Make the body sliders relevant - connect them to character statistics

[temnix]

City of Heroes feels like a dream to me. The subdued world walks on, waves, honks and drives away while brightly-colored bodies float by, sometimes in queues, like strung balloons, headed to some offscreen, abstract goal, like hunting poor Babbage or raiding the mothership for the umpeenth time. So different, yet so the same. The game is more like a fantasy about being a superhero than being a superhero in a fantasy. I enjoy it as far as it goes, but the only way it's going to feel less like an illusion is with deeper mechanics - a number of new features to give it relevance, it connect the player to the world he inhabits and consequences of his choices. And the first place (or maybe the second place, after Origin) where those mechanics can come in is the Body screen. CoH is something of an exception among character-centered games in that there are no individual statistics, no place to choose Strength or Constitution or Stamina or Charisma. Now, I don't know how to bring in mental stats there, but the body sliders are the pefect place to commit to a physicality. Taller or smaller? Slimmer or thicker? Longer legs or the opposite? It should all matter.

 

True, heroes and villains can be so weird that the obvious choices don't always apply. A small character may be forged of impervium or a huge one may be some kind of cloud of gas. But appealing to that would be a very lazy excuse to pass by opportunity. The sliders, as anyone can see by dragging them to the extremes left and right, represent a spectrum, and the far ends really are something else: where the shoulder girdle is so broad that the arms practically fall off the clavicles or when the body is thin like a blade of grass. I think every slider should represent a duality of statistics, with the place around the center being neutral, but moving away meaning more of one and less of the other. I'm not going to propose any particular numbers, they will have to be found in testing, but for this to be worth bothering with, the far ends should make a significant difference, say, +-25% of the standard. Players should be able to focus their characters in the direction they want.

 

Here are my ideas about what the sliders might represent.

 

Height, i.e. size:

<--- Bonus stealth, ---> More hit points

 

It is natural that smaller characters should be harder to notice. Give them a modest permanent visibility bonus so that they might risk fighting or running by enemies closer that usual without attracting attention. But they would be fragile for all that. On the opposite end, characters towering to the full 8 feet should take less spotting but more killing. (They tend to be clumsy and difficult to control, too, which this bonus would compensate for.)

 

Physique

<--- Defense, ---> Damage resistance

 

Slimmer characters would probably find it simpler to dodge attacks, but muscled hunks have meat shields in every place. Neither bonus should apply against Psionic, which aims for and tears at the mind. Players can tune for very different fighting styles here, either adding to the advantages from powers (a muscled Invulnerability character) or compensating for their shortcomings (a slim one with the same set).

 

Shoulders

<--- Smaller personal space, ---> Longer melee reach

 

I am only guessing that it is technically possible to make characters occupy less space in the world, squeeze through narrower doorways, arches, chinks and so on, but it probably is. No shoulders to speak of, though, is counterindicated for punching, slashing, swiping et cetera, though these characters could still do well with ranged attacks. On the opposite end... time for an anecdote: I enjoy my Katana character very much, but I wish her reach was just a foot or two closer to what I saw with Titan Weapons. Broad shoulders should do that, but the bonus (and the penalty) would not apply to kicks.

 

Chest

<--- More Endurance, ---> Resistance to status effects

 

It's difficult to come up with benefits of having a flat chest off the bat. Forward placement in a new-age fantasy casting? But long-distance runners usually have little up there, both sexes, their litte machinery whirring tightly all in one place. On the other extreme, a vast, profound abovewaist hall of sighs should clear status effects sooner. Except Psionic again.

 

Waist

<--- Broader auras, ---> Regeneration

 

Gourmands rejoice, here is something for you: a solid girdle of nutrients (in the form of extra capacitors, if you are a robot or something) will help you on a rainy day. Meanwhile, Hellions, Tirailleurs and Knives of Artemis have been coming out in Sex Addicts Anonymous that they have been driven to some heroes' taunting more than to others' for motives of ulterior nature... Auras, taunting, damaging and otherwise, can be really annoying if they extend too far, although, I suppose, other players may want them reaching even farther out. And here is their chance, if they agree to a worse regeneration.

