Samuel_Tow

You may want to be a little more careful before you present your opinion as an absolute fact. It's not "so smooth and effortless." It is to you because you don't care about getting three stacks and earning a guaranteed critical. Considering the they made Assassin's Strike light up when you get three stacks, that should tell you that some of us do. You don't have to want the same as other people, of course not, but please don't try to handwave others' concerns away with passive-aggressive feigning of ignorance.

Why am I reacting this way? Because you come off as wondering how anyone could possibly have any complaint about this clearly perfect system and that if I have any complaints, then of course that's because I obviously want too much and I shouldn't be complaining. I don't really mind when people disagree with me, but I do appreciate it when they tell me directly instead of looking for looking for superficially polite ways to imply it.

And I do notice how you ask me for an explanation, yet proceed to ignore every bit of the explanation I've given and discount my entire position by simply restating how wrong I am. I hope you'll forgive me for doubting you ever actually wanted an answer to your question, so much as you needed to bait me into saying something you can turn around and ridicule.

If you actually want to know what this "so called inconvenience" is, I suggest you dispense with your so called politeness and talk to me directly. Trust me, I have a thick enough skin so long as everyone's on the level. And I'll even explain it again if you're actually open to hearing my arguments this time around.

Isn't that kind of like throwing seeds as a means of controlling plants, though?

Ack, you're right... Tough does have the Tarzan yell, doesn't it? Now I remember why it bugged me. To be honest, what concerns me the most is the thick, yellow breath that the character lets out on summoning, um... The lions? Can those colours even be customized? Like, the animal fur colours? Or at least their breath, like the Dark colours of Necromancy can?

The same way everyone else does - go AFK and wait for the tutorial to finish itself. It's pretty good at that. Though I suppose you'll still have to purchase that badge in person.

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My vision when it comes to new ATs is largely limited to ways in which I can use powerset categories that currently only exist for ATs I don't enjoy playing. My ideal for this is the Mastermind: I HAAATE playing support sets because those rely on having people to support, but by the nature of the AT, Masterminds are capable of using support sets on their own because they have pets to support. That's the general direction I usually shoot in.

For me, then, the AT I most want to see is one that combines ranged attacks from existing elements with personal protection of some form. I even had a write-up for an AT like this. However, rather than JUST pairing up defences with blast powersets, I wanted to create something more akin to those Circle Behemoths we envy so much for having bits of Fire Blast, Fiery Melee and Fiery Aura. Thus, I wanted to break all of those sets down into their component parts and create two completely different sets to make up this "Ranger" AT's selection.

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Here's what I have for a Ranger AT:

I'd want to see a primary that's comprised of most of the AT's basic offence, both melee and ranged, but all single-target. I'd also want to put any offensive control the set gets, like Char or Freeze Ray, there as well. I'd want to see a secondary set which was comprised primarily from self-protection powers and AoEs with perhaps some support throw in if there's room left over. A couple of AoEs, say - one melee, one ranged (or a cone), a couple of shields and a type of click status protection that clears status effects but doesn't offer long-term protection. Kind of like an in-set Break Free.

For an inherent, I wanted to use something Castle told me was impossible, but which new mechanics such as Swap Ammo and Momentum, as well as old mechanics used in new ways like Focus criticals should make possible. The gist of the inherent was that this Ranger AT would have a set amount of damage bonus over its base damage, which would fluctuate between enhancing its melee attacks and enhancing its ranged attacks. Melee attacks would charge ranged attacks and ranged attacks would charge melee ones. Additionally, the AT would be rewarded with even more of a damage bonus for fighting at the correct "range." Thus, melee attacks would get the bonus if the AT is fighting in melee and ranged ones will get it instead if the AT is NOT in melee.

The former rule I believe can be accomplished via the combos mechanic by having each ranged attack move the character one "state" down towards melee, while each ranged attack moves the character one "state" up towards ranged, with around 5 to 7 states, where power damage is different depending on the state. I'm not sure how the latter would be implemented, but I envision the system auto-granting the player a number of buffs that affect only ranged attacks, which it will then revoke for every enemy in melee range.

