Ebon_Angel

Click powers are an obvious choice, with a long recharge - they're meant to be special, unique and rare events.
I can see toggle powers if they have an equally long recharge and the short-time limit, like phase shift. They're basically a click power at that point, just one that can activate for variable time.
Auto-powers? Definately not. It's not a signiture move at that point, it couldn't be powerful or spectacular. It just wouldn't have the necessary epicness to it.

I still can't think of anything wrong with this. The only tricky issue is the UI for picking your animation, but I imagine an approach similar to the costume designer would work.

Three sections: Effect -> Weapon/Prop -> Animation.

The choices would have to be made in order, with each choice choosing which choices are available on the next one. Much like the way body sections work now (Body Section Type->Shape->Pattern). The type of effects available would depend on the type of attack (single target or area effect. Close range [melee/PBAoE] is just a question of range, not type) chosen.

Even with the same range of choices as we have for Auras (which allow types, and changes of colour) you wouldn't see many duplicates, and more options would no doubt be added with patches and Issues.

At first it sounded fantastic, but too complicated to really work in the type of game Cryptic seems to want to make. The more I think on it, however, the simpler I think it could be to implement, at least from a user-experience point of view.

Technically...well, it depends on how the codebase is structured, but compared to the inventions system it's got to be pretty easy. Colour+effect+weapon+animation is only 6 bytes assuming we don't have more than 255 choices in any one section, so any additional network information is minimal (since I hope things like damage values are generated on the server and sent to the client, otherwise health values could easily get out of sync).

Heck, I'll quite happily take a month off work (pretty much all the holiday I can spare, or I'd be allowed), at fly over to Cryptic Studios at my own expense and work for that month for free to get this in the game :P And yes, I have experience with C++, OpenGL and DirectX, in case you were wondering :P

uh no - with this system there's no point in having yours, since we could design our own "uber power" - why would we need both?

Okay, time for some of my villains to get the signiture treatment :P

Abeyance - Mind/Nrg Dom - "Mind the jacket": Massive PBAoE Knockup+Knockback with high chance low-mag disorient, using the Spectral Wounds animation. Imagine the height of levitate + the knockback of powerthrust. All performed with a casual flick of the wrist (I /love/ that animation). She's a powerful telepath and telekinetic - it's the latter being demonstrated here :P

Lustration - MA/Nrg Stalker - "Endings": Large PBAoE version of Energy Transfer, she takes 20% damage for every enemy hit. Yes, that means there is a large chance she'll kill herself using this. That's kinda the point of the name :P Lustration is the victim of a botched CoT ritual, which left her a disembodied soul, fueled by jealousy of the living. Thus, she cannot actually "die", but she can release her hatred as an attack, but temporarily dispersing her essence.

Inveigle - Merc/Dark MM - "Love me and despair": High-mag AoE confuse + low DoT. Rich, intelligent and beautiful, Inveigle always had men at her beck-and-call, but that didn't stop her from turning to dark magics for stronger control. This spell forces other to fight for her while retaining full awareness of what they do, causing pyschological damage.

Anybody ever play Freedom Force? Anybody think this sounds a lot like their "Design your heroes powers" bit?

Which, btw, is a fantastically good thing :P

I really do love this idea, but then, I've yearned for power customisation from the beginning - CHOICES ARE GOOD

Oh, and my signiture powers (since I've enjoyed reading other peoples):

Ebon Angel: Vampiric Soul - PBAoE, minor DoT, immob, -acc, +regen for each hit enemy. Black Tentacles (ala Tenebrous Tentacles) erupt out of the ground around her, draining the enemies' health and adding to hers.

Harlequinne: Chaos - Targetted AoE, minor DoT, confuse, 25% low mag disorient. Harlequinne disappears, while random copies of the enemies within the AoE appear, attack a friend, and disappear.

http://www.casual-tempest.net/img/CoH/base.php

My one man SG - took me ages to find a style I was happy with that could mix tech and arcane furnishings. I'm not one for overdoing the decor, as you can see, but I will probably add to it over time.