 

Hips

<--- Protection from immobilization, ---> Protection from knockdown

 

Unless it's telepathy, they have to lasso you around the hips to glue you down. And those legs in the "Henry the VIII" pose are a sturdy prop.

 

Legs

<--- Higher melee damage, ---> Faster running and higher jumping

 

There is a reason heavy swingers usually have small legs, and it is not just that they pumped up the arms but neglected the lower body. No, mechanically the shoulder girdle produces the more force, the shorter the time in which the impulse from the hips reaches it. However, such bruisers make poor runners and jumpers. The melee damage bonus should apply only to attacks from the arms, not kicks.

 

All of these pairs can be thought of differently or the bonuses moved around, but notice that, in any event, I avoided primitive oppositions like "less Endurance, more Health." A bonus to kick attacks somewhere here would be nice. The important thing is not to overcomplicate this system, though, or be so fearful with an extra percentile point that the result will be an unimportant meh. Rather let it give large bonuses at the extremes, to which most players won't go, and leave it do its job. So player who wanted to make the meanest close-combat monster would be able to produce a giant, bulky as a bus, with shoulders at opposite compass points and dragging knuckles on the ground. Of course, anyone checking out such a character - at the Arena, let's say - will know that he's going to be easy to hit, occupy an acre of space, run like a snail and jump like a penguin. It could be possible to trap him in a tight corner or shoot at him from above. PvE enemies would spot him from a mile away, too, given line of sight. Want a sneaky spy instead? Make a tiny, unnoticeable thing that can filter behind pipes and through railings and defend with ranged attacks if discovered. And so on.

 

One can imagine different body types for different uses, and that is where costumes come in. Sliders that matter would give meaning to costume change and encourage making more than one. Players could have costumes, i. e. shapes, for different occasions: something heavy for hard fights, something long-legged and slim to cross an area quickly. This would all be subject to role-playing considerations, of course. Not everyone is going to have alternate forms, especially Natural heroes. But leave that to players. And after all, isn't the reason Dr. whatever would turn into Mr. Hulk was because the other form was rather bigger, stronger and unkillable?

 

Costumes can already be changed only once in 30 seconds. But forbid changing them in combat to keep players from suddenly getting bonuses. Changing to a more suitable form in advance of a fight or sneakaround, though, if the character has such a spare, would just be clever thinking. If the shoulders are so broad that one gets stuck in a sewers' doorway, it is time to press K. When the character background allows no very different shapes, this will be a test to separate the role-players from the power-gamers. Finally, I suggest giving more extreme values of these bonuses and penalties to the Huge form. Huge men (and Huge women, when Homecoming gets around to making them) are already somewhat freaky, even while their body is like a cloud, plays no role. Well, push them farther in that direction and invite players to embrace their inner Huge.

[Mr. Apocalypse]

1 hour ago, temnix said:

City of Heroes feels like a dream to me. The subdued world walks on, waves, honks and drives away while brightly-colored bodies float by, sometimes in queues, like strung balloons, headed to some offscreen, abstract goal, like hunting poor Babbage or raiding the mothership for the umpeenth time. So different, yet so the same. The game is more like a fantasy about being a superhero than being a superhero in a fantasy. I enjoy it as far as it goes, but the only way it's going to feel less like an illusion is with deeper mechanics - a number of new features to give it relevance, it connect the player to the world he inhabits and consequences of his choices. And the first place (or maybe the second place, after Origin) where those mechanics can come in is the Body screen. CoH is something of an exception among character-centered games in that there are no individual statistics, no place to choose Strength or Constitution or Stamina or Charisma. Now, I don't know how to bring in mental stats there, but the body sliders are the pefect place to commit to a physicality. Taller or smaller? Slimmer or thicker? Longer legs or the opposite? It should all matter.

