Samuel_Tow
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That's kind of an obvious answer for most of us, really, seen as how many people here go by the name of their "main" character. Obviously, if I were making a movie, it'd be about Samuel Tow and his development in his own timeline in the future. It's too long and complicated to explain and I know no-one really cares, so suffice it to say that his story is about a world a few decades in the future where the world is on fire with small-scale wars between various terrorists, mercenaries, dictators and basically everyone who ever wanted to have big guns but never could. It starts with a time-skip of a couple more decades that has seen mutually-assured destruction lay waste to most of the world, setting the scene for various post-apocalyptic scenarios to take place as Sam discover what the "super soldier" programme he was in actually did to him and comes to grips with his increasing powers while simultaneously battling the foreign mind encroaching over his own that comes with them.
I've had over ten years to map out the storyline for this one, so either I'll need a trilogy at least, or I'll need a larger series, as I have about 200 years' worth of events to cover, all of which are important to shaping the character. Of course, this is not going to happen, but sooner or later I'll have to sit down and actually write the thing. Probably have to use a rather abridged narrative, since I don't feel like writing 1000 pages worth of novel. Don't feel like and physically can't. -
Heh, if I'm gonna' watch a whole movie for free, I might as well go the whole way and pirate it properly
Seriously, though, this looks like something worth looking into. The werewolves I've seen look a bit goofy, though, I guess because they're supposed to be monsters, but from the few Wikipedia snippets I saw, that woman's werewolf costume actually looks more convincing, strangely. Then again, these werewolves seem to run, which is cool. I'll probably have to see the whole movie to tell, though. Problem is... I am EXTREMELY apprehensive of watching British movies, especially after Reign of Fire (yeah, I have an evil memory). Americans do action and horror movies right, whereas most of the British movies I've seen spend too much time worrying about introducing enough foul language, blood, guts and bad writing as they can manage and not enough making the movie actually cool.
I mean it's soldiers fighting bloody dragons! How do you screw that up?!?
I should probably give Underworld a shot, too. I suspect the werewolves there would be animatronic, but I hear it's a good movie, anyway. After Blade 2, though, I kind of lost interest in vampires and werewolves. -
Quote:Well, seeing these movies, I can definitely see where you guys got the inspiration to make the digitigrade we currently have in the game, because those stilts look a lot like them. Cool, I didn't know so many people were making theseOriginally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
Plenty of people have made homemade or professional rigs to mimic digitigrade legs for humanoid characters.
One slight point of note, though, is that the people in these movies hold their legs slightly differently than what our characters do. Their upper legs are bent forward, with their knees bent back. In our digitigrade legs, the upper leg is straight down. Of course, I realise this is most likely to avoid having to make new animations for just one single set of legs, which is why they follow regular legs so much. Still, it explains why the feet aren't vertical like I'd thought they should be, and ours are STILL better than the ones in Champions Online, which just look like someone took a T-square to your shins
By the way, the finished werewolf costume is just... Wow! This thing does NOT look like it should be able to exist and move like it does. It looks like it should be CGI or something, but to see this existing as actually real, even as a slightly cheesy costume... When I saw it turn its head to look at the camera, that startled me a bit. This is cool!
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Quote:Yeah, the first time I went to the zone, my reaction was "OK, this does not look like a nice place. I do not want to be here!" The game did a very good job with taking you out of your comfort zone with that one, because the rest of the city you've seen up until this point has been... Well, a city, with people walking about, stores here and there, buildings, life... Just a regular city. Then you go into Boomtown and it's like walked right down the rabbit hole.Originally Posted by Xanatos
Nothing I have done in game could ever compare to the first time I saw Boomtown in beta. Me and two friends spent hours exploring it with sprint & hover. After seeing the perfectly aligned buildings of Atlas/Galaxy/Steel/Skyway/Etc, nothing could prepare me for the chaos & destruction that was Boomtown.