Just so we have all these links in the same place:

http://www.casual-tempest.net/feeds/coh.php

This is my feed of the Dev Digest in Atom format, which I prefer for various obscure technical reasons because I'm a pedant like that :P Unfortunately I'm not enough of a pedant to fix bugs very quickly, so apologies if you get some (or a lot) of old posts cropping up sometimes...I will fix it eventually, I promise :P

Just found this - again, I have to say the amount of effort put into this is incredible.

It's got me wanting to try something similar in my downtime at work...other than reading the boards, that is :P

@cruise
Male, though every single one of my toons is female. I like confusing people :P
29
Sutton, Surrey, England
6'4"
The Grey Area (SG), Alliance of Aberration (VG)
Ebon Angel (hero), Abeyance (villain)

I actually have a second account, which is my account from the beta, but I screwed up when activating and ended up making this second one. I keep the first one around to demo to friends to try and get them playing CoX - since all my RL friends I started playing with have since left.

While I appreciate the bump, I'm not sure this is where you intended you post that... :P

Very nice guide - a lot of it is generally applicable too, not just to team leaders.
I'm also honoured you linked my guide to Team Roles - there's actually an updated version of it (top link in my sig), for future reference :P

Absolutely. Interestingly, it was my Dominator that led me to similar conclusions. Have a look at my guide to team roles which covers some of the same ground in a lot more detail.
It's easy to loose sight of the fact this is meant to be a game and fun :P

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::Falls over dead.::

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(\O.O/)

Don't worry, I'm trained in CPR!

*<you know what happens here >*

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Mantid gets mauled to death by an undead catgirl? Still...heck of a way to go...

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Maybe it's an issue with Mesmerize -- I dont' have a high level Mind Dom to test it with. But I know none of my control durations are exactly what I'd call "short." So Mind Doms, does Mesmerize (and I assume Mass Hypnosis, too?) really have such a short sleep duration for you guys at high level?

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Sleep is one of the longest lasting controls there is, actually. With duration and recharge SO's I can perma-sleep with Mass Hypnosis quite happily. Add in power boost and/or domination and no one's waking up for a very long time. Plus the ST sleep has a higher mag than normal, and can one-shot sleep bosses.

Heh - at 28 I'm not exacly ancient, but I remember large proportions of the cartoons and games from this thread.
Spent many an evening on my Atari 2600 and my Toshiba MSX (anybody else heard of them?) before I upgraded to a Spectrum 128k +2. Ooooooooooh :P
Since I'm English, my entertainment memories are probably slightly different from the rest of you - but I remember Hong Kong Fooey, Topcat, Batfink, Muppets, Fraggles, Battle of the Planets, et al.
In fact, I have a massive thing for old-style childrens cartoons. So far I have Battle of the Planets, Dungeons & Dragons (the cartoon), Dogtanian and Spider-man on DVD, plus Ulysesse 31 on video CD. I also have the theme tunes for Cities of Gold, Around the World in 80 days (with the lion as Willie Fog), Telebugs, Thundercats, SuperTed, Inspector Gadget, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Mask and Lonestar, among others.
Oh, and I have the remnants (unfortunately) of the original models of the red car and APC from Captain Scarlett. Oh, and an Interceptor from UFO. And a couple of TV annuals from the late 70's too.

Man I love this stuff

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Begin to learn more...

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So don't expect to actually learn anything - this is just letting you know that you will...
Sort of, "on your marks...get set..." and we're still waiting for the go :P

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I have a suggestion here. How about allowing the Raid teleporter to double as a mission teleporter. If you have a mission set, the Teleporter acts as a door to the mission. Thus you can just buff yourself, and use the Raid Teleporter to enter your mission directly (or whatever mission you have set if you're on a team..)

This would also make the Raid Teleporter (Which is pointlessly big) usefull for something other then the IOP Raids.

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This is a great idea. It makes a usually useless item incredibly useful. And it also makes bases the solution to one of CoH's biggest annoyances (needless travel time/zone hopping).

