Signature powers... for players -- I had this idea

I like this idea. It's power customization without the devs having to go back and rework EVERY power in the game.

/signed for the millionth time

dfg

bvcbx

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Okay.
/signed, in that case

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Okay.
/signed, in that case

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Not really much better, Serps :P There's tonnes of material in here to be actively discussing - while the dedication to the cause is appreciated, a little more thought would have a lot more effect...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psychoti "....so I headbutted the blind chick."

In that case to make the thread more interesting and to give the devs some thinking room for when they view this thread (which they will ) why not give examples of the signature powers from the list the OP came up with? ie name of power, effects etc etc etc.

I will do this once I figure which what power I would want for which toon etc and once I reread the Original Post.

Sig. Power Example for my Blaster (Which is also a power that should replace Voltaic Sentinel in Elec Blast)

Kendes - Electric Surge - You stand sideways towards the targetted enemy and lift your arm. A conical blast of electricity shoots in front of you dealing Superior damage to the target and moderate damage to any other enemies in the cone. The power will drain more end than other Elec blast powers (Twice as much as all of them but TB and SC) and all of it will be transferred back to you.

Range: 50 feet
End cost: 16
Recharge: This is a debated topic, but if it is part of an attack chain, 15-20s. If it's supposed to be longer, 60s is plenty.
Damage: 8-9 BI on target, 2.5-3.5 BI to others
Activation time: 2 seconds

After expanding the range and area of effect sizes to better match what's in the game, I'm thinking that the cone cost is too high for the size it providers, also. Therefore, I suggest:

[u]Cone Effect[u]
1 point / 10 degrees

Let's use this on Serps power above, and see what we get.


[ QUOTE ]
Sig. Power Example for my Blaster (Which is also a power that should replace Voltaic Sentinel in Elec Blast)

Kendes - Electric Surge - You stand sideways towards the targetted enemy and lift your arm. A conical blast of electricity shoots in front of you dealing Superior damage to the target and moderate damage to any other enemies in the cone. The power will drain more end than other Elec blast powers (Twice as much as all of them but TB and SC) and all of it will be transferred back to you.

Range: 50 feet
End cost: 16
Recharge: This is a debated topic, but if it is part of an attack chain, 15-20s. If it's supposed to be longer, 60s is plenty.
Damage: 8-9 BI on target, 2.5-3.5 BI to others
Activation time: 2 seconds

[/ QUOTE ]


Hrm - not sure much of that we're gonna fit in using my suggested points system, but we'll see...

[u]1) Range[u]
1 point / 15 yards

Using 3 points gives a 45 yard range, which I'll assume is close enough.

[u]2) Area of Effect[u]
1 point / 10 degrees cone

You didn't specify the cone size, so I'm going to guess a 30 degree cone, which would be 3 points.

[u]3) Strength of Effects[u]
2 points / dmg level ; 1 point / other effect level

Superior damage would be 8 points under this scale, which would only leave 4 point left, which is not enough for everything else.
If we say 3 points each for the end drain and end recovery, then we have 6 points left.
We can use those 6 points to give us high damage on the attack.

------------

Final Result: 45-yard, 30 degree cone, with High damage, High end drain and High end returned, every 20-minutes.

------------

One thing that occurs to me is that I haven't included endurance cost at any point. I'm not sure how to deal with this. The points cost is pretty tight as it is, and adding even more expense in the form of endurance cost reductions would further limit what could be done.

I see three solutions:

1) Reduce the cost of the current setup, so have more points to spend on endurance reduction.
2) Give the powers a fixed cost, say 20 endurance.
3) Increase the endurance cost by one for every point spent, with the addition that points spent on damage count double (and yes, that means that each level of damage counts for 4 endurance). So the above power would cost 24 endurance.


I favour number 3 myself, but anybody else have any suggestions?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psychoti "....so I headbutted the blind chick."

This topic must LIVE!!

/signed
I would love signature powers

Am I being thick, or has City of Data's units changed to feet recently? I swear they used to be in yards - but now, it means my earlier ranges and area of effect sizes were spot on, since 3 feet = 1 yard. Ah well. Change all my values to "in feet" from now on:

Also, I think we could get away with halving the duration costs, to 1 point / 2 seconds, but each effect you want that duration on must be paid for seperately.

So, let's try my main character's signature power with these changes:

Ebon Angel - Vampiric

[u]1) Range[u]
1 point / 15 feet

This is a PB attack, so 0 points here.

[u]2) Area of Effect[u]
1 point / 3-feet radius

Similar radius to Dark Consumption/Soul Drain, so 3 points for a 9-foot radius.

[u]3) Effects[u]
2 points / damage level, 1 point / magniture everything else

Low damage, high-mag heal, which is 2 + 3 points, or 5 in total. I now have 10 points left.

[u]4) Duration[u]
1 point / 2 seconds

I want this to be a decent DoT, so I'm going to use all the remaining points to give both effects a 10-second duration.

--------------------

10-second Damage and Heal over time in a 9 foot PB radius every 20 minutes.

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Pretty soon I'll go back and redo some of the older signature powers with the new values, and make sure that everything is still coming out sane...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psychoti "....so I headbutted the blind chick."

New idea, a power with an animaton that may or may not work.

