I work in the theatre, I peform improv in Chicago, I love breaking the fourth wall...
But I have no idea what you are talking about.
So.. it is powersets that work as if they are bugged / create bugs / don't work at all?
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
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Define "need."
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Originally Posted by seebs
We need that in CoH.
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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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My name is (not really) the Electric-Knight and I approve (really... well sort of) this set!|
Originally Posted by seebs
Developer Control Developer Control is a control set (trollers/doms) built around exploiting bugs, or creating bugs when there are no bugs to exploit. Stray Polygon (T1 ST immob): A stray polygon forms intersecting your enemy, who now cannot move because they are stuck on the polygon. Lagged Out (T2 ST hold): The enemy lags out, leaving them unable to take actions for the duration of the hold. At the end of the hold, their next action is randomly chosen from their available pool of actions, not necessarily the best attack available. Terrain Glitch (T3 AOE immob): The terrain over a larger area briefly glitches, resulting in stray polygons on all enemies in that area. |
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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It's power sets that explicitly refer to the video game context and take advantage of the fact that they are in a video game. Essentially, it's power sets that work at the level of "beating someone's head against the side of the comic panel"; they work in a way that requires the person using them to be fully aware that this is a video game.
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Originally Posted by Winterminal
I work in the theatre, I peform improv in Chicago, I love breaking the fourth wall...
But I have no idea what you are talking about. So.. it is powersets that work as if they are bugged / create bugs / don't work at all? |
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Thousands of people will die every day until we get it*.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Define "need."
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[*] And after we get it.
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I'm going to have to disagree with this idea on the fundamental reason that it takes the piss out of what is ostensibly a serious game. Yes, there are (crappy) jokes all over the place, but by and large the game is not a self-referrential, self-aware comedy, and I wouldn't want it to become one. I HATE games, movies and generally stories that do that. This is a big reason why I can't play any of those cartoony PRGs that have hammers with 100T written on the side and where enemies fly up and crash into the screen.|
Originally Posted by seebs
It's power sets that explicitly refer to the video game context and take advantage of the fact that they are in a video game. Essentially, it's power sets that work at the level of "beating someone's head against the side of the comic panel"; they work in a way that requires the person using them to be fully aware that this is a video game.
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I don't want joke powersets in this game. Ever.
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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'm with Sam on this one. I like a bit of humor and occasionally breaking the 4th wall but I think a powerset based solely on breaking the 4th wall would be pointless. It's a one shot gimmick that's funny the first time you hear it and silly after that.
If the devs made an April Fools joke where they said they were going to do this I'd find it funny, if they actually did it I'd ask for Carp Melee so I could smack them about with a dead fish.
Well, I was under the impression that this was a humorous thread and not an entirely serious (if at all) suggestion.
Humor... Ar Ar!
I could be wrong though!
In which case, I say... Let's BAN seebs for such a terrible idear!
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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That was my first thought but his responses seemed serious and Seebs doesn't normally troll so I decided on a serious response.
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Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
Well, I was under the impression that this was a humorous thread and not an entirely serious (if at all) suggestion.
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I think it's proabbly ha-ha-only-serious. Which is to say: I don't actually expect them to do such a thing, and it's mostly silly. (Note: Silly is not the same as trolling.) On the other hand, I wouldn't object at all; part of the genre is that silly characters can enforce their But That Would Be Funny on serious characters. Dr. Doom has been defeated by Squirrel Girl. Doctor Strange had to give his powers to Howard the Duck.
So while I might not play these sets, if they were in the game, I think they would fit well with the essence of superhero genre.
The question, for a superhero game, is not whether or not to have self-referential and genre-savvy humor. The question is how much of it to have. CoH does have some amount of self-referential material, though mostly just in random NPC dialogue. Implementing one of these sets wouldn't change CoH from a totally serious superhero game into a totally silly one; it'd change CoH from a silly game with room for serious players and stories into a sillier game with room for serious players and stories.
It might be a bit too much silly for some of the more serious players to feel comfortable, though, which is one of the reasons it'll never happen. (The other, of course, is that there's simply no support for that many silly/self-referential character concepts; if it were taken by more than a couple percent of the population, it'd get too far out of the genre convention.)