I know no-one visits you anymore. But you will always remain my favourite zone in this game. -
Quote:That's why I said as close to that as possible. If there are no teams at level 20, you'll get dumped into one at level 30, or at least told that's what'll happen and asked if you mind. I doubt too many people would, at least with SSK.Originally Posted by tanstaafl
I hope not for an automated team thingajig. Too many variations of what people want that I suspect it would be useless. eg level range, ATs, missions, aes, arcs etc etc.
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Quote:Call me crazy, but getting swamped and killed would not add much fun in the game at all for me.Originally Posted by Sardan
That's my number one desire for enhanced AI, some aggro chaining: have some percent chance that a runner will dash off and if he finds another group, will aggro them. It'd add a little bit of extra tactical fun to the game without radically changing it.
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Quote:Precisely. I got burned by the current base building system, so I decided to sidestep the issue and suggest a larger-scale variant for it, which is still a lower-complexity one. I don't mean to replace current bases, as people obviously like making them, but I, myself, would love to have a more expansive compound.Originally Posted by CoyoteShaman
I think he was talking about a secondary base system, not a replacement. There's no reason to think he was saying "you guys shouldn't have your neat stuff 'cuz we want easier stuff". Quite the contrary, I'm pretty sure he was saying "these guys that want the neat stuff have really neat stuff. Can we who want easy stuff maybe catch a break too?"
I will freely admit that I did NOT draw this from a comic book source. I drew it from a purely gaming source. Road-and-wall structures are an RTS concept that harkens back to Dune: Battle for Arakis and subsequently a few of the Tiberium Sun games, and ramparts were perfected with Empire Earth's siege gameplay. An island fortress of evilnessnessness is something I drew from things like Tropico and Evil Genius, but less from HOW these games were made and more what they represented. The actual inspiration was, again Settlers 2. Every time I talk about bases, I always come back to Ufo: Enemy Unknown and its sequel, X-Com: Terror from the Deep. Both games had instances that were very much what I'd like to see in City of Heroes, both city and ship terror maps, as well as just random countryside. Moreover, base building in the old X-Com games let you put together a grid network of square buildings that looked like utter crap from the base view, but actually made for a really kickass, creative map once your base was raided. And it was YOUR OWN map to your own design.
Wrapping all of those concepts together is what gave me this. Basically, less of a "base" editor and more of a compound editor. Less focus is given on the fine details of each individual structure and more on the layout between them, in the same way as a lot of our city zones are designed from the same, like, 10 buildings, just rearranged with streets in-between. I don't know if this is applicable to many comic book concepts or not, but I DO know it's applicable to quite a few of mine, especially for my villains. I honestly don't know what kind of complexes villains in comic books would have, but I do know that any self-respecting villain in a war game is going to have multiple large compounds to hold all of his troops, supplies and serve as staging areas. And, yeah, I know - this is not a war game. But given hat we have several enemy factions that are very much regular national armies and who sport thousands of hidden installations, I think it fits into the context of the game.
Granted, the 5th Column had UNDERGROUND bases, but you know what? I think this owes to the game's old "dungeon crawler" design more than anything else. We didn't get open-air maps until I4 or some such, and the Column bases were made pre-launch. And, really, look at the easiest example of them all - Longbow's Agincourt facility in Nerva. That's a whole island's (actually a couple of islands') worth of military compound, complete with landing pads, boats, subs, AAA guns, bunkers, comm towers, science labs and a headquarters building. The context is there. -
Quote:To bring this argument back to its point of origin, the question was how bipedal humanoids using "backwards knees" would actually look and walk. Ostriches are what I was thinking about when I asked about bipeds, and having looked up an ostrich skeleton, I immediately spot a potential problem with translating this into human analogues.Originally Posted by RoentgenStorm
Not sure about mamals but do birds count? Birds have a fused Tibia and fibula but are arranged in a similar way.
Ostriches don't have any trouble running with their "knees" pointing backwards.
