While that's an interesting idea in theory, having seen how it works in Champions Online leaves me cold to the prospect. I don't know what it is about it. I can't really argue against this objectively, but I will ask a counter-question:
Why? What does this accomplish?
Again - I'm not arguing against this idea. I'm just looking for something to make me excited about it.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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Well, one thing it could accomplish would be to end the debate about knockback/knockdown once and for all. If people could control this aspect of their powers by the way of activation both people who like knockback and people who hate it could be satisfied.
Having played Champions for a few days myself I was somewhat stumped by the mechanic at first but once I figured out how it worked I was pleasantly surprised. It was one of the few things I liked and wished we could have for this game.
I think that future powersets could benefit more from such a mechanic, since it would be integrated into those powers from the beginning, but some old powers could be enhanced by the addition of a charge-up too, especially if the effect of a click is unchanged.
I thought I made clear what kind of powers could be enhanced, and how, in my first post. Why? Well, because it would make them better of course. Snipes would be infinitely more useful if they could be fired as a normal attack with less damage, or as a charged up attack with more damage, for example.
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I played Champions Online for a few months (before I essentially gave up on it) but I must admit the "variable charge up" mechanic was an interesting feature.
As far as trying to introduce that concept to this game I agree the likely way it would be feasible would be for it to be part of new powersets. I think the idea of trying to force this into existing powersets would cause a backlash from long-time players who ultimately might not like it. If there were some way to make it optional for pre-existing sets that'd be fine, but I imagine making it an option on old sets would be far harder to do than just making it an inherent part of new sets.
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If I'm reading the OPs suggestion correctly I don't think that adding a charge up mechanic to existing sets would necessarily change how the affected powers currently work. It would just add some functionality and since more options > less options....
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I love this feature in Champions Online...but I do not think it would work well in this game...the combat systems are too different.
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City of Heroes should play to its strengths and not try to emulate features of Champions-Online that the engine or gameplay would struggle to accomodate. That said it shouldn't be so proud as to snub features which could potentially explore an evolution of our gameplay.|
Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
I would like to see a new mechanic introduced for certain powers: the charge-up. Basically it would let you charge up a power by pressing a key and holding it down. The longer the key is held the greater the charge.
This new mechanic could be useful for many kinds of powers. Here are some: Knockback Control: clicking a KB power will make it cause knockdown. Charging up a KB power will make it cause knockback. Greater charge causes more knockback. Full Auto/Flamethrower: the power will fire until you release the button, or to the previous maximum length of the animation. Allows for a quick escape. Snipes: While you are charging up your snipe the power can be interrupted. With a greater charge you cause more damage. Release early to avoid being interrupted, or to use the snipe as a more conventional attack, with less damage. I'm sure many other uses can be found for such a mechanic and I hope it's taken into consideration for future powersets, if not for existing ones. |
Personally I'd say no to a charge-up mechanic, but would be open to a customisable block of sorts being added to every class to mitigate some of the damage when low on end and make combat that bit more strategic.
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Well let's just say I'm happy that our Devs "borrowed" Champions Online's Acrobatics travel power. We call it Ninja Run here. We also got the Walk power about a month after Champions Online launched with its Walk feature. Coincidence much? |
Originally Posted by Mothers_Love
City of Heroes should play to its strengths and not try to emulate features of Champions-Online that the engine or gameplay would struggle to accomodate. That said it shouldn't be so proud as to snub features which could potentially explore an evolution of our gameplay.
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Anyway like I said earlier I don't really think this "charge up mechanic" should be imported and forced into existing powers here. But I'm not against the idea of our Devs experimenting with a new powerset that might make use of this concept.
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Well, if I recall correctly, the only reason we got walk, was because of ninja run.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
Well let's just say I'm happy that our Devs "borrowed" Champions Online's Acrobatics travel power. We call it Ninja Run here. We also got the Walk power about a month after Champions Online launched with its Walk feature. Coincidence much?
Anyway like I said earlier I don't really think this "charge up mechanic" should be imported and forced into existing powers here. But I'm not against the idea of our Devs experimenting with a new powerset that might make use of this concept. |
That said, I'm not to sure on a Charge mechanic. It could probably work. I'm sure it would have to be different than that other game, as I've made characters there that pretty much rely on just a charge attack.
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I'm not very fond of charge-up mechanics, at least I haven't been in other games I've played (haven't played Champions). I usually end up feeling that I should be doing something else other than waiting for an attack to finish charging up, that I could do more good using some other powers that don't require charging.
