Big explosions or simple cowboys?

For my part, I think it's more about the "why." There should be a good reason why a character does what he's doing, and that's simply not apparent in Dual Pistols. I mean, what benefit is gained by throwing your pistols 6 feet in the air when you could just, oh, I dunno, shoot them? I could accept it as showing off if it happened, say, one time out of ten when the power activated. But every time, it's just a way of padding out the animation with useless fluff that's stupid and pointless.

Kinetic Melee, for its part doesn't bother me. You can see the character swirling their hands around gathering the energy up, and then releasing it. There's a point to the flashiness. Dual pistols doesn't have that. It just looks like a person who has absolutely no idea how guns work, and so they spin them around and throw them in the air, and hope against hope that somehow they'll stumble along into a way to make the bullets come out.

A little of both. It all depends on the character I'm playing at the time.

I like flash-bang, Ka-Whop, Bash, (Freem!?) with my Blasters and Corruptors. After all, it's what they do well. But, it doesn't fit so well with others.
Earlier someone gave an example of an Empath having trouble "healing people to death." Actually, that's exacly with my Empathy Defender carries a bow. She has one "Superpower," she heals people really well. Useful, but a bit boring. I was looking for a logical attack power that fit with that idea and, since Pistols had not come into existance yet, Archery it was.
Playing with her is more of a "Cowboy" gunfight feel. Shoot, duck, dodge, shoot again. Granted, she has explosive arrows, but it still feels "plausible."

More to point:

I just ran across a War Walker. You know those things just hanging on a conveyor belt in the mission with Metronome? I thought they were just for show, but no! I actually ran across one in the mission against Nightstar, and that thing... Is... AMAZING! Huge like I couldn't believe (bigger than a Zeus Titan!), and equipped with what I can only describe as "awesome" attacks. I didn't see it fire its guns much, but I did see it throw quite a few VERY heavy punches. Heavy enough to leave massive cracks in the ground, shake my camera and totally blow me away. That War Walker looked heavy, and in everything it did, it FELT heavy. Even when it died and collapsed to its knees, THAT shook the screen!

Here I am talking about "big explosions" and I haven't even seen the most impressive standard enemy (boss class) in the game? Holy hell! I want one of these! No, scratch that, I want to BE one of these! Pretty please?

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.

I like a bit of both

It's not a simple one or the other for me, Sam. It's all based around context.

For some fights, it's going to be John McClane vs Karl in the upper floors of Nakatomi Tower "You should have heard your brother squeal!" This is along the more realistic lines, and I would expect these types of fights to be more common.

For other fights, yeah, the whole 'gone nuclear' is what I like to see. These should be less common, finale fights. If it's utilized as a common fight practice, then it really lessens the impact of it.

I have been saying for years that the argument that some folks just don't feel "super" stems from the effects our powers have on the environment more than the damage numbers themselves. My self destruct vet power looks much more powerful than my tier 9 Nova blast. I love both scales, but what I love more is to see both work well in the same environment.

Sound would help with that - a lot of things in the game don't sound very heavy when they fall over or break up.
A good example would be the 3 subs you destroy in Faultline - they don't sound like huge chunks of metal being torn apart, and the sound of you hititng them doesn't even sound metalic.
Also, the Kronos Titan sounds the same as a Clockwork Prince when it falls over

EDIT: The Kronos Titan should really fall over with a massive boom along with a screen shake, and then give a 3-5 second warning to get clear, similar to the warning about Protean's signature power, and then explode, causing another screen shake and leaving burning debris everywhere - sort of like the AT-ATs blew up when they were tripped by the tow-cables.

Ah a why I like that showdown versus the Bay-splosion.

Emotional content. When Luke destroyed the Death Star it was cool but a showdown between equals has more meaning for me. I'll watch Uma and Lucy Liu over and over in Kill Bill (as well as her other one on one fights) or Bruce Lee versus Mr. Han or any western's final showdown with a lot more interest.

Now at the end of Kick-*** when he bazookas Frank D'Amico after Hit Girl has been stopped that is fine but I would have preferred she pull out some way to win on her own. Still a better conclusion than had they simply tossed a couple grenades into his place and blown it all up.

I like big, solid, visceral feeling moves, which is why I'm such a fan of Broadsword.

I don't like big dumb flashy gimmick attacks, which is one of many reasons why I don't watch japanese children's cartoons.

I'm solidly in the cowboy camp. Prefer comics to movies, don't like action movies at all, might play DP if it looked more like Jonah Hex and less like it does. I do like blast sets like fire, rad, and energy for the appearance, but don't like DP or Kinetic Melee due to the animations. In fact, I like that the blast sets are mostly very minimal in animation. They look efficient to me, and therefore more believable.

Probably a cultural thing. I don't watch anime, and my comics roots are in the 70s. Fight scenes, special effects and property damage aren't really my thing. I actually get sort of bored if they go on very long. The JLU Superman/Captain Marvel fight was one of those, though I loved the rest of the episode.

Both? Neither? In a way?

I like crazy chase scenes. The suspense! Sure our guy gets away but oh it's soooo cool when he does so in style!