Mandatory Pool Powers

I think at that point, the use of the weapon is maybe a tertiary component in any coolness happening.

If you look at the judgements they've designed you can tell a couple of things about them.

A) They each do a separate type of damage (that leaves a couple of types: Psionic, Lethal, Smashind and Toxic)
B) They each have a separate "area" (Targeted AOE, Chain AOE, PBAOE, Cone) since all the judgements thus far are AOE, that doesen't really leave any more variation.
C) They each have a separate special effect. (this has the most scope for variability)

I suspect the most likely judgement we'll get "soon-ish" is "Terrestrial Judgement" or something similar, basically a bigass version of Footstomp/Nova Punch. This would have both wide application (working for both earth-control and super-strength types) have it's own damage type (smashing) and so on and so forth.

Weapon sets in general are complicated to make (you basically have three things you need to do, the weapon, the effect, and the animation, as opposed to two for non-weapon powers) Since BS/War mace/War Axe uses the same animations (more or less) these are probably the easiest to do (just make a power and have it use the same animation and let you pick each of these types of weapon when you customize it)

This would probably STILL require a ******** of work for relatively little reward though.

The others (Katana, AR, pistols) are trickier since they use more unique animations.

I suspect we'll get a ground-punch, a psionic and maybe a toxic Judgement before we get any weapon sets.

I disagree. I find swords and guns to be inherently cool, and the more amazing the thing you do with them, the cooler it is. The aforementioned helicopter jump and pistol shot wouldn't be half as amazing if the character in question tossed a fireball or shot a finger beam.

Extra Credit do a very good job of getting into the core of the appeal for both guns and swords and how they reflect on culture and mentality. For me, my love for guns in fiction is rooted in my love for the intricacies of portable technology, the empowering aspect of a powerful weapon and the aesthetics of using a hand-held tool vs. pointing with your hand and having things happen. My love for swords has to do more with material science, acrobatic athleticism and the martial training and discipline required to attain that kind of mastery. Neither of those packages applies to non-weapon combat.

This kind of stance is a little depressing, to be honest. It asserts that customization in particular and visuals in general constitute "relatively little reward" if they don't carry numbers with them, and that the only way for a change to be truly meaningful and worth the cost of investment is for it to have a numbers-wise gameplay benefit. It also speaks very ill of power customization as a general concept, which is a notion that stands to ruin the fun of the game for me.

Generally, I feel that cosmetic customization should be given a much higher priority than it currently is given. I know some people say that "Well, my character still plays the same so who cares?" but I also believe that there is enough of a demographic that goes for purely cosmetic changes just the same. Tempermanent powers can't account for the sweeping success booster packs have had, after all.

The Incarnate system is becoming dangerously meta-game. Having a bit more conceptual freedom can't be anything but a good thing.

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.

No, that's not the problem, the problem is that judgement powers are very *specific* Powers customization was something that impacted most of the powersets we have, weapon customization affected most weapon sets.

It's a lot more work (relative to the gain that is) to make a minor special exception (like a weapon-using set, that may I remind you, would fit only to a single powerset and cause redraw issues with the others) than to create a new generic system.

To each his own, I suppose. I tend to subscribe to the "Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun!" view of firearms, in that they're less a tool for war and more an instrument of personal empowerment. If you have an unrealistically powerful gun, an unrealistic ability to use it and an unrealistic ability to obtain unlimited ammunition, it transcends the role as a mere infantry sidearm and becomes something else entirely. But again - to each his own.

I personally feel that Incarnate powers should have been made much more diverse to begin with, possibly as extra powers in your own powersets, or at most in the same vein as Epics. But then, this is a major source of disconnect between what I want and what Incarnates provide. I wanted a system which extends what I can already do, whereas what I got was a system of brand new unrelated abilities, "the power of the gods." However, because the power of the gods is so poorly defined that it could be anything, it bugs me that it can't be swinging a sword or shooting a gun. After all, I want to be an Incarnate of Bloodgun, the god of guns

More seriously, Incarnates are driven wholly and entirely by meta-game numbers, with visuals tacked on after the fact just to differentiate the gameplay effects. When it comes to Judgement powers, for instance, I'm not really looking for one that has an effect unique to swinging a sword, I just want one that much more easily makes sense for my sword user. Or my Axe user. Or my Dual Blades user. Or my Super Strength girl. Or my Rifle Mastermind.

I just want to see my Incarnate powers be more directly relevant to my character's powers. I want a more physical god, one who comes to Earth to throw down, to kick *** and chew bubble gum, as it were. Not all gods fight with fire and lightning from the sky. Some do prefer to punch things really, really hard.

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.