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/signed

Effectively the "raid" teleporter becomes a "mission" teleporter, and takes you to wherever the action is. Perfectly reasonable, and yes, makes that obscenely big bit of kit actually useful for something other than PvP.

Oooooh, quotes! I like quotes :P
"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
"Get your mind out of the gutter...you're blocking my periscope."
"Eagles may soar, but weasels aren't sucked into jet engines."
"The damaged are dangerous, for they know they can survive."
"I can resist everything except temptation" - Oscar Wilde
"All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific." - Jane Wagner
"Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith." - Robert C. Ingersoll
"They sicken of the calm, who knew the Storm." - Dorothy Parker
"Independence means never having to say thank you." - Me :P
"From childhood's hour I have not been / As others were - I have not seen / As others saw - I could not bring / My passions from a common spring" - Edgar Allen Poe
"I am grey, I stand between the darkness and the light. We are grey, we stand between the candle and the star." - JMS, Babylon 5
"I have a lawnmower here with your name on it."
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
"If you have a hero, look again. You have diminished yourself in some way."
"You can do whatever you want. You need only face the consequences."
"Only the insane have strength enough to prosper; only those that prosper truly judge what is sane."
"Never try to outstubborn a cat."
"You can only be young once, but you can be immature forever."
"Against stupidity the god's themselves contend in vain."
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
"Men show their character best by the things they laugh at."
"Sometimes I wish I could get a mirror with a better view."
"Curiosity kills more mice than cats."
"Never, ever, play leapfrog with a unicorn."
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not."
"Better to face a danger once than be always in fear."
"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."
"One already wet does not fear the rain."
"If it is worth fighting for, it is worth fighting dirty for."
"If man were to be crossed with the cat, it would greatly improve man, but deteriorate the cat." - Mark Twain
"I love the way Microsoft follows standards. In much the same manner that fish follow migrating caribou." - Paul Tomblin
"One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs." - Robert Firth
"Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do." - Bertrand Russell
"People say I'm evil, but I have the heart of a little boy...in a jar...on my desk..."
"I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come." - A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin
"I mean, you could come after me with a horde of ninjas or something."

Apologies for the number of these unattributed. If anyone knows the source of any of those, kinly let me know. Thanks!
I've tried to keep it vaguely appropriate, but some of them are too damn funny to pass up... :P

My CoV took over a week to arrive, so my first experiences with PvP were with my main on CoH, a DM/Regen scrapper.
I spent an enjoyable afternoon in a running battle with the villains not far outside their base in BB. Eventually enough of them arrived to push us back to the beach. I see a stalker disappear into hide not far from me, so I pretend I haven't seen him and start beating up on a freak minion nearby, knowing I'm effectively painting an "AS Me!" sign on my back.
Sure enough, I see the expected words pop-up above my head, and about 3/4 of my health disappears. Target nearest, touch of fear, siphon life, laugh, and proceed to unload while keeping them feared.
My favourite ever moment however was quite recently on my Mind/NRG Dominator. A global friend was in a large team in SC, and I decided to see what PvP was like for a Dom with a decent team backing me up.
Quite soon after I arrived, a Spines/Regen scrapper decided I would be an easy kill and SJ'd down next to me. Terrify (I do so love fear effects) left him unable to respond as I used total focus and bonesmasher to drop integration, and followed up with a powerboosted dominate. At which point (a few short seconds after he arrived) I see him yelling for help (local or broadcast presumably). A few of his team-mates respond, but it also tells the rest of my team "easy prey" and I manage to finish him off about a second before his rescuers take me down, only to fall before my own re-inforcements.
I didn't feel particularly gimped in PvP after that

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Money for Nothing - Dire Straits
Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day
2wicky (Tech Wizard Remix) - Hooverphonic

cheers,
Arctic Sun

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Wow, congratulations on some awesome taste there :P
I'm gradually introducing people to Hooverphonic when I can, nice to see them appearing in other people's playlists.

