Why no Super Strength Scrapper?

Cuz it ain't been ported yet. No other reasons. Takes time to decide how to port it. Time has to be managed.

YEAH!!!

Wait...what?

Now I want an Electric Boogaloo powerset.

Then it would have to be the sequel, Breakin 2

This.

For crying out loud, what's the problem with letting some archtypes have exclusive power sets ONLY for that archtype?

Not everything needs to be proliferated, or should.

Now, I have no personal problems with Super Strength as a scrapper set. It's not like requesting it as a stalker set where the entire mechanics of what makes Super Strength it's own unique set would have to be chunked out the nearest window. That being said, it is my opinion that Super Strength is one of the sets that should not be proliferated.

I realize that a significant amount of the player-base hardly cares about game design mechanics, and that possible a larger amount of the player-base doesn't care about thematic design elements either. My argument for not proliferating Super-Strength to scrappers is largely centered on the thematic design rather than the mechanical design.

I realize that a significant amount of the player population does not think their should be a different gameplay experience for each separate archtype. I realize that a significant amount of the player population does not think that their chosen archtype should fill any mechanically designed role in the game as a default setting. I realize that a significant amount of the player population will leverage any in-game mechanics that they can to make their chosen archtype into something it was not designed to be.

Ergo, I realize that the positioning of my argument against proliferating the Super Strength set is only going to be a viable argument for those who care about thematic and mechanic design elements. It is not going to be an effective or useful argument against a player who cares about neither design elements and simply wants the set to be ported.

From a thematic standpoint each of the melee archtypes is supposed to have their own unique play-style that their specific powers leverage:

• Stalkers: These guys are supposed to be experts at hit and run tactics. Their powers sets are geared towards striking at a single target inflicting maximum burst damage, then getting the heck out of dodge.
• Scrappers: These guys are supposed to be the lean / scrawny athletic type. They can dish out the damage to single targets or alternatively just shred entire mobs with mass point blank area of effect attacks. A scrapper cares not for the battle strategy. All they care about is just taking out the next target, and getting in as many photos of themselves as they can. A scrapper is about taking down the other guys as quickly as possible, while trying not to get too scuffed up.
• Brutes: These guys are supposed to be nuts. They charge into a fight with anything they have on hand to fight with and just wail on stuff till something dies, be it the Brute or the Brute's opponent.
• Tanks: These guys are supposed to take damage. Yes, they can dish it out too, but a tank approaches each fight as a strategic battle. A tank stands their ground where a scrapper would come to it's senses and leave, or a brute would die from exhaustion.

Yes, this is kind of a glossy once over borrowing elements from how each set has been described in the past.

The Super Strength set as it's exposed to Tankers is just a solid animation set. It's not fancy, it's not over the top. It's a simple collection of strong punches.

For scrappers, it's almost too simple. Which is why Scrappers get Martial Arts. A Martial Artist leverages their whole body when attacking. It's a fancily animated set that fits the thematic design of the scrapper archtype.

Super Strength works on Brutes because Brutes are insane.

While I realize that these thematic elements are hardly set in stone, as various new power sets like Kinetic Melee and Dual-Blades aptly demonstrate, they tend to hold up for the classically designed powerset.

I also realize that for a lot of players, Martial Arts does not quite fit their idea of a punching scrapper. There are continuous threads requesting for a proper set featuring street fighting or otherwise named dirty fighting powers.

These entirely new design sets typically fall prey to one of the basic design limitations of the City of Heroes engine: Lack of 1 to 1 character effect animations or synchronization.

In City of Heroes each player is presented to the game world as a bubble. There is no direct interaction between the player and a targeting enemy or object.

This becomes a bit of a serrated chainsaw from an animation standpoint. Many of the powers that players would like to see in a street fighting or dirty fighting set, such as elbow punchs, leg locks, shin kicks, nut cracks, and so on, simply do not look right when animated from within the players bubble.

The bubble limitation means the camera has to be pulled back where only a limited number of animation types still look believable. The key word here is types. I'm not saying the animations themselves are limited. What is limited is just how many places a punch or kick can end up, and still look like it hit the player's target within the limitations of the physical size of each character model loaded.

Basically: A kick from somebody who took the Huge Frame and made it as tall as possible still has to look like it connected even if the target of the kick took the female frame and made it as small as physically possible.

Elemental, Preternatural, Supernatural, Augmented, or Weapon based powers are easier to fudge. The animations of these sets can be designed so that the effect of the set reaches outside of the player's model and is not necessarily constrained by the physical limitations of how far the skeletal frame itself can move within the bubble.