Overall, my vision for this AT is one that fights at all ranges. I don't want just a Scrapper with ranged attacks that he fires from point-blank range anyway. I want an AT that swoops in, scraps a bit, then pulls back, blasts a bit, then swoops back in. I want an AT inherent that encourages the player to swap ranges and worry about his positioning. I want the player to seek out melee for more than just convenience and range for more than just safety. I want an AT which not just works both at range and in melee, but works at both at the same time, with the same build.

Considering I've done noting in this thread BUT explain how it's inconvenient, I really don't know how to interpret this question. If you could maybe ask a more specific question in regards to some of the things I've said, maybe I'd be able to answer.

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It occurs to me that this problem with wasting Focus buffs if I have "too many" has an unintended side effect that does a lot to put egg on my face. When I try to use Assassin's Strike as intended - that is to say, from Hide against unaware enemies - then getting Focus on Assassin's Strike as it comes up is proving difficult. The problem is that while it's fairly easy to get Focus in the next four or five attacks after I expend Assassin's Strike, the whole thing starts falling out of sync by the time Assassin's Strike has recharged, meaning that either I have to stop attacking when I see the power back up and THEN start building anew, or otherwise just stab and not worry about focus.

Where this puts egg on my face is Leo has a point - it's considerably easier to use Assassin's Focus if I DON'T start the fight with Assassin's Strike from hide, but rather something else. I'm fighting Rikti Drones right now, meaning I can't assassinate them from Hide or they'd interrupt me, and what is becoming abundantly clear is that if I break Hide and immediately shoot for Focus, it's a lot easier to achieve. This actually transcends simple convenience and ventures into the land of a genuine systemic problem, because it specifically makes using Assassin's Strike from Hide less appealing, because that means Focus will then be hard to achieve.

The problem is that it's fairly easy to reach Focus status if I'm starting "clean," i.e. I have no Focus buffs on me to get in the way. But if I've fought for a while and fallen out of sync with my Focus buffs, then it's practically impossible to go back into sync and earn enough for a Focus critical unless I "purge" myself, i.e. let all Focus buffs expire and start over. The way Focus buffs are programmed, it actually makes having a Focus buff become a liability more so than a benefit if it lasts too long without adding more to it.

If, for instance, I have just one Focus buff and I lose, say, five seconds of it, then it becomes a liability because I can't stack two other buffs on top of it. Chances are that early stack will expire before I can make use of all three stacks, but I can't replace it until it expires, meaning I have to delay my newer Focus stacks, which in turn makes them into a liability. The longer I fight without stopping and letting enemies punch me without returning fire, the more out-of-sync my Focus status becomes and the harder it is to pull off a Focus critical. That, if I must put my finger on it, is what makes it inconvenient - that I can only really rely on it if I'm starting from scratch.

Huh... In a single sentence, you managed to describe more or less how I feel. What used to be a interesting, compelling if underdeveloped setting has been tossed out the window and replaced with one that's nowhere near as compelling or interesting, to say nothing of nowhere near as well thought-out.

Honestly, there are few uglier things a new writer can do than systematically murder in a horrible fashion the persistent characters of the previous writers, just to replace them with his own. Not only is this insulting to the work and to the fans that enjoyed the previous characters, it's also a cryin' shame when the new characters are shallow and hollow as our new additions are. The City of Heroes lore of old may not have been very well realised, but it was built on a background of depth in design and storytelling, where each side of each matter has multiple facets and grounded motivation. Instead, the characters we're getting now are little more than cartoon heroes and villains solely defined by the one gimmick that they're introduced with. And that's not a step up.

It occurs to me that my cries for an end to Praetoria, along with some of the others', were less about not liking Praetoria as a concept and more about being sick of all the unnecessary new faces constantly being thrown into the game with little introduction or establishment, with the old faces being simply forgotten. Not only did this practice not slow down, it's moved up from neglecting old characters to MURDERING old characters so we can stop asking about them.

I want to see more of the Nemesis army. I want to see more of Requiem, more of Nosferatu. I want to know what happend to Clamor, I want to finally meet Upstart. I want to know why Dreck worked for Crey and what happened to turn him into an anarchist monster. I want to know how the Circle of Thorns will come to terms with the evil that they have become when they start to remember the good thy represented. Granted, we're seeing some of that with Dark Astoria and the new low-level arcs. But given what's become of the Knives, I'm not sure if that really IS an expansion of the old factions of it's just another case of murdering existing characters to replace them with new ones, only without having to admit to doing it. And we're STILL introducing brand new characters and brand new storylines with only tangential relation to existing factions and stories.

