Signature power specialization

How cool would it be if you could designate a power as that character's 'signature power' - giving it special attributes that make it stand out from the norm? Currently, ever 'Ebon Eye' (for instance) functions like every other Ebon Eye in the game. Power customization gave us a wonderful ability to make it *look* different from the usual, but your Ebon Eye is still the same as mine. Slotting gives us additional ways to make our two versions of the power different, but most folks slot their powers *roughly* the same if they wish them to be efficient. So, really, most powers in the game are roughly similar despite wildly varying origins and characters. I think that could be changed without reinventing the wheel.

I admit that my main reason for wanting this would be role-playing centric, and not advantage-seeking. Many superheroes have a single power that is really central to the character. That's the one that looks really cool in the panels, and defines the character the most when people think of him or her. Think Cyclops' eye blast. Nightcrawler's teleport, Spiderman's weblines, or Green Lantern's ring. As I said, in the City games, we can make a power look different - but we really can't base a character around one, supercool power in the set.

I'll outline how I think my idea could be implemented in a way that wouldn't require massive reworking of code or mechanics, and retain some semblance of game balance.

1) How do you get it?

It could be a Veteran Reward. Alternatively it could unlock when you get a character to 50, like the Epics (or even when you get both a Hero and a Villain to 50, I don't know, doesn't matter that much).

2) When do you get it?

Upon character creation, you designate a power in one of your sets (you need not be eligible for it yet) as your 'signature power'.

3) What does it do?

Here's the tricky part. The first thing that occurred to me is, "there's no ED for that power." But I think that might be hard to code and might break a bunch of other stuff. So, before you scream about what it would do to PVP - let me say a couple things. A) I don't PVP very much. B) Other things get turned off or changed in how the function when you enter PvP, so...this would be subject to the same system. C) You can have alternate builds now, so maybe a build with a signature power just can't PvP at all. You switch out to your 'normal rules' build if you want to take that character into a PvP zone.
My second thought was cooler though, I think. Forget suspending ED for that power - suppose each slot multiplied whatever you put in it by three (or up to the cap)? So you put one Damage IO in slot 1, and it counts as three of that enhancement. This lets you make a power really stand out, because for you level, it can potentially be max damage, max range, max accuracy, max knockback, etc. Now my Ebon Eye is pretty spiffy - and yours is just the little supporting power it was always intended to be.

Notes:
Yeah, there's a lot more I could have suggested by way of truly customizing a power, but I purposely limited the idea to what I thought could be accomplished without a lot of coding.
I know it would play havoc with enhancement sets - you'd have to choose. Am I going to eventually slot this power with the 'Positron's Meltdown' set, or do I want to make it my signature power and render it ineligible for set enhancements?
If you really want to go nuts, you could have any number of 'signature powers' (like Superman - he's really got a slew of them) - but I figured you'd be throwing game balance to the wind at that point. One power shouldn't be *too much* of a problem. Yes, inevitably some players would min-max, exploit, and so forth - but so what? In PvE it would hardly matter much; and I've offered ideas for making such behavior a non-issue for PvP.

What do you think?

I'll be interested to see what the 'end game' content coming soon is, namely things like the 'Universal slots' and little things mentioned before.
Some sort of Signature Power choice would be really cool, if it could be balanced, though.

I mean, I know I never get sick of watching Imperious blow up whole mobs with his signature lightning move

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

That sounds interesting. Guess I need to check out the rumor boards.

a signature power would be interesting, like unique attacks that arent obtaned normally, like an idea to me would be a signature power would be 1 attack thats signature of an existing AV (like the zeus lightning attack which is signature to imperious and statesman)

while these attacks are fairly powerful alone, and since they were powerful to begin with, you would not be allowed to slot them (like ninja run/walk), this could be a vet power that would give like 4 different options, each option being 1 power from a sigature AV (2 from heroside and 2 from redside)

Hmm, I bout the devs would give us sig powers, given they are tight (not stingy, just careful) on giving us sig costume pieces.

Maybe a 'Make your own power'?

Choice:
Primary Effect (damage, control, buff etc)
Secondary Effect (Optional, less 'efficient' than a primary, also increases end cost/recharge

And then pick a look for it. So, you could pick any animation from either your AT or from the game (depending on balance) and then customise it further with colours, obviously.