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From playing Champions...I found that I would just tap the attacks for the most part. However, having the charge there to change things up was nice.|
Originally Posted by Icelock
I'm not very fond of charge-up mechanics, at least I haven't been in other games I've played (haven't played Champions). I usually end up feeling that I should be doing something else other than waiting for an attack to finish charging up, that I could do more good using some other powers that don't require charging.
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Although, I still don't believe it should be implemented here.
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Why not the other way around? The power already does knockback...spending time and effort charging up could turn that into knockdown, at the cost of extra animation time, lowering the attack's DPS.|
Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
Knockback Control: clicking a KB power will make it cause knockdown. Charging up a KB power will make it cause knockback. Greater charge causes more knockback.
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I say that because I'm always annoyed that people want their own conception of the best attack to be faster-animating, and the heck with the other players. But turning it around keeps the attack from becoming better DPS -- either you're knocking them back, and reducing your DPS chasing, or you're knocking them down taking extra time, which reduces your DPS...the attack doesn't become more powerful. Balance maintained! Except....
Only those who know the secret of using a wall would be able to use knockback attacks without any loss of DPS. But (apparently, judging from the endless complaints about knockback) there aren't enough of them in the game to make a difference in balance.
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I must say that I do not see the logic...
Just tapping the power would knock the enemy back...but charging it up with just knock the enemy down?
Should it not be the other way around...logically?
That mechanic was one of the things I absolutely despised in CO. And as far as "KB vs KD?" So, if I'm playing my Peacebringer or Energy blaster, where almost every attack does KB, where I *WANT* every attack to do KB, I'd have to "charge it up?"
Hell no. Keep that crap out of this game.
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What makes you "despise" that mechanic in CO?
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
That mechanic was one of the things I absolutely despised in CO. And as far as "KB vs KD?" So, if I'm playing my Peacebringer or Energy blaster, where almost every attack does KB, where I *WANT* every attack to do KB, I'd have to "charge it up?"
Hell no. Keep that crap out of this game. |
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I couldn't come up with a better name for it than "charge-up". What I really meant was: "click power key for one effect, hold power key pressed down for another effect". The time you hold the power key down could affect some powers, or be irrelevant in other cases. A "click" could be defined as a very short time, a "hold" could be defined as anything longer than that. I certainly didn't mean that we should import some of the less aesthetically pleasing things like the charge-up bar that appears when you use some powers. I wouldn't want to see that thing in CoX and it would be unnecessary.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
That mechanic was one of the things I absolutely despised in CO. And as far as "KB vs KD?" So, if I'm playing my Peacebringer or Energy blaster, where almost every attack does KB, where I *WANT* every attack to do KB, I'd have to "charge it up?"
Hell no. Keep that crap out of this game. |
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But I currently can just click a power to use any of my Energy Blast attacks, with the KB - which I want, especially solo. Adding anything longer than a "click" adds to the amount of time my attacks take to go off - which could result in a faceplant. I play using my mouse to click power icons (I know, someone is bound to come into the thread to tell me how woefully inefficient that is) and having to "hold power key pressed down for another effect" sounds awful.|
Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
I couldn't come up with a better name for it than "charge-up". What I really meant was: "click power key for one effect, hold power key pressed down for another effect". The time you hold the power key down could affect some powers, or be irrelevant in other cases. A "click" could be defined as a very short time, a "hold" could be defined as anything longer than that. I certainly didn't mean that we should import some of the less aesthetically pleasing things like the charge-up bar that appears when you use some powers. I wouldn't want to see that thing in CoX and it would be unnecessary.
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Although others are correct that it may not make sense "logically", I'm also with Sailboat to a certain extent - I don't like someone else's idea of the more "desirable" attack taking less time than the one that I prefer - KB and all.
I don't think I would like to see this mechanic added.
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Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
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well, i can see charge up making snipes better. currently they arent particularly good.
It's not the bar that bugs me in CO, as tacky as that is. It's the entire pause to get the attack to be worthwhile (or, in your case, use X effect instead of Y.) It's the entire slowing down of the pace that would result. If I'm playing my PB or Energy blaster, I *want* the knockback - I can direct it, TYVM. Running my Bots/FF (which, admitteldy, I rarely do as I find the pairing boring,) I *want* that Force Bubble doing knockback *now* to get whatever's beating up on my 'bot away from them. My snipes? I don't want to have to hold down long enough to make it worthwhile, or turn it into a long-range spitwad if I just tap it.
It's kind of like why we have five powers in power pools now, instead of having something "less desirable" replaced - when they tried it, they found quite a few people using, and wanting to keep, what they thought was "less desirable." Similarly, I don't want my powers doing something I don't want them to do because someone else didn't like the effect originally built into them.
How would they interact with Build Up and Aim, which are CoH's closest existing equivalents?