 

True, heroes and villains can be so weird that the obvious choices don't always apply. A small character may be forged of impervium or a huge one may be some kind of cloud of gas. But appealing to that would be a very lazy excuse to pass by opportunity. The sliders, as anyone can see by dragging them to the extremes left and right, represent a spectrum, and the far ends really are something else: where the shoulder girdle is so broad that the arms practically fall off the clavicles or when the body is thin like a blade of grass. I think every slider should represent a duality of statistics, with the place around the center being neutral, but moving away meaning more of one and less of the other. I'm not going to propose any particular numbers, they will have to be found in testing, but for this to be worth bothering with, the far ends should make a significant difference, say, +-25% of the standard. Players should be able to focus their characters in the direction they want.

 

Here are my ideas about what the sliders might represent.

 

Height, i.e. size:

<--- Bonus stealth, ---> More hit points

 

It is natural that smaller characters should be harder to notice. Give them a modest permanent visibility bonus so that they might risk fighting or running by enemies closer that usual without attracting attention. But they would be fragile for all that. On the opposite end, characters towering to the full 8 feet should take less spotting but more killing. (They tend to be clumsy and difficult to control, too, which this bonus would compensate for.)

 

Physique

<--- Defense, ---> Damage resistance

 

Slimmer characters would probably find it simpler to dodge attacks, but muscled hunks have meat shields in every place. Neither bonus should apply against Psionic, which aims for and tears at the mind. Players can tune for very different fighting styles here, either adding to the advantages from powers (a muscled Invulnerability character) or compensating for their shortcomings (a slim one with the same set).

 

Shoulders

<--- Smaller personal space, ---> Longer melee reach

 

I am only guessing that it is technically possible to make characters occupy less space in the world, squeeze through narrower doorways, arches, chinks and so on, but it probably is. No shoulders to speak of, though, is counterindicated for punching, slashing, swiping et cetera, though these characters could still do well with ranged attacks. On the opposite end... time for an anecdote: I enjoy my Katana character very much, but I wish her reach was just a foot or two closer to what I saw with Titan Weapons. Broad shoulders should do that, but the bonus (and the penalty) would not apply to kicks.

 

Chest

<--- More Endurance, ---> Resistance to status effects

 

It's difficult to come up with benefits of having a flat chest off the bat. Forward placement in a new-age fantasy casting? But long-distance runners usually have little up there, both sexes, their litte machinery whirring tightly all in one place. On the other extreme, a vast, profound abovewaist hall of sighs should clear status effects sooner. Except Psionic again.

 

Waist

<--- Broader auras, ---> Regeneration

 

Gourmands rejoice, here is something for you: a solid girdle of nutrients (in the form of extra capacitors, if you are a robot or something) will help you on a rainy day. Meanwhile, Hellions, Tirailleurs and Knives of Artemis have been coming out in Sex Addicts Anonymous that they have been driven to some heroes' taunting more than to others' for motives of ulterior nature... Auras, taunting, damaging and otherwise, can be really annoying if they extend too far, although, I suppose, other players may want them reaching even farther out. And here is their chance, if they agree to a worse regeneration.

 

Hips

<--- Protection from immobilization, ---> Protection from knockdown

 

Unless it's telepathy, they have to lasso you around the hips to glue you down. And those legs in the "Henry the VIII" pose are a sturdy prop.

 

Legs

<--- Higher melee damage, ---> Faster running and higher jumping

 

There is a reason heavy swingers usually have small legs, and it is not just that they pumped up the arms but neglected the lower body. No, mechanically the shoulder girdle produces the more force, the shorter the time in which the impulse from the hips reaches it. However, such bruisers make poor runners and jumpers. The melee damage bonus should apply only to attacks from the arms, not kicks.