Very, very rough and scrappy idea, though. (From me)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

This actually kinda goes to an idea I had for the whole "signature" powers: You take a power, with its slotting, but able to take it into a sort of 'personalized' enhancing area. You then can enhance it with two types of earnable (But not from drops) enhancers that allow the power to do very new/different things. (The earning part would either be through tasks or by leveling.)

First type:
Effect Enhancements
These would be the plus side. They do NOT work with other enhancements. They add new effects, and only off of the base power. So, do you want you single target blast to explode in an AoE? Or your kick attack to burn?
Second type:
Counter enhancements
These counter the first value with something to counter the new effect. You could not put in place an effect without choosing your counter. You want your debuff to also deal damage. Cool. But it will have to recharge slower, use more endurance, or use a slower animation. Or maybe even hurt you!

The more powerful/novel the effect, the stronger the counters needed. Adding simple damage might need only a light increase in endurance use. But making your punch explode in flames would need a lot of counters. Note: not all are an even one-to one.

As you level up, you get more slots to add effects and counters to your chosen power.

Ideas for effects/counters:

effects:
Add damage
Add range (for ranged only)
Add boost effect- to self (+damage, +health,+speed, +defense, etc.)
Add cone/AoE
Add duration (for boosts)
Add status effect
Add new damage type
Reduce activation (select a faster animation from a list)

Counters:
Increase endurance use
Increase recharge time
Increase activation (select a slower animation from a list)
Self +Debuff (character gets weakened some way from using the power)
Self +damage (character is harmed by using the effect)
Self +defeat (character dies using power)
Reduced range (range only)

Anywise, just a thought.

not to be rude at all, but isnt there a sticky topic about power customization at the top of this forum?

just pointing it out in case you missed it

I guess it depends on whether or not you'd class this idea as a 'customization'. If a mod wants to move it, so be it.

Posting here reminds me why I stopped posting here. Too much to ask to discuss the idea - much more fun to point out that buried somewhere else in the forum someone once said something similar at some point. Oh, you've seen the idea before and it should be in some other location? Fine. Sorry. My bad. Now, drive on. Once it's posted, it's posted. An idea is not worth talking about if it's not in the exact right place you'd like to see it? OK....

Sorry. I figured if you wanted to read posts discussing signature powers, it was a good idea to point you to the 40+ pages of players talking about just that.

Because I see this post (or one exactly like it) hyperbolically erupt once in a while; I am first going to take issue with it. Then add about .5 Inf to be FC (Forumatically Correct).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suggestionator Posting here reminds me why I stopped posting here.

Yet you continue to come back. Einstein would say something about that, but I will let it hang.

Quote:

Too much to ask to discuss the idea - much more fun to point out that buried somewhere else in the forum someone once said something similar at some point.

Same old strawman, and you took him out in the same old way: hyperbole FTL!

A good 90% (or better) of the time that someone says that; the Post referred to is a Sticky at the top of the Thread Listings. The later 10% of the time, the Thread referred to has been active for a couple of days, and people have already hashed it out; and not wanting to let you feel as if 'nobody cares', they are simply pointing you in the direction of where people have already been discussing it. Why do you have to make that a negative?

Quote:

Oh, you've seen the idea before and it should be in some other location? Fine. Sorry. My bad. Now, drive on. Once it's posted, it's posted. An idea is not worth talking about if it's not in the exact right place you'd like to see it? OK....

After I myself administrated a CoV message board (a lot like this one), I came to understand exactly what the CR guys (and gals) here have flat out stated a couple of times: they sticky posts that are popular or oft repeated in order to get everything in one place, and save the Subscribers time rehashing the same old stuff over and over. It is simply a matter of economizing a humongous, but finite resource. We could have twelve dozen Threads just like yours discussing the exact same topic (but that would be gross), and people would get bored with it and not check out the 145th Thread on the subject which just might contain the jewel. So the CR's sticky a thread and say; "Hey guys. We have a spot specifically designated for this topic now. Save yourself some time Searching and use that one so that everyone interested doesnt have to waste their time searching." It is essentially the same as keeping Suggestions in S&I and Player Questions in Player Questions. Although, lately I have seen Suggestion threads erupt in Player Questions with people not caring that they are posting in the wrong place. They are still wrong. As are you. It is what it is.