A single 33% chance to the next attack, any attack, isn't really all that great an advantage to worry about being gamable, especially in a set with one fairly minor AoE. Again, I get that it needs to be gated, but there's no harm in giving it a more manageable window of opportunity. Suppose the target you're attacking with Eagle's Claw dies when you hit it. You have fractions of a second to pick a new one and attack, and if the closest one happens to be just 8 feet away, you lose the buff. Again, it's still possible to use to its fullest potential, it's just very cumbersome.

How this could be done better is actually fairly simple and has much precedent in the game - combos. Street Justice combos, specifically. A Street Justice combo builder attack sets a state while a Street Justice combo finisher attack has an extra effect based on that state, then clears the state at the end of its execution. Giving the Eagle's Claw critical more headroom should be as simple as having Eagle's Claw set a state for the character that lasts, say, five seconds, and have every other attack in the set have its critical damage arranged around that state. If the state is not on, the regular critical is set to 5%. If that state is on, then the regular critical is set to 0% and a special critical replaces it for a value of old+33%. It's because the system is trying to ADD 33% chance procedurally that the problem occurs, and it really doesn't need to.

Or, hell, do it like Assassin's Strike does it and just have one temp power show up that adds a percentage value, with every Martial Arts attack cancelling the buff. It's really less a question of power and more a question of ease of use.

The more controllable and predictable you make the mechanic, the easier it is to balance because it's simply easier to predict how much of an impact a mechanic will have if you can expect how much use people will get out of it. Instead, Focus Criticals are hidden behind at least three layers of uncontrollable factors and thus ends up being annoying as often as it is useful. Again, it's the common Stalker problem all over again - they can do great things, but their basic programming conspires to make it a pain in the *** to pull off. Note I don't say "difficult." It's not that difficult to score a Focus critical. What it is is a "pain" because it's so easy to be put in a position where nothing you do matters unless you specifically game the system.

In general, I want to see AT mechanics which benefit players for more straight-forward play as opposed to for gaming the system. I get that some people will always game the system no matter how convenient it is, but I still want the system to reward players sufficiently for using it how it's designed to be used in spirit, as opposed to having to do research and capitalise on the numerous technicalities behind the scenes. If I'm given a mechanic which tells me that each attack I do has a chance to give me a stack of Assassin's Focus and three stacks guarantee a critical, that's what I want to use it based on - try to attack as continuously as possible and hope that I'll get a Focus highlight after a while. I don't want to have to be aware of the man behind the curtain to get any decent use out of a system, or otherwise play like it doesn't exist.

Again, it's not a BAD system, it's just a hugely INCONVENIENT one. And really, I see nothing wrong with asking for greater convenience in gaming. A game can be challenging and skill-based without being inconvenient.

That hasn't been my experience, I'm afraid. Maybe this is powerset-dependent, but for my Dual Blades, I usually gain my Focus highlight right as attacks trigger before they even do their damage. This is especially evident on One Thousand Windmills, where Assassin's Strike will highlight as soon as my character squats to start windmilling. The trouble is that I've had MORE than one instance of Assassin's Strike highlighting at the start of this power, only to go out again before the animation is even over.

This is why I dislike having to maintain three separate stacks at the same time - you're almost always losing the first stack as soon as you gain the third. And while it may seem natural to just use the power with two stacks and chance a critical, the problem is I can only tell when the power has three stacks easily because it lights up. If it hasn't lit up, then I don't know if it has two stacks, one stack or no stacks. I can find out if I go looking for the Assassin's Focus icon, but my powers tray is busy and the window of opportunity is often measured in fractions of a second, so the time I spend looking for those two stacks is time in which those two stacks may disappear. Combine this with the fact that Assassin's Strike will light up for three Focus buffs with the same ring as it will light up after I use Build Up and it becomes really hard to tell when I can use it even IF I can get and maintain three stacks.

Again, I just find the system inconvenient. If it has to be chance-based, then let it be chance-based, but at least base it on just one layer of chance. Right now, I have to chance getting a stack at all, I have to chance that Assassin's Strike even hits, I have to chance if I get a Focus critical if I'm using fewer than three stacks, and I have to chance one of the stacks not going away because the power I thought would give me a stack fizzled when I thought it would help, or because I thought I had two stacks but I didn't have any at all.