In some ways that's what I mean too, but in a more extensive sense. A gun is the great equalizer: It makes the distinction between a warrior trained from birth and one drafted a month ago almost academic. It in a way is the *opposite* narrative of he Superpowered Individual.

And thus it's the doom of the Aristocrat, whose power depends on him being able to train his entire life to become invincible to those not similarily trained. With a gun that equation changes.

Superpowers makes you special, as does martial training, a gun makes you just like all the other men with guns.

You do realize that you will HAVE to take a pool power eventually, no matter what, right?

We get 25 power choices. There are only 18 powers between primary and secondary.

Unless you decide to stop playing that character after you have chosen all the powers in your primary and secondary, you will be forced to choose a pool power at some point.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Certainly would like it. I just think it's a bit awkward still.

I think slashing makes a good argument with it. With weapons, it just increases the number of animations needed for power, not necessarily really a 'bad thing', just a 'thing' . Slashing I think being a good example as you have to decide how to manage Dual Blades. Do you have the 'Sword' epic judgement be just a single blade? And then the stylistic issue of the difference between Broadsword and Katana. Although thinking, I suspect that 'Swords' are the only ones where that is really a problem. Although bare hands/unarmed would also be a bit awkward since, for instance, Super Strength and Martials Arts are very different styles.

Ranged weapon effects I imagine would be easy, although I suspect that you'll still see some 'issue' crop up with Energy weapon versus physical weapon for the 'projectile'. One thing that I think you would have to add for your 'minimal' weapon-based judgement is Archery though.

And I do agree to a large extent, but I've also had my motivation killed off significantly because my favorite weapon set doesn't feel like it gets that much attention [Energy Rifle] for just that reason (single powerset in a single AT). I will say I was extremely pleasantly surprised to find that the steampunk rifle was enabled for Energy Rifle.

Wow. I think I just read this and mentally shelved all of my characters with guns.

Right, because guns require no training or martial skill at all. That sniper that shot his target from two miles away? The only difference between him and the guy that opened fire at a storefront where a guy he hated was standing and only managed to hit a mother and two kids is the guns they're using. All that training that prize winning shooters do before competing is just morale building; it has no actual effect on performance.

Relatively speaking? Yes.

It's not that training doesen't matter for guns, they do, but they're not as significant (not by miles) You can throw together a competent rifleman in two weeks, to train an archer takes years. (one of the signifances of te batte of Lepanto was precisely this, the sultan could rebuild his fleet but not retrain his archers)

Guns make people more like each other (they equalize physical capabilities) to an extent that eg. swords or bows do not.

You think the sniper could pull that shot off with an AK-47? Or a .44 revolver?

Yes, most of the sniper's ability to actually land the shot is in the gun, the scope, and the spotter. All of his martial training went into getting into position and not being seen.

Don't get me wrong, not anyone can be a "sniper." But anyone with that gun, scope, and spotter telling him what to do can make that shot.

I think the disconnect is that you draw a distinction between "guns" and "super powers" whereas I see guns AS a super power. When I mention "skilled with guns," I suspect you more picture someone like Solid Snake or Duke Nukem or Sin's Blade, who is more or less a guy with a gun. I, however, tend to imagine people more like Devil May Cry's Dante or Advent Rising's Gideon Wyatt, those whose use of guns is superhuman, supernatural and entirely unique to them. Their guns aren't always normal, and are sometimes even magical, such as Devil May Cry's Nero's Blue Rose (even if the pistol itself sucks). I could go one even further and bring up the absurdity that is Equilibrium for super-human nonsense.

My point is that "the gun" is only an equaliser if the sum total of a character's power is "has gun, will shoot." The scenario I described above, however, requires rather more than just that. It requires improbably aiming skills enough to hit a fast-moving target in a high-wind environment one-handed, upside-down and in free-fall. It also implicitly requires that you possess the ability to survive jumping out of a helicopter in flight and surviving the landing. If you treat the gun as "a gun," then I can see how that might be demeaning. But when I make a character with a gun, that's a super-human character whose super powers just happen to express themselves through a tool in the form of a gun.

Actually going back to Advent Rising, what that game taught me was that you very much CAN utterly obliterate an entire platoon of enemies with just a couple of the right handguns and the right aiming skills and the right bullet time. That game more than any other has taught me how cool dual-wielded pistols can be in the right hands. In fact, pistol play in Advent Rising is - I dare say - superior to what we get in City of Heroes simply because our pistols don't feel nearly as immediately lethal or nearly as fast.

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.

If WWI taught us anything then it's that this is *trivially easy* given the right circumstances.

Because humans are pretty fragile compared to bullets.

And I don't think it's demeaning per se, there's something fascinating and wonderful in how technology makes us more equal.