On Topic: I like your idea, and Seldom's, and Zamuel's take also. Interesting stuff. As far as making Signature Powers like the Zeus Attack; that probably wont ever happen because it would be too labor intensive. And after the first time someone sees the Lightning fall fromthe sky, someone else will want it, and suddenly you and 15,000 other Characters are using the same Signature Power anyway.

Actually, any power can be a Signature Power (a la Ebon Eye as stated previously). It just depends on how much you use it, or what importance one character puts on that power to the exclusion of many others in any set. To make it unique is always the problem, and the problem with that is making it balanced, and that is in the hands of the Devs. Wonder what they will do about it? I look forward to seeing.

Good luck.

PS: Incidentally, this would have a big impact on characters like Blasters and Dominators who have, pretty much, 2 offensive sets to add outbound tags to. They'd end up with the capability to expand their offensive abilities to have greater affect on a greater number of foes while the ATs with defensive sets would only get to make this choice for 1 set.

It'd work the other way around, too, because the defensive ATs could get greater invulnerabilities through tags to add to their defensive abilities.

Personally, I'd rather keep the game from becoming much more complicated (something I've been landing on deaf years since time began), so I'd rather avoid these complex benefit/drawback mechanics stuck on existing power models. For one, the expectation here is that this would lead to diversity, but I can already see that this would lead to massive homogeneity. As we saw with pre-ED slotting, there are only a few meaningful parameters in a power to slot, with the rest being not very important, and that's what people will do - pick a power and boost damage and accuracy at the cost of, say, endurance cost, then just use Stamina or other methods to offset that cost. Exactly like what happened to Instant Healing.

I'm not really against the concept of taking an existing power and making it signature, but that has an inherent problem with it - direct damage attacks are fairly easy to quantify from best to worst, so simply being allowed to boost one will see mostly the same one in each powerset boosted. And while I'm all for allowing people to customize even against numerical benefit, I'd rather not make people choose between customization and performance whenever possible.

I certainly understand the merit of having customized powers. I don't read a lot of comic books (like, any at all whatsoever), but even I can appreciate having my very own Stone Cold Stunner or Kamehamehadouken. The problem, as it were, is that most sets are already built with one of these in mind hardcoded into the set itself. For Energy Melee, that's Energy Transfer. For Super Strength, that Knockout Blow or Ground Punch, depending on what you're fighting. For Broadsword, that's Head Splitter and so on and so forth. This naturally inclines the players to take signature powers and make them even MORE signature. And that's just asking for trouble.

How about, instead of fiddling with enough effects to make a statistician red with rage, we allow players to visually customize one power beyond what is normally available. For instance, if I want my Head Splitter to be more special, I can add an impressive explosion to the strike that other people who picked something else won't have. For those that pick Total Focus over Energy Transfer, they could have something of a similar trait to it, while those that pick Energy Transfer could have something special on their power. That way people get to have "special" powers without practically rewriting the balance of the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Yeah, I get all that - but it falls short as an argument. Here's why:

* In the age of fully-indexed databases and the Google engine being pretty cheap - a keyword search should be all that's necessary. This search engine sucks on this forum.

* Making infrequent but interested posters feel like it wasn't worth visiting or bothering to contribute because anyone with 100 posts to their name tends to act like an A-HOLE to anyone with 99 posts...is counterproductive, to say the least. Probably even helps lose customers.

* There's no reason that a mod, or even someone who has earned "trusted user" status should be able to move a post to the right location. I'm not going to look for it where it was - I'm going to search for it, anyway. A subject-tagging system for posts could do this job with minimal resource overhead.

* To those who really just wanted to point me to the right place - thank you. Read your posts before letting them fly, and try to figure out if you sound helpful, or condeseding. You may be exactly right, and have your message fall on deaf ears because of the delivery.

Now, back to the idea. Mine avoids most of the objections. There is no additional animation needed. There are no additional mechanics or balancing needed. If everybody has one Super Super power...it'll mostly balance out. The min-maxers will all be clones, and really, in PvE, who cares? The signature power is turned off in PvP, as with some already existing powers (or characters with signature powers can't enter PvP zones - whatever is simpler) so that's not a problem. Between the ability to make one power great in up to 6 different ways instead of 2, and Power Customization, they could really pull this off without much effort. It would be cool, but it's not necessary. It was just a....suggestion.

The issue I have with your suggestion is that Signature Powers already exist, and they're nothing like what you're suggesting.

