Ninja MM Heavy hitter - Oni Improvement

To whom it may concern,

I would like to submit that the ninja MM heavy hitter, the Oni, is a weak caricature of what it really could be. It often stays in the background and avoids melee. If I wanted to work dilligently and be rewarded with a hellacious demon who merely puts a few embers of Kingsford charcoal at the feet of my enemies and wears a rubber mask from Wal-Mart, the present Oni is for me.

I would like to see an Oni from Japanese manuscript. Blue Skin, massively muscled, almost 9 feet tall, Monster costume parts for hands and feet, randomly armored with mismatched pieces of steel or lacquered wood, boldly tattooed, strong melee and strong ranged with little emphasis on insignificant circles of lighter fluid at the feet of my enemies to hold them in place. I would like to see a bonus to damage for all pets nearby (similar to how an ENFORCER adds to the Thugs) since the Oni would whip them into shape and/or influence them with his desire for destruction while on this plane of existence. At the same time a small radius of fear since he is, of course, from Hell.

I would very much enjoy seeing him wield a large naginata, even one with a firey blade. His eyes should be bulging out of his head, his nose should have a large bronze ring to signify that he is under control, much like a beast of burden. A white topnot would add Asian flair to him, no moustache or beard, please. His horns should be small but prominent, nothing like many of the huge and ungainly horns available as costume parts. His costume improvements might be that at tier one he gets a chestplate, one shinguard (greave). At tier two he gets the second greave, a single metal bracer on the arm that holds the lower portion of the naginata, fiery eyes and a dark purple sash with ends that flow like a hero's cape, not static like the karate belt costume part.

For his actual animations, just because he is huge doesn't mean that he would move like a bulky MALTA robot. He could swing his naginata weapon in a circle like the dual blades animation or icy assault sword circle, and he could powerfully kick with his feet or swipe with his hands.

I would like to see him have a simple ranged fire attack like flares and maybe fireball as an improvement to that, or scorch (blast?) (if I'm listing powers correctly). I'm no powers guru. I would like to spend more time on the creative content then the number-crunching and sharing awkward jokes at the water cooler near the Nerdery. I know that's essential for smooth gameplay, but I'll have to leave that to someone else with more patience than I. All of these far reaching powers and animations don't have to be incredibly powerful, but I believe the content of the Oni should be taken to the next level. It's always all about the game's content in the end. That's the only thing that will stave off any assault from the Marvel or DC MMORPG wanna-be's.

Just as I was pleased to work my way up and build a killing machine Assault Bot, I'd enjoy being rewarded with an insanely cunning and vicious Oni, not some little kid in a red devil-masked halloween-outfit who has a vendetta because someone stole his bag of treats. As of right now, the trick is on me.

Thanks in advance for reading.

---

You realize none of that is ever going to happen, right?

If you're having trouble with the Oni not going into melee, tell him to go into melee. Right click on him, or his name in the pet window, click "Go To" and click where you want him.

---

[ QUOTE ]
You realize none of that is ever going to happen, right?

If you're having trouble with the Oni not going into melee, tell him to go into melee. Right click on him, or his name in the pet window, click "Go To" and click where you want him.

[/ QUOTE ]Don't tell him to do that. The current Oni sucks in melee, because as soon as he whips out the fire katana, he stops using char, ring of fire, and rain of fire to absolutely melt the opposition.

---

Apostrophe guidelines.

To whom it may concern,

It has been a long time since I drew pictures, but hopefully I can put something to paper or scan an image. I truly don't know if it's worth my time but I find myself thinking about it again and again in my off-time. I say that not because I don't want to add to the game, but because it seems unlikely that this will happen. However, I do understand that a true point / counterpoint discussion involves not only a criticism but a solution.

I disagree with having the Oni hold enemy combatants. In the spirit of aggressive evil nature he would kill outright or enjoy watching pain and suffering. I think Rain Of Fire is an excellent example of causing pain and suffering that reduces the enemy to withering morale.

Let me come up with a few illustrations and / or scans. I feel that these will be given the lowest of priorities or outright shelved by the staff members due to the large amount of maintenance, debugging and Architect issues that are already piled high on their collective plate. Regardless, I'm on it. No one can accuse me of being a big whiny-baby, all talk and no solutions.

One thing off topic: I've fired a minigun, the Mk44. It has a solid growl, not a rat-a-tat-tat like a tommy gun. The bullets (5.56 and 7.62) are usually in a 4:1 ball to tracer mix with the rate of fire so awesome that the tracers look like a solid line. Maybe that could be put into the Lonbow minigun animation. The sweeping motion that the Council and Lonbow go through is correct. It would be very realistic to see a quick spin-up of the barrel assembly, then the line of trace from the bullets, and then a spin-down, if you will, of the barrel assembly. The actual firing of the minigun in the movie Predator isn't so fantastic because it was filmed in daylight with many safety stops in place. If you google minigun tracer or spectre gunship tracer fire you might get a better illustration. It makes a similar "burp" sound to the A10 when it flies gun runs danger-close to my position. There is no arguing where the bad guys are when that thing comes in low.