Random 10 songs from my memory that I have sitting on my file-server:

Cheap is How I Feel - Cowboy Junkies
This Cowboy's Hat - Chris LeDoux
Ghost Love Score - Nightwish
Uninspired - 8stops7
Sometimes - Hooverphonic
A Stroke of Luck - Garbage
Psychopomp - The Tea Party
Terra's Theme from Final Fantasy 4/6 - Nobuo Uematsu
Private Investigation - Dire Straits
Hemisphere - Yoko Kanno

It was more an attempt to distribute the AT's evenly between all the roles I listed, rather than any concious decision to group CoV or CoH AT's together.

As I tried to make clear in my original post, this list is nowhere near exhaustive - it is simply here as a guide, not a complete and thorough listing. I make no mention of Kheldians, for example, who with their tri-form nature can cover any of these roles quite easily.

This is an updated version of my Guide to Team Roles - discussions since have refined the original principle in my head, and uncovered some mistakes I made in the original.

The primary principle is do not confuse the powers available with the uses to which they are put. The most recognisable example of this is the "r u h34l3r" requests so hated by defenders and corruptors. A heal is the power, the tool. It says nothing about how and when those powers are used.

My original list of team roles were an attempt to make that distinction; a list of things to do, not a list of powers to use. I therefore present a hopefully better version of this list, emphasising more what needs to be done, and less the means used to acheive it. Until the arrival of Skills, fundamentally the only activity required in CoX is to kill critters. Broadly speaking, you're either actively causing damage, or you're making it easier for others to do so. So my new list of things to do on a team is defined into two broad categories:

Direct: Hitman, Sweeper, Reaper, Bodyguard
Indirect: Meatshield, Protector, Supplier, Scout, Sheperd


All of these are things which need to be done on a team. I'm not going to tell you how to do them - that depends on your powerset, slotting and pool choices. I will be giving some possibilities, however, to help explain each category. Also notice that none of these are mutually exclusive - even on a full team, there is not enough players for one per role. Doubling up, overlapping and shifting roles is encouraged as circumstances demand.

Hitman
Deals with specific dangerous threats - a boss, a particularly annoying lt., etc.
Tools: Damage mitigation, High Damage
Common AT's: Brute, Stalker

Sweeper
Deals with errant critters that are attempting to make a break, or otherwise going where they shouldn't.
Tools: Mobility, Range
Common AT's: Controller, Blaster

Reaper
Built for mowing, the reaper chews through hordes of minions, or other large groups of sufficiently weakened foes.
Tools: Area of Effect abilities
Common AT's: Mastermind, Corruptor

Bodyguard
Protects the more delicate members of a team by beating up on anyone who shows an undue interest in them.
Tools: Mobility, Aggro control
Common AT's: Tanker, Scrapper

Meatshield
Mobile cover for everyone else to hide behind. Takes the hits so no one else has to.
Tools: Damage absorption, Agro control
Common AT's: Tanker, Mastermind

Protector
Makes squishies less squishy, and meatshields more, uh, meaty. Either by making you better, or the targets worse (or both).
Tools: Debuffs, Status effects
Common AT's: Controller, Dominator

Supplier
Gives their teammates whatever it is they need (within reason). More health and endurance are the obvious things, but any can chip in by passing around un-needed inspirations. Very little will outdamage a brute chewing on a entire team's supply of red candy.
Tools: Buffs, anything someone else can use
Common AT's: Defender, corruptor

Scout
An often overlooked role, a scout can warn teams before they walk into the spawn on the other side of the doorway, but also help with targeting for hitmen and sweepers. Not to be underestimated in large teams when critter collision detection gives up and goes home.
Tools: Stealth, Mobility
Common AT's: Stalker, Blaster

Sheperd
The role formerly known as 'manager', renamed to highlight what it's doing, rather than how it's doing it. Sheperds keep critters where they should be, and make them go where they're wanted.
Tools: Status effects, Agro control
Common AT's: Dominator, Tanker


Note, none of these lists are intended to be exclusive. There are Archetype's not listed that can do some of these roles just as well as those mentioned, and there are other ways of achieving the required effects outside of the suggested tools. An energy blaster's knockback can make her an excellent sheperd, for example. All of this is simply a guide to one way of looking at combat, a new way of thinking. You still need to do the thinking, however.

