If You Could Give Your Character a Weakness....Woukd you?

[El D]

The core issue of 'choose your character's weakness' as a mechanical system in an MMO like CoH is that while it's fascinating for player narrative, mathematically it'd be absurdly difficult to balance around and would impact player experience in wonky ways. For the system to even be worth using the weakness would need to be significant enough to impact at least some portion of play, while also offering a significant enough benefit worth taking said weakness for. That's already a balance nightmare between all the ATs and the wide gamut of IOs, then there's the impact on Incarnate and Hard Mode content. There's also the issue of CoH being so readily modular outside of initial character creation - are the weaknesses treated the same way? Could they be swapped out on the fly, like Incarnate powers? Maybe swing by Null the Gull? Or would they require something like a respec trial to change? Are you allowed to change them while running a taskforce, or are characters stuck with them from the creation screen? Making them too easy to change just adds an extra step of busy work to interrupt team progression between each mission and making them too difficult or impossible to change could render wide swathes of content much more difficult (let alone how ramped up weaknesses might be in endgame runs). Any additional system would also exacerbate the instances where bespoke weaknesses are inflicted on characters via story arcs or by enemy groups, like the Vahzilok Wasting Disease or the Curse of Weariness from the RWZ. There's also the interaction of custom weaknesses with other characters and how they work when on a team. If my character has a weakness to magic - say taking more damage when fighting the Circle of Thorns or Banished Pantheon - does that mean buffs from other players are less effective against them too? Or are teammate buffs fully effective and possibly nix the weakness entirely via overwhelming numbers? It doesn't matter that the Ruin Mage hits my character harder than a Council gunman if the Force Field buffs make it so neither of them can land a shot to begin with.

 

I think this overall concept is already better served by the existing framework of AT choices, IO builds, and powerset themes. If you make a Fire/Fire Scrapper who is built for recharge, regen/heal, and resistance, you'll do fantastic melee damage, be somewhat tanky, and heal quickly, but also get hit more often than other characters with higher Defense and have next to no ranged damage or control powers. You'll be great against enemies that deal fire damage, but weak to cold. You might get knocked around more than a Willpower or Invul characters (depending on slotting), but you have greater PBAoE damage by default.

[TheMoneyMaker]

5 hours ago, Waljoricar said:

I was definitely imagining a relatively binary system (weak against X, resistant to Y), for the sake of simplicity, but I love the idea of a system that could accommodate more nuanced and RP-centric. There are plenty of heroes with notable "weaknesses" that extend beyond an actual physiological deficiency; Storm has their claustrophobia, Green Lantern their agoraphobia and Martian Manhunter their Pyrophobia, etc.

I guess stuff like that can simply be RP'd without the need for a game mechanic to accommodate it (how would that even work?), though I'm in no way against the idea!

That would be more difficult to account for unless maps had specific tags that could be read in such a way as to trigger such weaknesses, like maybe claustrophobia comes into play on cave or sewer maps as a -to hit or -def. Agoraphobic, then outdoor (primary zone and outdoor instanced) has the same result.

 

Martian Manhunter's pyrophobia isn't really a phobia, though as it's more of an actual weakness, and phobias are about unreasonable fear.....his fear would be reasonable since it hurts him more (-resist) than other damage types.

[Psyonico]

1 hour ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

Agoraphobic, then outdoor (primary zone and outdoor instanced) has the same result.

I think agoraphobia would be more like HEAT passives, but in reverse.  So the more people you team with, the weaker you become.

[TheMoneyMaker]

3 hours ago, Psyonico said:

I think agoraphobia would be more like HEAT passives, but in reverse.  So the more people you team with, the weaker you become.

You're thinking more of anthropophobia, fear of people. Agoraphobia is just fear of outside places (which can expose you to more people, but it's not the same fear).

[Psyonico]

I mean, technically agoraphobia is pretty much just “fear of being outside your safe space”

 

Wikipedia defines it as

 

an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives their environment to be unsafe with no easy way to escape.[1] These situations can include public transit, shopping centers, crowds and queues, or simply being outside their home on their own.

[purexedz]

Yes, I'd do it. I like Warshades having Quantums as a thorn in their side for example. It just makes things more interesting. If not a weakness, I'd like to create a "rival" character that will show up and annoy my character in missions, kind of like Gary in the original Pokémon game.

[Waljoricar]

18 hours ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

Martian Manhunter's pyrophobia isn't really a phobia, though as it's more of an actual weakness, and phobias are about unreasonable fear.....his fear would be reasonable since it hurts him more (-resist) than other damage types.

 

The underlying cause for J'onn's lack of resistance and fear toward fire hasn't consistently been attributed to a physical or inherent weakness. On more than one occasion it has been referred to as pyrophobia and, at times, been treated as an expression of longstanding anxiety and/or PTSD.

[TheMoneyMaker]

4 hours ago, Waljoricar said:

derlying cause for J'onn's lack of resistance and fear toward fire hasn't consistently been attributed to a physical or inherent weakness. On more than one occasion it has been referred to as pyrophobia and, at times, been treated as an expression of longstanding anxiety and/or PTSD

Being cripplingly vulnerable to fire would be very good reasons to also suffer those psychological conditions.

[SeraphimKensai]

The last character I made has a food allergy to coconuts. Since our characters don't eat or drink anything, that weakness hasn't been an issue.

Edited Wednesday at 10:25 AM by SeraphimKensai

[SeraphimKensai]

*unintentional double post*

Edited Wednesday at 10:25 AM by SeraphimKensai

[Andreah]

Mechanically, I likely would not. I don't find that particularly interesting.

 

However, in Roleplay, I have thought out several serious weaknesses & deep flaws in my main characters. Basic mechanics can't represent these well, but they add storytelling potential that I would not pass up.

[Waljoricar]

1 hour ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

Being cripplingly vulnerable to fire would be very good reasons to also suffer those psychological conditions.

You're right, it would. An inherent/physiological weakness to fire being the underlying cause for J'onn's pyrophobia hasn't been consistently supported by canon, however, and you originally asserted that J'onn didn't have pyrophobia at all, in the truest sense - despite them having been confirmed as having the conditionn on a number of occasions.

 

17 hours ago, purexedz said:

Yes, I'd do it. I like Warshades having Quantums as a thorn in their side for example. It just makes things more interesting. If not a weakness, I'd like to create a "rival" character that will show up and annoy my character in missions, kind of like Gary in the original Pokémon game.

I  totally forgot about Quantums having not played Khledians very much. That's might be the most in-game practical application of the kind of "weakness" I was originally referring to. The general consensus seems to be that charatcer weaknesses ala Kryptonite are best left within the realms of RP.

There's clearly a much greater interest in a CoH nemesis system!

[Scarlet Shocker]

I remember there was a system in Vampire: The Masquerade, the old P&P RPG with some kind of system. but from memory (it's close on 30 years ago I played and I was inexpert and inexperienced at it) it mostly seemed like a discussion between player and GM about balancing a power/penalty and felt entirely unsatisfactory.

 

I think if I were to have some kind of "chosen weakness" in the game I'd want the boost to reflect that. I have never been a gambler and to deliberately gimp myself would require a much better pay-off than simply penalty X= Power -1 and gives boost Y = Power +1

 

That said, I have often thought that elements and/or like powers should give higher def/res but the opposite powers should give a commensurately lower def/res; Fire wielders should have reistance and higher defence to fire but weakness to Ice and Water for example but some of our powersets don't have opposing forces - Radiation and Darkness for example, making it almost impossible to balance.