The ostrich's posture makes it look like it has normal straight legs, only with the knees pointing the other way, but it is, in fact, walking on its toes. However, its thigh bones are so short that the thighs themselves end up being almost entirely sunk into the body, and definitely sunk into the "shape" of the bird, so they don't actually look like they even exist. The shin and foot bones, by comparison, are about equal length and make up what we perceive as the leg.
To transcribe this to a human, we'd need to shorten the thighs so much they would end up looking like just a big butt, and we'd end up with basically backwards knees. However, the ostrich's frame is actually horizontal at the rib cage and it has a fair bit of bone back behind the legs, which makes it look and act stable. Just shifting a human frame's knees back would at the very least make it look like it'll topple over.
The above explanation is why I'm not sure we should be looking to nature as to how to properly draw "backwards knees." If anything, I'd look to existing anthropomorphic artists, as even though they use bizarre anatomy, they end up making up for it with style and artistic talent. Just to emphasise the point and explain what I mean, here's a a fox thing as drawn by Vanessa Santo (why do I keep thinking her name is De Santo?)
That's basically a human leg if the shin bone were very short and the leg bone very long. -
Quote:Well, if that's technically possible to judge (and I didn't think that it was, but I'll take your word for it), this would be the ideal implementation. I don't really see this as a big problem of Tankers avoiding aggro, anyway, since a Tanker can have aggro on a bunch of things and just go and aim for what he hasn't aggroed. In a sense, this encourages Tankers to WANT to tank (i.e. hit things that aren't aggroed on them), instead of sitting on their hands and beating on what's under their noses.Originally Posted by Umbral
Which is why I prefer my suggestion. Each power would simply have a flag that deals an additional 15-20% damage to the target if the Tanker is not the current target of that enemy. Checking the target of a target is already possible in game, so the mechanical problems wouldn't be particularly difficult and it wouldn't be represented as a bar or anything like that. It's simply a bonus to base damage (rather than simply +dam). Unless there is another Tanker in the party, there isn't going to be much difference except for the first strikes possibly. If there is, the Tanker that isn't as effective at generating threat is going to see an increase in damage output to make up for lower threat gen.
I honestly don't see what a Tanker would gain from not attacking, since he's not going to lose the enemy unless it's to another Tanker or a Scrapper, at which point it doesn't really matter. But to sit and wait for your last taunt to time out and hope that a specific critter will turn away from you... That's not an instinctive reaction to the problem from where I'm sitting. Not as long as Tankers lack Placate.
One other thing concerns me, though, and that's "train-swapping." Imagine the following scenario. You have two tankers on the team, both of whom have a sizable spawn of enemies aggroed on them. What's to prevent them from basically attacking each-other's aggroed enemies basically for a free damage buff? Said enemies won't be as likely to switch targets since one Tanker's taunts are hard to overcome by another, but even if they did... Two Tankers ensures that each of them always has enemies not aggroed to him to attack, essentially giving an unconditional damage buff.
And just to ask - are we thinking of what this will do to help Tankers solo, or is that just not a concern? -
Quote:I can see what you mean with this. It's not a buff for not fighting, as it only drops down when the Tanker is being attacked, not when he attacks, but are we really worried about Tankers sitting idle and not doing anything to build up enough buff? I mean, how does a Tanker LOSE aggro?Originally Posted by Godpants
One problem I can see is tanks not wanting to fight because they'd lose their damage buff. "You guys handle it for awhile. I'm winding up my haymaker." I think any new Tanker inherent should reward the player for doing what the AT was intended to do - get in there and brawl - instead of providing a buff for not doing that.
But, anyway, I like Umbra's suggestion better, anyway, provided it's possible. -
Quote:The Hamidon is the what what of what? That's the first I hear about this. Was this in an interview or something?Originally Posted by Umbral
I'm pretty sure that's one of the "Four stance emotes" that the devs told us would come with the GoRo Complete Collection.
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I'm never going to vote for this no matter how many times it comes up. It's clunky, fugly system that really cannot be made to work in any way that would satisfy me. The reason for this is because my requirements to support such a system are that it is always invisible and never unambiguous. Those requirements contradict themselves pretty much entirely.