As far as I'm concerned, Stalkers really need controllable criticals just because they fit their general AT design. Even if these are semi-controllable, luck-based criticals, I still want them to be semi-controllable and semi-predictable. Focus criticals, however, only give the illusion of predictability because they make me THINK I can build Focus up to a predictable conclusion, but the system is laiden with so many undocumented pitfalls that undermine the control I thought I had that it's still a complete stab in the dark that just feels like I have any input.

As I said before, my reactions to this game tend to fall into "want" and "reluctant," and the more experience I get with Focus criticals, the more reluctant I am to trust the system just because my experience is starting to override my logic and tell me that I don't have any sort of control over the situation. I now expect to lose Focus right before I trigger Assassin's Strike, or to lose focus in the middle of the attack which gives it to me, or to lose focus just as Assassin's Strike has recharged. I'm becoming more and more reluctant to use Assassin's Strike just because I can't bring myself to trust Focus even in the slightest.

The problem with this kind of sensationalist headline-grabbing is that what we got is pretty much exactly what it usually leads to - stories built around shock value expressly because they lack any other means of affecting their audience. We're supposed to care about these stories because they involve famous people and some of them die, not because of any artistic or gameplay merit they bring. And for something that's supposed to be just a headline grab, we've already murdered three people, so the question of "who will die" seems not just relevant, but crucial. These aren't arcs concerned with telling stories, they're arcs concerned with killing signature characters because we're supposed to react to that.

And my reaction, personally, has been disgust. I hope whoever came up with that damn depressing storyline gets dragged away from the writing table and is never allowed to write for City of Heroes again. Give them a job making maps or writing encounter scripts or designing NPC powers or something. Just stop putting the fate of what's left of our fictional world in their hands, because the systematic dismantling of everything that made City of Heroes interesting and unique is becoming physically terrifying to me.

Mass Effect is a good example of what should have happened with City of Heroes, I believe. Yes, a lot of the backlash is... Childish and entitled, but in large part, that shows people care. It shows people are so invested in the story that when they run into something they REALLY dislike about it, they're bothered. They want better for the story, because they feel it deserves it. And I'm right there with them, because that ******* ending is the reason I walked away from ALL gaming for a good long while.

There may have been a time when City of Heroes players might have had the same passion about the game's story, but not any more. These days, even those that used to praise the game's unique setting and storylines all too often advise people to pick missions with badges or temp powers in them, as opposed to those that tell a good story. Speaking purely for myself, the original spirit of the game has been defiled to such an extent I just find it increasingly hard to get invested in anything. Even in the old stuff I used to like. The whole tone and direction has gone right off the deep end and I find myself subscribing to a game I never actually asked for. I didn't ask for a "kill everybody" story arc to the best of my knowledge.

And apparently, we're back to Jack Emmert's vision of what the game should be, as expressed by a concentrated effort to destroy everything that came before and replace it with the pet project of whoever is doing this. And Matt Miller is all too happy to let it go because what kind of boss would he be if his game had any integrity, consistency or history? Forget that, old stuff is old. It's not like the old stuff is what made the game popular.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Actually, Yahtzee said it best in one of his reviews - "You run down grey linear corridors and you get a **** ending." I don't know how this became popular, but the notion that good and happy endings are "expected" and it's better to do the "unexpected" by creating an ending nobody wants to see is somehow "more art" than creating something that people will actually enjoy, but I'm getting sick of it. It's not JUST City of Heroes, as BioWare proved, but it's especially obvious here. True art does not have to be angsty. Maybe in new intellectual properties that are a child of their times, but why here? Why take a game which, even at its very darkest, has always been positive and uplifting, and turn it into "rocks fall, everybody dies?" If I want **** endings and depressing storylines, I'll go play the Darkness, or Hellgate: London. Or Dead Space. I come to this game specifically BECAUSE it makes me feel good, and depressing me does not make me feel good.

Seriously, if ******* Silent Hill could include a rainbows and unicorns happy ending, why can't WE have one?

