Why does this game have roles?

qqafgqegqe4ag · March 2016

I notice this game has the trinity- heal, DPS, tank... But why? Any time I join an Alert, the team's a mismatched mess of toons, often only able to complete the alert because of a freeform character or two in the group that can do all roles.

If grouping is going to completely ignore your selected role and make groups of 4 tanks or 4 DPS or no tanks at all so the healer gets all the aggro, why bother with roles at all? Why not just make all characters freeform? Because money?

championshewolf · March 2016

Because alerts are a piss poor example of grouping and because of how freeform works, basing alert teams on roles is a disaster in the making, since let's say the WoW effect happens and Healers and tanks are the rare roles. Well to get faster pops the freeforms could just swap to either support or tank role even though they don't have anything to do with those roles and bam faster pop even though they aren't doing those roles.

But on the flip side, it's baseless to claim roles don't matter in this game, because a good tank or support can be invaluable to a team in a rampage like FnI or TA.

jonsills · March 2016

It would be better, I think, to say that roles aren't so rigidly defined as in, ah, certain other games. You can, in CO, have a tank with good DPS and a heal - it won't tank as well as a dedicated tank, won't hit as hard as a dedicated DPS, and won't heal as well as a dedicated healer, but it can perform all those "roles" adequately enough for most purposes.

chaelk · March 2016

Roles are actually, hybrid, tank, melee dps, ranged dps and support. Heals come under the support group but so do buffers.

because Freeform was what the game was made for. The roles are to help different builds get bonuses, depending on what you are building.
AT's were added when it went F2P.
AT's have more defined roles, which still can be something else. Glaciers are tanks but work perfectly well as DPS.

Warden is a ranged support -lightning/healer, she plays in ranged dps role but can heal and res , as well.
I'm levelling a Grimoire , which is supposedly Support , I've tanked alert bosses on it.

squirrelloid · March 2016

chaelk said:

I'm levelling a Grimoire , which is supposedly Support , I've tanked alert bosses on it.

Grimoire is actually hybrid. It would be 10x better in support role, but it isn't.

chaelk · March 2016

correct,the aura is support but it's stuck in hybrid role, I don't know why?

chuckwolf · March 2016

because any group of 5 should be able to easily handle an alert regardless of the "roles" of the team

jonsills · March 2016

chuckwolf said:
because any group of 5 should be able to easily handle an alert regardless of the "roles" of the team

As an example, in the Timm/Dini animated series, the founding members of the Justice League were Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, one of the Green Lanterns, and Hawkwoman. Do you see a "support" or "healer" role in there? 'Cause I don't.

rtma · March 2016

Team Dynamics.

spinnytop · March 2016

I would imagine the game has roles because it was created during a time when that was for the most part what was expected in mmos. Freeforms have roles just like anyone else, and once in a group even a Hybrid will tend to fall into an active role within the group.

Alerts don't require a tank and a healer. What they require is team work. If you lack team work, then even having a tank and a healer won't carry you through that alert. It's funny, but one thing I've noticed is that often when people que up for this team content and it doesn't go well, the first thing they do is head for that exit button. You would think they would take a half a second and say "hm... how can we get through this" and then fall back on good old fashioned, simple mmo teamwork strategies... but no, they do the heroic thing and bail as fast as they can. I get the feeling that these people are the ones most likely to use the line "But it's a super hero mmo, we're supposed to be overpowered super heroes".

So the next time you're failing an alert, don't think to yourself "aw, we don't have the roles for this, better quit". Think to yourself "what are we going to do with the roles we have to beat this". You know.. the thing that your heroes from the comic books would do, instead of running away.

Here's a free tip: Block is incredibly powerful.

pantagruel01 · March 2016

spinnytop said:
Alerts don't require a tank and a healer. What they require is team work.

Eh, most alerts only require teamwork if the characters running the alert are low power/low level. A big part of the lack of much use of roles in CO is that the game is really easy so there's no real need to bother.

To succeed at an alert:

Learn aggro management. There's usually multiple spawn groups, and if you're not overpowered, try and clear them one at a time.
If you've got aggro and can't handle it, try blocking to see if someone else will take the pressure off. Or just get defeated and respawn, as long as one character remains up so the boss doesn't reset and you're not in a Recruiting Drive, there's no significant penalty to doing so.

aesica · March 2016

The only time I've ever seen alerts actually fail are when everybody in the group is low-level and ragequits after wiping on trash pulls. This game does an absolutely terrible job at giving low-level players an even minimal set of tools they need to perform their supposed role properly. So, when you throw a bunch of 10-15 players (especially poorly-designed ATs) into an alert together, but nobody can heal or tank properly, it's quite possible for the whole thing to go tits up.

CO is the only MMO I know of where the game is harder as a lowbie than it is as a higher level.

pantagruel01 · March 2016

aesica said:
CO is the only MMO I know of where the game is harder as a lowbie than it is as a higher level.

Level scaling hasn't been adjusted since before the advent of spec trees and convenient toggle forms, both of which disproportionately help higher level characters.

kallethen · March 2016

Actually, I do recall they did adjust mobs some for the increase in power from the changes of On Alert (wasn't specs that out powered mobs, in my opinion, but the high increase in stats granted by gear). Whether that adjustment was enough or not certainly could be debatable.

spinnytop · March 2016

pantagruel01 said:

spinnytop said:
Alerts don't require a tank and a healer. What they require is team work.
Eh, most alerts only require teamwork if the characters running the alert are low power/low level. A big part of the lack of much use of roles in CO is that the game is really easy so there's no real need to bother.

To succeed at an alert:
Learn aggro management. There's usually multiple spawn groups, and if you're not overpowered, try and clear them one at a time.
If you've got aggro and can't handle it, try blocking to see if someone else will take the pressure off. Or just get defeated and respawn, as long as one character remains up so the boss doesn't reset and you're not in a Recruiting Drive, there's no significant penalty to doing so.

Panta is correct, alerts don't require teamwork at all if you're using teamwork

chaelk · March 2016

for example. last weekend. a group with 5 ranged.
we played serial aggro,
as soon as one person got it , they blocked, everyone else attacked.
next person gets aggro, they block, rest attack.
repeat till all mobs and boss dead.

qqafgqegqe4ag · March 2016

Actually, my complaint was less about completing the alert and more about getting one alert with 5 support so it takes forever, then switching to tank to avoid getting that group again and instead being teamed with 3 tanks and having to fight over threat. Why not put one of those tanks in with those all support groups?

I should have said instead, "Why have roles if the teaming system is going to flat out ignore them?"

aiqa · March 2016

qqafgqegqe4ag said:
Actually, my complaint was less about completing the alert and more about getting one alert with 5 support so it takes forever, then switching to tank to avoid getting that group again and instead being teamed with 3 tanks and having to fight over threat. Why not put one of those tanks in with those all support groups?

I should have said instead, "Why have roles if the teaming system is going to flat out ignore them?"

With a bigger playerbase and more difficult alerts, having alert queues take into account roles could work. But CO is not overly difficult and alerts start slow enough as is, so for now I think just throwing anyone who wants to join together is the best way to go. If you do want a more balanced team you are free to team up with a friend and queue up for alerts together.

pantagruel01 said:

aesica said:
CO is the only MMO I know of where the game is harder as a lowbie than it is as a higher level.
Level scaling hasn't been adjusted since before the advent of spec trees and convenient toggle forms, both of which disproportionately help higher level characters.

I don't know any game that lets level 1 and max level characters play together and where the max level character doesn't have some kind of advantage. And level scaling was in fact changed with the On Alert patch.

Unknown · March 2016

This content has been removed.

decorumfriends · March 2016

bluegrassbeast said:
If you're PUGing alerts, you should go into that queue with the expectation of having to carry it through under-geared level 10 ATs and people who have little to no idea how to actually play their character, many of who will wish to showboat.

This is true. Although if the level 10s are vets who know what they're doing, it makes it go a lot easier.

pantagruel01 · March 2016

aiqa said:

I don't know any game that lets level 1 and max level characters play together and where the max level character doesn't have some kind of advantage. And level scaling was in fact changed with the On Alert patch.

There was a change by critter rank (adding damage resistance to higher ranked mobs), not level.

spinnytop · March 2016

chaelk said:
for example. last weekend. a group with 5 ranged.

we played serial aggro,

as soon as one person got it , they blocked, everyone else attacked.

next person gets aggro, they block, rest attack.

repeat till all mobs and boss dead.

^ basically a How-To guide on completing Grabs.

qqafgqegqe4ag said:
Actually, my complaint was less about completing the alert and more about getting one alert with 5 support so it takes forever, then switching to tank to avoid getting that group again and instead being teamed with 3 tanks and having to fight over threat. Why not put one of those tanks in with those all support groups?

I should have said instead, "Why have roles if the teaming system is going to flat out ignore them?"

Because the game didn't have Archetypes for a good chunk of it's existence, it was all freeforms. Playing your roles is optional in nearly all content. Just because your Archetype locks you into tank role doesn't mean you have to care about aggro.

aesica · April 2016

qqafgqegqe4ag said:
Actually, my complaint was less about completing the alert and more about getting one alert with 5 support so it takes forever, then switching to tank to avoid getting that group again and instead being teamed with 3 tanks and having to fight over threat. Why not put one of those tanks in with those all support groups?

I should have said instead, "Why have roles if the teaming system is going to flat out ignore them?"

At least some of this could be avoided if Cryptic would give all ATs some sort of multi-role capability as well as the ability to switch between those roles like FFs can.

Also, I suspect roles are ignored in most non-WoW-sized MMOs because it means shorter queue times. In WoW, you queue for a specific role. Tanks, as well as healers to a lesser extent, usually get in nearly instantly. DPS (the ezmode low-responsibility role) typically takes much longer. Sometimes as much as 15-30 minutes.

Yeah, imagine waiting THAT long when all you want to do is get your 3 loathesome bursts out of the way for the daily.

bluegrassbeast said:
If you're PUGing alerts, you should go into that queue with the expectation of having to carry it through under-geared level 10 ATs and people who have little to no idea how to actually play their character, many of who will wish to showboat.

If this is not your cup of tea, take the time to make an Alert team. you'll save time on wipes and frustration in the long run.

I actually enjoy alerts where the rest of the team is underperforming. It lets me feel like the hero.

Well, unless I'm on a level 10-20ish character. God those levels are so poorly-tuned without heirloom cheese. That's a large part of what makes low-level "vets" better than new players in typical quest gear.

markhawkman · April 2016

jonsills said:

chuckwolf said:
because any group of 5 should be able to easily handle an alert regardless of the "roles" of the team
As an example, in the Timm/Dini animated series, the founding members of the Justice League were Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, one of the Green Lanterns, and Hawkwoman. Do you see a "support" or "healer" role in there? 'Cause I don't.

Well, Support is arguable in the case of GL, though he doesn't usually do that, he at least has the power to protect his team.

Talk about how awesome heirloom gear is makes me want to never touch a single piece of it ever. I've actually never bothered even trying to get any gear from the Q sets. reading the descriptions makes me go "That's it?" I remember this one particularly hilarious convo where a guy who was running a full armadillo set was asking how to get something better.....

kallethen · April 2016

The heirloom gear with XP bonus is actually very handy for leveling. Gets you the bonus XP and you don't need to worry about upgrading your gear as you are leveling. As end-game gear, yeah, you can do better.

riverocean · April 2016

Heirloom gear levels with you and grants xp bonuses. Armadillo is awesome for getting through low levels on an AT. Especially in a game where you hardly ever team for regular content. Not counting alerts of course. As far as AT's go, many of them have been improved over the past few releases. So hopefully, we'll continue to see more of that.

qawsada · April 2016

jonsills said:

As an example, in the Timm/Dini animated series, the founding members of the Justice League were Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, one of the Green Lanterns, and Hawkwoman. Do you see a "support" or "healer" role in there? 'Cause I don't.

J'onn J'onzz. Although he is as brick as Superman, he spend most of his time either being the mind reader, using empathy, or being command support for the Justice League when they expand. Green Lantern got bubbles, which always protect his friends from harm.

spinnytop · April 2016

qawsada said:

jonsills said:

As an example, in the Timm/Dini animated series, the founding members of the Justice League were Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, one of the Green Lanterns, and Hawkwoman. Do you see a "support" or "healer" role in there? 'Cause I don't.
J'onn J'onzz. Although he is as brick as Superman, he spend most of his time either being the mind reader, using empathy, or being command support for the Justice League when they expand. Green Lantern got bubbles, which always protect his friends from harm.

Anyone can take bubble powers, not just support. My favorite dps character uses bubbles quite effectively in alerts.

ninjapiff · April 2016

To be fair, in established Superhero canons (you know, Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Vertigo, etc. etc. etc.) there really aren't a whole lot of "healing" heroes (aside from "regeneration" characters like Wolverine or Deadpool). Healing isn't really a very super-heroey power in the traditional sense, as healing a mugger wouldn't really stop crime.

That being said, "Support" heroes can be some of the most powerful. A prime example is the Scarlet Witch and her "Chaos Magic". It's basically like saying "Your PUNISHER is confused! It hurt itself in it's own confusion!"

pantagruel01 · April 2016

decorumfriends said:

bluegrassbeast said:
If you're PUGing alerts, you should go into that queue with the expectation of having to carry it through under-geared level 10 ATs and people who have little to no idea how to actually play their character, many of who will wish to showboat.
This is true. Although if the level 10s are vets who know what they're doing, it makes it go a lot easier.

I go into an alert expecting to be primary dps and primary tank. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised.

jaazaniah1 · April 2016

How many superheroes run around with armies of pets? Some aspects of this game seem more inspired by a fantasy world than comic books.

ninjapiff said:
To be fair, in established Superhero canons (you know, Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Vertigo, etc. etc. etc.) there really aren't a whole lot of "healing" heroes (aside from "regeneration" characters like Wolverine or Deadpool). Healing isn't really a very super-heroey power in the traditional sense, as healing a mugger wouldn't really stop crime.

That being said, "Support" heroes can be some of the most powerful. A prime example is the Scarlet Witch and her "Chaos Magic". It's basically like saying "Your PUNISHER is confused! It hurt itself in it's own confusion!"

As we all know, Dr. Strange explained there is no such thing as "Chaos Magic"!

biffsmackwell · April 2016

jaazaniah1 said:
Some aspects of this game seem more inspired by a fantasy world than comic books.

Yup. Heck, most of this game veers toward all things not comic books.

squirrelloid · April 2016

biffsmackwell said:

jaazaniah1 said:
Some aspects of this game seem more inspired by a fantasy world than comic books.
Yup. Heck, most of this game veers toward all things not comic books.

There are fantasy comic books. Conan for instance. There are also military comic books. (The 'Nam had a long run. So did G.I.Joe.) Even Dr. Strange is fantasy as often as he's superhero-y.

And of course there's famously (and once controversially) horror comics.

These things sometimes cross-over into superhero books. Nick Fury (Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos) started as a military comic after all.

And superhero books cross-over into other genres as well (Wolverine in WW2 stuff, for example). Trying to draw a sharp line between Superhero and Other Stuff just doesn't work well.

-----

Regarding support characters in Superhero books, X-Men and related books has *a lot* of examples.
-Professor X (most of the time)
-Jean Grey (frequently, when she's alive and not phoenix-empowered especially)
-Forge (rarely a frontline combatant, or even a combatant at all - spent large periods providing technological assistance and/or running X-Factor).
-Betsy Braddock (before her ninja transformation - surviving her famous duel with sabretooth is the only thing that convinced the rest of the X-Men to even take her on as an active member).
-Illyana Rasputin (Magick) (team teleporter and her pets are definitely support functions, even though she also has dps capability)
-Karma
-Warlock (Really, he can be an all three hybrid)
-Danielle Moonstar (especially before becoming a valkyrie)
-Iceman is most frequently a controller
-Elixir (a true Healer character, rare in comics)

And it really depends what you mean by support. Shadowcat is hardly a dps or tank... and frequently served in supporting and interference roles. And Storm's biggest contribution, especially for her first few decades of appearances, was generally battlefield control and positioning - using weather conditions to hinder rather than damage, and gusts of winds to move allies and enemies into advantageous positions for her team.

And that doesn't even cover *villains*. Examples:
-Mastermind (uses illusions, most famously to corrupt Jean Grey/Phoenix into Dark Phoenix)
-Magneto (he's primarily a controller, especially before the 90s)
-Black Bishop (Harry Leland of the Hellfire Club)
-Vertigo (Marauders)

Nor does it cover heroes who were true 50/50 dps/support splits, like Dazzler (whose name even comes from her power's control aspects).

And that was with maybe 10 minutes of thought.

jonsills · April 2016

jaazaniah1 said:
As we all know, Dr. Strange explained there is no such thing as "Chaos Magic"!

Which is true - what Wanda has, as was explained quite some time back, is the ability to affect probability. And at the quantum level, all of existence is merely probability, making her potentially more powerful than freaking Galactus.

biffsmackwell · April 2016

squirrelloid said:

biffsmackwell said:

jaazaniah1 said:
Some aspects of this game seem more inspired by a fantasy world than comic books.
Yup. Heck, most of this game veers toward all things not comic books.
There are fantasy comic books. Conan for instance. There are also military comic books. (The 'Nam had a long run. So did G.I.Joe.) Even Dr. Strange is fantasy as often as he's superhero-y.

And of course there's famously (and once controversially) horror comics.

These things sometimes cross-over into superhero books. Nick Fury (Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos) started as a military comic after all.

And superhero books cross-over into other genres as well (Wolverine in WW2 stuff, for example). Trying to draw a sharp line between Superhero and Other Stuff just doesn't work well.

-----

Regarding support characters in Superhero books, X-Men and related books has *a lot* of examples.
-Professor X (most of the time)
-Jean Grey (frequently, when she's alive and not phoenix-empowered especially)
-Forge (rarely a frontline combatant, or even a combatant at all - spent large periods providing technological assistance and/or running X-Factor).
-Betsy Braddock (before her ninja transformation - surviving her famous duel with sabretooth is the only thing that convinced the rest of the X-Men to even take her on as an active member).
-Illyana Rasputin (Magick) (team teleporter and her pets are definitely support functions, even though she also has dps capability)
-Karma
-Warlock (Really, he can be an all three hybrid)
-Danielle Moonstar (especially before becoming a valkyrie)
-Iceman is most frequently a controller
-Elixir (a true Healer character, rare in comics)

And it really depends what you mean by support. Shadowcat is hardly a dps or tank... and frequently served in supporting and interference roles. And Storm's biggest contribution, especially for her first few decades of appearances, was generally battlefield control and positioning - using weather conditions to hinder rather than damage, and gusts of winds to move allies and enemies into advantageous positions for her team.

And that doesn't even cover *villains*. Examples:
-Mastermind (uses illusions, most famously to corrupt Jean Grey/Phoenix into Dark Phoenix)
-Magneto (he's primarily a controller, especially before the 90s)
-Black Bishop (Harry Leland of the Hellfire Club)
-Vertigo (Marauders)

Nor does it cover heroes who were true 50/50 dps/support splits, like Dazzler (whose name even comes from her power's control aspects).

And that was with maybe 10 minutes of thought.

Yeah we've all had this argument before, but for every Conan or Dr. Strange you can point out, I can point out a few dozen non-fantasy comic characters. They're a minority, to the point where you have to wonder why they're spending their time making demonic armor or Disney animal heads. Yes, I know people like and want this kind of stuff, but to me it's no different than going into an anime MMO and saying "Where's all my characters that look realistic and don't have 8 pound eyeballs in their heads? Where's all my cape and tights superheroes? My only choices are Sailor Moon and Power Rangers. How come I can't play as a centaur in your My Little Pony MMO?"

This game has very little in direction. The developers have often just done what they thought was cool, without thinking within a comic book scope. For instance, if I were in charge of a superhero MMO, I'd be looking at what's popular in comics culture right now, and try to draw inspiration from that, instead of having an open discussion with all the developers about what they think would make a cool costume set. That's where the outside-the-box ideas come from.

Don't get me wrong, outside-the-box thinking isn't bad, but when you've had as much outside-the-box thinking as this game has had, it starts to lose its focus and direction. Most of the time I look around in the game, I think to myself if it was my first time looking at the game, I wouldn't be able to tell that it was based on a comic book world, and that it would take me a while to figure out, just on my own in-game observations, that the game has some comic-like influences.

squirrelloid · April 2016

biffsmackwell said:

Yeah we've all had this argument before, but for every Conan or Dr. Strange you can point out, I can point out a few dozen non-fantasy comic characters. They're a minority, to the point where you have to wonder why they're spending their time making demonic armor or Disney animal heads. Yes, I know people like and want this kind of stuff, but to me it's no different than going into an anime MMO and saying "Where's all my characters that look realistic and don't have 8 pound eyeballs in their heads? Where's all my cape and tights superheroes? My only choices are Sailor Moon and Power Rangers. How come I can't play as a centaur in your My Little Pony MMO?"

This game has very little in direction. The developers have often just done what they thought was cool, without thinking within a comic book scope. For instance, if I were in charge of a superhero MMO, I'd be looking at what's popular in comics culture right now, and try to draw inspiration from that, instead of having an open discussion with all the developers about what they think would make a cool costume set. That's where the outside-the-box ideas come from.

Don't get me wrong, outside-the-box thinking isn't bad, but when you've had as much outside-the-box thinking as this game has had, it starts to lose its focus and direction. Most of the time I look around in the game, I think to myself if it was my first time looking at the game, I wouldn't be able to tell that it was based on a comic book world, and that it would take me a while to figure out, just on my own in-game observations, that the game has some comic-like influences.

Eh, if you go back to early Marvel, it's pretty clear that Stan Lee didn't feel bound to just one 'genre' type. Thor is a god (fantasy - the stick that transforms into Thor's hammer is very clearly magic), Dr. Strange is a wizard (fantasy), Nick Fury is a soldier, and both Iron Man's and Captain America's origins are from wars. Now, FF, Ant-Man, Spider-man, and Hulk are all sort of science fiction origins, but it's science fiction that's indistinguishable from magic in any real sense. And that pretty much covers Marvel's original line-up. And the villains also include fantasy (including the likes of Moleman and Puppetmaster in FF, not just Dr. Strange and Thor villains) and military backgrounds. Even Namor (and Atlanteans generally) is fantasy for decades (the '1st mutant' wasn't invented until the 90s). Every hero dealt with magical enemies several times. The only reason you don't have horror in early marvel is because it was *banned by the comic code* until the 70s (at which point you got piles of horror villains and heroes).

(For completeness: Daredevil's origins are basically magic with a thin veneer of sci-fi, even thinner than the others. Would easily translate into a fantasy setting. X-Men origin was because Stan Lee got lazy and didn't want to have to make up origins anymore! More below).

Going forward, Marvel has heroes like Moon Knight, Ghost Rider, Cloak and Dagger - all magic (and not exhaustive). Other comics unreflectively use whatever they want. Even X-Men has characters who have major magical/sorcerous abilities - Magick (demon sorceress), Forge (Native American shaman), Juggernaut (powers from magic gemstone), Belasco (devil), Roma (goddess), the Adversary (trickster god), etc... Inferno is an entirely magic/fantasy major crossover. The Siege Perilous was an artifact-level magic item. Previous to that, the X-Men not only fought Dracula, but Storm got (briefly) turned into a vampire! And this is just the stuff I remember offhand.

I mean, if you go by modern heroes by the numbers, like 2/3 of marvel superheroes are mutants, because *mutant origins are easy*. (They're born that way, no power origin necessary, and the 'mutant gene' "explanation" *is magic* in any sense that matters). But in terms of story impact and historically significant characters, there is strong fantasy elements *since the very beginning* in Marvel. There isn't some pure 'comic genre' you can point to anywhere. The total disregard for genre divisions is the quintessential comic 'genre'.

jaazaniah1 · April 2016

Nah, you got it all backwards! Thor, Dr. Strange, et al, are just using science so beyond our comprehension that it seems like magic to us. If they tried to explain their science to us primitives we just wouldn't understand, so they let us call it magic; easier that way. It really is all just technology and science

biffsmackwell · April 2016

No, there's no "pure comic genre" but let's not pretend that comics are overflowing with the type of stuff you see in this game. There'd be so many comics about invincible demongodvampirekittens.

Let's look at the movies for no reason. Yeah we have Thor, and Dr. Strange is coming too, but what's the rest of the characters? Do we have an overabundance of demonic main characters? Fluffy doggies? Wizards? Barbarians? Space monsters? No, it's mostly modern humans.

Heck, let's just talk costumes. How many of the characters that you named wear demonic armor? How many wear rocker outfits and hit people with guitars? How many have an animal head? How many of them dress like Sailor Moon? Is it most of them, or just a small part of them?

We should be seeing stuff like a speedster archetype, maybe some new and cool superspeed animations, like lightning speed or something. Some outfits that look like they belong on a speedster. Because Flash is pretty hot right now. Street Vigilante clothes, accessories, and weapons because Daredevil/Punisher is hot right now. A vengeful mercenary Archetype/costume set/whatever complete with a hello kitty duffel bag full of guns. A Batman big metal suit costume because Dawn of Justice. And yes, dare I say, some really slick looking capes and magic-looking clothes and weapons because of the Dr. Strange movie coming out. But what we're getting instead is a rocker costume, glider vehicles, and a silly sale on an Archetype because the game has very little direction. They put the least amount of effort into big stuff that's actually going on in the comics universe and put it all elsewhere.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have fantasy and magic stuff. I'm saying that concepts that aren't core to the superhero genre get a lot more attention than they should. But, I do know for a fact that I'm in the minority in this thinking, and people want to make this game about whatever it is that they're into. And that's why the game just floats into whatever territory it wants to go into.

qawsada · April 2016

jaazaniah1 said:
How many superheroes run around with armies of pets? Some aspects of this game seem more inspired by a fantasy world than comic books.

Here is how I see this: Super Heroes and Vigilantes are modern versions of Adventurers and Murder Hobos you will see in all those RPGs, Table Top Games, and MMOs.

riverocean · April 2016

For me it's not a simple issue of having magic in the game - it's how magic is handled in the game. For example, there's lots of magic and demi-gods in DCUO lore. But they it's implemented feels very "comic book style" and not "DnD fantasy style".

Really hard to explain, but characters like Shazam or Wonder Woman are all about magic. But the adventures they have are those typical of a comic-book style superhero. It doesn't feel weird to have them in the same setting as Batman or Green Lantern.

squirrelloid · April 2016

biffsmackwell said:
No, there's no "pure comic genre" but let's not pretend that comics are overflowing with the type of stuff you see in this game. There'd be so many comics about invincible demongodvampirekittens.

Let's look at the movies for no reason. Yeah we have Thor, and Dr. Strange is coming too, but what's the rest of the characters? Do we have an overabundance of demonic main characters? Fluffy doggies? Wizards? Barbarians? Space monsters? No, it's mostly modern humans.

Heck, let's just talk costumes. How many of the characters that you named wear demonic armor? How many wear rocker outfits and hit people with guitars? How many have an animal head? How many of them dress like Sailor Moon? Is it most of them, or just a small part of them?

We should be seeing stuff like a speedster archetype, maybe some new and cool superspeed animations, like lightning speed or something. Some outfits that look like they belong on a speedster. Because Flash is pretty hot right now. Street Vigilante clothes, accessories, and weapons because Daredevil/Punisher is hot right now. A vengeful mercenary Archetype/costume set/whatever complete with a hello kitty duffel bag full of guns. A Batman big metal suit costume because Dawn of Justice. And yes, dare I say, some really slick looking capes and magic-looking clothes and weapons because of the Dr. Strange movie coming out. But what we're getting instead is a rocker costume, glider vehicles, and a silly sale on an Archetype because the game has very little direction. They put the least amount of effort into big stuff that's actually going on in the comics universe and put it all elsewhere.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have fantasy and magic stuff. I'm saying that concepts that aren't core to the superhero genre get a lot more attention than they should. But, I do know for a fact that I'm in the minority in this thinking, and people want to make this game about whatever it is that they're into. And that's why the game just floats into whatever territory it wants to go into.

Eh, I'm not sure the movies are a good microcosm to look at. I mean, something like 95% of DC's movie output ever is Batman and Superman. That's a really limited slice of comics, and should not limit what is appropriate in-game.

The Champions IP is very much in the 60s-80s comic frame. That frame really was a grab-bag of just-about-everything goes. I agree, there's some stuff in-game that's kind of grating (especially Westside - bad kungfu movies aren't actually part of comics), but I disagree that allowing a large range of options for heroes (and nemeses!) is necessarily bad.

Interpreting generally:

Demonic Armor: Magick, Marrow (not demonic, but the bone look), tons of villains including Hel (and I'm not particularly familiar with Thor or Dr. Strange villains or even Ghost Rider villains).

Animal heads: That aren't in fact animals, but anthropomorphic? We've got plenty of 'wolfman' material, so much so that I don't think I need to detail it. There have definitely been Minotaurs and Centaurs in comics. I don't know how you want to deal with shapeshifters. There's of course Howard the Duck. (He even appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy!) And Ducktales did have its own comic series which contained plenty of adventure and some things that would certainly be considered 'superhero'. While a cartoon, Darkwing Duck is clearly in the superhero genre. There's a heroic fox character in Willingham's Fables, and there are several animal headed characters in Gaiman's Sandman.

In completely mainstream superhero comics: X-Men's Beast, while not a specific animal, is certainly animalistic in his blue-furred incarnation. Sauron is a anthropomorphic pterodactyl. The Shi'Ar have feathers (although not bird heads). Tigra, a former Avenger, is a cat-woman. One of the Starjammers is an anthropomorphic lizard-like creature, and one is a cat-woman. The Ani-Men, created by Magneto, and later appearing in the famous (Uncanny) X-Men #94-95, where they are Nefario's minions. (Their UXM 94 appearance includes a cat-person, an insect-person, a bird-person, an ape-person, and some kind of amphibian-person.) Many of the Inhumans have animalistic appearances because of the terrigen mists. And there is, of course, Squirrel Girl. That's hardly an exhaustive list, just what i can remember, and it certainly doesn't include the piles of one-off characters who had animal features.

Amusingly, Wolverine was originally intended by his creators to be a mutant wolverine who became human-like, not a human. But since his first appearance was primarily as an adversary and spoiler in a Hulk v. Wendigo fight, none of his origin saw print, and then Len Wein and/or Chris Claremont changed it (almost certainly Claremont, as Wein was only involved for ~3 issues).

Gorillas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas_in_comics

I would also note that *manimals* are a CO thing, so there's CO-specific reasons to have a wide range of animal heads. And 'animals made into humans' and 'humans combined with animals' have a long history in comics.

And let's not forget Rocket Racoon from Guardians of the Galaxy. (Groot likely belongs under Space Monsters). In the comics, Rocket comes from a whole world of anthropomorphic animals. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Raccoon#Fictional_character_biography

I mean, I'm not going to come up with an otter-headed character, but there's no reason why there couldn't be one given the origins of other animal-headed characters.

Rockers: Dazzler (Name of a hero *and* the name of her band), KISS (had their own comic! Sad but true), Steeltown Rockers (1990 Marvel miniseries), SugarShock! (Rockband who fought aliens - i really can't make this up), The Amazing Joy Buzzards (imagine Wheezer as having a secret life as CIA agents fighting monsters... yeah, that happened), and those are only the ones I know of and remember!

Demonic: Ghost Rider (in many interpretations), Magick, plus plenty of villains (and I'm sure there's more heroes). Remember, nemeses are a thing we make costumes for too.

Fluffy dogs: Do we have fluffy dogs? See wolfmen above for werewolves.

Wizards: Beyond Dr. Strange: Dr. Druid, Forge, The Petrified Man, Loki, Hel, the dwarf forge master (i forget his name, from Thor - forge magic), the Hand (mystical ninja sect, definitely uses magic), Mandarin (the rings are magic - he's a magic-device-based wizard), Darklore, Roma, the Adversary, Angela Harkness, Madelyn Pryor (as the Goblin Queen), S'ym, Belasco, Kulan Gath - and that's mostly from memory and all without having read a single Dr. Strange issue, and not being terribly familiar with a lot of Marvel's mystical lore. Nor does it include any of the dozens of one-issue spellcasting characters whose names i cannot hope to remember.

"Barbarians" (term is perjorative, so I'm taking it to mean any look that attempts for a pre-modern feel): Hercules, Ka-Zar, Shanna the She-Devil, Conan, several characters have looked like barbarians in appropriate circumstances (including several x-men) or worn traditional garb for their native culture rather than spandex or modern clothes. Early Black Knight wore medieval armor, as have several other characters.

And while you didn't ask, there have been at least half-a-dozen cowboy-themed heroes who wore clothing appropriate to that era and region. So spandex or modern clothes is hardly a rule in any sense.

Space Monsters: The examples are literally too numerous to mention, depending on what you mean by 'monster'. I'm going with 'doesn't look very human', since that's the limits of what you can really do with CO's tailor. *Highly significant* 'space monsters' include Skrulls, the Brood, Galactus, Thanos, the Celestials, and several Starjammers, and that's nowhere near exhaustive even in the 'highly significant' limits. Do you have any idea how many FF + Avengers + X-Men comics involve trips into space where there are non-human aliens? That number is huge. (Oh, the aliens from Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men certainly qualify). The point where you imply 'space monsters aren't very superhero comics' is the point where one almost has to ask 'do you even read superhero comics?' I'm sure you have, but your memory seems highly selective.

Most of this is core superhero genre stuff, with substantial representation going back to the silver age at least, and frequently the golden age.

beezeeze · April 2016

I like all of it, more costume parts means more customization for characters and I don't really care about the source. We've got a big mix of everything, you can make just about any sort of tights wearing superhero you can imagine, or wizard, or demonic beast, or anthropomorphic cartoon animal, or a super fighting anime robot.(even all of them at once!) All of these things have been featured in numerous comic books going back decades. Complaints about there not being enough superheroes in the game is a gripe about what type of characters the players are choosing to make with the parts they are provided and adding more options for tights is not likely going to change that.

The game's content makes it pretty clear very quickly that the game takes place in a superhero world, what with all the heroes in costumes giving out missions and the monologuing super villains you must face such as our friend Kevin Poe.

but hey I wouldn't mind more superhero centric themed costume releases... it's just that like comic books themselves CO offers players a little bit of just about everything, and just like with comic books..that is one of the big reasons why I am a fan.

jonsills · April 2016

"Magic" origins for supers?

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Sir Arthur C. Clarke
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology." - Sir Terry Pratchett

OTOH, Smacky does have a point about the animals - these aren't anthro-animal heads, like the classic Werewolf heads, but the new Animal Heads pack, which look much more Super-D anime. Not sure why those are part of a superhero game...

On the third hand, I made a power-armor Batman look a year or so ago, a toon I called Iron Bat. It was a one-off gag, quickly deleted, but it was easy enough to make.

biffsmackwell · April 2016

You're missing my point. You don't have to go off and list all those characters. I know that these things exist in comics. Can we move past that, now? I did say "for no reason" when mentioning the movies. But what the movies do give us is the types of characters you think of when you hear the word "superhero." My brain doesn't immediately jump to Sauron.

My point is that even though you can conjure up all these characters, they're a small subsection of what we get from comics. I'm not saying these things don't exist in comics, I'm not saying they don't belong in comics, I'm saying that more effort should be put into the core of what comics are, and especially during times where big comics stuff is happening. You say these are all core things. Well, they're related to core comics, but I'd wager that the majority of comic book superheroes are human or look very human. I mean, usually for aliens we get humans that were made with a bigger box of crayons. Usually the fun, wacky weirdo character that doesn't look human is far outnumbered by normal-looking characters.

But again, my main point is that this game has very little direction of where it wants to go and what it wants to be. It's been that way for a long, long time. It just does whatever it wants and barely ever takes cues from what's big in comics or comic movies. I mean, if anything, if they don't want to do anything close to what the Big Two are doing, how about exploring Champions lore a bit more? Use some stuff that hasn't been done or hasn't been done to death. I mean, Qliphoth, again? What about Multifaria? We only been there once. Let's develop the reverse-champions and make costume sets based on them. Hell, why not make costume sets based around the Champions and update their looks while we're at it? We got Nighthawk, they gave us an updated Defender; those were cool and didn't feel like they came from left field. Santa costume? What, why? I get it, it's seasonal, but let's face it, they made that set for costume contests and like one week out of the year. That wacky flower-head costume? What the heck was that? I've only seen that used for contest fodder or when people want to make the most ridiculous costume they can. This game needs producers who are in touch with what's going on in comics, who can get the team on the right track, but it seems like Cryptic has resigned themselves from having a superhero based game and are now just trying to make the coolest character creator in history. If that's what this game was from the beginning, just a cool mash-up game where you get to fight stuff, you'd hear no complaints from me. But for a guy that wants to see more cool comics stuff and stuff that'll get people familiar with the movies into it, they're missing the mark (let's face it, the movies and TV shows are what's hot right now).

When you say that I imply that space monsters aren't very comics, maybe I should elaborate. I'm a huge fan of monsters and space monsters in comics. What I'm not a fan of is monsters that are supposed to be the heroes. Like, I would love to fight a twenty foot tall flying eyeball squid from space in this game, but when they spend their time making stuff like that for the players, I feel like it seriously detracts from the superhero comic feel the game was (probably never) trying to cop. Yeah, I get that Howard the Duck was in comics, but would you like it if half of the Avengers were ducks? Would it still feel like you're reading an Avengers comic or some kind of mashup? I should have been more clear I guess, but when we're talking costume sets and animal heads, I mean for the players, the supposed superheroes we're trying to be.

But, dammit, now I want to make a Rocket knock-off. SCUD Squirrel? ICBM Beaver? Tomahawk Turkey? Two-Gun Toucan?

spinnytop · April 2016

The problem with the "modern superhero" genre is that it really has no core art direction associated with it, beyond tights and modern clothing. The magic/fantasy genre has a wealth of art direction to draw on, as does sci-fi.

biffsmackwell · April 2016

Seems like you pulled that out of nowhere, but okay. Maybe your creativity is limited when it comes to modern comics costumes.

bulgarex · April 2016

Have to side with Biff there. Comic books from their very inception have been a primarily-visual storytelling medium, and have a huge body of accumulated artistic precedents behind them. Just to revisit the comic-book movie example again, the reason all the super characters we see on the big screen have highly distinctive, almost symbolic outfits with little resemblance to contemporary real clothing, is because that's one of the defining features of the superhero genre, so thoroughly precedented that the lack of them would be noteworthy in itself.

I wish I could just quote the pages and pages of discussion of the common characteristics of the comic-book genre from the PnP Champions genre book. Comics draw from and synthesize elements from many other genres -- sci-fi, literary fantasy, horror, film noir, martial arts, mythology and folklore, military action, soap-opera, satire, nearly everything in fact -- but recast all those elements to conform to the underlying themes and flavor of superheroes.

If I were to suggest one thing to the Champions Online developers, it would be to read Chapter One of Champions, which lays out both the range and the commonalities of the genre in considerable detail.

chaelk · April 2016

Scarlet witch actually has alter reality. It only looked liked chaos to start with.

spinnytop · April 2016

bulgarex said:
Have to side with Biff there. Comic books from their very inception have been a primarily-visual storytelling medium, and have a huge body of accumulated artistic precedents behind them. Just to revisit the comic-book movie example again, the reason all the super characters we see on the big screen have highly distinctive, almost symbolic outfits with little resemblance to contemporary real clothing, is because that's one of the defining features of the superhero genre, so thoroughly precedented that the lack of them would be noteworthy in itself.

Tights actually caught on in comics because they were easy to draw. The outfits on characters are "symbolic" because of their popularity, not by design. Most of the most popular character outfits wouldn't even be seriously looked at in an in-game costume contest because they're actually quite boring. The costumes became symbolic because of the character. Just look at Super Man's outfit... it's nothing; if I slapped it on some unknown character in an unpopular comic book, it wouldn't suddenly make that character iconic... it would just be a boring costume on a boring character.

Look at the X-Men in any of their "we all wear the same colors" iterations... your eye is immediately drawn to the guy who wears a jacket over his stock tights. "Modern Hero" costumes primarily consist of tights with varying lines on them. There are a few examples that deviate from this. However, if you ask someone what a "modern superhero" genre character looks like, you're likely to get tights or street clothes.

biffsmackwell · April 2016

spinnytop said:
Tights actually caught on in comics because they were easy to draw. The outfits on characters are "symbolic" because of their popularity, not by design. Most of the most popular character outfits wouldn't even be seriously looked at in an in-game costume contest because they're actually quite boring. The costumes became symbolic because of the character. Just look at Super Man's outfit... it's nothing; if I slapped it on some unknown character in an unpopular comic book, it wouldn't suddenly make that character iconic... it would just be a boring costume on a boring character.

It's a defining characteristic of the genre, like he said, whether you think it looks boring or not.

I personally think a good, minimalistic set of tights with a striking design is much more impressive than "how much junk can you put on your character?" I think Invincible is a pretty good example of a great design that's instantly eye-catching, iconic, and memorable. And none of it has to do with how popular the character is, because I felt that way about the costume the first time I saw it.

spinnytop said:
Look at the X-Men in any of their "we all wear the same colors" iterations... your eye is immediately drawn to the guy who wears a jacket over his stock tights. "Modern Hero" costumes primarily consist of tights with varying lines on them. There are a few examples that deviate from this. However, if you ask someone what a "modern superhero" genre character looks like, you're likely to get tights or street clothes.

Maybe your eye is. You're not everyone. And further, it depends on the design of the character. Grifter's jacket? Not a very memorable or striking design. Same with Gambit. Rogue, I like that a lot better. Your tastes will vary.

bulgarex · April 2016

spinnytop said:

Tights actually caught on in comics because they were easy to draw. The outfits on characters are "symbolic" because of their popularity, not by design. Most of the most popular character outfits wouldn't even be seriously looked at in an in-game costume contest because they're actually quite boring. The costumes became symbolic because of the character. Just look at Super Man's outfit... it's nothing; if I slapped it on some unknown character in an unpopular comic book, it wouldn't suddenly make that character iconic... it would just be a boring costume on a boring character.

Look at the X-Men in any of their "we all wear the same colors" iterations... your eye is immediately drawn to the guy who wears a jacket over his stock tights. "Modern Hero" costumes primarily consist of tights with varying lines on them. There are a few examples that deviate from this. However, if you ask someone what a "modern superhero" genre character looks like, you're likely to get tights or street clothes.

I certainly won't argue with you as to the practical reasons why comics artists favored tights; but that was also the common outfit of the early-20th Century circus strong-man, which Siegel and Shuster cite as one of their influences for the figure of Superman, who set the pattern for the heroes who followed him. But not symbolic by design? Superman's classic outfit is bright primary colors with a prominent "S"-shield on his chest. Batman deliberately dresses to resemble a bat, with pointy ears and veined winglike cape. Spider-Man's outfit is covered in a web pattern. Heck, Wonder Woman and Captain America wore the freakin' stars-and-stripes! Visually these characters are walking symbols.

If most of the supers on a team wear the same uniform, of course your eyes will be drawn to the one who looks different from everyone else. That doesn't necessarily make the others boring, it's the contrast that makes the one stand out. Like the Thing among the Fantastic Four, or Iceman and Angel with the early X-Men.

All that said, I do agree that many of the classic superhero costumes, not to mention their sometimes-cheezy code-names, have acquired a cachet of cool just from decades of association with the character. But with the evolution of art and storytelling sophistication over those decades, if a lot of people didn't still find those elements fundamentally appealing, wouldn't they have been scrapped by now?

Why does this game have roles?

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