Yes, I've heard the arguments. Hide global name, and just have it technically appended. This creates ambiguity. No, friends lists, name colours and "telephone numbers" appended will not solve this. If I don't SEE anything to tell one Awesome Man from another, it's ambiguous. Even if it doesn't happen much, it WILL happen sooner or later, and the mere possibility that it might is enough for me to dislike the idea.
On the flip side, having people constantly walking around as Samuel Tow@Samuel Tow is incredibly ugly. It's immersion-breaking, it's distracting and it just looks BAD. I WILL NOT support such a system under any form.
Addressing the root problem, itself, good names have not run out. Anyone who is willing to look can still very much find a name that he or she is happy with. The only people who have a legitimate problem are the people who need one specific name and no other name will ever do. For these people, non-unique names are the only solution. However, I have yet to see an implementation of this solution that won't be ugly and/or ambiguous suggested. -
Quote:Well, I kind of explained this in the post above, but Crash is basically the second character I ever made. She holds a certain sentimental value for me that new characters will never replicate. I want her to be PERFECT in as much as I can achieve that. I can't just pick something and go with it, because I did that with her powersets back in 2005 and I'm starting to have second thoughts. If she's perfect, I should not have second thoughts. I should play the game and think... Man, I can't believe this is actually happening to me. This is so cool!Originally Posted by Leo_G
But to the question of 'which set I would choose for the given concept', I would say either. You want a puncher so punch. If the concept wants some kicks thrown in, pick up Kick from the fighting pool or pick MA. Other than that, why does the decision have to be so complicated?
I actually have another character in this vein that actually does feel that way - Xanta, my giant (literally) green swordswoman. She's written to have super strength and limited invulnerability, but Broadsword with a sufficiently large sword (basically, the Legacy Broadsword on an 8-foot-tall female is six feet long) this sort of takes care of itself. Playing her and watching her swing around what is essentially half a steel support girder and KILL PEOPLE with it, I just can't believe that this is actually a game I'm playing. I could just sit and watch the game like a movie and I wouldn't believe my eyes, but to actually play it... Look, picture a grown man in a beard giggling like a six-year-old girl for four hours straight and you can imagine how much I enjoy the concept. As far as practical in-game application of concept goes, she's probably my most successful.
Crash... Just isn't like that. She's strong, of course. She's a decent Scrapper, I can kill things with her, but for the most part I end up keeping my game and my fiction separate, because my in-game interpretation just doesn't have the same "feel." I was honestly out of ideas and justifications, so I ask other people for advice. Basically, I asked to be TOLD what to use and given a good reason for it, that I may reshape my opinion by conformism. I mean, I'm all for free thinking and imagination, but when imagination runs out, going off a conformist starting point and then expanding from there is... Well, is my way of doing things.
Again, I ripped off at least three animes just to make Crash, so I'm not trying to make her unique in base idea. I have story and plot to do that. As long as I can play the character and have THAT drive my imagination, I'm good.
Let me give you an example of how that works, actually. Bane, my Stone Brute, originally started as "generic main villain" without me having any idea as to what his powers would be or how he would approach things. I made him Ice/Ice in Beta, then that got pulled so I remade him as Stone/Stone. In actual gameplay, however, I discovered that, yes, I was incredibly immobile and inflexible, but I COULD NOT BE KILLED. Wow... From playing the game and getting a feel of how the character "wants" to be played, I reverse-engineered his personality as that of a direct, ruthless leader who thought nothing of sustaining losses, because he knew he could not be stopped and would eventually succeed one way or another. Maybe not now, maybe not soon, but time was on his side. As it should be with any great villain. The character's powersets and AT built the character's concept for me, step by step.
I don't feel that way for Crash. Her in-game character simply doesn't match what I feel about her concept. So... Time for a re-write. I'm two 50 heroes ahead of my villains, anyway
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Oh, that reminds me of back in January 2007. Back then, I had to travel to the UK on an exchange programme and I spent some time on campus. A guy down the hall had what looked like a super hero poster duct-taped to his door, with a relatively well-drawn costume with a lightning bolt motif to it. His name, though, made me take a photo of it and post it here. The name?
