Winterminal

So much of this!

The whole post was spot-on, but these final paragraphs really capture the essence of exactly what I would have said.

The bold excerpt is what stands out to me as a big difference between the City of Heroes game and other comic book universes. Batman is, of course, capable of a Judgement-magnitude attack, but not all the time. I build many of my characters in a similar fashion.

Both are prime examples of what I am talking about. In the first, your character evolved/grew to a point where you felt those telekinetic powers were now appropriate. Not that your character was never capable of them, he just wasn't capable of them yet. And Ape is another good example (and one of the most interesting of which I have read)! You implemented a weakness, one that has absolutely nothing to do with your powers, slotting, etc., yet can be very present over the course of the mission. Things like that are what I find fascinating about characters, because that is something that I am highly unlikely to find from another character in the game.

And as for your comment about how not taking things like Weave and Maneuvers on a melee character is gimping: I think that depends on the definition of gimping. We all know what it means, but I'm sure the "measure of severity" varies from player to player. As for myself, I do not particularly think of your example as a "gimp," but I am sure that a min/maxing player who constantly shoots for the soft cap most definitely would disagree with me.

This I huge, and I think it is what does not translate for people sometimes. Characters certainly can evolve, but the player may not deem it necessary and/or worthwhile, or just may not think the time is right for such a change.

I see where you are coming from, but try looking at it another way: perhaps for that given player, the character is not supposed to grow, or will not grow in one particular direction. For most of us creating these characters, regardless of how you view this particular topic, we are creating them as part of a universe. Whether that universe is related to City of Heroes or some other of your own imagination is up to the player, but they are part of a certain reality, same as Spiderman is part of Marvel's reality, or Batman is part of DC's reality.

A CoH character's growth is up to the player, just as Spiderman's or Batman's growth is up to the writers' and artists' who handle their respective stories. If someone has created a Street Justice/Super Reflexes Scrapper with a speedster concept, they have the choice to justify or not justify whatever they wish. Sure, they could justify an Incandescent Destiny power as "'Character' is so fast, he's able to pick up everyone in his league and bring them to one location, in an instant," but maybe that player does not feel their character is capable of that.

Another thing to consider is the "unique snowflake" theory.

Spiderman and Batman (or most other characters for that matter) are distinct in their respective universes because they do things that no one else does, or at least no one else does as well as them. Example: Nightwing's combat skills and gadgetry use are definitely on par with Batman's, but Nightwing probably has an acrobatic edge over Batman while Batman's detective and problem-solving skills are unmatched. Two characters who have very similar origins and abilities, but who are still distinct from one another.

In City of Heroes, a player can actually make a character more unique by not taking a certain ability. Generally, in this game and most others, the player wants the most power possible, because typically the most powerful characters have access to the most stuff (content, abilities, rewards, etc.). So in a game where the majority of the player base will take all of the worthwhile abilities in any given power set, and then most likely end up with the same incarnate abilities as someone else, how else does one stand out except to pass on something that may be more of a stretch of their concept? Granted, I would think someone not taking any move in Street Justice for conceptual reasons to be confusing, but as someone mentioned earlier, someone skipping the T9 of Electric Armor because they did not write their character to be capable of turning into pure electricity makes total sense to me.

I can only speak for myself here, and find me irritating if you will, but I actually take pride in the fact that my Ice/Ice/Cold blaster only uses Cryonic Judgement. Oh sure, I have Lore, Destiny, and Alpha slotted with T3s so that I can contend with incarnate content as +3, but the powers themselves may as well not even exist. When I run into another Ice/Ice/Cold blaster, who fires off Cryonic and then summons their Lore pets, I admit to getting a selfish sense of satisfaction out of the fact that I do not do something another very similar character does.

I laughed at the last part, haha. I see your point though.

I love it! I should make one of those on Pinnacle...

Truth.

The first round of alternate animations for ranged sets was... less than stellar. Not because the animations were bad, but because they were poorly distributed. (I mean, Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, and Bitter Ice Blast all ended up with the same alternate animation, and that shouldn't have happened.)

They've always said that releasing new power sets is hard at this point because a new set should be visually and effectually unique. But most of the secondary effects available in-game are already taken by certain sets. Hence we have the "extras" in each paid-for power set that we've had (Beam Rifle's Disintegration/Spread, Street Justice's Combo system, Titan Weapons's Momentum, Beast Mastery's Pack Mentality, and Staff Fighting's Perfection).

Personally, I would not care if a set came out that had the same secondary effects as an existing set, so long as everything else was balanced. With customization the way it is, there is a lot left open to interpretation, so would it really matter THAT much if two ranged sets had -DEF as their secondary effect?


But to answer the question: I would prefer new animations at this point, or at least a proliferation of existing animations to other similar power sets.

I would have quoted the whole post, but I snipped it for brevity.

What was addressed in the quoted post is definitely a part of what I was asking. And while "gimping" is not what I would call any of the things discussed so far in this thread, some players would (hence why I originally used that word). But yeah, like Leo said, is there anything that you do to further a concept beyond what the game's mechanics allow, which others might see as you "purposefully gimping" a character?

You're completely right. I didn't mean to make it come off that way and I will edit my post. Sorry about that.

I get that.

I suppose another way to ask this is: Are you someone who commonly will stop their character's power level at a certain point (for whatever reason), even if it means you may miss out on a certain chunk of content, or be less powerful than your peers?

This little sentence here made me laugh

Unfortunately, I am sort of over the system as a whole. The fact that everyone gets the same abilities has really soured my opinion of it. But that's another topic.

I would LOVE to see a portal to the Rikti Home World, something occurring in outer space, a revamp of the Shadow Shard where we get to face Rularuu, etc.

I would also like to see some kind of Incarnate content that is not co-op, in any way. I think it would be cool if actions on either side of the line could affect the other side in some way, but that toes the line of PvP, and I know some people wouldn't appreciate that.

And the truth... shall set you free!

Many people probably powered through archetypes that they otherwise find cumbersome to play (a primarily Scrapper player may have used this weekend to power through a Controller, for example).

I'm with the general consensus: give it a couple days, and it will be back to normal.