As is, both Super Strength and Martial Arts cover a wide range of the existing types of attacks that don't look utterly ludicrous without an animation augmentation. From this aspect, I could see the developers looking at porting the Brute version of Super Strength to Scrappers to satisfy the desires of players who want a set that is mostly made up of basic punches. I can also see the developers porting Martial Arts to Tanks for those Tank players who want something that's over the top and flashy.

My personal opinion is that the developers should try and stick to their guns on these power-sets and leave them where they are.

God bless you, Bill Z Bubba.
I can understand Je Saist's arguement, but in the end, its somewhat of an old and invalid one, and at the same time, Pre-GR, Dev's Concept of an AT =/= Player's Concept for a character.
My main Villain Redcoat is a Dual Blades and Super Reflexes BRUTE, but is not much a brute by either personality, style, or nature.
"Why not just roll him up as a Stalker"? Because Stalker's DB sucks and by his concept, he's supposed to be able to take punches, shake himself off a little, and punch right back.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

From a thematic standpoint, Shang Chi doing more damage than Superman is ridiculous.

Super Strength has a ranged attack, a knock up, a better AoE, and Rage.

Because the archtypes are not exclusively about powers. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses apart from the powers the AT allows. More importantly, given that this is a comic book super-hero simulation, the lack of super strength scrappers in particular is a major flaw. Not all comic book SS types are meat shields. Characters like Beast, Hourman, Doctor Fate after he was de-magiked in the 40's, Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, and numerous others are examples of characters whose main combat power is Super Strength but they are not "tanks".

This is where I get lost on the proliferation arguement.

This reply here (not to Tenzhi in perticular) makes it more of a "I want this for a game mechanic reason only" instead of "I want this for concept"

At which point, I say leave it there then.

And with the alternate animations of Martial Arts, I find it hard to think people can't use Martial Arts for their super strength scrapper concepts. It has the punches! Take them.

It only lacks one thing, and that's ripping the chunk of earth from beneath them and throwing it, and which time, a lot of people skip it anyways in those "optimal builds" so that arguement gets lost to.

I don't think the arguements are wrong. I think the devs just forgot to have different animations to go along with their original intent on those ATs.

Brutes Dual Blades should of looked more savage and brutal compared to the finesse they have now. But they didn't go the route of "whole lotta animations" and instead went "one animation to rule them all"

A prime exhibition of limited thematic scope and misunderstanding of ingame mechanics. It's appauling, really. Not only dictating strategy (which varies from set to set) but also appearance and psychology.

Even the points you bring up don't have any holding over what sets shouldn't be proliferated. That a Stalker is a precision fighter (they are not hit-and-runners...anyone could hit and run) or a Scrapper is a generalist fighter (of all the melees, it is the most flexible) wouldn't dictate how physically strong or built a character is. Nor does the fury of a Brute suddenly make them 'nuts' or some kind of barbarian minded creature that clubs things with anything just lying about.

That said, I was against proliferation at the start and I'd even say I'm still sort of against it...but not completely. The sets across the ATs shouldn't be basic copies. I always thought, for Scrapper's Super Strength should have 1 or 2 of the powers replaced with a more scrappier like power, like replacing Hurl with a cone Backhand power or something. Honestly, *all* the powersets shared should have had at least 1 power unique to that AT to give it a bit more of the AT's flavor to it.

That said, I still want my SS stalker. Martial Arts doesn't get the knockdown/knockup or the shockwave strike visuals that SS does. The only way MA would be able to aptly simulate SS is if you could take all those effects and replace them into the MA set...you might as well just proliferate the set instead. Much easier.

I was replying specifically to someone seeking game mechanic reasons, however the two ideologies (that is, game mechanics and concept) need not remain alien to each other. Conceptually, I like the idea of being super strong and uppercutting someone way up into the air, or smashing the ground with super strong force and flooring the enemies around me in a decent-sized area. Mechanically, Super Strength accomodates this where Martial Arts does not.

Super Strength is more than just having punches, I'd say. Indeed, ideally Super Strength should have some raw power kick animation options thrown in for good measure.

It also lacks a sucktacular but patented super clap, a ground smash of doom, an uppercut of Popeye-ian proportions, perma-strongest-one-there-is mode, and those satisfying super strength impact explosions.

I's punch lika a comet and drinks till I's vomit!
I'm popin' an' sailin' man!

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

I can understand all the other arguments here, and after consideration I am in favour of SS for Scrappers. It's just this one thing I can't get my head around...

The simple answer? Rage. The devs don't like how it works on Tanks and Brutes, so they sure as hell aren't going to try to port that headache over to Scrappers and, dare I say it, Stalkers. It would require some serious rebalancing to not break the game wide open.

When they are satisfied with how that power is balanced, then we may see it proliferated. Not likely till then.