Say I Build Up and fire off a few attacks, and have 3 seconds of buff left. I then start charging an attack which can charge for 4 seconds.
Does Build Up apply if it was active when I started or release? Either way, I've got some odd decision making to do. If the Build Up buff wears off, I get best bang for buck releasing 3 seconds in. If the buff applies from starting the chargeup, then I'd be best off starting a lengthy charge up just before Build Up ends, in this case getting in a quick filler attack before charging.
I quite liked the charge and maintain powers in CO, but I think there are a few hurdles to bringing them over to CoH.
Oh yeah, and leave my instant-tap knockback alone
No thanks, I agree with what Bill's said so far.
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Actually, ours is better in terms of animation. Theirs only has an animation for walking forward. You still run in all other directions. Kind of a letdown, to be honest. On the flip side, it doesn't disable your powers. On the flip flip side, you have to hold a button to walk.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
Well let's just say I'm happy that our Devs "borrowed" Champions Online's Acrobatics travel power. We call it Ninja Run here. We also got the Walk power about a month after Champions Online launched with its Walk feature. Coincidence much?
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*edit*
As far as the topic goes, here's my problem:
Whenever I use a charge-up power, I feel like I should be charging it up fully and that anything less than full power is a waste of the power. Champions balances this by having powers cost more the more you charge them (I think) but their energy scheme is "different," to put it like that. Call me weird, but I prefer to always use my powers at their full, err... Power and all a charge-up mechanic would do is introduce a way for me to essentially "waste" a power by not charging it up enough. I realise that such a mechanic would start from base stats and go up anyway, so I'm not losing anything, but the mental response I have to this is still the same: "I can be doing more with this power. Why am I not doing more with this power?"
A bit of context: I have always, ALWAYS been a fan of slow, deliberate, hard-hitting attacks. "Big guy" characters are always by far my favourites, because even though they may be sluggish in their attacks, each hit HURTS. As such, using a mechanic which encourages me to undercook my attacks and just blast them out half-ready is not something I'd be terribly ecstatic about. Even if it doesn't make a power hit harder (which would be odd and kind of missing the point) but instead added more secondary effects, it'd still make me feel like I HAVE to charge them up, meaning I WILL charge them up anyway, meaning the system is just a hassle.
As City of Heroes is built now, it does that on its own. Your lower-level attacks are quick, uncharged jabs and your higher-level attacks are the big charge-up hits. Energy Transfer vs. Energy Punch, say. I'd rather keep it at that.
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On the other hand, one thing I did like in Champions was attacks you held down to maintain, like the Dual Pistols... Sorry, "Munitions" power that had you fire repeatedly. The longer you held down the button, the longer the character would shoot. Of course, I still held that sucker down as long as I could, so I'm not sure there's much of a difference.
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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.
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I can see such a mechanic being useful for a few powers. Having it in a snipe could be useful - we're already essentially stuck "charging" those to full right now, after all. But if such a mechanic ever made it into the game, it'd probably be best suited for a new powerset, lest an uproar occur over power changes.
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I don't know. How does it work today? If you start a power and build up wears off before the power finishes animating, do you get the effect of build up or not?
My idea was that the charge-up would only keep going for the duration of the power's normal animation/activation time anyway, so there should be no difference in how long it would take to fire off a power. Instead of just clicking the key you would simply hold it down while the power animated.
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If Build Up is active when you press the button then you'll get the effect, even if the power then takes 4 seconds to animate. It's similar to the way that opponents will be hit by any power they were in range for when the button was pressed, even if in the animation time they do a runner.
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Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
I don't know. How does it work today? If you start a power and build up wears off before the power finishes animating, do you get the effect of build up or not?
My idea was that the charge-up would only keep going for the duration of the power's normal animation/activation time anyway, so there should be no difference in how long it would take to fire off a power. Instead of just clicking the key you would simply hold it down while the power animated. |
I would like to see a new mechanic introduced for certain powers: the charge-up. Basically it would let you charge up a power by pressing a key and holding it down. The longer the key is held the greater the charge.
This new mechanic could be useful for many kinds of powers. Here are some:
Knockback Control: clicking a KB power will make it cause knockdown. Charging up a KB power will make it cause knockback. Greater charge causes more knockback.
Full Auto/Flamethrower: the power will fire until you release the button, or to the previous maximum length of the animation. Allows for a quick escape.
Snipes: While you are charging up your snipe the power can be interrupted. With a greater charge you cause more damage. Release early to avoid being interrupted, or to use the snipe as a more conventional attack, with less damage.
I'm sure many other uses can be found for such a mechanic and I hope it's taken into consideration for future powersets, if not for existing ones.
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