Personally, I feel that using only a single blade for Dual Blades (say, the right-handed one) would be a good compromise, but I'm not sure if would be necessary. Once a long time ago BABs told us that powers could be coded to play different animations based on the "stance" you are in, so normal Brawl is a punch, Brawl with a bow in hand is a kick, Brawl with a shield is a shield bash and so forth. As such, I can actually see such a "Slashing Judgement" have always the same effect - an extending character-centric shockwave, while at the same time playing an animation unique to the powerset with which it is used, or an empty hand animation if you want to go for a "cutting wind" sort of hand gesture magic.

And, yes, I'm including the possibility of cutting with a mace. Doesn't make sense to restrict Incarnate powers from certain powersets. This also allows Mace users and weapon users in general to put away their weapon prior to using their Judgement to get the default animation if, for instance, a Warhammer user doesn't want to cut with the flat of his hammer.

The animations themselves don't need to be very complex, either. In fact, something akin to Golden Dragonfly for an AoE, but slowed down a tad, would be sufficient. Axe, Mace, Sword and anything else right-handed can share the same animations, Katana can use its own Golden Dragonfly and Dual Blades can use that... Thing, the AoE in the set, I forget what it's called. The one for the Sweep combo. Of course, slowed down and with more camera shake.

Or if you want to go a different route, you can make it a much longer 90 degree cone that's some sort of forward horizontal slash, though even then Axe, Sword and Mace can use the Pendulum/Slice/Crowd Control animation, Katana can use the, um... Flashing Steel animation? And Dual Blades can use the Sweeping Strike one. With flashier effects and more camera shake, of course.

And in both instances, this would require something of a bare-hands casting animation, too, perhaps something akin to Whirlwind for the AoE and, um... Something from Kinetic Melee for the cone one.

Oh, I agree with you - I'd like to see an entire Energy Rifle powerset for Blasters, Defenders and Corruptors, and I really would like to see more weapons added to Mastermind Pulse Rifle customization. I mean, at least the Vanguard Redding Rail Rifle makes sense to be there, as do the Nemesis ones and a few others. Rifle customization in general is very lacking, comprised mostly of age-old props ripped right out of the game and never updated... Pretty much at all, sans this one Steampunk rifle.

That's kind of what I mean - it feels like cosmetic customizations is all but forgotten these days, especially for a few particular sets like Assault Rifle, Claws, War Mace, Archery and a few others I'm forgetting. About the only set that has enough options right now is Broadsword, with Dual Blades trailing shortly behind. Everything else can use more options.

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.

You mean anyone could pull that shot off target when they continue to breath through the trigger squeeze or change grip when they anticipate the shot because they haven't been trained.

This is what I tend to refer to as the last big thing left in customization. It's probably a little bit more complex than adding extra animations to shared powers to account for different activation sequences and different weapons, but I agree with you - this would be big. Even if we don't get any extra weapons to choose from this would give us SO MANY new Blast sets at least in appearance that it may well double the blasting characters in the game. Ice Rifle powerset, Flamethrower powerset, Energy Rifle powerset, the sky's the limit. And the kicker is that these really wouldn't require all that many new animations. How many ways are there to shoot a rifle, really? Assault Rifle already has enough animations within it to handle most existing blast sets anyway, and it should be simple enough to have one animations where you raise the rifle above your head, collect an energy/fire/radiation/etc. ball at the end of the barrel, have it expand and explode and enact a nuke that way.

I would be hesitant to extend this to melee weapons, however, since that would be a LOOOT more work and be of much more dubious quality in the end, anyway. Though, I must admit, having a set that's all fire swords, ice swords or stone hammers might be fun.

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.

Guns can be mounted. Breathing, trigger pull or squeeze, grip? None of it matters. You have to account for wind direction and speed and a myriad of other factors. I'm aware of all that goes into the proper shot, but in the end, the training for the actual shot is insignificant.

The best sniper today is a computer and a few servos.

Making a HUD unit and auto assisted aiming system would make you tech not natural.

Mounted guns don't really have a power set do they?

So from what standpoint are you arguing from? In game? Or out here in the real world?

Please make a decision.

If you are arguing about the in game, nobody there makes a 2 mile sniper shot, which was the topic of discussion you came into. The most you can get in game is about 300ft. I can make that shot, and I haven't held a rifle in years. Nothing about that is super.

This may be the single best argument for why Dual Pistols uses the visual style it does. When I watch my DP Defender use those animations, I don't think "girl with guns", I think "girl who trained her butt off to be that good."

Speaking of this: My dual pistol character's name is "Just That Good" for this very reason.

"Why did you toss your gun into the air before you fired it?"
"I'm Just That Good."

We must not be playing the same game.
I never had to take Swift/Hurdle, Health OR Stamina in the game I'm playing. (until recently, that is)
In fact, I rarely took any of them.