Oh, it's an improvement, of course. What bugs me is that it doesn't fix one of the most irritating problems with Stalkers, that being that their mechanics are constantly running into Standard Code Rant, and it's disheartening to see the improvement suffer from the same. I can't get an easy Placate critical because Placate keeps getting interrupted while it animates. I can't rehide because the game doesn't support enemies losing track of me. And now I can't get decent control over my Focus criticals because the system isn't capable of refreshing Focus buffs.

It's an improvement, but it's an improvement that's still fiendishly awkward to use and ends up introducing even more half-working mechanics to an AT that's essentially made up of them.

I'm really not complaining about not being able to get more frequent Focus criticals, not at all. Hell, I'd settle for RARER Focus criticals if it meant I had better control over them. What I'm complaining about is the system just isn't implemented very well. It's not a question of availability, it's a question of quality of life, and the Focus criticals QoL is pretty unappealing not because of power design but because of Standard Code Rant, essentially.

Being effective really isn't an issue with Stalkers these days, though. Stalkers are considerably more effective regardless of what I do, so any difference is academic. It's the difference between much better and a lot better. Either way, it's still better. It's just irritatingly hard to use, is my beef. Balance is fine, generous even, but the whole system is very user-hostile, so to speak. It's the Eagle's Claw critical all over again - a bonus that's very nice to have, but is implemented in such an ugly way it's a chore to use.

We ARE paying for the SSAs, though. It's one of the relatively few new additions that's part of the VIP subscription package. Whether we buy those arcs directly (and Lord knows why anyone would accept being so overcharged for them) or get them as part of the $15 we pay each month, they're still a for-sale perk that ought to be held to a higher standard than regular content.

For reference, Unai Kemen's "Your princess is in another Castle" story arc is terrible, and whenever I make the mistake of running it to remind myself, I will complain about it. But I didn't pay extra for it. It wasn't advertised to me as one of the perks of subscribing. Now more than ever, it's just a thing that exists that I don't have to mess with.

The SSAs are different. Whether I play them or not, my subscription is funding them and my subscription includes them. I may not like them, I may even highly suspect I won't like them, but I feel compelled to at least try them at least once. Not least of all because MAJOR PLOT DEVELOPMENTS THAT INFLUENCE THE GAME WORLD happen in them, and if I don't at least know the plot, I'm missing out on important events.

I thought about this comment and others like it, and I'm struck with something of a realisation. And mind you, I don't have a problem with anyone liking the cutscene. Let me explain:

I'm sure the cutscenes are good. Great even... Maybe. But the thing is, we're not playing Final Fantasy or Heart of Darkness, i.e. we're not watching an interactive movie with gameplay elements serving only to bring us from one cutscene to the next. People come here to play a game, and the problem with the SSAs (and Graves and Twinshot, etc.) are that they're trying to tell a complex, multi-faceted story that's not just about combat... In a game that's just about combat. The result of this is a story which is taking place on its own, as if in another realm devoted to its own narrative, and that we're only ever allowed in when there's stuff to kill.

However, "when there's stuff to kill" is usually the filler in the story as it is presented, with the actual narrative taking place through exposition and cutscenes, with the player constantly on the outside looking in. Statesman dies? Cutscene. Psyche dies? Cutscene. Alexis dies? Cutscene. The person I WAS JUST WITH dies? Cutscene. I'm only ever allowed in to play in places where it really doesn't matter what I do. And, yes, I realise that's a limitation of the system, but putting it out on display is not a good way to handle it. I KNOW I can't affect the story, but creating a story that ostensibly doesn't need me in it except when stuff needs to be killed just rubs that in my face.

If in movies you should "show, not tell" and in games you should "do, not show," then the SSAs just don't succeed in either. Most of the narrative is delivered through briefing exposition and what's not in there is delivered through cutscenes. Even the much-maligned Launch content handles this better, as much of the story is comprised of what I need to do, with the narrative coming down to what I meet in the mission, all ending with a larger frame of explanation giving context to the events. But crucially, very rarely are there events in Launch story arcs that move the story which I wasn't somehow involved in. If there's someone who needs to be questioned, I do the questioning. If there's a plan that needs to be stopped, I do the stopping.

In general, "cutscene-itis" is something that has become epidemic in modern gaming. That's essentially a game driven by its cutscenes with everything else (i.e. gameplay) only serving as padding that doesn't really correspond to how the actual narrative presents things. Why, for instance, couldn't I use a Phoenix Down on Aeris? Why couldn't I resurrect the Statesman?

These are games where I simply don't fear the gameplay. If I'm in control of my character, I won't die, because I won't let myself get killed. If I have control of my character, I won't let my allies die because I'll do something about it, or else reload and try again. If I have control of my character, I'm confident that I can take anything the game has to offer. It's when the game takes control of my character and stuffs him in a cutscene when people die and I fail miserably. When a game takes control away for the express purpose of making me fail is when I have a problem, and that is the only thing I fear the most. I know that every ally I have who is subject to my in-game actions will live, but when Katie does something story-related that's out of my hands as a player, THEN I know bad things are going to happen. It's to the point where I've grown to utterly dread cutscenes, because then something bad is guaranteed to happen.

To be honest, I'm just tired of watching cutscenes of signature character having a wangsty story that I'm not invited into unless there's grunt work to do. That's not a good way to present a story, and it's at the root my growing discontent with contemporary writing. It's not so much that I keep failing, and miserably, so much as I keep failing because the game fails me inside a cutscene where I can't do anything about it.

I actually went to sleep thinking about just this subject last night, so sure. Actually, I want to an overall breakdown of what Brute design says to me about the kind of characters that it fits. Let's start with something simple:

Brutes have some of the best direct survivability in the game. I'm intentionally excluding ally help and effects that specifically debilitate the enemy and focusing on Brutes ability to face enemy threat and deal with it on their end of things. Brutes are either very tough, very fast or very fast while being very tough. Not only this, but the bulk of Brute offensive performance is warmup-gated, meaning that a Brute, on average, has to expose himself to enemy fire for an extended period of time in order to reach his full offensive capacity, which necessitates the ability to survive long enough to do this.

What this says about the kind of character who would fit a Brute is that this is a character who faces the enemy head on and takes the fight to their home field. It also tells me that this is a character who isn't shy about exposing himself to danger he cannot stop from being dangerous and is confident, above all else, in his ability to survive. A Brute is a fighter with time on his side, because the longer his enemies take to kill him, the more powerful he becomes, thus this is a character who is confident that his defences can outlast the enemy offences with a comfortable margin.

Now to the exciting bit: Fury. I've seen the description of it, yes, but let's go ahead and break down to he power based on what it does, as opposed to HOW the developers explain it does it. Remember - I'm the one who went out of his way to insist that the motivations and explanations for my own character are mine and mine alone to give and the game should GTFO and stop assuming it needs better, to use a crude expression. So instead of trying to read the description of what Fury is, let's look at what it does:

Brute damage/offence/strength is naturally low, but ramps up as a Brute attacks or suffers from enemy attacks. So far so good, but how many situations do you think I can think of that conform to this framework? Quite a few, actually.

1. Obviously, "Hulk Smash!" The more you get hit and the more you hit enemies who refuse to go down, the angrier you become and the harder you hit. That much is a given, but what else?

2. How about a character who's holding back, Dragon Ball Z style? Work with me here. Say my character is much more powerful than his enemies, but he wants to mess with them, so he doesn't use his full strength to kill them outright and end the fun too fast. Instead, he lets them get some offence in, hurts them a little and keeps messing with them for a long time. Of course, this character never holds back on defences and won't let himself actually get hurt, but he's not interested in just killing his enemies. Eventually, as he grows bored or the enemies prove to be stronger than he thought they were, he begins using gradually more and more power to keep himself on top of the fight.

3. A character's power is somehow derived from combat. Let's say my character's powers are fuelled by death and pain. When first attacking a healthy, confident platoon, his power levels are low. As his enemies start getting getting killed and he suffers pain and damage, this fuels his dark powers, making him stronger for it. This character would be naturally less dangerous when he has no death and pain to feed on, but would grow stronger as combat generated more of those.

4. Suppose my character is just lethargic and laid-back, but naturally very powerful. When he first enters a fight, he's essentially just waking up. However, once he gains momentum and gets on top of his game, he becomes unstoppable. Yet as the battle ends and there's no more fighting to do, his enthusiasm wanes and all he wants is to take it slowly, maybe sit down for a while and not really rush things, just because he's a mellow dude. In essence, he's GREAT once he gets going, but it's just so hard for him to get going because he's naturally unagressive.