Lighting Boy
I do NOT want to go back to the UK, but there are still a few things I remember fondly. You'd think the British would be a little better at spelling their own language... -
Quote:It's surprising how many times you have to tell this to some people and they still can't get it through their heads. And I'm not talking about disappointed parents or angry spouses, here. I mean people who should have no business sticking their noses into your life, like ******* colleagues who insist that you shouldn't be wasting your money on games and instead go trekking in the mountains or go to the beach or drink yourself sick.Originally Posted by cursedsorcerer
IT'S MY MONEY AND I WILL SPEND IT MY WAY!
I'll have to borrow Dr. Insano's voice for a moment here:
Well, screw you, people! I have my rights! It's MY money! I can do anything I want with it. You hear me? Anything! If I want to, I can chuck it into my fireplace and listen to the pops and cracks like music to my discerning ears! Or I might build a house out of it. A nice, big money house, with a nice money pool, where money flows like water. I don't have to justify my expenses to you! And while you're drinking your brain cells into your bladder, I'm getting smarter, and one day I will rule the world!!!
Ahem... Borrowing Insano's voice is never a good idea. -
Hmm... That's two for Martial Arts so far. It's honestly not what I would have expected. I guess I still live in the past when Martial Arts was this wonky all-kicks set and that's the image of it I have stuck in my head still. A part of my problem with it was the fact that the Eagle's Claw alternate animation would always cut early and...
You know what, I think I finally put my finger on why Super Strength feels more appropriate for my efforts than Martial Arts - the screen shake. Yeah, I know people complained about it to high heaven, but screen shake is what makes Stone Melee feel so damn HEAVY, and it's screen shake that makes Super Strength's hits "feel" more massive than they actually are. Because, really, something like Haymaker feels so damn powerful, whereas Bone Smasher, which uses the same animation, actually doesn't feel very powerful at all. It's the boom and the shake that does it for me.
And, you know, this actually solidifies the concept in my head. What I want from Crash is to feel that punch, to feel that force. I don't want the crude, unwieldy "Hulk smash!" animations, but I want to feel power behind every strike. That, really, is her whole thing, visually. Picture this:
You have this skinny woman walking around a war zone with bullets whizzing by and explosions going off everywhere, but she's not keeping her head down like everybody else. She looks around and spots the giant enemy tank that's approaching, ready to blow a big chunk out of the good guys hiding behind sandbags, but what can she do? She's unarmed. Well, what she can do is leap the 30 feet to the tank, land on top of it and in one swing punch a hole through the armour deep enough to reach inside the crew compartment, basically killing everyone inside from the shock, pressure and shrapnell.
Combine Hancock's missile slap and Iron Man's anti-tank dart and you have a good idea what I'm after. And, the more I think about this, the more I realise I'm willing to give up a LOT of finesse and skill for enough of a reverberating punch.
I know I'm not the first person to make a cute bruiser, and I don't lay any claims for the originality of the basic concept. I practically ripped off Battle Angel Alita and Ghost in the Shell back in 2005 when I made the character, so my claim to uniqueness never really got off the ground. Bur since I couldn't play Tankers (personal preference) and Brutes didn't exist, I went with the only thing I could go with - Martial Arts for Scrappers. Since then, I've been trying to tweak Crash into more of a martial artist just to justify the build choice, but you know what? I think it's time for a re-write. From the ground up.
Let me just end this on a sentimental note. Crash is the second character I ever conceived, not just in this game but in my entire life. Samuel Tow was, obviously, the first, nearly 10 years ago, but Crash was what it really took for me to break my "only one character" rule. In fact, I retconned a very serious character I had written into Sam's story just to edit Crash in, and she's been my pride and joy for pretty much my entire time in City of Heroes. I REALLY want her to be done well, and I think I'll just have to be patient and wait for Super Strength to filter down to Blasters. Then I'll give her a total makeover and rewrite, and I'll see what I can do with the concept. It may not seem like it (and I'm sure Zombra would point and laugh if he were still playing), but you guys really did help me understand that my original concept was just not good enough.