 

All of these pairs can be thought of differently or the bonuses moved around, but notice that, in any event, I avoided primitive oppositions like "less Endurance, more Health." A bonus to kick attacks somewhere here would be nice. The important thing is not to overcomplicate this system, though, or be so fearful with an extra percentile point that the result will be an unimportant meh. Rather let it give large bonuses at the extremes, to which most players won't go, and leave it do its job. So player who wanted to make the meanest close-combat monster would be able to produce a giant, bulky as a bus, with shoulders at opposite compass points and dragging knuckles on the ground. Of course, anyone checking out such a character - at the Arena, let's say - will know that he's going to be easy to hit, occupy an acre of space, run like a snail and jump like a penguin. It could be possible to trap him in a tight corner or shoot at him from above. PvE enemies would spot him from a mile away, too, given line of sight. Want a sneaky spy instead? Make a tiny, unnoticeable thing that can filter behind pipes and through railings and defend with ranged attacks if discovered. And so on.

 

One can imagine different body types for different uses, and that is where costumes come in. Sliders that matter would give meaning to costume change and encourage making more than one. Players could have costumes, i. e. shapes, for different occasions: something heavy for hard fights, something long-legged and slim to cross an area quickly. This would all be subject to role-playing considerations, of course. Not everyone is going to have alternate forms, especially Natural heroes. But leave that to players. And after all, isn't the reason Dr. whatever would turn into Mr. Hulk was because the other form was rather bigger, stronger and unkillable?

 

Costumes can already be changed only once in 30 seconds. But forbid changing them in combat to keep players from suddenly getting bonuses. Changing to a more suitable form in advance of a fight or sneakaround, though, if the character has such a spare, would just be clever thinking. If the shoulders are so broad that one gets stuck in a sewers' doorway, it is time to press K. When the character background allows no very different shapes, this will be a test to separate the role-players from the power-gamers. Finally, I suggest giving more extreme values of these bonuses and penalties to the Huge form. Huge men (and Huge women, when Homecoming gets around to making them) are already somewhat freaky, even while their body is like a cloud, plays no role. Well, push them farther in that direction and invite players to embrace their inner Huge.

I'm going to have to say no. This would be to much like gear stats in other games and will end up making everyone just max out the sliders or minimize depending on the effect wanted. But more than that, it would kill concept builds, as you would possibly have to make a unwanted sacrifices in order to have the look you want.

Edited July 19 by Mr. Apocalypse

[Haijinx]

I'm still kinda sad I didn't get the OPs stuff when they quit.

[Rudra]

What @Mr. Apocalypse said. Tying what your character can do to how your character's body is built kills any freedom of concept in character creation. Per your example, if you want a sneaky character, you have to minimize the character's height at the expense of their HP. Or if you want a robust character, you have to max out the height. So, yeah, no.

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, Haijinx said:

I'm still kinda sad I didn't get the OPs stuff when they quit.

Which time?

[Akisan]

Very hard no on this one.  One of the very best parts of this game is that your costume doesn't matter.  My magical Fire/Fire Blaster has no advantage over a technological Fire/Fire Blaster.  And vise-versa.  And that's a good thing.  It means we have the freedom to make whatever we want, and not have to worry about our costumes, or body size, or body type, or whether we remembered to put on our capes of +3 PR this morning.

 

 

Edited July 19 by Akisan
Typoes. Yet again.

[BrandX]

I wouldn't let any of this change the way my characters look, but I could see other people doing dumb things like that tho, and that just might make the world look uglier 😕

 

Maybe when the game came out and they did this it wouldn't be that bad.

 

Also, if they did do it, I'd say make it so small that it really wouldn't matter, but you know, some people are gonna game that 1.5% 😛 

[mistagoat]

I'm afraid I can't support this. I love the juxtaposition of making a teeny tiny toon that can punch you straight to the moon. Knowing that I lost X% damage just for making a small toon would be very unpleasant.

[Trickshooter]

No, thank you. I do not want a world where body shape and size becomes part of the meta.

[Blastit]

It's a great idea for a very different game.

[BrandX]

2 hours ago, mistagoat said:

I'm afraid I can't support this. I love the juxtaposition of making a teeny tiny toon that can punch you straight to the moon. Knowing that I lost X% damage just for making a small toon would be very unpleasant.

 

I don't think the idea was to give you a minus.  Just the bonus given varied upon where the slider was set.  

 

Unless you think not maxing out a slider means you lost damage instead of not maxing means you didn't get the bonus.  Two different things.