5. My character has AMAZING power, but he can't let anyone know about it, ala Ben 10. Maybe this power can be tracked, maybe it's just too obvious, maybe it's just too destructive, but by and large, this character will pull his punches and only resort to using his full power if he absolutely has to. Or maybe he's living in a "world of cardboard" and doesn't want to cause too much collateral damage unless the situation REALLY calls for it, or unless it's REALLY cool. The bottom line is this character plain doesn't WANT to use his full power, and so won't unless provoked.

That's as far as I go for the moment, but this line of thinking could explain quite a few other concepts, as well. It's just a matter of how much you want to stick to the letters of the description and how willing you are to re-interpret the characteristics of your own personal characters.

I don't necessarily disagree with your interpretations, but this is getting into dangerous territory a little bit. You're starting to define ATs by the characters they can depict, rather than the approach to combat they represent, and there's no way to do this without being too specific. You define Scrappers, for instance, as people who train hard. The thing is that out of all my Scrappers, maybe one or two even have the capacity or need for training. A lot of them are either robots that depend on parts that can't be "trained," a lot are aliens who draw on energies not at all related to their physical condition, a lot are magical who draw powers from metaphysical sources aside from their bodies and a lot are genetically engineered to give them abnormal super powers.

When I define the characters an AT can represent, I try to figure out how a character of a particular AT would approach a fight. Historically, I've defined the Scrapper vs. Brute dynamic as: The Scrapper is someone who is instantly dangerous and tough only after that while a Brute is someone who is primarily hard to kill AND THEN dangerous as a result of this. A Scrapper is thus someone most of a fight pushing to hurt his enemies while a Brute is someone who would spend most of a fight absorbing or dodging and advancing on enemies through their own fire. Whether we're talking about a highly-trained human (which I don't do as a rule) or a robot or a ninja or a wizard, it has less to do with who the character is and more how said character fights, as derived from the abilities that enable this fighting style and serve to encourage it.

To me, a Scrapper is someone whose primary goal is dealing damage and his secondary goal is paying more attention to his primary goal. As such, he isn't in it for the punch-trading competition so much as he is in it to push at the enemy aggressively and take the fight to them. This doesn't really reflect staying power to me, and especially does not reflect a victory by attrition, so much as it reflects punching power and overall well-roundedness. In other words, the Scrapper can take care of himself, in all ways, but he can't be lazy and just fall back on his powers, needing instead to put pressure on the enemy. Again, to me this means a lot of damage and more than a little survivability.

I'm not discounting your interpretation of your own characters, but I would really suggest you give ATs a wider berth of what they might mean, not least because none of my Brutes derive their strength from anger or frustration.

I've actually always been a fan of the character who has nothing about him that's special, he's just that damn good. If I may blow my macho status for a moment, it's a lot like the PowerPuff Girls. You have Blossom who's super strong and has ice breath, you have Bubbles who's super strong and has a host of weird abilities like speaking with squirls and "cute," and you have Buttercup who's super strong, only she's extra super strong to compensate.

PowerPuff Girls aside, that's where I see Scrappers - their thing is just stats. They don't have the special abilities the other ATs use to raise their stats under certain conditions, they just have decent stats all the time irrespective of anything. Considering all other ATs in the game have something to monitor, that seems like a sufficiently unique "thing" that only Scrappers have.

Yeah, that's the kind of stat boost I was talking about, and I wouldn't be opposed to it, but my question is how you justify it in terms of what the AT represents. We can say, for instance, that a Blaster is all about damage, so it makes sense for said Blaster to have more damage. It's his "thing." We can say a Defender tries to take care of his team-mates first, so his offensive prowess decreases as there are more people to take care of, with the expectation that they'll pick up the slack.

But what makes a Scrapper more fit than a Brute, who actually needs the fitness more thanks to the nature of the Fury mechanic? I'm not saying this to challenge you, by the way. I'm genuinely interested in an explanation.

It's a good thing you're not a lead developer, then, because you're clearly putting your very specific vision of how the game should work over the way people clearly want to play it. I recall a specific lead developer catching a lot of well-deserved heat for that, but I can't quite place his name.