Instead of trying to force the powersets to match the concept, I'll redo the concept altogether. It's the only way to be sure. -
Quote:Do any actual bipedal animals have backwards knees in nature, though? That'd be good for reference materials, as I tend to not like how artists usually draw them as basically elongated feet and people walking on their toes. Granted, it's probably more realistic that way, but it just looks goofy to me. The much more stylised backwards legs with a shorter shin bone and vertical foot seem to look a lot more natural for some reason.Originally Posted by Schismatrix
In digitigrade legs what you're thinking of as a "reverse knee" is actually the ankle. It's just that the carpals and tarsals are elongated and the animal walks on its toes. Which has some definite advantages for moving rapidly on the ground.
As a point of reference, check out Mass Effect's Tali'Zora. -
Quote:Even though I really enjoy cosmic-level stories and characters, I have to agree with this. "Epic" doesn't have to equate "cosmic-level enemies." Fighting the Hamidon is all well and good, but it's also demoralising to me, in particular, because it suffers from the trite old MMO problem of slowly convincing you that you suck and the only way for you to be meaningful is to get 20 of your buddies together and try to bum-rush the REAL power in the universe. Remember: "City of Heroes, where YOU are the hero!"Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
As an example, "High Level" doesn't have to equate to cosmic-level stories. By raising such concerns early (while the ideas are still flowing at early levels and pointing out that as Batman tales remains predominantly non-cosmic despite being so powerful, we might POSSIBLY stress the merit of a few high-level (endgame?) arcs that are NOT particularly associated with extra dimensions, time travel, or space, but STILL feels natural to the veteran hero.
Of course, that doesn't mean "no" to team content, but do what Recluse does. He's not a Mary Sue (well, he is, but not in this example), in that he's actually beatable, just very strong. However, with him syphoning the power of all the world's heroes, he THEN becomes a major threat, and it creates a good plot device for why you need a team, yet at the same time you're not totally outclassed by default. Yes, powered up Recluse is strong, but I still have an excuse for being weaker than him.
And again, not all level 50 content is cosmic level even now. The Malta Group and the Knives of Artemis are basically really tough, highly-trained commandos. They're not godlike beings from another planet who can destroy worlds with their minds. They're just badass dudes with GUNS! And, as we know, guns are the coolest super power ever But just because something is HARD doesn't mean it has to be COSMIC.
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I added up to about $1100 of just game-related expenses over ~66 months, and I wouldn't really include computer parts since City of Heroes is not the only thing I do on this rig.
And, really, I spend more than that for BUS FARE every day, so I see no reason for this to be depressing. Many people spend $1100 a month for much less long-lasting entertainment. -
Quote:It may seem so, but it is not.Originally Posted by Leo_G
This does belong in the AT/powerset section. Your hang-up seems to be with the power level of the sets.
My hang-up is thematic more than anything else. Martial Arts as super strength is a cheat at best, as I'm ignoring a lot of the set's thematic design. And the set is designed to work on fast, flowing attacks, rather than rely on strength. It CAN be made to rely on strength, but isn't that stretching things?
Inversely, Super Strength looks like it would be the obvious choice, but it's not as obvious as this. I said I want Super Strength, but the actual powerset is more than a little too far off in the other direction. Ground Punch is cool in a purely wow-factor way, but it's already skirting the ability pool of what the concept has in mind. Hurling chunks of the pavement is already past the limit and Hand Clap, though I could look past it, is just too much.
Basically, Martial Arts' theme is of a very light, fast set, whereas Super Strength's is that of a very slow, lumbering set. I need something right in the middle of the two. I know Martial Arts can be tweaked to feel stronger and Super Strength can be tweaked to feel lighter, and they actually do overlap some, even, but I just can't make a decision either way.
