Arilou

Originally Posted by Brillig

Oh come on. Layoffs almost always happen without warning. Also I'd point out that the Paragon staff that have been posting haven't been raging. It's entirely possible that they knew this could happen.

I guess Koreans don't know the rule about not laying people off on a Friday though.

Originally Posted by TheShattered

This please.

Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake

very few places are union anymore. may be going to a job that is soon, but in general, most places are not union.

Originally Posted by EvilGeko

In a professional shop like a game studio, absolutely. It's only in unionized workplaces and certain industries that there's any notice requirements.

Originally Posted by Mad Grim

Pics or it didn't happen.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU

Personally, I think both role and playstyle should be considered, but there should be enough inbuilt flexibility to allow variation.

I quite like my "Retaliator" AT idea:

Primary role: Tank, Secondary role: ranged damage

Primary powerset: Defence
Secondary powerset: Assault

HP: Between Brute and Tanker, def/res values: as tank, but res capped at 85%. Ranged and melee damage mods: 0.75/0.75.

Inherent: Retaliation. As the Retaliator is attacked, their "retaliation bar" fills. When it is full, they can activate the "Retaliation button". This causes attacks to do double damage (scrapper critical style) and gives a +25% to-hit bonus for 20 seconds.

Inherent part 2: Assault-voke. All attacks proc a 5' radius taunt. Unlike punch-voke, this is coded in the same way as Interface, rather than hard-coded into attacks. When Retaliation is active, Assault-voke is turned off.

Originally Posted by Stone Daemon

Obviously, it's time for some Protoss action.

Originally Posted by Doc_Reverend

Have to agree with Sam here. I'm kind of curious as to what people have in mind here when they think "scythe." Because this is a scythe in action:



It's a farming tool. It's really on designed to be held one way. The Grim Reaper carries one not because he's such a big badass, but because when the Reaper became a symbol the Black Death was tearing it's way through Europe. The Reaper was carving through humanity like a farmer does wheat. As if humanity itself is being harvested. It's the lack of individuality.

I don't think there's any history ever of it being used in warfare, beyond the occasional desperate peasant who picked up the closest thing to a weapon he owned (which is also where kama, nunchuku, and similar martial arts weapons come from: they're farming tools). It's wildly impractical as a weapon. Because while anime may show it doing big fast sweeps and stuff, you know what a scythe mainly is? Heavy and slow and easily breakable.

But this is superhero stuff, so whatever. I can see one maybe as a Titan Weapon, though I notice that Titan Weapons don't really extend out to the left or right very far. Still possible. I don't see one as a Staff, though. In large part, this is due to how staffs animate. With all that flailing around, you'll likely catch yourself on the blade.

But you should establish what you mean by "scythe": do you mean the real world farmer's harvest tool, or the anime sideways blade on a stick?

Though I do want spears for staff melee. I want everything from a standard pilum to a boar spear to a magical anime harpoon.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

I'm with Arcana on this one. I've seen reactions to "more power" suggestions take arguments to an extreme and suggest we're asking for all powers at level 1 and an insta-kill button when that's really not the case. Level progression, increasing in strength and going through the whole experience are a major part of this game. Losing all of this would not just be a mistake, but it would harm the game, as well. I, myself, don't really mind my characters not being godlike at the start, even when they're supposed to be literal gods. Explanations for why their power is being suppressed FOR NOW aren't that hard to come by.

However, I don't think that extends to class balance. To me, class balance isn't so much "part of the game" as it's a safety net to ensure greater replayability. We have to ensure there's a reason to play every AT, at the very least for the people who enjoy their respective playstyles, and we need to ensure people don't feel stupid for picking an AT they like which is somehow objectively inferior. But what that DOESN'T mean is that we need to stick to the old "rock-paper-scissors" approach of the holy trinity. I think we're well past trying to figure out what "role" each character is supposed to have on a team.

Once upon a team, I PMed an AT suggestion directly to Castle (on request by posters from the suggestion thread) and his reply was, in part, to ask what role this AT would serve on a team. At the time, his question made sense, this was years ago, but now? I really don't think this is relevant any more, because it kind of sort of assumes a system where characters are defined by what they NEED to do but CAN'T, for which role another on the team is needed. To me, the game as I see it now has only one major role - help kill stuff. Because this can be accomplished in so many different ways by so many different combinations of characters, I really don't think we should keep asking what this character's role is.

Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane

Except we already allow, for example, Scrappers or Tankers to get many ranged attacks, of varying degrees of potency, even very early in their lives, and the game didn't crumble to the ground.

Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, Chaingun, EMP Glove and many many more.
And you can have all of them at once, for the most part.

So why then should a Scrapper have to wait until level 41 for Laser Beam Eyes, which is admittedly not that great of an attack? Why should that same Scrapper be allowed Fire Ball, but Bullet Rain is off limits?

The fact that we let Blasters get Hibernate, Temp Invulnerability or Force of Nature at all but wag a finger at them and tell them "but not until your 40s" doesn't make a lick of sense either.

The lion's share of powers (that aren't native to their AT) that people want to realize their concepts are already in the game. We just force them to wait until their character is almost 50 to have what usually amounts to a flavour power, or deny them the power they want while allowing them to have mechanically comparable equivalents from other concepts. We let a Brute have 15 different medium damage ranged attack temp/vet powers they can have by level 10, but tell them Dual Wield, Mental Blast or Lightning Bolt that would actually cost them a power pick are off limits.


Balance is all well and good, but the game already allows for some powers while inconsistently and hypocritically not allowing others of comparable or even less worth. And it dictates when you can have powers, but not in any logical or rational manner, certainly not based on how potent they are.


.