I am going to honor the intent of this thread by going into your kitchen and making a grilled cheese sandwich with pepperoni, then returning to the computer without cleaning up after myself.
I am not sure how that fits the intent of the thread, but it sounds tasty.
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I see where you're coming from. Personally my take on this has always been that powersets should be designed to have as little influence on a character's theme as possible (it's why I generally dislike the idea of a "power armor" set unless it's an EAT). If a person wants to make a character who knows they are a character in a video game that's fine by me but I think it's not something that needs a special powerset. |
Originally Posted by seebs
The question, for a superhero game, is not whether or not to have self-referential and genre-savvy humor. The question is how much of it to have. CoH does have some amount of self-referential material, though mostly just in random NPC dialogue. Implementing one of these sets wouldn't change CoH from a totally serious superhero game into a totally silly one; it'd change CoH from a silly game with room for serious players and stories into a sillier game with room for serious players and stories.
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For example a Grav/Kin Controller would work well for such a character, similarly to The Matrix, he knows he's inside a computer program and is able to use that knowledge to his advantage. Adjusting the apparent time flow for allies or manipulating the apparent gravity to defeat his enemies.
/unsigned.
No thanks. This isn't even really all that funny as a forum joke.
Feel free to try out my AE mission arc, # 473452: Praetorian Redemption
@Valerika
I'd go for a new TF or a mission arc over a new powerset.
How about this mission arc:
"Castle has gone berserk! Neutralize him before Super Strength is nerfed!"
You will be accompanied by Manticore and Positron to help you fight, and Wretch who will constantly be whining about Rage. Your reward for completing the arc will be the nerf beam, a long recharging 10 use blast with a -10% debuff to everything.
Hopefully I've given an AE wiz a good idea.
Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
Auroxis - Emp/Rad/Power Defender Pylon Video Soloing an AV
Pelvic Thunder - SS/Elec/Mu Brute
Sorajin - Elec/Nin Stalker
Neuropain - Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster
No. Just no.
If you must, put it in your AE arcs, which I have the option of not doing.
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
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That's a pretty big understatement. I complain about team-only content, bad writing, bugs, developer direction and so forth, but the bother these present for me PALES IN COMPARISON to the sheer towering rage something a simple as "funny Freakshow" tends to inspire in me. Or "funny Nemesis," for that matter. This has the effect of yanking me out of the atmosphere so hard it pulls me out of my socks.|
Originally Posted by seebs
It might be a bit too much silly for some of the more serious players to feel comfortable, though, which is one of the reasons it'll never happen.
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The funny Freakshow joke was funny once. They're idiots, and it's funny to see idiots hurt themselves, at least when they're unrepentant bad guys. It wasn't funny twice, when they were going to school, but at least it was endearing. It has been annoying and irritating every subsequent time it's used, and these days it's getting to the point it's becoming insulting. And that's just one example.
There is room for humour in a serious work. In fact, the original Lethal Weapon was a pretty good example of mixing in humour with an ostensibly serious story. However, once you insert comedy into a story, it becomes very difficult to take ANY part of it seriously, which ruins the dramatic effect. And once you start adding parody, you've pretty much guaranteed that not only will I never be able to see the work as anything even remotely seriously, but you've ensure I won't want to see it at all.
Parody and breaking the fourth wall has no place in City of Heroes. Yes, instances of that do exist, and they are very unwelcome and disruptive. The very last thing I want is to add more to the mix. If I ever got the point where I could go "Screw it, do whatever." then I'm not going to stick around to see what gets done, because at that point I will no longer care about the game. But as long as I care about this game and its lore, then I do not want to see City of Heroes make a complete fool of itself while yelling "Laugh! Laugh, damn you!" in my face.
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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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Huh. See, until I read that post, it had never occurred to me that there would be people who minded such content. Weird. I bet we like virtually none of the same books.
Anyway, I would agree that this would be a compelling argument. Also, Adeon's point about trying not to give that much concept definition to power sets makes sense; "powered armor" is a very concept-limiting thing, "invulnerability" is not.
