Ponder Powers, Levels,Slots,Enhancments, and Sets.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

In another thread I was just in, while largely disagreeing with another poster, they did admittedly touch on something I myself have kicked around in my head since the early days of CoH. And this isnt a suggestion just my ponderings hence why it is here. Feel free to add your own and tear into mine as you prefer.

 

So lets start with Powers. A not uncommon issue Ive seen rise up in chats in game over the years on live and now here on HC is the nature of powers and how we get them in game via the traditions in the comic hero genre. For example Superman has often cited his eye beams as being his most powerful, difficult to control, and first of his more then merely physical powers to manifest, though admittedly some writers have had him cite his flight, but most seem to write that as manifesting during his teen age years often connected with the typical teen age desire to spread ones wings as it were.

 

Likewise most characters even with a wide range of powers do tend to manifest most of them in a very short span of time. Mostly its those who have the ability to learn or absorb powers from others who have long drawn out arcs to reach their Powers peak.

 

It makes me wonder things like what if we got our powers at a different pace in game. Like what if we got a power every level. And it was only once we had all our powers that we started to get slots for them. It makes me ponder what it would look like if sets where a only for lvl 50s thing and the new teir of power between cap and incarnate basically. I mean its all just random wild pondering, no real plan or anything again hence why I am here babbling like a silly ol berk.

[The Pyn]

it's all hypothetical the following are what first occurred to me:

 

1. variety of origins are available which support both rp and so/do enhancements
2. deferring all slots until 38+ would increase power-levelling to that point
3. deferring all slots until 38+ would unbalance the gameplay at lower levels since the mob difficulty is intended to be offset by slotted so's - increase in power-levelling
4. sets being only available at 50 would increase power-levelling to 50

net-net it's probably unnecessary and if implemented would probably result in power-levelling to counter-measure the gap associated with every impact.

 

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

14 minutes ago, The Pyn said:

it's all hypothetical the following are what first occurred to me:

 

1. variety of origins are available which support both rp and so/do enhancements
2. deferring all slots until 38+ would increase power-levelling to that point
3. deferring all slots until 38+ would unbalance the gameplay at lower levels since the mob difficulty is intended to be offset by slotted so's - increase in power-levelling
4. sets being only available at 50 would increase power-levelling to 50

net-net it's probably unnecessary and if implemented would probably result in power-levelling to counter-measure the gap associated with every impact.

 

Oh Im not talking about any of this as something that should be done, more a what if it had been done this way to start with. For example if we got all our powers faster do you think there would be such a rush to the slot phase? maybe we could make powers stronger baseline and enhancements and slots less impactful in such a theoretical. Would actually make sense to do so since slots would all be a mid to late game system at that point. We would obviously be doing away with everything but IOs the actual enhancement system of modern coh in such a system as with hindsight we see how pointless those paltry trainers and DOs are, to the point a great many are just running around unslotted until they reach SO/lvl 30 IO range now days.

 

Again this isnt a how would we change current coh but how we would if we could taking what we know now, have built coh in the first place. One of the biggest and why its kind of the starting point for the rest of what I post is, that I do encounter many who do not like having to reach cap to have their super hero have all their super powers. A great many fans of this genre chafe at the classic game power tiers, and see them more as remnants of MMO design at large rather then something befitting the comic hero genre. We see even the HC devs to some extent must feel something like this or we wouldnt see travel power access for example coming so much earlier then on live.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Bentley Berkeley

[Twisted Toon]

If you haven't read the Super Powereds series by Drew Hayes, I recommend it.

Through out the 4 book series, it shows the progression of powers (both abilities gained and strength) for several of the characters.

They weren't just front loaded with abilities, then made them stronger.

They learned how to use their powers in new ways over time, gaining new abilities that they then fine tuned.

 

[DoctorDitko]

Enthusiastically seconded on Drew Hayes' Super-Powered series! Very well done, and far more thoughtful than most superhero fare.

 

As far as CoH is concerned, many powersets can be rationalized as just refining the basic concept. An energy blaster gets his snipe? That's just learning to focus his existing power more effectively.

 

But yes, what you propose would be an interesting game.