[Greycat]

No.

 

Especially with ... what, millions of characters already made? No.

[wednesdaywoe]

Extremely hard pass. The difference between losing power and missing out on potential power is a distinction without a difference. A system that increases character power based on cosmetic choices diminishes player agency in designing their characters. Under that system, you would have to weigh your creative design choices against the potential power benefits you stand to gain or lose. No one wants a world where participating in some trial not only requires a good IO build but also long legs.

[mistagoat]

16 minutes ago, BrandX said:

 

I don't think the idea was to give you a minus.  Just the bonus given varied upon where the slider was set.  

 

Unless you think not maxing out a slider means you lost damage instead of not maxing means you didn't get the bonus.  Two different things.

I guess I assumed that the current in game ceiling for a given stat would still be the ceiling at the full extension of the slider because I can't see everything getting rebalanced around this.

That stat would go down until it hits the center and then it would start enhancing the other stat to it's ceiling.

 

It's all hypothetical though so you may be correct. 

 

 

[arcane]

Yeah this one’s no good, sorry

[Triumphant]

@temnix From an idea standpoint I like the imagination and logic put into this concept.  If we were forging a new game from the ground up, I could certainly support this approach.  I think it would be really cool and a lot of fun to play with the sliders to adjust the mechanical effects of my character.  But to be honest, I think you're asking too much from a coding standpoint here, not to mention how one would go about rebalancing the game around this and the way it interacts with the great multitude of other factors (enhancements, incarnate powers, inspirations, and so on) present in the game.  In a nutshell, I think it's a bit too ambitious a request from a team of hobby developers running a free-to-play game.

 

In the event that I'm wrong, and that the Devs would be onboard with trying to implement something like this, you need to allow for the option to turn the function on or off, because players of established, much-beloved characters are not going to be happy about those characters abilities changing from their present state, based upon choices they made in the character creator before this was implemented (If you see what I mean?  I'm not sure if I am explaining my argument clearly here, so apologies if this is muddled).

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, BrandX said:

 

I don't think the idea was to give you a minus.  Just the bonus given varied upon where the slider was set. 

 

14 hours ago, temnix said:

I think every slider should represent a duality of statistics, with the place around the center being neutral, but moving away meaning more of one and less of the other. I'm not going to propose any particular numbers, they will have to be found in testing, but for this to be worth bothering with, the far ends should make a significant difference, say, +-25% of the standard.

Every shift is both a plus and a minus. In the OP's example, you can gain 25% stealth by making your character as short as the game allows, but it costs you 25% of your max HP.

[biostem]

I don't think height or body size/mass should come into play at all, (with regard to any sort of performance advantage or disadvantage), just like I don't think sex/body type should affect your effectiveness.

[temnix]

16 hours ago, Mr. Apocalypse said:

I'm going to have to say no. This would be to much like gear stats in other games and will end up making everyone just max out the sliders or minimize depending on the effect wanted. But more than that, it would kill concept builds, as you would possibly have to make a unwanted sacrifices in order to have the look you want.

 

The first part will only apply to min-maxers. I don't know if you are one, but please don't consider myself such. The second part, alas, is the price of relevance. Your look is you, and it is your choice of reality to inhabit.

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, temnix said:

 

The first part will only apply to min-maxers. I don't know if you are one, but please don't consider myself such. The second part, alas, is the price of relevance. Your look is you, and it is your choice of reality to inhabit.

If a player wants to make a smallest size Tanker character the game allows that has extremely robust HP, they should not be penalized for doing so with a HP penalty for being less than average height. If a player wants to make the scrawniest character the game allows that has extremely robust damage resist, they should not be penalized for doing so with a damage resist penalty for being less than average physique. Your proposal pigeonholes character concepts based on how their body is set up, penalizing players and their concepts for not falling in line with your proposal. It doesn't matter whether a player is a min-max'er or not. You are requesting to penalize player character concepts for not conforming to what you want them to look like for what they can do.