That's a bit more dismissive than I think I deserve, Leo.Quote:There's really nothing left to be said. You want SS so use it. No need to go posting long-winded threads that could have been summed up with "Should I go with Ground Punch?" Did you want us to share some of our concepts of either set to compare notes or something?
I ask for advise. I have a concept, but no strong opinion. I don't KNOW exactly what I want, that's why I come to the RP crowd with the hope that someone with more imagination than me can help give me a good idea and spark some of my own imagination. I appended a concept to the front for this specific reason. This isn't a question of "what's stronger," it's a question of what would work best for that specific character. If you really want me to invent a specific question, then let me phrase it like this - which would YOU choose for the character I described? -
I'm not actually against the ability to fine-tune. It's just that HAVING TO is what kills bases for me. Currently, if I don't break my *** in half arranging flower pots one by one, I'm stuck with a hollow square space that isn't very appealing. The idea, as it were, is to give people entire pre-fab buildings that come kit-made the same way the cut-n-paste buildings that make up our zones are arranged and rearranged. In fact, if you look at a basic old zone, you'll note that the city is broken down into a grid structure where roads take up a certain number of squares and the rectangle space between them is often filled with one large building with a rectangle block of its own surrounding it. Granted, actual world designers do more than just place buildings on squares, but it's not out of the question to assume this is doable in a more user-friendly way.
Basically what I want is to let people design their own small, simplified, kit mini-zone to their specifications. I picked a jungle island as an example, but there's no reason it has to be. It could just as easily be an empty lot inside the city somewhere that has buildings off in the background. The options are there, but it's just a mountain of work to even consider such a system. For my money, I think it'd be great.
If we restrict this to large objects only, we can vastly reduce the server load such a thing would create. An instance that has, basically, 20 buildings defined as coordinates, as well as a bunch of wall and road pieces, this shouldn't be a large lump of info to save. A regular base needs to be saved as a 3D model, because from what I understand, it's not loaded as a kit zone. A player-made zone would not need to have every face of every object recorded server-side. All it would need to know is where each building is and where it's facing. The client can do the same. And where a current base can run into the thousands of details just because we can set down individual beakers, a building-level base wouldn't really go much over 50-100, simply because you'd run out of room for bases with any more.
I realise it won't happen, but I enjoy considering the prospect
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Yeah, that was my original stance. Martial Arts with the customizations is "good enough." However, having seen what Super Strength has to offer, I keep thinking if I can't do better.
Martial Arts is a flashy, but otherwise low-key set. It hits fast, but not hard. The numbers reflect this, but more importantly, the effects reflect this. I will freely admit that Crane Kick does look really powerful, but at the same it, it looks powerful in the wrong way. It looks powerful as a strong fancy kick and less so as an "earth-shattering kaboom," to quote the Martian. Compare that to something like Knockout Blow, and the difference is clear. Dragon's Tail, as well, IS a decent knockdown, but it's it's still a sweep kick, whereas a modified Ground Punch is just... Amazing.
Martial Arts works, but... It just doesn't hit hard, not visually and especially not in actual practice. Even Eagle's Claw, the power that's supposed to be defining of the set, just isn't there damage-wise. I suppose I should be clamouring for an improvement to Martial Arts, but that's... Complicated.
To be perfectly honest, I would actually prefer Super Strength with the custom animations. I'd love an alternate to Hand Clap, but I can deal with that, worse come to worst. I'm more worried that I'm actually compromising my concept in doing so. Switching over to Super Strength won't make my character too brutish, will it? I'm still holding out for Super Strength for Scrappers, but if I have to, I'll reroll a level 50. I've no qualms about that. -
I realise this sounds like something I should put in one of the AT forums, but there's a reason I'm putting it here in Roleplaying. Basically, it's a question of whether it's better to use the Martial Arts powerset or the actual Super Strength powerset to depcit the nimble, fast and precise application of super-human strength. But since I'm far too long-winded, let me give you a bit of background on the character in question. We'll call her Crash for short.
