it works better for certain ATs then others. For instance on my brute all my attacks got slotted 3 dmg 2 acc 1 rech period. just made no sense to slot them otherwise. But I 'think' controller/dominator can benefit from more variety like slotting their attacks with dmg, acc, hold/mez, rech, endredux, etc. I personally saw a lot more variety in their builds that got posted on CoX forums. So ya thats a good point the poster above me stated. like I said I mostly just stuck to melee toons so I'm sorta of 'trapped' in that mind set.
I've always thought CoH to be king of the hill when it comes to character customisation - both visually and skill-wise. What they did, having the primary and secondary power sets and allowing players to mix them was quite clever. And I think that broad scope of character customisation has been a major part of their success and the success of other games like Titan Quest.
I got bored with CoH and left for other reasons, but the fact that the power set combinations resulted in different gameplay styles is what made grouping so much fun in this game and why I played it and loved it for as long as I did. The strategies and tactics used while doing missions could really be quite varied depending on the group make-up.
Play a few different toons (I played a lot) and you'll quickly realise that the combination of different power sets allows for unique styles of gameplay.
True but therein lies the problem. PvPers are still PvEers. CoX respecs are limited. So, the powers that benefit you in PvE are useless in PvP. So you drop them. So then when its time to go raid with your SG or help them do quests well then now you need to respec back to PvE or go w/o important PvE powers. Thus, its a common complaint on CoX PvP General forums that the respec system is too restrictive. Many vets felt they deserve infinite respecs as a Veteran Reward.
Right now what pvpers do is bank a respec. Then they copyt their toon to test and in this fashion they achieve infinite respecs for Arena battles. This is why most serious pvp occurs on Test Server. I guess this is not such a bad thing but the problem is if you want to pvp on your local server (like visit Recluse Victory when no one is on Test Server) then your build might suffer
Thats the gist of it.
True but therein lies the problem. PvPers are still PvEers. CoX respecs are limited. So, the powers that benefit you in PvE are useless in PvP. So you drop them. So then when its time to go raid with your SG or help them do quests well then now you need to respec back to PvE or go w/o important PvE powers. Thus, its a common complaint on CoX PvP General forums that the respec system is too restrictive. Many vets felt they deserve infinite respecs as a Veteran Reward.
Right now what pvpers do is bank a respec. Then they copyt their toon to test and in this fashion they achieve infinite respecs for Arena battles. This is why most serious pvp occurs on Test Server. I guess this is not such a bad thing but the problem is if you want to pvp on your local server (like visit Recluse Victory when no one is on Test Server) then your build might suffer
Thats the gist of it.
It's the min max debate - honestly, you do not NEED the perfect build for PvE. PvP, maybe, but not PvE
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
Yes most powers have secondary effects but most of them aren't worth enhancing. When that nerf came in (sorry I can't remember what it's referred to) I didn't enhance the secondary effects of my powers. I put those slots in other damage powers that I had neglected previously, to bring my dps back up. I know that the secondary effects on particular powers are definitely worth enhancing but they are relatively few in number.
It's true CoH has fewer powers compared to other games, but I found that worked well. Compare it to WoW. WoW players get several new powers every 2 levels - or do they? What they generally get is more powerful versions of old powers. I really like CoH's setup. There was a sense of your character growing every time you acquired a new power and again that sense of growth as those powers gradually improved as you added slots and enhancements.
True but therein lies the problem. PvPers are still PvEers. CoX respecs are limited. So, the powers that benefit you in PvE are useless in PvP. So you drop them. So then when its time to go raid with your SG or help them do quests well then now you need to respec back to PvE or go w/o important PvE powers. Thus, its a common complaint on CoX PvP General forums that the respec system is too restrictive. Many vets felt they deserve infinite respecs as a Veteran Reward.
Right now what pvpers do is bank a respec. Then they copyt their toon to test and in this fashion they achieve infinite respecs for Arena battles. This is why most serious pvp occurs on Test Server. I guess this is not such a bad thing but the problem is if you want to pvp on your local server (like visit Recluse Victory when no one is on Test Server) then your build might suffer
Thats the gist of it.