[Jawbreaker]

There's still time to delete this

[Luminara]

Might as well ask for +50 Res (All), +50 Def (All) and +10,000 HP for wearing nothing but Barbarian bra and Labeaux thong.

[biostem]

25 minutes ago, Luminara said:

wearing nothing but Barbarian bra and Labeaux thong

I lieu of a chainmail bikini, I find your terms acceptable... 😝

[Bionic_Flea]

[temnix]

5 minutes ago, biostem said:

I don't think height or body size/mass should come into play at all, (with regard to any sort of performance advantage or disadvantage), just like I don't think sex/body type should affect your effectiveness.

 

Any arguments in support of either, or you think thinking just makes it so? I didn't say anything about the sex choice, mind you, but, of course, women are nimbler and more resilient than men, who are stronger and tougher. There is no reason whatever why this would not apply to superheroes. Or does Black Widow punch through walls? There is She-Hulk, but she is hulky. Of course, in both sexes there may be some small superheroes with unusual strength or who leap between buildings on short legs, in short, where their abilities aren't completely limited by their body, but that is where superpowers come in. A short-legged character, I proposed, shouldn't run or jump well naturally, but he may have Combat Jumping or Superspeed or another power to offset his starting point. That, in a nutshell, is the entire concept of superheroes as they were originally conceived - that they are regular people, maybe even invalids or puny, but with something extra, from an investigator's talent to flying, that lets them go beyond and achieve. It's the American way! Now how did this turn into a situation where, instead of being surpassed, reality is la-la-la denied the way you and others here are doing? 

 

@Triumphant It is pleasant to read a response from someone who is not a low-effort nay-sayer. These sliders would add a new layer of complexity, that's true. Well, what is the problem? All the mechanics you mention already bring accents: Enhancements, Incarnate powers, Accolades... Having a body that matters should have been the first layer among them. So players may not like being budged from the primitive situation they are used to. Big deal. The game was stupid, and it was made smarter. They'll love it before long anyway, they always do. Still, this change should be announced well in advance, and characters made until D-Day excluded from the changes, with the option to let the player click a button and agree to convert them (irrevocably). Later characters should not get the choice, however. Reforms for the better should never be optional; we must only be very sure that we do change for the better, and prepared to make adjustments if we are mistaken somewhere. And in this case the reform would only bring players back to a basic starting condition. As for Homecoming, they may be running this business as a non-profit hobby, but that excuse only goes so far. Serious money leaves for their maitenance costs from players' wallets, and more important, they command the free time of thousands of people. They haven't done anything with that power but condemn players to more senseless time-wasting - to grinding in one dull challenge after another. There are no learning opportunities, no role-playing choices to express a personality, no making players face, as in this case, the limitations of their physical condition - and the question of how, and whether, powers ameliorate it. Just time sinks, one after another, for badges and vanity. Like other MMOs, CoH has wasted millions of hours of people's lives for very little, and all that Homecoming seems eager to do is make them waste some more. That borders on selling opium. Here is a heads up: the more of someone you are in a virtual brag fest, the less of anyone you are in reality.

 

If this argument goes through to Homecoming, I want to suggest something about implementation. It is possible that in this engine buffs and debuffs and other effects can't be applied on the Body page. Maybe there is no way to make smooth, analog changes there that would translate into exact corresponding permanent adjustments. Homecoming still struggles with costume-piece limitations, after all, and it is possible that there is just no natural way to turn slider changes into stat adjustments dynamically. In that case this system, at least, could work: record the slider parameters somewhere after character creation/"Customize your appearance"/tailor and make the stat changes only discrete, i. e. instead of "+0,33%" on the slider bar, let there only be so many increments of "+1%." These values recorded, apply the changes as autopowers from the game's master script, or global script, or what it is called that always runs in the background. For example, IF Size = +15 AND "Size-changed" = 0, THEN apply Perma-power "Size+15" AND Set "Size-changed" = 1. The Size+15 power would delete the effects from other Size powers and apply its own. This would be repeated for all of the sliders. It's not an ideal way of doing this, but it can go around an absolute impossibility of factoring in the body settings directly.