My bandwidth is very limited here in Afghanistan so I combined these two ideas in one post.

Thanks in advance for reading.

---

Oni in City of Villians.

Oni in a popular Japanese TV series.

I think it looks fine. Dunno about combat prowess.

---

The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)

Virtue Forever.

I spent some time looking up the Oni origins and it is very interesting to see that they are used in Japanese folklore more like we use imps and gremlins in European folklore. The Oni was often used to play an important role in children's stories. Sometimes they were chased away by a man or woman flinging dried beans at them. That's not the stuff that puts fear in my heart, I'll go to the store and buy a 50lb bag of dried kidney beans and wait for him to come knocking.

Another interesting point was that they were often used in tails of long duration torment or punishment. A bladed weapon like a katana or naginata might signify a quick and clean death. Most of the illustrations from manuscript show oni with no weapon or with a brutally-large studded club called a KANABO, a very heavy weapon of wood and iron or simply iron. It was so heavy that only mythical monsters could handle it.

With this in mind, it would simplify the animation process because this weapon or some facsimile is already in use. So are the animations to employ it, such as those used for Mace set, Bane soldier set, and the animations used for Carnival of Shadows strongmen with mallets.

These powers I've chosen also have no new animation concepts. Even with Rain of Fire animations, the Oni can still hold onto his Kanabo and the club will merely pass through his other hand, or even better, an in-game emote like "Curses" or "Over Here" (right one? Arm circles overhead 2 or 3 times) could be employed. Over here would look twice as intimidating with a large studded club.

As for the damage bonus to pets, I would reference my earlier post about the demon influencing the ninja to more ferocious acts of violence. I would use a similar system of demonic influence on the pets as the THUGS enforcers have on the other pets or WIDOW powers give a boost to the team. It doesn't necessarily mean that it is as powerful as the power pool ASSAULT, but maybe the base value could be upgraded slightly as a byproduct of your putting damage slots into the ONI.

I would change the Oni AI slightly so that he would wade into melee more frequently than he currently chooses to go at it. Also, his mace-like attacks would have similar effects to War Mace power set for disorient and knockback, but no reduction in damage resistance like the Bane Soldier set. It would be entertaining to see enemies catch on fire when struck by the Oni, for minimal damage but maximum fun.

One thing I think would be a novel concept would be to have different skin colors for the Oni, much like the Thugs. A random generation of deep blood red, bright cyan blue and dull freshly-cut plywood yellow. The Japanese character for "PAIN", "Agony", "Despair or "Suffering" could be tattooed on him repeatedly or on one arm. He might even have the japanese calligraphy appear and dissapear on his chest or as a large image around him, similar to the strange characters that appear and dissapear on the SHAMAN's chest (the dude who is found with the Pain Masks and Dry Husks).

There is one thing about the above suggestion that would be very controversial, and that would be to have oni skin colors that would bring a certain bonus to the pets. A random roll would determine the color and the mastermind would have no power to influence the result. Red - Damage, Blue - Defense, Yellow - Accuracy. I bring this up because in the comic books, movies and novels, bringing some wild and out-of-control evil entity into bondservice never seems to go 100% as planned. This has similar conotations in the veteran reward for faires, shield generators, oscillators, will-o-wisps where the color of the summoned pet is rooted to its effects.

I reference CROWD CONTROL because I like the thought of a very powerful swing with an absurdly heavy mace resulting in bodies flying, much like in The Lord Of The Rings (Sauron wields his mace in the first part of the 1st movie and large monsters wield their maces after they breach the city's gate in the 3rd movie).

Powers as follows:

Inherent Powers
Fireball
Pulverize (From Mace set, not Bane soldier set)
Damage Bonus to pets - similar effects as Assault. If the skin color/appropriate bonus theme is used, then we might see Assault, Manuevers and Tactics bonus to pets.

Trained Powers
Firebreath
Fearsome Stare
Cinders -or- Blaze

Trained Costume Improvements
Chestplate
One Greave (shinguard)
Fiery eyes

Enlightened Powers
Whirling Mace (From Mace set, not Bane Soldier set)
-or- Crowd Control
Rain of Fire
Heal self (20% of total hit points) - only used when in AGRESSIVE MODE


Enlightened Costume Improvements
Second Greave
Metal bracer on one arm
Dark purple sash with oriental-themed print. It should flow and move like a hero cape.

As soon as I understand how to imbed pictures I will share what I've drawn or found by open source internet searches.

Thanks in advance for reading.

---

Yeah, the thing is, I picked Ninja/ for my MM because I liked the mez Oni brought to the table. So as many people as would like that change, others would hate it.

(Ref.: "cabin rule". Devs don't change powers wholesale for the most part.)

---

Apostrophe guidelines.