Matt Miller talks City of Heroes’ Invention System
The Invention System in NCSoft‘s City of Heroes went through a whole lot of trial and error process before actually coming to fruition. As Matt Miller, lead game designer, would reveal in his dev diary, what they originally wanted was to add an “out of combat” system to the game. “…Something that gives players gameplay outside of the typical combat scenarios that City of Heroes has to offer.”
According to Miller, this was supposed to be a Skill System wherein you could train up in various skills as well as complete tasks in missions “that would otherwise be unavailable to your character.” And so they went on to creating about six versions of the said system, only to come out of it unhappy.
And then came the Invention System. Miller further narrates in his diary:
We tried to think of new, exciting things that Enhancements could bring to the game. We determined that adding mini-powers to your existing ones had a lot of potential, as the sky would nearly be the limit on what we could accomplish with these new Enhancements. In addition we wanted Enhancements that never expired, because nothing was worse than leveling up in a mission to a point where the majority of your Enhancements turned red (useless), and instead of that level-up making you more powerful, it actually made you less.
To gain more understanding on the Invention System and its corresponding elements, feel free to read up on the rest of his dev diary entry by clicking on our Via link below.
Via MMORPG
The Invention System in NCSoft‘s City of Heroes went through a whole lot of trial and error process before actually coming to fruition. As Matt Miller, lead game designer, would reveal in his dev diary, what they originally wanted was to add an “out of combat” system to the game. “…Something that gives players gameplay outside of the typical combat scenarios that City of Heroes has to offer.”
According to Miller, this was supposed to be a Skill System wherein you could train up in various skills as well as complete tasks in missions “that would otherwise be unavailable to your character.” And so they went on to creating about six versions of the said system, only to come out of it unhappy.
And then came the Invention System. Miller further narrates in his diary:
We tried to think of new, exciting things that Enhancements could bring to the game. We determined that adding mini-powers to your existing ones had a lot of potential, as the sky would nearly be the limit on what we could accomplish with these new Enhancements. In addition we wanted Enhancements that never expired, because nothing was worse than leveling up in a mission to a point where the majority of your Enhancements turned red (useless), and instead of that level-up making you more powerful, it actually made you less.
To gain more understanding on the Invention System and its corresponding elements, feel free to read up on the rest of his dev diary entry by clicking on our Via link below.
Via MMORPG