Rather than pondering, "Which power shall I use next?" instead the first question should be, "What roles does my team currently need filled?" Some roles will likely not change often, but others can be very fluid. In a matter of seconds a team member can be stunned, held or otherwise kept out of the fight. Do you notice? Do you know which of your powers you can use to cover one or two of the roles they were previously filling? This is the key to a smooth running team - one that doesn't worry about what people can do, but instead what needs to be done. Learn what roles your powers let you fill, and make sure you know what roles your team currently needs. Power selection then takes care of itself.

Maybe a short case study will help demonstrate the flexibility of thinking of combat in these terms.

In CoH, I and my two friends were all running regen scrappers - two dark (one mine), and the third spines. How do we cover all those varied roles with three almost identical AT's and powersets?

Offensively, the spines scrapper is the reaper, and frontliner and sweeper are split between the two DM's. Hitman is taken up when necessary by whoever is doing the least in their other respective role; a lack of minions and the spines takes on the boss, no big clustered groups, the frontliner can concentrate on the big nasty, and no scattered enemies let's the sweeper step up.

Defensively we're all meatshields, splitting the agro between us so that no one person takes more than the healing can cover. Related to that if anyone of us starts getting in over our head, the other two can bodyguard and take back some of the agro. The secondary effects on our attacks (-rec on spines, -acc on DM) allow us to all play minor protective roles. Spines has an immob and knockdown, DM has fear (and my DM also has the presence power pool, for even more Managerial ability) and an immob, used as and when necessary.

Helper is perhaps the one role that is lacking in this team - there's no great synergy or gestalt power combinations. Just very little in the way of weaknesses. Scout was filled by whoever had the stealth pool at the time (respecs meant this tended to shift about). And with the regen pool, we were all our own supplier.

Since our secondary (defensive) sets were all the same, it's not surprising that we could move amongst the needed defensive roles at will - whoever was best placed would pull agro off a teammate in trouble, or use a status effect to help manage a mob. This overlap ensured should a compatriate fall, the other two wouldn't be left lacking. Though my pool selection made me a better choice for manager, and the fighting pool made the others better meatshields.

Our primary pools differed a bit more, and so the selection of offense roles are less free-form; spine's AoE's make it the natural choice for reaper. But two sets of souldrain, dark consumption and shadow maul can make an acceptable substitue. Likewise, the ranged attacks in spines can be very useful for sweeping should the need arise.

Since we all teamed together on a regular basis, we each learnt these roles instinctively, and have been complemented on our speed of reaction and play by occasional pick-up additions. Most other good players I'm sure also understand these roles on some level - for those new to the game, or struggling on teams, hopefully this will give you a leg up to better team play.

Note on the vines - the number you have to kill seems to be (1.5 * team size) * (team size). All values rounded up before, so a team of five needs to kill 40 (5 * 1.5 = 8 rounded up, * 5 = 40), a team of four 24, a team of six 45 and a team of eight 96 (8 * 1.5 * 8 = 12 * 8 = 96).

This only counts online players - if everyone but the brutes switches to an alt, but stays in contact via global chat, then the brutes can go to town on what presumably would be 6 vines if you have two brutes, and then everyone else can switch back once the vines are cleared.

Naturally the capabilities of an AT vary dramatically with their powersets - what I have presented here is a very general view of what each AT will usually bring to the table, to provide a base from which to add your own experience.

Naturally I cannot hope to cover all possibilities within explicitly, but what I can do is describe what to look for, how to recognise it, and therefore let people make their own discoveries. I didn't mention anything about the Power Pools, for example, which allow an AT to add in helper, scout or supplier to their roles, even if their AT would not normally provide those tools.

Hopefully I've made the various self-evident enough (ie. you know it when you see it) that having read the guide you can then see for yourself what each power set can do, and what roles need better coverage.