"What's that, Cap'n? There's no signature powers in the game! You're silly!"

But lad, there ARE, they're just not player accessible. I know full well of a power in a secret power pool...

The Power Pool called Synapse, and the power called Synaptic Strike! And it's not one of his normal powers!

"So what DOES the Cap'n want for signature powers?"

Something that works like this

Power Pool: Charactername
Power: Whatever you want... On a 30 minute timer.
You plug in what you want it to do... Range or melee, area, any secondary effects, and then you pick an animation from ANY power set (even weapon sets: Munitions Mastery shows this works) that matches the delivery type and recolor it to your specifications. As far as damage, well, just set up the formula so that Melee Lethal Single Target does the most, and every special effect or delivery modifier you want decreases the damage a bit. So, as an example, for my signature powers...


Power Pool: Cap'n Geist
Power: Plunge Me Hook Into Ya
Animation: Super Strength Punch (Cross, Left Handed)
Single Target
Melee
Lethal
Secondary Effect: Mag 100 Disorient [Mag 6 in PVP zones] (Slight damage debuff)
Secondary Effect: Defense Debuff (Slight damage debuff)
Modifier: Mastermind, x0.55 melee damage, x0.1 defense debuff, x1.49 Stun Duration


"But Cap'n, why a 30 minute recharge?"

Because the only way this power can be silly good every time you use it is if the recharge is through the roof! Besides, this isn't a straight attack, this is the signature power, this be what you do when it's time to WIN. Look at this as your Sweet Chin Music, your Tombstone Piledriver, your, as said earlier, Stone Cold Stunner.

This is the power you fire off once an episode that almost always wins. And then your fans go "if it always wins, why don't you use it earlier?" to which you have to point out "If I used it when he was still at full HP I wouldn't have won with it!"

"Wait, Mag 100 Disorient?"

If I only get one shot of this every 10 minutes even when purpled out the wazoo, it better be able to punch through purple triangles!

Trim it for PVP zones to prevent silly long durations. Or disable it in PVP entirely.

"What are those modifiers at the end for Masterminds?"

Well, every AT's better at some things and worse than others. Masterminds do about half the damage of a blaster on all attacks (Blaster melee is x1) , but our Defense Debuffs are bigger (Blaster is x0.07) and our stuns last longer (Blaster is 1.192). Sure, your signature power can be anything you want it to be... But if a Scrapper asks for the same melee attack as an MM, it's gonna do the scrapper better... That's the price you pay for diversification.

"How does this interact with different ATs?"

Well, every AT's got their special, so let's run down the list...
Blasters: You can use your Signature Attack while Mezzed. It's your ultimate attack, which also means it's your ultimate escape. On top of that, it gives a bigger damage bonus for a longer duration than most of your attacks.
Controller: If your signature attack mezzes, increase the duration by 20% on top of normal controller modifier. Your signature attack ALWAYS reads "Overpower" when delivered.
Defender: Vigilance works as normal with your signature attack.
Scrapper: Your signature attack can crit.
Tanker: Your signature attack includes a long duration taunt on all nearby targets.


Brute: Your Signature Attack is affected by Fury. Don't waste it when your fury is low.
Corruptor: Your Signature Attack can Scourge. This makes it doubly amazing to try and finish off giant monsters and AVs.
Dominator: If your signature attack mezzes, then while you have Domination up, instead of doubling the magnitude (as it's already Mag 100), double the duration.
Mastermind: Any buffs you would gain from your signature attack are added to all your minions as well. You should consider maxing out the self-buffs in your attack.
Stalker: Your signature attack deals 3x damage on a crit instead of 2x. If you sneak up on someone and then deliver your signature attack, they're pretty much boned.

"What about EATs?"

I'm skipping EATs for now. This is half because I have no idea what Kheldians or Spiders even do (I know Widows well enough, but meh) and half because you get the point, and these are just rough ideas anyway. Mmm... eats... I'm kind of hungry.

Discuss. I'm gonna fix that. The hungry thing.

I like the "build your own power out of attribute Lego" approach. Interesting. I do see it as a lot of coding, though. Also, you'd have to consider that the devs would potentially need to rebalance every scenario - since up to 8 people running a mission can do something totally off the scale every 30 minutes. Maybe it's only accessible if you are solo, or maybe duo/level pact?

Isn't this already a sticky? that has been widely accepted/wanted for a while?