It's the min max debate - honestly, you do not NEED the perfect build for PvE. PvP, maybe, but not PvE
Well think of this- my EM/ELA brute at lvl 50 can get by without Stamina for PvP. So let's say I drop it. Now, let's say my guildie needs help with a level 30 mission or some AV. A brute w/o Stamina is going to get destroyed. This is ths thing- at above level 30 I can run power sink + power surge + conserve power (yes I have all that specced) and have stamina for days. So we are not talking just going w/o a few powers here. We are talking bout totally sucking in PvE through and through.
Some players ask for the ability to run seperate builds for both PvE/PvP. I've seen a lot of prominent community members like Frosticus and a few others ask for it. You usually dont see players go to the extent of starting a whole new thread asking for this but you see them sneak in requests in general posts about PvP.
For PVE it hurts them badly too. Its not unusual to see a Level 8 newbie roll a toon and pick gimp powers like Flurry. Then delete that toon once they discover they picked a horrible power (yes this happened to me too even at high lvls I unfortunately got jump kick in my case). This is a problem I have never seen in any other MMO. Its a really bad problem. There was just a thread the other day whereas folks posted pics of players they teamed with that had horrible builds that needed respecs badly. But because if you have to go through so muchg trouble on villain side to earn the respec, its much easier to delete your toon and reroll. That villain respec TF can take well over 3-4 hrs? I do recall spending a lot of time on those I felt that mission is 2x harder then the hero Respec TF. Just to make it through the avg villain TF has to use exploits to keep those darn vines from respawning
Respecs are really a serious issue and it gets talked bout by PvE / PvP players alike on the General forum
edit- in my case, I decided to just keep Jump Kick in my build since my stalk only had one banked respec left that he needed for Test Server pvp
I didn't play CoV long enough to see the respecs and haven't been following the CoV boards but...
I remember back when the CoH respec trial was considered almost undo-able - but a fantastic means of accumulating debt. Getting a team together to run it was difficult. They ended up toning it down. They'll probably do the same with CoV.
Personally I think they should pass out respecs like candy on Halloween. The way they nerf every patch sometimes its like logging on and playing a completely different toon which can take a few days of getting used to. And the test server isn't always a viable option, especially if you want to test how your essentially new powers work in a team.
True but therein lies the problem. PvPers are still PvEers. CoX respecs are limited. So, the powers that benefit you in PvE are useless in PvP. So you drop them. So then when its time to go raid with your SG or help them do quests well then now you need to respec back to PvE or go w/o important PvE powers. Thus, its a common complaint on CoX PvP General forums that the respec system is too restrictive. Many vets felt they deserve infinite respecs as a Veteran Reward.
Right now what pvpers do is bank a respec. Then they copyt their toon to test and in this fashion they achieve infinite respecs for Arena battles. This is why most serious pvp occurs on Test Server. I guess this is not such a bad thing but the problem is if you want to pvp on your local server (like visit Recluse Victory when no one is on Test Server) then your build might suffer
Thats the gist of it.
It's the min max debate - honestly, you do not NEED the perfect build for PvE. PvP, maybe, but not PvE
As a PvE player I kinda agree with you. But this agreement should be considered carefully...it is just like if FoH agree in EQ that raiding is fine...it doesn't take many aspects into considerations. Maybe peoples could have 2 builts and be able to switch between them, or some built is for PvE zones, partial built is for PvP zones...anyway, not like I care.
I am still aggroed at the IoP and the HOs trashing my gaming experience.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
It depends...
4 regens scrappers with IH always find these EASY.
However, the point is...peoples who need respects...they are gimped and weak by definition! Making it hard and challenging is debatable, since peoples needing it, are possibly quite weaks.
LRSF can be as hard as it is, because peoples are supposed to be strong. But respecs...I rather favor another system than a meritocracy when it come to respec, since gimped players might be unable to do it without the kind help of a strong player, but that is putting much stress on the shoulders of a few nice players that are helping...helping...helping...
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren