I think if unequal power levels is a problem, you simply send the high-powers on different missions than the newbs. Perhaps include one or two nice stand-outs to guide the newbs and provide firepower in a crisis, but it makes sense to send the best of the best on tough, dangerous, otherwise impossible missions and the rookies on missions that are less potentially rewarding and dangerous. From each according to their ability after all!
Well, as I said, one thing we could do is have missions specifically geared toward higher level players. Or, if we don't wanna exclude people, have missions where it is explicitly stated you need to be this tall to enter the ride clad yourself in a few ton of phallic compensation in order to really stand a chance. But I'm not sure that'd be a very elegant solution.
Missions geared toward higher level players, in which things are much more fatal. Alright.
I'd just like to see them be a little less indestructable. Look at faith on the long mission previously. Wounded multiple times, and it's irrelevant limb damage, and pops out unharmed after a massive amount of gunfire by half a dozen players, including some pretty powerful weapons. Sure, in theory someone like that could die, but synthflesh bodies and armor act both as reduction in damage taken, and as extra lives preventing critical damage, downgrading what would be a permadeath or temp-death into a less-lethal hit that wouldn't kill a normal player.
Basically, it downgrades a critical killing blow into a limb shot, and then the limb shot might be further reduced from 'destroyed' to 'damaged'. Hence, double-counting protection.
If there was a little more turnover, the gap wouldn't be so large...
Also, amp weapons don't seem to suffer from this kind of damage reduction, with orders like 'cut the enemy in half' and 'pop his skull off his spine' not being granted a similar defence roll.
Re-balance them to be squishier. Alright.
the problem isn't in the equipment's capabilities, but in the rolling system.
a new character is taking an extreme risk every time they use a weapon, or anything that could remotely be used as a weapon, or talks, or basically does anything. (slight bonus, no decomp)
a mid-grade character is still taking risks by doing those actions, but can slightly influence them to be overshots instead of critical fails. (moderate bonus, no decomp)
a high-end character auto-succeeds at everything (good bonus, with decomp)
the gap between the no-decomp mid-range character and a character with a decomp is where things become overwhelming.
Oversided bonuses and decomps unbalance things. Fair.
How would you handle it?
The Amp Specialist aesthetically and from a mechanical standpoint seems like he'd be a glass cannon, since they're bound to a wheelchair and barely responsive in any way other than violent space magic (though maybe they do charity work building houses in their spare time, who knows). Minmaxed into oblivion for offense, in fact. So probably my answer would be to let them keep the shitload of will points they probably have, but limit their multitasking skills severely so that they can do only one thing at a time, or maybe just limit the defensive potential of amp use. Make it so they can't float around without being defenseless at that moment, or set one guy's guts on fire while screwing the head off another one, or maybe just make it so defending yourself with an amp is a very impractical thing to do.
Also, like I said, amp-sight, without knowing the Big Ugly Terrible Truth, sounds like a cheap asspull to me, as it is an unexplained method through which Amp Specialists circumvent the human limitations of the amp, in that you need sensory ID of a target or at least an idea of their location to target them in the first place. So I wouldn't keep that as a thing that's possible, given how cheap it sounds from a gameplay perspective, and keep just their limited human senses as their method of orientation. And maybe even not limited human senses, but give them cameyes or sonars or something of that nature, depending on their readiness when deployed.
These limitations - frailty and inability to multitask (or at least limited defensive abilities) - leave the Amp Specialist still very powerful, since space magic is still extremely powerful, and he's got a practically unlimited supply of it, but also probably dependent on support from their squad, since while burninating hostiles they can't protect themselves and vice versa, and their bodies are atrophied enough that a stiff wind could snap them in half. It makes them actual combat specialists, while the Amp Specialist we saw on Hephaestus is an island, tactically speaking, with no need for support of any kind, at least not for the immediate engagement they're in, and that makes them perilously boring and annoying to deal with.
And if you feel that would make them too easy to deal with, well, that brings me to the next idea, which is the abandonment of cinematic tactics (swinging heat-blades, throwing shit at people, other visually impressive shenanigans) and going for the best effort-to-result ratios in attacks (like boiling somebody's medulla oblongata or raising their heart's temperature by some sixty kelvins). It seems kind of weird that people who've been trained (I presume) in the use of amps by professionals would operate in that manner, at least to me. I mean, pretty much every piece of advice given by the AM in terms of amp use has been categorically against this kind of nonsense. It makes sense for heatblades and stuff like that to appear in convict-performed overshots, since they're not expected to know any better and their enthusiasm often makes them more likely to use maneuvers inefficiently, but I can't see that same sort of naive enthusiasm in a guy who's almost literally been honed into a living weapon by a vicious totalitarian regime.
Then again, maybe they just really like their jobs a lot and have a flair for the dramatic, and are really a good approximation of Stacy put through military training. I don't know.
As for demigod friendly NPCs, I probably would scale back their demigodly natures. Not make them absurdly powerful, but perhaps reasonably powerful. The AM doesn't need to be an inhuman amp demigoddess with 30-something missions under her belt, stunning good looks and a seductive aura of deadly competence to keep players in line, maybe just somebody good enough to have a matter conversion amp and a mass manipulation amp, plus a propensity toward snark, a bit of common sense and a tendency to not suffer fools gladly. The Doctor, similarly, doesn't have to be a horrible eldritch being, since he'd quite frankly be way more intimidating if he was just a guy who's really good at what he does this entire time. I don't think it'd make them less interesting as characters, though that's really how I would handle it, and to be fair, for the Doctor the whole eldritch being thing seems way more relevant to the role he fills than the amp demigoddess thing seems for the AM, though once again that could just be the way we haven't found out how the AM fits into the bigger picture.
Of course, I'm just working off what I know. ER's universe, history and the core concept of space magic are still largely a mystery to all but a couple people who you've told the Big Ugly Terrible Truth to (at least that's what I assume you've told them to some extent). Maybe it all makes sense, as I've mentioned, and I'd probably believe you if you said it did if the whole truth is known.
How do we reign in the power of the high end character?
Or, let me put it to you like this: is it the problem that characters are superpowered, or is it that only certain ones are and they always seem to be the most useful. Ie Harry, did you dislike the Amp Specialist inherently, as an idea, or because it was an enemy that ordinary soldiers and players couldn't fight, one that basically had to be combated by Jim and Miya and their ilk?
Because if it's the first, you're kinda out of luck. The tech is there and both sides are gonna keep using and improving it, especially now. By the time the war ends, in whatever way it does, we're gonna be using artifact level equipment and battles are going to seem very odd in hindsight.
But if it's the second, then that might be exactly what you want, since it will mean that soldiers and average people will have a much better chance of being able to take out major threats.
It's not a problem at all that player characters are superpowered - they clambered through the ranks and earned their tokens fair and square - or that some characters are very powerful (the Doctor I'd hold up as a positive example). The Amp Specialist I dislike because there's an unsubtle undertone of cheapness to his abilities, he's beefed up beyond any form of reason without any form of (non-fluff, I know he probably doesn't like being filled with IVs and catheters, or looks forward to them being reinserted when he hovers out of his wheelchair and spreads his arms in a dramatic gesture, unless he's actually Stacy as previously mentioned and can't help being utterly chipper on the inside) drawback for it. Same for the AM. The problem is that there's no real rhyme or reason to fighting the Amp Specialist, there's just leveling enough firepower his way (and unlocking secret forbidden techniques through the power of seeing someone you sorta like die) until it feels like he's had enough (and the moment is suitably dramatic) and we've all learned a lesson today and also filled up at least three volumes with the big fight. Am I making sense here?
On another note, I'm not quite sure how people are taking away from this that high-powered player characters are somehow wrong and awful. There's, like, five of them who actually do much of anything anymore, and I'm not sure Miyamoto properly counts, since he's very courteously taken to administrative work, only two synthflesh people are actually doing balance-relevant stuff for any length of time (Auron and Pancaek, and both of them are fairly humble in their abilities), Xan's crippled until he kickstarts himself a decompensator and people with MK3s are only really distinguished by the fact that they can fly. I was just saying I really find it funny and inspiring when high-power player characters get mutilated, mess things up or ideally die horribly, especially if less powerful people are nearby and they immediately flip out, and came up with a further rationale extrapolated from Sean's interesting guess on the viewpoint. And then my seething hatred of the Amp Specialist and all he represents took hold of my fragile mind.
All good points.
I will say that the the AM's mission record, looks and abilities ARE explained via unknown game stuff (well, two people know it, but most don't) and that she does have a few very major weaknesses. Regardless, you'll never see her or the Doc doing their stuff for any reason other then story purposes. I have potential plans for them, but I generally think their OP nature is ok since they rarely if ever actually do anything with it. The doc has his reasons for being what he is too. I understand the fear though; it seems like long standing NPC's are often effected by an unconscious "Mary sue'ning" as time continues. I'll try to keep that reigned in and, if nothing else, to at least have a good explanation as to why they're like that, even if it isn't readily available. As a gesture of good faith, here are some things to ponder about the AM that might help guess her true nature.
1.Ship of Theseus
2.hybridization
3.effects similar to the one she users are actually available to players. Well, to one particular player in a certain circumstance.
4.Think about something you never see, a specific part of something that is otherwise pretty damn common.
What I think Harry is trying to say about the Amp specialist: make him less a Dragonball Z villain that just needs enough episodes of screaming and power-upping and finding the magic of friendship in order to beat him.
Instead, make it more a complex enemy that has strengths and weaknesses, that can utterly destroy you if you go about it badly but is quite manageable if you do it smartly and play to your advantages, and his disadvantages.
Sound about right Harry?
And if you feel that would make them too easy to deal with, well, that brings me to the next idea, which is the abandonment of cinematic tactics (swinging heat-blades, throwing shit at people, other visually impressive shenanigans) and going for the best effort-to-result ratios in attacks (like boiling somebody's medulla oblongata or raising their heart's temperature by some sixty kelvins). It seems kind of weird that people who've been trained (I presume) in the use of amps by professionals would operate in that manner, at least to me. I mean, pretty much every piece of advice given by the AM in terms of amp use has been categorically against this kind of nonsense. It makes sense for heatblades and stuff like that to appear in convict-performed overshots, since they're not expected to know any better and their enthusiasm often makes them more likely to use maneuvers inefficiently, but I can't see that same sort of naive enthusiasm in a guy who's almost literally been honed into a living weapon by a vicious totalitarian regime.
When it comes to players: I've been trying to play Miya as this, aka doing things the efficient way instead of the 'cool' way. Problem is that before I often got an overshot when trying to do something, and since I have a decomp I haven't really been on a mission yet. And finally, we run the risk of making things a tad bit boring, so a little flair is still a good thing I suppose.
for npc's though, if they all did this, it'd be a lot of non-blockable non-dodgable instakills. PW is cautious about doing that to his players too much I suspect.
This is actually one of the big problems I have with things. See, if I were writing this as a story, or a choose your own adventure where choices are limited, things would be very different. Amp specialists would just be guys with highly trained memories and spacial reasoning who would basically memorize the entire area they were guarding before hand and then, using cameras or other monitoring devices, perform highly concentrated precision attacks from a safe distance.
The problem with that is that even if I only attacked once each round, we'd probably end up with a TPK. How many turns of characters dropping dead without obvious cause would it take for the survivors to come up with a plan and run for it?
And even without something like that, what happens when you face up against a group of UWM soldiers and miyamoto gets dropped becomes someone scrambles the inside of his avatar?
If I were to use Amp users efficiently, I think we'd see AT LEAST one perma kill each time you encounter one in open combat. Hence, they use big stupid attacks that people can block and dodge and otherwise avoid. I could always make them act consistantly and with the skills and powers they should have but...I dunno, it would be a pretty big ratcheting up in damage for you guys.
And I could say the same with sods and a lot of other things to be honest. A lot of the skills and powers of enemies are softballed to make them survivable.
HEY PIECEWISE!
is it possible to re-murder that skeleton and stick its skull in the pill machine?
Try it.
I'm gonna browse the wiki at one point and cheat, but my initial guesses would be Chem-Off, Battlesuit plate, the stuff they make civic longcoats out of, the stuff they make AoW cloaks out of-
Mk suit material maybe.
A lot of good options, but most are rather expensive. Mk suit material is what I had in mind. We've seen it is ridiculously resistant to temperature, and quite good at keeping out radiation to boot. And it's lightweight. And cheap! Mk.I suits are free, so you can just get a bunch of those, cut them up and use the resistant material to coat all of your bioconstruct minions in. You can throw away the rest, and just get a few sheets of the stuff (or maybe ask Steve for a big pile of it, whatever). Just as an additional subdermal layer, so that it doesn't hinder anything, and boom: instant weakness negation. For cheap, and you can then save the biomass you'd otherwise need.
But, how to adapt that for yourself, for when you don't wanna be bound to a single form? seeing as how the Mk suit stuff doesn't seem stretchy enough. Well, why not just cut it up into smaller sheets of it, add a small cell layer under each one that adheres to it through its ECM, and then use that mass of smaller sheets to give yourself a resistant outer/subdermal anti flame layer. And when a new form is needed, the smaller sheets can rearrange themselves to accommodate.
PW, would this work? As in, would it be effective, and would you allow it?
See, and then people are wondering why we keep that thing locked up. You're all criminally insane!
I think the background for Brother Lars clearly demonstrates that fact.
Oh shit! BRILLIANT IDEA ALERT!
A new on-ship game... SCAVENGER HUNT! Bring in a piece of Doctor or AM DNA to make a pill based on them! Fun and prizes to be had by all! See if you can track down Ivan to get a piece of him! Get a piece of Steve!
Hell, I know where a piece of Steve('s avatar) is...
"You want a piece of this, huh, ya freaks? Well YOU AIN'T GETTIN' ANY!"
Questionable. I'd probably make you pay for it.
Hmm. Hyper competent High end guys like jim who never fail. My foreseen but ignored issue with d6 limitations. And enemies not fighting to their full potential.
I have ideas for this, but I'm not sure people, especially high end people, will like them.
Author
Topic: Einsteinian Roulette: OOC and NEW PLAYER INFO (Read 2489213 times)