antiklaus

Re: Disappointment

I keep seeing this meme that somehow Cryptic 'suckered' people with using the Champions background while not developing a computer game that provides the same or similar complexity of the rpg.

It's not a meme. It's people who understand the concept of "bait and switch" bitching about it.

This is not a fair criticism' date=' as Cryptic has always been clear that the MMO would not be using the same rules system. I've followed the development of the game since they announced it and found this always to be clear.[/quote']

 

Really, on the label of the game box, they lead me to believe that "Champions" is the crux of the game. They use graphics that depict characters from the PnP game, and tout customizability, etc. and even dedicate a section of their web page to the pen and paper game.

 

If you were someone who picked it up off the shelf, and not someone who followed Crptic's transition from Marvel Online to Champions Online, then how would you know that this game wasn't actually using ANY of the Champions rules, but instead, using a different set of rules that so radically changed the experience as to be a wholly different game?

 

They wouldn't. They'd think they were getting something that they are not. We call it 'bait and switch' for a reason.

 

I can understand if someone is disappointed that it does not have this level of complexity' date=' but to describe Cryptic's action in such negative terms isn't cricket.[/quote']

 

It has immense complexity, in places that it doesn't need it. It has pitched over 20-years of playtested HERO games rules in favor of ones that are literally so similar to the ones that they had planned for Marvel Online that only the labels are different. And worse still, the person designing a character has no idea what characteristics mean to his build, and a flawed system to correct the mistakes made. And yet to add even more to this bucket of failure is that there are arbitrary caps to your super abilities that strip away the very concepts that allow one character to stand out, or to be truly unique from others. It seems like the goal is to force everyone to have characters with the same damage output, even if it means stripping them of any sense of "character". The only character you seem to be able to give to a CO character is the costume.

 

I have actually been very generous to Cryptic. I *am* a programmer by trade. I understand the limits of computer environments, and I'd be the first to tell you that trying to impliment every aspect of the Hero Games ruleset into an MMO would be a train wreck. However, some considerations should have been made that were taken off the table way too soon.

 

 

I will concur that the game is so far half-baked. Between buggy and limited missions' date=' lopsided powers and subsequent adjustments, incomplete economy and crafting, occasional server crashes and other wonkiness I get the impression that Cryptic got pushed to release sooner than they wanted. OTOH what I see so far makes me confident that the game will continue to develop and mature, and I don't reget my lifetime membership in the least.[/quote']

 

Honestly, the bugs are the most forgivable parts to me. So, it's released with a little less endgame content than I'd like, and so a few quests are still broken. Those are things that time will fix.

 

What is broken is the attitude that as they have stated time and time again "pen and paper doesn't translate to computer"

 

If that were the case, they'd be missing out on a host of products which did a wonderful job, and managed it years before with great technical success.

 

Dungeons and Dragons ring a bell?

Re: Disappointment

Actually' date=' they did consider disadvantages for quite a while, and spoke several times about the things they were thinking of including. But as with many things in MMO development, it ended up not making it to the final cut. The main issue I would see regarding disadvantages is this: How do you keep them from being mandatory and game breaking?[/quote']

 

Disadvantages in HERO games has never been mandatory. That's one of the strengths of it. You choose. In this case, however, Cryptic took the choice from the players and decided a 'no' before even giving it the consideration it deserved.

 

And disadvantages need not be game-breaking. How is having a DNPC any different that having a nemesis?

Would having your character take 15% more from fire attacks via a disadvantage be any more game breaking than having gear (as currently exists in the game) that can mitigate 50% of all physical attacks?

And I think that figuring out a fair trade for such disadvantages is a simple case of number crunching.

 

If you suffer 15% more from a specific attack type, then offer a similar capability to do 15% more damage to a specific element or game effect. Or maybe even scale it down more or less depending on the frequency that the power is seen in the game universe. (They populate the world, so they know the exact numbers - all it takes is a simple SQL query).

 

If you take a DNPC, the advantage is that you are given more in-game quests - ie more chance for XP.

 

There are a number of disads that could be brought into the game this way. It's a simple case of "Well, we wanted the game to be Marvel, but we got stuck with Hero Games, so we'll make the game look and feel as Marvel as we can, while using the Hero skin".

 

If you do take a disadvantage such as taking extra damage from heat attacks' date=' how do you keep that person from simply avoiding all mobs that use heat attacks and getting free power? It isn't an RPG where you are subjected to whatever foes that your GM decides you will face. And so since a disadvantage that isn't a disadvantage isn't worth any points, it got dropped. [/quote']

 

It's amazingly simple to make an advantage stick. If you have quests that require a person fight the fire mobs, then how can he avoid anything?

 

If the person avoids those quests, then he is penalized by the xp loss of not doing them (and the possible chained quests from the original), and of the possible gear he might have earned. If he doesn't avoid the mobs, the fight is more challenging. So, that's a disad that costs him whether he avoids the mobs or not.

 

Geeze, have these people ever played pen and paper before? The universe is pre-populated for them, the work is half-done. Even a moderately compenent GM in HERO knows that a disad is always a disad when you control the list of possible disads to those you can police!

 

They have the universe populated, know specifically how many creatures populate it (and can via a SQL query know the same, even as they add new content), and from which power sets they are built. The job couldn't be any easier to calculate a fair tradeoff for the disadvantages.

 

Champions Online's idea of power advantages are very dissimilar to the ones in Hero Games, have no logical way to calculate their value except via using them, and worse still are subject to constant change as the game designers decide that a specific power/advantage combination might be too powerful. They refuse to share the way they calculate damage for powers (and while this might contribute to min/maxing, it'd certainly keep the exploits to a minumum, because people would report on issues, kinda like they did during BETA.)

Re: Disappointment

It's been a mixed bag for me. I appreciate the depth of the character designer, which has seldom failed to allow me to get really close to the concept I was going for, but I am utterly dismayed at their take on powers, power-sets, build, balance, and their incessant mantra that "things that work good in pen and paper games seldom translate to MMOs."

My major instance of this is that they simply refuse to consider the idea of character disadvantages. It's really odd too considering that PCs are ideally suited for the number-crunching that makes disadvantages a handful for the GM.

Why shouldn't you allow your ice-based character to be weaker (if even by only a measure) to fire? Why shouldn't you be able to take a DNPC (and then, much like the minion missions, have to save them!)? This would surely provide a stop-gap in what is currently very limited content...

The pen-and-paper game drew me to the MMO, and suckered me into a lifetime subscription under the promise of recreating a universe and game system I have enjoyed since it's inception. Instead, I feel in many ways that CO is merely another MMO ruleset draped over the Champions skin.

I don't regret my investment for the sake of the Champions community, but I certainly regret the impression that the players of the MMO are taking away about what Champions is.

I see Champions RPG as the first gaming system that truly encouraged character development and role-play through allowing heroes to be people too. You get to deal with the self-same limitations that add flavor and depth to a character concept.

Cryptic has forsaken the roots of the RPG in exchange for an MMO which is prone to min-maxing, pvp vs pve disputes, and a host of other issues that would be remedied if the idea of character concept would have been allowed to take the forefront.