Doctor Roswell

Disagreement is not trolling. I think I've made it pretty clear a couple of times that it's not my intent to stir up hostility; we're just having a discussion. And given how much disagreement there's been here, I'm actually pretty impressed with how civil we've all been able to keep things, a couple of very specific comments aside. For the most part we haven't even degenerated into "arguing" yet, never mind "trolling."

According to the Forum Rules and Guidelines, however, accusing someone of trolling is itself a form of trolling. Just, you know, for reference.

You referred to them as being "in good company" with Water Blast due to a common lack of genre support.

I suggested that if the rest of Water Blast's supposed "company" were called something different, nobody would bat an eye or go on about how largely-absent-from-comics power themes like Empathy or Kinetics were "missing" from the game. But for whatever reason, when this largely-absent-from-comics power theme was "missing" from the game it was apparently a big deal, big enough for people to act indignant about it and complain about how long it took to get it instead of just appreciating that it happened at all. I'm positing that while they are largely the same (as you say), they're being treated differently for little reason.

We shouldn't be treating it like it's Invulnerability or Super Strength or Martial Arts or Force Field or some other genre staple, that they've just refused to give to us. It's a cool little extra. You love the dressing? Great, I do too. But the salad was also just fine without it.

There's another one for the list, by the way, everyone: Salad Dressing Blast. Different colors for different powers and one could be Italian, one could the thousand island, one could be bleu cheese....

And somehow this became a "thing" today because of an offhand comment mentioning that while I like the set just fine, I don't understand why so many people have acted for so long as if they feel like the dev team was somehow obligated to put it into the game at all. The "it's about time" attitude for a powerset that's fairly niche in my opinion.

Water Blast adds something to the game. The up-until-today lack of Water Blast didn't leave a big, glaring, Water Blast-shaped hole in our power choices any more than the lack of Carp Melee does.

Going back to this for a second...

Let's assume, hypothetically, that when the game launched, Empathy and Kinetics were presented differently. Mechanically the same as what we got in reality, but what we think of as "Empathy" had fire-based graphics and was called "Thermal Radiation" (what we now know by that name didn't exist at the time), and what we call "Kinetics" was presented as "Luck Manipulation." Different graphics, different description, identical in-game effects.

Would players have spent the last eight years clamoring for "Empathy" and "Kinetics" sets?

Perhaps.

I assume it's because controlling existing water leaves you with "the Aquaman problem," where you have to either set the entire book in or around water all the time, constantly find excuses to set stories in or around the water, or just have the character be largely useless the vast majority of the time.

Whereas having the character create water out of thin air removes those limitations, but leads to the question of "where is it all coming from," and for some reason we're more accepting of that with energy and pseudo-energy (cold/darkness) than with matter. Oh, you can create water from nothing? Why just water?

So that leaves us with a lot of characters -- well, okay, not "a lot," but a few -- who "blast" water because they're made of it and it's a cool way to have them attack their enemies (they're really just "punching" with water), but not much else. And their main schtick tends to be how hard they are to harm/contain, being composed of liquid; the "water blast" is just tacked on.

And my point remains that I don't understand why so many people have spent so long insisting so vehemently that their gaming experience somehow wasn't complete without this very specific, conceptually-narrow, and fairly-uncommon-in-the-genre (even Mousedroid's list includes Iceman as a "water control" character on page 1. Technically true, but still kinda reaching) powerset.

Italicized words are italicized for emphasis, by the way. And I only put one in this whole post. My question is not why we got the set. I understand there was a great deal of demand for it. My question is why it was in such high demand.

The same way pretty much all the "blast" powersets and most of the melee ones work: 5-7 of them can be the same basic idea, but with different numbers and activation animations. Nearly everything in Water Blast boils down to basically the same thing (hit them with water!), but it's a complete powerset, because they all behave slightly differently. The difference between Aqua Bolt and Hydro Blast is just numbers and what the character does with his arms -- the difference between Sleepy Song and Lullabye can be too.

(And yes, still being facetious. People seem to think I'm looking for a fight here, but I'm really not. I'm just making observations. No hostility or anything.)

Right.

But again, my issue is not with the set. It's with the attitude and implication that this conceptually-narrow and specific set, one not terribly well-represented in the source material the game emulates, is somehow "long overdue."

Again, "traditional superhero fiction." Of which I see one example on your list, and Aquaman had actual water-based powers for like a week. Historically, his powers have involved being in water, not actually "blasting" it. I think Electro-Superman lasted longer than hydro-handed Aquaman. That's like insisting that a "frog transformation" powerset (which I would totally buy, devs) be added to the game because it happened to Thor once.

If individual Pokemon count as inspirations for entire powersets, where's my "sing everyone in the area to sleep" powerset? Set, mind you. I want nine powers. Because Jigglypuff.

But like I said, I'm not really complaining. I bought it already, because it's a fun set. I just don't... get why so many people have spent so long insisting so vehemently that their gaming experience somehow wasn't complete without a water-blasting set. I'm happy with it, I already made two characters that use it, I just don't see this as the "about friggin' time you finally gave us this set" situation so many others apparently do, because I don't see it as a previously-missing genre staple.

You're right, that doesn't seem fair.

Now, if you'd received two Paragon reward tokens and 2640 (1320 x 2) Paragon Points, that would be fair.

I'd point out that this game is rated for 13-year-olds, not 18-year-olds.

Not that I speak for NekoNeko, but I'm guessing it's because that's disgusting, juvenile, off-putting and unpleasant, and it's not something certain (most?) players, Neko included, want to see when they log onto the game. Plus it's an indicator of the kinds of things they're likely to be saying in chat, which are likely to be equally (or more!) disgusting, juvenile, off-putting and unpleasant.

That's partially what the star/note system is for, after all: to allow us to identify the players we don't want to deal with -- for whatever reason, be it rudeness, abuse, ignorance, whatever -- and not play with people whose behaviors reduce our enjoyment of the game.

When I drop to premium, my Time Manipulation characters are just plain ol' locked until I either re-up my VIP subscription or buy the set.

I guess it's possible they could decide purchased pools should work differently (and locking the entire character based on their pools does seem a little harsh), but I don't see any reason to assume it would unless we see something to suggest it.

I could get behind this idea.