Crash is, to put it as simply as possible, an almost indestructible, enormously strong cyborg built to the shape of a relatively small young woman. She has enough strength and stability to take on any of the big bads, but her approach to strength is not at all the "Hulk smash!" variant, but rather more one of measured strength applied through technique and speed. For instance, when opposing someone with a shield, she will not attempt to simply pound on the shield until it or the arm holding it caves in, but will rather attempt to knock it away or at least push it off to the side.
Years ago when I made the character, the choice was simple - Martial Arts. With a bit of imagination, I could claim Martial Arts was actually using superior strength, but in a technical way and I was happy with it. Even happier when more punches made it into the set, as it gave it an ever so slightly stronger look than the "Hay-yah!" kicks it used to have. Super Strength, by comparison, was comprised of uncoordinated swings of fat, meaty arms, stomping feet and flailing motion. In essence, the thick head's guide to super strength. Ideal for my giant rampaging robot, but not so idea for my petite strong-girl. In the time since I made her, I've gotten her to 50, but these days I'm starting to wonder...
I had a look at some of the Super Strength customization options recently, customizing the aforementioned giant robot, and while the new moves really didn't work for his bulky, fat frame, they did get me to wonder... Won't these actually look a lot better on a smaller, faster character? Sure enough, testing them on a remake of Crash's costume, I discovered that they very much did. Both Punch and Jab can be replaced with strikes that are less musclebound strong man and more... Well, lighter fighter. And those were easily the biggest offenders. I could live with Haymaker, but that's a nice cross, too. Knockout Blow's animation, despite not looking right with far super arms, does actually look pretty cool with a smaller-framde character, and Ground Punch is just AMAZING! Practically speaking, a fully customized Super Strength character no longer feels like the Incredible Hulk's stunt double and more like just what I was asking for - a stout, strong fighter.
But that kind of makes me wonder, and by extension makes me ask - would switching over to Super Strength if/when this becomes available actually make sense conceptually? Sure, the concept itself is that of a super strong fighter, but even with the custom animations, won't losing the kicks and the grace of Martial Arts ruin such a concept? Can you guys ever see Super Strength in any incarnation as being appropriate for a small, fast, agile character? Granted, I've always envisioned Crash as having enough force behind her fist to punch a clean hole into tank armour, but I've never really envisioned her making shockwaves by clapping her hands really hard. That's something the Thing would do. Not necessarily something Wonder Woman would, however.
Staying with Martial Arts, however, concerns me equally so. Outside of the set's mechanics, the concept is a bit iffy. Even with the kicks replaced by punches wherever possible, it still feels... Underpowered. The set's whole design relies on skill before strength, faster precision strikes and generally more finesse, where I still want a certain degree of confidence in the act of delivering that decisive, devastating punch.
To a certain extent, I'm not sure what I really want, so I really wanted to ask what you think. Would Super Strength or Martial Arts be more appropriate for a really strong, really agile cyborg girl just as a visual concept? -
Quote:Yeah, something like that. It doesn't need to be specific, just generic "I want to <blank> by doing <blank>." type of framework where most of this is predetermined anyway, you just pick which predetermined path to take. Say if you want to take over the world because you can't pick up chicks ("If I can't make a woman love me, I can just... Make a woman!" - Dr. Insano), then the story arc will focus around you trying different methods to take over the world, but ultimately failing because the heroes are too strong or you goofed up. Yes, it will kind of assume a lot, but as long as we have out choice of a few of these, as long as a choice to just not pick one, it'll actually be a major step up over what we have.Originally Posted by DoctorParadox
but that really isn't enough, there need to be actual MISSiONS for taking over the world to take any sort of shape. I would LOVE it if you could choose an ultimate goal, and then have a story arc where you follow through on that goal - in keeping with comic book tradition, always failing (to take over the world, avenge your dead parents, return to your former body, etc.). the reason for this being hat resolution is boring, conflict that threatens to bring resolution is exciting.
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I see what you mean