Character Advisor

[Oklahoman]

I'm pulling out an idea I had in this thread for a Character Advisor - an NPC you can walk up to and have them evaluate your build for some common hiccups. As @PeregrineFalcon put it:

Quote

An NPC in Atlas and Mercy that explains a LOT of little details that aren't otherwise explained in game: Enhancement Diversification, Bodyguard Mode, The Law of Fives, etc.

 

I would imagine it would work somewhat like Null The Gull. Some options would be purely informative (ex: "Tell me about Enhancement Diversification.") but the key feature would be an option to look at your characters build and point out where some broad inefficiencies exist - such as multi-slotting stuff like Rest or Brawl, pointing out where Enhancement Diversification is impacting a power, looking for sets where a bonus isn't being used due to Laws of Fives, and even mentioning stuff like you can convert those 50 Empyreans to a Transcendent at an ATM, etc. 

 

These would all be RECOMMENDATIONS only, and would tell the player where to go if they choose to act on it (an ATM, visiting Jack or typing /respec, etc.).

[biostem]

I'm not against this per se, but I wonder how well the advice would age and how much of that advice it would provide would be objective vs subjective - like slotting a stealth jump IO into sprint.  I also wonder how much work would be required to do such an analysis.  Maybe it could just give the basic info, like having more than 5 of the same IO set bonus provides no additional benefit, or how slotting more than 3 of the same SO or higher of a particular type in a single power tends to suffer severe diminishing returns...

[Greycat]

Yeah, I'd have to agree. As a source for general information that's not given elsewhere (ok, or given but that people seem to ignore...) from the very basic "What are enhancements" and "What do these colors mean" on up, but "evaluating a build" ... eh. (For instance, "Multi slotting brawl" is not common, sure, but I've seen people deliberately do it for the heck of it, usually piling procs on.)

 

Now, some Q&A type things, like "I'm having endurance problems, what can I do" that can give some common building or slotting strategies? Sure. But to stand there and have something scan your build and judge it? Nah.

[Rudra]

I agree with @biostem. The problem with an NPC evaluator of PC builds is it can only be made to look at specific things and it cannot account for the way the game changes over time, the primary effect/purpose the player is trying for with the build, and is completely based upon on what the coder thinks is best.

 

The sheer variety of builds possible, coupled with the different ways the different set and non-set enhancements can be used together, would make coding this monster as an evaluation of each and every asking player's possible builds impossibly huge in order for it to actually do anything.

 

My recommendation is to either not bother with it or have the NPC give only general build advice such as how set bonuses can only be gained five times for each bonus of a specific value per type.

 

(As a side note? Having an NPC that tells you how to build your character takes away one of the more interesting elements of the game and risks making all characters cookie cutter cutouts.)

[Frozen Burn]

I agree with others who have replied here....

 

YES to:  an NPC to give advice on ED, Law of 5s, Pros and cons of catalyzing or not and using Boosters, and other generic info that is not currently in-game and has to be learned the hard-way or pouring through pages of forum posts.

 

NO to:  The NPC scanning your build for any "pitfalls." 

• Slotting and builds are completely subjective and the freedom to slot any power in any way is what makes the game so great. 
• For this to work, there would have to be an algorithm of what is acceptable and what is not - that gets pretty "big brother," which is bad in my opinion - and it will only make new players feel like they should never something in a certain way when there are cases that they might actually want to slot it up. 
• As for advising if they've exceeded the Law of 5s, that it isn't entirely useful either - sometimes, you exceed on a set bonus because you're chasing that 5th or 6th bonus from another set and you just have to live that 1 or more wasted bonus.  

[Rudra]

Actually, if you want a NPC to scan character builds and give advice, it could scan the set bonuses and let the player know if they have more than 5 of any given set bonus. To avoid all the dialogue writing calling out each and every set bonus of each and every value would require, just have the scan do a count of bonuses. Then tell the player "You have set bonuses that exceed the rule of fives." or "You have an interesting build. Keep at it.". ... or something similar. Nothing more.

 

The NPC would still give the advice from previous posts, but would not fall into the flaws already listed in this thread. Then the player can open their enhancement management window, find the excess themselves, and decide if it is necessary or if some enhancements need to be replaced. Something like this could possibly work for a character advisor.

 

Edit: Timing is everything and today I seem to be posting similar comments immediately after others. Oh well. Anyway, my proposal for the advisor is not to say the player did anything wrong by having more than 5 of any given bonus. The advisor would simply be flagging it for the player to review and make sure they needed it. I otherwise agree with @Frozen Burn above.

 

Edit again: The advisor could even give a count of the number of times the rule of fives was exceeded so those maintaining builds that have to exceed it can know if they are on track for their plans or not. So maybe like "You have $count set bonuses that exceed the rule of fives at this time."

Edited May 23, 2022 by Rudra

[Greycat]

*clicks on advisor.*

*waits*

*waits*

*waits*

Advisor: "Huh. OK then."

[Oklahoman]

I generally agree with both @Frozen Burn and @Rudra. Keep in mind we're talking about an adviser, not an enforcer. The NPC could give feedback on certain aspects of your build, but you're in no way required to change anything. I do think there is value in letting you know what bonuses are exceeding Law of Five, for instance, even if you are completely OK with that. Even relatively capable players may be surprised to find that there is a bonus for Recharge Rate (for instance) they did not account for. Ran into that myself recently and was delighted I could go shopping for a new set.

 

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

(As a side note? Having an NPC that tells you how to build your character takes away one of the more interesting elements of the game and risks making all characters cookie cutter cutouts.)

