Zaion

Dunno how you missed that.

Not to bash the game at all, I think it's doing well for what it is and the niche it fits into, but this is far from a popular MMO especially for NCsoft.

Guild Wars, Lineage, Lineage 2 and Aion, all have (or had) subscription numbers (or active accounts in GW's case) in the millions. L1 and L2 have been up in the 8-9 million range which is close to where WoW is. A guesstimate of 50k subs for CoH at this time I think is very generous. Rule of thumb though is you take daily peak population numbers and multiply that by 8 to get close to overall subscription numbers, even saying CoH has 3-5k people on at once is stretching it I think.

This game is surviving comfortably (as far as we can tell), but it's certainly not a cash cow for NCsoft to milk and I don't think they would spontaneously register trademarks to that end. Any step they take with the game is going to be calculated carefully, don't doubt for a second that the instant a mistake is made and the game becomes a money sink that NCsoft will shut it down. See Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa, both games actually had bigger starts than CoH.

That is entirely subjective. I would not find it boring at all, and I think anyone who would really want to use a pure assault rifle or shotgun set wouldn't find that very boring either. I mean I find the entire MM AT very boring, but that's just me and I never would have suggested it to be not added.

I also haven't really even attempted to point out all the various ways to fire a gun in a super hero game because I don't think it matters and I wanted to make it as easy as possible to add (maybe if it was a simple rearrangement of existing player and enemy powers they'd be more inclined to quickly throw it in). If you want flashy powers I can think up a bunch.

Let's see, for shotguns it's generally a good idea to fire in close range, so you could build the set with that in mind and create a ranged set that spends a lot of time in melee range.

Face Shot: Has medium range but the power starts with the character dashing right in front of the enemy, holding the shotgun out with one hand right up against their face (if they have a face), and boom. The effect would be more an explosion than a normal gun shot, and the blast could be tintable.

Blindshot: Also medium range and comes with a movement element. Character dashes past the enemy a few feet then fires backwards (again one handed, why not?) in a reverse cone attack. Again, the effect is more explosive than a normal gunshot to make it more visually appealing and so it can be tintable.

Rocket Gun: PBAoE. Character first fires straight down at the ground, the shot is extremely explosive and sends a blast out hitting enemies in close range with decent knockback, this also sends the character flying up about 10-15 (ceiling height?) feet at which point they fire again straight down with an even bigger and more powerful blast that hits enemies in a larger radius and knocks them back even farther. The character then drops down to the ground and lands with style.

Cluster Shot: Medium range frontal cone. Fast normal shogun type shot, but what fires out of the gun is a large cluster of fiery projectiles which each move with their own trajectory illustrated by what look like small lines of fire arcing in multiple directions.

Dragon Slug: Medium range. Character holds the gun at their side and braces themselves, the end of the barrel starts to burn and gets brighter and brighter while the gun shakes in the character's hands, after about 2 seconds a huge "beam" (shape of attack, not an energy beam) of fire shoots out in a straight line maybe 5 feet wide and 20-30 feet long and does instant massive damage to all enemies in it's path.

Are those still boring to you? I'm not good with names obviously, so ignore how much those suck. I don't really like that last one much, as it would feel a bit too much like what I'm complaining about in the current AR set, but it would fit into some shotgun themes. It only takes a few seconds of creative thought to come up with stuff like that. Just because it's a gun and you point it to shoot doesn't mean you can't do all sorts of things with character movement, posing, and the projectile animation and effects.

Why? Why try to come up with fancy ways to fire a shotgun or assault rifle? There aren't fancy ways in reality, so why would somebody pick that set expecting to get something like that? You can do all sorts of things with the projectiles, different colors, speeds, add visible wake effects to add to the appearance of power, explosions on impact (explosive rounds), but actually firing the gun no, you don't need to do back flips or back shots, just point and shoot. Maybe aim a little more on some shots, or hold the gun at your side on others, but that's all that's needed.

It lists my forum join date right under my name, Sept 2005. I actually started playing a few months before that. I remember very well the original monster gun, and I'm pretty sure I mentioned it here in this topic.

I didn't. It says in the original post that I'm sure people like the current AR set and that it should be kept, just with a different name. Honestly why do so many people not read before posting replies?

Exactly my point. Sniper rifles in reality are designed to kill people in one shot from a tremendous distance, how do you build a powerset around that principle in a game like this?

The suggestions posted here are certainly interesting, but IMO don't do the sniper principle justice. I don't believe most games do or could though anyway, so I'd be happy with more options in any form.

Me push the devs? I wish. I'm merely offering a suggestion in the suggestion forum, and I know it will never be read or considered by a dev. I do so only to put my mind at ease knowing I at least posted it so I don't have to keep thinking about it every time I play a character I'm not entirely happy with.