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And the answer is "very, very, very little". It's extremely difficult to do well, but very easy to use as a crutch to excuse bad writing.| The question, for a superhero game, is not whether or not to have self-referential and genre-savvy humor. The question is how much of it to have. |
Champions Online does that a lot, and that is far and away the absolute worst thing about that game. And that's coming from someone who rather likes CO.
Get throat cancer, Foxbat...
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Lol when I walked in and read the OP, this is what I thought (YAY I'm not the person that walked in thinking it was serious!)|
Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
Well, I was under the impression that this was a humorous thread and not an entirely serious (if at all) suggestion.
Humor... Ar Ar! I could be wrong though! In which case, I say... Let's BAN seebs for such a terrible idear! |
To say we *need* anything besides a Polearm/Scythe powerset is, by it's very nature, humorous
4th wall shattering can be good when used sparingly. Within the game now are a couple of instances already.
In in one Villain side arc you fight Synapse and he'll comment about using inspirations.
The Television contact(and dev) plays off of this as well.
and to a lesser extent you have Ukon'Grai although that's more of an inside joke.
It's sprinkled about in the game and that's all it needs to be.
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Then there's Fiusionette in the "Save the world" mission from the Dark Watcher saying "Just you wait until my Build Up recharges!" As if I didn't have a whole list of other reasons to hate her.
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Originally Posted by DMystic
4th wall shattering can be good when used sparingly. Within the game now are a couple of instances already.
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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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While largely a silly idea that has little merit, the listed elements of "Developer Control" isn't necessarily about breaking the 4th wall nor being silly. What it most reminds me of is Porygon out of the set of normal Pokemon. While most Pokemon are "natural" (with certain exceptions *coughmewtwocough*), Porygon is an entirely digital Pokemon.
The suggestion certainly seems like it might be appropriate for a 'Technomancer' style of control set.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
One of the core recurring themes of the comic book world is "breaking the 4th wall" (for those who aren't familiar, the term comes from stage theatre, where it refers to talking to the audience, who are on the other side of the "fourth wall" of the room you're presumably standing in). Deadpool says "do I still think in little yellow boxes?" Many other characters occasionally get to make comic book jokes or remarks.
We need that in CoH.
I propose that this be solved by the addition of video-game themed power sets.
Developer Armor
Reusable Breakfree (T4 or so): Mez-protect which is a click rather than a toggle.
Limited Radial Freeeem (T9): Well, you know. Limited.
Developer Blast
It's a blast set. The side effect is low chances for low mag confuse.
Shooty Animation (T1): Glowy stuff comes out of your hands and does minor damage. 5% chance of mag 1 confuse for 6 seconds.
Bigger Shooty (T2): Glowy stuff comes out of your hands and does a little damage. Slower recharge. 8% chance of mag 1 confuse for 8 seconds.
(... you get the idea.)
Developer Control
Developer Control is a control set (trollers/doms) built around exploiting bugs, or creating bugs when there are no bugs to exploit.
Stray Polygon (T1 ST immob): A stray polygon forms intersecting your enemy, who now cannot move because they are stuck on the polygon.
Lagged Out (T2 ST hold): The enemy lags out, leaving them unable to take actions for the duration of the hold. At the end of the hold, their next action is randomly chosen from their available pool of actions, not necessarily the best attack available.
Terrain Glitch (T3 AOE immob): The terrain over a larger area briefly glitches, resulting in stray polygons on all enemies in that area.
You get the idea.
Developer Manipulation
The blaster secondary.
Bribe (T1): Don't be insulting. This power doesn't work.
Wheedle (T2): Nice try, but we're going to trust the data-mining.
[...]
Intimate Contact At Meet N Greet (T9): If you take this power, we call security.
Developer Melee
Punch Test (T1): Does a smaller-than-usual amount of unresistable damage. (Scaled so it gives similar net damage to most T1 attacks at mid to high levels.)
[...]
Nerf Bat (T9): (St. Louis Slugger animation) The enemy target is effectively debuffed by one level for about 8 seconds.