 

I would agree with this, but I don't see this NPC getting into optimizing stuff. For me, that would be very subjective, and I'm proposing a tool that's very objective. For example, they wouldn't say "You should really put that Apocalypse set on this other power" or "You should really slot a KB->KD converter in Gale." That's what the forums are for. Rather, the tool might say "I see you have 6 IO Damages slotted on this power. This power may not be performing as well as you expect. Do you know want to learn more about the benefits of Enhancement Diversification?"

 

I do think we should consider some very, very basic advice, like you probably don't want to put more slots on Rest or Brawl - but the player is still allowed to do that, of course. Maybe they've decided as a joke or something to 6 slot all the inherent powers. Fine, you do you. I wouldn't recommend that it say, for instance, "Why on earth are you 6 slotting Assault? Do you think that power REALLY needs a faster recharge?" That, to me, is subjective - Assault may be perfectly slotted, but I think a lot of us might agree that's at least 3 slots too many to devote to that power, especially since it doesn't take sets.

 

It's OK for players to have bad builds. All I'm saying is let's take some of the outside the game knowledge and put it inside the game, and give a little help for the newer players along the way.

 

I also get the criticism the game changes a lot and this tool would need to get updated as we go. But, really, are there any plans to strike down ED, Lo5, etc? I'm really talking some pretty high level, relatively set in stone type stuff here.

[Oklahoman]

21 minutes ago, Greycat said:

*clicks on advisor.*

*waits*

*waits*

*waits*

Advisor: "Huh. OK then."

 

"Just curious, which game did you think you were playing right now?"

[biostem]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

it could scan the set bonuses and let the player know if they have more than 5 of any given set bonus.

Honestly, some sort of check *before* you slot beyond the 5th version of a particular set would be a better tool, since if you've already slotted more than 5 of a particular set bonus, you;ve already made a pretty costly mistake...

Edited May 24, 2022 by biostem

[Rudra]

Sure. The flag could be something like "You have $count set bonuses at or past the rule of five limit." instead. I would think that would give most players a high count though. If they didn't remember how high the count was prior, they would be doing a lot of checking. It is really hard to code an NPC to give that kind of proactive feedback without drowning the player in high count warnings.

 

Personally, I'm more in favor of general advice and maybe a Mids comment. Then the player can be a bit more proactive in their build without having to wait to reach the point where they can slot the enhancements and go "whoops". {Edit: We're going to have whoops moments in our builds regardless. Or at least players like me will. How to make something that can guide and be useful without requiring a few million more lines of code though....)

 

The problem with a character advisor, aside from what was already mentioned, is finding a way to have one that does anything like the OP requests that can be implemented.

Edited May 24, 2022 by Rudra

[Clave Dark 5]

Someone somewhere will always mistake suggestions as a "don't tell me how to play!" insult.  😃   I generally like the idea of this "guide" having a good list of questions ("How can I help my Endurance problems?"*) to choose from, but I dunno if the mechanics of the game can be wrangled into spotting stuff like "you went over the Rule of 5 and your build may be suffering for it".  Still, it's an interesting idea.

 

*I'd hope to keep it fairly general, I don't want to see advice for putting Stealths in Sprint as "the norm of the game," for example.  I know you're mad at me for saying so, yes you, but hey, isn't telling me to put Stealth in Sprint a "telling me how to play the game" move?

[Bionic_Flea]

Only if it's a sassy Becky, the Tarantula Mistress dishing out the advice.

 

"Like, oh my god, your build is so totally radical . . . except you slotted more than five of the same thingies!"

[Marine X]

As I have humbly found out, even seasoned players may miss stuff, I find new things out all the time. Newer players it's probably a lot to take on.

 

Example:

" You have no Knockback protection, Did you know that if you slotted a Blessing of the Zephur Knockback Protection in a travel power it would give you 4 Points of protection? "

( I never knew about this till Homecoming as I played Tanks whose primary often provides Knockback Protection, or that you could enter City Hall from the back door, not hard to miss little things here and there )

 

Maybe you wouldn't even need it to be interactive, maybe just a NPC set up with Dialogue of often missed tweaks to get around common problems, that only speaks when someone is near them.

Edited May 24, 2022 by Marine X

[PeregrineFalcon]

I think this is a great idea!

 

The suggestion was clearly worded, by an obvious genius, and it will bring nothing but joy and happiness to Homecoming.

 

I approve!  😄

[golstat2003]

Would be . . . very very very difficult to code.

 

But sure why not, sounds fun.

[biostem]

I wonder how difficult it would be to code in something that simply opened a FAQ post on the forums, (only in-game), that was curated by the mods, (but users could submit topics, pending approval of course).

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, golstat2003 said:

Would be . . . very very very difficult to code.

 

But sure why not, sounds fun.

If it was kept at just informational rather than active scanning, then it would be simple to code. And a source of information on general enhancement slotting tips and information would still go a long way to helping new players. It would just take a fair bit of dialogue creation and coding in this case.

 

The scanning for and counting number of bonuses of each type and value, then flagging that any are at or past 5 counts, then notifying the player of that? Yeah, that would take a lot of coding and can easily be left out.

 

(And the dialogue could still be similar to Becky the Tarantula Mistress for entertainment value.)

[Greycat]

I'm seeing this as needing some nested menus, but that's not a big deal:

"Tell me about slotting"

- What are enhancements

- What do colors/borders mean

- What are IOs

--Recipes and crafting

--Categories

--Set bonuses

--"Rule of 5" (also mentioned under set bonuses, but someone may want to look here specifically if they've heard it mentioned.)

"Tell me how to get powers"

- Primary and secondary sets

- Pools

- APPS/Epics and Patron pools

- Training and respecs

.... and so forth. Make it a community effort, because there's a lot of potential information to drop here.

[Clave Dark 5]

Idle thought i had on this: we already have all this info on our wiki, it could literally be a sort of link to the wiki, except it would show on your screen game, not a browser screen.