For my 50 Stalker, Serpentines - Illusion Blade - Draw sword, probably looks like katana but more different... yeah. Character is kind of faded out as he quickly slashes in all directions, supposedly faster than a human eye can see, causing after-images to form everywhere. 15 feet radius PBAOE damage, preferrably superior, no lower than high, maybe extreme if possible (I don't mind a huge end cost in that case). Of course, -5% Defense to all targets and knockback, down, and up. Pretty much the character slashes in all directions, eviscerating everything while bodies fly through the air and such. Cannot crit (I assume these powers are never affected by inherants?) Recharge, no idea, probably half an hour or something (I think the recharge should be toned down for these powers just a little, maybe base 15 minutes,) and any end cost maybe between 25-40.

It occurs to me that one of the ones I put in here would require a lot of new animations, so I think I'll replace it with something more... workable

Serafina Dalton - Blurred Motion - She fades to Stealth levels of visibility, and is followed by a red trail of herself (like Synapse's aura), and her run speed and jump height increase slightly. Click power, +Stealth, +Run Speed, +Jump, +Def (Small). From a story standpoint, she's REALLY quick, and is supposed to be able to move fast enough to make her hard to see. The aura... Well, she REALLY likes the color red.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venture I'd never use a nuke in a superhero universe. You nuke a city, you kill 1.5 million people minus one. The last guy not only gets superpowers from the explosion, but ones that let him survive a nuke...and wow, is he torqued off

now im starting to see the problem with the idea. The power creations are all awesome, but each one needs its own animation of some sort. It would be different if they could use some generic animation pool, but many of you are coming up with total custom ideas, with interesting, but unique animations.

say 500K people play CoH, and each one wants his own personalized animation...that would be as many or more animation codes than currently exsist in the game.

I support the concept, and the OP's idea, but im pretty sure thats the first thing the developers saw when they browsed this post. IF they did it at all, you would likely be given a selection of 20-30 animations to choose from, anything else would be like coding a new game. It would simply take them forever.

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now im starting to see the problem with the idea. The power creations are all awesome, but each one needs its own animation of some sort. It would be different if they could use some generic animation pool, but many of you are coming up with total custom ideas, with interesting, but unique animations.

say 500K people play CoH, and each one wants his own personalized animation...that would be as many or more animation codes than currently exsist in the game.

I support the concept, and the OP's idea, but im pretty sure thats the first thing the developers saw when they browsed this post. IF they did it at all, you would likely be given a selection of 20-30 animations to choose from, anything else would be like coding a new game. It would simply take them forever.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most of the ones I've come up with use pre-existing animations, just daisy-chained together into something more interesting. However, what you say here is indeed an obstacle that would need to be addressed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venture I'd never use a nuke in a superhero universe. You nuke a city, you kill 1.5 million people minus one. The last guy not only gets superpowers from the explosion, but ones that let him survive a nuke...and wow, is he torqued off

*constructive post*

Agreed, you'll notice I've stayed well clear of proposing a sytem for selecting the animation :P

That really is the tricky bit...but I am thinking on it...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psychoti "....so I headbutted the blind chick."

My line of thinking on this matter is that the animations should be selectable from the ones we have in-game already, sans visual effects (I.E. Moment of Glory's fist-to-the-sky animation, minus the green particles). Then, as the original suggestion suggested, as we level up we can add the visual effects (I.E. Fist Raise + Soul Drain glow, fire, ice, etc.) as is necessary. Now, it could be that your initial animation pool is limited to, say, some of the emotes (Tarzan, flying Yoga, etc.) and powers already available from your primary/secondary (Whirling Hands, Instant Healing, Foot stomp, etc.), and that list increases as you either A) Purchase more animations, B) Gain levels C) Do missions D) Invent them (via issue 9's Invention system) or E) All of the above.

How does that work for you?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venture I'd never use a nuke in a superhero universe. You nuke a city, you kill 1.5 million people minus one. The last guy not only gets superpowers from the explosion, but ones that let him survive a nuke...and wow, is he torqued off

Awesome idea Ultimus.

/signed
But 1 thing. I don't really like the idea of a generic attack until lv 40 or so. Besides that, the idea rocks. 1 question. Do you get to pick what damage type (with some limitations- coughpsioniccough

/signed but would rather they fix other issues instead of taking on a new project like this.

I will continue to bug them to make the trains like the ferrys in cov. There is no reason why they cant do it. Ya i can fly from here to kingdom come but have to wait to get on a trainl. Yippee!!!

Fellow forumites, I am not going to let this topic go down without a fight.

In the past day or so I've been having an actual PM conversation with a dev whom I will not mention (All mine, rawr!) who I just sent a PM asking to read signature powers. Now this is a dev who replied to 3 or 4 of my PMs, and I sent him/her just that many. He/She replied in record time - a whopping 30 minutes.

Laugh with me! Muhuhaha. Right. Ahem.

As for the issue with animations, it would be much more easy to simply take apart current animations and add them to the Signature Power creation menu and allow one to put them back together in some sort of unique combination. For example, I could whip out a Katana and do Lightning Clap which makes the Katana light on Fire like the Broadsword Build Up then hold it up high in the air like Moment of Glory and have a lightning bolt hit me like in Lightning rod. Make sense?

Muhuhahaha! It was stickied!

High five! Cmon!