I'm truly glad they handled the melee sets the way they did. The alternative would be a simple "armed melee" set where you pick a weapon model but they all do the same animation using the same powers. So you'd "Slash" with a club and "Smash" with a dagger, and they wouldn't have any of the flair we have with the current sets. That's sort of exactly how I see the AR set though.

I think I should have used a different thread title.

I'm not saying the set doesn't fit within the CoX universe, or that it isn't fun, but it's a little too specific. You'd have more thematic options with normal shotguns and assault rifles. Anyone can pick up simple guns and fight with them, but only a specific type of character is going to get their hands on something like the current AR.

We have 6 different powersets that essentially come down to hitting people with a simple melee weapon, and only 2 for guns. I just feel it should be more balanced and this is the way to do it.

First I said lethal, not smashing. And yes all those sets that do lethal damage are seen as penalized and weaker at end game. Anyone who's played this game for any length of time knows this.

I agree, a sniper set would be interesting but I can't for the life of me think of more than a couple powers to add to it. How do you build an entire powerset around the concept of "one shot, one kill?" That's the only reason I didn't suggest it.

I actually used that dragon breath thing in my shotgun power examples, though I didn't know the name of it. Anyway, that's not so much a flamethrower as a quick burst of fire. It only lasts a split second, it's not like the current AR set where you can spew a continuous stream of fire.

I've done this before with other games. In almost every game out there that I've modded or worked on, cloning is the most efficient way to go about adding new things. I have seen evidence this is also the case with CoX, like how so many weapon sets have almost identical stats (axe and mace, broad sword and katana), and during CoV beta IIRC when some descriptions weren't finished and had other set's descriptions instead.

So it looks like here is where you actually start reading the post, and at this point have clearly not gotten to the end where I pretty much make the same comparison with the current AR set.


Typically when you do an edit like this you clone an existing set and then modify it. The existing set has been preserved and renamed as I mention a few sentences down. See how beneficial reading the whole post is before replying?


It's not the selling point, it's a crutch put in place to make the set more feasible in a game that heavily penalizes sets that deal primarily lethal damage. My new AR set would require this same crutch because without the fire powers it would be entirely lethal damage without ammo.


I actually think the shotgun set would be more flavorful than the AR set. Shotguns don't have as strict a set of ammunition. The beanbag power is one example, and that theme could be expanded upon, with powers that shoot things like blinding powder (-accuracy), salt (confuse, or high damage to spirits/undead), and explosive powder (shoots a fire cloud). It would be a very controlly type set.

The simple fact that the models exists and there are some animations for them means the required work to get it into the game as a powerset is greatly lessened. You can not argue with that. I never said one dev could do this in a single afternoon, but it would not take anywhere near as much work as adding a powerset based on a brand new concept.

You also can't really add that much variety to the animation of firing a rifle or shotgun. I know they did a great job with pistols, but with these weapons you typically can't jump around and do flips and spins.

Also the heavy weapons idea was spur of the moment, I don't really have any idea for how that would work and I don't much care, I do know it's been asked for before though.

*sigh*

It's three new powersets, using pieces from the original with more specific flavors, while the old powerset stays exactly as it is with a new name.

So even after telling you to read the post you didn't read it. Awesome.

As far as animations and resources, I could animate a gun firing in my sleep. Regardless, this is a suggestion for new powersets. Any new powerset is going to require some resources. Or do you go around bashing every powerset suggestion?

If the entire point of his post is that a powerset shouldn't be removed, and I specifically said in my post to keep the original powerset in the game with a new name, then yes it would have been a good idea to read what he was replying to.

Maybe you should try fully reading a post before replying. It saves you from embarrassment.

Except because the base animations and weapon models already exist, it wouldn't take a lot of resources to do this. Also, there are always many things to do for developers working on MMOs, that's what it means to work on a project that has no end point.

I'm not asking for separate AK47 and Browning AR sets. If half the Dual Pistol set had you slapping people in the head with fish instead of actually shooting a pistol, then it would be similar to the current AR set.

However, I wouldn't mind some flintlock pistol powers, maybe mixed in with some saber attacks and labeled a pirate/swashbuckler set.

Not true. Only skills that alert monsters to your presence bring you out of hide, that's anything with a threat effect. Powers like sleep or confuse can be used while hidden without being noticed, a stalker skill example would be Blinding Powder from Ninjutsu. Any skill could be easily modified to not break hide by the devs, it's not something that's limited by the engine as you seem to be implying.

That said, I don't like the concept personally. I'm not against thief powers, but right now it would be meaningless. I think it would be better suited to a new AT, with additions like random locked safes in missions, and special locked doors, both that come with some sort of meaningful reward. If you don't feel like a thief, sneaking in and stealing things, then there's no point.